Charles Bertram Johnson, "The Past" (1905)
Wrapped in the peace of dreams
Time, like an ashen pyre,
Burns down to fits and gleams.
Wrought in the ashen heap,
Magic or fairy-made,
Strange-meaning figures peep
With large eyes unafraid .
"What was the last page read,
There where I made a pause?
Greece with her arts has lead
Rome with her civic laws.
"Let me reflect on this---
What is the Truth to heed
Law is a social bliss,
Art is a higher need.
Strange how that fire doth hiss!
What be these Imps I ken
Tragic, grotesque, amiss
Far from the forms of men?
"Look how their faces writhe!
Hideous, black and severe,
Impish old men and blithe,
Comic of manners, leer.
"Avaunt! this is not Art
Fashioning impish old forms'
Greece is gift of the heart,
Rome of glory of arms.
Greece of story and song,
Home of blind Homer's lyre,
Rome of conquering wrong:
Caesar's Eagles afire.
Lechery, forum, mart
Spell out the Roman life;
All of her song and art
Throve in the seethe of strife.
Greek of Apollo's Greece
Strove with the gods of song,
Basked in the smiles of Peace
Far from the clash of Wrong.
How many golden names
Leap to the tongue for birth!
Half that the World's-need claims
Drew from her Mother-earth.
Peace! Art! kindred in time
Laurelled the Grecian brow---
Ye who seethe in the slime:
Such is the judgment now!
Galley and slave for Rome,
Beat by the might of power,
Borne to the Captor's home,
Foil to his triumph's hour.
But, see! there in the ash,
Transfigured by red brands,
No longer Imps abash
But men, with human hands,
With human Souls, arise;
Men, fellow-souls of mine,
With kindly human eyes
Beseech a friendly line.
"The Ages-past my will
I thought oblivious years,
Here rise to haunt me still
With goblin shapes and fears.
"Alas! I've lived in vain,
Beyond the present hour
With hunger for a pain
Of high creative dower.
"Greece! Rome! what have I learned
From thine imperious pride?
When such as these have yearned,
Unsolaced lived and died.
"The Past, a Banquet Ghost,
Comes back to haunt me dread;
When we have wished it most,
Then least the years are dead."
Published in Colored American Magazine, August 1905