Part 9

We would bring out the treasured knapsack, We would take the sword from the wall, And hushing our own hearts’ pleadings, Hear only the country’s call. For next to our God is our Nation; And we cherish the honoured name Of the bravest of all brave armies Who fought for that Nation’s fame.

AND THEY ARE DUMB

I have been across the bridges of the years. Wet with tears Were the ties on which I trod, going back Down the track To the valley where I left, ’neath skies of Truth, My lost youth.

As I went, I dropped my burdens, one and all— Let them fall; All my sorrows, all my wrinkles, all my care, My white hair, I laid down, like some lone pilgrim’s heavy pack, By the track.

As I neared the happy valley with light feet, My heart beat To the rhythm of a song I used to know Long ago, And my spirits gushed and bubbled like a fountain Down a mountain.

On the border of that valley I found you, Tried and true; And we wandered through the golden Summer-Land Hand in hand. And my pulses beat with rapture in the blisses Of your kisses.

And we met there, in those green and verdant places, Smiling faces, And sweet laughter echoed upward from the dells Like gold bells. And the world was spilling over with the glory Of Youth’s story.

It was but a dreamer’s journey of the brain; And again I have left the happy valley far behind; And I find Time stands waiting with his burdens in a pack For my back.

As he speeds me, like a rough, well-meaning friend, To the end, Will I find again the lost ones loved so well? Who can tell! But the dead know what the life will be to come— And they are dumb!

NIGHT

As some dusk mother shields from all alarms The tired child she gathers to her breast, The brunette Night doth fold me in her arms, And hushes me to perfect peace and rest. Her eyes of stars shine on me, and I hear Her voice of winds low crooning on my ear. O Night, O Night, how beautiful thou art! Come, fold me closer to thy pulsing heart.

The day is full of gladness, and the light So beautifies the common outer things, I only see with my external sight, And only hear the great world’s voice which rings. But silently from daylight and from din The sweet Night draws me—whispers, “Look within!” And looking, as one wakened from a dream, I see what is—no longer what doth seem.

The Night says, “Listen!” and upon my ear Revealed, as are the visions to my sight, The voices known as “Beautiful” come near And whisper of the vastly Infinite. Great, blue-eyed Truth, her sister Purity, Their brother Honour, all converse with me, And kiss my brow, and say, “Be brave of heart!” O holy three! how beautiful thou art!

The Night says, “Child, sleep that thou may’st arise Strong for to-morrow’s struggle.” And I feel Her shadowy fingers pressing on my eyes: Like thistledown I float to the Ideal— The Slumberland, made beautiful and bright As death, by dreams of loved ones gone from sight, O food for souls, sweet dreams of pure delight, How beautiful the holy hours of Night!

ALL FOR ME

The world grows green on a thousand hills— By a thousand willows the bees are humming, And a million birds by a million rills, Sing of the golden season coming. But, gazing out on the sun-kist lea, And hearing a thrush and a blue-bird singing, I feel that the summer is all for me, And all for me are the joys it is bringing.

All for me the bumble-bee Drones his song in the perfect weather; And, just on purpose to sing to me, Thrush and blue-bird came North together. Just for me, in red and white, Bloom and blossom the fields of clover; And all for me and my delight The wild Wind follows and plays the lover.

The mighty sun, with a scorching kiss (I have read, and heard, and do not doubt it) Has burned up a thousand worlds like this, And never stopped to think about it. And yet I believe he hurries up Just on purpose to kiss my flowers— To drink the dew from the lily-cup, And help it to grow through golden hours.

I know I am only a speck of dust, An individual mite of masses, Clinging upon the outer crust Of a little ball of cooling gases. And yet, and yet, say what you will, And laugh, if you please, at my lack of reason, For me wholly, and for me still, Blooms and blossoms the Summer season.

Nobody else has ever heard The story the Wind to me discloses; And none but I and the humming-bird Can read the hearts of the crimson roses. Ah, my Summer—my love—my own! The world grows glad in your smiling weather; Yet all for me, and me alone, You and your Court came North together.

INTO SPACE

If the sad old world should jump a cog Sometime, in its dizzy spinning, And go off the track with a sudden jog, What an end would come to the sinning, What a rest from strife and the burdens of life For the millions of people in it, What a way out of care, and worry and wear, All in a beautiful minute.

As ’round the sun with a curving sweep It hurries and runs and races, Should it lose its balance, and go with a leap Into the vast sea-spaces, What a blest relief it would bring to the grief, And the trouble and toil about us, To be suddenly hurled from the solar world And let it go on without us.

With not a sigh or a sad good-bye For loved ones left behind us, We would go with a lunge and a mighty plunge Where never a grave should find us. What a wild mad thrill our veins would fill As the great earth, like a feather, Should float through the air to God knows where, And carry us all together.

No dark, damp tomb and no mourner’s gloom, No tolling bell in the steeple, But in one swift breath a painless death For a million billion people. What greater bliss could we ask than this, To sweep with a bird’s free motion Through leagues of space to a resting place, In a vast and vapoury ocean— To pass away from this life for aye With never a dear tie sundered, And a world on fire for a funeral pyre, While the stars looked on and wondered?

THROUGH DIM EYES

Is it the world, or my eyes, that are sadder? I see not the grace that I used to see In the meadow-brook whose song was so glad, or In the boughs of the willow tree. The brook runs slower—its song seems lower And not the song that it sang of old; And the tree I admired looks weary and tired Of the changeless story of heat and cold.

When the sun goes up, and the stars go under, In that supreme hour of the breaking day, Is it my eyes, or the dawn, I wonder, That finds less of the gold, and more of the gray I see not the splendour, the tints so tender, The rose-hued glory I used to see; And I often borrow a vague half-sorrow That another morning has dawned for me.