Recaptured Rhymes Being a Batch of Political and Other Fugitives Arrested and Brought to Book. By H. D. Traill |
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THE ANTS' NEST.
I've an ants' nest in my garden, and on sleepy summer days
I delight to sit beside it, and to watch the works and ways
Of the busy little people (watched of late too closely these
By a far less kindly Virgil than who sang the civic bees),
While I muse upon the impulse, silent, hidden—full of awe,
Whether it be force of Godhead or of self-fulfilling law,—
That, by every year's mid-season, crowds the air with humming wings,
Covers earth's abounding bosom with the toil of tiny things.
Thus engaged the other evening, lounged me by my gardener's boy,
Futile lout and turnip-headed, whom I foolishly employ
At a certain weekly stipend to do nothing with a hoe,
And to train the climbing roses where I want them not to grow:
Lounged me by, I say, this booby, and, in passing—Master Sam
Being of the age when mischief has the zest of epigram—
Poised a heavy hob-nailed Blucher o'er the hapless little state,
And with one strong kick of ruin spurned it flat and desolate!
Thus he did. Then I, indignant at the blockhead's brutal jest,
Seized him by the nape, and straightway to his ample ears addressed,
In the only way to make them take a message to his brain,
Strong advice against indulging in such pleasantries again.
Off he sneaked, demissâ caudâ, and I turned me, full of ruth,
To the commonwealth subverted by the too facetious youth,
Seeking if, among the ruins of their city thus laid low,
Haply might be found a suburb still inhabitable. No!
Thread-like street and atom gateway, where awhile ago had trod
Tiny feet of thronging thousands, all was formless mould and clod;
Only here and there were hurrying houseless burghers two or three,
Dazed, bewildered, void of counsel, o'er the hideous débris,
Waiting doubtless his appearing, calm amid their shattered haunts,
His, the shepherd of the people, his, the “leader born of ants,”
The creative, the constructive, “still, strong” ant, with purpose high
Order to educe from chaos, law evoke from anarchy;
Who shall nerve his helpless fellows with their adverse fates to cope,
Fortify them with his patience, animate them with his hope;
So that, howsoever slowly, with whatever toil and pain,
From its ruins may the devastated city rise again,
And resume its peaceful labours and renew its prosperous day
Unmolested—till some other booby chance to pass that way.
Moralising o'er my claret in my library that night,
“Ah!” thought I, “how much more hopeful, arduous though it be, the fight
Fought by man with hostile Nature's banded forces, age by age,
Than is waged by lower races, or than they can ever wage!
Yonder ants repair their ruins: well, a city straight appears
Built as ants have built their cities any time these myriad years;
Just as fragile and defenceless, nowise safer in the least,
From the boot of playful boyhood, or the hoof of straying beast.
Weak they stand, and fall through weakness, and in weakness rise again,
Death instructs not, and disaster brings not wisdom in its train.
But mankind? We stand confronting calm our overshadowing foe,
Lightnings strike us, tempests whelm us, plague and famine lay us low;
Yet with every blow he levels weaker grows the giant blind,
Stronger Polypheme's Odysseus foreordained — the human mind;
Stronger grows man's strength of cunning his worldenemies to brave,
Some to baffle, some to conquer, some to capture and enslave.
Fire he tames, and water serves him, earth her treasure-hiding robe
Raises at his bidding, lightning speeds his message round the globe.
These once foes he makes his vassals; other foes more hostile still,
Irreclaimable to service, forces only strong for ill,
These he cheats or neutralises, circumvents or turns aside,
Ever setting back their limits as sea-walls set back the tide.
Each succeeding generation breathes a stronger healthier breath;
Every decade sees new tillage conquered from the wastes of death;
Nature yearly makes submissions; soon the philosophic dream
Will become the workday waking, and mankind will reign supreme,
Master of the world around him, king of his environment
Absolute, and waiting only that deliverance latestsent,
Man's redemption from his passions, from that scourge self-wielded, crime,
From the brutal lust of battle (blunted even now by time),
And from competition, blindest of the conflicts that divide
And dividing weaken workers who should labour side by side—
Which deliverance once accomplished, dawns for him a brighter day
Than the golden age of fable, never more to pass away!
Shall we then,” I cried elated (reaching down from off its shelf
‘Comte,’ in Martinean's translation), “shall we only live for self?
We of the unbounded future shall we in the present rest,
Narrowing ant-like aspirations to the limits of our nest;
Striving through life's summer only as the ant laborious strives
To provide what may suffice us for the winter of our lives?
And not rather learn to look beyond our own day's little span,
So to live that we may help to hasten on the Reign of Man.
Forasmuch as surely knowing, while we labour and abstain,
That our labour in our Lord, Humanity, is not in vain.”
I delight to sit beside it, and to watch the works and ways
Of the busy little people (watched of late too closely these
By a far less kindly Virgil than who sang the civic bees),
While I muse upon the impulse, silent, hidden—full of awe,
Whether it be force of Godhead or of self-fulfilling law,—
That, by every year's mid-season, crowds the air with humming wings,
Covers earth's abounding bosom with the toil of tiny things.
142
Futile lout and turnip-headed, whom I foolishly employ
At a certain weekly stipend to do nothing with a hoe,
And to train the climbing roses where I want them not to grow:
Lounged me by, I say, this booby, and, in passing—Master Sam
Being of the age when mischief has the zest of epigram—
Poised a heavy hob-nailed Blucher o'er the hapless little state,
And with one strong kick of ruin spurned it flat and desolate!
Thus he did. Then I, indignant at the blockhead's brutal jest,
Seized him by the nape, and straightway to his ample ears addressed,
143
Strong advice against indulging in such pleasantries again.
Off he sneaked, demissâ caudâ, and I turned me, full of ruth,
To the commonwealth subverted by the too facetious youth,
Seeking if, among the ruins of their city thus laid low,
Haply might be found a suburb still inhabitable. No!
Thread-like street and atom gateway, where awhile ago had trod
Tiny feet of thronging thousands, all was formless mould and clod;
Only here and there were hurrying houseless burghers two or three,
Dazed, bewildered, void of counsel, o'er the hideous débris,
144
His, the shepherd of the people, his, the “leader born of ants,”
The creative, the constructive, “still, strong” ant, with purpose high
Order to educe from chaos, law evoke from anarchy;
Who shall nerve his helpless fellows with their adverse fates to cope,
Fortify them with his patience, animate them with his hope;
So that, howsoever slowly, with whatever toil and pain,
From its ruins may the devastated city rise again,
And resume its peaceful labours and renew its prosperous day
Unmolested—till some other booby chance to pass that way.
Moralising o'er my claret in my library that night,
“Ah!” thought I, “how much more hopeful, arduous though it be, the fight
145
Than is waged by lower races, or than they can ever wage!
Yonder ants repair their ruins: well, a city straight appears
Built as ants have built their cities any time these myriad years;
Just as fragile and defenceless, nowise safer in the least,
From the boot of playful boyhood, or the hoof of straying beast.
Weak they stand, and fall through weakness, and in weakness rise again,
Death instructs not, and disaster brings not wisdom in its train.
But mankind? We stand confronting calm our overshadowing foe,
Lightnings strike us, tempests whelm us, plague and famine lay us low;
146
Stronger Polypheme's Odysseus foreordained — the human mind;
Stronger grows man's strength of cunning his worldenemies to brave,
Some to baffle, some to conquer, some to capture and enslave.
Fire he tames, and water serves him, earth her treasure-hiding robe
Raises at his bidding, lightning speeds his message round the globe.
These once foes he makes his vassals; other foes more hostile still,
Irreclaimable to service, forces only strong for ill,
These he cheats or neutralises, circumvents or turns aside,
Ever setting back their limits as sea-walls set back the tide.
147
Every decade sees new tillage conquered from the wastes of death;
Nature yearly makes submissions; soon the philosophic dream
Will become the workday waking, and mankind will reign supreme,
Master of the world around him, king of his environment
Absolute, and waiting only that deliverance latestsent,
Man's redemption from his passions, from that scourge self-wielded, crime,
From the brutal lust of battle (blunted even now by time),
And from competition, blindest of the conflicts that divide
And dividing weaken workers who should labour side by side—
148
Than the golden age of fable, never more to pass away!
Shall we then,” I cried elated (reaching down from off its shelf
‘Comte,’ in Martinean's translation), “shall we only live for self?
We of the unbounded future shall we in the present rest,
Narrowing ant-like aspirations to the limits of our nest;
Striving through life's summer only as the ant laborious strives
To provide what may suffice us for the winter of our lives?
And not rather learn to look beyond our own day's little span,
So to live that we may help to hasten on the Reign of Man.
149
That our labour in our Lord, Humanity, is not in vain.”
How it chanced I do not know—
That my claret served me so,
Sound as is that modest drink,
I am loath indeed to think;
But howbeit, truth to tell,
Musing thus asleep I fell,
And I heard a Voice whose tones
Froze the marrow in my bones,
Crying, “Labour and abstain!
Labour spent will not be vain
If it harden thee to bear
The full weight of man's despair:
And to practise abstinence
From the pleasant things of sense,
Easier makes of abnegation
Pleasures of imagination.”
Here a pause; then once again:
“Labour, labour, and abstain,
Ye who will—or ye who can,
But ere thou, O dreamer Man,
Take the altruistic vow,
Pledge thy comfortable Now
To insure a glorious Then
To the common race of men,
Open eyes of sleep and see
What the womb of time is bearing,
What millennium is preparing
For ‘your Lord’ Humanity.”
That my claret served me so,
Sound as is that modest drink,
I am loath indeed to think;
But howbeit, truth to tell,
Musing thus asleep I fell,
And I heard a Voice whose tones
Froze the marrow in my bones,
Crying, “Labour and abstain!
Labour spent will not be vain
If it harden thee to bear
The full weight of man's despair:
And to practise abstinence
From the pleasant things of sense,
150
Pleasures of imagination.”
Here a pause; then once again:
“Labour, labour, and abstain,
Ye who will—or ye who can,
But ere thou, O dreamer Man,
Take the altruistic vow,
Pledge thy comfortable Now
To insure a glorious Then
To the common race of men,
Open eyes of sleep and see
What the womb of time is bearing,
What millennium is preparing
For ‘your Lord’ Humanity.”
The voice surceased: and in a hush of awe
The walls of dark were riven, and the night
Became as day around me, and I saw,
As from a tower, a strange and fearful sight.
The walls of dark were riven, and the night
Became as day around me, and I saw,
As from a tower, a strange and fearful sight.
151
Earth, kindly Earth, our blithe and blossoming home,
Far as to where her limits seemed to meet
A sky spread o'er her like an iron dome,
Lay dead beneath my feet!
Far as to where her limits seemed to meet
A sky spread o'er her like an iron dome,
Lay dead beneath my feet!
Dead—or her only life, the life-in-death
Of moss and lichen; mute, with such repose
As stirs but when the iceberg sundereth,
Or sounds the distant grinding of the floes.
Of moss and lichen; mute, with such repose
As stirs but when the iceberg sundereth,
Or sounds the distant grinding of the floes.
This earth of springs and harvests, flocks and herds,
Of toiling, laughing, loving, human throngs;
Warmed by the sun, and glad with flight of birds,
And rained on by their songs,
Of toiling, laughing, loving, human throngs;
Warmed by the sun, and glad with flight of birds,
And rained on by their songs,
Lay fruitless, soundless, dead: from zone to zone
Spread over her the terrible control
Of Arctic frost—the idle gloom, the lone
And everlasting leisure of the Pole!
Spread over her the terrible control
Of Arctic frost—the idle gloom, the lone
And everlasting leisure of the Pole!
152
Spake again the Voice abhorred:
“Lo, the kingdom of your Lord!
Lo, his dazzling palace-walls,
And the silence in his halls,
Marking in its depth intense
A profounder reverence
Than abates the courtier's tones
At the foot of lower thrones.—
Idle dreamer! vain and blind!
Had thy vision-ridden mind
In its scheme of earthly bliss
And dominion room for this?
Didst thou think that taming these,
Lightning, famine, fire, disease—
Powers that take thy yoke, or flee
From thy face—was conquering Me?
Fool of foolish boastings! They
Are my children at their play!
What so wastes the face of earth
Is but malice of their mirth;
All your famous victories gained
Mean but infants' sports restrained.
Deeper for your real foe
Search ye—I abide below,
Storing for your ‘age of gold’
Treasure of eternal cold,
Weaving for man's ‘majesty’—
Him, whose expectations high
All your toils and hopes absorb
On this slowly-freezing orb—
Such a robe as may be meet
For—a monarch's winding-sheet.”
“Lo, the kingdom of your Lord!
Lo, his dazzling palace-walls,
And the silence in his halls,
Marking in its depth intense
A profounder reverence
Than abates the courtier's tones
At the foot of lower thrones.—
Idle dreamer! vain and blind!
Had thy vision-ridden mind
In its scheme of earthly bliss
And dominion room for this?
Didst thou think that taming these,
Lightning, famine, fire, disease—
Powers that take thy yoke, or flee
From thy face—was conquering Me?
Fool of foolish boastings! They
Are my children at their play!
What so wastes the face of earth
Is but malice of their mirth;
153
Mean but infants' sports restrained.
Deeper for your real foe
Search ye—I abide below,
Storing for your ‘age of gold’
Treasure of eternal cold,
Weaving for man's ‘majesty’—
Him, whose expectations high
All your toils and hopes absorb
On this slowly-freezing orb—
Such a robe as may be meet
For—a monarch's winding-sheet.”
“Then is He the Creator of things? or is It their volitionless cause,
Is it Spirit or Force,” I cried, in a passion of wonder and woe,
“That breathes free life out of freedom, or, binding, is bound by laws?
Was it choice or chance—was it Demon or Demiurge ordered it so?
Is it Spirit or Force,” I cried, in a passion of wonder and woe,
“That breathes free life out of freedom, or, binding, is bound by laws?
154
“Is our master a sightless Strength, unwilled—our oppressor in chains
Of the iron he lays on ourselves? it is well: we can learn to bear
As the slaves of a slave endure, for whom in their cruellest pains
No longings of unwreaked hate disturb the content of despair.
Of the iron he lays on ourselves? it is well: we can learn to bear
As the slaves of a slave endure, for whom in their cruellest pains
No longings of unwreaked hate disturb the content of despair.
“But a Person? A Cause Uncaused? Can it be that deliberate Will,
At a point in the vast Before whereunto no mind can climb,
Appointed such end and prepared it, selecting such means to fulfil,
Or e'er from Eternity's ocean arose the island of Time?
At a point in the vast Before whereunto no mind can climb,
Appointed such end and prepared it, selecting such means to fulfil,
Or e'er from Eternity's ocean arose the island of Time?
155
“Can it be that the planets obeyed a commanding Voice? Can it be
That no aimless impulse arrayed them around the solar fire,
But that floatings of nebular masses were changed by conscious decree
To the rhythmical music and march of a solid and orderly choir?
That no aimless impulse arrayed them around the solar fire,
But that floatings of nebular masses were changed by conscious decree
To the rhythmical music and march of a solid and orderly choir?
“That the first faint thrills of the germ and the blind beginnings of life
Were marked by a sentient Mind that, of fixed predeterminate plan,
Had willed the fierce struggle of living, the pitiless secular strife,
And thereout in the fulness of untold years the emergence of Man;
Were marked by a sentient Mind that, of fixed predeterminate plan,
Had willed the fierce struggle of living, the pitiless secular strife,
And thereout in the fulness of untold years the emergence of Man;
“Had willed him emerge and survive, and that slowly, through age upon age,
From the jungle and swamp to the city the painful ascent should be made,
From the first rude stammer of tongues to the speech of the poet and sage,
From the first rough knottings of barter to infinite network of trade;
156
From the first rude stammer of tongues to the speech of the poet and sage,
From the first rough knottings of barter to infinite network of trade;
“From isolate weakness to fagoted strength in the communal band,
To the peace and justice of States from the clashings of wilderness-wars;
From the fingers that fashioned the flint to the fingers of Raphael's hand;
From the skulls that bleach in the caves to the heads that have measured the stars;
To the peace and justice of States from the clashings of wilderness-wars;
From the fingers that fashioned the flint to the fingers of Raphael's hand;
From the skulls that bleach in the caves to the heads that have measured the stars;
“To the end that at last—that at last the whole into night should go down
Into night and the void, when the long-sought summit of things has been won,
And the glorious God-planned scheme attain consummation and crown
In the idiot whirl of a lifeless globe round a useless sun?”
Into night and the void, when the long-sought summit of things has been won,
157
In the idiot whirl of a lifeless globe round a useless sun?”
Yet once more the Voice whose tones
Froze the marrow in my bones:—
“Can it be, O can it be,
(Cry the ants in agony,)
That the power whose prescient mind
Our illustrious race designed,
Placed us here with cunning blest
To construct our mighty nest,
And to store our yearly fruit,
Also foreordained the Boot
That with catastrophic—”
Froze the marrow in my bones:—
“Can it be, O can it be,
(Cry the ants in agony,)
That the power whose prescient mind
Our illustrious race designed,
Placed us here with cunning blest
To construct our mighty nest,
And to store our yearly fruit,
Also foreordained the Boot
That with catastrophic—”
“Nay,
Spare your sneers. Far happier they,
In that only fancy sees
Power in them for thoughts like these:
In that whatsover fate
Their frail race annihilate
To despair it will condemn
No immortal hopes in them.
But for us! O God of truth,
God of justice and of ruth!
Does our everlasting wrong
To thy equity belong?
Did thy truth decree on high
That we should believe a lie?
And is thy compassion shown
In a truth too late made known?
Why to man alone this lot?”
Cried the Voice: “And know'st thou not?”
Then, in words of bitter gibe—
“Claims not man's complacent tribe
O'er the beasts pre-eminence,
Chief in this—his laughter-sense?
So the fate contrived for him
Should appeal, in humour grim,
To that faculty acute
Which discerns him from the brute:
Wherefore hopes and longings blind
Were enkindled in his mind,
And to fire's devouring strength
Fanned and fostered—that at length
Their evanishment in smoke
Might produce the effect of joke!”
Spare your sneers. Far happier they,
In that only fancy sees
Power in them for thoughts like these:
158
Their frail race annihilate
To despair it will condemn
No immortal hopes in them.
But for us! O God of truth,
God of justice and of ruth!
Does our everlasting wrong
To thy equity belong?
Did thy truth decree on high
That we should believe a lie?
And is thy compassion shown
In a truth too late made known?
Why to man alone this lot?”
Cried the Voice: “And know'st thou not?”
Then, in words of bitter gibe—
“Claims not man's complacent tribe
O'er the beasts pre-eminence,
Chief in this—his laughter-sense?
So the fate contrived for him
Should appeal, in humour grim,
159
Which discerns him from the brute:
Wherefore hopes and longings blind
Were enkindled in his mind,
And to fire's devouring strength
Fanned and fostered—that at length
Their evanishment in smoke
Might produce the effect of joke!”
“Ah, scoffer accursed!” I cried, “we know and too well we know
How cruel a humour indulges the Power who breathed in us breath,
How he bred in us love of our children and wives and rooted it so
That our hearts are transfixed by the point of the terrible jest of death!
How cruel a humour indulges the Power who breathed in us breath,
How he bred in us love of our children and wives and rooted it so
That our hearts are transfixed by the point of the terrible jest of death!
“We know” (and my voice sank lower) “he even refines upon this,
And deludes us with shadowy hopes of meetings beyond the grave,
Though as yet he has spared undeceiving the weak and prolongs them the bliss
Of the faith that he slowly tears from the tortured breasts of the brave!
160
Though as yet he has spared undeceiving the weak and prolongs them the bliss
Of the faith that he slowly tears from the tortured breasts of the brave!
“But must we believe at your bidding that ‘life-in-the-future of earth’
Is the nothing of life-in-the-heavens? that that last pitiful gleam
Is to fade from the sky of the soul, till the great World Jester his mirth
Shall have sated on anguish of man in dispersing the Humanist dream?”
Is the nothing of life-in-the-heavens? that that last pitiful gleam
Is to fade from the sky of the soul, till the great World Jester his mirth
Shall have sated on anguish of man in dispersing the Humanist dream?”
No answer came. I cried again;
No voice the silence broke
Till silence seemed to burst my brain,
And, sweating cold, I woke.
I woke: long hours had fled, and lo!
Dim-seen through curtains drawn,
The moon's pale corpse is sinking slow
In the grey pools of dawn.
Night is departing terror-thronged,
But unreleased I seem,
For waking life awhile prolonged
The questionings of dream,
And break of day the hour had brought
That bows the soul to earth
In idle travail of a thought
Which comes not to the birth;
So to the voice that answered not
Still cried I “Answer Thou!
The dumb enigma of our lot
Lies heaviest on us now.”
But now! . . . The brooding East was riven,
The morning-wind took wing,
Above in the fast-brightening heaven
The lark began to sing;
Sweet through the lattice breathed the bine,
The mower clinked his scythe;
Rang out from 'mid the gathered kine
The milkmaid's laughter blithe.
Ah! blessèd sounds of wiser life,
Contented with its day,
How ye rebuke the inward strife
That wears the soul away!
And blessèd life itself! that holds,
So we not shun its grasp,
The troubled spirits it enfolds
In soothing mother-clasp;
Whose commonplaces merciful
The brain from madness keep,
And lull—so we but let them lull—
Until we fall asleep.
No voice the silence broke
Till silence seemed to burst my brain,
And, sweating cold, I woke.
161
Dim-seen through curtains drawn,
The moon's pale corpse is sinking slow
In the grey pools of dawn.
Night is departing terror-thronged,
But unreleased I seem,
For waking life awhile prolonged
The questionings of dream,
And break of day the hour had brought
That bows the soul to earth
In idle travail of a thought
Which comes not to the birth;
So to the voice that answered not
Still cried I “Answer Thou!
The dumb enigma of our lot
Lies heaviest on us now.”
But now! . . . The brooding East was riven,
The morning-wind took wing,
Above in the fast-brightening heaven
The lark began to sing;
162
The mower clinked his scythe;
Rang out from 'mid the gathered kine
The milkmaid's laughter blithe.
Ah! blessèd sounds of wiser life,
Contented with its day,
How ye rebuke the inward strife
That wears the soul away!
And blessèd life itself! that holds,
So we not shun its grasp,
The troubled spirits it enfolds
In soothing mother-clasp;
Whose commonplaces merciful
The brain from madness keep,
And lull—so we but let them lull—
Until we fall asleep.
| Recaptured Rhymes | |