Classic Poem

A new authentic voice declared the meaning of the century.
The sun that long had warmed the peaks bent to the valleys,
And all the earth was thrilled with wonder of the morning.

He stood with eyes dilate and parted lips, by hope transfigured,
Knowing humanity itself raised to its highest power
Is God's supremest revelation.

He fared with love and freedom to goals of utmost joy,
Swaddled no young evangel in the bonds of creed,
Nor wrapped the soul in limitations narrower than life.

The promise of his faith found home of spaciousness
Within the vaster pledges of his being;
No pious words, for him, fenced off a little saintliness
Of holy book or day, of church or prophet, time or land,
From others named profane to justify a large indifference to Love.

He never snarled at brotherhood with sect or race or cult.
He saw humanity, an ingle-circle in the house of life
Where no doors closed to bar one child from wealth of love or art.

Save where it fails of Love, life never fails,
And death is life beyond the sunset hills
With no insuperable wall.

So lived he, like the lilac or the pine, true to himself;
Saw in the patience of the outer dark, the inner light,
Soared through the deep blue eagle spaces of the sky,
Pilgrimed the open road and served his fellow man.

Such was Walt Whitman, breaker of the icons of all slaveries,
And friend of the sincere.

MARJORIE PICKTHALL

Her life was beauty
Chiselled in sun-gleams of soft gold
To lines of sculptured loveliness.

For one sweet moment on the earth
The clouds were broken, and this star
Spilled opulent glory on us here,
Ah, such a little while!
Then suddenly the rift was night;
For Love stooped down and lifted her
To bright alcoves of rest.

Now, let us gather up the jewels from her hand
And set them in a crown of golden stars
That o'er her name shall shine,
While she, at home beyond the dark,
Beholds reality.