Poems of Experience | Page 7

of pigeons,
As they rise on eager wings,
From prison to death, bring a catch in
his breath:
OH, THE RAPTURE OF KILLING THINGS!
Now, this is the race as we find it,
Where love, in the creed, spells hate;
And where bird and beast meet
a foe in the priest
And in rulers of fashion and State.
But up to the Kingdom of
Thinkers
Has risen the cry of our kin;
And the weapons of thought are
burnished and brought
To clash with the bludgeons of sin.
Far Christ, of a million churches,
Come near to the earth again;
Be more than a Name; be a living
Flame;
'Make Good' in the hearts of men.
Shine full on the path of Science,
And show it the heights above,
Where vast truths lie for the searching
eye
That shall follow the torch of love.
TIME'S DEFEAT
Time has made conquest of so many things
That once were mine.
Swift-footed, eager youth
That ran to meet the years; bold brigand
health,
That broke all laws of reason unafraid,
And laughed at talk

of punishment.
Close ties of blood and friendship, joy of life,
Which reads its music
in the major key
And will not listen to a minor strain -
These things
and many more are spoils of time.
Yet as a conqueror who only storms
The outposts of a town, and
finds the fort
Too strong to be assailed, so time retreats
And knows
his impotence. He cannot take
My three great jewels from the crown of life:
Love, sympathy, and
faith; and year on year
He sees them grow in lustre and in worth,

And glowers by me, plucking at his beard,
And dragging, as he goes,
a useless scythe.
Once in the dark he plotted with his friend
Grim Death, to steal my
treasures. Death replied:
'They are immortal, and beyond thy reach,

I could but set them in another sphere,
To shine with greater lustre.'
Time and Death
Passed on together, knowing their defeat;
And I am
singing by the road of life.
THE HYMN OF THE REPUBLIC
I have listened to the sighing of the burdened and the bound, I have
heard it change to crying, with a menace in the sound; I have seen the
money-getters pass unheeding on the way,
As they went to forge new
fetters for the people day by day.
Then the voice of Labour thundered forth its purpose and its need, And
I marvelled, and I wondered, at the cold dull ear of greed; For as
chimes, in some great steeple, tell the passing of the hour, So the voices
of the people tell the death of purchased power.
All the gathered dust of ages, God is brushing from His book; He is
opening up its pages, and He bids His children look;
And in shock
and conflagration, and in pestilence and strife, He is speaking to the

nations, of the brevity of life.
Mother Earth herself is shaken by our sorrows and our crimes; And she
bids her sons awaken to the portent of the times;
With her travail
pains upon her, she is hurling from their place All the minions of
dishonour, to admit the Coming Race.
By the voice of Justice bidden, she has torn the mask from might; All
the shameful secrets hidden, she is dragging into light; And whoever
wrongs his neighbour must be brought to judgment NOW, Though he
wear the badge of Labour, or a crown upon his brow.
There is growth in Revolution, if the word is understood;
It is one
with Evolution, up from self, to brotherhood;
He who utters it
unheeding, bent on self, or selfish gain,
His own day of doom is
speeding, though he toil, or though he reign.
God is calling to the masses, to the peasant, and the peer; He is calling
to all classes, that the crucial hour is near; For each rotting throne must
tremble, and fall broken in the dust, With the leaders who dissemble,
and betray a people's trust.
Still the voice of God is calling; and above the wreck I see, And
beyond the gloom appalling, the great Government-to-Be.
From the ruins it has risen, and my soul is overjoyed,
For the school
supplants the prison, and there are no 'unemployed.'
And there are no children's faces at the spindle or the loom; They are
out in sunny places, where the other sweet things bloom; God has
purified the alleys, He has set the white slaves free, And they own the
hills and valleys in this Government to-Be.
THE RADIANT CHRIST
I
Arise, O master artist of the age,
And paint the picture which at once

shall be
Immortal art and bless'd prophecy.
The bruised vision of
the world assuage;
To earth's dark book add one illumined page,
So
scintillant with truth, that all who see
Shall break from superstition
and stand free.
Now let this wondrous work thy hand engage.
The
mortal sorrow of the Nazarene,
Too long has been faith's symbol and
its sign;
Too long