Works

Oh, once I walked in Heaven, all alone
Upon the sacred cliffs above the sky.
God and the angels, and the gleaming saints
Had journeyed out into the stars to die.
...

(A Negro Sermon.)



Once, in a night as black as ink,
She drove him out when he would not drink.
Round the house there were men in wait
Asleep in rows by the Gaza gate....

(The poem shows the Master, with his work done, singing to free his heart in Heaven.)

This poem is intended to be half said, half sung, very softly, to the well-known tune: -

"Last night I lay a-sleeping,...

Think not that incense-smoke has had its day.
My friends, the incense-time has but begun.
Creed upon creed, cult upon cult shall bloom,
Shrine after shrine grow gray beneath the sun.
...

The angels guide him now,
And watch his curly head,
And lead him in their games,
The little boy we led.

He cannot come to harm,
He knows more than we know,
His light is brighter far...

After having read a Great Deal of Good Current Poetry in the Magazines and Newspapers



Ah, they are passing, passing by,
Wonderful songs, but born to die!
Cries from the infinite human seas,...

I went down into the desert
To meet Elijah -
Arisen from the dead.
I thought to find him in an echoing cave;
For so my dream had said.

I went down into the desert
To meet John the Baptist....

[Written while a field-worker in the Anti-Saloon League of Illinois.]


King Arthur's men have come again.
They challenge everywhere
The foes of Christ's Eternal Church.
Her incense crowns the air....

Would I might rouse the Lincoln in you all,
That which is gendered in the wilderness
From lonely prairies and God's tenderness.
Imperial soul, star of a weedy stream,...

Look you, I'll go pray,
My shame is crying,
My soul is gray and faint,
My faith is dying.
Look you, I'll go pray -
"Sweet Mary, make me clean,
Thou rainstorm of the soul,...

True Love is founded in rocks of Remembrance
In stones of Forbearance and mortar of Pain.
The workman lays wearily granite on granite,
And bleeds for his castle 'mid sunshine and rain.
...

In "Man's Genesis", "The Wild Girl of the Sierras", "The Wharf Rat", "A Girl of the Paris Streets", etc.



I

The arts are old, old as the stones
From which man carved the sphinx austere....

When Yankee soldiers reach the barricade
Then Joan of Arc gives each the accolade.

For she is there in armor clad, today,
All the young poets of the wide world say.
...

Would I might wake in you the whirl-wind soul
Of Michelangelo, who hewed the stone
And Night and Day revealed, whose arm alone
Could draw the face of God, the titan high...

My lady in her white silk shawl
Is like a lily dim,
Within the twilight of the room
Enthroned and kind and prim.

My lady! Pale gold is her hair.
Until she smiles her face...

I

Within the town of Buffalo
Are prosy men with leaden eyes.
Like ants they worry to and fro,
(Important men, in Buffalo.)
But only twenty miles away
A deathless glory is at play:...

Girl with the burning golden eyes,
And red-bird song, and snowy throat:
I bring you gold and silver moons
And diamond stars, and mists that float.
I bring you moons and snowy clouds,...

[During an anti-saloon campaign, in central Illinois.]


In the midst of the battle I turned,
(For the thunders could flourish without me)
And hid by a rose-hung wall,...

Let not our town be large, remembering
That little Athens was the Muses' home,
That Oxford rules the heart of London still,
That Florence gave the Renaissance to Rome.
...

(Moon Poems for the Children/Fairy-tales for the Children)

Oh, once I walked a garden
In dreams. 'Twas yellow grass.
And many orange-trees grew there
In sand as white as glass....