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Contents

SING me a song of the shadows thrown

    By the Light which shone on high

On a lonely hill in a skull-strewn land,

    And the lean years passing by.

Sing me a song of the ghostly bands

    Who harvest their sheaves of dead—

Of the hungry eyes of a passing age

    Whence the hope of love has fled.

Sing me a song of a faith which failed,

    In a rood as frail as breath—

Of a gray nun’s veil which strangled life

    And the love which conquers death.

“Sweet!” we cry as the rose leaves fall,

    Blown by the heedless breath

Of a wind from out of a darkling sky,

    Chill as the hands of death.

“Bitter!” we moan as we place the leaves,

    Faded and brown and sere,

In the folded page of the ancient book

    Of memories gray and drear.

For this is the quest of a soul which dared

    To stake his life for a song,

For the vagrant gleam of a star that paled

    When the sun of Love waxed strong.

Who recked not of the dreams which pass

    Or of battles lost or won,

Since lives as leaves from the Rose of Life

    Are scattered one by one.

GIVE me an autumn day, a sky of blue,

    Massed clouds asleep above a hill,

A roof of leaves the sunlight filters through,

    My cup of joy to fill.

Give me the music of a sun-flecked stream,

    A symphony in golden browns and green,

Murmuring like myriad voices in a dream,

    Whispering of things unseen.

Give me a cove within the curvèd arms

    Of mossy banks with lush grass spread,

Whose cloistered silence stills the world’s alarms,

    Whence cares and fears have fled.

Give me a nut-brown maid, with lips that hold

    The scarlet of the berries in the brake,

Whose gypsy tresses steal the fairy gold

    And weave it for my sake

Into a veil for glamourie of eyes agleam

    With soft allurements, spells of ancient love

When earth was young and life a dream

    Of beauty from above.

Give me a voice whose cadence as a lute

    Blown by some lonely wood god blent

With magic of the wind’s caress, to suit

    The measure of my heart’s content.

To cleanse my soul of smaller memories,

    Give me an hour again like this to free

Me quite,—I fain would be beneath the trees

    A prince again in Arcady.

DEEP coolness of dim woodland cloisters,

    Where the feverish heat of the day,

Transmuted to sibilant softness,

    Is as foam from the breast of the bay—

In thy mystic alembic is mingled

    The madness of moonbeams with fire

From the sun, and melodious echoes

    Windswept from the sevenfold lyre.

Here twilight and dawn meet forever,

    Untouched by the tide of the years,

Change or Death enter not through thy portals,

    Nor desire of the flesh nor its fears.

Commingled with odors of tresses,

    There are memories, fragrant and dim,

Of the lure of the breasts of our mother—

    Faint perfume of body and limb.

We, Children of Morning, salute Thee!

    Thy voice is not new to our ears.

Great God of the water and woodlands,

    We greet Thee with laughter not tears.

For in dawns, far-distant and hoary,

    When all life was a flame and a song,

We were Thine and Thy love was our guerdon,

    Ere earth was bereft of its strong.

Ere the meek and the lowly, triumphant,

    Bound our Mother with bondage of sin—

The Star not the Serpent ascendant—

    We praised Thee with paean and hymn.

The shrine is re-builded. Thine altars

    Await but the touch of Thy breath,

Cold flame of the Spirit to sunder

    The bondage of Darkness and Death.

Thy presence is felt, though unspoken

    The word that would call on thy name.

From the green gloom of silence unbroken

    Comes—a motion, a breath or a flame?

THIS want of you is like no other thing.

    It hammers at my heart the whole night through.

It smites my soul with sudden sickening,

    As primal pain that birth begins anew—

                This want of you.

’Tis Trishna—thirst of life in form to dwell,

    To touch, to taste, to smell, to hear, to view

This mother veil of matter, wrought so well

    And cunningly to make the false seem true—

                For want of you.

Before the gods or worlds it was. As Space,

    Parent invisible of forms, it threw

Its vast illusion over all Creation’s face.

    The heart of Being broke—the One made Two,

                For want of you.

The tide of life that ever godward flows

    Was forced to grope and hunger through

The rock, the plant, the beast and then it rose

    To man. Who more than dust-born Adam knew

                This want of you?

In Eve and Lilith’s lure, your sweet embrace

    Was still the Spirit’s veil that softly drew

Its primal beauty o’er the Pilgrim’s face.

    In Eden, Death was born to bring anew

                This want of you.

The witchery of moonlit nights, soft summer skies,

    Young birds in spring, sunlight or wind or dew;

All of earth, air or water or the fire that flies

    Like serpents’ tongues, eternally renew

                This want of you.

From Thee we come and back to Thee we go

    To rest and dream a little and undo

The tangled patterns of our lives that grow

    Beyond our strength to mend or make anew—

                Thro’ want of you.

O Mother Substance—soul and sense, in fine,

    Of God’s own thought, whence stars and atoms grew,

We call Thee Earth or Woman. Why not divine?

    Has God forgotten that He always knew

                This want of you?

I REFT my soul from out the strife of things.

  The self-forged fetters broken then set free

That which the ages fashioned, in the dark,

  And lo, a tired child’s face looked forth at me.

Curls tangled in a ghostly crown of thorns,

  Lips that knew not of laughter but of lies;

’Neath lashes dim with unshed tears, there slept

  The shadow of Golgotha in his eyes.

This man-made image of the Son in Heaven

  Was Death incarnate, not the radiant Life

That pulses in the stars thro’ endless aeons,

  Rising triumphant over pain and strife.

Small wonder that with pangs of hell re-born,

  Earth pays the debt and with its withering breath

Red war doth cleanse the nations, heavy laden,

  With Calvary’s cross—the harbinger of Death.

Memories dim of times remote and golden

  Gleaming like fire thro’ mists that veil the day,

Gods manifold there are and not forgotten.

  The flowerage of a fairer time were they.

To break the bondage barren faiths have builded,

  To show the splendour of the larger plan,

These greater Gods shall bring the old, new message—

  One name for Son of God and child of Man.

DOWN by the sea-beach, where the breeze

    Makes melodies mid lichened trees,

Of woodland haunts of flowers and bees,

    Murmuring its low love litanies,

I sit at eve and think what gain,

    What larger Life—surcease of pain,

Earth’s souls in sorrow could attain

    Were pain and pleasure one—not twain.

Round rocky point and lone gray isle,

    The lengthening shadows creep the while

Pan’s myriad moods in turn beguile

    My sated senses with their smile.

’Tis all a dream. And yet, O heart,

    Of this vast Whole thou art the Part!

“I am!” though sea and sky depart.

    Sunlit, the soul replies, “Thou Art!”

THE velvet magic of your lips’ caress

  Awoke the Self encased in soul and ran

Through throbbing veins, pouring their wine to bless

  The golden gift that makes a god of man.

In that supernal moment, golden, rare,

  A blossom on the thorny stem of Time,

The veil was lifted, leaving written there

  Before my eyes, the cosmic truth, sublime,

That Power and Love, twin-flames that twine

  And bind the broken circle of the years,

Are One, forever, in the plan Divine,

  Blending eternally our hopes and fears.

The bitter hours, the loneliness, the pain,

  The soul’s dark night, when on the mundane cross

Of matter broken, mortal strength seems vain

  To purge the spirit’s gold of earthly dross;

All these and more, transmuted, are the power

  To scale the heights and wrest the sacred fire

Prometheus stole from heaven, for an hour

  Immortal,—crown of all our heart’s desire.

’Twas not the Love, self-slain, bathed in tears

  Of blood, that hung on Calvary’s high hill;

Not sweat of slaves or fruit of cringing fears,

  Too weak for speech nor strong enough to kill.

Pure as the radiant breath of primal dawn

  When Love first blossomed and brought forth a world;

Strong as the warring hosts from heaven withdrawn

  And proud as they from high Olympus hurled,

This Love is Power, akashic, fiery force

  Whose rose-gold flame wreathes round Creation’s rim

The circle of infinity—its course

  Divine, omnipotent, till stars grow dim.

YOU will not dream? Self-centred in the mire

  And paltry dross of perishable clay,

Proud of your shame and pitiful desire

  To shun the message of the larger day

  That bids you be and spurn Illusion’s sway.

You will not dream? Nay, rather, purchase pain,

  Shadow of joy, with gold and blood as fee,

Building a prison for the soul, in vain

  Attempt to stem the surging, crimson sea

  Of primal life that wills you to be free.

You will not dream? Your unctuous priests have slain

  The song eternal welling in your heart,

Love, Fount of Life, no law can curb or chain,

  Is cursed, outcast, a thing unclean, apart,

  A chattel bound and sold in street or mart.

You will not dream? Can you not hear the tune

  Of tides eternal thunder in your ears

Nor know how, ever, led by sun or moon,

  The seasons sing the rhythm of the years—

  That Joy is stronger than our utmost fears?

You will not dream? Alas! then Love, the king,

  Destroyer of all fleeting forms that bind

The spirit’s splendour in the souls that sing

  Love’s ancient paean, slays your sons to find

  For them, in death, the freedom you declined.

You will not dream? Then withering fire shall flame

  Again to make you clean. The God of War

Shall claim more millions in the sacred name

  Of Her, the Queen, beneath whose bleeding star

  Earth’s bravest legions died on fields afar.

You will not dream? Then know what poets see,

  What sages teach and little children tell

The birds and flowers in play—that Love is free!

  And only it endures. Though systems fell

  The Spirit lives and Love and all is well.

THE Wanderer am I, outcast of the starry ways,

Self-doomed through devious infinite paths

And twice ten million human years to seek

That which is I. From mine own self divorced,

Desolate, I strive to find my heart’s desire.

Not in the radiant realms of bliss immutable,

Devoid of form that dims the spirit’s light

Shall I find Thee, mine own immortal Love.

The roseate splendour of that undimmed flame

Shed from the altar of the primal sacrifice

In matter’s mystic veil is clothed and hidden.

  Through ages vast, in myriad ways, I sought thy face.

In rocky adamant, in plant and beast and bird—

In rubies, blood from the gentle bosom of the Earth,

I found Thee prisoned for a passing age.

I felt Thee call me in the crimson rose. Curves

Tender folded thy beauty in a golden shrine.

Thy petalled lips were mine. Thy fragrance

Warm and sweet thrilled through my branches. Breezes,

Soft harbingers of love, wafted my gold to thee.

Thy lissome strength sprang forth, a leaping pard,

A red-gold flame that flashed through tropic glades.

I knew Thee then, beneath soft summer moons,

My royal mate, untamed and swift. Then came

The glorious hour when clay immortalized was Man—

Fit temple of the living God, and Spirit first

Was clothed in flesh. The cyclic fruit of Time

Stood naked, gleaming, white, a palace fair

With marbled columns, crowned with sculptured grace—

A glittering symbol of the starry worlds—

A Universe enthralled in mortal form—presage

Of futures dim and vast when Time shall cease.

  Thy beauty drew me, Wanderer, forth to find

Thee, waking or asleep. Life after life, my quest

On land and sea, in storm or strife was still to win

The golden gift thy hand alone can give—

The knowledge of mine own divine estate.

The lean, gray years, striving with shadowy things,

With phantom fears that poison soul and sense

Were all for Thee, God meshed in human form.

The virus priests have bred, the subtle skein

Of thought, philosophers have spun to tangle

Human flies, strove with Satanic force to bind me

Hand and feet—to veil thy glory from my hungry eyes.

Through perils vast, on land or sea, in worlds unseen,

My warrior soul sought ever for thy light.

  Time was, when wandering far from Thee,

In mystic lore, in parchment pale and dusty tomes,

In liturgies and cloistered cell, I lost my Self.

My soul was reft from me and pallid Gods

Were mine. Thy shrine was desecrate. Ashes gray

On thy altar quenched the roseate flame of life.

And yet, O flamen of the Gods of Greece, who built

The morning stars, placing a song forever in the heart

Of Pain, I know Thee now again, thy mysteries

Invite once more my worship. Red flames of passions past,

Embers in the ashes of dead loves and lives,

Leap from thine altar. The white, chaste marbles

Of the Temple glow with living light and Lo!

The Red Gods laugh and fling a wine-red rose

To Earth—Joy, Dionysian reigns re-born—

The New Age dawns and Love and Life are one.

  I, Wanderer, outcast of Fate, my goal draw nigh

And know Myself in knowing Love and Thee.

ROSES, red roses, from the deep, warm breast

  Of Her, whose progeny in Space and Time

Are one with us, Her children,—latest, best

  And fairest fruitage of her prime—

Within thy chaliced heart there glows

  The crimson tide of Life. The wine

Of youth, eternal, welling, flows

  O’er thy curved rim, incarnadine.

The fragrance of Her tresses, sweet

  As tender breezes that o’erflow

The sun-kissed hills at dawn, and meet

  And whisper love to buds that blow;

A pulsing flame—a sky that burns—

  A sun-god’s pyre and altar blent,

Veiled by thy velvet breast that yearns

  To spill its gold and be content;

The music of soft rains that beat

  With pattering fingers on our doors,

In gusty, flying showers, replete

  With memories of the wind-swept moors;

Of tender flesh, the keen, sweet tang;

  Of fruitful earth, the warm embrace

That lured the lusty vine which sprang

  To bear aloft thy virile grace—

Roses, red roses, jewelled Grails of Love

  And Sex—mysterious and more divine

Thy symbols shine on high above

  The lilies pale on Mary’s shrine.

The rich, red torrent of thy life made bold

  Since Time began, the hearts of men

To sing of freedom and of joys untold—

  Inspired in turn the voice and pen

Of those who know that Love is Power

  And Power is Love, beyond the reach

Of mortal minds that halt and cower

  Before the truths thy roses teach.

And yet, thy fire is in the bard

  Who sings of love or ruthless strife.

Thy flame is in the hearts that guard

  The spirit’s growth from life to life

Till forms shall fade and systems rest.

  The rhythm of thy magic pulse is stilled.

Still flames thy symbol on the breast

  Of Isis, Ishtar—mother, matter filled.

The snow-white wonder of Her form divine,

  Stretched cruciform with upturned face,

Awaits with radiant joy the coming sign

  Of Him, Creation’s Lord, in Time and Space.

Her eyes, eternal wells of loving light,

  The Beauty dread and high which Gods can know—

And lo—within Her mighty heart, for Him, enshrined

    Roses, red roses ever-blooming glow.

A PLACE of dreams—a sun-drenched slope,

Clothed fair with tawny grasses, met

The waters of a strait which ran

Between me and the mountain-wall which lay

A rugged rampart of our Chosen Land.

Framed by the sinuous line of sea and sky,

Slim firs, lean sentinels drowsed in the glare

Of noon, while whispering winds crept stealthily

About. But all was silence saving where

The pirate bees, on pillage bent, were caught

Within the golden tangle of the broom.

A place of dreams! High hopes without despair,

And gleams of life, unmarred by pain, beauty

Above all forms, the living light of Truth,

Made manifest to eyes not sealed by doubt and fear

Lived here in mute expectancy. Dewfall and moonrise,

Dawn and noon-day’s beams evoked no voice

To body forth the soul of this, their child.

A place of dreams! ’Tis man’s sole gift, divine,

To mould the form, to carve with lightning thought

An image to enshrine the spirit’s flame and give

To Truth and Beauty shape in space and time.

Mayhap a leaf slid down to nestle in the grass.

Perchance a spirit stooped to whisper as he passed:

“Live on as if each moment were thy last.

What we have given thee to know of Love’s

Swift fire is as a spark of that great flame

Which lights the worlds. The shadows are thine own.

To Know is well. Hast thou the Will to cleave

Thy way clear to the heart of God and Dare

To live within the splendour of this love?”

O place of dreams! The voice, a windswept shadow,

Passed. But in my heart enshrined

Remains the vision of the days to be.

The sun-lit sanctuary waits. Life calls for Love

To fill his days. The answer lies with thee.

SPIRIT of Beauty, I have seen thy face

And lived to tell of it—anon,

The rapture of thy warm embrace has struck

Through every vein its hidden fire and thrilled

Like wandering music every chord of life,

Till, like a wind-blown lyre its symphony

Was one with Nature’s and the heart of God.

Soft bloom of summer morns, whose smile

Breaks through the mist and grows

To laughter as the day spring floods the hills

With light—the fragrance of all roses, which

Have bloomed, in gardens old, for sweet Love’s sake—

The gleam of waters under star-lit skies, that fling

Like largesse all their wealth of jewels on high

To watch them fall in broken lights below—

The yearning touch of earth in spring—the clean, sharp

Tang of leaf and bud, filled with the season’s urge

To bear, in time, fulfilment—fruit and flower—

All that quick, wistful wonder that the questing soul

Feels pulsing through the world of sense—

The hidden magic at the heart of things—

All this and more are bodied in thy form,

Limned in thy features and inwrought

Into the shrine wherein thy godhead dwells.

Yet these are but the vestures of thy soul—

The clouds which veil and half reveal thy light

As those, shell-tinted, which enfold the moon

In iridescent robes. The ray that fell from darkness

Through the primal void, kindling the morning stars,

Was one with Thee. The pure, cold flame

Of deathless will glows in thy wondrous eyes.

He who has gazed into their depths will go

Forth strong to conquer. He who has heard

Thy laughter knows the primal sound

Of limitless desire that burgeoned forth

In sun and stars—the radiant flower of life.

But he, who for an hour hath held thee close

Will know himself a God—immortal as the Love

Which gave thee birth.

NOT from the mind—that clips the wings of fire

    Whereon we reach the empyreal height

    Where Will and Wisdom’s blended light

Burn clear and pure as that first, great Desire,

The mighty breath which swept Apollo’s lyre—

    Came aught to aid us in the maze

    Of pain and joy which lures and oft betrays

Our eager hearts in their swift, questing flight.

Only when Love transcendent o’er the strife

    Of lesser lights, shone clear—a guiding star,

    Resplendent with the larger hope, afar—

Did Gladness freely bloom—a Rose of Life,

    Sunlit—the sweet, clean breath of morn

    Stole softly in to greet our Joy, re-born.

DOUBT not that if Love held you close

    And you gazed deep into His eyes,

Some flower would blossom as the rose

    Unfolds beneath blue summer skies.

    Doubt not—be wise.

This pale, gray anchorite who treads

    Through cloistered ways with eyes downcast,

Lacks will to rise where passion spreads

    Broad wings to meet the tempest’s blast,

    Till storms are past.

Summer and roses meet to tune

    Life’s harp to sound a nobler strain.

Fear not—you heard this ageless rune

    Long since, when Joy had conquered Pain.

    Fear not again.

Gods from high heaven stooped to hold

    A rose no rarer than the one we share.

Why then seek heaven which Gods have sold

    To seek Love’s face and found it fair?

    ’Twas here—not there.

Love lingers not where clouds are gray,

    Nor brooks delay but onward flies.

Roses are born with each new day

    To greet the sun ’neath warmer skies.

    Doubt not—be wise.

YOU ask me why I need you, dear?

  Why Love’s lone star must flame through skies

To lead Life’s pilgrim feet—at last—

  To where the cradled First-born lies?

To stem the bitter tide of years,

  Transmuting human dross to bright

Gold, clean as primal fire that burned

  On God’s own altar through the Night;

To bear within one’s heart the wounds

  Of shackled millions, who, in this world’s sty

Trample their leaders in the rout

  Nor know the love they daily crucify;

To live in every prisoned pain, to bear the blows

  Of those loved hands that are our very own;

To dwell with Darkness in the outer courts

  And dare its legions to the fight alone—

This guerdon brought my days and laid

  It in my path, already strown

With thorns my own hands planted in the past—

  A barren way where never rose had blown.

And if God lived, I ceased to care.

  His image marred I only saw.

And Death’s gray shadow crept apace.

  Yet still I trusted in the Law

Of equipoise—that somewhere Joy

  Clasped hands with Pain, and Life, complete,

Stood victor crowned—his shadow, Death,

  A captive bound beneath his feet.

Your hand touched mine. My soul saw God,

  The dark was cleft by living light

That leaped from eyes which answered mine

  As beacons on the hills of night.

Mysterious symbol of a truth divine,

  That Life is Love and both in man

Are all of God that we can know

  Or need to know of that great plan

Where orbèd angels fill the deeps of space

  With larger lights than those that shine

Upon me from your eyes, where burns

  The love-flame that is all divine.

You are to me the one sure sign

  That God is Love. My cross is light,

If through its shadows I can feel

  Your lips on mine before I face the night.

SO slight the veil ’twixt Then and Now,

A tress of silken hair flung back

Was magic subtle as a yogin’s will.

We rode, together, in those days long passed,

Adown cool pathways, in an ancient wood.

The moss, sun-flecked, about your palfrey’s hooves,

Broke like the foam before an elfin keel.

Wrapt in the silence of a summer noon

The forest slept and we, ringed round, enthralled,

Each by the other’s nearness, held no speech

Save what was meet of weather, play,

The jousts and balls. For you were Queen and I

Your knight, who dared to hold you in my heart.

A wind arose which rippled through the leaves

Like rain. Sunlight and shadow merged and raced

In fragments o’er the surface of my dream,

As waves dissolving in some mountain lake

The mirrored beauty of the circling shore.

Darkness, hot, palpitant with strife and sound,

Succeeded. Cloud wracks of struggling forms,

Banners and torches, with the glint of steel,

Like firelight on the marbled walls within

A kingly hall, startled my soul, which knew

Itself and glared through damp and tangled locks,

Gripping with bleeding hands a broken sword,

As backward borne by the wild rout, I stood

At bay beneath a stair which wound aloft.

Again the vision broke and passed. Methought

I slept—but lightly—for a sudden, errant wind

Touched with a cold caress my brow. I saw

Myself beneath the stars, upon a hill. Afar

The sky shone red above a blazing citadel,

Whose strong towers fell like Titans cast

From Heaven, in flames, defiant of the night

Which whelmed them. Again the night wind stirred

And blew a silken tress across my eyes.

The quick breath drawn was held—lest blood

Which sang or beating heart awake the Queen,

Who slept.

O SOUL, what hast thou seen,

  In those enchanted lands

  Where strewn by elfin hands,

And where man’s foot hath seldom been,

The foam-flowers dance and pixies play

  Upon the golden sands?

Proserpine’s host hold nightly sway

Beneath the moonlight’s silvery ray.

The night world and its shades obey

  Their lightning-like commands.

A Dryad walked with me.

  Her white form gleamed among

  The gray-green moss which clung,

A silken web from waist to knee.

Diaphanous, golden-brown, her unbound hair,

  A misty splendour, hung

O’er carven shoulders, glistening fair

As marble. Twin breast-flowers blossomed where

Her tangled tresses veiled her beauty, rare

  As Love when Earth was young.

Scarce could my feet keep pace,

  As through the forest glade,

  She flitted like a shade

Or shaft of moonlight. Nor could I trace

Her slim, young form at times. Trees drew

  And hid her, as she played.

Her white feet, twinkling, living things,

Like merry moonbeams seemed or wings

Of wood doves. Music, soft as hidden springs,

  Her gentle footfalls made.

Her little hand touched mine;

  Warm as a rose-bud, curled,

  With tender petals furled,

Flower-soft, it lay. A light divine

That moment made my whole heart kin

  With all the round, green world.

I knew no more of guilt and sin

Or loves we lose our lives to win;

Nor Pain nor Death could enter in.

  The forest round us swirled——

And shapes grew gray and dim.

  A great wind filled the wood.

  I, gazing where she stood,

Saw every quivering limb

Grow rosy red. A fierce joy shone

  Within her eyes nor could

Their lashes hide the wondrous dawn

Of an unwanted tender light. Anon,

The mists swept in and half withdrawn,

  She seemed with fear imbued.

Who taught the fairy folk

  To fear our mortal ways?

  Their joy in life allays

All hint of pain or loss. Fear broke

My dream. To pierce the deepening night,

  In vain my eager gaze.

The winds died down. The moon’s white light

Revealed no trace of her swift flight.

An oak, with dewy pearls bedight,

  Stood glimmering in the haze.

SILENCE in depth as infinite

    As dreams beyond the sense of time,

Flowering like words, divine, in light

    Which clothes in form His thought sublime,

Palpitant, imminent, enwraps thy fane,

Where stars are born and sunsets wane.

Strange echoes from thy gray, scarred face,

   Steal like a perfume of the past,

Through heart and brain. Nor can we trace

   The mysteries in thy scroll sealed fast.

Locked in thy adamantine soul they lie,

Scenes lived beneath some softer, alien sky.

These wheeling systems o’er thy mountain rim,

    Winged messengers, in each flaming sign,

Sang, in earth’s morn, the self-same hymn,

    Hailing the risen Sun as Light divine,

Great Pagan Lover of the sons of song,

Light-bringer, Comrade of the free and strong.

For when thy starry altar lights were dimmed,

    By this, the Sun-god’s breath of fire,

A pact renewed on thy worn scarp was limned

    Stronger than death and deep as that desire

Which waked the worlds from their aeonian sleep,

Thrilling as laughter through the virgin deep.

Great gods and loving, let thy red dawns light

    Our ancient faith—thy clean winds rend

The sordid rags of self—arm for unending fight

    Our souls downcast and all wills bend

To love as passionately pure and shining white,

As snows eternal on thine altar’s height.

COMRADE, without whom, incomplete,

  Life seeks to mount with crippled wings

Where all the shining pathways meet

  Of souls re-born to greater things,

Fear not. The gods, whose voice, in golden light,

Called you to worship on their altar’s height

  Are close at hand.

Like moonlight on half-hidden streams,

  The memories of their ancient fanes

Flash through the vistaed aisle of dreams.

  Flower-scented winds breathe sweeter strains

Than hymns of the pale Nazarene,

Where from gilt shrines His lilies lean

  To cloy the soul.

Although they deem us mad who hear

  The undines’ laughter in the rills—

White-breasted nymphs, whose love notes clear

  Call from a thousand pine-clad hills

To lure men from the withering curse of shame

In their own manhood and re-light the flame

  Of life divine,

We hold our faith, stronger than death or gray

  Ghosts, born of fear, miasmic as the mind

Of sexless anchorites, who dare not face the day.

  Knowing, we face the sun nor heed what shadows blind

Souls poisoned by the serpent kiss of sin.

Heart-free, we worship at the shrine wherein

  Our god-head dwells.

I STOOD last night in a garden old,

  ’Neath an ivied tower, when the moon was high.

Three men were we,—our names untold,—

  But one at heart, should we live or die.

Through the starlit night we had ridden far.

  Our swords were red, but the deed was done.

At a queen’s behest we had stayed a war,

  By a message brought ere the set of sun.

Soldiers of fortune and comrades three,

  We had held high stakes in the game of life.

For love and beauty, not fame or gold,

  We had risked our all in that midnight strife.

Our whispered words scarce stirred a leaf

  Of the ivy draped o’er the latticed pane,—

“She sleeps and her heart is wrung with grief,

  O’er her kingdom lost”—but our words were vain.

A beam of light o’er the balustrade,

  Shot through the dark, like a shaft of dawn—

A flutter of lace our whispers stayed—

  Three hearts beat high. Three swords were drawn,

And flashed, blue-lit, by the moonlight’s glare,

  Crossed overhead—a salute of steel.

Three plumed hats doffed—our heads were bare—

  “The Queen!”—we waited but did not kneel.

No word was said but a rose, dropped down,

  Fell at my feet as my comrades two,

With bowed heads, passed—and without a crown,

  I was king for a night, if the dream were true.

HAD we been friends would starlit eyes meet mine,

Or roses bloom where winter’s frost had paled?

Would sunlight love to banish from your hair

The silvery ghosts which mark the passing years?

The urge of Life’s insistent tide rose high,

Swept Death’s gray legions from the field,

And Love triumphant wrapt you in that hour

To heights where dwell the immortal gods,

Their youth eternal as the aeons vast.

Then why, Dear Heart of mine, court death?

Why fear that this small stagnant pool

Which men call life shall merge into the sea—

Lost in the shoreless waters of eternity?

OUR prow, receding from the quay, passed through

The tremulous, golden colonnade the shore-lights cast

Within the water’s murky depths. So might a stately

Barge, a part of some great sea-king’s carnival,

Pass through a pillared entrance wrought from woodland

Flowers and phosphorescent fire of southern seas.

  Before us lay the silver strait, now veiled

By gathering mists; behind, tier upon glittering tier,

The city’s lights rose upward from the shore

As if these constellations sought to merge with those

Which gemmed the twilight o’er the mountains’ rim.

  Silent we sat, folded within our dream,

Watching the pageant of the night’s advance

Pass o’er the enchanted land, where, hand in hand,

We wandered through the summer day. Within

The shadow of the cabin’s wall our forms stayed

Motionless, while we, led by Love’s hand, yet unaware,

Moved to the consummation of our hearts’ desire,

One with the strength and beauty of the hills.

FROM heights empyreal hurled I turn

  And strive in darkness, to discern the light

That shines in those brief hours which burn,

  White-lit by Love’s compelling might.

Faint through the shadows comes your voice

  But not the same—not wholly mine.

The smaller world has claimed you—I alone

  Press onward in the quest divine.

Thy gift bears fruit. The furrows sere

  Burgeon for days with golden grain.

Life’s song strikes through each vibrant chord

  And for a space Joy masters Pain.

Strange faces throng about me. Hollow hands

  Make plaint. The world’s need fills the hours

Which once were willing captives bound

  By silken chains and garlanded with flowers.

I will not wait. Why should I lie impaled

  On rocks, sharp-edged as my desires—

Broken by waves of this resurgent sea

  Of Life—laved in its secret fires?

I will not wait, nor fold my hands serene.

  “My own will come.” Yes, when my sovran will

Shall draw it from the dark embrace

  Of slow, remorseless fates that kill

The song within man’s heart and still

  The voice which bids him search the sky

For heavens to match the glory of his dreams.

  All hells and heavens within me lie.

Why wait—a cringing slave of shibboleths,

  Standing supine with downcast eyes,

Till shadows deepen and the heights are veiled?

  Wait? Nay—grasp as a sword thy will and rise.

“All will be well,” I hear you say.

  So said the priest, our ancient foe,

And said, “God lives on high.” He lied.

  All will be well when We have made it so.

“Strength will be given.” Again the knell

  To orisons and bended knee. The Gods

Without are deaf. For well I know

  That I alone am God. The rods

That scourge are mine. The goal is mine.

  I am the Path—who treads as one with me

Its thorns shall see its roses blow.

  Come then my Soul—I will you to be free!

“THEY are not dead, the young, strong Gods

  Who held our love in fee,

When Life through all our pulses sang

  The paean of the free?”

  So sang the strong, sweet Comrade, in my heart,

Whose garnered wisdom is the flower of lives

And fruitage fair of tears and joys long past.

That elder Self brought memories multiform

With morning’s light, when, in a saffron sky,

One lone, last star kept watch on high

O’er woods tumultuous with the winds of night.

Lean hands were stretched to bar my way

In through the temple doors. My soul alarmed

Looked to the fastenings of her house of clay

Nor willed to spoil the splendour of her dream,

Whose glory dimmed the light of day, now cast,

Like largesse, o’er the waking world of men.

A gleam of that high vision lingered still

Throughout the passing hours that haply bore

Their freight of common cares and joys.

But no wind thrilled a trembling flower,

And no bird gave his heart in song;

No cloudlet threw a wandering, playful shade

O’er grassy waves that ever rippling, run

In curving lines o’er fields and meadows green,

But held a portent sweet and strange—

A sign that some young God was there.

  And still my Comrade whispered, “Lo!

“They are not dead—though altar smoke

  No longer rises in the glade.

Their fanes are builded in the hearts

  Which feel the beauty they have made.”

  I wandered where the church spires point

Their thin, gaunt fingers to a God so high

That He is hidden from the hungry eyes,

Which seek His light, where heavenly light is none.

Within stone walls where Darkness only dwells,

A voice of those who wailed of sin and love

Called lust, to Christ, who, broken, idly swayed

Outstretched above his living dead who kneeled

In serried rows, was borne through arched doors.

A chill, gray fog, that froze both heart and brain,

Gave body to that sound. Fear gripped my soul,

When, lo!—the Comrade, by my side, who said,

“They are not dead! for Life is Joy,

  Though shadows round it play.

Sing—for the soul of things is clean

  And the gray Gods fear the Day.”

My soul was fain to leave the marts of men

And temples, where the soul grows blind and faint

For lack of food; where Truth is ever on a cross,

Built by the hands outstretched to Him in prayer;

Where fawning crowds are fed on husks and strut

In purple, dyed with tears and blood of men;

Where Love, an outcast, wanders in the streets,

Because, forsooth, she will not sell her soul

For a priest’s hire to bless a marriage ring;

Where children kneel for justice and mothers

Hide, beneath a cloak of shame, the gift,

Divine, that Love’s own hand hath wrought.

I wandered far to where a spit of land outflung

A slender arm, as if to clasp and hold

The bright-haired Nereids, and the sun-drenched waves

Crooned sleepily their song to ease my hurt.

Straight from my feet to that far, fiery heart

Of Being—that God, whose radiant breath

Is life to all the world, a pathway burned,

Inlaid with tracery of rainbow hues. The way

Was strown with foam-flowers, roses born to crown

Our Queen of Love, long since, in Paphian bays.

The vision came—that inner voice was raised

In trumpet tones that mingled with the seas,

“They are not dead—the glad, red Gods

  Call from the earth and sky!

Light casts a shade. The shadows pass.

  Sing—for the dawn is nigh.”

IN the garden of my soul, a still retreat,

  Bowered by a screen arboreal, hung

With tapestries of flower and leaf, complete

  With the awed silence of eternity among

The wheeling vortices of systems, manifold,

Draws me at times within its secret hold.

Here dwell no shadows of the outer world;

  No voice discordant in this place has sound;

No serpent lurks beneath the rose unfurled;

  No lips pour venom in the hidden wound.

Life’s harp, re-tuned, breathes, freed from strife,

Harmonious echoes of a larger life.

Here there is light when darkness, like a shroud,

  Is drawn across the mirrored space

’Twixt birth and death. Nor can the proud,

  Impassioned heart find in a human face

One kindred ray which knows that Love is all,

And only lives though lives as dead leaves fall.

Through paths once brilliant with the light of day—

  Now a dim labyrinth of the soul,—apart,

Staggering, I beat my breathless way

  With bleeding hands to this one haven of the heart,

This place of peace, where dwells that Elder One,

Ancient of Days, whose place is in the sun.

Alone, within the shrine, I ease my pain,

  Spent with the struggle. Unseen hands

Draw with light touch the fever from my veins;

  Felt but not seen, a Presence o’er me stands.

Love whispers, “Till the worlds grow cold,

Lo—I am with you and My arms enfold.”

WHEN I, the wind, have borne you in my flight

  On swift wings stronger than the mad desire

Of cloud-wracks battling to obscure the height

  Whose snow-white summit, tipped with fire,

Is herald of the dawn within your eyes,

        Of Love’s soft light,

The torrent of my breath is curbed and dies,

  A whispered cadence on the edge of night.

When I, the rain, have swept your circling snows

  Down dark ravines and tortuous, riven ways

To gleam in sapphire spray where, flushed with rose,

  The cataract spills its wealth through golden days,

Touching with magic wand the parched dust,

        My largesse flows

To glad men’s hearts, my riches spent, song hushed,

  I softly fall, as dew, at evening’s close.

When I, the sun, have driven through each vein

  My molten fire, have thrilled to vibrant life

The embers of your high resolve to gain,

  And hold the visioned beauty ’neath the strife

Of light and shade, my cleansing flame will cleave

        Through heart and brain—

Yet in my last, long ray at nightfall leave

  A kiss, flower soft, upon the heart of pain.

O sad, brown earth, if I with strength triune,

  Wind, rain and sun, had loved you not, indeed,

No lure of spring had brought the plenilune

  Of summer noons; no flower had come to seed;

No scarlet splendour robed your autumn hills—

        Your witching rune

Which weaves its magic round my heart and fills

  My soul with song were stilled too soon.

WE, earth’s youngest, sons of morning,

    Chant loud our paean of the days to be.

Our daystar risen with us, as a warning,

    Bids souls rejoice—Our swords make free.

Deep calls to deep and nation calls to nation;

The centuries tremble at our exultation;

    Our red dawn lightens sky and sea.

Woven of dreams and dead they thought us,

    Who feared our ancient might and fire,

Which shone where gods, our leaders, taught us,

    Man may to their estate aspire.

Time held us captive and our light was hidden

From all men’s eyes but still unbidden,

    We were the flamens of a world’s desire.

Conquered they called us and our words were treasons.

    God was to witness that our day was done.

Nor knew they how the cycles shift or seasons

    Bring spring again to banish winter’s sun.

Prison and gibbet, stake and sword availed not

Nor curses veiled as prayers prevailed not.

    Through myriad lives our way is won.

Life’s rich, red wine we pour to lighten

    Souls darkened by the sense of sin.

Roses we plant the paths of men to brighten,

    Where languorous lilies pale had been,

And chancelled aisles resound with songs forbidden.

Hearts dead revive and joy, in cerements hidden,

    Springs forth to greet us ere the days begin.

When soul shall wed the sense of things and leaven

    Earth with the essence of the flame divine,

Life’s harmony complete—the mystic seven

    Full-throated strings, with chant sublime,

Shall build another tower, on Shinar founded,

Eternal, on the square deific, grounded,

    Secure, inviolate on that ancient sign.

THY love is round me as a wall,

Embattled by the days we both have known,

Rapt from this iron age and stress of Fate,

Gilded by dreams—cemented by the faith,

Stronger than time or death, that Love

Must win at last—that no rose bloomed in vain

But left some soul the richer for its birth.

Without these ramparts throng the winged hosts

Of little lusts, ignoble thoughts and worthless deeds—

Blind waves of seas o’erpast, which beat

In helpless fury at the gates of life.

Finding no entrance there, like withered leaves

Seared by the crystal splendour of your love

They drift and falling, mingle with their clay.

Within, with folded wings, brood memories,

More holy than the dawn of earth’s first day—

For Love was, ere the worlds came forth—

Strong-pinioned hopes there too abide,

Patient but watchful of the hour to come

When Life shall crown them and thy soul be free.

BENEATH the chaste, white radiance of thy veil,

  Rose-tinted mysteries and slumbering flames

Gleam hotly, through thick mists which, pale

  At first, are flushed with amethystine hues,

  Subtle as sunshine through the morning dews.

Was it a memory or a dream which wrought

  This story visioned in thy clouded depths?

Some magic curtain lifted and I caught,

  From out the moonlit space, a startled cry—

  The flash of white-winged feet across the sky,

And Iris, loveliest of all the immortal throng,

  Fled, like a cloud, before an angry wind.

In close pursuit, some red god, strong,

  A falcon from the shining lands above,

  Sped like a thought, on vibrant wings of love.

Poised, for an instant, then, she stayed her flight

  O’er the abysmal deep. The god’s arm held

Her fast. Joy conquered fear. Her light

  Form vanished, leaving undone the deed he planned.

  Her soul alone remained—a tear-drop in his hand,

Which slipped and fell, a silvery thread of light,

  Piercing the blackness of that sheer abyss.

Long ages passed. Time in its ceaseless flight

  Cooled the primeval fires. Then man and maid

  Walked in the gardens where the gods had played.

To deck the carven shoulders of some dusky queen,

  Men searched for jewels. Their quest led where

Mid black-ribbed rocks and folds of serpentine,

  An opal lay and held, by them unknown,

  The rainbow’s spirit prisoned in a stone.

HARP of the spirit, through whose slender frame

  Flows all the harmony of star and sun,

Beating upon thy silvern strings as flame,

  Blending the minor chords of self in one

            Sweet song of life—

Footsteps of dreams fall not so soft upon

  The ear, when thro’ the glimmering doors of sleep

We pass into the Unknown. Breath of summer dawn

  Flushing the sombre features of the deep

            With lambent gold,

Steals not so gently o’er the sense as when

  A slight touch wakes thy soul which thrills

To beauty, as the illumined hearts of men

  Are flooded by the light divine which stills

            Their quest for God.

Grant me a master’s hand—a touch so light,

  The harp alone may sense my soft caress

And whisper low love litanies of pure delight,

  The secrets lovers only know and may confess

            To naught save one.

Grant me a master’s hand that I may sweep

  The sevenfold gamut of thy mystery

To swell the chorus of the souls from sleep

  Awakened—triumphal paean of the deathless free

            Who know not fear.

    FAIR immortelle,

    Flower of the gods,

I hold you tenderly for fear

    A sunbeam snatch your soul

Away and leave me standing here

        Wistful—alone.

    In some far land

    Love gave you birth,

And now, within our coarser air,

    Unless Love watch you night and day

You languish—lose your perfume rare,

        Droop low and die.

    Within my heart,

    No chilling wind

May blight your beauty, no swift gleam

    Of passion’s lightning cut the silver cord

’Twixt heaven and earth and this my dream

        End in a sigh.

    Love, let us guard

    This flower of life,

Lest here on earth it bloom no more

    For us but in some brighter sphere

May mock us as a wandering flame before

        Our tear-dimmed eyes.

WITH head bowed low and silently, I stand

  Before the pure, white splendour of your love

As if a presence from the shining Deva land

  Had paused a moment in her flight above

Our lonely star and dipt, with wings alight,

To earth, blazing a trail of glory through the night.

So, in my youth, when passion’s tide rose high

  And burned like molten lightning in my veins,

I stood, bare-browed, beneath a pulsing, sunlit sky—

  Stretched my two arms in agony. To ease my pain,

Earth breathed her fragrance and her beauty wrought

A miracle of peace, calm as an angel’s thought.

The earth gods smiled, when, lying on the breast

  Of Mother Earth, I swooned—entwined

My fingers in her tresses green and pressed

  My heart to hers—drank her sweet breath, and blind

With ecstasy, I sought with fevered, groping hands,

To free my soul, enchained with verdant bands.

Nor was there less of ardour in the mood,

  When, by the swinging censer’s misty beams,

I sought the carven face of Christ, who stood

  The long lost Avatar of ageless dreams,

Pale, passionately pure as ancient snow-crowned heights

Faint flushed by dawn’s first, trembling lights.

Hurled by that urge titanic through the planes

  Of sentient Being, beyond the abyss of space,

Sheer to the heart of life, I sought the One who reigns

  Within the silence, there, above the changing race

Of gods, the Self, whose shadows are our nights and days,

Whose light is darkness—we His far-flung, broken rays.

And now, again, I see the face of Love divine

  In yours. The flame which, wing-like, rose to blend

My spirit with its source, your soul and mine

  Binds with its fiery circlet. No prayer ascends

More sacred than this swift and deep desire

  To light Love’s torch with passion’s primal fire.

WHAT is this love?—this great heart hunger like

A hurtling sea welling for ever in the bounds

Of my own universe, whose tide-rip sweeps

Resistless through each tributary vein and breaks

In baffled agony on the cruel rocks of circumstance?

Receding, with sullen urge, in monotones,

Chanting the battle-song of life, it flows

Back to the centre of my being, whence it came.

In the dim caverns of my soul it bides and broods,

As wistful pain and god-like discontent.

  If, by some art divine, my soul could gain and hold

The freedom of the universe, would this suffice?

If in its father star that soul were merged,

If like a mist of dreams this solid flesh,

This round green earth, had faded in the night,

Which is no darkness but the light divine

Of truth eternal, would then this heartache cease?

  Nay—for if love within the smaller round

Is one with life, then in the larger heart

Of cosmos must that law be imminent—

Divine diastole which peoples virgin fields

With starry multitudes—receptacles of Love—

Ministrants of the flame of life which lights

The myriad sparks that fill the depths of space.

  Hold, then, thy chalice to my lips, O Love,

And I will drain its bitter dregs and sweet

Elation to the lees. Beauty divine beyond the ken

Of mortal sense will blossom as a rose

Within the labyrinth of thy circling thorns.

The one sure haven from the battling storms

Must be thine arms, since losing faith in thee

Then God is not and life a foolish dream

Spawned in the brain of some delirious Bacchanal.

UP through the mass, seething, inchoate,

Whirled by blind winds of destiny

From rim to rim of earth’s horizon,

Out of the darkness rising, like plummets dropping

Into the abyss of nothingness—

Up through these forms of clay, who see the stars

Reflected in the muddy pools of self,

On wings of dreams, woven of sounds which haunt

The silences beyond our utmost thought,

We rise to know ourselves possessors of the hand

We strove to clasp and which throughout the gloom

Led us, unseen but felt, to meet the light.

“For ye shall be as gods!” The universe a song

Within our hearts, the word creative on our lips

Shall cleave as lightning through the unpeopled space.

The torrent of our swift desire shall build

New worlds to wander through the mazes of our mind

Until our hour of sleep when all shall cease.

“For ye shall be as gods!” These smaller selves shall be

Trodden as worms beneath the foot of Love

So vast that there is no more mine or thine,

Nor good nor ill, but only One Sublime Reality

Within whose mighty hand is held aloft

The candelabra of the stars and suns.

As Gods! And yet what price is this

To pay? Our heart strings rent in twain;

Sweet uses of a human love denied;

The scented chalice of the earth down-flung,

Among the shards, we build our temples

Without hands or noise of them who toil.

Seeking a changeless love, beyond, beneath

The form, we miss the eternal truth

That man is god—that when two hearts attuned are one,

The Word is flesh and all of heaven glows

Within the crucible of earthly form.

We are as gods!

ASTRAL bells, ringing through the recesses of my brain—

Always, I hear the eternal, questing wail

Of humanity in travail. Disguised

As the search for happiness, I hear the murmur

Of human flies caught in illusion’s web.

Beneath the staccato notes of syncopation,

Lurking in the laughter of painted women,

Hushed in the eyes of successful men,

In the undertones of the city’s maelstrom,—

Everywhere present, insistent as life, terrible as death,

I hear this plaint of myriads groping

Through a labyrinth of shadows.

 . . . . . . . . . . .

Yet—it was but yesterday—a voice,

Exultant, vibrant with wonderment and joy,

Met my ear. The questing cry which haunted me

Was stilled. What had he found—this man,

Whose voice spelled peace and victory?

His whispered secret is no secret now.

“Last night, I worshipped at a holier fane

Than temples built by human hands. Within

The white enchantment of Love’s arms

My quest was ended.—God and I were one.”

STAR of my soul, whose beacon light

  Shines clear across Life’s stormy sea,

Though tempests thunder through the night

  And day seems far, I turn to thee!

Within my heart, a lambent flame,

  Life’s torch, love-lit, to answer thine,

Burns day and night and will reclaim

  My kingdom and my right divine

To know my very self—to stand

  Beyond illusions, in the light

Ineffable, where God’s own hand

  Dispels all shadows from my sight.

The long reeds shiver as the night

  Wind sweeps along the ancient Nile.

Long since, it trembled with delight

  To kiss thy cheek, in Karnak’s pile.

Thy starlight flamed through eyes again

  Which met my own through laurel boughs,

That screened the gleaming, marbled fane

  Where gods smiled nightly on our vows.

Thy roseate ray shone faint and dim

  Beneath a cloak of sombre due.

Love, outcast, heard thy prayer and hymn,

  In cloistered aisles, beyond his view.

Now, breaking through the gloom of skies,

  Storm-swept, I catch thy radiant gleam.

The proud, sweet passion of thine ageless eyes

  Lights all my days and shines through every dream.

As flame meets flame, or lightning’s chain

  Binds earth to heaven, sky to sea,

Love blends our light. No more, in vain,

  Star of my soul, I turn to thee!

FRAGILE and fair as those ethereal shapes,

We mould in dreams, a thought may break;

I scarce dare breathe thy name for fear

The vision pass and leave me in the dark.

And yet, I saw a great tree stand

Desolate and broken by the winter storms.

Beneath, the melting snows revealed a strip

Of cold, brown earth, whereon there bloomed

A flower of spring—its golden cup upheld

Unscathed—strong in its very tenderness.

What God, by his own ecstasy inspired,

Wrought this fair temple for the soul,

Imprisoning light within this slender vase,

As vintage meet to slake a thirst divine?

Thy lithe, sweet body as a crystal, glows

With Life’s own joy and tinted as the light,

Etheric film that veils a new-born rose.

Only when life’s red wine is touched by Love,

Within this cup it burns, a clear, white flame,

Fusing in god-rapt splendour, soul and flesh.

Fragrance distilled from mossy, woodland glades,

Where filtered sunshine drips through verdurous ways,

Flows from thy presence as the radiant Breath

That thrilled through Space, enkindling stars and sun.

Soft magic of the heart’s desire, I feel the fall

Of that light step ere yet thy face is seen,

Send smothered lightnings through my every vein.

All that sweet glamour of the Pan life felt

In Dryad-haunted groves where murmurous waters

Croon their ancient songs of forest love

’Twixt tangled, scented roots and mosses green—

All this and more is in thy voice!

These strange powers blent within

This crucible of airy form,

With Love and Will—the spirit’s ray—

Make Beauty one with Strength—

Fit dwelling for the God that is to be!

BODY and soul and spirit—triune mystery—

    Earth, moon, and sun of my delight,

I love you as God loved his worlds,

    Brought into being from the primal night.

No less the temple than the soul enshrined

    Draws me an acolyte without its gate

To worship beauty which is more divine

    Made manifest by time and wingèd fate.

In the soft labyrinth of your hair entwined

    Sense rapt in ecstasy lies bound,

As one who roams Elysian meads,

    Fettered by fragrance and with roses crowned.

One touch of your white hand holds all

    Of earth’s rich consciousness of life,

Forever welling in the urge of spring—

    Mating and blossoming in eternal strife.

Your lithe, sweet grace, your voice, your eyes

    Are magic which the earth gods know.

The world is good and sweet this earth—

    Myself a god—I love you so.

The temple fades—earth’s roses dimmed

    Fade in the light of rarer hues,

Whose silvery lustre mocks the moon,

    Seen sparkling through the midnight dews.

The tremulous beauty of the aerial shrine,

    Woven of joys and tears, high thought

And passionate purity, a starry veil

    Hiding the spirit’s splendour caught

Like sunbeams in a cloud, is yours,

    Dear Heart, and yet not you.

’Tis one more garment of divinity—

    Another veil—a wall where through

My soul, iron-willed must pierce

    To reach you. Light and sound

Are one. Silence is vocal as the choir

    Of angels at creation’s dawn. Around

Me falls the darkness that is light—

    There in the void a hand on mine—

A face—your face or God’s—at last

    I hold you—one with Life Divine!

I SAW spring coming in the hills,

Her vanguard singing waters and the rout

Of burgeoning alders, which like purple mist

Flowed upward through the firs to where

The long, cold fingers of the snow

Still lay within the hollows.

I saw spring coming in the hills

Not as a maiden shy with footfalls soft

  As fleeting showers, but radiant, flushed

With all the imperial beauty of the earth—

Her eyes twin stars which burned

With passionate ecstasy.

No wavering light was she which played

With woodland shadows but a lithe limbed

Dancing Bacchanal, whose golden tide

Of unbound tresses floated free—

Her supple form rose tinted as the dawn

On April skies.

And as she passed the echo of her throbbing pulses

Thrilled as music sweet within our hearts.

The world became the shadow of the love light in her eyes.

“On the occasion of his visit to British Columbia, 1921.”

WHY have you come to be with us—

You, who were heretofore a voice, resonant with joy

And the freshness of the morning?

Is it, that being wiser than we, following

Our Western star, you come, bearing your gift of songs

To light on these great, pagan altars of the West,

The ancient flame of passionate love for beauty,

Knowing that here, where sunsets guard

Our gateway to the seas and red gods dwell,

Greek may clasp hand with Greek again?

Mayhap, when you are gone, our eyes, unsealed,

Shall see more clearly by the light you leave;

Shall see Marsyas by our woodland rills;

May glimpse thy children singing by our sea,

Or hear Pan piping from our fir-clad hills.

IF wandering through some silent forest aisle,

A light wind stirred its tapestries of light and shade

And woke the myriad voices of the leaves, which swelled

To symphonies antiphonal—orchestral waves of sound,

Which beat like winged hosts in mad, tumultuous flight

Through the deep solitudes of space—

If blent with this were heard sunbursts of song,

Resplendent jewels of light divine and melodies

As soft as dewdrops falling o’er the rimmed

And curved chalice of a rose—

Then might I know the lyric power which thrilled

Through Swinburne’s heart and hand,

Which gloom of English skies nor priestly ban

Could still the while he sang

In flawless music of the soul of man.

SLIGHT petals from a full-blown flower

    Lie lightly on the clay.

Frail wings of lesser loves grow faint

    In the strong light of day.

A moment sweet—they turn to dust.

    We, lesser grown, have lost some gleam

Of a high vision, known of old

    In some past age and yet no dream.

Bodiless, these wings and incomplete,

    Can bear us nowhere. Their delight

As brief as summer showers. They slake

    No thirst in their swift flight.

Why do they leave us nauseate and weak,

    Still hungering for a surer sign,

A rarer vintage, if we have not drained

    Somewhere—sometime—a draught divine?

These lovely shadows bring but pain

    And memories of the golden love;

We, having sensed the larger light,

    Sink hardly from the heights above.

As Morn with crimson banner sweeps

    Pale Dawn from out her fields,

To Love’s all conquering might, perforce,

    These passing passions yield.

But broken fragments of a whole

    Are they, not Love, but wings,

Which lacking, Love forever sits,

    Dull-eyed, nor ever sings.

Why gods when we have known God?

    Why chains when we are free?

Body and soul and spirit—One—

    Twin symbol of infinity.

WHILE the sleet with mail-clad fingers

    Taps upon the window-panes,

Bleak winds bear the hymn of waters

    Cloistered in their icy fanes

And the plaint of life comparing

    Winter’s loss with April’s gains.

    Chorus:

  Hear, O hear, the sirens singing

      On a coral reef the rune

  Of the primal tide of passion,

      ’Neath a flower-soft, Southern moon!

  Star-eyed lilies, seaward swaying

      While in chorus gently croon

  Moonlit waves on sands of silver,

      “Sailor, must you go—so soon?”

But the cold and creeping malice

    Of the snow-bound world without

Finds no place where it can enter,

    For a wizard puts to rout

All the legions of the frost-sprites

    While his magic throws about

Our minds its mad enchantment

    As the ukelele’s strings

Fling their silver rain of music.

    Fearful then, our fancy clings

For a moment to the present

    Then flies out on rainbow wings,

To the land of lotus blossoms

    And the lure of sunlit seas,

Wrapping in their warm caresses

    Islets crowned with fronded trees

And we hear soft voices singing

    Mingling with the perfumed breeze.

And the golden, keen insistence

    Of the love notes softly shrilling

Beat like fire from Kilauea

    Molten, maddening, swiftly thrilling

Through the blood which sings in answer

    To the strain which brooks no stilling.

In the night of tresses heavy

    With the lure of earth in spring

Glow the red hibiscus blossoms

    And these rosy censers fling

As of old the sweet enchantment

    Which seduced the hearts of kings.

Fades the vision, but the throbbing

    Of the drums its message sings

In the heart which beats in tune

    To the tide of life that springs

From the crimson fount of passion

    In the ukelele’s strings.

O, LOVE, my love that bloomed—a rose

    More fair than spring or sunlit skies

Which fade into the dusk at day’s sweet close

    Much have I given thee as in me lies.

White flowers of light and peace serene

    Beyond desire and life’s sharp pain;

Red fruit of tears and passions keen

    As Death on Love’s own altar slain;

The burning flush of youth; the strength

    Of age; the bitter tang of blood

That beat resistless as the length

    Of ravening waves in spring’s wild flood;

If these avail not—if Time yield not fair

    Return for all this splendid waste,

Regrets are vain. At least my heart may share

    This dream and sleep by Death and it embraced.

O, HEART of Mine, that even as God, doth hold

    My life within its own in sacred trust,

How can you fail to know me as I am—

    A growing flame still flickering in the dust,

But reaching still through darkness to the light

    Where gemmed by sunfire glows the height

Clothed in the light that changes not—as night to us

    Who trim our lamps to suit our feeble sight?

If Love as winged Desire, with thunders crowned

    And shod with fire, dread as His hidden Name,

Should shake the pillars of the shrine we built

    Why wonder if the spark break into flame?

Fear Life? Then strike through quivering flesh

    The nails that bind Love’s bleeding hands!

Fear that this little passing phase of you

    Be whelmed by waves on unfamiliar strands?

Beneath this angry sea which erstwhile shone

    With light and laughter in the sun,

Sharp-fanged rocks lie hidden, say you?

    True, but Love knows them every one.

Fear loss of what? Of this small self which feeds

    On pain, which mocks the light you knew

When God unveiled his glory in the hours

    When you gave all nor recked the cost to you?

Love reckons not the cost but gives.

    Deny his swift demand—hold back aghast—

He still must give his all nor deem aught lost—

    Ask no return—trust till the storm be passed!

MORE cruel than death are you we love?

Nay, Death were kinder, bringing respite from pain.

You, whom we worship, laying at your feet,

A kingdom wrested from the powers of night;

Storming the gates of heaven that you may feast

Your eyes upon the glories there;

Pouring our heart’s blood to incarnadine

Your marble flesh with youth and bring

To bloom the rose of life where lilies pale

Had matched the pallor of your cerements;

Only to know, at last, the deadly thrust

Of steel within our souls when Love

Is slain by your lips—your mortal mind

Discounts Reality nor grants the boon we sought.

Blinded and faint we grope for our dead faith,

For Love is God and if Love cease to be

Then God is not—the battle vain,

And we but dust blown by the careless winds

Of chance and eyeless destiny.

WHY do you fear me—

You who are bound by fear and walk in darkness,

Woven by your own imaginings?

Why do you shrink from me and ask,

“Who is this man, whose measurements

Cannot be taken by our rules?”

Why do I stand alone—

Even when you say, “I love you

And though all should turn from you

I still would understand and wait

Within the shadows of your cross?”

Because I know the Truth, which is

As darkness to your purblind eyes—

Because I paid the price—dared make mistakes—

Held your pretence as meet for cowards,

Stripped off your cloak of lies

And walked with shameless feet

Through paths forbidden, drunk with the wine

Of dreams, scatheless and careless

Of your tears or hate.

O LOVE! with pitiless eyes, which close not in sleep,

  Holding me fast in relentless embrace, as the night

Ebbs wearily out, through the gates of the deep

  Silence of dawn, say, have I asked for respite

  Or fled from your terror or quaked at the force of your might,

Knowing that darkness must merge into light

  And your fierce eyes grow tender—the face of my foe

Shine with the morning, as an angel’s, whose flight

  Cleaves, like a scimitar’s splendour, my uttermost woe

  Baring the innermost joy by the strength of its blow?

I have dared you to battle. I have laughed at your fears—

  Have bathed in your flames and emerged as a god,

Re-born to his kingdom. Redeemed from your tears,

  I have trodden your thorns underfoot, in the sod,

  Whence roses shall spring and scatter their incense abroad,

Till their breath, as a vapour suspired from the cave

  Of your oracle, wraps in a vision of mantic insight

The dull brain of the sluggard. The heart of the slave

  Shall thrill as a hero’s who girds for the fight,

  And a new day shall rise, then, re-made from the ruins of night.

As a captive, firm bound, I have knelt at your feet—

  Felt the sting of your lash—ate the bitter, red fruit

Of insatiate desire—poured ichor and wine to complete

  The sacrifice meet for the goddess who mocked my pursuit—

  Giving words—empty symbols—would Heaven the blind god were mute!

But now I can smile in derision of pitiful deeds,

  Wrought well to appease your unending desires.

I can mock as you mocked me, watch your heart as it bleeds,

  Till the ashes of sorrow have smothered its fires,

  Which my touch had awakened. Your altars shall blacken as pyres!

Had you loved as I loved you—held faith as I taught you to hold—

  No pain could have entered, no serpent have crept,

Through the paths of our Eden, no dress soiled the gold

  Of the pure flame of passion, which erstwhile had kept

  The light on your altar, while, careless, the acolyte slept.

Once again, ere I leave you, I point you the way to the goal—

  Offer jewels on your altar—redeemed from a life,

Rapt godward for your sake, which, making you whole,

  Shall bring to you peace in the places where discord is rife,

  The wisdom found only in freedom—surcease from the strife.

Would I hold you?—nay—answer the call of your clay—

  The self made of shadows, which shrinks from the light

And, while you are sleeping—lo!—winged on his way

  Love leaves you alone, in the gathering night

  To feed on the pain you have cherished, through fear of his might!

  PAST days are not dead days. I find

      In memory all of sheer delight,

  Counting again my jewels confined

      In that dim treasure-house of night.

The wild, sweet rapture of the hours we knew—

Promethean fire—doth life’s own lamp renew.

  Those days alone are dead which hear

      No sound of your endearing voice,

  Whose lyric spell with cadence clear

      Makes every quivering nerve rejoice,

Breathing, like incense of the spirit, peace,

Bringing from pain a sweet and sure release.

  Those days are dead which end in nights,

      Sphered in the blackness of a soul apart.

  Downcast, but hungering for remembered heights,

      Loveless within Love’s universal heart,

I wake to know how One Lone Man could be

A whole world’s symbol in Gethsemane.

LAST night I saw my soul

Struggling, in your hands—

Soft, flower-like hands, whose grip of steel,

Coiled, serpent-like, about its throat.

I, who had given it to you to keep,

Stood helpless. In agony, I closed

My eyes. But, still, spell-bound, I saw

White hands crushing a crimson rose,

Which dripped warm blood—not only

Mine but hers whose sacrifice

Availed not. Again, I looked through

Blinding clouds of pain. I saw

Your lips move—heard laughter like a knife

Stab through the darkness and a voice

Which whispered “Gladness.”

WANDERING, within the garden of the world, I found

  A matchless rose, whose chaliced splendour held

The rarest wine—elixir of a life profound—

  Deeper than death’s abyss. Therein beheld

I all my heart’s desire, mirrored in beauty keen

As pain which as a sword’s swift stroke unveiled

            Glories as yet unseen,

Before whose light Life’s morning sunshine paled.

Light, errant winds with trembling touch caressed

  The blossom which, as if by fairy music swayed

In rhythmic, dream-like measure, ere it sank to rest

  Between soft, scented coverlets of coolest shade,

Pillowed on satin leaves to dream of golden bees—

Soft, loving thieves who dared to filch a kiss,

            Hoping some naughty breeze

Might bear the blame for them of this sweet, stolen bliss.

Here sheltered from Life’s storms and dangers rude,

  My rose dwelt carelessly and no wind came

Which dared to break her happy dream nor could

  The birds or bees find heart to breathe the name

Of sorrow. “She is so lovely, it were shame,” sighed they,

“That she should know what lies beyond this moss-grown wall.

            Beauty must be always

For beauty’s sake, and harmless live whatever else befall.”

But I, unwise, and deeming Beauty’s fairest boon

  Might be to make the world more glad, thro’ me,

Reached forth and plucked this rose, in life’s high noon,

  Reckless as youth is ever—beneath a sunlit sea

No reefs might lie, no rose might bear a thorn,

And Love was but a name for God. Oh, heart of Youth,

            Wherein all dreams are born,

Is life then but a cloud which veils the sun of truth?

When for unending strife, thy soul, full-panoplied,

  Must face the night, methinks, thy tender rose

Would scarce prove shield to meet thy urgent need.

  Proudly it grew within this garden’s quiet close,

Bravely its bannered petals flew to meet soft, summer days.

As gossamer upon its velvet lips, its promises were fair.

            Now time nor hope allays

The pain where on thy breast it droops with languid air.

IF I had placed you with the sun

    In heaven and crowned you queen,

Gave you my soul to keep, and spun

    A glittering robe of golden sheen

To clothe the shrine of hopes and fears

My heart had built with fire and tears;

If with strong hands I reached to God

    And placed you at His side,

Above His hosts with white fire shod,

    Supremely fair, a stainless bride;

Then gave my heart’s blood mixt with fire

Quickening the ashes of your dead desire;

If all my faith were centred in your name,

    The secret word of power to make

Me know my godhead in the flame,

    White-lit, of love for your dear sake,

And heaven bowed down to meet me in the hour

When you were mine, held by Love’s tender power;

If then your eyes grew hard, your voice a sword

    Which pierced my heart and slew

The spirit’s flower and stayed the word

    On lips blanched white for love of you;

If other hands defiled the sacred shrine

Of this fair temple which was wholly mine;

If you plucked down and trampled in the dust

    Of common things the jewel

Of deathless love to ease some itching lust

    Or some pale fear—pity—or man-made rule;

Would it suffice—nay—could it e’er be true—

“This was the highest and the best for you?”

Poor pitiful excuse! As well to say

    For Christ’s sweet sake you drove the nails

Which pierced his bleeding hands, and pray

    With shining face and faltering lip which fails

To hide the lie, that God may praise the deed,

Knowing you failed Him in his hour of need.

LOVE was an outcast and you took

    Him in. Shed not a single tear.

The stranger goes and in his stead

    That which the church calls love is near.

Have no regrets. Your course is plain

    And safe the harbour where you lie.

This storm will pass and charted seas

    Will gleam beneath a clearer sky.

This force which thrills through throbbing veins,

    This power to bend the wills of men

Is yours, dear heart. You gave me Life.

    I did not ask it now nor then.

The gift is yours to take again

    When it shall please you. Be it so.

Your hand may still the song and stay

    The tide that once it bade to flow.

I shall not shrink, though in my heart

    This hunger gnaw from year to year.

The Spartan’s cloak may now be mine—

    They will not know—you need not fear.

Strike swift and sure and do not spare

    The life that burgeoned for your sake.

But make it swift and in your face

    Be there no pity as you take

Your own again. For Love is free

    And Life lives on through endless days.

My rose you bade me cast away,

    Lo, in its place the sword that slays!

      IN the dark night of time,

      A red ember of divine passion,

      Blossomed the Rose of Life.

And yet the perfumed distillate of life,

The potent essence of the primal fire,

Breathes through our being, incarnate,

In forms more perfect than the Rose of Heaven.

The archetypal beauty gleams enshrined

In temples built without the sound

Of workmen’s hands upon the clay.

No rose which blossomed in the fields

Of earth, nor that celestial prototype

Can match the splendour of the human flower.

The larger seasons, cycling in their rounds

Through shade and sunshine, brought to birth

No fairer, sturdier growth. Clean as the winds

Which sweep some lonely, frozen waste;

Pure as the dew which wets the velvet lips

Of sister flowers; strong as the fostering sun

Whose rays dispel the legioned fears of night—

Thy beauty is the mirror of a universe,

Within whose glass we darkly glimpse

All that we know of God or man.

A DOOR has closed. Along the empty corridors,

The Mother’s footfalls cease and I am left

Alone with God—the god, whom she, in gentler mood,

Has said is Love. A moment since, her eyes

Shone like twin points of deadly steel.

Her lips’ thin curve, a poisoned blade

Whose venom chilled the sources of my life,

Has striven to murder Love and trample on the corpse

Of hopes which dared to call upon His name.

Hard-eyed and tearless, my body turned to stone,

I feel the darkness of the convent cell

Close with a vise-like grip upon my soul.

The dead god on the carven cross I hold

Knew, in Gethsemane, no darker hour.

For I have given all—have loved a son of man

Completely—have so blent his life with mine

That all his clay, transfigured, shone like gold

Cleansed in the crucible of my desire.

I have so breathed on him that soul caught fire.

My beauty sang within his heart and winged,

Immortal dreams were born within his brain.

Then, in his hand I placed the spirit’s sword

To smite the ancient evil. I sent him forth a god.

Yet, this is sin! The black-veiled Mother crushed

The rose he gave me and, in its place, she pressed

This crucifix within my hand, this wooden Christ

Whose white face mocks my agony.

Alone! Yet not alone, for God is everywhere

And He is Love. No sparrow falls but its light death

Thrills through the universal heart as pain.

Long since, so long it seems a dream

Of other lives, a child, my playmates

Birds and flowers, two swallows came

And nested in our cottage eaves.

I watched them mating—saw their plumage glow

With warmer hues as life’s red wine raced through

Their aery forms and lent a beauty rare

To each sweet curve of throat and wing.

I saw the roses waft their wealth of gold

From chaliced breasts to slake the soft desire

Of other yearning hearts. Was this, then, sin?

I know that I, a flower of human life,

Grew, as the roses, passionately pure.

The same sun filled by veins with fire;

The same winds swept my body clean

Of poison vapours and the dews which laved

Their censers was the same clear flood

Which cooled my limbs in many a crystal pool;

The same life throbbed within my heart

And hid soft, summer lightnings in my eyes.

I knew that I was beautiful. Was this a sin?

My mother, too, was lovelier than some

And she, they said, had lured men’s feet astray

In paths forbidden. That I might not incur

Her curse, they placed me here, a bride of Christ.

Of Christ? Nay—of this gaunt god impaled

On a dead tree—for He was Love incarnate.

And Love is strong and beautiful! I know,

For I have loved, and this pale anchorite

In this gray tomb, this pale-faced pietist

Whose hands have slain the babe of Bethlehem,

Blasphemes. My Christ is Lord of Life—

A radiant angel in the sun whose rays

Are all the myriad lives “He loves!”

She ceased. Without the night wind rose. The lattice,

Opening, let the moonlight flood the room

With sudden glory. Beneath her feet

Lay, crushed, the fragments of a broken rood.

O, HEART of woman, wistful as the sea

Yearning in murmurous discontent below

These cliffs, implacable as time and fate—

I hear thee call. The moon of my desire

Whose silvern fingers stirred thy sleeping tides

Flames to a sudden splendour, red as that

Which glides, full-faced, above the harvest hills.

I would possess thee wholly—match the beat

Of thy wild pulses with the primal rhythm

Of the creative urge—bear thee aloft on wings

Of crimson flame to where sense, fainting, blent

With soul, and passion, freed, is one

With the white light which men call God.

IN the long vigils of the night,

Pondering upon the mystery of pain,

Standing aloof from my body

Which lay tense and quivering

Under the burning lash of desire,

As stars, framed by the encompassing darkness,

I saw the faces of women I have loved.

And all, with crossed hands, heads bowed,

Faces shining with an holy light,

Gazed into my fevered eyes and smiling, passed,

Whispering; “Never can we forget

What you have done for us.

To animate the cold ashes of our lives,

We took the fire you gave and healed,

With your tears and blood, our souls.

You did us only good, nor marred

The chaste ideal of our childhood’s dream.”

Then, one by one, they looked into my eyes

And passed—the darkness took them in.

Again night’s curtain parted and disclosed

A vision of the Saviour’s agony,

Stretched between earth and heaven

On a hill, whence all had fled.

Within the shadow of the cross there knelt

Two silent figures—women both.

And one whose dark hair veiled

His bleeding feet, lifted her face

Towards me,

Shining with no self-righteous light,

But clear-eyed as the morning star.

I knew her. She, too, had loved me—

Had given, at times, for gold, the gift

Withheld by others—more often still

For love alone had healed my pain.

Outcast, denied as He, her heart

Was all men’s home. In His hour supreme

God shared the glory of the Magdalene.

“PEACE upon earth, goodwill to men”—

    To a little wayside inn,

Came troops of angels, bearing sheaves

    Of lilies, sweet as sin.

With faces pale, in stoles of white,

    A meek and holy brood,

Like fleecy clouds which hide the sun,

    Lilies and angels stood.

The incense of their scented breaths

    Like clouds of vapour rolled,

Hiding the Light which came to men

    In a mist of earthly gold.

And still about His shrine they weave

    Their spell of unctuous peace.

Their fragile hands have sapped the life

    Which meant a world’s release.

Would that a flower of nobler mien

    Might blossom from the graves

Of these gray anchorites—these gods

    Of sycophants and slaves—

Some flower-like symbol of the word,

    “Not peace—a sword I bring.

Take it and strike unceasingly

    Till Every man be king.”

Flame from the dust of passion spent

    In the age-long questing strife,

A crimson edge of swift desire

    To serve the common life!

Give me a flower whose sex is clean

    As an offering mete for Him,

Not the sickly sweet of cloistered vice

    Which drips from the lily’s rim.

As if in answer to my need,

    Last night I saw you wear

Gladiola’s scarlet sword of flame

    In the dark night of your hair.

LOOK upward, heart of mine! The shaded depths

        Of eyes which bid my soul

Stand hushed before thy passionate purity,

        Mysterious as the whole

Ensemble of the night, the secret holds,

        As some illumined scroll,

Of all which crowns man king of fate—

        The mystery of the Breath

        Whose power has conquered Death—

The signet royal of his divine estate.

ALONE, head pillowed on the mother heart

  Of earth, I lay upon a starlit peak.

From out the shadows of the great ravines

  Strange whispers crept which seemed to speak

    In runlets of enchanting rhyme

    Of secrets older far than time.

Sibilant as restless waves on shores asleep,

  As rain on summer leaves or grass

Beneath a sudden breeze, the voices rose

  And upward flowed. I heard them pass

    To mingle with the infinite

    And wistful silence of the night.

And then I knew that many times, by day

  And night, within the city’s heart, alone,

My ears had sensed this eerie murmuring

  From out the walls of brick and stone—

    Beneath the din of human strife

    The plaintive wail of prisoned life.

For Life is One, though mind and senses reel

  Upon the steeps precipitous of time

And, trembling, shun the deep abyss surpassed—

  The long, long road the soul must climb

    To touch the stars—a radiant god

    Born from a chrysalis of sod.

And thus to every listening soul the beat

  Of angels’ wings is audible as life

Strains at its bonds of clay and yearns

  For the lost freedom. The endless strife

    And hunger for the hidden light

    Is voiced in whispers of the night.

OF poppies red our poet sang, from Arras to the sea

        And gleaming

        Through our dreaming

      Their crimson hosts must flow.

The violets pale in English lanes, the daisies on the lea

        Have stirred in lyric chorus

        And cast their glamour o’er us—

Have bound us with the magic of their storied minstrelsy.

        The music of the motherlands

        Although it haply stayed our hands

      Our heart it cannot know.

There is a story written no art can ever name

        And golden

        As of olden

      The fiery heralds run.

Across the fields of Canada we trace their path of flame

        Within the dim translucent haze,

        The mellow mood of autumn days,

We catch the regal glory which outvies the elder fame

        Of all the flowers of fairyland—

        The gold and scarlet saraband

      Of maples in the sun.

To pagan eyes in Arcady before the break of day

        How fleetly

        And sweetly

      Like music on the wind

The footfalls of a dancing faun, as light as silver spray

        Turned all to gold the living green.

        And yet within our glades is seen

The writing of the exiled gods who came from far away

        To see, perchance, if there might be

        Where singing waters meet the sea,

      A country to their mind.

In crimson robes and golden, here flits our forest queen

        Winging

        And singing—

      A rainbow in a dream.

Her smile is even sweeter where the firs in sober green

        Stand guard beside her flaming car.

        We once had sight of her afar

Beneath the blue Aegean skies, where in the iridescent sheen

        Of sunlit bays, her snowy doves,

        Were driven by soft winged loves

      Adown the sea-blue stream.

The laurels of the southland inspire the classic theme

        Clinging

        And bringing

      The soul of Hellas back to birth,

A chaste and solemn pageantry to gild a fading dream.

        The maples stir a deeper tide,

        For they in gold and scarlet ride.

The vanguards of a greater race, their blood-red banners stream

        As in the white dawn of the world,

        The red gods from the sky were hurled

      To build a heaven on earth.

ACROSS the riven breast of earth we gazed

In silent wonder at the adamantine towers

Whose snow-clad battlements and mist-filled moats

Gleamed like the fabled halls of Camelot,

Titanic splendours of a wizard’s dream.

Beauty and strength, twin flames of deity,

Touched with their pentecostal fire the hills

In ages past and yet within their visage glowed

The glory of the enraptured hour when born

From the dark womb of space they reached

With giant hands towards the heavens

Leaning maternal o’er their cradled forms.

Beauty and strength as yet in these gray crags

Unconscious lay as once Enceladus, entombed,

Slept in the dim embrace of Aetna’s heart.

And yet—their frozen majesty held no such power

As the warm pressure of your hand in mine.

The lustre of your unbound hair held more

Of magic to enchant the soul of man

Than all the blind, unwitting loveliness of earth.

WITH dying fires of sunset flushed,

    The serried rows of windows shone

Like flaming cressets on the face

    Of some grey citadel of stone.

The city streets, transfigured, caught

    The radiance from the sun-god’s throne.

Nor could they know—this purblind crowd

    Which passed along the golden way,

The stones beneath their feet were jewels,

    The walls on either side not clay

But jacinth, amethyst and pearl—

    The spoils of Ind and old Cathay.

And out beyond the farthest wall,

    Westward, the regal pathway went

To where, upon the round world’s rim,

    Symbol divine from heaven sent,

Within the sky’s clear crucible

    Were fire and water strangely blent.

Water and fire, the primal pair

    Whence sprang the starry hosts of space,

Mother and sire of aeons vast

    Born from their omnipotent embrace

Here meet again. What new shapes rise?

    What heralds of the coming race?

Through this last gateway of the west

    A mighty impulse streams.

In this fair mountain land whereon

    The old day, dying, gleams

While nations sleep, her young men walk

    The sunset trail of dreams.

And ever the voice of them singing

    Flows eastward on the wind

Through lonely mountain passes,

    O’er plains they crossed to find

Spaces in which to break and lose

    Their gods grown gray and blind.

Their feet are on the snow-clad heights.

    Their eyes perceive the whole.

Sloughing the tattered rags of creeds,

    The chains which bind the soul,

Following the sun’s path westward

    March the young men to their goal.

At the trail’s end they shall gather

    The gold from the shining sea.

From woof of dreams and warp of deeds,

    In their stalwart hands and free

Shall grow the garment of beauty mete

    For the age that is to be.

WHO are ye who would bind him with fetters,

  Whose might is the measure of time,

Whose fire fashioned gods to his liking

  From the depths of his infinite mind

And builded their fanes for his pleasure

And gilded their brows with his treasure?

      ’Tis ye who are blind!

For your ears have been deaf to the footfalls

  Of the ages which guarded his growth.

Ye prated of clay and the potter—lo,

  He whom ye slighted was both.

Though the dust of your withering creeds

Would clothe him with sackcloth and weeds,

      Of your gods he is loth.

The form which ye draped with derision

  And smirched with the kiss which betrayed

Was the holy of holies—yet ye wander unshriven

  And ask where your Saviour was laid.

With the rags of dead creeds you have hidden

The sun from your eyes but unbidden

      He mocks at your shade.

In the shock of the tempest, the flash of the levin,

  Red glories of sunsets, the waves of the sea,

In the crisp of a leaf or the kiss of a petal

  Ye sought the impress of a god who might be

Your sign of salvation—an imminent glory

Revealing in nature the time-worn story

      Of truth which makes free.

In Man’s eye sits the lightning of god-like decision;

  In his voice the tumultuous song of the spray;

Through the prism of passion the ray of his willing

  Glows rich as the crimson red rose of the day.

Earth, sea and sky hold no sign nor a token

Of beauty more potent than this the unbroken

      Bright spell of his sway.

Long have ye toiled, but in vain, to enfold Him

  In houses of cedar most wondrously wrought.

In marble and rosewood ye sought to imprison

  The god who was born of your innermost thought.

And the bells of His temples are pealing

In vain o’er the worshippers kneeling

      To a power which is naught.

Blind multitudes, lift up your faces,

  For the god ye have sought is not dead.

In your hands are the prints of the nails

  And the thorns have encircled your head.

Not marble but flesh is the temple—the crown

Of the kingdom is yours—nay—bow not down—

      For Man—the Creator—is God!

DANCING adown the highroad of the stars

  Which move in sombre measure through the night

Comes this dear gypsy, with her face ashine

  With joy of life—a winsome, wayward sprite.

And all these solemn chroniclers of time,

  Stern as grave elders in their carven seats,

Bend frozen faces o’er their folded hands

  As through their aisles her dainty footfall beats.

O gypsy star, fleet, wandering flame of life,

  A quest I have for you this night! Somewhere

She sleeps whose soul was born of yours,

  Winged with eternal youth, white fire and air.

Sometimes the radiance of the inner light,

  Starborn, is lost in earthly mist.

At times the song of life is stilled

  Until her lips again of love be kissed.

Fold thy bright wings, O sister star, and then,

  Kneeling beside her, touch her as a breath

Lightly, and let thy heart and hers be one.

  For she was not born to taste of death.

Tell her that she is light and life and love,

  Immortal, kindred of the flowers and sun,

Her soul a dancing flame, a ray of purest joy.

  Till time be not, her star and she are one.

IN swift processional, flung by the inner light

Upon the retina of time, I see them pass.

Gay cavalcades, with clashing harness, panoplied

With gold and crimson, pennants fluttering

From clustered spears, the glint of dauntless eyes

Behind barred helmets and the pungent scent

Of sweating steeds commingled with the dust

And trampled roses on the hard won field,

Onward they sweep, a pulsing scarlet wave

Of life triumphant, as with loud acclaim

They hail, enthroned on high in silken pride,

The Queen of Beauty and all-conquering Love.

To-night, I too, would crown her Queen,

Plucking the priceless jewel of victory

From the closed teeth of pain and then,

On wings more swift than barbéd steed,

Would scale forbidden heights, unbar

The gates of heaven, and spurning fate,

Lay all the starry kingdoms at her feet.

      ELATION—

      Syncopation!

Ah! sweet the bells of freedom pealing,

In lyric love-notes softly stealing

    Through the tomb

      Of ages gray!

    The creeping doom

    We weave to-day

Of priest and king, of cross and crown.

      Elation—

      Syncopation!

The throbbing hum of drums which beat

  Across the level waste of sand

Where brown-red limbs like copper gleam

  In wild abandon—saraband

      Of dusky green,

        Of brown,

          Of blue!

The faint, far tinkle of a bell—

      A star

Above the palm-fringed pool—

      A crash!

  A flare of murky red—

The shadows of a forest limned

  Against a wind-whipped sky,

The tom-tom’s muffled thud—

  The pale-face priest must die!

      A shriek!

    Within the gloom,

    Great ape-like forms

    Struggling, writhing!

      Elation—

      Syncopation!

Light—floods of light,

  White light!

    The song of birds, of silver streams,

      Runlets of golden sound,

    Laughter of rain on thirsty leaves,

      Life—life and love!

        Roses—

    A shower of crimson fire—

        Fleetly,

        Sweetly.

    In a garden of dreams

Is woven the garland of hopes and fears

    To circle the heart of youth—

A palace of wonderful, wistful gleams

      And visions of truth—

        Forsooth!

      A dream, you sigh,

    And all dreams must die.

Then, love of mine, in your soft, white arms

      Shield me from death and this—

        A kiss,

        A laugh,

        A shout,

        A rout

    Of gray gods driven

    Through flames, unshriven,

          Of Man their Maker.

  Shatter the shrines of pain—

        Strike Death!

        Dare Hell!

    The heavens are red—

          The glory of morning nigh!

THREADING the labyrinth of the city streets,

The channelled aisles of brick and stone,

The silvery echoes of the Christmas chimes

Tell us once more that Christ is born.

Not that gaunt shape of gloom, emasculate,

Stricken by Death’s pale hand,

Which hangs supine above the heads

Of these, Thy blinded worshippers—

Not that dark shadow cast across

The chill tomb of the years wherein

They prisoned Thee, O Mighty One,

Would my heart seek to-night;

But Thee, the perfect rondure—all

Of greatness in man’s utmost dreams

Of strength and beauty—Risen Sun

Of manhood’s might sublime!

Radiant Thy form—Thy flesh no less

Than soul shot through with light

Beyond the gleam of our dim, earthly lamps—

With fire of godhood crowned,

Yea, Thou art God. Yet God we feel

But in the ray reflected here

From the great Central Sun. It helps

Us more to know that Thou art man.

Master of Fate, of Life and Death,

In this sad time which knows not Thee,

Grant us the wisdom, power and love

To bear Thy torch as free men may!

IN the tangled gloom of forests,

    Through the neolithic slime,

Blind and with groping fingers,

    We searched in that olden clime

For the gleam of a hidden wonder

    Lost in the web of time.

Kin of the mindless monsters

    Who slew in the misty fen

The dinosaur and mammoth,

    Our forms were those of men

But because we knew not Beauty

    Our souls were sleeping then.

Within that primal darkness

    Brooded a memory dim

Of light and love and laughter

    When on the morning’s rim

The stars had sung in chorus

    Creation’s wakening hymn.

At times our ears were quickened

    And we sent a quavering cry

To the ghost who flitted by us,

    A shadow on our sky.

Within our caves we chattered

    As the Presence passed us by.

And for many days thereafter

    Our eyes could sense the light.

Our awkward tongues grew sweeter.

    We tarried in our flight

As a music long forgotten

    Came trembling through the night.

Our hearts grew soft with anguish

    And the flame of hot desire

To gaze once more with open eyes

    On the splendour of the fire

Of Beauty and to hear again

    The message of her lyre.

Ensouled by Her, we dimly felt

    We need not fear to die.

Up through the cloudy silence

    Under the smouldering sky

Our grimy hands beseeching

    Were stretched to God on high.

Then Beauty touched our eyelids

    And lo! the veil was torn

Which hid the ageless wonder

    And in our hearts was born

The song which lifts us skyward

    To greet the rose of morn.

And man, the uncouth creature

    Of bloody fang and claw

Knew that his soul—immortal—

    Would thence forever draw

Its strength from Love and Beauty

    Beneath the ancient law.

WHEN manhood was a crimson flower

  And Love and Beauty queens on earth,

Honour and courtesy the dower

  Were held to be of highest worth.

      Grant us again an age of men

      When swords are mightier than the pen!

When cravens yield a facile pen

  And cowards hide behind the law;

When weakness struts in sight of men

  And boldly wields its rod of straw—

      Grant us, O God, our swords again—

      And more—to hold them, send us men!

When Love is crucified for gold,

  When lies are currency of life,

When human souls are bought and sold

  And priestly platitudes are rife—

      Send us red war to make men feel

      The cleansing song of steel on steel!

The virus in a cleric’s soul

  May taint the hidden springs of life.

Words are but fragments of the whole

  Truth lost amid the pious strife.

      Send us the sword—the first, white light

      Which cleft the primal heart of night!

Symbol of that enduring Will

  Whose purpose through the ages ran,

Thy hymn of battle soundeth still

  As freedom in the soul of man.

      Grant that we hear again, O Lord,

      The ringing song of sword on sword!

“Drunk and disorderly—two broken panes

Of costly glass which formed a colored screen

In the main entrance to the Mayor’s house—

He will not give his name? Back with him

To the prison cell. Ten days of breaking stone

May cool his insolence! The next case, please!”

The portly pillar of the law, inflamed

To wrath plethoric, wagged his bullet head.

The prisoner stared with red rimmed eyes

Which did not know or care. Meanwhile—

A hand upon his shoulder and a voice,

“This way!”—then the creaking rasp and clang

Of bolts and hinges. He was alone again.

And while from where he lay he strove to count

The golden motes in a stray beam of light

Which fell across his cot, the door unclosed,

Let in a friend, a chum of boyhood’s days.

The spotless linen, fur-tipped coat, the gloves,

All spoke of comfort and of well-fed ease.

The prisoner’s eyes remained entranced

By the mad dance of whirling atoms

Drunk with the sunbrewed summer wine.

Like running waters in a dream he heard

His friend’s mellifluous monotones recount

The shame that he, a model husband, father, man

Of virtue, rich, respectable, should so disgrace

His friends by this unwonted madness, shocking

Their feelings, making a nine day’s scandal—“Yes!

Yes! Too bad, indeed!”

He heard the scathing condemnation to the end

Then answered, and by some strange inward force

His broken body met the need for power

To point his words:—

“A child may dream but in his palace walls

Built of thin moonshine and translucent dew

If there appear the reflected image of his nurse

The walls will crumble and the vision cease,

And we, who pride ourselves as sane and men

Put by our dreams, bar fast the prison doors

Of hidden hopes and glories. In our hearts

The boy, who sought the gleam of high emprise

Sits mourning by his dead until the end of life

Bring freedom from the bonds of fear.

“You know, or mayhap, have forgot, in quest

Of other baubles, baser coin, the wondrous time

When, children both, we shared a common round

Of tears and sunshine. I think you never knew

The hidden world of fancy where as king

I ruled my legioned elves, ethereal sprites

Whose wands at will unlocked the golden doors

To gardens, dim and cool, where gleamed

By diamond-tinted fountains, flowers of hue

More brilliant than the fleeting rainbows traced

In tremulous beauty o’er the shining hills.

Then, as the man quickened in the boy,

Came shining visions of a queen, who rode

A milk-white charger down the forest aisles

To touch whose soft, white hand was heaven

For him, the page, who followed her afar

Hoping some danger dark might spring to light

That he might die to save her.

“Again, at times, the same fair face would bend

Above his couch. Her golden hair unbound

Swept her white shoulders in a silken shower

As perfumed tresses brushed his burning cheek

Searing, as if white flying flakes of fire

Had touched him suddenly to wakefulness.

And all his days were sweet with thoughts of her.

From trees and flowers her beauty called to him.

Her voice was in the song of birds, her eyes

Shone in the sunset and the rays of dawn.

Song stirred within his heart, in broken rhymes

He sought to catch the music of her grace.

His will grew strong and life the lists

Where he might conquer evil for her sake.

“So dreamed the boy of Love whose power

Could wed his soul with God and truth.

The man did as the world requires—

Worked in accustomed grooves, amassed

The perquisites of place, wealth, houses, lands,

A name which banks accepted on a paper scroll.

And then to cap the measure of propriety he sought

A wife to bear him heirs, to grace his bed and board.

And she, the bride, was young and beautiful, as mete

To fill the honored place, of being owned and fed

By one the world had deemed a proper man.

Think not I speak with bitterness. She was all

That good wives should be, faithful, quick

To meet the needs which all men feel

For creature comfort. When tired she brewed him drink

Fetched his furred slippers and a padded chair,

And, when his passion called, she gave herself

Complacently—as when he called for tea.

And so he might have lived and died. But wealth

Brought leisure and his mind, long used

To measure merchandise alone, was turned

To books and art. The dreamer bound

And gagged within him broke his rusty bonds.

Once more the vision and a glory seen—

Of Love which fed men’s hearts and souls

Gleamed from the page and canvas where

Inwrought were dreams immortal and his days

And nights were haunted by a doubt—

A hideous doubt—which shook with bony hands

The pillars of his house and mocked and gibed

Him as he trod the daily mill of life.

Houses and lands, a bank account, a car,

The unctuous praise of those who merely craved

His friendship as a rung on which to mount

The social ladder—and she—whose presence irked

Save when he hungered bodily—this—this

Was the measure of his manhood’s might?

He who had dreamed of noble deeds, of victories

Won in the realms of questing thought, of forms

Of beauty moulded to uplift the souls

Of other men, a life poured out like sacrificial wine

To bring to light the latent God in man!

And She—his boyhood’s queen, the flower of womanhood

Whose voice thrilled all his thoughts to music,

Whose gift of love meant strength and will

To all high deeds, whose touch transmuted flesh

To spirit and ensouled his clay with beauty—

Where was She? For he knew She lived,

Still waited for him somewhere while he strayed

And wallowed in the mire of earth.

“Could this have been—could he have met Her here

Incarnate in sweet human flesh, how then

Would life have blossomed as the Rose of Heaven!

“Something within him snapped. A crown

Of fire was pressed upon his brows. Thorns of flame

Reached in and slew the god in him.

Friend, I know that it was weak—unworthy!

You do not know the blinding pain of hearts

Hungering for the white light of Love beyond

The damned inconsequence of human life!

“No! Yet I have heard you say that God is Love!”

ACROSS a strip of water

    Bright as a bluebird’s wing,

The hills are calling, calling,

    Sweet with the lure of spring,

And the voices of a thousand streams

    Through all my fancies sing.

Heart of the hills, I hear you!

    Your systole divine,

In pulsing waves of green and gold

    Merging song in sunshine,

Is sound in color written

    By mightier hands than mine.

And as a bird imprisoned

    Beats with impassioned wings

In vain against its iron cage,

    My eager spirit springs

To meet the primal call of earth

    And the spell of growing things.

The magic of the windswept heights

    Soft-veiled in clinging mist

Where, dark-robed brides of sun and air,

    The firs, by morning kissed,

Shine like the trooping dryads who

    Go dancing as they list;

The face, gray-scarped, of ancient walls

    Heaved by the Titan’s hands,

Seamed by the frost of passing years,

    Where the lone outpost stands—

A tumbled fragment, stark and grim,

    Of strange, forgotten lands;

The shadows blue and dim which fold

    The secrets of the deep

Fraught silences of canyons dark

    Where murmuring waters sleep

Tangled in mosses cool, where through

    Their silver runlets creep;

The laughter of the wildering rout

    Of racing, madcap streams

Which leap from ledge to ledge in glee

    Like myriad dazzling gleams

Of wondrous golden light which pierce

    The darkness of our dreams;

The soft caress of velvet lips

    Of wild flowers blowing free;

The tender touch of folded leaves,

    The fingers of a tree;

The warm, rich perfume of the earth;

    Her sweet maternity—

These are the voices crying,

    The beckoning hands which call

From out the hills at daybreak.

    Their soft enchantments fall

Luring my feet to wander—

    My heart to meet them all.

(Beacon Hill Park, Victoria, B.C., April, 1923)

I SAW God in a golden cloud

    Of broom upon the green

Of hills whereon His breath awoke

    Music of choirs unseen.

Our dull, insensate ears can catch

    No echo of the song divine

Which thrills the heart of Being ’til,

    In color clothed, the voices shine.

Then, robed in green and gold, the earth

    Is vocal. Symphonies outswell

From every wayside hedge. The rocks’

    Scarred lips intone a canticle.

“Awake!” the voice of Beauty cries

    In words of rippling fire.

A million fragrant blossoms bend

    In answer to her lyre.

And we, who see the writing traced,

    Know that a hand is there

Which, clasping, we may be akin

    To earth and fire and air.

TRANSCRIBER NOTES

Misspelled words and printer errors have been corrected. Where multiple spellings occur, majority use has been employed.

Punctuation has been maintained except where obvious printer errors occur.

[The end of The Rosary of Pan by Alexander Maitland Stephen]