General William Booth Enters into Heaven | Page 6

better years.
The Gamblers
Life's a jail where men have common lot.
Gaunt the one who has, and
who has not.
All our treasures neither less nor more,
Bread alone
comes thro' the guarded door.
Cards are foolish in this jail, I think,

Yet they play for shoes, for drabs and drink.
She, my lawless,
sharp-tongued gypsy maid
Will not scorn with me this jail-bird trade,

Pets some fox-eyed boy who turns the trick,
Tho' he win a button
or a stick,
Pencil, garter, ribbon, corset-lace --
HIS the glory, MINE
is the disgrace.
Sweet, I'd rather lose than win despite
Love of hearty words and
maids polite.
"Love's a gamble," say you. I deny.
Love's a gift. I
love you till I die.
Gamblers fight like rats. I will not play.
All I
ever had I gave away.
All I ever coveted was peace
Such as comes
if we have jail release.
Cards are puzzles, tho' the prize be gold,

Cards help not the bread that tastes of mold,
Cards dye not your hair
to black more deep,
Cards make not the children cease to weep.

Scorned, I sit with half shut eyes all day --
Watch the cataract of
sunshine play
Down the wall, and dance upon the floor.
Sun, come
down and break the dungeon door!
Of such gold dust could I make a
key, --
Turn the bolt -- how soon we would be free!
Over borders
we would hurry on
Safe by sunrise farms, and springs of dawn,

Wash our wounds and jail stains there at last,
Azure rivers flowing,
flowing past.
GOD HAS GREAT ESTATES JUST PAST THE
LINE,
GREEN FARMS FOR ALL, AND MEAT AND CORN
AND WINE.
On the Road to Nowhere
On the road to nowhere
What wild oats did you sow
When you left
your father's house
With your cheeks aglow?
Eyes so strained and
eager
To see what you might see?
Were you thief or were you fool

Or most nobly free?
Were the tramp-days knightly,
True sowing of wild seed?
Did you
dare to make the songs
Vanquished workmen need?
Did you waste
much money
To deck a leper's feast?
Love the truth, defy the crowd

Scandalize the priest?
On the road to nowhere
What wild oats did
you sow?
Stupids find the nowhere-road
Dusty, grim and slow.
Ere their sowing's ended
They turn them on their track,
Look at the
caitiff craven wights
Repentant, hurrying back!
Grown ashamed of
nowhere,
Of rags endured for years,
Lust for velvet in their hearts,

Pierced with Mammon's spears,
All but a few fanatics
Give up
their darling goal,
Seek to be as others are,

Stultify the soul.

Reapings now confront them,
Glut them, or destroy,
Curious seeds,
grain or weeds
Sown with awful joy.
Hurried is their harvest,

They make soft peace with men.
Pilgrims pass. They care not,
Will
not tramp again.
O nowhere, golden nowhere!
Sages and fools go on
To your chaotic

ocean,
To your tremendous dawn.
Far in your fair dream-haven,

Is nothing or is all . . .
They press on, singing, sowing
Wild deeds
without recall!
Upon Returning to the Country Road
Even the shrewd and bitter,
Gnarled by the old world's greed,

Cherished the stranger softly
Seeing his utter need.
Shelter and
patient hearing,
These were their gifts to him,
To the minstrel,
grimly begging
As the sunset-fire grew dim.
The rich said "You are
welcome."
Yea, even the rich were good.
How strange that in their
feasting
His songs were understood!
The doors of the poor were
open,
The poor who had wandered too,
Who had slept with ne'er a
roof-tree
Under the wind and dew.
The minds of the poor were
open,
Their dark mistrust was dead.
They loved his wizard stories,

They bought his rhymes with bread.
Those were his days of glory,

Of faith in his fellow-men.
Therefore, to-day the singer
Turns
beggar once again.
The Angel and the Clown
I saw wild domes and bowers
And smoking incense towers
And
mad exotic flowers
In Illinois.
Where ragged ditches ran
Now
springs of Heaven began
Celestial drink for man
In Illinois.
There stood beside the town
Beneath its incense-crown
An angel
and a clown
In Illinois.
He was as Clowns are:
She was snow and
star
With eyes that looked afar

In Illinois.
I asked, "How came this place
Of antique Asian grace
Amid our
callow race
In Illinois?"
Said Clown and Angel fair:
"By laughter
and by prayer,
By casting off all care
In Illinois."
Springfield Magical

In this, the City of my Discontent,
Sometimes there comes a whisper
from the grass,
"Romance, Romance -- is here. No Hindu town
Is
quite so strange. No Citadel of Brass
By Sinbad found, held half such
love and hate;
No picture-palace in a picture-book
Such webs of
Friendship, Beauty, Greed and Fate!"
In this, the City of my Discontent,
Down from the sky, up from the
smoking deep
Wild legends new and old burn round my bed
While
trees and grass and men are wrapped in sleep.
Angels come down,
with Christmas in their hearts,
Gentle, whimsical, laughing,
heaven-sent;
And, for a day, fair Peace have given me
In this, the
City of my Discontent!
Incense
Think not that incense-smoke has had its day.
My friends, the
incense-time has but begun.
Creed upon creed, cult upon cult shall
bloom,
Shrine after shrine grow gray beneath the sun.
And mountain-boulders in our aged West
Shall guard the graves of
hermits truth-endowed:
And there the scholar from the Chinese hills

Shall do deep honor, with his wise head bowed.
And on our old, old plains