The Poetical Works of James Thomson The City of Dreadful Night: By James Thomson ("B. V."): Edited by Bertram Dobell: With a Memoir of the Author: In two volumes |
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 | The Poetical Works of James Thomson |  |
IV.
“Haughty and wealthy and great, mighty, magnificent, free,
Empress in thine own right of the earth-surrounding sea!
Broad and deep flows the river that feedeth thy mighty heart,
Bringing from all the zones to crowd thine imperial mart
Of all their produce the best—their silks, their gems, their gold,
Their fruits and corn and wine, their luxuries thousand-fold:
Thy merchants are palaced princes, thy nobles scorn great kings,
Thy meanest children swell with pride beneath thy shadowing wings;
And thy voice throughout the world, complacently serene,
Proclaims ‘Of all my Sisters, I am the rightful Queen!
This one is blind, this deaf, and that other is but a mute;
This one is fair indeed, but drunken and dissolute;
This is a very slave, dishonourèd long ago;
This one is dying of age, that other of want and woe;
This one is proud and great, but a heathen in her soul,
And subject to fatal frenzies, raging beyond control:
But I, I am rich and strong, I am wise and good and free;
Thronèd above them, Empress sole of the earth-surrounding Sea!’
Empress in thine own right of the earth-surrounding sea!
Broad and deep flows the river that feedeth thy mighty heart,
Bringing from all the zones to crowd thine imperial mart
Of all their produce the best—their silks, their gems, their gold,
Their fruits and corn and wine, their luxuries thousand-fold:
Thy merchants are palaced princes, thy nobles scorn great kings,
Thy meanest children swell with pride beneath thy shadowing wings;
183
Proclaims ‘Of all my Sisters, I am the rightful Queen!
This one is blind, this deaf, and that other is but a mute;
This one is fair indeed, but drunken and dissolute;
This is a very slave, dishonourèd long ago;
This one is dying of age, that other of want and woe;
This one is proud and great, but a heathen in her soul,
And subject to fatal frenzies, raging beyond control:
But I, I am rich and strong, I am wise and good and free;
Thronèd above them, Empress sole of the earth-surrounding Sea!’
“Yes, indeed thy power is great, but thy evil is great no less,
And thy wealth is poor to pay the debt of thy guiltiness;
And the world is judged with justice, and thou must pass through that fire
Which hath tested so sternly the glitter of Venice and Carthage and Tyre:
For no wealth can bribe away the doom of the Living God,
No haughtiest strength confront the sway of His chastening rod.
Repent, reform, or perish! the Ages cry unto thee:
Listen, oh listen, ere yet it be late, thou swarthy Queen of the Sea!
And thy wealth is poor to pay the debt of thy guiltiness;
And the world is judged with justice, and thou must pass through that fire
Which hath tested so sternly the glitter of Venice and Carthage and Tyre:
For no wealth can bribe away the doom of the Living God,
No haughtiest strength confront the sway of His chastening rod.
184
Listen, oh listen, ere yet it be late, thou swarthy Queen of the Sea!
“Thy heritage vast and rich is ample to clothe and feed
The whole of thy millions of children beyond all real need;
One of the two main wheels whereon thy Faith doth move
Is that each as he loves himself so shall he his neighbour love:
But thy chief social laws seem strictly framed to secure
That one be corruptingly rich, another bitterly poor,
And another just starving to death: thy fanes and mansions proud
Are beleaguered with filthy hovels wherein poor wretches crowd,
Pining in body and soul; untaught, unfed by those
Who are good if they merely dribble bland alms upon fatal woes—
Resigning scarcely aught of their pleasure and pride and content,
Nor dreaming that all their life is one huge embezzlement.
“The sumptuous web of thy trade encompassing all the globe
Is fretted by gambling greed like a moth-eaten robe,
Is slimed by creeping fraud, is poisoned by falsehood's breath,
Is less a garment of life than a shroud of rotting death.
The whole of thy millions of children beyond all real need;
One of the two main wheels whereon thy Faith doth move
Is that each as he loves himself so shall he his neighbour love:
But thy chief social laws seem strictly framed to secure
That one be corruptingly rich, another bitterly poor,
And another just starving to death: thy fanes and mansions proud
Are beleaguered with filthy hovels wherein poor wretches crowd,
Pining in body and soul; untaught, unfed by those
Who are good if they merely dribble bland alms upon fatal woes—
Resigning scarcely aught of their pleasure and pride and content,
Nor dreaming that all their life is one huge embezzlement.
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Is fretted by gambling greed like a moth-eaten robe,
Is slimed by creeping fraud, is poisoned by falsehood's breath,
Is less a garment of life than a shroud of rotting death.
“The mass of thy rulers live with scarcely one noble aim,
Scarcely one clear desire for a not inglorious fame;
Slaves to a prudence base, idolaters unto Might,
Jailors of lofty zeal, infidels to pure Right,
Deaf to the holy voice of the Conscience of the World,
Blind to the banner of God when it floats in the storm unfurled;
They, and with them the array of thine actual Priesthood, thy proud
And numberless Father-confessors—ineffable crowd
Of scribes who by day and by night, unceasingly blatant, dictate
Thine every move in the contest with Time the Servant of Fate.
Scarcely one clear desire for a not inglorious fame;
Slaves to a prudence base, idolaters unto Might,
Jailors of lofty zeal, infidels to pure Right,
Deaf to the holy voice of the Conscience of the World,
Blind to the banner of God when it floats in the storm unfurled;
They, and with them the array of thine actual Priesthood, thy proud
And numberless Father-confessors—ineffable crowd
Of scribes who by day and by night, unceasingly blatant, dictate
Thine every move in the contest with Time the Servant of Fate.
“Thy flaring streets each night affront the patient skies
With an holocaust of woes, sins, lusts and blasphemies;
When thy thousands of harlots abroad with the other thousand are met
Of those who made them first and who keep them harlots yet:
So dreadful, that thou thyself must sometimes look for the fire
That rained from heaven on Sodom to make thee one funeral pyre.
With an holocaust of woes, sins, lusts and blasphemies;
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Of those who made them first and who keep them harlots yet:
So dreadful, that thou thyself must sometimes look for the fire
That rained from heaven on Sodom to make thee one funeral pyre.
“Thy Church has long been becoming the Fossil of a Faith;
The Form of dry bones thou hast, but where are the blood and breath?
Dry bones, that seem a whole, with dead sinews binding the parts,
Inert save when bejuggled to ghastly galvanic starts:
Though thou swearest to thy people, ‘The King is but sick, not dead’—
Gaining the time while you choose you another in His stead;
Though thy scribes and thy placemen all; most of whom know the fact,
Vouchsafe in His name to write, pretend by His will to act:
Where are the signs of His life?—While living He never ceased
To thrill with the breath of His being thy realm from the West to the East;
While He lived He fought with sin, with fleshly lust and pride;
While He lived His poor and mean were wealthy and dignified;
While He lived His reign was freedom, faith, chastity, peace and love;
And the symbol borne on his banner was not the raven but dove;
While He lived there yawned a Hell with a Devil for His foes,
And a God-ruled Heaven of triumph before His followers rose;
While He lived the noblest of men were wholly devoted to Him,
The saints, the bards, the heroes, in soul and mind and limb,—
Who now without a Leader, mournful in silence wait,
Girding each one himself to his lonely fight with Fate.
The Form of dry bones thou hast, but where are the blood and breath?
Dry bones, that seem a whole, with dead sinews binding the parts,
Inert save when bejuggled to ghastly galvanic starts:
Though thou swearest to thy people, ‘The King is but sick, not dead’—
Gaining the time while you choose you another in His stead;
Though thy scribes and thy placemen all; most of whom know the fact,
Vouchsafe in His name to write, pretend by His will to act:
Where are the signs of His life?—While living He never ceased
To thrill with the breath of His being thy realm from the West to the East;
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While He lived His poor and mean were wealthy and dignified;
While He lived His reign was freedom, faith, chastity, peace and love;
And the symbol borne on his banner was not the raven but dove;
While He lived there yawned a Hell with a Devil for His foes,
And a God-ruled Heaven of triumph before His followers rose;
While He lived the noblest of men were wholly devoted to Him,
The saints, the bards, the heroes, in soul and mind and limb,—
Who now without a Leader, mournful in silence wait,
Girding each one himself to his lonely fight with Fate.
“But thou, O Queen, art false: a liar, if He is dead
And becoming a mammoth fossil whose æon is wholly sped;
A traitor if still He lives and shall for ever reign,
For thou spurnest the laws most sacred of all He doth ordain,
Should Christ come now from Heaven, to reap the harvest sown
When He buried Himself in the earth, watered with blood of His own,
How many Christians indeed could He gather with strictest care
From thy two hundred myriads who claim in Him a share?
He agonisèd to save thee and thy children all;
And He saveth scarcely enough to delay thy deadly fall.
And becoming a mammoth fossil whose æon is wholly sped;
A traitor if still He lives and shall for ever reign,
For thou spurnest the laws most sacred of all He doth ordain,
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When He buried Himself in the earth, watered with blood of His own,
How many Christians indeed could He gather with strictest care
From thy two hundred myriads who claim in Him a share?
He agonisèd to save thee and thy children all;
And He saveth scarcely enough to delay thy deadly fall.
“For fall thou wilt, thou must—so proud as thy state is now,
Thou and thy sisters all, scarce better or worse than thou,
If ye do not all repent, and cleanse each one her heart
From the foulness circling with its blood to poison every part.
Woe to thy pampered rich in their arrogant selfishness;
Woe to thy brutelike poor who feel but their bread-distress;
Woe to thy people who dare not live without hope of wealth,
Who look but to fruits of the earth for their life and saving health;
Woe to thy rulers who rule for the good of themselves alone,
Fathers who give their children crying for bread a stone;
Woe to thy mighty men whose strength is unused or sold;
Thy sages who shut their eyes when Truth is stern to behold;
Woe to thy prophets who smile Peace, Peace, when it is a sword;
Thy poets who sing their own lusts instead of hymns of the Lord;
Thy preachers who preach the life of what they feel to be death;
Thy sophists who sail wild seas without the compass of faith;
Thy traders trading in lies and in human bodies and souls;
Thy good men cursing those better who strive on to loftier goals:—
The final Doom evolveth, burdened with woe on woe,
Sure as the justice of God while yet by His patience slow;
For the earth is pervaded wholly, through densest stone and clod,
With the burning fire of the law of the Truth of the Living God;
Consuming the falsehood, the evil, the pride, the lust, the shame,
With ever-burning, unrelenting, irresistible flame;
Until all save the purest spirit, eternal, of truth and love,
Be altogether consumed away, beneath as well as above.”
Thou and thy sisters all, scarce better or worse than thou,
If ye do not all repent, and cleanse each one her heart
From the foulness circling with its blood to poison every part.
Woe to thy pampered rich in their arrogant selfishness;
Woe to thy brutelike poor who feel but their bread-distress;
Woe to thy people who dare not live without hope of wealth,
Who look but to fruits of the earth for their life and saving health;
189
Fathers who give their children crying for bread a stone;
Woe to thy mighty men whose strength is unused or sold;
Thy sages who shut their eyes when Truth is stern to behold;
Woe to thy prophets who smile Peace, Peace, when it is a sword;
Thy poets who sing their own lusts instead of hymns of the Lord;
Thy preachers who preach the life of what they feel to be death;
Thy sophists who sail wild seas without the compass of faith;
Thy traders trading in lies and in human bodies and souls;
Thy good men cursing those better who strive on to loftier goals:—
The final Doom evolveth, burdened with woe on woe,
Sure as the justice of God while yet by His patience slow;
For the earth is pervaded wholly, through densest stone and clod,
With the burning fire of the law of the Truth of the Living God;
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With ever-burning, unrelenting, irresistible flame;
Until all save the purest spirit, eternal, of truth and love,
Be altogether consumed away, beneath as well as above.”
| The Poetical Works of James Thomson | |