Across the Sea and Other Poems | Page 6

leave the City bright,

To mount with aching feet some rocky height

Where Time dispels
the hopes that Fancy gave,
And all life's prospect narrows to a cave.

Less sweet we sleep than did the sleepers seven,
Our dreams are
shadows--theirs were bright with Heaven.
Haply to every soul there
comes an hour
When Sorrow's hand smites in the wall with power,

Or Love hath breathed a whisper soft and low,
And wrought the

miracle of Jericho.
And thus we come again or soon or late,
To pass once more the
mystic City's gate.
Our hearts grow tender as we view again
The
dear remembered vistas of the plain,
And as we draw the sun-lit
portals near,
The air is sweet to us with vesper prayer;
While o'er
the gate our lifted eyes behold
The sacred sign--a cross of shining
gold.
A LEGEND OF ST. JOHN.
Inscribed to
C. C. Bonney.
A LEGEND OF ST. JOHN.
Then Jesus answered unto Peter, "If I will
That he shall tarry till I
come again,
What is it unto thee?" He spake of John.
In Russia there still lives a legend sweet,
Repeated by the grandsire to
the child,--
A dear old legend, which has lived so long,
And held an
honored place so many years
By ancient firesides long since turned to
dust--
A legend which doth mind us so of eve,
Of lengthened
shadows, wonder-opened eyes,
And groups which listened ere they
went their way,
We well might wish the story may be true,--
Of him
who once had lain on Jesus' breast.
This is the tale, as I remember it.
When John to Patmos' isle was banished,
He saw and heard
unutterable things.
The "Revelation" is a shadow poor,
Of his most
marvelous experience.
But human language never can convey,
And
human intellect can never span,
Things not of earth. When from his
beauteous dream
Unwillingly the loved disciple woke,
His heart
was burning with new zeal for God
And therefore with more tender
love for man.
Down the steep mountain side, with ready feet,
To

preach the gospel to the Greeks, he ran,
To tell of that fair city with
its gates
Of gleaming pearl, and streets of shining gold,
Built for the
people of the gracious Lord.
But to the Greeks his words were
foolishness.
The Stoics cried, "What doth this babbler say?
He
seems a setter forth of unknown gods!"
And thus they closed their
ears against his words
Of beauty, and went on their careless way.
'Twere long to tell how patiently he toiled;
How some believed, and
some refused to hear;
Of all the cities that he visited;
And how his
words were always, "God is love;"
How he was saved by miracle
from death,
When cast into a pot of boiling oil;
How in a weary
dungeon he was thrown,
Yet counted it but gain, for in the dark
The
angels dwelt with him and made it light.
At last he was released.
Perhaps his face--
So full of holy love, so angel-sweet,
He seemed
Christ's brother--moved his cruel foes
To pity; and they bade him go
in peace.
So from the rusty iron gates he passed,
With a bowed
form, and hair as white as snow.
John traversed Europe for the Lord. At last
His pilgrim feet pressed
Russia. Through its coast
He preached with holy fervor, as was meet,

The message of the Lord to erring men.
But everywhere with cold
indifference,
Or anger, or contempt, his words were met:
Until, at
last, with bleeding feet, he came
To bleak Siberia. A churlish crowd

Received his message with a stupid stare;
Which, as he gently told
them of their need
Of Him who came to save them from their sins,

Changed to a glare of rage. So curst were they,
They would have
slain him; but on his calm face
There fell a light supernal, and he
passed
In safety through their midst, and came at last
To where the
Arctic laves with icy wave
The chill Siberian coast, and there a boat


Filled with strong men received him, and they plied
Their oars, and
like a swift-winged bird, sped north.
Within the iceberg barricade which girds
Impregnably the Northern
Pole, 'tis said
There is a Beulah Land surpassing fair,
With beaming

sky and soft delicious air,
Rich with the perfume sweet of blossoms
rare.
Its trees have never turned to russet tinge;
The girdling waves,
warm as the summer, fringe
Its golden sands with lace of foam, and
die
In soft accord with bird-song melody.
No cruel heats nor
chilling blasts invade,
But the sweet quietude of twilight shade

Brings ever to the mind a holy calm.
And there, 'tis said, the Great
Apostle waits
Until the end of all things shall draw near,
When he
will come again, and preach to men
With the old words of love, and
move their hearts
To penitence, and they will captive yield
To the
sweet words of truth, and give their lives
With heartiness to deeds of
charity.
Come, blest Apostle! from the icy North
Haste thy departure, for the
world is faint
And weary for the music of thy feet.
The earth is
growing old. Two thousand years
Have fled since thou and Jesus
walked with men.
Two thousand years of bitterness of creeds;
Two
thousand years of selfishness and crime.
Come thou! our clouded hearts to gently