Craven-Heart

Those anguished voices in the air!
Oh, I could shriek and tear my hair
In rage, rebellion and despair.

But what is one, amid a throng
So vast and merciless and strong,
To make attempt to right the wrong?

What ear would hear me if I cried?
And who would rally to my side?
What could I do to stem the tide?

Though I should plunge in flood and flame,
And suffer every shame and blame,
The world would triumph all the same.

I am not called upon to pay.
So why join in the hopeless fray,
And waste my brief and precious day?

poem by Ada Cambridge
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Reaction

Let us, dear friend, in mutual strength arise
Against our tyrant Custom, and demand
Free souls and bodies at our own command.
Let us defy the vulgar world's surprise,
Scorn brute convention and soft compromise,
And, bold in proud revolt, and hand in hand,
Cast in our lot and take our fearless stand
With the unsafe, improper, and unwise.

Let us abjure the comfortable creeds
Approved by prudent minds, and revel free
In foolish thoughts and inexpedient deeds; —
For thus alone can life for you and me
Out of this suffocating sloth revive,
And our small spark of good be kept alive.

poem by Ada Cambridge
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Contentment

Is it a virtue, as the sages say,
The 'trivial round and common task' to ply,
And for no wider walk of life to sigh
Than we were born to; sweetly, day by day,
Our meed of lowly reverence to pay
Our high-placed 'betters'; never to defy
The powers that be; never to kick or cry,
Or think, or question - simply to obey?

Then vice be with us, although blood be shed.
No pact with powers partizan and blind;
No peace with Custom that makes right of wrong.
We shall content us when the starved are fed,
When men and brothers are agreed and kind,
And there is fair play between weak and strong.

poem by Ada Cambridge
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The Mob

Why stand dumbfounded and aghast,
As at invading armies sweeping by,
Surprised by haggard face and threatening cry,
The storm unheralded, that rose so fast?
Men, with gaunt wives and hungry children, cast
Upon the wintry streets to thieve or die,
They cannot always suffer silently;
Patience gives out. The poor worm turns at last.

And no ear listens to the warning call.
No eye awakes to see the portent dread.
Must brute force reign and social order fall
Ere these starved millions can be clothed and fed?
A strange phenomenon, this, unconcern -
To live so fast and be so slow to learn!

poem by Ada Cambridge
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Wasted

Each day another soldier in the van,
Each day a new young worker in the fields,
And every day more plenteous harvest-yields
From human toil, to bless and not to ban -
A better world, upon a better plan.
And, daily strengthening the arms he wields,
And more disdainful of old shifts and shields,
An ever nobler and diviner Man.

But, oh, how few the saved, how small the gain,
How poor the profit as against the cost,
The waste of life potential, vast and fair,
In soul unfructified and starveling brain,
Of Power that might have been, and might be - lost
For want of common food and common air!

poem by Ada Cambridge
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What of the Night?

To you, who look below,
   Where little candles glow --
Who listen in a narrow street,
Confused with noise of passing feet --

To you 'tis wild and dark;
   No light, no guide, no ark,
For travellers lost on moor and lea,
And ship-wrecked mariners at sea.

But they who stand apart,
   With hushed but wakeful heart --
They hear the lulling of the gale,
And see the dawn-rise faint and pale.

A dawn whereto they grope
   In trembling faith and hope,
If haply, brightening, it may cast
A gleam on path and goal at last.

poem by Ada Cambridge
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Vows

Nay, ask me not. I would not dare pretend
To constant passion and a life-long trust.
They will desert thee, if indeed they must.
How can we guess what Destiny will send -
Smiles of fair fortune, or black storms to rend
What even now is shaken by a gust?
The fire will burn, or it will die in dust.
We cannot tell until the final end.

And never vow was forged that could confine
Aught but the body of the thing whereon
Its pledge was stamped. The inner soul divine,
That thinks of going, is already gone.
When faith and love need bolts upon the door,
Faith is not faith, and love abides no more.

poem by Ada Cambridge
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Influence

As in the deeps of embryonic night,
Out of unfathomable obscurities
Of Nature's womb, the little life-germs rise,
Pushing and pulsing upward to the light;
As, when the first day dawns on waking sight,
They leap to liberty and recognize
The golden sunshine and the morning skies
Their home and goal and heritage and right -

So do our brooding thoughts and deep desires
Grow in our souls, we know not how or why;
Grope for we know not what, all blind and dumb.
So, when the time is ripe, and one aspires
To free his thought in speech, ours hear the cry,
And to full birth and instant knowledge come.

poem by Ada Cambridge
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Fashion

See those resplendent creatures, as they glide
O'er scarlet carpet, between footmen tall,
From sumptuous carriage to effulgent hall -
A dazzling vision in their pomp and pride!
See that choice supper - needless - cast aside -
Though worth a thousand fortunes, counting all,
To them for whom no crumb of it will fall -
The starved and homeless in the street outside.

Some day the little great god will decree
That overmuch connotes the underbred,
That pampered body means an empty head,
And wealth displayed the last vulgarity.
When selfish greed becomes a social sin
The world's regeneration may begin.

poem by Ada Cambridge
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Desire

Bright eyes, sweet lips, with many fevers fill
The young blood, running wildly, as it must;
But lips and eyes beget a strange distrust.
Electric fingers send the sudden thrill
Through senses unsubservient to the will;
The flames die down, and leave a dim disgust;
Unfragrant kisses turn to drouth and dust;
I kiss; I feast; but I am hungry still.

O woman, woman, passionate but strong!
True to thy love as needle to the pole -
True to the truth, and not alone to me -
O mate and friend, elusive in the throng,
With thy clear brows, thy straight and upright soul,
Nameless - unknown - my hunger is for thee!

poem by Ada Cambridge
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