Part 7 (1/2)

A PORTRAIT

Fair faces crowd on Christmas night Like seven suns a-row, But all beyond is the wolfish wind And the crafty feet of the snow.

But through the rout one figure goes With quick and quiet tread; Her robe is plain, her form is frail-- Wait if she turn her head.

I say no word of line or hue, But if that face you see, Your soul shall know the smile of faith's Awful frivolity.

Know that in this grotesque old masque Too loud we cannot sing, Or dance too wild, or speak too wide To praise a hidden thing.

That though the jest be old as night, Still shaketh sun and sphere An everlasting laughter Too loud for us to hear.

FEMINA CONTRA MUNDUM

The sun was black with judgment, and the moon Blood: but between I saw a man stand, saying, 'To me at least The gra.s.s is green.

'There was no star that I forgot to fear With love and wonder.

The birds have loved me'; but no answer came-- Only the thunder.

Once more the man stood, saying, 'A cottage door, Wherethrough I gazed That instant as I turned--yea, I am vile; Yet my eyes blazed.

'For I had weighed the mountains in a balance, And the skies in a scale, I come to sell the stars--old lamps for new-- Old stars for sale.'

Then a calm voice fell all the thunder through, A tone less rough: 'Thou hast begun to love one of my works Almost enough.'

TO A CERTAIN NATION

We will not let thee be, for thou art ours.

We thank thee still, though thou forget these things, For that hour's sake when thou didst wake all powers With a great cry that G.o.d was sick of kings.

Leave thee there grovelling at their rusted greaves, These hulking cowards on a painted stage, Who, with imperial pomp and laurel leaves, Show their Marengo--one man in a cage.

These, for whom stands no type or t.i.tle given In all the squalid tales of gore and pelf; Though cowed by cras.h.i.+ng thunders from all heaven.

Cain never said, 'My brother slew himself.'

Tear you the truth out of your drivelling spy, The maniac whom you set to swing death's scythe.

Nay; torture not the torturer--let him lie: What need of racks to teach a worm to writhe?

Bear with us, O our sister, not in pride, Nor any scorn we see thee spoiled of knaves, But only shame to hear, where Danton died, Thy foul dead kings all laughing in their graves.

Thou hast a right to rule thyself; to be The thing thou wilt; to grin, to fawn, to creep: To crown these clumsy liars; ay, and we Who knew thee once, we have a right to weep.

THE PRAISE OF DUST

'What of vile dust?' the preacher said.

Methought the whole world woke, The dead stone lived beneath my foot, And my whole body spoke.

'You, that play tyrant to the dust, And stamp its wrinkled face, This patient star that flings you not Far into homeless s.p.a.ce.

'Come down out of your dusty shrine The living dust to see, The flowers that at your sermon's end Stand blazing silently.