Freedom, Truth and Beauty | Page 8

slow poison of pessimism, however subtly sweet the brew, my
friend responds that "The song and dance of literature is not my special
gift." And he is obliged to "speak of the world as I find it."
He is an able-bodied man, in the prime of life, with splendid years
waiting on his threshold to lead him to any height he may wish to climb.

But to his mental vision, nothing is really "worth while."
What a rebuke this wonderful poem of Edward Doyle's should be to all
such men and women. What an inspiration it should be to every mortal
who reads it, to look within, and find the =Kingdom of God= as this
blind poet has found it.
Mr. Doyle was in St. Francis Xavier's College when his great affliction
fell upon him. He started a local paper, The Advocate, in Harlem
twenty-three years ago and has in the 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--"