My Life as an Author Part 13

Of my several ballads upon Gordon (I think there were nine of them) I will here enshrine one, printed in the newspapers of May 1884, and perhaps worthiest to be saved from evanescence:--

"If England had but spoken With Wellesley's lion roar, Or flung out Nelson's token Of duty as of yore, We should not now, too late, too late, Be saddened day by day, Dreading to hear of Gordon's fate, The victim of delay.

"He felt in isolation '_Civis Roma.n.u.s sum_,'

And trusted his great nation Right sure that help would come: Could he have dreamt that British power Which placed him at his post, In peril's long-expected hour Would leave him to be lost?

"He lives alone for others,-- Himself he scorns to save, And ev'n with savage brothers Will share their b.l.o.o.d.y grave!

Woe! woe to us! should England's glory, To our rulers' blame, Close gallant Gordon's wondrous story, England! in thy shame."

This was half prophetic at the time, and we all have grieved for England's Christian hero ever since.

When Lord Shaftesbury's lamented death lately touched the national heart, I felt as others did and uttered this sentiment accordingly:--

_The Good Earl._

"Grieve not for him, as those who mourn the dead; He lives! Ascended from that dying bed, Clad in an incense-cloud of human love, His happy spirit met the blest above; And as his feet entered the golden door, With him flew in loud blessings of the poor; While in a thrilling chorus from below-- Millions of children, saved by him from woe, With their sweet voices joined the seraphim Who thronged in raptured haste to welcome him!

"For G.o.d had given him grace, and place, and power To bless the dest.i.tute from hour to hour; And from a child to fourscore years and four, All knew and lov'd the Helper of the poor, O coal-pit woman-slave! O factory child!

O famished beggar-boy with hunger wild!

O rescued outcast, torn from sin and shame!

Ye know your friend--by myriads bless his name!

We need not utter it--The Good, The Great, These are his t.i.tles in that Blest Estate."

I was much touched and pleased with this little anecdote to the purpose.

Speaking casually to a bright-looking boy of the s...o...b..ack Brigade about Lord Shaftesbury (the boy didn't know me from Adam), to find out how far he felt for his lost friend, with tears in his eyes he quoted to my astonishment part of the above, and told me that he and many of his mates knew it by heart, having seen it in some paper. I never said who wrote it (probably he wouldn't have believed me if I had) but left him happy with some pears.

Perhaps I may here add (and all this has been part of "My Life as an Author") a couple of stanzas I wrote, (but never have published till now) on another worthy specimen of humanity, mourned in death by our highest:--

_In Memoriam J.B._

"Simple, pious, honest man, Child of heaven while son of earth, We would praise, for praise we can, Thy good service, thy great worth; Through long years of prosperous place In the suns.h.i.+ne of the Crown, With man's favour and G.o.d's grace Humbly, bravely, walked John Brown.

"Faithful to the Blameless Prince, Faithful to the Widowed Queen, Loved,--as oft before and since Truth and zeal have ever been,-- His no pedigree of pride, His no name of old renown, Yet in honour lived and died Nature's n.o.bleman, John Brown."

Also, I will here give, as it appears nowhere else, a few lines to a dying brother, for the sake of recording his hopeful last three words:--

_Dear Brother Dan's Latest Whisper._

"'Life unto life!' This was the whispered word That from my dying brother's lips I heard Faintly and feebly uttered, in the strife Of Nature's agony,--'Life--unto--life!'

Yea, brother! for thou livest; death is dead, And life rejoiceth unto life instead; No sins, no cares, no sorrows, and no pains,-- But deep delights, unutterable gains, Now are thy portion in that higher sphere, The heritage of G.o.d's own children here Who loved their Lord awhile on earth, and now Live to Him evermore in love--as thou!"

And in this connection I will print here a psychological poem of mine, not to be found in any other of my books:--

_Memory._

I.

"When the soul pa.s.ses Eternity's portal, In that Hereafter of Being Elsewhere, When this poor earthworm becomes an Immortal, Risen to Life Incorruptible There; If in some semblance of spirit and feature, Still to be recognised one and the same, Not in its ent.i.ty quite a new creature, But as a growth of the world whence it came,--

II.

"Oh, what a river of gladness or sadness Then must gush out from quick memory's well, Infinite ecstasy, uttermost madness, As the quick conscience greets Heaven--or h.e.l.l!

Whilst he reviews old scenes and past travels, Grained in himself and engraved on his soul, As the knit robe of his timework unravels And his whole life is unmeshed to its goal.

III.

"Yea, for within him, far more than without him, Works ever following, evil or good, Happiness, misery, circling about him, Plant a man's foot in the soil where he stood: If he was sensual, sordid, and cruel, Sensual, cruel, and base let him be, If he have guarded his soul as a jewel, Holy and happy and blessed be he!

IV.

"For that the seeds both of h.e.l.l and of Heaven Darnel or wheat-corn, crowd memory's mart, And though all sin be repented, forgiven, Yet recollections must live in the heart: Still resurrected each moment's each action Comes up for conscience to judge it again, Joy unto peace or remorse to distraction, Growing to infinite pleasure or pain.

V.

"Thy many sins were the ruin of others, Though the chief sinner's own guilt may be waived: What! shall the doom of those sisters and brothers Not be a sorrow to thee that art saved?

Can utter selfishness be G.o.d's Nirwana, Blest--with our brethren of blessing bereft?

Must not His Heaven seem poorer and vainer, Where one is taken and others are left?

VI.

"Oh, there is hope in His mercy for ever-- Yea, for the worst, after ages of woe, Till on this side of the uttermost Never, Even the devils His mercy may know!

Punished and purified, Justice and Reason Well would rejoice if the Judge on His throne Grant His salvation to all in full season, Ruling, in bliss, all His works as His own.

VII.

"Every creature, redeemed and recovered Through the One sacrifice offered for all, Where sin and death so fatally hovered, Mercy triumphant in full o'er the fall!

Thus shall old memories harmonise sweetly With the grand heavenly anthem above, As this sad life that was shattered so fleetly, Then is made whole in the Infinite Love."

It may count as one of my heresies in an orthodox theological sense, but I certainly cling to the great idea of Eternal Hope; and, after any amount of retributive punishment for purifying the "lost" soul, I look for ultimate salvation to all G.o.d's creatures. This short and partial trial-scene of ours is not enough to make an end with: we begin here and progress for ever elsewhere. Evil must die out, and good must survive alone for ever.

CHAPTER XXII.

PROTESTANT BALLADS.

Among my many fly-leaves, scattered by thousands from time to time in handbills or in newspapers all over the world, those in which I have praised Protestantism and denounced the dishonesty of our ecclesiastic traitors have earned me the highest meed both of glory and shame from partisan opponents. Ever since in my boyhood, under the ministerial teaching of my rector, the celebrated Hugh M'Neile, at Albury for many years, I closed with the Evangelical religion of the good old Low Church type, I have by my life and writings excited against me the theological hatred of High Church, and Broad Church, and No Church, and especially of the Romanizers amongst our Established clergy. Sundry religious newspapers and other periodicals, whose names I will not blazon by recording, have systematically attacked and slandered me from early manhood to this hour, and have diligently kept up my notoriety or fame (it was stupid enough of them from their point of view) by quips and cranks, as well as by more serious onslaughts, about which I am very pachydermatous, albeit there are pasted down in my archive-books all the paragraphs that have reached me. But, even as in hydraulics, the harder you screw the greater the force, so with my combative nature, the more I am attacked the more obstinately I resist. Hence the mult.i.tude and variety of my polemical lucubrations,--mostly of a fragmentary character as Sibylline leaves: some, however, appear in my "Ballads and Poems"

(among them a famous "Down with foreign priestcraft," circulated by thousands in the Midlands by an unknown enthusiast),--and Ridgeway of Piccadilly has published in pamphlet form my "Fifty Protestant Ballads and Directorium," which originally appeared in the _Daily News_, and _The Rock_: I have certainly written as many more, and among these one which I will here reproduce as now very scarce, and lately of some national importance: seeing that it was sent by my friend Admiral Bedford Pim to every member of the two Houses of Legislature on the Bradlaugh occasion, and was stated to have turned the tide of battle in that celebrated case.

_"So Help Me, G.o.d!"_

"'So help me, G.o.d!' my heart at every turn Of life's wide wilderness implores Thee still To give all good, to rescue from all ill, And grant me grace Thy presence to discern.

"'So help me, G.o.d!' I would not move a yard Without my hand in Thine to be my guide, Thy love to bless, Thy bounty to provide, Thy fostering wing spread over me to guard.