Before that "will to power"?

Yet, in the darkest hour of all,
When black defeat began,
The Emperor heard the mountains quake,
He felt the graves beneath him shake,
He watched his legions rally and break,
And he whimpered as they ran.

"I hear a shout that moves the earth,
A cry that wakes the dead!
Will no one tell me whence they come,
For all my messengers are dumb?
What power is this that comes to birth
And breaks my power?" he said.

Then, all around his foundering guns,
Though dawn was now not far,
The darkness filled with a living fear
That whispered at the Emperor's ear,
"_The armies of the dead draw near
Beneath an eastern star._"

_The trumpet blows in Nazareth.
The Slave is risen again.
Across the bitter wastes of death
The horsemen ride from Nazareth,
And the Power we mocked as wasted breath
Returns, in power, to reign;
Rides on, in white, through Nazareth,
To save His world again._

ON A MOUNTAIN TOP

On this high altar, fringed with ferns
That darken against the sky,
The dawn in lonely beauty burns
And all our evils die.

The struggling sea that roared below
Is quieter than the dew,
Quieter than the clouds that flow
Across the stainless blue.

On this bare crest, the angels kneel
And breathe the sweets that rise
From flowers too little to reveal
Their beauty to our eyes.

I have seen Edens on the earth
With queenly blooms arrayed;
But here the fairest come to birth,
The smallest flowers He made.

O, high above the sounding pine,
And richer, sweeter far,
The wild thyme wakes. The celandine
Looks at the morning star.

They may not see the heavens unfold.
They breathe no out-worn prayer;
But, on a mountain, as of old,
His glory fills the air.

EARLY POEMS

(_Not Published Hitherto in America_)

THE PHANTOM FLEET
(1904)

The sunset lingered in the pale green West:
In rosy wastes the low soft evening star
Woke; while the last white sea-mew sought for rest;
And tawny sails came stealing o'er the bar.

But, in the hillside cottage, through the panes
The light streamed like a thin far trumpet-call,
And quickened, as with quivering battle-stains,
The printed ships that decked the parlour wall.

From oaken frames old admirals looked down:
They saw the lonely slumberer at their feet:
They saw the paper, headed _Talk from Town;
Our rusting trident, and our phantom fleet_:

And from a nei