One mocked: "Thy brain is mad with wine;
The fairies spin the threads of night,
And pour their vials of sour blight
About the roots of health, yet thine
And thou, ye garner into verse
Bright flowers to trick a solemn hearse:
The cowslip, maiden-love of spring,
The burning incense of the rose,
The austere lily, her that blows
By winter's marge--each gracious thing
Past or unborn. Weak, trusting fool!
Old Time shall file thee in his school."
"I know not Time, his last or first;
With master hands I despoil all
His hoarded sweetness and his gall.
I crush the aeons for my thirst,
And so am mad. Pencils of fire
Limn visions of soul-large desire.
In Faith I cast on frozen ground
An obscure life of sweat and tears;
In the far Autumn of the years
Men reap full harvests, springing round,
And judge them gifts of kindly chance,
My deed laughs through each mellow lance."
DREAMS AND DUTY
Life is an inconstant April laughing into May,
Weeping with the aftergust of March storms laid away,
Light o' love! Her mood is gracious, fondling sunbeams stray
Out across the cloud-smoke purple of her cloud robes gray.
Let us dream among the daisies, troll a roundelay
Where the gorse gold is lavished, and the lilies pray,
Mary's nuns, whose stainless gift is Heaven's chaliced ray,
Let us twine a wreath of science, let us play our play,
Ere we fight the fight of ages, one sweet prelude-day.
* * * * *
The stranger heard and mocked us from the usurped throne,
Reeled in his scornful laughter, eater of hearts, blood-blown.
But the Lord God heard and heeded, therefore we do not moan;
For He has whispered to us, 'The secret shuttles fly,
Ye know not warp or weaver, yet neither swerve or sigh,
The eater of hearts shall wither, the drinker of blood shall die.
I have set you labour, work it; I will give you increase,
For first is winter-ploughing, after, my guerdon, peace;
Ye shall pluck strength from sorrow, ripe when the sorrows cease;
Ye shall win strength and wisdom to break the stranger's rule,
But if ye slink and babble ye are but as the fools,
Ye are but as the stranger, fit for the thorny schools."
A SONG OF VENGEANCE
FOR COMMANDANT SCHEEPERS
(Murdered January 18, 1902)
It is done inexpiably; thrust him deep in shameful clay,
Charge his name with every foulness, rule the world's ear as you may--
But the shadow at your banquet that you cannot put away!
Weak you thought him, sickness-vanquished, given to your eager hate.
So you played him and you slew him with your feline shows of state,
Weak--and lo! the sanctifying touch of death has made him great.
As a seed that broadening splits the rock on which a palace stands,
As a trickling breach that godlike parts one land in hostile lands,
Is the memory of Scheepers and his slaying at your hands.
Hill and plain and stream shall guard it, town and fireside, phrase and song;
Young men's unsubdued aspiring, old men's striving wise and strong;
And though Hope die, Hatred may not for remembrance of his wrong.
Murdered leader--may God fold you in the mercy of His temple,
Sleep as sleep our unborn children, bravest hero and example--
Float the flag or sink for ever, your red eric shall be ample.
TRANSLATIONS
AT ACHENSEE, TIROL