The Poet

His home is in the heights: to him
Men wage a battle weird and dim,
Life is a mission stern as fate,
And Song a dread apostolate.
The toils of prophecy are his,
To hail the coming centuries-
To ease the steps and lift the load
Of souls that falter on the road.
The perilous music that he hears
Falls from the vortice of the spheres.

He presses on before the race,
And sings out of a silent place.
Like faint notes of a forest bird
On heights afar that voice is heard;
And the dim path he breaks to-day
Will some time be a trodden way.

The Poet

But when the race comes toiling on
That voice of wonder will be gone-
Be heard on higher peaks afar,
Moved upward with the morning star.

O men of earth, that wandering voice Still goes the upward way: rejoice!

The Whirlwind Road

The Muses wrapped in mysteries of light
Came in a rush of music on the night;
And I was lifted wildly on quick wings,
And borne away into the deep of things.
The dead doors of my being broke apart;
A wind of rapture blew across the heart;
The inward song of worlds rang still and clear;
I felt the Mystery the Muses fear;

Yet they went swiftening on the ways untrod,
And hurled me breathless at the feet of God.

I felt faint touches of the Final Truth-
Moments of trembling love, moments of youth.
A vision swept away the human wall;
Slowly I saw the meaning of it all—
Meaning of life and time and death and birth,
But can not tell it to the men of Earth.
I only point the way, and they must go
The whirlwind road of song if they would
know.

The Desire of Nations

And the government shall be upon His shoulder: and His name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.-Isaiah.

Earth will

go

back to her lost youth,

And life grow deep and wonderful as truth, When the wise King out of the nearing

Heaven comes

To break the spell of long millenniums—
To build with song again

The broken hope of men

To hush and heroize the world,

Beneath the flag of Brotherhood unfurled.

And He will come some day :

Already is His star upon the way!

He comes, O world, He comes!

But not with bugle-cry nor roll of doubling drums.

Nay, for He comes to loosen and unbind,
To build the lofty purpose in the mind,

The Desire of Nations

To stir the heart's deep chord.

No rude horns parleying, no shock of shields;
Nor as of old the glory of the Lord
To half-awakened shepherds in the fields,
Looking with foolish faces on the rush
Of the Great Splendor, when the pulsing hush
Came o'er the hills, came o'er the heavens afar
Where on their cliff of stars the watching
seraphs are.

Nor as of old when first the Strong One trod, The Power of sepulchers—our Risen God! When on that deathless morning in the dark, He quit the Garden of the Sepulcher, Setting the oleander boughs astir,

And pausing at the gate with backward

hark.

Nay, nor as when the Hero-King of Heaven Came with upbraiding to His faint Eleven, And found the world-way to His bright feet barred,

And hopeless then because men's hearts were hard.