Works

St. Francis, Buddha, Tolstoi, and St. John -
Friends, if you four, as pilgrims, hand in hand,
Returned, the hate of earth once more to dare,
And walked upon the water and the land,
...

[What the Man of Faith said]


The dew, the rain and moonlight
All prove our Father's mind.
The dew, the rain and moonlight
Descend to bless mankind.

Come, let us see that all men...

(In the Beginning)

The sun is a huntress young,
The sun is a red, red joy,
The sun is an Indian girl,
Of the tribe of the Illinois.


(Mid-morning)
...

I look on the specious electrical light
Blatant, mechanical, crawling and white,
Wickedly red or malignantly green
Like the beads of a young Senegambian queen.
Showing, while millions of souls hurry on,...

(After seeing the reel called "Oil and Water".)



Beauty has a throne-room
In our humorous town,
Spoiling its hob-goblins,
Laughing shadows down.
Rank musicians torture...

Sometimes we remember kisses,
Remember the dear heart-leap when they came:
Not always, but sometimes we remember
The kindness, the dumbness, the good flame
Of laughter and farewell.
...

The foolish queen of fairyland
From her milk-white throne in a lily-bell,
Gave command to her cricket-band
To play for her when the dew-drops fell.

But the cold dew spoiled their instruments...

(Written with the hope that the socialists might yet dethrone Kaiser and Czar.)


Here's to the mice that scare the lions,
Creeping into their cages.
Here's to the fairy mice that bite...

We are the smirched. Queen Honor is the spotless.
We slept thro' wars where Honor could not sleep.
We were faint-hearted. Honor was full-valiant.
We kept a silence Honor could not keep.
...

Ah, she was music in herself,
A symphony of joyousness.
She sang, she sang from finger tips,
From every tremble of her dress.
I saw sweet haunting harmony,
An ecstasy, an ecstasy,...

(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,...

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,...

[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....

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...

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)

No man should stand before the moon
To make sweet song thereon,
With dandified importance,
His sense of humor gone.
...

Your pen needs but a ruffle
To be Pavlova whirling.
It surely is a scalawag
A-scamping down the page.
A pretty little May-wind
The morning buds uncurling.
And then the white sweet Russian,...

Oh, saucy gold circle of fairyland silk -
Impudent, intimate, delicate treasure:
A noose for my heart and a ring for my finger: -
Here in my study you sing me a measure.
...

The gleaming head of one fine friend
Is bent above my little song,
So through the treasure-pits of Heaven
In fancy's shoes, I march along.

I wander, seek and peer and ponder...