No More Learning

* * * * *

But even in this hour of soft repose
A gentle sadness chides us like a friend--
The sorrow of the joy that overflows,
The burden of the beauty that must end.

And from the fading sunset comes a cry,
And in the twilight voices wailing past,
Like wild-swans calling, "When we rest we die,
And woe to them that linger and are last";

And as the Sun sinks, sudden in heav'n new born
There shines an armed Angel like a Star,
Who cries above the darkling world in scorn,
"God comes to Judgment. Learn ye what ye are. "

* * * * *

From fire to umber fades the sunset-gold,
From umber into silver and twilight;
The infant flowers their orisons have told
And turn together folded for the night;

The garden urns are black against the eve;
The white moth flitters through the fragrant glooms;
How beautiful the heav'ns! --But yet we grieve
And wander restless from the lighted rooms.

For through the world to-night a murmur thrills
As at some new-born prodigy of time--
Peace dies like twilight bleeding on the hills,
And Darkness creeps to hide the hateful crime.


Art thou no more, O Maiden Heaven-born
O Peace, bright Angel of the windless morn?
Who comest down to bless our furrow'd fields,
Or stand like Beauty smiling 'mid the corn:

Mistress of mirth and ease and summer dreams,
Who lingerest among the woods and streams
To help us heap the harvest 'neath the moon,
And homeward laughing lead the lumb'ring teams:

Who teachest to our children thy wise lore;
Who keepest full the goodman's golden store;
Who crownest Life with plenty, Death with flow'rs;
Peace, Queen of Kindness--but of earth, no more.

* * * * *

Not thine but ours the fault, thy care was vain;
For this that we have done be ours the pain;
Thou gayest much, as He who gave us all,
And as we slew Him for it thou art slain.

Heav'n left to men the moulding of their fate:
To live as wolves or pile the pillar'd State--
Like boars and bears to grunt and growl in mire,
Or dwell aloft, effulgent gods, elate.

Thou liftedst us: we slew and with thee fell--
From golden thrones of wisdom weeping fell.
Fate rends the chaplets from our feeble brows;
The spires of Heaven fade in fogs of hell.

* * * * *

She faints, she falls; her dying eyes are dim;
Her fingers play with those bright buds she bore
To please us, but that she can bring no more;
And dying yet she smiles--as Christ on him
Who slew Him slain. Her eyes so beauteous
Are lit with tears shed--not for herself but us.

The gentle Beings of the hearth and home;
The lovely Dryads of her aisled woods;
The Angels that do dwell in solitudes
Where she dwelleth; and joyous Spirits that roam
To bless her bleating flocks and fruitful lands;
Are gather'd there to weep, and kiss her dying hands.
"Look, look," they cry, "she is not dead, she breathes!
And we have staunched the damned wound and deep,
The cavern-carven wound. She doth but sleep
And will awake. Bring wine, and new-wound wreaths
Wherewith to crown awaking her dear head,
And make her Queen again. "--But no, for Peace was dead.

* * * * *

And then there came black Lords; and Dwarfs obscene
With lavish tongues; and Trolls; and treacherous Things
Like loose-lipp'd Councillors and cruel Kings
Who sharpen lies and daggers subterrene:
And flashed their evil eyes and weeping cried,
"We ruled the world for Peace. By her own hand she died. "

* * * * *

In secret he made sharp the bitter blade,
And poison'd it with bane of lies and drew,
And stabb'd--O God! the Cruel Cripple slew;
And cowards fled or lent him trembling aid,
She fell and died--in all the tale of time
The direst deed e'er done, the most accursed crime.

_Ronald Ross_




IN WAR-TIME

(AN AMERICAN HOMEWARD-BOUND)


Further and further we leave the scene
Of war--and of England's care;
I try to keep my mind serene--
But my heart stays there;

For a distant song of pain and wrong
My spirit doth deep confuse,
And I sit all day on the deck, and long--
And long for news!

I seem to see them in battle-line--
Heroes with hearts of gold,
But of their victory a sign
The Fates withhold;

And the hours too tardy-footed pass,
The voiceless hush grows dense
'Mid the imaginings, alas!
That feed suspense.

Oh, might I lie on the wind, or fly
In the wilful sea-bird's track,
Would I hurry on, with a homesick cry--
Or hasten back?

_Florence Earle Coates_




THE ANVIL


Burned from the ore's rejected dross,
The iron whitens in the heat.
With plangent strokes of pain and loss
The hammers on the iron beat.
Searched by the fire, through death and dole
We feel the iron in our soul.