Henry Abbey: Verses about Time

To baffle time, whose tooth has never rest,
And make the counted line, from page to page,
Compact, fulfilled of what is apt and best,
And vibrant with the keynote of the age,
This is my aim; and even aims are things;
They give men value who have won no place.
We pass for what we would be, by some grace,
And our ambitions make us seem like kings.
But never yet has destiny's clear star
For aimless feet shed light upon the way.
So have I hope, since purpose sees no bar,
To write immortally some lyric day,
As Lovelace did when he informed the lay
Inspired by Lucasta and by war.

I had a vision of mankind to be:
I saw no grated windows, heard no roar
From iron mouths of war on land and sea;
Ambition broke the sway of peace no more.
Out of the chaos of ill-will had come
Cosmos, the Age of Good, Millennium!

The lowly hero had of praise his meed,
And loving-kindnesses joined roof to roof.
The poor were few, and to their daily need
Abundance ministered: men bore reproof;
On crags of self-denial sought to cull
Rare flowers to deck their doors hospitable.

The very bells rang out the Golden Rule,
For hearts were loath to give their fellows pain,
The man was chosen chief who, brave and cool,
Was king in act and thought: wise power is plain
And likes not pomp and show; he seemed to be
The least in all that true democracy.

O Thou, the Christ, the Sower of the seed,
Pluck out the narrowness, the greed for pelf:
Pluck out all tares; the time let come, and speed,
When each will love his neighbor as himself!
The hopes of man, our dreams of higher good,
Are based on Thee; we are Thy brotherhood.

In the New World, the hemisphere unknown
When, Hebrew-wise, Moriah uttered praise-
In a new land of liberty and hope,
Of golden harvests and of bread, fresh fields-
In the new Promised Land-we dedicate,
We consecrate this House of Righteousness.
Be in our hearts, Shekinah!

In all this land there is no king but God.
He is our God, and we have built to Him.
To men of every creed, who serve his law,
We make the doors of this that we have built,
As wide with welcome as are freedom's doors,
As open and as tolerant as they.
Be in our hearts, Shekinah!

Of us the Branch to whom the nations bow.
In us is testimony and the root
Whence sprang the palmy, Messianic New.
The New is of the Old to which we cling.
Not to destroy the New we plant the Old,
But that the Old may flourish with the New.
Be in our hearts, Shekinah!

The end we know not; but we wander on,
Down the regretful wilderness of time.
Nations have risen and dissolved away;
But we remain, and are together bound
As are the glad, innumerable suns,
The blazing jewels in the Almighty's crown.
Be in our hearts, Shekinah!

Here may we ever worship as we will,
With strong simplicity and manly trust.
Here may the wistful aspiration, prayer,
Fire the neglected voices of the soul.
And may Jehovah this, his temple give
The rapture of cherubic wheels and wings.
Be in our hearts, Shekinah!

A flake of light-blue sky,
Perched on the top of a slender stem,
Like a bird with his azure wings outspread,
Here, at my feet, as I wandered by,
I found thee, wilding gem!
And the dead leaves rustled to my tread
In the weird and agèd wood.

I understood
As it were thy glance.
It was like a dance
Of glad surprise
In those sweet, blue eyes,
Which thou and heaven above
Dost 'mind me of.

I thought of winter gone,
When the brief sun shone,
Nor abated aught th' intolerant cold,
Which would yield no place,
On the white earth's face,
To thy beauty, O flower! But the mold,
Rich and black, under fallen leaves
Held thee safe as garnered sheaves.
Strange, that a tender flower like thee,
Against the rude and eager stress
Of Winter's frosty selfishness,
In forefront of revolt should'st be!

And yet, rathe flower divine,
On whom I almost trod,
I take thee for a sign.
With peace thou art endued,
Petaled beatitude
And little child of God!

I, too, rebel against the old-
Against the drear, insensate cold
Of selfish customs manifold;
And I say that every kindly deed
Is a flower like thee in the wilderness,
And makes for peace, and will sow the seed
Of other deeds to help and bless.
When these are common-when strikes that hour,
Of Time the dower-
The world shall see life truly free-
The endless Summer that is to be,
The ripened fruit, the light, the power
Of democracy!

Spirits of peace are in the air,
And gleams of Springtime everywhere!

A widow by her landlord was oppressed
To pay at once her backward coin of rent;
For he, cursed by the wealth that should have blessed,
Forgot that he, too, in a tenement
Dwelt, with unpaid arrear; and surely he,
More than a widow, lived in poverty.

For they alone are rich who have obtained
The love of God, for which no gold can pay.
Blind to the peaceful joy he might have gained,
The craven landlord, on a winter's day
That pierced with cold and wind-thrust snow and sleet,
Drove forth the widow to the roofless street.

Her clinging son, with elfin prattle, sought
To charm away her grief; yet, in his heart,
By the indignant pencil of his thought,
The shameful scene was drawn in every part.
There lived the widow's tears, and hard and base
Stood out the likeness of the landlord's face.

Like breaking waves, year after year rolled up,
And in their tide the widow's son became
A truthful painter, in whose life's bright cup
A thankful world dissolved the pearl of fame.
Then, with his brush, which spoke in every hue,
The picture in his heart he strongly drew.

Near to the landlord's home the painting hung,
As at his threshold, in a public place;
To view it came the townsfolk, old and young,
And said, 'This is our neighbor's ruthless face,
And this the cruel deed that he has done
To the poor widow and her artist son.'

The landlord brought temptations coined and vast,
And would have given half the wealthy town,
To lay the brush-raised specter of his past:
No gold availed; the specter would not down;
But haunted him thereafter till he died,
In looks and words and deeds, on every side.

I walked beside a quiet sea,
At starlight, while the west was gray
And clear, though faint and far away;
Through the stilled water, forth me,
Voices of bells came dreamily;
No breeze more manifest than they.

Some say a thousand years ago
There throve a city on an isle
Beyond the headland, mile on mile,
Which, in a night of fear and woe,
Sank in the glassy depth below—
Sank tower and dwelling, beam and tile.

And now, when twinkling skies are clear,
Withing the sunken city there,
The sad ghosts ring their past despair
Out on the mermen’s atmosphere—
Ring loudly all, that life may hear
Dead sadness stir the ample air.

To me this city is not strange;
I feel familiar with each gate,
Each tower and street unfortunate,
And, wheresoe’er I dwell or range,
Its mem’ry-picture does not change,
Limned by its stern destroyer, Fate.

Its labarums, on roof and mast,
Swam in the light with silken arms,
No wrathful wars, nor dread alarms,
The streeted splendor overcast;
But, on a throne of gems amassed,
Sat Pleasure with Circean charma.

Yet came the hour of loss and fear.
The city sank, tower, wall, and mart,
Its brittle site was rent apart,
And all went down that once was dear;
But oft, in loneliness, I hear
Its sunken bells ring in my heart.

I beat no note of vain regret.
My hope-wrought city of To-be.
Youth seen, upon the future’s sea,
Has vanished, and its sun is set;
But broader and diviner yet,
The city of Reality.

For, though its ways be paved with stone,
And hard and rough to toiling feet,
And though, in the accustomed street,
No blazoned garniture is known,
By Fate, God’s hand, His will is shown,
And love makes humble service sweet.

Maiden, whom I so briefly knew
That unto me thou art a dream,
A lovely vision lost to view
Across the dark, relentless stream,

They bring thee final gifts, and one,
A broken lyre of fragrance deep,
Is symbol of thy life, undone
By that cold hand whose clasp gives sleep.

They bring thee flowers, who wert a flower
Above the lily and the rose.
The fading tribute of an hour
I also bring to thy repose.

This flower of rhyme, this petaled song,
I give to death, I bring to thee
Whose soul was raised and borne along
By mystic tides of poësy.

Thou wert thyself a poem true,
A lasting joy to know and read;
The manuscript is torn in two;
The rhythmic strain is mute indeed.

So oft, through flowery paths of song,
Sweet angels led thy thoughts to range
The immaterial world along,
That heaven can not to thee be strange.

For not to verse wert thou impelled
By love for praise; but by the stir
Of voices that within thee welled,
And by the strength of character.

O loveliness with eyes like night!
We should not call thee to return
From out the darkness that is light,
To where our lamps of being burn.

For long and thankless is the path
Wherein thy tender feet were set;
Thou shalt not know the briers it hath
On heights beclouded with regret.

On thee Old Age shall lay no hand,
Friends shall not turn from thee away,
Nor shall Temptation near thee stand,
Or Disappointment say thee nay.

From Life thou took'st thy rose of youth,
Which at the beaker's brim was hung;
And in the Heart of love and truth
Thou shalt abide, forever young.

Not less with us thou still shalt dwell;
For it is beautiful to be
Enshrined in hearts that love thee well,
A blest and grateful memory.

To G. W. C.
We journey up the storied Nile;
The timeless water seems to smile;
The slow and swarthy boatman sings;
The dahabëah spreads her wings;
We catch the breeze and sail away,
Along the dawning of the day,
Along the East, wherein the morn
Of life and truth was gladly born.

We sail along the past, and see
Great Thebes with Karnak at her knee.
To Isis and Osiris rise
The prayers and smoke of sacrifice.
'Mid rites of priests and pomp of kings
Again the seated Memnon sings.
We watch the palms along the shore,
And dream of what is here no more.

The gliding Cleopatran Nile,
With glossy windings, mile on mile,
Suggests the asp: in coils compact
It hisses-at the cataract.
Thence on again we sail, and strand
Upon the yellow Nubian sand,
Near Aboo Simbel's rock-hewn fane,
Which smiles at time with calm disdain.

Who cut the stone joy none can tell;
He did his work, like Nature, well.
At one with Nature, godlike, these
Bland faces of great Rameses.
'T is seemly that the noble mind
Somewhat of permanence may find,
Whereon with patience, may be wrought
A clear expression of its thought.

The artist labors while he may,
But finds at best too brief the day;
And, tho' his works outlast the time
And nation that they make sublime,
He feels and sees that Nature knows
Nothing of time in what she does,
But has a leisure infinite
Wherein to do her work aright.

The Nile of virtue overflows
The fruitful lands through which it goes.
It little cares for smile or slight,
But in its deeds takes sole delight,
And in them puts its highest sense,
Unmindful of the recompense;
Contented calmly to pursue
Whatever work it finds to do.

Howadji, with sweet dreams full fraught,
We trace this Nile through human thought.
Remains of ancient grandeur stand
Along the shores on either hand.
Like pyramids, against the skies
Loom up the old philosophies,
And the Greek king, who wandered long,
Smiles from uncrumbling rock of song.

When might made right in days of chivalry,
Hatot and Ringsdale, over claims of land,
Darkened their lives with stormy enmity,
And for their cause agreed this test to stand:
To fight steel-clad till either's blood made wet
The soil disputed; and a time was set.

But Hatot sickened when the day drew near,
And strength lay racked that once had been his boast.
Then Agnes, his fair daughter, for the fear
That in proud honor he would suffer most,
Resolved to do the battle in his name,
And leave no foothold for the tread of Shame.

She, at the gray, first coming of the day,
Shook off still sleep, and from her window gazed.
The west was curtained with night's dark delay;
A cold and waning moon in silence raised
It's bent and wasted finger o'er the vale,
And seemed sad Death that beckoned, wan and pale.

But Hope sails by the rugged coasts of Fear;
For while awakened birds sang round her eaves,
Our Agnes armed herself with knightly gear
Of rattling hauberk and of jointed greaves;
Withal she put on valor, that to feel
Does more for victory than battle-steel.

She had a sea of hair, whose odor sweet,
And golden softness, in a moonless tide
Ran rippling toward the white coast of her feet;
But as beneath a cloud the sea may hide,
Son in her visored, burnished helmet, there,
Under the cloud-like plume, was hid her hair.

Bearing the mighty lance, sharp-spiked and long,
She at the sill bestrode her restless steed.
Her kneeling soul prayed God to make her strong,
And prayer is nearest path to every need.
She clattered on the bridge, and on apace,
And met dread Ringsdale at the hour and place.

They clash in onslaught; steel to steel replies;
The champed bit foams; rider and ridden fight.
Each feels the grim and brutal instinct rise
That in forefront of havoc takes delight.
The lightning of the lances flashed and ran,
Until, at last, the maid unhorsed the man.

Then on her steed, she, bright-eyed, flushed, and glad,
Her helmet lifted in the sylvan air;
And from the iron concealment that it had,
The noiseless ocean of her languid hair
Broke in disheveled waves: the cross and heart,
Jewels that latched her vest, she drew apart.

'Lo, it is Agnes, even I!' she said,
'Who with my trusty lance have thrust thee down!
For hate of shame the fray I hazarded;
And yet, not me the victory should crown,
But God, the Merciful, who helps the right,
And lent me strength to conquer in the fight.'

O Sun, toward which the earth's uneven face
Turns ever round, strong Emperor of Day,
To thee I bring my tribute of large praise;
And yet not I; but that which in me is,
The life in life, conscience, suggester, muse.

Not as to Quetzalcoatl came of old
Fane-climbing worshipers with trump and drum,
And human victims bared for sacrifice
On dizzy Aztec altars; nor, indeed,
As to Apollo of the golden hair
And fiery chariot, who darted war
Against the lords and following of Night,
Come I, O Sun, to thee.

Nor like the Gheber throngs
Who on the eastern shore of ocean bow,
Kissing the trail of thy departing robes,
Do I, to thy down-going, offer prayer.

I, worshipper no less, but not of thee,
Rising at cool-breathed, night-releasing dawn,
Thank the unseen All-Giver for thy day,
And see in thee a ray-strung instrument
Swept by His hand for harmonies of life.

Not I alone salute thy springing beam;
The mountains do thee homage first of all,
And hinder, with their bold and rocky brows,
Thy swift, protracted ray.

Thou callest up
The blooming new from out the withered old,
And givest consciousness to soulless things.
Thou sendest forth the lightning-arrowed cloud;
And the coy breeze, a wordless whisperer,
Doth interchange the breath of man and tree.
Thou dost invite the robin from the south;
Thou whitenest the harvest for our need;
Thou fillest out the youthful cheeks of fruit
With sappy wholesomeness, and dost, at last,
Print one broad sunset on autumnal woods-
In rubricated letters making known
A sad and sylvan moral of decay.

To tread where populations that are dust
Eked out their changeful lives, and left behind
Little beyond a ruin and a name,
Men trust the brief forebearance of the sea;
But thou, above, silent, immutable,
Art long familiar with the scenes they seek,
And hast beheld all times and nations fade.

Tho' like the leaves the generations die,
And tho' the ages in the past recede,
Spun by this pendulous swift wheel of earth
In its fixed orbit by thy influence,
Thou makest man endure; he ceases not;
But stands with steadfast feet upon all time;
Nor shall he cease while yet tomorrow holds
Its one remove away.

Our yesterdays
Are like a lonely and a ruined land
Wherein a breeze of recollection sighs-
A fading land to which is no return.

Uncertainly we bode the life to come,
Yet deem we stand upon the topmost height
Material; but this, that thinks and dreams-
This many-tided vaster sea within-
Baffles itself, and knows not what it is,
Save that its being is enlinked with thine.

And thou, O Sun, dost look on many worlds-
On eight-mooned Saturn with his shining rings,
On Jupiter, On Venus, pearl of dusk-
Thou dost behold thy worlds, and lay on them
Thy ray's restoring finger: they receive
Their sight, and go rejoicing on their way,
Changing, we think, thy light and heat to life.
But we, bound down, shut in on one small star,
Shall not know fully of those other spheres
Until the soul, up-drawn by rays Divine,
Out of this seed-like body blooms on high.

I sought, in sleep, to find the mountain-lands
Where Science, in her hall of wonder, dwells.
When I had come to where the building stands,
I found refreshing streams, delightful dells,
Invigorating air, and saw, on high,
Turret and dome against the boundless sky.

Out of her busy palace then she stepped,
And kindly greeted me, as there I stood
Doubting my right, and whether I had slept.
'Welcome,' she said, 'and whatsoe'er of good
You find in me, you have full leave to take
For warp and woof of verses that you make.'

That these, her words, for more than me were meant,
I felt, and thanked her as seemed fitting then;
While, in her looks, I saw that she was sent
To lighten work and knit together men;
And that with patience such as hers could be,
The coral mason builds the isles at sea.

Servant of Use, upon that mountain wise
Was the plain title she was proud to own,
And, clearer than her penetrating eyes,
The light of Progress on her forehead shone.
Her smile the lips' sharp coldness half betrayed,
As if a wreath upon a sword were laid.

But now, about her palace everywhere,
She led my steps, and often by her side
A lion and a nimble greyhound were.
The swifter to a leash of wire she tied,
And made a messenger of good and ill;
The stronger with white breath performed her will.

She traced the lapse of awful seas of time
On fossil limestone and on glinting ore;
Described wild wonders of the Arctic clime,
And of all lands her willing slaves explore;
Opening large laboratories to my view,
She showed me much that she had skill to do.

Then, down a marble stairway, to her bower
Was led the gracious way. 'And here,' said she,
'I meditate beyond the midnight hour;
Invent for peace and war, for land and sea;
Read the round sky's star-lettered page, or grope
In the abysses of the microscope.'

But, while she spoke, there stood another near-
The fairest one that ever I beheld;
I fancied her the creature of some sphere
Whence all of mist and shadow are dispelled.
Her voice was low and gentle, and her grace
Vied with the beauty of her thoughtful face.

A clear, unwaning light around her shone-
A ray of splendor from a loving Source-
A light like sunshine, that, when it is gone,
Leaves darkness, but sheds glory on its course;
Yet, in my dream, her footstep made me start,
It was so like the beating of my heart.

I turned to Science, for small doubt had I
That she best knew her whom I deemed so fair,
And asked, 'Who is she, that so heedfully
Waits on you here, and is like sunny air?
In her all beauty dwells, while from her shine
Truth, hope, and love, with effluence divine.'

Then Science answered me, severe and cold:
'She is Time's brittle toy: the praise of men
Has dazed her wit, and made her vain and bold.
With subtle flattery of tongue and pen,
They title her the Soul; I count it blame,
And call her Life, but seek a better name.

'Alone, in her gray-celled abode, she dwells,
Of fateful circumstance the fettered thrall,
The psychic sum of forces of her cells,
Molecular and manifold in all;
But æons passed ere Nature could express
This carbon-rooted flower of consciousness.

'Life, from the common mother, everywhere
Springs into being under sun and dew;
And it may be that she who is so fair
From deep-sea ooze to this perfection grew,
Evolving slowly on, from type to type,
Until, at last, the earth for man was ripe.

'But like a low-born child, whose fancy's page
Illuminated glows, she fondly dreams
That hers is other, nobler parentage;
That, from a Source Supreme, her being streams;
But, when I ask for proof, she can not give
One word, to me, of knowledge positive.

'Wherefore, regretfully I turn away,
In no wise profited, to let her muse
On her delusion, now grown old and gray.
It is a vain mirage that she pursues-
Some image of herself, against the sky,
To which she yearns on golden wings to fly.'

What time I left that palace high and wide,
She followed me, whom I had thought so fair,
To guide me down the devious mountain-side,
Speaking with that of sorrow in her air
That made me grieve, and soon a tear I shed
To think that here she is so limited.

'Oh, I am life and more, I am the Soul,'
She said, 'and, in the human heart and brain,
Sit throned and prisoned while the brief years roll,
Lifted with hope that I shall live again;
That when I cross the flood, with me shall be
The swift-winged carrier-dove of memory.

'I shall have triumph over time and space,
For I am infinite and more than they.
In vain has Science searched my dwelling-place;
For, delve in nature's secrets as she may
For deeper knowledge, she can never know
Of what I am, nor whither I shall go.'