The Guards Came Through, and Other Poems

A PARABLE

High-brow House was furnished well
With many a goblet fair;
So when they brought the Holy Grail,
There was never a space to spare.
Simple Cottage was clear and clean,
With room to store at will;
So there they laid the Holy Grail,
And there you'll find it still.

FATE

I know not how I know,
And yet I know.
I do not plan to go,
And yet I go.
There is some dim force propelling,
Gently guiding and compelling,
And a faint voice ever telling
“This is so.”

The path is rough and black —
Dark as night —
And there lies a fairer track
In the light.
Yet I may not shirk or shrink,
For I feel the hands that link
As they guide me on the brink
Of the Height.

Bigots blame me in their wrath.
Let them blame!
Praise or blame, the fated path
Is the same.
If I droop upon my mission,
There is still that saving vision,
Iridescent and Elysian,
Tipped in flame.

It was granted me to stand
By my dead.
I have felt the vanished hand
On my head,
On my brow the vanished lips,
And I know that Death's eclipse
Is a floating veil that slips,
Or is shed.

When I heard thy well-known voice,
Son of mine,
Should I silently rejoice,
Or incline
To strike harder as a fighter,
That the heavy might be lighter,
And the gloomy might be brighter
At the sign?

Great Guide, I ask you still,
“Wherefore I?”
But if it be thy will
That I try,
Trace my pathway among men,
Show me how to strike, and when,
Take me to the fight – and then,
Oh, be nigh!