THE PARTHENON BY MOONLIGHT

THE DOUBTER

THOU Christ, my soul is hurt and bruised!
With words the scholars wear me out;
My brain o'erwearied and confused,
Thee, and myself, and all I doubt.

And must I back to darkness go
Because I cannot say their creed?
I know not what I think; I know
Only that thou art what I need.

THE PARTHENON BY MOONLIGHT

I

THIS is an island of the golden Past

Uplifted in the tranquil sea of night.

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In the white splendor how the heart beats fast, When climbs the pilgrim to this gleaming hight; As might a soul, new-born, its wondering way Take through the gates of pearl and up the stair Into the precincts of celestial day,

So to this shrine my worshiping feet did fare.

II

But look! what tragic waste! Is Time so lavish
Of dear perfection thus to see it spilled?
'T was worth an empire; · now behold the ravish
That laid it low. The soaring plain is filled
With the wide-scattered letters of one word
Of loveliness that nevermore was spoken;
Nor ever shall its like again be heard:

Not dead is art

but that high charm is broken.

III

Now moonlight builds with swift and mystic art

And makes the ruin whole and yet not whole; But exquisite, tho' crusht and torn apart. Back to the temple steals its living soul In the star-silent night; it comes all pale A spirit breathing beauty and delight, And yet how stricken! Hark! I hear it wail Self-sorrowful, while every wound bleeds white.

IV

And tho' more sad than is the nightingale
That mourns in Lykabettos' fragrant pine,
That soul to mine brings solace; nor shall fail
To heal the heart of man while still doth shine
Yon planet, doubly bright in this deep blue;

Yon moon that brims with fire these violet hills: For beauty is of God; and God is true,

And with His strength the soul of mortal fills.

THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE

LET fall the ruin propt by Europe's hands!
Its tottering walls are but a nest of crime;
Slayers and ravishers in licensed bands

Swarm darkly forth to shame the face of Time.

False, imbecile, and cruel; kept in place
Not by its natural force, but by the fears

Of foes, scared each of each; even by the grace

Of rivals

not blood-guiltless all these years!

Ay, let the ruin fall, and from its stones
Rebuild a civic temple pure and fair;
Where freedom is not alien; where the groans
Of dying and ravished burden not the air!

1896.

KARNAK

I

Of all earth's shrines this is the mightiest,
And none is elder. Pylon, obelisk,
Column enormous seek or east or west,
No temple like to Karnak 'neath the disk
Of the far-searching sun. Since the first stone
Here lifted to the heavens its dumb appeal,
Empires and races to the dread unknown

Have past gods great and small 'neath Time's

slow. wheel

Have fallen and been crusht; - the earth hath shaken Ruin on ruin - desolate, dead, forsaken.

II

Since first these stones were laid, the solid world,
Ay, this whole, visible, infinite universe,
Hath shifted on its base; suns have been hurled
From heaven; the ever-circling spheres rehearse

A music new to men. Yet still doth run

This river, throbbing life through all its lands;
Those desert mountains lifted to the sun

Live as of old; and these devouring sands;
And, under the changing heavens, amazed, apart-
Still, still the same the insatiate human heart.

III

And Thou, Eternal, Thou art still the same;
Thou unto whom the first, sad, questioning face
Yearned, for a refuge from the insentient frame
Of matter that doth grind us; seeking grace
From powers imagined 'gainst the powers we know; —
Some charm to avert the whirlwind, bring the tide

And harvest; turn the blind and awful flow
Of nature! Thou Eternal dost abide
Silent forever, like the unanswering skies
That send but empty echoes to men's cries!

IV

But not in temples now man's only hope,
Nor secret ministries of king and priest
Chanting beyond dark gates that never ope
Unto the people; now no hornèd beast
Looms 'twixt the worshiper and the adored,
Nor any creature's likeness; He remains
Unknown as erst; yet Him whom we call Lord

Is worshiped in the fields as in the fanes.

We have but faith; we know not; yet He seems More near, more human, in our passionate dreams.

V

We know not, yet the centuries in their course
Have built an image in the mind of man;
We have but faith, yet that mysterious Force
Less darkly threatens, looms a friendlier plan.
Far off the singing of the morning stars,

Yet age by age such words of light are spoken
(Like whispered messages through prison bars),
Sometimes men deem the dreadful silence broken,
And hearts that late were famished and afeared
Leap to the Voice and onward fare well cheered.

VI

Cheered for a little season, but the morrow

Brings the old heartbreak; gone is all the gain; Tho' the bowed soul be schooled to its own sorrow, Ah, heaven! to feel earth's heritage of pain,

ANGELO, THOU ART THE MASTER 249

The unescapable anguish of mankind,

That blots out natural joy!-O human soul, Learn Courage, tho' the lightning strike thee blind; Let Duty be thy worship; Love, thy goal: Love, Duty, Courage these make thou thy own, Till from the unknown we pass into the unknown.

"ANGELO, THOU ART THE MASTER"

I

ANGELO, thou art the master; for thou in thy art Compassed the body, the soul; the form and the heart. Knew where the roots of the spirit are buried and twined, The springs and the rocks that shall suckle—and tor

ture and bind.

Large was thy soul like the soul of a god that creates Converse it held with the stars and the imminent Fates. Knewest thou - Art is but Beauty perceived and exprest, And the pang of that Beauty had entered and melted thy breast.

Here by thy Slave, again, after long years do I bow Angelo, thou art the master, yea, thou, and but thou.

Here is the crown of all beauty that lives in the world; Spirit and flesh breathing forth from these lips that are curled

With sweetness and sorrow as never, O, never before, And from eyes that are heavy with light, and shall weep

nevermore;

And lo, at the base of the statue, that monster of shape Thorn of the blossom of life, mocking face of the ape. So cometh morn from the shadow and murk of the night; From pain springeth joy, and from flame the keen beauty of light.