 | Flotsam and Jetsam |  |
114
AN INVITATION
(Unpublished Proem to ‘Ranolf and Amohia.’)
I
Well! the Truth shall be welcomed with hardy reliance;All the lovely unfoldings of luminous Science,
All that Logic can prove or disprove, be allowed;
There is room for belief, though such Evil intrude,
In the dominance still of a Spirit of Good;
There is room for a hope, such a handbreadth we scan,
In the permanence yet of the Spirit of Man!—
Aye, and bless the far seeker, nor blame the fine dreamer;
Leave Reason her radiance—Doubt her due cloud;
Yet may this be avowed!
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II
From our Life, from Reality, too shallow-hearted,Has Romance—has all glory idyllic departed—
From the workaday World all the wonderment flown?
Well, but what if there gleamed in an Age cold as this,
The divinest of poets' ideal of bliss?
Yea, an Eden could lurk, in this Empire of ours,
With the loneliest love in the loveliest bowers?
In an era so rapid with railway and steamer,
And with Pan and the Dryads like Raphäel gone—
What if this could be shown?
III
Come, my friends! if the pride of negation has chafed you,From the comfortless comforting coldly vouchsafed you,
Discontented content with a chilling despair;
Let us try, as we float down a rhyme unrestrained,
If a glimmer, though faint, of these truths may be gained;
Through the gloom of eclipse as we wistfully steal,
If no faintest auréolar rays may reveal
That the Future is haply not utterly cheerless:
While the Present has joy and adventure as rare
As the Past when most fair.
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IV
And if, in this faith, you will roam undisdainingTo a land where the fanciful fountains are raining
Swift brilliants of boiling and beautiful spray
In the violet splendour of skies that illume
Such a wealth of wild ferns and such crimson tree-bloom
Where a people primeval is vanishing fast
With its faiths and its fables and ways of the past;
O with Reason and Fancy unfettered and fearless,
Come plunge with us deep into regions of Day—
Come away—and away!
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