Freedom, Truth and Beauty | Page 8

darkness of his physical vision developed his poetical talent and given the world some great lines.
AN INSPIRATION
Here is a poem which throbs with the keen anguish which must have been his guest through many silent hours of these thirty-seven years:
TO A CHILD READING
My darling, spell the words out. You may creep?Across the syllables on hands and knees,?And stumble often, yet pass me with ease?And reach the spring upon the summit steep.?Oh, I could lay me down, dear child, and weep?These charr'd orbs out, but that you then might cease?Your upward effort, and with inquiries?Stoop down and probe my heart too deep, too deep!?I thirst for Knowledge. Oh, for an endless drink?Your goblet leaks the whole way from the spring--?No matter, to its rim a few drops cling,?And these refresh me with the joy to think?That you, my darling, have the morning's wing?To cross the mountain at whose base I sink.
But Edward Doyle has not sunk "at the mountain's base." He is far up its summit, and he will go higher. He has found God, and nothing can hinder his flight. He is an inspiration to all struggling, toiling souls on earth.
As I read his book, with its strong clarion cry of faith and joy and courage, and ponder over the carefully finished thoughts and beautifully polished lines, I feel ashamed of my own small achievements, and am inspired to new efforts.
Glory and success to you, Edward Doyle.
ELLA WHEELER WILCOX.
[Illustration]
TRUE NATIONALISM
(_From the "Maccabaein", June, 1920._)
THE JEWS IN RUSSIA
From town and village to a wood, stript bare,?As they of their possessions, see them throng.?Above them grows a cloud; it moves along,?As flee they from the circling wolf pack's glare.?Is it their Brocken-Shadow of despair,?The looming of their life of cruel wrong?For countless ages? No; their faith is strong?In their Jehovah; that huge cloud is prayer.
A flash of light, and black the despot lies.?What thunder round the world! 'Tis transport's strain?Proclaiming loud: "No righteous prayer is vain?No God-imploring tears are lost; they rise?Into a cloud, and in the sky remain?Till they draw lightening from Jehovah's eyes."
The author of this superb little gem, like Homer, is blind; but, like Homer, his mental vision is clear, and broad, and deep. President Schurman, of Cornell University, commenting on Doyle once said: "It is as true today as of yore that the genuine poet, even though blind, is the Seer and Prophet of his generation." The poem here printed illustrates the point. Did we not know that it was published some fifteen years ago in a volume entitled "The Haunted Temple," we should assume that it was written on the occasion of the fall of the Czar. In fact, however, it merely foretells this event by some dozen years. And how terribly applicable are the lines to the facts of today! The prophecy is one capable of repeated fulfillment.
But it is as a prophet of nationalism that this man compels our particular attention. The prophecy is embodied in a play entitled "The Comet, a Play of Our Times," brought out as far back as 1908. The play is a microcosm of American life. The chief character is a college president, and he it is that is chosen to expound the true nature of nationalism and to give voice and utterance to the principle of self-determination. (Is it merely a coincidence that at that time Woodrow Wilson was President of Princeton, or is it a case of poetic vision. Wilson, be it remembered, was already a national figure, and there were already glimmerings that he was destined to usher in a new era in politics.) According to the protagonist, America is not "a boiling cauldron in which the elements seethe, but never settle," but rather a college where every class is taught to translate--
"Into the common speech of daily life?The country's loftiest ideals--"
and any body of citizens form a part of our republic only in so far--
"As they contribute to its character?As leader of the nations unto Right?By thought or deed, in service for mankind."
We must lead the peoples of the world to freedom. And what is freedom?
"'Tis intelligence?Aloof from harm and hamper, grandly circling?Its native sun-lit peaks, the highest hopes?Heaved from the heart of man upon the earth,?In ranges long as time and soul endure."
What, then, is America's duty to the oppressed race or the small nation? It is to "wake and disabuse it of false hope"--
"and urge it on?To the development of its own powers,?The culmination of its own ideals,?The star seed sown by God,--the only means?By which a tribe can thrive to its perfection."
To make this possible, civilization must be given a more human content. It is therefore necessary to awake human intelligence, "the godlike genius," to a realization of the fact--
"--that, on having brought?This world from out the chaos dark?Of waters and of woody