Songs of the Army of the Night Part 14

"A son to battle the wrong, To seek and strive for the right; A beautiful daughter of song, To point us on to the light!"

HER POEM: "MY BABY GIRL, THAT WAS BORN AND DIED ON THE SAME DAY."

"Ah, with torn heart I see them still, Wee unused clothes and empty cot.

Though glad my love has missed the ill That falls to woman's lot.

"No tangled paths for her to tread Throughout the coming changeful years; No desperate weird to dree and dread; No bitter lonely tears!

"No woman's piercing crown of thorns Will press my aching baby's brow; No starless nights, no sunless morns, Will ever greet her now.

"The clothes that I had wrought with care Through weary hours for love's sweet sake Are laid aside, and with them there A heart that seemed to break."

TO HENRY GEORGE IN AMERICA.

Not for the thought that burns on keen and clear, Heat that the heat has turned from red to white, The pa.s.sion of the lone remembering night One with the patience day must see and hear- Not for the shafts the lying foemen fear, Shot from the soul's intense self-centring light- But for the heart of love divine and bright, We praise you, worker, thinker, poet, seer!

Man of the People,-faithful in all parts, The veins' last drop, the brain's last flickering dole, You on whose forehead beams the aureole That hope and "certain hope" alone imparts- Us have you given your perfect heart and soul; Wherefore receive as yours our souls and hearts!

"ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE."

Shrieks out of smoke, a flame of dung-straw fire That is not quenched but hath for only fruit What writhes and dies not in its rotten root: Two things made flesh, the visible desire To match in filth the skunk, the ape in ire, {87a} Mouthing before the mirrors with wild foot Beyond all feebler footprint of pursuit, The perfect tw.a.n.ger of the Chinese lyre!

A heart with generous virtues run to seed In vices making all a jumbled creed: A soul that knows not love nor trust nor shame, But cuts itself with knives to bawl and bleed- If thou we've known of late, art still the same, What need, O soul, to sign thee with thy name?

Once on thy lips the golden-honeyed bees Settling made sweet the heart that was not strong, And sky and earth and sea burst into song: {87b} Once on thine eyes the light of agonies Flashed through the soul and robbed the days of ease. {87c} But tunes turn stale when love turns babe, and long The exiled gentlemen grow fat with wrong.

And peasants, workmen, beggars, what are these? {87d} O you who sang the Italian smoke above,- Mud-lark of Freedom, pipe of that vile band Whose envy slays the tyrant, not the love Of these poor souls none have the keeping of- It is your hand-it is your pandar hand Smites the bruised mouth of pilloried Ireland!

TO AN UNIONIST.

"If you only knew How gladly I've given it All these years- The light of mine eyes, The heat of my lips, Mine agonies, My yearning tears, My blood that drips, My brain that sears: If you only knew How gladly I've given it All these years- My hope and my youth, My manhood, my Art, My pa.s.sion, my truth, My mind and my heart:

"O my brother, you would not say, What have you to do with me?

You would not, would not turn away Doubtingly and bitterly.

"If you only knew How little I cared for These other things- The delicate speech, The high demand Of each from each, The imaginings Of Love's Holy Land: If you only knew How little I cared for These other things- The wide clear view Over peoples and times, The search in the new Entrancing climes, Science's wings And Art's sweet chimes:

"O my brother, if you only knew What to me in these things is understood, As it seems to me it would seem to you, What was good for the Cause was surely good:

"O my brother, you would not say: What have you to do with me?

You would not, would not turn away Doubtingly and bitterly:

"But you would take my hand with your hand, O my brother, if you only knew; You would smile at me, you would understand, You would call me brother as I call you!"

TO MY FRIEND SYDNEY JEPHCOTT, WITH A COPY OF MY "POETICAL WORKS."

"Take with all my heart, friend, this, The labour of my past, Though the heart here hidden is And the soul's eternities Hold the present fast.

"Take it, still, with soul and heart, Pledge of that dear day When the shadows stir and start, By the bright Sun burst apart- _Young Australia_!"

TO E. L. ZOX. {89} (_Melbourne_.)

We thank you for a n.o.ble work well done.

There is a kindness-('tis the truer one; The better part the simpler heart doth know), The care to give the day a brighter sun

To these, the nameless crowd that drags on slow The common toil, the common weary woe The world cares nought for. But _your_ work secures Thro' union strength and self-respect that grow.

There is a courage that unflawed endures The sneer, the slander of earth's epicures.

And here are grateful women's hearts to show This kindness and this courage, both are yours!

"FATHER ABE."

(_Song of the American Sons of Labour_.)

THE SONG.

"O we knew so well, dear Father, When we answered to your call, And the Southern Moloch stricken Shook and tottered to his fall-

"O we knew so well you loved us, And our hearts beat back to yours With the rapturous adoration That through all the years endures!

"Mothers, sisters bade us hasten Sweethearts, wives with babe at breast; For the Union, faith and freedom, For our hero of the West!

"And we wrung forth victory blood-stained From the desperate hands of Crime, And our Cause blazed out Man's beacon Through the endless future time!

"And forgiven, forever we bade it Cease, that envy, hatred, strife, As he willed, our murdered Father That had sealed his love with life!

"O dear Father, was it thus, then?

Did we this but in a dream?

Is it real, hideous present?

Does our suffering only seem?