MANIFOLD BEAUTY AND THE MAN
It is beautiful to be young,
When youth grows wise at length;
It is beautiful to be strong,
With gentleness in strength.
It is beautiful to grow old,
When the heart remaineth young;
It is beautiful to be brave,
When mercy’s note is sung.
It is beautiful to be good,
If filled with knowledge true;
And service is beautiful,
When service maketh new.
There is beauty in men’s laugh,
When laugh the pure in heart;
It is beautiful to be bright,
With wit for noblest art.
’Tis beautiful to see the sun,
And Nature in her courses run;
The wild and healing mountains,
And overflowing fountains;
Her blue unbounded sky,
Which oceans glorify—
Her silver spray of waterfall;
Eternal rocks, both large and small;
The heavenly hue
Of diamond dew,
On sun-kissed flower,
In morn’s high hour.
Beauteous to see the sunset’s glory;
God’s secret read in the deep-laid story;
The sleep of butterfly,
From death to life and why;
Jehovah’s predilection,
In every resurrection.
How beauteous in music of the stars to lave,
With song of the sea from ever rolling wave,
And note of woodland thrush,
Which gives the heart its hush;
Pipe of oriole—
O Beauty of the whole!
In sweet, divine content,
May mortals ever sing,
The anthems of the soul,
The beauties of the King.
Ah, Beauty is for all,
If Truth but disenthrall—,
O, yes, ’tis Heaven’s plan,
For Beauty in the man.
CHIMNEY ROCK[17]
Mysterious offspring, rugged son of Fire,
Born from the depths before the birth of years,
When burdened mothers would not grieve nor tire,
And fathers all forbade the cringing fears;
But listened there some one with painful ears,
And the mighty throes foredoomed some heart to pine.
But seen, thy solid form and brow so fine—
Ah, then, who dares to feebly pine or mock?
Men drink, for forthwith flows a mystic wine,
When they thy glory see, eternal Chimney Rock.
Photo by the Author.
Of mountains round about thee some rise higher,
Yet none of them, both near and far, thy peers;
And none of them are led to hate and ire;
I rather think they greet thee with good cheers;
Thy plaudits ring from a multitude of seers,
For thou dost serve for all as Nature’s shrine.
What cynic looks, and yields his pent-up whine?
At once he joins the throng which round thee flock;
No mountain, man or god could thee decline,
When they thy glory see, eternal Chimney Rock.
I trust I know and love thy primal Sire,
But purer love and lore when twilight clears,
When men and I shall climb a nobler spire,
And all of hate and horror disappears,
With wail and woe of war and cruel spears;
When wolf and lamb shall side by side recline—
O, be it mine to stand secure, yes mine,
Without the thought of harm or deadly shock,
In that glad day and time, as ever thine,
When they thy glory see, eternal Chimney Rock.
Envoy
How humble the stream-fed valleys round thee twine;
How praiseful, too, as deep they interline
Thy mates so high, more constant than a clock—
On thee the very gods come down to dine,
When they thy glory see, eternal Chimney Rock!