Shadow And Substance
What have we lost with our lost Heaven and Hell?
Have sacred faith and worship come to naught?
Is life no more with noble meaning fraught?
Is it not still a thing ineffable,
Beyond what mind can grasp or tongue may tell —
Beyond all mystery by sages taught,
All greatest wonders by Messiah wrought —
The one first, last, divinest miracle!
Let selfish hopes, with old myths, pass away.
Though creeds must go, the God of all remains,
And more and more His might upholds and awes.
Revealed in Nature's universal laws;
And more and more true love its crown attains,
And our good world grows better day by day.
poem by Ada Cambridge
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Drunk
The filthy beast! And is he here again,
With his foul slobbering mouth and shuffling feet,
To taint the atmosphere and shame the street,
And shock the pure and holy that abstain?
Disgusting brute! Disgraceful blot and stain
On social order, civilised and sweet!
Deal with him, Constable, as right and meet
When laws are flouted that we must maintain.
Put him in prison! Confiscate his bowl!
Away with him and the accursèd drink
That wrecks his body and degrades his soul,
And makes him loathsome to clean men! But think -
He had no choice. It was his only share
Of all its pleasures that the world could spare.
poem by Ada Cambridge
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Peace
The red-rose flush fades slowly in the west.
The golden water, basking in the light,
Pales to clear amber and to silver white.
The velvet shadow of a flame-crowned crest
Lies dark and darker on its shining breast,
Till lonely mere and isle and mountain-height
Grow dim as dreams in tender mist of night,
And all is tranquil as a babe at rest.
So still! So calm! Will our life's eve come thus?
No sound of strife, of labour or of pain,
No ring of woodman's axe, no dip of oar.
Will work be done, and night's rest earned, for us?
And shall we wake to see sunrise again?
Or shall we sleep, to see and know no more?
poem by Ada Cambridge
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Individuality
Phew! 'T'is a stuffy and a stupid place,
This social edifice by Custom wrought -
This fenced enclosure wherein all are caught,
The great and small, the noble and the base,
And squeezed and flattened to one common face.
Air, air for springing fancy, errant thought!
Scope to make something of the seeming nought!
Room for the fleet foot and the open race!
Break out, O brother, braver than the rest,
Lover of Liberty, whose arm is strong!
Buttress our independence with thy breast,
And fight a passage through the stagnant throng.
Many will press behind thee, but they need
The stalwart captain, not afraid to lead.
poem by Ada Cambridge
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Drunk And Disorderly
Poor, staggering brute, whom one and all disdain!
Maybe 'twas outraged Nature bade him slake
His thirst like this — to still the gnawing ache
Of weary bones that else would ache in vain.
Maybe crushed spirit and stagnating brain
Only in this delirious fever wake
To transient joys of fancy that can take
The sting from want, the bitterness from pain.
Punish the drunkard! Confiscate the bowl!
But give fair wage for work, give health and hope
To check the waste that calls for such repair;
Give food to toil- worn body and starved soul,
And give the pinched imagination scope
For sensuous pleasure in a purer air.
poem by Ada Cambridge
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An Answer
Thy love I am. Thy wife I cannot be,
To wear the yoke of servitude — to take
Strange, unknown fetters that I cannot break
On soul and flesh that should be mine, and free.
Better the woman's old disgrace for me
Than this old sin — this deep and dire mistake;
Better for truth and honour and thy sake —
For the pure faith I give and take from thee.
I know thy love, and love thee all I can —
I fain would love thee only till I die;
But I may some day love a better man,
And thou may'st find a fitter mate than I;
Some want, some chill, may steal 'twixt heart and heart.
And then we must be free to kiss and part.
poem by Ada Cambridge
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Profit And Loss
Each day a new sword flashes in the van;
Another leader, brave to do or die,
Comes forth, full- furnished for the strife whereby
He gains his growth and stature as a man.
Each day our world, that under the black ban
Of ignorant custom for so long did lie,
Grows bright and brighter, like a clearing sky,
More good and lovely in its wondrous plan.
Yet oh! how few the saved, how small the gain,
How poor the profit as against the cost —
The waste of life, divinely vast and fair,
Potential in starved soul and unfed brain —
The powers that might have been and might be — lost
Only for want of common food and air!
poem by Ada Cambridge
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A Street Riot
Poor, hapless souls! at whom we stand aghast,
As at invading armies sweeping by —
As strange to haggard face and desperate cry —
Did we not know the worm must turn at last?
Poor, hungry men, with hungry children cast
Upon the wintry streets to thieve or die —
Suffering your wants and woes so silently -
Patient so long — is all your patience past?
Are there no ears to hear this warning call?
Are there no eyes to see this portent dread?
Must brute force rise and social order fall,
Ere these starved millions can be clothed and fed?
Justice be judge. Let future history say
Which are the greatest criminals to- day.
poem by Ada Cambridge
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London
The gorgeous stream of England's wealth goes by,
Mixed with the mud and refuse, as of old —
The hungry, homeless, naked, sick and cold;
Want mocked by waste and greedy luxury.
There, in their downy carriage- cushions, lie
Proud women whose fair bodies have been sold
And bought for coronet or merchant gold —
For whose base splendours envious maidens sigh.
Some day the social ban will fall on them —
On wanton rich who taunt their starving kin;
Some day the social judgment will condemn
These “wedded harlots” in their shame and sin.
A juster world shall separate them then
From all pure women and all honoured men.
poem by Ada Cambridge
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Responsibility
Why are our ideals hid from hostile eyes
As boys in school hide toys from master's view?
Let them be real as we believe them true —
Real as our chartered laws and liberties.
All precious rights that we possess and prize
Were ideals once, unshaped, unripe, and new,
The wild delusions of the crack- brained few,
The trifles mocked at by the worldly- wise.
Some must be first; and every coward blights
His brother's hope, and spreading Truth arrests;
While every brave man helps the world, and lights
The flame of courage in a thousand breasts.
So let us bear our meed of vulgar scorn,
And wait the judgment of the years unborn.
poem by Ada Cambridge
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