Canto the Fifth. Love fed by War.
1. Amo tending her father. 2. Good springs from Evil. What if
power to resist Evil have to be acquired; so a reason for its existence
here? 3. Are Good and Evil opposite forces of one Power? True
perhaps that Evil must exist, or only God. 4. Which better,
stationary limited completeness; or imperfection with unlimited
progress? Speculation idle. Action cures Doubt—how? 5. The
enemy crest-fallen.
I.
But ere with Tangi Ranolf reached
The Fort, the anxious Amo came—
With more than one deep-wrinkled dame
Of reputation unimpeached
For skill medicinal—supplied
With best resources from their store
Kept ready and prepared before—
Lint, splints and bands and simples dried—
Came hasting to her Father's side.
Soon as his dangerous state appears,
She dashes off the starting tears;
And sets to work the whimpering crones,
And checks their loud untimely moans.
Thus schooled, with old experienced eye
And gentle hand, the nurses pry
Into the wound, and probe, and try
With styptic herbs well understood
To check and stanch the oozing blood;
With many a mild restorative
And crooning incantation, strive
His pausing pulses to revive;
And back the flitting life allure
With all they know to charm and cure!
With anodynes they soothe his pains;
And many a cooling drink restrains
The fever in his feeble veins.
By Amo's self, sad loving Child,
The thick elastic mats are piled
Whereon the helpless Chief they lay;
By Amo's hands are softly spread
The silkiest, for that poor grand head!
Her tender hands alone essay
To wash the battle-stains away;
And smooth and comb with fondest care,
His snowy beard and matted hair:
While from her heart to those still skies,
Sincere and fervent yearnings rise
For aid, where'er it lives or lies,
With any pitying deities!—
For she to Ranolf's Gods will pray—
Her father's—any Gods that may
Save that dear life, that pain allay!
And must not heartfelt wishes pure,
Deep-breathings of a daughter's love,
Be grateful to the Powers above,
And of benignant hearing sure,
As any prayers howe'er exprest,
And to whate'er enlightened, best
Ideal of Infinite God addrest?—
II.
And Ranolf, wondering, watched her glide—
Mid all that carnage sanguine-dyed,
And brutal savage homicide,
And murderous passions raging wide—
A Seraph of bright tenderness,
A healing Angel, in distress
Sent down to soothe—console and bless!
And felt, to see her there and thus,—
“How sad and beautiful a thing,
How sordid, sad, and glorious,
This human Nature is! where spring
Out of each other, linked by fate,
Such heavenly love, such hellish hate;
What bred this vermin Hate?—Love's rose!
Now, Love in Hate's vile hotbed blows!—
If Evil root itself in Good,
And Good must be evolved from Ill,
Must not the Author of the Good
Be Author of the Evil still?
And we, to work his ends, must we
For love of Good, the Evil flee,
That without which it could not be?—
Aye truly! if to be the seed
Of Good, is Evil's end decreed,
Enough, be sure, will still remain
To raise the plant, howe'er we strain
The seed's destruction to attain.
Say, by the great Soul-Shaper's plan
(Not quite a maze, not wholly dim)
'Tis Evil, tried and conquered, can
Alone exalt ascending Man;—
That just to win his way therein
Unsoiled, unquelled, is asked of him;
The very power, from this life freed,
In loftier life he most may need!
Then Evil's gauntlet he must run—
Be plunged o'erhead in it, as one
In water who would learn to swim;
And stumbling often—oft o'erthrown
Must risk it, as the Child ungrown
Must risk the fall to go alone;
Held ever by its Mother's hand,
How should it learn to walk or stand?
‘'Twere better it were born complete,
Set up at once on steady feet,’
Say you—‘could walk, swim, run at first—
No need to have those weak limbs nurst!’
Nay, then the holiest ties that bless
Our Nature you remove, repress—
The Infant's love and soft caress,
The Mother's depth of tenderness.
III.
So haply through all Being's round
To this condition Good is bound,
Evil in this alliance found;
That each must to the other lead,
And from the other each proceed.
And are they then each other's dower,
Two opposite forces of one Power,
Indifferent, central? must we give
Credence to that about the poles
The positive and negative?
Think that the still-contending twain
(Magnetic double-acting vein)
Ever towards equilibrium strain;
Each when it finds a yielded space,
Pressing to take the other's place?
While to their union would we mount
The ever mystic marvellous Fount
Of Good and Evil, where they live
In unimagined Essence bright
Of Perfect, Necessary, Right,
We come but to the Soul of Souls
Unknowable, for aye unknown
The Centre—God? whence issuing, still
Is issuing into Good and Ill?—
Who knows? but one thing might be shown:
Some Evil there must be where'er
Is Imperfection, foul or fair:
Perfection by a hairbreadth missed
Is Imperfection; you must say
The One Allperfect every way
Is God alone—what else but He?—
It follows—Evil must exist
Or God's the sole Existence be.
IV.
But say the Imperfect might be made
Complete within its bounds—its grade—
From every possible degree
Of Evil done or suffered free—
(Which none can prove)—with no desire
As no conception of the higher:
Would that a loftier lot have been?
To rest, a faultless mere machine
Bound down to automatic bliss
Of stagnant Being—that, or this
Which works through Darkness to the Light,
Still struggling towards the highest height
Perhaps in progress infinite?—
Pooh—pooh!” within himself he said
Breaking the speculative thread
Short off;—for that tumultuous fight,
His own exertions—and the sight
Of Amo by her father's bed
Working in strong affection's might
To soothe and cheer his evil plight—
Most keenly made him feel how vain,
How sickly all the sceptic train
Of thoughts on God, Man's doom or chance,
And Nature's mystic governance:
How true is Goethe's word—‘the cure
For Doubt is Action;’ not indeed
As making speculation sure—
As solving any special doubt,
Or settling any special creed,
But making Doubt itself appear
A thing impertinent and out
Of place in this bright work-day sphere;
And all that Speculation seem
The maundering of a feverish dream;
An idle growth, deficient both
In fragrant flower and wholesome fruit;
Like some white straggling ivy-sprout,
Or sickly honeysuckle-shoot,
That thrusts a pale and feeble trail
Inside a darksome building's wall;
But kept without, in light and heat,
Had spread a green and graceful pall
With feathery blossoms luscious-sweet
O'er many a dreary blank or stain
And blotch that else the eye would pain—
Nor should have been allowed to crawl
Into the inner dark at all.
V.
Crest-fallen—sullen at their ill-success,
Across the Lake the sad assailants go;
With murmurs, not even fear can quite suppress,
Against the Priest—for omens so belied—
And each against the other, as the first
Who after such defeats new hopes had nursed,
And on such omens would fresh faith bestow.
With smooth cajolings Kangapo replied,
Though deep chagrin and rage he scarce could hide;
Showed how, the Fort half-burnt and Tangi killed,
His prophecies had been wellnigh fulfilled;
And if at last on any point they failed
'Twas that the white man's Atuas had prevailed
O'er his—who shameless had their cause betrayed.
But there were stronger Spirits to his aid
He might have summoned had he been so willed;
Had not too great contempt his bosom swayed
For those strange Gods, and want of caution bred
In one those Gods should yet be taught to dread!
Thus much he owned; but this would soon repair;
Only let not his faithful sons despair:
By mightier Powers they soon should see o'erthrown
His foes in spirit, and in flesh their own.
But with his Atuas let him work alone
That night;—when daybreak glimmered should be shown
What they must do; how best this juncture meet,
And make their partial victory complete.
So urged the glozing Priest, his only aim
To gain more time to patch his tattered Fame;
Or find an opportunity to leave
Those he scarce hoped much longer to deceive.
They seemed to listen—feigned their fear dispelled;
Then their own agitated councils held;
Some to contrive new measures to achieve
The Priest's designs and their defeat retrieve;
Most to devise safe means without delay
To get themselves and their canoes away
From the increasing dangers of their stay.
