IV.

From the Hospital’s arched window,Open to the summer air,You can see the monks in couplesAll returning home at sunsetThrough the old cathedral square.On the steps of the cathedral,In the weak declining sunSit the beggars and the cripples;While faint gusts of organ-rollingTell that vespers have begun.Slowly creeps the tide of shadowUp the steps of sculptured front,Driving back the yellow sunshineOn each pinnacle and buttressWhich the twilight soon makes blunt.Slowly evening grasps the city,And the square grows still and lone;No one passes save, it may be,Up the steps and through the portal,Some stray monk or tottering crone.In this room, which seems the studyOf the Hospital’s chief leech,There is no one; but the twilightMakes all objects seem mysterious,Like a conscious watcher each.Here the snakes whose venom healethStand in jars in hideous file;While the skulls that crown the book-shelvesSeem to grin; and from the ceilingHangs the huge stuffed crocodile.Here be kept the drugs and cordialsWhich the Jew from Syria brings,And perchance drugs yet more precious,Melted topaz, pounded rubySuch as save the lives of kings.All is silent in the study;But the door-hinge creaks anon,And a woman enters softlySeeking something that seems hidden—One unnaturally wan.What she seeks is not in phialsNor in jars, but in a book;And she mutters as she searchesThrough the book-shelves with a kind ofBrooding hurry in her look;And she finds the book, and takes itTo the window for more light;And she reads a passage slowlyWith constrained and hissing breathingAnd dark brow contracted tight.“Most of them,” it says, “are corpsesThat have lain beneath the moon,And that quit their graves at midnight,Prowling round to prey on sleepers;But the daybreak scares them soon.“But the worst, called soulless bodies,Plague the world but now and then;They have died in some great sickness;But reviving in the moonbeamsRise once more and mix with men.“And they act and feel like others,Never guessing they be dead,Common food of men they love not;But at night, impelled by hunger,In their sleep they quit their bed;“And they fasten on some sleeper,Feeding on his living blood;Who, when life has left his body,Must in turn arise, and, prowling,Seek the like accursed food.”And the book slips from her fingersAnd she casts her down to pray;But convulsions seize and twist her,And delirious ramblings mingleWith the prayers she tries to say.In her mouth there is a saltness,On her lips there is a stain;In her soul there is a horror;In her vitals there is somethingMore like raging thirst than pain;And she cries, “O God, I knew it:Have I not, at dead of night,Waking up, looked round and found meOn the ledge of roofs and windowsIn my shift, and shrunk with fright?“Have I not, O God of mercy,Passed by shambles in the street,And stopped short in monstrous cravingFor the crimson blood that trickledIn the gutter at my feet?“Did I not, at last Communion,Cough the Holy Wafer out?Blood I suck, but Christ’s blood chokes me.O my God, my God, vouchsafe meSome strong light in this great doubt!”And she sinketh crushed and prostrateIn the twilight on the floor,While the darkness grows around her,And her quick and laboured breathingGrows convulsive more and more.

From the Hospital’s arched window,Open to the summer air,You can see the monks in couplesAll returning home at sunsetThrough the old cathedral square.

On the steps of the cathedral,In the weak declining sunSit the beggars and the cripples;While faint gusts of organ-rollingTell that vespers have begun.

Slowly creeps the tide of shadowUp the steps of sculptured front,Driving back the yellow sunshineOn each pinnacle and buttressWhich the twilight soon makes blunt.

Slowly evening grasps the city,And the square grows still and lone;No one passes save, it may be,Up the steps and through the portal,Some stray monk or tottering crone.

In this room, which seems the studyOf the Hospital’s chief leech,There is no one; but the twilightMakes all objects seem mysterious,Like a conscious watcher each.

Here the snakes whose venom healethStand in jars in hideous file;While the skulls that crown the book-shelvesSeem to grin; and from the ceilingHangs the huge stuffed crocodile.

Here be kept the drugs and cordialsWhich the Jew from Syria brings,And perchance drugs yet more precious,Melted topaz, pounded rubySuch as save the lives of kings.

All is silent in the study;But the door-hinge creaks anon,And a woman enters softlySeeking something that seems hidden—One unnaturally wan.

What she seeks is not in phialsNor in jars, but in a book;And she mutters as she searchesThrough the book-shelves with a kind ofBrooding hurry in her look;

And she finds the book, and takes itTo the window for more light;And she reads a passage slowlyWith constrained and hissing breathingAnd dark brow contracted tight.

“Most of them,” it says, “are corpsesThat have lain beneath the moon,And that quit their graves at midnight,Prowling round to prey on sleepers;But the daybreak scares them soon.

“But the worst, called soulless bodies,Plague the world but now and then;They have died in some great sickness;But reviving in the moonbeamsRise once more and mix with men.

“And they act and feel like others,Never guessing they be dead,Common food of men they love not;But at night, impelled by hunger,In their sleep they quit their bed;

“And they fasten on some sleeper,Feeding on his living blood;Who, when life has left his body,Must in turn arise, and, prowling,Seek the like accursed food.”

And the book slips from her fingersAnd she casts her down to pray;But convulsions seize and twist her,And delirious ramblings mingleWith the prayers she tries to say.

In her mouth there is a saltness,On her lips there is a stain;In her soul there is a horror;In her vitals there is somethingMore like raging thirst than pain;

And she cries, “O God, I knew it:Have I not, at dead of night,Waking up, looked round and found meOn the ledge of roofs and windowsIn my shift, and shrunk with fright?

“Have I not, O God of mercy,Passed by shambles in the street,And stopped short in monstrous cravingFor the crimson blood that trickledIn the gutter at my feet?

“Did I not, at last Communion,Cough the Holy Wafer out?Blood I suck, but Christ’s blood chokes me.O my God, my God, vouchsafe meSome strong light in this great doubt!”

And she sinketh crushed and prostrateIn the twilight on the floor,While the darkness grows around her,And her quick and laboured breathingGrows convulsive more and more.

Sister Mary, all is quietIn thy wards, and midnight nears:Seek the scanty rest thou needest;Seek the scanty rest thou grudgest,All is hushed and no one fears.But, though midnight, Sister MaryThinks it yet not time to go;And the night-lamps shining dimlyShow her vaguely in the shadowMoving softly to and fro.What is it that she is doing,Flitting round one sleeper’s bed;Is she sprinkling something round it,Something white as wheaten flour,And on which she will not tread?And at last the work is over,And she goeth to her rest;And she sleeps at once, exhaustedBy long labour, and, it may be,By strong struggles in her breast.Nothing breaks upon the stillnessOf the night, except, afar,Some faint shouts of ending revelOr of brawling, in the quartersWhere the Spanish soldiers are.Time wades slowly through the darknessTill at last it reaches day,And the city’s many steeplesBuried in the starless heavenGrow distinct in sunless grey.And the light wakes Sister Mary,And she dresses in strange haste,Giving God no prayer, and leavingOn her bed the beads and crossesThat should dangle from her waist.And with unheard steps she hurriesThrough the ward where all sleep onTo the bed in which is lyingHe who day by day is growingMore inexorably wan.All around the bed is sprinkledSomething white, like thin fresh snow,Where a naked foot has printedIn the night a many footprints,Sharp and clear from heel to toe:Sister Mary, Sister Mary,Dost thou know thy own small foot?Would it fit those marks which make theeTurn more pale than thy own palenessIf upon them it were put?And the dying youth smiles faintlyPleasure’s last accorded smile;And he murmurs as he hears her,“Sister Mary, I am better;Let me hold thy hand awhile:“Sister Mary, I would tell theeFain one thing before I die;For a dying man may utterWhat another must keep hiddenIn the fastness of a sigh.“Sister Mary, I have loved thee—Is it sin to tell thee this?And I dreamt—O God, be lenientIf ’tis sin—that thou didst give meOn the throat a long, long kiss.”

Sister Mary, all is quietIn thy wards, and midnight nears:Seek the scanty rest thou needest;Seek the scanty rest thou grudgest,All is hushed and no one fears.

But, though midnight, Sister MaryThinks it yet not time to go;And the night-lamps shining dimlyShow her vaguely in the shadowMoving softly to and fro.

What is it that she is doing,Flitting round one sleeper’s bed;Is she sprinkling something round it,Something white as wheaten flour,And on which she will not tread?

And at last the work is over,And she goeth to her rest;And she sleeps at once, exhaustedBy long labour, and, it may be,By strong struggles in her breast.

Nothing breaks upon the stillnessOf the night, except, afar,Some faint shouts of ending revelOr of brawling, in the quartersWhere the Spanish soldiers are.

Time wades slowly through the darknessTill at last it reaches day,And the city’s many steeplesBuried in the starless heavenGrow distinct in sunless grey.

And the light wakes Sister Mary,And she dresses in strange haste,Giving God no prayer, and leavingOn her bed the beads and crossesThat should dangle from her waist.

And with unheard steps she hurriesThrough the ward where all sleep onTo the bed in which is lyingHe who day by day is growingMore inexorably wan.

All around the bed is sprinkledSomething white, like thin fresh snow,Where a naked foot has printedIn the night a many footprints,Sharp and clear from heel to toe:

Sister Mary, Sister Mary,Dost thou know thy own small foot?Would it fit those marks which make theeTurn more pale than thy own palenessIf upon them it were put?

And the dying youth smiles faintlyPleasure’s last accorded smile;And he murmurs as he hears her,“Sister Mary, I am better;Let me hold thy hand awhile:

“Sister Mary, I would tell theeFain one thing before I die;For a dying man may utterWhat another must keep hiddenIn the fastness of a sigh.

“Sister Mary, I have loved thee—Is it sin to tell thee this?And I dreamt—O God, be lenientIf ’tis sin—that thou didst give meOn the throat a long, long kiss.”

DIOCLEA.

Passon, pass on, and seek thy lair, lone man,If neighbouring lair thou hast. Night falls; and GodFor whom thou once didst snap all human tiesRequires thy evening prayer.

PORPHYRION.

Oh, if I stopUpon my path and bandy words with woman—I who for years have shunned man, woman, child,But woman most—I would not have thee thinkIn error that thy old familiar voice,Which seems to come from out the past, has calledEmotion back to life, or that I careTo take advantage of the freak of chanceWhich brings us face to face and makes us standEach like a spectre in the other’s eyes.But I suspect thee of a rash designAbhorrent to the Christian; and I ask,Woman, once more, what brings thee here at dusk—Here by the deep lone Nile, when rise the mistsHeavy with death, when prowl devouring beasts,And when God’s lonely dweller in the wasteAlone has nought to fear?

DIOCLEA.

What brings me here?The Nile flower is closing with the day;The Nile bird hastens to her bulrush nest;All Nature that is not of night and evilIs seeking rest; and why should not I too,If I am weary, find repose at duskWhere rolls the deep dark stream?

PORPHYRION.

Because the Lord,Through my unworthy voice, has bid thee quitThis perilous brink, and bear such heavy loadAs He, whom none shall judge, may choose to heapUpon thy head.

DIOCLEA.

Resume thy path, lone man—Resume thy path in peace. Oh, thou art rashTo linger out this meeting of dead souls!Art thou not that Porphyrion who escapedInto the waste to shun the sight of woman,However pure and spotless she might be?Then leave me to myself; go seek thy lair,And leave me to the darkness and the night;Else will I tell thee in one monstrous wordWhat she now is who once was Dioclea,And make thy desert-nurtured chastityShrink back in fear as from a gust from hell!

PORPHYRION.

Oh, I have wrestled with the Fiend too longAnd placed my heel too oft upon his neckTo fear contamination from thy breath!I care not what thou wast, nor what thou art,Now that my soul is safe and that long yearsOf ruthless castigation of the fleshHave put me out of reach of woman’s snare;But, as a Christian servant of the Lord,I may not let thee do the thing thou wouldst,And which God hates. Thy soul is on the brinkOf the abyss; and God now bids me stretchMy hand to save it.

DIOCLEA.

Oh, not thine, not thine!The wanton hand that broke the precious vesselShall not attempt to mend it.

PORPHYRION.

What I didUpon that day, I did at God’s command.

DIOCLEA.

Upon my bridal morn my father’s houseWas full of song; my heart was full of sun;Yea, and of earnest love and brave intent:Less snowy was the linen I had wovenWith my own hands for thee; less fresh the wreathsThe bridesmaids still were twining; and less pureThe gold of bridal gifts which guest-friends brought,Than was the heart that waited to be thine.

PORPHYRION.

Upon thy bridal morn my heart was filledWith doubt and fear. My hounded spirit gropedLike one who fears pursuers in the darkAnd knows no issue. Yea, within my breast,Like captive eagles in a cage too narrow,The love of God, the love of thee, did fight.I cursed the perilous lustre of thy eyes;I cursed thy smile and laugh; and cursed myselfThat loathed them not. The sounds of mirth and songThat filled the house fell grating on my ear;The nuptial cakes smacked bitter in my mouth,Ay, worse than gall; the dewy bridal wreathsStank in my nostrils, while an inner voiceKept thundering in my soul: “Away, away!The howling waste awaits thee. Not for theeAre care and kiss of woman; not for theeAre hearth and home, and kith and kin and friend;But scourge and shirt of hair!”

DIOCLEA.

And like a thief,After the priest had blessed us and beforeThe feast was over, thou didst skulk away,And all at once convert the sound of songInto the hum of pity and derision.I sat alone upon my empty bed,Wrapped in the double gloom of night and woe.The pillars of my faith in human goodHad given way; the roof had fallen inUpon my life. Oh how I cursed the nightFor dragging out its black and silent creep!And when dawn came, oh how I cursed the dawnFor its intrusive stare! And yet that nightWas but the first of many equal nights;That dawn was but the first of many dawnsIn ushering in a loathed and lonely day.I held aloof from every happier woman,Suspiciously and silently to brood;Grudging to one her husband’s look of love,And to the next the infant at her breast;Grudging to all their house, their home, their hearth,Their dignity, their duties, and their cares:And shunning, I was shunned, and, as it were,Marked out for future shame.

PORPHYRION.

If like a thiefI stole away unseen, oh it was notTo spend that night in any rival’s arms!Rock, hard and wind-swept, was my marriage bed;The wilderness my bride; the starry skyMy roof; the distant, interrupted howlOf beasts of prey my nuptial lullaby.Before me lay the waste, strewn here and thereWith ribs of men and camels, or the wreckOf perished cities; yea, and thirst and painIn vaguely measured sum. But in my soulThe voice of thunder cried: “Push on, push onInto the waste, Porphyrion! thou art stillToo near to human haunts, too far from God!”And I pushed on; and in an empty tombIn a deserted city of the deadI made my lair, alone with stones and God;Living off locusts and such scanty herbsAs grew in clefts of rock and empty wells.Oh what a silence, what a loneliness!The temple columns and the huge carved stonesCast long black shadows on the sun-baked sandIn endless rows; and through the livelong dayNo moving shadow crossed them save my own,As, like a leper whom his sores have doomedTo lead the lonely life, I prowled for food.Oh, it was hard! For knowing that the FiendWould come ere long to scare and tempt me backTo human haunts, I sought with prayer, and scourge,And thirst, and hunger, and restricted sleepTo arm myself against him and his strength;And come he did. He prowled at first at night,Shaped as a roaring lion, round and roundMy lonely cell; but his re-echoing roarDeterred me not, nor stopped a single prayer.And then he came with soft insidious stepDuring my sleep, and strove to tempt the fleshIn woman’s guise—yea, in thy very shape—And sought to lure me to caress and kiss,Taking thy face, thy eyes, thy very voiceIn all their beauty and their blandishment;But I defied him, and he howling fled,And changed his plan. He made the solid groundLurch ever and anon beneath my feet;He made me shiver in the blazing sunWith mortal cold; and sometimes, in the duskHe made the huge stone heads of sphinxes nodAnd gibber as I passed them. Oh, for yearsI wrestled with him in the awful waste;But I o’ercame his strength.

DIOCLEA.

And dost thou thinkThat I, in that worse waste, which was not strewnLike thine with stones, but with the wreck of hopesAnd wreck of love, was not sought out by fiendsAs well as thou? Ay, ay, they came, the fiends;They whispered in my ear that I was young,And that my youth was passing unenjoyed;They whispered in my ear that I was fair—Fairer than any other far or near,And that the beauty that a fool had spurnedWould wane before its time. They said: “Look up!Thou mournest Love whom thou believest dead,And Love, hard by, is waiting for one word,One motion of encouragement, one glance.Give but the signal, and the lonely oneWhom maid and matron scorn, and who now holdsSuspiciously aloof from life and joy,Will be a very Empress new-enthroned,And waste her life no more.” But oh, I clungTo the dull honour of my broken life;I struggled with the Tempter long and hard;I said unto myself that after allThou mightst at last return to me; and stroveWith all my strength to keep me pure for thee.But years went by and still thou didst not come,And round and round my heart the Tempter prowled,Nearer and ever nearer with new arts,New wiles, new snares, new whispers, day by day,And proved at last the stronger of the two.I fled my father’s house for ever more;I loved; was loved; I saw luxurious citiesWhere pleasure triumphed—Alexandria,Antioch and Athens, ay, and even Rome—Courted where’er I went; until the dayWhen he proved false, and when once more I satUpon my lonely bed and prayed for dawn.And yet I loved again; yea, twice and thrice.Down, down the winding stair of love I went,Until the slippery and precipitous stepsBecame so dark and noisome all at onceThat I threw up my arms and shrieked in fear;But all my strength was gone, and heaven’s faint lightToo far above my head. Oh, since we twoLast saw each other’s eyes, not thou aloneHast felt the scourge alight upon thy back,Not thou alone hast known the howling waste;For I have felt that nine times knotted scourgeWhich makes the soul and not the body writhe.Descending on me fiercely; and have foundIn men’s embrace a loneliness more dread,A desert more terrific and more bareThan any which thy bruised unsandalled footHas ever trodden yet.

PORPHYRION.

The worse for thee.I freed thee from the weight of human ties;I pointed out the path that leads to heavenAcross life’s wreck; and if, instead of God,Thou chosest Satan, what is that to me?Thou mightst have built a mansion for thy soulUpon the ruins of an earthly home;Thou mightst like me have wrestled with the Fiend,And felt the pride of bruising with thy heelThe Tempter’s head; thou mightst like me have feltThe fierce voluptuous pleasure of the scourge;Nay, even, like myself thou mightst, with time,Have sought to snatch from Heaven’s hand the crown,The glorious crown of martyrdom: for ifUpon this day thou meetest me so nearThe haunts of men, it is because I waitFor some fresh outburst of the Pagan’s wrathAgainst our sect, to court the lingering death.But lo, we waste our words; for I have warnedAnd summoned thee to leave the perilous brinkOf this dark circling water; and if thouStill cleavest to thy heathenish designOf self-destruction, not upon my soulShall fall the wrath of Heaven for the deed.Once more I bid thee, woman, leave the brink;For see, the night has come; and, as thou say’st,God needs my evening prayer.

DIOCLEA.

Ay, ay, the nightHas wrapped us round: I scarce can see the flowersThat glimmered on the current; though I hearThe sweet faint rustling of the stream-bent reeds.Pass on thy way, lone man—pass on in peace;There is no link between us, and no love.Go, find thy rest, as I at last find mine;And leave me here, beside the deep lone Nile,Where woe will sink, and haply leave no trace.

Andthe two in the twilight spurred fiercely again,While behind them went trooping the trees,And the darkening rutty cross-roads of Champagne,With their patches of wood and their patches of grain,Grew more solemn and lone by degrees.Like the hurrying ghosts of two riders they rode,—For the few whom they met, indistinct;And the lights that sprang up few and far away showedWhere, to right or to left, lay a human abode;And more stars overhead came and winked.Through the maze of cross-roads they went ever more fast,As if he who led on never doubted;Till the other by dint of hard spurring at lastBrought his horse alongside, and between them there passedHurried words that were broken and shouted.“Slacken pace! slacken pace!” “Spur him on without stay!What’s a horse to the saving of France?”“Art thou sure of the place where they change the relay?”“At Varennes, nigh on twelve. Trust to me for the way!France is saved if we get in advance!”And the postmaster Drouet once more shot ahead,Closely followed by Guillaume his friend;Never seeming to waver or doubt as he led,Or to see less distinct the invisible threadOf short-cut on short-cut without end.But the roads and the fields and the low hedges grewEvery minute more lonely and dark,While his horse, nearly merged in the darkness, now drewFrom the flint of the road with its thundering shoeEvery minute more brilliant a spark.But he thought in his heart: “If the moon does not riseWhen we get to the woods, I shall doubt;And he’ll get to the army and German allies,And the land, unprepared, will be caught by surprise,And the great revolution stamped out.”But a glow, faint at first, and then brighter, was spreadIn the sky, and the moon showed her face,And the plain and the hills were lit up far and wide;And a galloping shadow appeared at his side,And took part all at once in the race.Oh the moon that plays tricks with the shadows she throwsMight have given that shadow the shapeOf the Rider who rides us all down, friends and foes,And was now ere their time coming down upon thoseWho had trusted to God for escape.Hurry on, ye postillions, so royally paid,That suspect not a King and a Queen!Though ye never have heard in the course of your tradeOf a thing that the doctors of Paris have made,Of a thing that they call Guillotine!Hurry on to the chopper-shaped square of VarennesWhere your fellow-postillions await!Hurry on! hurry on, ye dull whip-cracking men!For each stride that ye take, there is one who takes ten,And who gallops like Death and like Fate!He caught sight of a face in the dark carriage-hoodAs ye rolled from his door and were gone,And he looked with a closeness that boded no goodAt the crumpled bank-note where that face graven stood—Hurry on! hurry on! hurry on!There were clouds near the moon, and they girt her aboutAs if trying to screen and to save,And the darkness one moment filled Drouet with doubt;But she baffled them all and shone brilliantly outTo abet with the light that she gave.And the stems of the corn flashed metallic and brightAnd like bayonets distantly blue,And the breeze-rippled patches of grain in the lightLooked like distant battalions restrained from the fightThat a thrill of impatience runs through.But the patches of grain grew more scanty anon,And the road grew more hard to discern;And they entered the lonely dark woods of ArgonneWhere the moon through the branches could ill help them on,And they trampled on brushwood and fern.As they galloped each oak with its black knotty armSeemed to grab at the two like a claw;While the air seemed all full of destruction and harm,And the one who rode second felt vaguely alarmAt each shadow and shape that he saw.But the other dashed on, as with hounds on the scentIn his thundering, thundering speed;Giving neither a thought to his horse nearly spentNor a look to his comrade, but solely intentOn a prey that was royal indeed.Did no angel of life, as he spurred yet more fast,Cry, “O God, for a slip or a stumbleThat shall save from the block the heads sinking at lastInto sleep, now that fear of pursuers is past,And the heads of a many more humble!“O Thou God for a doubt that shall bring to a stop,For a stone in the shoe to retard,Or more heads in the basket of sawdust will dropThan the bunches of grapes that the vintagers lopOn a day that their labour is hard;“And the fields will be lashed not by tempests of rain,But by tempests of iron and lead;And manured year by year with fresh blood all in vain,And each summer will bring not a harvest of grain,But a harvest of cripples and dead;“And the nations in carnage will ceaselessly striveWith a roar that disperses the clouds;Where the trains of artillery furiously driveAnd the gun-wheels make ruts through the dead and the live,And the balls make long lanes through the crowd.“Let his horse break a vein or his saddle a girth,Trip him up on the rough, hardened mud!For each drop from the rowel that falls to the earthIf he reaches Varennes, O Thou God, will give birthTo an ocean of innocent blood!”Or did spirits invisible fly by his sideAnd in whispers excite him and goadAnd exulting foretell him the end of his ride,As his spur-mangled horse with his long fatal strideOne by one killed the miles of the road.Did they cry: “Lash him on, as in lightness of heartThey have ridden the people to death;Lash him on, as the Saviour of France that thou art;Lash him on, till the blood from his nostrils shall start;Lash him on! never think of his breath!”Did they cry: “Lash him on without mercy or stay!”As his arm, numb with lashing, desisted;“Lash him on, as the quarterers lashed on the dayWhen their horses ’mid clapping of hands tugged away,And the live limbs of Damiens resisted!“Lash him on, for the freedom of nations dependsOn the flag which at last is unfurled!Lash him on, lash him on, till his very life ends!Lash him on, lash him on, for the breath that he spendsIs for Freedom, and France, and the World!“So shall Kellermann’s steed at Marengo be spurredWhen the earth by his squadrons is shaken,And the thunder of man o’er God’s thunder is heard,And there runs from the Alps to the Tiber one word,And the lands from their torpor awaken!“So the couriers shall spur and the miles disappearFrom the Oder, the Elbe, and the Po,When the victories follow each other so nearThat the bearers of tidings are filled with a fearLest another their tidings outdo!“Lash him on, lash him on! and the three-coloured flagThat has sprung from the black Paris gutterShall be carried by plain and by valley and cragAnd, all riddled by bullets, a mere tattered rag,From Alhambra to Kremlin shall flutter!”And he lashed, and he left his companion behindAnd sped furiously on all alone,With the sinister shadow the moon had designedFlitting on just in front of him, vaguely defined,At a pace that was wild as his own.And as midnight was nearing, at last there appearedThe faint lights of Varennes far ahead,And then only it was, as he finally clearedThe last miles of the road, that he suddenly fearedThat his horse might fall suddenly dead.But his horse did not drop; and with thundering feetHe dashed on to the inn of the Post;While he shouted to all that his eye chanced to meet,“Sound the tocsin! the tocsin! all up the long street!Bar the Bridge! bar the Bridge! or all’s lost!”And the patriots crouched in the shade of the oldNarrow archway, all holding their breath;Till a carriage and four was heard coming, and rolledSlowly, heavily, in; while the tocsin still tolledLike a knell that anticipates death.

Like the hurrying ghosts of two riders they rode,—For the few whom they met, indistinct;And the lights that sprang up few and far away showedWhere, to right or to left, lay a human abode;And more stars overhead came and winked.

Through the maze of cross-roads they went ever more fast,As if he who led on never doubted;Till the other by dint of hard spurring at lastBrought his horse alongside, and between them there passedHurried words that were broken and shouted.

“Slacken pace! slacken pace!” “Spur him on without stay!What’s a horse to the saving of France?”“Art thou sure of the place where they change the relay?”“At Varennes, nigh on twelve. Trust to me for the way!France is saved if we get in advance!”

And the postmaster Drouet once more shot ahead,Closely followed by Guillaume his friend;Never seeming to waver or doubt as he led,Or to see less distinct the invisible threadOf short-cut on short-cut without end.

But the roads and the fields and the low hedges grewEvery minute more lonely and dark,While his horse, nearly merged in the darkness, now drewFrom the flint of the road with its thundering shoeEvery minute more brilliant a spark.

But he thought in his heart: “If the moon does not riseWhen we get to the woods, I shall doubt;And he’ll get to the army and German allies,And the land, unprepared, will be caught by surprise,And the great revolution stamped out.”

But a glow, faint at first, and then brighter, was spreadIn the sky, and the moon showed her face,And the plain and the hills were lit up far and wide;And a galloping shadow appeared at his side,And took part all at once in the race.

Oh the moon that plays tricks with the shadows she throwsMight have given that shadow the shapeOf the Rider who rides us all down, friends and foes,And was now ere their time coming down upon thoseWho had trusted to God for escape.

Hurry on, ye postillions, so royally paid,That suspect not a King and a Queen!Though ye never have heard in the course of your tradeOf a thing that the doctors of Paris have made,Of a thing that they call Guillotine!

Hurry on to the chopper-shaped square of VarennesWhere your fellow-postillions await!Hurry on! hurry on, ye dull whip-cracking men!For each stride that ye take, there is one who takes ten,And who gallops like Death and like Fate!

He caught sight of a face in the dark carriage-hoodAs ye rolled from his door and were gone,And he looked with a closeness that boded no goodAt the crumpled bank-note where that face graven stood—Hurry on! hurry on! hurry on!

There were clouds near the moon, and they girt her aboutAs if trying to screen and to save,And the darkness one moment filled Drouet with doubt;But she baffled them all and shone brilliantly outTo abet with the light that she gave.

And the stems of the corn flashed metallic and brightAnd like bayonets distantly blue,And the breeze-rippled patches of grain in the lightLooked like distant battalions restrained from the fightThat a thrill of impatience runs through.

But the patches of grain grew more scanty anon,And the road grew more hard to discern;And they entered the lonely dark woods of ArgonneWhere the moon through the branches could ill help them on,And they trampled on brushwood and fern.

As they galloped each oak with its black knotty armSeemed to grab at the two like a claw;While the air seemed all full of destruction and harm,And the one who rode second felt vaguely alarmAt each shadow and shape that he saw.

But the other dashed on, as with hounds on the scentIn his thundering, thundering speed;Giving neither a thought to his horse nearly spentNor a look to his comrade, but solely intentOn a prey that was royal indeed.

Did no angel of life, as he spurred yet more fast,Cry, “O God, for a slip or a stumbleThat shall save from the block the heads sinking at lastInto sleep, now that fear of pursuers is past,And the heads of a many more humble!

“O Thou God for a doubt that shall bring to a stop,For a stone in the shoe to retard,Or more heads in the basket of sawdust will dropThan the bunches of grapes that the vintagers lopOn a day that their labour is hard;“And the fields will be lashed not by tempests of rain,But by tempests of iron and lead;And manured year by year with fresh blood all in vain,And each summer will bring not a harvest of grain,But a harvest of cripples and dead;

“And the nations in carnage will ceaselessly striveWith a roar that disperses the clouds;Where the trains of artillery furiously driveAnd the gun-wheels make ruts through the dead and the live,And the balls make long lanes through the crowd.

“Let his horse break a vein or his saddle a girth,Trip him up on the rough, hardened mud!For each drop from the rowel that falls to the earthIf he reaches Varennes, O Thou God, will give birthTo an ocean of innocent blood!”

Or did spirits invisible fly by his sideAnd in whispers excite him and goadAnd exulting foretell him the end of his ride,As his spur-mangled horse with his long fatal strideOne by one killed the miles of the road.

Did they cry: “Lash him on, as in lightness of heartThey have ridden the people to death;Lash him on, as the Saviour of France that thou art;Lash him on, till the blood from his nostrils shall start;Lash him on! never think of his breath!”

Did they cry: “Lash him on without mercy or stay!”As his arm, numb with lashing, desisted;“Lash him on, as the quarterers lashed on the dayWhen their horses ’mid clapping of hands tugged away,And the live limbs of Damiens resisted!

“Lash him on, for the freedom of nations dependsOn the flag which at last is unfurled!Lash him on, lash him on, till his very life ends!Lash him on, lash him on, for the breath that he spendsIs for Freedom, and France, and the World!

“So shall Kellermann’s steed at Marengo be spurredWhen the earth by his squadrons is shaken,And the thunder of man o’er God’s thunder is heard,And there runs from the Alps to the Tiber one word,And the lands from their torpor awaken!

“So the couriers shall spur and the miles disappearFrom the Oder, the Elbe, and the Po,When the victories follow each other so nearThat the bearers of tidings are filled with a fearLest another their tidings outdo!

“Lash him on, lash him on! and the three-coloured flagThat has sprung from the black Paris gutterShall be carried by plain and by valley and cragAnd, all riddled by bullets, a mere tattered rag,From Alhambra to Kremlin shall flutter!”

And he lashed, and he left his companion behindAnd sped furiously on all alone,With the sinister shadow the moon had designedFlitting on just in front of him, vaguely defined,At a pace that was wild as his own.

And as midnight was nearing, at last there appearedThe faint lights of Varennes far ahead,And then only it was, as he finally clearedThe last miles of the road, that he suddenly fearedThat his horse might fall suddenly dead.

But his horse did not drop; and with thundering feetHe dashed on to the inn of the Post;While he shouted to all that his eye chanced to meet,“Sound the tocsin! the tocsin! all up the long street!Bar the Bridge! bar the Bridge! or all’s lost!”

And the patriots crouched in the shade of the oldNarrow archway, all holding their breath;Till a carriage and four was heard coming, and rolledSlowly, heavily, in; while the tocsin still tolledLike a knell that anticipates death.

Yerighteous Judges of this Christian state,Ye bid me speak; ye bid me show good causeWhy I, whose hand is red with Christian blood,Yea, even with the blood of my own child,Of my own Edith, should not be condemnedTo die upon the scaffold, nor be lockedFor life within a mad-house: and I speak.I fear not death; for now that she is dead,Now that dull silence hath replaced her voice,Life hath but little charm; and were it notThat to consent to ignominious deathFor having acted by command of GodWould be unfit, and might call down His wrathUpon the land, I think I scarce should takeThe pains to plead; but strength hath narrow bounds,And I confess intolerable fearLest ye condemn me to complete my yearsAmong the mad. O Thou Almighty GodWho for Thy purposes inscrutableHast pushed me on and nerved my quaking armTo slay my child, preserve from such dread fateOne who has offered up what most he lovedHere upon earth, and give unto my tongueSuch eloquence as may convince these menThat I am sane!I am a self-made manGrown rich by building engines for the rail,A man of little learning; one whose youthWas spent in striking sparks from reddened ironAmid the roar and clanging of a forge;Knowing no books except the Book of books,Whose sacred pages when my work was doneI turned with grimy hands, therein to learnThe will and orders of a jealous God,A God of wrath, a God whose unseen handFalls heavily and chasteningly on all,And most on them He loveth. Little timeDid I bestow on pleasure and those sports,Unseemly for the most part, which divertThe spirit from obedience, and preventThe growth of labour’s fruit; and God allowedThat I should prosper in my worldly wealth.And that the name of Abraham CarewShould hold high credit in the market-place,And that my fellow-townsmen one and allShould put their faith in my integrity,Electing me an Elder of the ChurchAnd civil Magistrate. But, as I say,The Lord doth love to chasten; and He laid,As years went by and multiplied my store,Great tribulations on me. One by oneI saw the godly household which had grownAround me, fall as fell the summer flowersAround an aged tree when winter nears,And leave him in his listless loneliness.One child alone, one twining clinging flower—Edith, my latest born—remained unnipped,And in my rash presumption I believedThat God would spare her; for upon her cheekThe hectic spot appeared not which had markedHer mother and her brethren; and I sawWith sinful joy how she increased in strengthAs grew her beauty and her loveliness—Yea, yea, a sinful joy which was to rouseThe jealousy of God. But if my tongueIs to convince you of the thing I tellAnd justify His ways, oh let me speak—Oh let me tell you how I loved my child!I loved her as an old man loves the sunWhich warms his limbs and keeps the palsy off;I loved her as the plundered miser lovesThe small secreted heap that yet remains;I loved her as the shipwrecked drowning wretchLoves the frail plank which each approaching waveMay tear from his embrace.No vain gold chain,No gaudy ribbon decked her nut-brown hair;But in such sober raiment as befitsThe virgin-mistress of a godly houseShe went the round of her domestic duties,In need of no adornment to enhanceThe chaste and holy beauty which she woreUnconscious to herself, and lived her lifeOf cheerfulness and thrift, beloved by all;Reading at morn and eve the Bible pageTo our assembled servants, in a clearAnd reverent voice; devoting patient hoursTo teaching little children; and by helpOf her own needle, plied while others slept,Providing winter clothing for the poorBefore the earliest chill of autumn came.A grave and gracious girl, whose smile of loveWas as a light for my declining years;Who prized the walks which we were wont to takeTogether, through the lanes and ripening corn,Above all routs and shows. Too great, too greatTo please a jealous God, had grown the loveFor Edith in my bosom; and at timesI felt a cruel tightening of the heart,And a prophetic something seem to sayUnto my spirit: “Abraham, beware!The Lord will claim His rights, and ask againFor that which He hath given unto thee.Thy love is given to an earthly thing;A common, natural instinct rules thy life,And not the love of God.” But on her cheekThe ruddiness of health diminished not,And I loved on.There came a Sabbath day,On which it chanced that at the Meeting HouseThe Scripture page was read in which it saidHow he whose name I bear, in days of yoreObeyed the dire injunction of the Lord,And offered up his Isaac. By my sideEdith was sitting listening to the wordsWith fixed attention, as was e’er her wont.The light athwart the high and narrow windowStreamed down upon her, lighting up her hairWith golding streakings, just as rays of sunLight up the seaweed in a tide-left pool,And played upon her features—ne’er beforeHad she appeared so lovely. As my eyesWere resting thus upon her sitting there,A fear flashed through my spirit, and I thought:“What if the Lord were to demand her life,And bid thee offer up thy only childAs Abraham did Isaac?” and I feltA strange and frightful struggle stir my soul—Yea, stir my nature to its inmost depths.I listened little to the words of prayer;And on our homeward way, when Edith askedWhat made my brow so suddenly o’ercast,I answered not.Ye wise and upright menWho sit to-day deciding on my fate,Ye wonder at the measure of my speechYe miss what ye expected ye would find,A madman’s incoherence, or the glareAnd desperate wild defence of guilt at bay?Confess, confess, I speak not like the mad.Oh, I have drilled and disciplined my tongueIn these long months of prison; IFrom morn to eve within my narrow cellTaming my own excitement, so that if,When came the day of trial, God should makeNo outward revelation of the truthTo save His servant, I might yet convinceMy judges and the world. He hath not deignedTo make the attestation at my prayer.No thunder from the blue unclouded sky,No quaking of the earth hath helped my cause,And God hath left me only earthly meansTo prove to men that what they call a crimeI did by His command.It came, it came,That dread command! I had not long to wait;I seemed to feel it coming; day and nightThe frightful expectation filled my soul;And by a natural instinct, thrice accurst,The more I dreaded that an angry God,Roused by the sinful greatness of my love,Would claim her life, the more my love increased.It came, it came, the awful summons came!It was the dead of night: I lay awake;And in the soundless darkness, all at once,While on my flesh the hair from fear stood up,I heard the awful voice: it cried, “Arise,Take up thy knife, and sacrifice thy childWhom I bestowed; for I the Lord thy God,I am a jealous God, and bid thee strike.”Then came three days of human agony;The flesh contending with the will of God,And writhing upward like a trodden snakeBeneath religion’s heel: for I believedThat God would pardon me three days’ delayTo conquer human nature. Once I thoughtTo tell her all—to ask her for her life—To call on her obedience to submit—To shift upon her shoulders half the weightOf agony and horror; but I lookedUpon her face and set aside the plan,Misdoubting woman’s strength. In Edith’s eyesI saw a strange suspicious look—a lookWhich told me that the tempest in my soulWas finding outward vent upon my face.I caught her watching me, and understoodThat if I struck not soon, perchance my armWould be restrained by man; so I prepared.There was a spot beside the sedgy stream,A solitary spot, which in our walksWe sometimes crossed. I led her out that way.It was a hot close day; no ray of sunShone through the lowering clouds, and now and thenThe thunder’s distant rumble met the ear.We reached the lonely river-bank. I stopped,And was about to do it, when she laidHer hand upon my arm with a caress,And asked me in her sweet familiar voiceTo pluck a water-lily, which I did,And then walked on, for somehow I was balked;I could not do it.With the fall of nightThe pent-up tempest burst; and in its roarI seemed to hear God’s formidable wrath.I heard it in the howling of the wind;I heard it in the pelting of the rainAgainst the windows; and each rattling peal,Each burst of rolling echo in the darkWhich made me cower like a chastened houndRecalled me to obedience. But the flesh,The strong rebellious flesh, oh how it writhedAgainst the spirit! How the natural love,The common human instinct, fought and fought,And, backed by Satan’s whisper, held its own!At length the spirit conquered, and I roseTo do the will of God; but, in my crushedAnd humbled anguish, I implored the LordTo stay my lifted arm, and at the lastTo save her life as Isaac’s had been saved.Then I went up the stairs, as if each stepWere a delay, a respite, and a hope,And sought the chamber where my Edith slept.The walk had worn her limbs; her sleep was deep.The storm had not aroused her; nor did I.I kissed her, and I slew her; for the LordDid not vouchsafe to stay His servant’s arm.For one short moment after she was dead,I thought perchance that He would bring her backTo life. But all was silent there.And now,Ye righteous judges of this Christian land,Ye godly Elders, look me in the face.Ye know ye dare not hang me. Will ye dareTo place me in the madhouse for a deedWhich God Himself exacted—which ye teachYour children to revere in AbrahamFrom year to year? Ye know ye dare not do it.And if ye ask me how I knew God’s voice,Ask of the shepherd’s watch-dog how he knowsHis master’s call when darkness girds the fold!Ye know that Abraham of old, if nowHe stood before you, could at your commandGive you no other answer. It was GodWho, putting to the test His servant’s faith,Impelled my hand. Ye may not judge this deed.

I am a self-made manGrown rich by building engines for the rail,A man of little learning; one whose youthWas spent in striking sparks from reddened ironAmid the roar and clanging of a forge;Knowing no books except the Book of books,Whose sacred pages when my work was doneI turned with grimy hands, therein to learnThe will and orders of a jealous God,A God of wrath, a God whose unseen handFalls heavily and chasteningly on all,And most on them He loveth. Little timeDid I bestow on pleasure and those sports,Unseemly for the most part, which divertThe spirit from obedience, and preventThe growth of labour’s fruit; and God allowedThat I should prosper in my worldly wealth.And that the name of Abraham CarewShould hold high credit in the market-place,And that my fellow-townsmen one and allShould put their faith in my integrity,Electing me an Elder of the ChurchAnd civil Magistrate. But, as I say,The Lord doth love to chasten; and He laid,As years went by and multiplied my store,Great tribulations on me. One by oneI saw the godly household which had grownAround me, fall as fell the summer flowersAround an aged tree when winter nears,And leave him in his listless loneliness.One child alone, one twining clinging flower—Edith, my latest born—remained unnipped,And in my rash presumption I believedThat God would spare her; for upon her cheekThe hectic spot appeared not which had markedHer mother and her brethren; and I sawWith sinful joy how she increased in strengthAs grew her beauty and her loveliness—Yea, yea, a sinful joy which was to rouseThe jealousy of God. But if my tongueIs to convince you of the thing I tellAnd justify His ways, oh let me speak—Oh let me tell you how I loved my child!I loved her as an old man loves the sunWhich warms his limbs and keeps the palsy off;I loved her as the plundered miser lovesThe small secreted heap that yet remains;I loved her as the shipwrecked drowning wretchLoves the frail plank which each approaching waveMay tear from his embrace.

No vain gold chain,No gaudy ribbon decked her nut-brown hair;But in such sober raiment as befitsThe virgin-mistress of a godly houseShe went the round of her domestic duties,In need of no adornment to enhanceThe chaste and holy beauty which she woreUnconscious to herself, and lived her lifeOf cheerfulness and thrift, beloved by all;Reading at morn and eve the Bible pageTo our assembled servants, in a clearAnd reverent voice; devoting patient hoursTo teaching little children; and by helpOf her own needle, plied while others slept,Providing winter clothing for the poorBefore the earliest chill of autumn came.A grave and gracious girl, whose smile of loveWas as a light for my declining years;Who prized the walks which we were wont to takeTogether, through the lanes and ripening corn,Above all routs and shows. Too great, too greatTo please a jealous God, had grown the loveFor Edith in my bosom; and at timesI felt a cruel tightening of the heart,And a prophetic something seem to sayUnto my spirit: “Abraham, beware!The Lord will claim His rights, and ask againFor that which He hath given unto thee.Thy love is given to an earthly thing;A common, natural instinct rules thy life,And not the love of God.” But on her cheekThe ruddiness of health diminished not,And I loved on.

There came a Sabbath day,On which it chanced that at the Meeting HouseThe Scripture page was read in which it saidHow he whose name I bear, in days of yoreObeyed the dire injunction of the Lord,And offered up his Isaac. By my sideEdith was sitting listening to the wordsWith fixed attention, as was e’er her wont.The light athwart the high and narrow windowStreamed down upon her, lighting up her hairWith golding streakings, just as rays of sunLight up the seaweed in a tide-left pool,And played upon her features—ne’er beforeHad she appeared so lovely. As my eyesWere resting thus upon her sitting there,A fear flashed through my spirit, and I thought:“What if the Lord were to demand her life,And bid thee offer up thy only childAs Abraham did Isaac?” and I feltA strange and frightful struggle stir my soul—Yea, stir my nature to its inmost depths.I listened little to the words of prayer;And on our homeward way, when Edith askedWhat made my brow so suddenly o’ercast,I answered not.

Ye wise and upright menWho sit to-day deciding on my fate,Ye wonder at the measure of my speechYe miss what ye expected ye would find,A madman’s incoherence, or the glareAnd desperate wild defence of guilt at bay?Confess, confess, I speak not like the mad.Oh, I have drilled and disciplined my tongueIn these long months of prison; IFrom morn to eve within my narrow cellTaming my own excitement, so that if,When came the day of trial, God should makeNo outward revelation of the truthTo save His servant, I might yet convinceMy judges and the world. He hath not deignedTo make the attestation at my prayer.No thunder from the blue unclouded sky,No quaking of the earth hath helped my cause,And God hath left me only earthly meansTo prove to men that what they call a crimeI did by His command.

It came, it came,That dread command! I had not long to wait;I seemed to feel it coming; day and nightThe frightful expectation filled my soul;And by a natural instinct, thrice accurst,The more I dreaded that an angry God,Roused by the sinful greatness of my love,Would claim her life, the more my love increased.It came, it came, the awful summons came!It was the dead of night: I lay awake;And in the soundless darkness, all at once,While on my flesh the hair from fear stood up,I heard the awful voice: it cried, “Arise,Take up thy knife, and sacrifice thy childWhom I bestowed; for I the Lord thy God,I am a jealous God, and bid thee strike.”

Then came three days of human agony;The flesh contending with the will of God,And writhing upward like a trodden snakeBeneath religion’s heel: for I believedThat God would pardon me three days’ delayTo conquer human nature. Once I thoughtTo tell her all—to ask her for her life—To call on her obedience to submit—To shift upon her shoulders half the weightOf agony and horror; but I lookedUpon her face and set aside the plan,Misdoubting woman’s strength. In Edith’s eyesI saw a strange suspicious look—a lookWhich told me that the tempest in my soulWas finding outward vent upon my face.I caught her watching me, and understoodThat if I struck not soon, perchance my armWould be restrained by man; so I prepared.There was a spot beside the sedgy stream,A solitary spot, which in our walksWe sometimes crossed. I led her out that way.It was a hot close day; no ray of sunShone through the lowering clouds, and now and thenThe thunder’s distant rumble met the ear.We reached the lonely river-bank. I stopped,And was about to do it, when she laidHer hand upon my arm with a caress,And asked me in her sweet familiar voiceTo pluck a water-lily, which I did,And then walked on, for somehow I was balked;I could not do it.

With the fall of nightThe pent-up tempest burst; and in its roarI seemed to hear God’s formidable wrath.I heard it in the howling of the wind;I heard it in the pelting of the rainAgainst the windows; and each rattling peal,Each burst of rolling echo in the darkWhich made me cower like a chastened houndRecalled me to obedience. But the flesh,The strong rebellious flesh, oh how it writhedAgainst the spirit! How the natural love,The common human instinct, fought and fought,And, backed by Satan’s whisper, held its own!At length the spirit conquered, and I roseTo do the will of God; but, in my crushedAnd humbled anguish, I implored the LordTo stay my lifted arm, and at the lastTo save her life as Isaac’s had been saved.Then I went up the stairs, as if each stepWere a delay, a respite, and a hope,And sought the chamber where my Edith slept.The walk had worn her limbs; her sleep was deep.The storm had not aroused her; nor did I.I kissed her, and I slew her; for the LordDid not vouchsafe to stay His servant’s arm.For one short moment after she was dead,I thought perchance that He would bring her backTo life. But all was silent there.

And now,Ye righteous judges of this Christian land,Ye godly Elders, look me in the face.Ye know ye dare not hang me. Will ye dareTo place me in the madhouse for a deedWhich God Himself exacted—which ye teachYour children to revere in AbrahamFrom year to year? Ye know ye dare not do it.And if ye ask me how I knew God’s voice,Ask of the shepherd’s watch-dog how he knowsHis master’s call when darkness girds the fold!Ye know that Abraham of old, if nowHe stood before you, could at your commandGive you no other answer. It was GodWho, putting to the test His servant’s faith,Impelled my hand. Ye may not judge this deed.

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