The Kingdom of Love | Page 9

loud earth's din.?And now, where was the peace I hoped to win?
Black-masted ships slid past me in great shoals,?Their bloody decks thronged with mistaken souls.?(God punishes mistakes sometimes like sin.)
Not rest and not oblivion I found.
My suffering self dwelt with me just the same;?But here no sleep was, and no sweet dreams came?To give me respite. Tyrant Death, uncrowned?By my own hand, still King of Terrors, frowned
Upon my shuddering soul, that shrank in shame?Before those eyes where sorrow blent with blame,?And those accusing lips that made no sound.
What gruesome shapes dawned on my startled sight
What awful sighs broke on my listening ear!?The anguish of the earth, augmented here?A thousand-fold, made one continuous night.?The sack I flung away in impious spite
Hung yet upon me, filled, I saw in fear.?With tears that rained from earth's adjacent sphere,?And turned to stones in falling from that height.
And close about me pressed a grieving throng,
Each with his heavy sack, which bowed him so?His face was hidden. One of these mourned: "Know?Who enters here but finds the way more long?To those fair realms where sounds the angels' song.
There is no man-made exit out of woe;?Ye cannot dash the locked door down and go?To claim thy rightful joy through paths of wrong."
He passed into the shadows dim and grey,
And left me to pursue my path alone.?With terror greater than I yet had known.?Hard on my soul the awful knowledge lay,?Death had not ended life nor found God's way;
But, with my same sad sorrows still my own,?Where by-roads led to by-roads, thistle-sown,?I had but wandered off and gone astray.
With earth still near enough to hear its sighs,
With heaven afar and hell but just below,?Still on and on my lonely soul must go?Until I earn the right to Paradise.?We cannot force our way into God's skies,
Nor rush into the rest we long to know;?But patiently, with bleeding steps and slow?Toil on to where selfhood in Godhood dies.
"NOW I LAY ME"
When I pass from earth away,?Palsied though I be and grey,?May my spirit keep so young?That my failing, faltering tongue?Frames that prayer so dear to me,?Taught me at my mother's knee:?"Now I lay me down to sleep,"?(Passing to Eternal rest?On the loving parent breast)?"I pray the Lord my soul to keep;"?(From all danger safe and calm?In the hollow of His palm;)?"If I should die before I wake,"?(Drifting with a bated breath?Out of slumber into death,)?"I pray the Lord my soul to take."?(From the body's claim set free?Sheltered in the Great to be.)?Simple prayer of trust and truth.?Taught me in my early youth -?Let my soul its beauty keep?When I lay me down to sleep.
THE MESSENGER
She rose up in the early dawn,
And white and silently she moved?About the house. Four men had gone
To battle for the land they loved,?And she, the mother and the wife,?Waited for tidings from the strife.?How still the house seemed! and her tread?Was like the footsteps of the dead.
The long day passed, the dark night came;
She had not seen a human face.?Some voice spoke suddenly her name.
How loud it echoed in that place?Where, day by day, no sound was heard?But her own footsteps! "Bring you word,"?She cried to whom she could not see,?"Word from the battle-plain to me?"
A soldier entered at the door,
And stood within the dim firelight:?"I bring you tidings of the four,"
He said, "who left you for the fight."?"God bless you, friend," she cried; "speak on!?For I can bear it. One is gone?"?"Ay, one is gone!" he said. "Which one?"?"Dear lady, he, your eldest son."
A deathly pallor shot across
Her withered face; she did not weep.?She said: "It is a grievous loss,
But God gives His beloved sleep.?What of the living--of the three??And when can they come back to me?"?The soldier turned away his head:?"Lady, your husband, too, is dead."
She put her hand upon her brow;
A wild, sharp pain was in her eyes.?"My husband! Oh, God, help me now!"
The soldier heard her shuddering sighs.?The task was harder than he thought.?"Your youngest son, dear madam, fought?Close at his father's side; both fell?Dead, by the bursting of a shell."
She moved her lips and seemed to moan.
Her face had paled to ashen grey:?"Then one is left me--one alone,"
She said, "of four who marched away.?Oh, overruling, All-wise God,?How can I pass beneath Thy rod!"?The soldier walked across the floor,?Paused at the window, at the door,
Wiped the cold dew-drops from his cheek
And sought the mourner's side again.?"Once more, dear lady, I must speak:
Your last remaining son was slain?Just at the closing of the fight;?Twas he who sent me here to-night."?"God knows," the man said afterward,?"The fight itself was not so hard."
A SERVIAN LEGEND
Long, long ago, ere yet our race began,?When earth was empty, waiting still for man,?Before the breath of life to him was given?The angels fell into a strife in heaven.
At length one furious demon grasped the sun?And sped away as