Poems of Progress and New Thought Pastels

Part 1

Transcribed from the 1913 Gay and Hancock edition by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org

POEMS OF PROGRESS AND NEW THOUGHT PASTELS

ELLA WHEELER WILCOX

GAY AND HANCOCK, LTD.

12 AND 13 HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN

LONDON

1913

* * * * *

ANY edition of my poems published in England by any firm except Messrs. Gay and Hancock is pirated and not authentic.

ELLA WHEELER WILCOX.

April 12, 1910.

PREFACE LOVE’S LANGUAGE

When silence flees before the voice of Love, Of what expression does that god approve? Is dulcet song or flowing verse his choice, Or stately prose, made regal by his voice? Speaks Love in couplets, or in epics grand? And is Love humble, or does he command?

There is no language that Love does not speak: To-day commanding and to-morrow meek, One hour laconic and the next verbose, With hope triumphant and with doubt morose, His varying moods all forms of speech employ. To give expression to his painful joy,

To voice the phases of his joyful pain, He rings the changes on the poet’s strain. Yet not in epic, epigram or verse Can Love the passion of his heart rehearse. All speech, all language, is inadequate, There are no words with Love commensurate.

CONTENTS

PAGE Preface v The Land Between 1 Love’s Mirage 3 The Need of the World 4 The Gulf Stream 7 Remembered 8 Helen of Troy 9 Lais when Young 11 Lais when Old 12 Existence 13 Holiday Songs 15 Astrolabius 18 Completion 21 Sleep’s Treachery 24 Art versus Cupid 25 The Revolt of Vashti 33 The Choosing of Esther 37 Honeymoon Scene 42 The Cost 49 The Voice 52 God’s Answer 55 The Edict of the Sex 56 The World-child 59 The Heights 61 On seeing ‘The House of Julia’ at Herculaneum 63 A Prayer 64 What is Right Living? 66 Justice 67 Time’s Gaze 68 The Worker and the Work 70 Art thou Alive? 72 To-day 74 The Ladder 76 Who is a Christian? 78 The Goal 80 The Spur 82 Awakened! 84 Shadows 86 The New Commandment 88 Summer Dreams 90 The Breaking of Chains 92 December 94 ‘The Way’ 96 The Leader to be 98 The Greater Love 100 Thank God for Life 102 Time Enough 104 New Year’s Day 106 Life is a Privilege 108 In an Old Art Gallery 110 True Brotherhood 111 The Decadent 112 Lord, speak again 113 My Heaven 116 Life 118 God’s Kin 120 Conquest 121 The Statue 122 Sirius 124 At Fontainebleau 128 The Masquerade 129 Sympathy 131 Intermediary 133 Life’s Car 135 Opportunity 135 The Age of Motored Things 136 New Year 136 Disarmament 140 The Call 141 A Little Song 142 NEW THOUGHT PASTELS A Dialogue 145 The Weed 147 Strength 148 Affirm 149 The Chosen 150 The Nameless 152 The Word 153 Assistance 155 ‘Credulity’ 156 Consciousness 157 The Structure 158 Our Souls 159 The Law 160 Knowledge 161 Give 163 Perfection 164 Fear 165 The Way 166 Understood 167 His Mansion 168 Effect 169 Three Things 170 Obstacles 171 Prayer 172 Climbing 173 ‘There is no Death, There are no Dead’ 174 Realisation 176

THE LAND BETWEEN

Between the little Here and larger Yonder, There is a realm (or so one day I read) Where faithful spirits love-enchained may wander, Till some remembering soul from earth has fled. Then, reunited, they go forth afar, From sphere to sphere, where wondrous angels are.

Not many spirits in that realm are waiting; Not many pause upon its shores to rest; For only love, intense and unabating, Can hold them from the longer, higher quest. And after grief has wept itself to sleep, Few hearts on earth their vital memories keep.

Should I pass on, across the mystic border, Let thy love link me to that pallid land; I would not seek the heavens of finer order Until thy barque had left this coarser strand. How desolate such journeyings would be, Though straight to Him, were they not shared by thee.

Wert thou first called (dear God, how could I bear it?) I should enchain thee with my love, I know. Not great enough am I to free thy spirit From all these tender ties, and bid thee go. Nor would a soul, unselfish as thine own, Forget so soon, and speed to heaven alone.

On earth we find no joy in ways diverging; How could we find it in the worlds unseen? I know old memories from my bosom surging, Would keep thee waiting in that Land Between, Until together, side by side, we trod A path of stars, in our great search for God.

LOVE’S MIRAGE

Midway upon the route, he paused athirst And suddenly across the wastes of heat, He saw cool waters gleaming, and a sweet Green oasis upon his vision burst. A tender dream, long in his bosom nursed, Spread love’s illusive verdure for his feet; The barren sands changed into golden wheat; The way grew glad that late had seemed accursed.

She shone, the woman wonder, on his soul; The garden spot, for which men toil and wait; The house of rest, that is each heart’s demand; But when, at last, he reached the gleaming goal, He found, oh, cruel irony of fate, But desert sun upon the desert sand.

THE NEED OF THE WORLD

I know the need of the world, Though it would not have me know. It would hide its sorrow deep, Where only God may go. Yet its secret it can not keep; It tells it awake, or asleep, It tells it to all who will heed, And he who runs may read. The need of the world I know.

Part 2

I know the need of the world, When it boasts of its wealth the loudest, When it flaunts it in all men’s eyes, When its mien is the gayest and proudest. Oh! ever it lies—it lies, For the sound of its laughter dies In a sob and a smothered moan, And it weeps when it sits alone. The need of the world I know.

I know the need of the world. When the earth shakes under the tread Of men who march to the fight, When rivers with blood are red And there is no law but might, And the wrong way seems the right; When he who slaughters the most Is all men’s pride and boast. The need of the world I know.

I know the need of the world. When it babbles of gold and fame, It is only to lead us astray From the thing that it dare not name, For this is the sad world’s way. Oh! poor blind world grown grey With the need of a thing so near, With the want of a thing so dear. The need of the world I know.

The need of the world is love. Deep under the pride of power, Down under its lust of greed, For the joys that last but an hour, There lies forever its need. For love is the law and the creed And love is the unnamed goal Of life, from man to the mole. Love is the need of the world.

THE GULF STREAM

Skilled mariner, and counted sane and wise, That was a curious thing which chanced to me, So good a sailor on so fair a sea. With favouring winds and blue unshadowed skies, Led by the faithful beacon of Love’s eyes, Past reef and shoal, my life-boat bounded free And fearless of all changes that might be Under calm waves, where many a sunk rock lies.

A golden dawn; yet suddenly my barque Strained at the sails, as in a cyclone’s blast; And battled with an unseen current’s force, For we had entered when the night was dark That old tempestuous Gulf Stream of the Past. But for love’s eyes, I had not kept the course.

REMEMBERED

His art was loving; Eres set his sign Upon that youthful forehead, and he drew The hearts of women, as the sun draws dew. Love feeds love’s thirst as wine feeds love of wine; Nor is there any potion from the vine Which makes men drunken like the subtle brew Of kisses crushed by kisses; and he grew Inebriated with that draught divine.

Yet in his sober moments, when the sun Of radiant summer paled to lonely fall, And passion’s sea had grown an ebbing tide, From out the many, Memory singled one Full cup that seemed the sweetest of them all— The warm red mouth that mocked him and denied.

HELEN OF TROY

ON THE ISLE OF CRANAE

The world an abject vassal to her charms, And kings competing for a single smile, Yet love she knew not, till upon this isle She gave surrender to abducting arms. Not Theseus, who plucked her lips’ first kiss, Not Menelaus, lawful mate and spouse, Such answering passion in her heart could rouse, Or wake such tumult in her soul as this. Let come what will, let Greece and Asia meet, Let heroes die and kingdoms run with gore; Let devastation spread from shore to shore— Resplendent Helen finds her bondage sweet. The whole world fights her battles, while she lies Sunned in the fervour of young Paris’ eyes.

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