Sarah Collins Fernandis, "Poems" (Full text) (1925)
POEMS
SARAH C. FERNANDIS
BOSTON
RICHARD G. BADGER
THE GORHAM PRESS
COPYRIGHT 1925 BY RICHARD G. BADGER
ALL RIGHT'S RESERVED
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
THE GORHAM PRESS, BOSTON, U. S. A.
CONTENTS
WE WHO FROM WESTERN WINDOW
A VISION
A BLOSSOM IN AN ALLEY
THY SONG
THE EFFORT SMALL
YOUR LITTLE
LIFE
THE SNOW DROP
COMPENSATION
A MEMORY
THE GIFT BENEFICENT
SATISFIED IDEALS
RULEILLMENT
BLUE AND GRAY
EASTER PICTURES
EARTHBOUND
GOD'S ANSWER
LIFE'S PENDULUM
LOVE'S SERVICE
OUR CHOOSING
SHE HATH DONE WHAT SHE COULD
LIGHT
MUSIC
THE SINGER
THE TROOPER AT CARRIZAL
THIE OFFERING
THE NEWER SACRIFICE
AT THE LINCOLN MEMORIAL UNVEILING
THE TORCH BEARER
A PATTERN OF SERVICE
THE HAMPTON SPIRT
IN PROTEST
HER VOICE
UNITY
MY HERITAGE
UNDER THE TREES
MY THANKSGIVING
THE UNBROKEN CHAIN
SERVICE IN COMMUNITY LIFE
A PLEA FOR THE CHILDREN
CHRISTMAS EVE: THE ANSWER FROM NO MAN’S LAND
INTERRACIAL CO-OPERATION
THE MEETING
THE WINGS OF GOD
I FOLLOW
HYMN TO THE NEW FREEDOM
GOD'S SPEECH
LITTLE IDEALS
POEMS
WE WHO FROM WESTERN WINDOWS
We who from western windows gaze upon sunset skies
See in their changing splendors promise that satisfies—
Of tender gloam of twilight and night with soothing blest—
With soft enfolding darkness and quiet, grateful rest.
We who in morning's promise often have found defeat,
Bowed beneath heavy burdens, fainted with noonday heat;
Who have with trembling fingers, lifted the cup of pain,
Grieved o'er the bitter losses, cherished the meager gain;
Found in the dust and mire wonderful gems of truth—
We call to you, ye dwellers, in your fair House of Youth
Call from our western windows to your unfolding day,
Hail all the stress and struggles waiting you o'er its way.
Knowing that after sorrow you will hold joy more sweet
After the threatened failure achievement more complete;
After the task has driven to your last fiber's test
You then will know how gracious is Heaven's gift of rest;
That for the farther reaches of your aspiring souls
You will gain strength and courage making the nearer goals.
Certain if you have striven well, you at length shall know
All of the joy and blessing ot evening's sunset glow.
A VISION
Sometimes a vision flashes out to me
Of more abundant life that is to be!
It may be when some woe-worn face has smiled;
Or when, ere the day's dawning, sweet and clear,
A bird-song breaks on my dreamy-drowsy ear;
Or when has laughed a happy little child,—
Sometimes a vision flashes out to me
Of more abundant life that is to be!
Anon, it is when in some squalid place
A lovely blossom lifts its tiny face;
A mother's lullaby at twilight time;
A night-star's glow from heaven's deeper hue;
The rainbow mirrored in a drop of dew;
The Sabbath-morning bells' uplifting chime,—
Sometimes a vision flashes out to me
Of more abundant life to be!
Then all the present things that hurt and vex,
The questionings that trouble and perplex,
For a brief moment seem to fade away;
And the swift glimpse of life's full treasure-trove,
Its unspent wealth of beauty, joy, and love,
Give surety of the coming "better day,”—
Sometimes a vision flashes out to me
Of more abundant life that is to be!
A BLOSSOM IN AN ALLEY
A blossom in a window, in a city's alley dark—
I see it, and my smoldering laith leaps to a glowing spark.
For I can read its message of all-pervading good,
Its earnest of a sweeter life, a closer brotherhood.
For the same urge that guided the rough hand that place it there,
Inspired wealth's richest garden, teeming with exotics rare
And Beauty, answering, reck'd not of hovel or of hall—
But that a human soul had craved and she had felt its call!
O, ye who, patient, seek the eternal verities
'Mid intricate mazes of our life's diversities
Of creed and caste and calling, and perchance have failed the mark,—
Go see a blossom growing in a city's alley dark!
THY SONG
As thy heart bids thee, sing thy song
So true and sweet,
The busy, heedless, passing throng
Will pause to greet
With answering smile, perchance, or tear,
Thy sweet, true strain,
And feel with thee a kinship near
In joy or pain.
Or, live thy song, 'tis in thy heart
To sing or live;
Life's melody will miss the part
Thou dost not give—
In other hearts along thy way
Chords slumbering
Touched by the music of thy lay
May wake and sing.
THE EFFORT SMALL.
One cup of water where a thousand thirst,
One hand to succor where a thousand die,
Yet, to withhold thy meager aid thou durst
Not, tho, for impotence, thy soul must cry.
Fulfill today Love's impulse, do the deed
Infinitesimal beside the need—
Tomorrow, Justice may, with open hand
Scatter the needed good broadcast the land!
YOUR LITTLE
Your little deed of uplift
May set some fallen soul
Upon a safer pathway
Toward a higher goal.
Your little creed lived simply—
In league with all divine—
May, in the lives of many
In bright reflection shine.
Your little pure devotion
May make the great world heed
And help fulfill your vision
Of service to some need.
Your little cheerful giving
Of self with meager gold
May, with divine increasing
Become the hundredfold.
Your little righteous protest
Uttered with courage strong
May send afar conviction
Against outstanding wrong.
Your little note of gladness
Sung clear and sweet and true
May start a wondrous chorus
Singing in tune with you.
And e'er a blest reaction
Shall bring you rarest gain—
Your little will uplift you
Unto life's higher plane!
LIFE
A warp of joy and a woof of sorrow,
The sun today and a cloud tomorrow
And life the whole.
Nor light nor shade, nor mirth nor mourning—
Blent in the web in rare adorning—
May we control.
A Master mind with infinite kindness
And ken transcending our human blindness
The whole hath planned.
And the pattern grows with true precision
Tho we tollow not with our hounded vision,
The skillful Hand.
THE SNOWDROP
Ah, little flow'r, thy pale, pure face,
Lifted from earth's breast cold and drear,
Wears in its beauty sweeter grace
Than summer flow’rs, brings truer cheer;
For thou, from winter's meager store
Thy meed of loveliness didst press.
June's lavishness could give no more;
From nature's stint thou conned no less.
COMPENSATION
The raindrops swift descending
Are gems, pellucid, round;
Too soon—the Fancy ending.
They break upon the ground!
But Nature's compensation
Waits on Spring's budding hours–
Thy gems disintegration
Will bring her gift of flowers!
A MEMORY
After some little outing of a night—
A picture-play, a concert in the parks
Home coming, you went first into the dark
And found the button and turned on the light.
And I would linger like a timid child
Upon the threshold 'till you turned and smiled.
It was a little idyl without word—
I on the threshold like a timid child,
You in the light assuring as you smiled—
A ripple where the tender depths had stirred.
And then, the last Home coming, that last night
And you have entered first, and I the while
Upon the threshold 'till you turn and smile
And beckon me, with you, into the light.
THE GIFT BENEFICENT
An Eden barred, pronounced the fiat dread,
In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat thy bread—
We read with troubled hearts and holden eyes
Til life reveals a blessing in disguise;
A grief falls heavily upon the mind,
Then work becomes from Heaven a boon most kind,
The daily task a gift beneficent,
Soothing to patience, and at length, content.
SATISFIED IDEALS
The poet clothes his noblest thought
In words that glow as jewels bright,
The artist's potent brush has brought
His dream of beauty into light;
The last skilled stroke, a building stands
An honor to the workman's hands;
The mother plies, till shining, clean,
Her humble home might house a queen.
They each have striven and each one feels
The joy of satisfied ideals.
Upon the sill in this same hour
God brings to perfect bloom a flower!
FULFILLMENT
If, tho my far-spent strength must fail
With cherished goal in sight,
I can with my last effort hail
Him who hath scaled the height;
If music I would fain express
Elude me while I long
I yet can sing with cheerfulness
Found in another's song,
Count not the feebler effort lost
Nor failure wholly mine–
Perchance I gained at dearer cost
Fulfilment more divine!
BLUE AND GRAY
A patch of blue in the sky's dark gray
And hope upsprings for a shining day;
But patch of gray on the blue o'erhead
And hope for a shining day has fled.
If blue o'erspreads or if melts the gray,
From either there follows a perfect day.
Or blue, or gray—is my meaning clear?—
We may always hope and we should not fear.
EASTER PICTURES
Fair Easter in time's cloistered gallery
Are pictures rare and beautiful of thee,
Soft and subdued by lenten thot and prayer,
My chastened heart would con the lessons there.
Lo, Salem's "upper room" and paschal board,
Passion swayed human group, a tender Lord
Serves, towel-girt. Humility divine!
Behold thy pattern, prideful heart of mine!
The somber scene of Gethsemane's dark shade,
Overwrought nature in deep slumber laid;
Alone the Christ, the bitter cup of pain
Pressed to his lips. O, heart, dost thou complain—
And push aside the chalice marah brimmed?
Linger thou, here, thine eyes erewhile tear-dimmed,
Nor turn away till thou at length hast won
The strength to say, "Thy will, not mine, be done."
Lo, next the judgement hall and abject
Hate Strikes with his puny arm. God, incarnate,
Silent, endures! Well may the scene appall,
Yet, learn thou here, Love that "endureth" all.
A hill outside the gate with brow cross-capped
Circled with motley, gaping crowd; gloom-wrapped
In strange eclipse; thunder, and cruel jeers,
A soul's last prayer, and women's heart-wrung tears.
Calvary! and a world's salvation bought
O, heart, canst fathom the great love that brought
The heavy price that in last death-throe cries
"Tis finished!" and, pain-spent and bleeding dies?
Above the dew-damp garden, stars of night
Shine thro the gloom of morning's dim twilight;
And women, timid, yet by love o'erswayed,
Approach the tomb wherein their Lord was laid.
To their sad quest a shining angel said,
"Why seek the living here among the dead?"
Words half divined- a light of glad surprise
Struggles for mastery in tear dimmed eyes!
"Not here!" O, heart, that sadly mourns today
Or loved or hopes entombed, lo, rolled away
The stone; hear angel accents true and sweet
The same glad message to thy fears repeat!
She, who loved much, that much had been forgiven,
Lingers, —twixt hope and doubt her heart still riven,
And asks, "Where is my Lord?" Like music heard
When myriad leaves are by soft zephyrs stirred,
Or brooklet sings; sweeter than wondrous chord
Of thousand harp strings, on her ear, one word—
"Mary!" Her joyful impulse, and the sense
Of touch restrained. Seek thou, my heart from hence.
The mastery of passions' grosser strife
And the preaches of the spirit's life!
So seeks my heart at holy Eastertide
For truths which are eternal, and abide!
EARTHBOUND
So filled are our ears with earth's dissonant jars,
Its janglings that vex and annoy,
We may not hear the singing of morning stars,
And the Sons of God shouting for joy;
So held are our eyes by the shadows of night
Closing in o'er earth's fear tortured day
We may not see beside us the Presence of light
That is walking with us by the day.
Ah, wherefore hold we our senses earthbound—
Conscious only of discord and blight—
So, to lose the rare waves of harmonious sound,
And the rapture of heavenly sight?
GOD'S ANSWER
Set thine ideal, and strive and dare
With effort fervent as a prayer;
Nor doubt: the failures thou wilt meet,
That to thy scanning seem defeat
May be God's answer, and control
The higher reaches of thy soul.
From heights well gained in coming years
Thou'lt bless what erst had roused thy fears.
LIFE'S PENDULUM
Life's pendulum swings toward the wrong
Its arc's extremest length;
But courage still, brave heart, and sing,
For lo, for its receding swing,
Abiding faith shall find ere long,
It so has gathered strength!
LOVE'S SERVICE
Let me find service in life's humblest need
For, in Love's balance weighs the smallest deed.
The hand of succor lifting to its nest
The fallen fledgling, follows love's behest
As truly as when hastening to bring
The cup of water to revive a king!
The way leads e'er to unreached heights above
Whence we are lifted by our deeds of love.
Thou, all-enfolding Love that marketh all,
King in extremis and a sparrow's fall,
Teach us all service in itself divine,
Or to the greatest, or the least of Thine!
OUR CHOOSING
A place to fill; a task to do;
A song to sing; a light to shine.
High born or lowly—I, or you—
Not in the choosing yours or mine
But this: how bright the light, how true
The task, the song, how near divine.
SHE HATH DONE WHAT SHE COULD
One tender scene stands out to me
In that rich life at Galilee:
Tired, throbbing feet, and ointment rare,
And soothing touch of unbound hair;
The "what she could,” a loving deed,
That met a lowly human need.
Ah, what we can may not be much,—
Sympathy's soft, magnetic touch,
Or kindly glance, or gentle word,
Sent from a heart that love hath stirred,
Yet down the years one deed will shine
To say such service is divine.
LIGHT
"God said, Let there be light: and there was light"
O'er-mastering supreme chaotic night!
And the cold, dark earth grew warm and rife
With myriads ot strange, primeval life!
O, light! Life's wonder-lamp to baby eyes,
Luring their first wide gaze of sweet surprise!
The treasury from whence awakened Art
Draws beauty's message to the human heart.
Day's benediction in the shining west;
And morning gladness calling from our rest,
Effulgent, beautiful, fore'er a sign
To mortals of the gracious Light Divine!
MUSIC
In spite of life's frenzied struggles,
Spite of its sorrows and stings,
Serene the spirit of music
Sits in the soul and sings.
And erst a grand oratorio
Into life's harmony swells,
Erst a soft cadence of sorrow
Up from a slave's heart wells.
Or in the high or the lowly,
Still God's great, beautiful gift—
Music, to bind souls in kinship,
Music, to soothe and uplift!
THE SINGER
My Country! Thy great progress reaching on—
Thy last grown small beside thy newer great
Achievement, in the lull of plaudits hear anon
A lonely Singer's voice within thy gate!
A dusky, dulcet singer, and his song
A plaintive melody that bears the trace
Of all the sorrow, all the bitter wrong
That swept the heartstrings of a bow'd race.
Of slavery's centuries of poignant pain;
Freedom's high hope and vanished roseate dream,
Its weary struggle against odds to gain
The still receding heights where shines the gleam.
O, is it naught to you, ye passers by,
Unhindered to your vantage on the height,
This minstrelsy of sorrow, this lone cry
Of brother calling to you from the night?
Pause, and give heeding while ye still ascend,
Into full measure of your progress raise
This dark-hued singer, bring his voice to blend
In one grand paean of our country's praise!
THE TROOPER AT CARRIZAL
Over the sun-baked wastes of Mexico,
Upon a hot trail, rode the trooper band,
Not questioning, when they had heard command
To reach their country's ruthless bandit foe.
Following a treacherous truce to ambush dire,
Sensing too late their peril, yet the while
Fighting their hopeless fight with song and smile,
They faced the dread machine gun's cruel fire.
O brave black soldiers, ye have laid your toll
Upon the altar of war's flaming hate—
Vain sacrifice to god insatiate!
We pass your names to history's honor roll.
Yet, with this prayer: O, gracious Prince of Peace
Weld Thou the bands of human brotherhood;
Make Thy names meaning clearer understood
Till war and strife o'er all the earth shall cease!
THE OFFERING
I was not keen to offer up my son—
E'en when I saw white mothers give their all
Proudly to Freedom, answering the call
Of our common country. For, upon
My soul heavily pressed the galling load
Of preiudices mass accumulate.
Though I had stifled bitterness and hate,
And rendered true allegiance while the goad
Of race-thrusts hurt, I could not give my boy.
Twas thus I writhed, when, lo, my struggling soul,
Illumined by a vision of the whole
Intent of Freedom, offered him with joy!
THE NEWER SACRIFICE
Armistice Day at Arlington, 1921
For one great moment in that Silence held
As if the strifes of all the earth were quelled,
Beside the Bier with bowed and reverent head,
We paid vicarious homage to our dead.
Exalted in this passion's brief surcease,
Our visions shaped a newer gift to Peace—
Not death, O God, again the awful price,
But life henceforth the offered sacrifice!
Life, cleansed from Hate that bars the coming good,
And stays our dream of human brotherhood;
From Greed that clamors for unrighteous gain,
And Pride that heeds not weaker human pain,
From deadly armament for human strife
O God, our gift a cleansed, a sweeter life!
AT THE LINCOLN MEMORIAL UNVEILING
May 30, 1922
Times ceaseless cycles brought the Golden Year
And seven, and brought one perfect, shining day,
With skies cerulean, waters sparkling, clear,
A crowning loveliness of lovely May;
And, in a nation's evolution, brought
This pile magnificent, that wakened Art,
Seeking her acme of expression, wrought
In beauty to reveal a nation's heart!
And time brought freedom's vintage—one who came
To tell the progress of a franchised race,
And for its blest achievements to acclaim
A race's homage in this hallowed place.
Lincoln, beloved, of those who gathered here
In this great nation's tribute to bear part,
None brought thy memory reverence more sincere
Than that which voiced a race's grateful heart!
Spirit benign, while here we feel thy touch,
Thy mystic nearness in this pregnant hour,
Give us a newer message—not in such
Tones as Gettysburg—but the fuller power
Of spirit speech to spirit; here unfold
The deep, intrinsic sense of that new birth
Of freedom thy prophetic lips foretold
Should have its glorious advent on our earth!
THE TORCH BEARER
The Late Booker T. Washington,
Founder of Tuskagee Institute.
Up from the portals dark of slavery's night,
The dusky, untried youth, emerging came;
His feet set on the trail, his heart aflame
With a great purpose: He would reach the light
Freedom held forth, and for his needy race
Would touch his torch and bear it torth to teach,
To lead his people till they rose to reach
The goal where progress needs must give them place.
Ah! woe for us, the once uplifted hand
Lies nerveless; that a hush the world can feel
Reigns where erstwhile a voice with strong appeal
Rang out for righteous standards in our land!
O, Washington, thy light we ill can spare,
And thy great leadership, the strength, the grace
Of thy rich life spent to uplift a race
With self-effacement, and achievement rare!
A PATTERN OF SERVICE
Hollis B. Frissell, late President of Hampton Institute
He came and brought to us a pattern true
Of service, loyalty and brotherhood,
And, passing, left it sacred that we do
Our share of striving for the common good.
O, loved exemplar, for the world's sore need
Of service, brotherhood and loyalty
Our lives shall in their copy show our meed
Of tribute to thy blessed memory!
THE HAMPTON SPIRIT
Oh, Hampton, one never could make thee a song,
Except as his life did the singing
In service that would thy great spirit prolong—
And send it thro centuries ringing!
IN PROTEST
So they've sought a new sensation for this modern jazzing craze
In the ruthless syncopation of those sweet old plaintive lays
That the souls of their forefathers, 'neath affliction's heavy rod,
Coined from bitterness of sorrow as they reached for touch with God;
When they stole "away to Jesus" at the end of life's hard day
And in loneliness of spirit "couldn't hear nobody pray;"
Or, with faith at last triumphant, sang of "freedom? that would come,
Of "Sweet Chariot," low swinging, sent to bear their spirits home;
Or of God who could deliver as in times of sacred lore;
Of the chill of death's "deep river," crossed to Canaan's blissful shore!
O ye unthinking heritors of this rare and sacred trust—
Of a race's soul's outpouring—jazz in pleasure if you must;
But give rein to modern fancy for the rhythmic thrills you crave,
Leave, O leave untouched, unsullied, those dear songs your fathers gave!
HER VOICE
She stood where the spotlight focused
And the hushed, expectant throng
Felt the unstudied grace ot her form and face
As they waited for her song.
She sang, and the distilled sweetness
Of each lilting, liquid note
Bore our hearts along with the quaint old song
That flowed from her dusky throat.
But my fancy tricked me strangely:
I closed my weary eyes
And the lights became the shadow and flame
Of Southern twilight skies;
And my head once more was pillowed
On a softly sheltering breast
And a sweet low voice made my heart rejoice
As it lulled me to childhood's rest.
UNITY
Ethnic diverseness, clannish clash and strife
Obscure the blessed unities of life.
In class and clique the rich and poor pass by
And give no sign. Then a deep, human cry
Of pain arrests the throng, stills noisome mart;
And sympathy sends answer, throe for throe.
Pain-beat for pain-beat, throbs a great world's woe,
And a vast pity flows as from one heart.
Doctrine and dogma, warring sect and creed,
Divide the Church, nor fill the pschyic need—
The brother-call innate of soul to soul;
But, "Love thy neighbor," One of Galilee
Hath said, and welds by the divine decree
A golden link that unifies the whole.
MY HERITAGE
Ancestors of the ships! Sad voyagers,
Whom Destiny, inscrutable, silent, strange,
Forced through the wide flung portals of a new
Civilization in the making; fastened
Inseparably to her great future; left it hers
To make of thee a blessing or a curse!
I trace back to their source from crude reactions
Thy tested spirits gave to hard experience,
Impulses primitive, which I own,
My heritage!
Captured, enchained and o'er the fateful trail
Urged by the captor's cruel lash and goad,
While quivering flesh weltered beneath the strokes,
And screams of pain disturbed the heavy air
That late had stirred with shrieks of ecstasy,
When the successful chase drove from his lair
The jungle quarry, and the spear's true aim
Had given his reeking carcass to adorn
The triumphal return!
Leaving behind what in their savage breasts
Sounded the depths of human feeling—
The smoky hut, primeval germ of home;
The rendezvous where tom-tom's call had drawn
The tribe's ensemble for a common end—
Or war's grave council or the joy of chase;
Or votive offering to offended gods,
When dread disease had raised a vengeful hand,
And smote with hectic flame.
On, and the via doloroso endeth not
Till where the slaver's ship at anchor rides.
Then, the last look upon a land beloved
The groan bespeaking a new sense of pain
That waking, pierced to bleeding their poor hearts;
Thrust in the foul 'tween decks, settled into
A spiritless apathy, unbroken save
When death's cold, kindly hand, laid on some brow
Vouchsafed a kind release!—
O, my dark-hued ancestors, beneath the goad and flail
Treading for me, vicarious, civilization's trail,
Along that way of sorrow, I reach back o'er the years
And trace my poignant throw-back, my heritage of tears!
* * *
Exiled, enslaved, and by taskmaster held
To the hard delving of a sterner soil.
And yet their souls rebounding from despair
Follow the rhythm of recurring strokes
And ease their rigor with the labor song!—
O, Men of darker visage, it is not mine to ask
Why heavy lay upon thee civilization's task
To hew and delve and hammer incath driver's good and thong—
But, that thy souls reacted with the crude labor song—
My grateful spirit reaches back o'er the weary way
To bless thee that with singing I break my task today!
* * *
Women of Africa, pitying angels wept
Over the tragic scenes by which was marked
Thy passage into slavery from its shores,
I may not lift the vail!
Rather to vision thee, bondswomen, mothers,
Taking fair infant charges to thy breasts
Yielding them warm sustenance, tending them
With gentle ministering, comforting them;
Soothing their restlessness and thine own hearts
With the soft cadence of sweet melodies
So plaintive and so tender, so unique,
That voiced the visions of thy yearning souls
And have enriched the music of our world!
O, ye, who in your bondage made servitude divine
Through beautiful devotion, motherhood's crown is thine!
Across the years between us, I touch your gentle souls
And feel their rare adorning—the patience that controls
Sorrow; the hope upspringing beneath oppression's rod
The meekness, the long suffering, the simple trust in God!
UNDER THE TREES
A little respite from the city, rife
With clang and clamor of its whirring life
Of mechanism, then, the drone of bees,
And shrill cicadas' note beneath the trees!
And twilight, and the sounds of homing herds,
And the soft twitterings of nesting birds,
And whispered wooing of the scented breeze,
And sleep's oblivion beneath the trees.
Ah, loosed from feverish strivings, it were best
If, sinking to our everlasting rest,
Nature's sweet symphony of sounds like these
Might lull to final slumber 'neath the trees!
MY THANKSGIVING
For patience under cruel stress
To stifle racial bitterness,
Nor swerve in the extremity
From my own soul's nobility.
To question the unrighteous line—
Measuring by equity divine—
Yet foster beauty, sweetness, grace
Within the circumscribed place.
For vision of this height sublime,
Set for my soul and strength to climb
Father of all, I thank Thee!
THE UNBROKEN CHAIN
Human affection binds us as a chain
Strong as the power of our devoted hearts;
A link is missed, and with a throb of pain
We sense the void! the tear unbidden starts!
But, should we weep? — The chain is still unriven
Tho we the missing link may not discern
Lost to our vision in the light of Heaven—
We have this hope een while our spirits yearn,—
That some time, when the striving all is o'er—
And we uplifted to immortal plane
United we will count the links once more
And find them all in an unbroken chain.
SERVICE IN COMMUNITY LIFE
Strong, that no human soul may pass
Its warm, encircling unity;
Wide, to include all creed, all class—
This, the ideal community.
And so encircled, all and each—
Aroused to know the common good,
Striving, shall in the striving reach
A closer human brotherhood.
A PLEA FOR THE CHILDREN
Have you seen the little children of the city's hidden places
Seen their poor, ill-nourished bodies and their wizened, wistful faces?
In the wearying night-watches, have you heard their feeble crying
Neath the stress of hard conditions restless, fevered, even dying?
O, ye people, fortune-favored, think ye not these heirs of sorrow—
Men and women, in the making for our country's great tomorrow—
Will arraign you in that future that today you have neglected
To provide where they so needed and their mute appeal rejected?
Little ones of olden story—the Christ's loving arms enfolding,
While he breathed His tender blessing, they His kindly face beholding—
Proto-types are of these children, and His sacred trust is given
You to make these little comrades open paths to Him and Heaven.
Bring them, then, from depths of squalor, out into God's open spaces,
Where they charm with happy laughter, and with rate unstudied graces
Bring them into childhood's kingdom, help them grow in health and sweetness
Souls and minds and bodies rounding into beautiful completeness!
CHRISTMAS EVE: THE ANSWER FROM NO MAN'S LAND
Comes again love's great hour of discord's brief reprieve.
And the world's heart beats timing to bells of Christmas eve;
Light speaks from lowly windows to light in stately hall
And the sweet Christmas spirit holds us erstwhile in thrall.
Far over seas wild surging night with a rev' rent hand
Has set her stars for candles alight on No Man's Land,
And to that ground so holy, under their gleaming light
Come hero-souls unnumbered keeping a tryst tonight.
O, ye, who have won knowledge thro' sacrificial pain,
Break silence, send the answer for which our senses strain,
What of love's final triumph? When will earth's tumult cease?
When will the Christmas morning usher the golden peace?
Hark! the reverberation of the night's chiming bells,
Back to our souls up lifted the age-old chorus swells,
They, and the angels are sending Bethlehem's answer again,—
"Glory to God in the highest! On earth Peace, Good Will to men!"
INTER-RACIAL COOPERATION
Men have set up a barrier which controls
Such human circumstance as, if our feet
Shall enter here, or there; the while large souls
Concerned with Life's grave call, have risen to meet
Across the unity of noble thought,
And lofty purpose, and constructive deed,
Oblivious to all else—and so have wrought
Together for the world's compelling need!
THE MEETING
They called an out door meeting and all the country folk
From near and far were gathered — one from the city spoke.
From "firstly," reaching onward he lengthened his harangue
His raucus voice the echoes sent back in answering clang.
But straying went my senses from the bombastic words,
Intrigued by murmuring tree-tops and minstrelsy of birds;
And rhythmic, noiseless motion of drifting clouds o'er-head
Till, ere they turned from wandering, the "lastly" had been said.
Silent beside my neighbors I went my homeward way,
Hearing their loud discussions, having no words to say
Only a nameless feeling, like worship or a prayer,
Too sacred for expression, too intimate to share.
THE WINGS OF GOD
"He shall cover thee with His feathers,
And under His wings shalt thou trust?"—
So David, the harpist sings
His beautiful psalm of wings—
Of a wondrous vision of refuge
For myriad kindred of dust.
Where at length the prince and the beggar
From different ways they have trod,
A-weary alike of pain
Of loss and the surfeit of gain,
Each may seek a comforting shelter
Beneath the outspread wings of God.
So unlike their day of endeavor—
Unlike is the guerdon it brings—
But, losing or pain or pride
In longing at eventide
For His rest, as birds to their homing
They come to His hovering wings.
I FOLLOW
Come harbingers of winter,
Bleak winds and leaden skies
Moved by an urge instinctive,
The wingéd migrant flies,
Led o'er the path unswerving
To sunlit land afar
Of warm aerial current
And shining southern star.
Like guided bird I follow
The impulse of my soul
Having within the vision
Of a celestial goal;
Follow the trend unerring
Of an upreaching trail;
The gleam divine that beckons;
My Guide that will not fail!
HYMN TO THE NEW FREEDOM
Hail thee, New Freedom, earth's heroes defended
To extreme effort, thy momentous birth,
With dread Autocracy fiercely contended,
Till the arch foe, smitten, fled from our earth.
Welcome the dawn of thy glad natal morning,
Triumphing over War's horrible night,
Waking our earth to new promise, adorning
Her stricken places with its healing light.
Welcome the truth that our souls is obsessing
Age-old, yet newly inborne from above—
‘Goodwill to men,’ must uphold Peace's blessing,
Man's rule of life, must be God's 'Rule of Love?’
God, in this hour of our regeneration,
Compassed by souls who unstintingly paid
The price supreme, that the world, that this Nation,
Still should go on unoppressed, unafraid,
Make us true heirs of their fervid endeavor,
Worthy what they have so valiantly won—
Freedom, equality, justice, forever
A sacred trust, may we still 'carryon'.
At the gateway of an era unfolding,
Cleave us a pathway with Thy truth and light,
Walking therein, each a brother beholding,
Grant each to render a brother his right.
So, make us newly a united Nation,
A sovereign people whose God Thou still art,
One in our country's profound adoration,
To her great future each bearing his part.
GOD'S SPEECH
"God don speak like a na'chel man,
He speaks so His chillen can un'erstan.”
-Negro Spiritual.
In winds' soft whisperings like a caress;
And gentle falling of the rain in Spring;
And constant round of love's small ministering
Blent into humble lives to cheer and bless.
In the deep silence of uncharted wood;
And in the majesty of tempest's roar;
In boom of waves upon the lonely shore;
In providence of simple daily food.
In divine languor after pain's relief;
In mystic midnight growing of the corn;
And the clean freshness of the early morn;
Comfort, that is faith's aftermath of grief
In varied ways, God spoke into the drear
Condition of their lives, His children heard
And made their song so rare, so sweet, that stirred
The hearts of all the world to pause and hear!
LITTLE IDEALS
Home tasks, we complain give us little ideals—
The cleaning and budgeting, cooking of meals—
So taxing they weary, so trivial they pall—
They hold us we feel from life's loftier call;
We reach and we rub till all polished and clean
A room's hidden corners not like to be seen.
(So in larger affairs we are apt to be true
And clean in the things we are called on to do.)
We stretch slender purse-string till each debt is paid
And qualms of a scrupulous conscience allayed,
(And the Christ-standard reach for a man to his brother—
"Owe no man anything but to love one another.")
We cook frugal meals with the calories right
And keep bodies fit for stern labor's grim fight.
(Well seasoned with love they make souls true and strong
To win in the battle of right against wrong.)
Ah, little ideals, little chores in the home!
Our dreams lead us forth wider pathways to roam,
We fail, we succeed, gather wealth or grow poor
But the ideal divine came within that loved door!