The Hunter

I have loved beauty, and I have pursued her
And found her at night wearing moon-silvered jade.
With tremulous lips and a song I have wooed her,
Joyously, rapturously unafraid.

Her feet have been dancing on moon-rippled water
While lighted star-lanterns hung low in the trees.
Her voice has been calling, "Sing to me daughter,"
When killdeer were spilling their dawn symphonies.

Her song still enthralls me when I am toiling
At tasks that enslave me, but song shall unload
The burden within me till I am foiling
Defeat with her stardust illuming my road.

Oh, I shall love beauty and I shall pursue her
When death's lyric bugle at last calls release.
Renewed, I shall find her and tenderly woo her
Forever in valleys of infinite peace.

The Missionary

The candle of his faith, unwavering, bright,
In glowing bids the darkling doubt take flight;
Dispels the shadow of the albatross
Of bleak discouragement ... He views the cross
Upon a hill ... and hears the Master's word:
"Be thou my voice to those who have not heard
My truths." In sandals of humility
And robed in selfless love, compassionately
While shepherding the flock, he golden-threads
The days for other shepherds ... Softly treads
An angel by his side--His Father knows!
Counting the hours by blessings, not by woes,
He pushes onward till his day is done
When lamps of God appearing, one by one,
Speak, "Peace!" Sweet is his rest companioning
With quietude what well-spent moments bring.
There comes a still, small voice, a lyric call:
"The greatest is the servant unto all."

Spirit of Democracy Speaks

O puny men who wrangle, clink the coins
While greed and hate's death-javelins are hurled,
Would that you knew the strength within my loins--

My virile power to beget a world
That feels love's passion; where the dark abyss
Of race and creed is bridged; hope's flag unfurled.

I can erect a new Acropolis
Whose soul is peace. Then nail-pierced hands will hold
Your own that feel no more the saber's kiss.

Your sons will grow to men, live to be old;
Will sow and reap where now is Calvary--
Not be cut down in youth, their birthright sold.

All nations, join in one sovereignity,
And wave the Banner of Democracy!

Democracy's Acropolis

The path which leads to world democracy
Is overgrown with weeds because untrod
Save by a few great souls, who reverently,
Upon their knees, sought out and found their God.
The path was marked, its pattern plainly seen
When Washington met God at Valley Forge.
Again it led to fruited valleys, green
With peace, when Lincoln bridged the yawning gorge--
Connected earth with Heaven's power and might.
He heard his Pilot's voice. The ship of State
Was anchored safely; God's revealing Light
Guides surely when the helmsman's course is straight.
O erring man, again bridge the abyss,
Then build democracy's Acropolis!

Lincoln

Like one lone pine against the blast, he stood
Fighting for oneness, one humanity;
Seeing the vision of a brotherhood
Where men as brothers know love's alchemy.
Against discordant patterns of his time
His giant soul rebelled. Through every squall
He steered the ship of State. The gyves of crime
Wounded and scarred his heart. He heard the call
Of brother-man within the chrysalis
Of ebony, and dared to strike the blow
That broke the slavery-chains, bridged the abyss
Of race, and birthed a nation-soul whose glow,
Enhanced by time, lends hope to other lands.
Majestic as the pine this giant stands.

Portrait of Lincoln's Second Mother

(Sarah Johnson Lincoln)

December Planting

Tall and strong she was, her gray-blue eyes
Held steadiness and kindness, firmness too.
Before Tom Lincoln's cabin in surprise
She noted how the wind could whistle through
The chinks between the logs, and saw no door
To close against December--just a hole
Wide gaping; moist foot-printed earth, the floor.                                
Why had she come? As panic touched her soul,
She turned and saw young Abe: A wordless pleading
Was in her face. His eyes, deep-set and gray,
Hungry for mothering sought hers. Love-heeding,
She sensed Divinity had marked her way.
Holding him close, there on the frozen sod,
She knew her task: to keep him close to God.

April Promise

Abe lay in silvered quietude, the moon
Of promise shining through the attic door;                                        
For love and willing work had wonder-strewn
His world. Light footsteps on the new pine floor
Below intoned the stillness. Reverent
He touched the softness of his feathered tick--
"Not corm husks, Ma", he whispered. "You should see                              
Our cabin now, all whitewashed, with a thick,                                    
Smooth door from our own pines ... But best of all                                
She loves us, Ma, and keeps us near to you.                                      
She says some day when I am strong and tall                                      
God has a work for me--Can this be true?"
Asleep when Sarah came and smoothed his head,
He dreamed of angels by his prayer-sweet bed.

Golden Harvest

Sarah was regal still, and Abe full grown
Stood towering above her. Awed, in pride,
She viewed the harvest from her seeds, love-sown:
A man of God! When Thomas Lincoln died
And Abe, his arms about her, gently said,
"Ma I'll take care of you," in his embrace
Again she felt his greatness; once more read                                      
The prophecy within his craggy face.
Fulfillment came: The Nation's President!
Her Abe! Once more as long ago--in tears--
His eyes sought hers and found, with wonderment,
The mother love that had enriched his years.
Through her had God prepared him? Need she ask?
Enough to know she had fulfilled her task.

The Way Illumined

The chilly wind was howling, whistling through
Nude trees. The clouds of war were ominous
With death. In tears our country's Father knelt
In prayer until, above the voice of War,
He heard an angel-trumpet's mighty blast;
And light as from a thousand suns streamed down.
He heard the song America would sing,
The anthem that would echo from her farms,
Her homes, her shops and temples: Victory
In Union! Then the shadowy angel spoke--
The words to flash upon the screen of time--
"While stars remain and Heaven sends down dew
Shall this republic last!" His pinioned faith
Touched knowledge ... He arose in awe to see,
Beyond the crimson footprints in the snow,
The way illumined by the Torch of God.

(Taken from an account of Washington's vision as
told by Anthony Sherman, who listened as Washington
related it to a confidential officer.)

Lincoln

He gave our nation of his giant strength.
When it was weak and could not stand alone,
He held its groping tottering form. At length
Triumphant, it emerged from war's dark zone,
Fulfilled the vision that this prophet saw
Upon his knees, his weary massive head
Bowed low. The ice of fearful hearts would thaw
Before the sunshine of his love. Though dead
He walks the earth to temper every hour,
For death but gave him every nation's lands
In which to dwell with tender, deathless power.
The work of this loved commoner withstands
Erosion of ill winds. He has his place
Within the universal heart's embrace.

The Improvement Era
First in MFCP Clinic Poems, Spring Retreat 1951

Song for an Infant Son

O little son, asleep within my arms,
I think I hear the carillons of peace
Re-echoing to still the war-alarms
And bring, at last, the chrism of release.
O darling boy, this prodigal, the earth,
Long in travail, will joy in giving birth
To peaceful giants who on living sod
Will build a New Acropolis to God.
O little man-child, see the rifted night!
Come, chosen builder, firmly grasp the rod.
Awake, my son, behold the growing light!

New Song

When the last torches
Of the avatars have ceased to flame,
And the wings of seraphim
No longer shadow the earth;
When the last thinning wine
Of liberty is drunken;
When even the ghost of Lincoln,
Hearing the drums of death
In the distance,
Stalks bonily through the night,
Then will the I-didn't-believe-it people
Shriek to the poet-prophets,
"Burn your incense upon the altars
And sing your new song before the Throne!"

Different

Song for Fledgling Eagles

(To Our Missionary Youth)

O youth, you stand star-tall upon your dreams,
The destiny of nations in your hands.
Go, plant your lilies in cool crystal streams;
Erase the crimson stains from ravished lands.
Be now the weavers of the tapestry
Of freedom, making warp and woof skeins strong,
Its pattern flawless with democracy--
The strength of fledgling eagles is your song!
Your wings untried, speak from your hearts, though young,
Your voices tuned to live and love and laughter
Ring with a clearer and a truer tongue
A freedom lyric touching Heaven's rafter.

Chaste-strong, O youth, clasp hands with every race--
The vineyard also lies across the sea--
No matter what their creed or tint of face,
For God, through you, will build an empery
Of peace. His ensign to a troubled world,
Seek out the hungering ... the old ... the child ...
Till all humanity will see uncurled
His Royal Banner, and the atom mild
And gentle with its Atlas-strength, will bless
All men and earth will feel a miracle
Swelling its barren womb with tenderness
And one again become peace-beautiful.

O reverent youth, yours is the task to still
The tempest and awake the Lazarus-heart.
Before the high, white thunders of your will
The death-cowled years forever shall depart.
Clasp hands with God and every race and see
A peaceful world emerge from agony.

Song of Hannah

Down through the corridors of centuries
Echoes the song of Hannah to impart
Its litany of universal pleas
That man again reflect the Master's art.
We, through our sons, could bring an end to war
If every mother followed Hannah's way.
Would that her cry might echo planet-far,
"For him, my child, I prayed, and from today                                                  
I lend him to the Lord!" The joy of this:
A race of fair young gods who would annul
The thrall of might, the saber's piercing kiss,
Rebuilding Eden through love's miracle!
Our sons lent to the Lord! O mothers, we
May all be Hannahs shaping destiny.

Song for a Man-Child

Little man-child in repose,
I would golden-thread your woes,
Give to you a thornless rose;                                                      
Spare you from each harmful thing,
From the bee would take its sting;                                                  
Beg time's hand with gentle touch
Hold your dreams from shattering,
Keep for you a brimming hutch ...
Yet I dare not ask too much

Tragic would it be to shield
From the world that calls to wield
Strength to bid the battlefield
Bloom with lilies ... Grow! Rescind
War, my son, love-disciplined.
Eaglet, try your wings! Be free!
Loose the Master's winnowing wind!
Lest the earth should, dying, see
Even babes in agony.

I Love a Lark-Song Too

He was my problem boy: I had been told
To use severity against his vice.
Yet that first week of teaching, once or twice
A wonder filled his eyes. Before the old
Defiance gleamed, I saw beneath his bold
Contempt-defense, a thrush-flute melt the ice
About his heart; a timid colt entice
His tenderness ... The day I saw him hold
A wounded lark that could not soar the skies
And bind its broken wing and soothe its fear
Then softly say, "Sing, little lark!" I knew
And loved my problem lad. Then as his eyes
Pleaded his hungering, I drew him near
And gently said, "I love a lark-song too."

Flute-Song

I heard a flute
Call from the hawthorne tree.
In crystal ripples its salute
Curved on the breeze, a star-splashed rhapsody.

It seemed I heard
In lilting tenderness
A voice long stilled. Sheer magic stirred
The splashing stars into my love's caress.

His voice came through
The flute-song with a strain
Of sadness. He was lonely too...
Then hark! There came again, and yet again,

Triumphant bars...
My love at Heaven's gate
Was calling through a trillion stars:
"Love is eternal!" and "I wait! I wait!"

Chromatones
First in Lyrelle Contest

Song of Pinioned Courage

(In Memoriam to Dr. Grant S. Housh)

The blindness of his eyes but made his soul
Aware of beauty eyes may never see--
The heights and depths of truth's white mystery--
And gave the power to play a greater role.
Through deepest dark ascending to his goal,
His starward faith became a litany.
Hearing the call of immortality,
He stepped from earth to Heaven to be made whole.

A master lyrist, he lives on to sing
His song of pinioned courage, and the world
Kneeling before his altar of high love
Will know the beauty of his offering.
The gentle essence of his spirit curled
About men's hearts reflects the peace above.

Song of Praise

O Master Poet, for Thy immortal poems
That freely lilt from springtime's fluent tongue,
       I sing my praise to Thee.

I hear Thy footsteps in the April grasses;
Thy lyric voice when larks in the bronze hour
Release a crystal fountain for my thirst.
Thy fingers touch my face in April rain.
Serenity is in Thy symphonies
Strummed on night's harpsichord by silver birches.

O Master Poet, for Thy poetry
I see and hear in every living thing,
       My song ascends to Thee.

Song of the Lark

Song that echoes and calls and rings,
Of what brave hope do you chant today?
The lilting melody trills and swings.
Lark, how modest your brown and gray?

Of what brave hope do you chant today?
What is the message your glad heart sings?
Is it of nesting in meadow-hay,
Or baby larks with their untried wings?

The lilting melody trills and swings,
Happily-joyous and full of play.
Ripplingly-clear on the breeze it flings
Courage and hope in a roundelay.

Lark, how modest your brown and gray!
Love and hope that your message brings,
The joy of life that your songs portray,
How they echo on taut heart-strings.
        Song of the lark!

Notebook

Song of Fulfillment

Morning Wonder

"Your call is clear."--It was my teacher's voice--
"In marriage you will never be fulfilled.
Your star is rising" ... Pondering my choice,
The song of motherhood would not be stilled.
Could echoes, not the singing, bring content?
Acclaim? And never know the miracle
Of life beneath my heart; the wonderment
Of the shadowed valley, God there merciful?
A babe's first cry, my triumph! In my ear
Child voices whispered; I saw reaching hands ...
How could I let another bring them here,
My heritage be stone and barren strands?
My soul held morning-wonder as I dreamed
While far away a Temple spire gleamed.

High Noon Ecstasy

So morning passed, and at high noon I knelt
Before the altar with my love and spoke
Forever-vows. The seal of Heaven felt,
The "first command" renewed to us awoke
The lyrics of creation's primal song
Safe-locked within the chalice of my heart.
And in the heart of my young god, chaste-strong,
They rang--my song to his a counterpart.
We knew a prayer-sweet, mounting ecstasy
As birth ... and death ... bequeathed our home a soul.
Dreams were as shadows to reality;
Time spun for us fulfillment's aureole.
Life's fount was deep and clear with crystal bars;
The cup held to my lips, a cup of stars.

Silver Twilight

My sun, still high, was darkened. Spent with tears,
I knew the blighting kiss of early frost.
Along a pathway shadowed by my fears,
My children gently led me till I crossed
The bridge of hope to peace, and lifted up
My eyes to see the sun--And now they bring
Their babes ... I drink from my own star-filled cup
While beauty rims the shadows lingering.
Above the bronzing hills of truth where still
I garner dreams, I see my rising star ...
Forever vows! Beyond the last high hill,
The ultimate fulfillment ... My eyes afar,
I glimpse the grandeur of the choice I made,
And walk the silver twilight unafraid.

Song of Willow Trees

You never knew I kept the balm to ease
My city-loneliness? For country-bred
I need to hear the song of willow trees,
The cry of gulls and killdeer overhead.
I know a sunlit clearing where I rest,
Fresh-carpeted with clover, honey-sweet;                                      
A rolling lilied hillside where I quest;                                      
A country lane, dust-cushioned for my feet;                                  
I listen to the bullfrog's night quartette
When arms of dusk enfold a quiet town;                                        
A little church I enter nor forget
To wear your rose upon my simple gown--
You never knew I still keep all of these,
That I still hear the song of willow trees?

Song of a Young Wife

My days are made
Of song--
Of wind and sun and rain--
That wings along.

My nights are made
Of stars
That sing of blue lagoons
With coral bars.

My life is made
Of joy:
A man and home and love
And a baby boy.

Scimitar and Song

Star of Home

Alone, high on a hill, I watch the dusk
With soothing arms enfold a little town.
I wait to see the stars come out below
And name them one by one, then hasten down
When the bright star I love is beckoning.

The Archer
Hon. Men. in Quintain Contest

Remembered Sunday Worship

I heard God walking through the orchard grasses;
I felt His fingers in my clean, gold hair.
Wide-eyed, attuned, joy calling everywhere,
Mutely I sang a prayer,
Then ran to join the family waiting
To drive to church through cool, lark-anthemed air.

Builders of Peace, Begin Your Task

Those who have prophet-eyes
Now look beyond this selfish hour
To time untouched by greed's long ego-fingers,
And see apathy's limp spine strengthened
And the hurricanes of intolerance stilled.
The prophet-ears now hear,
Above the voices of diplomacy worn thin
And the mingled heart-cries of all nations,
Chords of universal harmony.
Then stone by shining stone
Men, working as brothers of the Royal Rank,
Will build the Millennium of Peace.

Gay little feet of black and white will skip
Down flowered lanes together;
Toil-imprinted hands, both light and swarthy-hued,
Will fold in prayer and clasp before love's altar,
Each face illumined by compassion.
When school bells ring, the schools in all the world
Will make each child a friend to every child.
Star-tall upon their dreams,
The youth will view beyond their own confining rim
And reach to take the hands of youth of every race
Then enter, side by side, through open doors
And build the Temple of their noblest dreams.

Listening, can you not hear the universal melody?
Builders of peace, begin your task!

Primal Beauty

Let me step lightly as the velvet footfalls
Of the young doe returning to her fawn.
Let me stand still to hear wild flowers breathing
And in the solitude of mountain dawn
With killdeer calling, view the Artist-touch
Of primal beauty--Do I ask too much?

Snow on the Prairie

How could I leave him there--my little boy
Who longed for beauty--in a prairie grave
Piled high with rocks lest hungry wolves annoy
His quiet sleep; with not one bloom to wave
Its fragrant brightness in November's chill?
We, who had listened to the young West calling
And answered with a song, must trek until
"Our valley" loomed. "Will there be fountains falling
In lily pools?" he asked. He loved each blossom
In our home garden. He found new loves too
There on the barren desert with its awesome
Still loneliness: gray lizards darting through
Sun-glinted sands ... How could I say goodbye
To him and leave? Cold-shrouded clouds dipped low.
White miracle of dawn! Glad was my cry
To see the prairie beautified by snow.

My Lovliest Valentine

IT was Valentine's Day. I sat in my city apartment and nostalgically recalled the groups of children I had taught in a country school, as they gathered with shining eyes and eager voices about the beautiful valentine box they had helped make bulging with valentines. Always, one of my own children was among this group at my desk before the bell rang for school to commence.

I smiled as I remembered the knocking on our door Valentine nights, and the sound of running footsteps which told us the children had placed their valentines, "To Mother and Dad," on the porch and were scampering to hide behind the two large lilacs, one on each side of the house, to watch our delight as we received them. With mellowed tenderness, I recalled the time, years ago, when I tried to pick up the valentine left us by our first-born son--only to find he had painted his heart on the porch with colored chalk. I smiled even more tenderly as I remembered his boyish laugh of triumph echoing through the bare lilac limbs at my repeated attempts to pick it up before I finally fathomed the reason I could not.

"Valentine Day in the city can never be as delightful as in the country," I said to no one in particular, for I was alone.

I was recalled from my memories by a gentle knock on my door. For a moment I even wondered if it could be someone leaving a valentine. My smile broadened as I said to myself, "Don't get foolish ideas, here in the loneliness of this city, and in an upstairs apartment at that."

I walked across the room and leisurely opened the door, to find no one there, closed it again, and sat down to read.

Was I dreaming or did I hear velvet footfalls in the hall?  Again came a gentle knock, then soft, but quickened footsteps retreating.

Eagerly I opened the door, this time to catch a glimpse of a bright skirt just disappearing around the corner of the hall leading to the stairway. The unmistakable fragrance of spring came to me. Then I saw them--a bouquet of a dozen yellow daffodils laughing up at me, thumb-tacked to the outside of my door, and hanging from them in their cellophane wrappings were two large chocolate hearts.

Quickly I went to the head of the stairs, and there stood a radiant young girl much like a daffodil herself with her yellow curls and sun-shiny smile. She was fairly bursting with the joy of her errand. Mine was the twelfth place she had quietly visited, leaving the cheery daffodil valentines, as gifts of a lovely, gracious lady in her eighties who had found, during her lifetime of service, that the sun she gave to others also warmed her own soul.

Now, whenever I get a little homesick for country joys, I recall my loveliest valendint and know the delightful friendliness of city hearts.
----------
(Published in Relief Society Magazine, February 1959, p. 115.)

In the Land of Sleep

Melvin

I thank the Lord for night; it brings him here
That I may mother him a little while--
This son of mine who sometimes seems so near
To me that I can almost see his smile.
When in my sleep, he walks and talks with me,
Tells me about his full life Over There,
And of his dreams--of how his soul is free.
Again he lets me comb his wayward hair.
I marvel at his manliness and charms--
The little boy is gone; this is a man.
I hold him close within my hungry arms;
I ease my aching heart while yet I can.
Then I awaken peaceful, comforted--
This living son of mine! He is not dead!