Part 15

Our thanks for fearless and protesting speech When cloven hoofs show ’neath the robes of state. For us no servile song of ‘Kings can do no wrong.’ Not royal birth, but worth, makes rulers great.

Thank God for peace within our border lands, And for the love of peace within each soul. Who thinks on peace has wrought, mosaic-squares of thought In the foundation of our future goal.

Our thanks for love, and knowledge of love’s laws. Love is a greater power than vested might. Love is the central source of all enduring force. Love is the law that sets the whole world right.

Our thanks for that increasing torch of light The tireless hand of science holds abroad. And may its growing blaze shine on all hidden ways Till man beholds the silhouette of God.

TIME ENOUGH

I know it is early morning, And hope is calling aloud, And your heart is afire with Youth’s desire To hurry along with the crowd. But linger a bit by the roadside, And lend a hand by the way, ’Tis a curious fact that a generous act Brings leisure and luck to a day.

I know it is only the noontime— There is chance enough to be kind; But the hours run fast when noon has passed, And the shadows are close behind. So think while the light is shining, And act ere the set of the sun, For the sorriest woe that a soul can know Is to think what it might have done.

I know it is almost evening, But the twilight hour is long. If you listen and heed each cry of need You can right full many a wrong. For when we have finished the journey We will all look back and say: ‘On life’s long mile there was nothing worth while But the good we did by the way.’

NEW YEAR’S DAY

When with clanging and with ringing Comes the year’s initial day, I can feel the rhythmic swinging Of the world upon its way; And though Right still wears a fetter, And though Justice still is blind, Time’s beyond is always better Than the paths he leaves behind.

In our eons of existence, As we circle through the night, We annihilate the distance ’Twixt the darkness and the light. From beginnings crude and lowly, Round and round our souls have trod Through the circles, winding slowly Up to knowledge and to God.

With each century departed Some old evil found a tomb, Some old truth was newly started In propitious soil to bloom. With each epoch some condition That has handicapped the race (Worn-out creed or superstition) Unto knowledge yields its place.

Though in folly and in blindness And in sorrow still we grope, Yet in man’s increasing kindness Lies the world’s stupendous hope; For our darkest hour of errors Is as radiant as the dawn, Set beside the awful terrors Of the ages that have gone.

And above the sad world’s sobbing, And the strife of clan with clan, I can hear the mighty throbbing Of the heart of God in man; And a voice chants through the chiming Of the bells, and seems to say, We are climbing, we are climbing, As we circle on our way.

LIFE IS A PRIVILEGE

Life is a privilege. Its youthful days Shine with the radiance of continuous Mays. To live, to breathe, to wonder and desire, To feed with dreams the heart’s perpetual fire; To thrill with virtuous passions and to glow With great ambitions—in one hour to know The depths and heights of feeling—God! in truth How beautiful, how beautiful is youth!

Life is a privilege. Like some rare rose The mysteries of the human mind unclose. What marvels lie in earth and air and sea, What stores of knowledge wait our opening key, What sunny roads of happiness lead out Beyond the realms of indolence and doubt, And what large pleasures smile upon and bless The busy avenues of usefulness.

Life is a privilege. Though noontide fades And shadows fall along the winding glades; Though joy-blooms wither in the autumn air, Yet the sweet scent of sympathy is there. Pale sorrow leads us closer to our kind, And in the serious hours of life we find Depths in the soul of men which lend new worth And majesty to this brief span of earth.

Life is a privilege. If some sad fate Sends us alone to seek the exit gate; If men forsake us as the shadows fall, Still does the supreme privilege of all Come in that reaching upward of the soul To find the welcoming presence at the goal, And in the knowledge that our feet have trod Paths that lead from and must lead back to God.

IN AN OLD ART GALLERY

Before the statue of a giant Hun, There stood a dwarf, misshapen and uncouth. His lifted eyes seemed asking: ‘Why, in sooth, Was I not fashioned like this mighty one? Would God show favour to an older son Like earthly kings, and beggar without ruth Another, who sinned only by his youth? Why should two lives in such divergence run?’

Strange, as he gazed, that from a vanished past No memories revived of war and strife, Of misused prowess, and of broken law. That old Hun’s spirit, in the dwarf re-cast, Lived out the sequence of an earthly life. It was the statue of himself he saw!

TRUE BROTHERHOOD

God, what a world, if men in street and mart Felt that same kinship of the human heart Which makes them, in the face of flame and flood, Rise to the meaning of true Brotherhood!

THE DECADENT

Among the virile hosts he passed along, Conspicuous for an undetermined grace Of sexless beauty. In his form and face God’s mighty purpose somehow had gone wrong. Then on his loom, he wove a careful song, Of sensuous threads; a wordy web of lace Wherein the primal passions of the race And his own sins made wonder for the throng.

A little pen prick opened up a vein, And gave the finished mesh a crimson blot— The last consummate touch of studied art. But those who knew strong passion and keen pain, Looked through and through the pattern and found not One single great emotion of the heart.

LORD, SPEAK AGAIN