The Children of the Night

For those that never know the light, The darkness is a sullen thing; And they, the Children of the Night, Seem lost in Fortune's winnowing. But some are strong and some are weak, — And there's the story. House and home Are shut from countless hearts that seek World-refuge that will never come. And if there be no other life, And if there be no other chance To weigh their sorrow and their strife Than in the scales of circumstance, 'T were better, ere the sun go down Upon the first day we embark, In life's imbittered sea to drown, Than sail forever in the dark. But if there be a soul on earth So blinded with its own misuse Of man's revealed, incessant worth, Or worn with anguish, that it views No light but for a mortal eye, No rest but of a mortal sleep, No God but in a prophet's lie, No faith for "honest doubt" to keep; If there be nothing, good or bad, But chaos for a soul to trust, — God counts it for a soul gone mad, And if God be God, He is just. And if God be God, He is Love; And though the Dawn be still so dim, It shows us we have played enough

With creeds that make a fiend of Him. There is one creed, and only one, That glorifies God's excellence; So cherish, that His will be done, The common creed of common sense. It is the crimson, not the gray, That charms the twilight of all time; It is the promise of the day That makes the starry sky sublime; It is the faith within the fear That holds us to the life we curse; — So let us in ourselves revere The Self which is the Universe! Let us, the Children of the Night, Put off the cloak that hides the scar! Let us be Children of the Light, And tell the ages what we are!

Three Quatrains

I

As long as Fame's imperious music rings Will poets mock it with crowned words august; And haggard men will clamber to be kings As long as Glory weighs itself in dust.

II

Drink to the splendor of the unfulfilled, Nor shudder for the revels that are done: The wines that flushed Lucullus are all spilled, The strings that Nero fingered are all gone.

III

We cannot crown ourselves with everything, Nor can we coax the Fates for us to quarrel: No matter what we are, or what we sing, Time finds a withered leaf in every laurel.

The World

Some are the brothers of all humankind, And own them, whatsoever their estate; And some, for sorrow and self-scorn, are blind With enmity for man's unguarded fate. For some there is a music all day long Like flutes in Paradise, they are so glad; And there is hell's eternal under-song Of curses and the cries of men gone mad. Some say the Scheme with love stands luminous, Some say 't were better back to chaos hurled; And so 't is what we are that makes for us The measure and the meaning of the world.

An Old Story

Strange that I did not know him then, That friend of mine! I did not even show him then One friendly sign; But cursed him for the ways he had To make me see My envy of the praise he had For praising me. I would have rid the earth of him Once, in my pride! . . . I never knew the worth of him Until he died.

Ballade of a Ship

Down by the flash of the restless water The dim White Ship like a white bird lay; Laughing at life and the world they sought her, And out she swung to the silvering bay. Then off they flew on their roystering way, And the keen moon fired the light foam flying Up from the flood where the faint stars play, And the bones of the brave in the wave are lying. 'T was a king's fair son with a king's fair daughter, And full three hundred beside, they say, — Revelling on for the lone, cold slaughter So soon to seize them and hide them for aye; But they danced and they drank and their souls grew gay, Nor ever they knew of a ghoul's eye spying Their splendor a flickering phantom to stray Where the bones of the brave in the wave are lying. Through the mist of a drunken dream they brought her (This wild white bird) for the sea-fiend's prey: The pitiless reef in his hard clutch caught her, And hurled her down where the dead men stay. A torturing silence of wan dismay — Shrieks and curses of mad souls dying — Then down they sank to slumber and sway

Where the bones of the brave in the wave are lying. ENVOY Prince, do you sleep to the sound alway Of the mournful surge and the sea-birds' crying? — Or does love still shudder and steel still slay, Where the bones of the brave in the wave are lying?

Ballade by the Fire

Slowly I smoke and hug my knee, The while a witless masquerade Of things that only children see Floats in a mist of light and shade: They pass, a flimsy cavalcade, And with a weak, remindful glow, The falling embers break and fade, As one by one the phantoms go. Then, with a melancholy glee To think where once my fancy strayed, I muse on what the years may be Whose coming tales are all unsaid, Till tongs and shovel, snugly laid Within their shadowed niches, grow By grim degrees to pick and spade, As one by one the phantoms go. But then, what though the mystic Three Around me ply their merry trade? — And Charon soon may carry me Across the gloomy Stygian glade? — Be up, my soul! nor be afraid Of what some unborn year may show; But mind your human debts are paid, As one by one the phantoms go. ENVOY Life is the game that must be played: This truth at least, good friend, we know; So live and laugh, nor be dismayed As one by one the phantoms go.

Ballade of Broken Flutes

(To A. T. Schumann.)

In dreams I crossed a barren land, A land of ruin, far away; Around me hung on every hand A deathful stillness of decay; And silent, as in bleak dismay That song should thus forsaken be, On that forgotten ground there lay The broken flutes of Arcady. The forest that was all so grand When pipes and tabors had their sway Stood leafless now, a ghostly band Of skeletons in cold array. A lonely surge of ancient spray Told of an unforgetful sea, But iron blows had hushed for aye The broken flutes of Arcady. No more by summer breezes fanned, The place was desolate and gray; But still my dream was to command New life into that shrunken clay. I tried it. Yes, you scan to-day, With uncommiserating glee, The songs of one who strove to play The broken flutes of Arcady. ENVOY So, Rock, I join the common fray, To fight where Mammon may decree; And leave, to crumble as they may, The broken flutes of Arcady.

Ballade of Dead Friends

As we the withered ferns By the roadway lying, Time, the jester, spurns All our prayers and prying — All our tears and sighing, Sorrow, change, and woe — All our where-and-whying For friends that come and go. Life awakes and burns, Age and death defying, Till at last it learns All but Love is dying; Love's the trade we're plying, God has willed it so; Shrouds are what we're buying For friends that come and go. Man forever yearns For the thing that's flying. Everywhere he turns, Men to dust are drying, — Dust that wanders, eying (With eyes that hardly glow) New faces, dimly spying For friends that come and go. ENVOY And thus we all are nighing The truth we fear to know: Death will end our crying For friends that come and go.

Her Eyes

Up from the street and the crowds that went, Morning and midnight, to and fro, Still was the room where his days he spent, And the stars were bleak, and the nights were slow. Year after year, with his dream shut fast, He suffered and strove till his eyes were dim, For the love that his brushes had earned at last, — And the whole world rang with the praise of him. But he cloaked his triumph, and searched, instead, Till his cheeks were sere and his hairs were gray. "There are women enough, God knows," he said. . . . "There are stars enough — when the sun's away." Then he went back to the same still room That had held his dream in the long ago, When he buried his days in a nameless tomb, And the stars were bleak, and the nights were slow. And a passionate humor seized him there — Seized him and held him until there grew Like life on his canvas, glowing and fair, A perilous face — and an angel's, too. Angel and maiden, and all in one, — All but the eyes. — They were there, but yet They seemed somehow like a soul half done. What was the matter? Did God forget? . . .

But he wrought them at last with a skill so sure That her eyes were the eyes of a deathless woman, — With a gleam of heaven to make them pure, And a glimmer of hell to make them human. God never forgets. — And he worships her There in that same still room of his, For his wife, and his constant arbiter Of the world that was and the world that is. And he wonders yet what her love could be To punish him after that strife so grim; But the longer he lives with her eyes to see, The plainer it all comes back to him.

Two Men

There be two men of all mankind That I should like to know about; But search and question where I will, I cannot ever find them out. Melchizedek he praised the Lord, And gave some wine to Abraham; But who can tell what else he did Must be more learned than I am. Ucalegon he lost his house When Agamemnon came to Troy; But who can tell me who he was — I'll pray the gods to give him joy. There be two men of all mankind That I'm forever thinking on: They chase me everywhere I go, — Melchizedek, Ucalegon.