STROPHE 3Where is hope, and promise where, in all these things,Shocks of strength with strength, and jar of hurtling kings?Who of all men, who will show us any good?Shall these lightnings of blind battles give men light?Where is freedom? who will bring us in her sight,That have hardly seen her footprint where she stood?
STROPHE 4Who is this that rises red with wounds and splendid,All her breast and brow made beautiful with scars,Burning bare as naked daylight, undefended,In her hands for spoils her splintered prison-bars,In her eyes the light and fire of long pain ended,In her lips a song as of the morning stars?
STROPHE 5O torn out of thy trance,O deathless, O my France,O many-wounded mother, O redeemed to reign!O rarely sweet and bitterThe bright brief tears that glitterOn thine unclosing eyelids, proud of their own pain;The beautiful brief tearsThat wash the stains of yearsWhite as the names immortal of thy chosen and slain.O loved so much so long,O smitten with such wrong,O purged at last and perfect without spot or stain,Light of the light of man,Reborn republican,At last, O first Republic, hailed in heaven again!Out of the obscene eclipseRerisen, with burning lipsTo witness for us if we looked for thee in vain.
STROPHE 6Thou wast the light whereby men sawLight, thou the trumpet of the lawProclaiming manhood to mankind;And what if all these years were blindAnd shameful? Hath the sun a flawBecause one hour hath power to drawMist round him wreathed as links to bind?And what if now keen anguish drainsThe very wellspring of thy veinsAnd very spirit of thy breath?The life outlives them and disdains;The sense which makes the soul remains,And blood of thought which travailethTo bring forth hope with procreant pains.O thou that satest bound in chainsBetween thine hills and pleasant plainsAs whom his own soul vanquisheth,Held in the bonds of his own thought,Whence very death can take off nought,Nor sleep, with bitterer dreams than death,What though thy thousands at thy kneesLie thick as grave-worms feed on these,Though thy green fields and joyous placesAre populous with blood-blackening facesAnd wan limbs eaten by the sun?Better an end of all men's races,Better the world's whole work were done,And life wiped out of all our traces,And there were left to time not one,Than such as these that fill thy gravesShould sow in slaves the seed of slaves.
ANTISTROPHE 1Not of thy sons, O mother many-wounded,Not of thy sons are slaves ingrafted and grown.Was it not thine, the fire whence light reboundedFrom kingdom on rekindling kingdom thrown,From hearts confirmed on tyrannies confounded,From earth on heaven, fire mightier than his own?Not thine the breath wherewith time's clarion sounded,And all the terror in the trumpet blown?The voice whereat the thunders stood astoundedAs at a new sound of a God unknown?And all the seas and shores within them boundedShook at the strange speech of thy lips alone,And all the hills of heaven, the storm-surrounded,Trembled, and all the night sent forth a groan.
ANTISTROPHE 2What hast thou done that such an hour should beMore than another clothed with blood to thee?Thou hast seen many a bloodred hour before this one.What art thou that thy lovers should misdoubt?What is this hour that it should cast hope out?If hope turn back and fall from thee, what hast thou done?Thou hast done ill against thine own soul; yea,Thine own soul hast thou slain and burnt away,Dissolving it with poison into foul thin fume.Thine own life and creation of thy fateThou hast set thine hand to unmake and discreate;And now thy slain soul rises between dread and doom.Yea, this is she that comes between them led;That veiled head is thine own soul's buried head,The head that was as morning's in the whole world's sight.These wounds are deadly on thee, but deadlierThose wounds the ravenous poison left on her;How shall her weak hands hold thy weak hands up to fight?Ah, but her fiery eyes, her eyes are theseThat, gazing, make thee shiver to the kneesAnd the blood leap within thee, and the strong joy rise.What, doth her sight yet make thine heart to dance?O France, O freedom, O the soul of France,Are ye then quickened, gazing in each other's eyes?Ah, and her words, the words wherewith she sought theeSorrowing, and bare in hand the robe she wrought theeTo wear when soul and body were again made one,And fairest among women, and a bride,Sweet-voiced to sing the bridegroom to her side,The spirit of man, the bridegroom brighter than the sun!
ANTISTROPHE 3Who shall help me? who shall take me by the hand?Who shall teach mine eyes to see, my feet to stand,Now my foes have stripped and wounded me by night?Who shall heal me? who shall come to take my part?Who shall set me as a seal upon his heart,As a seal upon his arm made bare for fight?
ANTISTROPHE 4If thou know not, O thou fairest among women,If thou see not where the signs of him abide,Lift thine eyes up to the light that stars grow dim in,To the morning whence he comes to take thy side.None but he can bear the light that love wraps him in,When he comes on earth to take himself a bride.
ANTISTROPHE 5Light of light, name of names,Whose shadows are live flames,The soul that moves the wings of worlds upon their way;Life, spirit, blood and breathIn time and change and deathSubstant through strength and weakness, ardour and decay;Lord of the lives of lands,Spirit of man, whose handsWeave the web through wherein man's centuries fall as prey;That art within our willPower to make, save, and kill,Knowledge and choice, to take extremities and weigh;In the soul's hand to smiteStrength, in the soul's eye sight;That to the soul art even as is the soul to clay;Now to this people beLove; come, to set them free,With feet that tread the night, with eyes that sound the day.
ANTISTROPHE 6Thou that wast on their fathers deadAs effluent God effused and shed,Heaven to be handled, hope made flesh,Break for them now time's iron mesh;Give them thyself for hand and head,Thy breath for life, thy love for bread,Thy thought for spirit to refresh,Thy bitterness to pierce and sting,Thy sweetness for a healing spring.Be to them knowledge, strength, life, light,Thou to whose feet the centuries clingAnd in the wide warmth of thy wingSeek room and rest as birds by night,O thou the kingless people's king,To whom the lips of silence sing,Called by thy name of thanksgivingFreedom, and by thy name of mightJustice, and by thy secret nameLove; the same need is on the sameMen, be the same God in their sight!From this their hour of bloody tearsTheir praise goes up into thine ears,Their bruised lips clothe thy name with praises,The song of thee their crushed voice raises,Their grief seeks joy for psalms to borrow,With tired feet seeks her through time's mazesWhere each day's blood leaves pale the morrow,And from their eyes in thine there gazesA spirit other far than sorrow—A soul triumphal, white and wholeAnd single, that salutes thy soul.
EPODEAll the lights of the sweet heaven that sing together;All the years of the green earth that bare man free;Rays and lightnings of the fierce or tender weather,Heights and lowlands, wastes and headlands of the sea,Dawns and sunsets, hours that hold the world in tether,Be our witnesses and seals of things to be.Lo the mother, the Republic universal,Hands that hold time fast, hands feeding men with might,Lips that sing the song of the earth, that make rehearsalOf all seasons, and the sway of day with night,Eyes that see as from a mountain the dispersal,The huge ruin of things evil, and the flight;Large exulting limbs, and bosom godlike mouldedWhere the man-child hangs, and womb wherein he lay;Very life that could it die would leave the soul dead,Face whereat all fears and forces flee away,Breath that moves the world as winds a flower-bell folded,Feet that trampling the gross darkness beat out day.In the hour of pain and pity,Sore spent, a wounded city,Her foster-child seeks to her, stately where she stands;In the utter hour of woes,Wind-shaken, blind with blows,Paris lays hold upon her, grasps her with child's hands;Face kindles face with fire,Hearts take and give desire,Strange joy breaks red as tempest on tormented lands.Day to day, man to man,Plights love republican,And faith and memory burn with passion toward each other;Hope, with fresh heavens to track,Looks for a breath's space back,Where the divine past years reach hands to this their brother;And souls of men whose deathWas light to her and breathSend word of love yet living to the living mother.They call her, and she hears;O France, thy marvellous years,The years of the strong travail, the triumphant time,Days terrible with love,Red-shod with flames thereof,Call to this hour that breaks in pieces crown and crime;The hour with feet to spurn,Hands to crush, fires to burnThe state whereto no latter foot of man shall climb.Yea, come what grief, now mayBy ruinous night or day,One grief there cannot, one the first and last grief, shame.Come force to break thee and bowDown, shame can come not now,Nor, though hands wound thee, tongues make mockery of thy name:Come swords and scar thy brow,No brand there burns it now,No spot but of thy blood marks thy white-fronted fame.Now, though the mad blind morrowWith shafts of iron sorrowShould split thine heart, and whelm thine head with sanguine waves;Though all that draw thy breathBled from all veins to death,And thy dead body were the grave of all their graves,And thine unchilded wombFor all their tombs a tomb,At least within thee as on thee room were none for slaves.This power thou hast, to be,Come death or come not, free;That in all tongues of time's this praise be chanted of thee,That in thy wild worst hourThis power put in thee power,And moved as hope around and hung as heaven above thee,And while earth sat in sadnessIn only thee put gladness,Put strength and love, to make all hearts of ages love thee.That in death's face thy chantArose up jubilant,And thy great heart with thy great peril grew more great:And sweet for bitter tearsPut out the fires of fears,And love made lovely for thee loveless hell and hate;And they that house with error,Cold shame and burning terror,Fled from truth risen and thee made mightier than thy fate.This shall all years remember;For this thing shall SeptemberHave only name of honour, only sign of white.And this year's fearful name,France, in thine house of fameAbove all names of all thy triumphs shalt thou write,When, seeing thy freedom standEven at despair's right hand,The cry thou gavest at heart was only of delight.
Guai a voi, anime prave.Dante.Soyez maudits, d'abord d'être ce que vous êtes,Et puis soyez maudits d'obséder les poëtes!Victor Hugo.
IA DEAD KINGFerdinand II entered Malebolge May 22nd, 1859.
Go down to hell. This end is good to see;The breath is lightened and the sense at easeBecause thou art not; sense nor breath there isIn what thy body was, whose soul shall beChief nerve of hell's pained heart eternally.Thou art abolished from the midst of theseThat are what thou wast: Pius from his kneesBlows off the dust that flecked them, bowed for thee.Yea, now the long-tongued slack-lipped litaniesFail, and the priest has no more prayer to sell—Now the last Jesuit found about thee isThe beast that made thy fouler flesh his cell—Time lays his finger on thee, saying, "Cease;Here is no room for thee; go down to hell."
IIA YEAR AFTER
If blood throbs yet in this that was thy face,O thou whose soul was full of devil's faith,If in thy flesh the worm's bite slackenethIn some acute red pause of iron days,Arise now, gird thee, get thee on thy ways,Breathe off the worm that crawls and fears not breath;King, it may be thou shalt prevail on death;King, it may be thy soul shall find out grace.O spirit that hast eased the place of Cain,Weep now and howl, yea weep now sore; for thisThat was thy kingdom hath spat out its king.Wilt thou plead now with God? behold again,Thy prayer for thy son's sake is turned to a hiss,Thy mouth to a snake's whose slime outlives the sting,
IIIPETER'S PENCE FROM PERUGIA
Iscariot, thou grey-grown beast of blood,Stand forth to plead; stand, while red drops run hereAnd there down fingers shaken with foul fear,Down the sick shivering chin that stooped and sued,Bowed to the bosom, for a little foodAt Herod's hand, who smites thee cheek and ear.Cry out, Iscariot; haply he will hear;Cry, till he turn again to do thee good.Gather thy gold up, Judas, all thy gold,And buy thee death; no Christ is here to sell,But the dead earth of poor men bought and sold,While year heaps year above thee safe in hell,To grime thy grey dishonourable headWith dusty shame, when thou art damned and dead.
IVPAPAL ALLOCUTION"Popule mi, quid tibi feci?"
What hast thou done? Hark, till thine ears wax hot,Judas; for these and these things hast thou done.Thou hast made earth faint, and sickened the sweet sun,With fume of blood that reeks from limbs that rot;Thou hast washed thine hands and mouth, saying, "Am I notClean?" and thy lips were bloody, and there was noneTo speak for man against thee, no, not one;This hast thou done to us, Iscariot.Therefore, though thou be deaf and heaven be dumb,A cry shall be from under to proclaimIn the ears of all who shed men's blood or sellPius the Ninth, Judas the Second, comeWhere Boniface out of the filth and flameBarks for his advent in the clefts of hell. (i)(i) Dante, "Inferno," xix. 53.
V
THE BURDEN OF AUSTRIA1866
O daughter of pride, wasted with misery,With all the glory that thy shame put onStripped off thy shame, O daughter of Babylon,Yea, whoso be it, yea, happy shall he beThat as thou hast served us hath rewarded thee.Blessed, who throweth against war's boundary stoneThy warrior brood, and breaketh bone by boneMisrule thy son, thy daughter Tyranny.That landmark shalt thou not remove for shame,But sitting down there in a widow's weedWail; for what fruit is now of thy red fame?Have thy sons too and daughters learnt indeedWhat thing it is to weep, what thing to bleed?Is it not thou that now art but a name? (ii)(ii) "A geographical expression."—Metternich of Italy.
VILOCUSTA
Come close and see her and hearken. This is she.Stop the ways fast against the stench that nipsYour nostril as it nears her. Lo, the lipsThat between prayer and prayer find time to bePoisonous, the hands holding a cup and key,Key of deep hell, cup whence blood reeks and drips;The loose lewd limbs, the reeling hingeless hips,The scurf that is not skin but leprosy.This haggard harlot grey of face and greenWith the old hand's cunning mixes her new priestThe cup she mixed her Nero, stirred and spiced.She lisps of Mary and Jesus NazareneWith a tongue tuned, and head that bends to the east,Praying. There are who say she is bride of Christ.
VIICELAENO
The blind king hides his weeping eyeless head,Sick with the helpless hate and shame and awe,Till food have choked the glutted hell-bird's crawAnd the foul cropful creature lie as deadAnd soil itself with sleep and too much bread:So the man's life serves under the beast's law,And things whose spirit lives in mouth and mawShare shrieking the soul's board and soil her bed,Till man's blind spirit, their sick slave, resignIts kingdom to the priests whose souls are swine,And the scourged serf lie reddening from their rod,Discrowned, disrobed, dismantled, with lost eyesSeeking where lurks in what conjectural skiesThat triple-headed hound of hell their God.
VIIIA CHOICE
Faith is the spirit that makes man's body and bloodSacred, to crown when life and death have ceasedHis heavenward head for high fame's holy feast;But as one swordstroke swift as wizard's rodMade Caesar carrion and made Brutus God,Faith false or true, born patriot or born priest,Smites into semblance or of man or beastThe soul that feeds on clean or unclean food.Lo here the faith that lives on its own light,Visible music; and lo there, the foulShape without shape, the harpy throat and howl.Sword of the spirit of man! arise and smite,And sheer through throat and claw and maw and tongueKill the beast faith that lives on its own dung.
IXTHE AUGURS
Lay the corpse out on the altar; bid the electSlaves clear the ways of service spiritual,Sweep clean the stalled soul's serviceable stall,Ere the chief priest's dismantling hands detectThe ulcerous flesh of faith all scaled and speckedBeneath the bandages that hid it all,And with sharp edgetools oecumenicalThe leprous carcases of creeds dissect.As on the night ere Brutus grew divineThe sick-souled augurs found their ox or swineHeartless; so now too by their after artIn the same Rome, at an uncleaner shrine,Limb from rank limb, and putrid part from part,They carve the corpse—a beast without a heart.
XA COUNSEL
O strong Republic of the nobler yearsWhose white feet shine beside time's fairer floodThat shall flow on the clearer for our bloodNow shed, and the less brackish for our tears;When time and truth have put out hopes and fearsWith certitude, and love has burst the bud,If these whose powers then down the wind shall scudStill live to feel thee smite their eyes and ears,When thy foot's tread hath crushed their crowns and creeds,Care thou not then to crush the beast that bleeds,The snake whose belly cleaveth to the sod,Nor set thine heel on men as on their deeds;But let the worm Napoleon crawl untrod,Nor grant Mastai the gallows of his God.1869.
XITHE MODERATES
Virtutem videant intabescantque relicta.She stood before her traitors bound and bare,Clothed with her wounds and with her naked shameAs with a weed of fiery tears and flame,Their mother-land, their common weal and care,And they turned from her and denied, and swareThey did not know this woman nor her name.And they took truce with tyrants and grew tame,And gathered up cast crowns and creeds to wear,And rags and shards regilded. Then she tookIn her bruised hands their broken pledge, and eyedThese men so late so loud upon her sideWith one inevitable and tearless look,That they might see her face whom they forsook;And they beheld what they had left, and died.February 1870.
XIIINTERCESSIONAve Caesar Imperator, moriturum te saluto.1O Death, a little more, and then the worm;A little longer, O Death, a little yet,Before the grave gape and the grave-worm fret;Before the sanguine-spotted hand infirmBe rottenness, and that foul brain, the germOf all ill things and thoughts, be stopped and set;A little while, O Death, ere he forget,A small space more of life, a little term;A little longer ere he and thou be met,Ere in that hand that fed thee to thy mindThe poison-cup of life be overset;A little respite of disastrous breath,Till the soul lift up her lost eyes, and findNor God nor help nor hope, but thee, O Death.
2Shall a man die before his dying day,Death? and for him though the utter day be nigh,Not yet, not yet we give him leave to die;We give him grace not yet that men should sayHe is dead, wiped out, perished and past away.Till the last bitterness of life go by,Thou shalt not slay him; till those last dregs run dry,O thou last lord of life! thou shalt not slay.Let the lips live a little while and lie,The hand a little, and falter, and fail of strength,And the soul shudder and sicken at the sky;Yea, let him live, though God nor man would letSave for the curse' sake; then at bitter length,Lord, will we yield him to thee, but not yet.
3Hath he not deeds to do and days to seeYet ere the day that is to see him dead?Beats there no brain yet in the poisonous head,Throbs there no treason? if no such thing there be,If no such thought, surely this is not he.Look to the hands then; are the hands not red?What are the shadows about this man's bed?Death, was not this the cupbearer to thee?Nay, let him live then, till in this life's steadEven he shall pray for that thou hast to give;Till seeing his hopes and not his memories fledEven he shall cry upon thee a bitter cry,That life is worse than death; then let him live,Till death seem worse than life; then let him die.4O watcher at the guardless gate of kings,O doorkeeper that serving at their feastHast in thine hand their doomsday drink, and seestWith eyeless sight the soul of unseen things;Thou in whose ear the dumb time coming sings,Death, priest and king that makest of king and priestA name, a dream, a less thing than the least,Hover awhile above him with closed wings,Till the coiled soul, an evil snake-shaped beast,Eat its base bodily lair of flesh away;If haply, or ever its cursed life have ceased,Or ever thy cold hands cover his headFrom sight of France and freedom and broad day,He may see these and wither and be dead.Paris: September 1869.
XIIITHE SAVIOUR OF SOCIETY1
O son of man, but of what man who knows?That broughtest healing on thy leathern wingsTo priests, and under them didst gather kings,And madest friends to thee of all man's foes;Before thine incarnation, the tale goes,Thy virgin mother, pure of sensual stings,Communed by night with angels of chaste things,And, full of grace, untimely felt the throesOf motherhood upon her, and believedThe obscure annunciation made when lateA raven-feathered raven-throated doveCroaked salutation to the mother of loveWhose misconception was immaculate,And when her time was come she misconceived.
2Thine incarnation was upon this wise,Saviour; and out of east and west were ledTo thy foul cradle by thy planet redShepherds of souls that feed their sheep with liesTill the utter soul die as the body dies,And the wise men that ask but to be fedThough the hot shambles be their board and bedAnd sleep on any dunghill shut their eyes,So they lie warm and fatten in the mire:And the high priest enthroned yet in thy name,Judas, baptised thee with men's blood for hire;And now thou hangest nailed to thine own shameIn sight of all time, but while heaven has flameShalt find no resurrection from hell-fire.December 1869.
XIVMENTANA: SECOND ANNIVERSARYEst-ce qu'il n'est pas temps que la foudre se prouve,Cieux profonds, en broyant ce chien, fils de la louve?La Légende des Siècles:—Ratbert.1
By the dead body of Hope, the spotless lambThou threwest into the high priest's slaughtering-room,And by the child Despair born red therefromAs, thank the secret sire picked out to cramWith spurious spawn thy misconceiving dam,Thou, like a worm from a town's common tomb,Didst creep from forth the kennel of her womb,Born to break down with catapult and ramMan's builded towers of promise, and with breathAnd tongue to track and hunt his hopes to death:O, by that sweet dead body abused and slain,And by that child mismothered,—dog, by allThy curses thou hast cursed mankind withal,With what curse shall man curse thee back again?
2By the brute soul that made man's soul its food;By time grown poisonous with it; by the hateAnd horror of all souls not miscreate;By the hour of power that evil hath on good;And by the incognizable fatherhoodWhich made a whorish womb the shameful gateThat opening let out loose to fawn on fateA hound half-blooded ravening for man's blood;(What prayer but this for thee should any say,Thou dog of hell, but this that Shakespeare said?)By night deflowered and desecrated day,That fall as one curse on one cursed head,"Cancel his bond of life, dear God, I pray,That I may live to say, The dog is dead!"1869.
XVMENTANA: THIRD ANNIVERSARY1
Such prayers last year were put up for thy sake;What shall this year do that hath lived to seeThe piteous and unpitied end of thee?What moan, what cry, what clamour shall it make,Seeing as a reed breaks all thine empire break,And all thy great strength as a rotten tree,Whose branches made broad night from sea to sea,And the world shuddered when a leaf would shake?From the unknown deep wherein those prayers were heard,From the dark height of time there sounds a word,Crying, Comfort; though death ride on this red hour,Hope waits with eyes that make the morning dim,Till liberty, reclothed with love and power,Shall pass and know not if she tread on him.
2The hour for which men hungered and had thirst,And dying were loth to die before it came,Is it indeed upon thee? and the lameLate foot of vengeance on thy trace accurstFor years insepulchred and crimes inhearsed,For days marked red or black with blood or shame,Hath it outrun thee to tread out thy name?This scourge, this hour, is this indeed the worst?O clothed and crowned with curses, canst thou tell?Have thy dead whispered to thee what they seeWhose eyes are open in the dark on theeEre spotted soul and body take farewellOr what of life beyond the worm's may beSatiate the immitigable hours in hell?1870.
XVITHE DESCENT INTO HELLJanuary 9th, 18731O Night and death, to whom we grudged him then,When in man's sight he stood not yet undone,Your king, your priest, your saviour, and your son,We grudge not now, who know that not againShall this curse come upon the sins of men,Nor this face look upon the living sunThat shall behold not so abhorred an oneIn all the days whereof his eye takes ken.The bond is cancelled, and the prayer is heardThat seemed so long but weak and wasted breath;Take him, for he is yours, O night and death.Hell yawns on him whose life was as a wordUttered by death in hate of heaven and light,A curse now dumb upon the lips of night.
2What shapes are these and shadows without endThat fill the night full as a storm of rainWith myriads of dead men and women slain,Old with young, child with mother, friend with friend,That on the deep mid wintering air impend,Pale yet with mortal wrath and human pain,Who died that this man dead now too might reign,Toward whom their hands point and their faces bend?The ruining flood would redden earth and airIf for each soul whose guiltless blood was shedThere fell but one drop on this one man's headWhose soul to-night stands bodiless and bare,For whom our hearts give thanks who put up prayer,That we have lived to say, The dog is dead.
XVIIAPOLOGIA
If wrath embitter the sweet mouth of song,And make the sunlight fire before those eyesThat would drink draughts of peace from the unsoiled skies,The wrongdoing is not ours, but ours the wrong,Who hear too loud on earth and see too longThe grief that dies not with the groan that dies,Till the strong bitterness of pity criesWithin us, that our anger should be strong.For chill is known by heat and heat by chill,And the desire that hope makes love to stillBy the fear flying beside it or above,A falcon fledged to follow a fledgeling dove,And by the fume and flame of hate of illThe exuberant light and burning bloom of love.