Many Voices | Page 6

you to your fancy's furthest bound While
the sun shone and the wind blew, and the world went round, To the
utmost of the meshes of the devil's strongest net . . . If you loved me, if
you loved me--but you do not love me yet!
I love you--and I cannot trust you further than the door!
But winds
and worlds and seasons change, and you will love me more And
more--until I trust you, dear, as women do trust men -
I shall trust you,
I shall trust you, but I shall not love you then!
POEM: THE STOLEN GOD--LAZARUS TO DIVES
We do not clamour for vengeance,
We do not whine for fear;
We
have cried in the outer darkness
Where was no man to hear.
We
cried to man and he heard not;
Yet we thought God heard us pray;


But our God, who loved and was sorry -
Our God is taken away.
Ours were the stream and the pasture,
Forest and fen were ours;

Ours were the wild wood-creatures,
The wild sweet berries and
flowers.
You have taken our heirlooms from us,
And hardly you let
us save
Enough of our woods for a cradle,
Enough of our earth for a
grave.
You took the wood and the cornland,
Where still we tilled and felled;

You took the mine and quarry,
And all you took you held.
The
limbs of our weanling children
You crushed in your mills of power;

And you made our bearing women toil
To the very bearing hour.
You have taken our clean quick longings,
Our joy in lover and wife,

Our hope of the sunset quiet
At the evening end of life;
You have
taken the land that bore us,
Its soil and stone and sod;
You have
taken our faith in each other -
And now you have taken our God.
When our God came down from Heaven
He came among men, a Man,

Eating and drinking and working
As common people can;
And
the common people received Him
While the rich men turned away.

But what have we to do with a God
To whom the rich men pray?
He hangs, a dead God, on your altars,
Who lived a Man among men,

You have taken away our Lord
And we cannot find Him again.

You have not left us a handful
Of even the earth He trod . . .
You
have made Him a rich man's idol
Who came as a poor man's God.
He promised the poor His heaven,
He loved and lived with the poor;

He said that the rich man's shadow
Should never darken His door:

But bishops and priests lie softly,
Drink full and are fully fed
In
the Name of the Lord, who had not

Where to lay His head.
This is the God you have stolen,
As you steal all else--in His name.


You have taken the ease and the honour,
Left us the toil and the
shame.
You have chosen the seat of Dives,
We lie where Lazarus
lay;
But, by God, we will not yield you our God,
You shall not take
Him away.
All else we had you have taken;
All else, but not this, not this.
The
God of Heaven is ours, is ours,
And the poor are His, are His.
Is He
ours? Is He yours? Give answer!
For both He cannot be.
And if He
is ours--O you rich men,
Then whose, in God's name, are ye?
POEM: WINTER
Hold your hands to the blaze;
Winter is here
With the short cold
days,
Bleak, keen and drear.
Was there ever a day
With hawthorn
along the way
Where you wandered in mild mid-May
With your
dear?
That was when you were young
And the world was gold;
Now all
the songs are sung,
The tales all told.
You shiver now by the fire

Where the last red sparks expire;
Dead are delight and desire:
You
are old.
POEM: SEA-SHELLS
I gathered shells upon the sand,
Each shell a little perfect thing,
So
frail, yet potent to withstand
The mountain-waves' wild buffeting.

Through storms no ship could dare to brave
The little shells float
lightly, save
All that they might have lost of fine
Shape and soft
colour crystalline.
Yet I amid the world's wild surge
Doubt if my soul can face the strife,

The waves of circumstance that urge
That slight ship on the rocks
of life.
O soul, be brave, for He who saves
The frail shell in the
giant waves,
Will bring thy puny bark to land
Safe in the hollow of
His hand.

POEM: HOPE
O thrush, is it true?
Your song tells
Of a world born anew,
Of
fields gold with buttercups, woodlands all blue
With hyacinth bells;

Of primroses deep
In the moss of the lane,
Of a Princess asleep

And dear magic to do.
Will the sun wake the princess? O thrush, is it
true?
Will Spring come again?
Will Spring come again?
Now at last
With soft shine and rain

Will the violet be sweet where the dead leaves have lain?
Will Winter
be past?
In the brown of the copse
Will white wind-flowers star
through
Where the last oak-leaf drops?
Will the daisies come too,

And the may and the lilac? Will Spring come again?
O thrush, is it
true?
POEM: THE PRODIGAL'S RETURN
I reach my hand to thee!
Stoop; take my hand in thine;
Lead me
where I would