Classic Poem

CONDEMNED

From Caiphas to Pilate I was sent,
Who judged with unwashed hands a crime to me.
Next came the sentence, and the soldiery
Claimed me their prey. Without, the people rent
With weeping voices the loud firmament.
And through the night from town to town passed we
Mid shouts and drums and stones hurled heavily
By angry crowds on love and murder bent.

And last the gaol. — What stillness in these doors!
The silent turnkeys their last bolts have shot,
And their steps die in the long corridors.
I am alone. My tears run fast and hot.
Dear Lord, for Thy grief's sake I kiss these floors
Kneeling; then turn to sleep, dreams trouble not.

AT THE GATE

Naked I came into the world of pleasure,
And naked come I to this house of pain.
Here at the gate I lay down my life's treasure,
My pride, my garments and my name with men.
The world and I henceforth shall be as twain,
No sound of me shall pierce for good or ill
These walls of grief. Nor shall I hear the vain
Laughter and tears of those who love me still.

Within, what new life waits me! Little ease,
Cold lying, hunger, nights of wakefulness,
Harsh orders given, no voice to soothe or please,
Poor thieves for friends, for books rules meaningless;
This is the grave — nay, Hell. Yet, Lord of Might,
Still in Thy light my spirit shall see light.

HONOUR DISHONOURED

Honoured I lived e'erwhile with honoured men
In opulent state. My table nightly spread
Found guests of worth, peer, priest and citizen,
And poet crowned, and beauty garlanded.
Nor these alone, for hunger too I fed,
And many a lean tramp and sad Magdalen
Passed from my doors less hard for sake of bread.
Whom grudged I ever purse or hand or pen?

To-night, unwelcomed at these gates of woe
I stand with churls, and there is none to greet
My weariness with smile or courtly show
Nor, though I hunger long, to bring me meat.
God! what a little accident of gold
Fences our weakness from the wolves of old!

HOW SHALL I BUILD

How shall I build my temple to the Lord,
Unworthy I, who am thus foul of heart?
How shall I worship who no traitor word
Know but of love to play a suppliant's part?
How shall I pray, whose soul is as a mart,
For thoughts unclean, whose tongue is as a sword
Even for those it loves to wound and smart?
Behold how little I can help Thee, Lord.

The temple I would build should be all white,
Each stone the record of a blameless day;
The souls that entered there should walk in light,
Clothed in high chastity and wisely gay
Lord, here is darkness. Yet this heart unwise,
Bruised in Thy service, take in sacrifice.

A CONVENT WITHOUT GOD

A prison is a convent without God.
Poverty, Chastity, Obedience
Its precepts are. In this austere abode
None gather wealth of pleasure or of pence.
Woman's light wit, the heart's concupiscence
Are banished here. At the least warder's nod
Thy neck shall bend in mute subservience.
Nor yet for virtue — rather for the rod.

Here a base turnkey novice-master is,
Teaching humility. The matin bell
Calls thee to toil, but little comforteth.
None heed thy prayers or give the kiss of peace.
Nathless, my soul, be valiant. Even in Hell
Wisdom shall preach to thee of life and death.

THE TWO VOICES

There are two voices with me in the night,
Easing my grief. The God of Israel saith,
" I am the Lord thy God which vanquisheth.
See that thou walk unswerving in my sight,
So shall thy enemies thy footstool be.
I will avenge. " Then wake I suddenly,
And as a man new armoured for the fight,
I shout aloud against my enemy.

Anon, another speaks, a voice of care
With sorrow laden and akin to grief,
" My son, " it saith, " What is my will with thee?
The burden of my sorrows thou shalt share.
With thieves thou too shalt be accounted thief,
And in my kingdom thou shalt sup with me. "

LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY

Long have I searched the Earth for liberty
In desert places and lands far abroad
Where neither Kings nor constables should be,
Nor any law of Man, alas, or God.
Freedom, Equality and Brotherhood,
These were my quarries which eternally
Fled from my footsteps fast as I pursued,
Sad phantoms of desire by land and sea.

See, it is ended. Sick and overborne
By foes and fools, and my long chase, I lie.
Here, in these walls, with all life's souls forlorn
Herded I wait, — and in my ears the cry,
" Alas, poor brothers, equal in Man's scorn
And free in God's good liberty to die. "

A LESSON IN HUMILITY

'Tis time, my soul, thou shouldst be purged of pride
What men are these with thee, whose ill deeds done
Make thee thus shrink from them and be denied?
They are but as thou art, each mother's son
A convict in transgression. Here is one,
Sayest thou, who struck his fellow and he died.
And yet he weeps hot tears. Do thy tears run?
This other thieved, yet clasps Christ crucified.

Where is thy greater virtue? Thinkest thou sin
Is but crime's record on the judgment seat?
Or must thou wait for death to be bowed down?
Oh for a righteous reading which should join
Thy deeds together in an accusing sheet,
And leave thee if thou couldst, to face men's frown!

THE COURT OF PENANCE

Behold the Court of Penance. Four gaunt walls
Shutting out all things but the upper heaven.
Stone flags for floor, where daily from their stalls
The human cattle in a circle driven
Tread down their pathway to a mire uneven,
Pale-faced, sad-eyed, and mute as funerals.
Woe to the wretch whose weakness unforgiven
Falters a moment in the track or falls!

Yet is there consolation. Overhead
The pigeons build and the loud jackdaws talk,
And once in the wind's eye, like a ship moored,
A sea-gull flew and I was comforted.
Even here the heavens declare thy glory, Lord,
And the free firmament thy handiwork.

MITIGATIONS

My prison has its pleasures. Every day
At breakfast-time, spare meal of milk and bread,
Sparrows come trooping in familiar way
With head aside beseeching to be fed.
A spider too for me has spun her thread
Across the prison rules, and a brave mouse
Watches in sympathy the warders' tread,
These two my fellow-prisoners in the house.

But about dusk in the rooms opposite
I see lamps lighted, and upon the blind
A shadow passes all the evening through.
It is the gaoler's daughter fair and kind
And full of pity (so I image it)
Till the stars rise, and night begins anew.

GOD IS MY WITNESS

God knows, 'twas not with a fore-reasoned plan
I left the easeful dwellings of my peace,
And sought this combat with ungodly Man,
And ceaseless still through years that do not cease
Have warred with Powers and Principalities.
My natural soul, e'er yet these strifes began,
Was as a sister diligent to please
And loving all, and most the human clan.

God knows it. And he knows how the world's tear
Touched me. And He is witness of my wrath,
How it was kindled against murderers
Who slew for gold, and how upon their path
I met them. Since which day the World in arms
Strikes at my life with angers and alarms.

THE DEEDS THAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN

There are wrongs done in the fair face of heaven
Which cry aloud for vengeance, and shall cry;
Loves beautiful in strength whose wit has striven
Vainly with loss and man's inconstancy;
Dead children's faces watched by souls that die;
Pure streams defiled; fair forests idly riven;
A nation suppliant in its agony
Calling on justice, and no help is given.

All these are pitiful. Yet, after tears,
Come rest and sleep and calm forgetfulness,
And God's good providence consoles the years.
Only the coward heart which did not guess,
The dreamer of brave deeds that might have been,
Shall cureless ache with wounds for ever green.

A DREAM OF GOOD

To do some little good before I die;
To wake some echoes to a loftier theme;
To spend my life's last store of industry
On thoughts less vain than Youth's discordant dream;
To endow the world's grief with some counter-scheme
Of logical hope which through all time should lighten
The burden of men's sorrow and redeem
Their faces' paleness from the tears that whiten;

To take my place in the world's brotherhood
As one prepared to suffer all its fate;
To do and be undone for sake of good,
And conquer rage by giving love for hate;
That were a noble dream, and so to cease,
Scorned by the proud but with the poor at peace.

HER NAME LIBERTY

I thought to do a deed of chivalry,
An act of worth, which haply in her sight
Who was my mistress should recorded be
And of the nations. And, when thus the fight
Faltered and men once bold with faces white
Turned this and that way in excuse to flee,
I only stood, and by the foeman's might
Was overborne and mangled cruelly.

Then crawler I to her feet, in whose dear cause
I made this venture, and " Behold, " I said,
" How I am wounded for thee in these wars. "
But she, " Poor cripple, wouldst thou I should wed
A limbless trunk? " and laughing turned from me.
Yet was she fair, and her name " Liberty. "

FAREWELL DARK GAOL

Farewell, dark gaol. You hold some better hearts.
Than in this savage world I thought to find.
I do not love you nor the fraudulent arts
By which men tutor men to ways unkind.
Your law is not my law, and yet my mind
Remains your debtor. It has learned to see
How dark a thing the earth would be and blind
But for the light of human charity.

I am your debtor thus and for the pang
Which touched and chastened, and the nights of thought
Which were my years of learning. See I hang
Your image here, a glory all unsought,
About my neck. Thus saints in symbol hold
Their tools of death and darings manifold.

I WILL SMILE NO MORE

No, I will smile no more. If but for pride
And the high record of these days of pain,
I will not be as these, the uncrucified
Who idly live and find life's pleasures vain.
The garment of my life is rent in twain,
Parted by love and pity. Some have died
Of a less hurt than 'twas my luck to gain,
And live with God, nor dare I be denied.

No, I will smile no more. Love's touch of pleasure
Shall be as tears to me, fair words as gall,
The sun as blackness, friends as a false measure,
And Spring's blithe pageant on this earthly ball,
If it should brag, shall earn from me no praise
But silence only to my end of days.