Part 3

When Bryan speaks, the bunting glows. The raw procession onward flows. The small dogs bark. The children laugh A wind of springtime fancy blows.

When Bryan speaks, the wigwam shakes. The corporation magnate quakes. The pre-convention plot is smashed. The valiant pleb full-armed awakes.

When Bryan speaks, the sky is ours, The wheat, the forests, and the flowers. And who is here to say us nay? Fled are the ancient tyrant powers.

When Bryan speaks, then I rejoice. His is the strange composite voice Of many million singing souls Who make world-brotherhood their choice.

Written in Washington, D.C. February, 1915.

To Jane Addams at the Hague

Two Poems, written on the Sinking of the Lusitania. Appearing in the Chicago 'Herald', May 11, 1915.

I. Speak Now for Peace

Lady of Light, and our best woman, and queen, Stand now for peace, (though anger breaks your heart), Though naught but smoke and flame and drowning is seen.

Lady of Light, speak, though you speak alone, Though your voice may seem as a dove's in this howling flood, It is heard to-night by every senate and throne.

Though the widening battle of millions and millions of men Threatens to-night to sweep the whole of the earth, Back of the smoke is the promise of kindness again.

II. Tolstoi Is Plowing Yet

Tolstoi is plowing yet. When the smoke-clouds break, High in the sky shines a field as wide as the world. There he toils for the Kingdom of Heaven's sake.

Ah, he is taller than clouds of the little earth. Only the congress of planets is over him, And the arching path where new sweet stars have birth.

Wearing his peasant dress, his head bent low, Tolstoi, that angel of Peace, is plowing yet; Forward, across the field, his horses go.

The Tale of the Tiger Tree

A Fantasy, dedicated to the little poet Alice Oliver Henderson, ten years old.

The Fantasy shows how tiger-hearts are the cause of war in all ages. It shows how the mammoth forces may be either friends or enemies of the struggle for peace. It shows how the dream of peace is unconquerable and eternal.

Peace-of-the-Heart, my own for long, Whose shining hair the May-winds fan, Making it tangled as they can, A mystery still, star-shining yet, Through ancient ages known to me And now once more reborn with me:--

This is the tale of the Tiger Tree A hundred times the height of a man, Lord of the race since the world began.

This is my city Springfield, My home on the breast of the plain. The state house towers to heaven, By an arsenal gray as the rain ... And suddenly all is mist, And I walk in a world apart, In the forest-age when I first knelt down At your feet, O Peace-of-the-Heart.

This is the wonder of twilight: Three times as high as the dome Tiger-striped trees encircle the town, Golden geysers of foam. While giant white parrots sail past in their pride. The roofs now are clouds and storms that they ride. And there with the huntsmen of mound-builder days Through jungle and meadow I stride. And the Tiger Tree leaf is falling around As it fell when the world began: Like a monstrous tiger-skin, stretched on the ground, Or the cloak of a medicine man. A deep-crumpled gossamer web, Fringed with the fangs of a snake. The wind swirls it down from the leperous boughs. It shimmers on clay-hill and lake, With the gleam of great bubbles of blood, Or coiled like a rainbow shell.... I feast on the stem of the Leaf as I march. I am burning with Heaven and Hell.

The gray king died in his hour. Then we crowned you, the prophetess wise: Peace-of-the-Heart we deeply adored For the witchcraft hid in your eyes. Gift from the sky, overmastering all, You sent forth your magical parrots to call The plot-hatching prince of the tigers, To your throne by the red-clay wall.

Thus came that genius insane: Spitting and slinking, Sneering and vain, He sprawled to your grassy throne, drunk on The Leaf, The drug that was cunning and splendor and grief. He had fled from the mammoth by day, He had blasted the mammoth by night, War was his drunkenness, War was his dreaming, War was his love and his play. And he hissed at your heavenly glory While his councillors snarled in delight, Asking in irony: "What shall we learn From this whisperer, fragile and white?"

And had you not been an enchantress They would not have loitered to mock Nor spared your white parrots who walked by their paws With bantering venturesome talk.

You made a white fire of The Leaf. You sang while the tiger-chiefs hissed. You chanted of "Peace to the wonderful world." And they saw you in dazzling mist. And their steps were no longer insane, Kindness came down like the rain, They dreamed that like fleet young ponies they feasted On succulent grasses and grain.

. . . . .

Then came the black-mammoth chief: Long-haired and shaggy and great, Proud and sagacious he marshalled his court: (You had sent him your parrots of state.) His trunk in rebellion upcurled, A curse at the tiger he hurled. Huge elephants trumpeted there by his side, And mastodon-chiefs of the world. But higher magic began. For the turbulent vassals of man. You harnessed their fever, you conquered their ire, Their hearts turned to flowers through holy desire, For their darling and star you were crowned, And their raging demons were bound. You rode on the back of the yellow-streaked king, His loose neck was wreathed with a mistletoe ring. Primordial elephants loomed by your side, And our clay-painted children danced by your path, Chanting the death of the kingdoms of wrath. You wrought until night with us all. The fierce brutes fawned at your call, Then slipped to their lairs, song-chained. And thus you sang sweetly, and reigned: "Immortal is the inner peace, free to beasts and men. Beginning in the darkness, the mystery will conquer, And now it comforts every heart that seeks for love again. And now the mammoth bows the knee, We hew down every Tiger Tree, We send each tiger bound in love and glory to his den, Bound in love ... and wisdom ... and glory, ... to his den."