Ranolf and Amohia A dream of two lives. By Alfred Domett. New edition, revised |
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 | Ranolf and Amohia |  |
97
IV.
Try then the Church. “What Church?” our youngster sighed:
“Is there within the world's circumference wide
A Church or any Temple—in this dearth
Of Faith, with half her heavenly cables snapt,
Hope's anchor scarcely left—has life or worth
To make its intellectual votaries feel
What in old days they felt; that martyr zeal,
Forgetfulness of present self and rapt
Possession of the Infinite on Earth
That gave a grandeur to the Life it scorned?
But who would brook a Church if unadorned
With absolute love of Truth? unless it gave
To Thought the utmost freedom it could crave;
Followed where'er it led, true Reason's light;
Avowed itself to Truth an utter slave,
Truth ever and Truth only—come what might?
And who that loved his own free soul could bear
To work, a digger in the dark gold mine
Of spiritual Truth, or bold researches try
Where scientific Doubts with deadly shine
Like Icebergs freeze, or Faith's bleached fragments lie
Whitening the hot Saharas of Despair—
Handcuffed and fettered with the leaden links
Of dogmas stereotyped—creeds cut-and-dry
And double-dry? heart-paralysed by dread
Of all but what smooth smug ‘Society’
That feels by fashion and by custom thinks,
Gives pass and permit to? Whose Soul so dead
As dare put on a Soul-deliverer's power
While forced or fain a Law Divine to trace
Of Spiritual Storms in frothy-bubbling suds
Raised in some legal Washtub where they scour
And rinse hot-steaming ritualistic duds—
Awestruck lest ultra-rubric rag and clout
Lose cabalistic colour, gloss or grace,
Ere it can rage its tiny tempest out?—
Or who with strangely grovelling Quixotry
Would think to quell the Evil all about
With candlesticks and censers?—satisfy
The crave for Infinite Good that cannot die,
With trim and tinselled haberdashery?
Who, in a fight so fierce in such an age,
With lackered shields and silvered wooden swords
Of ceremonious mummeries would engage?
With pagan posture-tricks such warfare wage
And pantomime, in place on Thespian boards—
Stage-twirlings in the death-tug! Who could dote
In imbecile expectance to assuage
Sharp pangs of soul with prayers run up by rote
In self-complacent trills with pompous throat?
Would any heart remorse had desperate driven,
Or milder sense of ‘Sin’ abased, on heaven
In accents guided by the gamut call,
And do-re-mi-sol-fa the God of All?”
“Is there within the world's circumference wide
A Church or any Temple—in this dearth
Of Faith, with half her heavenly cables snapt,
Hope's anchor scarcely left—has life or worth
To make its intellectual votaries feel
What in old days they felt; that martyr zeal,
Forgetfulness of present self and rapt
Possession of the Infinite on Earth
That gave a grandeur to the Life it scorned?
But who would brook a Church if unadorned
With absolute love of Truth? unless it gave
To Thought the utmost freedom it could crave;
Followed where'er it led, true Reason's light;
Avowed itself to Truth an utter slave,
Truth ever and Truth only—come what might?
And who that loved his own free soul could bear
To work, a digger in the dark gold mine
Of spiritual Truth, or bold researches try
Where scientific Doubts with deadly shine
Like Icebergs freeze, or Faith's bleached fragments lie
Whitening the hot Saharas of Despair—
Handcuffed and fettered with the leaden links
Of dogmas stereotyped—creeds cut-and-dry
And double-dry? heart-paralysed by dread
Of all but what smooth smug ‘Society’
That feels by fashion and by custom thinks,
Gives pass and permit to? Whose Soul so dead
As dare put on a Soul-deliverer's power
98
Of Spiritual Storms in frothy-bubbling suds
Raised in some legal Washtub where they scour
And rinse hot-steaming ritualistic duds—
Awestruck lest ultra-rubric rag and clout
Lose cabalistic colour, gloss or grace,
Ere it can rage its tiny tempest out?—
Or who with strangely grovelling Quixotry
Would think to quell the Evil all about
With candlesticks and censers?—satisfy
The crave for Infinite Good that cannot die,
With trim and tinselled haberdashery?
Who, in a fight so fierce in such an age,
With lackered shields and silvered wooden swords
Of ceremonious mummeries would engage?
With pagan posture-tricks such warfare wage
And pantomime, in place on Thespian boards—
Stage-twirlings in the death-tug! Who could dote
In imbecile expectance to assuage
Sharp pangs of soul with prayers run up by rote
In self-complacent trills with pompous throat?
Would any heart remorse had desperate driven,
Or milder sense of ‘Sin’ abased, on heaven
In accents guided by the gamut call,
And do-re-mi-sol-fa the God of All?”
His youthful scorn would graver minds endorse?—
Senses or Reason—any hook to raise
The loach-like groundling Soul with—all must praise;
The end—Soul-raising—no one contravenes;
But why absurdly deify the means?—
Then greater is a Priesthood's duty too
Old Truth admitted to apply—enforce,
Than to explore the Universe for new.
But how much priestly truth is granted true?
Science her freshets still must thunder down
Of physical Truth, though drowsing Churches drown.
Should not the eye be open?—hand be free
To seize at once whate'er the eye may see
Of nascent truth, and let the dying go?
What, if your Priests, like Shepherds half asleep,
Over the gold-brown gloss of dogmas keep
Vain watch, while half their sheep a-hungered stray
To succulent green pastures far away?
For Forms of Faith, though beautiful they be,
If e'er the Truth, their living spirit, flee,
What are they like but cold and stony flowers,
Those geysers boiling up through emerald bowers
In far-off islands he was soon to see,
Clothe with a sparry spume, that hardens white
Around the perished plant concealed from sight,
But still retains in delicate array
Each form of tiny leaf and tender spray,
Cold, crumbling, colourless—in lifeless pride—
No growing green, no circling sap inside!
Senses or Reason—any hook to raise
The loach-like groundling Soul with—all must praise;
The end—Soul-raising—no one contravenes;
But why absurdly deify the means?—
Then greater is a Priesthood's duty too
Old Truth admitted to apply—enforce,
99
But how much priestly truth is granted true?
Science her freshets still must thunder down
Of physical Truth, though drowsing Churches drown.
Should not the eye be open?—hand be free
To seize at once whate'er the eye may see
Of nascent truth, and let the dying go?
What, if your Priests, like Shepherds half asleep,
Over the gold-brown gloss of dogmas keep
Vain watch, while half their sheep a-hungered stray
To succulent green pastures far away?
For Forms of Faith, though beautiful they be,
If e'er the Truth, their living spirit, flee,
What are they like but cold and stony flowers,
Those geysers boiling up through emerald bowers
In far-off islands he was soon to see,
Clothe with a sparry spume, that hardens white
Around the perished plant concealed from sight,
But still retains in delicate array
Each form of tiny leaf and tender spray,
Cold, crumbling, colourless—in lifeless pride—
No growing green, no circling sap inside!
But how should he presume by thought or deed
To set up for a sower of Truth's seed?—
Not his the credence that could teach a creed;
The doubly-sure assurance that could feed
Another's faith with fervour of its own.
Faith has its temperate as its torrid zone;
And widely different as joy from grief
Is certain knowledge from sincere belief.
To set up for a sower of Truth's seed?—
Not his the credence that could teach a creed;
The doubly-sure assurance that could feed
Another's faith with fervour of its own.
Faith has its temperate as its torrid zone;
And widely different as joy from grief
Is certain knowledge from sincere belief.
| Ranolf and Amohia | |