Eyes of Youth | Page 8

the lips that falter, wan,?"The age of miracles is gone!"?I have learned to read the grim?Testimony unto Him?Printed with starvation's hand?On every hove! through the land;?I have swung the crazy door?To find huddled on a floor?Rat-gnawed and riddled, with never a clout?To keep the eager winter out,?Some six or seven of our kind?Shivering beneath the wind,?Foodless, fireless, hungry-eyed,?Crouched round one who just had died,?Hopeless that the dawn would bring?Friendly aid and comforting.
And after prayer for the parted soul,?They have thanked the slender dole,?And spoken of hope of days to come,?And have forgotten their martyrdom.?The anguished grief of motherhood?Has firmly whispered "God is good?And can in His Eternity?Repay this present loss"; till I?Have almost turned my head to see?If Christ has not come in with me!
_Gentle Jesus, mild and meek,?These the simple words I speak?Are the faith Thou gavest me;?Suffer me to come to Thee!_
SIC TRANSIT
They camped in the meadow at sunrise,?And their crests gleamed bright in the sun,?And the breeze that blew sighed soft, for it knew?Their fate e'er the day was done.?They lay in the meadow at sunset,?As the sky in anger blushed red;?For the host of the dawn lay still on the lawn--?The host was a host of dead.
Let the gardener but pass his scythe o'er the grass--?And the life of a daisy is sped!

MONICA SALEEBY
RETROSPECT
You loved the child of fifteen years.?I knew not this vast thing.?Your great heart shrank beneath your fears;?You left me wondering.
Now fourteen years have passed us by;?Our souls meet once again;?And, meeting, I have asked you why?Our ways apart have lain?
And now your answer comes at last:--?"I loved you in that day."?Oh, strange reply! Oh, tender past!?Oh, long love locked away!
And now, yes, I have climbed Love's hill;?My heart is bound, yet free.?And is there not some young child still?For you to love in me?
You have the right to love her yet,?For he who loves me grown?Knew not the child you'll ne'er forget;?I give her for your own.
Oh, keep her young within your breast,?Allow her to survive;?For love of you I'll do my best?To keep your child alive.

FRANCIS MEYNELL
ANY STONE
A myriad years God toiled to mould?A nerveless stone to His intent--?From peace to war, from heat to cold,?It triumphed against the Omnipotent:?God strove until His strength grew old,?Then cried "Thy help, My firmament!"
The stars in succour gave their light,?The aiding moon her ocean-sway;?At dawn and dusk the hosts of night?Watched round the battle-fires of day ...?To set the dust He loved aright?God called His winds to that array,
And all the burden of the world,?And all the tears from all men's eyes,?Drought, dew, and every flower unfurled,?The priest, the fire, the sacrifice,?The pillared cloud, His thunder hurled--?Victor, He held as nought the price!
Thus loved, thus wrought, God deemed the stone?Fit bed for beasts to lie upon.

O God of Gods, make short my days?Of blind approach to her and Thee;?Life-long upon Thy rugged ways?Her heart has danced: she calls to me.?Hast Thou forgotten me alone,?O Watcher where the wild beast lies?--?Mould to Thy will this other stone?--A stone, yet precious in her eyes.
LUX IN TENEBRIS
Spirit of smiles and tears, you came to me in the night,?The golden moon aglow in your hair, and the spear-driven light Of an army of stars in your eyes, weary with truant sleep.?O little skilled in self, who thought you came to weep!
Out of the darkness, light; flame in the virgin dew!?Love came unto her own, and knew him not, who knew.?O understood! O known! O apprehended bliss!?O self unskilled in self! O taught of my one kiss!
MATER INVIOLATA
A maiden's love most nuptial is,?Innocent of his nuptial kiss;?And only after marriage call?Her lips, her passion, virginal!
For when she dreams, who is beloved,?The ancient miracle stands proved--?Virginity's much Motherhood!?For O, the unborn babes she keeps,?The unthought glory, lips unwooed!--?And O, the quickening of her sleeps?Whose dreams, dreamed over, do repeat?The echoes of Love's falling feet!?For his, her young inviolate mouth?Longs with the longing of long drouth:?And, lacking substance for such feast,?She clasps a dream-baby to breast,?And kisses, where her head has place,?The dream-lips of her love's dream-face!
On the decked bridal bed of Night?She knows the Moon shows maiden light--?The Sun's kiss urged in marriage-rite!?So, when her very night shall come,?Virginal, in her virgin home?When stars show unfamiliar faces,?Laughing for love in their high places--?When her essential lips are dumb?In a thronged panic of embraces--?Her maiden heart, her spousal breast,?Shall throb, surrendered and possessed,?Throb, passion-sweet and ungainsaid--?"Now at the last am I a Maid!"
SONG-BURDEN
I do confess I have no art?To tell the tale of my own heart.
Of lips and tears, of hearts and eyes,?I rhyme my rhymes and fear my fears;?And if of these I make you wise,?These pictured hearts, these lips, these tears,?There is nought to do; I have played my part.
And I, a captain of much guile,?Within your ranks dissensions