The White Bees | Page 8

unafraid
Of frowning tyranny or death's dark
face.
Oh, who can tell how much we owe to thee,
Makemie, and to labour
such as thine,
For all that makes America the shrine
Of faith
untrammeled and of conscience free?
Stand here, grey stone, and
consecrate the sod
Where rests this brave Scotch-Irish man of God!
NATIONAL MONUMENTS
Count not the cost of honour to the dead!
The tribute that a mighty
nation pays
To those who loved her well in former days
Means
more than gratitude for glories fled;
For every noble man that she
hath bred,
Lives in the bronze and marble that we raise,

Immortalized by art's immortal praise,
To lead our sons as he our
fathers led.
These monuments of manhood strong and high
Do more than forts or
battle-ships to keep
Our dear-bought liberty. They fortify
The heart
of youth with valour wise and deep;
They build eternal bulwarks, and
command
Eternal strength to guard our native land.
IN PRAISE OF POETS
MOTHER EARTH

Mother of all the high-strung poets and
singers departed,
Mother of all the grass that weaves over their
graves the glory of the field,
Mother of all the manifold forms of life,
deepbosomed,
patient, impassive,
Silent brooder and nurse of lyrical joys and
sorrows
!
Out of thee, yea, surely out of the fertile depth
below thy breast,
Issued in some Strange way, thou lying motionless,
voiceless,
All these songs of nature, rhythmical, passionate,
yearning,
Coming in music from earth, but not unto earth
returning.
Dust are the blood-red hearts that beat in time
to these measures,
Thou hast taken them back to thyself, secretly,
irresistibly
Drawing the crimson currents of life down, down,
down
Deep into thy bosom again, as a river is lost in
the sand.
But the souls of the singers have entered into
the songs that revealed them,--
Passionate songs, immortal songs of
joy and
grief and love and longing:
Floating from heart to heart of thy
children, they

echo above thee:
Do they not utter thy heart, the voices of those
that love thee?
Long hadst thou lain like a queen transformed by
some old enchantment
Into an alien shape, mysterious, beautiful,
speechless,
Knowing not who thou wert, till the touch of thy
Lord and Lover
Working within thee awakened the man-child to
breathe thy secret.
All of thy flowers and birds and forests and
flowing
waters
Are but enchanted forms to embody the life of
the spirit;
Thou thyself, earth-mother, in mountain and
meadow and ocean,
Holdest the poem of God, eternal thought and
emotion.
MILTON
I
Lover of beauty, walking on the height
Of pure philosophy and tranquil song;
Born to behold the visions that
belong
To those who dwell in melody and light;
Milton, thou spirit
delicate and bright!
What drew thee down to join the Roundhead
throng
Of iron-sided warriors, rude and strong,
Fighting for
freedom in a world half night?
Lover of Liberty at heart wast thou,
Above all beauty bright, all

music clear:
To thee she bared her bosom and her brow,
Breathing
her virgin promise in thine ear,
And bound thee to her with a double
vow,--
Exquisite Puritan, grave Cavalier!
II
The cause, the cause for which thy soul resigned
Her singing robes to
battle on the plain,
Was won, O poet, and was lost again;
And lost
the labour of thy lonely mind
On weary tasks of prose. What wilt
thou find
To comfort thee for all the toil and pain?
What solace,
now thy sacrifice is vain
And thou art left forsaken, poor, and blind?
Like organ-music comes the deep reply:
"The cause of truth looks
lost, but shall be
won.
For God hath given to mine inward eye
Vision of England
soaring to the sun.
And granted me great peace before I die,
In
thoughts of lowly duty bravely done."
III
O bend again above thine organ-board,
Thou blind old poet longing
for repose!
Thy Master claims thy service not with those
Who only
stand and wait for his reward.
He pours the heavenly gift of song
restored
Into thy breast, and bids thee nobly close
A noble life, with
poetry that flows
In mighty music of the major chord.
Where hast thou learned this deep, majestic
strain,
Surpassing all thy youthful lyric grace,
To sing of Paradise?
Ah, not in vain
The griefs that won at Dante's side thy place,
And
made thee, Milton, by thy years of pain,
The loftiest poet of the
Saxon race!
WORDSWORTH

Wordsworth, thy music like a river rolls
Among the mountains, and thy song is fed
By living springs far up
the watershed;
No whirling flood nor parching drought controls
The
crystal current; even on the shoals
It murmurs clear and sweet; and
when its bed
Darkens below mysterious cliffs of dread,
Thy voice
of peace grows deeper in our souls.
But thou in youth hast known the breaking stress
Of passion, and hast
trod despair's dry ground
Beneath black thoughts that wither and
destroy.
Ah, wanderer, led by human tenderness
Home to the heart of Nature,
thou hast found
The hidden Fountain of Recovered Joy.
KEATS
The melancholy gift Aurora gained
From Jove, that her sad lover should not
see
The face of death, no goddess asked for thee,
My Keats! But
when the crimson blood-drop