The Unknown Eros Part 3

And urge their rout Where the wild dawn of rising Tartarus flares.

Yon strives their Leader, l.u.s.ting to be seen.

His leprosy's so perfect that men call him clean!

Listen the long, sincere, and liberal bray Of the earnest Puller at another's hay 'Gainst aught that dares to tug the other way, Quite void of fears With all that noise of ruin round his ears!

Yonder the people cast their caps o'erhead, And swear the threaten'd doom is ne'er to dread That's come, though not yet past.

All front the horror and are none aghast; Brag of their full-blown rights and liberties, Nor once surmise When each man gets his due the Nation dies; Nay, still shout 'Progress!' as if seven plagues Should take the laggard who would stretch his legs.

Forward! glad rush of Gergesenian swine; You've gain'd the hill-top, but there's yet the brine.

Forward! to meet the welcome of the waves That mount to 'whelm the freedom which enslaves.

Forward! bad corpses turn into good dung, To feed strange futures beautiful and young.

Forward! G.o.d speed ye down the d.a.m.n'd decline, And grant ye the Fool's true good, in abject ruin's gulf As the Wise see him so to see himself!

Ah, Land once mine, That seem'd to me too sweetly wise, Too sternly fair for aught that dies, Past is thy proud and pleasant state, That recent date When, strong and single, in thy sovereign heart, The thrones of thinking, hearing, sight, The cunning hand, the knotted thew Of lesser powers that heave and hew, And each the smallest beneficial part, And merest pore of breathing, beat, Full and complete, The great pulse of thy generous might, Equal in inequality, That soul of joy in low and high; When not a churl but felt the Giant's heat, Albeit he simply call'd it his, Flush in his common labour with delight, And not a village-Maiden's kiss But was for this More sweet, And not a sorrow but did lightlier sigh, And for its private self less greet, The whilst that other so majestic self stood by!

Integrity so vast could well afford To wear in working many a stain, To pillory the cobbler vain And license madness in a lord.

On that were all men well agreed; And, if they did a thing, Their strength was with them in their deed, And from amongst them came the shout of a king!

But, once let traitor coward meet, Not Heaven itself can keep its feet.

Come knave who said to dastard, 'Lo, The Deluge!' which but needed 'No!'

For all the Atlantic's threatening roar, If men would bravely understand, Is softly check'd for evermore By a firm bar of sand.

But, dastard listening knave, who said, ''Twere juster were the Giant dead, That so yon bawlers may not miss To vote their own pot-belly'd bliss,'

All that is past!

We saw the slaying, and were not aghast.

But ne'er a sun, on village Groom and Bride, Albeit they guess not how it is, At Easter or at Whitsuntide, But s.h.i.+nes less gay for this!

XVIII. THE TWO DESERTS.

Not greatly moved with awe am I To learn that we may spy Five thousand firmaments beyond our own.

The best that's known Of the heavenly bodies does them credit small.

View'd close, the Moon's fair ball Is of ill objects worst, A corpse in Night's highway, naked, fire-scarr'd, accurst; And now they tell That the Sun is plainly seen to boil and burst Too horribly for h.e.l.l.

So, judging from these two, As we must do, The Universe, outside our living Earth, Was all conceiv'd in the Creator's mirth, Forecasting at the time Man's spirit deep, To make dirt cheap.

Put by the Telescope!

Better without it man may see, Stretch'd awful in the hush'd midnight, The ghost of his eternity.

Give me the n.o.bler gla.s.s that swells to the eye The things which near us lie, Till Science rapturously hails, In the minutest water-drop, A torment of innumerable tails.

These at the least do live.

But rather give A mind not much to pry Beyond our royal-fair estate Betwixt these deserts blank of small and great.

Wonder and beauty our own courtiers are, Pressing to catch our gaze, And out of obvious ways Ne'er wandering far.

XIX. CREST AND GULF.

Much woe that man befalls Who does not run when sent, nor come when Heaven calls; But whether he serve G.o.d, or his own whim, Not matters, in the end, to any one but him; And he as soon Shall map the other side of the Moon, As trace what his own deed, In the next chop of the chance gale, shall breed.

This he may know: His good or evil seed Is like to grow, For its first harvest, quite to contraries: The father wise Has still the hare-brain'd brood; 'Gainst evil, ill example better works than good; The poet, fanning his mild flight At a most keen and arduous height, Unveils the tender heavens to h.o.r.n.y human eyes Amidst ingenious blasphemies.

Wouldst raise the poor, in Capuan luxury sunk?

The Nation lives but whilst its Lords are drunk!

Or spread Heav'n's partial gifts o'er all, like dew?

The Many's weedy growth withers the gracious Few!

Strange opposites, from those, again, shall rise.

Join, then, if thee it please, the bitter jest Of mankind's progress; all its spectral race Mere impotence of rest, The heaving vain of life which cannot cease from self, Crest altering still to gulf And gulf to crest In endless chace, That leaves the tossing water anchor'd in its place!

Ah, well does he who does but stand aside, Sans hope or fear, And marks the crest and gulf in station sink and rear, And prophesies 'gainst trust in such a tide: For he sometimes is prophet, heavenly taught, Whose message is that he sees only nought.

Nathless, discern'd may be, By listeners at the doors of destiny, The fly-wheel swift and still Of G.o.d's incessant will, Mighty to keep in bound, tho' powerless to quell, The amorous and vehement drift of man's herd to h.e.l.l.

XX. 'LET BE!'

Ah, yes; we tell the good and evil trees By fruits: But how tell these?

Who does not know That good and ill Are done in secret still, And that which shews is verily but show!

How high of heart is one, and one how sweet of mood: But not all height is holiness, Nor every sweetness good; And grace will sometimes lurk where who could guess?

The Critic of his kind, Dealing to each his share, With easy humour, hard to bear, May not impossibly have in him shrined, As in a gossamer globe or thickly padded pod, Some small seed dear to G.o.d.

Haply yon wretch, so famous for his falls, Got them beneath the Devil-defended walls Of some high Virtue he had vow'd to win; And that which you and I Call his besetting sin Is but the fume of his peculiar fire Of inmost contrary desire, And means wild willingness for her to die, Dash'd with despondence of her favour sweet; He fiercer fighting, in his worst defeat, Than I or you, That only courteous greet Where he does hotly woo, Did ever fight, in our best victory.

Another is mistook Through his deceitful likeness to his look!

Let be, let be: Why should I clear myself, why answer thou for me?

That shaft of slander shot Miss'd only the right blot.

I see the shame They cannot see: 'Tis very just they blame The thing that's not.

XXI. 'FAINT YET PURSUING.'

Heroic Good, target for which the young Dream in their dreams that every bow is strung, And, missing, sigh Unfruitful, or as disbelievers die, Thee having miss'd, I will not so revolt, But lowlier shoot my bolt, And lowlier still, if still I may not reach, And my proud stomach teach That less than highest is good, and may be high.

An even walk in life's uneven way, Though to have dreamt of flight and not to fly Be strange and sad, Is not a boon that's given to all who pray.

If this I had I'd envy none!

Nay, trod I straight for one Year, month or week, Should Heaven withdraw, and Satan me amerce Of power and joy, still would I seek Another victory with a like reverse; Because the good of victory does not die, As dies the failure's curse, And what we have to gain Is, not one battle, but a weary life's campaign.

Yet meaner lot being sent Should more than me content; Yea, if I lie Among vile shards, though born for silver wings, In the strong flight and feathers gold Of whatsoever heavenward mounts and sings I must by admiration so comply That there I should my own delight behold.

Yea, though I sin each day times seven, And dare not lift the fearfullest eyes to Heaven, Thanks must I give Because that seven times are not eight or nine, And that my darkness is all mine, And that I live Within this oak-shade one more minute even, Hearing the winds their Maker magnify.

XXII. VICTORY IN DEFEAT.

Ah, G.o.d, alas, How soon it came to pa.s.s The sweetness melted from thy barbed hook Which I so simply took; And I lay bleeding on the bitter land, Afraid to stir against thy least command, But losing all my pleasant life-blood, whence Force should have been heart's frailty to withstand.

Life is not life at all without delight, Nor has it any might; And better than the insentient heart and brain Is sharpest pain; And better for the moment seems it to rebel, If the great Master, from his lifted seat, Ne'er whispers to the wearied servant 'Well!'

Yet what returns of love did I endure, When to be pardon'd seem'd almost more sweet Than aye to have been pure!

But day still faded to disastrous night, And thicker darkness changed to feebler light, Until forgiveness, without stint renew'd, Was now no more with loving tears imbued, Vowing no more offence.

Not less to thine Unfaithful didst thou cry, 'Come back, poor Child; be all as 'twas before.'

But I, 'No, no; I will not promise any more!

Yet, when I feel my hour is come to die, And so I am secured of continence, Then may I say, though haply then in vain, "My only, only Love, O, take me back again!"'

Thereafter didst thou smite So hard that, for a s.p.a.ce, Uplifted seem'd Heav'n's everlasting door, And I indeed the darling of thy grace.

But, in some dozen changes of the moon, A bitter mockery seem'd thy bitter boon.

The broken pinion was no longer sore.

Again, indeed, I woke Under so dread a stroke That all the strength it left within my heart Was just to ache and turn, and then to turn and ache, And some weak sign of war unceasingly to make.

And here I lie, With no one near to mark, Thrusting h.e.l.l's phantoms feebly in the dark, And still at point more utterly to die.

O G.o.d, how long!

Put forth indeed thy powerful right hand, While time is yet, Or never shall I see the blissful land!

Thus I: then G.o.d, in pleasant speech and strong, (Which soon I shall forget): 'The man who, though his fights be all defeats, Still fights, Enters at last The heavenly Jerusalem's rejoicing streets With glory more, and more triumphant rites Than always-conquering Joshua's, when his blast The frighted walls of Jericho down cast; And, lo, the glad surprise Of peace beyond surmise, More than in common Saints, for ever in his eyes.'