No More Learning

The old friends share no dreams I know.
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O life, what would you make of them That I, who love, can understand
No glory of that holy land
Whither their dreams are bearing them? 0 life, what would you make of me That they, who love, must weave a veil
Of troubled wonder, thick and pale
Before the heaven that shines for me?
1 know not. But I seek no more
To clutch the old ways to my heart
And warm them, till they find a part
Of the old shining light they wore.
I shall not turn again and look,
But tenderly, like an old book,
That childhood loved with hot young heart, Now kindly closed and put away,
I shall set the old days apart,
1 may not rest where they must stay. And from old loves that I have known O life, I look to you, alone!
WORLD BUILDERS By Abigail Fithian Halsev
These are the things that make the world, The sun and air, the earth and sky,
The golden sunlight everywhere,
The wings of angels drifting by.
Nay, these the things that make the world, The pick and spade, the ax, the mill, The furrowed field, the ploughman grim, The sons of God that work His will.
Apart? Oh, swift as light they speed, The first light into darkness hurled, Each to his work, above, below,
The sons of God that make the world.
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LIFE'S ALCHEMY By Abigail Fithian Halsey
For love that came with laughter And left us all in tears,
The sting that followed after
And haunted all our years
With love's remembered laughter And unforgotten tears;
For life that came with singing And changed with time to pain, Till years the meaning bringing
Had turned our loss to gain And given back the singing Made sweeter by the pain;
For all that love has taken, For all that life has left,
Say not, "We are forsaken," Nor cry, "We are bereft. " 'Tis dross that life has taken, 'Tis gold that love has left.
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DOWN AND OUT By Fullerton L. Waldo
Slantwise, with head on outstretched arm, He huddles, silent, unaware —
A lonely man, a homeless man,
Uncared for, and he does not care.
The blanching moon rides high and free, The lamps like stars amid the trees Throw fluctuating arabesques
Upon the feather-fingered breeze.
Two lovers murmur and are still In mutual oblivion
Of any soul that saunters by
Or smiles and blesses and is gone.
And two exult at Heaven's gate, And one droops at the door of Hell. To them that have it shall be given; For him that hath not—all is well.
The darkness is Thy mercy, Lord! The dewfall is Thy healing balm: Beneath Thy stars is silentness, Under Thy soft new grass a calm.
Yet in his veins there flows a tide Of life's illimitable sea;
Yet in his heart there is a voice That calls, and will not let him be.
The old ambitions flare and burn; The old irresolutions die;
And planetary lustres gleam
Out of an unforgotten sky.
Lost causes triumph like the sun; Dreams that deluded are brought true; A resurrection morning breaks —
The soul in him is born anew,
Then, to the old and easy path Of dull, sad inanition wanes:
And still this is the man God made, And still the love of God remains!
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LAND OF THE FREE By Gertrude Cornwell Hopkins
There is a man within a grimy window-square; —
I do not know how long it is he has been there
Three years of working-days I've passed on trains high in the air, And always he was there.
He make three motions: two are forward and one back,
Two thrusts and then a draw. There is no pause (the knack
Is perfect) while his left hand pulls from out a stack
Leather —I think —the track
Curves sharp, and will not let me see
Just what the task . . . But O, I know the moves he makes are three: I see him when I pass to days that are full long to me,
Again at night, when I am free.
No clod—
The face is keen, the hands and arms are lean and tense, like wire.