Part 20

We sing the beautiful, the radiant life That shone amongst us like the quiet moon, A fine exception in this sphere of strife, Whose time went by us like a hallowed tune.

Yon tomb, whereon the moonlit grasses sigh, Hides from our view the shell of one whose days Were set throughout to that grand harmony Which fills all minor spirits with amaze.

This was the man whose dear, lost face appears To rise betimes like some sweet evening dream, And holy memories of faultless years, And touching hours of quietness supreme.

He, having learned in full the golden rule, Which guides great lives, stood fairly by the same, Unruffled as the Oriental pool, Before the bright, disturbing angel came.

In Learning's halls he walked--a leading lord, He trod the sacred temple's inner floors; But kindness beamed in every look and word He gave the humblest Levite at the doors.

When scholars poor and bowed beneath the ban, Which clings as fire, were like to faint and fall, This was the gentle, good Samaritan, Who stopped and held a helping hand to all.

No term that savoured of unfriendliness, No censure through those pure lips ever passed; He saw the erring spirit's keen distress, And hoped for it, long-suffering to the last.

Moreover, in these days when Faith grows faint, And Heaven seems blurred by speculation wild, He, blameless as a mediaeval saint, Had all the trust which sanctifies a child.

But now he sleeps, and as the years go by, We'll often pause above his sacred dust, And think how grand a thing it is to die The noble death which deifies the just.

Rizpah

Said one who led the spears of swarthy Gad, To Jesse's mighty son: "My Lord, O King, I, halting hard by Gibeon's bleak-blown hill Three nightfalls past, saw dark-eyed Rizpah, clad In dripping sackcloth, pace with naked feet The flinty rock where lie unburied yet The sons of her and Saul; and he whose post Of watch is in those places desolate, Got up, and spake unto thy servant here Concerning her--yea, even unto me:-- 'Behold,' he said, 'the woman seeks not rest, Nor fire, nor food, nor roof, nor any haunt Where sojourns man; but rather on yon rock Abideth, like a wild thing, with the slain, And watcheth them, lest evil wing or paw Should light upon the comely faces dead, To spoil them of their beauty. Three long moons Hath Rizpah, daughter of Aiah, dwelt With drouth and cold and rain and wind by turns, And many birds there are that know her face, And many beasts that flee not at her step, And many cunning eyes do look at her From serpent-holes and burrows of the rat. Moreover,' spake the scout, 'her skin is brown And sere by reason of exceeding heat; And all her darkness of abundant hair Is shot with gray, because of many nights When grief hath crouched in fellowship with frost Upon that desert rock. Yea, thus and thus Fares Rizpah,' said the spy, O King, to me."

But David, son of Jesse, spake no word, But turned himself, and wept against the wall.

We have our Rizpahs in these modern days Who've lost their households through no sin of theirs, On bloody fields and in the pits of war; And though their dead were sheltered in the sod By friendly hands, these have not suffered less Than she of Judah did, nor is their love Surpassed by hers. The Bard who, in great days Afar off yet, shall set to epic song The grand pathetic story of the strife That shook America for five long years, And struck its homes with desolation--he Shall in his lofty verse relate to men How, through the heat and havoc of that time, Columbia's Rachael in her Rama wept Her children, and would not be comforted; And sing of Woman waiting day by day With that high patience that no man attains, For tidings, from the bitter field, of spouse, Or son, or brother, or some other love Set face to face with Death. Moreover, he Shall say how, through her sleepless hours at night, When rain or leaves were dropping, every noise Seemed like an omen; every coming step Fell on her ears like a presentiment And every hand that rested on the door She fancied was a herald bearing grief; While every letter brought a faintness on That made her gasp before she opened it, To read the story written for her eyes, And cry, or brighten, over its contents.

Kiama Revisited

We stood by the window and hearkened To the voice of the runnels sea-driven, While, northward, the mountain-heads darkened, Girt round with the clamours of heaven. One peak with the storm at his portal Loomed out to the left of his brothers: Sustained, and sublime, and immortal, A king, and the lord of the others! Beneath him a cry from the surges Rang shrill, like a clarion calling; And about him, the wind of the gorges Went falling, and rising, and falling. But _I_, as the roofs of the thunder Were cloven with manifold fires, Turned back from the wail and the wonder, And dreamed of old days and desires. A song that was made, I remembered-- A song that was made in the gloaming Of suns which are sunken and numbered With times that my heart hath no home in. But I said to my Dream, "I am calmer Than waters asleep on the river. I can look at the hills of Kiama And bury that dead Past for ever." "Past sight, out of mind, alienated," Said the Dream to me, wearily sighing, "Ah, where is the Winter you mated To Love, its decline and its dying? Here, five years ago, there were places That knew of her cunning to grieve you, But alas! for her eyes and her graces; And wherefore and how did she leave you! Have you hidden the ways of this Woman, Her whispers, her glances, her power To hold you, as demon holds human, Chained back to the day and the hour? Say, where have you buried her sweetness, Her coldness for youth and its yearning? Is the sleep of your Sorrow a witness She is passed all the roads of returning? Was she left with her beauty, O lover, And the shreds of your passion about her, Beyond reach and where none can discover? _Ah! what is the wide world without her?_"

I answered, "Behold, I was broken, Because of this bright, bitter maiden, Who helped me with never a token To beat down the dark I had strayed in. She knew that my soul was entangled By what was too fiery to bear then; Nor cared how she withered and strangled My life with her eyes and her hair then. But I have not leapt to the level Where light and the shadows dissever? She is fair, but a beautiful devil That I have forgotten for ever!" "She is sweeter than music or singing," Said the Dream to me, heavily moaning, "Her voice in your slumber is ringing; And where is the end--the atoning? Can you look at the red of the roses; Are you friend of the fields and the flowers? Can you bear the faint day as it closes And dies into twilighted hours? Do you love the low notes of the ballad She sang in her darling old fashion?" And I whispered, "O Dream, I am pallid And perished because of my passion." But the Wraith withered out, and the rifted Gray hills gleaming over the granges, Stood robed with moon-rainbows that shifted And shimmered resplendent with changes! While, for the dim ocean ledges, The storm and the surges were blended, Sheer down the bluff sides of the ridges Spent winds and the waters descended. The forests, the crags, and the forelands, Grew sweet with the stars after raining; But out in the north-lying moorlands, I heard the lone plover complaining. From these to Kiama, half-hidden In a yellow sea-mist on the slopings Of hills, by the torrents be-ridden, I turned with my aches and my hopings, Saying _this_--"There are those that are taken By Fate to wear Love as a raiment Whose texture is trouble with breaking Of youth and no hope of repayment."

Passing Away

The spirit of beautiful faces, The light on the forehead of Love, And the spell of past visited places, And the songs and the sweetness thereof; These, touched by a hand that is hoary; These, vext with a tune of decay, Are spoiled of their glow and their glory; And the burden is, "Passing away! Passing away!"

Old years and their changes come trooping At nightfall to you and to me, When Autumn sits faded and drooping By the sorrowful waves of the sea. Faint phantoms that float in the gloaming, Return with the whispers that say, "The end which is quiet is coming; Ye are weary, and passing away! Passing away!"

It is hard to awake and discover The swiftness that waits upon Time; But youth and its beauty are over, And Love has a sigh in its rhyme. The Life that looks back and remembers, Is troubled and tired and gray, And sick of the sullen Decembers, Whose burden is, "Passing away! Passing away!"

We have wandered and wandered together, And our joys have been many and deep; But seasons of alien weather Have ended in longings for sleep. Pale purpose and perishing passion, With never a farewell to say, Die down into sobs of suppression; The burden is, "Passing away! Passing away!"

We loved the soft tangle of tresses, The lips that were fain and afraid. And the silence of far wildernesses, With their dower of splendour and shade! For faces of sweetness we waited, And days of delight and delay, Ere Time and its voices were mated To a voice that sighs, "Passing away! Passing away!"

O years interwoven with stories Of strong aspirations and high, How fleet and how false were the glories That lived in your limited sky! Here, sitting by ruinous altars Of Promise, what word shall we say To the speech that the rainy wind falters, Whose burden is, "Passing away! Passing away!"

James Lionel Michael

Be his rest the rest he sought: Calm and deep. Let no wayward word or thought Vex his sleep.

Peace--the peace that no man knows-- Now remains Where the wasted woodwind blows, Wakes and wanes.

Latter leaves, in Autumn's breath, White and sere, Sanctify the scholar's death, Lying here.

Soft surprises of the sun-- Swift, serene-- O'er the mute grave-grasses run, Cold and green.

Wet and cold the hillwinds moan; Let them rave! Love that takes a tender tone Lights his grave.

He who knew the friendless face Sorrows shew, Often sought this quiet place Years ago.

One, too apt to faint and fail, Loved to stray Here where water-shallows wail Day by day.

Care that lays her heavy hand On the best, Bound him with an iron hand; Let him rest.

Life, that flieth like a tune, Left his eyes, As an April afternoon Leaves the skies.

Peace is best! If life was hard Peace came next. Thus the scholar, thus the bard, Lies unvext.

Safely housed at last from rack-- Far from pain; Who would wish to have him back? Back again?

Let the forms he loved so well Hover near; Shine of hill and shade of dell, Year by year.

All the wilful waifs that make Beauty's face, Let them sojourn for his sake Round this place.

Flying splendours, singing streams, Lutes and lights, May they be as happy dreams: Sounds and sights;

So that Time to Love may say, "Wherefore weep? Sweet is sleep at close of day! Death is sleep."

Elijah

Into that good old Hebrew's soul sublime The spirit of the wilderness had passed; For where the thunders of imperial Storm Rolled over mighty hills; and where the caves Of cloud-capt Horeb rang with hurricane; And where wild-featured Solitude did hold Supreme dominion; there the prophet saw And heard and felt that large mysterious life Which lies remote from cities, in the woods And rocks and waters of the mountained Earth. And so it came to pass, Elijah caught That scholarship which gave him power to see And solve the deep divinity that lies With Nature, under lordly forest-domes, And by the seas; and so his spirit waxed, Made strong and perfect by its fellowship With God's authentic world, until his eyes Became a splendour, and his face was as A glory with the vision of the seer. Thereafter, thundering in the towns of men, His voice, a trumpet of the Lord, did shake All evil to its deep foundations. He, The hairy man who ran before the king, Like some wild spectre fleeting through the storm, What time Jezreel's walls were smitten hard By fourfold wind and rain; 'twas he who slew The liars at the altars of the gods, And, at the very threshold of a throne, Heaped curses on its impious lord; 'twas he Jehovah raised to grapple Sin that stalked, Arrayed about with kingship; and to strike Through gold and purple, to the heart of it. And therefore Falsehood quaked before his face, And Tyranny grew dumb at sight of him, And Lust and Murder raged abroad no more; But where these were he walked, a shining son Of Truth, and cleared and sanctified the land.

Not always was the dreaded Tishbite stern; The scourge of despots, when he saw the face Of Love in sorrow by the bed of Death, Grew tender as a maid; and she who missed A little mouth that used to catch, and cling-- A small, sweet trouble--at her yearning breast;* Yea, she of Zarephath, who sat and mourned The silence of a birdlike voice that made Her flutter with the joy of motherhood In other days, she came to know the heart Of Pity that the rugged prophet had. And when he took the soft, still child away, And laid it on his bed; and in the dark Sent up a pleading voice to Heaven; and drew The little body to his breast; and held It there until the bright, young soul returned To earth again; the gladdened woman saw A radiant beauty in Elijah's eyes, And knew the stranger was a man of God.

-- * [Note.--These lines were suggested by a passage in an unpublished drama by my friend, the author of "Ashtaroth" {A. L. Gordon}--

"And she who missed A little mouth that used to catch and cling-- A small sweet trouble--at her yearning breast."

The poem to which I am indebted is entitled "The Road to Avernus". It is only fair that I should make this acknowledgment.--H.K.] --

We want a new Elijah in these days, A mighty spirit clad in shining arms Of Truth--yea, one whose lifted voice would break, Like thunder, on our modern Apathy, And shake the fanes of Falsehood from their domes Down to the firm foundations; one whose words, Directly coming from a source divine, Would fall like flame where Vice holds festival, And search the inmost heart of nations; one Made godlike with that scholarship supreme Which comes of suffering; one, with eyes to see The very core of things; with hands to grasp High opportunities, and use them for His glorious mission; one, whose face inspired Would wear a terror for the lying soul, But seem a glory in the sight of those Who make the light and sweetness of the world, And are the high priests of the Beautiful. Yea, one like this we want amongst us now To drive away the evil fogs that choke Our social atmosphere, and leave it clear And pure and hallowed with authentic light.

Manasseh

Manasseh, lord of Judah, and the son Of him who, favoured of Jehovah, saw At midnight, when the skies were flushed with fire, The splendid mystery of the shining air, That flamed above the black Assyrian camps, And breathed upon the evil hosts at rest, And shed swift violent sleep into their eyes; Manasseh, lord of Judah, when he came To fortify himself upon his throne, And saw great strength was gathered unto him, Let slip satanic passions he had nursed For years and years; and lo! the land that He Who thundered on the Oriental Mount Girt round with awful light, had set apart For Jacob's seed--the land that Moses strained On Nebo's topmost cone to see, grew black Beneath the shadow of despotic Sin That stalked on foot-ways dashed with human blood, And mocked high Heaven by audacious fires; And as when Storm, that voice of God, is loud Within the mountained Syrian wilderness, There flits a wailing through the wilted pines, So in the city of the wicked king A voice, like Abel's crying from the ground, Made sorrow of the broken evening winds, And darkness of the fair young morning lights, And silence in the homes of hunted men.

But in a time when grey-winged Autumn fogs Shut off the sun from Carmel's seaward side, And fitful gusts did speak within the trees Of rain beyond the waters, while the priests In Hinnom's echoing valley offered up Unhallowed sacrifices unto gods Of brass and stone, there came a trumpet's voice Along the bald, bleak northern flats; and then A harnessed horseman, riding furiously, Dashed down the ridge with an exceeding cry Of "Esarhaddon, Esarhaddon! haste Away, ye elders, lo, the swarthy foe Six leagues from hence hath made the land a fire, And all the dwellers of the hollowed hills Are flying hitherwards before a flame Of fifty thousand swords!" At this the men Of Baal turned about, set face, and fled Towards the thickets, where the impious king, Ringed round by grey, gaunt wizards with the brand Of Belial on their features, cowered low, And hid himself amongst the tangled thorns And shivered in a bitter seaborn wind, And caught the whiteness of a deathly fear.

There where the ash-pale forest-leaves were touched By Morning's shining fingers, and the inland depths Sent out rain-plenished voices west and south, The steel-clad scouts of Esarhaddon came And searched, and found Manasseh whom they bound And dragged before the swart Assyrian king; And Esarhaddon, scourge of Heaven, sent To strange Evil at its chiefest fanes, And so fulfil a dread divine decree, Took Judah's despot, fettered hand and foot, And cast him bleeding on a dungeon floor Hard by where swift Euphrates chafes his brink And gleams from cataract to cataract, And gives the gale a deep midwinter tone.

So fared Manasseh for the sins which brought Pale-featured Desolation to the tents Of alienated Judah; but one night, When ninety moons of wild unrest had passed, The humbled son of Hezekiah turned Himself towards the wall, and prayed and wept; And in an awful darkness face to face With God, he said--"I know, O Lord of Hosts, That Thou art wise and just and kind, and I Am shapen in iniquity; but by The years of black captivity, whose days And nights have marked my spirit passing through Fierce furnaces of suffering, and seen It groping in blind shadows with a hope To reach Thy Hand--by these, O Father, these That brought the swift, sad silver to my head Which should have come with Age--which came with Pain, I pray Thee hear these supplications now, And stoop and lift me from my low estate, And lend me this once my dominionship, So I may strive to live the bad Past down, And lead henceforth a white and wholesome life, And be thy contrite servant, Lord, indeed!"

The prayer was not in vain: for while the storm Sang high above the dim Chaldean domes-- While, in the pines, the spirit of the rain Sobbed fitfully, Jehovah's angel came And made a splendour of the dungeon walls, And smote the bars, and led Manasseh forth And caught him up, nor set him down again Until the turrets of Jerusalem Sprang white before the flying travellers Against the congregated morning hills.

And he, the broken man made whole again, Was faithful to his promise. Every day Thereafter passing, bore upon its wings Some shining record of his faultless life, Some brightness of a high resolve fulfilled; And in good time, when all the land had rest, He found that he had lived the bad Past down, And gave God praise, and with his fathers slept.

Thus ends the story of Manasseh. If This verse should catch the eyes of one whose sin Lies heavy on his soul; who finds himself A shame-faced alien when he walks abroad, A moping shadow when he sits at home; Who has no human friends; who, day by day, Is smitten down by icy level looks From that cold Virtue which is merciless Because it knoweth not what wrestling with A fierce temptation means; if such a one Should read my tale of Hezekiah's son, Let him take heart, and gather up his strength, And step above men's scorn, and find his way By paths of fire, as brave Manasseh did, Up to the white heights of a blameless life; And it will come to pass that in the face Of grey old enmities, whose partial eyes Are blind to reformation, he will taste A sweetness in his thoughts, and live his time Arrayed with the efficient armour of That noble power which grows of self-respect, And makes a man a pillar in the world.

Caroline Chisholm

"A perfect woman, nobly planned, To warn, to comfort, and command."

The Priests and the Levites went forth, to feast at the courts of the Kings; They were vain of their greatness and worth, and gladdened with glittering things; They were fair in the favour of gold, and they walked on, with delicate feet, Where, famished and faint with the cold, the women fell down in the street.

The Priests and the Levites looked round, all vexed and perplexed at the cries Of the maiden who crouched to the ground with the madness of want in her eyes; And they muttered--"Few praises are earned when good hath been wrought in the dark; While the backs of the people are turned, we choose not to loiter nor hark."

Moreover they said--"It is fair that our deeds in the daylight should shine: If we feasted you, who would declare that we gave you our honey and wine." They gathered up garments of gold, and they stepped with their delicate feet, And the women who famished with cold, were left with the snow in the street.

The winds and the rains were abroad--the homeless looked vainly for alms; And they prayed in the dark to the Lord, with agony clenched in their palms, "There is none of us left that is whole," they cried, through their faltering breath, "We are clothed with a sickness of soul, and the shape of the shadow of death."

He heard them, and turned to the earth!-- "I am pained," said the Lord, "at the woe Of my children so smitten with dearth; but the night of their trouble shall go." He called on His Chosen to come: she listened, and hastened to rise; And He charged her to build them a home, where the tears should be dried from their eyes.

God's servant came forth from the South: she told of a plentiful land; And wisdom was set in her mouth, and strength in the thews of her hand. She lifted them out of their fear, and they thought her their Moses and said: "We shall follow you, sister, from here to the country of sunshine and bread."