When I heard that all the world was questing,
I look'd for a palmer's staff and found,
By a reed-fringed pond, a fork'd hazel wand
On a twisted tree, in a bann'd waste-ground;
But I knew not then what the sounding strings
Of the sea harps say at the end of things.

They told me, world, you were keen on seeking;
I cast around for a scrip to hold
Such meagre needs as the roots of weeds-

All weeds, but one with a root of gold;

Yet I knew not then how the clangs ascend
When the sea horns peal and the searchings end.

An old worn wallet was that they gave me,

With twelve old signs on its seven old skins; And a star I stole for the good of my soul,

Lest the darkness come down on my sins;
For I knew not who in their life had heard
Of the sea pipes shrilling a secret word.

I join'd the quest that the world was making,
Which follow'd the false ways far and wide,
While a thousand cheats in the lanes and streets
Offer'd that wavering crowd to guide;

But what did they know of the sea reed's speech
When the peace-words breathe at the end for each?

The fools fell down in the swamps and marshes;
The fools died hard on the crags and hills;
The lies which cheated, so long repeated,

Deceived, in spite of their evil wills,

Some knaves themselves at the end of all-
Though how should they hearken when sea flutes call?

But me the scrip and the staff had strengthen'd;
I carried the star; that star led me:

The paths I've taken, of most forsaken,
Do surely lead to an open sea:

As a clamour of voices heard in sleep,

Come shouts through the dark on the shrouded deep.

Now it is noon; in the hush prevailing
Pipes, harps and horns into flute-notes fall;
The sea, conceding my star's true leading,
In tongues sublime at the end of all
Gives resonant utterance far and near:-
"Cast away fear;
Be of good cheer;
He is here,

Is here!"

And now I know that I sought Him only
Even as child, when for flowers I sought;
In the sins of youth, as in search for truth,
To find Him, hold Him alone I wrought.
The knaves too seek Him, and fools beguiled—
So speak to them also, sea voices mild!

Which then was wisdom and which was folly?
Did my star more than the cozening guide?

The fool, as I think, at the chasm's brink,
Prone by the swamp or the marsh's side,

Did, even as I, in the end rejoice,

Since the voice of death must be His true voice.

GOD-SEEKING

WILLIAM WATSON

God-seeking thou hast journeyed far and nigh.
On dawn-lit mountain top thy soul did yearn

To hear His trailing garments wander by:

And where, 'mid thunderous glooms great sunsets burn,

Vainly thou soughtest His shadow on sea and sky: Or, gazing up, at noon tide, couldst discern

Only a neutral heaven's indifferent eye

And countenance austerely taciturn.

Yet whom thou soughtest I have found at last,
Neither where tempest dims the world below,
Nor where the westering daylight reels aghast
In conflagrations of red overthrow;
But where this virgin brooklet silvers past
And yellowing either bank the king-cups blow.

REFRACTED LIGHTS

CELIA PARKER WOOLEY

The evening star that softly sheds
Its tender light on me,

Hath other place in the heavenly blue,
Than that I seem to see.

Too faint and slender is that beam

To keep its pathway true

In the vast space of cloud and mist
It seeks an exit through.

Nor light of star nor truth of God
To earth-born clouds and doubts
Can straightway pierce the hearts of men
And drive the darkness out.
On bent, misshapen lines of faith
We backward strive to trace

The love and glory that we ne'er
Could look on face to face.

Each fails thru dim and wandering sight
The vision whole to see;

But none are there so poor and blind
But catch some glimpse of Thee—
Some knowledge of the better way
And of that life divine

Of which our yearning hope is both
The prophecy and sign.

ZOROASTER DEVOUTLY QUESTIONS ORMAZD

Translated by A. V. Williams Jackson

This I ask Thee-tell it to me truly, Lord!
Who the Sire was, Father first of Holiness?

Who the pathway for the sun and stars ordained?

Who, through whom its moon doth wax and wane again?
This and much else do I long, O God, to know.

This I ask Thee-tell it to me truly, Lord!
Who set firmly earth below, and kept the sky

Sure from falling? Who the streams and trees did make? Who their swiftness to the winds and clouds hath yoked? Who, O Mazda, was the Founder of Good Thought?

This I ask Thee-tell it to me truly, Lord!
Who, benignant, made the darkness and the light?
Who, benignant, sleep and waking did create?
Who the morning, noon, and evening did decree
As reminders to the wise, of duty's call?

b.

THE UNSUCCESSFUL SEARCHERS

THE FALCONER OF GOD

WILLIAM ROSE BENET

I flung my soul to the air like a falcon flying.
I said, "Wait on! wait on! while I ride below!

I shall start a heron soon

In the marsh beneath the moon

A strange white heron, rising with silver on its wings,

Rising and crying

Wordless, wondrous things;

The secret of the stars, of the world's heart-strings,
The answer to their woe.

Then stoop thou upon him, and grip and hold him so!"

My soul waited on as falcons hover.

I beat the reedy fens as I trampled past.

I heard the mournful loon

In the marsh beneath the moon.

And then, with feathery thunder, the bird of my desire
Broke from the cover

Flashing silver fire.

High up among the stars I saw his pinions spire.

The pale clouds gazed aghast

As my falcon stooped upon him, and gript and held him fast.

My soul dropped through the air-with heavenly plunder?Gripping the dazzling bird my dreaming knew?

Nay! but a piteous freight,

A dark and heavy weight

Despoiled of silver plumage, its voice forever stilled

All of the wonder

Gone that ever filled

Its guise with glory. O bird that I have killed,

How brilliantly you flew

Across my rapturous vision when first I dreamed of you!

Yet I fling my soul on high with new endeavor,

As I ride the world below with a joyful mind.

I shall start a heron soon

In the marsh below the moon

A wondrous silver heron its inner darkness fledges!
I beat forever

The fens and the sedges.

The pledge is still the same-for all disastrous pledges,

All hopes resigned!

My soul still flies above me for the quarry it shall find!