And is this little all that was to be?Where is the gloriously-decisive change,Metamorphosis the immeasurableOf human clay to divine gold, we lookedShould, in some poor sort, justify its price?Had an adept of the mere Rosy CrossSpent his life to consummate the Great Work,Would not we start to see the stuff it touchedYield not a grain more than the vulgar gotBy the old smelting-process years ago?If this were sad to see in just the sageWho should profess so much, perform no more,What is it when suspected in that PowerWho undertook to make and made the world,Devised and did effect man, body and soul,Ordained salvation for them both, and yet ...Well, is the thing we see, salvation?IPut no such dreadful question to myself,Within whose circle of experience burnsThe central truth, Power, Wisdom, Goodness,—God:I must outlive a thing ere know it dead:When I outlive the faith there is a sun,When I lie, ashes to the very soul,—Some one, not I, must wail above the heap,"He died in dark whence never morn arose."While I see day succeed the deepest night—How can I speak but as I know?—my speechMust be, throughout the darkness, "It will end:The light that did burn, will burn!" Clouds obscure—But for which obscuration all were bright?Too hastily concluded! Sun-suffused,A cloud may soothe the eye made blind by blaze,—Better the very clarity of heaven:The soft streaks are the beautiful and dear.What but the weakness in a faith suppliesThe incentive to humanity, no strengthAbsolute, irresistible, comports?How can man love but what he yearns to help?And that which men think weakness within strength,But angels know for strength and stronger yet—What were it else but the first things made new,But repetition of the miracle,The divine instance of self-sacrificeThat never ends and aye begins for man?So, never I miss footing in the maze,No,—I have light nor fear the dark at all.But are mankind not real, who pace outsideMy petty circle, world that 's measured me?And when they stumble even as I stand,Have I a right to stop ear when they cry,As they were phantoms who took clouds for crags,Tripped and fell, where man's march might safely move?Beside, the cry is other than a ghost's,When out of the old time there pleads some bard,Philosopher, or both, and—whispers not.But words it boldly. "The inward work and worthOf any mind, what other mind may judgeSave God who only knows the thing he made,The veritable service he exacts?It is the outward product men appraise.Behold, an engine hoists a tower aloft:'I looked that it should move the mountain too!'Or else 'Had just a turret toppled down,Success enough!'—may say the MachinistWho knows what less or more result might be:But we, who see that done we cannot do,'A feat beyond man's force,' we men must say.Regard me and that shake I gave the world!I was born, not so long before Christ's birthAs Christ's birth haply did precede thy day,—But many a watch before the star of dawn:Therefore I lived,—it is thy creed affirms,Pope Innocent, who art to answer me!—Under conditions, nowise to escape,Whereby salvation was impossible.Each impulse to achieve the good and fair,Each aspiration to the pure and true,Being without a warrant or an aim,Was just as sterile a felicityAs if the insect, born to spend his lifeSoaring his circles, stopped them to describe(Painfully motionless in the mid-air)Some word of weighty counsel for man's sake,Some 'Know thyself' or 'Take the golden mean!'—Forwent his happy dance and the glad ray,Died half an hour the sooner and was dust.I, born to perish like the brutes, or worse,Why not live brutishly, obey brutes' law?But I, of body as of soul complete,A gymnast at the games, philosopherI' the schools, who painted, and made music,—allGlories that met upon the tragic stageWhen the Third Poet's tread surprised the Two,—Whose lot fell in a land where life was greatAnd sense went free and beauty lay profuse,I, untouched by one adverse circumstance,Adopted virtue as my rule of life,Waived all reward, loved but for loving's sake,And, what my heart taught me, I taught the world,And have been teaching now two thousand years.Witness my work,—plays that should please, forsooth!'They might please, they may displease, they shall teach,For truth's sake,' so I said, and did, and do.Five hundred years ere Paul spoke, Felix heard,—How much of temperance and righteousness,Judgment to come, did I find reason for,Corroborate with my strong style that sparedNo sin, nor swerved the more from branding browBecause the sinner was called Zeus and God?How nearly did I guess at that Paul knew?How closely come, in what I representAs duty, to his doctrine yet a blank?And as that limner not untruly limnsWho draws an object round or square, which squareOr round seems to the unassisted eye,Though Galileo's tube display the sameOval or oblong,—so, who controvertsI rendered rightly what proves wrongly wroughtBeside Paul's picture? Mine was true for me.I saw that there are, first and above all,The hidden forces, blind necessities,Named Nature, but the thing's self unconceived:Then follow—how dependent upon these,We know not, how imposed above ourselves,We well know—what I name the gods, a powerVarious or one: for great and strong and goodIs there, and little, weak and bad there too,Wisdom and folly: say, these make no God,—What is it else that rules outside man's self?A fact then,—always, to the naked eye,—And so, the one revealment possibleOf what were unimagined else by man.Therefore, what gods do, man may criticise,Applaud, condemn,—how should he fear the truth?—But likewise have in awe because of power,Venerate for the main munificence,And give the doubtful deed its due excuseFrom the acknowledged creature of a dayTo the Eternal and Divine. Thus, boldYet self-mistrusting, should man bear himself,Most assured on what now concerns him most—The law of his own life, the path he prints,—Which law is virtue and not vice, I say,—And least inquisitive where search least skills,I' the nature we best give the clouds to keep.What could I paint beyond a scheme like thisOut of the fragmentary truths where lightLay fitful in a tenebrific time?You have the sunrise now, joins truth to truth,Shoots life and substance into death and void;Themselves compose the whole we made before:The forces and necessity grow God,—The beings so contrarious that seemed gods,Prove just his operation manifoldAnd multiform, translated, as must be,Into intelligible shape so farAs suits our sense and sets us free to feel.What if I let a child think, childhood-long,That lightning, I would have him spare his eye,Is a real arrow shot at naked orb?The man knows more, but shuts his lids the same:Lightning's cause comprehends nor man nor child.Why then, my scheme, your better knowledge broke,Presently readjusts itself, the smallProportioned largelier, parts and whole named new:So much, no more two thousand years have done!Pope, dost thou dare pretend to punish me,For not descrying sunshine at midnight,Me who crept all-fours, found my way so far—While thou rewardest teachers of the truth,Who miss the plain way in the blaze of noon,—Though just a word from that strong style of mine,Grasped honestly in hand as guiding-staff,Had pricked them a sure path across the bog,That mire of cowardice and slush of liesWherein I find them wallow in wide day!"How should I answer this Euripides?Paul—'t is a legend—answered Seneca,But that was in the day-spring; noon is now,We have got too familiar with the light.Shall I wish back once more that thrill of dawn?When the whole truth-touched man burned up, one fire?—Assured the trial, fiery, fierce, but fleet,Would, from his little heap of ashes, lendWings to that conflagration of the worldWhich Christ awaits ere he makes all things new:So should the frail become the perfect, raptFrom glory of pain to glory of joy; and so,Even in the end,—the act renouncing earth,Lands, houses, husbands, wives and children here,—Begin that other act which finds all, lost,Regained, in this time even, a hundredfold,And, in the next time, feels the finite loveBlent and embalmed with the eternal life.So does the sun ghastlily seem to sinkIn those north parts, lean all but out of life,Desist a dread mere breathing-stop, then slowRe-assert day, begin the endless rise.Was this too easy for our after-stage?Was such a lighting-up of faith, in life,Only allowed initiate, set man's stepIn the true way by help of the great glow?A way wherein it is ordained he walk,Bearing to see the light from heaven still moreAnd more encroached on by the light of earth,Tentatives earth puts forth to rival heaven,Earthly incitements that mankind serve GodFor man's sole sake, not God's and therefore man's.Till at last, who distinguishes the sunFrom a mere Druid fire on a far mount?More praise to him who with his subtle prismShall decompose both beams and name the true.In such sense, who is last proves first indeed;For how could saints and martyrs fail see truthStreak the night's blackness? Who is faithful now,Who untwists heaven's white from the yellow flareO' the world's gross torch, without night's foil that helpedProduce the Christian act so possibleWhen in the way stood Nero's cross and stake—So hard now when the world smiles "Right and wise!Faith points the politic, the thrifty way.Will make who plods it in the end returnsBeyond mere fool's-sport and improvidence.We fools dance through the cornfield of this life,Pluck ears to left and right and swallow raw,—Nay, tread, at pleasure, a sheaf underfoot,To get the better at some poppy-flower,—Well aware we shall have so much less wheatIn the eventual harvest: you meantimeWaste not a spike,—the richlier will you reap!What then? There will be always garnered mealSufficient for our comfortable loaf,While you enjoy the undiminished sack!"Is it not this ignoble confidence,Cowardly hardihood, that dulls and damps,Makes the old heroism impossible?Unless ... what whispers me of times to come?What if it be the mission of that ageMy death will usher into life, to shakeThis torpor of assurance from our creed,Reintroduce the doubt discarded, bringThat formidable danger back, we droveLong ago to the distance and the dark?No wild beast now prowls round the infant camp:We have built wall and sleep in city safe:But if some earthquake try the towers that laugh,To think they once saw lions rule outside,And man stand out again, pale, resolute,Prepared to die,—which means, alive at last?As we broke up that old faith of the world,Have we, next age, to break up this the new—Faith, in the thing, grown faith in the report—Whence need to bravely disbelieve reportThrough increased faith i' the thing reports belie?Must we deny,—do they, these Molinists,At peril of their body and their soul,—Recognized truths, obedient to some truthUnrecognized yet, but perceptible?—Correct the portrait by the living face,Man's God, by God's God in the mind of man?Then, for the few that rise to the new height,The many that must sink to the old depth,The multitude found fall away! A few,E'en ere new law speak clear, may keep the old,Preserve the Christian level, call good goodAnd evil evil, (even though razed and blankThe old titles,) helped by custom, habitude,And all else they mistake for finer senseO' the fact that reason warrants,—as before.They hope perhaps, fear not impossibly,At least some one Pompilia left the worldWill say "I know the right place by foot's feel,I took it and tread firm there; wherefore change?"But what a multitude will surely fallQuite through the crumbling truth, late subjacent,Sink to the next discoverable base,Rest upon human nature, settle thereOn what is firm, the lust and pride of life!A mass of men, whose very souls even nowSeem to need re-creating,—so they slinkWorm-like into the mud, light now lays bare,—Whose future we dispose of with shut eyesAnd whisper—"They are grafted, barren twigs,Into the living stock of Christ: may bearOne day, till when they lie death-like, not dead,"—Those who with all the aid of Christ succumb,How, without Christ, shall they, unaided, sink?Whither but to this gulf before my eyes?Do not we end, the century and I?The impatient antimasque treads close on kibeO' the very masque's self it will mock,—on me,Last lingering personage, the impatient mimePushes already,—will I block the way?Will my slow trail of garments ne'er leave spaceFor pantaloon, sock, plume and castanet?Here comes the first experimentalistIn the new order of things,—he plays a priest;Does he take inspiration from the Church,Directly make her rule his law of life?Not he: his own mere impulse guides the man—Happily sometimes, since ourselves allowHe has danced, in gayety of heart, i' the mainThe right step through the maze we bade him foot.But if his heart had prompted him break looseAnd mar the measure? Why, we must submit,And thank the chance that brought him safe so far.Will he repeat the prodigy? Perhaps.Can he teach others how to quit themselves,Show why this step was right while that were wrong?How should he? "Ask your hearts as I asked mine,And get discreetly through the morrice too;If your hearts misdirect you,—quit the stage,And make amends,—be there amends to make!"Such is, for the Augustin that was once,This Canon Caponsacchi we see now."But my heart answers to another tune,"Puts in the Abate, second in the suite;"I have my taste too, and tread no such step!You choose the glorious life, and may, for me!I like the lowest of life's appetites,—So you judge,—but the very truth of joyTo my own apprehension which decides.Call me knave and you get yourself called fool!I live for greed, ambition, lust, revenge;Attain these ends by force, guile: hypocrite,To-day perchance to-morrow recognizedThe rational man, the type of common sense."There 's Loyola adapted to our time!Under such guidance Guido plays his part,He also influencing in the due turnThese last clods where I track intelligenceBy any glimmer, these four at his beckReady to murder any, and, at their own,As ready to murder him;—such make the world!And, first effect of the new cause of things,There they lie also duly,—the old pairOf the weak head and not so wicked heart,With the one Christian mother, wife and girl,—Which three gifts seem to make an angel up,—The world's first foot o' the dance is on their heads!Still, I stand here, not off the stage though closeOn the exit: and my last act, as my first,I owe the scene, and Him who armed me thusWith Paul's sword as with Peter's key. I smiteWith my whole strength once more, ere end my part,Ending, so far as man may, this offence.And when I raise my arm, who plucks my sleeve?Who stops me in the righteous function,—foeOr friend? Oh, still as ever, friends are theyWho, in the interest of outraged truthDeprecate such rough handling of a lie!The facts being proved and incontestable,What is the last word I must listen to?Perchance—"Spare yet a term this barren stock,We pray thee dig about and dung and dressTill he repent and bring forth fruit even yet!"Perchance—"So poor and swift a punishmentShall throw him out of life with all that sin:Let mercy rather pile up pain on painTill the flesh expiate what the soul pays else!"Nowise! Remonstrants on each side commenceInstructing, there 's a new tribunal nowHigher than God's—the educated man's!Nice sense of honor in the human breastSupersedes here the old coarse oracle—Confirming none the less a point or soWherein blind predecessors worked arightBy rule of thumb: as when Christ said,—when, where?Enough, I find it pleaded in a place,—"All other wrongs done, patiently I take:But touch my honor and the case is changed!I feel the due resentment,—neminiHonorem tradois my quick retort."Right of Him, just as if pronounced to-day!Still, should the old authority be muteOr doubtful, or in speaking clash with new,The younger takes permission to decide.At last we have the instinct of the worldRuling its household without tutelage:And while the two laws, human and divine,Have busied finger with this tangled case,In pushes the brisk junior, cuts the knot,Pronounces for acquittal. How it tripsSilverly o'er the tongue! "Remit the death!Forgive, ... well, in the old way, if thou please,Decency and the relies of routineRespected,—let the Count go free as air!Since he may plead a priest's immunity,—The minor orders help enough for that,With Farinacci's license,—who decidesThat the mere implication of such man,So privileged, in any cause, beforeWhatever Court except the Spiritual,Straight quashes law-procedure,—quash it, then!Remains a pretty loophole of escapeMoreover, that, beside the patent factO' the law's allowance, there 's involved the wealO' the Popedom: a son's privilege at stake,Thou wilt pretend the Church's interest,Ignore all finer reasons to forgive!But herein lies the crowning cogency—(Let thy friends teach thee while thou tellest beads)That in this case the spirit of culture speaks,Civilization is imperative.To her shall we remand all delicate pointsHenceforth, nor take irregular adviceO' the sly, as heretofore: she used to hintRemonstrances, when law was out of sortsBecause a saucy tongue was put to rest,An eye that roved was cured of arrogance:But why be forced to mumble under breathWhat soon shall be acknowledged as plain fact,Outspoken, say, in thy successor's time?Methinks we see the golden age return!Civilization and the EmperorSucceed to Christianity and Pope.One Emperor then, as one Pope now: meanwhile,Anticipate a little! We tell thee 'TakeGuido's life, sapped society shall crash,Whereof the main prop was, is, and shall be—Supremacy of husband over wife!'Does the man rule i' the house, and may his mateBecause of any plea dispute the same?Oh, pleas of all sorts shall abound, be sure,One but allowed validity,—for, harshAnd savage, for, inept and silly-sooth,For, this and that, will the ingenious sexDemonstrate the best master e'er graced slave:And there 's but one short way to end the coil,—Acknowledge right and reason steadilyI' the man and master: then the wife submitsTo plain truth broadly stated. Does the timeAdvise we shift—a pillar? nay, a stakeOut of its place i' the social tenement?One touch may send a shudder through the heapAnd bring it toppling on our children's heads!Moreover, if ours breed a qualm in thee,Give thine own better feeling play for once!Thou, whose own life winks o'er the socket-edge,Wouldst thou it went out in such ugly snuffAs dooming sons dead, e'en though justice prompt?Why, on a certain feast, Barabbas' selfWas set free, not to cloud the general cheer:Neither shalt thou pollute thy Sabbath close!Mercy is safe and graceful. How one hearsThe howl begin, scarce the three little tapsO' the silver mallet silent on thy brow,—'His last act was to sacrifice a CountAnd thereby screen a scandal of the Church!Guido condemned, the Canon justifiedOf course,—delinquents of his cloth go free!'And so the Luthers chuckle, Calvins scowl,So thy hand helps Molinos to the chairWhence he may hold forth till doom's day on justThesepetit-maîtrepriestlings,—in the choir,Sanctus et Benedictus, with a brushOf soft guitar-strings that obey the thumb,Touched by the bedside, for accompaniment!Does this give umbrage to a husband? DeathTo the fool, and to the priest impunity!But no impunity to any friendSo simply over-loyal as these fourWho made religion of their patron's cause,Believed in him and did his bidding straight,Asked not one question but laid down the livesThis Pope took,—all four lives together makeJust his own length of days,—so, dead they lie,As these were times when loyalty 's a drug,And zeal in a subordinate too cheapAnd common to be saved when we spend life!Come, 't is too much good breath we waste in words:The pardon, Holy Father! Spare grimace,Shrugs and reluctance! Are not we the world,Art not thou Priam? let soft culture pleadHecuba-like, 'non tali' (Virgil serves)'Auxilio,' and the rest! Enough, it works!The Pope relaxes, and the Prince is loth,The father's bowels yearn, the man's will bends,Reply is apt. Our tears on tremble, heartsBig with a benediction, wait the wordShall circulate through the city in a trice,Set every window flaring, give each manO' the mob his torch to wave for gratitude.Pronounce then, for our breath and patience fail!"I will, Sirs: but a voice other than yoursQuickens my spirit. "Quis pro Domino?Who is upon the Lord's side?" asked the Count.I, who write—"On receipt of this command,Acquaint Count Guido and his fellows fourThey die to-morrow: could it be to-night,The better, but the work to do, takes time.Set with all diligence a scaffold up,Not in the customary place, by BridgeSaint Angelo, where die the common sort;But since the man is noble, and his peersBy predilection haunt the People's Square,There let him be beheaded in the midst,And his companions hanged on either side:So shall the quality see, fear, and learn.All which work takes time: till to-morrow, then,Let there be prayer incessant for the five!"For the main criminal I have no hopeExcept in such a suddenness of fate.I stood at Naples once, a night so darkI could have scarce conjectured there was earthAnywhere, sky or sea or world at all:But the night's black was burst through by a blaze—Thunder struck blow on blow, earth groaned and bore,Through her whole length of mountain visible:There lay the city thick and plain with spires,And, like a ghost disshrouded, white the sea.So may the truth be flashed out by one blow,And Guido see, one instant, and be saved.Else I avert my face, nor follow himInto that sad obscure sequestered stateWhere God unmakes but to remake the soulHe else made first in vain; which must not be.Enough, for I may die this very night:And how should I dare die, this man let live?Carry this forthwith to the Governor!
And is this little all that was to be?Where is the gloriously-decisive change,Metamorphosis the immeasurableOf human clay to divine gold, we lookedShould, in some poor sort, justify its price?Had an adept of the mere Rosy CrossSpent his life to consummate the Great Work,Would not we start to see the stuff it touchedYield not a grain more than the vulgar gotBy the old smelting-process years ago?If this were sad to see in just the sageWho should profess so much, perform no more,What is it when suspected in that PowerWho undertook to make and made the world,Devised and did effect man, body and soul,Ordained salvation for them both, and yet ...Well, is the thing we see, salvation?IPut no such dreadful question to myself,Within whose circle of experience burnsThe central truth, Power, Wisdom, Goodness,—God:I must outlive a thing ere know it dead:When I outlive the faith there is a sun,When I lie, ashes to the very soul,—Some one, not I, must wail above the heap,"He died in dark whence never morn arose."While I see day succeed the deepest night—How can I speak but as I know?—my speechMust be, throughout the darkness, "It will end:The light that did burn, will burn!" Clouds obscure—But for which obscuration all were bright?Too hastily concluded! Sun-suffused,A cloud may soothe the eye made blind by blaze,—Better the very clarity of heaven:The soft streaks are the beautiful and dear.What but the weakness in a faith suppliesThe incentive to humanity, no strengthAbsolute, irresistible, comports?How can man love but what he yearns to help?And that which men think weakness within strength,But angels know for strength and stronger yet—What were it else but the first things made new,But repetition of the miracle,The divine instance of self-sacrificeThat never ends and aye begins for man?So, never I miss footing in the maze,No,—I have light nor fear the dark at all.But are mankind not real, who pace outsideMy petty circle, world that 's measured me?And when they stumble even as I stand,Have I a right to stop ear when they cry,As they were phantoms who took clouds for crags,Tripped and fell, where man's march might safely move?Beside, the cry is other than a ghost's,When out of the old time there pleads some bard,Philosopher, or both, and—whispers not.But words it boldly. "The inward work and worthOf any mind, what other mind may judgeSave God who only knows the thing he made,The veritable service he exacts?It is the outward product men appraise.Behold, an engine hoists a tower aloft:'I looked that it should move the mountain too!'Or else 'Had just a turret toppled down,Success enough!'—may say the MachinistWho knows what less or more result might be:But we, who see that done we cannot do,'A feat beyond man's force,' we men must say.Regard me and that shake I gave the world!I was born, not so long before Christ's birthAs Christ's birth haply did precede thy day,—But many a watch before the star of dawn:Therefore I lived,—it is thy creed affirms,Pope Innocent, who art to answer me!—Under conditions, nowise to escape,Whereby salvation was impossible.Each impulse to achieve the good and fair,Each aspiration to the pure and true,Being without a warrant or an aim,Was just as sterile a felicityAs if the insect, born to spend his lifeSoaring his circles, stopped them to describe(Painfully motionless in the mid-air)Some word of weighty counsel for man's sake,Some 'Know thyself' or 'Take the golden mean!'—Forwent his happy dance and the glad ray,Died half an hour the sooner and was dust.I, born to perish like the brutes, or worse,Why not live brutishly, obey brutes' law?But I, of body as of soul complete,A gymnast at the games, philosopherI' the schools, who painted, and made music,—allGlories that met upon the tragic stageWhen the Third Poet's tread surprised the Two,—Whose lot fell in a land where life was greatAnd sense went free and beauty lay profuse,I, untouched by one adverse circumstance,Adopted virtue as my rule of life,Waived all reward, loved but for loving's sake,And, what my heart taught me, I taught the world,And have been teaching now two thousand years.Witness my work,—plays that should please, forsooth!'They might please, they may displease, they shall teach,For truth's sake,' so I said, and did, and do.Five hundred years ere Paul spoke, Felix heard,—How much of temperance and righteousness,Judgment to come, did I find reason for,Corroborate with my strong style that sparedNo sin, nor swerved the more from branding browBecause the sinner was called Zeus and God?How nearly did I guess at that Paul knew?How closely come, in what I representAs duty, to his doctrine yet a blank?And as that limner not untruly limnsWho draws an object round or square, which squareOr round seems to the unassisted eye,Though Galileo's tube display the sameOval or oblong,—so, who controvertsI rendered rightly what proves wrongly wroughtBeside Paul's picture? Mine was true for me.I saw that there are, first and above all,The hidden forces, blind necessities,Named Nature, but the thing's self unconceived:Then follow—how dependent upon these,We know not, how imposed above ourselves,We well know—what I name the gods, a powerVarious or one: for great and strong and goodIs there, and little, weak and bad there too,Wisdom and folly: say, these make no God,—What is it else that rules outside man's self?A fact then,—always, to the naked eye,—And so, the one revealment possibleOf what were unimagined else by man.Therefore, what gods do, man may criticise,Applaud, condemn,—how should he fear the truth?—But likewise have in awe because of power,Venerate for the main munificence,And give the doubtful deed its due excuseFrom the acknowledged creature of a dayTo the Eternal and Divine. Thus, boldYet self-mistrusting, should man bear himself,Most assured on what now concerns him most—The law of his own life, the path he prints,—Which law is virtue and not vice, I say,—And least inquisitive where search least skills,I' the nature we best give the clouds to keep.What could I paint beyond a scheme like thisOut of the fragmentary truths where lightLay fitful in a tenebrific time?You have the sunrise now, joins truth to truth,Shoots life and substance into death and void;Themselves compose the whole we made before:The forces and necessity grow God,—The beings so contrarious that seemed gods,Prove just his operation manifoldAnd multiform, translated, as must be,Into intelligible shape so farAs suits our sense and sets us free to feel.What if I let a child think, childhood-long,That lightning, I would have him spare his eye,Is a real arrow shot at naked orb?The man knows more, but shuts his lids the same:Lightning's cause comprehends nor man nor child.Why then, my scheme, your better knowledge broke,Presently readjusts itself, the smallProportioned largelier, parts and whole named new:So much, no more two thousand years have done!Pope, dost thou dare pretend to punish me,For not descrying sunshine at midnight,Me who crept all-fours, found my way so far—While thou rewardest teachers of the truth,Who miss the plain way in the blaze of noon,—Though just a word from that strong style of mine,Grasped honestly in hand as guiding-staff,Had pricked them a sure path across the bog,That mire of cowardice and slush of liesWherein I find them wallow in wide day!"How should I answer this Euripides?Paul—'t is a legend—answered Seneca,But that was in the day-spring; noon is now,We have got too familiar with the light.Shall I wish back once more that thrill of dawn?When the whole truth-touched man burned up, one fire?—Assured the trial, fiery, fierce, but fleet,Would, from his little heap of ashes, lendWings to that conflagration of the worldWhich Christ awaits ere he makes all things new:So should the frail become the perfect, raptFrom glory of pain to glory of joy; and so,Even in the end,—the act renouncing earth,Lands, houses, husbands, wives and children here,—Begin that other act which finds all, lost,Regained, in this time even, a hundredfold,And, in the next time, feels the finite loveBlent and embalmed with the eternal life.So does the sun ghastlily seem to sinkIn those north parts, lean all but out of life,Desist a dread mere breathing-stop, then slowRe-assert day, begin the endless rise.Was this too easy for our after-stage?Was such a lighting-up of faith, in life,Only allowed initiate, set man's stepIn the true way by help of the great glow?A way wherein it is ordained he walk,Bearing to see the light from heaven still moreAnd more encroached on by the light of earth,Tentatives earth puts forth to rival heaven,Earthly incitements that mankind serve GodFor man's sole sake, not God's and therefore man's.Till at last, who distinguishes the sunFrom a mere Druid fire on a far mount?More praise to him who with his subtle prismShall decompose both beams and name the true.In such sense, who is last proves first indeed;For how could saints and martyrs fail see truthStreak the night's blackness? Who is faithful now,Who untwists heaven's white from the yellow flareO' the world's gross torch, without night's foil that helpedProduce the Christian act so possibleWhen in the way stood Nero's cross and stake—So hard now when the world smiles "Right and wise!Faith points the politic, the thrifty way.Will make who plods it in the end returnsBeyond mere fool's-sport and improvidence.We fools dance through the cornfield of this life,Pluck ears to left and right and swallow raw,—Nay, tread, at pleasure, a sheaf underfoot,To get the better at some poppy-flower,—Well aware we shall have so much less wheatIn the eventual harvest: you meantimeWaste not a spike,—the richlier will you reap!What then? There will be always garnered mealSufficient for our comfortable loaf,While you enjoy the undiminished sack!"Is it not this ignoble confidence,Cowardly hardihood, that dulls and damps,Makes the old heroism impossible?Unless ... what whispers me of times to come?What if it be the mission of that ageMy death will usher into life, to shakeThis torpor of assurance from our creed,Reintroduce the doubt discarded, bringThat formidable danger back, we droveLong ago to the distance and the dark?No wild beast now prowls round the infant camp:We have built wall and sleep in city safe:But if some earthquake try the towers that laugh,To think they once saw lions rule outside,And man stand out again, pale, resolute,Prepared to die,—which means, alive at last?As we broke up that old faith of the world,Have we, next age, to break up this the new—Faith, in the thing, grown faith in the report—Whence need to bravely disbelieve reportThrough increased faith i' the thing reports belie?Must we deny,—do they, these Molinists,At peril of their body and their soul,—Recognized truths, obedient to some truthUnrecognized yet, but perceptible?—Correct the portrait by the living face,Man's God, by God's God in the mind of man?Then, for the few that rise to the new height,The many that must sink to the old depth,The multitude found fall away! A few,E'en ere new law speak clear, may keep the old,Preserve the Christian level, call good goodAnd evil evil, (even though razed and blankThe old titles,) helped by custom, habitude,And all else they mistake for finer senseO' the fact that reason warrants,—as before.They hope perhaps, fear not impossibly,At least some one Pompilia left the worldWill say "I know the right place by foot's feel,I took it and tread firm there; wherefore change?"But what a multitude will surely fallQuite through the crumbling truth, late subjacent,Sink to the next discoverable base,Rest upon human nature, settle thereOn what is firm, the lust and pride of life!A mass of men, whose very souls even nowSeem to need re-creating,—so they slinkWorm-like into the mud, light now lays bare,—Whose future we dispose of with shut eyesAnd whisper—"They are grafted, barren twigs,Into the living stock of Christ: may bearOne day, till when they lie death-like, not dead,"—Those who with all the aid of Christ succumb,How, without Christ, shall they, unaided, sink?Whither but to this gulf before my eyes?Do not we end, the century and I?The impatient antimasque treads close on kibeO' the very masque's self it will mock,—on me,Last lingering personage, the impatient mimePushes already,—will I block the way?Will my slow trail of garments ne'er leave spaceFor pantaloon, sock, plume and castanet?Here comes the first experimentalistIn the new order of things,—he plays a priest;Does he take inspiration from the Church,Directly make her rule his law of life?Not he: his own mere impulse guides the man—Happily sometimes, since ourselves allowHe has danced, in gayety of heart, i' the mainThe right step through the maze we bade him foot.But if his heart had prompted him break looseAnd mar the measure? Why, we must submit,And thank the chance that brought him safe so far.Will he repeat the prodigy? Perhaps.Can he teach others how to quit themselves,Show why this step was right while that were wrong?How should he? "Ask your hearts as I asked mine,And get discreetly through the morrice too;If your hearts misdirect you,—quit the stage,And make amends,—be there amends to make!"Such is, for the Augustin that was once,This Canon Caponsacchi we see now."But my heart answers to another tune,"Puts in the Abate, second in the suite;"I have my taste too, and tread no such step!You choose the glorious life, and may, for me!I like the lowest of life's appetites,—So you judge,—but the very truth of joyTo my own apprehension which decides.Call me knave and you get yourself called fool!I live for greed, ambition, lust, revenge;Attain these ends by force, guile: hypocrite,To-day perchance to-morrow recognizedThe rational man, the type of common sense."There 's Loyola adapted to our time!Under such guidance Guido plays his part,He also influencing in the due turnThese last clods where I track intelligenceBy any glimmer, these four at his beckReady to murder any, and, at their own,As ready to murder him;—such make the world!And, first effect of the new cause of things,There they lie also duly,—the old pairOf the weak head and not so wicked heart,With the one Christian mother, wife and girl,—Which three gifts seem to make an angel up,—The world's first foot o' the dance is on their heads!Still, I stand here, not off the stage though closeOn the exit: and my last act, as my first,I owe the scene, and Him who armed me thusWith Paul's sword as with Peter's key. I smiteWith my whole strength once more, ere end my part,Ending, so far as man may, this offence.And when I raise my arm, who plucks my sleeve?Who stops me in the righteous function,—foeOr friend? Oh, still as ever, friends are theyWho, in the interest of outraged truthDeprecate such rough handling of a lie!The facts being proved and incontestable,What is the last word I must listen to?Perchance—"Spare yet a term this barren stock,We pray thee dig about and dung and dressTill he repent and bring forth fruit even yet!"Perchance—"So poor and swift a punishmentShall throw him out of life with all that sin:Let mercy rather pile up pain on painTill the flesh expiate what the soul pays else!"Nowise! Remonstrants on each side commenceInstructing, there 's a new tribunal nowHigher than God's—the educated man's!Nice sense of honor in the human breastSupersedes here the old coarse oracle—Confirming none the less a point or soWherein blind predecessors worked arightBy rule of thumb: as when Christ said,—when, where?Enough, I find it pleaded in a place,—"All other wrongs done, patiently I take:But touch my honor and the case is changed!I feel the due resentment,—neminiHonorem tradois my quick retort."Right of Him, just as if pronounced to-day!Still, should the old authority be muteOr doubtful, or in speaking clash with new,The younger takes permission to decide.At last we have the instinct of the worldRuling its household without tutelage:And while the two laws, human and divine,Have busied finger with this tangled case,In pushes the brisk junior, cuts the knot,Pronounces for acquittal. How it tripsSilverly o'er the tongue! "Remit the death!Forgive, ... well, in the old way, if thou please,Decency and the relies of routineRespected,—let the Count go free as air!Since he may plead a priest's immunity,—The minor orders help enough for that,With Farinacci's license,—who decidesThat the mere implication of such man,So privileged, in any cause, beforeWhatever Court except the Spiritual,Straight quashes law-procedure,—quash it, then!Remains a pretty loophole of escapeMoreover, that, beside the patent factO' the law's allowance, there 's involved the wealO' the Popedom: a son's privilege at stake,Thou wilt pretend the Church's interest,Ignore all finer reasons to forgive!But herein lies the crowning cogency—(Let thy friends teach thee while thou tellest beads)That in this case the spirit of culture speaks,Civilization is imperative.To her shall we remand all delicate pointsHenceforth, nor take irregular adviceO' the sly, as heretofore: she used to hintRemonstrances, when law was out of sortsBecause a saucy tongue was put to rest,An eye that roved was cured of arrogance:But why be forced to mumble under breathWhat soon shall be acknowledged as plain fact,Outspoken, say, in thy successor's time?Methinks we see the golden age return!Civilization and the EmperorSucceed to Christianity and Pope.One Emperor then, as one Pope now: meanwhile,Anticipate a little! We tell thee 'TakeGuido's life, sapped society shall crash,Whereof the main prop was, is, and shall be—Supremacy of husband over wife!'Does the man rule i' the house, and may his mateBecause of any plea dispute the same?Oh, pleas of all sorts shall abound, be sure,One but allowed validity,—for, harshAnd savage, for, inept and silly-sooth,For, this and that, will the ingenious sexDemonstrate the best master e'er graced slave:And there 's but one short way to end the coil,—Acknowledge right and reason steadilyI' the man and master: then the wife submitsTo plain truth broadly stated. Does the timeAdvise we shift—a pillar? nay, a stakeOut of its place i' the social tenement?One touch may send a shudder through the heapAnd bring it toppling on our children's heads!Moreover, if ours breed a qualm in thee,Give thine own better feeling play for once!Thou, whose own life winks o'er the socket-edge,Wouldst thou it went out in such ugly snuffAs dooming sons dead, e'en though justice prompt?Why, on a certain feast, Barabbas' selfWas set free, not to cloud the general cheer:Neither shalt thou pollute thy Sabbath close!Mercy is safe and graceful. How one hearsThe howl begin, scarce the three little tapsO' the silver mallet silent on thy brow,—'His last act was to sacrifice a CountAnd thereby screen a scandal of the Church!Guido condemned, the Canon justifiedOf course,—delinquents of his cloth go free!'And so the Luthers chuckle, Calvins scowl,So thy hand helps Molinos to the chairWhence he may hold forth till doom's day on justThesepetit-maîtrepriestlings,—in the choir,Sanctus et Benedictus, with a brushOf soft guitar-strings that obey the thumb,Touched by the bedside, for accompaniment!Does this give umbrage to a husband? DeathTo the fool, and to the priest impunity!But no impunity to any friendSo simply over-loyal as these fourWho made religion of their patron's cause,Believed in him and did his bidding straight,Asked not one question but laid down the livesThis Pope took,—all four lives together makeJust his own length of days,—so, dead they lie,As these were times when loyalty 's a drug,And zeal in a subordinate too cheapAnd common to be saved when we spend life!Come, 't is too much good breath we waste in words:The pardon, Holy Father! Spare grimace,Shrugs and reluctance! Are not we the world,Art not thou Priam? let soft culture pleadHecuba-like, 'non tali' (Virgil serves)'Auxilio,' and the rest! Enough, it works!The Pope relaxes, and the Prince is loth,The father's bowels yearn, the man's will bends,Reply is apt. Our tears on tremble, heartsBig with a benediction, wait the wordShall circulate through the city in a trice,Set every window flaring, give each manO' the mob his torch to wave for gratitude.Pronounce then, for our breath and patience fail!"I will, Sirs: but a voice other than yoursQuickens my spirit. "Quis pro Domino?Who is upon the Lord's side?" asked the Count.I, who write—"On receipt of this command,Acquaint Count Guido and his fellows fourThey die to-morrow: could it be to-night,The better, but the work to do, takes time.Set with all diligence a scaffold up,Not in the customary place, by BridgeSaint Angelo, where die the common sort;But since the man is noble, and his peersBy predilection haunt the People's Square,There let him be beheaded in the midst,And his companions hanged on either side:So shall the quality see, fear, and learn.All which work takes time: till to-morrow, then,Let there be prayer incessant for the five!"For the main criminal I have no hopeExcept in such a suddenness of fate.I stood at Naples once, a night so darkI could have scarce conjectured there was earthAnywhere, sky or sea or world at all:But the night's black was burst through by a blaze—Thunder struck blow on blow, earth groaned and bore,Through her whole length of mountain visible:There lay the city thick and plain with spires,And, like a ghost disshrouded, white the sea.So may the truth be flashed out by one blow,And Guido see, one instant, and be saved.Else I avert my face, nor follow himInto that sad obscure sequestered stateWhere God unmakes but to remake the soulHe else made first in vain; which must not be.Enough, for I may die this very night:And how should I dare die, this man let live?Carry this forthwith to the Governor!
And is this little all that was to be?Where is the gloriously-decisive change,Metamorphosis the immeasurableOf human clay to divine gold, we lookedShould, in some poor sort, justify its price?Had an adept of the mere Rosy CrossSpent his life to consummate the Great Work,Would not we start to see the stuff it touchedYield not a grain more than the vulgar gotBy the old smelting-process years ago?If this were sad to see in just the sageWho should profess so much, perform no more,What is it when suspected in that PowerWho undertook to make and made the world,Devised and did effect man, body and soul,Ordained salvation for them both, and yet ...Well, is the thing we see, salvation?
And is this little all that was to be?
Where is the gloriously-decisive change,
Metamorphosis the immeasurable
Of human clay to divine gold, we looked
Should, in some poor sort, justify its price?
Had an adept of the mere Rosy Cross
Spent his life to consummate the Great Work,
Would not we start to see the stuff it touched
Yield not a grain more than the vulgar got
By the old smelting-process years ago?
If this were sad to see in just the sage
Who should profess so much, perform no more,
What is it when suspected in that Power
Who undertook to make and made the world,
Devised and did effect man, body and soul,
Ordained salvation for them both, and yet ...
Well, is the thing we see, salvation?
IPut no such dreadful question to myself,Within whose circle of experience burnsThe central truth, Power, Wisdom, Goodness,—God:I must outlive a thing ere know it dead:When I outlive the faith there is a sun,When I lie, ashes to the very soul,—Some one, not I, must wail above the heap,"He died in dark whence never morn arose."While I see day succeed the deepest night—How can I speak but as I know?—my speechMust be, throughout the darkness, "It will end:The light that did burn, will burn!" Clouds obscure—But for which obscuration all were bright?Too hastily concluded! Sun-suffused,A cloud may soothe the eye made blind by blaze,—Better the very clarity of heaven:The soft streaks are the beautiful and dear.What but the weakness in a faith suppliesThe incentive to humanity, no strengthAbsolute, irresistible, comports?How can man love but what he yearns to help?And that which men think weakness within strength,But angels know for strength and stronger yet—What were it else but the first things made new,But repetition of the miracle,The divine instance of self-sacrificeThat never ends and aye begins for man?So, never I miss footing in the maze,No,—I have light nor fear the dark at all.
I
Put no such dreadful question to myself,
Within whose circle of experience burns
The central truth, Power, Wisdom, Goodness,—God:
I must outlive a thing ere know it dead:
When I outlive the faith there is a sun,
When I lie, ashes to the very soul,—
Some one, not I, must wail above the heap,
"He died in dark whence never morn arose."
While I see day succeed the deepest night—
How can I speak but as I know?—my speech
Must be, throughout the darkness, "It will end:
The light that did burn, will burn!" Clouds obscure—
But for which obscuration all were bright?
Too hastily concluded! Sun-suffused,
A cloud may soothe the eye made blind by blaze,—
Better the very clarity of heaven:
The soft streaks are the beautiful and dear.
What but the weakness in a faith supplies
The incentive to humanity, no strength
Absolute, irresistible, comports?
How can man love but what he yearns to help?
And that which men think weakness within strength,
But angels know for strength and stronger yet—
What were it else but the first things made new,
But repetition of the miracle,
The divine instance of self-sacrifice
That never ends and aye begins for man?
So, never I miss footing in the maze,
No,—I have light nor fear the dark at all.
But are mankind not real, who pace outsideMy petty circle, world that 's measured me?And when they stumble even as I stand,Have I a right to stop ear when they cry,As they were phantoms who took clouds for crags,Tripped and fell, where man's march might safely move?Beside, the cry is other than a ghost's,When out of the old time there pleads some bard,Philosopher, or both, and—whispers not.But words it boldly. "The inward work and worthOf any mind, what other mind may judgeSave God who only knows the thing he made,The veritable service he exacts?It is the outward product men appraise.Behold, an engine hoists a tower aloft:'I looked that it should move the mountain too!'Or else 'Had just a turret toppled down,Success enough!'—may say the MachinistWho knows what less or more result might be:But we, who see that done we cannot do,'A feat beyond man's force,' we men must say.Regard me and that shake I gave the world!I was born, not so long before Christ's birthAs Christ's birth haply did precede thy day,—But many a watch before the star of dawn:Therefore I lived,—it is thy creed affirms,Pope Innocent, who art to answer me!—Under conditions, nowise to escape,Whereby salvation was impossible.Each impulse to achieve the good and fair,Each aspiration to the pure and true,Being without a warrant or an aim,Was just as sterile a felicityAs if the insect, born to spend his lifeSoaring his circles, stopped them to describe(Painfully motionless in the mid-air)Some word of weighty counsel for man's sake,Some 'Know thyself' or 'Take the golden mean!'—Forwent his happy dance and the glad ray,Died half an hour the sooner and was dust.I, born to perish like the brutes, or worse,Why not live brutishly, obey brutes' law?But I, of body as of soul complete,A gymnast at the games, philosopherI' the schools, who painted, and made music,—allGlories that met upon the tragic stageWhen the Third Poet's tread surprised the Two,—Whose lot fell in a land where life was greatAnd sense went free and beauty lay profuse,I, untouched by one adverse circumstance,Adopted virtue as my rule of life,Waived all reward, loved but for loving's sake,And, what my heart taught me, I taught the world,And have been teaching now two thousand years.Witness my work,—plays that should please, forsooth!'They might please, they may displease, they shall teach,For truth's sake,' so I said, and did, and do.Five hundred years ere Paul spoke, Felix heard,—How much of temperance and righteousness,Judgment to come, did I find reason for,Corroborate with my strong style that sparedNo sin, nor swerved the more from branding browBecause the sinner was called Zeus and God?How nearly did I guess at that Paul knew?How closely come, in what I representAs duty, to his doctrine yet a blank?And as that limner not untruly limnsWho draws an object round or square, which squareOr round seems to the unassisted eye,Though Galileo's tube display the sameOval or oblong,—so, who controvertsI rendered rightly what proves wrongly wroughtBeside Paul's picture? Mine was true for me.I saw that there are, first and above all,The hidden forces, blind necessities,Named Nature, but the thing's self unconceived:Then follow—how dependent upon these,We know not, how imposed above ourselves,We well know—what I name the gods, a powerVarious or one: for great and strong and goodIs there, and little, weak and bad there too,Wisdom and folly: say, these make no God,—What is it else that rules outside man's self?A fact then,—always, to the naked eye,—And so, the one revealment possibleOf what were unimagined else by man.Therefore, what gods do, man may criticise,Applaud, condemn,—how should he fear the truth?—But likewise have in awe because of power,Venerate for the main munificence,And give the doubtful deed its due excuseFrom the acknowledged creature of a dayTo the Eternal and Divine. Thus, boldYet self-mistrusting, should man bear himself,Most assured on what now concerns him most—The law of his own life, the path he prints,—Which law is virtue and not vice, I say,—And least inquisitive where search least skills,I' the nature we best give the clouds to keep.What could I paint beyond a scheme like thisOut of the fragmentary truths where lightLay fitful in a tenebrific time?You have the sunrise now, joins truth to truth,Shoots life and substance into death and void;Themselves compose the whole we made before:The forces and necessity grow God,—The beings so contrarious that seemed gods,Prove just his operation manifoldAnd multiform, translated, as must be,Into intelligible shape so farAs suits our sense and sets us free to feel.What if I let a child think, childhood-long,That lightning, I would have him spare his eye,Is a real arrow shot at naked orb?The man knows more, but shuts his lids the same:Lightning's cause comprehends nor man nor child.Why then, my scheme, your better knowledge broke,Presently readjusts itself, the smallProportioned largelier, parts and whole named new:So much, no more two thousand years have done!Pope, dost thou dare pretend to punish me,For not descrying sunshine at midnight,Me who crept all-fours, found my way so far—While thou rewardest teachers of the truth,Who miss the plain way in the blaze of noon,—Though just a word from that strong style of mine,Grasped honestly in hand as guiding-staff,Had pricked them a sure path across the bog,That mire of cowardice and slush of liesWherein I find them wallow in wide day!"
But are mankind not real, who pace outside
My petty circle, world that 's measured me?
And when they stumble even as I stand,
Have I a right to stop ear when they cry,
As they were phantoms who took clouds for crags,
Tripped and fell, where man's march might safely move?
Beside, the cry is other than a ghost's,
When out of the old time there pleads some bard,
Philosopher, or both, and—whispers not.
But words it boldly. "The inward work and worth
Of any mind, what other mind may judge
Save God who only knows the thing he made,
The veritable service he exacts?
It is the outward product men appraise.
Behold, an engine hoists a tower aloft:
'I looked that it should move the mountain too!'
Or else 'Had just a turret toppled down,
Success enough!'—may say the Machinist
Who knows what less or more result might be:
But we, who see that done we cannot do,
'A feat beyond man's force,' we men must say.
Regard me and that shake I gave the world!
I was born, not so long before Christ's birth
As Christ's birth haply did precede thy day,—
But many a watch before the star of dawn:
Therefore I lived,—it is thy creed affirms,
Pope Innocent, who art to answer me!—
Under conditions, nowise to escape,
Whereby salvation was impossible.
Each impulse to achieve the good and fair,
Each aspiration to the pure and true,
Being without a warrant or an aim,
Was just as sterile a felicity
As if the insect, born to spend his life
Soaring his circles, stopped them to describe
(Painfully motionless in the mid-air)
Some word of weighty counsel for man's sake,
Some 'Know thyself' or 'Take the golden mean!'
—Forwent his happy dance and the glad ray,
Died half an hour the sooner and was dust.
I, born to perish like the brutes, or worse,
Why not live brutishly, obey brutes' law?
But I, of body as of soul complete,
A gymnast at the games, philosopher
I' the schools, who painted, and made music,—all
Glories that met upon the tragic stage
When the Third Poet's tread surprised the Two,—
Whose lot fell in a land where life was great
And sense went free and beauty lay profuse,
I, untouched by one adverse circumstance,
Adopted virtue as my rule of life,
Waived all reward, loved but for loving's sake,
And, what my heart taught me, I taught the world,
And have been teaching now two thousand years.
Witness my work,—plays that should please, forsooth!
'They might please, they may displease, they shall teach,
For truth's sake,' so I said, and did, and do.
Five hundred years ere Paul spoke, Felix heard,—
How much of temperance and righteousness,
Judgment to come, did I find reason for,
Corroborate with my strong style that spared
No sin, nor swerved the more from branding brow
Because the sinner was called Zeus and God?
How nearly did I guess at that Paul knew?
How closely come, in what I represent
As duty, to his doctrine yet a blank?
And as that limner not untruly limns
Who draws an object round or square, which square
Or round seems to the unassisted eye,
Though Galileo's tube display the same
Oval or oblong,—so, who controverts
I rendered rightly what proves wrongly wrought
Beside Paul's picture? Mine was true for me.
I saw that there are, first and above all,
The hidden forces, blind necessities,
Named Nature, but the thing's self unconceived:
Then follow—how dependent upon these,
We know not, how imposed above ourselves,
We well know—what I name the gods, a power
Various or one: for great and strong and good
Is there, and little, weak and bad there too,
Wisdom and folly: say, these make no God,—
What is it else that rules outside man's self?
A fact then,—always, to the naked eye,—
And so, the one revealment possible
Of what were unimagined else by man.
Therefore, what gods do, man may criticise,
Applaud, condemn,—how should he fear the truth?—
But likewise have in awe because of power,
Venerate for the main munificence,
And give the doubtful deed its due excuse
From the acknowledged creature of a day
To the Eternal and Divine. Thus, bold
Yet self-mistrusting, should man bear himself,
Most assured on what now concerns him most—
The law of his own life, the path he prints,—
Which law is virtue and not vice, I say,—
And least inquisitive where search least skills,
I' the nature we best give the clouds to keep.
What could I paint beyond a scheme like this
Out of the fragmentary truths where light
Lay fitful in a tenebrific time?
You have the sunrise now, joins truth to truth,
Shoots life and substance into death and void;
Themselves compose the whole we made before:
The forces and necessity grow God,—
The beings so contrarious that seemed gods,
Prove just his operation manifold
And multiform, translated, as must be,
Into intelligible shape so far
As suits our sense and sets us free to feel.
What if I let a child think, childhood-long,
That lightning, I would have him spare his eye,
Is a real arrow shot at naked orb?
The man knows more, but shuts his lids the same:
Lightning's cause comprehends nor man nor child.
Why then, my scheme, your better knowledge broke,
Presently readjusts itself, the small
Proportioned largelier, parts and whole named new:
So much, no more two thousand years have done!
Pope, dost thou dare pretend to punish me,
For not descrying sunshine at midnight,
Me who crept all-fours, found my way so far—
While thou rewardest teachers of the truth,
Who miss the plain way in the blaze of noon,—
Though just a word from that strong style of mine,
Grasped honestly in hand as guiding-staff,
Had pricked them a sure path across the bog,
That mire of cowardice and slush of lies
Wherein I find them wallow in wide day!"
How should I answer this Euripides?Paul—'t is a legend—answered Seneca,But that was in the day-spring; noon is now,We have got too familiar with the light.Shall I wish back once more that thrill of dawn?When the whole truth-touched man burned up, one fire?—Assured the trial, fiery, fierce, but fleet,Would, from his little heap of ashes, lendWings to that conflagration of the worldWhich Christ awaits ere he makes all things new:So should the frail become the perfect, raptFrom glory of pain to glory of joy; and so,Even in the end,—the act renouncing earth,Lands, houses, husbands, wives and children here,—Begin that other act which finds all, lost,Regained, in this time even, a hundredfold,And, in the next time, feels the finite loveBlent and embalmed with the eternal life.So does the sun ghastlily seem to sinkIn those north parts, lean all but out of life,Desist a dread mere breathing-stop, then slowRe-assert day, begin the endless rise.Was this too easy for our after-stage?Was such a lighting-up of faith, in life,Only allowed initiate, set man's stepIn the true way by help of the great glow?A way wherein it is ordained he walk,Bearing to see the light from heaven still moreAnd more encroached on by the light of earth,Tentatives earth puts forth to rival heaven,Earthly incitements that mankind serve GodFor man's sole sake, not God's and therefore man's.Till at last, who distinguishes the sunFrom a mere Druid fire on a far mount?More praise to him who with his subtle prismShall decompose both beams and name the true.In such sense, who is last proves first indeed;For how could saints and martyrs fail see truthStreak the night's blackness? Who is faithful now,Who untwists heaven's white from the yellow flareO' the world's gross torch, without night's foil that helpedProduce the Christian act so possibleWhen in the way stood Nero's cross and stake—So hard now when the world smiles "Right and wise!Faith points the politic, the thrifty way.Will make who plods it in the end returnsBeyond mere fool's-sport and improvidence.We fools dance through the cornfield of this life,Pluck ears to left and right and swallow raw,—Nay, tread, at pleasure, a sheaf underfoot,To get the better at some poppy-flower,—Well aware we shall have so much less wheatIn the eventual harvest: you meantimeWaste not a spike,—the richlier will you reap!What then? There will be always garnered mealSufficient for our comfortable loaf,While you enjoy the undiminished sack!"Is it not this ignoble confidence,Cowardly hardihood, that dulls and damps,Makes the old heroism impossible?
How should I answer this Euripides?
Paul—'t is a legend—answered Seneca,
But that was in the day-spring; noon is now,
We have got too familiar with the light.
Shall I wish back once more that thrill of dawn?
When the whole truth-touched man burned up, one fire?
—Assured the trial, fiery, fierce, but fleet,
Would, from his little heap of ashes, lend
Wings to that conflagration of the world
Which Christ awaits ere he makes all things new:
So should the frail become the perfect, rapt
From glory of pain to glory of joy; and so,
Even in the end,—the act renouncing earth,
Lands, houses, husbands, wives and children here,—
Begin that other act which finds all, lost,
Regained, in this time even, a hundredfold,
And, in the next time, feels the finite love
Blent and embalmed with the eternal life.
So does the sun ghastlily seem to sink
In those north parts, lean all but out of life,
Desist a dread mere breathing-stop, then slow
Re-assert day, begin the endless rise.
Was this too easy for our after-stage?
Was such a lighting-up of faith, in life,
Only allowed initiate, set man's step
In the true way by help of the great glow?
A way wherein it is ordained he walk,
Bearing to see the light from heaven still more
And more encroached on by the light of earth,
Tentatives earth puts forth to rival heaven,
Earthly incitements that mankind serve God
For man's sole sake, not God's and therefore man's.
Till at last, who distinguishes the sun
From a mere Druid fire on a far mount?
More praise to him who with his subtle prism
Shall decompose both beams and name the true.
In such sense, who is last proves first indeed;
For how could saints and martyrs fail see truth
Streak the night's blackness? Who is faithful now,
Who untwists heaven's white from the yellow flare
O' the world's gross torch, without night's foil that helped
Produce the Christian act so possible
When in the way stood Nero's cross and stake—
So hard now when the world smiles "Right and wise!
Faith points the politic, the thrifty way.
Will make who plods it in the end returns
Beyond mere fool's-sport and improvidence.
We fools dance through the cornfield of this life,
Pluck ears to left and right and swallow raw,
—Nay, tread, at pleasure, a sheaf underfoot,
To get the better at some poppy-flower,—
Well aware we shall have so much less wheat
In the eventual harvest: you meantime
Waste not a spike,—the richlier will you reap!
What then? There will be always garnered meal
Sufficient for our comfortable loaf,
While you enjoy the undiminished sack!"
Is it not this ignoble confidence,
Cowardly hardihood, that dulls and damps,
Makes the old heroism impossible?
Unless ... what whispers me of times to come?What if it be the mission of that ageMy death will usher into life, to shakeThis torpor of assurance from our creed,Reintroduce the doubt discarded, bringThat formidable danger back, we droveLong ago to the distance and the dark?No wild beast now prowls round the infant camp:We have built wall and sleep in city safe:But if some earthquake try the towers that laugh,To think they once saw lions rule outside,And man stand out again, pale, resolute,Prepared to die,—which means, alive at last?As we broke up that old faith of the world,Have we, next age, to break up this the new—Faith, in the thing, grown faith in the report—Whence need to bravely disbelieve reportThrough increased faith i' the thing reports belie?Must we deny,—do they, these Molinists,At peril of their body and their soul,—Recognized truths, obedient to some truthUnrecognized yet, but perceptible?—Correct the portrait by the living face,Man's God, by God's God in the mind of man?Then, for the few that rise to the new height,The many that must sink to the old depth,The multitude found fall away! A few,E'en ere new law speak clear, may keep the old,Preserve the Christian level, call good goodAnd evil evil, (even though razed and blankThe old titles,) helped by custom, habitude,And all else they mistake for finer senseO' the fact that reason warrants,—as before.They hope perhaps, fear not impossibly,At least some one Pompilia left the worldWill say "I know the right place by foot's feel,I took it and tread firm there; wherefore change?"But what a multitude will surely fallQuite through the crumbling truth, late subjacent,Sink to the next discoverable base,Rest upon human nature, settle thereOn what is firm, the lust and pride of life!A mass of men, whose very souls even nowSeem to need re-creating,—so they slinkWorm-like into the mud, light now lays bare,—Whose future we dispose of with shut eyesAnd whisper—"They are grafted, barren twigs,Into the living stock of Christ: may bearOne day, till when they lie death-like, not dead,"—Those who with all the aid of Christ succumb,How, without Christ, shall they, unaided, sink?Whither but to this gulf before my eyes?Do not we end, the century and I?The impatient antimasque treads close on kibeO' the very masque's self it will mock,—on me,Last lingering personage, the impatient mimePushes already,—will I block the way?Will my slow trail of garments ne'er leave spaceFor pantaloon, sock, plume and castanet?Here comes the first experimentalistIn the new order of things,—he plays a priest;Does he take inspiration from the Church,Directly make her rule his law of life?Not he: his own mere impulse guides the man—Happily sometimes, since ourselves allowHe has danced, in gayety of heart, i' the mainThe right step through the maze we bade him foot.But if his heart had prompted him break looseAnd mar the measure? Why, we must submit,And thank the chance that brought him safe so far.Will he repeat the prodigy? Perhaps.Can he teach others how to quit themselves,Show why this step was right while that were wrong?How should he? "Ask your hearts as I asked mine,And get discreetly through the morrice too;If your hearts misdirect you,—quit the stage,And make amends,—be there amends to make!"Such is, for the Augustin that was once,This Canon Caponsacchi we see now."But my heart answers to another tune,"Puts in the Abate, second in the suite;"I have my taste too, and tread no such step!You choose the glorious life, and may, for me!I like the lowest of life's appetites,—So you judge,—but the very truth of joyTo my own apprehension which decides.Call me knave and you get yourself called fool!I live for greed, ambition, lust, revenge;Attain these ends by force, guile: hypocrite,To-day perchance to-morrow recognizedThe rational man, the type of common sense."There 's Loyola adapted to our time!Under such guidance Guido plays his part,He also influencing in the due turnThese last clods where I track intelligenceBy any glimmer, these four at his beckReady to murder any, and, at their own,As ready to murder him;—such make the world!And, first effect of the new cause of things,There they lie also duly,—the old pairOf the weak head and not so wicked heart,With the one Christian mother, wife and girl,—Which three gifts seem to make an angel up,—The world's first foot o' the dance is on their heads!Still, I stand here, not off the stage though closeOn the exit: and my last act, as my first,I owe the scene, and Him who armed me thusWith Paul's sword as with Peter's key. I smiteWith my whole strength once more, ere end my part,Ending, so far as man may, this offence.And when I raise my arm, who plucks my sleeve?Who stops me in the righteous function,—foeOr friend? Oh, still as ever, friends are theyWho, in the interest of outraged truthDeprecate such rough handling of a lie!The facts being proved and incontestable,What is the last word I must listen to?Perchance—"Spare yet a term this barren stock,We pray thee dig about and dung and dressTill he repent and bring forth fruit even yet!"Perchance—"So poor and swift a punishmentShall throw him out of life with all that sin:Let mercy rather pile up pain on painTill the flesh expiate what the soul pays else!"Nowise! Remonstrants on each side commenceInstructing, there 's a new tribunal nowHigher than God's—the educated man's!Nice sense of honor in the human breastSupersedes here the old coarse oracle—Confirming none the less a point or soWherein blind predecessors worked arightBy rule of thumb: as when Christ said,—when, where?Enough, I find it pleaded in a place,—"All other wrongs done, patiently I take:But touch my honor and the case is changed!I feel the due resentment,—neminiHonorem tradois my quick retort."Right of Him, just as if pronounced to-day!Still, should the old authority be muteOr doubtful, or in speaking clash with new,The younger takes permission to decide.At last we have the instinct of the worldRuling its household without tutelage:And while the two laws, human and divine,Have busied finger with this tangled case,In pushes the brisk junior, cuts the knot,Pronounces for acquittal. How it tripsSilverly o'er the tongue! "Remit the death!Forgive, ... well, in the old way, if thou please,Decency and the relies of routineRespected,—let the Count go free as air!Since he may plead a priest's immunity,—The minor orders help enough for that,With Farinacci's license,—who decidesThat the mere implication of such man,So privileged, in any cause, beforeWhatever Court except the Spiritual,Straight quashes law-procedure,—quash it, then!Remains a pretty loophole of escapeMoreover, that, beside the patent factO' the law's allowance, there 's involved the wealO' the Popedom: a son's privilege at stake,Thou wilt pretend the Church's interest,Ignore all finer reasons to forgive!But herein lies the crowning cogency—(Let thy friends teach thee while thou tellest beads)That in this case the spirit of culture speaks,Civilization is imperative.To her shall we remand all delicate pointsHenceforth, nor take irregular adviceO' the sly, as heretofore: she used to hintRemonstrances, when law was out of sortsBecause a saucy tongue was put to rest,An eye that roved was cured of arrogance:But why be forced to mumble under breathWhat soon shall be acknowledged as plain fact,Outspoken, say, in thy successor's time?Methinks we see the golden age return!Civilization and the EmperorSucceed to Christianity and Pope.One Emperor then, as one Pope now: meanwhile,Anticipate a little! We tell thee 'TakeGuido's life, sapped society shall crash,Whereof the main prop was, is, and shall be—Supremacy of husband over wife!'Does the man rule i' the house, and may his mateBecause of any plea dispute the same?Oh, pleas of all sorts shall abound, be sure,One but allowed validity,—for, harshAnd savage, for, inept and silly-sooth,For, this and that, will the ingenious sexDemonstrate the best master e'er graced slave:And there 's but one short way to end the coil,—Acknowledge right and reason steadilyI' the man and master: then the wife submitsTo plain truth broadly stated. Does the timeAdvise we shift—a pillar? nay, a stakeOut of its place i' the social tenement?One touch may send a shudder through the heapAnd bring it toppling on our children's heads!Moreover, if ours breed a qualm in thee,Give thine own better feeling play for once!Thou, whose own life winks o'er the socket-edge,Wouldst thou it went out in such ugly snuffAs dooming sons dead, e'en though justice prompt?Why, on a certain feast, Barabbas' selfWas set free, not to cloud the general cheer:Neither shalt thou pollute thy Sabbath close!Mercy is safe and graceful. How one hearsThe howl begin, scarce the three little tapsO' the silver mallet silent on thy brow,—'His last act was to sacrifice a CountAnd thereby screen a scandal of the Church!Guido condemned, the Canon justifiedOf course,—delinquents of his cloth go free!'And so the Luthers chuckle, Calvins scowl,So thy hand helps Molinos to the chairWhence he may hold forth till doom's day on justThesepetit-maîtrepriestlings,—in the choir,Sanctus et Benedictus, with a brushOf soft guitar-strings that obey the thumb,Touched by the bedside, for accompaniment!Does this give umbrage to a husband? DeathTo the fool, and to the priest impunity!But no impunity to any friendSo simply over-loyal as these fourWho made religion of their patron's cause,Believed in him and did his bidding straight,Asked not one question but laid down the livesThis Pope took,—all four lives together makeJust his own length of days,—so, dead they lie,As these were times when loyalty 's a drug,And zeal in a subordinate too cheapAnd common to be saved when we spend life!Come, 't is too much good breath we waste in words:The pardon, Holy Father! Spare grimace,Shrugs and reluctance! Are not we the world,Art not thou Priam? let soft culture pleadHecuba-like, 'non tali' (Virgil serves)'Auxilio,' and the rest! Enough, it works!The Pope relaxes, and the Prince is loth,The father's bowels yearn, the man's will bends,Reply is apt. Our tears on tremble, heartsBig with a benediction, wait the wordShall circulate through the city in a trice,Set every window flaring, give each manO' the mob his torch to wave for gratitude.Pronounce then, for our breath and patience fail!"
Unless ... what whispers me of times to come?
What if it be the mission of that age
My death will usher into life, to shake
This torpor of assurance from our creed,
Reintroduce the doubt discarded, bring
That formidable danger back, we drove
Long ago to the distance and the dark?
No wild beast now prowls round the infant camp:
We have built wall and sleep in city safe:
But if some earthquake try the towers that laugh,
To think they once saw lions rule outside,
And man stand out again, pale, resolute,
Prepared to die,—which means, alive at last?
As we broke up that old faith of the world,
Have we, next age, to break up this the new—
Faith, in the thing, grown faith in the report—
Whence need to bravely disbelieve report
Through increased faith i' the thing reports belie?
Must we deny,—do they, these Molinists,
At peril of their body and their soul,—
Recognized truths, obedient to some truth
Unrecognized yet, but perceptible?—
Correct the portrait by the living face,
Man's God, by God's God in the mind of man?
Then, for the few that rise to the new height,
The many that must sink to the old depth,
The multitude found fall away! A few,
E'en ere new law speak clear, may keep the old,
Preserve the Christian level, call good good
And evil evil, (even though razed and blank
The old titles,) helped by custom, habitude,
And all else they mistake for finer sense
O' the fact that reason warrants,—as before.
They hope perhaps, fear not impossibly,
At least some one Pompilia left the world
Will say "I know the right place by foot's feel,
I took it and tread firm there; wherefore change?"
But what a multitude will surely fall
Quite through the crumbling truth, late subjacent,
Sink to the next discoverable base,
Rest upon human nature, settle there
On what is firm, the lust and pride of life!
A mass of men, whose very souls even now
Seem to need re-creating,—so they slink
Worm-like into the mud, light now lays bare,—
Whose future we dispose of with shut eyes
And whisper—"They are grafted, barren twigs,
Into the living stock of Christ: may bear
One day, till when they lie death-like, not dead,"—
Those who with all the aid of Christ succumb,
How, without Christ, shall they, unaided, sink?
Whither but to this gulf before my eyes?
Do not we end, the century and I?
The impatient antimasque treads close on kibe
O' the very masque's self it will mock,—on me,
Last lingering personage, the impatient mime
Pushes already,—will I block the way?
Will my slow trail of garments ne'er leave space
For pantaloon, sock, plume and castanet?
Here comes the first experimentalist
In the new order of things,—he plays a priest;
Does he take inspiration from the Church,
Directly make her rule his law of life?
Not he: his own mere impulse guides the man—
Happily sometimes, since ourselves allow
He has danced, in gayety of heart, i' the main
The right step through the maze we bade him foot.
But if his heart had prompted him break loose
And mar the measure? Why, we must submit,
And thank the chance that brought him safe so far.
Will he repeat the prodigy? Perhaps.
Can he teach others how to quit themselves,
Show why this step was right while that were wrong?
How should he? "Ask your hearts as I asked mine,
And get discreetly through the morrice too;
If your hearts misdirect you,—quit the stage,
And make amends,—be there amends to make!"
Such is, for the Augustin that was once,
This Canon Caponsacchi we see now.
"But my heart answers to another tune,"
Puts in the Abate, second in the suite;
"I have my taste too, and tread no such step!
You choose the glorious life, and may, for me!
I like the lowest of life's appetites,—
So you judge,—but the very truth of joy
To my own apprehension which decides.
Call me knave and you get yourself called fool!
I live for greed, ambition, lust, revenge;
Attain these ends by force, guile: hypocrite,
To-day perchance to-morrow recognized
The rational man, the type of common sense."
There 's Loyola adapted to our time!
Under such guidance Guido plays his part,
He also influencing in the due turn
These last clods where I track intelligence
By any glimmer, these four at his beck
Ready to murder any, and, at their own,
As ready to murder him;—such make the world!
And, first effect of the new cause of things,
There they lie also duly,—the old pair
Of the weak head and not so wicked heart,
With the one Christian mother, wife and girl,
—Which three gifts seem to make an angel up,—
The world's first foot o' the dance is on their heads!
Still, I stand here, not off the stage though close
On the exit: and my last act, as my first,
I owe the scene, and Him who armed me thus
With Paul's sword as with Peter's key. I smite
With my whole strength once more, ere end my part,
Ending, so far as man may, this offence.
And when I raise my arm, who plucks my sleeve?
Who stops me in the righteous function,—foe
Or friend? Oh, still as ever, friends are they
Who, in the interest of outraged truth
Deprecate such rough handling of a lie!
The facts being proved and incontestable,
What is the last word I must listen to?
Perchance—"Spare yet a term this barren stock,
We pray thee dig about and dung and dress
Till he repent and bring forth fruit even yet!"
Perchance—"So poor and swift a punishment
Shall throw him out of life with all that sin:
Let mercy rather pile up pain on pain
Till the flesh expiate what the soul pays else!"
Nowise! Remonstrants on each side commence
Instructing, there 's a new tribunal now
Higher than God's—the educated man's!
Nice sense of honor in the human breast
Supersedes here the old coarse oracle—
Confirming none the less a point or so
Wherein blind predecessors worked aright
By rule of thumb: as when Christ said,—when, where?
Enough, I find it pleaded in a place,—
"All other wrongs done, patiently I take:
But touch my honor and the case is changed!
I feel the due resentment,—nemini
Honorem tradois my quick retort."
Right of Him, just as if pronounced to-day!
Still, should the old authority be mute
Or doubtful, or in speaking clash with new,
The younger takes permission to decide.
At last we have the instinct of the world
Ruling its household without tutelage:
And while the two laws, human and divine,
Have busied finger with this tangled case,
In pushes the brisk junior, cuts the knot,
Pronounces for acquittal. How it trips
Silverly o'er the tongue! "Remit the death!
Forgive, ... well, in the old way, if thou please,
Decency and the relies of routine
Respected,—let the Count go free as air!
Since he may plead a priest's immunity,—
The minor orders help enough for that,
With Farinacci's license,—who decides
That the mere implication of such man,
So privileged, in any cause, before
Whatever Court except the Spiritual,
Straight quashes law-procedure,—quash it, then!
Remains a pretty loophole of escape
Moreover, that, beside the patent fact
O' the law's allowance, there 's involved the weal
O' the Popedom: a son's privilege at stake,
Thou wilt pretend the Church's interest,
Ignore all finer reasons to forgive!
But herein lies the crowning cogency—
(Let thy friends teach thee while thou tellest beads)
That in this case the spirit of culture speaks,
Civilization is imperative.
To her shall we remand all delicate points
Henceforth, nor take irregular advice
O' the sly, as heretofore: she used to hint
Remonstrances, when law was out of sorts
Because a saucy tongue was put to rest,
An eye that roved was cured of arrogance:
But why be forced to mumble under breath
What soon shall be acknowledged as plain fact,
Outspoken, say, in thy successor's time?
Methinks we see the golden age return!
Civilization and the Emperor
Succeed to Christianity and Pope.
One Emperor then, as one Pope now: meanwhile,
Anticipate a little! We tell thee 'Take
Guido's life, sapped society shall crash,
Whereof the main prop was, is, and shall be
—Supremacy of husband over wife!'
Does the man rule i' the house, and may his mate
Because of any plea dispute the same?
Oh, pleas of all sorts shall abound, be sure,
One but allowed validity,—for, harsh
And savage, for, inept and silly-sooth,
For, this and that, will the ingenious sex
Demonstrate the best master e'er graced slave:
And there 's but one short way to end the coil,—
Acknowledge right and reason steadily
I' the man and master: then the wife submits
To plain truth broadly stated. Does the time
Advise we shift—a pillar? nay, a stake
Out of its place i' the social tenement?
One touch may send a shudder through the heap
And bring it toppling on our children's heads!
Moreover, if ours breed a qualm in thee,
Give thine own better feeling play for once!
Thou, whose own life winks o'er the socket-edge,
Wouldst thou it went out in such ugly snuff
As dooming sons dead, e'en though justice prompt?
Why, on a certain feast, Barabbas' self
Was set free, not to cloud the general cheer:
Neither shalt thou pollute thy Sabbath close!
Mercy is safe and graceful. How one hears
The howl begin, scarce the three little taps
O' the silver mallet silent on thy brow,—
'His last act was to sacrifice a Count
And thereby screen a scandal of the Church!
Guido condemned, the Canon justified
Of course,—delinquents of his cloth go free!'
And so the Luthers chuckle, Calvins scowl,
So thy hand helps Molinos to the chair
Whence he may hold forth till doom's day on just
Thesepetit-maîtrepriestlings,—in the choir,
Sanctus et Benedictus, with a brush
Of soft guitar-strings that obey the thumb,
Touched by the bedside, for accompaniment!
Does this give umbrage to a husband? Death
To the fool, and to the priest impunity!
But no impunity to any friend
So simply over-loyal as these four
Who made religion of their patron's cause,
Believed in him and did his bidding straight,
Asked not one question but laid down the lives
This Pope took,—all four lives together make
Just his own length of days,—so, dead they lie,
As these were times when loyalty 's a drug,
And zeal in a subordinate too cheap
And common to be saved when we spend life!
Come, 't is too much good breath we waste in words:
The pardon, Holy Father! Spare grimace,
Shrugs and reluctance! Are not we the world,
Art not thou Priam? let soft culture plead
Hecuba-like, 'non tali' (Virgil serves)
'Auxilio,' and the rest! Enough, it works!
The Pope relaxes, and the Prince is loth,
The father's bowels yearn, the man's will bends,
Reply is apt. Our tears on tremble, hearts
Big with a benediction, wait the word
Shall circulate through the city in a trice,
Set every window flaring, give each man
O' the mob his torch to wave for gratitude.
Pronounce then, for our breath and patience fail!"
I will, Sirs: but a voice other than yoursQuickens my spirit. "Quis pro Domino?Who is upon the Lord's side?" asked the Count.I, who write—"On receipt of this command,Acquaint Count Guido and his fellows fourThey die to-morrow: could it be to-night,The better, but the work to do, takes time.Set with all diligence a scaffold up,Not in the customary place, by BridgeSaint Angelo, where die the common sort;But since the man is noble, and his peersBy predilection haunt the People's Square,There let him be beheaded in the midst,And his companions hanged on either side:So shall the quality see, fear, and learn.All which work takes time: till to-morrow, then,Let there be prayer incessant for the five!"
I will, Sirs: but a voice other than yours
Quickens my spirit. "Quis pro Domino?
Who is upon the Lord's side?" asked the Count.
I, who write—
"On receipt of this command,
Acquaint Count Guido and his fellows four
They die to-morrow: could it be to-night,
The better, but the work to do, takes time.
Set with all diligence a scaffold up,
Not in the customary place, by Bridge
Saint Angelo, where die the common sort;
But since the man is noble, and his peers
By predilection haunt the People's Square,
There let him be beheaded in the midst,
And his companions hanged on either side:
So shall the quality see, fear, and learn.
All which work takes time: till to-morrow, then,
Let there be prayer incessant for the five!"
For the main criminal I have no hopeExcept in such a suddenness of fate.I stood at Naples once, a night so darkI could have scarce conjectured there was earthAnywhere, sky or sea or world at all:But the night's black was burst through by a blaze—Thunder struck blow on blow, earth groaned and bore,Through her whole length of mountain visible:There lay the city thick and plain with spires,And, like a ghost disshrouded, white the sea.So may the truth be flashed out by one blow,And Guido see, one instant, and be saved.Else I avert my face, nor follow himInto that sad obscure sequestered stateWhere God unmakes but to remake the soulHe else made first in vain; which must not be.Enough, for I may die this very night:And how should I dare die, this man let live?
For the main criminal I have no hope
Except in such a suddenness of fate.
I stood at Naples once, a night so dark
I could have scarce conjectured there was earth
Anywhere, sky or sea or world at all:
But the night's black was burst through by a blaze—
Thunder struck blow on blow, earth groaned and bore,
Through her whole length of mountain visible:
There lay the city thick and plain with spires,
And, like a ghost disshrouded, white the sea.
So may the truth be flashed out by one blow,
And Guido see, one instant, and be saved.
Else I avert my face, nor follow him
Into that sad obscure sequestered state
Where God unmakes but to remake the soul
He else made first in vain; which must not be.
Enough, for I may die this very night:
And how should I dare die, this man let live?
Carry this forthwith to the Governor!
Carry this forthwith to the Governor!