Ina D. Coolbrith: Verses about God

As the sands beneath the seas
And the sands beside,
And the sands of the desert lands
Over the wastes of earth-
If thus were the seed of man,
The quick and the dead-
Yet stands there One alone,
Sole and incomparable,
The Christ.
And were He only man,
Human and not Devine,
Still were He God, indeed;
And were He surely God,
Omnipotent, supreme,
Still were He no less Man.

‘ All These I Will Give Thee’

World plaudits!
Glamour of the tinsel crowd
In adulation! Fame, the meator Fame,
And Youth, still golden Youth!
The price-a Soul.

Failure! -if it be failure still to hold
The Dream unbroken!
Bent, paupered, old-
The great World turned aside,
Ever unhearing, from that Voice divine.
But still, else lost, the Voice divine his own,
No accent missing,
Still each cord supreme!
Failure! -if it be failure-his to be,
The Soul’s immortal Youth upon his brow,
One with endless rapture of all Sound,
Song of all Song,
The music of the spheres-
God’s Hand upon the Keys!

The gods looked down upon the worlds of space,
The multitudinous worlds that to their will
Move circling, cycling, each, in rhythmic time,
One pulse the less a Universe in wreck,
The gods looked down-nor smiled- they do not smile,
Nor wept-they do not weep. Immutable,
Unto his Star appointed, each must hold
And answer to the One God, over all.

But lo! whence come these ceaseless agonies-
(Wherethro’, perhaps, a sweet child treble breaks,
A thread of silver in a sable pall)
From what far Sphere the cursings, dread, despair,
The strife, blasphemies ‘gainst gods and men,
And pleadings to the gods-that will not know
Its own the power to answer and to right-
The help within before the help without-
A World in travail that must travail still.

And He, the One Omnipotent, Supreme,
Throbbing His life-pulse thro’ the Universe,
Infinite wisdom, pity infinite: -
‘These puny atoms! What know they of pain? ’

The World sweeps by! It is the end of Time!
Nay, not the end, for Time can have no end:
A cycle of the illimitable chain
That makes the circle Eternity.
It is the Day foretold: that Judgement Day!
Mountains have melted and the seas exhaled:
The Word, respoken healed the Universe,
And, perfected, the Golden Globe swings on,
See, how the great hills marshal their white peaks!
The forests lift their plumes! Fields laugh to flower!
And the vast waters of the firmament
Pour back the mighty seas, void of their dead!
‘Tis Earth reborn; Eden re-blossoming;
Life conquering Death-A new Dawn quickening Space.

I, only-I, who am that Lucifer-
‘Star of the Morning, ’ once-once Lucifer,
Of all God’s sons bright and most beautiful’-
I vanquished, lost, without His Heaven stand,
Without the Earth He framed, and named so fair;
That golden Earth into its orbit swung
Beheld beside Him in Cretion’s morn-
I, Lucifer, who knew its perfect ways,
The Serpent I, within the Paradise
By me dflowered, through me outcast and lost.
But yet I failed! O blessed that I failed!
In that He failed not in the love that gave
The Love that died to save! Joy, that I failed!
The one sole joy illuminating all
The deeps on deeps of my supremest Hell.
For this I thank Thee, Father! -that I failed.

And I-That He bow down and worship me
My Kingdom offered-I! my Kingdom, I,
The arch-usurper! -never Kingdom mine,
But His, ten-million-fold! His who redeemed,
And right of Love, All King, All Conqueror!

Now to my bondage! Bound a thousand years!
Fit Thou the sin with juster punishment!
Make it the eons-freedom nevermore.
And what the bonds? Chains, fetters, gives and gyres?
Walls that unclose not, and the weight of the worlds?
Ah, lighter these than breath of Eden-air!
Than petals of its roses softer far!
The least slight cry of Thy least creature, God,
Voicing its pain, outweighs, outbinds them all-
Bonds not the hosts of all Thy heaven could break.

Yet-grant me one last ray of my lost Star-
My Syar! my Star! my Star, Thou God, my Star! -
Before the darkness whelm and cover me.
Stand forth, my Angels and Archangels, mine,
Once glorious host, so fallen, so wronged through me-
Yet not so wronged as I by Lucifer,
Mad with the supreme crime, the lust of power.
Mercy, Jehovah! Mercy, Thou, for these!
Their pardon-mine alone the punishment!
Is their an anguish deeper? make it mine! ...
Aye! -unto this I bow, this last, supreme-
His tender smile! His Love-my Brother, Christ!

Long weary leagues across the treacherous plain,
Long weary leagues across the treacherous sea,
Comrades with danger, clasping hands with pain,
Pathmakers, builders of the State to be.

Boys with their school texts still upon their lips,
And stalwart men in sinewy, bearded prime,
And feeble age-on, on where sunshine drips
Its golden splendors in a golden clime.

Gold! Gold! The glittering lure that beckoned them!
Not gold, as now, of fruit on hills and plains,
Fair, fragrant, luscious, upon bough and stem-
But Gold! The metal-blood of the earth’s grim veins.

Some, overmastered, laid them down and slept
The sleep unwakening in a prairie-grave;
And some restless tryst forever kept
With Death, beneath the unrecording wave.

And some like Israel of old, the Land
Of Promise reached, beheld and found it fair

Beyond the promise, and with greedy hand
Gathered great riches with its greater care-

And died, and passed forgotten to the grave;
And some, with nobler souls to think and feel
Gave back its treasures to the land which gave,
Building the pillars of the Commonweal.

But one there came, indeed, for Gold alone!
A gold which knew not tarnish nor alloy;
With luster bright as God’s own starry zone,
Unspoiled of time-that death might not destroy.

A gold he came to seek not, but to give;
The Gold of Knowledge. From the shattered spoils
Of all earth’s cares, ah, what alone may live
Of man’s achievements? Man’s unending toils?

Knowledge and Truth alone. All else is dust.
Treasure to ransom worlds but ruthless dross,
Swept by winds, fretted of mould and rust;
Thrones, empires, races-death, oblivion, loss.

And Knowledge is but Truth! A lighted way
Leading to heights supreme from lowest sod;
From morning twilight to immortal day-
From God’s creation to Creation’s God....

Long did he labor; knew the plenteous lack
Of that, the baser metal of man’s aim-
But wearied not, nor faltered, nor turned back,
And lo! at last fruition’s glory came.

He saw the humble School-Walls widen, grow,
And stand, proud halls upon the Berkley hills;
The tree-crowned slopes, the fields in emerald glow,
The throng that studious quietude that fills;

The Golden Gate by wave and sun caressed,
In outward look across the Bay’s blue floor,
And from those walls into the mighty west
Fair Science beckon from her open door.

His Gold had blossomed! Ah, what more for him
Could earth in folded days hold still concealed?
Happy, he passed beyond our Planet’s rim,
To where, in God, all Knowledge is revealed.


*In memory of Doctor Henry Durant, First president of the University of California.