Poems of Purpose | Page 6

sit in silence when we should protest?Makes cowards out of men. The human race?Has climbed on protest. Had no voice been raised?Against injustice, ignorance and lust?The Inquisition yet would serve the law?And guillotines decide our least disputes.?The few who dare must speak and speak again?To right the wrongs of many. Speech, thank God,?No vested power in this great day and land?Can gag or throttle; Press and voice may cry?Loud disapproval of existing ills,?May criticise oppression and condemn?The lawlessness of wealth-protecting laws?That let the children and child-bearers toil?To purchase ease for idle millionaires.?Therefore do I protest against the boast?Of independence in this mighty land.?Call no chain strong which holds one rusted link,?Call no land free that holds one fettered slave.?Until the manacled, slim wrists of babes?Are loosed to toss in childish sport and glee;?Until the Mother bears no burden save?The precious one beneath her heart; until?God's soil is rescued from the clutch of greed?And given back to labour, let no man?Call this the Land of Freedom.
A BACHELOR TO A MARRIED FLIRT
All that a man can say of woman's charms,
Mine eyes have spoken and my lips have told?To you a thousand times. Your perfect arms
(A replica from that lost Melos mould),?The fair firm crescents of your bosom (shown?With full intent to make their splendours known),
Your eyes (that mask with innocence their smile),
The (artful) artlessness of all your ways,?Your kiss-provoking mouth, its lure, its guile -
All these have had my fond and frequent praise.?And something more than praise to you I gave -?Something which made you know me as your slave.
Yet slaves, at times, grow mutinous and rebel.
Here in this morning hour, from you apart,?The mood is on me to be frank and tell
The thoughts long hidden deep down in my heart.?These thoughts are bitter--thorny plants, that grew?Below the flowers of praise I plucked for you.
Those flowery praises led you to suppose
You were my benefactor. Well, in truth,?When lovely woman on dull man bestows
Sweet favours of her beauty and her youth,?He is her debtor. I am yours: and yet?You robbed me while you placed me thus in debt.
I owe you for keen moments when you stirred
My senses with your beauty, when your eyes?(Your wanton eyes) belied the prudent word
Your curled lips uttered. You are worldly wise,?And while you like to set men's hearts on flame,?You take no risks in that old passion-game.
The carnal, common self of dual me
Found pleasure in this danger play of yours.?(An egotist, man always thinks to be
The victor, if his patience but endures,?And holds in leash the hounds of fierce desire,?Until the silly woman's heart takes fire.)
But now it is the Higher Self who speaks -
The Me of me--the inner Man--the real -?Whoever dreams his dream and ever seeks
To bring to earth his beautiful ideal.?That lifelong dream with all its promised joy?Your soft bedevilments have helped destroy.
Woman, how can I hope for happy life
In days to come at my own nuptial hearth,?When you who bear the honoured name of wife
So lightly hold the dearest gifts of earth??Descending from your pedestal, alas!?You shake the pedestals of all your class.
A vain, flirtatious wife is like a thief
Who breaks into the temple of men's souls,?And steals the golden vessels of belief,
The swinging censers, and the incense bowls.?All women seem less loyal and less true,?Less worthy of men's faith since I met you.
THE SUPERWOMAN
What will the superwoman be, of whom we sing -
She who is coming over the dim border?Of Far To-morrow, after earth's disorder?Is tidied up by Time? What will she bring
To make life better on tempestuous earth??How will her worth?Be greater than her forbears? What new power?Within her being will burst into flower?
She will bring beauty, not the transient dower
Of adolescence which departs with youth -?But beauty based on knowledge of the truth?Of its eternal message and the source?Of all its potent force.
Her outer being by the inner thought?Shall into lasting loveliness be wrought.
She will bring virtue; but it will not be?The pale, white blossom of cold chastity
Which hides a barren heart. She will be human -?Not saint or angel, but the superwoman -?Mother and mate and friend of superman.
She will bring strength to aid the larger Plan,
Wisdom and strength and sweetness all combined,?Drawn from the Cosmic Mind -?Wisdom to act, strength to attain,?And sweetness that finds growth in joy or pain.
She will bring that large virtue, self-control,
And cherish it as her supremest treasure.?Not at the call of sense or for man's pleasure?Will she invite from space an embryo soul,
To live on earth again in mortal fashion,?Unless love stirs her with divinest passion.
To motherhood she will bring common sense -
That most uncommon virtue. She will give?Love that is more than she-wolf violence
(Which slaughters others that its own may live).
Love that will help each little tendril mind
To grow and climb;?Love that will know the lordliest use of Time?In training human egos to