The Comrades Poems Old & New: By William Canton |
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| The Latter Law |
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| IV. |
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 | The Comrades |  |
140
The Latter Law
I
When, schooled to resignation, I had ceased
To yearn for my lost Eden; when I knew
No loving Spirit brooded in the blue,
And none should see His coming in the East,
I looked for comfort in my creed; I sought
To draw all nature nearer, to replace
The sweet old myths, the tenderness, the grace
Of God's dead world of faith and reverent thought.
To yearn for my lost Eden; when I knew
No loving Spirit brooded in the blue,
And none should see His coming in the East,
I looked for comfort in my creed; I sought
To draw all nature nearer, to replace
The sweet old myths, the tenderness, the grace
Of God's dead world of faith and reverent thought.
Oh, joy! I found the stern new Law reveal
Romance more rare than poesy creates:
Your blood, it said, is kindred with the sap
Which throbs within the cedar, and mayhap
In some dim wise the tree reciprocates,
Even as a Dryad, all the love you feel!
Romance more rare than poesy creates:
Your blood, it said, is kindred with the sap
Which throbs within the cedar, and mayhap
In some dim wise the tree reciprocates,
Even as a Dryad, all the love you feel!
141
II
You and the great glad Earth are kith and kin,
There is one base, one scheme of life, one hope
On that and this side of the microscope.
All things, now wholes, have parts of many been,
And all shall be. A disk of Homer's blood
May redden a daisy on an English lawn,
And what was Chaucer glimmer in the dawn
To-morrow o'er the plains where Ilion stood.
There is one base, one scheme of life, one hope
On that and this side of the microscope.
All things, now wholes, have parts of many been,
And all shall be. A disk of Homer's blood
May redden a daisy on an English lawn,
And what was Chaucer glimmer in the dawn
To-morrow o'er the plains where Ilion stood.
No jot is lost, or scorned, or disallowed;
One Law reigns over all. Take you no care,
For while all beings change one life endures,
And a new cycle waits for you and yours
To melt away, like streaks of morning cloud,
Into the infinite azure of things that were.
One Law reigns over all. Take you no care,
For while all beings change one life endures,
And a new cycle waits for you and yours
To melt away, like streaks of morning cloud,
Into the infinite azure of things that were.
III
And soon the selfish clinging unto sense,
The longing that this Me should never fail,
Loosed quivering hands, for oh! of what avail
Were such survival of intelligence,
If all the great and good of days gone by—
Plato, Hypatia, Shakespeare—had surceased,
Had mingled with the cloud, the plant, the beast,
And God were but a mythos of the sky?
The longing that this Me should never fail,
Loosed quivering hands, for oh! of what avail
Were such survival of intelligence,
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Plato, Hypatia, Shakespeare—had surceased,
Had mingled with the cloud, the plant, the beast,
And God were but a mythos of the sky?
And when I thought, o'ershadowed with strange awe,
How Christ was dead—had ceased in utter woe,
With that great cry “Forsaken!” on the cross,
I felt at first a sense of bitter loss,
And then grew passive, saying, “Be it so!
'Tis one with Christ and Judas. 'Tis the law!”
How Christ was dead—had ceased in utter woe,
With that great cry “Forsaken!” on the cross,
I felt at first a sense of bitter loss,
And then grew passive, saying, “Be it so!
'Tis one with Christ and Judas. 'Tis the law!”
IV
But when my child, my one girl-babe lay dead—
The blossom of me, my dream and my desire—
And unshed tears burned in my eyes like fire,
And when my wife subdued her sobs, and said:
Oh! husband, do not grieve, be comforted,
She is with Christ!—I laughed in my despair.
With Christ! O God! and where is Christ, and where
My poor dead babe? And where the countless dead?
The blossom of me, my dream and my desire—
And unshed tears burned in my eyes like fire,
And when my wife subdued her sobs, and said:
Oh! husband, do not grieve, be comforted,
She is with Christ!—I laughed in my despair.
With Christ! O God! and where is Christ, and where
My poor dead babe? And where the countless dead?
143
The great glad Earth—my kin!—is glad as though
No child had ever died; the heaven of May
Leans like a laughing face above my grief.
Is she clean lost for ever? How shall I know?
O Christ! art thou still Christ? And shall I pray
For unbelief or fulness of belief?
No child had ever died; the heaven of May
Leans like a laughing face above my grief.
Is she clean lost for ever? How shall I know?
O Christ! art thou still Christ? And shall I pray
For unbelief or fulness of belief?
| The Comrades | |