Poems of Power | Page 8

bar my door to Hate,
What have I to fear, O Fate?

Since I fear not--Fate I vow,
I the ruler am, not thou!
ATTAINMENT
Use all your hidden forces. Do not miss
The purpose of this life, and
do not wait
For circumstance to mould or change your fate;
In your
own self lies Destiny. Let this
Vast truth cast out all fear, all prejudice,

All hesitation. Know that you are great,
Great with divinity. So
dominate
Environment, and enter into bliss.
Love largely and hate
nothing. Hold no aim
That does not chord with universal good.

Hear what the voices of the Silence say -
All joys are yours if you put
forth your claim.
Once let the spiritual laws be understood,
Material
things must answer and obey.
A PLEA TO PEACE
When mighty issues loom before us, all
The petty great men of the
day seem small,
Like pigmies standing in a blaze of light
Before
some grim majestic mountain-height.
War, with its bloody and
impartial hand,
Reveals the hidden weakness of a land,
Uncrowns
the heroes trusting Peace has made
Of men whose honour is a thing
of trade,
And turns the searchlight full on many a place
Where
proud conventions long have masked disgrace.
O lovely Peace! as
thou art fair be wise.
Demand great men, and great men shall arise

To do thy bidding. Even as warriors come,
Swift at the call of bugle
and of drum,
So at the voice of Peace, imperative
As bugle's call,
shall heroes spring to live
For country and for thee. In every land,

In every age, men are what times demand.
Demand the best, O Peace,
and teach thy sons
They need not rush in front of death-charged guns

With murder in their hearts to prove their worth.
The grandest
heroes who have graced the earth
Were love-filled souls who did not
seek the fray,
But chose the safe, hard, high, and lonely way
Of
selfless labour for a suffering world.
Beneath our glorious flag again
unfurled
In victory such heroes wait to be
Called into bloodless

action, Peace, by thee.
Be thou insistent in thy stern demand,
And
wise, great men shall rise up in the land.
PRESUMPTION
Whenever I am prone to doubt or wonder -
I check myself, and say, "That mighty One
Who made the solar
system cannot blunder -
And for the best all things are being done."
Who set the stars on their
eternal courses
Has fashioned this strange earth by some sure plan.
Bow low, bow
low to those majestic forces,
Nor dare to doubt their wisdom, puny man.
You cannot put one little star in motion,
You cannot shape one single forest leaf,
Nor fling a mountain up, nor
sink an ocean,
Presumptuous pigmy, large with unbelief.
You cannot bring one
dawn of regal splendour,
Nor bid the day to shadowy twilight fall,
Nor send the pale moon
forth with radiance tender -
And dare you doubt the One who has done all?
"So much is wrong, there is such pain--such sinning."
Yet look again--behold how much is right!
And He who formed the
world from its beginning
Knows how to guide it upward to the light.
Your task, O man, is not
to carp and cavil

At God's achievements, but with purpose strong
To cling to good, and
turn away from evil.
That is the way to help the world along.
HIGH NOON
Time's finger on the dial of my life
Points to high noon! and yet the
half-spent day
Leaves less than half remaining, for the dark,
Bleak
shadows of the grave engulf the end.
To those who burn the candle to
the stick,
The sputtering socket yields but little light.
Long life is
sadder than an early death.
We cannot count on ravelled threads of
age
Whereof to weave a fabric. We must use
The warp and woof
the ready present yields
And toil while daylight lasts. When I bethink

How brief the past, the future, still more brief
Calls on to action,
action! Not for me
Is time for retrospection or for dreams,
Not time
for self-laudation or remorse.
Have I done nobly? Then I must not let

Dead yesterday unborn to-morrow shame.
Have I done wrong?
Well, let the bitter taste
Of fruit that turned to ashes on my lip
Be
my reminder in temptation's hour,
And keep me silent when I would
condemn.
Sometimes it takes the acid of a sin
To cleanse the
clouded windows of our souls
So pity may shine through them.
Looking back,
My faults and errors seem like stepping-stones
That
led the way to knowledge of the truth
And made me value virtue;
sorrows shine
In rainbow colours o'er the gulf of years,
Where lie
forgotten pleasures.
Looking forth,
Out to the western sky still bright with noon,
I feel
well spurred and booted for the strife
That ends not till Nirvana is
attained.
Battling with fate, with men, and with myself,
Up the steep summit of
my life's forenoon,
Three things I learned, three things of precious
worth,
To guide and help me down the western slope.
I have

learned how to pray, and toil, and save:
To pray for courage to
receive what comes,
Knowing what comes to be divinely sent;
To
toil for universal good, since thus
And only thus can