Excerpt
The Children of the Night For those that never know the light,The darkness is a sullen thing;And they, the Children of the Night,Seem lost in Fortune's winnowing.But some are strong and some are weak, —And there's the story. House and homeAre shut from countless hearts that seekWorld-refuge that will never come.And if there be no other life,And if there be no other chanceTo weigh their sorrow and their strifeThan in the scales of circumstance,'T were better, ere the sun go downUpon the first day we embark,In life's imbittered sea to drown,Than sail forever in the dark.But if there be a soul on earthSo blinded with its own misuseOf man's revealed, incessant worth,Or worn with anguish, that it viewsNo light but for a mortal eye,No rest but of a mortal sleep,No God but in a prophet's lie,No faith for "honest doubt" to keep;If there be nothing, good or bad,But chaos for a soul to trust, —God counts it for a soul gone mad,And if God be God, He is just.And if God be God, He is Love;And though the Dawn be still so dim,It shows us we have played enoughWith creeds that make a fiend of Him.There is one creed, and only one,That glorifies God's excellence;So cherish, that His will be done,The common creed of common sense.It is the crimson, not the gray,That charms the twilight of all time;It is the promise of the dayThat makes the starry sky sublime;It is the faith within the fearThat holds us to the life we curse; —So let us in ourselves revereThe Self which is the Universe!Let us, the Children of the Night,Put off the cloak that hides the scar!Let us be Children of the Light,And tell the ages what we are! Three Quatrains I As long as Fame's imperious music ringsWill poets mock it with crowned words august;And haggard men will clamber to be kingsAs long as Glory weighs itself in dust. II Drink to the splendor of the unfulfilled,Nor shudder for the revels that are done:The wines that flushed Lucullus are all spilled,The strings that Nero fingered are all gone. III We cannot crown ourselves with everything,Nor can we coax the Fates for us to quarrel:No matter what we are, or what we sing,Time finds a withered leaf in every laurel. The World Some are the brothers of all humankind,And own them, whatsoever their estate;And some, for sorrow and self-scorn, are blindWith enmity for man's unguarded fate.For some there is a music all day longLike flutes in Paradise, they are so glad;And there is hell's eternal under-songOf curses and the cries of men gone mad.Some say the Scheme with love stands luminous,Some say 't were better back to chaos hurled;And so 't is what we are that makes for usThe measure and the meaning of the world. An Old Story Strange that I did not know him then,That friend of mine!I did not even show him thenOne friendly sign;But cursed him for the ways he hadTo make me seeMy envy of the praise he hadFor praising me.I would have rid the earth of himOnce, in my pride!...