The Complete Poetical Works of Robert Buchanan :: :: University of Virginia Library

‘All men, each one, beneath the sun,
I hate, shall hate, till life is done,
But of all men one, till my race is run,
And all the rest for the sake of one!

‘If God stood there, revealed full bare,
I would laugh to scorn His love or care,—
Nay, in despair, I would pray a prayer
Which He needs must grant—if a God He were!

‘And the prayer would be, “Yield up to me
This man alone of all men that see!
Give him to me, and to misery!
Give me this man, if a God Thou be!”’

Shape on the headland in the night,
Gaunt, ghastly, kneeling on his knee
He prays; his baffled prayers take flight,
Like screaming sea-birds, thro' the light
That streams across the sleeping sea.
From the black depths of man's despair
Rose ever so accurst a prayer?
His hands clench and his eyeballs roll,
Hate's famine sickens in his soul.
Meantime the windless waves intone
Their peaceful answer to his moan,
The soft clouds one another chase,
The moon-rays flash upon his face,
The mighty deep is calm; but see!
This man is as a storm-swept tree.

And, silvern-sandall'd, still as death,
The white moon in her own pure breath
Walks yonder. Doth he see her pass
Over the glimmering water-glass?
Sees he the stars that softly swing
Like lamps around her wandering,
Sown thick as early snowdrops now
In the dark furrows of the Plough?
Hears he the sad, still, rhythmic throb
Of the dark ocean where he stands,—
The great strong voice still'd to a sob,
Near darken'd capes and glimmering sands?
Nay, nay; but, even as a wight
Who on a mirror fixeth sight,
And screams at his own face of dread
Within the dimness picturèd,
He useth God's great sleeping sea
To image hate and agony.
He kneels, he prays,—nay, call it not
A prayer that riseth in his throat;
'Tis but a curse this mortal cries,
Like one who curses God and dies.

‘Yield up to me, to hate and me,
One man alone of all men that see!
Give him to me, and to misery!
Give me this man if a God Thou be!

‘But the cruel heavens all open lie,
No God doth reign o'er the sea or sky;
The earth is dark and the clouds go by
But there is no God, to hear me cry!

430

‘There is no God, none, to abolish one
Of the foul things thought and dreamed and done!
Wherefore I hate, till my race is run,
All living men beneath the sun!’

To-night he rose when all was still,
Left like a thief his darkened door,
And down the dale and o'er the hill
He flew till here upon the shore
Shivering he came; and here he trod
Hour after hour the glooms of God,
Nursing his hate in fierce unrest,
Like an elfin babe upon the breast!
And all his hunger and his thirst
Was vengeance on the man he cursed!
‘O Lord my God, if a God there be,
Give up the man I hate to me!
On his living heart let my vengeance feed,
And I shall know Thou art God indeed!’

Again rings out that bitter cry
Between the dark seas and the sky—
Then all is hushed, while quivering,
With teeth and claws, prepared to spring,
He crouches beast-like . . . Hark, O hark
What solemn murmur fills the dark?
What shadows come and go up there,
Through the azure voids of the starry air?

The night is still; the waters sleep; the skies
Gaze down with bright innumerable eyes:
A voice comes out of heaven and o'er the sea:
‘I am; and I will give this man to thee!’