A Midsummer Holiday and Other Poems Part 7

Baby, baby true, Man, whate'er he do, May deceive not you.

Smiles whose love is guile, Worn a flattering while, Win from you no smile.

One, the smile alone Out of love's heart grown, Ever wins your own.

Man, a dunce uncouth, Errs in age and youth: Babies know the truth.

V.

Baby, baby fair, Love is fain to dare Bless your haughtiest air.

Baby blithe and bland, Reach but forth a hand None may dare withstand;

Love, though wellnigh cowed, Yet would praise aloud Pride so sweetly proud.

No! the fitting word Even from breeze or bird Never yet was heard.

VI.

Baby, baby kind, Though no word we find, Bear us yet in mind.

Half a little hour, Baby bright in bower, Keep this thought aflower--

Love it is, I see, Here with heart and knee Bows and worships me.

What can baby do, Then, for love so true?-- Let it worship you.

VII.

Baby, baby wise, Love's divine surmise Lights your constant eyes.

Day and night and day One mute word would they, As the soul saith, say.

Trouble comes and goes; Wonder ebbs and flows; Love remains and glows.

As the fledgeling dove Feels the breast above, So your heart feels love.

_PELAGIUS._

I.

The sea shall praise him and the sh.o.r.es bear part That reared him when the bright south world was black With fume of creeds more foul than h.e.l.l's own rack, Still darkening more love's face with loveless art Since Paul, faith's fervent Antichrist, of heart Heroic, haled the world vehemently back From Christ's pure path on dire Jehovah's track, And said to dark Elisha's Lord, 'Thou art.'

But one whose soul had put the raiment on Of love that Jesus left with James and John Withstood that Lord whose seals of love were lies, Seeing what we see--how, touched by Truth's bright rod, The fiend whom Jews and Africans called G.o.d Feels his own h.e.l.l take hold on him, and dies.

II.

The world has no such flower in any land, And no such pearl in any gulf the sea, As any babe on any mother's knee.

But all things blessed of men by saints are banned: G.o.d gives them grace to read and understand The palimpsest of evil, writ where we, Poor fools and lovers but of love, can see Nought save a blessing signed by Love's own hand.

The smile that opens heaven on us for them Hath sin's transmitted birthmark hid therein: The kiss it craves calls down from heaven a rod.

If innocence be sin that G.o.ds condemn, Praise we the men who so being born in sin First dared the doom and broke the bonds of G.o.d.

III.

Man's heel is on the Almighty's neck who said, Let there be h.e.l.l, and there was h.e.l.l--on earth.

But not for that may men forget their worth-- Nay, but much more remember them--who led The living first from dwellings of the dead, And rent the cerecloths that were wont to engirth Souls wrapped and swathed and swaddled from their birth With lies that bound them fast from heel to head.

Among the tombs when wise men all their lives Dwelt, and cried out, and cut themselves with knives, These men, being foolish, and of saints abhorred, Beheld in heaven the sun by saints reviled, Love, and on earth one everlasting Lord In every likeness of a little child.

_LOUIS BLANC._

THREE SONNETS TO HIS MEMORY.

I.

The stainless soul that smiled through glorious eyes; The bright grave brow whereon dark fortune's blast Might blow, but might not bend it, nor o'ercast, Save for one fierce fleet hour of shame, the skies Thrilled with warm dreams of worthier days to rise And end the whole world's winter; here at last, If death be death, have pa.s.sed into the past; If death be life, live, though their semblance dies.

Hope and high faith inviolate of distrust Shone strong as life inviolate of the grave Through each bright word and lineament serene.

Most loving righteousness and love most just Crowned, as day crowns the dawn-enkindled wave, With visible aureole thine unfaltering mien.

II.

Strong time and fire-swift change, with lightnings clad And shod with thunders of reverberate years, Have filled with light and sound of hopes and fears The s.p.a.ce of many a season, since I had Grace of good hap to make my spirit glad, Once communing with thine: and memory hears The bright voice yet that then rejoiced mine ears, Sees yet the light of eyes that spake, and bade Fear not, but hope, though then time's heart were weak And heaven by h.e.l.l shade-stricken, and the range Of high-born hope made questionable and strange As twilight trembling till the sunlight speak.

Thou sawest the sunrise and the storm in one Break: seest thou now the storm-compelling sun?

III.

Surely thou seest, O spirit of light and fire, Surely thou canst not choose, O soul, but see The days whose dayspring was beheld of thee Ere eyes less pure might have their hope's desire, Beholding life in heaven again respire Where men saw nought that was or was to be, Save only death imperial. Thou and he Who has the heart of all men's hearts for lyre, Ye twain, being great of spirit as time is great, And sure of sight as truth's own heavenward eye, Beheld the forms of forces pa.s.sing by And cert.i.tude of equal-balanced fate, Whose breath forefelt makes darkness palpitate, And knew that light should live and darkness die.

_VOS DEOS LAUDAMUS:_

THE CONSERVATIVE JOURNALIST'S ANTHEM.

'As a matter of fact, no man living, or who ever lived--not CaeSAR or PERICLES, not SHAKESPEARE or MICHAEL ANGELO--could confer honour more than he took on entering the House of Lords.'--_Sat.u.r.day Review_, December 15, 1883.