Then next I heard the roar of mills; and moving through the noise, Like phantoms in an underworld, were little girls and boys.  Their backs were bent, their brows were pale, their eyes were sad and old; But by the labour of their hands greed added gold to gold.  Again the Presence and the Voice:  ’Behold the crimes I see, As ye have done it unto these, so have ye done to me.’

Again I slept.  I seemed to climb a hard, ascending track;
And just behind me laboured one whose patient face was black. 
I pitied him; but hour by hour he gained upon the path;
He stood beside me, stood upright—­and then I turned in wrath. 
‘Go back!’ I cried.  ’What right have you to walk beside me here? 
For you are black, and I am white.’  I paused, struck dumb with fear. 
For lo! the black man was not there, but Christ stood in his place;
And oh! the pain, the pain, the pain that looked from that dear face.

Now when I woke, the air was rife with that sweet, rhythmic din Which tells the world that Christ has come to save mankind from sin.  And through the open door of church and temple passed a throng, To worship Him with bended knee, with sermon, and with song.  But over all I heard the cry of hunted, mangled things; Those creatures which are part of God, though they have hoofs and wings.  I saw in mill, and mine, and shop, the little slaves of greed; I heard the strife of race with race, all sprung from one God-seed.  And then I bowed my head in shame, and in contrition cried — ‘Lo, after nineteen hundred years, Christ still is Crucified.’

THE TRIP TO MARS

Oh! by and by we shall hear the cry,
   ‘This is the way to Mars.’ 
Come take a trip, on the morning Ship;
   It sails by the Isle of Stars.

’A glorious view of planets new
   We promise by night and day. 
Past dying suns our good ship runs,
   And we pause at the Milky Way.’

I am almost sure we will take that tour
   Together, my dear, my dear. 
For, ever have we, by land and sea,
   Gone journeying far and near.

Out over the deep—­o’er mountain steep,
   We have travelled mile on mile;
And to sail away to the Martian Bay,
   Oh! that were a trip worth while.

Our ship will race through seas of space
   Up into the Realms of Light,
Till the whirling ball of the earth grows small,
   And is utterly lost to sight.

Through the nebulous spawn where planets are born,
   We shall pass with sails well furled,
And with eager eyes we will scan the skies,
   For the sights of a new-made world.

From the derelict barque of a sun gone dark,
   Adrift on our fair ship’s path,
A beacon star shall guide us afar,
   And far from the comet’s wrath.

Oh! many a start of pulse and heart
   We have felt at the sights of land. 
But what would we do if the dream came true,
   And we sighted the Martian strand?