Rizpah

   Said one who led the spears of swarthy Gad,
   To Jesse's mighty son:  "My Lord, O King,
   I, halting hard by Gibeon's bleak-blown hill
   Three nightfalls past, saw dark-eyed Rizpah, clad
   In dripping sackcloth, pace with naked feet
   The flinty rock where lie unburied yet
   The sons of her and Saul; and he whose post
   Of watch is in those places desolate,
   Got up, and spake unto thy servant here
   Concerning her—yea, even unto me:—
   'Behold,' he said, 'the woman seeks not rest,
   Nor fire, nor food, nor roof, nor any haunt
   Where sojourns man; but rather on yon rock
   Abideth, like a wild thing, with the slain,
   And watcheth them, lest evil wing or paw
   Should light upon the comely faces dead,
   To spoil them of their beauty.  Three long moons
   Hath Rizpah, daughter of Aiah, dwelt
   With drouth and cold and rain and wind by turns,
   And many birds there are that know her face,
   And many beasts that flee not at her step,
   And many cunning eyes do look at her
   From serpent-holes and burrows of the rat.
   Moreover,' spake the scout, 'her skin is brown
   And sere by reason of exceeding heat;
   And all her darkness of abundant hair
   Is shot with gray, because of many nights
   When grief hath crouched in fellowship with frost
   Upon that desert rock.  Yea, thus and thus
   Fares Rizpah,' said the spy, O King, to me."

   But David, son of Jesse, spake no word,
   But turned himself, and wept against the wall.

   We have our Rizpahs in these modern days
   Who've lost their households through no sin of theirs,
   On bloody fields and in the pits of war;
   And though their dead were sheltered in the sod
   By friendly hands, these have not suffered less
   Than she of Judah did, nor is their love
   Surpassed by hers.  The Bard who, in great days
   Afar off yet, shall set to epic song
   The grand pathetic story of the strife
   That shook America for five long years,
   And struck its homes with desolation—he
   Shall in his lofty verse relate to men
   How, through the heat and havoc of that time,
   Columbia's Rachael in her Rama wept
   Her children, and would not be comforted;
   And sing of Woman waiting day by day
   With that high patience that no man attains,
   For tidings, from the bitter field, of spouse,
   Or son, or brother, or some other love
   Set face to face with Death.  Moreover, he
   Shall say how, through her sleepless hours at night,
   When rain or leaves were dropping, every noise
   Seemed like an omen; every coming step
   Fell on her ears like a presentiment
   And every hand that rested on the door
   She fancied was a herald bearing grief;
   While every letter brought a faintness on
   That made her gasp before she opened it,
   To read the story written for her eyes,
   And cry, or brighten, over its contents.

Kiama Revisited

   We stood by the window and hearkened
    To the voice of the runnels sea-driven,
   While, northward, the mountain-heads darkened,
    Girt round with the clamours of heaven.
   One peak with the storm at his portal
    Loomed out to the left of his brothers:
   Sustained, and sublime, and immortal,
    A king, and the lord of the others!
   Beneath him a cry from the surges
    Rang shrill, like a clarion calling;
   And about him, the wind of the gorges
    Went falling, and rising, and falling.
   But I, as the roofs of the thunder
    Were cloven with manifold fires,
   Turned back from the wail and the wonder,
    And dreamed of old days and desires.
   A song that was made, I remembered—
    A song that was made in the gloaming
   Of suns which are sunken and numbered
    With times that my heart hath no home in.
   But I said to my Dream, "I am calmer
    Than waters asleep on the river.
   I can look at the hills of Kiama
    And bury that dead Past for ever."
   "Past sight, out of mind, alienated,"
    Said the Dream to me, wearily sighing,
   "Ah, where is the Winter you mated
    To Love, its decline and its dying?
   Here, five years ago, there were places
    That knew of her cunning to grieve you,
   But alas! for her eyes and her graces;
    And wherefore and how did she leave you!
   Have you hidden the ways of this Woman,
    Her whispers, her glances, her power
   To hold you, as demon holds human,
    Chained back to the day and the hour?
   Say, where have you buried her sweetness,
    Her coldness for youth and its yearning?
   Is the sleep of your Sorrow a witness
    She is passed all the roads of returning?
   Was she left with her beauty, O lover,
    And the shreds of your passion about her,
   Beyond reach and where none can discover?
    Ah! what is the wide world without her?"

   I answered, "Behold, I was broken,
    Because of this bright, bitter maiden,
   Who helped me with never a token
    To beat down the dark I had strayed in.
   She knew that my soul was entangled
    By what was too fiery to bear then;
   Nor cared how she withered and strangled
    My life with her eyes and her hair then.
   But I have not leapt to the level
    Where light and the shadows dissever?
   She is fair, but a beautiful devil
    That I have forgotten for ever!"
   "She is sweeter than music or singing,"
    Said the Dream to me, heavily moaning,
   "Her voice in your slumber is ringing;
    And where is the end—the atoning?
   Can you look at the red of the roses;
    Are you friend of the fields and the flowers?
   Can you bear the faint day as it closes
    And dies into twilighted hours?
   Do you love the low notes of the ballad
    She sang in her darling old fashion?"
   And I whispered, "O Dream, I am pallid
    And perished because of my passion."
   But the Wraith withered out, and the rifted
    Gray hills gleaming over the granges,
   Stood robed with moon-rainbows that shifted
    And shimmered resplendent with changes!
   While, for the dim ocean ledges,
    The storm and the surges were blended,
   Sheer down the bluff sides of the ridges
    Spent winds and the waters descended.
   The forests, the crags, and the forelands,
    Grew sweet with the stars after raining;
   But out in the north-lying moorlands,
    I heard the lone plover complaining.
   From these to Kiama, half-hidden
    In a yellow sea-mist on the slopings
   Of hills, by the torrents be-ridden,
    I turned with my aches and my hopings,
   Saying this—"There are those that are taken
    By Fate to wear Love as a raiment
   Whose texture is trouble with breaking
    Of youth and no hope of repayment."

Passing Away

   The spirit of beautiful faces,
    The light on the forehead of Love,
   And the spell of past visited places,
    And the songs and the sweetness thereof;
   These, touched by a hand that is hoary;
    These, vext with a tune of decay,
   Are spoiled of their glow and their glory;
    And the burden is, "Passing away!
                            Passing away!"

   Old years and their changes come trooping
    At nightfall to you and to me,
   When Autumn sits faded and drooping
    By the sorrowful waves of the sea.
   Faint phantoms that float in the gloaming,
    Return with the whispers that say,
   "The end which is quiet is coming;
    Ye are weary, and passing away!
                            Passing away!"

   It is hard to awake and discover
    The swiftness that waits upon Time;
   But youth and its beauty are over,
    And Love has a sigh in its rhyme.
   The Life that looks back and remembers,
    Is troubled and tired and gray,
   And sick of the sullen Decembers,
    Whose burden is, "Passing away!
                            Passing away!"

   We have wandered and wandered together,
    And our joys have been many and deep;
   But seasons of alien weather
    Have ended in longings for sleep.
   Pale purpose and perishing passion,
    With never a farewell to say,
   Die down into sobs of suppression;
    The burden is, "Passing away!
                            Passing away!"

   We loved the soft tangle of tresses,
    The lips that were fain and afraid.
   And the silence of far wildernesses,
    With their dower of splendour and shade!
   For faces of sweetness we waited,
    And days of delight and delay,
   Ere Time and its voices were mated
    To a voice that sighs, "Passing away!
                            Passing away!"

   O years interwoven with stories
    Of strong aspirations and high,
   How fleet and how false were the glories
    That lived in your limited sky!
   Here, sitting by ruinous altars
    Of Promise, what word shall we say
   To the speech that the rainy wind falters,
    Whose burden is, "Passing away!
                            Passing away!"

James Lionel Michael

   Be his rest the rest he sought:
      Calm and deep.
   Let no wayward word or thought
      Vex his sleep.

   Peace—the peace that no man knows—
      Now remains
   Where the wasted woodwind blows,
      Wakes and wanes.

   Latter leaves, in Autumn's breath,
      White and sere,
   Sanctify the scholar's death,
      Lying here.

   Soft surprises of the sun—
      Swift, serene—
   O'er the mute grave-grasses run,
      Cold and green.

   Wet and cold the hillwinds moan;
      Let them rave!
   Love that takes a tender tone
      Lights his grave.

   He who knew the friendless face
      Sorrows shew,
   Often sought this quiet place
      Years ago.

   One, too apt to faint and fail,
      Loved to stray
   Here where water-shallows wail
      Day by day.

   Care that lays her heavy hand
      On the best,
   Bound him with an iron hand;
      Let him rest.

   Life, that flieth like a tune,
      Left his eyes,
   As an April afternoon
      Leaves the skies.

   Peace is best!  If life was hard
      Peace came next.
   Thus the scholar, thus the bard,
      Lies unvext.

   Safely housed at last from rack—
      Far from pain;
   Who would wish to have him back?
      Back again?

   Let the forms he loved so well
      Hover near;
   Shine of hill and shade of dell,
      Year by year.

   All the wilful waifs that make
      Beauty's face,
   Let them sojourn for his sake
      Round this place.

   Flying splendours, singing streams,
      Lutes and lights,
   May they be as happy dreams:
      Sounds and sights;

   So that Time to Love may say,
      "Wherefore weep?
   Sweet is sleep at close of day!
      Death is sleep."

Elijah

   Into that good old Hebrew's soul sublime
   The spirit of the wilderness had passed;
   For where the thunders of imperial Storm
   Rolled over mighty hills; and where the caves
   Of cloud-capt Horeb rang with hurricane;
   And where wild-featured Solitude did hold
   Supreme dominion; there the prophet saw
   And heard and felt that large mysterious life
   Which lies remote from cities, in the woods
   And rocks and waters of the mountained Earth.
   And so it came to pass, Elijah caught
   That scholarship which gave him power to see
   And solve the deep divinity that lies
   With Nature, under lordly forest-domes,
   And by the seas; and so his spirit waxed,
   Made strong and perfect by its fellowship
   With God's authentic world, until his eyes
   Became a splendour, and his face was as
   A glory with the vision of the seer.
   Thereafter, thundering in the towns of men,
   His voice, a trumpet of the Lord, did shake
   All evil to its deep foundations.  He,
   The hairy man who ran before the king,
   Like some wild spectre fleeting through the storm,
   What time Jezreel's walls were smitten hard
   By fourfold wind and rain; 'twas he who slew
   The liars at the altars of the gods,
   And, at the very threshold of a throne,
   Heaped curses on its impious lord; 'twas he
   Jehovah raised to grapple Sin that stalked,
   Arrayed about with kingship; and to strike
   Through gold and purple, to the heart of it.
   And therefore Falsehood quaked before his face,
   And Tyranny grew dumb at sight of him,
   And Lust and Murder raged abroad no more;
   But where these were he walked, a shining son
   Of Truth, and cleared and sanctified the land.

   Not always was the dreaded Tishbite stern;
   The scourge of despots, when he saw the face
   Of Love in sorrow by the bed of Death,
   Grew tender as a maid; and she who missed
   A little mouth that used to catch, and cling—
   A small, sweet trouble—at her yearning breast;*
   Yea, she of Zarephath, who sat and mourned
   The silence of a birdlike voice that made
   Her flutter with the joy of motherhood
   In other days, she came to know the heart
   Of Pity that the rugged prophet had.
   And when he took the soft, still child away,
   And laid it on his bed; and in the dark
   Sent up a pleading voice to Heaven; and drew
   The little body to his breast; and held
   It there until the bright, young soul returned
   To earth again; the gladdened woman saw
   A radiant beauty in Elijah's eyes,
   And knew the stranger was a man of God.

  —
   * [Note.—These lines were suggested by a passage in an unpublished drama
     by my friend, the author of "Ashtaroth" {A. L. Gordon}—

                              "And she who missed
         A little mouth that used to catch and cling—
         A small sweet trouble—at her yearning breast."

     The poem to which I am indebted is entitled "The Road to Avernus".
     It is only fair that I should make this acknowledgment.—H.K.]
  —

   We want a new Elijah in these days,
   A mighty spirit clad in shining arms
   Of Truth—yea, one whose lifted voice would break,
   Like thunder, on our modern Apathy,
   And shake the fanes of Falsehood from their domes
   Down to the firm foundations; one whose words,
   Directly coming from a source divine,
   Would fall like flame where Vice holds festival,
   And search the inmost heart of nations; one
   Made godlike with that scholarship supreme
   Which comes of suffering; one, with eyes to see
   The very core of things; with hands to grasp
   High opportunities, and use them for
   His glorious mission; one, whose face inspired
   Would wear a terror for the lying soul,
   But seem a glory in the sight of those
   Who make the light and sweetness of the world,
   And are the high priests of the Beautiful.
   Yea, one like this we want amongst us now
   To drive away the evil fogs that choke
   Our social atmosphere, and leave it clear
   And pure and hallowed with authentic light.

Manasseh

   Manasseh, lord of Judah, and the son
   Of him who, favoured of Jehovah, saw
   At midnight, when the skies were flushed with fire,
   The splendid mystery of the shining air,
   That flamed above the black Assyrian camps,
   And breathed upon the evil hosts at rest,
   And shed swift violent sleep into their eyes;
   Manasseh, lord of Judah, when he came
   To fortify himself upon his throne,
   And saw great strength was gathered unto him,
   Let slip satanic passions he had nursed
   For years and years; and lo! the land that He
   Who thundered on the Oriental Mount
   Girt round with awful light, had set apart
   For Jacob's seed—the land that Moses strained
   On Nebo's topmost cone to see, grew black
   Beneath the shadow of despotic Sin
   That stalked on foot-ways dashed with human blood,
   And mocked high Heaven by audacious fires;
   And as when Storm, that voice of God, is loud
   Within the mountained Syrian wilderness,
   There flits a wailing through the wilted pines,
   So in the city of the wicked king
   A voice, like Abel's crying from the ground,
   Made sorrow of the broken evening winds,
   And darkness of the fair young morning lights,
   And silence in the homes of hunted men.

   But in a time when grey-winged Autumn fogs
   Shut off the sun from Carmel's seaward side,
   And fitful gusts did speak within the trees
   Of rain beyond the waters, while the priests
   In Hinnom's echoing valley offered up
   Unhallowed sacrifices unto gods
   Of brass and stone, there came a trumpet's voice
   Along the bald, bleak northern flats; and then
   A harnessed horseman, riding furiously,
   Dashed down the ridge with an exceeding cry
   Of "Esarhaddon, Esarhaddon! haste
   Away, ye elders, lo, the swarthy foe
   Six leagues from hence hath made the land a fire,
   And all the dwellers of the hollowed hills
   Are flying hitherwards before a flame
   Of fifty thousand swords!"  At this the men
   Of Baal turned about, set face, and fled
   Towards the thickets, where the impious king,
   Ringed round by grey, gaunt wizards with the brand
   Of Belial on their features, cowered low,
   And hid himself amongst the tangled thorns
   And shivered in a bitter seaborn wind,
   And caught the whiteness of a deathly fear.

   There where the ash-pale forest-leaves were touched
   By Morning's shining fingers, and the inland depths
   Sent out rain-plenished voices west and south,
   The steel-clad scouts of Esarhaddon came
   And searched, and found Manasseh whom they bound
   And dragged before the swart Assyrian king;
   And Esarhaddon, scourge of Heaven, sent
   To strange Evil at its chiefest fanes,
   And so fulfil a dread divine decree,
   Took Judah's despot, fettered hand and foot,
   And cast him bleeding on a dungeon floor
   Hard by where swift Euphrates chafes his brink
   And gleams from cataract to cataract,
   And gives the gale a deep midwinter tone.

   So fared Manasseh for the sins which brought
   Pale-featured Desolation to the tents
   Of alienated Judah; but one night,
   When ninety moons of wild unrest had passed,
   The humbled son of Hezekiah turned
   Himself towards the wall, and prayed and wept;
   And in an awful darkness face to face
   With God, he said—"I know, O Lord of Hosts,
   That Thou art wise and just and kind, and I
   Am shapen in iniquity; but by
   The years of black captivity, whose days
   And nights have marked my spirit passing through
   Fierce furnaces of suffering, and seen
   It groping in blind shadows with a hope
   To reach Thy Hand—by these, O Father, these
   That brought the swift, sad silver to my head
   Which should have come with Age—which came with Pain,
   I pray Thee hear these supplications now,
   And stoop and lift me from my low estate,
   And lend me this once my dominionship,
   So I may strive to live the bad Past down,
   And lead henceforth a white and wholesome life,
   And be thy contrite servant, Lord, indeed!"

   The prayer was not in vain:  for while the storm
   Sang high above the dim Chaldean domes—
   While, in the pines, the spirit of the rain
   Sobbed fitfully, Jehovah's angel came
   And made a splendour of the dungeon walls,
   And smote the bars, and led Manasseh forth
   And caught him up, nor set him down again
   Until the turrets of Jerusalem
   Sprang white before the flying travellers
   Against the congregated morning hills.

   And he, the broken man made whole again,
   Was faithful to his promise.  Every day
   Thereafter passing, bore upon its wings
   Some shining record of his faultless life,
   Some brightness of a high resolve fulfilled;
   And in good time, when all the land had rest,
   He found that he had lived the bad Past down,
   And gave God praise, and with his fathers slept.

   Thus ends the story of Manasseh.  If
   This verse should catch the eyes of one whose sin
   Lies heavy on his soul; who finds himself
   A shame-faced alien when he walks abroad,
   A moping shadow when he sits at home;
   Who has no human friends; who, day by day,
   Is smitten down by icy level looks
   From that cold Virtue which is merciless
   Because it knoweth not what wrestling with
   A fierce temptation means; if such a one
   Should read my tale of Hezekiah's son,
   Let him take heart, and gather up his strength,
   And step above men's scorn, and find his way
   By paths of fire, as brave Manasseh did,
   Up to the white heights of a blameless life;
   And it will come to pass that in the face
   Of grey old enmities, whose partial eyes
   Are blind to reformation, he will taste
   A sweetness in his thoughts, and live his time
   Arrayed with the efficient armour of
   That noble power which grows of self-respect,
   And makes a man a pillar in the world.