Poems of Progress | Page 5

her soul as this.?Let come what will, let Greece and Asia meet,
Let heroes die and kingdoms run with gore;?Let devastation spread from shore to shore -?Resplendent Helen finds her bondage sweet.?The whole world fights her battles, while she lies?Sunned in the fervour of young Paris' eyes.
ON THE ISLE OF RHODES
The battles ended, ardent Paris dead,
Of faithful Menelaus long bereft,?Time is the only suitor who is left:?Helen survives, with youth and beauty fled.?By hate remembered, but by love forgot,
Dethroned and driven from her high estate,?Unhappy Helen feels the lash of Fate?And knows at last an unloved woman's lot.?The Grecian marvel, and the Trojan joy,
The world's fair wonder, from her palace flies?The furies follow, and great Helen dies,?A death of horror, for the pride of Troy.
? * *
Yet Time, like Menelaus, all forgives.?Helen, immortal in her beauty, lives.
LAIS WHEN YOUNG
Lais when young, and all her charms in flower,
Lais, whose beauty was the fateful light
That led great ships to anchor in the night?And bring their priceless cargoes to her bower,?Lais yet found her cup of sweet turned sour.
Great Plato's pupil, from his lofty height,?Zenocrates, unmoved, had seen the white?Sweet wonder of her, and defied her power.
She snared the world in nets of subtle wiles:
The proud, the famed, all clamoured at her gate;
Dictators plead, inside her portico;?Wisdom sought madness, in her favouring smiles;
Now was she made the laughing-stock of fate:
One loosed her clinging arms, and bade her go.
LAIS WHEN OLD
Lais, when old and all her beauty gone,?Lais, the erstwhile courted pleasure queen,?Walked homeless through Corinth.
One mocked her mien -?One tossed her coins; she took them and passed on.?Down by the harbour sloped a terraced lawn,
Where fountains played; she paused to view the scene.?A marble palace stood in bowers of green?'Twas here of old she revelled till the dawn.
Through yonder portico her lovers came -
Hero and statesman, athlete, merchant, sage;
They flung the whole world's treasures at her feet?To buy her favour and exalt her shame.
? * *
She spat upon her dole of coins in rage
And faded like a phantom down the street.
EXISTENCE
You are here, and you are wanted,
Though a waif upon life's stair;?Though the sunlit hours are haunted
With the shadowy shapes of care.?Still the Great One, the All-Seeing?Called your spirit into being -?Gave you strength for any fate.?Since your life by Him was needed,?All your ways by Him are heeded -
You can trust and you can wait.
You can wait to know the meaning
Of the troubles sent your soul;?Of the chasms intervening
'Twixt your purpose and your goal;?Of the sorrows and the trials,?Of the silence and denials,
Ofttimes answering to your pleas;?Of the stinted sweets of pleasure,?And of pain's too generous measure -
You can wait the WHY of these.
Forth from planet unto planet,
You have gone, and you will go.?Space is vast, but we must span it;
For life's purpose is TO KNOW.?Earth retains you but a minute,?Make the best of what lies in it;
Light the pathway where you are.?There is nothing worth the doing?That will leave regret or rueing,
As you speed from star to star.
You are part of the Beginning,
You are parcel of To-day.?When He set His world to spinning
You were flung upon your way.?When the system falls to pieces,?When this pulsing epoch ceases,
When the IS becomes the WAS,?You will live, for you will enter?In the great Creative Centre,
In the All-Enduring Cause.
HOLIDAY SONGS
I
Sailing away on a summer sea,
Out of the bleak March weather;?Drifting away for a loaf and play,
Just you and I together;?And it's good-bye worry and good-bye hurry?And never a care have we;?With the sea below and the sun above?And nothing to do but dream and love,
Sailing away together.
Sailing away from the grim old town
And tasks the town calls duty;?Sailing away from walls of grey
To a land of bloom and beauty,?And it's good-bye to letters from our lessers and our betters, To the cold world's smile or its frown.?We sail away on a sunny track?To find the summer and bring it back
And love is our only duty.
II
Afloat on a sea of passion
Without a compass or chart,?But the glow of your eye shows the sun is high,
By the sextant of my heart.?I know we are nearing the tropics
By the languor that round us lies,?And the smile on your mouth says the course is south
And the port is Paradise.
We have left grey skies behind us,
We sail under skies of blue;?You are off with me on lovers' sea,
And I am away with you.?We have not a single sorrow,
And I have but one fear -?That my lips may miss one offered kiss
From the mouth that is smiling near.
There is no land of winter;
There is no world of care;?There is bloom and mirth all over the earth,
And love, love everywhere.?Our boat is the barque of Pleasure,
And whatever port we sight?The touch of your hand will make the land
The Harbour of Pure Delight.
ASTROLABIUS?(THE CHILD OF ABELARD AND HELOISE)
I wrenched from a passing comet in its flight,
By