Edwina Stanton Babcock

“ Take up our problems, things we must discuss,
Help us to think, to understand and dare.
Leave old-world Poetry of hallowed crime
And turn you to the hunger of the time.
Laws of the God, report them to the ears
That hear confused and cosmic voices rage;
Laws of the Christ, interpret them to fears
For Christ, new-risen in a Science-Age.
Oh, take the fire your sacred hands should give
And kindle it upon our city height;
Give us a world-strong law of wrong and right;
Teach us, not how to die, but how to live! ”

“ Minga, wrinkling her brows, remembered that there was a girl who studied too hard at college and she had amnesia and couldn't remember to put her clothes on properly. "That," said Minga, with emphasis, "made me decide right then that I would never study too hard. But I never saw any amnesia," added Minga. "Is it anything like asthma?"
"It's like the light going out of your head, I guess," said Sard, "and the paths of your mind don't lead home; don't lead to the You that knows you; and it will make all the yous suddenly run into each other, and you are suddenly lost. ”

“ Yet in these valleys on these sun-pooled moors,
Where turf roads wind to fountains of the sky,
I have seen Souls freed by the out-of-doors,
To find out here, their liberate ecstasy.
8
Perhaps these gemmy berries on the slope,
Perhaps these dryads of the circling hedge
Write runes of health and happiness and hope,
Or limn new truth in sand and rippled sedge.
For those who tread these wastes of Autumn’s reach
Find dream and vision on the wind-washed lea;
Thoughts broaden, there is fire in the speech,
Minds stir beyond their wonted sophistry. ”

“ It is a small, dark, dingy cave, with small wooden angels, beautifully carved, festooned over the doorway. As one peers into the dimness of the interior, one has the sense of the fluttering of delicate carved wings. The Woodcarver comes to the door; he has in one hand his chisel, in the other a shapeless block of olive wood. The Woodcarver is old and bowed, but as he lifts his cavernous, dark eyes he smiles, and his whole face is irradiated with a look of the genius of simplicity.
Woodcarver to the war correspondent ”

“ And all the false gods of material things.
Here where the thistle sends its wayward floss
Or where the marsh hawk swirls for meadow-food,
Alone on cloistered roads redeem thy loss
Of Spirit, in a bay-bushed solitude!
15
Oh, Spirit of ours, whom we have so betrayed,
As round these swimming hills our footsteps dream,
We see thy fugitive shimmer on the blade
Of every spear of grass; and by the gleam
Of sea light out at Pocomo and glade
Of twisted beech by rambling Polpis farm,
Or by the reedy pool where cattle strayed
Far from the fields stir up the midgy swarm. ”

“ There floated through the mind of the lawyer the pictures of Minga, with her vivid capricious demands on him, her unwitting tempting of him; what would another man have done? Of what worth were his hesitations and restraints, Sard, with her high compulsions and swift fires? Why should he, Shipman, have let these fresh wonders of womanhood flit by like shadows? He groaned, knowing why—because do what he would, think what he would, Eleanor Ledyard held him. ”

“ Woodcarver, shuddering:{43}
Christos!—A bitter sea,
That booming sea of guns.
Yet men dare to swim through
The Surf of mittrailleuse,
The solemn tides of blood,
The still, white foam of fear,
The cold blank sands of death....
Yea, men dive into it,
Men swim into it,
Forging beyond its depths
To Something seen ahead,
Until their feet touch shore.
Oh! that the shore they touch
Would be the coasts of Peace!
American bitterly:
Still the guns boom and boom
Over the minds of men,
Drowning the wills of men,
The thinking powers of men. ”

“ So Sard could not go to the house, she could not see Miss Aurelia, discuss the trial, conjecture as to Minga's and Dunstan's whereabouts. The girl, her body aching, her eyes half blind with surging [Pg 277] thoughts, wandered to the little fruit orchard. It seemed to her that the gray ancient trees, like good little crones, welcomed her, and that the long grass and the rifts of leaves and patches of starred sky spoke to her. "You are part of us, Sard; we have struggled and fought, too; we have followed instincts and been smitten and wounded. You are like us, Sard, you have come into our laws." ”

“ Trees that shall say new things to listening souls.
O Unseen Gardener of the World-tree, boughs
Ripe with strange star-fruit dropping in the fields{28}
Of vast Space-gardens—give, Thou, me to learn
In simple ways, how, after this life’s dream
I may accept new growth, even to loss
Of this life-consciousness—to help Thy plan!
Become, for Thee, a dried-up flower cup,
A butterfly unwingéd, broken-plumed,
Even a blinded, helpless, light-killed moth—
So that I nourish forth new growing things
In the star branchéd garden of deep Time! ”

“ The Woodcarver is still staring up into the sky. The child steals up to him, and slips his hand in his.
Woodcarver in a sort of chant to the child:
Yea, in the fair blue air,
In the silken glass-blown air,
Full of its flowery forms,
Or un-embodied souls,{57}
These disembodied fly—
Asking, How will it end?
Myriad wonders soar,
Fly with our flying hordes,
The flying hordes of our foe,
Asking, How will it end?
Youth with a smile on its lips,
Youth with untired powers,
Youth with its gallant need
Of dying for a belief. ”

“ When shall I breathe the breath of inshore spins,
And see the darkling fern of water-flaws,
And catch the drive of myriad mackerel fins
Where the furred trawler floats its netted jaws!”
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In spite of foppish talk and city form,
We take the lane and loiter on the crest,
Speaking in terms of Island sun and storm;
The marlins’ tarry smell, the breakers’ breast,
Until across the light and baffling word
There steals the old sea-wind, and with a thrill
The stagnant pools of city minds are stirred,
Incoming tides the vapid channels fill. ”

“ You will be hurt and raw from things all your life with that finger! Yes, but you will be also exultant, drunken, wild with the quintessence of beauty, of the mystery and wonder that is all through the dull, daily grind. Sard's unique gift was the poise of her head. Here was an imperious quality like that of a princess, here a curve of chin and backset of the shoulders which was at the same time elastic and defiant and challenging. A girl like this, of indomitable pride, curious nerve, wonders at some of the insults she receives from the thing this pride and nerve bring to life in others ”

“ On his dim path the radiance has stirred,
Deep in a dream he shrines his knowledge; still
Keeping his thorny ways, intent he goes,
Knowing the Hidden that infinitely knows!
{26} BEACON LIGHTS.
When I am cowardly, sick of the fight,
Dumb for the right word, nerveless for deeds that dare,
Blaze up in my heart, square little Brant Point Light;
Light me a broad path starred with a burnished flare!
If I am tossing on a sea of doubt,
And have no harbor, no fair shore to know,
Sankaty, like an angel, spread your great wings out,
Headland and coastward light, give me your glow! ”

“ Then had come the morning outside the court-house when Shipman had defined life to them. The older man's power, his penetrating analysis, had somehow reached to the soul that lay dormant, the little butterfly character had sleepily stirred, the little blue egg had broken, and Minga, a scared soul, looked forth upon a universe that had a spiritual endlessness. Some new dim sense of men came to her, not as strong creatures that must be made silly slaves to women or played upon by light motives, but as loyal brothers who had enormous power of strength or suffering through women. ”

“ Highest peak of man’s mind,
That dares his nature down,
Fastens his blood in leash,
Refines his passion, until
It calms under his hand,
And goes to war with War.
There is a sudden tremendous sound of guns. The child flings himself on the floor in fear; he crosses himself and lies there looking pitifully up to the walls where the wooden angels poise. The Woodcarver stops his work, and regards the child with a drawn white face. ”

“ Who have no doubts, no clamorings and no fears,
But faithful to the clumsy guise they wear,
Walk patient down their plodding driven years.
While we in princedoms of our God’s own form,
Wistfully pause in their oblivioned light,
Longing to stay with uncouth beasts tonight;
For that their calm would keep our spirits warm
And soothe us back to the glad human norm.
Would gladly share with them their sacred things,{68}
Their freedom from our restless questionings,
So we won quietude from stress and storm.
Mingling our vigil with their Burden-Speech,
Their revery. ”