 | A Lost Epic and Other Poems |  |
Lo! sixteen centuries had passed away!
When God drove forth the pair, they fell a prey
To darkness and the panic of the night.
On three sides crouched their dread. In front, a light—
A fire—a sword smote every way to keep
The Tree of Life. Their terror made them creep
Nearer the sword. They maddened to escape
The horror without hands and without shape
That lurked in nature, waiting them. The twain
Crept closer. 'Twere less dreadful to be slain
By that fierce splendour, in each other's sight,
Than perish in the vast unhuman night.
They lay beneath the sword; they felt the wind
It made.
When God drove forth the pair, they fell a prey
To darkness and the panic of the night.
On three sides crouched their dread. In front, a light—
A fire—a sword smote every way to keep
The Tree of Life. Their terror made them creep
Nearer the sword. They maddened to escape
The horror without hands and without shape
That lurked in nature, waiting them. The twain
Crept closer. 'Twere less dreadful to be slain
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Than perish in the vast unhuman night.
They lay beneath the sword; they felt the wind
It made.
This Man and Woman were mankind.
The sword showed him the Woman's face, showed her
The Man's. They shrank apart. Their faces were
More fearful than the darkness, than the sword.
Then God in pity gave them fire; the Lord
Gave them the fire for solace and a stay.
When sixteen hundred years had passed away
The whole earth was fulfilled of evil and woe.
The Man and Woman wandered to and fro
In hordes and tribes and nations. They did eat
Of every beast and tree. The track of feet
Lay wide through polar snow and tropic sand.
No ocean beat on any utmost land
But some wild fisher watched the heaving blue.
Tribes thronged the sunset and the dawn. They knew
The glow of arctic and antarctic skies.
In savage lands they lived in wolfish wise.
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Shelter for fire and slumber—and a grave.
Time changed them—colour and stature, hair and skin.
They knew not whence they came. They owned no kin.
The Man and Woman in them had forgot
All ancient days, the sad primeval lot,
The brotherhood of dust, the sword of fire.
Their god was hunger, and their law desire.
In ancient realms, from golden cities, bright
With lamps of revel, roared into the night
The orgies of the giants of the earth.
And men and beasts, by day, to make them mirth,
Slew and were slain. Their spearmen, early and late,
Drove virgin troops from every land to sate
The tigerish greed of their delirious lust.
The evil of their fame was blown, like dust—
A blinding drouth—through all the world's broad ways.
And they too had forgot the olden days,
The kinship of mankind, the sword of fire.
Their god was luxury, their law desire.
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Were men in myriads. These were they who chased
The elephant and ostrich; they who fed
On marrow of lions on the watershed
Of mighty rivers; they who lived on canes
And locusts; they who roamed in sail-drawn wains
With flocks and herds, and made the heavens their fold;
And serpent-eaters, wearing coils of gold;
And fisher-folk, who slept on rafts of logs,
And throve on river-fish and milk of dogs;
And last, in regions green with sun and rain,
The husbandmen who planted roots and grain,
And dwelt in huts of water-reeds and mud.
And all these had forgot the brotherhood
Of man, the Garden days, the sword of fire.
Their god was turbulence, their law desire.
| A Lost Epic and Other Poems | |