A Child of the People And Other Poems. By James Chapman Woods |
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A CHILD OF THE PEOPLE. |
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 | A Child of the People |  |
3
A CHILD OF THE PEOPLE.
I.
Let me look at you, child!
How you have grown of late!—
Slim as a reed and as straight,
With just a touch of the wild
Street-tiger I caught and tamed,
In the tiptoe tenseness of limb,
And will perverse for a whim;—
Don't cry; you're not to be blamed.
How you have grown of late!—
Slim as a reed and as straight,
With just a touch of the wild
Street-tiger I caught and tamed,
In the tiptoe tenseness of limb,
And will perverse for a whim;—
Don't cry; you're not to be blamed.
Whatever the world may say
Of my creed, half scorn, half pride,
Say nothing; stand by my side,
And let the world have its way.
You cannot afford to laugh,
For that creed, in a crack-brained whirl,
Took you out of the gutter, girl:—
Would the world have done it, or half?
Of my creed, half scorn, half pride,
Say nothing; stand by my side,
And let the world have its way.
You cannot afford to laugh,
For that creed, in a crack-brained whirl,
Took you out of the gutter, girl:—
Would the world have done it, or half?
4
Good, am I? Don't thank me, though:
'Twas a riddle I tried to read,
To let light in on my need,—
Just for a whim, you know,—
To see if love of a lie
And baseness of heart and brain
Were dismal dye of the grain,
Or mere skin-wash of the sty.
'Twas a riddle I tried to read,
To let light in on my need,—
Just for a whim, you know,—
To see if love of a lie
And baseness of heart and brain
Were dismal dye of the grain,
Or mere skin-wash of the sty.
What matter of mine? Why, none,
Save this,—I had all to lose
Of comfort and holy dues
I had set my heart upon,
And a dwindling dream obscure
In spite of the wise world's scowl,—
Thought the People's tongues are foul,
Yet the People's heart is pure.
Save this,—I had all to lose
Of comfort and holy dues
I had set my heart upon,
And a dwindling dream obscure
In spite of the wise world's scowl,—
Thought the People's tongues are foul,
Yet the People's heart is pure.
So I chose you out of the rest
In the slimy cesspool at play,
For a proud imperial way
That made you mate of the best,
And the gipsy brown of your skin,
And eyes aswim with the South,
And the curled-up rose of a mouth,
Too sweet for bought kisses of sin.
In the slimy cesspool at play,
For a proud imperial way
That made you mate of the best,
And the gipsy brown of your skin,
And eyes aswim with the South,
And the curled-up rose of a mouth,
Too sweet for bought kisses of sin.
5
“Mad,”—said the world,—“to take
The brat of a bawd to nurse!”
Hinted, I heard, at worse,
Surmising some nearer stake
Than the crotchet born of a creed;—
My stake has grown in you since;
I would not price for a prince
My pearl,—thank God there's no need!
The brat of a bawd to nurse!”
Hinted, I heard, at worse,
Surmising some nearer stake
Than the crotchet born of a creed;—
My stake has grown in you since;
I would not price for a prince
My pearl,—thank God there's no need!
Now I have told you all,
With a purpose,—tell Sir John,
When he puts his passion on
With his gloves, next time he may call.
Blaze your birth in his face:
You shall be no man's debtor;
A drop in your veins is better
Than the blood of all his race!
With a purpose,—tell Sir John,
When he puts his passion on
With his gloves, next time he may call.
Blaze your birth in his face:
You shall be no man's debtor;
A drop in your veins is better
Than the blood of all his race!
6
II.
Have I done right to tell her?I, with my poisoned pride,
Should go straight back to my cellar,
Or die with a knife in my side.
She, with her woman's weakness,
Will bend in the storm, at worst,—
Bear it with angel meekness:—
Thank God that I kissed her first!
7
III.
Why should my sweet go weeping
That she is lowly born?
God has the man in keeping,
The man's descent in scorn,
Nor where the soul is sleeping
Cares how the clothes are worn.
That she is lowly born?
God has the man in keeping,
The man's descent in scorn,
Nor where the soul is sleeping
Cares how the clothes are worn.
Beauty and grace and goodness
Like forest seeds fall wild,
Found 'mid the foul court's lewdness,
In loathliest lanes enisled:—
I had chosen you in your rudeness
Ere any lord's curlèd child.
Like forest seeds fall wild,
Found 'mid the foul court's lewdness,
In loathliest lanes enisled:—
I had chosen you in your rudeness
Ere any lord's curlèd child.
Why weeps my sweet to borrow
From such her taintless life,—
You, kin to the world's to-morrow
Of grand victorious strife,
You, like to be, to my sorrow,
Sir John's bejewelled wife?
From such her taintless life,—
You, kin to the world's to-morrow
Of grand victorious strife,
You, like to be, to my sorrow,
Sir John's bejewelled wife?
8
Sprung of no knightly bastard
Proud of a bull-like thew,
Whom his own thralls unmastered
With his own dog-whip slew,—
Your sires count no such dastard,—
Child of the People you!
Proud of a bull-like thew,
Whom his own thralls unmastered
With his own dog-whip slew,—
Your sires count no such dastard,—
Child of the People you!
Why should my sweet go sighing
Over her lowly birth?—
Nay, back her tears are buying
Her part in the People's dearth:
Her heart is heaving and crying
With the human heart of the earth.
Over her lowly birth?—
Nay, back her tears are buying
Her part in the People's dearth:
Her heart is heaving and crying
With the human heart of the earth.
9
IV.
Child, we will go for a week or two
All alone to my hill-nest high,
Where you may bathe hot brows in dew,
Breathe airs blown round the sky,
Mark through cloud-curtains of the blue
Which star is an angel's eye.
All alone to my hill-nest high,
Where you may bathe hot brows in dew,
Breathe airs blown round the sky,
Mark through cloud-curtains of the blue
Which star is an angel's eye.
Here in the heart of the poisoned town
If we tarry, you will die;
The pavement bakes the shod foot brown
The water-cart seethes by,
And ere the dust has settled down,
The streets are drained and dry.
If we tarry, you will die;
The pavement bakes the shod foot brown
The water-cart seethes by,
And ere the dust has settled down,
The streets are drained and dry.
Full in the windows falls the sun,
Flames and flares in every pane;
We half expect the glass to run
And trickle down in rain;
The parks are scorched to dusty dun
Hand-blistering, rail and chain.
Flames and flares in every pane;
We half expect the glass to run
And trickle down in rain;
The parks are scorched to dusty dun
Hand-blistering, rail and chain.
10
Sad with the weight of a woe unmeet,
All day long you sit and sigh,
Parched and pale in the furnace heat,
Hearing the People cry,
Plague-possessed, from the burning street
And stew and gutter and sty.
All day long you sit and sigh,
Parched and pale in the furnace heat,
Hearing the People cry,
Plague-possessed, from the burning street
And stew and gutter and sty.
You can do nothing in this wild mood,
You can pray afar as nigh.
Poison in daily drink and food,
In all they breathe or buy,
Say, would God suffer it were He good?
Bear to be made a lie?
You can pray afar as nigh.
Poison in daily drink and food,
In all they breathe or buy,
Say, would God suffer it were He good?
Bear to be made a lie?
You would be nursing, who should be nursed.
Come a little week, and stain
Your cheeks red as the roses first,
Ere I give back again
The People's child at the People's worst
To the People's heart of pain.
Come a little week, and stain
Your cheeks red as the roses first,
Ere I give back again
The People's child at the People's worst
To the People's heart of pain.
11
V.
She may forget this fever-fitIn summer gardens flush with flower;
Shall she watch by the plague an hour?—
Ah, God, I groan to think of it!
12
VI.
My white-walled cottage twinkles in the woody heart of the hills;
Its crag-kept valley tinkles with tunes of tumbling rills;
The heaven's blue is bluer, and a sad life's years seem fewer,
And lost are heaven's cloud-wrinkles, and life outlives its ills.
Its crag-kept valley tinkles with tunes of tumbling rills;
The heaven's blue is bluer, and a sad life's years seem fewer,
And lost are heaven's cloud-wrinkles, and life outlives its ills.
Round lakelets heron-haunted bow wind-swept bulrushes;
The lilies' gold is flaunted by beds of watercress.
Aloft on brambly ledges soft leaves sigh to the sedges
Pan shrills his pipes undaunted in his last fastnesses.
The lilies' gold is flaunted by beds of watercress.
Aloft on brambly ledges soft leaves sigh to the sedges
Pan shrills his pipes undaunted in his last fastnesses.
Deep in a tangled thicket my happy garden grows;
Beyond an ivied wicket wind mazy walks of rose.
Hid fount and lawn and bower behind a hedge of flower;
No foot, for thorns that prick it, shall scale my gardenclose.
Beyond an ivied wicket wind mazy walks of rose.
Hid fount and lawn and bower behind a hedge of flower;
No foot, for thorns that prick it, shall scale my gardenclose.
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And here the ringdoves crooning 'mid million-nested trees,
The rustled ferns a-swooning about the Dryads' knees,
And bees that all day hover about the bells of clover,
Blend in one soft attuning of saddened hearts to ease.
The rustled ferns a-swooning about the Dryads' knees,
And bees that all day hover about the bells of clover,
Blend in one soft attuning of saddened hearts to ease.
Here, while the branches brighten with autumn-kindled blaze,
My love's eyes too shall lighten, her steps spring through the ways:
Pan, mightiest magician, will be her best physician;
His heart-whole gladness frighten her dreams of drearier days.
My love's eyes too shall lighten, her steps spring through the ways:
Pan, mightiest magician, will be her best physician;
His heart-whole gladness frighten her dreams of drearier days.
14
VII.
Hither has followed my girl
Sir John with whiskers a-curl,
Lips made for lisping and dinners;
A lazily wicked nonentity,
Confounding his own identity
With his latest Derby winner's.
Sir John with whiskers a-curl,
Lips made for lisping and dinners;
A lazily wicked nonentity,
Confounding his own identity
With his latest Derby winner's.
Hence has gone from my sweet
Sir John, with his Chinese feet
Tripping in smooth paths shady,
Back to his hocussed horses,
And dinners of twenty courses;—
She would not leap at “My Lady”!
Sir John, with his Chinese feet
Tripping in smooth paths shady,
Back to his hocussed horses,
And dinners of twenty courses;—
She would not leap at “My Lady”!
15
VIII.
“Why should we trifle here,” she said,
“Though to glad days the wild bee hums,
And babble of many a brooklet's head
Dropped down the far crag-channels comes,
While the dead half of the city waits
To hear, behind its churchyard gates,
How they a new day's plague has killed
Will groan that all the graves are filled?
“Though to glad days the wild bee hums,
And babble of many a brooklet's head
Dropped down the far crag-channels comes,
While the dead half of the city waits
To hear, behind its churchyard gates,
How they a new day's plague has killed
Will groan that all the graves are filled?
“God gave the rich the poor in trust,
Yet every hour some silken chariot
Whirls up the country-side in dust
About a lolling, curled Iscariot,
Who, till by terror driven from town,
Afraid to let his windows down,
Breathed all day in a myrrh-mist dim;
And would you have us peers with him?”
Yet every hour some silken chariot
Whirls up the country-side in dust
About a lolling, curled Iscariot,
Who, till by terror driven from town,
Afraid to let his windows down,
Breathed all day in a myrrh-mist dim;
And would you have us peers with him?”
16
I hear the People's cry of pain
O'er bird and bee and waterfall,
Who never thought to feel again
A sore heart till my funeral,
Nor lift the load of any one,
To curse me for the service done,
Or, like a fangless serpent, spit;
Go you! I will have none of it.
O'er bird and bee and waterfall,
Who never thought to feel again
A sore heart till my funeral,
Nor lift the load of any one,
To curse me for the service done,
Or, like a fangless serpent, spit;
Go you! I will have none of it.
17
IX.
And yet,—and yet,—I half forgetThe past, since you rode first my knee:
What if the People, fuller set
In the fair flame of charity,
Show whiter than I witnessed them!—
O child, the magic of your tears
And piteous mouth hath strength to stem
The gathering hate of wintry years!
18
X.
Back in the blinding brick-kiln, tainted
With plague-breath we shut out and in!
See, with the sudden breast-spot painted,
Drops down the harlot in her sin!
Long in one street the dead-carts linger;
Pale nuns flit past with crossing finger;
On drunken lips that hoot the hearses
Death's damning signet stays the curses.
With plague-breath we shut out and in!
See, with the sudden breast-spot painted,
Drops down the harlot in her sin!
Long in one street the dead-carts linger;
Pale nuns flit past with crossing finger;
On drunken lips that hoot the hearses
Death's damning signet stays the curses.
Will God give help, give rest, have pity?
Let cease your Lenten fast and prayer.
He, for ten righteous, Sodom city
Had saved, who knew but one was there!
Why for such grace should Sodom praise Him
Who behind such safe promise stays Him?
And hath the stone of salt forgetting,—
The woman her slain friends regretting?
Let cease your Lenten fast and prayer.
He, for ten righteous, Sodom city
Had saved, who knew but one was there!
Why for such grace should Sodom praise Him
Who behind such safe promise stays Him?
And hath the stone of salt forgetting,—
The woman her slain friends regretting?
All day in churches the sweet Saviour
In mellow window-glory falls
On mattress-straw of priest and paviour,
And corpses stiff against the walls.
Purple and rose, on dead and dying,
The shadow of the Lord is lying;
Yet comes nor help nor intervention;
Christ looks not back in His ascension.
In mellow window-glory falls
On mattress-straw of priest and paviour,
And corpses stiff against the walls.
19
The shadow of the Lord is lying;
Yet comes nor help nor intervention;
Christ looks not back in His ascension.
Across the beds that dozens die on
Roam gloss and glow, in rainbow channels!
What if this Lord the children cry on
Be risen but in window panels!
Lips gasping for a God once human
Gain greater pity of a woman:
Boom for Him, bells, high up the steeple:—
Go, sweet! I give you to the People!
Roam gloss and glow, in rainbow channels!
What if this Lord the children cry on
Be risen but in window panels!
Lips gasping for a God once human
Gain greater pity of a woman:
Boom for Him, bells, high up the steeple:—
Go, sweet! I give you to the People!
20
XI.
Shall we say then, “God hath forgotten?”
Though bone be cankered and flesh grow rotten,—
Writhing flesh that the worm trails through,—
Though all the glory of flowerful graces
Turn ash-colour on comely faces,
Still God's priests cry, “Ye have half your due!”
Though bone be cankered and flesh grow rotten,—
Writhing flesh that the worm trails through,—
Though all the glory of flowerful graces
Turn ash-colour on comely faces,
Still God's priests cry, “Ye have half your due!”
Crying, “God in a throat of thunder
Held His brooding curses under
Years on years when no praise ye gave.
Now He hath spoken and will not hearken,
Though the steam of your worship darken
Your gleaming acres of mound and grave!”
Held His brooding curses under
Years on years when no praise ye gave.
Now He hath spoken and will not hearken,
Though the steam of your worship darken
Your gleaming acres of mound and grave!”
Ye have said it, O priests, and therefore
What shall we give God praise or prayer for,
Who hears best when the least is said?
Give us a God that will hear our crying;
Give us a God that will help our dying;
What lot have we in a Lord of the dead?
What shall we give God praise or prayer for,
Who hears best when the least is said?
Give us a God that will hear our crying;
Give us a God that will help our dying;
What lot have we in a Lord of the dead?
21
Men, my brothers, since fair faiths fail you,
Turn at last to the hearts that hail you;
Measure a span-breadth with a span:
Let cease this clangour of tocsin-ringing;
The one spar safe for our human clinging
Is human love in the heart of a man!
Turn at last to the hearts that hail you;
Measure a span-breadth with a span:
Let cease this clangour of tocsin-ringing;
The one spar safe for our human clinging
Is human love in the heart of a man!
22
XII.
Alas, what love in hearts turned purses,
Or coated close with rust of gold,—
Whose heeded prayers were others' curses,—
Whose Saviour still is bought and sold,
While broader aye the gold-heaps glisten?
This in your ears,—Pray God you listen!
Or coated close with rust of gold,—
Whose heeded prayers were others' curses,—
Whose Saviour still is bought and sold,
While broader aye the gold-heaps glisten?
This in your ears,—Pray God you listen!
O languid lords of odorous psalters
And stalls on Intercession day,
Loungers at crimson-litten altars
To hold a haunting thought at bay,
The price is more for those we bury
Than mourning bands and millinery!
And stalls on Intercession day,
Loungers at crimson-litten altars
To hold a haunting thought at bay,
The price is more for those we bury
Than mourning bands and millinery!
Burn your crimped crape from hat and shoulder;
Throw once for all your broad-cloth by;
Bring once your loaves before they moulder,
Nor men's mouths with sour wine-dregs wry.
Spur dragging prayers with manful labour,
And let God be, and help your neighbour.
Throw once for all your broad-cloth by;
Bring once your loaves before they moulder,
Nor men's mouths with sour wine-dregs wry.
Spur dragging prayers with manful labour,
And let God be, and help your neighbour.
23
O world, we are damned with growing wealthy!
The cursèd caste of hands kept white,
And filtered blood, and sleek soul, stealthy
To do its sinning out of sight,
These are the things men's thousands pay for,
Not for the bread that thousands pray for.
The cursèd caste of hands kept white,
And filtered blood, and sleek soul, stealthy
To do its sinning out of sight,
These are the things men's thousands pay for,
Not for the bread that thousands pray for.
Plague-startled from their lusts they scatter,
Blown cedar-cabined down the waves
To prate o' the pest, “No laughing matter!”
And grudge the poor their pauper graves.
Gleam, sword of God! What reck they of it,
Save as a sword that pares their profit!
Blown cedar-cabined down the waves
To prate o' the pest, “No laughing matter!”
And grudge the poor their pauper graves.
Gleam, sword of God! What reck they of it,
Save as a sword that pares their profit!
I pray these men, housed worse than cattle,
These famished, scorned, forgotten poor,
Bridge not the breach with wreck of battle,
Nor swell their sobs with cannon roar;
That clink of gold and keys that lock it
Draw not red knives round every pocket!
These famished, scorned, forgotten poor,
Bridge not the breach with wreck of battle,
Nor swell their sobs with cannon roar;
That clink of gold and keys that lock it
Draw not red knives round every pocket!
24
XIII.
In narrow lanes, with odours reeking
Of late-flung garbage underfoot,
Where crazy window stalls are creaking
With a dead burglar's last night's loot,
And baby-thieves take shrouds for wages,
And draggled birds die in the cages,
We have found the fastness of our seeking,—
The rank bed where the plague hath root.
Of late-flung garbage underfoot,
Where crazy window stalls are creaking
With a dead burglar's last night's loot,
And baby-thieves take shrouds for wages,
And draggled birds die in the cages,
We have found the fastness of our seeking,—
The rank bed where the plague hath root.
Horse-shoe or cross guards here a portal,—
Here bright blood on the lintel wet:
Death's hand defies the old faiths immortal,
And mocks each sick creed's marvel, set
To scare the foul pest from the dwelling.
Round the dim lanes, with hoarse bell knelling.
Sweeps the high Host 'mid white escortal,
Men deem hath might of healing yet.
Here bright blood on the lintel wet:
Death's hand defies the old faiths immortal,
And mocks each sick creed's marvel, set
To scare the foul pest from the dwelling.
Round the dim lanes, with hoarse bell knelling.
Sweeps the high Host 'mid white escortal,
Men deem hath might of healing yet.
Up stairs that rains and rats have rotted,
To fetid floors that rats have fled,
Where pest-sick mothers hug, besotted,
Corpses and children in one bed,
With love-anointed hands of healing,
And bread of life, my sweet goes stealing,
And smooths the wrung brows anguish-knotted,
And prays God's pity from the dead.
To fetid floors that rats have fled,
Where pest-sick mothers hug, besotted,
Corpses and children in one bed,
25
And bread of life, my sweet goes stealing,
And smooths the wrung brows anguish-knotted,
And prays God's pity from the dead.
And I, a hound to bear her basket,—
No star hath nobler work, I know,—
Close eyes lest God behold the casket
That sheds such lustre here below,
And long to store Heaven's treasures in it;—
Groan lest He hear my lute-throat linnet
Praising Him alway, and should ask it
Of her to teach His angels so!
No star hath nobler work, I know,—
Close eyes lest God behold the casket
That sheds such lustre here below,
And long to store Heaven's treasures in it;—
Groan lest He hear my lute-throat linnet
Praising Him alway, and should ask it
Of her to teach His angels so!
26
XIV.
As from a stricken court we reeled
Last midnight toward less plagueful air,
Like a lake stone-sphered far afield,
Round us strange terror orbed despair;
In heaven it seemed God's arm did wield
A swift-stretched sword and bare.
Last midnight toward less plagueful air,
Like a lake stone-sphered far afield,
Round us strange terror orbed despair;
In heaven it seemed God's arm did wield
A swift-stretched sword and bare.
But ere the soul caught certain sight,
Burst doors, as from a hundred hells,
Unsheeted deaths, stark mad for fright,
With grim death-rattle drawn to yells,
And brazen-tongued, above the night
As madly stormed the bells.
Burst doors, as from a hundred hells,
Unsheeted deaths, stark mad for fright,
With grim death-rattle drawn to yells,
And brazen-tongued, above the night
As madly stormed the bells.
More baleful blast of God than blew
In Egypt heaped the corpses high:
Men, women, whom no plague-spot slew,
Fell foaming on the flags to die,
Such time as that red sword trailed through
A God-span of the sky.
In Egypt heaped the corpses high:
Men, women, whom no plague-spot slew,
Fell foaming on the flags to die,
Such time as that red sword trailed through
A God-span of the sky.
27
Near us one whispered, “Lo, the last!
Tender and stern is Nature's way:
This comet-curse foregathers fast
Them whom the plague had marked for prey.
Straight to the heart her knife speeds past;—
To save, she dares to slay.
Tender and stern is Nature's way:
This comet-curse foregathers fast
Them whom the plague had marked for prey.
Straight to the heart her knife speeds past;—
To save, she dares to slay.
“Home, till the worst work out the best;—
Still Death the fuller days leads on!”
He caught my sweet from off my breast,
Fainting, with “Follow!” and was gone.
Are all his horses dead o' the pest,
That this should be Sir John?
Still Death the fuller days leads on!”
He caught my sweet from off my breast,
Fainting, with “Follow!” and was gone.
Are all his horses dead o' the pest,
That this should be Sir John?
28
XV.
Your scorn, child, stung him from his slothOf drunken dreams, 'mid harlot's musk;—
Struck out the spark of a pure oath,
Shrivelling his true heart's leprous husk;
And lo with the desire, the time
To wash life white from soil and stain!
No Circe lures him to the slime
Who hath got his manhood back again.
29
XVI.
Now, penned in a poisoned alley,
The plague, like a hunted snake,
Spits venom still, till a sheer stroke kill;
Nor long shall the death-worm dally
With the hunters at last awake.
The plague, like a hunted snake,
Spits venom still, till a sheer stroke kill;
Nor long shall the death-worm dally
With the hunters at last awake.
Now these two, working together,
Join hands 'mid their work begun;
And their eyes shine so, that I know, I know,
All years of mutable weather
Will find them working as one.
Join hands 'mid their work begun;
And their eyes shine so, that I know, I know,
All years of mutable weather
Will find them working as one.
The shrewd birds spy on the lovers,
And scold when a step comes near;
No swallow flies, though the first leaf dies,
And strange fires flame in the covers
To lighten the waning year.
And scold when a step comes near;
No swallow flies, though the first leaf dies,
And strange fires flame in the covers
To lighten the waning year.
Last week the swallows were spreading
Wide wings for the lands of drouth:
Has a sly bird guessed, or my sweet confessed
That there'll be news of a wedding
To carry soon to the South?
Wide wings for the lands of drouth:
Has a sly bird guessed, or my sweet confessed
That there'll be news of a wedding
To carry soon to the South?
30
This, making her such a woman,—
The blood in her veins that runs,
Which more and more he shall love her for,—
Shall leaven with love for the human
The high hearts of his sons.
The blood in her veins that runs,
Which more and more he shall love her for,—
Shall leaven with love for the human
The high hearts of his sons.
And here is the height of honour,—
Result in a God's degree,—
That the world reveal through all years the seal
Of a perfect soul upon her
In the souls of her men to be.
Result in a God's degree,—
That the world reveal through all years the seal
Of a perfect soul upon her
In the souls of her men to be.
31
XVIII.
I walked last eve through the twisted lanes;—
What a star-trail of my sweet shone there!
The people pressed to the doors to know
What of the lady that loved them so?
And the courts, for all their gutters and drains,
Grew sweet with many a silent prayer.
What a star-trail of my sweet shone there!
The people pressed to the doors to know
What of the lady that loved them so?
And the courts, for all their gutters and drains,
Grew sweet with many a silent prayer.
There were jail-birds, callous with years of crime,
Whose eyes grew soft as they prayed for me,—
Me who had scorned them worse than the worst,
Had not their angel saved me first.
They have hearts, these men, to be kings in time,
Did our hearts show what a king's should be.
Whose eyes grew soft as they prayed for me,—
Me who had scorned them worse than the worst,
Had not their angel saved me first.
They have hearts, these men, to be kings in time,
Did our hearts show what a king's should be.
“I read them,” one said sitting alone,
“Of a king's child, stolen by travelling men,
Who comes at last, grown mighty and wise,
To the dungeon where his father lies,
And lifts him back to his ancient throne;—
We call her the People's child since then!”
“Of a king's child, stolen by travelling men,
Who comes at last, grown mighty and wise,
To the dungeon where his father lies,
And lifts him back to his ancient throne;—
We call her the People's child since then!”
32
XVIII.
And I who had found hearts hollow,
Most glad that my old creeds gall,
Have I faith in the world to follow?
Have I hope of the years to fall?
Yea, if two hearts in every clime
Fight 'neath one battle-flag sublime,
I have heart of hope for all!
Most glad that my old creeds gall,
Have I faith in the world to follow?
Have I hope of the years to fall?
Yea, if two hearts in every clime
Fight 'neath one battle-flag sublime,
I have heart of hope for all!
O pitiful men, my brothers,
This work, which the world so shuns,
Is ours, not God's or another's,—
All work of the world outruns!
Give these men homes and wives to lure;
Give these men motive to be pure;
Give knowledge to their sons.
This work, which the world so shuns,
Is ours, not God's or another's,—
All work of the world outruns!
Give these men homes and wives to lure;
Give these men motive to be pure;
Give knowledge to their sons.
God sent, do you say, this woman?
Yes, juggle and intertwine
Twin wills, Divine and human,
To blend on an undrawn line!
We are not puppets worked with strings;
But reason at the roots of things
Affirms my thought is mine.
Yes, juggle and intertwine
Twin wills, Divine and human,
To blend on an undrawn line!
We are not puppets worked with strings;
But reason at the roots of things
Affirms my thought is mine.
33
When the rebel stars asunder
Rive their set ranks and fly,
He follows them with His thunder
All round the echoing sky;—
Hounds His blind storms on every path,
And, shrivelled with His distant wrath,
Before they pass, we die.
Rive their set ranks and fly,
He follows them with His thunder
All round the echoing sky;—
Hounds His blind storms on every path,
And, shrivelled with His distant wrath,
Before they pass, we die.
Chancetimes on the sky's swift spindle
A red sun tatters the shroud:
Anon, ere the rainpools dwindle,
A red bolt drops from a cloud.
I, with no heart for Godward prayer,
Voice the world's clarion of despair
With one long death-note loud,
A red sun tatters the shroud:
Anon, ere the rainpools dwindle,
A red bolt drops from a cloud.
I, with no heart for Godward prayer,
Voice the world's clarion of despair
With one long death-note loud,
To men who shall lurk no longer
In palace or prison van:—
To women, for pure hearts stronger,—
To women beneath the ban.
Be this the faith to bind the whole,—
Faith in the everlasting soul
Of love in men for Man!
In palace or prison van:—
To women, for pure hearts stronger,—
To women beneath the ban.
Be this the faith to bind the whole,—
Faith in the everlasting soul
Of love in men for Man!
| A Child of the People | |