Canto the Sixth. Mythical Cosmogonies.
1. A native Repast. 2. Maori Theogony and Cosmogony. 3. Ranolf
jestingly personifies a materialistic God and Creator. 4. How they
take it. The ‘Parson-bird.’ Intoning. 5. Love—the intruder.
The Magician watching the Lovers.
I.
Then Amohia, who, her story ended,
Had left the group, returned, not unattended.
A sturdy stripling by her side,
Te Manu, to herself by blood allied,
Coal-curled, brown-cheeked, with beardless chin—
Good-humour broadly shining in his wide
Black eyes and teeth white-glistening through a grin—
Came from the beach where the canoe was tied,
And on the ground before the Stranger placed,
That he the first might touch and taste,
In flax-wov'n basket for a dish,
A dainty pile of delicate fish
In native style deliciously steam-drest;
Like whitebait some; some boiled bright red,
The small cray-fish in myriads bred,
With sunk fern-bundles lifted from the Lake:
Next, roasted fern-root pounded to a cake,
Milkwhite and floury; and the choicer roots,
The new potato and its substitutes,
The kúmara and táro. Then a store
Of jellies, ruddy-clear as claret, pressed
And well preserved from fruits last season bore,
Rich clusters of tupaki, luscious sweet;
With water mixed their noontide thirst to slake,
An innocent beverage truly! Rude the light
Repast, and simply wholesome at the best;
Yet scrupulously clean withal, it might
Have satisfied a more fastidious guest.
II.
And when the talk began again,
Said Ranolf, “How do you explain,
You Maori, how the heavens were hung
Up there? who spread the azure main?
Whence Man and all things living sprung?”
Prompt was an ancient Dame's reply,
Of wrinkled cheek yet lively eye,
Who took the pipe from her blue lips
And sate in grizzled dignity,
Proud of her crest that towered so high
Of hoopoe-feathers, black with snowy tips;—
Prompt was that ancient Dame's reply—
Compact her scheme of rude Cosmogony:
“There was Night at the first—the great Darkness. Then Pahpa, the Earth, ever genial, general Mother,
And our Father, fair Rangi—the Sky—in commixture unbounded confusedly clave to each other:
And between them close cramped lay their children gigantic—all Gods. He the mightiest, eldest, the Moulder
And Maker of Man—whose delight is in heroes—Tumatau—the Courage-inspirer, the Battle-upholder;
Tangaroa, far-foaming, the Sire of the myriads that silvery cleave the cerulean waters;
And the solemn and beauteous Tanë, who gathers his stateliest, green-ever, trees-waving daughters
Into forests, the sunny, the songster-bethridden; then Rongo—the peaceful, the kindly provider
Of the roots that with culture are milkiest, pithiest; he too, who flings them in wilder and wider
Profusion uncultured nor needing it—Haumia; lastly, the fiercest of any, the Rider
Of Tempests—Tawhiri, joy-wild when his sons—when the Winds multitudinous rush with the rattle
Of hail and the sting of sharp showers and the hurry of turbulent clouds to aerial battle.
All these did the weight of vast Rangi o'erwhelm; there restlessly, rampantly, brother on brother
Lay writhing and wrestling in vain to get free from the infinite coil and confusion and smother;
Till the forest-God, Tanë, with one mighty wrench irresistible prized his great parents asunder—
With his knotty and numberless talons held down—held the Earth and its mountain magnificence under,
Heaved the Heavens aloft with a million broad limbs shot on high, all together rebounding, resilient:
Then at once came the Light interfused, interflowing,—serenely soft-eddying—crystalline—brilliant!—
Now the Sons all remained with the Earth but Tawhiri; he, sole, in tempestuous resentment receding
Swept away at the skirts of his Father—the Sky; but swiftly to vengeance and victory leading
His livid battalions, returned in his terrors, his kindred with torment and torture to harry:
Tangaroa rolled howling before him—even Tanë bowed down; could his blast-besplit progeny parry
His blows, or withstand the full pelt of his torrents that flung them o'er wastes of white Ocean to welter?
Could Rongo do more ere he fled than conceal in the warmth of Earth's bosom his children for shelter?—
No! they shrank from the Storm-God amazed and affrighted. One brother—Tumatau—alone durst abide him,
Tumatau and Man stood before him unswerving, deserted by all, disregarded, defied him!
But Man that defection still punishes daily; with snare, net and spear still their offspring he chases,
Tangaroa's and Tanë's—the feathered—the finny; still turns up and tears from her tender embraces
All that Rongo has laid in the lap of his Mother; while fiercely Tawhiri still plagues all their races—
Ever wreaks his wild anger on blue Tangaroa, and whirls into spray-wreaths the billows he lashes—
On the Earth whose rich berries and blossoms he scatters and scathes; on the forests he splinters and crashes;
And on Man who stands firm when his thunder is loudest and laughs when his lightning incessantly flashes!”
III.
Said Amohia, “In your heart you laugh;
You think all this is nonsense, to-e, ‘chaff;’
Nay then, O Stranger, answer in your turn,
For still, you see, the Sun
Has wellnigh half his course to run,
Of his beginning—of the birth
Of all things, Sea and Sky and Earth,
What from their Sages do the white men learn?”
Silent he scanned an instant's space
The open eyes, the candid face
Of the inquiring earnest Maid;
Then as a half-satiric smile
Twitched at the corners of his mouth, the while
Lurked in his eyes a sly malicious twinkle,
Rushed off into a wild tirade—
Not caring if his words were clear or dim,
Only obedient to the moment's whim,
Somewhat like this: for we must sprinkle
With thoughts and phrases freer and more flowery,
The ruder baldness of his simple Maori;
Or rather, quote in full the jesting rhyme
Remembered from that Student-time,
Of which some outlines he employed—
With many explanations too
'Mid interruptions not a few—
To give to her whose wonder he enjoyed,
Some notion of a World-creator new,
Or virtual Deity, which to content us—
Your orthodox Materialists—a breed
Large-swallowed for a subternatural creed—
Have (or in reason might as well have) lent us:
“There's a God they call Motion; a wonderful Being,
Omnipresent, omnipotent! thinking and seeing,
All life, birth, existences, creatures, conditions,
Of his versatile skill ever-new exhibitions,
Are but phases his phantasy, subtle or simple,
Condescends to assume; from the faintest first dimple
He indents in the vapour that veils him—beginning
As he slides to a pirouette graceful and winning,
Such a whirl of Creation, such Universe-spinning,—
To his last of developments dense or ethereal,
When as Consciousness crowned with a halo imperial,
Though but grovelling in granules and cells ganglionic
In the brain of Mankind sits the grand Histrionic!
'Tis the strangest and stoutest of creeds and convictions—
'Tis a God that defies and disdains contradictions:
His adorers, though puzzled perhaps to say whether
He is they, or they he, they are mixed so together;—
(Though himself best proclaims his own glory Protean,
When as lightning he dances with worship Judæan,
Or intones as deep thunder his own Io-Pæan)
His adorers as Deity scorn to avow him,
Yet with faculties really divinest endow him!
All the powers creative they scornfully ravish
From the old-fashioned God of the million they lavish
On this Phantom with faith unsuspecting and slavish!
Then—like virgins once flung to that Sea-dragon scaly,
At the shrine of their Pagod they immolate gaily
Aspirations Humanity feeds upon daily;
There consume, with serene suicidal devotion
Whole heart-loads of lofty and tender emotion,
All the foredawn of gold over Life's darksome Ocean.
And they vary his victims with Logic—no little;
Never spare Common Sense—not a fraction—nor tittle;
Show no mercy for Sciences moral or mental;
And for Metaphysicians—the tribe transcendental,
Would burn them to cinders—a holocaust; striving
On the ashes to keep their Divinity thriving.
For strange though it seem, this Almighty Mechanic,
Undesigning Designer of all things organic,
Comes from nowhere himself: his own Father and Mother—
Never caused though all-causing—derived from no other;
And arranges, combines for such orderly courses
His myriad myriads of multiform forces
By accident only—repulsion—attraction—
Into beautiful symmetry, uniform action;
By headlong unweeting haphazard produces
Profound adaptations to infinite uses;
And as helplessly, stolidly stumbles on wonders,
With as little intention, as others on blunders;
Deaf and dumb, and stone blind, can make eyes, ears and voices,
Till with Beauty—Light—Music—all Nature rejoices;
Nay, unconscious beforehand arrives in due season
By dint of mere going, at Thought, Sense and Reason;
With no Mind, makes all Mind—that fine consummation,
That can trace the back steps of the blind operation;
Aye can soar on the wings of sublime calculation
O'er the flaming far ramparts of star-filled Creation.
So this Fetish—this Stock-God, this Impulse unguided,
With no aim and no sense, yet success so decided,
Still manipulates Atoms by no one provided
Into Minds like vast Mountains a World overviewing;—
With no better notion of what he is doing,
Hits off Shakspeares and Newtons and Cæsars and Platos—
Than the logs on the ashes which roast your potatoes:
And the men who consider this creed satisfactory
And would smile with mild pity on Sceptics refractory,
Poor crawlers who crowd to a house with a steeple,—
Are—some of the wisest and best of our people.”
IV.
To this effusion nought replied
The listeners; only said aside,
“The Stranger mocks us;” quietly—
Too courteous for expressed dissent,
Too proud to show astonishment
Or ignorance of their Guest's intent.
That laughing lunch-purveyor, he
Only to Miroa muttered low:
“A tito this—a fib, I know;
'Tis nothing like what Mapou says
Of their white Átua and his ways;
And he can tell, who visits most
And learns all news that reach the coast.
This Stranger too,”—and here the grin
Grew broader,—“by his dress at least
Is not a Tohunga, a Priest;
For Mapou says, they always go
In shining black from top to toe,
With two white plumes beneath their chin,
Just like that Tu-i, Mapou thought.”
And Ranolf smiled, whose quick ear caught
The fancy, as he saw just then
The bird they spoke of, down the glen
Come dashing, with its glossy coat
Like jet-black satin shot with green
And blue reflexions—at its throat
Two dainty-pencilled plumes of snow;
And once again admired, as oft
Before, its lively ways and mien;
As flitting, shifting to and fro
It ransacked every kowhai-tree
In yellow bloom, and loudly coughed
And loudly whistled in its glee,
And turned quite over, bending low
Its busy head to reach and dip
Into the pendent flowers and sip
Their juice, in fluttering glad unrest,
Unceasing in its honey-quest.
“That may be true,” said Miroa, “too;
For 'tis averred they are like a bird
In this (although it seems a joke)
They cannot speak like other folk,
But always sing what they would say,
E'en when they to their Átua pray.”
—But here that feather-crested Dame
Who this light chatter overheard
Rebuked them—feeling it became
Her sage experience to repress
Such sallies of mere sauciness:
“Oh foolish you! we always do
Ourselves in all our prayers the same!
Do we not sing for all we want?
May they not know some potent chaunt
To charm their Átua from his haunt,
As we coax eels to leave the mud?”—
Such reasoning they could not gainsay,
It nipped their satire in the bud.
V.
Meanwhile, another Guest had been
Among them though unnoticed and unseen;
Joining their converse with no audible tongue,
And speaking mystic Music without sound;
On whose mute melodies the listener hung;
Whose viewless Presence brightened all around.
Who should it be but that Consoler dear,
Heartwhispering Paraclete of priceless cheer—
Who but the Enchanter—Love? whose witchery flings
Fresh life round Daybreak's life-enlivening springs;
Heaps Noon on Noon for fervour; double-dyes
For deeper pathos Eve's empurpled skies.
Did he not use his artless Art that day
With slightest means most meaning to convey?
Some idle question asked as if in sport,
Some falter in the tone or breath drawn short—
Some touch of tapering fingers—touch so fleet,
They seem, just seem, as they a moment meet,
To linger ere they leave the contact sweet?
Or scorning all less subtle ministries
Did He not speak through Amohia's eyes,
Whose lids and raven lashes though they fell
Dark as a closing bird's-wing o'er their light
Upon her rich warm cheek, could never quite
Shut-in their lustrous tenderness, nor quell
Their rebel glances eloquent of Him,
More than the mother-bird can fold with hers
Her crowd of small quick-running loiterers
So closely, safely, that no single one
Of all the nestling, jostling train
May slip a moment out into the sun,
Although next moment gathered in again;
Whene'er that brooding mother sees
The stiff-stretched hawk across the blue vault swim;
As once or twice amid the trees
Had Amohia marked the Priest appear,
(Though vanishing almost as soon as seen)
With eyes inscrutable and dim
Watching herself and Ranolf; though with mien
Not threatening now, malignant nor severe,
Whatever cause she had to fear.
—But who could tell what hatred fell,
What dark designs might not be found
Within his heart whose face no less
Was such a smooth and placid screen?—
How many a man amid the press,
Is but a walking Wilderness,—
Like some fierce Ameer's hunting-ground
By lofty walls concealed, confined:
Caverns interminable wind,
Abysses yawn, those walls behind;
There wild beasts prowl and moan and howl
Of lust and greed and all excess;
They peer and pry who wander by—
The smooth fair walls are all they spy.
But little of his looks recked they,
Which though they keenly glanced their way
Did yet no ill intent betray.
So from redundant springs all day
Flowed streams of converse, grave and gay.
