"In Conclusion" by Carlyle Chattan Mcintyre

[tannis]

Caspar David Friedrich, Wanderer above the Sea of Fog, 1817

IN CONCLUSION
by Carlyle C.Mclniyre (1919)

Even in these turbulent times there are those whose clearer vision can discern above the confusion of the moral struggle the gleam of the imperturbable stars and to that small brotherhood is this work most fraternally dedicated.
— C. C. M.

I
Full wearied with the ways of men,
And worn by stress of fruitless thought
Concerning things beyond my ken,
A restful solitude I sought.
I climbed me to a lonely height
That towers beside the surging sea
Where far below the billows fight
In frothing riot wild and free.

II
And there I sat me on the rocks
That overhang the gulf below,
And watched the frightened screaming flocks
Of sea mews, white as driven snow,
Which swim through amplitudes of space
Like thoughts released from mind's control,
In vain attempt to faintly trace
The mystic mazes of the soul.

III
Like thoughts to sweep before the wind
On steady wing, direct, alone,
To search the pathless sky and find
New courses through the vast unknown.
And musing thus I looked below,
Beheld the battle of the seas,
And looking, longed in vain to know
Of life and all its mysteries.

IV
The truth of things, of time and place,
The purpose of this mystic scheme
That holds our lives in its embrace,
The motive of this living dream
In which we act our written parts,
Nor dare to drop from out the dance
Though weary grow at times our hearts
Beneath the heavy hand of Chance.

V
I longed to know, and longing, knew
I had no right to long to know,
Yet willful thought would e'er pursue
The under workings of the show;
Like some lost sea bird of the night,
Would throw herself against the pane
Where gleamed the golden harbor light,
A beacon through the driving rain.

VI
Or like some spectral form would tread
The shell strewn hallways of the seas
Where roll the bones of ancient dead
To time of sea sung melodies,
And forms, undreamed by mortal mind,
Go shuffling through the amber gloom,
Weird, ghostly shapes that can not find
Their sea tossed bones a quiet tomb.

VII
And then grim Fancy's tireless way
Would wend o'er sandy sea-swept plains,
Where somber ships ill-fated lay
Bedraped in swaying rusty chains ;
Where casks and chests of tarnished gold
Are scattered o'er the yellow sand, ;
The wasted wealth of tyrants old,
Untouched today by human hand.

VIII
But what to him are gold and ships
Who seeks alone the truth of things,
What wisdom from the ocean's lips.
What council in its murmurings?
No signal comes from out the deeps.
No answer from the surf-swept shore,
But Thought her tireless vigil keeps
And thinking, questions evermore.

IX
And wrapped in wonder lifts her eyes
Unto the boundless void of space,
And hurls her questions at the skies,
And wildly dreaming, tries to trace
The purpose of the swinging spheres.
The hidden scheme of living things,
But wonder as she will, she hears
No answer to her questionings.

X
And on the wings of Fancy, flees
More swiftly than the flight of time,
Through far etherial azure seas
On up the vaulted skies, to climb
To port so dimly distant placed.
No roaming dream has e'er before,
O'er tides of drifting ether traced
A trail to its forbidden shore.

[tannis]

IN CONCLUSION (cont'd)
by Carlyle C.Mclniyre (1919)

XI
Still onward, upward, till at last
With weary wing the port is gained.
And countless cycling suns are passed,
But nought of value is obtained.
For stars uncounted drift and dream
And flash their secret signals o'er
The vast abyss where port lights gleam
As dim and distant as before.

XII
She sees the countless systems cast
Within the systems to the end.
But where the sequence ends at last
No dream of hers can comprehend;
She sees the systems she has known,
Like wheat from out the sower's hand.
Strewn out across the sky and thrown
In ways she can not understand.

XIII
And like a baffled bird that tries
To fight the tempest all in vain,
She turns her on her course and flies
To shelter in the mind again,
And still the stars swing on their way,
The tides go streaming out to sea,
And all the chords of nature play
One ceaseless, matchless symphony.

XIV
And thus my thoughts had gone in quest :
Of aught to quench my deep desire,
Of aught to soothe the wild unrest
That burned within, a glowing fire,
And worn and wearied had returned
With drooping wing and sullied plume,
Had brought me nought for which I yearned,
And plunged me in a deeper gloom.

XV
I heard the surging of the sea
In slowly measured throbs ascend,
The pulsing of eternity-
Advancing to its endless end,
Till stricken down, a beaten thing,
A hound that cringes at the feet,
Proud Thought retreated, whimpering.
Into her kennel-like retreat.

XVI
Nor stirred her, hound-like lying low ;
With restless eyes that witnessed all.
She watched the hand that gave the blow
And listened for an unheard call,
Till thought grew madness waiting there.
Confined, submissive as the brute,
And rising, called in wild despair,
"Give unto me truth absolute."

XVII
And lo ! a hand was on my head,
A husky voice was in my ear,
And o'er my beating heart was spread
The shadow of an unknown fear,
For spectral forms, diversely dressed
In guises strange, surrounded me
Upon the headland's lofty crest.
Above the wild, complaining sea.

XVIII
A patriarch with grizzled beard.
With toothless jaws and hoary head.
With eyes bedimmed with age and bleared
With years of stressful thought which shed
No light upon the truth of things.
Spoke first of all the ghostly throng.
While I with wildest wonderings
By his weird words was swept along.

XIX
"My son" said he, "dissolve thy dream,
'Tis but a bubble filled with breath,
Thou art a leaf upon the stream
Which flows but to the land of death.
Thine only life is here and now,
Thou art a toy of Fate's decree
With 'Finis' written on thy brow;
My name is called 'Philosophy'

XX
"I heard you crying, " said the sage,
"A cry I oft have heard before,
The slogan of each passing age,
A cry unanswered evermore,
A cry which ever wildly rings
From out the hopeful heart of youth
To die among its echoings,
'Give unto me the TRUTH! the TRUTH!'

[tannis]

IN CONCLUSION (cont'd)
by Carlyle C.Mclniyre (1919)

XXI
"The truth, my son, is but a dream,
A phantom of the Great Unknown ;
The truth is but the color scheme
Across the skies at sunset thrown ;
The truth is but the shifting sand,
Reshaped by every gust of men;
The clay within the potter's hand.
Constructed and destroyed again.

XXII
Yea, even as the sparks will fly
From out the forge's glowing womb,
And rise into the inky sky
To fade into the ebon gloom,
So truth will ever rise and fall.
And creeds and faiths will ever show
That truth is never truth at all.
As far as minds of men can know.

XXIII
"The hollow creeds are all in vain,
Their fancied gods have followed fast,
Each one to have its transient reign
And fade into the endless past,
But minds of men will ever build
New creeds and faiths where others fail,
And human hearts with blindness filled
Will pray to gods with no avail."

XXIV
And lifting up one palsied hand,
With purpled veins and fingers long,
He pointed to the ghostly band
And sneered at all the spectral throng.
"Behold" said he, "the creeds of men,
The fabled dreams and blind beliefs,
The childish myth of 'faith, ' and then
Content you with such vain reliefs.

XXV
"But think you not, my son, " said he,
"That things which you can not conceive
Do not exist eternally,
For, in the scheme of things that weave
Their varied threads through time and space,
There is intention, thought, and will,
And though in vain you try to trace
The great design, it weaveth still.

XXVI
"The truth herself, in spite of all
The long parade of passing thought,
In spite of dreams that rise and fall,
Within the grasp of Fate is caught
And wrapped in robes of gleaming gold,
Is set upon a lofty throne
To reign in state, and reigning hold
The scepter of the great unknown.

XXVII
"Yea, Truth herself, must ever be
The absolute of things that are;
The ruler of Infinity ;
The motive of each swinging star ;
And minds of men will ever strive,
Will long to reach her shrine in vain,
And withered hopes will oft revive.
But hopes revived will fail again.

XXVIII
"The mind of man is e'er possessed
By wildest dreams and vain desire.
Is filled with longing and unrest,
A fierce, consuming, inward fire
And as the twilight moths will rise
Toward the torch, by fancy caught.
And deem the flame a golden prize
Such is the fate of human thought.

XXIX
"But think you will for think you must,
Though all your thoughts you think in vain.
Though all your dreams but end in dust,
For thoughtlessness is worse than pain.
You can not hope to bail the sea
Of truth, nor stem the tide of fact
With tea cups of mentality.
But better fail than not to act.

XXX
'But when your dreams are dreamed and done.
The creeds, the prayers, the faiths of man,
When all their cycling course is run,
They end the race where they began.
And thought will pause and turn her gaze.
By some strange freak of fancy caught,
Upon the folly of her ways
And ask in wonder, 'What is thought?'

[tannis]

IN CONCLUSION (cont'd)
by Carlyle C.Mclniyre (1919)

XXXI
"A hand that clutches at the gloom
Which shrouds the mystic form of things,
A voice which cries against its doom
And dies among its echoings,
A bleeding fist that mangled falls
Ere yet it jars the close'd gate,
A writhing, conquered thing that calls
In accents most disconsolate."

XXXII
And, as the sage thus spoke to me,
A murmur from the ghostly throng
Rose high above the surging sea
In one complaining common song;
Around us swept the motley crowd
Of spectres dressed in strange disguise.
With cowl and surplice, veil and shroud,
And all with hollow sightless eyes.

XXXIII
The priesthood of the Great Soudan,
Of Egypt and of far Cathay,
The torture fiends of Hindustan,
Had gathered for the coming fray.
All orders of the fiends of prayer
Had risen from their beds of blood
To battle on the headland there
Above the wild complaining flood.

XXXIV
And charging forth with gnashing teeth,
With frothing lips and demon's glee,
They cursed the skies and all beneath,
And fell upon Philosophy.
But, strange to say, the ancient Sage '
Awoke, a giant in their path,
He fought with strength of blinding rage,
And smote them in his heated wrath.

XXXV
I gloried as I watched the mill
And saw the Sage with ready staff
Beat out the lives of creeds until
They gave him way like driven chaff.
There stealthy monks with torture screws
And druids old with cruel knives
Were forced in fiendish war to lose
The final battle of their lives.

XXXVI
They fled before the rising ire
Which glowed upon the Sage's face,
Their one controlling, vain desire
To get them from the fated place.
And like a herd of frightened sheep
They hurled them from the mountain side.
From off the headland's lofty steep,
Into the frothing, streaming tide.

XXXVII
And when the heated fray was o'er
We thought ourselves at last alone,
And standing on the lofty shore
We heard the ocean's undertone,
The mouthing of the hungry sea,
Like some she-tiger wild for blood,
Whose white teeth clashed with savage glee
About the boulders in the flood.

XXXVIII
I watched the face of him who stood
Beside me on the lonely height.
And read his thoughts as only could
A kindred soul who sought the light.
I saw the saddened heart of him
Portrayed upon his furrowed face.
And saw his eyes with woe as wim
Still mutely question time and space.

XXXIX
Oh ! prayerless soul ! The void how deep !
How helpless are the hands that lift
Themselves in anguish as we weep,
When blind illusion's curtains shift!
Oh, dream returned ! Thy homing sail
Brings not the treasure which ye sought !
Oh, heart of mine, of what avail
This Juggernaut of deeper thought!

XL
And thus oppressed I sat me still.
Nor cared to hear nor witness more,
My heart was steeped in woe until
I longed to leap me from the shore,
While o'er the mountains and the sea
There fell a dark and gloomy shade,
And sadness o'er the soul of me
Her robe of ebon blackness laid.

[tannis]

IN CONCLUSION (cont'd)
by Carlyle C.Mclniyre (1919)

XLI
But still, beneath the gloom and woe
There burned a glowing vital spark,
There still were thoughts that would not go
Nor yield them to the densest dark,
A fire that like some midnight flame
But glowed the brighter for the gloom,
And o'er my bowing soul there came
A wild defiance of its doom.

XLII
And looking at Philosophy
I saw his face grow cold and stern.
His thoughtful eyes were set on me,
I saw their depths with menace burn.
His gnarl'ed staff was lying by,
He seized it in his withered hand,
And "blood" was written in his eye,
Asign that I could understand.

XLIII
I rose me to the coming fray
With vivid thoughts of witnessed deeds,
With recollections of the way
He slew the countless charging creeds.
I set upon the waiting sage
Who chuckled now a mirthless laugh
And, sneering at my puny rage,
He smote me with his crooked staff.

XLIV
He seized upon me then, as though
He sought to throw me from the cliff
Into the frothing seas below,
And chuckled to himself as if
He thought the spinning worlds would be
Far better off than now, without
A doubter of Philosophy
To spread infection 'round about.

XLV
But lo ! a hand was on my head,
A voice of strength was in my ear,
And o'er my failing heart was shed
A light that burned with lustre clear,
And by my side, encased in mail.
There stood a form whose face revealed
A courage that could never fail.
And "HOPE" was written on his shield.

XLVI
And in his hand he held a blade
Of gleaming steel and pattern old.
The helmet on his head was made
Of burnished sheets of beaten gold.
His stalwart limbs when e'er they moved
Below the mail in which he dressed.
In rhythmic undulations proved
The mighty strength which he possessed.

XLVII
"Take heart O Soul" he said to me
In accents strange and strongly true;
"Arise and watch and you shall see
How much the blade of Hope can do. "
And holding high his gleaming blade
He charged with laughter to the fray,
And with one sweeping stroke he laid
The Sage across the stony way.

XLVIII
Then lifting high his trusty blade
With foot upon his fallen foe,
This declaration there he made,
"The God of Right has willed it so.
I conquer in the name of Truth
Whose subject I have been from birth,
I conquer in the name of Youth,
Of Happiness, of Life, and Worth.

XLIX
"My name is HOPE. I hold the place
Of envoy from the Master Mind.
I bring unto the human race
The light that Knowledge fain would find
By delving mole-like through the crust
Of mouldy thought, with blinded eyes,
With eyes too filled with earthly dust
To read the teachings of the skies"

L
And stooping low he caught the sage
And hurled him to the growling sea,
Whose hungry maw with angry rage
At once consumed Philosophy.
I looked at HOPE in silent awe,
Nor dared to speak a fleeting doubt
Concerning that I heard and saw.
So utter was the Sage's rout.

[tannis]

IN CONCLUSION (cont'd)
by Carlyle C.Mclniyre (1919)

LI
But deep within my soul there thrilled
A chord that answered to the things
The Sage had said, ere HOPE had killed
And fed him to the sea that flings
Its ghostly arms about the stones
And wails like vampires drunk with gore,
In fiendish, hollow, ghoulish tones
Along the spume-swept, rocky shore.

LII
But like a flood of April's sun
Too strong for clouds or fleeting rain,
When once his gruesome task was done.
The face of HOPE was wreathed again
In smiles, so bright that even I
Forgot the shadows that were hung
Across my soul's beclouded sky,
And far gloomy curtains flung.

LIII
And HOPE advanced him to my side
Where, stripping off his shield and blade,
He sat him down and gayly tried
To ease the wound the Sage had made.
And sitting thus upon the cliff,
He spoke of things, of time, and men,
Until my heart rejoiced as if
It ne'er would feel a woe again.

LIV
Said he, '1 heard while on the height
That towers to rearward of the sea,
The echoes of the fiendish fight
That raged about Philosophy;
I heard the teachings of the Sage ;
I saw you lend a willing ear;
At last I gloried in your rage
And, drawing blade, I waited near.

LV
" 'Twas written in the book of life
That creeds and thoughts should play their parts,
That living should be made of strife,
Of puzzled heads, and aching hearts,
That man should pass from stage to stage,
From childish hope to creeds of pain.
From blind belief to thoughtful age,
And then from thought to hope again.


LVI
"And long ago the Master Mind
Alloted to my special care
All gloomy hearts that I could find,
And bade me light His beacons there;
He placed a blade within my hand
So keen that all must fall before.
He gave me strength to wield it, and
He sent me to this Earthly shore.

LVII
"I came in ages long ago,
Long, long before the budding scheme
Of human life had bloomed to show
The beauty. Of its Maker's dream,
Back where lush grasses stood in rank,
Knee deep in tepid, slumbrous seas,
And silence reigned o'er marsh and bank,
Unwaked through dead eternities.

LVIII
"Back on the faded trail of time
I watched as human life began,
A senseless clot of clinging slime
In those dark pools silurian :
I followed up the climbing scale,
With ever ready arm and blade.
Which like some all-determined snail
Crept slowly up the trying grade.

LIX
"And lo ! at last I saw evolved
A man complete with mind and heart :
I saw the cruder man dissolved
And marveled in our Maker's art.
And as some lonely hermit sees
The blooming of a rose divine
And revels in its fragrancies,
So I received this man of mine.

LX
"I watched with joy the Master Hand
Reach down with taper, and ignite
The torches of his longings, and
I saw his face grow tense and bright :
I saw the burning queries glow
Behind the windows of his eyes ;
And saw his mind awake, and throw
Its countless questions at the skies.

[tannis]

IN CONCLUSION (cont'd)
by Carlyle C.Mclniyre (1919)

LXI
"And then I saw that not in vain
Had been the session of my wait,
That now at last were joy and pain,
And human hearts would vacillate
From lofty heights of happiness
To deepest depths of misery.
And in their folly and distress
My men at last had need of me.

LXII
"And so through all the fleeting years
I fight the ghosts of their despair,
I trade them sunshine for their tears.
And flush their souls of woe and care;
My blade is at their least command
In doting age as well as youth ;
I take each proffered, groping hand
And place it in the grasp of Truth. '

LXIII
"I hear them crying in the night
The same old cry forever new,
'Show unto us a clearer light !
Point out to us the high and true !'
And seizing on my trusty blade
I trail them through the inky gloom,
And, finding them, at last persuade
And lead them from their somber doom.

LXIV
"But fain are men to dwell in need,
To haunt the dark and dreary ways,
And loath to listen to, or heed
The voice that speaks of life to praise.
They call for Truth, and then refuse
The proffered hand that Truth would give,
And in their blinded longings lose
The light of Truth, and longing live.

LXV
"And you have called within the hour"
He said with smile bewreathed face,
"For Truth and superhuman power
To comprehend all time and space,
And Truth has stood beside you here.
Her hand has hovered o'er your head,
And yet your heart beat wild with fear.
Your craven soul was filled with dread.

LXVI
"The Truth, herself, is absolute
In that the Truth is one and all
In that her precincts constitute
The all unbounded realms that fall
Beyond the spheres of time and place
Of mere effect and hidden Cause
And altogether plainly trace
The mystic beauty of her laws.

LXVII
"The Truth is Master, child, and man.
Is clod and stream and growing thing,
The Truth is all the mighty plan
Through which the countless systems swing,
The Truth is life, is joy, and breath,
The penciled chart, and He who drew,
The Truth is music, woe, and death.
The scanned, and still the scanner too.


LXVIII
"The Truth is you and even I,
And even still the dreams you dream.
The false is Truth, though you may try
In vain to understand the scheme.
There is no false. Could we but see
The full intent of things we call
'The false in life, ' it then would be
That we would understand it all.

LXIX
"But can the bowls upon the shelves,
The spinning clay upon the wheel,
Propound these questions to themselves,
Or ask the potter to reveal
The secrets of his varied arts,
Or bid him tell to full extent
The nature of their destined parts.
The end for which they each were meant?

LXX
"Nor need the sands upon the shore
Decry the fate that has denied
That they should know their goal, before
They yield them to the sweeping tide;
For He, who holds the streaming seas
As helpless bondsmen to His will,
Has watched through dim eternities
Each grain of sand and watches still.

[tannis]

IN CONCLUSION (cont'd)
by Carlyle C.Mclniyre (1919)

LXXI
"And yet you drifting human sands,
Before you yield to certain laws,
With weeping eyes and wringing hands
Decry your fate and curse the Cause
Who sweeps you on to things unknown,
Nor hears nor cares to hear your plea.
For what advice can crumbled stone
Submit to All Infinity?

LXXII
"You vainly strive to gain reply,
You blindly boast in your conceit,
And simple men will ever try
To hide the fact of their defeat.
But those, whose search for Truth entails
Their fervent prayers and bowing heads,
Are fools who fish for plunging whales
With bended pins and cotton threads.

LXXIII
"Like fiery blossoms of the night
The rockets of theology-
Have raised their swaying stems of light
Toward the distant Galaxy,
But wearied, ere they well began,
They hung their sprays of crimson bloom
Across the mental dusk of man.
And faded in a deeper gloom.

LXXIV
"The trail from out the distant past,
Is thickly strewn with sticks that lay
A mute rebuke to those who cast
Their glances rearward o'er the way,
And all the restless thoughts of men
That e'er have wandered off inquest
Of Truth, have wandered back again
To know that search is only jest.

LXXV
"For how may Truth deciphered be
By thought, while thought is yet so small,
While Truth is all infinity,
The thought, the thinker, one and all?
No, thought is not the scale to span
That boundless, all unmeasured sky,
Nor is the tea-spoon skull of man
The bowl to bail its oceans dry.

LXXVI
"All human life is as a spur
Upon the tooth'ed wheel of time.
That cog but one of all that whir
Within the mighty mill sublime ;
But every spur upon the wheel,
As long as all the wheels shall run,
May trust the Miller Man, and feel
That he is watching every one.

LXXVII
"Nor need the spinning spurs demand
That they should know the Master's mind,
That metal teeth should understand
The purpose of the meal they grind,
Suffice that they as teeth fulfill
The end for which they first were cast,
Mute subjects of a Master's will,
For such will be their fate at last.

LXXVIII
"Nor need the spurs refuse to move,
For move they will upon their way.
Though they in vain should want to prove
Themselves above their Master's sway.
And so, thou Soul, it is with you
Who vainly questions through the years
The purpose that is woven through
The swinging systems of the spheres.


LXXIX
"What need have you to know the cause
Of all that is or yet shall be?
Of what concern to you the laws
That govern all eternity ?
And why should you, whose life is laid
Within the hollow of His hand,
Behold the future all afraid
Because you can not understand?

LXXX
"Or why upraise your voice in prayer
To tell Him of the things He knows,
And plead with Him to have a care,
To take advice which you propose?
Or why request that He should move
Or halt His changeless scheme, because
Your finite mind would fain improve
The master purpose of His laws?

[tannis]

IN CONCLUSION (cont'd)
by Carlyle C.Mclniyre (1919)

LXXXI
"Or why demand that you should call
The Cause by any given name.
While human minds are yet so small
And human words so halt and lame?
Of what avail are written creeds,
Are painted gods and printed prayers,
Since worth depends on worthy deeds
And not on hollow, lofty airs?

LXXII
'What though that power which "GOD" implies,
Who drives the suns, like scattered sheep
Across the uplands of the skies.
Has not in trusted to your keep
The secrets of His realm, that runs
Beyond the farthest stars that stray
About the pasture of the suns,
Are you to grumble or to pray?"

LXXXIII
And, like some strong and heady wine
Which wildly races through the brain,
The words of HOPE had flowed through mine.
And cleansed it of mistrust and pain.
My heart was filled with deep content,
And pulsed with love for friend and foe;
My woes were gone, but where they went
I knew not then, nor cared to know.

LXXXIV
And life for me had changed its form,
Like some rare rose in twilight's gloom
Had burst into a velvet storm
Of gorgeous color and perfume,
And in my heart, serene and deep.
There reigned an all-consuming trust.
That He who had my life in keep
Would use me well, for He is just.

LXXXV
I knew Him not, nor cared to know,
Since He was all and I was nought,
Since He had seen it fit to show
That I was ever in His thought.
And o'er my helpless human head
I felt the presence of His hand.
And all mistrust of life had fled,
Though I could never understand.

LXXXVI
And HOPE, with gentle smiling face,
Again took up his shield and blade,
And rose him from his resting place.
While o'er his features brightly played
A wild delight as he perceived
The vanquished ghosts of my despair.
And knew a heart had been relieved
Of useless sorrow, gloom, and care.

LXXXVII
"My Soul" said he, "I leave with you
The cheer of life I seek to give,
The good of life that I would do
For all the gloomy souls that live.
The light of trust in Vested Power,
The firm conviction all is right.
The staunch belief at midnight's hour
That dawn will follow after night.

LXXXVIII
"I charge you to collect the toll
From all the joys today can give.
To live in heart, in mind, and soul,
The life that every man should live,
To live and help your brother man
To help himself, and so help you,
To live and do what good you can
And then to die when all is through.

LXXXIX
"To die with stalwart strength, and know
That over all the Master Mind
Perceives the progress of the show,
And death is but as He designed.
And trust that good must be concealed
Behind the shadow of the shroud,
And know that sunshine unrevealed
Is sunshine still, behind the cloud.

XC
"For He whose seeming ruthless hand
Bestrips the poppy of its flame,
Who smites the roses where they stand,
And lays the broken lilies lame
Across the clods from which they grew,
Has purpose though you can not see
Nor hope to know the things He knew
When He designed immensity.

XCI
"So die and lay you down to rest,
With human fears and doubts dissolved,
With firm belief that all is best
As in the mystic scheme evolved,
No matter if that scheme demand
That you as one shall cease to be,
That you as one shall understand
No more of all its mystery.

XCII
"And, if to Him who rules, it seems.
That men should play a sleeping part.
Mere ciphers in the Land of Dreams,
A cipher be, with cheerful heart.
And know that He who bids you cease
To comprehend the ways of men.
Can bring you silence, rest, and peace.
And when He wills, create again.

XCIII
"Or if as man in vain would know,
This death is but a transient pause,
A halt within the moving show,
In full accordance with its laws,
A readjusting of the scenes
Upon the curtained stage of time,
A rearrangement of the screens
To bring about effects sublime.

XCIV
"And man an actor treads again
A future stage of better things,
Be stripped of robes of Earthly pain,
And rearrayed in figurings
As brilliant as the gems that gleam
Where dewy roses bow and blow;
If this perchance is not a dream.
Then surely death is shorn of woe.

XCV
"But I must wend me on my way
To fight the ghosts of men's despair,
To turn their mental night to day. "
And speaking thus he left me there.
With springing step he climbed the height
That towers to rearward of the sea.
And from his golden shield the light
Was thrown in showers of brilliancy.

[tannis]

IN CONCLUSION (cont'd)
by Carlyle C.Mclniyre (1919)

XCVI
And lo! I found myself alone
'Neath sunset skies as red as blood,
The summer day was nearly flown,
The flowing tide had reached its flood,
The wheeling birds had ceased their flight
And settled on the rocks to rest.
The sun, an orb of crimson light,
Was burning in the distant west.

XCVII
And gone was all the phantom throng,
No sign of warrior, sage or creed,
And though I hunted well and long,
I found no trace of bloody deed.
No gnarl'ed staff nor broken bones.
No sod bestained with wasted blood.
But on the cliff the scattered stones,
And in the sea the moaning flood.

XCVIII
And in my heart there was a peace,
A deep content, that ne'er before
Had bid my aching heart to cease
Its useless pain for evermore,
A deep content that smiled at pain,
That laughed to scorn all childish doubt.
That crushed the ravings of the brain.
And put all woe to wildest route.

XCIX
And standing thus upon the cliff,
I saw the humble haunts of men
Hang out their evening lamps, as if
They sought to call me home again.
And then and there this vow I made
That down through all the future years
No fate should bid me be afraid,
No sorrow blind me with its tears.

C
For God is ever at the wheel
Which swings the cosmos on its race,
Which heads the universal keel
Across the time-swept sea of space,
His eye is on the distant goal,
That mystic port we fain would see,
The final haven of the soul
In far dim realms of mystery.

ENVOY
Long years have gone as years will go,
Since I have dreamed upon that height,
But time has only served to show
That wrong is but the seed of right;
And still the stars swing on their way,
The tides go streaming out to sea.
And all the chords of nature play
One ceaseless, matchless symphony.