General William Booth Enters into Heaven | Page 8

swaying with every breeze, Returning always
near the eaves, or by the skylight glass:
There it will wait me many
weeks, and then, at last, will pass. Each soul is haunted by a ship in
which that soul might ride And climb the glorious mysteries of
Heaven's silent tide
In voyages that change the very metes and
bounds of Fate -- O empty boats, we all refuse, that by our windows
wait!
With a Bouquet of Twelve Roses
I saw Lord Buddha towering by my gate
Saying: "Once more, good
youth, I stand and wait."
Saying: "I bring you my fair Law of Peace

And from your withering passion full release;
Release from that
white hand that stabbed you so.
The road is calling. With the wind
you go,
Forgetting her imperious disdain --
Quenching all memory
in the sun and rain."
"Excellent Lord, I come. But first," I said,
"Grant that I bring her
these twelve roses red.
Yea, twelve flower kisses for her rose-leaf
mouth,
And then indeed I go in bitter drouth
To that far valley
where your river flows
In Peace, that once I found in every rose."
St. Francis of Assisi
Would I might wake St. Francis in you all,
Brother of birds and trees,
God's Troubadour,
Blinded with weeping for the sad and poor;
Our
wealth undone, all strict Franciscan men,
Come, let us chant the
canticle again
Of mother earth and the enduring sun.
God make
each soul the lonely leper's slave;
God make us saints, and brave.
Buddha

Would that by Hindu magic we became
Dark monks of jeweled India
long ago,
Sitting at Prince Siddartha's feet to know
The foolishness
of gold and love and station,
The gospel of the Great Renunciation,

The ragged cloak, the staff, the rain and sun,
The beggar's life, with
far Nirvana gleaming:
Lord, make us Buddhas, dreaming.
A Prayer to All the Dead Among Mine Own People
Are these your presences, my clan from Heaven?
Are these your
hands upon my wounded soul?
Mine own, mine own, blood of my
blood be with me,
Fly by my path till you have made me whole!
To Reformers in Despair
'Tis not too late to build our young land right,
Cleaner than Holland,
courtlier than Japan,
Devout like early Rome, with hearths like hers,

Hearths that will recreate the breed called man.
Why I Voted the Socialist Ticket
I am unjust, but I can strive for justice.
My life's unkind, but I can
vote for kindness.
I, the unloving, say life should be lovely.
I, that
am blind, cry out against my blindness.
Man is a curious brute -- he pets his fancies --
Fighting mankind, to
win sweet luxury.
So he will be, tho' law be clear as crystal,
Tho' all
men plan to live in harmony.
Come, let us vote against our human nature,
Crying to God in all the
polling places
To heal our everlasting sinfulness
And make us sages
with transfigured faces.
The following verses were written on the evening of March the first,
nineteen hundred and eleven, and printed next morning
in the Illinois
State Register.

They celebrate the arrival of the news that the United States Senate had
declared the election of William Lorimer good and valid, by a vote of
forty-six to forty.
To the United States Senate
[Revelation 16: Verses 16-19]
And must the Senator from Illinois
Be this squat thing, with blinking,
half-closed eyes?
This brazen gutter idol, reared to power
Upon a
leering pyramid of lies?
And must the Senator from Illinois
Be the world's proverb of
successful shame,
Dazzling all State house flies that steal and steal,

Who, when the sad State spares them, count it fame?
If once or twice within his new won hall
His vote had counted for the
broken men;
If in his early days he wrought some good --
We might
a great soul's sins forgive him then.
But must the Senator from Illinois
Be vindicated by fat kings of gold?

And must he be belauded by the smirched,
The sleek, uncanny
chiefs in lies grown old?
Be warned, O wanton ones, who shielded him --
Black wrath awaits.
You all shall eat the dust.
You dare not say: "To-morrow will bring
peace;
Let us make merry, and go forth in lust."
What will you trading frogs do on a day
When Armageddon thunders
thro' the land;
When each sad patriot rises, mad with shame,
His
ballot or his musket in his hand?
In the distracted states from which you came
The day is big with war
hopes fierce and strange;
Our iron Chicagos and our grimy mines

Rumble with hate and love and solemn change.

Too many weary men shed honest tears,
Ground by machines that
give the Senate ease.
Too many little babes with bleeding hands

Have heaped the fruits of empire on your knees.
And swine within the Senate in this day,
When all the smothering
by-streets weep and wail;
When wisdom breaks the hearts of her best
sons;
When kingly men, voting for truth, may fail: --
These are a portent and a call to arms.
Our protest turns into a battle
cry:
"Our shame must end, our States be free and clean;
And