Dreams and Dust - BestLightNovel.com
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CONQUERORS leonine, lordly, Princes and vaunting kings, Ye are drunk with the sound of your braggart trumps-- _But lo! ye are little things!
Earth ... it is charnel with monarchs!
And the puffs of dust that start Where your war steeds stamp with their ringing hoofs Were each some warrior's heart._
Peoples imperial, mighty, Masterful, challenging fate, The tread of your cohorts shakes the hills-- _But lo! ye are not great!
Nations that swarm and murmur, Ye are moths that flutter and climb-- Ye are whirling gnats, ye are swirling bees, Tossed in the winds of time!_
Earth that is flushed with glory, A marvelous world ye are!
_But lo! in the midst of a million stars Ye are only one pale star!
A breath stirs the dark abysses....
The deeps below the deep Are troubled and vexed ... and a thousand worlds Fall on eternal sleep!_
THE COMRADE
I
HATH not man at his n.o.blest An air of something more than man?-- A hint of grace immortal, Born of his greatly daring to a.s.sist the G.o.ds In conquering these s.h.a.ggy wastes, These desert worlds, And planting life and order in these stars?-- So Woman at her best: Her eyes are bright with visions and with dreams That triumph over time; Her plumed thought, wing for wing, is mate with his.
II
The world rolls on from dream to dream, And 'neath the vast impersonal revenges of its going,
Crushed fools that cried defeat Lie dead amid the dust they prophesied-- Ye doubters of man's larger destiny, Ye that despair, Look backward down the vistaed years, And all is battle--and all victory!
Man fought, to be a man!
Through painful centuries the slow beast fought, Blinded and baffled, fought to gain his soul;-- Wild, hairy, s.h.a.g, and feared of shadows, Yet the clouds Made him strange signals that he puzzled o'er;-- Beast, child, and ape, And yet the winds harped to him, and the sea Rolled in upon his consciousness Its tides of wonder and romance;-- Uncouth and caked with mire, And yet the stars said something to him, and the sun Declared itself a G.o.d;-- The lagging cycles turned at last The pictures into thought, Thought flowered in soul;-- But, oh, the myriad weary years Ere Caliban was Shakespeare's self And Darwin's ape had Darwin's brain!-- The battling, battling, and the steep ascent, The fight to hold the little gained, The loss, the doubt, the shaken heart, The stubborn, groping slow recovery!-- But looking backward toward the dim beginnings, You that despair, Hath he not climbed and conquered?
Look backward and all's Victory!
What coward looks forward and foresees defeat?
III
Who climbed beside him, and who fought And suffered and was glad?
Is she a lesser thing than he, Who stained the slopes with b.l.o.o.d.y feet, or stood Beside him on some hard-won eminence of hope Exulting as the bold dawn swept A harper hand along the ringing hills?
Flesh of his flesh, and of his soul the soul, Hath she not fought, hath she not climbed?
And how is she a lesser thing?-- Nay, if she ever was 'Twas we that made her so, who called her queen But kept her slave.
IV
Had she not courage for the fight?
Hath she not courage for the years to come?
Hath she not courage who descends alone-- (How pitifully alone, except for Love!) Where man's thought even falters that would follow, Into the shadowy abyss (Through vast and murmurous caverns dark with crowding dread And terrible with hovering wings), To battle there with Death?--to battle There with Death, and wrest from him, O Conqueror and Mother, Life!
V
Hath she too long dwelt dream-bound in the world of love,
Unconscious of the sterner throes, The more austere, impersonal, wide faith, The urge that drives Christs to the cross Not for the love of one beloved, But for the love of all?
If so, she wakes!
Wakes and demands a share in all man's bolder destinies, The high, audacious ventures of the soul That thinks to scale the bastioned slopes And strike stark Chaos from his throne.
We still stand in the dawn of time.
Not meanly let us stand nor shaken with low doubts!
For there beyond the verge and margin of gray cloud The future thrills with promise And the skies are tremulous with golden light;-- She too would share those victories, Comrade, and more than comrade;-- New times, new needs confront us now; We must evolve new powers To battle with;-- We must go forward now together, Or perchance we fail!
ENVOI
A LITTLE WHILE
_A little while the tears and laughter, The willow and the rose-- A little while, and what comes after No man knows.
An hour to sing, to love and linger ...
Then lutanist and lute Will fall on silence, song and singer Both be mute.
Our G.o.ds from our desires we fas.h.i.+on....
Exalt our baffled lives, And dream their vital bloom and pa.s.sion Still survives;
But when we're done with mirth and weeping, With myrtle, rue, and rose, Shall Death take Life into his keeping? ...
No man knows._
_What heart hath not, through twilight places, Sought for its dead again To gild with love their pallid faces? ...
Sought in vain! ...
Still mounts the Dream on s.h.i.+ning pinion ...
Still broods the dull distrust ...
Which shall have ultimate dominion, Dream, or dust?
A little while with grief and laughter, And then the day will close; The shadows gather ... what comes after No man knows!_
Note: In "The Parting," page 161, line 4, I have changed "they face" to "thy face"; in "The Struggle," page 173, line 4, I have changed "l!o" to "lo!"
