Humble men are on the hillsides, men of wisdom in the stall Where the new-born King of Glory deigns to find His earthly all. High and low have met together. There before a common shrine Rich and poor, unlearned and lettered, each has found the King Divine. Christ is Lord of humble peasant. He is Lord of royal son. At His feet all men are equal. In His way all men are one. The Open Tomb (1915) A thousand gates Lead to the grave; and through the weary years The race of men, through bitter, blinding tears, Have seen the forms they loved most enter there Where ever waits An open road on which all feet must fare. One only gate Leads from the grave; one portal outward swings. ’Tis one alike for peasants and for kings. Beside it lies a stone that’s rolled away; And, soon or late, God’s people shall fare forth into the day. O, Mighty One, We praise thee that when we have finished all The day’s full hours will hold, and night shall fall That we may see, although we die upon A bed of stone, One door that opens outward on the dawn. A Price Unpaid (1915) Upon one battlefield is writ in blood The story of more woe than all the years Can wash away, e’en with the cleansing flood Of centuries of peace. Blind, sickening tears Are caused to flow that never mailed hand Will seek to dry. There glassy grows the eye Of him who looked with joy upon the land, Rich now with death’s ripe harvest. One weak sigh, Then fades the sky, the fields, and all--and then The awful silence which alone will say To those at home, he died, but how or when Remains a secret of the bloody day. What logic is there that can justify The wasting harvest field, the empty home, The blank despair that comes at last to lie On faces left to fare their way alone, Widowed and orphaned--and for naught but this-- To keep a royal throne from tottering down, To hold a mile of boundary where it is, To save a scepter, or preserve a crown? Two Princes (1915) The War Lord dwells within his palace walls In all the bright insignia of power; He gives the word by which a city falls, Or ships go thundering through Death’s awful hour. The Prince of Peace knew not an earthly throne, Had not one resting place to call his own. The War Lord in the pomp of place doth ride Across the borders of the blood-drenched land. On splendid charger, strong and fiery-eyed In every place he keeps a presence grand. The Prince of Peace knew but a humble seat And walked the earth with weary, dusty feet. The War Lord hears the plaudits of the crowd. Unnumbered men would perish for his name. To keep his royal robes they wear a shroud, And bleed to save him from an hour of shame. The Prince of Peace with thorns upon his head, Unfriended, through the hard-eyed crowd was led.