f. TWENTIETH CENTURY

THE SEEKER

From The Fools' Adventure

LASCELLES ABERCROMBIE

I have achieved. That which the lonely man
Spoke of, core of the world, that Self, I know.
Like one small pool to the reach of Heaven, I

Am open to a vastness. Hearken, thou,

Do I not know thee right? Thou art the deep
Whereunto all things yearn unwearyingly,
Some unaware, some hating that they yearn,
But all into a stillness, into Thee,

Falling at length, and their unrest is done,
Until again thou blurt them out of thee,
Out of the middle to the rind. And yet
Not them, but piecemeal what they were,
New-fangled into other companies.

It is as if, not only once, far off,

Aloof from place and being I had watched
The spell betwixt two happenings end again;—
The dark's distress, slow qualms mastering it,
Blind thrills, and last, the sudden pang of light.
Methinks, plainly as I've felt earth's swoon
Wince at the touch of spring, awakening her,
The peace, thy region, shudder I have felt
When with it meddles thy new imagining;
And in the smooth element, ruffling, grows a throb,
Marring with its strong rhythm the prone calm,
Beat of the fresh beginning of an order;
One settled eddy at last, whose scouring kirtles
Gather to substance and perplexed shape

To thickening spots of coarse, and curds of fire.
Again within the unform'd principle

Stress, that it have a grain; and yet more stress,
Till the unbounded shiver of light shatter
Innumerously, and into the clear inane

Come like a ghost another swarm of motes
Shepherded by thy thought into new flocks,

Away from thee, outward, circling, numberless kinds;

Yet the same partner, the old lust, is with them,

Unrest, severance from thy quietude.

Nor first, nor last of them, this swirl of stars
Unlike the others, but in this thing alike.
I from the place in Being called Mankind
Am come, seeking thee, and look, I know thee.
Not with my sense and reason only; these
Man fashioned for near needs of common life:
Good tools, but to find thee of no more use
Than ladders to thatch houses reach the sun.
Not Reason finds thee, though he walk with gait
Taking gulfs in his stride as far across

As in his yearly bout the throw of Saturn.
My wisdom was to practice with the power
Emotion, since I knew it was, though stall'd
In Somewhere, yet a piece of the Everywhere.

ECCE HOMO

WITTER BYNNER

Behold the man alive in me,
Behold the man in you!
If there is a God-am I not he?
Shall I myself undo?

I have been waiting long enough
Old silent gods, goodby!

I wait no more: the way is rough-
But the god who climbs, is I.

THE NEW GOD

WITTER BYNNER

From The New World

In temporary pain

The age is bearing a new breed

Of men and women, patriots of the world
And one another. Boundaries in vain,
Birthrights and countries, would constrain
The old diversity of seed

To be diversity of soul.

O mighty patriots maintain

Your loyalty!-till flags unfurled

For battle shall arraign

The traitors who unfurled them, shall remain

And shine over an army with no slain,

And men from every nation shall enroll,
And women-in the hardihood of peace!
What can my anger do but cease ?

Whom shall I fight and who shall be my enemy
When he is I and I am he?

Let me have done with that old God outside Who watched with preference and answered prayer, The Godhead that replied

Now here, now there,

Where heavy cannon were

Or coins of gold!

Let me receive communion with all men

Acknowledging our one and only soul!

For not till then

Can God be God till we ourselves are whole!

RENUNCIATION

MARK WILKS CALL

Wakeful all night I lay and thought of God,
Of heaven, and of crowns pale martyrs gain,
Of souls in high and purgatorial pain,

And the red path which murdered seers have trod:
I heard the trumpets which the angels blow
I saw the cleaving sword, the measuring rod,
I watched the stream of sound continuous flow
Past the gold towers where seraphs make abode.

But now I let that aching splendor go,

I dare not call the crowned angels peers
Henceforth. I am content to dwell below
Mid common joys, with humble smiles and tears
Delighted in the sun and breeze to grow,
A child of human hopes and fears.

EACH IN HIS OWN TONGUE

WILLIAM HERBERT CARRUTH

A fire-mist and a planet,—

A crystal and a cell,

A jelly fish and a saurian,

And caves where cavemen dwell;
Then a sense of law and beauty,

And a face turned from the clod,-
Some call it Evolution,

Others call it God.

A haze on the far horizon,
The infinite tender sky,

The rich ripe tint of the corn-fields,

And the wild geese sailing high,

And all over the upland and lowland
The charm of the golden rod,—

Some of us call it autumn,

And others call it God.

Like tides on the crescent seabeach,
When the moon is new and thin,
Into our hearts high yearnings,
Come welling and surging in,-
Come from the mystic ocean
Whose rim no foot has trod,-
Some of us call it Longing,

And others call it God.

A picket frozen on duty,—

A mother starved for her brood,-
Socrates drinking the hemlock,

And Jesus on the rood;

And millions who humble and nameless,
The straight hard pathway plod,-
Some call it Consecration,

And others call it God.

PYGMALION

In part

HILDA DOOLITTLE (Mrs. Richard Aldington)

I made god upon god

Step from the cold rock,

I made the gods less than men,

For I was a man and they my work.

And now what is it that has come to pass?

Each of the gods, perfect

Cries out from a perfect throat: