If the Faith your Fathers taught you
And the Land your Fathers wrought you,
(The Land their blood has bought you),
Shall hear the bugles blow—
Don’t watch in doubt and waiting,
Don’t stand procrastinating,
But say good-bye with laughing eye
And pack your trunk and go.
Where the coral turns to cactus,
And the cactus turns to harvest,
And the harvest turns to hemlock,
And the hemlock turns to snow:
By the phosphor-bordered beaches—
By the endless, bendless reaches—
You will find him where the Whisper bade him
Pack his trunk and go.
WOMAN
A REPLY TO RUDYARD KIPLING
“A woman is only a woman”—
These are the words you spoke.
And you deemed they were bright and caustic—
And you thought you had made us a joke.
Well, we who have been in the Tropics,
Who’ve noted the Eastern “way,”
’May be we should half forgive you
For some of the things you say.
When the Cave-man spat on his neighbor
And smote him hip and thigh—
When the Bronze-man slivered the boulders
Where the tin and the copper lie—
When the Iron-man reared him bridges
And engines of steam and steel—
What was the Light that lifted them,
And bade them to live and to feel?
When the sunshine turns to shadow—
And the shadow turns to night;
When faith and fair intention
Have fought them a failing fight;
When Hell has drawn nearest—
And God is very far—
Mayhap ye then can tell us who
The Ministering Angels are?
A rose is only a flower—
Can ye bring us the bud more rare?
“A woman is only a woman”—
Can ye show us the work more fair?
Harrie ye all Creation—
Look ye without surcease,
And when ye are weary and broken, kneel—
To your Master’s masterpiece.