Heaven from the hopeless doubter

The true believer makes;
Against the darkness outer

The light God's likeness takes.

Like the pale, cold moon above her
With its heart of the heart of fire,

My Love is the one true lover,
And hers is the soul of desire.

AFTER-SONG

THROUGH love to light! O., wonderful the way
That leads from darkness to the perfect day!
From darkness and from sorrow of the night
To morning that comes singing o'er the sea.
Through love to light! Through light, O God, to Thee,
Who art the love of love, the eternal light of light!

THE CELESTIAL PASSION

THE CELESTIAL PASSION

PRELUDE

O WHITE and midnight sky! O starry bath!
Wash me in thy pure, heavenly, crystal flood;
Cleanse me, ye stars, from earthly soil and scath;
Let not one taint remain in spirit or blood!
Receive my soul, ye burning, awful deeps;

Touch and baptize me with the mighty power
That in ye thrills, while the dark planet sleeps;
Make me all yours for one blest, secret hour!
O glittering host! O high angelic choir!"

Silence each tone that with thy music jars; Fill me even as an urn with thy white fire Till all I am is kindred to the stars!

Make me thy child, thou infinite, holy nightSo shall my days be steeped in heavenly light!

PART I

ART AND LIFE

SAID the Poet unto the Seer:

How shall I learn to tell

What I know of Heaven and Hell?

I speak, but to ashes turn

The passions that in me burn.
I shout to the skies, but I hear
No answer from man or God.

Shall I cast my lyre to the sod,
Rest, and give over the strife,
And sink in a voiceless life?

Said the Seer to the Poet: Arise
And give to the seas and the skies
The message that in thee burns.
Thrice speak, tho' the blue sky turns
Deaf ears, and the ocean spurns
Thy call. Tho' men despise

The word that from out thy heart
Flameth; do thou thy part.
Thrice speak it, aloud, I say,
Then go, released, on thy way;
Live thou deeply and wise;
Suffer as never before;

Know joy, till it cuts to the quick;
Eat the apple, Life, to the core.
Be thou curst

By them thou hast blest, by the sick
Whom thou in thy weakness nursed.
With thy strength the faint endue;

Be praised when 't were better to blame;
In the home of thy spirit be true,

Tho' the voice of the street cry shame.

Be silent till all is done,

Then return, in the light of the sun,

And once more sing.

O, then fling

Into music thy soul! Tell the seas

Again all thy thought; O, be strong

Thy voice as the voice of the waves, as the voice of the

trees!

Tell the blast,

That shall shudder as onward it flies