The New Morning Part 13

There is one road, one only, to the Light: A narrow way, but Freedom walks therein; A straight, firm road through Chaos and old Night, And all these wandering Jack-o-Lents of Sin.

It is the road of Law, where Pilate stays To hear, at last, the answer to his cry; And mighty sages, groping through their maze Of eager questions, hear a child reply.

_Truth? What is Truth?_ Come, look upon my tables.

Begin at your beginnings once again.

_Twice one is two!_ Though all the rest be fables, Here's one poor glimpse of Truth to keep you sane.

For Truth, at first, is clean accord with fact, Whether in line or thought, or word, or act.

II.

Then, by those first, those clean, precise, accords, Build to the Lord your temples and your song; The curves of beauty, music's wedded chords Resolving into heaven all hate and wrong.

Let harmonies of colour marry and follow And breaking waves in a rhythmic dance ensue; And all your thought fly free as the wings of the swallow, Whose arrowy curves obey their measure, too.

Then shall the marching stars and tides befriend you, And your own heart, and the world's heart, pulse in rhyme; Then shall the mob of the pa.s.sions that would rend you Crown you their Captain and march on in time.

So shall you repossess your struggling soul, Conquer your world, and find the eternal goal.

THE NIGHT OF THE LION

"_And that a reply be received before midnight._"

_British Ultimatum_.

Their Day was at twelve of the night, When the graves give up their dead.

And still, from the City, no light Yellows the clouds overhead.

Where the Admiral stands there's a star, But his column is lost in the gloom; For the brazen doors are ajar, And the Lion awakes, and the doom.

_He is not of a chosen race.

His strength is the strength of the skies, In whose glory all nations have place, In whose downfall Liberty dies.

He is mighty, but he is just.

He shall live to the end of years.

He shall bring the proud to the dust.

He shall raise the weak to the spheres._

It is night on the world's great mart, But the brooding hush is awake With the march of a steady heart That calls like the drum of Drake, _Come!_ And a muttering deep As the pulse of the distant guns, Or the thunder before the leap Thro' the rolling thoroughfare runs.

And the wounded men go by Like thoughts in the Lion's brain.

And the clouds lift on high Like the slow waves of his mane And the narrowing lids conceal The furnaces of his eyes.

Their gold is gone out. They reveal Only two search-lights of steel Steadily sweeping the skies.

And we hoped he had peace in his lair Where the bones of old tyrannies lay, And the skulls that his cubs have stripped bare, The old skulls they still toss in their play.

But the tyrants are risen again, And the last light dies from their path; For the midnight of his mane Lifts to the stars with his wrath.

From the East to the West he is crouching.

He snuffs at the North-East wind.

His breast upon Britain is couching.

His haunches quiver on Ind.

It is night, black night, where he lies; But a kingdom and a fleet Shall burn in his terrible eyes When he leaps, and the darkness dies With the War-G.o.ds under his feet.

_Till the day when a little child, Shall lay but a hand on his mane, And his eyes grow golden and mild And he stands in the heavens again; Till the day of the seventh seal, Which the Lion alone shall rend, When the stars from their courses reel, His Freedom shall not end._

THE WAR WIDOW

I.

Black-veiled, black-gowned, she rides in bus and train, With eyes that fill too listlessly for tears.

Her waxen hands clasp and unclasp again.

_Good News_, they cry. She neither sees nor hears.

Good News, perhaps, may crown some far-off king.

Good News may peal the glory of the state-- Good News may cause the courts of heaven to ring.

She sees a hand waved at a garden gate.

For her dull ears are tuned to other themes; And her dim eyes can never see aright.

She glides--a ghost--through all her April dreams, To meet his eyes at dawn, his lips at night.

Wraiths of a truth that others never knew; And yet--for her--the only truth that's true.

II.

_Good News! Good News!_ There is no way but this.

Out of the night a star begins to rise.

I know not where my soul's deep Master is; Nor can I hear those angels in the skies;

Nor follow him, as childhood used of old, By radiant seas, in those time-hallowed tales.

Only, at times, implacable and cold, From this blind gloom, stand out the iron nails.

Yet, at this world's heart stands the Eternal Cross, The ultimate frame of moon and star and sun, Where Love with out-stretched arms, in utter loss, Points East and West and makes the whole world one.

_Good News! Good News!_ There is no hope, no way, No truth, no life, but leads through Christmas Day.

THE BELL

The Temple Bell was out of tune, That once out-melodied sun and moon.