“What do you want this year?” asked he;
“An answer to all the Mystery?
Some haven within a faith’s clear sky?”
“Please God! Yes, Robin, dear,” said I.
“Well, Spring’s here, anyhow,” said he;
“Good luck!” and flew from the apple tree;
“Yes, what ever the hopes that die,
God gives us another Spring,” said I.
DARK MINSTRELS.
We heard the poets singing in the dark,
We saw their lovely lights toss to and fro,
The while they gathered in their golden Ark
All the bright images of after-glow....
They struck us magic chords within the wood,
Showed us fair shapes alive with naked light;
They gave us rivers where the dream trees brood
And lovers wander all the starry night.
We turned and faced each other and we said:
“The poets pour us wine—they do not give us bread.”
For these are singers of dear vanished things,
The things that once have been but may not be;
We sit with close shut lips; un-minstrelled, we;
No heart to chant to these enamored strings,
No song to chant to medieval lyre
That strikes us songs of Ninevah and Tyre.
Our lutes are tuned to dangerous unwalked ways
Where all is dense and beckoning shapes withdraw;
Where the untrodden path winds in a maze,
And lead to things no Seeker ever saw.
We sing the Mind’s high dream, the imperious will,
That makes no music out of greedy strife
But seizes silver pipes, that sharp and shrill,
Call men to leap and seize on Very Life....
While other singers tell the old dreams o’er,
We rise and take us to the outer door;
Here on the wold, where no wise singer sings,
We feel the great Hand brush across our strings!
THE PEOPLE OF TODAY TO THE CLERGY OF TODAY.
Look now about you, fix your eyes on us,
Leave too-old mystic book and restful chair;
Take up our problems, things we must discuss,
Help us to think, to understand and dare.
Leave old-world Poetry of hallowed crime
And turn you to the hunger of the time.
Laws of the God, report them to the ears
That hear confused and cosmic voices rage;
Laws of the Christ, interpret them to fears
For Christ, new-risen in a Science-Age.
Oh, take the fire your sacred hands should give
And kindle it upon our city height;
Give us a world-strong law of wrong and right;
Teach us, not how to die, but how to live!