Songs Of The Road by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (desktop ebook reader txt) 📖

/> Of multitudinous acclaim,
When triple-walled Byzantium,
Re-echoes the Imperial name.

[76] I hear the beat of armed feet,
The legions clanking on their way,
The long shout rims from street to street,
With rolling drum and trumpet bray.

So I hear it rising, falling,
Till it dies away once more,
And I hear the costers calling
Mid the weary London roar.

Who shall pity then the lameness,
Which still holds me from the ground?
Who commiserate the sameness
Of the scene that girds me round?

Though I lie a broken wreck,
Though I seem to want for all,
Still the world is at my beck
And the ages at my call.


THE BANNER OF PROGRESS
[77]

There's a banner in our van,
And we follow as we can,
For at times we scarce can see it,
And at times it flutters high.
But however it be flown,
Still we know it as our own,
And we follow, ever follow,
Where we see the banner fly.

In the struggle and the strife,
In the weariness of life,
The banner-man may stumble,
He may falter in the fight.
[78] But if one should fail or slip,
There are other hands to grip,
And it's forward, ever forward,
From the darkness to the light.


HOPE
[79]

Faith may break on reason,
Faith may prove a treason
To that highest gift
That is granted by Thy grace;
But Hope! Ah, let us cherish
Some spark that may not perish,
Some tiny spark to cheer us,
As we wander through the waste!

A little lamp beside us,
A little lamp to guide us,
Where the path is rocky,
Where the road is steep.
[80] That when the light falls dimmer,
Still some God-sent glimmer
May hold us steadfast ever,
To the track that we should keep.

Hope for the trending of it,
Hope for the ending of it,
Hope for all around us,
That it ripens in the sun.

Hope for what is waning,
Hope for what is gaining,
Hope for what is waiting
When the long day is done.

Hope that He, the nameless,
May still be best and blameless,
Nor ever end His highest
With the earthworm and the slime.
[81] Hope that o'er the border,
There lies a land of order,
With higher law to reconcile
The lower laws of Time.

Hope that every vexed life,
Finds within that next life,
Something that may recompense,
Something that may cheer.
And that perchance the lowest one
Is truly but the slowest one,
Quickened by the sorrow
Which is waiting for him here.


RELIGIO MEDICI
[82]

1
God's own best will bide the test,
And God's own worst will fall;
But, best or worst or last or first,
He ordereth it all.

2
For all is good, if understood,
(Ah, could we understand!)
And right and ill are tools of skill
Held in His either hand.

[83] 3
The harlot and the anchorite,
The martyr and the rake,
Deftly He fashions each aright,
Its vital part to take.

4
Wisdom He makes to form the fruit
Where the high blossoms be;
And Lust to kill the weaker shoot,
And Drink to trim the tree.

5
And Holiness that so the bole
Be solid at the core;
And Plague and Fever, that the whole
Be changing evermore.

[84] 6
He strews the microbes in the lung,
The blood-clot in the brain;
With test and test He picks the best,
Then tests them once again.

7
He tests the body and the mind,
He rings them o'er and o'er;
And if they crack, He throws them back,
And fashions them once more.

8
He chokes the infant throat with slime,
He sets the ferment free;
He builds the tiny tube of lime
That blocks the artery.

[85] 9
He lets the youthful dreamer store
Great projects in his brain,
Until He drops the fungus spore
That smears them out again.

10
He stores the milk that feeds the babe,
He dulls the tortured nerve;
He gives a hundred joys of sense
Where few or none might serve.

11
And still He trains the branch of good
Where the high blossoms be,
And wieldeth still the shears of ill
To prune and prime His tree.


MAN'S LIMITATION
[86]

Man says that He is jealous,
Man says that He is wise,
Man says that He is watching
From His throne beyond the skies.

But perchance the arch above us
Is one great mirror's span,
And the Figure seen so dimly
Is a vast reflected man.

If it is love that gave us
A thousand blossoms bright,
Why should that love not save us
From poisoned aconite?

[87] If this man blesses sunshine
Which sets his fields aglow,
Shall that man curse the tempest
That lays his harvest low?

If you may sing His praises
For health He gave to you,
What of this spine-curved cripple,
Shall he sing praises too?

If you may justly thank Him
For strength in mind and limb,
Then what of yonder weakling —
Must he give thanks to Him?

Ah dark, too dark, the riddle!
The tiny brain too small!
We call, and fondly listen,
For answer to that call.

[88] There comes no word to tell us
Why this and that