These are your lords I know. These can never be mine-- This is the price I pay For the foolish search for the shrine: This is the price I pay For the joy of my midnight prayers, Kneeling beneath the moon With hills for my altar stairs; This is the price I pay For the throb of the mystic wings, When the dove of God comes down And beats round my heart and sings; This is the price I pay For the light I shall some day see At the ends of the infinite earth When truth shall come to me. And what if my body die Before I meet the truth? The road is dear, more dear Than love or life or youth. The road, it is the road, Mystical, endless, kind, Mother of visions vast, Mother of soul and mind; Mother of all of me But the blood that cries for a mate-- That cries for a farewell kiss From the child of God at the gate. Honor Among Scamps We are the smirched. Queen Honor is the spotless. We slept thro' wars where Honor could not sleep. We were faint-hearted. Honor was full-valiant. We kept a silence Honor could not keep. Yet this late day we make a song to praise her. We, codeless, will yet vindicate her code. She who was mighty, walks with us, the beggars. The merchants drive her out upon the road. She makes a throne of sod beside our campfire. We give the maiden-queen our rags and tears. A battered, rascal guard have rallied round her, To keep her safe until the better years. The Gamblers Life's a jail where men have common lot. Gaunt the one who has, and who has not. All our treasures neither less nor more, Bread alone comes thro' the guarded door. Cards are foolish in this jail, I think, Yet they play for shoes, for drabs and drink. She, my lawless, sharp-tongued gypsy maid Will not scorn with me this jail-bird trade, Pets some fox-eyed boy who turns the trick, Tho' he win a button or a stick, Pencil, garter, ribbon, corset-lace-- HIS the glory, MINE is the disgrace. Sweet, I'd rather lose than win despite Love of hearty words and maids polite. "Love's a gamble," say you. I deny. Love's a gift. I love you till I die. Gamblers fight like rats. I will not play. All I ever had I gave away. All I ever coveted was peace Such as comes if we have jail release. Cards are puzzles, tho' the prize be gold, Cards help not the bread that tastes of mold, Cards dye not your hair to black more deep, Cards make not the children cease to weep.