The Pilgrims of Hope | Page 5

And friends that I knew not I strove to deliver
From a crowd that swept o'er us in measureless streams,
Wending whither I knew not: till meseemed I was waking To the first
night in London, and lay by my love, And she worn and changed, and
my very heart aching With a terror of soul that forbade me to move.
Till I woke, in good sooth, and she lay there beside me, Fresh, lovely in
sleep; but awhile yet I lay, For the fear of the dream-tide yet seemed to
abide me In the cold and sad time ere the dawn of the day.
Then I went to the window, and saw down below me The market-wains
wending adown the dim street, And the scent of the hay and the herbs
seemed to know me, And seek out my heart the dawn's sorrow to meet.
They passed, and day grew, and with pitiless faces The dull houses
stared on the prey they had trapped; 'Twas as though they had slain all
the fair morning places Where in love and in leisure our joyance had
happed.
My heart sank; I murmured, "What's this we are doing In this grim net
of London, this prison built stark With the greed of the ages, our young
lives pursuing A phantom that leads but to death in the dark?"
Day grew, and no longer was dusk with it striving, And now here and
there a few people went by. As an image of what was once eager and
living Seemed the hope that had led us to live or to die.
Yet nought else seemed happy; the past and its pleasure Was light, and
unworthy, had been and was gone; If hope had deceived us, if hid were
its treasure, Nought now would be left us of all life had won.
O love, stand beside me; the sun is uprisen On the first day of London;
and shame hath been here. For I saw our new life like the bars of a
prison, And hope grew a-cold, and I parleyed with fear.
Ah! I sadden thy face, and thy grey eyes are chiding! Yea, but life is no
longer as stories of yore; From us from henceforth no fair words shall
be hiding The nights of the wretched, the days of the poor.

Time was we have grieved, we have feared, we have faltered, For
ourselves, for each other, while yet we were twain; And no whit of the
world by our sorrow was altered, Our faintness grieved nothing, our
fear was in vain.
Now our fear and our faintness, our sorrow, our passion, We shall feel
all henceforth as we felt it erewhile; But now from all this the due
deeds we shall fashion Of the eyes without blindness, the heart without
guile.
Let us grieve then--and help every soul in our sorrow; Let us fear--and
press forward where few dare to go; Let us falter in hope--and plan
deeds for the morrow, The world crowned with freedom, the fall of the
foe.
As the soldier who goes from his homestead a-weeping, And whose
mouth yet remembers his sweetheart's embrace, While all round about
him the bullets are sweeping, But stern and stout-hearted dies there in
his place;
Yea, so let our lives be! e'en such that hereafter, When the battle is won
and the story is told, Our pain shall be hid, and remembered our
laughter, And our names shall be those of the bright and the bold.
NOTE--This section had the following note in The Commonweal. It is
the intention of the author to follow the fortunes of the lovers who in
the "Message of the March Wind" were already touched by sympathy
with the cause of the people.

SENDING TO THE WAR

It was down in our far-off village that we heard of the war begun, But
none of the neighbours were in it save the squire's thick-lipped son, A
youth and a fool and a captain, who came and went away, And left me
glad of his going. There was little for us to say Of the war and its why
and wherefore--and we said it often enough; The papers gave us our
wisdom, and we used it up in the rough. But I held my peace and
wondered; for I thought of the folly of men, The fair lives ruined and
broken that ne'er could be mended again; And the tale by lies
bewildered, and no cause for a man to choose; Nothing to curse or to
bless--just a game to win or to lose.
But here were the streets of London--strife stalking wide in the world;

And the flag of an ancient people to the battle-breeze unfurled. And
who was helping or heeding? The gaudy shops