The Statues in the Block and Other Poems

Front matter

THE

STATUES IN THE BLOCK,

AND OTHER POEMS.

The Statues in the Block

THE STATUES IN THE BLOCK.

"

OVE is the secret of the world," he said;

"The cup we drain and still desire to drink. The loadstone hungers for the steel; the steel, Inert amid a million stones, responds to this. So yearn and answer hearts that truly love: Once touch their life-spring, it vibrates to death; And twain a thrill as one are nature-wed."

But silent stood the three who heard, nor smiled Nor looked agreement. Strangers these who stood Within a Roman studio—still young, But sobered each with that which follows joy At life's fresh forenoon, and the eye of each

Held deep within a restless eager light, As gleams a diamond in a darkened room With radiance hoarded from the vanished sun.

"The meteor-stone is dense and dark in space, But bursts in flame when through the air it rushes; And our dull life is like an aerolite That leaps to fire within the sphere of love." Unchecked his mood ran on: "Sweet amorous hours That lie in years as isles in tropic seas, You spring to view as Art is born of Love, And shape rich beauties in this marble block!

Before them rose within the shaded light A tall and shapely mass of Alp-white crystal Fresh from the heart of a Carrara quarry.

"Opaque to you this marble; but to me, Whose eyes the chrism of passion has anointed, The stone is pregnant with a life of love. Within this monolith there lives a form

Which I can see and would reveal to you, Could hand and chisel swiftly follow sight. From brow to foot her lissome form stands forth— The ripe lips smiling reached; with nestling press, As round the sailor frozen in the berg The clear ice closes on the still dead face, The marble, grown translucent, touches soft Each comely feature—rippled hair, and chin, And lily sweep of bust and hip and limb— Ah, sweet mouth pouting for the lips that cling, And white arms raised all quivering to the clasp Ah, rich throat made for burning lover's kiss, And reckless bodice open to the swell, And deep eyes soft with love's suffusion—Love! O Love! still living, memory and hope, Beyond all sweets thy bosom, breath, and lips— My jewel and the jewel of the world!"

They stood in silence, each one rapt and still, As if the lovely form were theirs as his,

Till one began—harsh voice and clouded face With other presence in his eye—and said:

"Opaque to me with such a glow-worm ray As Love's torch flings—but, mark, the dense rock melts When from my soul on fire the fiercer beam, The mighty calcium-glare of hate leaps out And eats the circumambient marble—See! Laid bare as corpse to keen anatomist, With every sinuous muscle picked with shadow, And every feature tense with livid passion, And all the frame aheave with sanguine throbs The ecstasy of agonized Revenge! stone, reveal it how my parting kiss Was wet upon her mouth when other lips Drank deep the curséd fountain; how the coin I hung with rapture 'tween her glowing breasts, And fondly thought if I should die and she Should live till age had blanched her hair and flesh,

This golden medal's touch would still have power To light the love-fire in the faded eyes And swell the shrivelled breast to maiden roundness This thought I nursed—O Stygian abyss!— Away thy picture of the rippled hair! Her hair was rippled and her eyes were deep, Her breasts and limbs were white and lily-curved, But all the woman, soul and wondrous flesh, Was poison-steeped and veined with vicious fire; And I, blind fool who trusted, was but one Who swooned with love beside her—But I drank The wine she filled, and made her eat the dregs— I drenched her honey with my sea of gall. I see her in the marble where she shrinks In shuddered fear, as if my face were fire— Her cowering shadow making whiter still The face of him that writhes beside her feet. I see him breathe, the last deep breath, and turn His eyes upon me horror-filled—his hand, Still hot with wanton dalliance, clutched hard

Across the burning murder in his side— And now he sinks still glaring—And my heart Is there between them, petrified, O God! And pierced by that red blow that struck their guilt. O balm and torture! he must hate who loves, And bleed who strikes to see thy face, Revenge!"

Grown deep the silence for the words that died, And paler still the marble for its grief.

"Ah, myrrh and honey!" spake a third, whose eyes Were deep with sorrow for the woe; "blind hands That grope for flowers and pierce the flesh with thorns! All love of woman still may turn to hate, As wine to bitterness, as noon to night. But sweeter far and deeper than the love Of flesh for flesh, is the strong bond of hearts For suffering Motherland—to make her free! Love's joy is short, and Hate's black triumph bitter, And loves and hates are selfish save for thee,

chained and weeping at thy pillar's foot, Thy white flesh eaten by accursed bands. No love but thine can satisfy the heart, For love of thee holds in it hate of wrong, And shapes the hope that moulds humanity! Not mine your passions, yet I weigh them well— Who loves a greater sinks all lesser love, Who hates a tyrant loses lesser hate. My Land! I see thee in the marble, bowed Before thy tyrant, bound at foot and wrist— Thy garments rent—thy wounded shoulder bare— Thy chained hand raised to ward the cruel blow— My poor love round thee scarf-like, weak to hide And powerless to shield thee—but a boy I wound it round thee, dearest, and a man I drew it close and kissed thee—Mother, wife! For thee the past and future days; for thee The will to trample wrong and strike for slaves; For thee the hope that ere mine arm be weak And ere my heart be dry may close the strife

In which thy colors shall be borne through fire, And all thy griefs washed out in manly blood— And I shall see thee crowned and bound with love, Thy strong sons round thee guarding thee. O star That lightens desolation, o'er her beam, Nor let the shadow of the pillar sink Too deep within her, till the dawn is red Of that white noon when men shall call her Queen!"

The deep voice quivering with affection ceased, And silent each they saw within the stone The captive nation and the mother's woe. Yet while their hearts the fine emotion warmed, Ere ebbed the deep-pulsed throb of brotherhood, The last one spoke, and held the wave at full:—

"Yea, brothers, his the noblest for its grief; Your love was loss—but his was sacrifice. Your light was sunlight, for the shallow sense,

That bends the eyes on earth and thinks it sees; His love was nightlike, when we see the stars, Forgetting petty things around our feet. Yet here, too, find his weakness, for his hope Is still for sunlight, and your shallow sense, And golden crowns and queendom for his love. I, too, within the stone behold a statue, Far less than yours, but greater, for I know My symbol a beginning, not an end. O, Grief, with Hope! The marble fades—behold! The little hands still crossed—a child in death. My link with love—my dying gift from her Whose last look smiled on both, when I was left A loveless man, save this poor gift, alone. My heart had wound its tendrils round one life, But, when my joy was deepest, she was stricken, And I was powerless to save. My prayers And piteous cries were flung against my face— My life was blighted by the curse of Heaven! But from the depths her love returned to soothe:

Her dear hand reached from death and placed her child Where she had lived, within the riven tendrils, And firmly these closed round their second treasure. And she, my new love, in her infant hold Took every heart-string as her mother's gift, And touched such tender fine-strung chords, and played Such music in my heart as filled my life With trembling joy and fondness for the child. I feared to be so blest—her baby cheek, When laid on mine, was Heaven's sweetest touch; And when she looked me in the eyes, I saw Her mother look at me from deep within, And bless me for the love I gave and won. Yet, when I loved her most she, too, was doomed: I saw it come upon her like a shadow, And watched the change, appalled at first, but set To ward the danger from my darling. She, As day by day still failing, grew so tender

And crept so often to my heart, as if, Though but a babe who could not speak a word, She knew full well my life would soon be shattered. But all my love was fruitless, and my prayers To leave her with me beat the gates in vain. I thought my love must hold her, till at last I held the tiny body like a leaf All day and night within my arms; and so, Close nestled to my yearning heart, Death passed, As merciless as God, but left that look Of two dead loves, as if Death's self knew pity. And I was lost heart-withered in a night That knew no star and held no ray of hope, And heard no word but my despairing curse With lifted hands, at life and Him who gave it! My graves were all I had—the little mound Where my hands laid her, with the sweet young grass— The tiny hill that grew until the sun Was hid behind it, and I sat below

And gnawed my heart in grief within its shadow. So one day bowed in woe beside the grave The weight grew deadly, and I called aloud That God should witness to my life in ruin. And God's word reached me through the little grave Where in the grass my face was buried weeping His peace came through it like a pent-up breath That rolled from some great world whose gates had oped, And blew upon my wild and hardened heart, And swept my woe before it like a leaf. My dried heart drank the meaning of the peace: True love shall trust, and selfish love must die, For trust is peace, and self is full of pain; Arise, and heal thy brother's grief; his tears Shall wash thy love and it will live again. little grave, I thought 't was love had died, But in thy bosom only lies my sorrow. 1 see my darling in the marble now— My wasted leaf—her kind eyes smiling fondly,

And through her eyes I see the love beyond, The biding light that moves not—and I know That when God gives to us the clearest sight He does not touch our eyes with Love, but Sorrow."

The Fame of the City

THE FAME OF THE CITY.

GREAT rich city of power and pride, With streets full of traders, and ships on the tide; With rich men and workmen and judges and preachers, The shops full of skill and the schools full of teachers.

The people were proud of their opulent town: The rich men spent millions to bring it renown; The strong men built and the tradesmen planned; The shipmen sailed to every land; The lawyers argued, the schoolmen taught, And a poor shy Poet his verses brought, And cast them into the splendid store.

The tradesmen stared at his useless craft; The rich men sneered and the strong men laughed;

The preachers said it was worthless quite; The schoolmen claimed it was theirs to write; But the songs were spared, though they added nought To the profit and praise the people sought, That was wafted at last from distant climes; And the townsmen said: "To remotest times We shall send our name and our greatness down!"

The boast came true; but the famous town Had a lesson to learn when all was told: The nations that honored cared nought for its gold, Its skill they exceeded an hundred-fold; It had only been one of a thousand more, Had the songs of the Poet been lost to its store.

Then the rich men and tradesmen and schoolmen said They had never derided, but praised instead; And they boast of the Poet their town has bred.

Heart-Hunger

HEART-HUNGER.

HERE is no truth in faces, save in children: They laugh and frown and weep from nature's keys; But we who meet the world give out false notes, The true note dying muffled in the heart.

O, there be woful prayers and piteous wailing, That spirits hear, from lives that starve for love! The body's food is bread; and wretches' cries Are heard and answered: but the spirit's food Is love; and hearts that starve may die in agony And no physician mark the cause of death.

You cannot read the faces; they are masks,— Like yonder woman, smiling at the lips,

Silk-clad, bejewelled, lapped with luxury, And beautiful and young—ay, smiling at the lips, But never in the eyes from inner light: A gracious temple hung with flowers without— Within, a naked corpse upon the stones!

O, years and years ago the hunger came— The desert-thirst for love—she prayed for love— She cried out in the night-time of her soul for love! The cup they gave was poison whipped to froth. For years she drank it, knowing it for death; She shrieked in soul against it, but must drink: The skies were dumb—she dared not swoon or scream. As Indian mothers see babes die for food, She watched dry-eyed beside her starving heart, And only sobbed in secret for its gasps, And only raved one wild hour when it died!

O Pain, have pity! Numb her quivering sense; O Fame, bring guerdon! Thrice a thousand years

Thy boy-thief with the fox beneath his cloak Has let it gnaw his side unmoved, and held the world; And she, a slight woman, smiling at the lips, With repartee and jest—a corpse-heart in her breast!

Muley Malek, the King

MULEY MALEK, THE KING.

HUNDER of guns, and cries—banners and spears and blood! Troops have died where they stood holding the vantage points— They have raced like waves at a wall, and dashed themselves to death.

Dawn the fight begin, and noon was red with its noon. The armies stretch afar and the plain of Alcazar Is drenched with Moorish blood.

On one side, Muley the King—Muley Malek the Strong. He had seized the Moorish crown because it would fit his brows. Hamet the Fair was king; but Muley pulled him down, because he was strong.

The fierce sun glares on the clouds of dust and battle smoke, The hoarsened soldiers choke in the blinding heat. Muley the King is afield, but sick to the death. Borne on a litter he lies, his blood on fire, his eyes Flaming with fever light. Hamah Tabah the Captain, stands by the curtained bed, Telling him news of the fight—how the waves roll and rise, and clash and mingle and seethe. And Hamah bends to the scene. He peers under archéd hand— As an eagle he stoops to the field. One hand on the hilt Is white at the knuckles, so fiercely gripped; while the hand That had parted the curtains before now clutches the silk and wrings.

Hamet's squadrons are moving in mass—their lines are circling the plain! The thousands of Muley stand, like bison dazed by an earthquake;

They are stunned by the thud of the fight, they are deer without a leader; Their charge has died like the impulse of missiles freed from the sling; Their spears waver like shaken barley,—they are dumb-struck and ready to fly!

Hamah Tabah the Captain, in words like the pouring of pitch, has painted The terrible scene for the sick King, and terrible answer follows. Up from the couch of pain, disdaining the bonds of weakness; Flinging aside disease as a wrestler flings his tunic; Strong with the smothered fire of fever, and fiercer far than its flaming, Rises in mail from the litter Muley Malek the King!

Down on his plunging stallion, in the eyes of the shuddered troops, His bent plume like a smoke, and his sword like a flame,

Smelting their souls with his courage, he rides before his soldiers! They bend from his face like the sun—their eyes are blind with shame— They thrill as a stricken tiger thrills, gathering his limbs from a blow; They raise their faces, and watch him, sworded and mailed and strong; They watch him, and shout his name fiercely "Muley, the King!"

Grimly they close their ranks, drinking his face like wine; Strength to the arm and wrath to the soul, and power— Fuel and fire he was—and the battle roared like a crater!

Back to the litter, his face turned from the lines, and fixed In a stare like the faces in granite, the King

Rode straight and strong, holding his sword Soldierly, gripped on the thigh, grim as a king in iron!

Stiff in the saddle, stark, frowning—one hand is raised, The mailed finger is laid on the mouth: "Silence!" the warning said to Hamah Tabah the Captain.

Help from his horse they give, moving him, still unbending, Down to the bed, and lay him within the curtains. Mutely they answer his frown, like ridges of bronze, and sternly Again is the mailed hand raised and laid on the lips in warning: "Silence!" it said, and the meaning smote through their blood like flame, As the tremor passed through his armor and the grayness crept o'er his features Muley the King was dead!

Furious the struggle and long, the armies with teeth aclench And dripping weapons shortened, like athletes whose blows have killed pain. The soldiers of Hamet were flushed—but the spirit of Muley opposed them; The weak of Muley grew strong when they looked at the curtained litter. Their thought of the King was wine in the thirst of the fight; They saw that Hamah was there, still bending over the bed; Holding the curtains wide and taking the order that came From the burning lips of the King, and sending it down to his soldiers; They knew that Hamah the Captain was telling him of the onset, How they swept like hail on the fields, and left them like sickled grain.

Back, as the waves in a tempest are flung from a cliff and scattered, Burst and horribly broken and driven beneath with the impact, Shivered, for once and forever, the conquered forces; King Hamet Was slain by the sword, and the foreign monarch who helped him, And the plain was swept by the besom of death: There never was grander faith in a king!

Trophies and victors' crowns, bring them to bind his brow! Circle his curtained bed—thousands and thousands, come! It will cure him, and kill his pain—we must see him to-night again: One glance of his love and pride for all the hosts that died— To his bedside—come!

Rigid, with frowning brow, his finger laid on his lips, They saw him saw him—and knew, and read the word that he spake, Stronger than death, and they stood in their tears, and were silent, Obeying the King!

Remorse

REMORSE.

REMEMBER when I was a boy That a grown girl wanted to kiss me; And I struggled, was angry, and shy, And ran off when she tried to caress me.

And I've thought of that day through the years; (What a moral, my friend, lies in this!) Under every sweet leaf that appears Lurks a pain for the loss of that kiss.

The Infinite always is silent; It is only the Finite speaks. Our words are the idle wave-caps On the deep that never breaks. We may question with wand of science, Explain, decide, and discuss; But only in meditation The Mystery speaks to us.

From the Earth, a Cry

FROM THE EARTH, A CRY.

"The Years of Our Lord" 1870 to 1880.—The Rulers of Prussia and France make War.—The Paris Commune.—War for Rome between the Pope and the King of Italy.—War between Russia and Turkey.—England devastates Abyssinia, Ashantee, and Zululand.—One English Viceroy in India murdered. Another shot at.— Socialists attempt to kill the Emperor of Germany.—Internationalists fire at the King of Italy.—Nihilists thrice attempt to destroy the Czar.—The Mines of Siberia filled with Political Prisoners.—The Farmers of Ireland rebel in Despair against Rack-rents.—The Workmen of England emigrating from Starvation.—The Land of England, Scotland, and Ireland held by less than a Quarter of a Million of Men.—The Pittsburg Riots.—The American Strikes.—The End of the Decade.

AN the earth have a voice? Can the clods have speech, To murmur and rail at the demigods? Trample them ! Grind their vulgar faces in the clay!

The earth was made for lords and the makers of law; For the conquerors and the social priests;

For traders who feed on and foster the complex life; For the shrewd and the selfish who plan and keep; For the heirs who squander the hoard that bears The face of the king, and the blood of the serf, And the curse of the darkened souls!

O Christ! and O Christ! In thy name the law! In thy mouth the mandate! In thy loving hand the whip! They have taken thee down from thy cross and sent thee to scourge the people; They have shod thy feet with spikes and jointed thy dead knees with iron, And pushed thee, hiding behind, to trample the poor dumb faces!

The spheres make music in space. They swing Like fiery cherubim on their paths, circling their suns,

Mysterious, weaving the irrevealable, Full of the peace of unity—sphere and its life at one— Humming their lives of love through the limitless waste of creation.

God! thou hast made man a test of Thyself! Thou hast set in him a heart that bleeds at the cry of the helpless: Through Thine infinite seas one world rolls silent, Moaning at times with quivers and fissures of blood; Divided, unhappy, accursèd; the lower life good, But the higher life wasted and split, like grain with a cankered root. Is there health in thy gift of life, Almighty? Is there grief or compassion anywhere for the poor? If these be, there is guerdon for those who hate the wrong And leap naked on the spears, that blood may cry For truth to come, and pity, and Thy peace.

The human sea is frozen like a swamp; and the kings And the heirs and the owners ride on the ice and laugh. Their war-forces, orders, and laws are the crusted field of a crater, And they stamp on the fearful rind, deriding its flesh-like shudder.

Lightning! the air is split, the crater bursts, and the breathing Of those below is the fume and fire of hatred. The thrones are stayed with the courage of shotted guns. The warning dies. But queens are dragged to the block, and the knife of the guillotine sinks In the garbage of pampered flesh that gluts its bed and its hinges.

Silence again, and sunshine. The gaping lips are closed on the crater.

The dead are below, and the landless, and those who live to labor And grind forever in gloom that the privileged few may live.

But the silence is sullen, not restful. It heaves like a sea, and frets, And beats at the roof till it finds another vent for its fury. Again the valve is burst and the pitch-cloud rushes,—the old seam rends anew— Where the kings were killed before, their names are hewed from the granite— Paris, mad hope of the slave-shops, flames to the petroleuse! Tiger that tasted blood—Paris that tasted freedom! Never, while steel is cheap and sharp, shall thy kinglings sleep without dreaming Never, while souls have flame, shall their palaces crush the hovels.

Insects and vermin, ye, the starving and dangerous myriads, List to the murmur that grows and growls! Come from your mines and mills, Pale-faced girls and women with ragged and hard-eyed children, Pour from your dens of toil and filth, out to the air of heaven— Breathe it deep, and hearken! A Cry from the cloud or beyond it, A Cry to the toilers to rise, to be high as the highest that rules them, To own the earth in their lifetime and hand it down to their children!

Emperors, stand to the bar! Chancellors, halt at the barracks! Landlords and Lawlords and Tradelords, the spectres you conjured have risen—

Communists, Socialists, Nihilists, Rent-rebels, Strikers, behold! They are fruit of the seed you have sown—God has prospered your planting. They come From the earth, like the army of death. You have sowed the teeth of the dragon! Hark to the bay of the leader! You shall hear the roar of the pack As sure as the stream goes seaward. The crust on the crater beneath you Shall crack and crumble and sink, with your laws and rules That breed the million to toil for the luxury of the ten— That grind the rent from the tiller's blood for drones to spend— That hold the teeming planet as a garden plot for a thousand— That draw the crowds to the cities from the healthful fields and woods—

That copulate with greed and beget disease and crime— That join these two and their offspring, till the world is filled with fear, And falsehood wins from truth, and the vile and cunning succeed, And manhood and love are dwarfed, and virtue and friendship sick, And the law of Christ is a cloak for the corpse that stands for Justice! —As sure as the Spirit of God is Truth, this Truth shall reign, And the trees and lowly brutes shall cease to be higher than men. God purifies slowly by peace, but urgently by fire.

Prometheus Christ

PROMETHEUS—CHRIST.

ASHED to the planet, glaring at the sky, An eagle at his heart—the Pagan Christ!

Why is it, Mystery? O, dumb Darkness, why Have always men, with loving hearts themselves, Made devils of their gods?

The whirling globe Bears round man's sweating agony of blood, That Might may gloat above impotent Pain!

Man's soul is dual—he is half a fiend, And from himself he typifies Almighty.

O, poison-doubt, the answer holds no peace: Man did not make himself a fiend, but God.

Between them, what? Prometheus stares Through ether to the lurid eyes of Jove— Between them, Darkness!

But the gods are dead Ay, Zeus is dead, and all the gods but Doubt, And Doubt is brother devil to Despair!

What, then, for us? Better Prometheus' fate, Who dared the gods, than insect unbelief— Better Doubt's fitful flame than abject nothingness!

O, world around us, glory of the spheres! God speaks in ordered harmony—behold! Between us and the Darkness, clad in light,— Between us and the curtain of the Vast,—two Forms, And each is crowned eternally—and One

Is crowned with flowers and tender leaves and grass, And smiles benignly; and the other One, With sadly pitying eyes, is crowned with thorns: O Nature, and O Christ, for men to love And seek and live by—Thine the dual reign— The health and hope and happiness of men!

Behold our faith and fruit!2

What demon laughs?

Behold our books, Our schools, our states, Where Christ and Nature are the daily word; Behold our dealings between man and man, Our laws for home, our treaties for abroad; Behold our honor, honesty, and freedom, And, last, our brotherhood! For we are born In Christian times and ruled by Christian rules!

Bah! God is mild, or he would strike the world As men should smite a liar on the mouth.

Shame on the falsehood! Let us tell the truth— Nor Christ nor Nature rules, but Greed and Creed And Caste and Cant and Craft and Ignorance. Down to the dust with every decent face, And whisper there the lies we daily live. O, God forgive us! Nature never can; For one is merciful, the other just.

Let us confess: by Nations first—our lines Are writ in blood and rapine and revenge; Conquest and pride have motive been and law— Christ walks with us to hourly crucifixion!

As Men? Would God the better tale were here: Atom as whole, corruption, shrewdness, self. Freedom? A juggle—hundreds slave for one,— That one is free, and boasts, and lo! the shame, The hundreds at the wheel go boasting too. Justice? The selfish only can succeed; Success means power did Christ mean it so?—

And power must be guarded by the law, And preachers preach that law must be obeyed, Ay, even when Right is ironed in the dock, And Rapine sits in ermine on the bench! Mercy? Behold it in the reeking slums That grow like cancers from the palace wall; Go hear it from the conquered—how their blood Is weighed in drops, and purchased, blood for gold; Go ask the toiling tenant why he paid The landlord's rent and let his children starve; Go find the thief, whose father was a thief, And ask what Christian leech has cured his sin? Honesty? Our law of life is Gain— We must get gold or be accounted fools; The lovable, the generous, must be crushed And substituted by the hard and shrewd.

What is it, Christ, this thing called Christian life, Where Christ is not, where ninety slave for ten, And never own a flower save when they steal it,

And never hear a bird save when they cage it? Is this the freedom of Thy truth? Ah, woe For those who see a higher, nobler law Than his, the Crucified, if this be so!

O, man's blind hope—Prometheus, thine the gift— That bids him live when reason bids him die! We cling to this, as sailors to a spar— We see that this is Truth: that men are one, Nor king nor slave among them save by law; We see that law is crime, save God's sweet code That laps the world in freedom: trees and men And every life around us, days and seasons, All for their natural order on the planet, To live their lives, an hour, a hundred years, Equal, content, and free—nor curse their souls With trade's malign unrest, with books that breed Disparity, contempt for those who cannot read; With cities full of toil and sin and sorrow, Climbing the devil-builded hill called Progress!