THE BIRDS OF BETHLEHEM

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By the way that Christ descended
From Mount Olivet,

I, a lonely pilgrim, wended,
On the day his entry splendid
Is remembered yet.

And I thought: If he, returning

On this high festival,

Here should haste with love and yearning,
Where would now his fearful, burning
Anger flash and fall?

In the very house they builded

To his saving name,

'Mid their altars, gemmed and gilded, Would his scourge and scorn be wielded, His fierce lightning flame.

Once again, O Man of Wonder,
Let thy voice be heard!

Speak as with a sound of thunder;
Drive the false thy roof from under;
Teach thy priests thy word.

THE BIRDS OF BETHLEHEM

I HEARD the bells of Bethlehem ring-
Their voice was sweeter than the priests';
I heard the birds of Bethlehem sing
Unbidden in the churchly feasts.

They clung and sung on the swinging chain
High in the dim and incensed air;
The priests, with repetitions vain,

Chanted a never-ending prayer.

So bell and bird and priest I heard,
But voice of bird was most to me;
It had no ritual, no word,

And yet it sounded true and free.

I thought Child Jesus, were he there,
Would like the singing birds the best,
And clutch his little hands in air

And smile upon his mother's breast.

NOËL

STAR-DUST and vaporous light,
The mist of worlds unborn, —
A shuddering in the awful night
Of winds that bring the morn.

Now comes the dawn: the circling earth;
Creatures that fly and crawl;

And Man, that last, imperial birth;

And Christ, the flower of all.

"THE SUPPER AT EMMAUS"

WISE Rembrandt! thou couldst paint, and thou alone, Eyes that had seen what never human eyes

Before had looked on; him that late had past
Onward and back through gates of Death and Life.

O human face where the celestial gleam
Lingers! O, still to thee the eyes of men

Turn with deep, questioning worship; seeing there,
As in a mirror, the Eternal Light

Caught from the shining of the central Soul

Whence came all worlds, and whither shall return.

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

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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 pastgods 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