The Poetical Works of George Barlow :: :: University of Virginia Library

While our puny tasks engross us, while the hearts of thousands dream,
While we dally with our pleasures or our grief,
Gladly, sadly, the world marches towards some destiny supreme
And it may be that the fatal hours are brief.

II

What of England? What of glory in the future shall there be
Left for England, if she loses in her turn
Lordship over many peoples with the lordship of the sea,—
If the fates that beckoned ever, change and spurn?

III

So a man may win a woman,—for an hour he guards and holds,
For an hour, one fleeting moment. What avails?
There are watchful foemen waiting. What his conqueror's arm enfolds
May elude him, if his strength or wisdom fails.

IV

Lo! he wakes and she has vanished, and the world is left in dim
Utter darkness, cold and starless evermore.
The queen-woman once made over, wholly trusted unto him,
Passes out, but pauses ghostlike at the door.

V

So a pause has come, a moment in our history, strange and stern,
For we have to choose the pathway we will take,
And we have not long to loiter, for the tide is on the turn,
And a Bride's heart is our own, to win or break.

VI

Yea, the Spirit superb and stainless whose soft breath was on the sea
And her sweetness in the roses of our land
Pauses yet with love and longing. Would we have her footstep flee?
Would we lose the passionate pressure of her hand?

VII

Not in fancy do we dream of watchful spirits who surround,
Some with love, but some with hatred in their gaze.
One has led us, one has loved us, one has guarded us and crowned,
One has guided us through dark and devious ways.

VIII

But the seers whose souls can travel through the shadows and the gloom
Tremble now—they see behind the figure white
Darker forms that wait and threaten, evil hosts that tower and loom,
And they see the sun's orb menaced by the night.

IX

All the world is moved to turmoil. In the northland Russia stirs:
The far Eastern peoples wake to life unknown.
India watches, dimly wondering what of changed doom may be hers:
Europe watches, from her still unshaken throne.

X

Revolution's undercurrent, soundless, ever tinged with red,
Flows beneath the lordly palaces of kings.
Peace the Czar desired. The moonlight on white faces of his dead
Glitters now, the answering vultures wave their wings.

XI

Poland, Finland, lightward struggle, and the Russian with the Jew
Wrestles, till at last the bomb does ruthless work.
O'er Armenia God looks down from ceaseless skies of sunlit blue,
But he sees the dripping weapons of the Turk.

XII

Such the world is in this vaunted twentieth century after Christ,
With the Churches chanting hymn and solemn psalm:
Satan ever with the crimson-handed Sultan keeping tryst;
Europe gazing, half amused and wholly calm.

XIII

Mighty poets dead, forgotten, mighty statesmen passed away,
While we dream of gold and luxury and gain!
No stern Leader whom the people with stern passion may obey:
Titans vanish,—but the clamorous dwarfs remain.

XIV

Women changing, not to angels, English women downward drawn,
English streets at night a wonder and a crime,
While above our city still as ever breaks the sinless dawn
Crimson, golden, not in Christ's day more sublime.

XV

Still the Angel's gaze upon our wanton sinful city set,
Still the love supreme in lingering heart and eye
Full of tender pity and yearning, one immense divine regret,
One immense divine redemptive agony!

XVI

Yet a moment have we, yet an hour to lift to heaven our gaze:
At the doorway pauses ever the white Form
Who would save us, who would guide us through the future's darkling ways,
Ever shining, a star-beacon, through the storm.

August 14, 1904.