New Poems | Page 6

greet the unruly
time of year,
The Feast of Valentine.
Priest, I am none of thine, and see
In the perspective of still hopeful
youth
That Truth shall triumph over thee -
Truth to one's self - I
know no other truth.
I see strange days for thee and thine, O priest,

And how your doctrines, fallen one by one,
Shall furnish at the
annual feast
The puppet-booth of fun.
Stand on your putrid ruins - stand,
White neck-clothed bigot, fixedly
the same,
Cruel with all things but the hand,
Inquisitor in all things
but the name.
Back, minister of Christ and source of fear -
We
cherish freedom - back with thee and thine
From this unruly time of
year,
The Feast of Valentine.
Blood thou mayest spare; but what of tears?
But what of riven
households, broken faith -
Bywords that cling through all men's years

And drag them surely down to shame and death?
Stand back, O
cruel man, O foe of youth,
And let such men as hearken not thy voice

Press freely up the road to truth,
The King's highway of choice.
HAIL! CHILDISH SLAVES OF SOCIAL RULES
HAIL! Childish slaves of social rules
You had yourselves a hand in
making!
How I could shake your faith, ye fools,
If but I thought it
worth the shaking.
I see, and pity you; and then
Go, casting off the
idle pity,
In search of better, braver men,
My own way freely
through the city.
My own way freely, and not yours;
And, careless of a town's abusing,

Seek real friendship that endures
Among the friends of my own

choosing.
I'll choose my friends myself, do you hear?
And won't let
Mrs. Grundy do it,
Tho' all I honour and hold dear
And all I hope
should move me to it.
I take my old coat from the shelf -
I am a man of little breeding.

And only dress to please myself -
I own, a very strange proceeding.

I smoke a pipe abroad, because
To all cigars I much prefer it,
And
as I scorn your social laws
My choice has nothing to deter it.
Gladly I trudge the footpath way,
While you and yours roll by in
coaches
In all the pride of fine array,
Through all the city's thronged
approaches.
O fine religious, decent folk,
In Virtue's flaunting gold
and scarlet,
I sneer between two puffs of smoke, -
Give me the
publican and harlot.
Ye dainty-spoken, stiff, severe
Seed of the migrated Philistian,
One
whispered question in your ear -
Pray, what was Christ, if you be
Christian?
If Christ were only here just now,
Among the city's
wynds and gables
Teaching the life he taught us, how
Would he be
welcome to your tables?
I go and leave your logic-straws,
Your former-friends with face
averted,
Your petty ways and narrow laws,
Your Grundy and your
God, deserted.
From your frail ark of lies, I flee
I know not where,
like Noah's raven.
Full to the broad, unsounded sea
I swim from
your dishonest haven.
Alone on that unsounded deep,
Poor waif, it may be I shall perish,

Far from the course I thought to keep,
Far from the friends I hoped to
cherish.
It may be that I shall sink, and yet
Hear, thro' all taunt and
scornful laughter,
Through all defeat and all regret,
The stronger
swimmers coming after.
SWALLOWS TRAVEL TO AND FRO

SWALLOWS travel to and fro,
And the great winds come and go,

And the steady breezes blow,
Bearing perfume, bearing love.

Breezes hasten, swallows fly,
Towered clouds forever ply,
And at
noonday, you and I
See the same sunshine above.
Dew and rain fall everywhere,
Harvests ripen, flowers are fair,
And
the whole round earth is bare
To the moonshine and the sun;
And
the live air, fanned with wings,
Bright with breeze and sunshine,
brings
Into contact distant things,
And makes all the countries one.
Let us wander where we will,
Something kindred greets us still;

Something seen on vale or hill
Falls familiar on the heart;
So, at
scent or sound or sight,
Severed souls by day and night
Tremble
with the same delight -
Tremble, half the world apart.
TO MESDAMES ZASSETSKY AND GARSCHINE
THE wind may blaw the lee-gang way
And aye the lift be mirk an'
gray,
An deep the moss and steigh the brae
Where a' maun gang -

There's still an hoor in ilka day
For luve and sang.
And canty hearts are strangely steeled.
By some dikeside they'll find
a bield,
Some couthy neuk by muir or field
They're sure to hit,

Where, frae the blatherin' wind concealed,
They'll rest a bit.
An' weel for them if kindly fate
Send ower the hills to them a mate;

They'll crack a while o' kirk an' State,
O' yowes an' rain:
An' when
it's time to take the gate,
Tak' ilk his ain.
0. Sic neuk beside the southern sea I soucht - sic place o' quiet lee Frae
a' the winds o' life. To me, Fate, rarely fair, Had set a freendly
company To meet me there.
Kindly by them they gart me sit,
An' blythe was I to bide a bit.

Licht as o' some hame fireside lit

My life for me.
- Ower early
maun I rise an' quit
This happy lee.

TO MADAME GARSCHINE
WHAT is the face, the fairest face, till Care,
Till Care the graver -
Care with cunning hand,
Etches