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

We know our own true home at last:
The gorgeous dreams of heaven are past:
No angel's harp sounds on the breeze.
Gold wings are gone. We mark instead
White wings above the dahlia bed,
And blue wings o'er the clover leas.

These are our angels.—Butterflies,
Blue as the cloudless azure skies,
Or white-winged as the clouds at morn,
Dance o'er the garden-beds, and gleam
Above the hedges. Now we dream
Of other crowns than that of thorn.

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This earth is all.—Then add new worth
To our one home, our fair old earth:
Love every flower in every vale.
The fancied flowers of heaven were grand.
Yet pause: look round. Stretch out thine hand.
Gather that snowdrop pure and pale.

Was ever heavenly bloom so white?—
Did great stars glitter through the night
Of heaven, as on our earth they gleam?
Had heaven a million lamps, as we?
Or white birds on a dark-blue sea?
This is the truth. Heaven was the dream.

Heaven was the dream.—But now we know
How man is made, where man must go:
We seek no opening to the tomb;
Content to pass, content to be
At rest for all eternity
Within the deep and flameless gloom.

The flameless gloom—for once hell-fire
Roared up to heaven, aye flickered higher
Than heavenly towers that rose sublime.

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If heaven we've lost, we've lost as well
The flamelit under-realm of hell:
We cannot either sink, or climb.

The earth is left.—We can adorn
Her beauty,—drape with fields of corn
The plains that fill her ample breast.
Now heaven has past, our souls are free
To love the green earth and the sea:
Now hope is dead, we are at rest.

II.

And woman too is left to love:
She brings us dreams of things above
The common daily life she scorns.
Woman makes all things beautiful;
For from the hedge her hand can pull
The blossoming rose, and leave the thorns!

Our angel stands beside us. She
First made man of a certainty
Dream of a life beyond the tomb.
And, now we seek that life no more,
Woman is left us to adore,
And woman's worship to resume.

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The force we wasted on the sky
Returns to earth. We put it by;
We store it up for better things.
The noblest angel after all
Is woman: sweeter if she fall
At times, for very want of wings!

Great were Isaiah, Peter, Paul:
Our poets can transcend them all;
And, now they sing of earth alone,
They'll rise to lordlier heights of song.
Yes, man himself shall reach ere long
The steps of the Eternal's throne.

For that eternal force is ours:
It brings forth man, it brings forth flowers
And life and death, in it, are one.
It shines in stars: in man it lives:
Its colour to the rose it gives,
And gives its red flame to the sun.

One force through all things works its way:
Through joy and sorrow, night and day:
Is gentle in the blue-bell's breath:

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Is soft within the snow-flake white:
Fierce-hued within the lightning's light:
One power speaks “Life,” or whispers “Death.”

But all beyond is wrapped in gloom.
Nought answers from beyond the tomb:
No starlight travels from that sky.
No eye can pierce the solemn veil:
Each soul exploring comes back pale
From contact with eternity.

III.

Therefore the earth is ours alone:
The sun sits on its flame-red throne;
The stars sit on their thrones in space;—
We have this earth whereon we stand:
We have the thrill in woman's hand:
We have the love in woman's face.

We have the force to win a flower
Of love, and wear it for an hour,
And for an hour to find it sweet.
Aye, sweeter is our love for this—
In that there is no second kiss,
And even the first is over-fleet.

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In that to-morrow's frost will slay
The violets, passing sweet are they!
Life is so short. Let it be grand!
Let every deed of man be true:
There is no heaven in which to do
The noble deeds we only planned.

Great peace is ours; a peace beyond
The reach of those who hope, despond,
And snatch at heaven, and shrink from hell;
The peace of those who hope for nought
Save what each long day's toil has brought,
And, hopeless, feel that all is well.

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II. CHANT OF CHRISTIANS

I.

He brought no flowers, he brought no gems,
No jewels of earth's diadems;
Within a stable he was born.
With us he suffered day by day;
Upon his brow no gold crown lay,
But only mocking points of thorn.

Not on divine soft banks of rose
Where souls of lovers may repose
Rested the Lord of earth and air.
He found not where to lay his head;
Was cradled where the oxen fed;
A rock-tomb was his sepulchre.

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No gifts of love, or power, or fame,
Or earthly rank, were his who came
To lift the humble soul on high.
Though not one star without him shone,
Uncrowned he came, he came alone,
He brought no star-wreath from the sky.

Though, long before the first star gleamed,
Within God's bosom Jesus dreamed,
He was content that dream should pass.
He entered, here, a woman's womb,
And let her sacred flesh entomb
All that he felt, all that he was.

The maiden's womb by God so blessed
Bare Jesus, and the maiden's breast
Suckled the living King of kings.
The infant Mary brought to birth
Was king of heaven, and lord of earth
And air, to where the last star swings.

This was God's condescension great:
To enter by that sacred gate
The land of woe, the land of pain.

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And, having reached this land of ours
Where thorn-points peer from fairest flowers,
What was the fashion of his reign?

He reigned in sinful hearts and weak:
The sinner's soul he came to seek;
He came to dry the sufferer's tears.
He came to tell the worn-out heart,
“Be of good cheer. Lo! mine thou art,
And shalt be through the endless years.”

He came to bid the harlot rise:
To pour God's sunlight through her eyes,
And bid her dark night wane and flee.
He came to bid the whole wide earth
Partake with man, a second birth;
To soothe to rest the restless sea.

He came to bid the waters sink
To quiet on the blue lake's brink;
To say to wild waves, “Peace. Be still!”
He came, that wind-tossed souls might find
A haven for the weary mind:
He came to do the Father's will.

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The will of him who sends the rain
To touch to green the parched-up plain,
Or sends the sun to charm the air:
The will of him through whom night's hours
Glitter with ceaseless starry flowers
That make the boundless dark fields fair.

The will of him through whom began
The cycle of life that leads to man,
And who is Jesus ended all:
Making in Jesus man complete;
Devising evil's full defeat
Through him, and Satan's abject fall.

The will obeying which he died
Thorn-crowned, a spear thrust through his side
And red nails through his feet and hands:
The will of God through which he rose
And passed into supreme repose,
Peace God's Son only understands.

II.

He came to make the blind eyes see;
To show that human will is free;
That God's will underlies the whole:

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That, past all weary winds that roar,
Sweet sunlight gilds a golden shore
Where harbourage waits the storm-tossed soul.

He came and suffered here on earth
That man might win the second birth:
His spotless flesh and blood he gave
That man, partaking, might be fed
With heavenly wine and heavenly bread,
And, haply, so elude the grave.

He healed disease that man might know
That pang and torment, throb and throe,
Are not to last for ever such;
That God, who works in every place
Through his own laws of time and space,
Can change those strait laws at a touch.

God binds the laws. They cannot bind
The Lord of nature and mankind.
Can God's own star-crown bruise his head?
Can God, who made both life and death,
Who breathes through dust a living breath,
Not raise the righteous from the dead?

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Can God, who makes the storm arise
And hurls the thunders through the skies,
Change not, at will, his mode and style?
God, who controls the lightning's fire,
Can he not change, if he desire,
Winter to summer by a smile?

Can he not change man's March to May?
Weave jessamine in December grey
Around his temple-porch at will?
Change ice that stiffens into blue
Calm water, where the reeds renew
Their whispering courtship of the rill?

This is what Jesus came to teach:
That God's sure hand is over each;
That waves may rise, and winds may roar,
But God the King is Lord of all,—
Nor shall a single sparrow fall
From his safe hand for evermore.

Our hairs are numbered—so he said:
Each bright ray of the sunset red
God paints with thoughtful conscious hand.

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The sunset, be it gold or rose,
Just as he wills it, shines and glows,—
And every wave he leads to land.

Not endless law, but ceaseless will.
This is Christ's gospel-message still:
Will at the heart of all things made.
Not Chance at the world-vessel's helm,
But loving Will throughout the realm
Of life, eternally obeyed.

III.

So he who, ere the world began,
Was God, became in all points man:
God's Son was of a woman born.
God took account of woman then,
And honoured the sweet slave whom men
Have lowered and saddened with their scorn.

God honoured woman.—None can say
Since that far-off first Christmas-Day
That woman hath no share nor part
In God's eternal great designs.
Woman and man God's thought combines:
They dwell together in his heart.

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So, thus this stormy world of ours
Was entered. Christ's hand gathered flowers;
He watched the sunset and sunrise:
He wandered by the inland sea,
The blue calm Lake of Galilee;
Earth spread her gifts before his eyes.

God, who had made, in epochs long
Anterior to the first bird's song,
Our fiery bright home spin through space,
Appeared, himself, to test the whole:—
The unexplored vast cosmic soul
Was obvious in a human face.

God came himself, his work to try:
To test his sunlit dome of sky;
To see that all had turned out well.
Through Jesus' searching eyes he viewed
The desert waste, the green-leafed wood,
The rocky height, the watered dell.

Through Jesus' eyes he gazed on man:
And here he chiefliest found his plan
Primordial marred and wrenched awry.

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Man whom he made divinely free,
Ruler of earth, lord of the sea,
Was veriest slave beneath the sky.

And woman, whom God made so sweet,
Was trampled by tyrannic feet:
The queen was harlot now, and slave.
The love that God designed of old
Man's love should win, the women sold;
They bartered now what once they gave.

So, looking on this world of sin,
God saw no hope without, within,
Nought left save only, dying here
At man's own hands, so to restore
Woman—that man's heart might adore;
And man—that woman might revere

Christ,—having entered by the gate
Of birth the world he made so great,
He found so small, so dark, so sad,—
By one path could return to God:
The grim cross pointed out the road,
And Jesus saw it, and was glad.

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By woman Christ was born. Through men
He reached his Father's home again,
The realm corruption may not see.—
When woman's God so longed to save
That he assumed the flesh she gave,
What was man's answer? Calvary.—

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III. CHANT OF POETS

Sweeter than dreams of moon or star,
Or dreams of heaven,—aye, fairer far,
The dreams of woman's beauty born!
God, when he toiled in heaven alone,
Grew weary. Now she shares his throne
And brings him rapture, night and morn.

What was the whole of heaven most fair
Without the love of woman there—
Without her eyes, without her look?
In heaven the soul of woman grew,
And still her eyes retain the blue
Of that deep heaven which she forsook.

Still something sweet, and something strange,
Is in her eyes that gleam and change,—
A something not of earth or sky:

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A something maddening hearts that gaze;
Requickening thoughts of ancient days,
Dreams of a past eternity.

Half angel she—and yet not quite:
Woman,—with neck and bosom white;
Woman—who gives, gives overmuch.
An angel's heart: a woman's frame;
She brings us peace; she burns with flame;
Destroys a life's work at a touch.

Within the sick-room dark and dread
The glory of her golden head
Brings sunlight. Nigh the grave she stands;
And man forgets the flowers they bring
In gazing at that sweeter thing,
The heavenly lilies of her hands.

Yet passion fierce and passion strong
She wakes. She thrills all hearts to song:
She crowns the poet with the bays.
In dreams of her his life goes by;
Her glances fill with stars his sky,
And fill with thoughts of fire his days.

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God made her soul. Then Satan took
The sweet thing and he changed her look
And set some light of evil there.
She who was wholly angel then
Is half a temptress now to men;
Aye, half a fiend, and wholly fair.

But wholly fair,—for ever fair.—
The mere slight fragrance of her hair,
The least soft thrilling of her hands,
Has served ere now, again will serve,
To make the course of history swerve,
And ruin souls, and ruin lands.

Aye, God and Satan well may fight!
She is so sweet, she is so white;
She is so good to touch and hold.
Love is the only thing that well
May outlive heaven and outlive hell:
This one joy never groweth old.

Still fresh as in the early day
When Eden heard the first rose say,
“A sweeter mouth than mine is born,”

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She treads the earth. Since time began
She has given herself away to man,
With rapture half, and half in scorn.

The magic in her voice and gaze
Is still the same as in old days
When Eden found her very fair.
Till time itself shall change and die
Some marvel past man's speech shall lie
Within the sweetness of her hair.

The sympathizing world has worn
On its own brow Christ's crown of thorn
For nigh two thousand years to-day:
But, ages ere he lived and died,
Woman could lure man to her side;
Her mouth could melt man's will away.

A mere girl's eyes of hare-bell blue
Can thrill a strong man through and through
Whom Jove's own thunders would not bend.
And man will win a world, and this
In turn will barter for a kiss:
And so it will be to the end.

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IV. CHANT OF WOMEN

I.

Man brings us flowers and brings us grief;
He twines for us love's myrtle leaf,
And wreathes about our brows the thorn.
We crave for love? Man gives us this?
Nay, he bestows but passion's kiss,
And tinges passion with his scorn!

Ten thousand years have passed away,
Or more years yet, the wise men say,
Since history on this earth began.
In all those years, what have we gained?
Deceived, misunderstood, disdained,
What shall we render back to man?

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Love.—This our great prerogative,
Eternally we gain and give:
We bring God's sunlight from on high.
The earth was dark until we came;
We fill the earth with love's bright flame,
And steal the gold dawn from the sky.

By love we grow; by love we gain
The right to live, the right to reign:—
When man's wild wayward course is done
We then shall say to man: Behold,
While thine hand delved amid the mould
Our souls caught glory from the sun!

While thou wast watching earth with eyes
Most dim, we watched God in the skies
With gaze that daily grew more clear.
To conquer earth was all thy dream:
To build thy mills on every stream;
Through unconjectured waves to steer!

Where once were fields made bright with flowers
Grew grimy towns and sullen towers:
By river-banks great wharfs arose.

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Where once were alder green and oak
Black factories loom, and chimneys smoke,
And engines break the morn's repose.

O maker of all hideous things,
'Twas well God sent us without wings
To dwell upon thine earth with thee—
Else, long ere this, our souls had fled
Beyond the waste of sunset red,
Beyond the green-blue waste of sea:

Else some remembrance of our home
Had lured us forth to soar and roam
Through silent leagues of star-sown air,
Compelling us to search for flowers
In airy fields and heavenly bowers,
Man having stripped earth's meadows bare!

II.

How couldst thou, having hid with steam
And smoke the skies where sweet stars gleam,
Discern the starlight in our look?
How couldst thou, having choked all flowers
In fields and woodlands, care for ours?
What cares the boulder for the brook?

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Thou, slave of thine electric light,
Hast even invoked perennial night
To brood above thy city's spires;
Lest one vast arrow of the sun
Should pierce the fog, and leave not one
Unquenched, of thine ephemeral fires!

But we, who dreamed of higher things,
Were happy where the brown lark sings
Above the fields of golden grain.
At peace with God, we saw the showers
Rejoice the pale sun-stricken flowers,
And blessed God for his bounteous rain.

The poor fish panting out of reach
Of the cool water, on the beach,
With death's hues glittering on his side,
Him would we save: him back we threw,
And, smiling, saw the water blue
Receive him safe.—You would deride.

What pity for the tortured horse
Has man? He goads him on his course:
There is no mercy in his soul.—

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God, when he made the dumb things, erred.
If he had let them speak one word,
Just to repudiate man's control!

And God, who made our womanhood
And made it at the outset good,
Erred too, in that he made us weak.
The strength was man's: the soul was ours.
God should have guarded his pale flowers
In heaven, and let man come to seek.

And yet...God hardly could have known
That man would claim us for his own;
Would hound the thought of God away:
Would change the form God made so sweet
Into the harlot of the street;
Teach those to curse, who once could pray.

Ah, piteous story of our wrongs!—
And yet to God the whole belongs:
We give to God and Christ the whole.
We trust God, till all sufferings end:
We have in Christ a deathless Friend,
An helper sweet, a kindred soul.

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Christ by his perfect womanhood
Hath power to make all women good:
The fallen to lift, the sad to save.
Women who met his glances knew
That here at last was manhood true:
Fearless, to him their hearts they gave.

They called him “God;” for God was here.
The Godhood in a man makes dear
The man to woman. Woman's kiss
Is never given as mankind deems,
Absorbed in its own narrow dreams.
God in man—woman worships this.

Not all the flowers man brings to her
Make her forget Christ's sepulchre.
She whispers, “Lord, remember me!”
In every crown her brow has worn
Woman in secret plants a thorn,
In homage to Gethsemane.