The Year of the World A Philosophical Poem on "Redemption from The Fall". By William B. Scott |
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 | The Year of the World |  |
III.
Whence is this novel doctrine, spiritual theme
Of strange equality, renouncing state,
Order, subordination, war, and gain?
Who is the king they place above us all,
So honoring his speech beyond our edicts?
Bring him forth, those who follow him bring forth—
That they may die, and so our power, whom Jove
Doth make to rule on earth may firm remain.
Do they not hold by him whose shameful end
Was prayed for by his tribe; do they not hold
That sacred Delphi is a demon-voice,
That all the gods are demons or mere dreams?
Atheists are they not, unheard-of men,
Who are as beasts, whom reason cannot reach?
Bring them before us, that by their just death
The pure theocracy be sacred held.
Of strange equality, renouncing state,
Order, subordination, war, and gain?
Who is the king they place above us all,
So honoring his speech beyond our edicts?
Bring him forth, those who follow him bring forth—
That they may die, and so our power, whom Jove
Doth make to rule on earth may firm remain.
86
Was prayed for by his tribe; do they not hold
That sacred Delphi is a demon-voice,
That all the gods are demons or mere dreams?
Atheists are they not, unheard-of men,
Who are as beasts, whom reason cannot reach?
Bring them before us, that by their just death
The pure theocracy be sacred held.
Citizens! what impiety appears
Amongst us, knocking even at our doors,
Unveiling women, drinking children's blood!
Shall we have games and festivals no more?
Triumphs no more, nor arts, nor capitols,
Nor golden tissue for the weavers' trade?
All learning and all knowledge,—shall they cease,
And we stand naked to barbarians' swords?
The people's voice hath said that they must die.
Amongst us, knocking even at our doors,
Unveiling women, drinking children's blood!
Shall we have games and festivals no more?
Triumphs no more, nor arts, nor capitols,
Nor golden tissue for the weavers' trade?
All learning and all knowledge,—shall they cease,
And we stand naked to barbarians' swords?
The people's voice hath said that they must die.
Such were the loud responses to those hymns,
Heard with sweet concords through the under paths
Of social life; and such the fierce reply
To the love-prompted utterers of the word.
They died, but perished not. Above all pain,
By which antagonism strives for power,
Those sweet concords increased: with changing words
Increaséd they; alas! with changeful words:
With words which are the mortal vestments thought
Appears in at the altar of the mind,—
Thought, the immortal and untangible,
The ruler of the act;—with changeful words
Those sweet concords increased upon the ear,
And left the heart as barren as before.
Too simple for the learning of the past,
Too unadorned to reign above the senses,
Too naked for the buskined pride of youth,
Which then was this world's epoch; gnostic lore
Came with its theologic fantasy,
Building hierarchies, and seven heavens
With their degrees of beatific joys,
And a like mystic number of dark hells.
Initiatory sacrament and sign
Drew the hushed flocks together in the night.
Missives of shepherds become canons holy:
The shepherds tribute-gifted, and their crooks
Gem-crusted gold!
Heard with sweet concords through the under paths
Of social life; and such the fierce reply
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They died, but perished not. Above all pain,
By which antagonism strives for power,
Those sweet concords increased: with changing words
Increaséd they; alas! with changeful words:
With words which are the mortal vestments thought
Appears in at the altar of the mind,—
Thought, the immortal and untangible,
The ruler of the act;—with changeful words
Those sweet concords increased upon the ear,
And left the heart as barren as before.
Too simple for the learning of the past,
Too unadorned to reign above the senses,
Too naked for the buskined pride of youth,
Which then was this world's epoch; gnostic lore
Came with its theologic fantasy,
Building hierarchies, and seven heavens
With their degrees of beatific joys,
And a like mystic number of dark hells.
Initiatory sacrament and sign
Drew the hushed flocks together in the night.
Missives of shepherds become canons holy:
The shepherds tribute-gifted, and their crooks
Gem-crusted gold!
88
Away unto the waste,
In sackcloth with a girdle of horsehair,
Flies the ascetic from the growing honors;
No sandal and no linen and no food,—
He trusts unto the hand that bird and beast
Feeds ever. In high places shines the cross,
The sign that aided the imperial arms—
Strangest of aids!—upon the battle field.
In highest places, and on altars girt
With princes, and in councils:—for the priests
Have this most wondrous duty, to sift out
The God's word from the scribe's word. Shall we not
Be one in faith? Yea, he who otherwise
Than that believes—pursue him from the fold,
Unto Gehenna: never more let men
Reason on that, for it shall not be changed.
And thus the modern world grew up to flower:
One God, one bishop, and one creed — one man
To rule—let every state have its own king:
A hierarchy in heaven, and in the church
A hierarchy; another in the state.
The outstretched basis of this pyramid,
A feudal serfdom cleaving to the soil,
Yet reaching freely up from class to class,
For all souls are the same with God, all powers
His instruments. The Idea everywhere—
Of God, of man, of nature, of creation—
Without which there is no rest for the worker,
No aim towards which to work—this general scheme
By revelation fixed: the modern mind
Concentrated within the narrow sphere
Of Understanding, Science substitutes
For Reasoning, and beneath the wings of Faith
Sits in the school of Knowledge patiently;
Investigates, explores, even to the core
And centre of the sensuous, to the depth
Where soul and sense unite; till step by step
He shall come out into another sphere,
From Faith and Knowledge equally removed—
Evolve the resurrection of the real,
And be at last the master!
In sackcloth with a girdle of horsehair,
Flies the ascetic from the growing honors;
No sandal and no linen and no food,—
He trusts unto the hand that bird and beast
Feeds ever. In high places shines the cross,
The sign that aided the imperial arms—
Strangest of aids!—upon the battle field.
In highest places, and on altars girt
With princes, and in councils:—for the priests
Have this most wondrous duty, to sift out
The God's word from the scribe's word. Shall we not
Be one in faith? Yea, he who otherwise
Than that believes—pursue him from the fold,
Unto Gehenna: never more let men
Reason on that, for it shall not be changed.
And thus the modern world grew up to flower:
One God, one bishop, and one creed — one man
To rule—let every state have its own king:
A hierarchy in heaven, and in the church
A hierarchy; another in the state.
The outstretched basis of this pyramid,
A feudal serfdom cleaving to the soil,
Yet reaching freely up from class to class,
89
His instruments. The Idea everywhere—
Of God, of man, of nature, of creation—
Without which there is no rest for the worker,
No aim towards which to work—this general scheme
By revelation fixed: the modern mind
Concentrated within the narrow sphere
Of Understanding, Science substitutes
For Reasoning, and beneath the wings of Faith
Sits in the school of Knowledge patiently;
Investigates, explores, even to the core
And centre of the sensuous, to the depth
Where soul and sense unite; till step by step
He shall come out into another sphere,
From Faith and Knowledge equally removed—
Evolve the resurrection of the real,
And be at last the master!
| The Year of the World | |