The New World Part 2

When we who hugged awhile the golden bowl Of greed behold it now a sieve Through which is drained invisibly A nectar we were saving for the soul, Then not in vain have many gone The empty ways of stealth Seeking a firmer base than honesty For building happiness upon....

And by the ancient agonizing test We have slowly guessed That a just portion of the whole Is all there is of wealth.

When those who labor wake And care ...

And through the tingling air A dead man's voice, by living men renewed And women, dares democracy To self-respect: "Open the lands! Let mankind share The ample livelihood they bear!"-- Then not in vain have the poor known distress, Teaching the rich that happiness Is something no man may--possess.

Little by little we, whose fathers fought Impa.s.sioned, are ashamed Of the familiar thought That waste of blood is honourable feud: Little by little from the wondering land The agitation and the lie of war Shall pa.s.s; for in the heart disclaimed Murder shall be abandoned by the hand.

And while there grows a fellows.h.i.+p of unshed blood To stop the wound and heal the scar Of time, with sudden glorious apt.i.tude Woman a.s.sumes her part. Her pity in a flood Flings down the gate.

She has been made to wait Too long, undreaming and untaught The touch and beauty of democracy.

But, entering now the strife In which her saving sense is due, She watches and she grows aware, Holding a child more dear than property, That the many perish to empower the few, That homeless politics have split apart The common country of the human heart.

(Your heart is beating, Celia, like a song!) .... For man has need Not merely of the lips that kiss and hands that feed But of the hearts that heed And of the minds that speed Like rain.

Loving a mother or a wife, Let him release her tenderness, to make him strong, And use her beauty and receive her law: The very life of life.

In temporary pain The age is bearing a new breed Of men and women, patriots of the world And one another. Boundaries in vain, Birthrights and countries, would constrain The old diversity of seed To be diversity of soul.

O mighty patriots, maintain Your loyalty!--till flags unfurled For battle shall arraign The traitors who unfurled them, shall remain And s.h.i.+ne over an army with no slain, And men from every nation shall enroll And women--in the hardihood of peace!

What can my anger do but cease?

Whom shall I fight and who shall be my enemy When he is I and I am he?

Let me have done with that old G.o.d outside Who watched with preference and answered prayer, The G.o.dhead that replied Now here, now there, Where heavy cannon were Or coins of gold!

Let me receive communion with all men, Acknowledging our one and only soul!

For not till then Can G.o.d be G.o.d, till we ourselves are whole.

VI

Once in a smoking-car, I saw a scene That made my blood stand still....

While the sun smouldered in a great ravine, And I, with elbow on the window-sill, Was watching the dim ember of the west, Half-heard, but poignant as a bell For fire, there came a moan; the voice of one in h.e.l.l.

I turned. Across the car were two young men, Yet hardly more than boys, French by their look, and brothers, And one was moaning on the other's breast.

His face was hid away. I could not tell What words he said, half English and half French. I only knew Both men were suffering, not one but two.

And then that face came into view, Gaunt and unshaved, with shadows and wild eyes, A face of madness and of desolation. And his cries, For all his mate could do, Rang out, a shrill and savage noise, And tears ran down the stubble of his cheek.

The other face was younger, clean and sad With the manful stricken beauty of a lad Who had intended always to be glad.

.... The touch of his compa.s.sion, like a mother's, Pitied the madman, soothed him and caressed.

And then I heard him speak, In a low voice: "Mon frere, mon frere!

Calme-toi! Right here's your place."

And, opening his coat, he pressed Upon his heart the wanderer's face And smoothed the tangled hair.

After a moment peaceful there, The maniac screamed--struck out and fell Across his brother's arm. Love could not quell His anger. Wrists together high in air He rose and with a yell Brought down his handcuffs toward his brother's face-- But his hands were pinned below his waist, By a burly, silent sheriff, and some hideous thing was bound Around his arms and feet And he was laid upon the narrow seat.

And then that sound, That moan Of one forsaken and alone!

"Seigneur! Le createur du ciel et de la terre!

Forgotten me! Forgotten me!"

.... And when the voice grew weak The brother leaned again, embraced The huddled body. But a shriek Repulsed him: "Non! Detache-moi! I don't care For you. Non! Tu es l'homme qui m'a trahi!

Non! Tu n'es pas mon frere!"

But as often as that stricken mind would fill With the great anguish and the rush of hate, The boy, his young eyes older, older, Would curve his shoulder To the other's pain and hold that haunted face close to his face And say: "O wait!

You will know me better by and by.

Mon pauvre pet.i.t, be still!

Right here's your place."

.... The gleam! and then the blinded stare, The cry: "Non, tu n'es pas mon frere!"

I saw myself, myself, as blind As he. And something smothers My reason. And I do not know my brothers....

But every day declare: "Non, tu n'es pas mon frere!"

But in the outcome, I can see....

Closer than any brother Shall they be to one another And to me, Closer than mother, father, daughter, son, O closer than a lover shall they be, When madness like a storm shall roll Away, leaving illumination. Within everyone The nearness has begun Toward some loved life and toward the soul Perceived therein: the elemental ache to be made whole With beauty and with love.--O I have ached and longed in the embrace Of one I love to be undone Of differences, to yield and run Within the very blood and being of my dear, One body and one face, One spirit in all s.p.a.ce, Mingled and indissoluble. And I have felt a mortal tear Smart on my lids, when I had been so near To Celia that I knew not which was I, Yet the day returned between us and the sky Held distances that were not clear To us and we were two again that had been almost one.

A mother yields herself to enter Her child, who nestles close and sleeps With all his wisdom pressed For comfort to her breast.

I can remember my relinquishment Of consciousness and care, Almost of life, upon my mother's heart--the great content Of being there.

And then I loved a starry boy of three, Who looked about him, smiled and took to me, Held out his arms and chose me among men For his companion, to confide His smiles in and to be At ease with. Closely by my side He sat and touched the world, to see If it were solid and worth touching. When he died, I too was dead ... and yet I hear him say, Laughing within my heart today: "Lo, being you, And having lived your years, this will I do, And this, and this!"

I have my boy again.

I greet him nearer than a kiss.

And so, from birth to death, out of confusion The secret creeps Across the deeps From its eternal centre In the soul.

Communion is the cause and the conclusion And the unfailing sacrament Not only of the mystical frequenter Of temples, where the body of the dead Creates divine The living body through the bread And wine, But G.o.d discovers and discovers His beauty in all lovers.

And, to make His beauty whole, Body and body, soul and soul, combine His one ident.i.ty with yours and mine.

I know a fellow in a steel-mill who, intent Upon his labours and his happiness, had meant In his own wisdom to be blest, Had made his own unaided way To schooling, opportunity, Success. And then he loved and married. And his bride, After a brief year, died.

I went to him to see If I might comfort him. The comfort came to me.

"David," I said, "under the temporary ache There is unwonted nearness with the dead."

I felt his two hands take The sentence from me with a grip Forged in the mills. He told me that his tears were shed Before her breath went. After that, instead Of grief, she came herself. He felt her slip Into his being like a miracle, her lip Whispering on his, to slake His need of her.--"And in the night I wake With wonder and I find my bride And her embrace there in our bed, Within my very being, not outside!

.... We have each other more, much more,"

He said, "now than before.

This very moment while I shake Your hand, my friend, Not only I, But she is touching you--and laughs with me because I cried For her.... People would think me crazy if I told.

But something in what you said made me bold To let you meet my bride!"

It was not madness. David's eye Was clear and open-seeing.

His life Had faced in death and understood in his young wife, As I when Celia died, The secret of G.o.d's being.

VII

Among good citizens, I praise Again a woman whom I knew and know, A citizen whom I have seen Most heartily, most patiently Making G.o.d's mind, A citizen who, dead, Yet s.h.i.+nes across her white-remembered ways As the nearness of a light across the snow....

My Celia, mystical, serene, Laughing and kind.

And still I hear among New Hamps.h.i.+re trees Her happy speech: "Democracy is beauty's inmost reach."

And still her voice announces plain The mystic gain Of friends from adversaries and of peace from pain: Beauty's control Of every soul Surrendering in victory.

.... Well I recall how she explained to me With sunlight on her head When last we looked, as many times before, Over those hundred foothills rolling like the sea.

"Where mountains are, door after door Unlocks within me, opens wide And leaves no difference in my heart," she said, "From anything outside."

Not only Celia, speaking, taught me these The tenets of her beauty; but her life was such That I believed as by a palpable touch That heals and tends.

Not better nor more learned nor more wise In many ways than others of my friends, Celia was happier.

Their excellencies and their destinies Became, contributing, a part of her, Anointed her awhile among all men An eminent citizen, A generous arbiter.

Not less bereaved than others of my friends, Celia was lovelier.

And now, though something of her dies, Her heart of love a.s.sembles and transcends Laws, letters, personalities, Beginnings, pa.s.sages and ends.

Often I start and look beside me for the stir Of her sweet presence come again.

I have cried out to her, So vivid has begun Some dear-remembered sentence in her voice.

If a deluded wakeful thrush, Seeing a light in a window, sings to the sun, Yet he shall soon rejoice; When the great dawn of day Opens a thousand windows into one.

On a path where thrushes wake--called Celia's Way-- Time after time She led me high among the rills.