The Many Mansioned House

THERE looms, upon the enormous round
Where nations come and nations go,
A many-mansioned house, whose bound
Ranges so wide that none may know
Its temperate lands of corn and vine,


Its solitudes of Arctic gloom,
Its wealth of forest, plain, and mine,
Its jungle world of tropic bloom.
Yet so its architects devise
That still its boundary walls extend,


And still its guardian forts arise,
And still its builders see no end
Of plan, or labor, or the call
By which the Master of their Fate
Urges to lay the advancing wall


Of Law beyond the farthest gate.

The mortar oft is red with blood
Of men within and men without,
For hate’s incessant storm and flood
Rage round each uttermost redoubt,

And bullets sing, and shrieks are loud,
And bordering voices curse the hour
That sees the builders onward crowd,
True to the Master Mind, whose power
Impels them build by plumb and line

To give the blood-stained wall increase
And forward push the huge design
Within whose mansions dwelleth peace.

The Master Mind is in no place,
It hath no settled rank nor name,

Its mood, as moulded by the race,
Shifts often, yet remains the same
To meditate what millions think,
And shape the deed to fit their thought,
Now raising high who seemed to sink,

Now flinging down their choice as naught.
It lauds what sons obey its calls
When time has come for hands to smite,
And when the hour to cease befalls
It chastens them it did requite;

Yet still so chooses that the change
From war to peace and peace to war
Confirms the mansions in their range,
And builds the far-built wall more far.

Within the many mansions dwell

Nations diverse of tongue and blood,—
Races whose primal anthems tell
How Ganges grew a sacred flood,
Tribes long fore-fathered when the birds
Of Egypt saw Osiris pass,


They that were ancient when the herds
Of Abraham cropped Chaldean grass,
People whose shepherd-priesthoods saw
The might of Nineveh begin,
And folk whose slaves baked mud and straw


Mid Babylon’s revelling fume of sin;
Blacks that have served in every age
Since first the yoke of Ham they wore,
Yellows who set the printed page
Ere Homer sang from shore to shore,


Swart Browns whose glittering kreeses held
In dread the far-isled Asian seas,
Fierce Reds who waged from primal eld
Their stealthy warfare of the trees;
Men of the jaguar-haunted swamp

Whose mountain masters dwelt in pride
Of golden-citied Aztec pomp
Ages ere Montezuma died;
Builders whose blood was in the hands
That propped the circled Druid stones,

And Odin-fathered men, whose bands
Storming all winds, laid warrior bones
Round all the Roman mid-world sea,
And held the Cæsars’ might in scorn,
And kept the Viking liberty


That fairer freedom might be born.

The wall defendeth all alike,
The Master Mind on all ordains:—
Within my bound no sword shall strike,
Nor fetter bind, save law arraigns;

No prisoner here shall feel the rack,
No infant be to slavery born,
The wage shall labor’s sweat not lack,
Nor skill of just reward be shorn.
The king and hind alike shall stand

Within the peril of my law,
And though it change at time’s demand
Shall every change be held in awe.
Here every voice may freely speak
Wisdom or folly as it choose,

And though the strong must lead the weak,
The weak may yet the strong refuse;
Thus shall no change be wrought before
The wise who seek a better way
Can win, to share their vision, more


Than praise the wise who wish delay,—
That so the Master Mind be strong
Through every drift of time and change,
To fashion either right or wrong
At will, within the mansions’ range.


Of what is wrong and what is right
The Master Mind doth ceaseless hear,
Listens intent to counselling might,
Pity or fury, hope or fear,
Sways to the evil, yet repents,


Sways to the good, yet half denies,
Follows revenge, but quick relents,
And makes its wondering foes allies;
In memory sees its frenzied hours,
And holds those fury-fits in scorn;


In gentlest aspiration towers,
Or grovels as of faith forlorn,
Yet never, never loses quite
The thought, the hope, the glory-dream,
That beacon of supernal light,

The shining, holy Grail-like beam,
The Ideal—in which alone it dares
Advance the circuit of the wall—
The faith that yet shall happy shares
Of circumstance be won for all,—


This is the vision of its law,
This is the Asgard of its dream—
That what the world yet never saw
Of justice shall arise supreme.

The Master Mind proclaims as free


Alike, all creeds that men may name,
All worships they devise to be
Their help in hope, or ease in shame;
In Buddha, Mahmoud, Moses, Christ,
Outspokenly may any trust,


Or he whom no belief enticed
May hold the soul a dream of dust,
Yet all alike be free to teach,
And all alike be free to shun,
Because the law of freeman’s speech

Impartial guardeth every one;
If but all rites of blood be banned,
Then may each life select its God,
And every congregation stand
Past dread of persecution’s rod,—


Lo now! Is thus not Jesus set
Transcendent o’er the broad domain—
The gentle Christ whose anguished sweat
Bled for a world-wide mercy’s reign?

Yet in many Mansions flaunt,


As if they deem their place secure,
Legion, whose Christ-defying vaunt
How long, O Lord, dost Thou endure!
Belshazzar’s Feast is multiplied,
Mammon holds fabulous parade,


Thousands of Minotaurs divide
The procurers’ tribute of the maid,
Circe enchants her votary swine,
Moloch, though veiled his fire, consumes,
And all the man-made Gods assign


Their victims self-elected dooms.

In large, the suffering and the sin
(Full well the Master Mind doth know),
From luxury and want begin,
And through unequal portions flow.


This ancient wrong doth worst defeat
The immortal yearning of His plea
To save the little, wandering feet,—
“Suffer the children come to me”;

Wherefore, on streets that Mammon makes

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The Master Mind bends ruthless eye,
Yet calm withholds the blow that breaks,
And leaves that stroke to by and by,
Since faithful memory, backward cast,
Beholds how much hath freedom won,


And lest a pomp-destroying blast
Might shrivel many a guiltless one,
And since it knows that freedom’s plan
To build secure alone is skilled,
And that firm-grounded gain for man


Is only by what man hath willed.—
Hence waits the Master Mind, in trust
That yet the hour shall Mammon rue,
Since, as the mansions grow, so must
Freedom upraise The Christ anew.



But whether He prevail at last,
Or whether all shall pass away,
Even as Rome’s great Empire passed
When wrought the purpose of its day,
Still must the builders heed the call


By which the Master of all Fate
Ordains they lay the advancing wall
Of peace beyond the farthest gate.

And, oh! the Master Mind may well
In pride of gentleness rejoice


That in the Mansions none may quell
The lilt of any nation’s voice;
But every race may sing their joy,
May hymn their pride, their glories boast
To listeners glad without alloy—


The primal, wall-extending host,
The founding, freedom-loving race
Whose generous-visioning mind doth see
No worth in holding foremost place,
Save in an Empire of the Free.

Parliament Of The Ages

OF all who’d thronged the Commons’ galleries
For early April evening’s main debate,
One student visionary sole remained.

Down on the floor the members argued yet,
Though midnight long had passed, and rosy dawn

Came streaming in through eastward glory-panes
To tint the lofty ashlared westward wall
With shining jewel-colored phantasies.

The Dreamer watched the brilliancies of morn
Descending on that opposite westward wall

From panelled ceiling down to pointed arch,
From arch to shadowy alcoves’ ruby panes,
Where luminous beamed the storied English Kings,
The Crown, the ramping Pards, the Unicorn,
With ancient mottoes of the Ancient Realm,

And new-made Arms of modern provinces
Emblazoned on the young Dominion’s shield.

Now in the watcher’s dream the sunrise merged
The Fish, the Maple Leaves, the Buffalo
With Rose and Thistle, Shamrock, Fleur-de-lys,

The Crown, the Kings, the emblem Viking-ships,
With some great banner, glorious, indistinct,
The Flag of mighty, English-speaking kin,
All beaming benison ineffable,
Such promise as no mortal ever saw

On Land or Sea, save o’er the mystic shores
And waters of a halcyon Future dreamed.

The desks, the Speaker’s Chair seemed rapt away,
No stony walls inclosed the Commons’ House,
But in the wonder-light a woodland spread

About one venerable northland Oak
Silent, except for distant-droning bees,
And one tall, blue-eyed, sworded, yellow-haired,
Hard-panting Viking, kirtled gray, who stood
Beneath the trysting-oak, and strove to quell

His gasps, deep-laboring from a lengthy run,
While, listening keen, he heard the bees in drone,
And watched to hail his second to the tryst
Of freemen signalled for a moot of War.

Then, far around, the forest sounded live

With crackling twigs and scores of emulous feet
From every quarter of the glooming shade,
And wonder-shouts, half vexed and half of praise,
Roared at the Champion who to tree of Moot
Had speeded foremost of the valorous band.

Hard-breathing all, they ranged about the Oak
Equal alike, save one they lifted high
On shield, and named him for their Council Earl.
Then there they fell to talk of march and plan,
Of meat and meal and beer and dragon-ships,

And Ways and Means,—contentious, passionate,
Yet one man only speaking up at once,
Heard silently, approved, or laughed to scorn,
Yet hearkened closely, since th’ elected Earl
Full briskly stopt each interrupting voice


By one clear word, quite mystic, quite unknown
Unto the Dreamer in the gallery,
For whom no more the banners of the morn
In wholly visionary colors flared,
Because imperious from the Speaker’s Chair

A voice called “Order” stoutly, in a tone
So like the ancient Viking Earl’s, the two
Seemed blent as one within the Dreamer’s brain.

Scarcely awake, the Student’s roaming thought—
Oblivious to the actual place, the dawn,

The visioned tryst of Father Odin’s men—
Pondered a Deity who shaped His world
In such a wise that they must most prevail
Who choose one Will to rule by Order’s call,
That every Manliness may freely tell

Its thought upon the public thing in hand,
And so the general common sense have sway,
Instead of Policy conceived alone
By any one hereditary Will,
Or, worse, take course tumultuous, scarce resolved

By gabblers chattering unamenable,
In whose Assemblages prehensile tails,
Inscrutable to eyesight, swing the Ape
In futile men through dizzy fooleries.

And still the talkers on the Commons’ floor

Contended voluble; while he who heard
Their drone, forgot once more, and dreamed a scene
More wondrous than the primal Viking moot.

For one came frowning in, with sword in hand
And blazoned armor, and an eye more stern

Than gleamed beneath the brow of England’s king:—
“I call,” he spoke, “The Realms to Parliament!
Present and Past, by mine, the Founder’s right,
Simon de Montfort, I, proclaim the call!”

It clanged as sounding through The Ages’ tombs

So loud that lofty-opening doors of Time
Revealed in earthly garb a Statesman throng
From every Parliament since Montfort breathed,
Majestic, turbulent, guileful, eloquent,
Profound, laborious, witty, whimsical,

Reverend in age, or beardless chinned as boys;
Knight, Admiral, Merchant, Lawyer, Pedagogue,
Yeoman, Adventurer, Soldier, Minister,
Poet, Philosopher, Roundhead, Cavalier,
Mechanic, Theologue, Philanthropist;

Exploring wights whose bones the jackals pawed
On Lybian arid sands, and they whose forms
Lie, white as marble, stiff nigh either Pole;
Spirits whose mortal vestures braved all fates
That daring hearts or martyr hopes conceived.


It seemed not strange to view the Shapes of Eld
In formal-friendly conference of talk
With some who perished as of yesterday,
With some who founded New World congresses,
With some who wielded outland Parliaments

Which strove so English-like for Liberty
That England reeled to win against their few,
With some whose mien and accents now control
The rising younger Nations of The Race;
It seemed not strange, so clear they all alike,

Musing the ordered methods of their rule,
Blessed dear the Mother of all Parliaments,
The Many-mansioned Mother of The Free.

There prudent Cecil leaned to Laurier
While John Macdonald held them both in talk,

His “brother,” Cartier, nodding to the tale;
There Richard Seddon’s burly honest ghost
With Wilberforce and Hampden close conferred;
There Edmund Burke warned Deakin cautiously
Of tempting Innovation’s bright mirage;

There Pitt, the younger, spoke with Cecil Rhodes
And stout Oom Paul, of Empire building themes,
While Grattan unto icy Parnell sighed
Of angry Ireland’s immemorial wrong;
There Chatham, eagle-faced, with Washington

And Franklin nigh, declared,—“I praise again
Your English-minded fight for Liberty—
America’s victory secured it firm
For all the outland broods of England’s swarm.”

There Strafford gloomed to Russell’s lofty gaze,

The Stuart circle round each stately neck;
There honest-meaning, muddle-headed Cade,
Who lingered nigh the portal as of right,
Because he called a shirtless Parliament,
Received a courteous nod of compliment

From mighty Gladstone’s comprehensive love;
There Peel, considerate still, eyed D’Israeli
As if in wonder that the Great Jew’s heart
Should yet be counted one of England’s pride;
There Canning, of the soul-revealing face,

And bull-dog Cobbett, passionately wroth,
And Palmerston and Bright and thousands more
All moved at home within the visioned space
Until, it seemed, a Puritan Statesman stern,
With Puritan Troopers ringed, eyed Harry Vane

With “Take away that bauble.” Then the Mace
Seemed borne afar incredibly, by force,
From that great Chamber of the freeman Race,
Old Englandish, New Englandish, Canadian,
Newfoundlandish, Australian, African,

Who hold, or held, the emblem sacrosanct.

With that great sacrilege the dream dissolved,
And clear again the radiancies high
Shone o’er the Ottawa floor of Parliament,
While, down below, a high-pitched Loyalist

Declared, convinced, with querulous energy,—
“The Empire’s tottering down! It can’t be saved
Unless we get the Preference all around.”

Touched sudden by the Sun’s imperial beams,
A gargoyle grinned upon the western wall


As if it heard the Preferentialist,
While gales of laughter echoed far below.
Whereat the dreamer, wide awake with glee,
Gazed on the golden, crown-surmounted Mace
Pillowed serene before the Speaker’s Chair;

Then marked in high-built panes, the Kings gleam clear
The Lion-shield, the mystic Unicorn,
The scrolls, the mottoes, “For my God and Right,”
And “Evil be to him who evil thinks,”
All seemed the racial Soul transfigured there,

Ages and Ages old, yet scarcely born,
So future-glorious, past all dreaming, looms
The Voluntary Empire of The Blood,
Monarchical, Republican, all’s one,
With Vikings rushing to the beacon’s flare

As long as winds shall blow and waters run.