Divine Adventure

Was swung down endless caverns to the deep,
Saw fervid jewels sparkle in their sleep,

Saw glad gnomes working in the dusty light,
Saw great rocks crouching in the primal night.
I was drawn down, and after many days
Returned with stiller feet to walk the upper ways.

Song Made Flesh

I have no glory in these songs of mine:

If one of them can make a brother strong, It came down from the peaks of the divineI heard it in the Heaven of Lyric Song.

The one who builds the poem into fact,
He is the rightful owner of it all:

The pale words are with God's own power packed
When brave souls answer to their bugle-call,

And so I ask no man to praise my song,

But I would have him build it in his soul; For that great praise would make me glad and strong, And build the poem to a perfect whole.

A

cry from the toilers of Babylon for their rest.— O Poet, thou art holden with a vow:

The light of higher worlds is on thy brow,
And Freedom's star is soaring in thy breast.
Go, be a dauntless voice, a bugle-cry

In darkening battle when the winds are high-
A clear sane cry wherein the God is heard
To speak to men the one redeeming word.
peace for thee, no peace,

No

Till blind oppression cease;

The stones cry from the walls,

Till the gray injustice falls

Till strong men come to build in freedom-fate
The pillars of the new Fraternal State.

To High-born Poets

Let trifling pipe be mute,
Fling by the languid lute:

Take down the trumpet and confront the Hour,
And speak to toil-worn nations from a tower—
Take down the horn wherein the thunders sleep,
Blow battles into men-call down the fire-
The daring, the long purpose, the desire;
Descend with faith into the Human Deep,
And ringing to the troops of right a cheer,
Make known the Truth of Man in holy fear;
Send forth thy spirit in a storm of
A tempest flinging fire upon the wrong.

song,

Their blind feet drift in the darkness, and no one is leading;

Their toil is the pasture, where hyens and harpies are feeding;

In all lands and always, the wronged, the homeless, the humbled

Till the cliff-like pride of the spoiler is shaken and crumbled,

Till the Pillars of Hell are uprooted and left to their ruin,

And a rose garden gladdens the places no rose ever

blew in,