What Is Christ?
I
OH, what is Christ, that we should call on Him?
Wasted Armenia, in her utter woe,
Dies in the mocking desert, calling so.
Hyænas tear her children limb from limb.
The clouds, soft dimpled once with cherubim,
Now screen the flight of Lucifers that strow
Their fiery seed where clustered households know
'Twixt sleep and death one flaring interim
Of agony, brief as the broken prayer.
What prayer? What Christ? Himself He could not save.
From first to last, when hath He saved His own?
Stephen's young body, battered stone by stone,
Edith Cavell in her most holy grave,
For His helpless host of martyrs witness bear.
II
Thought casts the challenge. Faith must lift the glove.
Most true it is Christ doth not save the flesh.
God's dreamy Nazarene, caught in the mesh
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poem by Katharine Lee Bates
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Freedom's Battle-Song
RED, white, blue, the flag that leads us on,
Stripes as red as blood well shed by many a hero gone.
Now 'tis ours to storm the towers of tyranny and wrong,
Freedom's sons who front the guns with Freedom's battle-song.
Fly the flag from dome and steeple,
Fly the flag from home and school,
Flag of Freedom's birth,
While we battle that the rule
Of the people
By the people
For the people
Shall prevail o'er all the earth.
Red, white, blue, the flag that leads us on,
White as peace for whose release our fighting gear we don;
Peace enchained, crushed, profaned, shall yet in beauty stand,
Yet shall bless with fruitfulness her desolated land.
Fly the flag from dome and steeple,
Fly the flag from home and school,
Flag of Freedom's birth
While we battle that the rule
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poem by Katharine Lee Bates
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America to England
1899
Who would trust England, let him lift his eyes
To Nelson, columned o'er Trafalgar Square,
Her hieroglyph of duty, written where
The roar of traffic hushes to the skies;
Or mark, while Paul's vast shadow softly lies
On Gordon's statued sleep, how praise and prayer
Flush through the frank young faces clustering there
To con that kindred rune of sacrifice.
O England, no bland cloud-ship in the blue,
But rough oak plunging on o'er perilous jars
Of reef and ice, our faith will follow you
The more for tempest roar that strains your spars
And splits your canvas, be your helm but true,
Your courses shapen by the eternal stars.
1900
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poem by Katharine Lee Bates
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Robin’s Secret
’T IS the blithest, bonniest weather for a bird to flirt a feather,
For a bird to trill and warble, all his wee red breast a-swell.
I ’ve a secret. You may listen till your blue eyes dance and glisten,
Little maiden, but I ’ll never, never, never, never tell.
You ’ll find no more wary piper, till the strawberries wax riper
In December than in June—aha! all up and down the dell,
Where my nest is set, for certain, with a pink and snowy curtain,
East or west, but which I ’ll never, never, never, never tell.
You may prick me with a thistle, if you ever hear me whistle
How my brooding mate, whose weariness my carols sweet dispel,
All between the clouds and clover, apple-blossoms drooping over,
Twitters low that I must never, never, never, never tell.
Oh, I swear no closer fellow stains his bill in cherries mellow.
Tra la la! and tirra lirra! I ’m the jauntiest sentinel,
Perched beside my jewel-casket, where lie hidden—don’t you ask it,
For of those three eggs I ’ll never, never, never, never tell.
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poem by Katharine Lee Bates
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Two centuries
Two centuries' winter storms have lashed the changing sands of Falmouth's shore,
Deep-voiced, the winds, swift winged, wild, have echoed there the ocean's roar.
But though the north-east gale unleashed, rage-blind with power, relentless beat,
The sturdy light-house sheds its beam on waves churned white beneath the sleet.
And still when cold and fear are past, and fields are sweet with spring-time showers,
Mystic, the gray age-silent hills breathe out their souls in fair mayflowers.
And where the tawny saltmarsh lies beyond the sand dunes' farthest reach,
The undulous grass grown russet green, skirts the white crescent of the beach.
Above the tall elms' green-plumed tops, etched against low-hung, gray-hued skies,
Straight as the heaven-kissing pine, the home-bound mariner descries
The goodly spire of the old first church, reverend, serene, with old-time grace,
Symbol and sign of an inner life deep-sealed by time's slow carven trace.
Out of that church in days long gone went a stalwart, true-eyed sturdy band,
Sons of the mist and the flying foam, the blood and brawn of the Pilgrim land;
Down to the sea where the tall masts rose, where the green-mossed black hulls rose and fell,
And the cables strained at the call of the tide, for they knew and heeded its summons well.
poem by Katharine Lee Bates
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To My Country
O dear my Country, beautiful and dear,
Love cloth not darken sight.
God looketh through Love's eyes, whose vision clear
Beholds more flaws than keenest Hate hath known.
Nor is Love's judgment gentle, but austere;
The heart of Love must break ere it condone
One stain upon the white.
There comes an hour when on the parent turns
The challenge of the child;
The bridal passion for perfection burns;
Life gives her last allegiance to the best;
Each sweet idolatry the spirit spurns,
Once more enfranchised for its starry quest
Of beauty undefiled.
Love must be one with honor; yet to-day
Love liveth by a sign;
Allows no lasting compromise with clay,
But tends the mounting miracle of gold,
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poem by Katharine Lee Bates
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Pity of It, The
I. In South Africa
Over the lonesome African plain
The stars look down, like eyes of the slain.
A bumping ride across gullies and ruts,
Now a grumble and now a jest,
A bit of profanity jolted out,
--Whist!
Into a hornet's nest!
Curse on the scout!
Long-bearded Boers rising out of the rocks,
Rocks that already are crimson-splashed,
Ping-ping of bullets, stabbings and cuts,
As if hell hurtled and hissed,
--Then, muffling the shocks,
A sting in the breast,
A mist,
A woman's face down the darkness flashed,
Rest.
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poem by Katharine Lee Bates
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The Pity of It
I. In South Africa
Over the lonesome African plain
The stars look down, like eyes of the slain.
A bumping ride across gullies and ruts,
Now a grumble and now a jest,
A bit of profanity jolted out,
--Whist!
Into a hornet's nest!
Curse on the scout!
Long-bearded Boers rising out of the rocks,
Rocks that already are crimson-splashed,
Ping-ping of bullets, stabbings and cuts,
As if hell hurtled and hissed,
--Then, muffling the shocks,
A sting in the breast,
A mist,
A woman's face down the darkness flashed,
Rest.
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poem by Katharine Lee Bates
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To Canada
OUR neighbor of the undefended bound,
Friend of the hundred years of peace, our kin,
Fellow adventurer on the enchanted ground
Of the New World, must not the pain within
Our hearts for this wide anguish of the war
Be keenest for your pain? Is not our grief,
That aches with all bereavement, tenderest for
The tragic crimson on your maple-leaf?
Bitter our lot, in this world-clash of faiths,
To stand aloof and bide our hour to serve;
The glorious dead are living; we are wraiths,
Dim watchers of the conflict's changing curve,
Yet proud for human valor, spirit true
In scorn of body, manhood on the crest
Of consecration, dearly proud for you,
Who sped to arms like knighthood to the Quest.
From quaint Quebec to stately Montreal,
Along the rich St. Lawrence, o'er the steep
Roofs of the Rockies rang the bugle-call,
And east and west, deep answering to deep,
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poem by Katharine Lee Bates
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The Purple Thread
'The priests distributed various coloured silken threads to weave for the veil of the sanctuary; and it fell to Mary's lot to weave purple.'
—The Book of the Bee, ch. XXXIV.
I
THE chosen maidens, Weavers of the Veil,
Kneeling in crescent, from the High Priest took
Their wisps of silk in slender hands that shook
Lifting the colors to their lips rose-pale
With holy passion, —colors like the frail
Spring flowers of Carmel, blue as that glad look
Of dancing iris, scarlet as a nook
Of wild anemones, or gold as sail
Seen from its summit 'neath the Syrian moon.
But Mary caught her breath in one swift sob
Of pain uncomprehended ere it fled,
Leaving her heart with some strange fear a-throb,
For the wise priest, as one conferring boon,
Had meted out to her a purple thread.
II
O mothers of the race, ye blessèd ones
Who weave with cherubim the veil before
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poem by Katharine Lee Bates
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