LAIS WHEN OLD
Lais, when old and all her beauty gone,
Lais, the erstwhile courted pleasure queen,
Walked homeless through Corinth.
One mocked her mien—
One tossed her coins; she took them and passed on.
Down by the harbour sloped a terraced lawn,
Where fountains played; she paused to view the scene.
A marble palace stood in bowers of green
’Twas here of old she revelled till the dawn.
Through yonder portico her lovers came—
Hero and statesman, athlete, merchant, sage;
They flung the whole world’s treasures at her feet
To buy her favour and exalt her shame.
* * * * *
She spat upon her dole of coins in rage
And faded like a phantom down the street.
EXISTENCE
You are here, and you are wanted,
Though a waif upon life’s stair;
Though the sunlit hours are haunted
With the shadowy shapes of care.
Still the Great One, the All-Seeing
Called your spirit into being—
Gave you strength for any fate.
Since your life by Him was needed,
All your ways by Him are heeded—
You can trust and you can wait.
You can wait to know the meaning
Of the troubles sent your soul;
Of the chasms intervening
’Twixt your purpose and your goal;
Of the sorrows and the trials,
Of the silence and denials,
Ofttimes answering to your pleas;
Of the stinted sweets of pleasure,
And of pain’s too generous measure—
You can wait the why of these.
Forth from planet unto planet,
You have gone, and you will go.
Space is vast, but we must span it;
For life’s purpose is to know.
Earth retains you but a minute,
Make the best of what lies in it;
Light the pathway where you are.
There is nothing worth the doing
That will leave regret or rueing,
As you speed from star to star.
You are part of the Beginning,
You are parcel of To-day.
When He set His world to spinning
You were flung upon your way.
When the system falls to pieces,
When this pulsing epoch ceases,
When the is becomes the was,
You will live, for you will enter
In the great Creative Centre,
In the All-Enduring Cause.