Classic Poem

Like phantom ships
That haunt the dim horizon with white shrouds,
We come, emergent from the mistral gloom,
Love-voyagers seeking a world of dream.

There is a spirit-music in the air,
Weird as the wind-harp's song;
Ethereal as night's auroral fingers,
Felt and heard until, with lull of alien victories,
Our child hearts sleep, and we are deaf to dreams.

But God hath yet a few with joy-wist eyes
And wonder-hearts, questing for undiscovered shores,
Whose eager gaze is towards the Isles of Truth,
Where visions new invite the soul
To larger, nobler life,
And challenge to a faith whose beacon fires
Have not yet embered to the ash of creed
That palsies reason.

O Comrades, live your vision, cherish dream:
If need be, wreck the towers of yesterday,
Scrap the dead past and build the future new.
So recreate the age.
Fill the whole world with justice, and transform
The arid desert of the world's desire
To gardens where heartsease and speedwell grow.
Pluck roses from the blushing cheek of dawn
While yet the paling stars of morning sing.

Love will not let the chords of life fall slack
And mute the harp. He holds more taut
The vibrant strings, till life is keyed to tones
Of high achievement, prudent vision, and a larger plan.
Then luxury—decay in masquerade—
Slinks out into the night and dies alone.

The firmament is all resplendent
With the smile of God.
The green bud bursts to instantaneous flower
And nature blushes crimson. Love has come
To bridge the gulf between us and that world
Where love knows Love,
And life is sane and sovereign.

There the dream comes true.
There men are noble, being sons of God,
To look on beauty with a seraph-eye,
And set the mother-heart of woman free,
That her madonna-consciousness may claim
For all her children unbegotten yet,
A nobler fatherhood, till Love and dream
Sing in her heart their joy-magnificat,
And give new birth unto new sons of God,
Born of a woman and the Holy Ghost,
And yet the son of man,—his saviour too.

O glorious vision of a perfect time!
One stroke of Love's great clock
Shall put to shame a thousand years
Of present happiness. There is no wealth but Love!