Our hearts swell big with dead men's hates,
Our eyes sting hot with dead men's tears;
We are ourselves, but not ourselves,
Born heirs, but serfs, to all the years!
I rode with Nimrod … strove at Troy …
A slave I stood in Crowning Tyre,
A queen looked on me and I loved
And died to compass my desire.
THE WAGES
EARTH loves to gibber o'er her dross,
Her golden souls, to waste;
The cup she fills for her god-men
Is a bitter cup to taste.
Who sees the gyves that bind mankind
And strives to strike them off
Shall gain the hissing hate of fools,
Thorns, and the ingrate's scoff.
Who storms the moss-grown walls of eld
And beats some falsehood down
Shall pass the pallid gates of death
Sans laurel, love or crown;
For him who fain would teach the world
The world holds hate in fee—
For Socrates, the hemlock cup;
For Christ, Gethsemane.
IN MARS, WHAT AVATAR?
"In Vishnu-land, what avatar?"
—BROWNING.
PERCHANCE the dying gods of Earth
Are destined to another birth,
And worn-out creeds regain their worth
In the kindly air of other stars—
What lords of life and light hold sway
In the myriad worlds of the Milky Way?
What avatars in Mars?