xt7m901zdb0t https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt7m901zdb0t/data/mets.xml Musgrove, Charles, Hamilton. 1913  books b92-225-31182982 English John P. Morton Co., : Louisville, Ky. : Contact the Special Collections Research Center for information regarding rights and use of this collection. Pan and Aeolus  : poems / by Charles Hamilton Musgrove. text Pan and Aeolus  : poems / by Charles Hamilton Musgrove. 1913 2002 true xt7m901zdb0t section xt7m901zdb0t 




















         POEMS




            BY

CHARLES HAMILTON MUSGROVE



         JOHN P. MORTON & COMPANY
                INCORPORATED
i            LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY

   _ .   _ - _-           _-  

 




































       CopmxInmr, 1913,
BY CnABaLEB HAMILTON MUSGROVE.

 











                     CONTENTS

                                                       Page
A Fugue of Hell        -      -
Hymn of the Tomb Builders      - -         7
The Tornado ------------- -1-0------ l0
Voices          -             -12
A Song for the Hills  -  -14
Romany           -            -15
Idols --------------------------------------------- 16
Ode to the New Century  - -18
A Clown's Prelude  -    -1
A Legend of Gold       -          -22
The Eagle and the Flower  - -23
Sunset in the City  -   -24
The Admiral's Return -              -                    23
The Dungeoned Anarchist  - -26
At the Play         -           -27
The Derelict        -           -28
Zoroaster.         -           -                         29
The North Wind         -          -31
Where is God         -          -32
The Story of Moses  -   -34
Parthenope to Ulysses      - -                           36
Death                                      .,.--- 37
The Light Celestial -              -                     38
Cupid to a Skull  --39
The Passing Race  --40
Kenotaphiion        -           -42
The Red Cross         -          -                       43
Midsummer Noon ..---              -     -                44
The Snow Man               --    -                       45
Our Sister of the Streets   - -                          46
The Earthworm and the Star     - -                       48
The Riddle of the Sphinx  - -49
The Mothers         -           -50
In the Night                    -           -            51

 











                     CONTENTS

                                                     Page
Forgiven -                                             52
A Woman, and some Men -53
The Newly Dead -55
The First Born -56
The Voice of the North -57
To C. 33 -59
Silence -60
Columbus' Last Voyage -61
Atonement -62
The Poet Shepherd -63
Our Daily Bread -6- 64
A Mother to the Sea -65
The Feast of the Passions ------ 66
The Human World -68
The Vow Forsworn -69
Confession -70
Love and Art -71
The Song of the Dynamo -73
The Gold Fields -76
The Woman Answers -77
The Monastery -78
The Passion Play ----- 79
Instruments --------------------------------------- 83
Quatrains -84
Immutability-                                         86
The Fettered Vultures ------------------- 87
The Dead Child - ------------------------------- 89
Night in May -90
De Profundis - ------------------------------------------ 91

 









         PAN AND LZEOLUS

                    ,         h

              A FUGUE OF HELL.

                       I.

I dreamed a mighty dream. It seemed mine eyes
Sealed for the moment were to things terrene,
And then there came a strange, great wind that blew
From undiscovered lands, and took my soul
And set it on an uttermost peak of Hell
Amid the gloom and fearful silences.
Slowly the darkness paled, and a weird dawn
Broke on my wondering vision, and there grew
Uncanny phosphorescence in the air
Which seemed to throb with some great vital spell
Of mystery and doom. With aching eyes
I gazed, and lo! the dreadful scene evolved,
Black and chaotic, like an awful birth
To Desolation, of a lifeless world!
My soul in agony cried out to God,
When of a sudden all the place grew calm,
Save for the trembling of the mountain peaks
And the low moaning of the billowy winds
Among the abysses. Dull lights here and there
Kindled, like wreckage of a city razed

 





PAN AND GEOLUS



By vandals, and the inky sky cupped up
Into a black, impenetrable roof. .
But now from out the chaos there arose
Another sound more fearful than the wail
Of tempest, or the quake of mighty hills-
A mortal cry, a human voice in Hell!

                       II.

The infernal glare grew brighter, and there came
Unto mine ears the sound of many tongues,
Mingling discordant curse with bitter cry
Of lamentation. On the outer marge
Of Hell's domains, set one at each of four
Far sundered corners, four volcanoes grim
Spewed up their flaming bowels into a sea
Of blackness whence no light could issue forth.
Beyond this fierce horizon, farther yet
Than vision's wing could bear my gaze, I knew
Hell's desolate kingdoms stretched their iron wastes,
Hell's burning mountains waved their brands of flame,
Hell's lava rivers plunged in fury down
Their adamantine beds.

                            The human cry
Deepened,-the stunning babel shrieked and roared
As though some mighty revolution swept
The flying hosts along-some pang too keen
For the immortal and transcendent pains
Of Hell to quench, was burning in their souls.

 





PAN AND zEOLUS



                      III.

Slowly mine eyes pierced through the pallid light
That crowned the awful place, and then I saw
That which shall not be seen of mortal eye
Until the final day. I saw the vast
Black concourse of Inferno pouring in
From Hell's four sides, and gathering at the base
Of a stupendous mountain whose great crest
Towered high above the glare, and lost itself
In blackness. Never met such throng before
In Hell or Heaven. Flowing round the mount
Like a huge deluge, from afar they came,
And near. A dreadful sound was on mine ears,
As when the first great call of deep to deep
Broke on the natal silence, or as when
The wailing cry of universal death
Shall shake the pillars of eternity!

Still came the multitudes, and still the sea
Of human souls surged round the iron base
Of that mysterious mountain, while afar
The dim circumference was added to
With newer legions. Conquerors of old,
Armored and visored in resplendent steel,
Galloped on Hell-steeds, that with one great bound
Cleared bottomless canions; then the kings and queens
Of Babylon, shorn of their lofty state,
Came abject, and with terror in those eyes

 





PAN AND - EOLUS



That once outshone the world; and after them,
I\'yriads who reveled at the feast of life,
And when the reeling stupor of their wine
Had loosened, woke and found their souls in Hell.

                       IV.

What horrid crisis, then, I thought, can bring
The infernal minions to assemble here
Within the shadow of this gloomy peak
That seems to thrust aloft its fearful head
Even to God's footstool Then as if there came
Answer direct to my soul's questioning,
A great voice lifted from the throng, which seemed
To bear up heaven-high its might of words,
Crying: "Thou wan inheritors of pain,
Angels and princes. ministers of Hell,
Hearken! The day of all great days is come,
Commemorative of that legend old
Whose prophecy is that when the time has run
A million neons out, if God relent,
A symbol shall be set upon the top
Of yonder mount-a blazing star-to tell
That hope is not yet dead. 0 powers of night,
Children of woe and darkness! not again
Shall Hell know such a gathering as this
Until, if hope be not forever fled,
The day of our redemption shall arrive!"
The voice ceased and a murmur ran through Hell,
A fearful whisper, scarcely breathing, "Hope!"
                       4

 





PAN AND _ooCLUS



Then louder, as when storms begin to blow,
Gusty and fitful, and the word was "Hope!"
Then, rising like a tempest, swelling high
In vast crescendo, swept the human cry,
And all Hell's thunderous gamut answered "Hope!"

                       V.
The shouts ceased, and the exultation died
Slowly into a sort of empty wail,
Half hope and half despair, for still the sign
Had not yet blazed upon their eager eyes.
Then as I sat in wondering agony,
Praying, yet fearing, for the greatest cause
That ever souls of men in balance set
'Gainst everlasting doom, there rose again
The voice of their great leader, Lucifer,
The rebel angel, and outcast of God:
"Lo, hosts of Hell," he cried, "inheritors
Of death diurnal, strangely mingled with
Relentless life, what shall we say to God
Who waits and watches Shall we pray or curse,
Implore or threaten Can we move Him thus
Burn not the lightnings yet in His right hand
With which He struck us to confusion once
And laughs He not in thunderbolts the same
As once pursued our howling flight to Hell
Befits it rather, think ye not, my hosts,
That we should send on high in one accord
A mighty threnody-a hymn of Hell,



5

 




P A AN AN D zE OLUS



Inspired by pain and sung in bitterest woe,
As our best offering,-and await His word"


He ceased, and for the moment all was still;
Then plaintive as the rhythmic dawn of stars
Upon a night of sorrow, rose a strain
Of lamentation, such as when the sea
Makes moan unto an earthquake's inward throes.
Then circling outward passed the rising tones
Of that sad minstrelsy, and then again
Backward it swept like a great tidal wave
Of anguish, all Hell's anarchy of grief
Set to a sounding fugue. Grim-throated rose
The awful hymn, and mingling with the wail
Of voices, pealed the cymbals' brassy clang;
The thunderous organs bellowed through the gloom,
And, rocking Hell's foundations, burst a blare
Of stormy trumpets crying: "Woe, woe, woe!"
Methought the angels must have wept to hear,
Methought their tears had dropt like healing rain
Upon the fires of torment, and assuaged
Their blazing wrath, so piteous was the strain.


The music ceased, the echoes sobbed away
Like a tumultuous sorrow, when, behold!
The black veil lifted from the mountain's crest,
And on its glorious summit flamed the Star!



6

 




PAN AND pound;'OLUS



       HYMN OF THE TOMB BUILDERS.

They were three old men with hoary hair
  And beards of wintry gray,
And they digged a grave in the yellow soil,
And they crooned this song as they plied their toil,
  In the fading light of day:

Hither ye bring your workmen,
  Like tools that are broken and bent,
To pay your due to their cunning
  After their skill is spent;
Hither ye bring them and lay them,
  And go when your prayers are said,
Back where the stress of your living
  Makes mock of the peace of your dead.

From the iron-paved roads of traffic,
  From the shell-scarred fields of war,
From the lands of earth's burning girdle
  To the snows of her uttermost star,
Ye bring in your sons and daughters
  From the glare and the din of today,
Giving them back unto silence,
  And sealing their lips with clay.

 




PAN AND EOLUS



Some drunk with the wine of carnage,
  Some clothed with the shreds of power,
Some stark from the fields of famine,
  Some decked for the pleasuance bower,
And all with their still clay fingers
  To their cold clay bosoms laid
To sleep from xon to aeon
  At the lowly Sign of the Spade.


Afar through the quickening ages
  Fell the first keen notes of strife,
And they held out their hands in the darkness
  Toward that blatant boon called life;
And they heard the building of empires,
  And the restless trampling of men,
And the dust that was made for heartbreak
  Grew poignant even then.


Your bones they are moist with marrow,
  And with milk your breasts are full;
Your hands they are strong and subtle,
  And your life-blood never dull;
But fail at the sword or the plowshare,
  Or fall at the forge or the wheel,
And ye only mar earth's bosom
  With a wound that her dust will heal.

 





PAN AND ZEOLUS



Hither ye bring your workmen,
  And it's ever the tale retold
Of the useless tools of the builders,
  Battered and broken and old;
Hither ye bring them and lay them,
  And go when your prayers are said,
For the blood of your living is dearer
  Than the idle dust of your dead.


They were three old men with hoary hair
  And beards of wintry gray,
A nd they shouldered their spades, for their work was done,
And they left behind at the set of sun
  A grave in the yellow clay.



9

 




PAN AND AOLUS



                THE TORNADO.

God let me fall from His hand
One day at His forge when the elemental world
Was shaping. I am but a breath from His great
      bellows,
But here among the workshops of mankind
I am a fateful scourge.

I tear red strips from the proud cities of men;
I name my passage the Highway of Instant Death;
I splinter world-old forests with my laugh,
And whirl the ancient snows of Hecla sheer into
      Orion's eyes.
I dance on the deep under the big Indian stars,
And wrap the water spout about my sinuous hips
As a dancer winds her girdle. The ocean's horrid
      crew,
The octopus, the serpent, and the shark, with the
      heart of a coward,
Plunge downward when they hear my feet above on
      the sea-floor,
And hide in their slimy coverts. Brave men pray
      upon the straining decks
Till comes my mood to end them, and I strew the
      racing foam with wreckage.



10

 





PAIN AJND ,JEOLUS



I am a breath from God's forge. I remember His
      awful workshop,
How the hot globes spun off into infinite darkness, as
      system by system,
The universe was wrought; and then I remember the
      birth of the sun,
How God cried: "Let there be light!" and, blinding,
      bewildering, exulting,
The great orb flained from His furnace, and only the
      Creator stood upright.
In that hour I fell from His hand.

I am a breath from God's forge,
And, being a part of creation, I shall also be a part of
      the end.
He has told me that there shall come a day
When the Seventh Angel shall open his last vial of
      wrath in the mid-air,
And in that day I shall dance with the thunder, the
      lightning, and the earthquake,
And, dancing, hear His voice cry out from Heaven's
      temple: "It is done!"



1I  

 




PAN AND ,EOLUS



                    VOICES.

                    Earthquake.

I am a memory of cosmogony,
That first great hour of travail when the voice
Of God called suns and systems from the void;
I am the dream He dreams of that last day
When mountains by the roots shall be plucked up
And headlong flung into the raging sea!

                   Hurricane.

I am the breath that fills the organ pipes
When through the vast cathedral of the world
Death's stormy threnody sweeps, wave on wave,
The symboled note that one day will be blown
By a great angel standing in the sun,
At which the heaven and earth shall pass away!

                      Fire.

I am the letters of that fateful word
Writ with a flaming sword above the gates
Of Eden when God spelled the doom of man;
I am the wrath that on the judgment day
Shall waste the seas, and wither up the stars,
And roll the heavens together like a scroll!

 





P AT A N D iE O L US



                      God.

I am the earthquake, hurricane and fire!
Through them I speak with man as through the stars,
The dews, the flowers, and every gentler thing;
Some learn my lesson in the paths of peace;
Some con it low at desolation's knee;
Only the fool hath said: "There is no God!"



I 9

 




PAN AND X,1OOLUS



           A SONG FOR THE HILLS.

Here is the freedom men die for,-die for but never
      know;
Here is the peace they pray for shrined in eternal
      snow;
Down on the plain the city moans with a human cry,
But here there is naught but silence,-peace, and the
      wide, wide sky.

Here are the dawn's first footfalls, and the twilight's
      last farewell,
The benediction of starlight, and the moon's sweet
      canticle;
Here is one spot as God made it, far from the plains-
      man's range,
Or the march of the cycling seasons with their ever-
      lasting change.

Down on the plain the city moans with a human cry,
And the man-gnomes delve and burrow for gold till
      they drop and die;
But here there is naught for conquest and the spoiler
      stands at bay,
For God still keeps one playground where He and His
      whirlwinds play.



14

 





PAN AND r-EOLUS



ROMANY.



The city frets in the distance, lass,
  The city so grim and gray,
A glare in the sky by night, my lass,
  And a blot on the sky by day;
But we are out on the long white road,
  And under the wide free sky.
And the song that was born in my heart today
  Will sing there till I die.



The long white road and the wide free sky,
  And the city far away;
A good-night kiss in the twilight, lass,
  And a kiss at the break of day;
For light are the loads we bear, my lass,
  By highway and hill and grove,
And the sunlight is all for life, my lass,
  And the starlight all for love.



15

 




PAN AND A OLUS



                     IDOLS.

                        I.

Mouths have they, but they speak not:
  Yet something in the certainty of faith
  To their disciples saith:
"Believe on me and vengeance I will wreak not."
The word that conquers death-
  The immutable and boundless gift of grace-
  Dwells in that stony face,
And every supplication answereth.
Mouths have they, but they speak not;
  Yet one supernal will that shapes to suit
A great decree that can not be belied
Utters from voiceless lips those creeds that guide
  The tribes that never heard
  The living, saving Word,-
That have their dead gods and are satisfied.

                       II.

Eyes have they, but they see not:
  Yet the pagan builds his shrine,
  And keeps his fires divine
Forever bright, nor darkly doubts there be not
  Enough of grace and power
  Within those eyes that glower



16

 




P AN AND SEOLUS



To read his soul. To him they are not blind,
For some diim, undefined
  Reward of faith that thrills his untaught breast
Links up his baser mind
To the clear eyes of God that burn behind
  The stony brow. It is a creed professed
Before a deity not quenched in space,
  But one to whom his bands
  Can lift adoring hands,
And see and touch and worship face to face.

                       III.

Ears have they, but they hear not:
  Yet the heathen kneel and pray,
  Nor in their madness say:
"Thou art no god, and therefore I will fear not;
  What if I disobey
  Thou art but stone or clay."
They hear not, but their worshippers impute
Them faculties to suit
  The divination of the prayers they say;
And Christ, who understands
His children in all lands
When from the dark their dying souls have cried,
  Shrines His great heart of love within the clod
  The savage calls his god
And all idolatry is deified.



17

 





PAN AND 2EOLUS



         ODE TO THE NEW CENTURY.

The dial has pointed the hour and the hour has
      rounded the day,
  The day has finished the year that dies with a
        century's birth;
Eastward the morning stars sing as they go their way:
  "Lo! the Great Mother travaileth, a king is born
        to the earth!
King of a hundred years, and king of a million tombs,
  Sovereign of infinite joys, keeper of countless tears;
Peace to the throneless dead, hail to the ruler who
      comes,
  King of a million tombs, and king of a hundred
        years!"

Time and his tenant Death, for the space of a mo-
      ment's flight
  Stand on the bare, black ridge dividing eternities
        twain;
One looks back to his realm all waste in the hopeless
      night,
  One with the eyes of hope sees it rebuilded again.
Behind are the gray, gleaned fields with their worthless
      stubble of graves,
 Strewn with the thistles of sin, and the trampled
        chaff of desire;



18

 





PAN AND -EOLUS



Before are the acres of love, not furrowed by hands
      of slaves,
  Not sown with sorrow and strife, not wasted with
        flood or with fire.

Great is the hour, my Soul, and great is the wonder
      to see;
  Prophet-like dost thou look to yonder portentous
        sky
Where lo! the scroll is unfolding-the scroll of the
      great To Be:-
  Look to the east, 0 Soul, and clear and strong be
        thine eye!
Look to the west where once waved the cherubic
      sword
  Over man's Eden lost, and see in the heavens above
Not the angels of wrath bearing God's angry word,
  But the angels of Mercy and Peace, the angels of
        Hope and of Love.

Great is the hour, 0 Soul, and great are the voices to
      hear-
  Voices of choral stars, and the calling of deep unto
        deep
Like to the natal hour when rolling sphere upon
      sphere
  Sprang from the bosom of God and sang of their
        limitless sweep!



19

 




            P AN AN D E O L U S

Great is the hour, 0 Soul, and thou art a seer who
      looks
  Far through the mystic night and seeth the great
        unseen,
Truth that to us is blind, and the lies of our prophets'
      books,
  Heaven and Hell and the land called Life that lies
        between.

The region of shapes called Life, with shadows behind
      and before-
  Shadows voiceless as Death, and dark as the sunless
        totm b,-
Shapes whose anguish and strife seem a glimpse of
      Hell's grim shore-
  Shadows that gave them life and shadows that hail
        them home.
Great is the hour, 0 Soul, and great is the wonder to
      see!
  Thou art alone with God as he writes on the future's
        page
Two words in letters of fire-(one Doom,--one
      Mystery,-
  Alpha the last, and the first Omega) and names it
        an Age.




[December 31, 1900.]



20

 





PAN AND GEOLUS



            A CLOWN'S PRELUDE.

Behold! I cover up this trail of tears
A moment's weakness left upon my cheek,
And hush my heart a little ere I speak
Lest the false note ring true on other ears;
The music rises and the empty cheers
Proclaim the harlequin, and lo! I stand
The painted fool again and kiss my hand
With jocund air to Folly's worshippers.
So day by day life's bitter bread is earned
With lips that smile and frame the mirthless joke,
And frailer grows the soul that once was strong,-
The joyless soul of one whose trade has turned
Life's tragic mantle to a jester's cloak,
Life's diapason to a jester's song.



21

 





PAN AND w'EOLUS



             A LEGEND OF GOLD.

Lucifer craved one boon of God
  After his fall, as his own to hold;
So He gave him a mite in heaven's sight,
  But lo! the gift that He gave was-Gold.

And Lucifer wrought with the rugged ore
  Till he fashioned it wondrous fair, and then
He set a price on the precious store,
  And the price was the blood and tears of men.

Blood and tears! and the price was paid;
  Blood was nothing, and tears were free;
And Lucifer smiled at the fools and said:
  "Surely your souls should belong to me!"

So he offered the earth with its golden heart,
  And the seas with their fleets from pole to pole;
And they looked with lust on the world-wide mart,
  And said in their hearts,-"It is worth the soul!"

And kings were they, and they ruled right well;
  Gorgeously sped their sovereign day
But Lucifer hath their souls in Hell,
  And their gold and their empires-where are they



22

 





PAN AND iEOLUS



        THE EAGLE AND THE FLOWER.
The eyrie clung to the shattered cliff
  That the glacier's torrent thundered under;
And the unfledged eaglet's lifted eye
Looked out on the world of peak and sky
      In silent wonder.

The mountain daisy, dainty white,
  That grew by the side of the lofty eyrie,
Saw the young wings beat on the eagle's breast,
And the restless eyes in the fagot-nest
      Grow grim and fiery.

The days went by and the wings grew strong,
  And the crag-built home was at last deserted;
But, close to the nest that her love had left,
The daisy clung to the rocky cleft,
      Half broken-hearted.

The days went by and the wan, white flower
  Waited and watched in the autumn weather;
Far down the valley, far up the height,
The forest blazed, and a wizard light
      Crowned hill and heather.

And he came at last one eventide,
  His breast was pierced and his plumes were gory;
For home is best when we come to die,
And we love the love that our youth puts by,-
      And there's my story.



23

 





PAN AND XOLUS



        SUNSET IN THE CITY.

Down at the end of the iron lane
  I see the sunset's glare,
And the red bars lie across the sky
  Like steps of a wondrous stair.

Below, the throng, with unlifted eye,
  Sweeps on in its heedless flight
Where the street's black funnel pours its tide
  Out into the deepening night.

And no one has stopped to read God's word
  On the fiery heavens scrolled
Save an old man dreaming of boyhood's days,
  And a boy who would fain be old.



24

 





PAN AND AEOLUS



           THE ADMIRAL'S RETURN.
(Written on the occasion of the bringing of the body of Admiral John Paul Jones to
               the United States for reburial.)

   Brave ships are these that bear thee home again
     From under far-off skies-brave flags that fly
     Above the deck whereon thine ashes lie,
   Waiting their urn beyond the alien main;
   The nations pause to view thy funeral train
     As slowly moving up 'twixt sea and sky
     It comes with stately pomp, and Liberty
   Holds out her hands and calls thy name in vain.
   And yet, mayhap, in vision vague and sweet,
     Another sight thou seest beyond the boast
   Of patriot pride-beside the new-born fleet,
     Spectral and strange, no guest for such a host,
   Yet making thy home-coming all complete,
   The old "Bon Homm6 Richard's" unlaid ghost.



25

 





PAN AND zEOLUS



        THE DUNGEONED ANARCHIST.

He crouches, voiceless, in his tomb-like cell,
   Forgot of all things save his jailer's hate
   That turns the daylight from his iron grate
To make his prison more and more a hell;
For him no coming day or hour shall spell
   Deliverance, or bid his soul await
   The hand of Mercy at his dungeon gate:
He would not know even though a kingdom fell!
The black night hides his hand before his eyes,-
   That grim, clenched hand still burning with the
       sting
Of royal blood; he holds it like a prize,
   Waiting the hour when he at last shall fling
The stain in God's face, shrieking as he dies:
   "Behold the unconquered arm that slew a king!"



26

 





PAN AND zEOLUS



              AT THE PLAY.

 The poet painted a woman's soul,
    Human, trusting and kind,
 And then he drew the soul of a man,
    Brutal and base and blind;

 And the woman loved in the old, old way,
    And the man in the way of men,
 And the poet christened their lives "A Play,"
    And he sat down to watch it, and then

 A woman rose with a bitter laugh,
    And her eyes were as dry as stone
 As she bowed her head at the poet's stall
    And said in a strange, cold tone:

"He paints the best who has dipped his brush
    In the heart's own blood, they say;
 You took my love and you took my life,
    But you gave the world-a play!"

 





PAN AND EOLUS



             THE DERELICT.

North and south with the fickle tides,
   With the wind from east to west,
The death-ship follows her track of doom,
   But finds no port or rest.

Day after day the far white sails
   Come up and glimmer and die,
And night by night the twinkling lights
   Crawl down the distant sky.

Day after day her black hull lifts
   And sinks with the swell's long roll,
And the white birds cling to her rotting shrouds
   Like prayers of a stricken soul,

But ever the death-ship keeps her track
   While the ships of men sail on,
For God is her skipper and helmsman, too,
   And knoweth her port alone.



28

 





PAN AND XOLUS



                 ZOROASTER.


                        I.

The light of a new day was on his brow,
The faith of a great dawn was on his tongue;
Out of the dark he raised his voice and sung
The high Messiah who should overthrow
The gods that Superstition crowned with might
And set above the world,-the coming Christ
Whose unshed blood should be the holy tryst
'Twixt man and his lost Eden, washing white
From his rebellious soul the serpent's blight.


                       IL.

The fire that on the Magi's altars glowed
Spake to his soul in symbols and expressed
The immortal purity that without rest
Strives with the mortal grossness whose abode
Is in the heart. Their symboled fire showed One
Whose spirit on the altar of the world
Burns ceaselessly,--where, if all vice be hurled,
It shall be purged with fire that shall atone,-
Christ's love the flame, man's sin th' alchemic stone.



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PAN AND EOLUS



                     Ill.

The light of a new day was on his brow,
The faith of a great dawn was on his tongue;
Above the old Chaldean myths he sung
The message of the peace that men should know
Through God's own Son. Out of the hopeless night
He saw the star of Bethlehem arise,
And o'er the wasted gates of Paradise
Beheld it mount, and heard, to hail its light,
The everlasting groan of hell's despite.



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PAN AND i'EOLUS



       THE NORTH WIND.


                 1.

Wind of the North, I know your song
    Out on the frozen plain,
But here in the city's streets you seem
    Only a cry of pain.


                II.



I know the
   Where
But here it
   Of the



note of your lusty throat
the black boughs toss and roar,
is part of the old, old cry
hungry, homeless poor.


     III.



I know the song that you sing to God,
   Joyous and high and wild,
But here where His creatures herd and die,
    'Tis the sob of a little child.



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PAN AND gEOLUS



            WHERE IS GOD
    (Written during the hostilities in the Far East in 1900.)

Hard by the gates of Eden,
  Where God first walked with man,
In the light of the new creation,
  Ere the race of Cain began,
The world-wide hosts have gathered,
  And their swords are drawn to slay:
God was with man in Eden,
  But where is God today

From the ice-bound steppes of the Cossack;
  From the home of the fleur-de-lis,
From the vineyards that crown the Rhineland
  To the shores of the phosphor sea,
The clans have gathered for battle,
  And each for the signal waits,
While a million swords are flaming
  At Eden's Eastern gates.

By the sign of the yellow dragon,
  By the tri-color's bars of light;
By the double-throated eagle
  That screams with the lust of fight,
By the Union Jack of Britannia,
  By Columbia's stars and bars,
They pray to the god of battle
  For the meed of a hundred wars.



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P AIN AND ,1TOLUS



Hard by the gates of Eden,
  Where the passion flower of strife
First bloomed at its blood-red altar
  At the price of a brother's life,
The children of Cain are gathered
  To plunder and burn and slay:
God was with man in Eden,
  But where is God today



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PAN AND AEOLUS



     THE STORY OF MOSES.

This is the story of MToses,
  The earliest scribe that we keep:
Void was the earth and formless,
  And dark was the face of the deep,
Till God's word flashed in lightning,
  Beautiful, bountiful, bright,
And night was the name of the darkness,
  And day was the name of the light.

This is the story of Moses-
  (Doubt it, if ever you can)-
The world was too good to begin with,
  So God made Adam, the man;
And for Adam He made the woman,
  And He gave them laws to obey;
And, lastly, He sent the serpent
  To follow and tempt and betray.

This is the story of Moses-
  Eve got a man from the Lord,
And his name was Cain, and another
  Called Abel, the evil-starred;
And the brothers quarreled at their worship,
  And Abel, the meek, was slain.
And Death shook hands with the slayer,
  His first and best friend, Cain.



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PAN AND 1EOLUS



This is the story of I'Moses
  Of how our people began,
Of the broken law and the bloodshed-
  First fruits of the God-sent man;
This is the story of -Moses,
  The earliest scribe who writ,
And all the scribes who are writing
  Don't vary the tale a whit.



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PAN AND --EOLUS



          PARTHENOPE TO ULYSSES.

O king! what is the quest that evermore
   Foredooms thy feet to roam, yet blinds thine eyes
   Why seek ye still for life's imperfect prize,
Or turn thy weary sail from shore to shore,
When here thou layest aside the ills of yore
   To calm thy soul with dreams Let it suffice-
   This heart-sick burden of the worldly-wise-
That ye have borne it and the task is o'er,
Here see the world fade like a spark of fire,
   While all thy restless ways grow full of peace,
And wear the fittest crown for them that tire
   Their souls with life's unraveled mysteries,-
Above the old red roses of desire
   The languid lotus of desire's surcease!



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PAN AND wEOLUS



                   DEATH.

I am the outer gate of life where sit
   Faith and Unfaith, those two interpreters
That spell in diverse ways what God has writ
   In symbols on the archwa