Praetor and priest in vain conspire,
  Jerusalem and Rome in vain
  Torture the god with mortal pain,
To quench that seed of living fire;
  But light that had in heaven its birth
  Can never be put out oh earth.

“I will arise”—­across the years,
  Even as to Mary that grey morn,
  To us that gentle voice is borne—­
“I will arise.”  He that hath ears
  O hearken well this mystic word,
  Let not the Master speak unheard.

No soul descended deep in hell,
  The child of sorrow, sin and death,
  The immortal spirit suffereth
To see corruption; though it fell
  From loftiest station in the skies,
  It still to heaven again must rise.

No dream of faith, no seed of love,
  No lonely action nobly done,
  But is as stable as the sun,
And fed and watered from above;
  From nether base to starry cope
  Nature’s two laws are Faith and Hope.

Safe in the care of heavenly powers,
  The good we dreamed but might not do,
  Lost beauty magically new,
Shall spring as surely as the flowers,
  When, ’mid the sobbing of the rain,
  The heart of April beats again.

Celestial spirit that doth roll
  The heart’s sepulchral stone away,
  Be this our resurrection day,
The singing Easter of the soul: 
  O Gentle Master of the Wise
  Teach us to say, “I will arise.”

BALLAD OF THE SEVEN O’CLOCK WHISTLE

The daisied dawn is in the sky,
And the young day still dew and dream,
When on the innocent morning air
There comes a terrifying scream;

And the four ends of the sad earth
Repeat the hellish dreadful call;
Soft ladies murmur in soft beds—­
“The morning whistle—­that is all!”

And I too turn to sleep once more,
A haunted sleep all filled with pain;
For in my sleep I see the men,
The victims of colossal Gain,

Troop in the doors of servitude;
I see the children weary-eyed,
I see the time-clock, and I see
The endless day that glooms inside.

It is the Moloch of the dawn,
Capital calling for its prey—­
Men, women and little boys and girls,
It’s human sacrifice each day.

And, as I hear that dreadful scream,
High in the dawn all filled with song,—­
I pray within my aching heart—­“O Lord! 
O Lord!  How long!  How long!”

MORALITY

Give me the lifted skirt,
  And the brave ways of wrong,
The fist, the dagger and the sword,
  And the out-spoken song.

Ah! bring me not the love
  That bargains, bids and buys: 
For so much loving I will give
  So much in lips and eyes;

But love with bosom bared,
  Sweet as a bird and wild,
That in her savage maidenhood
  Cries for a little child.

VI