The Poetical Works of George Barlow :: :: University of Virginia Library

But behold! the dark is broken with a solemn sweet word spoken:
Through the night the shining ripple of a golden starlight flows.
If the struggle be tremendous, yet God's power is more stupendous
Than the force of even the mightiest of all unseen fiends and foes.

Though the blood-stained vivisecting priests of Science, love-rejecting,
Rave and rage, and fill our cities with the stench of hideous deeds;
Though they bluster, God-displacing, Satan's code and creed embracing,
More ignoble, more repellent than the snake amid the reeds;

Though they hurl at God defiance, proud, supreme in self-reliance,
Basest, foulest, falsest, filthiest, of the devil-spawned sons of time;
Though they prosper for a season, rotten-ripe with lies and treason,
Changing science into murder, making even research a crime;

Though Rome send from hellish regions her dark-browed evasive legions
With the unctuous old palaver to entice us and persuade;
Though they triumph with their gilding, and their prompt cathedral-building,
Striving to seduce the country they lack courage to invade;

Though the world-imperial Kaiser, black Morocco's white adviser,
Now his friend the Sultan shivers at the notion of extremes,
Watch our fleet with eyes most jealous, ever anxious, ever zealous,
Ever full of aspirations, he who lured the Boers with dreams;

Though the night of Russia darken, as her serfs and peasants hearken
To the teachings made emphatic by the deadly bomb they fling;
Though the grim Anarchic madness, with a burst of devilish gladness,
Slay for sport a prince or noble, or a statesman, or a king;

Though in every Christian city, without heed or help or pity
Girls whose beauty might be peerless, and whose soul might grow divine,
Sink and fade and perish yearly,—not the fate God marked out clearly
For his daughters, on whose foreheads he designed love's stars should shine;

Though our women seek in marriage diamonds, pearls, a park, a carriage,
Rank and wealth and high position,—though the lower lusts persuade;
Though we seem to be declining, though huge forces are combining
To cast God discrowned and swordless from the world that God's hand made;

Though a poet's words appealing seem but ghostly faint cries stealing
Over mist-clad fields at sunset, lost in darkening wastes of air;
Though the people vaguely wonder, when they hear Song's sudden thunder,
“What can ail him, what can move him, seeing that gold is always fair?”

Yet immense, divine, magnific, full of glory, beatific,
Shall Love's crimson awful sunrise on the planet flash and flame.
Was our small star counted friendless? Nay, the constellations endless
Are but sister-orbs attendant. To our planet Jesus came.

Here have martyrs died unending, their pure blood with His blood blending:
Round earth's shores the wild grey ocean in its chainless splendour flows.
Here have iron-willed statesmen taught us. Here have prophets' souls besought us.
Here hath woman won her kingdom from the kingdom of the rose.

Here hath England, led and lighted by her faith for ever plighted
To the fearless form of Freedom, lent to stars their crowns to wear.
Here hath wood and wave and fountain, forest deep and sunlit mountain,
Given our race the eternal mandate to look Godward and to dare.

When each soul in full completeness wins a woman's perfect sweetness
For his marriage-crown and glory, finds God's tenderness in hers,
Then the haunting dreams of error that now hold us with their terror
Shall melt into air and vanish o'er the distant mountain-spurs.

Woman love a vivisector! Not unless we quite reject her,
Wholly choose to part for ever from our helper and our bride,
Can we touch the red hand dripping from the knife whose edge went ripping,
Just to show its skill, the offspring from some living dog's torn side.

Woman love a priest whose passion is to recreate in fashion
Old and sad and dim and deadly all that England once found vile!
Nay: our women's truer mandate is “Win Liberty and hand it
To the waiting subject-races, widening worldward from our isle.”

God the Father—so the Churches, till faith's vessel rocks and lurches,
Have been preaching through the centuries, till at last there comes the close
Of a sexless creed unsuited to man's yearning deeplier rooted,
Grandlier soaring,—so encountering nobler friends and subtler foes.

God the Mother everlasting, God the spirit of bridehood casting
Round the world in tenderest passion arms that lift us from despair:
God whose womanhood revealing ever deeper joys is stealing
Through the stars its touch makes radiant, through the flowers its kiss makes fair:

Such the God the future preaches,—God whose love victorious reaches
To the depths of human anguish: not the God of hell and guile
But the God who shows his creatures woman's love through woman's features,
Not the Father's sword of judgment, but the Mother's sovereign smile.

1908.