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Read Ebook: Dreams and Dust by Marquis Don
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Ebook has 468 lines and 28790 words, and 10 pages
CLOTHED on with thunder and with steel And black against the dawn The whirling armies clash and reel.... A wind, and they are gone Like mists withdrawn, Like mists withdrawn!
Like clouds withdrawn, like driven sands, Earth's body vanisheth: One solid thing unconquered stands, The ghost that humbles death. All else is breath, All else is breath!
Man rose from out the stinging slime, Half brute, and sought a soul, And up the starrier ways of time, Half god, unto his goal,
He still must climb, He still must climb!
What though worlds stagger, and the suns Seem shaken in their place, Trust thou the leaping love that runs Creative over space: Take heart of grace, Take heart of grace!
What though great kingdoms fall on death Before the stabbing blade, Their brazen might was only breath, Their substance but a shade-- Be not dismayed, Be not dismayed!
Man's dream which conquered brute and clod Shall fail not, but endure, Shall rise, though beaten to the sod, Shall hold its vantage sure-- As sure as God, As sure as God!
THE SINGER
A LITTLE while, with love and youth, He wandered, singing:-- He felt life's pulses hot and strong Beat all his rapid veins along; He wrought life's rhythms into song: He laughed, he sang the Dawn! So close, so close to life he dwelt That at rare times and rapt he felt The fleshly barriers yield and melt; He trembled, looking on Creation at her miracles; His soul-sight pierced the earthly shells And saw the spirit weave its spells, The veil of clay withdrawn;-- A little while, with love and youth, He wandered, singing!
A little while, with age and death, He wanders, dreaming;--
No more the thunder and the urge Of earth's full tides that storm the verge Of heaven with their sweep and surge Shall lift, shall bear him on; Where is the golden hope that led Him comrade with the mighty dead? The love that aureoled his head?-- The glory is withdrawn! How shall one soar with broken wings? The leagued might of futile things Wars with the heart that dares and sings;-- It is not always Dawn! A little while, with age and death, He wanders, dreaming.
WORDS ARE NOT GUNS
Be not deceived. It comes not yet! The ancient passions keep Alive beneath their changing masks. They are not dead. They sleep.
Surely peace comes. As sure as Man Rose from primeval slime. That was not yesterday. There's still A weary height to climb!
And we can dwell too long with dreams And play too much with words, Forgetting our inheritance Was bought and held with swords.
Words are not guns. Words are not ships. And ships and guns prevail. Our liberties, that blood has gained, Are guarded, or they fail.
Truth does not triumph without blows, Error not tamely yields. But falsehood closes with quick faith, Fierce, on a thousand fields.
And surely, somewhat of that faith Our fathers fought for clings! Which called this freedom's hemisphere, Despite Earth's leagued kings.
Great creeds grow thews, or else they die. Thought clothed in deed is lord. What are thy gods? Thy gods brought love? They also brought a sword.
Unchallenged, shall we always stand, Secure, apart, aloof? Be not deceived. That hour shall come Which puts us to the proof.
Then, that we hold the trust we have Safeguarded for our sons, Let us cease dreaming! Let us have More ships, more troops, more guns!
WITH THE SUBMARINES
ABOVE, the baffled twilight fails; beneath, the blind snakes creep; Beside us glides the charnel shark, our pilot through the deep; And, lurking where low headlands shield from cruising scout and spy, We bide the signal through the gloom that bids us slay or die.
All watchful, mute, the crouching guns that guard the strait sea lanes-- Watchful and hawklike, plumed with hate, the desperate aeroplanes-- And still as death and swift as fate, above the darkling coasts, The spying Wireless sows the night with troops of stealthy ghosts,
While hushed through all her huddled streets the tide-walled city waits The drumming thunders that announce brute battle at her gates.
Southward a hundred windy leagues, through storms that blind and bar, Our cheated cruisers search the waves, our captains seek the war; But here the port of peril is; the foeman's dreadnoughts ride Sullen and black against the moon, upon a sullen tide. And only we to launch ourselves against their stark advance-- To guide uncertain lightnings through these treacherous seas of chance!
. . . . . .
And now a wheeling searchlight paints a signal on the night; And now the bellowing guns are loud with the wild lust of fight.
. . . . . .
And now, her flanks of steel apulse with all the power of hell, Forth from the darkness leaps in pride a hateful miracle, The flagship of their Admiral--and now God help and save!-- We challenge Death at Death's own game; we sink beneath the wave!
. . . . . .
NICHOLAS OF MONTENEGRO
HE speaks as straight as his rifles shot, As straight as a thrusting blade, Waiting the deed that shall trouble the truce His savage guns have made.
"You have dared the wrath of a dozen states," Was the challenge that he heard; "We can die but once!" said the grim old King As he gripped his mountain sword.
"For I paid in blood for the town I took, The blood of my brave men slain,-- And if you covet the town I took You must buy it with blood again!"
Stern old King of the stark, black hills, Where the lean, fierce eagles breed, Your speech rings true as your good sword rings-- And you are a king indeed!
DICKENS
HUDDLED within their savage lair They hearkened to the prowling wind; They heard the loud wings of despair ... And madness beat against the mind.... A sunless world stretched stark outside As if it had cursed God and died; Dumb plains lay prone beneath the weight Of cold unutterably great; Iron ice bound all the bitter seas, The brutal hills were bleak as hate.... Here none but Death might walk at ease!
Then Dickens spoke, and, lo! the vast Unpeopled void stirred into life;
The dead world quickened, the mad blast Hushed for an hour its idiot strife With nothingness....
And from the gloom, Parting the flaps of frozen skin, Old friends and dear came trooping in, And light and laughter filled the room.... Voices and faces, shapes beloved, Babbling lips and kindly eyes, Not ghosts, but friends that lived and moved ... They brought the sun from other skies, They wrought the magic that dispels The bitterer part of loneliness ... And when they vanished each man dreamed His dream there in the wilderness.... One heard the chime of Christmas bells, And, staring down a country lane, Saw bright against the window-pane The firelight beckon warm and red.... And one turned from the waterside Where Thames rolls down his slothful tide To breast the human sea that beats Through roaring London's battered streets
And revel in the moods of men.... And one saw all the April hills Made glad with golden daffodils, And found and kissed his love again....
. . . . . .
A POLITICIAN
We dreamed a Prophet, flushed with faith, Content to toil in pain If that his sacrifice might be, Somehow, his people's gain.
We dreamed a Warrior whose sword Was edged for sham and shame; We dreamed a Statesman far above The vulgar lust for fame.
We were not cynics, and we dreamed A Man who made no truce With lies nor ancient privilege Nor old, entrenched abuse.
We dreamed ... we dreamed ... Youth dreamed a dream! And even you forgot Yourself, one moment, and dreamed, too-- Struck, while your mood was hot!
Struck three or four good blows ... and then Turned back to easier things: The cheap applause, the blatant mob, The praise of underlings!
Praise ... praise ... was ever man so filled, So avid still, of praise? So hungry for the crowd's acclaim, The sycophantic phrase?
O you whom Greatness beckoned to ... O swollen Littleness Who turned from Immortality To fawn upon Success!
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