 THE MAN WITH THE HOE by Edwin Markham Read for LibriVox.org by Larry Wilson Written after C. Millay's world-famous painting God made him in his own image In the image of God made he him. Genesis Bowed by the weight of centuries He leans upon his hoe and gazes on the ground The emptiness of ages in his face And on his back the burden of the world Who made him dead to rapture and despair A thing that grieves not and that never hopes Stolled and stunned a brother to the ox Who loosened and let down this brutal jaw Whose was the hand that slanted back this brow Whose breath blew out the light within this brain Is this the thing the Lord God made And gave to have dominion over sea and land To trace the stars and search the heavens for power To feel the passion of eternity Is this the dream he dreamed Who shaped the suns and pillored the blue firmaments with light Down all the stretch of hell to its last gulf There is no shape more terrible than this More tongueed with the censure of the world's blind greed More filled with signs and portents for the soul More fraught with menace to the universe What gulfs between him and the seraphim Slave of the wheel of labour, what to him Are Plato and the swing of Pleiades What the long reaches of the peaks of song The rift of dawn, the reddening of the rose Through this dread shape the suffering ages look Time's tragedy is in that aching stoop Through this dread shape humanity betrayed Plundered, profaned, and disinherited Cries protest to the judges of the world A protest that is also prophecy O masters, lords and rulers in all lands Is this the handy work you give to God This monstrous thing distorted and soul quenched How will you ever straighten up this shape Touch it again with immortality Give back the upward looking and the light Rebuild in it the music and the dream Make right the immemorial infamies Perfidious wrongs, immedicable woes O masters, lords and rulers in all lands How will the future reckon with this man How answer his brute question in that hour When whirlwinds of rebellion shake the world How will it be with kingdoms and with kings With those who shaped him to the thing he is When this dumb terror shall reply to God After the silence of the centuries End of poem This recording is in the public domain A look into the Gulf by Edwin Markham Read for LibriVox.org by Larry Wilson I looked one night and there Sima Ramis With all her morning doves about her head Sat rocking on an ancient road of hell Withered an eyeless chanting to the moon Snatches of song they sang to her of old Upon the lighted roofs of Nineveh And then her voice rang out with rattling laugh The bugles, the hair crying back again Bugles that broke the knights of Babylon And then went crying on through Nineveh Stand back ye trembling messengers of ill Women, let go my hair I am the queen A whirlwind and a blaze of swords to quell Insurgent cities Let the iron tread of armies shake the earth Look lofty towers As Syria goes by upon the wind And so she babbles by the ancient road While cities turn to dust upon the earth Rise through her whirling brain to live again Babbles all night and when her voice is dead Her weary lips beat on without a sound End of poem This recording is in the public domain Brotherhood by Edwin Markham Read for LibriVox.org by Larry Wilson The crest and crowning of all good Life's final star is Brotherhood For it will bring again to earth Her long lost poisey and mirth Will send you light on every face A kingly power upon the race Until it come we men are slaves And travel downward to the dust of graves Come clear the way, then clear the way Blind creeds and kings have had their day Break the dead branches from the path Our hope is in the aftermath Our hope is in heroic men Star led to build the world again To this event the ages ran Make way for Brotherhood Make way for man End of poem This recording is in the public domain Song of the Followers of Pan by Edwin Markham Read for LibriVox.org by Larry Wilson Our bursting bugles blow apart The gates of cities as we go We bring the music of the heart From the secret wells in Lilimo We break in music on the mourns Sing of the flower to stirring roots Apollo's cry is in the horns And Hermes' whisper in the flutes We come with laughter to the earth And lightly stir the heading wheat Our God is poisey and mirth And loves the noise of woodland feet When the dancers beat the air to sound After the time of yellow sheaves He stops to watch them merry round His pleased face looking through the leaves End of poem This recording is in the public domain Little Brothers of the Ground by Edwin Markham Read for LibriVox.org by Larry Wilson Little ants in leafy wood Bound by gentle brotherhood While ye gaily gather spoil Men are ground by the wheel toiled While ye follow blessed fates Men are shriveled up with hate For they lie with sheeted lust And they eat the bitter dust Ye are freighters in your hall Gay and chainless, great and small All are toilers in the field All are sharers in the yield But we mortals plot and plan How to grind the fellow man Glad to find him in the pit If we get some gain of it So with us the sons of time Labor is a kind of crime For the toilers have the least While the idlers lured the feast Yes, our workers they are bound Pallid captives to the ground And jeered by traitors Fooled by knaves till they stumble into graves How appears to tiny eyes All this wisdom of the wise In the poem, this recording is in the public domain Whale of the Wandering Dead By Edwin Markham Read for LibriVox.org by Laurie Wilson Death too is a chimera and betrays And yet they promised we should interrest Death is as empty as the cup of days And bitter milk is in her wintry breast There is no worth in any world to come Nor any in the world we left behind And what remains of all our masterdom Only a cry out of the crumbling mind We played all comers at the old gray inn But played the king of players to our cost We played him fair and had no chance to win The dice of God were loaded and we lost We wander, wander in the nights come down With starless darkness and the rush of rains We drift as phantoms by the songless town We drift as litter on the windy lanes Hope is the fading vision of the heart A mocking spirit throwing up wild hands She led us on with music at the start To leave us at the dead fountains in the sands Now all our days are but a cry for sleep For we are weary of the petty strife Is there not somewhere in the endless deep A place where we can lose the feel of life Where we can be as senseless as the dust The night wind blows about a dried up well Where there is no more labor, no more lust Nor any flesh to feel the tooth of hell Our feet are ever-sliding and we seem As old and weary as the pyramids Come, God of ages, and dispel the dream Fold the worn hands and close the sinking lids There is no new road for the dead to take Wild hearts are we among the world's astray Wild hearts are we that cannot wholly break But linger on, though life has gone away We are the sons of misery and held Come tender death with all your hushing wings And let our broken spirits be dispelled Let dead men sink into the dusk of things End of poem, this recording is in the public domain A prayer by Edwin Markham Read for LibriVox.org by Larry Wilson Teach me, Father, how to go softly as the grasses grow Hush my soul to meet the shock of the wild world As a rock, but my spirit propped with power Make as simple as a flower Let the dry heart fill its cup like a poppy looking up Let life likely wear her crown like a poppy looking down When its heart is filled with dew and its life begins anew Teach me, Father, how to be kind and patient as a tree Joyfully the crickets croon under the shady oak at noon Beetle on his mission bent, terries in that cooling tent Let me also cheer a spot, hidden field or garden grot Place where passing souls can rest on the way to be their best End of poem, this recording is in the public domain The Poet by Edwin Markham Read for LibriVox.org by Larry Wilson His home is in the heights To him men wage a battle weird and dim Life is a mission stern as fate And song a dread apostolate The toils of prophecy are his to hail the coming centuries To ease the steps and lift the load of souls that falter on the road The perilous music that he hears falls from the vortice of the spheres He presses on before the race and sings out of a silent place Like faint notes of a force bird on heights afar that voices heard And the dim path he breaks today will sometime be a trodden way But when the race comes tolling on, that voice of wonder will be gone Be heard on higher peaks afar, moved upward with the morning star O men of earth, that wandering voice still goes the upward way Rejoice! End of poem, this recording is in the public domain The Whirlwind Road by Edwin Markham Read for LibriVox.org by Larry Wilson The muses wrapped in mysteries of light came in a rush of music on the night And I was lifted wildly on quick wings And borne away into the deep of things The dead doors of my being broke apart A wind of rapture blew across the heart The inward song of worlds rang still and clear I felt the mystery the muses fear Yet they went swiftening on the ways untrod And hurled me breathless at the feet of God I felt faint touches of the final truth Moments of trembling love, moments of youth A vision swept away the human wall Slowly I saw the meaning of it all Meaning of life and time and death and birth But I cannot tell it to the men of earth I only point the way And they must go the Whirlwind Road of Song If they would know End of poem, this recording is in the public domain The Desire of Nations by Edwin Markham Read for LibriVox.org by Larry Wilson And the government shall be upon his shoulder And his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor The mighty God, the everlasting Father The Prince of Peace, Isaiah Earth will go back to her lost youth And life grow deep and wonderful as truth When the wise king out of the nearing heaven comes To break the spell of long millenniums To build with song again the broken hope of men To hush and heroize the world beneath the flag Of brotherhood unfurled And he will come some day Already is his star upon the way He comes, O Whirl, he comes But not with bugle-cride nor rolling of doubling drums Nay, for he comes to loosen and unbind To build the lofty purpose in the mind To stir the heart's deep cord No rude horns parling, no shock of shields Nor as of old the glory of the Lord To half-awakened shepherds in the fields Looking with foolish faces on the rush Of the great splendor when the pulsing hush Came o'er the hills, came o'er the heavens afar Where on their cliffs of stars the watching seraphs are Nor as of old when the strong one trod The sepulchres are risen God When on that deathless morning in the dark He quit the garden of the sepulcher Setting the oleander-bows astir And pausing at the gate with backward hark Nay, nor as when the hero-king of heaven Came with up-braiding to his faint eleven And found the world-way to his bright feet barred And hopeless then because men's hearts were hard To become like carnal kings of old With pomp of pilfered gold Nor like the Pharisees with pride of prayer Nor as the stumbling fully-stewards dream Integious argument and fruitless creed But in the passion of the heart-warm deed Will come the man's supreme. Yea, for he comes to lift the public care To build on earth the vision hung in air This is the one fulfillment of his law The one fact in the mockeries that seem This is the vision that the prophets saw The comrade-king builded in their dream No, not as in that elder-day comes now The king upon the human-way He comes with power, his white unfearing face Shines through the social passion of the race He comes to frame the freedom of the law To touch these men of earth with feeling Of life's oneness and its worth A feeling of its mystery in awe And when he comes into the world gone wrong He will rebuild her beauty with a song To every heart he will its own dream be One moon has many phantoms in the sea Out of the north the Norrige will cry to men Balder the beautiful has come again The flutes of Greece will whisper from the dead Apollo has unveiled his sun-bright head The stone of Thebes and Memphis will find voice While Cyrus comes, though tribes of time rejoice And social architects who build the state Serving the dream at Citadel and Gate Will hail him coming through the labour-hum And glad quick cries will go from man to man Lo, he has come, our Christ the artisan The king who loved the lilies, he has come He will arrive, our counsellor in chief And with bleak faces lighted up will come The earth-worn mothers from their martyrdom To tell him of their grief And glad girls caroling from field and town Will go to meet him with the labour-crown The new-crown woven of the heading wheat And men will sit down at his sacred feet And he will say, the king, come Let us live the poetry we sing And these his burning words will break the ban Words that will grow to be on continent, on sea The rallying cry of man He comes to make the long injustice right Comes to push back the shadow of the night The great tradition full of flint and flaw Comes to wipe out the insults to the soul The insults of the few against the whole The insults they make righteous with Allah Yea, he will bear the safety of the state For in his still and rhythmic steps Will be the power and music of Altheon Who holds the swift heavens in their starry fate Yea, he will lay on souls the power of peace And sinned on kingdoms torn the sense of home More than the fire of joy that burned on Greece More than the light of law that rose on Rome In the poem this recording is in the public domain The Elf Child by Edwin Markham I am a child of the reef and the blowing spray And all my heart goes wildly to the sea I am a changeling Can you follow me through the hill and hollow On the wind's dim way? Yes, at the break of a tempestuous day They bore me to the land through starless storm And laid me in the pillow sweetly warm And broken by the first one's little stay The elf kings found me on an ocean reef A lyric child of mystery and grief Then need I tell you why the trembling start Why in my song the sound of ocean dwells Why the quick gladness when the billows swells As though remembered voices call the heart End of poem this recording is in the public domain The Goblin Laugh by Edwin Markham Read for LibriVox.org by Laurie Wilson When I behold how men and women Grind and grovel for some place of pomp or power To shine and circle through a crumbling hour Forgetting the large mansions of the mind That are the rest and shelter of mankind And when I see them come with weird brains Pallid and powerless to enjoy their gains I seem to hear a Goblin Laugh unwind And then a memory sins upon its billow Thoughts of a singer wise enough to play Who took life as a lightsome holiday Oft have I seen him make his arm a pillow Drink from his hand and with a pipe of willow Blow a wild music down a woodland way End of poem this recording is in the public domain Poetry by Edwin Markham Read for LibriVox.org by Laurie Wilson She comes as hush and beauty of the night And sees too deep for laughter Her touch is a vibration and a light From worlds before and after End of poem this recording is in the public domain A meeting by Edwin Markham Read for LibriVox.org by Laurie Wilson Softly she came one twilight from the dead And in the passionate silence of her look Was more than man has written in a book And now my thoughts are restless And a dread calls them to the dim land As comforted were down the leafy ways Her white feet took, lightly the newly broken Roses shook. Was it the wind Disturbed each rosy head? God, was it joy or sorrow in her face? That quiet face, had it grown old or young? Was it sweet memory or sad that stung Her voiceless soul to wander from its place? What do the dead find in the silence? Grace? Or endless grief for which there is no tongue? End of poem this recording is in the public domain Infinite Depths by Edwin Markham Read for LibriVox.org by Laurie Wilson The little pool and street are filled apart Glasses deep heavens and the rushing storm And into silent depths of every heart The Eternal throws its oval shadow form End of poem this recording is in the public domain A leaf from the Devil's Jest Book By Edwin Markham Read for LibriVox.org by Laurie Wilson Beside the sewing table chained and bent They stitch for the lady, tear-ness and proud For her a wedding gown For them a shroud They stitch and stitch but never mend The rent torn in life's golden curtains Glad youth went and left them alone with time And now, if bowed with burdens they should sob and cry aloud Wondering the rich would look from their content And so this glimmering life at last recedes In unknown, endless depths beyond recall And what's the worth of all our ancient creeds If here, at the end of ages, this is all A white face floating in the whirling ball A dead face plashing in the river reeds End of poem this recording is in the public domain The Paymaster by Edwin Markham Read for LibriVox.org by Laurie Wilson There is a sacred something on all ways Something that watches through the universe One that remembers, reckons and repays Giving us love for love and curse for curse End of poem this recording is in the public domain The Last Furrow by Edwin Markham Read for LibriVox.org by Laurie Wilson The spirit of earth was still restoring hands Made ruins move in glimmering chasm-gropes And mosses mantle in the bright flower-opes But death the plowman wanders in all lands And to the last of earth his furrow stands The grave is never hidden Fearful hopes follow the dead upon the fading slopes And their wild memories meet upon the sands When willows fling their banners to the plain When rumor of winds and sound of sudden showers Disturbed the dream of winter, all in vain The grasses hurried to the graves The flowers tossed their wild torches on their windy towers Yet are the bleak grays lonely in the rain End of poem this recording is in the public domain In the Storm by Edwin Markham Read for LibriVox.org by Laurie Wilson I huddled close against the mighty cliff A sense of safety and of brotherhood broke on the heart The shelter of a rock is sweeter than the roofs of all the world End of poem this recording is in the public domain After reading Shakespeare by Edwin Markham Read for LibriVox.org by Laurie Wilson Blythe fancy lightly builds with airy hands Or on the edges of the darkness peers Breathless and frightened at the voice she hears Imagination, low the sky expands Travels the blue arch in Sumerian sands Homeless on earth the pilgrim of the spheres The rush of light before the hurrying years The voice that cries in unfamiliar lands Men weigh the moons that flood with eerie light The dusky veils of Saturn, wood and stream But who shall follow on the awful sweep of Neptune Through the dim and dreadful deep? Onward he wanders in the unknown night And we are shadows moving in a dream End of poem this recording is in the public domain The Hidden Valley by Edwin Markham Read for LibriVox.org by Laurie Wilson I stray with Ariel in Caliban I know the hill of windy pines I know where the jaseness swings in the wild gorge below Lightly I climb where fallen cedars span bright rivers Climb to a valley under ban Where west winds set a thousand bells abla An eerie valley where in the morning glow I hear the music of the pipes of pan Mysterious horns blow by on the still air A satter steps, a wood-god's dewy notes Come faintly from a veil of tossing oats But, oh, what white thing in the canyon crossed Gods, I shall come on Diane unaware Look on her fearful beauty and be lost End of poem this recording is in the public domain The Poets by Edwin Markham Read for LibriVox.org by Laurie Wilson Some cry of Sappho's lyre, of Soddy's flute Comes back across the waste of mortal things Men strive and die to reach the dead sea fruit Only the poets find immortal springs End of poem this recording is in the public domain Loves Vigil by Edwin Markham Read for LibriVox.org by Laurie Wilson Love will out-watch the stars And light the skies when the last star falls And the silent dark devours God's warrior he will watch the allotted hours And conquer with a look of his sad eyes He shakes the kingdom of darkness with his eyes His quiet size while all the infernal powers Trimble and pale upon their central towers Lest happily his bright universe arise All will be well if he have strength to wait Till his last pleiad white and silver-shod Regains her place to make the perfect seven Then all the worlds will know that love is fate And somehow he is greater even than heaven That in the cosmic council he is God End of poem this recording is in the public domain Two at Fireside by Edwin Markham Read for LibriVox.org by Laurie Wilson I built a chimney for a comrade old I did the service not for hope or hire And then I traveled on in winter's cold Yet all the day I glowed before the fire End of poem this recording is in the public domain The Butterfly by Edwin Markham Read for LibriVox.org by Laurie Wilson A winged brother on the hair-bell's day Was God's hand very pitiful The hand that wrought thy beauty at a dream's demand Yea, knowing I love so well the flowery way He did not fling me to the world astray He did not drop me to the weary sand But bore me gently to a leafy land Tinting my wings, he gave me to the day O child, no more my doubting, my despair I will go back now to the world of men Farewell, I leave thee to the world of air Yet thou hast girded up my heart again For he that framed the impenetrable plan And keeps his word with thee will keep with man End of poem this recording is in the public domain Two William Watson by Edwin Markham Read for LibriVox.org by Laurie Wilson After reading The Purple East That hour you put the wreath of England by To shake her guilty heart with song sublime The mighty muse that watches from the sky Lay down your head the larger wreath of time End of poem this recording is in the public domain Keats a Dine by Edwin Markham Read for LibriVox.org by Laurie Wilson Often at that last hour I lie and think I see the Keats nearing the death-way dim See Severn in his noiseless hurry Him who leaned above the fading on the brink What is that wild light through the window-chink? Is it the burning feet of cherubim? Or is it the white moon on western rim? St. Agnes moon beginning now to sink How did death come? The sounds of water stir? With forms of beauty breaking at the lips With field pipes in the scent of blowing fur Or came it hurrying like a last eclipse Sweeping the world away like Gossamer Blotting the moon, the mountains, and the ships End of poem this recording is in the public domain Man by Edwin Markham Read for LibriVox.org by Laurie Wilson Out of the deep and endless universe There came a greater mystery, a shape A something sad, inscrutable, agust One to confront the worlds and question them End of poem this recording is in the public domain The Cricket by Edwin Markham Read for LibriVox.org by Laurie Wilson The twilight is the morning of his day While sleep droops seaward from the fading shore With purpling sail and dip of silver ore He cheers the shadowed time with roundelay Until the dark east softens into gray Now as the noisy hours are coming Hark, his song dies gently, it is growing dark His night with its one star is on its way Fately the light breaks o'er the blowing oats Sleep, little brother, sleep I am a stir, we worship song And servants are of her, I in the bright hours Thou in shadow time Lead thou the starlit night with merry notes And I will lead the clamoring day with rhyme End of poem this recording is in the public domain In High Sierras by Edwin Markham Read for LibriVox.org by Laurie Wilson There at a certain hour of the deep night A gray cliff with a demon face comes up Wrinkled and old, behind the peaks And with an anxious look appears at the zodiac End of poem this recording is in the public domain The Wharf of Dreams by Edwin Markham Read for LibriVox.org by Laurie Wilson Strange wares are handled on the wharves of sleep Shadows of shadows pass and many a light flashes A signal flare across the night Barges depart whose voiceless steersmen Keep their way without a star upon the deep And from lost ships homing with ghostly crews Come cries of incommunicable dews While cargoes pile the piers, a moon-white heap Budgets of dream dust, merchandise of song Wreckage of hope and packs of ancient wrong The penthees gathered from a secret strand Far dales of heartache, burdens of old sins Luggage sent down from dim ancestral ends And bells of fantasy from nomads' land End of poem this recording is in the public domain To Louise Michelle by Edwin Markham Read for LibriVox.org by Laurie Wilson I cannot take your road, Louise Michelle Priestess of pity and of vengeance, no Down that amorphous gulf I cannot go That gulf of anarchy whose pit is hell Yet, sister, though my first word is farewell Remember that I know your hidden woe Had felt the grief that rins you blow on blow Had knelt beside you in the murky cell You never followed hate, let this atone Nor knew the wrongs of others from your own Wild was the road, but love has always led So I am silent where I cannot praise And here now at the parting of the ways I lay a still hand, lightly on your head End of poem this recording is in the public domain Shepard Boy, Inariad by Edwin Markham Read for LibriVox.org by Laurie Wilson Ah, once of old in some forgotten tongue Forgotten land I was a shepherd boy And you, Inariad, a wing of joy On through the dawn bright peaks our body swung And flowers off lyrics by immortal sung Fell from their unseen pinnacles in air God looked from heaven that hour for you were fair And I a poet and the star was young You had heard my woodland pipe and left the sea Your hair blown gold and all your body white Had left the ocean girls to follow me We joined the hill-nymphs in their joyous flight And you left lightly to the sea And sent quick glances flashing through me as I went End of poem this recording is in the public domain A song at the start by Edwin Markham Read for LibriVox.org by Laurie Wilson Oh, down the quick river our galley is going With a sound and the cordage a beam on the sail The wind of the canyon our loose hair is blowing And the clouds of the morning are glad of the gale Around the swift prowl little billows are breaking And flinging their foam in a glory of light Now the shade of a rock on the river is shaking And a wave leaps high up growing suddenly white The weight of the whole world is light as a feather And the peaks rise in silence and westerly flee Oh, the world and the poet are singing together And from the far cliff comes a sound of the sea End of poem this recording is in the public domain My Comrade by Edwin Markham Read for LibriVox.org by Laurie Wilson I never build a song by night or day Of breaking ocean or a blowing wind But in some wondrous unexpected way Like light upon a road my love comes in And when I go at night upon the hill My heart is lifted on mysterious wings My love is there to strengthen and distill For she can take away the dread of things End of poem this recording is in the public domain A Lyric of the Dawn by Edwin Markham Read for LibriVox.org by Laurie Wilson Alone I list in the leafy trist Silent the woodlands in their starry sleep Silent the phantom wood in waters deep No footfall of a wind along the pass Stottles a hair-bell, stirs a blade of grass Yonder the wandering weeds enchanted in the light Stand in the gusty hollows, still and white Yonder our plummy reeds, dusking the border Of the clear lagoon, far off the silver cliffs Hang in ethereal light below the moon Far off the ocean lifts, tossing its billows In the misty beam, and shorelines whiten Silent is a dream I hark for the bird in all the hushed hills Harken, this is the valley Hear the branches darken the silver-lighted stream Hark, that rapture in the leafy dark Who is it shouts upon the bow a swing Waking the upland and the valley under What carols like the blazing of a king Fill all the dawn with wonder O hush, it is the thrush In the deep woody glen And thus the gladness of the gods was sung When the old earth was young That rapture rang when the first morning On the mountain sprang And now he shouts and the world is young again Carol, my king, on your bow a swing Thou art not of these evil days Thou art a voice of the world's lost youth O tell me what is duty, what is truth How to find God upon these hungry ways Tell of the golden prime when men beheld Swift deities descend Before the race was left alone with time Home sick on earth and homeless to the end When bird and beast could make a man their friend Before great pan was dead Before the nighads fled When maidens white with dark eyes Shy and bold with peals of laughter Of the peaks of gold startled the still dawn Shown in upon the mountains and were gone Their voices fading silvery and depths of forests old Sing of the wonders of the woodland ways Before the weird earth hunger of these days When there was whippling mirth when justice was on earth And light and grandeur of the golden age When never a heart was sad When all from king to herdman had a penny for a wage Ah, that old time has faded to a dream The moon's fair face is broken in the stream And shout and carol on, O bird, And let the exiled race not utterly forget Publish thy revelation on the lawns Sing ever in the dark ethereal dawns Sometime in some sweet year these stormy souls These men of earth may hear But hark again, from the secret glen That voice of raptured and ethereal youth Now laden with despair Forbear, O bird, forbear Is life not terrible enough forsooth? Cease the mystic song No more, no more the passion and the pain It wakes my life to fret against the chain It makes me think of all the aged wrong Of joy and the end of joy and the end of all Of souls on earth and souls beyond recall Ah, ah, that voice again It makes me think of all these restless men Called into time, their progress and their goal And now, oh, now it sends into my soul Dreams of a love that might have been for me That might have been and now can never be Tell me no more of these, tell me of transit trees The ghosts, the memories in pityspare Show me the leafy home of the wild bees Show me the snowy summits dim in the air Show me the snowy summits dim in air Tell me of things afar In valleys silent under moon and star Dim hollows hushed with night The lofty cedars misty in the light Wild clusters of the vine While the odors of the pine The eagles' irie lifted to the moon High places on quiet afternoon A shadow swiffens by A thrilling scream startles the cliff And dies across the woodland to a dream Ah, now he springs from the bow It flickers, he has lost Out of the copesy sprang This is the floating briar where he tossed The leaves are yet a tremble where he sang Here, a long vista opens, look This is the way he took Through the pale poplars by the pond Hark, he is shouting in the field beyond Oh, there he goes, through the alder clothes He leaves me here behind him in his flight And yet my heart goes with him out of sight What whispered spell a fairy calls me On from dell to dell I hear the voice It wanders in a dream Now in the grove, now on the hill Now on the fading stream Lead on, you know the way Lead on to Arcady Or fields asleep by river bank a brim Down leafy ways dewy and cool and dim By dripping rocks dark dwellings of the gnome Where hurrying waters dash their crest to foam I follow where you lead Down winding paths across the flowery mead Down silent hollows where the woodbind blows Up water-courses scented by the rose I follow the wandering voice I follow, I rejoice I fade away into the age of gold We two together lost in forest old Oh, ferny and timey paths Oh, fields of Aden Canyons and cliffs by mortal feet untrodd Oh, souls that weary and are heavy laden Here is the peace of God Lo, now the clamoring hours are on the way Faintly the pine-tops redden the ray From veil to veil fleet-footed rumors run With sudden apprehension of the sun A light wind stirs the filmy tops Of delicate dim furs And on the river border blows Breaking the shy bud softly to a rose Sing out, O frostal song I follow on, my king Lead me forever through the crimson dawn Till the world ends, lead me on Who there he shouts again He sways, and now, up springing from the bow Flashing a glint of dew upon the ground Without a sound, he drops into a valley And is gone, in the poem This recording is in the public domain Lead on to Arcady Ah, died I'll find it Joy of the Morning by Edwin Markham Read for LibriVox.org by Larry Wilson Hear you, little bird, shouting its wing Above the broken wall Shout louder yet, no song can tell at all Sing to my soul in the deep still wood Tis wonderful beyond the wildest word I'd tell it, too, if I could Oft when the white still dawn lifted the skies And pushed the hills apart I've felt it like a glory in my heart The world's mysterious stir But had no throat like yours, my bird Or such a listener End of poem This recording is in the public domain Youth and Time by Edwin Markham Recorded for LibriVox.org by Larry Wilson Once I remember the world was young The rills rejoiced with a silver tongue The field-larks sat in the wheat and sang The thrushes shout in the woodland rang Cliffs in the perilous sands afar were softened to mist By the morning star For youth was with me, I know it now And a light shone out from his wreathed brow He turned the fields to enchanted ground He touched the rays with a dreamy sound But alas he vanished, the time appeared The spirit of ages, old and weird He crushed and scattered by beamy wings He dragged me forth from the court of kings He gave me doubt and a bloom of beard The spirit of ages, old and weird The wonder went from the field of corn The glory died on the craggy horn And suddenly all was strange and gray And the rocks came out on the trodden way I hear no more the wild thrush sing He is silent now on the peaches swing Something is gone from the house of mirth Something is gone from the hills of earth Time hurries me on with a wizard hand And turns the earth to a homeless land He stays my life with a stingy breath And darkens its depths with foreknowledge of death Calls memories back on their path apace Sends desperate thoughts to the soul's dim place Time murders our youth with his sorrow and sin And pushes us on to the windowless inn End of poem, this recording is in the public domain A satyr song by Edwin Markham Read for LibriVox.org by Larry Wilson I know by the stir of the branches the way she went And at times I can see where a stem of grass has bent She's the secret and light of my life She allures to elude But I follow the spell of your beauty Where to ever the mood I have followed all night in the hills And my breath is deep But she flies on before like a voice in the veil of sleep I follow the print of her feet in the wild river bed And lo she calls gleefully down from a cliff overhead End of poem, this recording is in the public domain A cry in the night by Edwin Markham Read for LibriVox.org by Larry Wilson Well, well, well Before the flaring world goes down Into the song of the poet pale mixes the laugh of the clown Grim, grim, grim is the road we go to the dead Yet we must on For as something dim pushes the soul ahead Where, where, where through the dust and shadow of things Will the fleeing fates with their wild mains bear These tribes of slaves and kings End of poem, this recording is in the public domain Phase by Edwin Markham Read for LibriVox.org by Larry Wilson One secret night I stood where ocean pours Eternal waters on the yellow shores I saw the drift of phase that prosper saw Their feet had no more sound than blowing straw And little hands held light in little hands They chased a fleeing billow down the sands But turned in the nick of time And mad with glee raced back again before the swelling sea End of poem, this recording is in the public domain In Death Valley by Edwin Markham Read for LibriVox.org by Larry Wilson There came grey stretches of volcanic plains Bear, Lone, and Treeless The Nibleek Lone Hill Like to the Dolores Hill that Dabel saw A round were heaps of ruins piled between the burner sorrow And the water a care And from the stillness of the down-crushed walls One pillar rose up against the moon There was a nameless presence everywhere In the grey soil there was a purple stain And the grey reticent rocks were dyed with blood Blood of a vast unknown calamity It was the mark of some ancestral grief Grief that began before the ancient flood End of poem, this recording is in the public domain At Dawn by Edwin Markham Read for LibriVox.org by Larry Wilson Just then the branches lightly stirred See out of the apple-bows a bird bursts music-mat Into the blue abyss Rothschild would give his gold for this The wealth of nations if he knew And find a profit in the business too End of poem, this recording is in the public domain Follow Me by Edwin Markham Read for LibriVox.org by Larry Wilson O friend, we never choose the better part Until we set the cross up in the heart I know I cannot live until I die Till I am nailed upon it wild and high And sleep in the tomb for a full three days dead With angels at the feet and at the head But then in the great brightness I shall rise To walk with stiller feet below the skies End of poem, this recording is in the public domain In Poppy Fields by Edwin Markham Read for LibriVox.org by Larry Wilson Here the poppy hosts assemble How they startle, how they tremble All the royal hoods unpinned blow out lightly in the wind Here is gold to labor for, here is pillage worth a war Man that in the city's grind come Before the heart is blind End of poem, this recording is in the public domain The Joy of the Hills by Edwin Markham Read for LibriVox.org by Larry Wilson I ride on the mountaintops, I ride I have found my life and am satisfied Onward I ride in the blowing oats Checking the field-larks rippling notes Lightly I sweep from steep to steep Over my head through the branches high Come glimpses of a rushing sky The tall oats brush my horse's flanks While poppies crowd on the sunny banks A bee booms out of the scented grass A jade laughs with me as I pass I ride on the hills, I forgive, I forget Life's horde of regret All the terror and pain of the chafing chain Grind on, oh city's grind I leave you a blur behind I am lifted late, the skies expand Here the world's heaped gold is a pile of sand Let them weary and work in the narrow walls I ride with the voices of waterfalls I swing on as one in a dream I swing down the area hollows I shout, I sing The world has gone like an empty word My body's a bow in the wind My heart a bird End of poem, this recording is in the public domain The Invisible Bride by Edwin Markham Read for LibriVox.org by Larry Wilson The low-voiced girls that go In gardens of the Lord Like flowers of the field they grow And sisterly accord Their whispering feet are white Along the leafy ways They go in whirls of light Too beautiful for praise And in their band forsooth Is one to set me free The one that touched my youth The one God gave to me She kindles the desire Whereby the gods survive The white ideal fire that keeps my soul alive Now at the wondrous hour She leaves her star supreme And comes in the night's still power To touch me with a dream Symbol of mystery on roads beyond our can Softly she comes to me And goes to God again End of poem, this recording is in the public domain The Valley by Edwin Markham Read for LibriVox.org by Larry Wilson I know a valley in the summer hills Haunted by little winds and daffodils Faint footfalls and soft shadows pass at noon Noiseless at night the clouds assemble there And ghostly summits hang below the moon Dim visions lightly swung in silent air End of poem, this recording is in the public domain The Climb of Life by Edwin Markham Read for LibriVox.org by Larry Wilson There's a feel of all things flowing And no power of earth can bind them There's a sense of all things growing And through all their forms a glowing Of the shaping souls behind them And the break of beauty heightens With the swiftening of the motion And the soul behind it lightens As a gleam of splendor whitens From a running wave of ocean See the still hand of the shaper Moving in the dusk of being Burns at first a misty taper Like the moon in veil of vapor When the rack of night is fleeing In the stone a dream is sleeping Just a tinge of life, a tremor In the tree a soul is creeping Last a rush of angels sweeping With the skies beyond the dreamer So the Lord of Life is flinging out A splendor that conceals him And the God is softly singing And on secret ways is winging Till the rush of song reveals him In the poem this recording is In the public domain The Tragedy by Edwin Markham Read for LibriVox.org by Larry Wilson Oh, the fret of the brain And the wounds and the worry Oh, the thought of love And the thought of death And the soul in its silent hurry But the stars break above And the fields flower under And the tragical life of man goes on Surrounded by beauty and wonder In the poem this recording is In the public domain Divine Vision by Edwin Markham Read for LibriVox.org by Larry Wilson Can it be the master knows Cosmic blossom blows? Yes, at times the Lord of Light Breaks forth wonderful and white And he strikes a corded lyre In a rush of whirlwind fire And he sees before him Past souls and planets in a glass And within the music Here's all the motions of all spheres All the whispers of all feet Cries of triumph and retreat Songs of systems and of souls Circling to their mighty goals So the Lord of Light beholds How the cosmic flower unfolds In the poem this recording is In the public domain Midsummer Noon by Edwin Markham Read for LibriVox.org by Larry Wilson Yonder a workman under the cool bridge Resting at midday watches the glancing midge While twinkling lights and murmurs of the stream Press into the dim fabric of his dream The misty hollows in the drowsy ridge How like an airy fantasy they seem In the poem this recording is In the public domain One Life, One Law by Edwin Markham Read for LibriVox.org by Larry Wilson What do we know? What need we know of the great world To which we go? We peer into the tomb As walls are dim As doors are dark Be still, O morning heart Nor seek to make the tongueless silence speak Be still, be strong Nor wish to find a way Who leave the world behind Voices and forms forever gone Into the darkness of the dawn What is their wisdom clear and deep That as men so they surely reap That every thought, that every deed To the soul for seed They have no word we do not know Nor yet the cherubim aglow with God We know that virtue saves They know no more beyond the graves In the poem this recording is In the public domain Griefs by Edwin Markham Read for LibriVox.org by Larry Wilson The rains of winter scourged the wild Days they darkened on the field Now where the wings of winter beat The poppies ripple in the wheat The pitiless griefs came thick and fast Life's bow was naked in the blast Till silently amid the gloom They blew the wintry heart to bloom In the poem this recording Is in the public domain An Old Road by Edwin Markham Read for LibriVox.org by Larry Wilson A host of poppies, a flight of swallows The flurry of rain and a wind That follows shepherds, the leaves In the sheltered hollows For the forest is shaken and thinned Over my head are the furs for rafter The crows blow south and my heart goes after I kiss my hands to the world with rafter Is it idon or mystical end Or the whirl of the fields and the windy weather How the barley breaks and blows together Oh, glad is the re-bird afloat in the heather Oh, the whole world is glad of the wind End of poem, this recording Is in the public domain The Newcomers by Edwin Markham Read for LibriVox.org by Larry Wilson Two swallows, each preening Along glossy feather Now they gossip and dart through The silvery weather Oh, praise to the highest, two lovers together Free, free in the fathomless world of air No fate to oppose and no fortune to sunder Blue sky overhead, green sky breaking under And their home on the cliff in the midst Of the wonder hung high beyond fear On the gray granite stair End of poem, this recording Is in the public domain Music by Edwin Markham Read for LibriVox.org by Larry Wilson It is the last appeal to man Voice crying since the world began The cry of the ideal Cry to aspirations that would die The last appeal In it is heard the pathos of the final word Voice tender and heroical Imperious voice that knoweth well To wreck the reasonings of years To strengthen rebel hearts with tears End of poem, this recording Is in the public domain Face song by Edwin Markham Read for LibriVox.org by Larry Wilson My life is a dream A dream in the moon's cool beam Someday I shall wake and desire A touch of the infinite fire But now it is enough that I be In the light of the sea Enough that I climb with the cloud When the winds of the morning are loud Enough that I fade with the stars When the door of the east unbars End of poem, this recording Is in the public domain The Old Earth by Edwin Markham Read for LibriVox.org by Larry Wilson What will it be if we find no traces There in the golden heaven If we find no memories Of the Old Earth left behind No visions of familiar forms and faces Reminders of old voices and old places Yet could we bear it if it should remind End of poem, this recording Is in the public domain Divine Adventure by Edwin Markham Read for LibriVox.org by Larry Wilson At times a youth so whispered legend tales Like highless tubes to drink By fours hidden brink And fair hands draw him down To darkened wells Fair hands that hold him fast With laughter at the last Have power to draw him lightly down To be in elfin chambers Under the gray sea And I, O men of earth, I too, when dawn was at the dew Was drawn as highless downward And beheld spirits of youth and eld What swung down endless caverns to the deep Saw fervid jewels sparkle in their sleep Saw glad gnomes working in the dusty light Saw great rocks crouching in the primal night I was drawn down and after many days Returned with stiller feet to walk the upper ways End of poem, this recording Is in the public domain Song Made Flesh by Edwin Markham Read for LibriVox.org by Larry Wilson I have no glory in these songs of mine If one of them can make a brother strong It came down from the peaks of the divine I heard it in the heaven of lyric song The one who builds the poem into fact He is the rightful owner of it all The pale words are with God's own power packed When brave souls answer their bugle call And so I ask no man to praise my song But I would have him build it in his soul For that great praise would make me glad and strong And build the poem to a perfect whole End of poem, this recording Is in the public domain Oh poet, thou art holding with a vow The light of higher worlds is on thy brow And freedom's stars soaring in thy breast Go, be a dauntless voice, a bugle cry In darkening battle, when the winds are high A clear, sane cry wherein the God has heard To speak to men the one redeeming word No peace for thee, no peace Till blind oppression cease The song of love that I sing Till blind oppression cease The stones cry from the walls Till the gray injustice falls Till strong men come to build in freedom fate The pillars of the new fraternal state Let trifling pipe be mute Fling by the languid lute Take down the trumpet and confront the hour And speak to toil-worn nations from a tower Take down the horn wherein the thunder sleep Blow battles into men, call down the fire The daring, the long-purpose, the desire To send with faith into the human deep And ring into the troops of right a cheer Make known the truth of man and holy fear Send forth thy spirit into a storm of song A tempest flinging fire upon the wrong End of poem, this recording is in the public domain The Toilers by Edwin Markham Read for LibriVox.org by Larry Wilson Their blind feet drift in the darkness And no one is leading Their toil is the pasture where high ends And harpies are feeding In all lands and always the wronged, The homeless, the humbled Till the cliff-like pride of the spoilers Is shaken and crumbled Till the pillars of hell are uprooted And left to their ruin And a rose garden gladdens the places No rose ever blew in Where now men huddle together And whisper and hearken Or hold their bleak hands over embers That die out and darken The anarchies gather and thunder Few, few are the freighters And loud is the revel at night In the camp of the traitors Say, Shelley, where are you? Where are you? Our hearts are a-breaking The fight in the terrible darkness, The shame, the forsaking The leaves shower down and are sport For the winds that come after And so are the toilers in all the lands The jest and the laughter of nobles, Though toilers scourged on In the furrow as cattle, Or flung as a meat to the cannons The hunger and battle. End of poem, this recording is in the public domain. On the Gulf of Night by Edwin Markham Read for LibriVox.org by Larry Wilson The world said Petrels dwell For evermore on Windy Headland Or on Ocean Floor Or pierce the violent skies With perilous flights That fret men in their palaces at nights. Breaking enchanted slumbers East full boat With shudderings of their wild and dolorous note They blow about the black And barren skies They fill the night with ineffectual cries. There is for them Not anything before But sound of sea and sight Of soundless shore Save when the darkness glimmers And hope sings softly Soon it shall be day. Then for a golden space The shades are thinned And dawn seems blowing seaward on the wind. But soon the dark comes wilder than before And swift around them breaks a sullen roar The tempest calls to windward and to lee And they are seabirds on the homeless sea. End of poem, this recording is in the public domain. A Harvest Song by Edwin Markham Read for LibriVox.org By Larry Wilson The gray bulk of the granaries Uplume against the sky The harvest moon has dwindled They have housed the corn and rye. And now the idle reapers Lounge against the bolted doors Without our hungry harvesters Within enchanted stores. Low they had bred while they were Out of toiling in the sun. Now they are strolling beggars For the harvest work is done. They are the gods of husbandry. They gather in the sheaves. But when the autumn strips the wood They're drifting with the leaves. They plow and sow and gather In the glory of the corn. They know the moon. They know the pitiless rains before the morn. They know the sweep of furrowed fields That darken in the gloom. A little while their hope unearth They never mourn the tomb. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Two taverns by Edwin Markham. Read for LibriVox.org By Larry Wilson I remember how I lay on a bank A summer day. Peering into weed and flour Watched a puppy all one hour. Watched it till the air grew chill In the darkness of the hill. Till I saw a wild bee dart out Of the cold to the poppy's heart. Saw the petals gently spin And shut the little lodger in. Then I took the quiet road To my own secure abode. All night long his tavern hung. Now it rested. Now it swung. I asleep in steadfast tower. He asleep in stirring flower. In our hearts the same delight. In the hushes of the night. Over us both the same dear care. As we slumbered unaware. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. The Man Under the Stone By Edwin Markham Read for LibriVox.org By Larry Wilson When I see a working man With mouths to feed Up day after day In the dark before the dawn And coming home night after night Through the dusk Swinging forward like some fierce silent animal I see a man doomed to roll A huge stone up an endless steep. He strains it onward inch By stubborn inch. Crouched always in the shadow of the rock. See where he crouches. Twisted, cramped, misshapen. He lifts for their life The veins not in darken. Blood surges into his face. Now he loses. Now he wins. Now he loses. Loses, God of my soul. He digs his feet in to the earth. There is a moment of terrified effort Will the huge stone break his hold And crush him as it plunges To the gulf? The silent struggle goes on and on. Like two contending in a dream. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Song to the divine Mother by Edwin Markham, read for LibriVox.org by Larry Wilson. Authors Note This song should be read in the light of the deep and comforting truth that the Divine Feminine as well as the Divine Masculine principle is in God, that he is Father Mother, Two and One. It follows from this truth that the dignity of womanhood is grounded in the divine nature itself. The fact that the deity is man-woman was known to the ancient poets and sages and was grafted into the nobler religions of mankind. The idea is implied in the doctrine of the Divine Father, taught by our Lord in the Gospels, and it is declared in the first chapter of Genesis in the words, God said, Let us make men in our own image, after our likeness. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he them, male and female created he them. Song to the Divine Mother Come mighty mother, from the bright to bode, Lift the low heavens and hush the earth again. Come when the moon throws down a shining road across the sea, Come back to weary man. But if the moon throws out across the sea too dim a light, too wavering away, Come when the sunset paves a path for thee, Across the waters fading into gray. Red nations saw thee dimly in release, In Aphrodite rising from the foam, some glimmer of thy beauty was on Greece, Some trembling of thy passion was on Rome. For ages thou hast been the dim desire That warmed the bridal chamber of the mind. Come burning through the heavens with holy fire, And spread divine contagion on mankind. Come down, O Mother, to the helpless land, That we may frame our freedom into fate. Come down and on the throne of nations stand, That we may build thy beauty in the state. Come shining in upon our daily road, Up hold the hero heart and light the mind, Quicken the strong to lift the people's load, And bring back buried justice to mankind. Shine through the frame of nations for a light, Move through the hearts of heroes in a song. It is thy beauty, wilder than the night, That hushed the heavens and keeps the high gods strong. I know, Supernal Woman, thou to seek no song a man, Nor worship and no praise, But thou wits'dt have dead lips begin to speak, And dead feet rise to walk in mortal ways. Yet listen, Mighty Mother, to the child, Who has no voice but song to tell his grief. Nothing but tears and broken numbers wild, Nothing but woodland music for relief. This song is but a little broken cry, Less than the whisper of a river-read. Yet thou canst hear it in the souls that die, Feel in its pain the vastness of our need. I would not break the mouth of song To tell my life's long passion and my heart's long grief, But thou canst hear the ocean in one shell, And see the whole world's winter in one leaf. So here I stand at the world's weary feet, And cry the sorrow of the world's dumb years. I cry because I hear the world's heartbeat, Weary of hope, weary of life and tears. For ages thou hast breathed upon mankind, A faint, wild tenderness, a vague desire. For ages still the whirlwinds of the mind, And sent on lyric seers the rush of fire. And yet the world is held by wintry chain, Dead to thy social passion, Holy One. The dried-up furrows knead the vital rain, The cold seeds the quick spirit of the sun. Some day our homeless cries will draw thee down, And the old brightness on the ways of men Will send a hush upon the jangling town, And broken hearts will learn to love again. Come, bride of God, to fill the vacant throne, Touch the dim earth again with sacred feet. Come build the holy city of white stone, And let the whole world's gladness be complete. Come with the face that hushed the heavens of old. Come with thy maidens in a mist of light, Haste for the night falls and the shadows fold, And voices cry and wander on the height. In the poem This recording is in the public domain. THE FLYING MIST by Edwin Markham Read for LibriVox.org by Larry Wilson I watch afar the moving mystery, The wool-shod, formless terror of the sea. The mystery whose lightest touch Can change the world God made to fantasy, death's strange. Under its spell all things grow old and gray, As they will be beyond the judgment day. All voices at the lifting of some hand Seem calling to us from another land. Is it the still power of the supple curve That makes all things the race of things the twir? It touches one by one the wayside posts, And they are gone, a line of hurrying ghosts. It creeps upon the towns with stealthy feet, And men are phantoms on a phantom street. It strikes the towers and they are shafts of air, Above the spectres passing in the square. The city turns to ashes, spire by spire. The mountains perish with their peaks afire, The fading city and the falling sky are swallowed In one doom without a cry. It treks the traveller fleeing with the gale, Fleeing toward home and friends without avail. This brings upon him, and he is a ghost, A blurred shape moving on a soundless coast. God, it pursues my love along the stream, Swirls round her and she is for ever dream. But hate has touched the universe withheld, And left me only in a world dispelled. End of poem, this recording is in the public domain. From the Hand of a Child by Edwin Markham, Read for LibriVox.org by Larry Wilson. One day a child ran after me in the street To give me a half-blown rose, a fire-white rose. It's dim all warm, yet from the tight-shet hand The little gift seems somehow more to me than all men strive for in the turbid towns, Than all they hoard up through a long wild life, And as I breathed the heart-breath of the flower, The youth of earth broke on me like a dong, And I was with the wide-eyed wandering things, Back in the far-forgotten buried time. A lost whirl came back softly with the rose. I saw a glad host follow with lusty cries, Diana flying with her maiden's white, down the long reaches of the laurel hills. Above the sea I saw wreath of girls Fading to air in far-off poppy fields. I saw a blithe youth take the open road, His thoughts ran on before him merrily. Sometimes he dipped his feet in stirring brooks, At night he slept upon a bed of boughs. This in my soul. Then suddenly a shape, a spectre wearing yet the mask of dust, Jostled against me as he passed by, And lo, the jarring city, and the drift of feet surged back upon me, Like the grieving sea. In the poem, this recording is in the public domain, At the Meeting of Seven Valleys, by Edwin Markham, read for LibriVox.org by Larry Wilson. At the meeting of seven valleys in the west I came upon a host of silent souls, seated beside still waters on the grass. It was a place of memories and tears, terrible tears. I rested in a wood, and there the bird that mourns for Ittis sang. Ittis that touched the tears of all the world, But climbing onward toward the purple peaks, I passed on silent feet white multitudes, Beyond the reach of peering memories, lying asleep upon the scented banks, Their bodies burning with celestial fire. A mighty awe came on me at the thought, The strangeness of the beatific sleep, The vision of God, the mystic bread of rest. In the poem, this recording is in the public domain, The Rockbreaker, by Edwin Markham, read for LibriVox.org by Larry Wilson. Causing he leans upon his sledge and looks, A labour blasted toiler. So have I seen, on Shasta's top, A pine stand silent on a cliff, Stripped of its glory of green leaves and boughs, Its great trunk split by fire, Its gray bark blackened by the thunder-smoke, Its life a sacrifice to some blind purpose of the destinies. In the poem, this recording is in the public domain, These Songs Will Perish, by Edwin Markham, read for LibriVox.org by Larry Wilson. These Songs Will Perish, like the shape severe, The singer and the songs die out forever, But star-eyed truth greater than song or singer sweeps hurrying on, Far off she sees a gleam upon a peak. She cried to man of old to build the enduring, glad fraternal state. Cries yet through all the ruins of the world, Through karnak, through the stones of Babylon, Cries for a moment through these fading songs. On winged feet a form of fadeless youth, She goes to meet the coming centuries, And hurrying snatches up some human reed, Blows through at once her terror-bearing note, And breaks and throws away. It is enough if we can be a bugle at her lips, To scatter her contagion on mankind.