Bright shine the temples of Fair Art; bright shine The rainbows heavenly of Thought; and bright, The chariots of warriors triumphant!

Yet in the temple of the Universe, Can they be costlier than the mute Thought And Glory of the flower, at whose birth The dawn rejoices and whose early death The saddened evening silently laments?

The thoughtful sage high-rising smites the gates Of the Infinite and questions every Sphinx; Yet who knows if the soldier with no will, Obeying blindly, is not nearer Truth?

O struggle vast! Who knows what power measures The measureless and creates the great?

Is it the matchless thought of the endowed, Or the dim soul of mult.i.tudes that bursts, Thoughtless of reason, into life? Who knows?

The holy man lifts up his hand to bless With readiness; yet who needs more such blessing?

Is it the free-born bird that makes its nest Wherever its strong wings would waft it, or The flowery plant bound by a bit of earth?

Which is the light of Truth? Is it the Law That is all eyes or is it some blind love?

What leads us there? The hidden path where bent And trembling we seek our way, or the wide road That makes us fly with winged confidence?

O Thought, thou dream-crowned maiden, ever wrestling With a blood-filled, swift woman masculine, Whose bosom, thine or hers, is doomed to yield The destined milk to nourish and to heal Our sickened life with health Olympian?

O Thought, thou angel, ever wrestling on With a strong giant flinging his hundred hands About thy neck to strangle thee, wilt thou Battle with sword or lily? Oh, the world Will crumble ere thy struggle finds an end!

THE SINNER

O hapless one, when thou wert born, there came The Fate thrice-blessed and clasped thee in her arms To bless thee with a hero's mighty deeds And wrap thee in the purple of a king, The Fate whose blessings teem with light and might.

Yet there, the other Fate, the b.i.t.c.h of ruin Unspoken and of voiceless death, kept watch; And she led thee away from the blue sh.o.r.e With lilies sown, to the salt marsh of terror And the sheer precipice of fearful trembling!

Nor could thy baby hands grasp more than this, A cheerless tatter from the sacred veil Of thy good mother Fate, the veil embroidered With the star-spangled sky by master hand!

O hapless One, while virgin joy bathes thee Abundant and thy tears are yet a baby's, Something within thee groans, the m.u.f.fled madness Of fettered murderers, the madness of Lone cells. And while thou showest the calm life Of tame things and of love in thy still nook, Thou breedest fettered wraths and bridled hatreds.

Should they burst forth, ruin and wilderness Would reign.

O hapless One, the greenest spots Even of thy existence are but full Of pitfalls opened wide and yawning void!

No dawning was thy lot; even those boughs Young of thine early years were parched with drought!

Whatever white thou touchedst was defiled!

And thine old age, if thou couldst bare thy youth, Would shriek with fear and fly from thy youth's face!

A sneering power or a grace divine Mercilessly nailed down thy hands and will, O cowardly, decrepit, idle man, Infirm and hapless, starless night enclosed In a weak child! Death will not come to thee As to the toiling laborer who toils The whole day long, and towards evening, sleep, Even before he lies, in bed to rest, Creeps sweetly upon him and seals his eyes.

Thy death shall be laden with graspless horror Such as one feels who sinned in secrecy And dreads each hour detection of his sin, Trial, death sentence, and the hangman's rope.

O hapless One, would that in thy death struggle Her bosom might still shine before thine eyes, The good Fate's breast, who blessed thy birth with goodness, The Fate whose blessings teem with light and might!

Would that thou couldst show her the humble shred Torn from the star-wrought sacred veil of hers And tell her: "See, in the deep darkness smiles Something, a dawn on which I still hold fast!"

O hapless One! Would that the mighty heroes And royal purples and the blessings full Of light and might and all thou knewest not In thy dark empty life could shine upon Thy pa.s.sing as the lights of distant stars!

THE END

A wedding guest, I travel far abroad!

The bride, thrice-beautiful; the groom, a wizard; And I ride swiftly to the wedding feast.

The land is far, and I must travel on; An endless path before me leads away.

And the far land a vision was! The steed, A smoke! The wedding, angels' shadows fleet!

While I,--O cruel wakening!--lie down For ever palsy-stricken and bed-ridden!

And only you, old tunes familiar, I hold. I hold you as a dying darling child, Languid and glowing with the fever's heat, Holds on to his dear plaything, with white wings New-grown for his long journey, even I, The child unskilled, dream-roaming, stript of will!

Old tunes familiar, waft me upon Your shining wings for healing or for death To the cool shadow of the pure-white home And lay me gently on a loving bosom.

THE PALM TREE

TO DOSINES, WHO HEARD IT FIRST.

THE PALM TREE

_Once in a garden about a palm tree's shade, some blue flowers, here very dark and there very light, talked with each other. A poet who now is dead, pa.s.sed by; and he put their talk into these rhythms:_

O Palm Tree, someone's hand has cast us here; Was it the hand led by a cursed Fate, Or moved by mind of good intent? Who knows?

What impulse seized us from the cave of sleep Below to bring us to the surface here?

Is it a savior's or destroyer's power That sets us motionless beneath thy shade?

And is thy shade the shade of life or death?

The glare of the hot sun drowned everything; Gluttonous locusts groped for food about; And then, a rain. The flowers, that had drooped To sleep, awake to drink the drops of dew.

And then, the clear sky's festival begins More azure than before to spread above thee.

Only thy trembling crest drops here and there Some large and shining rain-pearls on the earth.

The garden glitters with a new-born life; And each bird dreams it is a nightingale; Only from thy lone heights like bullets fall Thy pearl-clear drops, and oh, the pain thereof!

The dew drops make a crown for everything; The gurgling waters are a balm to all; Why should this G.o.d-sent goodness of all things Be blow for us and suffering and flame?

How cruelly thy bullets fall and smite!

No ear above and not an eye before us!