Isabella Valancy Crawford
The Master-Builder
O LOVE builds on the azure sea,
And Love builds on the golden sand;
And Love builds on the rose-winged cloud,
And sometimes Love builds on the land.
O, if Love build on sparkling sea,
And if Love build on golden strand,
And if Love build on rosy cloud,
To Love these are the solid land.
O, Love will build his lily walls,
And Love his pearly roof will rear,
On cloud, or land, or mist, or sea,—
Love’s solid land is everywhere!
The Axe of the Pioneer
BITE deep and wide, O Axe, the tree,
What doth thy bold voice promise me?
“I promise thee all joyous things,
That furnish forth the lives of Kings
For every silver ringing blow
Cities and palaces shall grow!”
Bite deep and wide, O Axe, the tree,
Tell wider prophecies to me.
“When rust hath gnawed me deep and red,
A nation strong shall lift its head!
His crown the very heavens shall smite,
Æons shall build him in his might!”
Bite deep and wide, O Axe, the tree;
Bright Seer, help on thy prophecy!
From “The Helot”
HELOT, drink—nor spare the wine;
Drain the deep, the maddening bowl;
Flesh and sinews, slave, are mine,
Now I claim thy Helot soul.
Gods! ye love our Sparta; ye
Gave with vine that leaps and runs
O’er her slopes, these slaves to be
Mocks and warnings to her sons!
Thou, my Hermos, turn thy eyes
(God-touched still their frank, bold blue)
On the Helot—mark the rise
Of the Bacchic riot through
Knotted vein and surging breast:
Mark the wild, insensate mirth:
God-ward boast—the drivelling jest,
Till he grovel to the earth.
“Drink, dull slave!” the Spartan cried:
Meek the Helot touched the brim;
Scented all the purple tide;
Drew the Bacchic soul to him.
Cold the thin-lipped Spartan smiled:
Couched beneath the weighted vine,
Large-eyed gazed the Spartan child
On the Helot and the wine.
Rose pale Doric shafts behind,
Stern and strong, and thro’ and thro’,
Weaving with the grape-breathed wind,
Restless swallows called and flew.
Dropped the rose-flushed doves and hung
On the fountains’ murmuring brims;
To the bronzed vine Hermos clung—
Silver-like his naked limbs
Flashed and flushed: rich coppered leaves,
Whitened by his ruddy hair;
Pallid as the marble eaves,
Awed he met the Helot’s stare.
Clanged the brazen goblet down;
Marble-bred loud echoes stirred:
With fixed fingers, knotted, brown,
Dumb, the Helot grasped his beard.
Heard the far pipes mad and sweet,
All the ruddy hazes thrill:
Heard the loud beam crash and beat
In the red vat on the hill.
Wide his nostrils as a stag’s
Drew the hot wind’s fiery bliss:
Red his lips as river flags
From the strong Cæcuban kiss.
On his swarthy temples grew
Purple veins like clustered grapes;
Past his rolling pupils blew
Wine-born, fierce, lascivious shapes.
Cold the haughty Spartan smiled—
His the power to knit that day
Bacchic fires, insensate, wild,
To the grand Achean clay.
His the might—hence his the right!
Who should bid him pause? nor Fate
Warning passed before his sight,
Dark-robed and articulate....
“Lo,” he said, “he maddens now!
Flames divine do scathe the clod:
Round his reeling Helot brow
Stings the garland of the god.”
The Sword
AT the forging of the sword—
The mountain roots were stirred
Like the heart-beats of a bird;
Like flax the tall trees waved,
So fiercely struck the Forgers of the Sword.
At the forging of the Sword—
So loud the hammers fell,
The thrice-sealed gates of Hell
Burst wide their glowing jaws;
Deep roaring, at the forging of the Sword.
At the forging of the Sword—
Kind mother Earth was rent
Like an Arab’s dusky tent,
And monster-like she fed
On her children, at the forging of the Sword.
At the forging of the Sword—
The startled air swift whirled
The red flames round the world,
From the anvil where was smitten
The steel the Forgers wrought into the Sword.
At the forging of the Sword—
The maid and matron fled,
And hid them with the dead;
Fierce prophets sang their doom,
More deadly than the wounding of the Sword.
At the forging of the Sword—
Swift leaped the quiet hearts
In the meadows and the marts;
The tides of men were drawn
By the gleaming sickle-planet of the Sword!
Thus wert thou forged, O lissome Sword;
On such dusk anvil wert thou wrought;
In such red flames thy metal fused;
From such deep hells that metal brought;
O Sword, dread lord, thou speak’st no word,
But dumbly rul’st, king and lord!
“These Three”
A STAR leant down and laid a silver hand
On the pale brow of death;
Before it roll’d black shadows from the land—
That star was Faith!
Across fierce storms that hid the mountains far
In funeral cope,
Piercing the black there sailed a throbbing star—
The star was Hope!
From God’s vast palm a large sun grandly rolled,
O’er land and sea;
Its core of fire, its stretching hands of gold—
Large Charity!