University of Virginia Library

no previous section Soliloquium Fratris Rogeri Baconis
no next section
113

Soliloquium Fratris Rogeri Baconis,

Anno Domini 1292:

(Being the tenth year of his imprisonment).

I

O day! if it be day,—O Night! if night,
On my sepulchral lamp I waste my sight,
And if this form be mine I scarcely know aright.

II

Cold bones of finger-shadows on the wall
Life's changeful motive powers alone recall,—
Now, trembling—raised in prayer—now, when they droop or fall.

III

The clergy's evil life, when I proclaimed,
My labours for man's progress were defamed
As Devil-instil'd Black Art—and the Pope's ear they claim'd.

IV

I bear his lasting frown, which chains me here,
With food scarce fit, or a too scanty cheer;
My bed a wooden bench, more like a dead man's bier.

V

And yet, th'o'ercharg'd jars of th'illumin'd mind
Work free as beams of heaven or ocean's wind,
Which nothing less than Death—if Death himself can bind.

VI

Something for ever thrills the pregnant dark,
Wherein my spirit seems a germ or spark;
Invisible currents pass—I feel, but cannot mark.

VII

The darkness oft ferments—a gleam appears!
Earth's mainspring works, confused thro' human tears:
I know what must be found—but also the long years.
114

VIII

They creep, and creep, o'er life's death-sanded shore,
In triumphs, heart-breaks, sleep, and wild seas' roar;
Plans for new Babylons,—wrecks of all things built of yore.

IX

Crowd upon crowd, that, ever struggling, runs;
Myriads of new-born lives 'midst skeletons;
Fresh wonders under foot, as wondrous as new suns.

X

Oh, could I once but touch, or faintly see,
Or clearly dream of things I feel must be,
The secret might be gained of Nature's mastery.

XI

But in monastic walls of flesh confined,
Our sun hath burst not yet all buds of mind,
Which bloom in hope alone, not knowing what's designed.

XII

I would be far—be first, in man's advance;
But when my hand was thrust beyond my trance,
Parhelion smote to earth the fool of Thought's Romance.

XIII

He, in his palace, Hell's and Heaven's keys bears;
Sane and insane, he smiles, scoffs, yet half fears,
Taunting me with dark spells for weighing and measuring spheres.

XIV

Yet, nathless, far-off stars could I bring near
My prison grating; make fused metals veer,
By quickening Nature's course, and infant gold appear.

XV

Heaven's planets' constant influence on our Earth,
And thence on man (clear as the laws of birth)
We may watch, note, and calculate our life's full worth.

XVI

Things shall be found, made, miracled (so seeming)
By men who starve 'midst laughter at their scheming,
And the world grow more proud from their stupendous dreaming.
115

XVII

Men shall fly through the clouds, with steering sails;
Work factories by tides; weigh stars by scales;
In earth, air, sea, new powers sleep till man's rod prevails.

XVIII

Heat shall preclude smoke's birth, and broad house-tops
Bear things more beautiful than hard street shops,—
Groves, gardens, aviaries, orchards, or serial crops.

XIX

I pray the Lord Christ's pardon, having found
Something perhaps I should not, underground;
But human good and ill the mind alone can bound.

XX

If it shall change the arms, force, Art of War,
Extremes will come, and end the bloody jar,
And my space-wandering ghost find its absolving star.

XXI

For days must dawn when man shall tire of strife,
And touch the trembling secret of this life,
And catch a glimpse beyond with different wonders rife.

XXII

A ship, ere sunrise, through dense shadows looming;
A thunder, with no visible lightning, booming;
An Angel's presence felt, my cell's dark vault illuming!

XXIII

Thus Science, Art, and the all-conquering Soul
Will gain a calculated, fix't control,
While through the midnight space invisible planets roll.

XXIV

Spirits, akin to life's ecstatic light,
Are ever darting through the magic night,
And struggle for clear dawn as Samson for his sight.

XXV

When man shall lose fierce faith in each old story,
Scorning all new things as his hairs grow hoary,
Fresh eras will begin for his advancing glory.
116

XXVI

The Sun co-operator deigns to be,
And aid man's miracles thro' earth, air, sea;
And master-spirits work each unrevealed decree.

XXVII

A pregnant lightning-flash that leaves no trace,
Or, like the all-creative Mind's embrace,
Pervades the tremulous earth, and may pass on through space.

XXVIII

The Sea?—why leave one-half the world wild-wasting,
When island-rafts, with food around aye lasting,
O'ercrowded towns would save from want and foul airs blasting?

XXIX

O happy islanders! who float well-decked,
Well-fed, 'midst healthiest winds, with course unchecked,
And untax'd, fireproof homes, which never can be wrecked.

XXX

Deep knowledge, like green buds, doth peep and perk,
But where right-rooted flowers and fruit do lurk,
True science yet will grasp, and with fresh life-sap work.

XXXI

Dragon-flames gorging rich works—present, past—
Shall, by a charged smoke, flat to dust be cast,
Or, like a flaring torch, be blown dead by a blast.

XXXII

Great God! could I but glimpse one hidden wonder,
A smile from me could burst these walls asunder,
And teach mankind far more with silence than by thunder.

XXXIII

Eternal necromancer—Earth's grand breath!
Thy germinant limits, heavenward and beneath,
Nor astrolabe, nor hell, can reach unless through death.

XXXIV

Then may we sit in some asomatous light,
Solving fresh problems by our new birth-right,
And seeing still beyond, as now by second-sight;
117

XXXV

And great thoughts, like those shapes in Jacob's dream,
Traverse the ladder of our dazzling beam—
Flit round God's gate, and prove us far more than we seem.

XXXVI

What were we if our souls have lived before
We deem as sand-grains to our present shore?
Yet all may be fine dust from some great opening Door!

XXXVII

If sounds, some day, may traverse rays of light,
Questions may reach as far as human sight,
And answers be return'd by means as swift and bright.

XXXVIII

Not ever thus above my doom I soar;
But, ah! too oft this low vault, this stone floor,
The cold rock-hole appear of my life's tideless shore.

XXXIX

Sometimes I wake, trembling at my strange state!
Are my mind's tablets like a wiped-out slate,
With the sad sense that once 'twas writ with words of weight?

XL

Am I myself, or have I changed with time?
Like yon poor slug (at best a silvery slime),
Or bones in rags of one whose brain-work was a crime?

XLI

I count these paving-stones' forbidden lore;
Oft like an idiot gabble 'em o'er and o'er;
Then planets gleam—thank God! I am myself once more.

XLII

Yes, o'er earth's elements man's spirit brooding,
May gain large mastery (tho' through years eluding),
But now his struggling force old systems are secluding.

XLIII

The highest civilization's narrow plan
Can ne'er develop Nature's possible man,
Nor Genius guide a world which popes and priests trapan.
118

XLIV

Thou spell-bound Earth, of compounds little known,
Far greater exorcisms will be shown
When, some ten centuries hence, thy child's good brain hath grown.

XLV

And, in ten thousand years, man's God-like brain
May disarrange some forces that sustain—
And Chaos swallow all—and all begin again!

XLVI

Yea, all begin again, from the first worm;—
Or, it may be, some Comet's travelling storm
May pass too near, and leave no vestige of Earth's form.

XLVII

And seers will calculate the coming doom
Unheeded, till the far-off sparkling gloom,
Passing our sun, announce a gradual burning tomb!

XLVIII

Then all, out-thronging in the reddening air,
With cries, close clingings, tumult, frantic prayer,
Crush, trample, swoon, or die in strong life's last despair.

XLIX

See! in the vaporous ooze new germs fermenting!
All different from ours; change unrelenting;
Pigmies—or prodigies of body-and-mind presenting!

L

Millions of years, in Nature's squandering hand,
Are, to us mortals, like a pinch of sand;
Yet we must measure things e'en where our small feet stand.

LI

And mine, I feel, must soon be stretch'd up straight;
Now stiff and cold, the change will not be great;
My last appeal sticks fast in the Pope's iron gate.

LII

Hence let my spirit dart! no wings of fire
Can aid the forces of my blind desire:
Yet I can be resigned to slumber,—or aspire.
119

LIII

If an ecstatic flash inform the soul,
And space conducting media enroll,
Death and one tick of time may reach a final goal.

LIV

Or is it here, birthplace and body's tomb,
New series of lives unseen may bloom?
Nought is too wonderful for Earth, and All-to-Come.

LV

Time was, and is (an onward-rolling sea);
Time is, but lives no moment tangibly;
The Future never is—yet, oh! 'tis all to me.

LVI

Thus doth the brain sincere a fixt faith find
In Nature and itself; man's growing mind;
And, with Astronomy, look to cycles well defined.

LVII

The black wings of my tenth year's dungeon-thrall
Expand above me like a hushing pall;
I now am but a shade, creeping through Memory's hall.

LVIII

Thou skull and crucifix! thou quivering lamp!
Farewell, old friends!—and eke distorting cramp,
Farewell! my battle's lost: I seek a loftier camp.

LIX

White hairs and withered limbs; large hopes, few fears;
Day-dreams and midnight thoughts; some bitter tears;
Great God! receive this soul!—thus end Thy servant's years!
VOS OMNES, ET QUI NUNC ET QUI POSTHAC
CONFIDETIS FORE, UT HOMINIS SCIENTIA
PROGREDIATUR SEMPER,
PRECAMINI
UT REQUIESCAT ANIMA ROGERI BACONIS.
R. H. Horne.
 

The Pope, or mock sun (Nicholas III.) who ordered Friar Bacon's imprisonment

no previous section Soliloquium Fratris Rogeri Baconis
no next section