Since time means amelioration, tardily enough displayed, Yet a mainly onward moving, never wholly retrograde. We know more though we know little, we grow stronger though still weak, Partly see though all too purblind, stammer though we cannot speak. There is no such grudge in God as scared the ancient Greek, no fresh Substitute of trap for dragnet, once a breakage in the mesh. Dragons were, and serpents are, and blindworms will be: ne'er emerged 20 Any new-created python for man's plague since earth was purged. Failing proof, then, of invented trouble to replace the old, O'er this life the next presents advantage much and manifold: Which advantage in the absence of a fourth and farther fact Now conceivably surmised, of harm to follow from the act I pronounce for man's obtaining at this moment. Why delay? Is he happy? happiness will change: anticipate the day! Is he sad? there's ready refuge: of all sadness death's prompt cure! Is he both, in mingled measure? cease a burthen to endure! Pains with sorry compensations, pleasures stinted in the dole, Power that sinks and pettiness that soars, 30 What a load he stumbles under through that seems be truth indeed! Grant his forces no accession, nay, no faculty's increase, Only let what now exists continue, let him prove in peace Power whereof the interrupted unperfected Man through darkness, which to lighten Death itself perchance, brief pain that's 40 Any moment claims more courage when, Where the old friends want their fellow, I affirm and re-affirm it therefore: only make as plain As that man now lives, that, after dying, man will live again, Make as plain the absence, also, of a law to contravene Voluntary passage from this life to that by 54 change of scene, — And I bid him at suspicion of first cloud athwart his sky, Flower's departure, frost's arrival hesitate, but die! FANCY. never Then I double my concession: grant, along with new life sure, This same law found lacking now: ordain that, whether rich or poor Present life is judged in aught man counts advantage be it hope, Be it fear that brightens, blackens most or least his horoscope, He, by absolute compulsion such as made him live at all, Go on living to the fated end of life whate'er befall. What though, as on earth he darkling grovels, man descry the sphere, Was for at its promulgation both alike have ceased to be. Prior to this last announcement "Certainly as God exists, As He made man's soul, as soul is quenchless by the deathly mists, Yet is, all the same, forbidden premature escape from time To eternity's provided purer air and brighter clime, Just so certainly depends it on the use to which man turns Earth, the good or evil done there, whether after death he earns Life eternal, -- heaven, the phrase be, or eternal death, say, hell. As his deeds, so proves his portion, doing ill or doing well!" - Prior to this last announcement, earth 30 was man's probation-place: Liberty of doing evil gave his doing good a grace; Once lay down the law, with Nature's simple "Such effects succeed Causes such, and heaven-or hell depends upon man's earthly deed Just as surely as depends the straight or else the crooked line On his making point meet point or with er Thenceforth neither good nor evil does For, suspend the operation, straight law's And (provided always, man, addressed this 40 mode, be sound and sane) Prompt and absolute obedience, never doubt, will law obtain! Tell not me "Look round us! nothing each side but acknowledged law, Now styled God's-now, Nature's edict !" Where's obedience without flaw What's the adage rife in man's mouth? Why, "The best Paid to either? I both see and praise, the worst I follow" which, despite professed Seeing, praising, all the same he follows, since he disbelieves In the heart of him that edict which for truth his head receives. There's evading and persuading and much making law amends Somehow, there's the nice distinction 'twixt fast foes and faulty friends, Any consequence except inevitable 50 Whoso breaks our law!" they publish, Law that's kept or broken - subject to man's will and pleasure! Whence? How comes law to bear eluding? Not because of impotence: Certain laws exist already which to hear means to obey; Therefore not without a purpose these man must, while those man may Keep and, for the keeping, hap gain approval and reward. Break through this last superstructure, all is empty air no sward Firm like my first fact to stand on “God Soul is bound to pass probation, prove its powers, and exercise Sense and thought on fact, and then, from fact educing fit surmise, Ask itself, and of itself have solely answer, "Does the scope Earth affords of fact to judge by warrant future fear or hope?" Thus have we come back full circle: fancy's footsteps one by one Go their round conducting reason to the Left where we were left so lately, Dear and You had turned me had I sudden brought 10 By some word like "Idly argued! you know better all the while!" Now, from me Oh not a blush but, how much more, a joyous glow, Laugh triumphant, would it strike did your "Yes, better I do know" Break, my warrant for assurance! which assurance may not be If, supplanting hope, assurance needs must change this life to me. So, I hope no more than hope, but hope --no less than hope, because I can fathom, by no plumb-line sunk in life's apparent laws, How I may in any instance fix where change should meetly fall Nor involve, by one revisal, abrogation of them all: Which again involves as utter change in life thus law-released, 20 Whence the good of goodness vanished when the ill of evil ceased. Whereas, life and laws apparent reinstated, all we know, All we know not, - o'er our heaven again cloud closes, until, lo Hope the arrowy, just as constant, comes to pierce its gloom, compelled By a power and by a purpose which, if no one else beheld, I behold in life, so hope! Sad summing-up of all to say! Athanasius contra mundum, why should he hope more than they? So are men made notwithstanding, such magnetic virtue darts From each head their fancy haloes to their unresisting hearts! Here I stand, methinks a stone's throw from yon village I this morn 20 Traversed for the sake of looking one last look at its forlorn Tenement's ignoble fortune: through a crevice, plain its floor Piled with provender for cattle, while a dung-heap blocked the door. In that squalid Bossex, under that obscene red roof, arose, Like a fiery flying serpent from its egg, a soul Rousseau's. Turn thence! Is it Diodati joins the There I plucked a leaf, one week since All the world was witched: and when fore? what could lie beneath, aliu.re Heart of man to let corruption serve man's 44 head as cynosure? Was the magic in the dictum "All that s Bad and worse still grows the present, and Storm, for loveliness and darkness like a Where I climb to 'scape my fellow, and thou sea wherein he counts Not one inch of vile dominion! What were your especial worth Failed ye to enforce the maxim 'Of all objects found on earth Man is meanest, much too honoured when compared with what by odds Beats him any dog: so, let him go 56 a-howling to his gods!' Which believe - for I believe it!" such the comfort man received Sadly since perforce he must: for why? the famous bard believed! Fame! Then, give me fame, a moment! As I gather at a glance Human glory after glory vivifying yon expanse, Let me grasp them all together, hold on Beacon-like above the rapt world ready, Take on trust the hope or else despair Know ye whence I plucked the pillar, late 60 with sky for architrave? This the trunk, the central solid knowledge, kindled core, began Tugging earth-deeps, trying heavenheights, rooted yonder at Lausanne. This which flits and spits, the aspic, sparkles in and out the boughs Now, and now condensed, the python, coiling round and round allows Scarce the bole its due effulgence, dulled by flake on flake of Wit Laughter so bejewels Learning, what but Ferney nourished it? Nay, nor fear since every resin feeds the flame that I dispense With yon Bossex terebinth-tree's allexplosive Eloquence: No, be sure! nor, any more than thy resplendency, Jean-Jacques, Dare I want thine, Diodati ! What though monkeys and macaques 10 Gibber "Byron"? Byron's ivy rears a branch beyond the crew, Green for ever, no deciduous trash ma- - Fame! Learned for the nonce as Gibbon, witty as wit's self Voltaire and, famed, declare O the sorriest of conclusions to whatever man of sense Mid the millions stands the unit, takes no flare for evidence! Yet the millions have their portion, live their calm or troublous day, Find significance in fireworks: so, by help of mine, they may Confidently lay to heart and lock in head 20 their life long this: "He there with the brand flamboyant, broad o'er night's forlorn abyss, Crowned by prose and verse; and wielding, with Wit's bauble, Learning's rod" Well? Why, he at least believed in Soul, was very sure of God. So the poor smile played, that evening: pallid smile long since extinct Here in London's mid-November! Not so loosely thoughts were linked, Six weeks since as I, descending in the sunset from Salève, Found the chain, I seemed to forge there, flawless till it reached your grave, Not so filmy was the texture, but I bore it in my breast Safe thus far. And since I found a someTill I, link by link, unravelled any tangle thing in me would not rest of the chain, - Here it lies, for much or little! I have lived all o'er again That last pregnant hour: I saved it, just as I could save a root Disinterred for re-interment when the time best helps to shoot. Life is stocked with germs of torpid life; but may I never wake Those of mine whose resurrection could not be without earthquake! Rest all such, unraised for ever! sad yet sweet, the sole Memory evoked from slumber! Least part this: then what the whole? Be this, 30 THE TWO POETS POETS OF CROISIC. 1878. [Poet Number One is René Gentilhomme, page to the Prince of Condé, whose chance of succession to the French throne was spoilt by Anne of Austria giving birth to a dauphin. The poem partly turns on this incident. Poet Number Two is Maillard, who managed to make Voltaire look foolish in the circumstances narrated in this poem.] New long bright life! and happy chance befell That I know lost when some prematurely THE TWO POETS OF CROISIC. Child of disaster bore away the bell From some too-pampered son of fortune, crossed I. Never before my chimney broke the spell! Octogenarian Keats gave up the ghost, While - never mind Who was it combered earth Sank stifled, span-long brightness, in the birth. V. Well, try a variation of the game! Our log is old ship-timber, broken bulk. There's sea-brine spirits up the brimstone flame, That crimson-curly spiral proves the hulk Was saturate with ask the chloride's name 40 From somebody who knows! I shall 50 not sulk If yonder greenish tonguelet licked from brass Its life, I thought was fed on copperas. VI. Anyhow, there they flutter! What may be The style and prowess of that purple one? Who is the hero other eyes shall see Than yours and mine? That yellow, deep to dun |