 | East and west : the discovery of America and other poems |  |
29
3. PART III.
The Separated West.
Soul of my inner face, face of my race,
Strong mask of self-assertion, positive,
Firm lip of competition, masculine,
Broad brow of Mercury, quick, cunning, keen,
Fierce eye of Mars with crest of sunlit fringe!
Through nights of Time I mark thy luminous course,
Furrowing rich worlds with prow piratical,
Grafting new shoots on broken racial stems,
Sowing old soils fresh fertilized with blood.
Thou art the sieve of men, whence weaker bulks
Slip through the meshes to oblivion.
Breathe through my blood once more thy feverish glow,
Long chilled by cooling crusts of compromise;
Thou, strong in reciprocity of needs,
Expansive self-willed personality!
Strong mask of self-assertion, positive,
Firm lip of competition, masculine,
Broad brow of Mercury, quick, cunning, keen,
Fierce eye of Mars with crest of sunlit fringe!
Through nights of Time I mark thy luminous course,
Furrowing rich worlds with prow piratical,
Grafting new shoots on broken racial stems,
Sowing old soils fresh fertilized with blood.
Thou art the sieve of men, whence weaker bulks
Slip through the meshes to oblivion.
Breathe through my blood once more thy feverish glow,
Long chilled by cooling crusts of compromise;
Thou, strong in reciprocity of needs,
Expansive self-willed personality!
It will be perceived that I oppose personality, the self-centred and self-originated will of an incarnate man, to individuality, the unconscious strength and freedom of an intelligence immersed in the divinity of its work. One is peculiar through the abstract isolation of subjectivity; the other is peculiar through the infinite fulness of the well of Spirit whence it flows.
Standing upon the vantage-ground of peaks
Kissed by the light of rising Easter dawns,
I mark long lines of shadows surge like ghosts
Waging with noiseless shout their mimic war.
Kissed by the light of rising Easter dawns,
I mark long lines of shadows surge like ghosts
Waging with noiseless shout their mimic war.
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As some vast wave o'ertopping lunar tides,
Engendered at the bottom of the sea
By stifled monsters wrenched, whose fissured mouths
Feed on her protoplasmic gelatines,
Sweeps on with circling rim, like living discs
Of light from stars long centuries extinct,
Slipping from pole to pole as if a hand
Caressed the tiny surface of this ball;—
So from dark mouths of prehistoric woods
Which once had reared their gloomy palisades
To hail the slow retreat of baffled ice,
Issue chill floods of melting Northern snows,
A wild Teutonic wave of glacial steel
Submerging Roman worlds; with surge of spray
Mocking the lonely sentinels of Alps,
Cresting the faithful bar of Apennines,
Storming the portals of the Pyrenees,
Tainting the sunlit laughter of the Rhine
With eddying crimson shrieks of tortured hearts;—
A flood of human fiends, by furies driven
To quaff the wine of life from lipless skulls,
And doom for slaves fair weeping captive maids
In marts of their own marble palaces.
Engendered at the bottom of the sea
By stifled monsters wrenched, whose fissured mouths
Feed on her protoplasmic gelatines,
Sweeps on with circling rim, like living discs
Of light from stars long centuries extinct,
Slipping from pole to pole as if a hand
Caressed the tiny surface of this ball;—
So from dark mouths of prehistoric woods
Which once had reared their gloomy palisades
To hail the slow retreat of baffled ice,
Issue chill floods of melting Northern snows,
A wild Teutonic wave of glacial steel
Submerging Roman worlds; with surge of spray
Mocking the lonely sentinels of Alps,
Cresting the faithful bar of Apennines,
Storming the portals of the Pyrenees,
Tainting the sunlit laughter of the Rhine
With eddying crimson shrieks of tortured hearts;—
A flood of human fiends, by furies driven
To quaff the wine of life from lipless skulls,
And doom for slaves fair weeping captive maids
In marts of their own marble palaces.
Now shot from polar coasts see meteors flash,
Long lines of viking ships, with low black hulls
Like vultures, plunging through the Northern seas,
Hovering like gulls in track of channel storms,
Scouring for prey the long white sunlit cliffs;
Wailing their chant to Odin like wild winds
Surging through organ pipes of naked fiords,
Wooing Valhalla to Northumbrian hills
Or primrose-garnished banks of lovely Seine.
Now, drunk with richer wine of vanquished worlds,
Wielding the cross as once their bolt of Thor,
They skirt with gorgeous sweep Hispania's curves,
Through pillared gateway of the land-locked sea
Set in its rifted coasts of gilded cloud,
A blue enamelled dragon! Now they break,
Those strange Norse champions of a Hebrew god,
The threatening onsets of the Saracen,
Dispersed like storms which strew with wrecks thy coast,
Nurse of a hundred races, Sicily!
Long lines of viking ships, with low black hulls
Like vultures, plunging through the Northern seas,
Hovering like gulls in track of channel storms,
Scouring for prey the long white sunlit cliffs;
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Surging through organ pipes of naked fiords,
Wooing Valhalla to Northumbrian hills
Or primrose-garnished banks of lovely Seine.
Now, drunk with richer wine of vanquished worlds,
Wielding the cross as once their bolt of Thor,
They skirt with gorgeous sweep Hispania's curves,
Through pillared gateway of the land-locked sea
Set in its rifted coasts of gilded cloud,
A blue enamelled dragon! Now they break,
Those strange Norse champions of a Hebrew god,
The threatening onsets of the Saracen,
Dispersed like storms which strew with wrecks thy coast,
Nurse of a hundred races, Sicily!
Whether in corpse-choked pass at Roncesvalles,
Second Thermopylæ of Paladins;
Or in the vortex of Valkyrian joy
Welcoming Hastings' maddest hail of spears;
Anon in flaming wrath of wild crusades
Storming the hoary walls of Constantine,
Laying a clanging wreath of naked swords
Upon the tombstone of the Prince of Peace;
Forging new thrones for kings pontifical,
Wresting dominion from the polar ice,
Filching the torrid spoil of Indian seas;
Columbus with his unaccustomed keels
Piercing the void to worlds antipodal:—
Whether it be, in song, Arthurian knights,
Or Siegfried battling with the wills of gods,
Or weird still voices of the steel-clad maid;
Now the atomic flash of feudal war,
Now the red arguments of Christian zeal;
Or where in gloomy dungeons of the soul
Shrieks the self-torture of inquisitors;
Or where in glow of young creative faith
Pure Gothic pinnacles like crystal darts
Precipitate on films of firmament,
Echoes of martial songs to melt in tears,
Passions of hearts to palpitate in flowers,
Fire-whorls to lap the altars of the moon:—
There I accept my dower of Western blood
Kneeling in sackcloth as a penitent
To consecrate such power for worthier aim.
Second Thermopylæ of Paladins;
Or in the vortex of Valkyrian joy
Welcoming Hastings' maddest hail of spears;
Anon in flaming wrath of wild crusades
Storming the hoary walls of Constantine,
Laying a clanging wreath of naked swords
Upon the tombstone of the Prince of Peace;
Forging new thrones for kings pontifical,
Wresting dominion from the polar ice,
Filching the torrid spoil of Indian seas;
Columbus with his unaccustomed keels
Piercing the void to worlds antipodal:—
Whether it be, in song, Arthurian knights,
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Or weird still voices of the steel-clad maid;
Now the atomic flash of feudal war,
Now the red arguments of Christian zeal;
Or where in gloomy dungeons of the soul
Shrieks the self-torture of inquisitors;
Or where in glow of young creative faith
Pure Gothic pinnacles like crystal darts
Precipitate on films of firmament,
Echoes of martial songs to melt in tears,
Passions of hearts to palpitate in flowers,
Fire-whorls to lap the altars of the moon:—
There I accept my dower of Western blood
Kneeling in sackcloth as a penitent
To consecrate such power for worthier aim.
What gave this world of turbulence its strength?
What its cement of bonds centripetal?
Was it blind crash of molecules supreme
Compelling peace of equilibrium?
Tangles of selves in planetary coils
Won from vast voids of human nebulæ?
Force bearding force like John at Runnymede?
Rights torn like blasted profiles from the rock?
Self abdicating self for self's own aim?
Ah, Law, laugh loud at heaven's harmonic code,
Then kneel to naked negativity!
Cromwell and Luther hail as champions,
Not Him of Galilee thy guarantee!
What its cement of bonds centripetal?
Was it blind crash of molecules supreme
Compelling peace of equilibrium?
Tangles of selves in planetary coils
Won from vast voids of human nebulæ?
Force bearding force like John at Runnymede?
Rights torn like blasted profiles from the rock?
Self abdicating self for self's own aim?
Ah, Law, laugh loud at heaven's harmonic code,
Then kneel to naked negativity!
Cromwell and Luther hail as champions,
Not Him of Galilee thy guarantee!
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O self-fed spring of thought,
O eager lip
Of scientific pride, thou too art stained
With the ancestral curse;—analysis
Splitting ideas in fine-spun silver threads
Like the cold drip from icicles, impelled
To wrest each numbered angle from the maze
Of cosmic synthesis, all faiths and loves
To solve in pools of fleshly impulses;
Sweeping the sky with rival telescopes
For paltry gold or crumbling stars of fame,
Yet in the blindness of self-centred zeal
Founding new plinths for shafts of spirit-worlds.
Whether in wars where words like bolts are hurled
From ramparts of scholastic fortresses,
Or systems crashing from their Titan suns
To fall in spray of blasted principle;
Or gnomes who dig dark secrets from the earth,
Or sylphs who mount the coursers of the clouds,
Ariels who hail the shadow of the moon
For cyclic chase of self-hid photospheres;
Bees bearing message from the bursting buds,
Adventurous birds, earth's floral pioneers,
Or boys who cast away the wanton stone
To marvel at the lithesome leap of life;
Whether the faultless search that stifles pain,
Or incarnating thought which lifts on high
Vast airy webs of steel to span the floods,
Rivets the ends of earth with breathing links,
And laughs at space in telepathic speed;
Or be it libraries of bygone deeds
Rescued from torch of time, or mysteries
Of interracial flux, or desert wastes
Of dry statistic covering fertile wells:—
These be thy choicest blooms for offering
Before the judges of Manwantaras,
Thou, thirst unslaked of curiosity!
Thou, prying, piercing pygmy, unappalled
Though hell launch forth anathemas, resolved
To conquer facts as thou destroyest worlds!
Thou dauntless Norseman steering fragile barks
Into the sunsets of Infinity!
Of scientific pride, thou too art stained
With the ancestral curse;—analysis
Splitting ideas in fine-spun silver threads
Like the cold drip from icicles, impelled
To wrest each numbered angle from the maze
Of cosmic synthesis, all faiths and loves
To solve in pools of fleshly impulses;
Sweeping the sky with rival telescopes
For paltry gold or crumbling stars of fame,
Yet in the blindness of self-centred zeal
Founding new plinths for shafts of spirit-worlds.
Whether in wars where words like bolts are hurled
From ramparts of scholastic fortresses,
Or systems crashing from their Titan suns
To fall in spray of blasted principle;
Or gnomes who dig dark secrets from the earth,
Or sylphs who mount the coursers of the clouds,
Ariels who hail the shadow of the moon
For cyclic chase of self-hid photospheres;
Bees bearing message from the bursting buds,
Adventurous birds, earth's floral pioneers,
Or boys who cast away the wanton stone
To marvel at the lithesome leap of life;
Whether the faultless search that stifles pain,
Or incarnating thought which lifts on high
Vast airy webs of steel to span the floods,
Rivets the ends of earth with breathing links,
And laughs at space in telepathic speed;
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Rescued from torch of time, or mysteries
Of interracial flux, or desert wastes
Of dry statistic covering fertile wells:—
These be thy choicest blooms for offering
Before the judges of Manwantaras,
Thou, thirst unslaked of curiosity!
Thou, prying, piercing pygmy, unappalled
Though hell launch forth anathemas, resolved
To conquer facts as thou destroyest worlds!
Thou dauntless Norseman steering fragile barks
Into the sunsets of Infinity!
Now on high noon of hot commercial tides
See thy ripe products borne to Eastern spheres;
Threatening the world with thy belligerent types,
Threatening thyself with thine excess of zeal.
The very lust and greed by which is spun
The knitting tissue of these cruel wounds,
The very curse which whips our naked crews
To span the world with steel-bound leap of trade,
Poison the crimson life-tide of our veins,
Convene the dread tribunal of our doom.
The smoke of chimneys taints this verdant world.
The pests of crowded indigence and vice
Are nigh to eat the manhood of thy heart.
See'st thou the fuse of thine own dynamite?
Self-law, self-science, self-greed, self-wealth, self-sworn
To blast the stanchest stronghold of thy pride!
See thy ripe products borne to Eastern spheres;
Threatening the world with thy belligerent types,
Threatening thyself with thine excess of zeal.
The very lust and greed by which is spun
The knitting tissue of these cruel wounds,
The very curse which whips our naked crews
To span the world with steel-bound leap of trade,
Poison the crimson life-tide of our veins,
Convene the dread tribunal of our doom.
The smoke of chimneys taints this verdant world.
The pests of crowded indigence and vice
Are nigh to eat the manhood of thy heart.
See'st thou the fuse of thine own dynamite?
Self-law, self-science, self-greed, self-wealth, self-sworn
To blast the stanchest stronghold of thy pride!
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The West provokes the East. The iron arm
Slips off the narrow edges of this world.
Flaxen-haired vandals hunt for zest of blood
The black striped tigers of the Bengalee,
Scaling the slippery crests of Himavats,
Holding the poisoned cup to Mongol lips.
See in last glimpse how unchecked years condense
The forces of destruction. —Miles of wall
Gemmed like enamelled rainbows, gleam of lakes
Shot through fair parks, whose lines of granite bridge
Sweep like the sculptured drapery of a god;
Cresting the hill a dream of jewelled tents
Caught from the mirror of the sunset skies,
Now crystallized in marble terraces,
And gilded pillars, and the arch of roofs
Bright with chromatic coronet of tiles,
And endless treasures of green-hearted bronze,
And blood-red urns, and rare canary sheens
Flashed from a whispering sea of draperies;—
The Summer Palace of the Dragon Throne
Unmatched by all the wonders of the world;—
Now lapped in flame, whose red remorseful lip
Shrinks from the dread repast, pillars of smoke
Bearing earth's funeral wail to weeping stars
For the lost marvel of the centuries;—
Like crumbling glow of Alexandria's tomes
Or shattered fragments of the Parthenon!
Slips off the narrow edges of this world.
Flaxen-haired vandals hunt for zest of blood
The black striped tigers of the Bengalee,
Scaling the slippery crests of Himavats,
Holding the poisoned cup to Mongol lips.
See in last glimpse how unchecked years condense
The forces of destruction. —Miles of wall
Gemmed like enamelled rainbows, gleam of lakes
Shot through fair parks, whose lines of granite bridge
Sweep like the sculptured drapery of a god;
Cresting the hill a dream of jewelled tents
Caught from the mirror of the sunset skies,
Now crystallized in marble terraces,
And gilded pillars, and the arch of roofs
Bright with chromatic coronet of tiles,
And endless treasures of green-hearted bronze,
And blood-red urns, and rare canary sheens
Flashed from a whispering sea of draperies;—
The Summer Palace of the Dragon Throne
Unmatched by all the wonders of the world;—
Now lapped in flame, whose red remorseful lip
Shrinks from the dread repast, pillars of smoke
Bearing earth's funeral wail to weeping stars
For the lost marvel of the centuries;—
Like crumbling glow of Alexandria's tomes
Or shattered fragments of the Parthenon!
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Ah night that falls
In floods of twisted palls,
Blot out this culminating crime of men;
For far on high
In yon polluted sky
Meet the two spirits of the world again:
In floods of twisted palls,
Blot out this culminating crime of men;
For far on high
In yon polluted sky
Meet the two spirits of the world again:
“Brother, for this
Gave I my parting kiss?
Is this the flower
Nursed in thy bosom from that fateful hour?
Two thousand years
Wasted to drown the world in tears?
Where is the gem
Of broken-souled contrition,
The victory of submission,
I lent thee from my Eastern diadem?”
Gave I my parting kiss?
Is this the flower
Nursed in thy bosom from that fateful hour?
Two thousand years
Wasted to drown the world in tears?
Where is the gem
Of broken-souled contrition,
The victory of submission,
I lent thee from my Eastern diadem?”
Then spake the angel of the West,
With tear-wet wings folded upon his breast:—
“Sister, it is not lost,
That flame of Pentecost.
It burns
In the still spirits of my chosen urns.
What though through age-long nights of violence
The masculinity intense
Of races rude
May desecrate its mood?
I can reveal to thee another story
Of apostolic glory;—
Prayers that have curbed
The brutal passion of a world disturbed,
For wild despair the vent
Of pity's sacrament,
Love as a balm
For torn and bleeding souls,
As of a bell that tolls
Notes of eternal calm!
Canst thou not feel
The stricken millions kneel
Clasping the bloody cross whereon He dies?
Praying for torture keen,
The crown of sacrifice
Upon the cold brow of their Nazarene?
Hast thou not seen
The tenderest human loves which Raphael paints,
Transports of saints
The angelic brother limned
Kneeling in ecstasy with eyes tear-dimmed?
Tears for that stricken mother-soul's baptism,
Her coronation's chrism,
The intrinsic, fertile, pure divinity
Of Spirit-wrapped Virginity!”
With tear-wet wings folded upon his breast:—
“Sister, it is not lost,
That flame of Pentecost.
It burns
In the still spirits of my chosen urns.
What though through age-long nights of violence
The masculinity intense
Of races rude
May desecrate its mood?
I can reveal to thee another story
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Prayers that have curbed
The brutal passion of a world disturbed,
For wild despair the vent
Of pity's sacrament,
Love as a balm
For torn and bleeding souls,
As of a bell that tolls
Notes of eternal calm!
Canst thou not feel
The stricken millions kneel
Clasping the bloody cross whereon He dies?
Praying for torture keen,
The crown of sacrifice
Upon the cold brow of their Nazarene?
Hast thou not seen
The tenderest human loves which Raphael paints,
Transports of saints
The angelic brother limned
Kneeling in ecstasy with eyes tear-dimmed?
Tears for that stricken mother-soul's baptism,
Her coronation's chrism,
The intrinsic, fertile, pure divinity
Of Spirit-wrapped Virginity!”
“Yea, brother, thine the pain
Of wounds not dealt in vain.
Again, O plighted heart,
We meet, no more to part.
For thee I 've kept
These tender buds of art,
For thee I 've wept
O'er worlds that smiled like maidens as they slept.
Now my reward supreme
The manhood of thy dream!
Of wounds not dealt in vain.
Again, O plighted heart,
We meet, no more to part.
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These tender buds of art,
For thee I 've wept
O'er worlds that smiled like maidens as they slept.
Now my reward supreme
The manhood of thy dream!
“But there 's a deeper bliss
We must not miss.
Hear'st not the signal spreading
News of a second secret wedding?
Religious rites
Of holy nuptial nights?
Dost thou not hear it,
Virginal wife of my spirit?
I am indeed the spouse
Shall lead thee to my house.
O tender Christian love,
O tear-blest dove,
I am thy husband's eye,
Through which thou shalt descry
Planes of angelic power
Reserved for thy last dower!”
We must not miss.
Hear'st not the signal spreading
News of a second secret wedding?
Religious rites
Of holy nuptial nights?
Dost thou not hear it,
Virginal wife of my spirit?
I am indeed the spouse
Shall lead thee to my house.
O tender Christian love,
O tear-blest dove,
I am thy husband's eye,
Through which thou shalt descry
Planes of angelic power
Reserved for thy last dower!”
“Hear, earth, our song,
For thou art bidden
To double nuptials hidden!
And thy confusion shall not last for long.”
For thou art bidden
To double nuptials hidden!
And thy confusion shall not last for long.”
| East and west : the discovery of America and other poems | |