 | Songs of A Worker |  |
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DIALOGUE BETWEEN TWO VENUSES.
FIRST VENUS.
With me the soul's Eternity began,
Before me wastes of waters were, and earth,
And elemental agonies that ran
Through human chaos, till my perfect birth
Fulfilled the life and made the dream of man.
Before me wastes of waters were, and earth,
And elemental agonies that ran
Through human chaos, till my perfect birth
Fulfilled the life and made the dream of man.
For I was with him in the foamless deep,
Vaguely he saw me through glistening water,
In the veined marble spell-bound or asleep,
A goddess, and a woman, and a daughter,
Of dreams, to make men joy henceforth, or weep,
Vaguely he saw me through glistening water,
In the veined marble spell-bound or asleep,
A goddess, and a woman, and a daughter,
Of dreams, to make men joy henceforth, or weep,
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A goddess when I stood upon the wave
Green haloed further than all arms could reach;
A woman when I came to earth and clave
Unto men's lives, filling the heart of each—
Then died, and took the marble for a grave.
Green haloed further than all arms could reach;
A woman when I came to earth and clave
Unto men's lives, filling the heart of each—
Then died, and took the marble for a grave.
Until then Praxiteles, with passionate Art
Sought me, and saw, and lifted me to strange
Life, above life and death to stand apart,
The one thing of the world that cannot change,
The true religion of the human heart.
Sought me, and saw, and lifted me to strange
Life, above life and death to stand apart,
The one thing of the world that cannot change,
The true religion of the human heart.
But what art thou, whom in the twilight time
Lifted by faint or failing hands I see,
Repeating timidly a form sublime?
Whose chisel hath made mimicry of me
In the cold quarries of what northern clime?
Lifted by faint or failing hands I see,
Repeating timidly a form sublime?
Whose chisel hath made mimicry of me
In the cold quarries of what northern clime?
The mid-day sun caressing, warmed the soul,
Long in unchiselled marble slumbering;
On gleaming shores that felt the rhythmic roll,
Of ancient azure waves: but thou pale thing,
Wert wrought beneath some ghost light of the pole.
Long in unchiselled marble slumbering;
On gleaming shores that felt the rhythmic roll,
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Wert wrought beneath some ghost light of the pole.
SECOND VENUS. (‘The Venus of Gibson.’)
I am the pure ideal of a day
Purer than thine. Long since men put away
The ancient sin thou symbolest, and broke
Love's altars, and beat down his flower yoke;
No longer holding up his torch of flame
Drags he the soul dishevelled, and with shame,
A captive trampled with relentless feet.
Nor leads it haltered, powerless of retreat.
A weak, blindfolded child to consummate
Base union with Desire; nor a fate
With eyes averted, and strong cruel hand
Holding the shrivelled victim o'er the brand,
Maybe consume it as a moth at length.
A new and holier faith gave man new strength
And Athens lies a ruin, the ancient crowned
Passion-gods writhe as bitter serpents, bound
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And priests of virtue have transformed the earth.
FIRST VENUS.
I hear the language of some Gothic lie,
That like a darkness bred of one blown cloud
Hath spread itself over man's azure sky,
And his affrighted heart hath disavowed,
The glory set before his soul on high.
That like a darkness bred of one blown cloud
Hath spread itself over man's azure sky,
And his affrighted heart hath disavowed,
The glory set before his soul on high.
The poisoned moments of eclipse hath wrought
His fair fruits bitter, and diseased his breath;
And in the sour ranklings of his thought,
He hath tormented to a sense of death,
The clear bright truth of life Love's self had taught.
His fair fruits bitter, and diseased his breath;
And in the sour ranklings of his thought,
He hath tormented to a sense of death,
The clear bright truth of life Love's self had taught.
For on the sure swift pinions of desire
The soul was wont to soar to every height
Of heaven; and in Love's hand the only fire
Burnt upward, and in his hand the only light
Shone for the soul to spring from and aspire.
The soul was wont to soar to every height
Of heaven; and in Love's hand the only fire
Burnt upward, and in his hand the only light
Shone for the soul to spring from and aspire.
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And I a little higher than the heart,
A little further than the outstretched hand,
The very soul of man's soul, set apart
From all his shifting days, and toil by land
And sea, dwelt with him never to depart.
A little further than the outstretched hand,
The very soul of man's soul, set apart
From all his shifting days, and toil by land
And sea, dwelt with him never to depart.
Sister, of all his thoughts, nowise he read
The marble meaning in my eyes of fate;
Made one with him, and mystically wed,
His bride, he left me still immaculate,
Yet had content of me, and rests, being dead.
The marble meaning in my eyes of fate;
Made one with him, and mystically wed,
His bride, he left me still immaculate,
Yet had content of me, and rests, being dead.
What fairer helpmate is there given to each
Still striving soul of man for joy and good
'Twixt birth and death? What virtues can they teach
That were not perfect in my womanhood
Ere gods were known or there were priests to preach?
Still striving soul of man for joy and good
'Twixt birth and death? What virtues can they teach
That were not perfect in my womanhood
Ere gods were known or there were priests to preach?
For whoso looks on me is filled with faith,
And walks exalted in a transformed earth,
Worshipping alway, serving no mere wraith
Of dreaming, no frail vision's doubtful birth,
Nor leaning on the word that any saith.
And walks exalted in a transformed earth,
Worshipping alway, serving no mere wraith
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Nor leaning on the word that any saith.
And I am the great love, no thing may shun
My heart's warmth—as no flower can escape
The fever from the centre of the sun—
And I the single chastity, the shape
Adored by all and never given to one.
My heart's warmth—as no flower can escape
The fever from the centre of the sun—
And I the single chastity, the shape
Adored by all and never given to one.
SECOND VENUS.
A god of virtue walked upon the earth,
And man repented him of love and mirth;
He looked upon the image he had made,
And, lo! 'twas naked; then he grew afraid,
And, with a righteous zeal, he overthrew
The marbles of Praxiteles: they strew
The trampled land of Greece; the shameless stone
Of Thespiæ fell, and grass of years has grown
Over the broken Cnidian; and that pride
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The kiss they seemed to covet—age by age
The growing storm of man's ascetic rage
Battered each sculptured fane, and burst upon
The chiselled idols of the Parthenon
With ruin; and when the vengeful tide that surged,
Stirred by the priests of man's new faith, had purged
The world of Phidias' works, or only left
Disordered remnants—goddesses bereft
Of arms and feet, Apollo scarce divine,
Marred of his manhood, Mercury supine,
Headless Cephissus and maimed daughters three
Of Cecrops—when the immortality
Of marble, fashioned in the form of lust
That once was Phryné, trodden into dust,
No longer stood between him and the sky,
Man put on sackcloth and rebuked the eye
Because of sight, and chid the hand for touch,
And chained the heart lest it should feel too much.
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Chastened man's life; almost he fears to dwell
His perilous time of travail on the earth,
Full of pollutions, knowing first his birth
A shame done when the face of God was turned
Away in wrath or pity, having earned
His mortal right to labour with the hand
Till the brow sweats as an accursed brand
And punishment of sin; fleeing, the while
His sense is linked thereto, the deadly smile
And lure of beauty, worker of his ill
And sister of the serpent-temptress still,
Through all his trembling and divided days.
The sackcloth shrouds too in a thousand ways
That fallen form, ere death with safe last gloom
Hurries it to the darkness of the tomb—
A rotting secret, recordless; and shroud
And death and the revilings long and loud
Of priests, yea, and corroding sermons set
In each man's heart, as 'twere a worm, to fret
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All men have passed the peril as though blind;
And the close veil that woman meekly wears,
No hand hath raised for eighteen hundred years.
FIRST VENUS.
Man raves, and in the madness of his dreams
A Moloch hath enslaved him; covetous priests
Have spoiled his good, and poisoned all his streams.
He dare not sit at any of the feasts
Of life, and, wholly darkened, he blasphemes
A Moloch hath enslaved him; covetous priests
Have spoiled his good, and poisoned all his streams.
He dare not sit at any of the feasts
Of life, and, wholly darkened, he blasphemes
The goddess giver of true holiness
To all his days. If still his heart can find
A little love; if, in its abjectness,
A glimmering light of truth lasts in his mind,
So that he see not foul or meaningless;
To all his days. If still his heart can find
A little love; if, in its abjectness,
A glimmering light of truth lasts in his mind,
So that he see not foul or meaningless;
Or, with distorted falsehood written o'er
Its shining parable of faultless Form,
Let him tear off the veil, and look once more
On woman, white divinity, of marble warm,
With all of life, the soul hath waited for.
Its shining parable of faultless Form,
Let him tear off the veil, and look once more
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With all of life, the soul hath waited for.
If he but see aright, in glory sweet,
Unsullied by dull heresies or lust,
Or vile invented shames designed to cheat
The soul, and dwarf into degraded dust
That truth in which God's heaven and man's earth meet,
Unsullied by dull heresies or lust,
Or vile invented shames designed to cheat
The soul, and dwarf into degraded dust
That truth in which God's heaven and man's earth meet,
He shall be healed. For the great purity
Of the soft bosom, guileless in its rest,
Yet holding all within the mystery
That maketh man, shall show that God hath blest
Birth and the secret of humanity.
Of the soft bosom, guileless in its rest,
Yet holding all within the mystery
That maketh man, shall show that God hath blest
Birth and the secret of humanity.
And if he look upon the arms that hold
And circle round the heaven of his bliss,
And the mouth with its lovelier gift than gold,
Stored in the consummation of a kiss,
Then he shall know he hath been falsely told
And circle round the heaven of his bliss,
And the mouth with its lovelier gift than gold,
Stored in the consummation of a kiss,
Then he shall know he hath been falsely told
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To count life's labour of relentless days
A cursed pain and punishment of sin.
Eternal light shall show the upward ways
Of toil, and man all holy entering in
Where heaven is earth's achievement and earth's praise.
A cursed pain and punishment of sin.
Eternal light shall show the upward ways
Of toil, and man all holy entering in
Where heaven is earth's achievement and earth's praise.
And if he read in the revealing eyes
Looks of the spirit from the depths of time,
It shall be written in his heart what dies
Hopeless and lost, and what lives on sublime;
Clouds shall be cast away and he shall rise,
Looks of the spirit from the depths of time,
It shall be written in his heart what dies
Hopeless and lost, and what lives on sublime;
Clouds shall be cast away and he shall rise,
Lifted by love, as on a wing or wave,
To luminous heights above the world and live,
Full of all great and deathless thoughts that save
From death; so in no manner shall he give
His glory or his manhood to the grave.
To luminous heights above the world and live,
Full of all great and deathless thoughts that save
From death; so in no manner shall he give
His glory or his manhood to the grave.
Behold, moreover, if to the inward soul
Of any man there enter, to be known,
The presence of that Beauty, perfect whole,
Goddess and woman, reigning on a throne
O'er all the thoughts and ways with sweet control.
Of any man there enter, to be known,
The presence of that Beauty, perfect whole,
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O'er all the thoughts and ways with sweet control.
If with surpassing revelation rare,
The mystery of the one ineffable line,
Transcending time and space, changelessly fair,
Before and after all things, law divine
Enter the soul and make religion there,
The mystery of the one ineffable line,
Transcending time and space, changelessly fair,
Before and after all things, law divine
Enter the soul and make religion there,
Then is man saved; for in that soul's clear sight
No falsehood or impurity shall stand;
That soul shall fashion darkness into light,
And moulding human clay with holy hand,
Exalt man pure upon a marble height.
No falsehood or impurity shall stand;
That soul shall fashion darkness into light,
And moulding human clay with holy hand,
Exalt man pure upon a marble height.
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