Edward Doyle

“ The soul of man was not born to be drowned.
It mounts and mounts, till, at God's throne, at last,
And freedom welcomes it with arms, sky-vast,
As down it comes to meet Thrall and confound.
O, deathless spirit, born of hosts sea-hurled,
Who hast out soared night's stars with agony's cry
For justice! Thou hast come down from the sky,
Heralding doom to Thrall, whose flag unfurled
By steel, or craft, shows, as 'tis hoisted high,
The blood of man and ruin of the world.
ALL STARS MERGED IN ONE
What is the Truth? ”

“ The monsters back to Hell's profoundest deep,
Where, mocking Spring and Sun-rise, they have grown
On longings for the sea, the world must weep
When, from its heart, the hope of Peace has flown.
KAISER, BEWARE
Dost thou, mad Kaiser, for historic name,
Set fire to Europe? Is it joy to gaze
At blacker smoke than Etna's, and a blaze
That wakes up Chaos, wild to come and claim
The World, since Light, God-bidden though it came,
Has failed to dawn upon our human ways?
O Twin of Chaos! peer thou through the haze!
'Tis Human Beings feed the crackling flame. ”

“ Why into stars, flake every cloud's black brew?
What fitter forms for longings high and true,
Man's hopes, ideals, than bright orbs like those
Asbine from Nature's dawn to Nature's close,
In clusters, prisming every dazzling hue?
Nor is the Sun with harvests in its heat,
And that, sky-hidden, makes the moon at night,
An earth-ward cascade for its leaps of light,
More real, or a world force more complete,
Than Faith and Hope, that brake through clouds with sight
Of evil's foil and ultimate defeat.
THE GENESIS OF FREEDOM I
O Freedom! ”

“ A subtle light and dark run parallel.
One prompts men to build Beauty, cell by cell,
In Home, Religion, State, Society;
The other, to destroy the fair they see.
Like Spring, wilt thou roof Earth with bloom and dwell
Thereunder? or, with Scalping Winter's yell,
Scour grove and bush? Choose—how else art thou free?
If Freedom is the gift of the all-wise,
It is because he will not have a slave
To serve Him. Which wilt thou be, base or brave? ”

“ All else is false. Look! where are stars so dense,
That each has not the freedom of the sky?
And, still, what peace, what glory, reigns on high!
What! with the wisdom of the heavens, dispense?
The Peace, for which our longings grow intense,
Comes through the stars to earth, and but thereby.
What splits dark mid-night and gives earth a thrill?
All stars merged into one—our Country's aim. ”

“ How weird a whisper! 'tis from Wallabout.
'Tis glory hoarse with calling: "Raise those hulks
Where writhe my faithful." See! the tory skulks
Behind the sun who, stooping to fill out
Their throats with his god-breath, to swell the shout
Of a free people, finds the brave in bulks,
Strewn and held fast where Darkness, beaten, sulks
That thrall has been forever put to rout.
Those mangled thousands are not dead; they live,
Refashioned men by freedom. ”

“ Who, ceaseless, send up sparks; who hold their post
On each and every ledge of Human Right,
Forming a beacon blaze from base to height
Where Erin's hope may steer and land its host.
Look, Human Nature! Where else canst thou boast
To the eternal stars, so grand a sight?
Look! How men there ennoble human kind
By making Liberty the light to Peace!
All other lights are false. Oh! who but sees
In the unconquerable Celtic mind
That, even in Time, there are Eternities—
Love, true to Right, and Will no wrong can bind!
[44]
WHY PLAY WITH WORDS, ENGLAND? ”

“ In Freedom for all men? First, gaseous rays
In Maryland, then rounded firm full blaze
In the Republic, it draws every sphere
Of Human welfare, whether far or near,
From depths occult to nights with dawns and days.
The Freedom of the Generation's longing
Reflects Lord Christ in glory, hour by hour,
With more distinctness, as you, with His power,
Free heart and brain from every brother-wronging,
And give your offspring, these, as flesh and dower,
To live and lead the millions, hither thronging. ”

“ The World's Deliverer. In him, we saw
A luminous being rise from earth and draw
All lands above the clouds. We were regaled
With justice cascades flow, long ice impaled
Upon high mountains. Was not Nature's thaw
From his heart heat for truth, Eternal Law?
His was the heat of all the stars, he scaled.
Though his ascension was like Christ's, sublime
With lift of continents and every isle,
He, less than Christ, succumbed to Demon Guile.
Oh, God, that he should drop his mountain climb
Below sea-level, and let earth the while,
Fall back and settle in Primeval Slime! ”

“ A people's life, and drain its sea to shoal,
And from the vision of sky-topping sages,
Gasping for breath from rot in all its stages,—
Aye, these and new-born Genius loom there Whole.
Look, People! Little less than God's own size,
Your virtues merge and, with speed God-ward, burn,
An unconsuming sun, that at no turn
In spiral flight, for still a grander rise,
Lets night advance where human Rights still yearn,
Except with great, new stars and dawning skys! ”

“ To steal projectiles by a craft, accursed
By Human Nature? Aye, for, as they burst
At dusk, or midnight, slamming Heaven behind
And crashing Hell wide open, 'tis mankind
Is shattered and quick-gulping grave slake thirst.
Hate thou no man, but scorn all crafts, that smelt
The heart and mind for huge projectiles, shattered
When bursting grandly that some pride be flattered.
Nature beholds not Saxon, Slav, nor Celt;
She only sees the Human fragments scattered,
And, covering them, her eyes to rivers melt.
[34]
THE CELTIC SOUL CRY I
O Freedom! ”

“ Sets every heart and soul forever free,
An Equity, not royal grant, sets bounds.
No Phaeton attempting Phoebus rounds
And burning up earth's grass and forestry,
Is lust for power; 'tis love for liberty,
With bloom and birds for wheel-sparks, here resounds.
It is the land of Spirit. "Ye who enter,
Abandon first all fratricidal hate,"
Proclaims the edict, blazoned o'er each gate.
There see all tribes chase truth to joy—the center
Convexing broad and broader, as more great
Their numbers from where prejudice is mentor.
THE BLIGHT TO SPRING
Hark, 'tis the sea! ”

“ Is Humans, gasping. Hope drags each cold form
From hearth to hearth, to find no ember warm;
Then, their eyes glitter frost, who hear hope yell
As up she climbs the rocks and falls pell-mell
Back from small herbs, where monsters swoop and swarm.
Oh, could the bestial birds, in Virgil's verse,
See Hope's hands redden, as she rends her hair,
They would grow human—would not glut, but share;
Nor, then, shed human semblance for man's curse—
As ye do, who from want, hold warmth and fair,
And gorge your bulks to sleep, as want writhes worse!
WHY THE STARS LAUGH
Hark! ”

“ That lights the stars, till she again is free,
Inspiring normal man in every land
With love of Freedom, by her scorn of thee.
FREEDOM'S WARDENS
Look! British fury that, barraging, lights
Up Irish skies, like pathways down to hell,
Doubles its fire to reach our land as well,
Where Freedom's Wardens cry from justice' heights:
"'Tis Deicide to murder Human Rights.
Stop foul God-slaughter where to not rebel,
In order to develop and excel,
Were God in man, succumbed to age-longed blights." ”

“ Night counts her stars, but falters, when souls rise
Bright with the Grace which God's annointed shed.
Belov'd Irene, how great our joy to see
Thine arch, aglow with virtue's every hue!
Oh, how much more must they rejoice, who view
From inner Heaven, the arch that is for thee,
Triumphal! for than vows like thine, lived true,
No grander arch from earth to heaven could be. ”

“ In forests and in fields, and fledgling's wing,
So thou dost see thy spirit glorying
With faith, that man is more than Nature's spew—
In human spirit that, from beauty drew
First breath to know that soul is more than thing.
O Freedom! ”

“ For ages, for Man's gain in yours is wound.
Oh, justice's Hot Gulf Stream are ye, who open
The sea, which fiendish craft has frozen hard!
Oh, may your warmth for righteousness transform
The tyrant's artic region, with no hope in,
To Freedom's Temperate Zone, which they, who guard
The planets, save from wreck by quake or storm. ”

“ We must lead the peoples of the world to freedom. And what is freedom?
"'Tis intelligence
Aloof from harm and hamper, grandly circling
Its native sun-lit peaks, the highest hopes
Heaved from the heart of man upon the earth,
In ranges long as time and soul endure."
What, then, is America's duty to the oppressed race or the small nation? ”

“ Where thirsts a sparrow, or a bleating herd!
There is no soul through out the land, not stirred;
For, oh, to glory God gives his own speech
When darkness, raised by Gold, declares that each,
Hulk-held, is good but for the wolf and bird. ”

“ To watch bloom gather scent, or new life start,
And hear our Father, bending for a kiss,
Whisper to thee, the secrets of His heart!
[67]
THE CAMP FIRE
Beauty is love and, hence is heightening fire,
Consuming Nature. All the dark can bring
To quench it, feeds it. Look! how everything
Is caught in the blaze, which mounts up high and higher!
Oh! truly, 'tis a vision to inspire
The soul with transport, more than joy can sing;
For, if not for the blaze, what cold would sting
Poor mortals, who crowd round it, nigh and nigher! ”

“ At Darkness' feet, be shut in mud and silt
Forever and with stars, cease, beaconing?
[33]
III
Oh, as the earth in discord and in dark,
When struck by Love on high with will for mace,
Keeps rattling till each mote finds its true place,
And mountain, fledged with groves, vies with the lark
To reach the sunrise; so the madness stark
Of gold, dethroning blood as God's best grace,
When struck by Glory's voice drops Nadir-base,
And blood for Freedom spilt, forms heaven's blue arc.
The shouts of millions shake Oblivion's mire
And raise Thrall's Hulks. Look! ”

“ And, from the stars last laggard, soared, their guide!
Oh, who can take Promethean Lincoln's place,
To bring light where-so-ever he can trace
A Human, with his rights to soul denied?
He must be one, not only to illume
All ages, and not leave one region dim,
But at no height, allow his senses swim,
Or let mirages lure him with false bloom.
Lo! Here one comes with all the virtues prim
To hurl God's fire and end all human gloom.
II
'Tis Wilson takes God's flame from Lincoln's hand. ”

“ Aye, as your sires saw him from Bunker Hill.
Oh, vain, gold rubs the skin and press shouts, "Lo!
It has not now one spot of threatening ill."
[15]
IV
O Daughters of the brave, well ye abjure
The fiend and all his works. Ye know his smiles
Are fire-fly flare at gloaming, lighting miles
Of snake-boughed forests down to swamps, impure
From mind and soul decay; hence are heart-sure
That creed and racial hatreds are his wiles,
For God is Love, and Love draws, reconsiles,
And is the strength that makes our land endure. ”

“ The Right Divine of freedom, when it yearns
For what exalts the human, or, it spurns
What bars its flight to truth—all stars aglow,
That form God's trail to joy for man below?—
Sole trail, as time, who peers through grief, discerns.
O Caledonia, by thy Burn's brave song,
And deeds of Wallace and Paul Jones for Right,
Thy mother knows thee in the dark of night,
And claps thee heart-close. She cries out: "Be strong,
Soul of my soul! though not a Boswell quite,
Still, be whole man! remember Glencoe's wrong."
[46]
II
Wake, Caledonia! ”