Poems of Power | Page 6

down at your threshold an unwelcome day
Be careful what
follies you toss in youth's sea.
WHEN THE REGIMENT CAME BACK

All the uniforms were blue, all the swords were bright and new,
When the regiment went marching down the street,
All the men were
hale and strong as they proudly moved along,
Through the cheers that drowned the music of their feet. Oh the music
of the feet keeping time to drums that beat,
Oh the splendour and the glitter of the sight,
As with swords and
rifles new and in uniforms of blue
The regiment went marching to the fight!
When the regiment came back all the guns and swords were black
And the uniforms had faded out to gray,
And the faces of the men
who marched through that street again
Seemed like faces of the dead who lose their way.
For the dead who
lose their way cannot look more wan and gray.
Oh the sorrow and the pity of the sight,
Oh the weary lagging feet out
of step with drums that beat,
As the regiment comes marching from the fight.
WOMAN TO MAN
Woman is man's enemy, rival, and competitor.--JOHN. J. INGALLS.
You do but jest, sir, and you jest not well,
How could the hand be
enemy of the arm,
Or seed and sod be rivals! How could light
Feel
jealousy of heat, plant of the leaf,
Or competition dwell 'twixt lip and
smile?
Are we not part and parcel of yourselves?
Like strands in
one great braid we entertwine
And make the perfect whole. You
could not be,
Unless we gave you birth; we are the soil
From which
you sprang, yet sterile were that soil
Save as you planted. (Though in

the Book we read
One woman bore a child with no man's aid,
We
find no record of a man-child born
Without the aid of woman!
Fatherhood
Is but a small achievement at the best,
While
motherhood comprises heaven and hell.)
This ever-growing argument
of sex
Is most unseemly, and devoid of sense.
Why waste more
time in controversy, when
There is not time enough for all of love,

Our rightful occupation in this life?
Why prate of our defects, of
where we fail,
When just the story of our worth would need

Eternity for telling, and our best
Development comes ever through
your praise,
As through our praise you reach your highest self?
Oh!
had you not been miser of your praise
And let our virtues be their
own reward,
The old-established order of the world
Would never
have been changed. Small blame is ours
For this unsexing of
ourselves, and worse.
Effeminising of the male. We were
Content,
sir, till you starved us, heart and brain.
All we have done, or wise, or
otherwise,
Traced to the root, was done for love of you.
Let us
taboo all vain comparisons,
And go forth as God meant us, hand in
hand,
Companions, mates, and comrades evermore;
Two parts of
one divinely ordained whole.
THE TRAVELLER
Reply to Rudyard Kipling's "He travels the fastest who travels alone."
Who travels alone with his eyes on the heights,
Though he laughs in
the day time oft weeps in the nights;
For courage goes down at the set of the sun,
When the toil of the
journey is all borne by one.
He speeds but to grief though full gaily he ride
Who travels alone
without love at his side.
Who travels alone without lover or friend
But hurries from nothing,
to naught at the end.

Though great be his winnings and high be his goal,
He is bankrupt in
wisdom and beggared in soul.
Life's one gift of value to him is denied
Who travels alone without
love at his side.
It is easy enough in this world to make haste
If one live for that
purpose--but think of the waste;
For life is a poem to leisurely read,
And the joy of the journey lies not
in its speed.
Oh! vain his achievement and petty his pride
Who travels alone
without love at his side.
THE EARTH
The earth is yours and mine,
Our God's bequest.
That testament divine
Who dare contest?
Usurpers of the earth,
We claim our share.
We are of royal birth.
Beware! beware!
Unloose the hand of greed
From God's fair land,
We claim but what we need -
That, we demand.
NOW
I leave with God to-morrow's where and how,
And do concern myself

but with the Now,
That little word, though half the future's length,

Well used, holds twice its meaning and its strength.
Like one blindfolded groping out his way,
I will not try to touch
beyond to-day.
Since all the future is concealed from sight
I need
but strive to make the next step right.
That done, the next, and so on, till I find
Perchance some day I am no
longer blind,
And looking up, behold a radiant Friend
Who says,
"Rest, now, for you have reached the end."
YOU AND TO-DAY
With every rising of the sun
Think of your life as just begun.
The past has shrived and buried deep
All yesterdays--there let them
sleep,
Nor seek to summon back one