Part 38 (1/2)
October, 1915.
Read at the meeting of the American Academy, Boston, November, 1915.
REMARKS ABOUT KINGS
”_G.o.d said I am tired of kings._”--EMERSON.
G.o.d said, ”I am tired of kings,”-- But that was a long while ago!
And meantime man said, ”No,-- I like their looks in their robes and rings.”
So he crowned a few more, And they went on playing the game as before, Fighting and spoiling things.
Man said, ”I am tired of kings!
Sons of the robber-chiefs of yore, They make me pay for their l.u.s.t and their war; I am the puppet, they pull the strings; The blood of my heart is the wine they drink.
I will govern myself for awhile I think, And see what that brings!”
Then G.o.d, who made the first remark, Smiled in the dark.
October, 1915.
Read at the meeting of the American Academy, Boston, November, 1915.
MIGHT AND RIGHT
If Might made Right, life were a wild-beasts' cage; If Right made Might, this were the golden age; But now, until we win the long campaign, Right must gain Might to conquer and to reign.
July 1, 1915.
THE PRICE OF PEACE
Peace without Justice is a low estate,-- A coward cringing to an iron Fate!
But Peace through Justice is the great ideal,-- We'll pay the price of war to make it real.
December 28, 1916.
STORM-MUSIC
O Music hast thou only heard The laughing river, the singing bird, The murmuring wind in the poplar-trees,-- Nothing but Nature's melodies?
Nay, thou hearest all her tones, As a Queen must hear!
Sounds of wrath and fear, Mutterings, shouts, and moans, Madness, tumult, and despair,-- All she has that shakes the air With voices fierce and wild!
Thou art a Queen and not a dreaming child,-- Put on thy crown and let us hear thee reign Triumphant in a world of storm and strain!
Echo the long-drawn sighs Of the mounting wind in the pines; And the sobs of the mounting waves that rise In the dark of the troubled deep To break on the beach in fiery lines.
Echo the far-off roll of thunder, Rumbling loud And ever louder, under The blue-black curtain of cloud, Where the lightning serpents gleam.