Poems of Progress | Page 5

feeds love's thirst
as wine feeds love of wine;
Nor is there any potion from the vine
Which makes men drunken like the subtle brew
Of kisses crushed by
kisses; and he grew
Inebriated with that draught divine.
Yet in his sober moments, when the sun
Of radiant summer paled to lonely fall,
And passion's sea had grown an ebbing tide,
From out the many,
Memory singled one
Full cup that seemed the sweetest of them all -
The warm red mouth that mocked him and denied.
HELEN OF TROY
ON THE ISLE OF CRANAE
The world an abject vassal to her charms,
And kings competing for a
single smile,
Yet love she knew not, till upon this isle
She gave
surrender to abducting arms.
Not Theseus, who plucked her lips' first
kiss,
Not Menelaus, lawful mate and spouse,
Such answering passion in
her heart could rouse,
Or wake such tumult in 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.
0. * *
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.
0. * *
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