Poems. John L. Stoddard

A nobler life to win?

      That pain is as impermanent

       As shadows on the hills,

       And that Nirvana's blessedness

       Will cure all mortal ills?

      But agony is agony,

       And small is the relief

       If, measured with eternity,

       Life's anguish be but brief.

      To hearts that break with misery,

       To every tortured frame

       The present pain is paramount,

       Nirvana but a name.

      Moreover, why should former lives

       Bequeath their weight of woe,

       If with it comes no memory

       To guide us, as we go?

      If o'er the dark, prenatal void

       No mental bridge be cast,

       No thread, however frail, to link

       The present to the past?

      Still silent and dispassionate!

       Ah, would that I might find

       The key to the serenity

       That fills thy lofty mind!

      Thou hast a joy we do not feel,

       A light we cannot see;

       Injustice, sin, and wretchedness

       No longer sadden thee;

      No doubt to thy sublimer gaze

       Life's mystery grows plain,

       As finally full recompense

       Atones for earthly pain.

THE PILLARS OF HERCULES

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      Here ends at last the Inland Sea!

       Still seems its outlet, as of yore,

       The anteroom of Mystery,

       As, through its westward-facing door,

       I see the vast Atlantic lie

       In splendor 'neath a sunset sky.

      Above its distant, glittering rim

       Streams o'er the waves a flood of gold,

       To gild the mountains, bare and grim,

       Which guard this exit, as of old—

       The sombre sentries of two seas,

       The Pillars reared by Hercules;—

      Gibraltar—on the northern shore,

       By conquering Moors once proudly trod—

       And, to the south a league or more,

       Huge Abyla, the "Mount of God",

       Whence burdened Atlas watched with ease

       The Gardens of Hesperides.

      How many slow-paced centuries passed,

       Before brave sailors dared to creep

       Beyond the gloom these monsters cast,

       And venture on the unknown deep,

       At last resolving to defy

       The "God-established" termini!

      Yet no fierce gods opposed their path;

       No lurid bolt or arrow sped

       To crush them with celestial wrath,

       And number them among the dead;

       The dreadful Pillars proved as tame

       As other rocks of lesser fame.

      Hence, when before them stretched the sea,

       Majestic, limitless and clear,

       A rapturous sense of being free

       Dispelled all vestiges of fear

       The longed-for ocean to explore

       From pole to pole, from shore to shore.

      Thus all men learn the God they dread

       Is kinder than they had supposed,

       And that, not God, but Man hath said—

       "The door to freedom must be closed!"

       Once past that door, with broadened view,

       They find Him better than they knew.

      Meanwhile, along the sunlit strait

       My ship glides toward the saffron west,

       Beyond the old Phenician gate

       To ocean's gently heaving breast,

       Whence, on the ever-freshening breeze,

       There greet my spirit words like these;—

      Sail bravely on! the morning light

       Shall find thee far beyond the land;

       Gibraltar's battlemented height

       And Afric's tawny hills of sand

       Shall soon completely sink from view

       Beneath the ocean's belt of blue.

      Sail on! nor heed the shadows vast

       Of fabled Powers, whose fear enslaves!

       Their spectral shapes shall sink at last

       Below the night's abandoned waves;

       Rest not confined by shoals and bars;

       Steer oceanward by God's fixed stars!

FRIENDSHIP

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      'Tis not in the bitterest woes of life

       That the love of friends, as a rule, grows cold;

       Still less does it melt in the heat of strife,

       Or die from the canker of borrowed gold;

      For pity comes when they see us grieved,

       Or forced to lie on a couch of pain,

       And a hasty word is soon retrieved,

       And the loan of money may leave no stain.

      'Tis oftenest lost through the deadly blight

       Of Society's pestilential air,

       Which blackens the robe of purest white,

       And fouls what once was sweet and fair.

      An envious woman's whispered word,

       A slander born of a cruel smile,

       The repetition of something heard,

       The imputation of something vile,

      Or possibly even a fancied slight

       For a feast declined, or a call delayed,

       Or jealousy caused by petty spite,

       Or the wish for a higher social grade—

      'Tis one, or all of these combined,

       That saps the love of our dearest friends,

       And slowly poisons heart and mind,

       Till the joy of generous friendship ends.

      Last night they were in a cordial mood,

       To-day they suddenly seem estranged!

       Shall we, then, grieve and sadly