Poems of Experience | Page 8

burning hour, but one, could I recall;?God, how men lie when driven to the wall!)
THE BIRTH OF JEALOUSY
With brooding mien and sultry eyes,?Outside the gates of Paradise?Eve sat, and fed the faggot flame?That lit the path whence Adam came.?(Strange are the workings of a woman's mind.)
His giant shade preceded him,?Along the pathway green, and dim;?She heard his swift approaching tread,?But still she sat with drooping head.?(Dark are the jungles of unhappy thought.)
He kissed her mouth, and gazed within?Her troubled eyes; for since their sin,?His love had grown a thousand fold.?But Eve drew back; her face was cold.?(Oh, who can read the cipher of a soul.)
'Now art thou mourning still, sweet wife?'?Spake Adam tenderly, 'the life?Of our lost Eden? Why, in THEE?All Paradise remains for me.'?(Deep, deep the currents in a strong man's heart.)
Thus Eve: 'Nay, not lost Eden's bliss?I mourn; for heavier woe than this?Wears on me with one thought accursed.?IN ADAM'S LIFE I AM NOT FIRST.?(O woman's mind! what hells are fashioned there.)
'The serpent whispered Lilith's name:?('Twas thus he drove me to my shame)?Pluck yonder fruit, he said, and know,?How Adam loved HER, long ago.?(Fools, fools, who wander searching after pain.)
'I ate; and like an ancient scroll,?I saw that other life unroll;?I saw thee, Adam, far from here?With Lilith on a wondrous sphere.?(Bold, bold, the daring of a jealous heart.)
'Nay, tell me not I dreamed it all;?Last night in sleep thou didst let fall?Her name in tenderness; I bowed?My stricken head and cried aloud.?(Vast, vast the torment of a self-made woe.)
'And it was then, and not before,?That Eden shut and barred its door.?Alone in God's great world I seemed,?Whilst thou of thy lost Lilith dreamed.?(Oh, who can measure such wide loneliness.)
'Now every little breeze that sings,?Sighs Lilith, like thy whisperings.?Oh, where can sorrow hide its face,?When Lilith, Lilith, fills all space?'?(And Adam in the darkness spake no word.)
SUMMER'S FAREWELL
All in the time when Earth did most deplore
The cold, ungracious aspect of young May,?Sweet Summer came, and bade him smile once more;
She wove bright garlands, and in winsome play?She bound him willing captive. Day by day?She found new wiles wherewith his heart to please;
Or bright the sun, or if the skies were gray,?They laughed together, under spreading trees,?By running brooks, or on the sandy shores of seas.
They were but comrades. To that radiant maid
No serious word he spake; no lovers' plea.?Like 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