THE GREATEST THING ON EARTH.
I.
FROM SUN TO SUN.
From sun to sun
Till life is done
We still aspire,
Still have some wish not gratified;
With every breath—
E’en unto death—
We still reach higher,
Our hearts are still unsatisfied.
II.
WHAT THE STRIVING?
What means this striving,
This toil, this endless labor,
This bargaining with our neighbor,
This too fast living,
This wishing, this longing,
This constant thronging
Of thoughts of—what?
Gods! I know not!—
What means it all,
Philosopher,
This rise and fall,
This hope and fear,
This constant changing station
Of every man and nation,
Or rich
Or poor,
With koh-i-noor
Or bacon flitch,
Still envying some other,
Still striving ’gainst some brother
And justling
And hustling
And rushing
As by a mighty cyclone hurled
Headlong midway the narrow world,
And as it were
Made all too small
For half to gyrate in,
Or even half begin—
What means it all,
Philosopher?
The rich, the poor,
The high, the low,
The good, the bad,
(And who can tell?)
Keep bickering
And dickering
And chaffering
On everything
They buy and sell
For more and more
Of earth, as though
Gone staring mad.
Whether the cause
Be unequal laws
Of God, or man, or neither one, or both,
Activity o’ermatching tardy sloth,
Some must rise and some must fall
In the strife of all for all.
III.
THE WORLD IS TOO MUCH OURS.
That there should be unjust division
Of wealth and life and station
Needs, calm, deliberate decision
Of every man and nation.
The world is too much ours,
And we too much of it.
The times are out of joint;
The heart is out of tune,
And needs the Master’s hand.
Like churlish curs we stand
And guard our little own,
And watch Death’s finger point
To Woes, while Pleasures sit
And glass the glossing hours.
Like demons, too, we rave
Because our neighbors have
One jot or tittle more than we;
And curse ourselves as slaves
Dumb driven to our graves
Fast bound from light of liberty.
The remedy lies not in force,
Nor in the frenzy of the hour
Engendered by the unreasoning mob.
’Tis in a nobler, gentler course
Of a higher, nobler power
New-born at every true heart-throb.
IV.
HAND AND HEART.
No vain philosophy,
That flows from ailing springs of earth
Can cure the cankered ills of mortal clay.
No, naught save that eternal fountain’s spray
That gives the heart immortal birth
Can heal humanity.
In every heart at birth
That fountain bubbles up
To purify this earth
With life and love and hope.
But in the hearts of all,
Ere life is scarce begun,
Some clay of earth must fall
To dim the mirrored sun.
True, all (’tis law) must labor;
But with the hand alone?
And that against a neighbor,
His heart our stepping stone?
Nay, with the hand and heart, the rather;
For each who climbs above
Must reach the door of Him our Father
On stepping-stones of love.
V.
COURTING THE CROWD.
Our wrongs we make that make us wrong:
We court the crowd; we tickle the public ear;
The crowd laughs, and we laugh with it always; we’re
Mere puppets dandled by the throng.
We jingle our laughter,—
As if it were money;
We bow in our sorrow,—
The world bids “good-morrow,”
Hey-nonny hey-nonny.
We praise and we flatter,—
The world with a clatter
Comes after the honey;
We ask when we’re needy,—
The world is too greedy,
Hey-nonny hey-nonny.
We’re loved while we’re living
If always we’re giving
The world something funny;
But dead, there’s erected,
A stone,—then neglected,
Hey-nonny hey-nonny.
So, so! the world is all a cheat
And yet we worship at its feet.
Deceived by dross of gold and gloss of art,
We too much court the hand and not the heart.
VI.
IMMORTAL AND GOD-GIVEN.
Sowing and reaping,
Glutting our greed,
Getting and keeping,
What do we need?
World ever spinning,
World ever winning,
What does it lack?
—What?
What not?—
—The greatest thing on earth,
The greatest, too, in heaven above,
The greatest good of greatest worth,
Immortal and God-given,—
Love!
Love that bids no stricken soul depart
With honeyed, sweet “good-morrow”;
Love that binds and balms the wounded heart
And sorrows, too, with sorrow.
Love that loves in field or shop or kirk,
Unselfish and ungreedy;
Love that teaches toilless hands to work,
And leaves no mortal needy.
Love that ne’er forgets a heart that sleeps,
Nor leaves its tomb neglected;
Love that laughs and weeps and ever keeps
The throne of Love erected.
VII.
ASKING HEARTS.
This pushing,
This driving,
This rushing,
This too fast living
Resulting from unsatisfied desire:
No peace, no rest,
An endless quest,
Forever reaching up for something higher,—
For the world is good by nature,
And though debased, still looks above.
(The heathen even hopes beyond this earth.)
Stamped in every line and feature,
There is the image still of Love,
Sweet Love, fast-graven in the heart at birth.
Our lives-long our asking hearts keep fretting:
We beat the tangles of the world’s wide wild-wood,
Remorsefully and endlessly regretting
The loss of that sweet innocence of childhood.
The world is like us.—We are it!
Time-long the noisy nations of the earth
Have searched, and only found regret
At the loss of Love the child-world had at birth.
And so, we strive, and strive,—we know not why.
And not attaining what the heart would have,
We set the hand to work; we sweat and slave;
Allured by lights around earth’s narrow zone
That, followed, fly, we follow on and on;
For fame and wealth and power we barter away
Our lives; we would be gods: but mortal clay
Still clings about our feet, still drags us down,
And fetters us to earth without a crown.
And so, still unattaining all through life,
We follow still the bootless, mortal strife,
And laugh, and weep, and flatter, and fret, and—die!—
Die still unsatisfied,
VIII.
THE CROWNING GLORY.
Labor night and day
Howsoe’er we may
And toil
And moil
With ceaseless sweating,
Forever fretting,
Still coping
In endless strife
And hoping
An easier life,
Yet with it all
Result must fall
Far short of aspiration.
’Tis the great Law of laws,
Nor far to seek the cause;
For in our heart of hearts we know
The Law of Life must needs be so
That man may climb
Through changing time
Above this clod
Of mouldy mortal earth
Back unto God,
His home of love at birth,
And find in endless life
Above
The crown of all our strife
Is Love,
—The crown of all creation.
Transcriber’s Notes:
1. Obvious spelling, punctuation and printers’ errors haven been silently corrected.
2. Where appropriate, original spelling has been retained.
3. Hyphenated and non-hyphenated words have been kept as in the original.