University of Virginia Library

I know not if what now my spirit doth spend
This tortur'd frame's last strength in sore endeavour
To write to thee will reach thee, Luther, ever.
For I, whose crime is to have been man's friend,
No friend can claim, whose friendship's faith I may
Trust these, my life's last words, to thee to send,
After my death, which thou dost urge, men say.
I know not, Luther, if what's writ to-night
Be for thy reading, or for any man's.
'Tis as God wills. But, since His own eye scans,
And answers, in my heart, what now I write,
Still I write on, while He withholds the end.
And, setting bare my spirit in God's sight,
I summon thine to witness.
'Twere in vain
To urge the old sad difference o'er again.
Doom'd to an imminent death,—a dreadful one
In all save this,—that death, whate'er the shape
God gives it, is the event of life alone
Graced with God's last great gift to man,—escape
From men's tormenting,—I desire not now
To argue a long-talk'd theology.
How much mere knowledge with mere life may grow
Concerns not one that, being about to die,
Approaches Truth by no such process slow.
Too near death's hour of certainty am I.
But O the pity! Had we two been one!
As once we might have been: who cannot be,
Henceforth, united, till by God's clear throne
We stand together, with Heaven's eyes to see
What Earth's miss'd sadly: each, Man's champion,
And, therefore, God's! We, in this dark, abused
By the false glare of midnight watchfires, seen
Across a warring world, where all's confused,
Mistook for foes each other, who, I ween,
Are soldiers of the self-same King. And so
We fought, and, struck by thee, I fall. Each blow
Of thine, which I must pardon and deplore,
A friend's mistake! tho' fatal, Luther, more
Than if a foe had dealt it. O why, why
This woeful haste, that mars so much? See here
The sad result. For, Luther, while I die,
What ominous, incongruous faces leer
Beside thine own with laughing lip and eye?
What strange unholy helpmates share with thee
The sad bad joy of this false victory
O'er me and man? Error on error! see,
Beneath the same soil'd banner at thy side,
Hand clasping hand, grim Saxon George allied
With him of Hesse! sworn foes erewhile, tho' now
George, who would think he did God service good
Could he but rend thee limb from limb, as thou
Bids't him rend me, red with thy brother's blood,
Thy right hand holds: who clasps the other? he,
The Landgrave, who hates him, as both hate me.
And thou, the while, art hugging each red hand!
What glues so fast the fratricidal Three
Together thus? And what of such a band
The shameful central link makes Luther be?
My blood. O shame, shame, shame, my brother, shame!
Is it not sad that God such things should see,
And thou the cause? O worst disgrace of all!
That, when God asks ‘Who did this?’ men must name
Their noblest, and the blame of such deeds fall
On him whose scorn should brand them with the blame
Such deeds deserve. Error beyond recall!
Yet, think, think, Luther, and be sad 'tis so.

Desirest thou man's good? I wot thou dost.
But self hath film'd thy spirit's eagle eye.
Hear him not, heed him not, since cry he must,
The flattering fiend, that in thy heart doth cry!
I hear the plausible serpent tempting Dust
To mimic God! and thou dost taste his lie,
And in the sweetness of it take delight,
Murmuring ‘Man's good! for what else have I striven,
Toil'd, dared, done battle, conquer'd? Man's good, ay!
But man's good, by my gift, to mankind given,
Not man's good, man's hereditary right.’
Hath it not oft thus whisper'd thee? and thou
Hast listen'd till it seem'd God's voice! By night,
When thoughts speak loud that scarce dare whisper low
By daylight,—when the Tempter saith his say,
And will be answer'd,—doubtless to me, too,
Would some such wandering whisper steal its way
At times, from the abyss. I thank God, who
Gave my soul strength to answer stoutly Nay,
And foil Pride's prelate-devil of his prey!

Consider, Luther . . . 'tis Paul speaks, not I . . .
How all are members of the Body of Christ:
Where were the hearing, were the body all eye?
Were it all ear, in what would sight exist?
Were all one member, where the body then?
Many the members, tho' the body is one:
One Spirit of God in many lives of men:
Can the eye say to the hand ‘Need have I none
Of thee’? or can the head say to the feet
‘I need ye not’? Nay, rather they which be
The body's feeblest members most complete
The body's being: rather those that we
Esteem least comely claim the comeliest care,
Those least in honour honour most entreat:
Since to the body these most needful are:
The weaker parts chief cherishing demand:
The limbs crave clothing—not the head, the hand.

What gleam'd on Corinth, in the dawn of Faith,
Is Luther blind to, in Faith's noonday blaze?
To thee, Apostle, still the Poor Man saith
The selfsame word that in the old proud days
Paul to the rich Corinthians cried. They heard,
Believed, obey'd, and blest the Preacher's word.

To Corinth God one preacher sent: to thee
A thousand preachers cry aloud, my brother.
The fetter'd foot rebukes the hand that's free.
Should not we members cherish one another?
For if one member suffereth pain or wrong
All suffer with it, and the whole frame ails:
Since each to each the bodily parts belong,
And none without his fellow's help avails
The body's use. But is it so with us?
The Rich oppress the Poor: the Strong the Weak:
The hand lops off the foot. The body, thus
Self-mutilated, suffers, and doth shriek:
But the ear hears not what the tongue doth cry,
And the hand helps not, and Shame shuts the eye!

I sought to heal this sickness into health:
To mitigate, not magnify, man's wrong:
For Want win justice, and give worth to Wealth:
To free the Weak, not to enslave the Strong:
Mid gifts unequal, mid unequal powers,
Secure the equal happiness of all:
Maintain God's law in this mad world of ours:
Replace the force of mere material thrall
By force of love; the old empiry of Might,
Which is imposed upon unwilling hate,
By the serene sweet sovereignties of Right,
That are accepted, and secured i' the state
Of man's free spirit, by the loyal love
Of what the soul perceives to be Above.

I sought to attain this by no violent aids:
I preach'd not Justice from the cannon's mouth
In humble hearts, not over crownèd heads,
I claim'd dominion, and 'twas granted. Youth,
Hope's dawn-star trembling in his tear-lit eyes;
Old Age, the twilight of his toilful day
Suffused with solemn joy—like evening skies
That promise watchful shepherds a fair morn—
Brightening his grave, calm, satisfied regard;
And Womanhood—the maiden in her May,
The care-worn wife, with hungry eyes, grown hard
From grieving without hope—pale mothers, worn
With nursing breadless babes; the wan array
Of this world's weary hearts;—all these, no scorn
Could sneer to shame, no cares could keep away,
No want withhold, from Love's new-found domain.
Love shew'd his face, and was forthwith beloved!
No drop of blood was shed, no victim slain,
For love of all in each loved spirit moved,
And this man's pleasure was not that man's pain;
But in Mulhausen God saw, and approved,
The bloodless triumph that bequeath'd no stain
To Love's least soldier. And there rose on earth.
For Heavenly augury of human gain,
A glorious Form of innocent beauty and mirth,
—A little State like One large Family:
All members of one body at one birth:
And all were lowly, because all were high:
None poor: none idle: tyrant none, nor thrall:
Strong labour for the strong: light for the weak:
Labour for all: and food for all: for all
Hope that makes strong, and Reverence that makes meek,
Conscience that governs, Justice that allies,
Love that obeys, and Faith that fortifies.

And so, it grew, and grew: and so, I deem'd
It might grow yet—Earth's fruit of Heavenly seed!
But no! the vulture swoop'd, the eagle scream'd,
The roused hawk hunger'd, and the dove must bleed!
The banded anarchs of a brutal time
Hated us strongly, and were strong: their greed
Was made earth's god: their lust earth's law sublime:
We loved, and we were weak: that was our crime.
And where was Luther then? From town to town
Chasing grey-headed Carlstadt, his old friend:
Denouncing, persecuting, hunting down,
Down, to a noble life's disastrous end,
The man, to whom, in God's attesting name,
His solemn faith was pledged not long before:
The man he loathed because he could not tame
That old man's fearless spirit any more
To crouch to his! Or to obedience old
Scolding Melanchthon's meeker nature back.
. . . . Ah, dear Melanchthon, loved, tho' lost! How, fold
On fold, the blurr'd Past lifts its vapour black,
To let emerge those melancholy eyes
Once more, which still my wrong'd heart loves! Alack,
Love is not always just, nor Memory wise.
May truer friends forgive me, that I cease,
A moment even, to list to their loud woes!
The thought of thee o'er all things breathes sad peace:
And, for a while, in sorrowful repose
The world's vast wail is husht, to let me hear
The old sweet fluteplaying . . . . so faint, so clear!
Melanchthon, never play that flute again!

Back, heart, to Luther! Where was Luther then?
Maligning Müntzer to the magistrate:
The rich man's friend, the friendless people's foe:
With frenzied rail, rebuking hope: elate
To lift the high-born, lay the low-born low:
Now this Elector, now that Landgrave, praising:
Thro' all Thuringia preaching scorn and strife:
In every Saxon burg crusaders raising
Against the accursèd Anabaptist's life!

Even then, the untaught patient peasant clung
To hope in justice from an unjust power.
Sharp was the cry which misery from him wrung,
But scant his asking even in that last hour.
He ask'd for leave to labour and to live,
—A free man's life and labour, not a beast's:
To honest Want what honest Wealth may give,
Wages for work: Christ's charity from Priests:
Justice from Law: and man's humanity
From Human Power. His prayer was humbly urged:
Scorn was the guerdon, outrage the reply.
With hoot and howl, the importunate wretch was scourged
From field to forest, and from moor to fen.
Then, then at last, lash'd, famisht, to its lair,
The frenzied People, raving, rent its den:
Then savageries of nature seethed and surged
In manly breasts unmann'd by mad despair:
Brute hardship brutalised the hearts of men:
And beasts of burden changed to wild beasts then.

Ay! then, indeed, another voice was heard:
Not mine: and stormy listeners, lured by hate,
Welcom'd the preacher of a wilder word,
With hearts whose love's last cry was strangled late.
Like rainless lightning thro' a wildwood ran
Stork's fiery utterance: where it dropp'd, it burn'd:
And all was flame. For each wrong'd heart of man
Caught fire and flared; and, flaring, backward turn'd
Before the rushing wind of ruinous Wrath,
And pour'd that glare upon a blighted Past:
And each beheld, what barr'd the backward path,
Some mighty image of a monstrous wrong
Whereon the red revengeful light was cast.
This saw his son's back bleed beneath the thong:
That other his dishonour'd bride beheld,
Or ravisht daughter: one, the hunter's throng
Trampling his thrifty field: another yell'd
‘In Leipheim bleach my boys' unburied bones!’
One saw his brother burning at the pyre:
One caught from bloody racks a comrade's groans:
One saw his father on the cross expire.
Then burst the dreadful shout, the dooming word,
And in the hand of Vengeance flash'd the sword.

And peace was pass'd away. To me, to all,
No choice survived, but action, and a cause
To fight for: man's oppressor, or his thrall:
The makers, or the breakers, of bad laws.
My choice was fixt, my part imposed: in me
No pause disloyal to the past allow'd.
Albeit strife's end I could not fail to see:
The certain slaughter of an unskill'd crowd,
Disaster, disappointment, death: fit ends
To false beginnings—war to vengeance vow'd,
And valour shamed by violent deeds. My friends
To fancied victory, fool'd, with blindfold eyes,
Went forth: unblinded I, to sacrifice.

Yet, when the Armies of the Poor display'd
The Wheel of Fortune on their ensigns borne,
Which, in the turning of her hoodwink'd head,
Turns all things upside down with captious scorn,
‘Not Chance, but Hope, be our device!’ I said,
‘For godless Fortune's gifts leave Faith forlorn,
But God's gift Hope stays fast when these be fled.’
And on the People's flag I blazon'd then
Heaven's rainy bow, first rear'd o'er rescued men.

Ay! tho' that banner hath been beaten down,
That symbol trampled out in streams of blood,
While this contented world without a frown
Is praising faithless peace in festal mood,
Tho' all the friends for whom I hoped are slain
Like shambled sheep, and tho' myself must die
In some few hours, that hope I still retain:
Not with the same wild moment's flashing joy
That seized my soul when, in war's desperate hour,
I stood on the hill top, and saw beneath
The all-surrounding hosts of hostile Power,
And mine own helpless sheep, ordain'd to death,
A faint and weary flock, which to devour,
The herded wolves, hoarse barking, bared sharp teeth;
While high in heaven, athwart the thunder-shower,
Even as I lifted up my voice, and cried
To God, with stretch'd expostulating hand,
Sprang forth the sudden rainbow, basing wide
O'er battle strewn about the lower land,
Storm strewn in heaven, all its aery pride,
Triumphant on the everlasting hills!
Not thus I hope. No gleam of promise thus
Visits this hour, which Heaven with darkness fills.
For men must wait. God deigns not to discuss
With our impatient and o'erweening wills
His times, and ways of working out thro' us
Heaven's slow but sure redress of human ills.
When Christ was in the garden captived, they
That, till that hour, had talk'd and walk'd beside Him,
Hoping in Him, lost hope, and fled away,
And he that knew Him best ere dawn denied Him.
What wonder? All seem'd lost, i' the very eve
Of an immortal victory. In man's sight,
All was lost. What disciple could believe
Love's triumph in Life's failure, that sad night?
But God makes light what men make dark: His fire
He frees where fall our ashes. And, because
I feel God's power, still doth my spirit aspire:
Not fearing, even now, that unjust laws
By unjust force maintain'd, rack, stake, or cord,
The sign'd conventions of convenient Wrong,
The tyrant's sceptre, or the hireling's sword,
The servile pulpit, timorous to the strong,
To the weak truculent, or custom tough,
Can crush man's rights forever, or prolong
Man's pain an hour, whene'er God cries ‘Enough!’
And for this reason, and because I think
I never cared about myself since first
I cared for man,—from whom I dare not shrink,
Not even tho' he forsake himself,—nor aught
Hath Fancy nourisht, or Ambition nurst,
That was not featured in the womb of thought
By Hope's keen contemplation of man's face;
Because I cared not ever, care not now,
Which runner's foot be fleetest in the race,
Who, at the goal, assumes to grace his brow
The garland won, who takes the upper place,
Chief at the board, when festal wine-cups flow,
So long as, at the last, the goal be gain'd,
The garland got, the general table spread;
—Whoe'er the man by whom man's aim attain'd,
Joy crowns my heart, if victory crown his head!
Luther, because 'twas thus—'tis thus—with me,
And because, gazing with intensest gaze
Round each lost field where my life's ruins be,
A gleam of hope for man, in these dark days,
—(His last, perchance, for centuries long!—) I see,
Or seem to see, i' the spirit-power which stays,
Tho' stain'd—like sunrise o'er a stormy sea
Pour'd from a clouded crag with struggling rays—
On thy firm forehead's pride,—I write to thee.
Love mankind, Luther, if thou lovest not me!
For thou, great Spirit, art full-arm'd! a soul
Clothed with strong thunder by the hand of God:
Ardent to combat, potent to control:
Gabriel's spear, John's Angel's measuring-rod,
The Cherub's flaming sword, and Michael's shield,
Were given to thee—to conquer, not to yield.

Yield not the Devil his recaptured prey!
Conquer for all mankind! Complete thy task!
The People, thou wast sent to save and sway,
Die in the Desert: thristy lips, that ask
In vain for water! perishing feet that stray
Farther and farther from the Promist Land,
And sink 'neath weary loads along the way!
Mock not man's thirst with driblets pour'd i' the sand
From the scant leavings of Wealth's well-drain'd flask.
Cleave thou the stubborn stone with stern command.
Smite these rich rocks! The rod is in thy hand.

Thou canst. But if thou wilt not . . .
Hark! give ear
To this sad prophecy of woes to be,
A dying voice to night-winds, moaning here,
Delivers, charging them to bear to thee
The burthen of Time's melancholy song:
The Church thou buildest, scorning first to free
Life's cumber'd field for Love's foundations, long
Shall be, herself, the slave of Power: and she,
Wed to the World, not Christ, the unchristian wrong
Of worldly Force with worldly Fraud shall share,
And so wax weak by scheming to be strong;
Till there shall be on earth a sight to scare
Earth's holiest hope from human hearts away:
A Priesthood, purchased for complacent prayer,
Leagued with Earth's Pomps, for profit and for pay,
Against Heaven's Love: praisers of things that are,
Scorners of good that's not: cleaving to clay,
Strangling the spirit; purblind, unaware!
Contracting, not enlarging, day by day,
The charities of Christ, with surly care:
Till man's indignant heart shall turn away,
And chuse the champions of its faith elsewhere.
And champions shall it find. Dread champions, they!
The impatient offspring of prolong'd despair:
A prayerless, pitiless, imperious brood,
Whose battle cry shall be a cry for blood.

It may come soon, come late, come once for all.
Achieve its task, and pass, content, away,
That Hour of Fate, which God to life shall call:
It may come many times, and miss its prey,
And pass, dissatisfied, to come again,
More grimly arm'd with greed of greater sway,
To rescue from more wretchedness more men:
I cannot tell. For unseen hands delay
The coming of what oft seems close in ken,
And, contrary, the moment, when we say
‘'Twill never come!’ comes on us even then.
I cannot tell the coming of that day,
If near or far, or how 'twill be, or when:
But come it will, and do its work it must,
So sure as moves God's spirit in man's dust.

Men call me Prophet. And thou, too, in scorn.
Prophet I am. For grief hath made me wise.
The night's lone watchman feels far off the dawn,
And, till redress'd, all wrongs are prophecies.
This is no tortured fool's despairing curse,
No maniac menace from a murder'd man.
Luther, consider—ere man's need be worse,
If thou wilt help it, as none other can.
I claim not justice now, I do beseech
Compassion, for the Poor. To thee, to all,
I would, indeed, my dying cry might reach:
—Place for the People's Cause! in which I fall.

My sands run out. What else my soul would say
Must be said shortly. And these fingers write
But ill the struggling thoughts that force their way
Thro' tortured nerves, and speak in pain's despite.
Judge if 'tis pity for myself I crave.
Luther, one woman lives that loves me: one
Whose life I'd die ten thousand deaths to save:
I have no friends, and therefore she hath none,
Save God: I cannot shield her, from the grave
To which men doom me: worse than all alone
I leave her, compass'd with a world of foes!
That is the wife whose steps with mine have gone
Faithful thro' life, tho' led from woes to woes.
I have not breathed one prayer, not made one moan
To thee for her, that's as myself, Heaven knows!
Much less for this least self, that's soon to die;
Tho' it hath suffer'd somewhat. Thrice they bound
This body to their rack. Thou wast not by.
Thy friends were. Each dictated some fresh wound,
And all applauded. Let that pass. For man,
Not for myself, I end, as I began,
This letter, and this life.
With failing force,
But not with fainting faith, I lift the cry
That speeds my spirit on its sunward course
Beyond Death's night. And, as I lived, I die,
Man's friend; imploring—tho' it be in vain—
From thee, from all—man's pity for man's pain!