The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems Part 33

Give him the gold of Ophir, still he delves; Give him the land, and he demands the sea; Give him the earth--he reaches for the stars.

Doomed by his fate to scorn the good he has And grasp at fancied good beyond his reach, He seeks for silver in the distant hills While in the sand gold glitters at his feet.

O man, thy wisdom is but folly still; Wiser the brute and full of sweet content.

The wit and wisdom of five thousand years--What are they but the husks we feed upon, While beast and bird devour the golden grain?

Lo for the brutes dame Nature sows and tills; For them the Tuba-tree of Paradise Bends with its bounties free and manifold; For them the fabled fountain Salsabil, Gushes pure wine that sparkles as it runs, And fair Al Cawthar flows with creamy milk.

But man, forever doomed to toil and sweat, Digs the hard earth and casts his seeds therein, And hopes the harvest;--how oft he hopes in vain!

Weeds choke, winds blast, and myriad pests devour, The hot sun withers and the floods destroy.

Unceasing labor, vigilance and care Reward him here and there with bounteous store.

Had man the blessed wisdom of content, Happy were he--as wise Horatius sung-- To whom G.o.d gives enough with sparing hand.

Of all the crops by sighing mortals sown, And watered with man's sweat and woman's tears, There is but only one that never fails In drouth or flood, on fat or flinty soil, On Nilus' banks or Scandia's stony hills-- The plenteous, never-stinted crop of fools.

So hath it been since erst aspiring man Broke from the brute and plucked the fatal tree, And will be till eternity grows gray.

Princes and parasites comprise mankind: To one wise prince a million parasites; The most uncommon thing is common-sense; A truly wise man is a freak of nature.

The herd are parasites of parasites That blindly follow priest or demagogue, Himself blind leader of the blind. The wise Weigh words, but by the yard fools measure them.

The wise beginneth at the end; the fool Ends at the beginning, or begins anew: Aye, every ditch is full of after-wit.

Folly sows broad cast; Wisdom gathers in, And so the wise man fattens on the fool, And from the follies of the foolish learns Wisdom to guide himself and bridle them.

"To-morrow I made my fortune," cries the fool, "To-day I'll spend it." Thus will Folly eat His chicken ere the hen hath laid the egg.

So Folly blossoms with promises all the year-- Promises that bud and blossom but to blast.

"All men are fools," said Socrates, the wise, And in the broader sense I grant it true, For even Socrates had his Xanthipp'.

Whose head is wise oft hath a foolish heart; The wisest has more follies than he needs; Wisdom and madness, too, are near akin.

The marrow-maddening canker-worm of love Feeds on the brains of wise men as on fools'.

The wise man gathers wisdom from all men As bees their honey hive from plant and weed.

Yea, from the varied history of the world, From the experience of all times, all men, The wise man learneth wisdom. Folly learns From his own bruises if he learns at all.

The fool--born wise--what need hath he to learn?

He needs but gabble wisdom to the world: Grill him on a gridiron and he gabbles still.

Wise men there are--wise in the eyes of men-- Who cram their hollow heads with ancient wit Cackled in Carthage, babbled in Babylon, Gabbled in Greece and riddled in old Rome, And never coin a farthing of their own.

Wise men there are--for owls are counted wise-- Who love to leave the lamp-lit paths behind, And chase the shapeless shadow of a doubt.

Too wise to learn, too wise to see the truth, E'en though it glow and sparkle like a gem On G.o.d's outstretched forefinger for all time.

These have one argument, and only one, For good or evil, earth or jeweled heaven-- The olden, owlish argument of doubt.

Ah, he alone is wise who ever stands Armed _cap-a-pie_ with G.o.d's eternal truth.

Where _Grex_ is _Rex_ G.o.d help the hapless land.

The yelping curs that bay the rising moon Are not more clamorous, and the fitful winds Not more inconstant. List the croaking frogs That raise their heads in fen or stagnant pool, Shouting at eve their wisdom from the mud.

Beside the braying, bleating, bellowing mob, Their jarring discords are sweet harmony.

The headless herd are but a noise of wind; Sometimes, alas, the wild tornado's roar.

As full of freaks as curs are full of fleas, Like gnats they swarm, like flies they buzz and breed.

Thought works in silence: Wisdom stops to think.

No a.s.s so obstinate as ignorance.

Oft as they seize the s.h.i.+p of state, behold-- Overboard goes all ballast and they crowd To blast or breeze or hurricane full sail, Each dunce a pilot and a captain too.

How often cross-eyed Justice hits amiss!

Doomed by Athenian mobs to banishment, See Aristides leave the land he saved: Wisdom his fault and justice his offense.

See Caesar crowned a G.o.d and Tully slain; See Paris red with riot and n.o.ble blood, A king beheaded and a monster throned,-- King Drone, flat fool that weather-c.o.c.ked all winds, Gulped gall and vinegar and smacked it wine, Wig-wagged his way from gilded _Oeil de Boeuf_ Through mob and maelstrom to the guillotine.

Chateaus up-blazing torch the doom of France, While human wolves howl ruin round their walls.

Contention hisses from a million mouths, And from ten thousand muttering craters smokes The smell of sulphur. Gaul becomes a ghoul; While _Parlez-Tous_ in hot palaver holds Hubbub _ad_ Bedlam--Pandemonium thriced.

There, voices drowning voice with frantic cries, Discord demented flaps her ruffled wings And shrieks delirium to her screeching brood.

Sneer-lipped, hawk-eyed, wolf-tongued oraculars-- Wise-wigs, Girondins, frothing Jacobins-- Reason to madness run, tongues venom-tanged-- Howl chaos all with one united throat.

Maelstrom of madness, lazar-howled, hag-shrilled!

Quack quackles quack; all doctors disagree, While Doctor Guillotine's huge scalpel heads h.e.l.l-dogs beheading helpless innocents.

The very babes bark rabies. Journalism, Moon-mad, green-eyed, hound-scented, _lupus_-tongued On howls the pack and smells her bread in blood.

_O Tempus ferax insanorum, Heu!_ Physicked with metaphysics, pamphleteered Into paroxysms, bruited into brutes.

And metamorphosed into murder, lo Men lapse to savagery and turn to beasts.

h.e.l.l-broth hag-boiled: a mad Theroigne is queen-- Mounts to the brazen throne of Harlotdom, Queen of the cursed, and flares her cannon-torch.

Watch-wolves, lean-jawed, fore-smelling feast of blood, In packs on Paris howl from farthest France.

Discord demented bursts the bounds of _Dis_; Mad Murder raves and Horror holds her h.e.l.l.

Hades up-heaves her whelps. In human forms Up-flare the Furies, serpent-haired and grin Horrid with b.l.o.o.d.y jaws. Scaled reptiles crawl From slum and sewer, slimy, coil on coil-- Danton, dark beast, that builded for himself A monument of quicksand limed with blood; Horse-leech Marat, blear-eyed, vile vulture born; Fair Charlotte's dagger robbed the guillotine!

Black-biled, green-visaged, traitorous Robespierre, That buzzard-beaked, hawk-taloned octopus Who played with pale poltroonery of men, And drank the cup of flattery till he reeled; h.e.l.l's pope uncrowned, immortal for a day.

Tinville, relentless dog of murder-plot-- Doom-judge whose trembling victims were foredoomed; Maillard who sucked his milk from Murder's dugs, Twin-whelp to Theroigne, captain of the hags; Jourdan, red-grizzled mule-son blotched with blood, Headsman forever "famous-infamous;"

Keen, hag-whelped journalist Camille Desmoulins, Who with a hundred other of his ilk Hissed on the hounds and smeared his bread with blood; Lebon, man-fiend, that vampire-ghoul who drank Hot blood of headless victims, and compelled Mothers to view the murder of their babes; At whose red guillotine, in Arras raised, The pipe and fiddle played at every fall Of ghastly head the ribald "_Ca Ira_;"

And fiends unnamed and nameless brutes untaled.

Petticoat-patriots _sans bas_, and _Sans-culottes_, Rampant in rags and hunger-toothed uproar Paris the proud. With Jacobin clubs they club The head of France till all her brains are out.

Hired murder hunts in packs. Men murder-mad Slay for the love of murder. Gloomy night, Hiding her stars lest they in pity fall, Beholds a thousand guiltless, trembling souls-- Men, women, children--forth from prisons flung In flare of torch and glare of demon eyes, Among the howling wolves and lazar-hags, Crying for mercy where no mercy is, Hewed down in heaps by b.l.o.o.d.y ax and pike.

From their grim battlements the imps of h.e.l.l Indignant hissed and damped their fires with tears; And Manhood from the watch-towers of the world Cried in the name of Human Nature--"Hold!"

As well the drifting snail might strive to still The volcan-heaved, storm-struck, moon-maddened sea.

Blood-frenzied beasts demand their feast of blood.

_"Liberty--Equality--Fraternity!"_--the cry Of blood-hounds baying on the track of babes.

Queen innocent beheaded--mother-queen!

And queenly Roland--Nature's queenly queen!

Aye, at the foot of b.l.o.o.d.y guillotine She stood a heroine: before her loomed The G.o.ddess of Liberty--in statue-stone.

Queen Roland saw, and spake the words that ring Along the centuries--_"O Liberty!

What crimes are committed in thy name!"_--and died.

And when the headsman raised her severed head To h.e.l.l-dogs shouting _"Vive la Liberte,"_ G.o.dlike disdain still sparkled in her eyes.

Grim h.e.l.l herself in pity stood aghast, Clanged shut her doors and stopped her ears with pitch.

See the wise ruler--father of Brazil, Who struck the shackles from a million slaves, Whose reign was peace and love and gentleness, Despoiled and driven from the land he loves.

See jealous Labor strike the hand that feeds, And burn the mills that grind his daily bread; Yea, in blind rage denounce the very laws That s.h.i.+eld his home from Europe's pauperdom.

See the grieved farmer raise his h.o.r.n.y hand And splutter garlic. Hear the demagogues Fist-maul the wind and weather-c.o.c.k the crowd, With brazen foreheads full of empty noise Out-bellowing the bulls of Bashan; and behold Shrill, wrinkled Amazons in high harangue Stamp their flat feet and gnash their toothless gums, And flaunt their petticoat-flag of "Liberty."

Hear the old bandogs of the Daily Press, Chained to their party posts, or fetter-free And running amuck against old party creeds, On-howl their packs and glory in the fight.

See mangy curs, whose editorial ears p.r.i.c.k to all winds to catch the popular breeze, Slang-whanging yelp, and froth and snap and snarl, And sniff the gutters for their daily food.

And these--are they our prophets and our priests?

Hurra!--Hurra!--Hurra!--for "Liberty!"

Flaunt the red flag and flutter the petticoat; Ran-tan the drums and let the bugles bray, The eagle scream and sixty million throats Sing Yankee-doodle--Yankee-doodle-doo.

The state is sick and every fool a quack Running with pills and plasters and sure-cures, And every pill and package labelled _Ism_.

See Liberty run mad, and Anarchy, Bearing the torch, the dagger and the bomb Red-mouthed run riot in her sacred name Hear mobs of idlers cry--_"Equality!

Let all men share alike: divide, divide!"_ b.u.t.ting their heads against the granite rocks Of Nature and the eternal laws of G.o.d.

Pull down the toiler, lift the idler up!

Despoil the frugal, crown the negligent!

Offer rewards to idleness and crime!

And pay a premium for improvidence!

Fools, can your wolfish cries repeal the laws Of G.o.d engraven on the granite hills, Written in every Wrinkle of the earth, On every plain, on every mountain-top,-- Nay, blazened o'er all the boundless Universe On every jewel that sparkles on G.o.d's throne?

And can ye rectify G.o.d's mighty plan?

O pygmies, can ye measure G.o.d himself?

Aye, would ye measure G.o.d's almighty power, Go--crack Earth's bones and heave the granite hills; Measure the ocean in a drinking-cup; Measure Eternity by the town-clock; Nay, with a yard-stick measure the Universe: Measure for measure. Measure G.o.d by man!

"Fools to the midmost marrow of your bones!"

O buzzing flies and gnats! Ye cannot strike One little atom from G.o.d's Universe, Or warp the laws of Nature by a hair!