Classic Poem

(Phi Beta Kappa Poem, Harvard, 1915)


Music is dead. An age, an age is dying.
Shreds of Uranian song, wild symphonies
Tortured with moans of butchered innocents,
Blow past us on the wind. Chaos resumes
His kingdom. All the visions of the world,
The visions that were music, being shaped
By law, moving in measure, treading the road
That suns and systems tread, O who can hear
Their music now? Urania bows her head.
Only the feet that move in order dance.
Only the mind attuned to that dread pulse
Of law throughout the universe can sing.
Only the soul that plays its rhythmic part
In that great measure of the tides and suns
Terrestrial and celestial, till it soar
Into the supreme melodies of heaven,
Only that soul, climbing the splendid road
Of law from height to height, may walk with God,
Shape its own sphere from chaos, conquer death,
Lay hold on life and liberty, and sing.

Yet, since, at least, the fleshly heart must beat
In measure, and no new rebellion breaks
That old restriction, murmurs reach it still,
Rumours of that vast music which resolves
Our discords, and to this, to this attuned,
Though blindly, it responds, in notes like these:

There was a song in heaven of old,
A song the choral seven began,
When God with all his chariots rolled
The tides of chaos back for man;
When suns revolved and planets wheeled,
And the great oceans ebbed and flowed,
There is one way of life, it pealed,
The road of law, the unchanging road.

The trumpet of the law resounds,
And we behold, from depth to height,
What glittering sentries walk their rounds,
What ordered hosts patrol the night,
While wheeling worlds proclaim to us,
Captained by Thee thro' nights unknown,--
Glory that would be glorious
Must keep Thy law to find its own.

Beyond rebellion, past caprice,
From heavens that comprehend all change,
All space, all time, till time shall cease,
The trumpet rings to souls that range,
To souls that in wild dreams annul
Thy word, confessed by wood and stone,--
Beauty that would be beautiful
Must keep Thy law to find its own.

He that can shake it, will he thrust
His careless hands into the fire?
He that would break it, shall we trust
The sun to rise at his desire?
Constant above our discontent,
The trumpet peals in sterner tone,--
Might that would be omnipotent
Must keep Thy law to find its own.

Ah, though beneath unpitying spheres
Unreckoned seems our human cry,
In Thy deep law, beyond the years,
Abides the Eternal memory.
Thy law is light, to eyes grown dull
Dreaming of worlds like bubbles blown;
And Mercy that is merciful
Shall keep Thy law and find its own.

Unchanging God, by that one Light
Through which we grope to Truth and Thee,
Confound not yet our day with night,
Break not the measures of Thy sea.
Hear not, though grief for chaos cry
Or rail at Thine unanswering throne.
Thy law, Thy law, is liberty,
And in Thy law we find our own.

So, to Uranian music, rose our world.
The boughs put forth, the young leaves groped for light.
The wild flower spread its petals as in prayer.
Then, for terrestrial ears, vast discords rose,
The struggle in the jungle, clashing themes
That strove for mastery; but above them all,
Ever the mightier measure of the suns
Resolved them into broader harmonies,
That fought again for mastery. The night
Buried the mastodon. The warring tribes
Of men were merged in nations. Wider laws
Embraced them. Man no longer fought with man,
Though nation warred with nation. Hatred fell
Before the gaze of love. For in an hour
When, by the law of might, mankind could rise
No higher, into the deepening music stole
A loftier theme, a law that gathered all
The laws of earth into its broadening breast
And moved like one full river to the sea,
The law of Love.
The sun stood dark at noon;
Dark as the moon before this mightier Power,
And a Voice rang across the blood-stained earth:
I am the Way, the Truth, the Life, the Light.
We heard it, and we did not hear. In dreams
We caught a thousand fragments of the strain,
But never wholly heard it. We moved on
Obeying it a little, till our world
Became so vast, that we could only hear
Stray notes, a golden phrase, a sorrowful cry,
Never the rounded glory of the whole.
So one would sing of death, one of despair,
And some, knowing that God was more than man,
Knowing that the Eternal Power behind
Our universe was more than man, would shrink
From crowning Him with human attributes,
Though these remained the highest that we knew;
And therefore, falling back on lower signs,
Bereft of love, thought, personality,
They made Him less than man; made Him a blind
Unweeting force, less than the best in man,
Less than the best that He Himself had made.

Yet, though from earth we could no longer hear
As from a central throne, the harmonies
Of the revolving whole; yet though from earth,
And from earth's Calvary, the central scene
Withdrew to dreadful depths beyond our ken;
Withdrew to some deep Calvary at the heart
Of all creation; yet, O yet, we heard,
Echoes that murmured from Eternity,
I am the Way, the Truth, the Life, the Light.
And still the eternal passion undiscerned
Moved like a purple shadow through our world,
While we, in intellectual chaos, raised
The ancient cry, Not this man, but Barabbas.
Then Might grew Right once more, for who could hold
The Right, when the rebellious hearts of men
Finding the Law too hard in life, thought, art,
Proclaimed that Right itself was born of chance,
Born out of nothingness and doomed, at last,
To nothingness; while all that men have held
Better than dust--love, honour, justice, truth--
Was less than dust, for the blind dust endures?
But love, they said, and the proud soul of man,
Die with the breath, before the flesh decays.
And still, amidst the chaos, Love was born,
Suffered and died; and in a myriad forms
A myriad parables of the Eternal Christ
Unfolded their deep message to mankind.
So, on this last wild winter of his birth,
Though cannon rocked his cradle, heaven might hear,
Once more, the Mother and her infant Child.

Will the Five Clock-Towers chime tonight?
--Child, the red earth would shake with scorn.--
But will the Emperors laugh outright
If Roland rings that Christ is born?

No belfries pealed for that pure birth.
There were no high-stalled choirs to sing.
The blood of children smoked on earth;
For Herod, in those days, was king.--

O, then the Mother and her Son
Were refugees that Christmas, too?--
Through all the ages, little one,
That strange old story still comes true.--

Was there no peace in Bethlehem?--
Yes. There was Love in one poor Inn;
And, while His wings were over them,
They heard those deeper songs begin.--

What songs were they? What songs were they?
Did stars of shrapnel shed their light?--
O, little child, I have lost the way.
I cannot find that Inn tonight.--

Is there no peace, then, anywhere?--
Perhaps, where some poor soldier lies
With all his wounds in front, out there.--
You weep?--He had your innocent eyes.--

Then is it true that Christ's a slave,
Whom all these wrongs can never rouse?--
They said it. But His anger drave
The money-changers from His House.--

Yet He forgave and turned away.--
Yes, unto seventy times and seven.
But they forget. He comes one day
In power, among the clouds of heaven.--

Then Roland rings?--Yes, little son!
With iron hammers they dare not scorn,
Roland is breaking them, gun by gun,
Roland is ringing. Christ is born.

Born and re-born; for though the Christ we knew
On earth be dead for ever, who shall kill
The Eternal Christ whose law is in our hearts,
Christ, who in this dark hour descends to hell,
And ascends into heaven, and sits beside
The right hand of the Father. If for men
This law be dead, it lives for children still.
Children that men have butchered see His face,
Rest in His arms, and strike our mockery dumb.
So shall the trumpet of the law resound
Through all the ages, telling of that child
Whose outstretched arms in Belgium speak for God.

They crucified a Man of old,
The thorns are shrivelled on His brow.
Prophet or fool or God, behold,
They crucify Thy children now.
They doubted evil, doubted good,
And the eternal heavens as well,
Behold, the iron and the blood,
The visible handiwork of Hell.

Fast to the cross they found it there,
They found it in the village street,
A naked child, with sunkissed hair.
The nails were through its hands and feet.
For Christ was dead, yes, Christ was dead!
O Lamb of God, O little one,
I kneel before your cross instead
And the same shadow veils the sun....

And the same shadow veils the sun....

But you, O land, O beautiful land of Freedom,
Hold fast the faith which made and keeps you great.
With you, with you abide the faith and hope,
In this dark hour, of agonised mankind.
Hold to that law whereby the warring tribes
Were merged in nations, hold to that wide law
Which bids you merge the nations, here and now,
Into one people. Hold to that deep law
Whereby we reach the peace which is not death
But the triumphant harmony of Life,
Eternal Life, immortal Love, the Peace
Of worlds that sing around the throne of God.