Classic Poem

PART III—THE SERVANT

This little city by the wistful sea
For many years had been his prison home.
Often he watched these crags the breakers comb
And knew the billows of the world to be
One undivided blue immensity.
He saw the nations, like the ocean's foam—
Britannia, Gaul, America and Rome—
In dignity of compromise agree.

Now man to man and race to race renew
Your solemn pledge to slay the Titan, War.
This is the age of light. The morning star
Gleams in the orient sky; serene its hue;
And life no more is rule of beak and claw
Where lowliness and love are final law.

The Tigris thunders from its height of snows
Through wild crag-canyons till at last it flows,
In lazy leisure curving, where Baghdad
Is oriented in unique repose.

Thither at first exiled, Baha 'Ullah
Took Abbas, his first son, Abdul Baha.
Nine tender years! Yet banished from his home,
No more to see the city of the Shah.

Two heavens were in the youth's unfoldment caught:
The heavens above, the heavens in his thought.
Hence, only where God led, his blinded foes
From land to land their patient prisoner brought.

Most great is Allah! Evermore most great
His purpose which unwitting lips call “fate.”
The Beauty of Eternity is One—
How infinite His glory and His state!

What want and sorrow, what a blight of fears,
How many woes, how many burning tears
Were banished by the Master's gentle hand
And loving word in all those lonely years!

Abdul Baha, the Servant of the Light;
A Mirror of Eternity, a bright
Enduring joy made manifest to men,
A heavenly beacon pushing back the night.

Such is his name. How much his soul must see
Who crams the days with heaven and harmony;
The prophet voice alone may speak for God,
And clear the roads for all humanity.

From him, our Friend and Master, shone those rays
That morning nurtured in its twilight haze
And flung across the world; but now they rise
To brightest noon, to sudden zenith blaze.

They came from many lands, both rich and poor,
To share the joy within a prison door!
And once a guest was curious to know
Why every face the light of gladness wore.

“Dear Master, if my will with yours accord,
Tell me why those who gather at your board—
Your guests of every race and creed and clime—
Go forth in all the radiance of the Lord!”

“All I can tell,” said he, “is that I trace
In every countenance a living grace,
And nothing else in any do I see
But the loved image of the Father's face.”

I mused upon his words. If I could trace
In every soul, the perfect Father's face,
I, too, would search in every heart for God,
And find Him in the humblest of our race,

And finding Him, the heavens with joy would ring,
The earth grow greener, birds more sweetly sing;
The buds would burst to blossom at my door
And add their fragrance to the love I'd bring.
If e'er the Lord, the Christ, unknown,
Despised and lowly, sad and poor,
Should come, work-weary and alone,
And turn him to my cottage door;
His travel-worn and dusty feet
My hand would lave with loving care,
For 'tis the Christ alone I'd meet
In every soul that lingers there.
No gold I'd bring, for I have none,
But faith would give my soul release,
And joy and Love would make me one
With Him in gentleness and peace.
The Messenger of God I'd meet
In cloistered fellowship apart;
The Christ of ages I should greet
Here in the hostel of my heart.

Arrows of light leapt from his quivering bow
Sprung by the hand of Love, and in the foe,
All blinding pride, all bigotry and hate
Died like the darkness in the morning glow:—

Beware of prejudice, for one least whit
Of bias clips the wing and pinions it.
The web of life is woven to a plan,
And all of us into the pattern fit.

The shrill muezzin calls the tribes to prayer;
The faithful kneel, and on the desert air
A fragrant chalice, incense-breathing, floats,
For over Islam is great Allah's care.

The God of Israel bends a listening ear
To every Hebrew with a heart sincere;
And by the solemn, silent peace that falls
Upon his soul, he knows Jehovah near.

The Christian gives his God another name;
The Parsi yet another, but the flame
That kindles love in every soul on earth
Is in its substance and effect the same.

When soul to soul sends out its beckoning smile,
The blue skies closer bend, and then awhile,
It matters little where our lot be cast,
Whether beside the Jordan or the Nile.

The great religions are in essence one,
As all the colours issue from the sun;
Combine the beauty of them all and see—
Is any missing in the diamond?—None!

Love hath no preference for church or creed,
Observes no ordinance, but kindly deed;
His sacraments are gifts with others shared—
A cup of water for another's need.

If ought of bigotry in thee be found,
Let the blue beauty of the skies around
Show thee how pitiful thy scorn and hate
Till they in seas of harmony are drowned.
In east or west the star may camp
If but some gleaming it discloses;
The light is clear, then good the lamp;
The garden is as fragrant as its roses.
For he who brings the soul in need
The ministry of love and healing
Commends to us his utmost creed
With more than sanctity appealing.

Of all the virtues by the Master taught,
None is more rare, nor more with blessing fraught
Than that of blindness to another's sin—
The praise and beauty of the generous thought.
There is a meanness that would feed the throng
Of prurient gossips with a baneful tongue;
Would sow the earth with dragon-teeth of hate,
For harvest, reaping insolence and wrong.

Judge not another, but with truth defend;
Help love to win; there let your action end.
Have you opinions? They have little worth,
And none unless with all that's known they blend.

The vice that we in other souls bemoan
Is oft the one to which we most are prone;
The virtue we are finding everywhere
Is surely a reflection of our own.

Forget the evil in the souls of men;
Hath thy good friend one fault and virtues ten?
Let not thy spirit for that one vice fret,
But cast it into Lethe and forget.

In some dire enemy, perchance, but one
Bright star of virtue with ten vices run,
Blaze thou that virtue on the open sky,
And let his failings in oblivion die.

Divine forgetting makes the soul outstand
Like pillared fire above the desert land,
While all the evil we ignore is blown
Into the wilderness as drifting sand.

No sunshine lustres to a richer glow
Than evanescent self. To serve, and know
God sees and values all we do or dare
For selfless Love. Why do we struggle so

To flaunt our triumph in the sight of those
Who will forget us ere the sunlight goes
Time keeps no grateful record of the past,
But Love observes and every secret knows.

Each deed of love shall silhouette the dawn
And ride into the arch of heaven anon;
Blaze out upon the blue ethereal dome
When war's acclaim is into silence gone.

Then wherefore hasten? Does your pride outburst
To tell the world in other cares immersed
The tale of your exploit? Is there not one
Somewhere on earth might better tell it first?

Or be there none to tell it, even then,
The eager silence knows; and braver men
Have died in noble sorrow on the cross—
God marks each sparrow's falling, where and when.

The candle burns its heart in bright desire
And melts its soul to light in tears and fire;
It whispers to the dark of golden dawn,
Then dies upon a self-consuming pyre.

Service of love, from all self-seeking free,
Compassion, reverence, justice, harmony—
These are the final sum of God's demands;
Confirmed in these, thy life shall perfect be.

The Merciful was in this Mirror shown;
In this great Soul, the Self of God was known.
He pioneered, for burdened hearts, the way
To live the life as children of the throne.

Bring thou no loss to any soul, no grief,
But to the weary rest, to pain relief.
Speak thou no word unkindly of another,
But treat thine enemy as thine own brother.

Reveal his virtues, hide his faults alway,
And ever for his highest welfare pray.
If dire calamity thy pathway cross,
Rejoice, for God doth bless thee in thy loss.

Cheer thou thy neighbour in the hour of sadness;
Beguile his gloom with gentle rays of gladness,
A heavenly table for his scanty dole,
And pleasant water for his thirsty soul.

Thy word be truth, thy life a star revealing
A presence radiating rest and healing.
A lamp be thou to light each pathway trod,
A herald of the joy and peace of God.

To work is worship. Dc thy humble part
Well as thou canst; this is the highest art.
To serve is prayer, to labour is divine
If with the toil God's love is in the heart.

Contentment is for him who sows and reaps,
Whose frugal taste its wise possessor keeps
In health and wealth and honest, cleanly ways;
His mind at rest—how peacefully he sleeps!

With milk and dates, the Arab is serene,
A tent his home, the desert his demesne.
More kingly than the food that others buy,
However rich, a crust with hunger keen.

His radiant acquiescence was a crown;
No demon of resentment bowed him down.
He moved so like a god that all he met
Revered the prisoner of that Turkish town.

He loved all men; accepted all the cost
Of character; nor rued a whole world lost.
He held his course along the heights of day,
Reflecting heaven upon the tempest-tost.

He loved his guards and governors, and they
Discerned in him the power their minds to sway;
A godlike soul oppressed by many wrongs,
Yet knew they not wherein his triumph lay.

“How good it is,” said he, “to come and go
In freedom!” Yet he never said: “You know
I am not free.” His strong unfettered soul
Soared on Love's wing where'er the breezes blow.

No hope on earth was e'er more strangely sweet
To many than longing just to meet
The Master, but he passed. Time has a way
Our will to thwart, our purpose to defeat.

O Loveliness of Light! Have we not prayed
To meet thee, see thee ere thy form should fade?
To look into thy wonder-speaking eyes,
And feel thy gentle hand upon us laid?

At times our souls thy presence would have sought;
Sometimes we felt that nothing could have bought
The sense of thine immeasurable peace,
So spheral, vast and sweet; sometimes we thought:

If I might hear the Master's voice
Beside the tideless sea,
My soul would evermore rejoice
In Love's eternity.

If I might look upon his face,
I think my heart would be
Thrilled with the splendour and the grace
Of all reality.

The mighty secret I should know
Of healing and release
If I might hear him whisper low:
“Beloved, go in peace.”

But men have met God's presence in the earth
And turned again unto their native dearth;
Seen but a soul they could not comprehend,
And some have been offended by his mirth.

Unless we find some beauty in the soul,
No hope have we to reach a spirit goal;
Without a green oasis in the heart,
All is mirage where wastes of desert roll.

Only the hidden things eternal are,
True grandeur of the soul no veil can bar
From heaven's clear view. The Light within the light
Is all we truly see in man or star.

“Blessed are they who, though they have not seen
Have yet believed.” Did Jesus haply mean
Such little ones as we, that missed the way
To him so long, and yet would on him lean?

Beware the lure of persons. These are nought
But vapoury evanescence that has caught
The sunbeam shining through an earthly cloud;
It is the sun that all the glory wrought.

We worship him; his word we disobey;
“Lord, Lord! Have we not prophesied,” we say,
“In thy great name?” O Love, forgive us Thou
In this Thy day of Light—the Judgment day!

The loveliness of God within thee shined;
The sun-gleam of the Universal Mind,
The Mirror, Messenger, Revealer, thou,
Of Beauty that can never be defined.

Thou hast made manifest the perfect light;
Hast brought such beauty to our inner sight
That from the splendour we in thee behold,
We half can guess His glory and His might.

Were we not jealous for the state of those
Who came before thee with their Light, who knows,
We, too, might worship thee as we did them,
And leave thee also open to thy foes?