John William Draper

“ Your hours with toil-wrought pain. Rush on, rush on
Upon your prizeless race. Where is your gain
In luxury, or seas of swimming gold,
Or starry ether chained to conquerdom?
You do but add new wheels, new chains to man's
Machine to govern man. You build a tower
More high than Babel's, hoping for earthly heaven
Upon this structure formed of luxuries,
And squander here stored-up celestial bliss
Which your poor Wills would mortgage before gained.
Your little lives were never made for racks
And fettered strainings of this new-wrought world
That quivers your nerves with life-intensity. ”

“ The rest swept by her through that portal fell.
And some, not marked for Death, returned again;
And some returned not. O'er the porch's rail,
Leant her light body as she scanned each form,
And tensely looked with terror anxious-eyed.
Why does she shrink with all-consuming pain,
And seek to gaze again? A blinding storm
Of anguish breaks upon her. "O what doom
Is this for thee and me? Why doest thou glide
Into this silent, terror-freighted tomb?" ”

“ And through the halls, I heard the echo wane
Until the last, most distant answer sighed:
"The spirit of the world is pain, pain, pain—"
Then from the drowsy distance, there did well
A voice as of a witch before her fane,
Soft-muttering, some Heaven-blasting spell:
"The world is all in vain, the merest tool
Of accident, an anteroom to Hell,
A counterfeit but fairly glinting pool—
Snatch all the joy thou canst, thou human fool!" ”

“ With spirit blisses of a spirit life.
[Pg 69]
XVII Eternal art can triumph over pain;
And once we breathe the lotus-fragrance deep,
The world may scream with iron tongue in vain,
For all the argosy is soothed to sleep.
The ships may rot forever on the sand;
And far off Greece may wait and faintly weep.
More rare than spice from silken Samarkand,
More sorrow-sweet than young Francesca's tears,
More fair than yearning night upon the strand,
And more majestic than Anchises' years:
Beauty's the image, not the thing. ”

“ That clung about me like an ancient rime:
Death is to the soul but a change of clime.
[Pg 60]
VIII Then from the body tear this soul away!
Let me seek death; I'll force the hand of Fate!
I will not suffer more. The game I play
Is held against Creation, and the weight
Of all the ages hangs with Fate. Serene,
Stands Death in sable gossamer bedight,
And with maternal arms would intervene,
And seeks to press me silent to her breast.
Quick, let me free my soul from pain! ”

“ Is vibrant in the air. High-pitched and thin,
It quavers dimly, then descends again,
And echoes aimless through the busy din:
Mankind would add to pleasure, but in vain—
For Pleasure's Palace is a house of pain. ”

“ The Heavenly light from the young Christ's aureole.
Through all the halls of pain, the brilliance beamed;
And every discord out of chaos stole
To swell the throbbing organ's thunderous roll.
[Pg 71]
XIX Faith is the master-spirit of the mind.
All else is vanity, the preacher saith;
And worldly knowledge painful is and blind.
Oh, be thyself, and trust thyself. The breath
Of God is breathed on thee. Believe, and will;
And all that thou wouldst have in life, in death,
Is thine. ”

“ Can save me from this cup of pain unquaffed.
[Pg 67]
XV Oh, every soul is only pain embalmed;
And every torment is but bliss's sting.
Humanity lies gasping and becalmed
Upon a torrid ocean; and no wing
Of albatross is seen—nor e'er was seen—
Our worldly hope is dead—yet rules as king.
Dust, ashes, ashes, dust, upon these lean
All of the upward struggle of mankind;
And pain, unending pain, is all they glean.
Goddess of pain, O mistress of the mind,
Art thou the Soul of life? Or hast thou palmed
Thyself on men once happy? Have we pined
Forever? Can our spirits e'er be calmed ”

“ Where sylphs sing sweetly 'bout the bubbling well.
Oh, fill my cup of pleasure with new wine
Which sparkles only where thy soft eyes shine!
O my beloved, haste thee to arise
Before the light has scorched the noonday skies!
The fleeting hours haste the falling sun;
And soon the hour-glass of life is run. ”

“ Whither the wingèd skylark, Faith, has flown,
And borne me fainting upward; then my soul
May seek the God of art which silent, lone,
Broods on a crystal-argent sea, the goal
Of all humanity. Incarnate pain
Is calmed to everlasting peace. ”

“ Saul triumphed to the stars; he gasped for air
As one might gasp upon a mountain's height.
Revenge and hate swept storm-like through the lair
Where lurked his soul shrinking before the blast;
"Mine, mine, by high-enthroned Jehovah's might!"
The words upon his lips were hot and fast.— [Pg 32]
Thine, thine, thou say'st? Him shalt thou never gain!
Thou dream'st a dream, O King; it is in vain.
Once fixed, the star of forecast cannot wane. ”

“ Is fair—Oh, let this weariness be blest!
But hold—I still may keep this bitter strain
Of self-tormenting torment e'en in rest—
Death summons up the things of life again;
And pain of life transmutes all death to pain. ”

“ Alive or dead, I am a slave to life.
The later torment with the former vies
To wring my still-undying soul with strife.
I have a debt; the creditor is Time:
"My bond, my bond," he cries, and holds the knife
To wound yet never kill. But what my crime?
I fled those pleasure-haunted halls where vile,
Sweet-scented blisses soothed to pain. A clime
More active came within my ken. The dial
Of hours hurried round. The rich, new wine
Of busy life, I found. A steady file
Swept past of mortal things with souls like mine—
Yet what the purpose of their streaming line? ”

“ Yet Thou art wordless.—Shall the King still call
Unto the Silent?"
The clouds were scudding fast
As if breathed through the Heavens by God's sigh.
There turned his eyes; then o'er the valley cast. [Pg 35]
"Yet will I win," he cried. "Fate cannot last.
The days are all at odds; the powers conspire
To crush my mortal Will. ”

“ I swept them with my garment's hem—
Some say I laughed—That night, I dreamed
Of Araby—a scene
Of sleepy charm whence fragrance streamed;
And in mirage, the desert blossomed green.
January 16, 1913.
[Pg 53]
THE PALACE OF PAIN A CYCLE I A soul was once incarnate in a man;
And this unseen, incarnate thing was mine;
And, as my body grew, the soul began
To sip more fondly of the scented wine
And sugared blisses life can give at call. ”

“ Often he has been led into somewhat bold innovations such as the invention of the miniature ode, and the associating of an idea with a rime-motiv in the metrical short-stories. While he hopes that the new forms will justify themselves, he realizes that after all, the poems must stand or fall in proportion to the amount of pure artistic beauty contained within them. ”