The Poetical Works of George Barlow :: :: University of Virginia Library

O poet, in whose brain and heart the sweetness
Of summer reigns and glows,
What bars thy life from rounding to completeness?
Where findest thou thy foes?

Thy foes are surely in the heavens above thee;
God gazes down with scorn:—
The golden stars and golden blossoms love thee,
And the bright clouds of morn.

Upon thy side thou hast the sunset-glory;
The clouds in fiery mail.
Each snowdrop whispers thee its pet love-story;
Each crocus brings its tale.

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Thou wanderest singing by the river-edges,
And lo! the ripples pause,
And hush their love-song to the sighing sedges,
To learn thy music's laws.

Thou hast a power of endless loving-kindness,
A love of all things born.
But thee God hates. He'll close thine eyes with blindness!
He'll pierce thy brows with thorn!

The love of violets in the mossy hollows—
This, poet, thou shalt win:
The suffrages of the swift-wingéd swallows;
The worship of the linn.

The pure-souled snow-white lilies shall adore thee;
The autumnal forest-glade
Shall pour its gorgeous crimson foliage o'er thee;
The summer boughs shall shade.

Its rarest pearls the amorous sea shall fling thee,
Pearls gathered from its breast.
Strange priceless gems the humming-birds shall bring thee,
Trinkets of throat or crest.

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The purple heather in the moorland regions
Shall nestle round thy feet.
The whole world's songsters, in their countless legions,
Shall own thy song more sweet.

And yet, thou poet, whatsoe'er thou doest,
Thy toil shall end in gloom:
When summer skies above thee beam their bluest,
Prepare thou for the tomb!

Poet.

I love the bright blue heights of air,
The sunlight in the morn:
I love to watch that diamond rare,
The dewdrop on a thorn.
I love the white clouds in the skies,
The blue waves by the land:
But bluer yet are woman's eyes,
And whiter is her hand.

Satan.

The morning's light shall pass away,
It shall be dark at noon:

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And night shall lack the golden ray
Of friendly star or moon.
Thou lovest woman? She shall prove
Thy direst bitterest woe.
She loves thee? Yes: and she can love
Thy neighbour even so!

Poet.

My song shall reach the frail and weak:
The sad lost soul shall find
That Christ's sweet pity still can speak
To erring hearts and blind.
Of all the crowns that I can win,
This is the highest indeed—
To save one woman's soul from sin;
To guard her at her need.

Satan.

And having raised her quite from sin,
Watch how the affair will end.
The girl you spent your soul to win,
Your fortune to befriend,

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Will—for a diamond brooch maybe,
Or for much less than this—
Barter the mouth your modesty
Did not presume to kiss.

Poet.

I'll win, please God, a noble name,
Do noble work indeed;
Speak words of thunder, words of flame,
Shake many a rotten creed.
My words shall ring from land to land,
And many a throne shall quake;
The sword shall flash from many a hand
For my strong singing's sake.

Satan.

Dream on, thou fool. The song wins less,
The nobler that it be,
The people's homage. Their caress
Is won quite easily.
Write folly, with a tinge of dirt:
You surely will succeed.
Bilge-water, through a penny squirt,—
That is the chrism they need!

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Poet.

I'll write high poems. I will pour
Along my throbbing strain
The wild winds' wail, the thunder's roar,
The music of the main.
Though many a bard has lived and died,
Still golden sunrise gleams:
The stars shine through night's palace wide,
And fill my soul with dreams.

Satan.

A dream—that is the poet's life.
But every dream shall end.
The sweetheart changes to a wife
(And then the stars descend!)
The wife developes to a scold.
The songs in which you trust
Will mix with cabbages and mould,
With cinders and with dust.

Christ.

O poet-heart, despair not.—Know
That every song of thine

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Has made some angel's spirit glow;
Yes: every noble line.
All earthly joys thou hast to miss?
Earth's hopes and passions end?
Yet is it not sufficient bliss
That Jesus calls thee “friend”?

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II. CHRIST, AND THE LOVER

Satan.

Lovelier is she than a poet's dreaming?
Brighter are her eyes than starlight gleaming?
Is the sun less golden than her hair?
Did thy youth pass greyly and in sorrow?
Weary, didst thou sleep—and on the morrow
Didst thou wake, and find a goddess there?

Lover.

Lo! my soul was lost. Alone I wandered.
By the deadly river-waves I pondered,
Gazing in their dark and bitter flow.
But my heart was changed, for true love found me:
Took my weary life in hand, and crowned me:
Spread across the heavens a sunset-glow.

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Satan.

Sweet she is; but time's track never changes;
Over all the golden fields he ranges,
Flower-destroying. Shall he spare thy bliss?
Pleasant are her lips; but time will chill them,
Not for ever will the old sweetness fill them,
Thou wilt tire before the thousandth kiss!

Lover.

I was lost and sad, and very weary.
Through the gloom of life, the darkness dreary,
Came the vision of a perfect thing.
Autumn was it. Through the forest-arches,
Underneath the October-yellowed larches,
Came a presence fairer than of Spring.

Satan.

And again, when thou dost wax quite olden,
Underneath the autumn foliage golden
Thou shalt wander—wander quite alone.
Death may love the lips thou lovest dearly;
Death's grim bugle-call may ring out clearly,
And her lips may answer with a moan.

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Lover.

Surely God, who made this perfect creature,
Set the stamp of heaven in every feature,
Having given, will take her not away?
Can God steal from heaven the stars that glitter?
Slay the golden sun? Oh, that were bitter!
Can he pour wild darkness over day?

Satan.

Even if she lives, thou wilt not know her
When another fifty years shall show her
Changed and gaunt and wrinkled to thy gaze.
Hardly then thy changed heart shall remember
Her who made the dark woods one September
Sweeter than the woods of sunniest Mays.

Lover.

Darling! As the long years fleet and perish,
With a tenderer sweet love will I cherish,
Guard, protect, and tend, and worship thee.
Never will my strong love change one tittle!
Though the waves may eat away the brittle
Rocks that seemed so stalwart round the sea!

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Satan.

Long before one iron-bound cliff has faltered,
Will thy love be changed in form and altered;
While the stern cliffs still resist the wave,
Passion will be but a distant glimmer.
Slowly next thy love-thoughts will wax dimmer,
Till at last they are ghosts around a grave.

Lover.

When we wandered in the golden morning
Through the fields, we watched the flowers adorning
Leaf and stalk and petal, every one.
“See,” we said, “the blossoms' hearts are jealous!
Each to outstrip her rival bloom is zealous,
Each desires her sovereign lord, the sun.”

Satan.

And at night-time over field and garden
Fall the moonrays, and the blossoms harden
Heart and leaf and petal in the cold.
When the sun arises in his splendour
Dead are all those blossoms over-tender,
Though he kissed them with his mouth of gold.

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Lover.

Once I doubted all things, all things human;
Railed at God, and scoffed at man and woman;
Now I find a never dreamt-of bliss.
God has sent me blessing for my curses,
In his undeserved and priceless mercies
Given me heaven in one pure woman's kiss.

Christ.

Lover: hold thy noble faith unshaken!
Love her purely. If thy love be taken,
Know that she is safe with God and me.
Know that past the heavens, with angel sweetness
In her face, she waits thy soul's completeness;
Past the stars, the thunder, and the sea.

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III. CHRIST, AND THE MAN OF GENIUS

Man.

In youth I thought the world was bright;
The starry fields were full of light:
The grassy fields were full of bloom:
But oh, how surely brightness goes!
Full of high hopes, my life arose:
Hopeless, it travelleth to the tomb.

Satan.

That is the end of all—to seek
God's love, to burn to unfold and speak
God's gospel to the human race,
And then to hear death through the air
Thunder his gospel of despair,
Or lose all for a woman's face!

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Man.

Of all the curses God can shower
The heaviest surely is the dower
Of genius, burthening heart and brain:
To feel an ever-intenser woe
Than others, or a rapturous glow
So fierce it deepens into pain!

Satan.

That is your lot. For ever thus
To teach immortal truths to us,
Yet lonely through life's waves to steer.
That is the glory of the thing:
To carve, or write, or paint, or sing,
Yet never find an audience here.

Man.

If God be true, I can endure,
Struggle to be unselfish, pure:
Yet fear I, judging by the past,
Lest, like the brain of Talleyrand,
The noblest genius in the land
May mix with sewage at the last.

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Satan.

That is the beauty of the thing!
To think that mighty brains, which sing
Of passionate joys and passionate pain
And flowers and stars and sunlit skies,
May serve, when once their owner dies,
To choke a gutter or a drain.

Man.

To love more deeply, hour by hour,
The simple beauty of a flower,
The stars God's conjuring hand forthshook
And yet to feel that all one's might
Can add no one star to the night
Nor one white lily to the brook!

Satan.

That is your helpless genius-dower.
Man's song cannot create one flower:
The mightiest sculptor time may send
To mould the marble, cannot flush
The white stone with the bright blood's blush;
Cold marble is it to the end.

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Man.

To know so much! to feel the right
Far past the rampires of the night
To penetrate to God's high throne!
And yet to feel thought sinking back,
Defeated, on the same old track,
And to be left once more alone!

Satan.

Again the dower of genius, this.
To madden for Jehovah's kiss;
Right through the starlit rooms of space
To hunt his shadow, endless task;
To see God's eyes flash through his mask,
But never to discern his face.

Man.

Prisoned to be by time and space!
To long to have gazed on Jesus' face
And seen the royal kindness there!
The Churches tell us he arose.
But when or how? what preacher knows?
Their gods are ghosts, their words are air.

135

Satan.

You'll never know. And, when you die
And think a passage through the sky
Will open (as it oped for him!)
You will be shoved i'the ground instead,
And beetles round about your head
Will gather for their gambols grim.

Man.

To know what noble souls have died,
And what sweet women! to be tied
For ever to an English blonde.
Never to know the exact rich bliss
Which pulsed through Cleopatra's kiss!
This makes a passionate soul despond.

Satan.

Aye, God will let thy spirit dream:
But when it comes to facts, I deem
He'll not send beauty to thy bed.
Her whom thy lust would stretch out there
He'll marry to a green-grocer,
And send thee an ill-breath'd bride instead.

136

Man.

To yearn across death's solemn night
So thunder-dark, yet see no light
Of one dead well-loved starry face
Flash out for all one's yearning! this
Last sadness lurks within each kiss;
This coldness thrills through each embrace.

Satan.

Yes: when thy mother dies, thy friend,
Thy wife, thy sweetheart, that's the end,
The end of all—be sure of this.
Kiss while thou canst. Within the tomb
No widower wins a young girl's bloom.
Death proffers not a second kiss.

Man.

To peer between life's prison-bars
And watch those golden ships, the stars;
Yet never in life, or death maybe,
To board a single star-ship! no.
For ever through heaven's deeps we go,
Yet hail no consort on the sea.

137

Satan.

The same with life. The human soul
Is like your earth-ship. Though its goal
May lie beyond eternity,
Alone for ever it must steer
And never through all ages hear
One true voice hail across the sea.

Christ.

O genius-heart, be brave and strong.
When thou despairest, suffering long,
Think on my life, remember me.
Thy soul soars on, all stars of space
Sail on, before my Father's face,
And harbourage lies beyond the sea.

138

IV. CHRIST, AND THE POOR MAN

Satan.

All thou see'st of splendour and of sweetness,
Gulf and river, rock and wood and wave,
All that wealth can bring life of completeness,
If thou wilt but trust me, thou shalt have.

Man.

I am happy in my humble garden,
Happy 'mid the red geraniums there:
Happy, when the good God breathes his pardon
And his blessing down the starlit air.

Satan.

Pardon! not of God need'st thou crave pardon:
Rather let him pardon ask of thee.
Why should thine hands change to horn and harden,
While another lives in luxury?

139

Man.

Yet the unequal lot is God's appointing.
Happier am I in my humble sphere
Than the Pope, for all his proud anointing,
Or the king with courtiers at his ear.

Satan.

King thou art by right. The rich man's slumbers
One day shall thy legions rudely break.
True, the wealth is his. But thou hast numbers.
Strike! for thy seduced sad daughters' sake.

Man.

That thought maddens. That, and that thought only
Drives the avenging blood to heart and head—
That the rich man leaves his wife's couch lonely
While he wantons in a work-girl's bed.

Satan.

King thou art,—the sole true monarch, doubtless.
Had the myriads of the northern Czar
Seen this sooner, his red hand were knoutless,
And their hands had snapped each prison-bar.

140

Man.

Dreams of fierce and blood-stained revolution,
These are born of darkness and of thee.
We retain, through Europe's wild confusion,
Hearts made clear by sunshine and the sea.

Satan.

Yes: the sea is free. Its waves would cheer you
Onward to the final grim attack.
Think what boundless wealth is ever near you!
What a city London were to sack!

Man.

Yet the Thames, with its strong eddying waters
Curling downward to the sea's blue plain,
Seems to plead for English wives and daughters.
Shall we make it blood-red like the Seine?

Satan.

Wives and daughters! when did ever wealthy
Strong man, covetous of girl or bride,
Hesitate by violent means or stealthy
To abduct your weak one from your side?

141

Man.

Yet I look for days of equal measures,
Work for all men, healthy homes for each:
Laws to guard the poor man's best loved treasures—
Daughter, wife, and liberty of speech.

Satan.

These are going, unless you bestir you.
Sword and bayonet, truncheon, gag, and chain;
Workhouse-prisons wherein to inter you
Living; these the gifts are ye will gain.

Man.

If the end be this, not ever thunder
Through the midnight with such fury rolled
As will wild revolt, while weak fools wonder,
Through the long streets where they hide their gold.

Satan.

Grand! let every continental nation,
Awe-struck at the English workmen's might,
Watch the multitudinous devastation
And the balefires flashing through the night.

142

Man.

If it ever comes to such an issue,
Deadly, desperate, will the mad fight be.
Down will crumble walls like paper tissue,
When hoarse riot charges like the sea.

Satan.

Famous! I will head the workmen rallying
Through the Parks and Squares with banners red.
When the Life-Guards through their gates come sallying,
Whitehall shall be choked with cuirassed dead!

Man.

Never Paris saw so fierce a battle
Through its long and sanguine-tinted days.
When the Guards' drums through the dense fog rattle,
We'll reply by our revolvers' blaze.

Satan.

Princely! that will be a noble sample
To the nations round, and yet to be.
English artizans shall set the example.
Let the surging red flags follow me!

143

Man.

Then the rich man's foot within his garden
In his brother's blood perchance shall slip.
Stately duchesses shall sue for pardon,
Kneeling 'mid our ranks with ashen lip.

Satan.

Glorious! when the captured girls are waiting,
While their fathers' hot blood licks the sewers,
Splashing red down gutter and through grating,
I will whisper, “What of girls of yours?”

Man.

This is certain—If that day of thunder
Ever breaks on London, those who see
Will behold hell's barriers burst asunder,
Fiends unchained, and raging devils free.

Christ.

Satan, when the hell-gates leap asunder,
Dreading lest some flippant sword-edge scar,
Fearful lest some heedless bullet blunder,
Safe will lurk, observing from afar!

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V. CHRIST, AND THE SOCIAL REFORMER

Reformer.

The world is perfect as God made
Its heights of sunlight, depths of shade:
God's image in it we restore.

Satan.

Your pupils daub the world with mud:
Or else will send a sea of blood
Circling along from shore to shore.

Reformer.

The world was perfect. Leaf and flower,
Starlight and moonlight, sun and shower,
Fulfil the high God's perfect will.

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Satan.

And ye will add a starlight new
When, torch in hand, ye issue through
The portals, to consume and kill.

Reformer.

What lessons for the race are there—
In the heavenly depth of starlit air.
What truths the star-land has to teach!

Satan.

The proletariate little cares
About the lessons of the stars:
It has its dirty shirts to bleach.

Reformer.

Astronomy. What nobler lore?
Or from the sea-weeds on the shore
To educe the laws of life and growth.

Satan.

Nay! stuff your pockets full of sweets.
The children gathered from the streets
Like bull's eyes best, I'll take my oath.

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Reformer.

Such small things teach, if man would learn—
The heather's bell, a tuft of fern:
God's signs are seen in every spot.

Satan.

The people's sign-boards point the way
To where, at foggy close of day,
The fieriest brandy can be got.

Reformer.

Ah! in the future we shall bring
To bear the lessons of the spring,
The teaching of the summer rose.

Satan.

And find that those you would uplift
Would rather you would let them drift
Straight to damnation, in repose.

Reformer.

A genius grand is in the poor.
Behold, we open Music's door
And let the poor man enter in.

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Satan.

Try them with Beethoven, Mozart.
But don't be angry, do not start,
If Vance and short-skirt ballets win.

Reformer.

The picture-galleries we will ope
On Sundays. There, our leaders hope,
The working-man will take his wife.

Satan.

On Sundays, as a general rule,
The workman thumps her with a stool,
Or jobs her with the carving-knife.

Reformer.

The noblest singing they shall hear.
We'll train their fancy, train their ear,
The grandest thoughts to comprehend.

Satan.

And find that they—yes, one and all—
Would rather see at a Music Hall
The white-eyed Kaffir. Yes, my friend.

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Reformer.

Christ was the first who understood
The people,—saw the undreamed-of good
Latent in heart and hand and head.

Satan.

And therefore on the cross he died,
And all the fickle people cried,
“Give us Barabbas in his stead!”

Reformer.

The whole world lies before us. Wide
Its wonders stretch on every side.
Vast are the truths life has to teach!

Satan.

The people you would lift so high
Would much prefer—though you may sigh—
To crack their nuts on Brighton beach.

Reformer.

The children shall make holiday
Among the flowers and fragrant hay,
And love the beauty of the flowers.

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Satan.

They love the gutters and the mud.
I've seen a dead rat's skin and blood
Amuse a blue-eyed child for hours.

Reformer.

They'll leave the stifling town at morn,
And watch the sunshine on the corn
And butterflies with wings snow-white.

Satan.

Children pull off flies' wings, you know.
I've often watched them doing so,
And revelled in the dainty sight.

Reformer.

A long day by the sea's white foam!
They shall sing hymns, returning home,
And ever love the blue-waved sea.

Satan.

Sing hymns! Through Lambeth when I walk
The tiny children's filthy talk
Is really shocking, even to me.

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Reformer.

If only we can educate
The shop-girls; force the sluggish State
To educate them, one and all.

Satan.

Men train them in such different ways:
Opinions differ in these days:
I think they're sweetest, when they fall.

Reformer.

Once educate—then all is well.
Love can redeem the lost from hell,
And shield the soul sin would destroy.

Satan.

Sin? That is such an ugly name.
A sealskin jacket means the same,
And sounds more delicate, my boy!

Reformer.

Work hard; keep sober; rule your tongue;
Love truly, chastely; marry young.
Domestic joys are joys which last.

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Satan.

My work-girls dread domestic bliss.
Why sell your freedom, when you kiss?
Marriage is dying out quite fast.

Reformer.

I see the good in every one.
You count the spots upon the sun,
And in the fairest find a sin.

Satan.

My eyes are microscopic. Yes.
I stand by when the girls undress,
And count the blotches on their skin.

Reformer.

Is all life's labour then in vain?
Long effort, struggle, bitter pain.
Must evil still outbalance good?

Satan.

The great Reformer, Jesus, died
With ruffian-robbers at each side,
Nailed on a common cross of wood.

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Reformer.

That seemed like failure—dismal, vast.
The bright stars must have gazed aghast,
When loving Jesus had to die.

Satan.

It was the death-blow of his dream.
The soldiers saw the blood-drops stream,
And laughed to see them. So did I.

Christ.

On every Church in Christian lands
To-day my cross as symbol stands
Of mine eternal victory.

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VI. CHRIST, AND THE KING

King.

Leagues and leagues of rolling upland, leagues and leagues of mountain ground,
Leagues and leagues of stormy waters where the giant surges sound,
These are mine, and mine for ever. Through the farthest East I reign,
And the rivers wait my mandate ere they plunge into the main.

Satan.

Lord thou art of all things clearly, lord of day and lord of night.
In the morn the sun thy servant pays thee homage, brings thee light.
At the eve the stars thy servants cast their crowns before thy feet,
And thy women do thee service even softer and more sweet.

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King.

Are there lands yet left to conquer? I am weary, though I reign
Over mountain, mead, and valley—over river, rock, and plain.
Are there hearts yet left to conquer? Are there women more divine
Than the girls whose golden tresses at my palace windows shine?

Satan.

Wealth and kingship last for ever, and all pleasures can be brought
To thy feet, O mighty Ruler! Thou need'st stint thyself in nought.
Plunge from pleasure into pleasure, as a bather in the sea
Leaps from breaker into breaker. Trust thy future unto me.

King.

Yet I dread the far-off future—sometimes wake up in my bed,
Pause from dallying with the glory of a woman's golden head,

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Pause half frightened, with the sweetness of her kiss upon my mouth,
Hearkening as the thunder summons its loud legions from the South.

Satan.

Dream not of the far-off thunder. Death and thunder are so far.
Lo! to-night my slaves shall bring thee, when the evening's lonely star
Through the silence of the heavens drives its chariot wrought of pearl,
An untouched and trembling maiden. Take thy pleasure with the girl.

King.

Yet an end will come of pleasure. Through the desert monsters moan,
And the ghosts of those I've vanquished haunt the stairway of my throne.
Deep in blood my feet have waded. Must I wade for evermore
Through red waters? Must my footsteps in my palace slip in gore?

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Satan.

Kings have need to stifle scruple. Kings must sweep their foes away,
As the current sweeps the sea-weed round the circle of the bay.
Lo! thou art a mighty monarch. Thou hast taken to thy bed
Wives of foemen without number, and hast laid their husbands dead.

King.

Star by star the high heaven opens, full of wonder is the night.
I am ruler in my palace. Here a million lamps are bright:
Here a thousand women wait me.—God is mightier, mightier far!
Lord he is of heaven's blue regions, far beyond the faintest star.

Satan.

Art thou envious of Jehovah? Canst thou never be content?
Lo! the whole wide earth I give thee—sea, and isle, and continent.

157

Thou hast served me, served me truly. Lord thou art of earth and hell.
Must thou lust for powers beyond thee, crave for God's high heaven as well?

King.

Nay, I drive the fancy from me. Bring me women, bring me wine!
Let the girls dance wanton measures till their smooth limbs seem divine!
Let the captives suffer torture! Let the tigers crowd the ring!
I will watch them tear the prisoners. I will live and die a king.

Satan.

That is better, that is braver. That is speech I love to hear.
The proud vaunting of a monarch rings like music in my ear;
And I love to see the captives drag their entrails in the dust,
For the sight of blood is pleasant, and it whets a monarch's lust.

158

King.

Yes, when all the sports are over and the fierce arena clears,
I feel joyous and feel tender. Then I weary of the spears
And the bleeding and the fighting, and I long for sleep and rest,
And to kiss the pale-pink nipple on a maiden's balmy breast.

Satan.

True: the glory of a monarch is to slay the husband first,
To watch anguish do his bidding, to see torture do its worst;
Then at night-time, past the turmoil and the throbbing of the strife,
To let passion do its utmost on the body of the wife.

King.

Bid the people throng together. They shall own me king and lord.
God may rule by loving-kindness. I will sway men by the sword.
I will light red fires of torment that shall leap between the bars
Of the prisons, and extinguish God's pale candle-light, the stars.

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Satan.

Canst thou not devise a torment newer than the fires' old blaze?
Write in blood a noble poem that shall ring through endless days?
Mothers hast thou ripped in sunder, wrenched the babes from out their womb,
Tossed the infants on thy spear-points, closed the living in the tomb—

King.

There are fifteen hundred prisoners in the dungeons of the town:
There are fifteen hundred diamonds wanted for my royal crown.
Let the diamonds wait a little. I can scent a rarer prize.
There are fifteen hundred prisoners. Bring me fifteen hundred eyes.

Satan.

That is glorious, that is kingly. That is past expression grand.
Ruled there ever such a monarch o'er so fortunate a land?

160

His right eye each prisoner loses, but the left eye still remains.
See how mercy kisses judgment! See how just a monarch reigns!

King.

There are half a thousand captives in the fortress, prisoned deep.
They shall writhe amid their life-blood, twining in a tangled heap.
Break their legs, and hurl them living in the ditch beside the tower.
All who pass shall see them rotting, for a token of my power.

Satan.

Better still, aye even better! That is past all language fine,
And the genius that devised it in its greatness matches mine.
Judgment once more kisses mercy, and with tenderness is blent.
Break their legs, don't kill them outright. Give them five days to repent.

King.

Bid the people throng together. I will make a royal feast.
Let the lamps at night be lighted. I am king on earth at least.

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If vast angel-hosts in heaven wait Jehovah's stern command,
Round about me fifty thousand of the desert's spearmen stand.

Satan.

Who shall wait thee in thy palace, when the feasting all is done?
When the lamps before the moon fly, as she flies before the sun.
When thy head with merry feasting and with laughter reels and whirls,
Who shall wait thee of thy smooth-limbed satin-bosomed supple girls?

King.

Let the girl to-night be ready, who last night upon my bed
Lay so snowlike on the velvet (Let the tigers wait unfed).
In the afternoon the circus, and the blood-stained combat's charms:
But at night the king's the captive, prisoned in a woman's arms!

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Christ.

King, to-night when solemn darkness closes down on land and sea
Thou shalt meet the only Ruler who hath kingship over thee.
Thou hast made the pale stars tremble on their thrones within the sky;
But to-night thy soul shall tremble, for to-night thou hast to die.

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VII. CHRIST, AND THE PHILOSOPHER

Philosopher.

Could the good without the evil ever hold out for an hour
Never!—Every lady strutting in her grand silk down the street,
Full of pureness like an angel, full of beauty like a flower,
Were it not for the poor harlot would be never half so sweet.

Satan.

True, the Force that moulded all things is dramatic at the core;
Has its due sense of proportion; sets the good beside the base;
Flings the millionaire his nuggets; plants the beggar at his door;
Shapes the cripple as a contrast to the young girl full of grace.

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Philosopher.

Often, very very often, do I chuckle to myself,
Watching how the good souls struggle, thinking God is on their side.
God is far too good an artist to put evil on the shelf:
God's superbest Rembrandt-picture was when Christ was crucified.

Satan.

Yes, I watched with keenest pleasure that strange scene upon the hill.
Deeply would you have enjoyed it, could you only have been there.
Judas played his part divinely. Pontius backed him with a will.
Mary “made up” to perfection, purple robe and golden hair.

Philosopher.

People rail at crime and murder. Yet the pleasure these imply!
Christians sitting at their breakfast o'er their sausage and their toast,

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Reading in the morning paper that a murderer is to die,
Feel a thrill of keen excitement. Murders have a charm for most.

Satan.

Strange it would be if Jehovah whom the people worship here
Should be like a Spanish maiden at a bull-fight, in her place.
As she needs its wild excitement, so he needs perhaps to peer
From the windows of his palace on the death-pangs of the race.

Philosopher.

Crimes have sprung from many causes—from the love of wealth and power,
From the lust of man for woman; yet beyond conception odd
Is it that the Inquisition, of iniquities the flower,
Sprang from lust of man for heaven, and from love of man for God.

Satan.

Therefore is there need most urgent that a newer creed be taught:
That the gospel of pure reason should be preached, with all it brings:

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That mankind should be instructed that God only lives in thought
And that he himself is sovereign, the sole living king of kings.

Philosopher.

Day by day to feel more self-poised, day by day to grow more grand:
Day by day to learn new secrets of the silent starry lore:
To feel ever the brain strengthening in its power to understand;
That is worth the pain of living, though the pain of life be sore!

Satan.

All the skies are sundered for thee, all the secrets of the deep
Blue tremendous heaven are opened to thy keen and searching look.
Thou canst count the murky portals, whence the fiery thunders leap.
Thou canst enter the wild comets, name by name, within thy book.

167

Philosopher.

This is life's end, this is rapture. This is man's sufficient goal.
Far away in bygone ages the great Roman poet saw
That the secret of true godship is within the human soul,
And that all the worlds together move by never-changing law.

Satan.

Yes. Lucretius, whom I aided in his godlike labour, knew
That man's dreams of God were baseless—that the only God indeed,
Strong, eternal, self-sufficient, deathless, vast, triumphant, true,
Is the soul of man transcending every form of every creed.

Philosopher.

Prayer has ever been a weakness. Self-sufficient life is grand.
When the soul of man is strengthened, when the soul of man is free,
He will grow by law eternal, like the blossoms of the land;
He will move by changeless impulse, like the tides within the sea.

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Satan.

Through the ages I have wrestled with the dreamers of each race,
With the poets, with the thinkers, with the lords of prose and rhyme;
Teaching that the glory of manhood is for ever thus to pace,
Prayerless, faithless, creedless, godless, on the foam-swept shores of time.

Philosopher.

Once I prayed: but that is over. Once I hoped: but that is past.
It was but a moment's weakness. Now my inmost soul is strong.
I have won the perfect endless philosophic calm at last.
I have conquered in the struggle, though the strife was fierce and long.

Satan.

Teach the people thy strong secret. Teach the uselessness of prayer.
Teach that man's sufficient godship in his own soul he must find.

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Teach that faith in God is harmful; both a weakness and a snare.
To the doubting bring assurance, and bring light unto the blind.

Philosopher.

I can see—my reason shows me—that of all the faiths of man,
Faith in God is most degrading! The soul shivers at the thought.
What! an Eye has followed history since our history first began.
What! no deed in noble silence and in darkness has been wrought.

Satan.

If an Eye eternal follows, through the sunlight and the shade,
Ye are like the prisoners followed by the warder's sleepless eye.
Night and day your God observes you through the peep-holes he has made
In the heavens, flashing on you his star-lanterns from the sky.

170

Philosopher.

Yes, the thought is most degrading. If we marry, even then
Not a moment free from spying, though the darkness may be deep!
Every kiss by God is counted—fifty, twenty, thirty, ten—
For the Eye eternal watches man and woman when they sleep.

Satan.

Not one deed is wrought in private, if the Christian creed be true.
Not a man can kiss in private, not a young girl can be got.
For the Eye eternal pierces all the cloudland, flashes through;
And it fathoms every secret, and it searches every spot.

Philosopher.

Oh far nobler is the silence, as Lucretius felt and saw,
Of the boundless starlit heavens, and the silence of the sea,
And the silent sure progression of unalterable law.
Let the Christians crown their Jesus. Give the godless void to me!

171

Satan.

Yes, for free from wrath and tumult may the soul of man abide
Where no gods can ever harass, where no gods can ever slay.
Unobserved save of the starlight then a man may hold his bride.
Followed only by the sunlight may a man pursue his way.

Philosopher.

Then the soul in its completeness stands for evermore alone.
Could it steer its thought-ship boldly to the farthest shores of space,
Never would its keel encounter one rock-fragment of God's throne:
Never would the darkness open and reveal the Eternal's face.

Satan.

That is strength: to steer right onward, seeking nothing from on high—
Neither guidance, love, nor counsel. Do the star-ships, when they steer

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Never failing, never foundering, through the storm-shoals of the sky,
Say “God help us!” or “God guide us!” If they said so, would God hear?

Philosopher.

No: they sail their course eternal through the darkness of the night,
And they strike not one another, though no helmsman's hand there be!
Twilight draweth back for darkness, darkness giveth place to light,
Morning brings its golden sunshine, yet no wrecks are on the sea!

Satan.

Ever o'er the airy waters will the star-ships sail secure,
For the force that leads them onward is but matter's restless hand.
If a living God convoyed them, could their pathway be more sure?
If a conscious helmsman guided, could their course be better planned?

173

Philosopher.

Worse it would be, worse in all ways. For the conscious God might sleep.
Constellations might be kindled! starry clusters might consume!
If he left the helm a moment, half a million suns might leap
Down the breathless airy cliff-sides and plunge ages into gloom!

Satan.

Rest in peace. Believe and doubt not, for the truth I tell to thee.
Godless was the primal darkness, and the first waves felt no hand
Rein them when they charged with rapture o'er the green floor of the sea,
Nor was God within the sunlight when it first caressed the land.

Philosopher.

That is all I crave for—freedom from the oppressive sense of One
Ever gazing through the myriads of the stars that gem the sky,

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Ever speaking in the sea-waves, ever shining in the sun;
Just to handle my own soul's helm, and to feel that I am I.

Christ.

Not in all the pride of reason can my Father take delight;
Not in genius does he glory, not in stubborn force of will;
But he hears the sad soul praying through the silence of the night,
And he speaks in solemn sweetness to the childlike spirit still.

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VIII. CHRIST, AND THE LOST WOMAN

Woman.

Of old the river-banks were sweet.—
The waves played round my girlish feet,
As in the brook I gathered cress.
I stooped. Then, quicker than a thought,
The wicked ripples laughed and caught
The bright skirt of my Sunday dress.

Satan.

And who came through the wood that day,
With face so handsome, step so gay,
And eyes in which no evil seemed?
And who, found standing in the brook,
Blushed childlike at his laughing look
And then went home, and cried, and dreamed?

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Woman.

It was a dream, and nothing more.—
I see him standing on the shore:
I see the blossoms by the stream:
I hear my mother ask me why
That night I seemed so strange and shy,
Pacing the house as in a dream.

Satan.

Was it a dream that followed—town;
Long rows of houses, smoky brown;
And then one night a dainty bed
In the grand house he took you to;
Wild kisses all the long night through,
Till morning flamed out rosy-red?

Woman.

A dream, a wicked sinful dream!
My mother's stern words ghostlike seem,
Which warned me when I fled away:
His kisses on my lips are ghosts:
Grey phantoms are that bed's tall posts,
And spectral is that dawn of day.

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Satan.

And was the blue-eyed child a dream
Who, like a moment's sunny beam,
Flashed o'er your life one golden spark?
You loved the father in the child,
And half with fate were reconciled.
God stole your darling. All was dark!

Woman.

God took the baby. Better so.
He had his father's glance, I know.
I would not that my womb should bear
A child who, in the days to come,
Might lure the heedless to their doom
And goad some girl's heart to despair.

Satan.

Nay, had the child become a man
And ended what his sire began,
That would have been dramatic, great.
He might have seen some other girl
At play where the blue waters curl
Beside your mother's cottage gate!

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Woman.

Thank God, he died! The poor thin child—
I loved it with a passion wild,
The only love-power left in me.
And yet I hardly cared to groan
When I was wholly left alone,
A wreck upon life's tossing sea.

Satan.

And yet he would have spared you gold,
Had you but written. But you sold
Your honour, sank so foully low.
What can a man of character
(The best-intentioned) do for her
Who fancies profligacy so?

Woman.

Love once and lose, then all is lost
For woman. Man can love a host
Of women, so he fancies—yes.
Our love is agony or bliss.
We give one man an angel's kiss:
We give the rest a fiend's caress.

179

Satan.

An over-subtle point to me
That seems, and quite a travesty
Of amorous joys and love-delight.
No: on the whole I hold with man
That every girl's the same who can
Be sweet companion for a night.

Woman.

A man can love a thousand girls.
Smooth black soft tresses, yellow curls,
Blue eyes, fierce dark eyes,—all are one.
Man finds a thousand faces fair;
Loves all the stars that fill the air.
Woman is faithful to the sun.

Satan.

Woman loves once, and that's the end!
Then, when her lover, or her “friend,”
Forsakes her, what is left to seek?
The river.—Which makes clear to me
The folly of her theory,
And proves her reasoning false and weak.

180

Woman.

The river? Yes. It flows along:
Not as of old with sweet soft song
Near Oxford, past my mother's door.
There is no may-bloom on its banks;
No tall green reeds in rustling ranks;
This moonlight gilds a flowerless shore.

Satan.

Plunge in, and get it over.—You
Keep dreaming of the old waves of blue
That once you watched with girlhood's eyes.
The moon that parts yon cloudy rack
Peers down from heaven on wavelets black
To-night. You are in town. Arise!

Woman.

My life is dark as is the stream.
It once was bright with flash and gleam
Of love's own sunlight, like the wave.
But now the stream and I are one:
We have bade farewell to the sun:
The moon shall light us to our grave.

181

Satan.

Man cares not. God? He does not care.
One moment's flash of golden hair
Upon the surface of the stream,
Then all is over. You make way
For a new suicide next day,
And pass from man's sight like a dream.

Woman.

I wonder, is the water cold?
Drowning is pleasant, I've been told.
The morning sun is far-off yet.
I wonder, is it hard to die?
Others have drowned—and so can I.
One plunge—and then I shall forget!

Satan.

Not one soul loves you. Quick, my girl!
How pleasantly the waters curl:
The moon is shining nicely, too.
My spirits are leading from the Strand
Another young girl by the hand:
Hurry—or she may jostle you!

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Woman.

Just let me fold this poor old shawl
And lay it down behind the wall,
And hat and gloves and necktie. There...
The water looks so cool and deep—
If I can pluck up heart to leap,
There will be no more pain to bear!

Christ.

Pause: for thou art not quite alone.
Far-off in heaven I heard thee moan,
And through the starlit silent sky
I hastened, as of old, to save.
My love is stronger than the grave,
And mightier than man's enmity.