The Complete Poetical Works of Robert Buchanan :: :: University of Virginia Library

Spirit of the great brow!
Fire hath thy City now:
She shakes the sad world with her troubled scream!
O spirit who loved best
This City of the West,
Hark! loud she shattered cries—great Queen of thy great Dream.

But, as she passes by
To the earth's scornful cry,
What are those Shapes who walk behind so wan?—
Martyrs and prophets born
Out of her night and morn:
Have we forgot them yet?—these, the great friends of Man.

We name them as they go,
Dark, solemn-faced, and slow—

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Voltaire, with saddened mouth, but eyes still bright,
Turgot, Malesherbes, Rousseau,
Lafayette, Mirabeau—
These pass and many more, heirs of large realms of Light.

Greatest and last pass thou!
Strong heart and mighty brow,
Thine eyes surcharged with love of all things fair;
Facing with those grand eyes
The light in the sweet skies.
While thy shade earthward falls, darkening my soul to prayer.

Sure as the great sun rolls,
The crown of mighty souls
Is martyrdom, and lo! thou hast thy crown.
On her pale brow there weighed
Another such proud shade—
O, but we know you both, risen or stricken down.

Sinful, mad, fever-fraught,
At war with her own thought,
Great-soul'd, sublime, the heir of constant pain,
France hath the dreadful part
To keep alive Man's heart,
To shake the sleepy blood into the slug-gard's brain;

Ever in act to spring,
Ever in suffering,
To point a lesson and to bear the load,
Least happy and least free
Of all the lands that be,
Dying that all may live, first of the slaves of God.

To try each crude desire
By her own soul's fierce fire,
To wait and watch with restless brain and heart,
To quench the fierce thirst never,
To feel supremely ever,
To rush where cowards crawl—this is her awful part.

Ever to cross and rack,
Along the same red track,
Genius is led, and speaks its soul out plain;
Blessed are those that give—
They die that man may live,
Their crown is martyrdom, their privilege is pain.

Spirit of the great brow!
I see thee, know thee now—
Last of the flock who die for man each day.
Ah, but I should despair
Did I not see up there
A Shepherd heavenly-eyed on the heights far away.

No cheat was thy vast scheme
Tho' in thy gentle dream
Thou saw'st no Shepherd watching the wild throng—
Thou, walking the sad road
Of all who seek for God,
Blinded became at last, looking at Light so long.

Yet God is multiform,
Human of heart and warm,
Content to take what shape the Soul loves best;
Before our footsteps still,
He changeth as we will—
Only,—with blood alone we gain Him, and are blest.

O, latest son of her,
Freedom's pale harbinger,
I see the Shepherd whom thou could'st not find;
But on thy great fair brow,
As thou didst pass but now,
Bright burnt the patient Cross of those who bless mankind.

And on her brow, who flies
Bleeding beneath the skies,
The mark was set that will not let her rest—
Sinner in all men's sight,
Mocker of very Light,
Yet is she chosen thus, martyr'd—and shall be blest.

Go by, O mighty dead!
My soul is comforted;
The Shepherd on the summit needs no prayers;
Best worshipper is he
Who suffers and is free—
That Soul alone blasphemes which trembles and despairs.