Chapter II: The Incarnation

“_Yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee!_”

“Speak thou for us: with God we will not speak!”
Ye will have prophet, yea, and saviour too,
And saint and creed and priest to worship through,
Whereat Love smiles and gives them, ye being weak.
And most ye clutch at her, that virgin meek
With cradling arms: ah, child of Love, but who
Curved her soft breast, and taught the dove to coo,
And sent the shepherd forth the lamb to seek?

Surely great wings are wrapped around our world!
And the one pulse that in us ebbs and flows
Leaps at her name, for she has understood:
In our hearts’ lowest leaves her love is curled,
Unshrined, she yet hath comfort for all woes,
If not God’s mother, still God’s motherhood!

ODE: WRITTEN FOR THE TWENTY-SECOND OF FEBRUARY

Upon the shore of God’s unfinished years,
Waiting impatient while the slow mist clears,
The younger sister of the nations stands,
And shades her eyes with mighty, eager hands.

So great, so proud, so strong! with youthful scorn
She leaves behind her sisters elder born,
And stands before the parting of the ways,
Unburdened with their weight of yesterdays.

Hard eyes and restless hers, agleam for gain,
And peevish children struggle in her train;
Yet her broad brows have bloody laurels pressed,
And she hath nourished heroes at her breast.

Half scornful of her children of to-day,
She dreams how long ago and far away
Her firstborn brought across the new-found seas
Their mighty faith, long gone, alas, from these!

She sees them, where th’ untrodden forest waves,
Building new homes upon their thick-set graves,
Raising new altars to a stern, high creed,
Training in fear of God their stalwart breed.

She hears them fling across the hostile sea
That cry that cheered her on to victory;
She feels again the thrill that shook her soul
When wondering nations watched her flag unroll.

She sees--and ah, her heart grows big with tears
From out the mists of those long-vanished years,--
She sees her best beloved come, her pride;
There stands again her hero at her side.

Her eyes are soft with love, and to her heart
There comes anew with sweet, resistless smart
Her long-forgotten motherhood, she turns,
And toward her children as of old she yearns.

“Oh, grown beyond my power to curb or stay,
Turn ye a moment from your sordid way,
Lift ye your restless, weary eyes on high,
This son your mother bore in days gone by!

“Ye will not see me old before my time!
Ye will not make me barren in my prime!
Help me to bear ye men again like these!
Make me the greatest land the great sun sees!”

Ashamed and dumb her summoned children stand,
And love with the old love their Mother-land.
Deep in their hearts her elder son is set:
Thinking on him, they cannot quite forget!

Before his gracious calm their fevered schemes
Awhile are gone, and flushed with the old dreams,
They see in him writ large the old, high aim,
They point, though backward, to one perfect fame!

THE DEATH SONG

“The island of Martinique will not, in all probability, be built up again.”

Hearken, my father the lowering Sky!
Hearken, my brother the heaving Sea!
Who but thy sister calls to thee?
I, the Mountain, make end and die.

Bridled was I and bitted sure?
Bridged with homes and with gardens chained?
God’s tame beast to his uses trained?
Ye to go free, and I endure?

See, my father, I cloud like thee!
See, my brother, like thee I swell!
Ye league with death, but I rule all hell,
And the Lord of heaven shall shrink from me.

Once I groaned, and the scared wind sighed,
Twice I heaved, and the sick earth turned,
Thrice I spat out my blood that burned,
Roaring with torture, aflame with pride.

Down below me they swarmed and stirred,
Ants in an ant-hill, row on row.
“Haste!” I cried to them, “haste and go!”
Have I not warned? but they have not heard.

“Pains of the deep hold me in thrall,
World-old cancers that eat my heart,
Blood o’ the earth--I feel it start--
Gone, get ye gone, or it floods you all!”

Living and breeding, still they smile,
Ants of the ant-hill, pygmy men,
“Pelée stirs? she will rest again;
Live and love me and dance awhile!”

* * * * *

Ha, my heart it is rent in twain!
Up and out in a fiery path
Sweeps a river of molten wrath,
Falls a torrent of scorching rain!

Ho, my brother, you boil and hiss!
Ho, my father, I hide your sun!
Up, at last, little ants, and run!
Shrivel and blanch at Pelée’s kiss!

Hark! did I hear from below my hill
Rise and echo a puny din?
Through my thunder a wailing thin?
When I listened, the ants were still.

One throe more, and the sea is death,
Yet again, and the land is bare:
Brother, your glory is all to share--
I have outmurdered ye, breath for breath!

Lone I must lie in my stately doom,
Stark and still on my island bier:
Ashen silence shall wrap me here--
Pelée the Mountain makes her tomb!

SEVEN CHILD SONGS