“Body, pray thee, let me go!
It is the soul that struggles so.”
Danske Dandridge.
O Life, let us make compact here, as men who set a bond between them;
We have been comrades, journeying all roads together, near and far,
And rough and smooth; all the winds that blow hail us as brothers,
And the stars of every land speak us in common tongue as kin:
Right gladly have we dared all chance and found it good—if won or lost;
But there must come a day when thou and I loose hands, divide the pack,
And fare us each alone on widening trails that nevermore shall meet.
Friend, when we know that hour face to face; in hall or tent, on road or waste or plain;
Or, as I pray, where some great, silent peak fronts solemn, fearless, to eternity;
Say thou “Godspeed!” and lift the stirrup cup right gaily to the lips that cry “Farewell!”
Grip thou my hand, as one who sees his long-tried friend go forth
On some great quest he would, but may not, share—where danger jostles honor on the road.
When that stern call no mortal may gainsay rings in my ears,
Do thou make generous haste; nor grudge my going, nor cling doggedly
Till flesh and soul are riven with mighty pain, or worn with slow decay;
But as thou love me, as I have been true to thee and to thy service,
Give me swift release, and lift our love up as a lifted torch to light my going.
I have no quarrel that we two must part; nor fear of that still, wondrous mystery
Beyond the parting: but spare thou my human weakness; I would go out undismayed;
Unshrinking; shadowed with no vain regret for done or undone;—
As we could we wrought; let who comes after better us in deed, but not in will:
Now Hope, and Courage, and my comrade Life, shoulder to shoulder for the final stand!
Till from beyond those farthest heights of all my cheer rings down to meet your parting cheer,
As some path seeker on untrodden peaks shouts backward to his fellows and goes on.
COMPANIONED
At daybreak when the sunrise lay
Along the desert sand,
I buckled girth and tightened rein,
And rode to win the land;
I rode as rides a careless youth
Who fears no evil tide;
But from the dark a phantom stark
Pressed out to gain my side.
Gray-cowled and still he nearer drew,
The morning air grew chill;
The wind wailed low the while I turned
And bade him name his will:
“My will it is to ride with thee,
Whatever chance betide;
For good or ill to follow still,
More close than friend or bride.”
My heart turned cold, my arm grew weak;
I struck a stinging spur
And strove at maddest pace to lose
That ghostly follower.
We reeled upon the desert’s verge,
My hard-pressed steed and I,—
And full beside through that wild ride
The wraith smiled silently.
He clasped my hand, he touched my brow
With lips that froze and burned;
“Now art thou mine to have and hold
Till all the tale be learned.
Put by the whip and ringing spur;
Put by the brave array;
For thou with me shall presently
Go forth in hodden gray.
“I lay my chrism upon thine eyes
That thy blind soul may see
The grandeur rife in human life,
Its joy and misery.”—
So fare we softly side by side,
Nor ever turn again;
And now I hail the presence “Friend,”
Who once had called him “Pain.”
ALONE
Oh! arms that ache with weary emptiness,
Yet knew Love’s fullness ere your day was old,
How shall I turn with comforting to you
Who have the burden’s tender memory still?
Hands that but clasp each other, wet with tears
Yet tingling with the pressure of a touch
Scarce now withdrawn, I give you no regret—
Whose “has been” gladdens all the long “to be.”
What know you, though you grieve, of loneliness,
Who count the days back sure of smiles that were,
And eyes that looked and loved and understood?
Empty the arms, companioned still the soul—
For souls once met blend all futurity
Into that meeting.
But one I knew whose empty heart had ne’er
Beat faster to the sound of kindred step;
Whose hand no other hand had reached to grasp
In brotherhood of purpose; in whose ear
No voice spoke greeting in a mother tongue:
A soul that from the Chaos back of Time
Passed out alone, and through the Then and Now
Walked alien past the homes of happy men.
E’en stars bend to each other through the blue,
And earth calls upward to her sister spheres;
But seeking, seeking, still in ceaseless quest,
This soul went outward to Eternity.
THE INHERITOR
Look you, ye line of men and women reaching back
Behind my shoulders into Life’s lost dawn—
Ye square-jawed, low-browed, fierce-eyed fighting-man;
Ye fawning slave, cringing before the whip;
Ye strong-souled prophet of diviner things;
Ye praying saint, ye sensuous, sin-steeped fool;
Ye seer, love driven, paying drop by drop
Thy own blood down to buy thy brother’s need;
Ye sleek and shifty plotter, cunning-lipped
Ye pale ascetic, ye the loose-tongued bawd;
Ye weak, and tender, loving, scorning, mad
With glutted pride—abased in misery;
Ye that have measured all the pendulum
Of human passion, chance, and hope, and pain—
I bid ye halt; I am the crucible,
My will the furnace fire; fused here in me
Your motley ore shall take what shape I choose,
To serve what end I order and command.
I’ll make of ye my weapon and my tool,
My sword and plowshare. Ye shall hold or break,
Strike or be idle, at my word. In my hand
Ye shall be gathered as a missile fit
And hurled subservient to seek my goal.
Look in my eyes and know I fear ye not;
Because ye were I am—and rule ye now.
I will not go your road nor seek your end;
I will not pray your prayer nor sing your song;
Ye shall not sear me with the sullen heat
Of your spent passions. My lips shall never writhe
With bitter pleading for your old desires.
Ye shall not shake my soul with your lost fears,
Nor grip my heart with dead regret and pain.
I am your master; if ye live again
Ye take life from my hand at my own terms.
I will bind up the fire that flared in you
To use diverse, and make of it a torch
Clear-flamed and strong to light the road I choose.
Your wrongs shall set me free from kindred wrong;
Your labor and your loss shall be the steps
Beneath my feet on which I stand to rise.
Your hopes undone shall wing my hope for flight;
I will take up the broken dreams that fell
From your spent grasp and weld them into one—
A deathless vision of futurity.
O ye dead hearts that ached; dead hands that clinched
In fear or fury; dead lips that lied or loved;
Dead souls that grovelled or aspired as ye could—
Ye rule me not—I am the master here.
For my swift hour ye serve me as I will—
Till from forgotten dust I serve the men that come.