Part 1

FREEDOM, TRUTH AND BEAUTY

SONNETS BY EDWARD DOYLE

Author of Cagliostro, Moody Moments, the American Soldier, the Haunted Temple and other poems; The Comet, a play of our times and Genevra, a play of Mediaeval Florence.

"He owns only his mental vision. But this is clear and broad of range--as broad, indeed, as that of Dante, Milton and Goethe, sweeping beyond the horizon of eschatology and mounting, like Francis Thompson's, even to the Throne of Grace itself when the theme demands reverential daring."

--STANDARD AND TIMES, PHILADELPHIA.

MANHATTAN AND BRONX ADVOCATE 1712 Amsterdam Avenue, New York.

THE SECOND REVISED EDITION

_Copyright, 1921_ BY EDWARD DOYLE

CONTENTS

PAGE NO.

The Quality of Edward Doyle's Work, by Ella Wheeler Wilcox 7 True Nationalism, by David Klein, Ph.D. 9 Genevra, Review In the Independent 12 Dedication to the Daughters of the American Revolution 13 The Proem 19 The Atlantic 20 Human Freedom 20 The Stars 21 The Genesis of Freedom 21 The Pilgrim Fathers 23 Plymouth Rock 23 The Catholics in Maryland 24 A Forest for the King's Hawks 24 To Arms Shouts Freedom 25 British Soldiery 25 Amphibious Barry 26 Freedom's Triumph 26 Washington's Army and Barry's Navy 27 The Sunken Continent 27 Elisha Brown 28 Evacuation Day 28 Manhatta 29 The Burning of Washington City by the British 29 The Land of the Great Spirit 30 The Blight to Spring 30 The Scorn of Human Rights 31 Not This Our Country's Glory 31 America's Glory No Fugitive 32 Hate Thou Not Any Man 33 The Celtic Soul Cry 34 British Glory in Kipling's Boots 36 To the English People 36 Shakespeare 37 England's Righteousness 37 The Massacre of the Welsh Miners 38 A Dirty Work 38 Human Nature 39 Our Country--Soul and Character 39 Juda and Erin 41 The Easter Rising in Ireland 41 The Fight in Ireland 42 To Erin 42 The Queen of Beauty 43 Liberty the Light to Peace 43 Why Play with Words, England 44 Freedom's Wardens 44 List to Demosthenes, If Not to Hearst 45 Caledonia 45 Canada 47 Dragon Incursions 51 All Stars Merged in One 52 Nemesis 52 Lincoln's Lightening in Wilson's Hands 53 The Cataclysm 54 An Epoch's Angel Fall 54 The America of the Future 55 The Inevitable 56 Reptiles with Wings 57 The Outlaws in Our Country 58 The Press 59 The Truth 59 Our Lord's Last Prayer 60 Thought Is Truth's Echo 60 Heaven 61 Humility 61 The Night of Mysteries 62 What the Poets Show 62 The Soul's Ascension 63 Lyric Transport 63 The Sunrise 64 Two Darknesses 64 The Doom of Hate 65 The Evil in the World 65 The Earth Renewed by Memory 66 In the Dimple of Beauty's Cheek 66 The Camp Fire 67 Mother 67 In Heaven No Heart Still Heaves 68 Saint Peter's Cathedral in Rome 68 My Bugler Boy 69 Kaiser, Beware 69 Woman in Germany 70 O Thou Pale Moon 70 The Tiger 71 To Our Boys "Over There" 71 The Profiteers 72 Why the Stars Laugh 72 Prayer for the World Peace 73 Religion 73 The Golden Jubilee of Sisters of Charity 74 Winifred Holt, the Lifesaver of the Blind 75 A Choice 75 All Luminaires Have One Trend 76 Life Takes Morning Hues with the Arts of Peace 76 U. S. Senator James A. O. Gorman and the Stalwarts 77 Minister of Justice Palmer, A Bastile Builder 77 A Speck, But Not a Stain, Harvard 78 Supreme Court Justice Charles L. Guy 78 Rear Admiral Sims 79 Saint George and the Dragon 79

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THE QUALITY OF THE WORKS OF EDWARD DOYLE

The quality of Edward Doyle's work was appraised by Ella Wheeler Wilcox in the following article by Mrs. Wilcox which appeared in the New York Evening Journal and the San Francisco _Examiner_, in 1905:

Shut your eyes and bind them with a black cloth and try for one hour to see how cheerful you can be. Then imagine yourself deprived for life of the light of day.

Perhaps this experiment will make you less rebellious with your present lot.

Then take the little book called "The Haunted Temple and Other Poems," by Edward Doyle, the blind poet of Harlem, and read and wonder and feel ashamed of any mood of distrust of God and discontent with life you have ever indulged.

Mr. Doyle has been blind for the last thirty-seven years; he has lived a half century.

Therefore he still remembers the privilege of seeing God's world when a lad, and this must augment rather than ameliorate his sorrow.

He who has never known the use of eyes cannot fully understand the immensity of the loss of sight.

I hear people in possession of all their senses, and with many blessings, bewail the fact that they were ever born.

They have missed some aim, failed of some cherished ambition, lost some special joy or been defeated in some purpose.

A GREAT SOUL

And so they sit in spiritual darkness and curse life and doubt God. But here is a great soul who has found his divine self in the darkness and who sends out this wonderful song of joy and gratitude.

Read it, oh, ye weak repiners, and read it again and again. It is beautiful in thought, perfect in expression and glorious with truth.

CHIME, DARK BELL

My life is in deep darkness; still, I cry, With joy to my Creator, "It is well!" Were worlds my words, what firmaments would tell My transport at the consciousness that I Who was not, Am! To be--oh, that is why The awful convex dark in which I dwell Is tongued with joy, and chimes a temple bell. Antiphonally to the choirs on high! Chime cheerily, dark bell! for were no more Than consciousness my gift, this were to know The Giver Good--which sums up all the lore Eternity can possibly bestow. Chime! for thy metal is the molten ore Of the great stars, and marks no wreck below.

I know a gifted and brilliant man in New York who is full of charm and wit in conversation, but the moment he touches a pen he becomes, as a rule, a melancholy pessimist, crying out at the injustice of the world and the uselessness of high endeavor in the field of art.

When urged to take a different mental attitude for the sake of the reading world, which needs strong tonics of hope and courage, rather than the slow poison of pessimism, however subtly sweet the brew, my friend responds that "The song and dance of literature is not my special gift." And he is obliged to "speak of the world as I find it."

He is an able-bodied man, in the prime of life, with splendid years waiting on his threshold to lead him to any height he may wish to climb. But to his mental vision, nothing is really "worth while."

What a rebuke this wonderful poem of Edward Doyle's should be to all such men and women. What an inspiration it should be to every mortal who reads it, to look within, and find the =Kingdom of God= as this blind poet has found it.

Mr. Doyle was in St. Francis Xavier's College when his great affliction fell upon him. He started a local paper, The Advocate, in Harlem twenty-three years ago and has in the darkness of his physical vision developed his poetical talent and given the world some great lines.

AN INSPIRATION

Here is a poem which throbs with the keen anguish which must have been his guest through many silent hours of these thirty-seven years:

TO A CHILD READING

My darling, spell the words out. You may creep Across the syllables on hands and knees, And stumble often, yet pass me with ease And reach the spring upon the summit steep. Oh, I could lay me down, dear child, and weep These charr'd orbs out, but that you then might cease Your upward effort, and with inquiries Stoop down and probe my heart too deep, too deep! I thirst for Knowledge. Oh, for an endless drink Your goblet leaks the whole way from the spring-- No matter, to its rim a few drops cling, And these refresh me with the joy to think That you, my darling, have the morning's wing To cross the mountain at whose base I sink.

But Edward Doyle has not sunk "at the mountain's base." He is far up its summit, and he will go higher. He has found God, and nothing can hinder his flight. He is an inspiration to all struggling, toiling souls on earth.

As I read his book, with its strong clarion cry of faith and joy and courage, and ponder over the carefully finished thoughts and beautifully polished lines, I feel ashamed of my own small achievements, and am inspired to new efforts.

Glory and success to you, Edward Doyle.

ELLA WHEELER WILCOX.

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TRUE NATIONALISM

(_From the "Maccabaein", June, 1920._)

THE JEWS IN RUSSIA

From town and village to a wood, stript bare, As they of their possessions, see them throng. Above them grows a cloud; it moves along, As flee they from the circling wolf pack's glare. Is it their Brocken-Shadow of despair, The looming of their life of cruel wrong For countless ages? No; their faith is strong In their Jehovah; that huge cloud is prayer.

A flash of light, and black the despot lies. What thunder round the world! 'Tis transport's strain Proclaiming loud: "No righteous prayer is vain No God-imploring tears are lost; they rise Into a cloud, and in the sky remain Till they draw lightening from Jehovah's eyes."

The author of this superb little gem, like Homer, is blind; but, like Homer, his mental vision is clear, and broad, and deep. President Schurman, of Cornell University, commenting on Doyle once said: "It is as true today as of yore that the genuine poet, even though blind, is the Seer and Prophet of his generation." The poem here printed illustrates the point. Did we not know that it was published some fifteen years ago in a volume entitled "The Haunted Temple," we should assume that it was written on the occasion of the fall of the Czar. In fact, however, it merely foretells this event by some dozen years. And how terribly applicable are the lines to the facts of today! The prophecy is one capable of repeated fulfillment.

But it is as a prophet of nationalism that this man compels our particular attention. The prophecy is embodied in a play entitled "The Comet, a Play of Our Times," brought out as far back as 1908. The play is a microcosm of American life. The chief character is a college president, and he it is that is chosen to expound the true nature of nationalism and to give voice and utterance to the principle of self-determination. (Is it merely a coincidence that at that time Woodrow Wilson was President of Princeton, or is it a case of poetic vision. Wilson, be it remembered, was already a national figure, and there were already glimmerings that he was destined to usher in a new era in politics.) According to the protagonist, America is not "a boiling cauldron in which the elements seethe, but never settle," but rather a college where every class is taught to translate--

"Into the common speech of daily life The country's loftiest ideals--"

and any body of citizens form a part of our republic only in so far--

"As they contribute to its character As leader of the nations unto Right By thought or deed, in service for mankind."

We must lead the peoples of the world to freedom. And what is freedom?

"'Tis intelligence Aloof from harm and hamper, grandly circling Its native sun-lit peaks, the highest hopes Heaved from the heart of man upon the earth, In ranges long as time and soul endure."

What, then, is America's duty to the oppressed race or the small nation? It is to "wake and disabuse it of false hope"--

"and urge it on To the development of its own powers, The culmination of its own ideals, The star seed sown by God,--the only means By which a tribe can thrive to its perfection."

To make this possible, civilization must be given a more human content. It is therefore necessary to awake human intelligence, "the godlike genius," to a realization of the fact--

"--that, on having brought This world from out the chaos dark Of waters and of woody wilderness, And shaped it into hills of hope for man, Must providence its beautiful creation With altruistic love and tenderness; So that all tribes of man, what'er their hue, Have each a hill where it can touch the star That it has followed with its mental growth."

Such a program is rendered imperative by the inexorability of the law of race, which nullifies any attempts to force assimilation:

"It is a foolish, futile thing To try to shape society by codes, Vetoed by Nature. Nature trumpets forth No edict, through the instinct of a race, Proclaiming certain territory hers And warning all encroaching powers therefrom, Without the ordering out of her reserves To see to it the edict is enforced. Let politics keep off forbidden shores."

If any powers preserve in a policy of oppression, our duty is plain:

"To teach the barbarous tribes throughout the globe, Christian or Turk, that all humanity Is territory sheltered by our flag; That butchery must cease throughout the world; That, having ended human slavery, Old glory has a mission from on high To stop the slaughter of the smiling babe, The pale, crazed mother, weak, defenseless sire, All places on the habitable globe."

Finally to render feasible the ideal development of all peoples, and put an end to war, America must bring about a league of all nations. It develops on us--

"To get the races by degrees together To talk their grievance over, in a voice As gentle as a woman's.... There is no education in the world Like human contact for mankind's advance; All differences, then, adjust themselves; But when two races are estranged by hate, They grow so deaf to one another's rights, That it soon comes to pass that either has To use the trumpet of artillery In order to be heard at all."

Recently, Doyle wrote the following lines. Their application is obvious:

"Vault Godward, Poet. What though few may climb The mountain and the star on trail of thee? Thy wing-flash beams toward man, and if it be True inspiration--whether thought sublime, Or fervor for the truth, or liberty-- Thy light will reach the earth in goodly time."

What wonder that from so lofty an outlook his searching eye should pierce the tragedy of "The Jews in Russia"--or elsewhere--should pierce even the revenges that Time would ring in, and rest on a vision of righteous peace!

DAVID KLEIN, Ph.D.

_AUTHOR OF LITERARY CRITICISM, from the Elizabethian Dramatist._

GENEVRA

(_From the "Independent," May 30, 1912._)

The scene of Mr. Edward Doyle's new play is the Florence of 1400; the atmosphere that of a plague stricken city in a time when man was helpless, authorities hopeless, social life in shreds and patches. The plot of the play founded on this state of affairs is rich in incident, varied and sufficiently complex in color, passion and character to furnish material for an exciting spectacular representation. The tragic element is strong, but supported and shaded by the company of roysterers, a jester, whose foolery is a compound of bluff of that period and bluff of modern politics and athletics. The jester, the black company and the penitents, together with the roysterers, form now the foreground, now the background, of action, which in itself is never without the dolorous sound of the death bell. The doomed city is under a spell comparable to that set forth so vividly in Manzoni's "I Promessi Sposi." Says the villain of the plot as he listens from his seat at the festive board:

"It bodes ill for the black Cowled company To make a visit to a festive house. 'Tis like death looking in and whispering 'Next.' Fool, call the servants. Bid them fetch the wine-- A cask of it--the best varnaccio! Here come my friends to help me drown the Plague."

Pictures like this as sharply defined are frequent and throw in shadowed blackening on shadow. The author defends the use of a meteorological phenomenon translated in the spirit of the time as supernatural by quoting Dante as recognizing it, but the authority of Dante was not necessary to justify the dramatist in introducing the "Crimson Cross." It was a part of the pyrotechnics of the church propaganda. Though the advance of scientific discovery has laid a heavy hand on thaumaturgy of the sort, it would no doubt, have its use when properly handled on a modern stage. The action of the drama is rapid and natural, the characters well drawn and individualized, the dialogue spicy, forceful and varied.

Price $1.00.

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DEDICATION

TO THE DAUGHTERS OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION

I

What lineage so noble as from Sires, Laureled by Freedom? For, who, but the brave Have glory to transmit? The Hero's grave Blooms ever. It is there the spring retires To dream to flowers, her heart and soul desires, When winter's whitening wind, like wash of wave, Sweeps mauseleums of the skulk and knave From mounts of glare off to Oblivion's mires.

The bloom, for which mere wealth lacks length of arm, And fainting Time takes for reviving scent, Fame, with bright eyes from heart and soul content, Forms wreaths for Valor's Daughters--crowns that charm Not with death-smells from Human welfare rent But breath of Country's rescue from dire harm.

II

Those crowns, not cold from death sweat on the brow, At sight of apparitions with fixed stare, But warm with summer, conjuring beauties rare-- Wilt not. They are dewed daily by your vow, Daughters of sires who, to no thrall, would bow! Which, at the alter with raised hands, ye swear, Cheering the blessed spirits, gathered there, That, like their Mothers, are their daughters now.

True women--and therefore, craft foilers clever-- With sons for your hearts utterance, ye sue Not, but like Barry to the British crew, Ye cry out: "What! we strike our colors? Never! Fie, shot! fie, Gold! these colors, since they drew Their first star-breath, are God's, and God's forever."

Ye know the Leopard changes not his spots. The Prince of Peace, who spake eternal truth, Confirmed this fact of Nature. He, with ruth Omniscient, saw afar, the scarlet clots Of English nature, in profidious plots For conquest, mangling not alone brave youth With teeth set, but old age without a tooth, And Mothers, clutching up their bleeding tots.

Oh, yea, this beast makes his own desert, still; And Ireland, India and Egypt show His spots so spread, he is one ghastly glow; Aye, as your sires saw him from Bunker Hill. Oh, vain, gold rubs the skin and press shouts, "Lo! It has not now one spot of threatening ill."

IV

O Daughters of the brave, well ye abjure The fiend and all his works. Ye know his smiles Are fire-fly flare at gloaming, lighting miles Of snake-boughed forests down to swamps, impure From mind and soul decay; hence are heart-sure That creed and racial hatreds are his wiles, For God is Love, and Love draws, reconsiles, And is the strength that makes our land endure.

O Mothers, as you lift your babes and gaze Into their eyes, your love runs through their vains In crimson flushes--oh, your love that pains At any of God's creatures hurt! that stays; The heavens may pass away, but that remains, Being of Christ, who walks earth Mother-ways.

V

Oh, like your sires, you, too, know Freedom's worth To Human Spirit. For its liberation, A God unrealmed himself by tribulation, And was an out-cast on a scornful earth. Christ is no myth and, since with Human birth He forms new Heavens for blissful habitation-- There unto is the Freedom of the Nation; All other trend is down to dark and dearth.

When from the darkness rainbowed birth comes pouring, Your virtue heeds the voice, Eternity-- Re-echos: "Let them come." 'Tis Nature's plea For broadening progress; Nay, 'tis God imploring The Human to take strength for Liberty, Truth, Honor, to catch up to the stars, a-soaring.

VI

O Daughters of brave sires, what is true glory? No marsh-ward falling star, however bright. 'Tis inspirational; its upward flight Lifts generations--such your Father's story, And also yours, for is not that, too, gory? You pour out your hearts blood in sons to fight For honor, and cease not till every right Has been set down in Triumph's inventory.

Oh, into daughters, too, old noble Mothers! You pour out your hearts blood that, in your place, They may fill up the ranks and, as in case Of Molly Pitcher, man guns for their brothers, And hearten firm, the trembling human race To know, though brave men fall, there still comes others.

VII

If Christ's foreshadowing in Juda's haze Was of his grief, 'tis of His triumph, here, For, is not His celestrial glory clear In Freedom for all men? First, gaseous rays In Maryland, then rounded firm full blaze In the Republic, it draws every sphere Of Human welfare, whether far or near, From depths occult to nights with dawns and days.

The Freedom of the Generation's longing Reflects Lord Christ in glory, hour by hour, With more distinctness, as you, with His power, Free heart and brain from every brother-wronging, And give your offspring, these, as flesh and dower, To live and lead the millions, hither thronging.

VIII

Oh, ever Mothers--shaping robust youth No less than infant, and as perfectly! There's life blood to their veins from when on knee To when thy battle, from your broadening ruth For Human kind and fervent love of truth. If, like their fathers, they have come to be The wonder of the world, for liberty, Your virtue, 'tis, that in their valor greweth.

Oh, as the Roman Mother, when she showed For jewels, her two sons, saw each of them In Time's Tiara, glittering there a gem; So, see your offspring shine. The light, bestowed Your Fathers, in your sons is diamond flame, Encircling Freedom's ocean-walled abode.

IX

Is it Apocalyptic Vision, when White-winged Columbus swoops from Spain's palmed shore And, from dark depths, lifts at San Salvador, A continent, adrip with streams which, then, Become the fountain of the Psalmist's ken, Where Right the heart, from hoof to horn foam-hoar From craggy speed, slakes thirst, and, evermore, Comes Hope's whole clattering herd?--you chant, "Amen."

Aye, for your sires made earth this new creation Where, from San Salvadore and Plymouth Reef To Westward Mission Trails, ascends belief In God and, therefore, in the Soul's Salvation Through Freedom, in white, spiral spray which grief Sees, spite earth-mists, or solar obscuration.

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SONNETS

FREEDOM, TRUTH AND BEAUTY

THE PROEM

Soar thou aloft, though thou ascend alone, O Human Spirit! Thou canst not be lost. What though yon stars, the azure's nightly frost Melt dark, or mount round thee an arctic zone! Thou hast sun-warmth and star-source of thine own. If thou mount not, how bitter is the cost! What anguish, when whirled down, or tempest tossed, To know how high toward God thou mightst have flown!

Vault Godward, Poet. What though few may climb The mountain and the star on trail of thee? Thy wing-flash beams toward Man, and, if it be True inspiration--whether thought sublime, Or fervor for the Truth, or Liberty-- Thy light will reach the earth in goodly time.

THE ATLANTIC