Chapter III: Desire of Fame

O unapproachable glories of the night!
You type not my desire: enough for me
The vanished meteor’s immortality,
Brief memory of a moment touched with light.

TO-DAY

Voice, with what emulous fire thou singest free hearts of old
fashion,
English scorners of Spain, sweeping the blue sea-way,
Sing me the daring of life for life, the magnanimous passion
Of man for man in the mean populous streets of To-day!

Hand, with what colour and power thou couldst show, in the ring
hot-sanded,
Brown Bestiarius holding the lean tawn tiger at bay,
Paint me the wrestle of Toil with the wild-beast Want, bare-handed;
Shadow me forth a soul steadily facing To-day!

THE BALLAD OF CALNAN’S CHRISTMAS

When you hear the fire-gongs beat fierce along the startled street,
See the great-limbed horses bound, and the gleaming engine sway,
And the driver in his place, with his fixed, heroic face,
Say a prayer for Calnan’s sake--he that died on Christmas day!

Cling! Cling! Each to his station!
Clang! Clang! Quick to clear the way!
(Christ keep the soldiers of salvation,
Fighting nameless battles in the war of every day!)

In the morning, blue and mild, of the Mother and the Child,
While the blessed bells were calling, thrilled the summons through
the wire;
In the morning, blue and mild, for a woman and a child
Died a man of gentle will, plunging on to fight the fire.

Ring, swing, bells in the steeple!
Ring the Child and ring the Star, as sweetly as ye may!
Ring, swing, bells, to tell the people
God’s goodwill to earthly men, the men of every day!

“Thirty-four” swung out agleam, with her mighty, bounding team;
Horses’ honour pricked them on, and they leaped as at a goad;
Jimmy Calnan in his place, with his clean-cut Irish face,
Iron hands upon the reins, eyes astrain upon the road.

Clang! Clang! Quick to clear the way!
(Sweetly rang, above the clang, the bells of Christmas day.)

Tearing, plunging through the din, scarce a man can hold them in;
None on earth could pull them short: Mary Mother, guard from harm
Yonder woman straight ahead, stony-still with sudden dread,
And the little woman-child, with her waxen child in arm!

Oh, God’s calls, how swift they are! Oh, the Cross that hides the
Star!
Oh, the fire-gong beating fierce through the bells of Christmas
day!
Just a second there to choose, and a life to keep or lose--
To the curb he swung the horses, and he flung his life away!

Ring, swing, bells in the steeple!
Ring the Star and ring the Cross, for Star and Cross are one!
Ring, swing, bells, to tell the people
God is pleased with manly men, and deeds that they have done!

SONNETS

THE IMMORTAL WORD

One soiled and shamed and foiled in this world’s fight,
Deserter from the host of God, that here
Still darkly struggles,--waked from death in fear,
And strove to screen his forehead from the white
And blinding glory of the awful Light,
The revelation and reproach austere.
Then with strong hand outstretched a Shape drew near,
Bright-browed, majestic, armoured like a knight.

“Great Angel, servant of the Highest, why
Stoop’st thou to me?” although his lips were mute,
His eyes inquired. The Shining One replied:
“Thy Book, thy birth, life of thy life am I,
Son of thy soul, thy youth’s forgotten fruit.
We two go up to judgment side by side.”

THE TORCH-RACE

Brave racer, who hast sped the living light
With throat outstretched and every nerve astrain,
Now on thy left hand labours gray-faced Pain,
And Death hangs close behind thee on the right.
Soon flag the flying feet, soon fails the sight,
With every pulse the gaunt pursuers gain;
And all thy splendour of strong life must wane
And set into the mystery of night.

Yet fear not, though in falling, blindness hide
Whose hand shall snatch, before it sears the sod,
The light thy lessening grasp no more controls:
Truth’s rescuer, Truth shall instantly provide:
This is the torch-race game, that noblest souls
Play on through time beneath the eyes of God.

RETROSPECT

“Backward,” he said, “dear heart, I like to look
To those half-spring, half-winter days, when first
We drew together, ere the leaf-buds burst.
Sunbeams were silver yet, keen gusts yet shook
The boughs. Have you remembered that kind book
That for our sake Galeotto’s part rehearsed,
(The friend of lovers,--this time blessed, not cursed!)
And that best hour, when reading we forsook?”

She, listening, wore the smile a mother wears
At childish fancies needless to control;
Yet felt a fine, hid pain with pleasure blend.
Better it seemed to think that love of theirs,
Native as breath, eternal as the soul,
Knew no beginning, could not have an end.

THE CONTRAST

He loved her; having felt his love begin
With that first look,--as lover oft avers.
He made pale flowers his pleading ministers,
Impressed sweet music, drew the springtime in
To serve his suit; but when he could not win,
Forgot her face and those gray eyes of hers;
And at her name his pulse no longer stirs,
And life goes on as though she had not been.

She never loved him; but she loved Love so,
So reverenced Love, that all her being shook
At his demand whose entrance she denied.
Her thoughts of him such tender colour took
As western skies that keep the afterglow.
The words he spoke were with her till she died.

TRIUMPH

This windy sunlit morning after rain,
The wet bright laurel laughs with beckoning gleam
In the blown wood, whence breaks the wild white stream
Rushing and flashing, glorying in its gain;
Nor swerves nor parts, but with a swift disdain
O’erleaps the boulders lying in long dream,
Lapped in cold moss; and in its joy doth seem
A wood-born creature bursting from a chain.

And “Triumph, triumph, triumph!” is its hoarse
Fierce-whispered word. O fond, and dost not know
Thy triumph on another wise must be,--
To render all the tribute of thy force,
And lose thy little being in the flow
Of the unvaunting river toward the sea!

A MYSTERY

That sunless day no living shadow swept
Across the hills, fleet shadow chasing light,
Twin of the sailing cloud: but mists wool-white,
Slow-stealing mists, on those heaved shoulders crept,
And wrought about the strong hills while they slept
In witches’ wise, and rapt their forms from sight.
Dreams were they; less than dream, the noblest height
And farthest; and the chilly woodland wept.

A sunless day and sad: yet all the while
Within the grave green twilight of the wood,
Inscrutable, immutable, apart,
Hearkening the brook, whose song she understood,
The secret birch-tree kept her silver smile,
Strange as the peace that gleams at sorrow’s heart.

THE COMMON STREET

The common street climbed up against the sky,
Gray meeting gray; and wearily to and fro
I saw the patient, common people go,
Each with his sordid burden trudging by.
And the rain dropped; there was not any sigh
Or stir of a live wind; dull, dull and slow
All motion; as a tale told long ago
The faded world; and creeping night drew nigh.

Then burst the sunset, flooding far and fleet,
Leavening the whole of life with magic leaven.
Suddenly down the long wet glistening hill
Pure splendour poured--and lo! the common street,
A golden highway into golden heaven,
With the dark shapes of men ascending still.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

_February 12, 1909_