Horizons and landmarks

by Sidney Royse Lysaght

IN THE WORLD

Is this the world we sought? Is this our dream
Of life’s warm heart; and yon divided host!
Is that the camp that marks the latest stage
On man’s adventurous quest? Full well we knew
That we had left behind the peace that dwells
In quiet woodland ways. Yes, for we dreamed
Of danger and of strife, of sorrow and sin;
But always in our dream a battle song
Called us to fields unwon, and evermore,
Above the failure and the sacrifice,
We heard the voice of hope that told the world
It laboured not in vain. Is this that world?
This the great comrade host? Our eyes are dim;
For we have seen the saddest sight on earth,—
Her faithless millions.
Toil and strife and sin,
Pity and love we see; but what that speaks
Of man’s belief in a great destiny?
What symbol shines before us? Not the sword!—
The noble cause unsheaths it not: we fight
Not to save others, nay, we hardly dare
To fight to save our honour or ourselves.
The cross? It stands aloft on spire and dome,
An ornament above the empty church,
While underneath it in the market-place
We kneel, we bow before the Belly-god.
He is our own! Behold we fashioned him!
We fattened him, as bees create their queen,
Shaped him with our inventions, in his frame
Ordered blind forces to mechanic law.
But lo! his breath is but an engine throb;
He knows not love nor ruth; he has no soul,—
This idol in our midst, our Belly-god.
He offers us the substance of the known,
He asks no faith in the unseen, he prompts
No sacrifice that earns not its reward.
Comfort and wealth he promises to man,
He shows the poor the gold he gave the rich
And bids them take it, and the rich he arms
Against the poor.
How different a world
From that we pictured, when we watched the dawn
Break on the blue horizon of the hills
That ringed our quiet homeland, and we dwelt
Among the scattered friendly folk. Our dreams
Then told us of profounder tides of life,
Nobler activities, more glorious tasks,
Born of the strength of numbers; now we see
Weakness, not strength, in numbers, where no cause,
No common faith unites them; now we hear
The sound of the great moving multitude
That marches without goal or leader, nay,
That marches not, but spreads.
What profits it
That man shall gain the world and lose his soul?
What that he conquer nature and enslave
Her forces, if he stands himself a slave
Ruled by his own inventions? What that bread
Be cheaper to the poor, if life itself
Have lost its savour, and the daily toil
Grown so mechanical, themselves become
But parts of the machine they tend? ’Twere well
If they could see in this dull servitude
Some noble purpose, or behold at last
Its help to the world; but they discern no end
Save riches gathered, and the luxury
They envy but can never hope to share.
What have we gained in welfare to atone
For beauty lost? This spreading human mass
Has marred earth’s lovely ways with steam and oil,
And soon will desecrate the paths of heaven
With loud excursions. Soon the earth will keep
No hiding-place for Pan, no solitude
Among the hills, no cloisters of the woods.
And what of that if Nature’s loveliness
Were but a sacrifice? if for that loss
The world had gained new joy? if the wild charm
Of solitude, the beauty that the feet
Of men destroy had passed into their souls,
And gave the weary toilers of the town
New hope? But no! the beauty we destroy
Leaves us no child behind: humanity
Is robbed for ever; and the poor, for whom
Beauty was the one priceless thing on earth,
Save love, that without payment was their own,—
They are the most bereft.
How shall we stay
This thing called progress, this machinery
Fashioned by man to drive and crush himself,
This crafty servant of the Belly-god,
That multiplies our wealth and starves our souls?
Was it for this vile servitude that man
Contended through the ages with the powers
Of darkness, till at last he saw the star
Of Freedom shining on his onward way?
Out of that vast contention, from that Hell
Of suffering and sacrifice at last
Rising victorious, the victory
Should be indeed heroic, and the goal
Beyond it something nobler than the quest
Of treasure upon earth;—ay, though that wealth
Be subdivided, and mankind become
A brotherhood of prosperous shareholders.

This is the world! Our dream of life’s warm heart
Beating with greater purposes, and fired
With nobler aims, where the great companies
Of men are gathered:—all is unfulfilled;
And yet our dream lives on!
Oh, cherish it!
’Twas given us to guard: ’tis the design
Of the Eternal Architect, revealed
To earthly toilers; and ’tis not for man
To shape his dreams to fit the world he finds,
But to rebuild the world to fit his dreams.

What of ourselves, who looking on the world
Condemn its faithlessness? How weak indeed
Must be our own faith if our hope for man
Fails because here the march is retrograde
And there the goal is hidden. We have mourned
Beauty deflowered, and paths of old romance
Trodden to dust; but we remembered not
The waste reclaimed, the pestilential swamp
Drained of its poison. While in vain we sought
The faith that led the old world’s pioneers
Through desert places, we forget that Hell
Of superstition, bigotry, and fear
That tortured countless souls, that bondage vile
From which the world has freed itself at last.
Foul things that never shall be seen again
Have been uprooted; but the beautiful,
The old and lovely things that now are not,—
These are not dead, but in our dreams they hide,
Till love shall charm them back into the world.

’Tis man’s to build; our dream shows God’s design:
The misinterpretation of our dream,
Our faithlessness, is written in the world;
But still the dream remains;—’tis born again
With every child that comes from the unknown
Into our mortal life. ’Twas not for us
To look for the fulfilment of our dream,
Or find our heart’s desire upon the earth:
But it is ours to labour; ay, ’tis ours
Into our labour to translate our dreams.

Come! for our labour calls us to the world,—
The world that bows before the Belly-god
To whom men sacrifice their dreams divine
For meats that perish. Are they satisfied?
Are they not crying, Give us back our dreams?
Come! ’tis for those who have not sold their dreams
To stand together and to lead the world.

HEARTH LIGHT

There was a home we used to know
Far, far away,—long, long ago;
So far away, it often seems
A land of ghosts, a world of dreams;
And yet so near, a wind that stirs
A twilight whisper in the firs,
A little river’s wandering tune,
A silver sea-way in the moon,
A flower’s scent is all we need
Thither to call us, thither lead.
Then we are shown each kind old face
And every half-forgotten place
Unchanged: we see the raindrops still
Undried upon the daffodil
On April mornings, still behold
Long-garnered harvests waving gold
On blue horizons, hear again
The winter sound of wind and rain
That filled the land on evenings drear,
And gave our hearth a homelier cheer,—
That hearth whose light has since out-flowed
On every dark and wintry road,—
Whose memory has come to raise
A shelter round our homeless days,
And brought us on our unknown quest
Promise of haven, dreams of rest.

THE TEST OF FAITH

We had no need of faith in those young days
When we went forth on the world’s unknown ways,
When joy from every fount of life welled out,
And beauty over-ran its crystal springs.
We could not ask if life were good or ill
When all our dreams it promised to fulfil,
We could not fear the unknown road, nor doubt
That love divine was at the heart of things.