So for two score of years his vigil ran,
Unbroken save for slumber, till his hope,
More faint at last, for all his hungering,
Than shadows cast by firstling moons, was fled.
But in the dust and detriments of noon,
And in the midnight, still he longed for her,
As, day by day, the marring seasons passed,
Heedless of his despair. And yet he dreamt,
Sustained by that which man must find at last—
Patience, his answer to the sneer of Hell.
Often he whispered prayer, and, in his age,
Spoke unto children and to ancient men,
But craved no word of her he loved, in dread
Lest he be told her death. Then broke a day
Whereon a hush seemed come to mortal things.
A scarlet flower opened, near at hand,
Scentless. Far up, he saw a lonely cloud,
Cold-purple, like a bruise upon the sky.
A restless wind plucked at the parent dust,
And all the apes were silent in the grove.
And Nila knew his end was near, and felt
His soul rise wearily and welcome Death.
Then one came forth from out the palace gate—
Broken and desolate with foul-eyed age,
And sat near by, nor held at all her peace,
Lamenting o’er some matter of a hen.
Whereat said Nila: “Woman, hast thou word
Of one whom, long ago, the Rajah tore
From lover and from kin—of her whose name
Was Unda?” Then the crone bent low her head
And pondered, reaching back to years agone,
As one that in the darkness of the sea
Gropes for a sunken gem. At last she spoke,
Saying, “So long! So long ago! And yet
Do I remember Unda, for alone
Of all her band she mourned, nor would be still;
Wherefore our lord at last was wroth with her
And put her forth, for that she ever wept,
By the northern gate, forbidding that she turn
Again unto her kindred. And some say
That she within the jungle perished, some
That to a city of the west she fared
And dwelt in shame. Doubtless she long is dead.”
And Nila gazed upon the land and sky,
Woven for man’s illusion, and beheld
The scarlet petals fallen from their stem.
The cloud had gone; the wind was fled away.
And Nila turned him from the veils of Time,
And bowed his head, and murmured: “God is just.”
THE FLEET
Stand fast! Though steel on clanging steel
Make the contending turret reel;
Though stern as Hell the battle-blast,
From merciless horizons cast—
Annihilation’s breath—
Thunder no word but “Death!”
Yea! though the blind sea rave
And all its gulfs gape eager as the grave,
Sure of your flesh at last,
O human hearts! stand fast!
And though untested nerve and sinew shrink,
Trapped and astounded at the final brink—
Tho’ hostile guns the march to silence toll,
Beyond it lies the goal,
And past the moment’s tremor smiles the soul.
O brother hearts and brave,
We know you strong to save,
And strong to serve the Star
That past the dusk of war
Imperishable gleams.
And O! how little seems
The price of death men wait so glad to pay
To hold undesecrated every ray!
To serve thro’ many nights
The youngest of the Lights
Until it burns sublime
From uncontested heights—
The whitest beacon on the coasts of Time!
Behold her, our dear country, where she stands
Beneath the unconquered skies,
The sword and trumpet in her sheathéd hands,
But mercy in her eyes!
Behold before her gates
That bar the loyal sea,
Foaming upon her threshholds ceaselessly,
Each messenger that waits
Armed for conclusive fates—
Angels of death made mighty to fulfil
’Mid thunderings her will!
Behold all these and know her wisdom’s length,
Her beauty and her strength,
And know that farther skies
Age-hence shall see her rise,
Hesperus of the high and starry plan
When nations sit unarmored at the feast,
Of freedom, West and East,
Leagued in the deathless faith of men with Man.
REMORSE
At the sea’s verge, near Cypress Point, in Monterey County, the rain, wind, sun and sea have shaped a crag of the Santa Lucian granite into the form of a cowled or crowned figure, bent above the surf.
Prelate or king (the twilight tells not which),
Thou crouchest, silent, by the bitter sea.
Immovable, immortal and alone,
Abidest thou, and in thy stony ears
The changeless moaning of the ancient deep
Is less than prayer to Fate. The flaming noon
Warms, and the spectral mists of evening chill:
Thou heedest not, lapt in granitic dreams,
Nor hast a glance for setting moon or star.
What was thy crime? How long thy bleak remorse?
For never venial sin had strength to bind
In trance so grim despair so terrible.
Gaze! but the stainless wave shall not assoil!
Listen! but ever in thy soul must ring
The ghostly death-cry of a Cause betrayed,—
An empire lost, a people cast to doom!
So might the Spirit of our tragic orb
Behold, aghast with years, its fell result,
And, blinded with the vision he had wrought,
And dumb with clamors frozen at his heart,
Ponder, unpitied by Eternity,
Above the rising sea of human tears.
MOONLIGHT IN THE PINES
Full-starred, seraphic Night arose,
Lifting the Pleiades’ dim lyre
Above that solitude where glows
Rose-red Aldebaran’s fire.