John Marr and Other Poems Part 6

THE NEW ZEALOT TO THE SUN

Persian, you rise Aflame from climes of sacrifice Where adulators sue, And prostrate man, with brow abased, Adheres to rites whose tenor traced All worship hitherto.

Arch type of sway, Meetly your over-ruling ray You fling from Asia's plain, Whence flashed the javelins abroad Of many a wild incursive horde Led by some shepherd Cain.

Mid terrors dinned G.o.ds too came conquerors from your Ind, The book of Brahma throve; They came like to the scythed car, Westward they rolled their empire far, Of night their purple wove.

Chemist, you breed In orient climes each sorcerous weed That energizes dream-- Transmitted, spread in myths and creeds, Houris and h.e.l.ls, delirious screeds And Calvin's last extreme.

What though your light In time's first dawn compelled the flight Of Chaos' startled clan, Shall never all your darted spears Disperse worse Anarchs, frauds and fears, Sprung from these weeds to man?

But Science yet An effluence ampler shall beget, And power beyond your play-- Shall quell the shades you fail to rout, Yea, searching every secret out Elucidate your ray.

MONODY

To have known him, to have loved him After loneness long; And then to be estranged in life, And neither in the wrong; And now for death to set his seal-- Ease me, a little ease, my song!

By wintry hills his hermit-mound The sheeted snow-drifts drape, And houseless there the snow-bird flits Beneath the fir-trees' c.r.a.pe: Glazed now with ice the cloistral vine That hid the shyest grape.

LONE FOUNTS

Though fast youth's glorious fable flies, View not the world with worldling's eyes; Nor turn with weather of the time.

Foreclose the coming of surprise: Stand where Posterity shall stand; Stand where the Ancients stood before, And, dipping in lone founts thy hand, Drink of the never-varying lore: Wise once, and wise thence evermore.

THE BENCH OF BOORS

In bed I muse on Tenier's boors, Embrowned and beery losels all; A wakeful brain Elaborates pain: Within low doors the slugs of boors Laze and yawn and doze again.

In dreams they doze, the drowsy boors, Their hazy hovel warm and small: Thought's ampler bound But chill is found: Within low doors the basking boors Snugly hug the ember-mound.

Sleepless, I see the slumberous boors Their blurred eyes blink, their eyelids fall: Thought's eager sight Aches--overbright!

Within low doors the boozy boors Cat-naps take in pipe-bowl light.

ART

In placid hours well-pleased we dream Of many a brave unbodied scheme.

But form to lend, pulsed life create, What unlike things must meet and mate: A flame to melt--a wind to freeze; Sad patience--joyous energies; Humility--yet pride and scorn; Instinct and study; love and hate; Audacity--reverence. These must mate, And fuse with Jacob's mystic heart, To wrestle with the angel--Art.

THE ENTHUSIAST _"Though He slay me yet will I trust in Him."_

Shall hearts that beat no base retreat In youth's magnanimous years-- Ign.o.ble hold it, if discreet When interest tames to fears; Shall spirits that worship light Perfidious deem its sacred glow, Recant, and trudge where worldlings go, Conform and own them right?

Shall Time with creeping influence cold Unnerve and cow? the heart Pine for the heartless ones enrolled With palterers of the mart?

Shall faith abjure her skies, Or pale probation blench her down To shrink from Truth so still, so lone Mid loud gregarious lies?

Each burning boat in Caesar's rear, Flames--No return through me!

So put the torch to ties though dear, If ties but tempters be.

Nor cringe if come the night: Walk through the cloud to meet the pall, Though light forsake thee, never fall From fealty to light.

Sh.e.l.lEY'S VISION

Wandering late by morning seas When my heart with pain was low-- Hate the censor pelted me-- Deject I saw my shadow go.

In elf-caprice of bitter tone I too would pelt the pelted one: At my shadow I cast a stone.

When lo, upon that sun-lit ground I saw the quivering phantom take The likeness of St. Stephen crowned: Then did self-reverence awake.

THE MARCHIONESS OF BRINVILLIERS

He toned the sprightly beam of morning With twilight meek of tender eve, Brightness interfused with softness, Light and shade did weave: And gave to candor equal place With mystery starred in open skies; And, floating all in sweetness, made Her fathomless mild eyes.

THE AGE OF THE ANTONINES

While faith forecasts millennial years Spite Europe's embattled lines, Back to the Past one glance be cast-- The Age of the Antonines!

O summit of fate, O zenith of time When a pagan gentleman reigned, And the olive was nailed to the inn of the world Nor the peace of the just was feigned.

A halcyon Age, afar it shines, Solstice of Man and the Antonines.

Hymns to the nations' friendly G.o.ds Went up from the fellowly shrines, No demagogue beat the pulpit-drum In the Age of the Antonines!

The sting was not dreamed to be taken from death, No Paradise pledged or sought, But they reasoned of fate at the flowing feast, Nor stifled the fluent thought, We sham, we shuffle while faith declines-- They were frank in the Age of the Antonines.

Orders and ranks they kept degree, Few felt how the parvenu pines, No law-maker took the lawless one's fee In the Age of the Antonines!

Under law made will the world reposed And the ruler's right confessed, For the heavens elected the Emperor then, The foremost of men the best.

Ah, might we read in America's signs The Age restored of the Antonines.