Bees in Amber Part 17

A LITTLE TE DEUM OF THE COMMONPLACE

A FRAGMENT

_With hearts responsive And enfranchised eyes, We thank Thee, Lord,--_ For all things beautiful, and good, and true; For things that seemed not good yet turned to good; For all the sweet compulsions of Thy will That chased, and tried, and wrought us to Thy shape; For things unnumbered that we take of right, And value first when first they are withheld; For light and air; sweet sense of sound and smell; For ears to hear the heavenly harmonies; For eyes to see the unseen in the seen; For vision of The Worker in the work; For hearts to apprehend Thee everywhere; _We thank Thee, Lord_!

For all the wonders of this wondrous world;-- The pure pearl splendours of the coming day, The breaking east,--the rosy flush,--the Dawn,-- For that bright gem in morning's coronal, That one lone star that gleams above the glow; For that high glory of the impartial sun,-- The golden noonings big with promised life; The matchless pageant of the evening skies.

The wide-flung gates,--the gleams of Paradise,-- Supremest visions of Thine artistry; The sweet, soft gloaming, and the friendly stars; The vesper stillness, and the creeping shades; The moon's pale majesty; the pulsing dome, Wherein we feel Thy great heart throbbing near; For sweet laborious days and restful nights; For work to do, and strength to do the work; _We thank Thee, Lord_!

For those first tiny, prayerful-folded hands That pierce the winter's crust, and softly bring Life out of death, the endless mystery;-- For all the first sweet flushings of the Spring; The greening earth, the tender heavenly blue; The rich brown furrows gaping for the seed; For all Thy grace in bursting bud and leaf,-- The bridal sweetness of the orchard trees, Rose-tender in their coming fruitfulness; The fragrant snow-drifts flung upon the breeze; The grace and glory of the fruitless flowers, Ambrosial beauty their reward and ours; For hedgerows sweet with hawthorn and wildrose; For meadows spread with gold and gemmed with stars; For every tint of every tiniest flower; For every daisy smiling to the sun; For every bird that builds in joyous hope; For every lamb that frisks beside its dam; For every leaf that rustles in the wind; For spiring poplar, and for spreading oak; For queenly birch, and lofty swaying elm, For the great cedar's benedictory grace; For earth's ten thousand fragrant incenses,-- Sweet altar-gifts from leaf and fruit and flower; For every wondrous thing that greens and grows; For wide-spread cornlands,--billowing golden seas; For rippling stream, and white-laced waterfall; For purpling mountains; lakes like silver shields; For white-piled clouds that float against the blue; For tender green of far-off upland slopes; For fringing forests and far-gleaming spires; For those white peaks, serene and grand and still; For that deep sea--a shallow to Thy love; For round green hills, earth's full benignant b.r.e.a.s.t.s; For sun-chased shadows flitting o'er the plain; For gleam and gloom; for all life's counter-change; For hope that quickens under darkening skies; For all we see; for all that underlies,-- _We thank Thee, Lord_!

For that sweet impulse of the coming Spring, For ripening Summer, and the harvesting; For all the rich Autumnal glories spread,-- The flaming pageant of the ripening woods; The fiery gorse, the heather-purpled hills; The rustling leaves that fly before the wind.

And lie below the hedgerows whispering; For meadows silver-white with h.o.a.ry dew; For sheer delight of tasting once again That first crisp breath of winter in the air; The pictured pane; the new white world without; The sparkling hedgerow's witchery of lace; The soft white flakes that fold the sleeping earth; The cold without, the cheerier warmth within; For red-heart roses in the winter snows; For all the flower and fruit of Christmas-tide; For all the glowing heart of Christmas-tide; _We thank Thee, Lord_!

For all Thy ministries,-- For morning mist, and gently-falling dew; For summer rains, for winter ice and snow; For whispering wind and purifying storm; For the reft clouds that show the tender blue; For the forked flash and long tumultuous roll; For mighty rains that wash the dim earth clean; For the sweet promise of the seven-fold bow; For the soft sunshine, and the still calm night; For dimpled laughter of soft summer seas; For latticed splendour of the sea-borne moon; For gleaming sands, and granite-frontled cliffs; For flying spume, and waves that whip the skies; For rushing gale, and for the great glad calm; For Might so mighty, and for Love so true, With equal mind, _We thank Thee, Lord_!

For maiden sweetness, and for strength of men; For love's pure madness and its high estate; For parentage--man's nearest reach to Thee; For kinship, sonship, friendship, brotherhood Of men--one Father--one great family; For glimpses of the greater in the less; For touch of Thee in wife and child and friend; For n.o.ble self-denying motherhood; For saintly maiden lives of rare perfume; For little pattering feet and crooning songs; For children's laughter, and sweet wells of truth; For sweet child-faces and the sweet wise tongues; For childhood's faith that lifts us near to Thee And bows us with our own disparity; For childhood's sweet unconscious beauty sleep; For all that childhood teaches us of Thee; _We thank Thee, Lord_!

For doubts that led us to the larger trust; For ills to conquer; for the love that fights; For that strong faith that vanquished axe and flame And gave us Freedom for our heritage; For clouds and darkness, and the still, small voice; For sorrows bearing fruit of n.o.bler life; For those sore strokes that broke us at Thy feet; For peace in strife; for gain in seeming loss; For every loss that wrought the greater gain; For that sweet juice from bitterness out-pressed; For all this sweet, strange paradox of life; _We thank Thee, Lord_!

For friends above; for friends still left below; For the rare links invisible between; For Thine unsearchable greatness; for the vails Between us and the things we may not know; For those high times when hearts take wing and rise And float secure above earth's mysteries; For that wide, open avenue of prayer, All radiant with Thy glorious promises; For sweet hearts tuned to n.o.blest charity; For great hearts toiling in the outer dark; For friendly hands stretched out in time of need; For every gracious thought and word and deed; _We thank Thee, Lord_!

For songbird answering song on topmost bough; For myriad twitterings of the simpler folk; For that sweet lark that carols up the sky; For that low fluting on the summer night; For distant bells that tremble on the wind; For great round organ tones that rise and fall, Entwined with earthly voices tuned to heaven, And bear our hearts above the high-arched roof; For Thy great voice that dominates the whole, And shakes the heavens, and silences the earth; For hearts alive to earth's sweet minstrelsies; For souls attuned to heavenly harmonies; For apprehension, and for ears to hear,-- _We thank Thee, Lord_!

For that supremest token of Thy Love,-- Thyself made manifest in human flesh; For that pure life beneath the Syrian sky-- The humble toil, the sweat, the bench, the saw, The nails well-driven, and the work well-done; For all its vast expansions; for the stress Of those three mighty years; For all He bore of our humanity; His hunger, thirst, His homelessness and want, His weariness that longed for well-earned rest; For labour's high enn.o.blement through Him, Who laboured with His hands for daily bread; For Lazarus, Mary, Martha, Magdalene, For Nazareth and Bethany;--not least For that dark hour in lone Gethsemane; For that high cross upraised on Calvary; The broken seals,--the rolled-back stone--The Way, For ever opened through His life in death; For that brief glimpse vouchsafed within the vail; For all His gracious life; and for His Death, With low-bowed heads and hearts impa.s.sionate, _We thank Thee, Lord_!

For all life's beauties, and their beauteous growth; For Nature's laws and Thy rich providence; For all Thy perfect processes of life; For the minute perfection of Thy work, Seen and unseen, in each remotest part; For faith, and works, and gentle charity; For all that makes for quiet in the world; For all that lifts man from his common rut; For all that knits the silken bond of peace; For all that lifts the fringes of the night, And lights the darkened corners of the earth; For every broken gate and sundered bar; For every wide-flung window of the soul; For that Thou bearest all that Thou hast made; _We thank Thee, Lord_!

For perfect childlike confidence in Thee; For childlike glimpses of the life to be; For trust akin to my child's trust in me; For hearts at rest through confidence in Thee; For hearts triumphant in perpetual hope; For hope victorious through past hopes fulfilled; For mightier hopes born of the things we know; For faith born of the things we may not know; For hope of powers increased ten thousand fold; For that last hope of likeness to Thyself, When hope shall end in glorious certainty; --_With quickened hearts That find Thee everywhere, We thank Thee, Lord_!

POLICEMAN X

IF HE WOULD BUT DARE

I stood, unseen, within a sumptous room, Where one clothed all in white sat silently.

So sweet his presence that a pure soft light Rayed from him, and I saw--most wondrous sight!-- The Love of G.o.d shrined in the flesh once more, And glowing softly like a misted sun.

His back was towards me. Had I seen his face Methought I must have fallen. I was wrong.

The door flung wide. With hasty step Came one in royal robes and all the pride And pomp of majesty, and on his head A helmet with an eagle poised for flight.

He stood amazed at sight of him in white, His lips apart in haughty questioning.

But no words came. Breathless, he raised his hand And gave salute as to a mightier lord, And doffed his helm, and stood. And in his eyes I saw The reflex glory of his Master's face.

The Master spoke. His voice so soft and sweet Thrilled my heart's core and shook me where I stood,-- "_Time runs apace. The New Time is at hand.

Shall it be Peace or War? It rests with_ THEE."

In dumb amaze the other shook his head.

"_Thy brother of the North has cast his lot For peace. Alone he cannot compa.s.s it.

Shall it be Peace or War? It rests with_ THEE."

Again the other shook his head amazed, But never swerved a hair's breadth in his gaze.

"_Shall it be Peace or War? Join hands with him, Thy Northern brother, with the Western Isles, And with their brethren of the Further West, And Peace shall reign to Earth's remotest bound_."

And still the other shook his head amazed.

"_Shall it be Peace or War? Millions of lives Are in thy hand, women and men and those My little ones. Their souls are mine. Their lives Are in thy hand. Of thee I shall require them.

Shall it be Peace or War_?"

"I am but one,"

The other answered with reluctant tongue.

"_Thou art_ THE _one and so I come to thee.

For Peace or War the scales are in thy hand.

As thou decidest now, so shall it be.

But,--as thou sayest now, so be it With thee--then.

Shall it be Peace or War? Nay--look_!--"

And at the word--where stood the wall--a s.p.a.ce; And at their feet, like mighty map unrolled,-- The kingdoms of the earth, and every kingdom Groaned with the burden of its armour-plate.

And the weight grew till man was crushed beneath, And lost his manhood and became a cog To roll along the great machine of war.

And, as he watched, the War-Lord's eyes flamed fire, His nostrils panted like a mettled steed's.

This was the game of games he knew and loved, And every fibre of his soul was knit To see what pa.s.sed.

Then,--in a sun-white land, Where a great sea poured out through narrow gates To meet a greater,--came the clang of arms, And drew the nations like a tocsin peal, Till all the sun-white sands ran red, and earth Sweat blood, and writhed in fiery ashes, and Grew sick with all the reek and stench of war, And heaven drew back behind the battle-clouds.

And ever, through the clamour of the strife, I heard the ceaseless wailing of a child, And the sobbing, sobbing, sobbing, endless Sobbing of a reft and broken woman;-- And the hoa.r.s.e whisper of the War-Lord's voice,-- "Britain fights once again for Barbary Lest others occupy to her undoing.

And Italy and Greece and Turkey join, To beat back France and Spain."

Again I saw,-- Where legions marched and wound 'mid snowy peaks, And came upon a smiling vine-clad land, And filled it with the reek and stench of war.

The hoa.r.s.e voice spoke,-- "The provinces she stole And lost, Austria takes back."

Again I saw,-- Where white-capped hosts crept swiftly to the straits Twixt old and new, and drenched the land with blood, And filled it with the reek and stench of war.

The War-Lord spoke,-- "Despite his love of peace, Our brother of the North has seized his chance, And got his heart's desire."

Again I saw,-- Where legions poured through the eternal snows, And legions swept o'er every sea to meet Their long-expected onslaught, and the dead Were piled in mountains, and the snows ran red.

The War-Lord spoke,-- "Up, Britain, up! Strike home!

Or drop your rod of Empire in the dust-- One of you dies this day."

Again I saw,-- Beneath us, legions swarming to the West, Devouring kingdoms till they reached the sea, And filling all the lands with blood and fire.

The War-Lord gazed, with eyes that blazed and flamed, And panted like a soul in torment,--"Mine!

All these are mine!"

"_Thine, sayest thou?--Thine now, When thou shalt stand before me--then, I shall require them of thee_."

--Thus the voice Of Him who sat and gazed with sorrowing face, While all the earth beneath us reeked of war, And heaven grew dim behind the battle-clouds.

And ever, through the clamour of the strife, I heard the ceaseless wailing of a child, And the sobbing, sobbing, sobbing, endless Sobbing of a reft and broken woman.

"_Shall it be Peace or War_?"

A two-edged sword Could cut no sharper than the gentle voice Of Him who bowed with sorrow at the sight Of man destroying man for sake of gain.

I waited, breathless, for the warrior's word.

But no word came. His heart was with his men.

"_Shall it be Peace or War? Look yet again_!"

And at their feet, like mighty map unrolled, Lay all the kingdoms of the earth--at peace.

The glad earth smiled beneath a smiling heaven, And brought forth fruit for all her children's needs.

The desert lands had blossomed, and the earth Was large enough for all. Her voice came up, A softly-rounded murmur of content, Like bees that labour gladly on the comb.

The reign of Peace,--and yet an army lay Couchant and watchful, ready for the strife If strife need be,--the strife of quelling strife,-- An army culled in part from all the lands.

Owning no master but the public weal, And prompt to quench the first red spark of war.

Even as we watched, a frontier turmoil rose, And therewith rose the army, and the fire Died out while scarce begun. The smoke of it Was scarcely seen, the noise scarce heard; for all The lands, sore-spent with war, had welcomed Peace, And bowed to mightier forces than their own; Men cast aside their armour and their arms, And lived men's lives and were no more machines.

"_Wars shall there be, indeed, till that last war That shall wage war on War and sweep the earth Of all war-wagers and of all mankind_."

So spake the voice and ceased. And still we gazed,-- A great white building, on its topmost tower A great white flag, proclaimed a World's Tribunal For the righting of the nations' wrongs.

And that great army answered its behests And owned allegiance to no other head.