University of Virginia Library

POEMS ON RELIGIOUS AND BIBLICAL SUBJECTS.

FRAGMENTS OF THE MYSTERY OF THE FALL.

Scene I.

Adam and Eve.
Adam.
Since that last evening we have fallen indeed!
Yes, we have fallen, my Eve! O yes!—
One, two, and three, and four;—the Appetite,
The Enjoyment, the aftervoid, the thinking of it—
Specially the latter two, most specially the last.
There, in synopsis, see, you have it all:
Come, let us go and work!
Is it not enough?
What, is there three, four, five?

Eve.
Oh, guilt, guilt, guilt!

Adam.
Be comforted; muddle not your soul with doubt.
'Tis done, it was to be done; if, indeed,
Other way than this there was, I cannot say:
This was one way, and a way was needs to be found.
That which we were we could no more remain
Than in the moist provocative vernal mould
A seed its suckers close and rest a seed;
We were to grow. Necessity on us lay
This way or that to move; necessity, too,
Not to be over careful this or that,
So only move we should.
Come, my wife,
We were to grow, and grow I think we may,
And yet bear goodly fruit.

Eve.
Oh, guilt! oh, guilt!

Adam.

Eve.
Guilt! oh, guilt!

Adam.
Peace, woman, peace; I go.

Eve.
Nay, Adam, nay;
Hear me,—I am not dreaming, am not crazed.
Did not yourself confess that we are changed?
Do not you too?

Adam.
Do not I too? Well, well,
Listen! I too when homeward, weary of toil,
Through the dark night I have wandered in rain and wind,
Bewildered, haply scared, I too have lost heart,
And deemed all space with angry power replete,
Angry, almighty—and panic-stricken have cried,
‘What have I done?’ ‘What wilt thou do to me?’
Or with the coward's ‘No, I did not, I will not,’
Belied my own soul's self. I too have heard,
And listened, too, to a voice that in my ear
Hissed the temptation to curse God, or worse,
And yet more frequent, curse myself and die;
Until, in fine, I have begun to half believe
Your dream my dream too, and the dream of both
No dream but dread reality; have shared
Your fright: e'en so share thou, sweet life, my hope;
I too, again, when weeds with growth perverse
Have choked my corn and marred a season's toil,
Have deemed I heard in heaven abroad a cry,
‘Cursed is the ground for thy sake; thou art cursed.’
But oftener far, and stronger also far,
In consonance with all things out and in,
I hear a voice more searching bid me, ‘On!
On! on! it is the folly of the child
To choose his path and straightway think it wrong,
And turn right back and lie on the ground to weep.
Forward! go, conquer! work and live!’ Withal
A word comes, half command, half prophecy,
‘Forgetting things behind thee, onward press
Unto the mark of your high calling.’ Yea,
And voices, too, in woods and flowery fields
Speak confidence from budding banks and boughs,
And tell me, ‘Live and grow,’ and say, ‘Look still
Upward, spread outward, trust, be patient, live;’
Therefore, if weakness bid me curse and die,
I answer, No! I will not curse myself,
Nor aught beside; I shall not die, but live.

Eve.
Ah, me! alas! alas!
More dismally in my face stares the doubt,
More heavily on my heart weighs the world.
Methinks
The questionings of ages yet to be,
The thinkings and cross-thinkings, self-contempts,
Self-horror; all despondencies, despairs
Of multitudinous souls on souls to come,
In me imprisoned fight, complain and cry.
Alas!
Mystery, mystery, mystery evermore.

Scene II.

Adam, alone.
Adam.

Scene III.

(Now the birth of Cain was in this wise.)
Adam and Eve.
Eve.
Oh, Adam, I am comforted indeed;
Where is he? O my little one!
My heart is in the garden as of old,
And Paradise come back.

Adam.
My love,
Blessed be this good day to thee indeed;
Blessed the balm of joy unto thy soul.
A sad unskilful nurse was I to thee;
But nature teaches mothers, I perceive.

Eve.
But you, my husband, you meantime, I feel,
Join not your perfect spirit in my joy.
No; your spirit mixes not, I feel, with mine.

Adam.
Alas! sweet love, for many a weary day,
You and not I have borne this heavy weight:
How can I, should I, might I feel your bliss,
Now heaviness is changed to glory? Long,
In long and unparticipated pangs,
Your heart hath known its own great bitterness:
How should, in this its jubilant release,
A stranger intermeddle with its joy?

Eve.
My husband, there is more in it than this;
Nay, you are surely, positively sad.

Adam.
What if I was (and yet I think I am not),
'Twere but the silly and contrarious mood
Of one whose sympathies refuse to mix
In aught not felt immediate from himself.
But of a truth,
Your joy is greater—mine seems therefore none.

Eve.
Nay, neither this I think nor that is true.
Evermore still you love to cheat me, Adam:
You hide from me your thoughts like evil beasts
Most foolishly; for I, thus left to guess,
Catch at all hints, and where perchance one is,
People the forest with a hundred ills,
Each worse perhaps a hundred times than it.
No; you have got some fearful thoughts—no, no;
Look not in that way on my baby, Adam—
You do it hurt; you shall not!

Adam.

Scene IV.

Adam and Eve.
Eve.
O Adam, it was I was godless then;
But you were mournful, heavy, but composed.
At times would somewhat fiercely bite your lip
And pass your hand about your brow; but still
Held out, denied not God, acknowledged still
Those glories that were gone. No, I never
Felt all your worth to me before; I feel
You did not fall as I did.

Adam.
Nay, my child,
About our falls I don't profess to know.
I know I ne'er was innocent as thou;
I only know, as you will have it so,
Were your descent more lengthy than was mine,
It is not that your place is lower now,
But that first 'twas higher up than mine;
It is, that I being bestial, you divine,
We now alike are human beings both.
About our fall I won't profess to know,
But know I do,
That I was never innocent as thou.
Moping again, my love; yes, I dare swear,
All the day long while I have been at work,
With some religious folly in your head.

Eve.
No, Adam, I am cheerful quite to-day;
I vary much, indeed, from hour to hour,
But since my baby's birth I am happier far;
And I have done some work as well as you.

Adam.
What is it tho'? for I will take my oath
You've got some fancy stirring in your brain.

Eve.
Nay, but it vexes me for evermore
To find in you no credence to my thought.

Adam.
What is it then you wish me to subscribe to?
That we were in a garden put by God,
Allowed to eat of all the trees but one.
Somehow—I don't know how—a serpent tempted us,
And eat we did, and so were doomed to die;
Whereas before we were meant to live for ever.
Meantime, turned out—

Eve.
You do not think then, Adam,
We have been disobedient unto God?

Adam.
My child, how should I know, and what do you mean?
Your question's not so simple as it looks;
For if you mean that God said this or that—
As that ‘You shall not touch those apples there,’
And that we did—why, all that I can say
Is, that I can't conceive the thing to be.
But if it were so, I should then believe
We had done right—at any rate, no harm.

Eve.
O Adam, I can scarcely think I hear;
For if God said to us—God being God—
‘You shall not,’ is not His commandment His?
And are not we the creatures He hath made?

Adam.
My child, God does not speak to human minds
In that unmeaning arbitrary way.
God were not God if so, and good not good.
Search in your heart, and if you tell me there
You find a genuine voice—no fancy, mind you—
Declaring to you this or that is evil,
Why, this or that I daresay evil is.
Believe me, I will listen to the word;
For not by observation of without
Cometh the kingdom of the voice of God:
It is within us—let us seek it there.

Eve.
Yet I have voices, surely, in my heart.
Often you say I heed them over much.

Adam.
God's voice is of the heart: I do not say
All voices, therefore, of the heart are God's;
And to discern the voice amidst the voices
Is that hard task, my love, that we are born to.

Eve.
Ah me, in me I am sure the one, one voice
Goes somehow to the sense of what I say—
The sense of disobedience to God.
O Adam, some way, some time, we have done wrong,
And when I think of this, I still must think
Of Paradise, and of the stately tree
Which in the middle of the garden grew,
The golden fruit that hung upon its boughs,
Of which but once we eat, and I must feel
That whereas once in His continual sight
We lived, in daily communing with Him,
We now are banished, and behold not Him,
Our only present communing, alas!
Is penitential mourning, and the gaze
Of the abased and prostrate prayerful soul;
But you, yourself, my Adam, you at least
Acknowledge some time somehow we did wrong.

Adam.
My child, I never even granted that.

Eve.
Oh, but you let strange words at times fall from you.
They are to me like thunderbolts from heaven;
I listen terrified and sick at heart,
Then haste and pick them up and treasure them.
What was it that you said when Cain was born:
‘He's born of us and therefore is not pure.’
O, you corrected well, my husband, then
My foolish, fond exuberance of delight.

Adam.
My child, believe me, truly I was the fool;
But a first baby is a strange surprise.
I shall not say so when another comes;
And I beseech you treasure up no words.
You know me: I am loose of tongue and light.
I beg you, Eve, remember nought of this;
Put not at least, I pray you—nay, command—
Put not, when days come on, your own strange whim
And misconstruction of my idle words
Into the tender brains of our poor young ones.

Scene V.

Adam with Cain and Abel.
Adam.
Cain, beware!
Strike not your brother! I have said, beware!
A heavy curse is on this thing, my son.
With doubt and fear,
Terror and toil and pain already here,
Let us not have injustice too, my son.
So Cain, beware!
And Abel, too, see you provoke him not.

Scene VI.

Abel alone.
Abel.
At times I could believe
My father is no better than his son:
If not as overbearing, proud and hard,
Yet prayerless, worldly, almost more than Cain.
Enlighten and convert him ere the end,
My God! spurn not my mother's prayers and mine.
Since I was born, was I not left to Thee,
In an unspiritual and godless house,
Unfathered and unbrothered—Thine and hers?
They think not of the fall: e'en less they think
Of the redemption, which God said should be;
Which, for we apprehend it by our faith,
Already is—is come for her and me.
Yea, though I sin, my sin is not to death;
In my repentance I have joy, such joy
That almost I could sin to seek for it—
Yea, if I did not hate it and abhor,
And know that Thou abhorr'st and hatest it,
And will'st, for an example to the rest,
That Thine elect should keep themselves from it.
Alas!
My mother calls the fall a mystery;
Redemption is so too. But oh, my God,
Thou wilt bring all things in the end to good.
Yea, though the whole earth lie in wickedness, I
Am with Thee, with Thee, with Thee evermore.
Ah, yet I am not satisfied with this!
Am I not feeding spiritual pride,
Rejoicing over sinners, inelect
And unadmitted to the fellowship
Which I, unworthy, most unworthy, share?
What can I do—how can I help it then?
O God, remove it from my heart; pluck out,
Whatever pain, whatever wrench to me,
These sinful roots and remnants which, whate'er
I do, how high so e'er I soar from earth,
Still, undestroyed, still germinate within.
Take them away in Thy good time, O God.
Meantime, for that atonement's precious sake
Which in Thy counsels predetermined works
Already to the saving of the saints,
O Father, view with mercy, and forgive;
Nor let my vexed perception of my sin,
Nor any multitude of evil thoughts,
Crowding like demons in my spirit's house,
Nor life, nor death, things here or things below,
Cast out the sweet assurance of my soul
That I am Thine, and Thou art mine, my God.

Scene VII.

Cain alone.
Cain.
Am I or am I not this which they think me?
My mother loves me not; my brother Abel,
Searing my heart, commends my soul to God;
My father does not shun me—there's my comfort:
Almost I think they look askance on him.
Ah, but for him,
I know not what might happen; for at times
Ungovernable angers take the waves
Of my deep soul and sweep them—who knows whither?
And a strange impulse, struggling to the truth,
Urges me onward to put forth my strength,
No matter how. A wild anxiety
Possesses me moreover to essay
This world of action round me so unknown;
And to be able to do this or that
Seems cause enough without a cause for doing it.
My father, he is cheerful and content,
And leads me frankly forward. Yet, indeed,
His leading—or, more truly, to be led
At all, by any one, and not myself—
Is mere dissatisfaction: evermore
Something I must do individual,
To vindicate my nature, to give proof
I also am, as Adam is, a man.

Scene VIII.

Adam and Eve.
Adam.
These sacrificings, O my best beloved,
These rites and forms which you have taught our boys,
Which I nor practise nor can understand,
Will turn, I trust, to good; but I much fear.
Besides the superstitious search of signs
In merest accidents of earth and air,
They cause, I think, a sort of jealousy—
Ill-blood. Hark, now!

Eve.
O God, whose cry is that?
Abel, where is my Abel?

Adam.
Cain, what Cain!

Scene IX.

Cain alone with the body of Abel.
Cain.

Scene X.

Adam alone.
Adam.
Abel is dead, and Cain—ah, what is Cain?
Is he not even more than Abel dead?
Well, we must hope in Seth. This merest man,
This unambitious common-place of life,
Will after all perhaps mend all; and though
Record shall tell men to the after-time
No wondrous tales of him, in him at last,
And in his seed increased and multiplied,
Earth shall be blest and peopled and subdued,
And what was meant to be be brought to pass.
Oh but, my Abel and my Cain, e'en so
You shall not be forgotten nor unknown.

Scene XI.

Cain and Eve.
Cain.
I am come. Curse me;
Curse Cain, my mother, ere he goes. He waits.

Eve.
Who? What is this?
Oh Abel! O my gentle, holy child,
My perfect son!
Monster! and did I bear thee too?

Cain.
He was so good, his brother hated him,
And slew him for't. Go on, my mother, on.

Eve.
[OMITTED] For there are rites and holy means of grace
Of God ordained for man's eternal [weal].
With these, my son, address thyself to Him,
And seek atonement from a gracious God,
With whom is balm for every wounded heart.

Cain.
I ask not for atonement, mother mine;
I ask but one thing—never to forget.
I ask but—not to add to one great crime
Another self-delusion scarcely less.
I could ask more, but more I know is sin.
If sacrifices and the fat of lambs,
And whole burnt-offerings upon piles of turf,
Will bring me this, I'd fill the heaven with smoke,
And deface earth with million fiery scars.
I could ask back (and think it but my right,
And passionately claim it as my right)
That precious life which one misguided blow,
Which one scarce conscious momentary act,
One impulse blindly followed to its close,
Ended for ever; but that I know this vain.
If they shall only keep my sin in mind,
I shall not, be assured, neglect them either.

Eve.
You ask not for atonement! O my son—
Cain, you are proud and hard of heart e'en now.
Beware!
Prostrate your soul in penitential prayer,
Humble your heart beneath the mighty hand
Of God, whose gracious guidance oft shall lead
Through sin and crime the changed and melted heart
To sweet repentance and the sense of Him.
You ask not for atonement! O my son!
What, to be banished from the sight of God;
To dwell with wicked spirits, be a prey
To them and prey yourself on human souls;
What, to be lost in wickedness and wrath,
Deeper and deeper down;
What, Cain, do you choose this?

Cain.
Alas! my mother,
I know not; there are mysteries in your heart
Which I profess not knowledge of: it may be
That this is so; if so, may God reveal it.
Have faith you too in my heart's secrets; yea,
All I can say, alas, is that to me,
As I now comprehend it, this were sin.
Atonement—no; not that, but punishment.
But what avails to talk? talk as we will,
As yet we shall not know each other's hearts;
Let me not talk, but act. Farewell, for ever.

Scene XII.

Adam and Cain.
Cain.
This is the history then, my father, is it?
This is the perfect whole?

Adam.
My son, it is.
And whether a dream, or if it were a dream,
A transcript of an inward spiritual fact
(As you suggest, and I allow, might be),
Not the less true because it was a dream.
I know not—O my Cain, I cannot tell,
But in my soul I think it was a dream,
And but a dream; a thing, whence'er it came,
To be forgotten and considered not.

Cain.
Father, you should have told me this before;
It is no use now. Oh God, my brother! oh God! [OMITTED]

Adam.
For what is life, and what is pain or death?
You have killed Abel: Abel killed the lamb—
An act in him prepense, in you unthought of.
One step you stirred, and lo! you stood entrapped.

Cain.
My father, this is true, I know; but yet,
There is some truth beside: I cannot say,
But I have heard within my soul a voice
Asking, ‘Where is thy brother,’ and I said—
That is, the evil heart within me said—
‘Am I my brother's keeper? go ask him.
Who was it that provoked me? should he rail,
And I not smite? his death be on his head.’
But the voice answered in my soul again,
So that the other ceased and was no more.

Scene XIII.

Adam and Cain.
Cain.
My father, Abel's dead.

Adam.
My son, 'tis done, it was to be done; some good end
Thereby to come, or else it had not been.
Go, for it must be. Cain, I know your heart,
You cannot be with us. Go, then, depart;
But be not over scrupulous, my son.

Cain.
Curse me, my father, ere I go. Your curse
Will go with me for good; your curse
Will make me not forget,
Alas! I am not of that pious kind,
Who, when the blot has fallen upon their life,
Can look to heaven and think it white again—
Look up to heaven and find a something there
To make what is not be, altho' it is.
My mother—ah, how you have spoke of this!
The dead—to him 'twas innocence and joy,
And purity and safety from the world:
To me the thing seems sin—the worst of sin.
If it be so, why are we here?—the world,
Why is it as I find it? The dull stone
Cast from my hand, why comes it not again?
The broken flow'ret, why does it not live?
If it be so,
Why are we here, and why is Abel dead?
Shall this be true
Of stocks and stones and mere inanimate clay,
And not in some sort also hold for us?

Adam.
My son, Time healeth all,
Time and great Nature; heed her speech, and learn.

Cain.
My father, you are learned in this sort:
You read the earth, as does my mother heaven.
Both books are dark to me—only I feel
That this one thing
And this one word in me must be declared;
That to forget is not to be restored;
To lose with time the sense of what we did
Cancels not that we did; what's done remains—
I am my brother's murderer. Woe to me!
Abel is dead. No prayers to empty heaven,
No vegetative kindness of the earth,
Will bring back warmth into his clay again,
The gentleness of love into his face.
Therefore, for me farewell;
Farewell for me the soft,
The balmy influences of night and sleep,
The satisfaction of achievement done,
The restorative pulsing of the blood
That changes all and changes e'en the soul—
And natural functions, moving as they should,
The sweet good-nights, the sweet delusive dreams
That lull us out of old things into new.
But welcome Fact, and Fact's best brother, Work;
Welcome the conflict of the stubborn soil,
To toil the livelong day, and at the end,
Instead of rest, recarve into my brow
The dire memorial mark of what still is.
Welcome this worship, which I feel is mine;
Welcome this duty—
—the solidarity of life
And unity of individual soul.
That which I did, I did, I who am here:
There is no safety but in this; and when
I shall deny the thing that I have done,
I am a dream.

Adam.
My son,
What shall I say?
That which your soul, in marriage with the world,
Imbreeds in you, accept;—how can I say
Refuse the revelations of the soul?
Yet be not over scrupulous, my son,
And be not over proud to put aside
The due consolements of the circling years.
What comes, receive; be not too wise for God.
The past is something, but the present more;
Will not it too be past?—nor fail withal
To recognise the future in our hopes;
Unite them in your manhood each and all,
Nor mutilate the perfectness of life.
You can remember, you can also hope;
And, doubtless, with the long instructive years,
Comfort will come to you, my son, to me,
Even to your mother, comfort; but to us
Knowledge, at least—the certainty of things
Which, as I think, is consolation's sum.
For truly now, to-day, to-morrow, yes,
Days many more to come, alike to you,
Whose earliest revelation of the world
Is, horrible indeed, this fatal fact—
And unto me, who, knowing not much before,
Look gropingly and idly into this,
And recognise no figure I have seen—
Alike, my son, to me, and to yourself,
Much is now dark which one day will be light;
With strong assurance fortify your soul
Of this; and that you meet me here again,
Promise me, Cain. Farewell, to meet again.

Scene XIV.

Adam's Vision.
Adam.

THE SONG OF LAMECH.

GENESIS XXIV.

JACOB.

Come near to me, my sons: your father goes,
The hour of his departure draweth nigh.
Ah me! this eager rivalry of life,
This cruel conflict for pre-eminence,
This keen supplanting of the dearest kin,
Quick seizure and fast unrelaxing hold
Of vantage-place; the stony hard resolve,
The chase, the competition, and the craft
Which seems to be the poison of our life,
And yet is the condition of our life!
To have done things on which the eye with shame
Looks back, the closed hand clutching still the prize!—
Alas! what of all these things shall I say?
Take me away unto Thy sleep, O God!
I thank thee it is over, yet I think
It was a work appointed me of Thee.
How is it? I have striven all my days
To do my duty to my house and hearth,
And to the purpose of my father's race,
Yet is my heart therewith not satisfied.

JACOB'S WIVES.

THE NEW SINAI.

QUI LABORAT, ORAT.

υμνος αυμνος.

THE HIDDEN LOVE.

SHADOW AND LIGHT.

‘WITH WHOM IS NO VARIABLENESS, NEITHER SHADOW OF TURNING.’

It fortifies my soul to know
That, though I perish, Truth is so:
That, howsoe'er I stray and range,
Whate'er I do, Thou dost not change.
I steadier step when I recall
That, if I slip, Thou dost not fall.

IN STRATIS VIARUM.

‘PERCHÈ PENSA? PENSANDO S'INVECCHIA.’

To spend uncounted years of pain,
Again, again, and yet again,
In working out in heart and brain
The problem of our being here;
To gather facts from far and near,
Upon the mind to hold them clear,
And, knowing more may yet appear,
Unto one's latest breath to fear,
The premature result to draw—
Is this the object, end and law,
And purpose of our being here?

‘O THOU OF LITTLE FAITH.’

It may be true
That while we walk the troublous tossing sea,
That when we see the o'ertopping waves advance,
And when we feel our feet beneath us sink,
There are who walk beside us; and the cry
That rises so spontaneous to the lips,
The ‘Help us or we perish,’ is not nought,
An evanescent spectrum of disease.
It may be that indeed and not in fancy,
A hand that is not ours upstays our steps,
A voice that is not ours commands the waves;
Commands the waves, and whispers in our ear,
O thou of little faith, why didst thou doubt?
At any rate,
That there are beings above us, I believe,
And when we lift up holy hands of prayer,
I will not say they will not give us aid.

‘THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY.’

AH! YET CONSIDER IT AGAIN!

NOLI ÆMULARI.

‘WHAT WENT YE OUT FOR TO SEE?’

EPI-STRAUSS-IUM.

Matthew and Mark and Luke and holy John
Evanished all and gone!
Yea, he that erst his dusky curtains quitting,
Thro' Eastern pictured panes his level beams transmitting,
With gorgeous portraits blent,
On them his glories intercepted spent.
Southwestering now, thro' windows plainly glassed,
On the inside face his radiance keen hath cast,
And in the lustre lost, invisible and gone,
Are, say you, Matthew, Mark and Luke and holy John?
Lost, is it, lost, to be recovered never?
However,
The place of worship the meantime with light
Is, if less richly, more sincerely bright,
And in blue skies the Orb is manifest to sight.

THE SHADOW.

EASTER DAY.

[I]

II