Poems of Experience | Page 9

careless children,
glad and unafraid,
They sported in their opulence of glee.
Her shining tresses floated
wild and free;
In simple lines her emerald garments hung;
She was both good to hear, and fair to see;
And when she laughed,

then Earth laughed too, and flung
His cares behind him, and grew
radiant and young.
One golden day, as he reclined beneath
The arching azure of enchanting skies,
Fair Summer came, engirdled
with a wreath
Of gorgeous leaves all scintillant with dyes.
Effulgent was she; yet
within her eyes,
There hung a quivering mist of tears unshed.
Her crimson-mantled bosom shook with sighs;
Above him bent the
glory of her head;
And on his mouth she pressed a splendid kiss, and
fled.
THE GOAL
All roads that lead to God are good;
What matters it, your faith, or mine;
Both centre at the goal divine

Of love's eternal Brotherhood.
The kindly life in house or street;
The life of prayer, and mystic rite;
The student's search for truth and
light;
These paths at one great junction meet.
Before the oldest book was writ,
Full many a prehistoric soul
Arrived at this unchanging goal,

Through changeless love, that led to it.
What matters that one found his Christ
In rising sun, or burning fire;
If faith within him did not tire,
His
longing for the truth sufficed.

Before our 'Christian' hell was brought
To edify a modern world,
Full many a hate-filled soul was hurled
In
lakes of fire by its own thought.
A thousand creeds have come and gone;
But what is that to you or me?
Creeds are but branches of a tree,

The root of love lives on and on.
Though branch by branch proves withered wood,
The root is warm with precious wine;
Then keep your faith, and leave
me mine;
ALL roads that lead to God are good.
CHRIST CRUCIFIED
Now ere I slept, my prayer had been that I might see my way To do the
will of Christ, our Lord and Master, day by day;
And with this prayer
upon my lips, I knew not that I dreamed, But suddenly the world of
night a pandemonium seemed.
From forest, and from slaughter house,
from bull ring, and from stall,
There rose an anguished cry of pain, a
loud, appealing call; As man--the dumb beast's next of kin--with gun,
and whip, and knife, Went pleasure-seeking through the earth,
blood-bent on taking life. From trap, and cage, and house, and zoo, and
street, that awful strain
Of tortured creatures rose and swelled the
orchestra of pain. And then methought the gentle Christ appeared to me,
and spoke: 'I called you, but ye answered not'--and in my fear I woke.
Then next I heard the roar of mills; and moving through the noise, Like
phantoms in an underworld, were little girls and boys. Their backs were
bent, their brows were pale, their eyes were sad and old;
But by the
labour of their hands greed added gold to gold.
Again the Presence
and the Voice: 'Behold the crimes I see, As ye have done it unto these,
so have ye done to me.'
Again I slept. I seemed to climb a hard, ascending track;
And just

behind me laboured one whose patient face was black. I pitied him; but
hour by hour he gained upon the path;
He stood beside me, stood
upright--and then I turned in wrath. 'Go back!' I cried. 'What right have
you to walk beside me here? For you are black, and I am white.' I
paused, struck dumb with fear. For lo! the black man was not there, but
Christ stood in his place; And oh! the pain, the pain, the pain that
looked from that dear face.
Now when I woke, the air was rife with that sweet, rhythmic din Which
tells the world that Christ has come to save mankind from sin. And
through the open door of church and temple passed a throng, To
worship Him with bended knee, with sermon, and with song. But over
all I heard the cry of hunted, mangled things;
Those creatures which
are part of God, though they have hoofs and wings.
I saw in mill, and
mine, and shop, the little slaves of greed; I heard the strife of race with
race, all sprung from one God-seed. And then I bowed my head in
shame, and in contrition cried - 'Lo, after nineteen hundred years,
Christ still is Crucified.'
THE TRIP TO MARS
Oh! by and by we shall hear the cry,
'This is the way to Mars.'
Come take a trip, on the morning Ship;
It sails by the Isle of Stars.
'A glorious view of planets new
We promise by night and day.
Past dying suns our good ship runs,
And we pause at the Milky Way.'
I am almost sure we will take that tour
Together, my dear, my dear.
For, ever have we, by land and sea,
Gone journeying far and near.

Out over the deep--o'er mountain steep,