The New Joan, and Other Poems

The Child

Give me a new soul, God of all things free, Help me to dream the golden dream of youth, Till gazing deep into the eyes of Truth The dream returns in life that is to be.

With Thee I breathe a fire most strange and bright, Rosy as dawning, jubilant as day, A light eternal on the time-worn way, A morning note to stir the ag├Ęd night.

To sing the song of flower-time again It is to deck with joy an ancient door,-- A fresh rose, cosmic of each rose before, To link with wonder in the endless chain.

And as they play mid stars or 'neath the sun I ask a song for children everywhere, A gleam that dances with them unaware Since God, and they, and joy, are wholly One.

The Law

If Law be given my hand to make I pray Thee, Lord, that I may break The old Law, resolute and hard And fickle as a chance-thrown card.

And ere I lay me down to sleep I pray Thee, Lord, new Law to keep, Great statutes made of Love and Pain, Beauty of Sorrow born again.

For I would find out Truth, my Lord, The soul behind the naked word, And at the bourne where life began I would inquire the law for man.

Perhaps a Voice may answer me That until man in woman be, Woman in man, the two in one, The latter days have not begun.

The woman-will of man a part, The more-of-man in woman's heart, From that great marriage pure of flaw May spring the Everlasting Law.

The Kitchen

"_Whoever makes a thing more bright He is an angel of all light_" So I, with every skill I can, Return to use of pot and pan.

Retrieve must I the ages' waste, And learn that what the years call 'Taste,' Is Hunger's sated brother, Sin. Lo, I shall dwell where Truths begin.

A kingdom enter, ancient, dear, Where red Fire lives, and Plenties are, Where Order summoned back to me Makes Labor sing, makes Beauty free.

So shall I take the golden wheat And make me loaves for men to eat; For I am Joan, whose pure desire Still keeps aflame the household fire.

The Land

I am back on the land of my fathers, And I tread it with double-soled boots, I hoe it with hands that are toil-worn Wearing joyful and picturesque suits.

I am clad, head to foot, in dull khaki That echoes my good mother--Earth, And I'm glad that my profile is "boyish," That my "song" is a whistle of mirth.

I can cut and convey to my cabin These logs that I need for the fire, And I hail the concern of each slacker Who is ribald anent my attire.

I am doing his bit, though he lingers. I am Joan--and not Peter Pan. Yet the vision that glows through my working Is the love that I bear to one man.

Something sings gently through the din of battle, Something spreads very softly rim on rim And every soldier hears, at times, a murmur Tender, incessant,--dim.

A tiny click of little wooden needles, Elfin amid the gianthood of war; Whispers of women, tireless and patient, Who weave the web afar.

Whispers of women, tireless and patient, "This is our heart's love," it would seem to say, "Wrought with the ancient tools of our vocation, Weave we the web of love from day to day."

And so each soldier, laughing, fighting,--dying Under the alien skies, in his great hour, May listen, in death's prescience all-enfolding, And hear a fairy sound bloom like a flower--

I like to think that soldiers, gaily dying For the white Christ on fields with shame sown deep, May hear the tender song of women's needles, As they fall fast asleep.

The World

It is a new world that my feet must tread, New, though the hurrying ages call it old, While fields that yesterday were cloth-of-gold Are all dissolving, like a film half-fled.

The wondrous 'stage' of life, its mimic joys; The deft accomplishment, the bubble fame; Statecraft bedecked as a career, a name; Art as a servitor that wealth employs--

These were the worlds our mothers counted new, These were the ways we still had kept our own, Until Eternal Law from His high throne Melted our world in sudden fire, and dew.

And now through mists of dew, through leaping flame We ride again upon an ancient quest, That we may bring Love home, no longer guest But Love Triumphant, ever to remain.

See the bright banner a new Day outflings; It shall be ours to hold it high and white. Again a Voice! And out of dawning light The deathless soul of Joan through us sings.

Spirit of Life, radiant and glad and free, Come, as of old, be born again of me. Through me recover that which man has lost, Mine was the making, mine the precious cost. Out of my body come the sons of men, Into my keeping give their souls again, And let me make this world God's little room Wherein Love's splendours live again and bloom.