Auri Sacra Fames
Now that the gods are dead—where shall we find us a god?
Myths of the Greek Olympus have sunk in the surge of Time;
And Jehovah, the God of Wrath, who stayed the sun at His nod;
And Jesus, the Nazarene, preaching a dream sublime.
Worship and form may live, practice and faith have fled.
Where shall we find us a god—now that the gods are dead?
What of the Old exists but feels the touch of the New?
Thousands of voices shout: where is the voice that leads?
Thro’ the wreathing mists of night will the grey of dawn be true,
In the age of vague unrest, strivings, and shattered creeds?
Where the children turn with scorn from the paths their fathers trod,
Now that the gods are dead, where shall we find us a god?
Gone are the mists of old in the light of the larger day!
Gone is the foolish hope, the trust in a Power above!
Science has swept the heavens and brushed religion away!
What need we hope or fear? Warfare is clothed like Love!
Priestcraft is but a trade—souls can be bought and sold!
Why should we seek for a god—now that our god is Gold?
Great were the gods of eld—a greater than all is near!
Noblest of all the powers which ruled o’er the soul of man!
Centuries paved the way, now the ideal is here
Product of all the aeons that rolled since the world began!
Millions have toiled for this with sufferings manifold.
This is the triumph of time—the god of the world is Gold!
Worship before his feet and kneel in his holy place,
For his altar is on the hearth and the rolling world is his throne!
With the throb of a votary’s pulse beats the heart of the human race,
From the lips of the child at play sounds the creed we have called our own.
Gather, O sons of men, but not like the men of old:
Savages worshipped honour—we have no god but Gold.
Gather, O sons of men! let us kneel at the sacred shrine.
Beauty was won by deeds—now it is bought and sold!
Justice was deemed of God—now it is scarce divine!
Honour dearer than life—what is honour to Gold?
O daughters, sisters, and wives! beauty was meant to sell!
Let us call the blessing of Heaven on the marriages made in Hell!
Over the marriage chime, and over the requiem’s sigh,
Into the peace of home enters the roar of the mart.
Barter whilst day be day, ere night, when no man may buy!
Nothing too high or low in a world of culture and art!
This is the crowning age, born of the centuries fled
Age of “Sweetness and Light”—now that the gods are dead!
Souls of the mighty dead who lived and died for the right,
Genius inspired of heaven to battle for human need—
These are the days of the dawn, the dawn of diviner light,
When the child at its mother’s breast is lisping the modern creed—
If haply thine eyes may gaze on the paths which thy feet have trod,
Behold, in a godless age, we have sought and found us a god!
Deep from a million throats rises the strain sublime—
“Justice is for the rich, patience is for the poor ;
Wealth is the only good, want is the only crime;
Beauty is for the old if but the price be sure.”
Deep in the whole world’s heart festers the cursèd creed.
Yea, though the gods be dead, we have found us a god indeed!
Better the clash of steel and the flag of battle unfurled!
Better the roar of guns and death for the future’s sake!
Than that the curse of Gold should canker the heart of the world.
Where is the voice of the leader? When will the people wake?
Nay! let us fold our hands! Madman, what fool would blight
The star of an age whose Christ is Moloch, the Ammonite?
Nay! for the day draws near when all shall not worship Gold!
Honour shall not be bought, wealth shall not make the man.
All have not turned away from the truths which were loved of old!
All have not toiled in vain since the toil of the world began!
All have not laid their souls at the feet of the idol red.
Some have remembered God—now that the gods are dead
poem by George Essex Evans
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A Child of the Snows
There is heard a hymn when the panes are dim,
And never before or again,
When the nights are strong with a darkness long,
And the dark is alive with rain.
Never we know but in sleet and in snow,
The place where the great fires are,
That the midst of the earth is a raging mirth
And the heart of the earth a star.
And at night we win to the ancient inn
Where the child in the frost is furled,
We follow the feet where all souls meet
At the inn at the end of the world.
The gods lie dead where the leaves lie red,
For the flame of the sun is flown,
The gods lie cold where the leaves lie gold,
And a Child comes forth alone.
poem by G.K. Chesterton
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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The Rainbow
Watch the white dawn gleam,
To the thunder of hidden guns.
I hear the hot shells scream
Through skies as sweet as a dream
Where the silver dawn-break runs.
And stabbing of light
Scorches the virginal white.
But I feel in my being the old, high, sanctified thrill,
And I thank the gods that the dawn is beautiful still.
From death that hurtles by
I crouch in the trench day-long,
But up to a cloudless sky
From the ground where our dead men lie
A brown lark soars in song.
Through the tortured air,
Rent by the shrapnel's flare,
Over the troubleless dead he carols his fill,
And I thank the gods that the birds are beautiful still.
Where the parapet is low
And level with the eye
Poppies and cornflowers glow
And the corn sways to and fro
In a pattern against the sky.
The gold stalks hide
Bodies of men who died
Charging at dawn through the dew to be killed or to kill.
I thank the gods that the flowers are beautiful still.
When night falls dark we creep
In silence to our dead.
We dig a few feet deep
And leave them there to sleep -
But blood at night is red,
Yea, even at night,
And a dead man's face is white.
And I dry my hands, that are also trained to kill,
And I look at the stars - for the stars are beautiful still.
poem by Leslie Coulson
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A Child of the Snows
There is heard a hymn when the panes are dim,
And never before or again,
When the nights are strong with a darkness long,
And the dark is alive with rain.
Never we know but in sleet and in snow,
The place where the great fires are,
That the midst of the earth is a raging mirth
And the heart of the earth a star.
And at night we win to the ancient inn
Where the child in the frost is furled,
We follow the feet where all souls meet
At the inn at the end of the world.
The gods lie dead where the leaves lie red,
For the flame of the sun is flown,
The gods lie cold where the leaves lie gold,
And a Child comes forth alone.
poem by Gilbert Keith Chesterton
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Mater Dolorosa
Who is this that sits by the way, by the wild wayside,
In a rent stained raiment, the robe of a cast-off bride,
In the dust, in the rainfall sitting, with soiled feet bare,
With the night for a garment upon her, with torn wet hair?
She is fairer of face than the daughters of men, and her eyes,
Worn through with her tears, are deep as the depth of skies.
This is she for whose sake being fallen, for whose abject sake,
Earth groans in the blackness of darkness, and men's hearts break.
This is she for whose love, having seen her, the men that were
Poured life out as water, and shed their souls upon air.
This is she for whose glory their years were counted as foam;
Whose face was a light upon Greece, was a fire upon Rome.
Is it now not surely a vain thing, a foolish and vain,
To sit down by her, mourn to her, serve her, partake in the pain?
She is grey with the dust of time on his manifold ways,
Where her faint feet stumble and falter through year-long days.
Shall she help us at all, O fools, give fruit or give fame,
Who herself is a name despised, a rejected name?
We have not served her for guerdon. If any do so,
That his mouth may be sweet with such honey, we care not to know.
We have drunk from a wine-unsweetened, a perilous cup,
A draught very bitter. The kings of the earth stood up,
And the rulers took counsel together, to smite her and slay;
And the blood of her wounds is given us to drink today.
Can these bones live? or the leaves that are dead leaves bud?
Or the dead blood drawn from her veins be in your veins blood?
Will ye gather up water again that was drawn and shed?
In the blood is the life of the veins, and her veins are dead.
For the lives that are over are over, and past things past;
She had her day, and it is not; was first, and is last.
Is it nothing unto you then, all ye that pass by,
If her breath be left in her lips, if she live now or die?
Behold now, O people, and say if she be not fair,
Whom your fathers followed to find her, with praise and prayer,
And rejoiced, having found her, though roof they had none nor bread;
But ye care not; what is it to you if her day be dead?
It was well with our fathers; their sound was in all men's lands;
There was fire in their hearts, and the hunger of fight in their
hands.
Naked and strong they went forth in her strength like flame,
For her love's and her name's sake of old, her republican name.
But their children, by kings made quiet, by priests made wise,
Love better the heat of their hearths than the light of her eyes.
Are they children of these thy children indeed, who have sold,
O golden goddess, the light of thy face for gold?
Are they sons indeed of the sons of thy dayspring of hope,
Whose lives are in fief of an emperor, whose souls of a Pope?
Hide then thine head, O beloved; thy time is done;
Thy kingdom is broken in heaven, and blind thy sun.
What sleep is upon you, to dream she indeed shall rise,
When the hopes are dead in her heart as the tears in her eyes?
If ye sing of her dead, will she stir? if ye weep for her, weep?
Come away now, leave her; what hath she to do but sleep?
But ye that mourn are alive, and have years to be;
And life is good, and the world is wiser than we.
Yea, wise is the world and mighty, with years to give,
And years to promise; but how long now shall it live?
And foolish and poor is faith, and her ways are bare,
Till she find the way of the sun, and the morning air.
In that hour shall this dead face shine as the face of the sun,
And the soul of man and her soul and the world's be one.
poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne
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Gods
Gods of the white man,
Gods of the black man,
Gods of the almond shade
all of these Gods
have done one thing,
made the people afraid.
Gods of the red man,
Gods of the brown man
Gods of the yellow hue,
all of these Gods
have done the same
divided them into
Separate people
who've been led to believe
their God is the holy one
to save their souls
and pardon them
and deliver them
from earthly sin.
How can there be
so many Gods?
Isn't there only one?
One for every single soul
born unto this earth.
He's every color that there is
since the world's begun.
poem by Edwina Reizer
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Gods of the East
Because I sought it far from men,
In deserts and alone,
I found it burning overhead,
The jewel of a Throne.
Because I sought--I sought it so
And spent my days to find--
It blazed one moment ere it left
The blacker night behind.
We be the Gods of the East--
Older than all--
Masters of Mourning and Feast--
How shall we fall?
* * * * *
This I saw when the rites were done,
And the lamps were dead and the Gods alone,
And the grey snake coiled on the altar stone--
Ere I fled from a Fear that I could not see,
And the Gods of the East made mouths at me.
poem by Rudyard Kipling
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Retrieved Poetry
Poetry is dead,
Some would say.
But the inspiration that befell the poet,
But the gods that cursed the poet
Would never allow him grow weary.
It keeps pouring out like morning dew
From sundown to cock crow.
Poetry is dead,
Some would say.
Those would get paid
That wishes it out of this world.
Judgement day, the pay day, even today
,
Memories linger of what the gods inspired.
Only poetry has survived a worldwide flood.
Poetry is dead,
Some have said.
But the inspiration keeps coming,
But the memory keeps living.
Poetry lives on even when the world is dead;
It dies only if it is not poetry
And there is only a good few poetry.
Poetry is dead,
Some have said.
Until we start seeing poetry as poetry
And nothing more, until that day,
Until we start thinking he is inspired,
Until we stop thinking for the poet;
He is possessed he is innocent.
Poetry is dead,
So goes the argument.
Even as we cut from the same tree,
Even as we speak same universal language,
You cannot cut deep if your axe's blunt.
We can never speak from same mouth.
You can only say your own thought.
Poetry is dead,
So goes the argument,
If poetry is dead killed by death,
If poetry is dead swallowed by death,
The corpse should be in our front.
We should know how to bury it.
We should dig not cover it with dust.
Poetry is dead,
If poetry is really dead,
There is cause to weep bitterly,
There is cause to think deeply
For the world has been stripped naked.
For poetry is great, ageless, timeless, bottomless
At the burial we must remain emotionless.
poem by Chime Justice Ndubuisi
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Books for the people
"Let there be light."
Light to the darkened mind
Bear, like the sun, the world's wide circle round,
Bright messengers that speak without a sound!
Sight on the spirit blind
Shall fall whene'er ye pass; your living ray
Shall change the night of ages into day: --
God speed ye on your way!
In closet and in hall,
Too long alone your message hath been spoken:
The spell of gold that bound ye there is broken;
Go forth and shine on all;
The world's inheritance, the legacy
Bequeathed by Genius to the race are ye;
Be like the sunlight, free!
A mighty power ye wield!
Ye wake grim centuries from their deep repose,
And bid their hoarded treasuries unclose,
The spoils of time to yield.
Ye hold the gift of immortality;
Bard, sage, and seer, whose fame shall never die,
Live through your ministry.
Noiseless upon your path,
Freighted with lore, romance, and song, ye speed,
Moving the world, in custom and in creed,
Waking its love or wrath.
Tyrants, that blench not on the battle-plain,
Quail at your silent coming, and in vain
Would bind the riven chain.
Shrines, that embalm great souls!
Where yet the illustrious dead high converse hold,
As gods spake through their oracles of old;
Upon your mystic scrolls,
There lives a spell to guide our destiny;
The fire by night, the pillared cloud by day,
Upon our upward way.
poem by Anne Lynch Botta from Poems (1848)
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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There’s Always a Dawn
There were spears
There were swords
Made for hunting
Not war
Yet with it, from the blood of the innocent will create a new dawn
But war came
Great battles and fights
Many dead
Few still alive
To face the never ending dawn
A new world made
By the people who were left
Conquerors and Defeated
United in one land
A new dawn created with the help of man
The one land changed
More wars began
Famine and disease
Grew a part of that
But the dawn still remained
It was after these wars that history began
Written by the victors about
The defeated
The damned
The dawn was never mentioned- forgotten
These people
The defeated left the land
In search for a new home
Away from the wars
Searching forever for a new dawn
Perhaps they were wise
To leave with such haste
For the empire they once knew
Began to break
The dawn now remembered- the people prayed
The empire broke
The great kingdom now gone
In its place a new world just like the dawn
Still life in the world went on and on
Yet the dawn was still worshiped- never forgotten
The years past
More wars began
Countries discovered
New weapons for man
The promise man made- left to die
Centuries turned
Discoveries made
Technology found
Diseases dead
Still on and on the dawn survives
But for every technology there’s always a weapon
For every discovery there’s always a second
With one disease dead more still arrive
And with every new day a new world is created
Though the dawn still remained
So the world keeps turning
In the dark and light
For every bad thing
There’s always a light
In the dawn
In war it is Peace
In death it is Life
In disease it is the Cures
In the world it is Hope
Disguised as the dawn
Hope keeps us going
Through the bad it is strength
To do what is right, To help the world
In the light it shines, shines for the future, a brighter day
A new dawn
The earth might be in darkness
With a shadow on its edge
Waiting to consume
Till the universe is dead
The dawn still remains
But still the world keeps turning
Like the never ending dawn
Time is forever
And the universe survives
Because of the dawn
It might seem the end
Of the world that we know
But at the end of a day
There’s always mans hope
There’s always a dawn
poem by Carrie Halliday
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Lux In Tenebris
When first the Gods, whose Empire is eternal,
In Time’s deep chalice poured Life’s sacred wine,
Flashed all the crystal cup with fire supernal;
Then said they: “Shall the mortal be divine?
Shall man usurp the ways the Gods have trod?
Who quaffs this cup, himself should be a God!”
So tempered they the measure of their giving,
And mingled germs of evil with the good;
So mixed they death with the fierce fire of living,
And anguish with the joy of motherhood;
And with the balm of peace a weird unrest,
And an unformed desire in every breast.
So set they discord in the sweetest singing,
And a sharp thorn about the fairest rose;
And doubt around the cross where faith was clinging,
And fear to haunt the regions of repose;
And dimmed men’s eyes, so that they should not see,
Like Gods, the vistas of futurity.
They coloured failure with hope’s rainbow splendour,
And tinged the hour of triumph with regret;
Made strength subservient to the weak and tender,
And wisdom, folly-caught in beauty’s net;
Till unto man life’s wine was bitter-sweet—
Betwixt the perfect and the incomplete.
Then said the Gods—the Gods who live for ever—
“Let us shower gifts upon the soul of man,
That he may catch a glimpse of our endeavour,
And yet not solve the Universal Plan.
For, though Life’s deepest truths be near to find,
Man shall behold and see not, being blind!”
Thus, to the blessing of the Gods descending,
The universal curse and shadow clung;
The mystic evil with the glory blending
That mars the aeons since the world was young.
For upon all whom the High Gods had blest
There fell the quenchless fever of unrest.
Then rose a ferment and an exaltation,
And all men’s souls were thrilled and stirred within.
There came a prophet unto every nation
To teach new doctrines of the source of sin;
And men arose as Gods, and creeds began
To preach th’ Eternal Godhead one with man.
And ever, thro’ all lands, with waves sonorous,
Rolled on from age to age the stream of song
Which made low valleys sweet with rhythmic chorus,
And shook the rock-bound hills with music strong,
And flushed and fired men’s souls like fumes of wine—
Yet was but human! . . . not a song divine!
For, lo! thro’ all that seemeth inspiration
Enters the curse that blurs created things;
Beyond the barriers of our limitation
Not ever yet a soul has spread its wings!
Nor has been yet, nor ever shall there be,
A perfect song—a perfect harmony!
O music of the wind and of the ocean!—
O Power that sways the glory of the spheres!
O aching hearts that vibrate with emotion!
O mystery of Life! O human tears!
What light shall lead us thro’ the wilderness
From out the Egypt of our bitterness?
O Poets, round whose souls, since the beginning,
Strange echoes tremble and wild visions throng,
Ye all have heard the sweetness of the singing,
But no man knows the meaning of the song
That lifts our frail souls heavenwards with its strain—
Then flings us bleeding to the earth again!
Brothers, my soul has quickened with your gladness.
I, too, have sorrowed over human woe.
I, too, have felt the terror and the madness
That all who seek for truth and light must know.
My faint heart falters in the bitter strife—
The labyrinths of the mysteries of Life.
What hope—what comfort—in our desolation?
What ray to pierce the blackness of our night?
To weary hearts, what balm of consolation
That earth is finite, heaven is infinite?
What tho’ the hand of Faith still points the way—
The voice of Reason ever brings delay.
Nay! tho’ Life’s secret be beyond our dreaming,
And all the creeds that sway the world untrue,
A radiance creeps aslant the shadows gleaming
Whose golden arrows pierce the darkness thro’.
If all our errors hold one germ of right,
The paths that lead to truth are infinite!
Throughout all nature and throughout creation
A Power Supreme its manual sign has writ.
In pain and stress, thro’ aeons of gradation,
Shall the weak soul of man decipher it;
For, since the spirit is above the clay,
Man shall not know th’ Eternal in a day.
Yet, tho’ we know not their immortal places,
And tho’ their footsteps are not heard of man,
And tho’ with mystery they veil their faces
And bid us search the Universal Plan,
And tho’ to all there cometh with Life’s breath
Suffering, and doubt, and weariness, and death—
I sing Eternal Hope and Strong Endeavour,
Truth shining down a myriad aisles of thought;
I sing the deathless souls of men, for ever
By strange, wild paths to one vast triumph brought.
The God in Man—the hunger of the soul—
One with the Wisdom that inspires the Whole!
poem by George Essex Evans
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The Gods Are Dead
The gods are dead? Perhaps they are! Who knows?
Living at least in Lempriere undeleted,
The wise, the fair, the awful, the jocose,
Are one and all. I like to think, retreated
In some still land of lilacs and the rose.
Once high they sat, and high o’er earthly shows
With sacrificial dance and song were greeted.
Once… long ago. But now, the story goes,
The gods are dead.
It must be true. The world, a world of prose,
Full-crammed with facts, in science swathed and sheeted,
Nods in a stertorous after-dinner doze!
Plangent and sad, in every wind that blows
Who will may hear the sorry words repeated: –
‘The Gods are Dead!’
poem by William Ernest Henley
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Phœbus Apollo
Hear us, Phœbus Apollo, who are shorn of contempt and pride,
Humbled and crushed in a world gone wrong since the smoke on thine altars died;
Hear us, Lord of the morning, King of the Eastern Flame,
Dawn on our doubts and darkness and the night of our later shame!
There are strange gods come among us, of passion, and scorn, and greed;
They are throned in our stately cities, our sons at their altars bleed:
The smoke of their thousand battles hath blinded thy children’s eyes,
And our hearts are sick for a ruler that answers us not with lies,
Sick for thy light unblemished, great fruit of Latona’s pain—
Hear us, Phœbus Apollo, and come to thine own again!
Our eyes, of earth grown weary, through the backward ages peer,
Till, wooed by our eager craving, the scent of thy birth grows clear
And across the calm Ægean, gray-green in the early morn,
We hear the cry of the circling swans that salute the god new-born—
The challenge of mighty Python, the song of thy shafts that go
Straight to the heart of the monster, sped from the loosened bow.
Again through the vale of Tempe a magical music rings
The songs of the marching muses, the ripple of fingered strings!
But this is our dreaming only; we wait for a stronger strain:
Hear us, Phœbus Apollo, and come to thine own again!
There are some among us, Diviner, who know not thy way or will,
Some of thy rebel children who bow to the strange gods still;
Some that dream of oppression, and many that dream of gold,
Whose ears are deaf to the music that gladdened the world of old.
But we, the few and the faithful, we are weary of wars unjust,
There is left no god of our thousand gods that we love, believe, or trust;
In our courts is justice scoffed at, in our senates gold has sway,
And the deeds of our priests and preachers make mock of the words they say!
Cardinals, kings, and captains, there is left none fit to reign:
Hear us, Phœbus Apollo, and come to thine own again!
We have hearkened to creeds unnumbered, we have given them trial and test,
And the creed of thy Delphic temple is still of them all the best;
Thy clean-limbed, lithe disciples, slender, and strong, and young,
The swing of their long processions, the lilt of the songs they sung,
Thine own majestic presence, pursuing the nymph of dawn,
In thy chariot eastward blazing, by the swans and griffons drawn;
The spell of thy liquid music, once heard in the speeding year: —
These are the things, Great Archer, that we yearn to see and hear,
For beside thy creed untarnished all others are stale and vain!
Hear us, Phœbus Apollo, and come to thine own again!
Monarch of light and laughter, honor, and trust, and truth,
God of all inspiration, King of eternal youth,
Whose words are fitted to music as jewels are set in gold,
There is need of thy splendid worship in a world grown grim and old!
We have drunk the wine of the ages, we are come to the dregs and lees,
And the shrines are all unworthy where we bend reluctant knees;
The brand of the beast is on us, we grovel, and grope, and err,
Wake, Great god of the Morning, the moment has come to stir!
The stars of our night of evil on a wan horizon wane: —
Hear us, Phœbus Apollo, and come to thine own again!
poem by Guy Wetmore Carryl from The Garden of Years and Other Poems (1900)
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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The Dead To The Living
Work while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work.
IN the childhood of April, while purple woods
With the young year's blood in them smiled,
I passed through the lanes and the wakened fields,
And stood by the grave of the child.
And the pain awoke that is never dead
Though it sometimes sleeps, and again
It set its teeth in this heart of mine,
And fastened its claws in my brain:
For it seemed so hard that the little hands
And the little well-loved head
Should be out of reach of my living lips,
And be side by side with the dead--
Not side by side with us who had loved,
But with these who had never seen
The grace of the smile, the gold of the hair,
And the eyes of my baby-queen.
Yet with trees about where the brown birds build,
And with long green grass above,
She lies in the cold sweet breast of earth
Beyond the reach of our love;
Whatever befalls in the coarse loud world,
We know she will never wake.
When I thought of the sorrow she might have known,
I was almost glad for her sake. . . .
Tears might have tired those kiss-closed eyes,
Grief hardened the mouth I kissed;
I was almost glad that my dear was dead
Because of the pain she had missed.
Oh, if I could but have died a child
With a white child-soul like hers,
As pure as the wind-flowers down in the copse,
Where the soul of the spring's self stirs;
Or if I had only done with it all,
And might lie by her side unmoved!
I envied the very clods of earth
Their place near the child I loved!
And my soul rose up in revolt at life,
As I stood dry-eyed by her grave,
When sudden the grass of the churchyard sod
Rolled back like a green smooth wave;
The brown earth looked like the brown sea rocks,
The tombstones were white like spray,
And white like surf were the curling folds
Of the shrouds where the dead men lay;
For each in his place with his quiet face
I saw the dead lie low,
Who had worked and suffered and found life sad,
So many sad years ago.
Unchanged by time I saw them lie
As when first they were laid to rest,
The tired eyes closed, the sad lips still,
And the work-worn hands on the breast.
There were some who had found the green world so grey,
They had left it before their time,
And some were little ones like my dear,
And some had died in their prime;
And some were old, they had had their fill
Of bitter unfruitful hours,
And knew that none of them, none, had known
A flower of a hope like ours!
Through their shut eyelids the dead looked up,
And without a voice they said:
'We lived without hope, without hope we died,
And hopeless we lie here dead;
And death is better than life that draws
Pain in, as it draws in breath,
If life never dreams of a coming day
When life shall not envy death.
Through the dark of our hours and our times we lived,
Uncheered by a single ray
Of such hope as lightens the lives of you
Who are finding life hard to-day;
With our little lanterns of human love
We lighted our dark warm night--
But you in the chill of the dawn are set
With your face to the eastern light.
Freedom is waiting with hands held out
Till you tear the veil from her face--
And when once men have seen the light of her eyes,
And felt her divine embrace,
The light of the world will be risen indeed,
And will shine in the eyes of men,
And those who come after will find life fair,
And their lives worth living then!
Will you strive to the light in your loud rough world,
That these things may come to pass,
Or lie in the shadow beside the child,
And strive to the sun through the grass?'
'My world while I may,' I cried; 'but you
Whose lives were as dark as your grave?'
'We too are a part of the coming light,'
They called through the smooth green wave.
Their white shrouds gleamed as the flood of green
Rolled over and hid them from me--
Hid all but the little hands and the hair,
And the face that I always see.
poem by Edith Nesbit
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Ode To The Philistines
In an age of Mammon and Greed,
In an age of Humbug and Cant,
Where Speech is greater than Deed
In the reign of the sycophant,
Let us turn from the shameless lips that babble of things Divine,
And shout to the God we know not the Song of the Philistine!
All hail, as you gather and pass
From the mansion and counting-house,
Men with a front of brass;
Men with the soul of a mouse;
Men with the mark of the beast scored as deep on your brows unclean
As erst on the brows that quailed ’neath the scourge of the Nazarene.
Six days shalt thou swindle and lie!
On the seventh—tho’ it soundeth odd—
In the odour of sanctity
Thou shalt offer the Lord, thy God,
A threepenny bit, a doze, a start, and an unctuous smile,
And a hurried prayer to prosper another six days of guile.
You have judged by the rich man’s rule!
You have treated your thinkers as dust!
You have honoured the braggart and fool
Whilst Genius has starved on a crust!
For all that you ask to fit what you call “a man” for a place
Is a shallow heart, a noisy tongue, thick hide, and a brazen face.
You have sold your daughters for gold!
You have sold your honour for naught!
And your creed is easily told—
“All things can be offered and bought!”
And you thank the good Lord God in your pews, on your bended knees,
That you live in a cultured age—and do cultured things like these!
In an age too enlightened and good
To call any wrong by its name,
Millions are crying for food,
Millions are living in shame,
Millions of human hearts, as God knows if he sees and feels,
Lie bound by the System’s chains ’neath the crunch of the System’s wheels!
You are slaves to custom and vogue!
You are timid to speak or to move!
You have worshipped the monied rogue!
You are walled in your narrow groove!
And the men with the noblest hearts, who have aimed at the Highest Good,
You have trampled them under your feet—unheard and misunderstood!
For the spirit of old remains
That nailed the Christ to the tree;
That brought Galileo to chains
And Bruno to tragedy.
For the Philistine altereth not—unchanged since the world began
He has hindered the march of progress and murdered the thinking man.
Take heed in your sordid pride!
Take heed in your purse-born ease!
For far o’er the world and wide
Grows something greater than these,
And the throb of the vexed world’s heart no system shall cramp in thrall,
Till the joy and sorrow of each be the joy and sorrow of all.
Lo, whoever shall stand and fight
With the tongue, or the brain, or the pen,
For a larger measure of Right
For the mass of his fellow men,
He is nearer the unknown God than the chiefs of a priestly line,
His life is a deeper prayer than the cant of the Philistine.
poem by George Essex Evans
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If There's A True God
If there's a true God that true God must be kinder
Than the Gods the billions kneel to for to pray
The selfish Gods that men do go to war for
And invade Countries from their own Homeshores far away.
If there's a God that God does not live out there
Your true God is your God who lives within
And if your God within is not philanthropic
Then you are one who is vulnerable to sin.
If there's a true God that God is not divisive
With the followers of other Gods he would not want us to fight
Your true God would not want you to others to feel superior
Or you to be looked on as a lesser light.
If there's a true God that God does have compassion
And that God believes in human equality
But sad to say the Gods many do worship
Are Gods who do seem to crave an enemy.
poem by Francis Duggan
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Sold Years
In those acutely native-days;
when lioness where lion, and the birth of death; was rare.
Days; when people fainted in shock, and wept bitterly, when one says; they are now born again Christians.
Because they always thought the person was dead.
Days, when men worked and walked with overdosed ego.
People loved like there was no tomorrow,
and animals moved, with pampered elegance.
But tradition, cried with oversized echo;
for men, twisted the gods appetites,
and came up with malodorous ideas, which where not of the gods; but theirs.
This made the gods roar in their wooden-visions with wooden rages.
People loved the gods so much; that they heed to all the unjust heavy duty rituals, assigned to them.
Just to appease the iron and wooden ego of the gods.
They sobered endlessly; for they where helplessly buried with their kings, gods and chief-priests.
But they remained harmless, for they could not question or fight the gods.
Darkness fell on the smooth skin of the moon; and gave it heat-rash and chickenpox.
Because fathers; sold wives, kids, brothers and extended families.
While friends; sold friends, fathers, mothers and passerby.
And the chief-priest's; sold the gods.
The colour of our voices, and the strength of our culture; where the fire-lights, they used to tow us away, through the rainbow of pain, toad roads, and blood-bushes, which where blessed with odd faces and thirsty hasty white and black masquerades.
Yes!
It was Africa's blood, it took to grow and cleanse the anger of world.
O my Africa,
although, it runs on half blood and a tin of snuff.
But with pure affection;
it is still so elongated in wisdom, beauty and it wears high-heels, to exhibit how tall she really is; in simplicity and power.
poem by King Femi Oloidi
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Easter Day, II
So in the sinful streets, abstracted and alone,
I with my secret self held communing of mine own.
So in the southern city spake the tongue
Of one that somewhat overwildly sung,
But in a later hour I sat and heard
Another voice that spake another graver word.
Weep not, it bade, whatever hath been said,
Though He be dead, He is not dead.
In the true creed
He is yet risen indeed;
Christ is yet risen.
Weep not beside His tomb,
Ye women unto whom
He was great comfort and yet greater grief;
Nor ye, ye faithful few that wont with Him to roam,
Seek sadly what for Him ye left, go hopeless to your home;
Nor ye despair, ye sharers yet to be of their belief;
Though He be dead, He is not dead,
Nor gone, though fled,
Not lost, though vanished;
Though He return not, though
He lies and moulders low;
In the true creed
He is yet risen indeed;
Christ is yet risen.
Sit if ye will, sit down upon the ground,
Yet not to weep and wail, but calmly look around.
Whate’er befel,
Earth is not hell;
Now, too, as when it first began,
Life is yet life, and man is man.
For all that breathe beneath the heaven’s high cope,
Joy with grief mixes, with despondence hope.
Hope conquers cowardice, joy grief;
Or at least, faith unbelief.
Though dead, not dead;
Not gone, though fled;
Not lost, though vanished.
In the great gospel and true creed,
He is yet risen indeed;
Christ is yet risen.
poem by Arthur Hugh Clough
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Victory
I.
Before those golden altar-lights we stood,
Each one of us remembering his own dead.
A more than earthly beauty seemed to brood
On that hushed throng, and bless each bending head.
Beautiful on that gold, the deep-sea blue
Of those young seamen, ranked on either side,
Blent with the khaki, while the silence grew
Deep, as for wings--Oh, deep as England's pride.
Beautiful on that gold, two banners rose--
Two flags that told how Freedom's realm was made,
One fair with stars of hope, and one that shows
The glorious cross of England's long crusade;
Two flags, now joined, till that high will be done
Which sent them forth to make the whole world one.
II.
There were no signs of joy that eyes could see.
Our hearts were all three thousand miles away.
There were no trumpets blown for victory.
A million dead were calling us that day.
And eyes grew blind, at times; but grief was deep,
Deeper than any foes or friends have known;
For Oh, my country's lips are locked to keep
Her bitterest loss her own, and all her own.
Only the music told what else was dumb,
The funeral march to which our pulses beat;
For all our dead went by, to a muffled drum
We heard the tread of all those phantom feet.
Yes. There was victory! Deep in every soul.
We heard them marching to their unseen goal.
III.
There, once again, we saw the Cross go by,
The Cross that fell with all those glorious towers,
Burnt black in France or mocked on Calvary,
Till--in one night--the crosses rose like flowers,
Legions of small white crosses, mile on mile,
Pencilled with names that had outfought all pain,
Where every shell-torn acre seems to smile--
_Who shall destroy the cross that rose again?_
Out of the world's Walpurgis, where hope perished,
Where all the forms of faith in ruin fell,
Where every sign of heaven that earth had cherished
Shrivelled among the lava-floods of hell,
The eternal Cross that conquers might with right
Rose like a star to lead us through the night.
IV.
How shall the world remember? Men forget:
Our dead are all too many even for Fame!
Man's justice kneels to kings, and pays no debt
To those who never courted her acclaim.
Cheat not your heart with promises to pay
For gifts beyond all price so freely given.
Where is the heart so rich that it can say
To those who mourn, 'I will restore your heaven'?
But these, with their own hands, laid up their treasure
Where never an emperor can break in and steal,
Treasure for those that loved them past all measure
In those high griefs that earth can never heal,
Proud griefs, that walk on earth, yet gaze above,
Knowing that sorrow is but remembered love.
V.
Love that still holds us with immortal power,
Yet cannot lift us to His realm of light;
Love that still shows us heaven for one brief hour
Only to daunt the heart with that sheer height;
Love that is made of loveliness entire
In form and thought and act; and still must shame us
Because we ever acknowledge and aspire,
And yet let slip the shining hands that claim us.
O, if this Love might cloak with rags His glory,
Laugh, eat and drink, and dwell with suffering men,
Sit with us at our hearth, and hear our story,
This world--we thought--might be transfigured then.
'But Oh,' Love answered, with swift human tears,
'All these things have I done, these many years.'
VI.
'This day,' Love said, 'if ye will hear my voice;
I mount and sing with birds in all your skies.
I am the soul that calls you to rejoice.
And every wayside flower is my disguise.
'Look closely. Are the wings too wide for pity?
Look closely. Do these tender hues betray?
How often have I sought my Holy City?
How often have ye turned your hearts away?
'Is there not healing in the beauty I bring you?
Am I not whispering in green leaves and rain,
Singing in all that woods and seas can sing you?
Look, once, on Love, and earth is heaven again.
'O, did your Spring but once a century waken,
The heaven of heavens for this would be forsaken.'
VII.
There's but one gift that all our dead desire,
One gift that men can give, and that's a dream,
Unless we, too, can burn with that same fire
Of sacrifice; die to the things that seem;
Die to the little hatreds; die to greed;
Die to the old ignoble selves we knew;
Die to the base contempts of sect and creed,
And rise again, like these, with souls as true.
Nay (since these died before their task was finished)
Attempt new heights, bring even their dreams to birth:--
Build us that better world, Oh, not diminished
By one true splendor that they planned on earth.
And that's not done by sword, or tongue, or pen,
There's but one way. God make us better men.
poem by Alfred Noyes
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Waterloo Day
THIS is the day of our glory; this is our day to weep.
Under her dusty laurels England stirs in her sleep;
Dreams of her days of honour, terrible days that are dead,
Days of the making of story, days when the sword was red,
When all her fate and her future hung on the naked blade,
When by the sword of her children her place in the world was made,
When Honour sounded the trumpet and Valour leapt to obey,
And Heroes bought us the Empire that statesmen would sell to-day.
England, wanton and weary, sunk in a slothful ease,
Has slain in her wars her thousands, but her tens of thousands in peace:
And the cowards grieve for her glory; their glory is in their shame;
They are glad of the moth in her banners, and the rust on her shining name.
Oh, if the gods would send us a balm for our sick, sad years,
Let them send us a sight of the scarlet, and the sound of the guns in our ears!
For valour and faith and honour--these grow where the red flower grows,
And the leaves for the Nation's healing must spring from the blood of her foes.
poem by Edith Nesbit
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The Last Oracle
eipate toi basilei, xamai pese daidalos aula.
ouketi PHoibos exei kaluban, ou mantida daphnen,
ou pagan laleousan . apesbeto kai lalon udor.
Years have risen and fallen in darkness or in twilight,
Ages waxed and waned that knew not thee nor thine,
While the world sought light by night and sought not thy light,
Since the sad last pilgrim left thy dark mid shrine.
Dark the shrine and dumb the fount of song thence welling,
Save for words more sad than tears of blood, that said:
Tell the king, on earth has fallen the glorious dwelling,
And the watersprings that spake are quenched and dead.
Not a cell is left the God, no roof, no cover
In his hand the prophet laurel flowers no more.
And the great king's high sad heart, thy true last lover,
Felt thine answer pierce and cleave it to the core.
And he bowed down his hopeless head
In the drift of the wild world's tide,
And dying, Thou hast conquered, he said,
Galilean; he said it, and died.
And the world that was thine and was ours
When the Graces took hands with the Hours
Grew cold as a winter wave
In the wind from a wide-mouthed grave,
As a gulf wide open to swallow
The light that the world held dear.
O father of all of us, Paian, Apollo,
Destroyer and healer, hear!
Age on age thy mouth was mute, thy face was hidden,
And the lips and eyes that loved thee blind and dumb;
Song forsook their tongues that held thy name forbidden,
Light their eyes that saw the strange God's kingdom come.
Fire for light and hell for heaven and psalms for pæans
Filled the clearest eyes and lips most sweet of song,
When for chant of Greeks the wail of Galileans
Made the whole world moan with hymns of wrath and wrong.
Yea, not yet we see thee, father, as they saw thee,
They that worshipped when the world was theirs and thine,
They whose words had power by thine own power to draw thee
Down from heaven till earth seemed more than heaven divine.
For the shades are about us that hover
When darkness is half withdrawn
And the skirts of the dead night cover
The face of the live new dawn.
For the past is not utterly past
Though the word on its lips be the last,
And the time be gone by with its creed
When men were as beasts that bleed,
As sheep or as swine that wallow,
In the shambles of faith and of fear.
O father of all of us, Paian, Apollo,
Destroyer and healer, hear!
Yet it may be, lord and father, could we know it,
We that love thee for our darkness shall have light
More than ever prophet hailed of old or poet
Standing crowned and robed and sovereign in thy sight.
To the likeness of one God their dreams enthralled thee,
Who wast greater than all Gods that waned and grew;
Son of God the shining son of Time they called thee,
Who wast older, O our father, than they knew.
For no thought of man made Gods to love or honour
Ere the song within the silent soul began,
Nor might earth in dream or deed take heaven upon her
Till the word was clothed with speech by lips of man.
And the word and the life wast thou,
The spirit of man and the breath;
And before thee the Gods that bow
Take life at thine hands and death.
For these are as ghosts that wane,
That are gone in an age or twain;
Harsh, merciful, passionate, pure,
They perish, but thou shalt endure;
Be their flight with the swan or the swallow,
They pass as the flight of a year.
O father of all of us, Paian, Apollo,
Destroyer and healer, hear!
Thou the word, the light, the life, the breath, the glory,
Strong to help and heal, to lighten and to slay,
Thine is all the song of man, the world's whole story;
Not of morning and of evening is thy day.
Old and younger Gods are buried or begotten
From uprising to downsetting of thy sun,
Risen from eastward, fallen to westward and forgotten,
And their springs are many, but their end is one.
Divers births of godheads find one death appointed,
As the soul whence each was born makes room for each;
God by God goes out, discrowned and disanointed,
But the soul stands fast that gave them shape and speech.
Is the sun yet cast out of heaven?
Is the song yet cast out of man?
Life that had song for its leaven
To quicken the blood that ran
Through the veins of the songless years
More bitter and cold than tears,
Heaven that had thee for its one
Light, life, word, witness, O sun,
Are they soundless and sightless and hollow,
Without eye, without speech, without ear?
O father of all of us, Paian, Apollo,
Destroyer and healer, hear!
Time arose and smote thee silent at his warning,
Change and darkness fell on men that fell from thee;
Dark thou satest, veiled with light, behind the morning,
Till the soul of man should lift up eyes and see.
Till the blind mute soul get speech again and eyesight,
Man may worship not the light of life within;
In his sight the stars whose fires grow dark in thy sight
Shine as sunbeams on the night of death and sin.
Time again is risen with mightier word of warning,
Change hath blown again a blast of louder breath;
Clothed with clouds and stars and dreams that melt in morning,
Lo, the Gods that ruled by grace of sin and death!
They are conquered, they break, they are stricken,
Whose might made the whole world pale;
They are dust that shall rise not or quicken
Though the world for their death's sake wail.
As a hound on a wild beast's trace,
So time has their godhead in chase;
As wolves when the hunt makes head,
They are scattered, they fly, they are fled;
They are fled beyond hail, beyond hollo,
And the cry of the chase, and the cheer.
O father of all of us, Paian, Apollo,
Destroyer and healer, hear!
Day by day thy shadow shines in heaven beholden,
Even the sun, the shining shadow of thy face:
King, the ways of heaven before thy feet grow golden;
God, the soul of earth is kindled with thy grace.
In thy lips the speech of man whence Gods were fashioned,
In thy soul the thought that makes them and unmakes;
By thy light and heat incarnate and impassioned,
Soul to soul of man gives light for light and takes.
As they knew thy name of old time could we know it,
Healer called of sickness, slayer invoked of wrong,
Light of eyes that saw thy light, God, king, priest, poet,
Song should bring thee back to heal us with thy song.
For thy kingdom is past not away,
Nor thy power from the place thereof hurled;
Out of heaven they shall cast not the day,
They shall cast not out song from the world.
By the song and the light they give
We know thy works that they live;
With the gift thou hast given us of speech
We praise, we adore, we beseech,
We arise at thy bidding and follow,
We cry to thee, answer, appear,
O father of all of us, Paian, Apollo,
Destroyer and healer, hear!
poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne
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