Part 6 (1/2)

The birds were beating north again with faint and starry cries Along their ancient highway that spans the midnight skies, And out across the rush of wings my heart went crying too, Straight for the morning's windy walls and lakes of misted blue.

They gave me place among them, for well they understood The magic wine of April working madness in my blood, And we were kin in thought and dream as league by league together We kept that pace of straining wings across the starry weather.

The dim blue tides of Fundy, green slopes of Labrador Slid under us ... our course was set for earth's remotest sh.o.r.e; But tingling through the ether and searching star by star A lonely voice went crying that drew me down from far.

Farewell, farewell, my brothers! I see you far away Go drifting down the sunset across the last green bay, But I have found the haven of this lonely heart and wild-- My falconer has called me--I am prisoned by a child.

(_Easter Day_, 1916)

THE IDEAL

Serenely, from her mountain height sublime, She mocks my hopeless labor as I creep Each day a day's strength farther from the deep And nearer to her side for which I climb.

So may she mock when for the sad last time I fall, my face still upward, upon sleep, With faithful hands still yearning up the steep In patient and pathetic pantomime.

I am content, O ancient, young-eyed child Of love and longing. Pity not our wars Of frail-spun flesh, and keep thee undefiled By all our strife that only breaks and mars.

But let us see from far thy footing, wild And wayward still against the eternal stars!

THE FIRST CHRISTIAN

A little wandering wind went up the hill.

It had a lonely voice as though it knew What it should find before it came to where The broken body of him that had been Christ Hung in the ruddy glow. A bowshot down The bleak rock-shouldered hill the soldiery Had piled a fire, and when the searching wind Came stronger from the distant sea and dashed The shadows and the gleam together, songs Of battle and l.u.s.t were blown along the slope Mingled with clash of swords on cuisse and s.h.i.+eld.

But of the women sitting by the cross Even she whose life had been as gravely sweet And sheltered as a lily's did not flinch.

Her face was buried in her shrouding cloak.

And she who knew too sorrowfully well The cruelty and bitterness of life Heard not. She sat erect, her shadowy hair Blown back along the darkness and her eyes That searched the distant s.p.a.ces of the night Splendid and glowing with an inward joy.

And at the darkest hour came three or four From round the fire and would have driven them thence; But one who knew them, gazing in their eyes, Said: ”Nay. It is his mother and his love, The scarlet Magdalena. Let them be.”

So, in the gloom beside that glimmering cross, Beneath the broken body of him they loved, They wept and watched--the lily and the rose.

At last the deep, low voice of Magdalen, Toned like a distant bell, broke on the hush: ”We are so weak! What can poor women do?

So pitifully frail! G.o.d pity us!

How he did pity us! He understood...

Out of his own great strength he understood How it might feel to be so very weak...

To be a tender lily of the field, To be a lamb lost in the windy hills Far from the fold and from the shepherd's voice, To be a child with no strength, only love.

And ah, he knew, if ever a man can know, What 't is to be a woman and to live, Strive how she may to out-soar and overcome, Tied to this too frail body of too fair earth!

”Oh, had I been a man to s.h.i.+eld him then In his great need with loving strong right arm!

One of the twelve--ha!--of that n.o.ble twelve That ran away, and two made mock of him Or else betrayed him ere they ran? Ah no!

And yet, a man's strength with a woman's love...

That might have served him somewhat ere the end.”

Then with a weary voice the mother said: ”What can we do but only watch and weep, Sit with weak hands and watch while strong men rend And break and ruin, bringing all to nought The beauty we have nearly died to make?

”It is not true to say that he was strong.

He did not claim the kingdom that was his, He did not even seek for wealth and power, He did not win a woman's love and get Strong children to live after him, and all That strong men strive for he pa.s.sed heedless by.

Because that he was weak I loved him so...

For that and for his soft and gentle ways, The tender patient calling of his voice And that dear trick of smiling with his eyes.

Ah no! I have had dreams--a mother's dreams-- But now I cannot dream them any more.

”I sorrowed little as the happy days Sped by and by that still the fair-haired lad Who lay at first beside me in the stall, The cattle stall outside Jerusalem, Found no great throne to dazzle his mother's eye.