Poetry

The Path of Peace

1.

THE MERCIFUL KNIGHT.

SwIrr, in a moment's thought, our lastingness is wrought From life, the transient wing.

Swift, in a moment's light, he mercy found,—that Knight Who rode alone in spring . . .

The Knight who sleeps in stone with ivy overgrown Knew this miraculous thing.

In a moment of the years the sun, like love through tears, Shone where the rain went by.

In a world where armoured men made swords their strength and then Rode darkly out to die, One heart was there estranged, one heart, one heart was changed While the cloud crossed the sun . . .

Mercy from long ago,.be mine that I may know Life's lastingness begun. 2.

THE WORLD INVISIBLE.

The mind of man environing its thought, Wherein a world within this world is wrought, —.

A shadowed face alone in fields of light. The lowly growth and long endeavour of will That waits and watches from its human hill,— A landmark -tree looming against the night.

World undiscovered within us, radiant-white, Through miracles of sight unmastered still, Grant us the power to follow and to fulfil.

ELECTED SILENCE.

Where voices vanish into dream, I have discovered, from the pride Of temporal trophydoms, this theme, That silence is the ultimate guide.

Allow me now much musing-space To shape my secrecies alone : Allow me life apart, whose heart Translates instinctive tragi-tone.

How solitude can. hear ! 0 see How stillness unreluctant stands Enharmonized with cloud and tree . . O earth and heaven not made with hands !

CREDO.

The heaven for which I wait has neither guard nor gate. The God in whom I trust shall raise me not from dust. I shall not see that heaven for which my days have striven. Nor kneel before the God toward whom my feet have trod.

But when from this half-human evolvement man and woman Emerge, through brutish Me made strong and fair and free, The dumb forgotten dead will be the ground they tread, And in their eyes will shine my deathless hope divine.

SIEGFRIED SASSOON.