Vows
Nay, ask me not. I would not dare pretend
To constant passion and a life-long trust.
They will desert thee, if indeed they must.
How can we guess what Destiny will send -
Smiles of fair fortune, or black storms to rend
What even now is shaken by a gust?
The fire will burn, or it will die in dust.
We cannot tell until the final end.
And never vow was forged that could confine
Aught but the body of the thing whereon
Its pledge was stamped. The inner soul divine,
That thinks of going, is already gone.
When faith and love need bolts upon the door,
Faith is not faith, and love abides no more.
poem by Ada Cambridge
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Influence
As in the deeps of embryonic night,
Out of unfathomable obscurities
Of Nature's womb, the little life-germs rise,
Pushing and pulsing upward to the light;
As, when the first day dawns on waking sight,
They leap to liberty and recognize
The golden sunshine and the morning skies
Their home and goal and heritage and right -
So do our brooding thoughts and deep desires
Grow in our souls, we know not how or why;
Grope for we know not what, all blind and dumb.
So, when the time is ripe, and one aspires
To free his thought in speech, ours hear the cry,
And to full birth and instant knowledge come.
poem by Ada Cambridge
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Fashion
See those resplendent creatures, as they glide
O'er scarlet carpet, between footmen tall,
From sumptuous carriage to effulgent hall -
A dazzling vision in their pomp and pride!
See that choice supper - needless - cast aside -
Though worth a thousand fortunes, counting all,
To them for whom no crumb of it will fall -
The starved and homeless in the street outside.
Some day the little great god will decree
That overmuch connotes the underbred,
That pampered body means an empty head,
And wealth displayed the last vulgarity.
When selfish greed becomes a social sin
The world's regeneration may begin.
poem by Ada Cambridge
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Desire
Bright eyes, sweet lips, with many fevers fill
The young blood, running wildly, as it must;
But lips and eyes beget a strange distrust.
Electric fingers send the sudden thrill
Through senses unsubservient to the will;
The flames die down, and leave a dim disgust;
Unfragrant kisses turn to drouth and dust;
I kiss; I feast; but I am hungry still.
O woman, woman, passionate but strong!
True to thy love as needle to the pole -
True to the truth, and not alone to me -
O mate and friend, elusive in the throng,
With thy clear brows, thy straight and upright soul,
Nameless - unknown - my hunger is for thee!
poem by Ada Cambridge
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Shadow And Substance
What have we lost with our lost Heaven and Hell?
Have sacred faith and worship come to naught?
Is life no more with noble meaning fraught?
Is it not still a thing ineffable,
Beyond what mind can grasp or tongue may tell —
Beyond all mystery by sages taught,
All greatest wonders by Messiah wrought —
The one first, last, divinest miracle!
Let selfish hopes, with old myths, pass away.
Though creeds must go, the God of all remains,
And more and more His might upholds and awes.
Revealed in Nature's universal laws;
And more and more true love its crown attains,
And our good world grows better day by day.
poem by Ada Cambridge
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Drunk
The filthy beast! And is he here again,
With his foul slobbering mouth and shuffling feet,
To taint the atmosphere and shame the street,
And shock the pure and holy that abstain?
Disgusting brute! Disgraceful blot and stain
On social order, civilised and sweet!
Deal with him, Constable, as right and meet
When laws are flouted that we must maintain.
Put him in prison! Confiscate his bowl!
Away with him and the accursèd drink
That wrecks his body and degrades his soul,
And makes him loathsome to clean men! But think -
He had no choice. It was his only share
Of all its pleasures that the world could spare.
poem by Ada Cambridge
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Peace
The red-rose flush fades slowly in the west.
The golden water, basking in the light,
Pales to clear amber and to silver white.
The velvet shadow of a flame-crowned crest
Lies dark and darker on its shining breast,
Till lonely mere and isle and mountain-height
Grow dim as dreams in tender mist of night,
And all is tranquil as a babe at rest.
So still! So calm! Will our life's eve come thus?
No sound of strife, of labour or of pain,
No ring of woodman's axe, no dip of oar.
Will work be done, and night's rest earned, for us?
And shall we wake to see sunrise again?
Or shall we sleep, to see and know no more?
poem by Ada Cambridge
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Individuality
Phew! 'T'is a stuffy and a stupid place,
This social edifice by Custom wrought -
This fenced enclosure wherein all are caught,
The great and small, the noble and the base,
And squeezed and flattened to one common face.
Air, air for springing fancy, errant thought!
Scope to make something of the seeming nought!
Room for the fleet foot and the open race!
Break out, O brother, braver than the rest,
Lover of Liberty, whose arm is strong!
Buttress our independence with thy breast,
And fight a passage through the stagnant throng.
Many will press behind thee, but they need
The stalwart captain, not afraid to lead.
poem by Ada Cambridge
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Drunk And Disorderly
Poor, staggering brute, whom one and all disdain!
Maybe 'twas outraged Nature bade him slake
His thirst like this — to still the gnawing ache
Of weary bones that else would ache in vain.
Maybe crushed spirit and stagnating brain
Only in this delirious fever wake
To transient joys of fancy that can take
The sting from want, the bitterness from pain.
Punish the drunkard! Confiscate the bowl!
But give fair wage for work, give health and hope
To check the waste that calls for such repair;
Give food to toil- worn body and starved soul,
And give the pinched imagination scope
For sensuous pleasure in a purer air.
poem by Ada Cambridge
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An Answer
Thy love I am. Thy wife I cannot be,
To wear the yoke of servitude — to take
Strange, unknown fetters that I cannot break
On soul and flesh that should be mine, and free.
Better the woman's old disgrace for me
Than this old sin — this deep and dire mistake;
Better for truth and honour and thy sake —
For the pure faith I give and take from thee.
I know thy love, and love thee all I can —
I fain would love thee only till I die;
But I may some day love a better man,
And thou may'st find a fitter mate than I;
Some want, some chill, may steal 'twixt heart and heart.
And then we must be free to kiss and part.
poem by Ada Cambridge
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