Gilbert Parker

“ A thought about a song, a note of praise, And social duties such as fill the days Of women; then a thing that undergirds The phrases like a psalm: a line that reads— “I wish that you were coming!” Why, it lies Upon my heart like blossoms on the skies, Like breath of balm upon the clover meads. The perfumed words soothe me into a dream; My thoughts float to her on the scented stream.
ASPIRATION None ever climbed to mountain heights of song, But felt the touch of some good woman’s palm; None ever reached God’s altitude of calm, But heard one voice cry, “Follow!” from the throng. ”

“ THE MEETING O marvel of our nature, that one life Strikes through the thousand lives that fold it round, To find another, even as a sound Sweeps to a song through elemental strife! Through cycles infinite the forces wait, Which destiny has set for union here; No circumstance can warp them from their sphere; They meet sometime; and this is God and Fate. And God is Law, and Fate is Law in use, And we are acted on by some deep cause, Which sanctifies “I will” and “I refuse,” When Love speaks—Love, the peaceful end of Laws. ”

“ From her deep soul I draw my peace, and thus, One wreath of rhyme I weave for both of us.
THE SHRINE Were I but as the master souls who move In their high place, immortal on the earth, My song might be a thing to crown her worth,— ‘Tis but a pathway for the feet of Love. But since she walks where I am fain to sing, Since she has said, “I listen, O my friend!” There is a glory lent the song I send, And I am proud, yes, prouder than a king. ”

“ LOVE IS ENOUGH It is enough that in this burdened time The soul sees all its purposes aright. The rest—what does it matter? Soon the night Will come to whelm us, then the morning chime. What does it matter, if but in the way One hand clasps ours, one heart believes us true; One understands the work we try to do, And strives through Love to teach us what to say? Between me and the chilly outer air Which blows in from the world, there standeth one Who draws Love’s curtains closely everywhere, As God folds down the banners of the sun. ”

“ It hath been more to this lame life of mine, When faith was weakness, and despair was king. Man more than all men, Thou wast glad to bless A woman’s sacrifice and tenderness.
ONE FACE I SEE One face I see by thine whene’er I hold Converse with things that are or things that were; Whene’er I seek life’s hidden folds to stir, And watch the inner to the outer rolled. Dost thou not know her, O beloved one? Hast thou not felt her sunshine on thy face? In me hast thou not learned some signs to trace Of that dear soul who calleth me her son? ”

“ ABOVE THE DIN Silence sits often on me as I touch Her presence; I am like a bird that hears A note diviner than it knows, and fears To share the larger harmony too much. My soul leaps up, as to a sudden sound A long-lost traveller, when, by her grace, I learn of her life’s sweetness face to face, And sweep the chords of sympathies profound. Her regal nature calmly holds its height Above life’s din, while moving in its maze. Unworthy thoughts would die within her sight, And mean deeds creep to darkness from her gaze. ”

“ ENVOY When you and I have played the little hour, Have seen the tall subaltern Life to Death Yield up his sword; and, smiling, draw the breath, The first long breath of freedom; when the flower Of Recompense has fluttered to our feet, As to an actor’s; and the curtain down, We turn to face each other all alone— Alone, we two, who never yet did meet, Alone, and absolute, and free: oh, then, Oh, then, most dear, how shall be told the tale? Clasped hands, pressed lips, and so clasped hands again ”

“ THE TORCH Art’s use what is it but to touch the springs Of nature? But to hold a torch up for Humanity in Life’s large corridor, To guide the feet of peasants and of kings! What is it but to carry union through Thoughts alien to thoughts kindred, and to merge The lines of colour that should not diverge, And give the sun a window to shine through! What is it but to make the world have heed For what its dull eyes else would hardly scan, To draw in a stark light a shameless deed, And show the fashion of a kingly man! ”

“ White restless hands that falter, then begin To weave a music-voiced fantasy. And life, and death, and love, and weariness, And unrequital, thrid the maze of sound; And one voice saith, “Behold, the lost is found!” And saith not any more for joyfulness. Out of the night there comes a wanderer, Who waits upon the threshold, and is still; And listens, and bows down his head, until His grief-drawn breath startles the heart of her. ”

“ MALFEASANCE Two of one name; they standing where the sun Makes shadows in the orchard-bloom of spring; She holding in her palm a jewelled ring, He speaking on what evil it had done. “Raise thy pale face and wondrous eyes to mine; Let not thy poor lips quiver in such pain; Too young and blindly thou hast drunk the wine Crushed from the lees of love. Be strong again. Trail back thy golden hair from thy broad brow, And raise thy lily neck like some tall tower, That recks not any strife nor any hour, So it but holds its height, heeding not how. ”

“ The Fates laugh at us as they sit and spin; We cannot tell what Good is, or what Sin, Or why old faiths in mist of pain dissolve. We only can stand watchful in the way, Waiting with patient hands on shield and sword, Ready to meet disaster in the fray, Till Time has struck the letters of one word— Word of such high-born worth: triumphant Love, Give me thy canopy where’er I rove. ”

“ The priceless gifts of holy confidence, That speak through quivering lips from heart to heart; That unto life new energies impart, And open up the gates of prescience. O dear my love, I unto thee have given Pledge that I am thy vassal evermore; I stand within the zenith of my Heaven, On either hand a starred eternal shore I have come nearer to thy greater worth, For thou hast raised me from the common earth. ”

“ O phantom ship, O loveless wraith of Love!”
SURRENDER A day of sunshine in a land of snow, And a soft-curtained room, where ruddy flakes Of fame fall free, in liquid light that slakes The soft desire of one cold, paleface: lo, Close-pressed sweet lips, and eyes of violet, That are filled up as with a sudden fear— A storm’s prelude upon the expectant mere. Yet deep behind what never they forget, Who ever see in life’s chance or mischance. ”

“ Who crieth, See, the monarch is grown old, His sceptre falls? Oh, carpers rude and bold, You who have fed upon the gracious benison Scattered unstinted by him, do you now Dispraise the sweet-strung harp, grown tremulous ‘Neath fingers overworn for all of us? You cannot tear the laurels from his brow. He lives above your idle vaunts and fears, Enthroned where all master souls stand up In their high place, and fill the golden cup, God-blest for kings, with wine of endless years, And greet him one with them. ”

“ AS LIGHT LEAPS UP As light leaps up from star to star, so mounts Faith from one soul unto another; so The lower to the higher; till the flow Of knowledge rises from creation’s founts; Until from human love we come to know The august presence of the Love Divine; And feel the light unutterable shine Upon half-lights that we were wont to show, Absorbing them. ‘Tis Love that beckons us From low desires, from restlessness and sin, To heights that else we had not reached ”

“ Should serve the strivings of a widening age, And fashion wisdom from the social fret. Deep did Time’s lances go; thou pluck’st them forth, And on my sullen woundings laid the balm Of thy life’s sweetness. Oh, let my love be worth The keeping. My head beneath thy palm, Once more I lift Love’s chalice to thine eyes: Not till thou blessest me will I arise. ”

“ Even as a blind man’s fingers wander o’er His harpstrings, led by sound to dreams of sound, Till in his soul an eloquence profound Rises above the petulance and roar Of the great globe: as in a rush of song From feathered throats, one, in a mighty wood, ‘Mid sweet interpositions moves along The avenues of some predestined good; So I, dream-nurtured, standing by the sea, Made levy on the wonders that should be.
OVERCOMING And God is good, I said, and Art is good, And labour hath its rich reward of sleep; And recompense will come for all who keep Dishonour’s ill contagion from the blood. ”

“ LOVE’S COURAGE Courage have I to face all bitter things, That start out darkly from the rugged path, Leading to life’s achievement; not God’s wrath Would sit so heavy when my lady sings. I did not know what life meant till I felt Her hand clasp mine in compact to the end ”

“ YET LIFE IS SWEET Yet life is sweet. Thy soul hath breathed along, Thine eyes have cast their glory on the earth, Thy foot hath touched it, and thine hour of birth Didst give a new pulse to the veins of song. Better to stand amid the toppling towers Of every valiant hope ”

“ The price it pays for the revelation is a hopeless love informed by temptation, but lifted away from ruinous elements by self-renunciation, to end with the inevitable parting, poignant and permanent, a task of the soul finished and the toll of the journey of understanding paid. ”

“ SO CALM THE WORLD Far up the sky the sunset glamour spreads, Far off the city lies in golden mist; The sea grows calm, the waves the sun has kissed Strike white hands softly ‘gainst the rocky heads. So calm the world, so still the city lies, So warm the haze that spreads o’er everything ”

“ Whether we e’en shall guess the way we go, Passing beneath Death’s mystic architrave Silence or song, dumb sleep or cheerful hours?” O lady, you have questioned, answer too. You—you to die—silence and gloom for you: Dead song, dead lights, dead graces, and dead flowers? It is not so: the foolish trivial end, The inconsequent paltry Nothing—gone—gone all; The genius of the ageless Something spend Itself within this little earthly wall: The commonplace conception, that we reap Reward of drudge and ploughman—idle sleep! ”

“ I grow to nobler use beneath her eyes— Eyes that smile on me so serenely, will They smile a welcome though my best hope dies, And greet me at the summit of the hill? Will she, for whom my heart has built a shrine, Take from me all that makes this world divine? ”

“ DAHIN O brow, so fronted with a stately calm, O full completeness of true womanhood, O counsel, pleader for all highest good, Thou hast upon my sorrow poured thy balm! Poor soldier he who did not raise his sword, And, touching with his lips the hilt-cross, swear In war or peace the livery to wear Of one that blessed him with her queenly word. ”

“ CAPTIVITY Nay, lady, though I love thee, I make pause Before thy question, and know naught to say; Art cannot teach me to define the way, Love led me, nor e’en register Love’s cause. It can but blazon in this verse of mine What love does for me; what from Love it gains ”

“ There is, after all, an unlovable kind of vanity in acute self-criticism —as though it mattered deeply to the world whether one ever wrote anything; or, having written, as though it mattered to the world enough to stir it in its course by one vibration. The world has drunk deep of wonderful literature, and all that I can do is make a small brew with a little flavour of my own ”

“ For once my mother told me that she saw The Angel of the Cross Roads lead me out, And point to every corner of the sky, And say, “Thy feet shall follow in the trail Of every tribe; and thou shalt pitch thy tent Wherever thou shalt see a human face Which hath thereon the alphabet of life ”

“ To cherish honour, and to smite all shame, To lend hearts voices, and give thoughts a name!
IN ARMOUR, But wherein shall Art work? Shall beauty lead It captive, and set kisses on its mouth? Shall it be strained unto the breast of youth, And in a garden live where grows no weed? ”

“ Shall I grow More fearful than the soldier, when between The smoke of hostile cannon lies his way; To carry far the colours of his queen, While her bright eyes behold him in the fray? Here do I smile between the warring hosts Of sad farewells ”

“ God’s full anointed ones Have heard the world exclaim, “We know you not.” They who by their souls’ travailing have brought Us nearer to the wonder of the suns. Yet, who can stay the passage of the stars? Who can prevail against the thunder-sound? ”

“ What couldst thou ever ask me that I should Not bend me to achieve thy high behest? What cannot men achieve with lance in rest Who carry noble valour in their blood? And some nobility of high emprise, Lady, couldst thou make possible in me; If living ‘neath the pureness of thy eyes, I found the key to inner majesty ”

“ The wire that flashes lightning to the ground Diverts, but not its potency debars. So, men may strike quick stabs at Caesar’s worth,— They only make his life an endless force, ‘Scaped from its penthouse, flashing through the earth, And ‘whelming those who railed about his Gorse. Men’s moods disturb not those born truly great: They know their end; they can afford to wait.
DREAMS And so life passed. I lived from year to year With shadows, the strong warders of desire; I learned through them to seek the golden fire That hides itself in Song’s bright hemisphere. ”

“ Because the voice grows stiller, or the arm No longer can beat evils back; because The shoulders sink beneath new-rising cause, And the fine thought has lost its moving charm; Because of these shall puny sages shake Their heads, and haste to mock the failing one, Who in his strength could make the nations quake ”

“ A WOMAN’S HAND A woman’s hand. Lo, I am thankful now That with its touch I have walked all my days; Rising from fateful and forbidden ways, To find a woman’s hand upon my brow; Soft as a pad of rose-leaves, and as pure As upraised palms of angels, seen in dreams: And soothed by it, to stand as it beseems A man who strives to conquer and endure. A woman’s hand!—there is no better thing Of all things human ”