Canto the Second. War needs Idealizing.
1. War stripped of its splendour here. 2. It needs Genius to elevate it;
such as Wellington's, Nelson's, Napier's; (3) Men fit for Empire—
not to be won or kept by mere Utilitarianism; or the false Philanthrophy
which would extinguish Patriotism and (4) ruin England.
5. A better fate for our worldwide Empire—of universal fellowship
and mutual aid; no talk of ‘Self-help’ to colonies; obvious duty
they recognize, as witness those killed in the war going on while this
tale was being written. 6. Such deaths keep alive the spirit which
will realize the Ideal of our British Empire—a crowned Federation
centrally represented. 7. War a Worship.
I.
See now prepared for fresh assault
And every wild resource of War,
Both ‘Sounding Sea’ and ‘Angry Star’!
—But let us call a moment's halt;
For who can dwell with much delight
On details bare of barbarous fight?
War stripped of that superb disguise
Of splendour which to youthful eyes
Gives Terror more than Beauty's charms,
And o'er Death's revel scatters rife
Stern raptures of sublimest Life?
The marshalled ranks—far-glittering lines;
And square on square compact and dense—
Each layer-like slab of life intense
That firm as bristling rampart shines
In such high-drilled magnificence!
The single tramp and serried arms
Of myriads moved like one together!
The bayonet-blades—each row of steel
Soft waving like a brilliant feather
As in broad lines the regiments wheel—
How in the sun they flash and quiver!
The ponderous flying guns that cling
And clutch at every vantage ground
Like savage birds of heavy wing,
And with volcano smoke and sound
Exulting boom and blaze away;
Or flit when they no more may stay,
As vultures lagging leave their prey!—
Then Music's thrilling witchery,
From Matter's gross enthralment ever
Potent the spirit to deliver,
Fans all the Soul to fever-heat;
The big drum's distant windy beat,
Tumultuous-heaving stormy sea,
Over whose plunging waves alway
The fife's light notes dance up like spray!
And trumpets soar and bugles call:
Or loud in fits far rattling comes
The glorious long-resounding shiver
Of those impatient kettle-drums!—
II.
—But more than Music—more than all
Imperial pomps and prides that shine
To make Destruction's Art divine,
Is that display, the grandest still
To any human lot can fall,
When Genius with consummate skill
Wields the ennobling sword it draws
Resistless in a righteous cause:
Such as our wondrous Warrior drew,
He, Duty's great Archangel—true
The least or largest work to do
That shrineless God could set him to!
Whose Soul to that fast-zenithed Sun
Glowed consecrate—its Magian fire,
Kept burning ever, brighter, higher
For storms of State—War's cloudracks dun—
The wild vicissitude of things;
A soul, a mien—erect—serene—
'Mid tumbling thrones and trembling kings!—
—Or that high-passioned One—our loved
Sea-King—whose frail war-shattered frame
Seems, like the Sun's disc in its flame,
Lost in his Spirit's blaze of Fame!
That fiery soft great heart sublime,
Who with his stately white-winged crowd
Of lightning-bearing Sea-Swans, moved
Majestical from clime to clime,
And, wrapped in one sky-reaching shroud
Of dense white level-jetted cloud,
With grand sea-thunders swept away
His country's foes where'er they rose;—
Who, with such cool and crushing ease
Like chessmen used to place and play
His crowded floating fortresses;—
Who like a rushing Comet, prest
Across the World from East to West
And back, in that gigantic race
Of Warfleets o'er the Atlantic Main;
When wondering Europe saw him chase
Like doubling hares that scud in vain,
The navies of proud France and Spain!—
—Or He, whose dazzling deeds make pale
(As well says one who paints the fray)
Old marvellous times of casque and mail—
Dense arrow-flights through thronging knights
At Agincourt's and Cressy's fights;
Whose might on great Meánee's day
Wiped out again the Cábul stain,
That red retreat—one slaughter! he
Who that audacious victory
With his heroic handful tore
From twice as many thousand foes
As he had hundreds; so, dispersed
The hovering hundred thousand more
Of ruffian-hordes with razor-swords
Keen-panting on their prey to close;
Flung to the winds the sway accurst,
And rooted up no more to rise
The regal stews and robber sties
Of those Emeers whose quaking fears
Erelong through Asia's wide heart ran;
Till every turbaned Tyrant there
And bloodstained bandit in his lair
Shook at his very name—unscreened
Though wastes and mountains intervened,
Though round him raged a ruthless clan,
Against this terrible true Man,
This justice-wreaking holy fiend,
This demon ‘brother of Shay-tan’
Fighting God's battles!—
III.
Aye, indeed!
These men were the right genuine stuff
To rule a World—a hero-breed—
High minds, such as by instinct feed
On mighty tasks,—Souls large enough
For Empire!—Empire, never won
As never kept, beneath the Sun,
By slow hack-hearts that never knew
A spur beyond material greed!
The mere ‘utilitarian’ crew
Whose huckstering God is only Gold;
That ‘cheaply bought’ be ‘dearly sold,’
Their sordid creed and single heed;
Whose grovelling zeal,—their Altar still
The counter—and their Ark the till—
At that base shrine would sacrifice
Power, honour, Empire!—all the ties
That keep us one; whatever wakes
The patriot glow, the pride of race;—
All that, with love of Order, makes
A people of a populace,
And any people great! whate'er
Of quick and kindling sympathy
With England's children everywhere—
Our common claim to one great name,
One heritage of storied Fame,
It was our boast, our strength to share;—
That conscious thrill of kindred blood
Which false refinement feigns to raise,
Evaporating all its good,
Into a fine and feeble phase
Of vague and vain Philanthropy;
But kept alive,—yet none the less
Alert to let no furtherance slip
Of all-embracing comradeship
And generous great wide-heartedness,—
The more it can inspire, expand,
So much more glorious, powerful, grand,
Becomes each human brotherhood;
And ever, just as each has grown
To greatness or remained unknown,
Did each this genial warmth possess
Defective or in bright excess;
The savage, for his tribe alone,
The Roman for a World—his own!
IV.
But O thou Mother-Isle afar,
Whose fame Thyself alone couldst mar!
Should those mere sensuous saws indeed
(If good and true to clothe and feed)
Be idolized to supersede
The holiest duties, highest aims
Thy Rulers owe, thy welfare claims;
And they and Thou, in pride secure,
Be deaf to all the grand demands
The glorious Gift of world-wide lands—
Birthright of all thy swarming sons
Won by the mighty deathless dead,
Thy heroes' blood like water shed,—
Thunders upon Thee; then be sure,
England, my Country! nought avails
Thy wealth, thy commerce; he who runs
May read upon thy whited wall,
The ‘Mene, Tekel’ of thy fall!
Then hide thy head for shame—then say
And sigh—thy soaring Sun has past
Its zenith; own thyself at last—
Weighed in the fitting trader-scales,
Found wanting; then confess thy day
Of greatness done—thy glory gone—
Thy peddling kingdom passing fast away!—
V.
Ah no! such close shall ne'er await
The dawning day when Thou shalt be
To thy sublimest work awake!
Full many a streak begins to break
In purple promise of the fate
We hope—foresee—foretell for thee!
When such a sympathetic strain
Of loyal fellowship shall reign
Through all thy filial-federal train
Of States by mutual interests bound—
And Thy large heart, the long-renowned;
Touch one—and one inspiring sound
Of murmuring millions all alive
To all that makes their union thrive,
Shall thrill throughout the mighty hive!
And prove, if Right before them shine,
All lightning-like how prompt to strike,
Not for a poor ‘Self-help’ alone,
But Thou for theirs, and they for thine—
All for each others' as their own!
—‘Self-help’—but then the ungracious word
In cold reproach shall ne'er be heard!
If ever, as a shameless taunt
'Twas flung—ah, let the memory sink!
Unworthy those in lofty place
Who nobly rule a noble race,
Not apt from such ‘self-help’ to shrink!
Let that plain fact, no empty vaunt,
Their deaths, those gallant ones! attest
So oft struck down in wretched war
By savage pride upon us prest:—
Attest it his, among the rest—
(Be thus much said for kinship's sake)
Who sleeps the sleep no more to wake
On earth, 'mid loveliest scenes afar
Where Tonga-riro's snows disgorge
Their flames by blue Te Aira's lake—
Young, kindly, chivalrous St. George!
Whose honour-fired aspiring brain
Before that instant-blighting ball
Flashed into darkness without pain,
As in his wonted “dashing style”
(His comrades said) his men he led
Against the palisadoed wall
Of that last prophet-cannibal
Whose torturing tastes—impostures vile—
Into worst horrors back again
Of sickening savage life trepanned
A brutal duped benighted band.—
So swiftly his bold course was run,
That daring Spirit's duties done,
To whom the night and day were one,
As through dense forest-glooms he crashed,
Through flooded rivers dauntless dashed,
Or galloped past thick fern, close by
Where murderous scouts would lurking lie;
To keep our friends in heart, disclose
The machinations of our foes,—
With cool clear-sighted fiery zeal
Unceasing!—Ah, too soon the seal
Was set upon that life unknown,
That bud of promise nipt unblown!
The making of a hero marred,
If ever, then, when evil-starred
That young career by death was barred!
VI.
But not in vain—not void of gain
Devoted deaths so nobly dared!
Deaths that keep living unimpaired
The spirit to raise into the Real
Our English Empire's grand Ideal!
To build up, and from clime to clime
Extend that civil fabric sound
Of balanced social forces Time
Has their securest safeguard found;
Which, best for ordered Freedom still,
Still leaves the changeful Public Will
Unchangeably imperial-crowned!
That Empire—for the wisely free
A kindred haunt, a kindly home!
No poison-spreading Upas-Tree;
No Rata-Myrtle, pressing down
The life it wrecks to raise its own;
Nor e'er while sheltering like old Rome
Perhaps half-stifling—realm or race
In baneful shade—too strict embrace!
Rather some bounteous-burgeoning Vine,
Strong-stemmed—tough-jointed—rooted fast,
About whose purple-clustered vast
Luxuriance beauteous runners blow,
And rich strange blossoms interlace;
All round about each other curled
To swathe and wreathe the rotund World
With flowers of Freedom; petals fine
Of peaceful Glory; fruits that shine
'Mid equal rights and laws and grow
To mellowest richness in the glow
Of Reverence for all duties clear,
And all emotions—deep—divine!
All for the common strength and good
Enringed with many a tendril-twine
Of mutual help and brotherhood:
And woven from them all perchance—
Of fittest growths and finest blent,
From many a region far and near,
Their central garland of supreme
Impartial earnest governance!
And for the sovran ornament
Of that majestic anademe—
Climax and star that world-cymar
To crown—a world-wide cynosure—
Some peerless Lily, say, or pure
Camellia breathing the sweet power
White goodness has to sway—allure!—
—Nay, waive weak metaphors! What flower
Were emblem worthy to recall
The full deserts most favouring fate
May on such culmination shower!
—The life-long loyalty to all
The limits of that high estate;
All duties with a genial charm
Of gentle dignity fulfilled—
Grace by a Mind for ever warm
With clear exalted aims instilled;
The lofty courage, and no less
True woman's lively tenderness
And sympathy unerring, wide,
For suffering hearts where'er descried—
Right wisdom!—all the worth we see,
And seeing, love, revere and bless—
Victoria—Queen who dost possess
All worth this Age's Best confess
Best fits this Age's Queen—in Thee!
VII.
But this is from our theme remote,
(A respite brief from ruder life!)
Where present need was but to note
How poor a thing is human strife
Deprived of aids that seem designed
To make even War a Worship! make
Its mad turmoil the semblance take
Of some ennobling rite where Mind
Lords it o'er Matter—Soul o'er clay—
With absolute predominance
And solemn deep significance;
Until the very Battlefield
Becomes a Temple for display
Of spirit-proving deeds death-sealed
Of high Self-sacrifice—sublime
Devotion; and the bloody sod
Grows eloquent of something more
Than Duty—something beyond Time—
In recompense of Life and Soul
Flung freely down, unstinted, whole,
To magnify, uphold, restore
The cause of Good—and therefore God!
But War in this stark savage way
Looked too much like mere lust to slay;
Of its resplendent mask laid bare
The face of naked Murder seemed to wear;
Its hateful visage tempered by no glance
Of lofty purpose or superb Romance.
