Fifty years Other Poems | Page 5

slender pine.
Now bring the
fuel! Pile it 'round him! Wait!
Pile not so fast or high! or we shall lose

The agony and terror in his face.
And now the torch! Good fuel
that! the flames
Already leap head-high. Ha! hear that shriek!
And

there's another! wilder than the first.
Fetch water! Water! Pour a little
on
The fire, lest it should burn too fast. Hold so!
Now let it slowly
blaze again. See there!
He squirms! He groans! His eyes bulge wildly
out,
Searching around in vain appeal for help!
Another shriek, the
last! Watch how the flesh
Grows crisp and hangs till, turned to ash, it
sifts
Down through the coils of chain that hold erect
The ghastly
frame against the bark-scorched tree.
Stop! to each man no more than one man's share.
You take that bone,
and you this tooth; the chain--
Let us divide its links; this skull, of
course,
In fair division, to the leader comes.
And now his fiendish crime has been avenged;
Let us back to our
wives and children.--Say,
What did he mean by those last muttered
words,
"Brothers in spirit, brothers in deed are we"?
FRAGMENT
The hand of Fate cannot be stayed,
The course of Fate cannot be
steered,
By all the gods that man has made,
Nor all the devils he has
feared,
Not by the prayers that might be prayed
In all the temples he
has reared.
See! In your very midst there dwell
Ten thousand thousand blacks, a
wedge
Forged in the furnaces of hell,
And sharpened to a cruel edge

By wrong and by injustice fell,
And driven by hatred as a sledge.
A wedge so slender at the start--
Just twenty slaves in shackles
bound--
And yet, which split the land apart
With shrieks of war and
battle sound,
Which pierced the nation's very heart,
And still lies
cankering in the wound.
Not all the glory of your pride,
Preserved in story and in song,
Can
from the judging future hide,
Through all the coming ages long,

That though you bravely fought and died,
You fought and died for

what was wrong.
'Tis fixed--for them that violate
The eternal laws, naught shall avail

Till they their error expiate;
Nor shall their unborn children fail
To
pay the full required weight
Into God's great, unerring scale.
Think not repentance can redeem,
That sin his wages can withdraw;

No, think as well to change the scheme
Of worlds that move in
reverent awe;
Forgiveness is an idle dream,
God is not love, no,
God is law.
THE WHITE WITCH
O, brothers mine, take care! Take care!
The great white witch rides
out to-night,
Trust not your prowess nor your strength;
Your only
safety lies in flight;
For in her glance there is a snare,
And in her
smile there is a blight.
The great white witch you have not seen?
Then, younger brothers
mine, forsooth,
Like nursery children you have looked
For ancient
hag and snaggled tooth;
But no, not so; the witch appears
In all the
glowing charms of youth.
Her lips are like carnations red,
Her face like new-born lilies fair,

Her eyes like ocean waters blue,
She moves with subtle grace and air,

And all about her head there floats
The golden glory of her hair.
But though she always thus appears
In form of youth and mood of
mirth,
Unnumbered centuries are hers,
The infant planets saw her
birth;
The child of throbbing Life is she,
Twin sister to the greedy
earth.
And back behind those smiling lips,
And down within those laughing
eyes,
And underneath the soft caress
Of hand and voice and purring
sighs,
The shadow of the panther lurks,
The spirit of the vampire

lies.
For I have seen the great white witch,
And she has led me to her lair,

And I have kissed her red, red lips
And cruel face so white and fair;

Around me she has twined her arms,
And bound me with her
yellow hair.
I felt those red lips burn and sear
My body like a living coal;

Obeyed the power of those eyes
As the needle trembles to the pole;

And did not care although I felt
The strength go ebbing from my soul.
Oh! she has seen your strong young limbs,
And heard your laughter
loud and gay,
And in your voices she has caught
The echo of a
far-off day,
When man was closer to the earth;
And she has marked
you for her prey.
She feels the old Antæan strength
In you, the great dynamic beat
Of
primal passions, and she sees
In you the last besieged retreat
Of
love relentless, lusty, fierce,
Love pain-ecstatic, cruel-sweet.
O, brothers mine, take care! Take care!
The great white witch rides
out to-night.
O, younger brothers mine, beware!
Look not upon her
beauty bright;
For in her glance there is a snare,
And in her smile
there is a blight.
MOTHER NIGHT
Eternities before the first-born day,
Or ere the first sun fledged his
wings of flame,
Calm Night, the everlasting and the same,
A
brooding mother over chaos lay.
And whirling suns shall blaze and
then decay,
Shall run their fiery courses and then claim
The haven
of the darkness whence they came;
Back to Nirvanic peace shall
grope their way.
So when my feeble sun of life burns out,
And sounded is the hour for

my long sleep,
I shall, full weary of the