And yet, and yet, the victor knew too wellHis victory had a relish of the dust.Even while the plaudits echoed in his ears,It troubled him. When he pondered it that night,A finer shame had touched him. He had usedThe weapons of his enemy at the last;And, if he had struck his enemy down for truth,He had struck him down with weapons he despised.He had used them with a swifter hand and eye,A subtler cunning; and he had set his heelOn those who took too simply to their heartsA tale, whose ancient imagery enshrinedA mystery that endured. He had proclaimedA fragment of a truth which, he knew well,Left the true Cause in darkness. Did he knowMore of that Cause thanGenesis? Could he seeFarther into that darkness than the childFolding its hands in prayer?More clearly farThan Darwin, whom he had warned of it, he knewThe bounds of this new law; bade him bewareOf his repeated dogma—Nature makesNo leap.He pointed always to the AbyssOf darkness round the flickering spark of lightUpheld by Science. Had Wilberforce been armedWith knowledge and the spiritual steelOf Saint Augustine, who had also seen,Even in his age, a ladder of life to heaven,There had been a victory of another kindTo lighten through the world.And Darwin knew it;But, while he marshalled his unnumbered truths,He lost the Truth; as one who takes commandOf multitudinous armies in the night,And strives to envisage, in one sweep of the mind,Each squadron and each regiment of the whole,Ever the host that swept through his mind’s eye,Though all in ordered ranks and files, obscuredArmy on army the infinite truth beyond.The gates of Beauty closed against his mind,And barred him out from that eternal realm,Whose lucid harmonies on our night bestowGlimpses of absolute knowledge from above;Unravelling and ennobling, making clearMuch that had baffled us, much that else was dark;So that the laws of Nature shine like roads,Firm roads that lead through a significant worldNot downward, from the greater to the less,But up to the consummate soul of all.He could not follow them now. Back, back and back,He groped along the dark diminishing road.The ecstasy of music died away.The poet’s vision melted into a dream.He knew his loss, and mourned it; but it marredNot only his own happiness, as he thought.It blurred his vision, even of his own truths.He looked long at the butterfly’s radiant wings,Pondered their blaze of colour, and believedThat butterfly wooers choosing their bright matesThrough centuries of attraction and desireEvolved this loveliness. For he only sawThe blaze of colour, the flash that lured the eye.He did not see the exquisite pattern there,The diamonded fans of the under-wing,Inlaid with intricate harmonies of design;The delicate little octagons of pearl,The moons like infinitesimal fairy flowers,The lozenges of gold, and grey, and blueAll ordered in an intellectual scheme,Where form to form responded and faint lightsEchoed faint lights, and shadowy fringes ranLike Elfin curtains on a silvery thread,Shadow replying to shadow through the whole.Did eyes of the butterfly wooer mark all this,—A subtlety too fine for half mankind?He tossed a shred of paper on to his lawn;He saw the white wings blindly fluttering round it.He did not hear the whisper of Shadow-of-a-Leaf,Was this their exquisite artistry of choice?Had wooers like these evolved this loveliness?He groped into the orchestral universeAs one who strives to trace a symphonyBack to its cause, and with laborious careFeels with his hand the wood of the violins,And bids you mark—O good, bleak, honest soul,So fearful of false hopes!—that all is hollow.He tells you on what tree the wood was grown.He plucks the catgut, tells you whence it came,Gives you the name and pedigree of the cat;Nay, even affirms a mystery, and will talkOf sundry dark vibrations that affectThe fleshly instrument of the human ear;And so, with a world-excluding accuracy—O, never doubt that every step was true!—Melts the great music into less than airAnd misses everything.Everything! On one sideThe music soaring endlessly through heavensWithin the human soul; on the other side,The unseen Composed of whose transcendent lifeThe music speaks in souls made still to hear.He clung to hisvera causa. In that lawHe saw the way of the Power, but not the PowerDetermining the way. Did men rejectThe laws of Newton, binding all the worlds,Because they still knew nothing of the PowerThat bound them? The stone fell. He knew not why.The sun controlled the planets, and the lawWas constant; but the mystery of it was maskedUnder a name; and no man knew the PowerThat gripped the worlds in that unchanging bond,Or whether, in the twinkling of an eye,The Power might not release them from that bond,As a hand opens, and the wide universeChange in a flash, and vanish like a shadow,As prophets had foretold.He could not thinkThat chance decreed the boundless march of lawHe saw in the starry heavens. Yet he could thinkOf “chance” on earth; and, while he thought, declare“Chance” was not “chance” but law unrecognised;Then, even while he said it, he would useThe ambiguous word, base his own law on “chance”;And, even while he used it, there would moveBefore his eyes in every flake of colour,Inlaid upon the butterfly’s patterned wing,Legions of atoms wheeling each to its placeIn ever constant law; and he knew wellThat, even in the living eye that saw them,The self-same Power that bound the starry worldsControlled a myriad atoms, every oneAn ordered system; and in every cloudOf wind-blown dust and every breaking waveUpon the storm-tossed sea, an infinite hostOf infinitesimal systems moved by lawEach to its place; and, in each growing flower,Myriads of atoms like concentred sunsAnd planets, these to the leaf and those to the crown,Moved in unerring order, and by a lawThat bound all heights and depths of the universe,In an unbroken unity. By what Power?There was one Power, one only known to man,That could determine action. Herschel knew it;The power whereby the mind uplifts the handAnd lets it fall, the living personal Will.Ah, but his task, his endless task on earth,Bent his head earthward. He must find the wayBefore he claimed the heights. No Newton he;Though men began to acclaim him and his lawAs though they solved all mysteries and annulledAll former creeds, and changed the heart of heaven.No Newton he; not even a Galileo;But one who patiently, doggedly laboured on,As Tycho Brahe laboured in old days,Numbering the stars, recording fact on fact,For those, who, after centuries, might discernThe meaning and the cause of what he saw.Visions of God and Heaven were not for him,Unless his “facts” revealed them, as the crownOf his own fight for knowledge.It might beThe final test of man, the narrow wayProving him worthy of immortal life,That he should face this darkness and this deathWorthily and renounce all easy hope,All consolation, all but the wintry smileUpon the face of Truth as he discerns it,Here upon earth, his only glimmer of light,Leading him onward to an end unknown.Faith! Faith! O patient, inarticulate soul,If this were faithlessness, there was a Power,So whispered Shadow-of-a-Leaf, that shared it with him;The Power that bowed His glory into darknessTo make a world in suffering and in death,The passionate price that even the OmnipotentMust pay for love, and love’s undying crown.He hardly heard the whisper; could not hear itAnd keep his own resolve. He bowed his headIn darkness; and, henceforth, those inward gatesInto the realms of the supernal lightBegan to close.He knew that they were closing;And yet—was this the dark key to Creation?—He shared the ecstasy also; shared that senseOf triumph; broke the Bread and drank the WineIn sacred drops and morsels of the truth;Shared, in renouncement of all else but truth,A sense that he could never breathe in wordsTo any one else, a sense that in this ageIt was expedient that a man should loseThe glory, and die this darker new-found death,To save the people from their rounded creeds,Their faithless faith, and crowns too lightly won....O, yet the memory of one midnight hour!Would that she knew. Would God that she knew now....Truer than all his knowledge was that cry;The cry of the blind life struggling through the dark,Upward ... the blind brow lifted to the unseen.He groped along the dark unending wayAnd saw, although he knew not what he saw,Out of the struggle of life, a mightier lawEmerging; and, when man could rise no higherBy the fierce law of Nature, he beheldNature herself at war against herself.He heard, although he knew not what he heard,A Voice that, triumphing over her clashing chords,Resolved them into an infinite harmony.Whose was that Voice? What Power within the fleshCast off the flesh for a glory in the mind,And leapt to victory in self-conquering love?What Voice, whose Power, cast Nature underfootIn Bruno, when the flames gnawed at his flesh;In Socrates; and, in those obscure ChristsWho daily die; and, though none other sees,Lay hands upon the wheel of the universeAnd master it; and the sun stands dark at noon?These things he saw but dimly. All his lifeHe moved along the steep and difficult wayOf Truth in darkness; but the Voice of TruthWhispered in darkness, out of the mire and day,And through the blood-stained agony of the world,“Fear nothing. Follow Me. Iamthe Way.”So, when Death touched him also, and England boreHis dust into her deepening innermost shrine,The Voice he heard long since, and could not hear,Rose like the fuller knowledge, given by DeathTo one that could best lead him upward now,Rose like a child’s voice, opening up the heavens,I am the Resurrection and the Life.
And yet, and yet, the victor knew too wellHis victory had a relish of the dust.Even while the plaudits echoed in his ears,It troubled him. When he pondered it that night,A finer shame had touched him. He had usedThe weapons of his enemy at the last;And, if he had struck his enemy down for truth,He had struck him down with weapons he despised.He had used them with a swifter hand and eye,A subtler cunning; and he had set his heelOn those who took too simply to their heartsA tale, whose ancient imagery enshrinedA mystery that endured. He had proclaimedA fragment of a truth which, he knew well,Left the true Cause in darkness. Did he knowMore of that Cause thanGenesis? Could he seeFarther into that darkness than the childFolding its hands in prayer?More clearly farThan Darwin, whom he had warned of it, he knewThe bounds of this new law; bade him bewareOf his repeated dogma—Nature makesNo leap.He pointed always to the AbyssOf darkness round the flickering spark of lightUpheld by Science. Had Wilberforce been armedWith knowledge and the spiritual steelOf Saint Augustine, who had also seen,Even in his age, a ladder of life to heaven,There had been a victory of another kindTo lighten through the world.And Darwin knew it;But, while he marshalled his unnumbered truths,He lost the Truth; as one who takes commandOf multitudinous armies in the night,And strives to envisage, in one sweep of the mind,Each squadron and each regiment of the whole,Ever the host that swept through his mind’s eye,Though all in ordered ranks and files, obscuredArmy on army the infinite truth beyond.The gates of Beauty closed against his mind,And barred him out from that eternal realm,Whose lucid harmonies on our night bestowGlimpses of absolute knowledge from above;Unravelling and ennobling, making clearMuch that had baffled us, much that else was dark;So that the laws of Nature shine like roads,Firm roads that lead through a significant worldNot downward, from the greater to the less,But up to the consummate soul of all.He could not follow them now. Back, back and back,He groped along the dark diminishing road.The ecstasy of music died away.The poet’s vision melted into a dream.He knew his loss, and mourned it; but it marredNot only his own happiness, as he thought.It blurred his vision, even of his own truths.He looked long at the butterfly’s radiant wings,Pondered their blaze of colour, and believedThat butterfly wooers choosing their bright matesThrough centuries of attraction and desireEvolved this loveliness. For he only sawThe blaze of colour, the flash that lured the eye.He did not see the exquisite pattern there,The diamonded fans of the under-wing,Inlaid with intricate harmonies of design;The delicate little octagons of pearl,The moons like infinitesimal fairy flowers,The lozenges of gold, and grey, and blueAll ordered in an intellectual scheme,Where form to form responded and faint lightsEchoed faint lights, and shadowy fringes ranLike Elfin curtains on a silvery thread,Shadow replying to shadow through the whole.Did eyes of the butterfly wooer mark all this,—A subtlety too fine for half mankind?He tossed a shred of paper on to his lawn;He saw the white wings blindly fluttering round it.He did not hear the whisper of Shadow-of-a-Leaf,Was this their exquisite artistry of choice?Had wooers like these evolved this loveliness?He groped into the orchestral universeAs one who strives to trace a symphonyBack to its cause, and with laborious careFeels with his hand the wood of the violins,And bids you mark—O good, bleak, honest soul,So fearful of false hopes!—that all is hollow.He tells you on what tree the wood was grown.He plucks the catgut, tells you whence it came,Gives you the name and pedigree of the cat;Nay, even affirms a mystery, and will talkOf sundry dark vibrations that affectThe fleshly instrument of the human ear;And so, with a world-excluding accuracy—O, never doubt that every step was true!—Melts the great music into less than airAnd misses everything.Everything! On one sideThe music soaring endlessly through heavensWithin the human soul; on the other side,The unseen Composed of whose transcendent lifeThe music speaks in souls made still to hear.He clung to hisvera causa. In that lawHe saw the way of the Power, but not the PowerDetermining the way. Did men rejectThe laws of Newton, binding all the worlds,Because they still knew nothing of the PowerThat bound them? The stone fell. He knew not why.The sun controlled the planets, and the lawWas constant; but the mystery of it was maskedUnder a name; and no man knew the PowerThat gripped the worlds in that unchanging bond,Or whether, in the twinkling of an eye,The Power might not release them from that bond,As a hand opens, and the wide universeChange in a flash, and vanish like a shadow,As prophets had foretold.He could not thinkThat chance decreed the boundless march of lawHe saw in the starry heavens. Yet he could thinkOf “chance” on earth; and, while he thought, declare“Chance” was not “chance” but law unrecognised;Then, even while he said it, he would useThe ambiguous word, base his own law on “chance”;And, even while he used it, there would moveBefore his eyes in every flake of colour,Inlaid upon the butterfly’s patterned wing,Legions of atoms wheeling each to its placeIn ever constant law; and he knew wellThat, even in the living eye that saw them,The self-same Power that bound the starry worldsControlled a myriad atoms, every oneAn ordered system; and in every cloudOf wind-blown dust and every breaking waveUpon the storm-tossed sea, an infinite hostOf infinitesimal systems moved by lawEach to its place; and, in each growing flower,Myriads of atoms like concentred sunsAnd planets, these to the leaf and those to the crown,Moved in unerring order, and by a lawThat bound all heights and depths of the universe,In an unbroken unity. By what Power?There was one Power, one only known to man,That could determine action. Herschel knew it;The power whereby the mind uplifts the handAnd lets it fall, the living personal Will.Ah, but his task, his endless task on earth,Bent his head earthward. He must find the wayBefore he claimed the heights. No Newton he;Though men began to acclaim him and his lawAs though they solved all mysteries and annulledAll former creeds, and changed the heart of heaven.No Newton he; not even a Galileo;But one who patiently, doggedly laboured on,As Tycho Brahe laboured in old days,Numbering the stars, recording fact on fact,For those, who, after centuries, might discernThe meaning and the cause of what he saw.Visions of God and Heaven were not for him,Unless his “facts” revealed them, as the crownOf his own fight for knowledge.It might beThe final test of man, the narrow wayProving him worthy of immortal life,That he should face this darkness and this deathWorthily and renounce all easy hope,All consolation, all but the wintry smileUpon the face of Truth as he discerns it,Here upon earth, his only glimmer of light,Leading him onward to an end unknown.Faith! Faith! O patient, inarticulate soul,If this were faithlessness, there was a Power,So whispered Shadow-of-a-Leaf, that shared it with him;The Power that bowed His glory into darknessTo make a world in suffering and in death,The passionate price that even the OmnipotentMust pay for love, and love’s undying crown.He hardly heard the whisper; could not hear itAnd keep his own resolve. He bowed his headIn darkness; and, henceforth, those inward gatesInto the realms of the supernal lightBegan to close.He knew that they were closing;And yet—was this the dark key to Creation?—He shared the ecstasy also; shared that senseOf triumph; broke the Bread and drank the WineIn sacred drops and morsels of the truth;Shared, in renouncement of all else but truth,A sense that he could never breathe in wordsTo any one else, a sense that in this ageIt was expedient that a man should loseThe glory, and die this darker new-found death,To save the people from their rounded creeds,Their faithless faith, and crowns too lightly won....O, yet the memory of one midnight hour!Would that she knew. Would God that she knew now....Truer than all his knowledge was that cry;The cry of the blind life struggling through the dark,Upward ... the blind brow lifted to the unseen.He groped along the dark unending wayAnd saw, although he knew not what he saw,Out of the struggle of life, a mightier lawEmerging; and, when man could rise no higherBy the fierce law of Nature, he beheldNature herself at war against herself.He heard, although he knew not what he heard,A Voice that, triumphing over her clashing chords,Resolved them into an infinite harmony.Whose was that Voice? What Power within the fleshCast off the flesh for a glory in the mind,And leapt to victory in self-conquering love?What Voice, whose Power, cast Nature underfootIn Bruno, when the flames gnawed at his flesh;In Socrates; and, in those obscure ChristsWho daily die; and, though none other sees,Lay hands upon the wheel of the universeAnd master it; and the sun stands dark at noon?These things he saw but dimly. All his lifeHe moved along the steep and difficult wayOf Truth in darkness; but the Voice of TruthWhispered in darkness, out of the mire and day,And through the blood-stained agony of the world,“Fear nothing. Follow Me. Iamthe Way.”So, when Death touched him also, and England boreHis dust into her deepening innermost shrine,The Voice he heard long since, and could not hear,Rose like the fuller knowledge, given by DeathTo one that could best lead him upward now,Rose like a child’s voice, opening up the heavens,I am the Resurrection and the Life.
And yet, and yet, the victor knew too wellHis victory had a relish of the dust.Even while the plaudits echoed in his ears,It troubled him. When he pondered it that night,A finer shame had touched him. He had usedThe weapons of his enemy at the last;And, if he had struck his enemy down for truth,He had struck him down with weapons he despised.He had used them with a swifter hand and eye,A subtler cunning; and he had set his heelOn those who took too simply to their heartsA tale, whose ancient imagery enshrinedA mystery that endured. He had proclaimedA fragment of a truth which, he knew well,Left the true Cause in darkness. Did he knowMore of that Cause thanGenesis? Could he seeFarther into that darkness than the childFolding its hands in prayer?More clearly farThan Darwin, whom he had warned of it, he knewThe bounds of this new law; bade him bewareOf his repeated dogma—Nature makesNo leap.He pointed always to the AbyssOf darkness round the flickering spark of lightUpheld by Science. Had Wilberforce been armedWith knowledge and the spiritual steelOf Saint Augustine, who had also seen,Even in his age, a ladder of life to heaven,There had been a victory of another kindTo lighten through the world.And Darwin knew it;But, while he marshalled his unnumbered truths,He lost the Truth; as one who takes commandOf multitudinous armies in the night,And strives to envisage, in one sweep of the mind,Each squadron and each regiment of the whole,Ever the host that swept through his mind’s eye,Though all in ordered ranks and files, obscuredArmy on army the infinite truth beyond.The gates of Beauty closed against his mind,And barred him out from that eternal realm,Whose lucid harmonies on our night bestowGlimpses of absolute knowledge from above;Unravelling and ennobling, making clearMuch that had baffled us, much that else was dark;So that the laws of Nature shine like roads,Firm roads that lead through a significant worldNot downward, from the greater to the less,But up to the consummate soul of all.He could not follow them now. Back, back and back,He groped along the dark diminishing road.The ecstasy of music died away.The poet’s vision melted into a dream.He knew his loss, and mourned it; but it marredNot only his own happiness, as he thought.It blurred his vision, even of his own truths.
And yet, and yet, the victor knew too well
His victory had a relish of the dust.
Even while the plaudits echoed in his ears,
It troubled him. When he pondered it that night,
A finer shame had touched him. He had used
The weapons of his enemy at the last;
And, if he had struck his enemy down for truth,
He had struck him down with weapons he despised.
He had used them with a swifter hand and eye,
A subtler cunning; and he had set his heel
On those who took too simply to their hearts
A tale, whose ancient imagery enshrined
A mystery that endured. He had proclaimed
A fragment of a truth which, he knew well,
Left the true Cause in darkness. Did he know
More of that Cause thanGenesis? Could he see
Farther into that darkness than the child
Folding its hands in prayer?
More clearly far
Than Darwin, whom he had warned of it, he knew
The bounds of this new law; bade him beware
Of his repeated dogma—Nature makes
No leap.He pointed always to the Abyss
Of darkness round the flickering spark of light
Upheld by Science. Had Wilberforce been armed
With knowledge and the spiritual steel
Of Saint Augustine, who had also seen,
Even in his age, a ladder of life to heaven,
There had been a victory of another kind
To lighten through the world.
And Darwin knew it;
But, while he marshalled his unnumbered truths,
He lost the Truth; as one who takes command
Of multitudinous armies in the night,
And strives to envisage, in one sweep of the mind,
Each squadron and each regiment of the whole,
Ever the host that swept through his mind’s eye,
Though all in ordered ranks and files, obscured
Army on army the infinite truth beyond.
The gates of Beauty closed against his mind,
And barred him out from that eternal realm,
Whose lucid harmonies on our night bestow
Glimpses of absolute knowledge from above;
Unravelling and ennobling, making clear
Much that had baffled us, much that else was dark;
So that the laws of Nature shine like roads,
Firm roads that lead through a significant world
Not downward, from the greater to the less,
But up to the consummate soul of all.
He could not follow them now. Back, back and back,
He groped along the dark diminishing road.
The ecstasy of music died away.
The poet’s vision melted into a dream.
He knew his loss, and mourned it; but it marred
Not only his own happiness, as he thought.
It blurred his vision, even of his own truths.
He looked long at the butterfly’s radiant wings,Pondered their blaze of colour, and believedThat butterfly wooers choosing their bright matesThrough centuries of attraction and desireEvolved this loveliness. For he only sawThe blaze of colour, the flash that lured the eye.He did not see the exquisite pattern there,The diamonded fans of the under-wing,Inlaid with intricate harmonies of design;The delicate little octagons of pearl,The moons like infinitesimal fairy flowers,The lozenges of gold, and grey, and blueAll ordered in an intellectual scheme,Where form to form responded and faint lightsEchoed faint lights, and shadowy fringes ranLike Elfin curtains on a silvery thread,Shadow replying to shadow through the whole.
He looked long at the butterfly’s radiant wings,
Pondered their blaze of colour, and believed
That butterfly wooers choosing their bright mates
Through centuries of attraction and desire
Evolved this loveliness. For he only saw
The blaze of colour, the flash that lured the eye.
He did not see the exquisite pattern there,
The diamonded fans of the under-wing,
Inlaid with intricate harmonies of design;
The delicate little octagons of pearl,
The moons like infinitesimal fairy flowers,
The lozenges of gold, and grey, and blue
All ordered in an intellectual scheme,
Where form to form responded and faint lights
Echoed faint lights, and shadowy fringes ran
Like Elfin curtains on a silvery thread,
Shadow replying to shadow through the whole.
Did eyes of the butterfly wooer mark all this,—A subtlety too fine for half mankind?He tossed a shred of paper on to his lawn;He saw the white wings blindly fluttering round it.He did not hear the whisper of Shadow-of-a-Leaf,Was this their exquisite artistry of choice?Had wooers like these evolved this loveliness?
Did eyes of the butterfly wooer mark all this,—
A subtlety too fine for half mankind?
He tossed a shred of paper on to his lawn;
He saw the white wings blindly fluttering round it.
He did not hear the whisper of Shadow-of-a-Leaf,
Was this their exquisite artistry of choice?
Had wooers like these evolved this loveliness?
He groped into the orchestral universeAs one who strives to trace a symphonyBack to its cause, and with laborious careFeels with his hand the wood of the violins,And bids you mark—O good, bleak, honest soul,So fearful of false hopes!—that all is hollow.He tells you on what tree the wood was grown.He plucks the catgut, tells you whence it came,Gives you the name and pedigree of the cat;Nay, even affirms a mystery, and will talkOf sundry dark vibrations that affectThe fleshly instrument of the human ear;And so, with a world-excluding accuracy—O, never doubt that every step was true!—Melts the great music into less than airAnd misses everything.Everything! On one sideThe music soaring endlessly through heavensWithin the human soul; on the other side,The unseen Composed of whose transcendent lifeThe music speaks in souls made still to hear.He clung to hisvera causa. In that lawHe saw the way of the Power, but not the PowerDetermining the way. Did men rejectThe laws of Newton, binding all the worlds,Because they still knew nothing of the PowerThat bound them? The stone fell. He knew not why.The sun controlled the planets, and the lawWas constant; but the mystery of it was maskedUnder a name; and no man knew the PowerThat gripped the worlds in that unchanging bond,Or whether, in the twinkling of an eye,The Power might not release them from that bond,As a hand opens, and the wide universeChange in a flash, and vanish like a shadow,As prophets had foretold.He could not thinkThat chance decreed the boundless march of lawHe saw in the starry heavens. Yet he could thinkOf “chance” on earth; and, while he thought, declare“Chance” was not “chance” but law unrecognised;Then, even while he said it, he would useThe ambiguous word, base his own law on “chance”;And, even while he used it, there would moveBefore his eyes in every flake of colour,Inlaid upon the butterfly’s patterned wing,Legions of atoms wheeling each to its placeIn ever constant law; and he knew wellThat, even in the living eye that saw them,The self-same Power that bound the starry worldsControlled a myriad atoms, every oneAn ordered system; and in every cloudOf wind-blown dust and every breaking waveUpon the storm-tossed sea, an infinite hostOf infinitesimal systems moved by lawEach to its place; and, in each growing flower,Myriads of atoms like concentred sunsAnd planets, these to the leaf and those to the crown,Moved in unerring order, and by a lawThat bound all heights and depths of the universe,In an unbroken unity. By what Power?There was one Power, one only known to man,That could determine action. Herschel knew it;The power whereby the mind uplifts the handAnd lets it fall, the living personal Will.
He groped into the orchestral universe
As one who strives to trace a symphony
Back to its cause, and with laborious care
Feels with his hand the wood of the violins,
And bids you mark—O good, bleak, honest soul,
So fearful of false hopes!—that all is hollow.
He tells you on what tree the wood was grown.
He plucks the catgut, tells you whence it came,
Gives you the name and pedigree of the cat;
Nay, even affirms a mystery, and will talk
Of sundry dark vibrations that affect
The fleshly instrument of the human ear;
And so, with a world-excluding accuracy—
O, never doubt that every step was true!—
Melts the great music into less than air
And misses everything.
Everything! On one side
The music soaring endlessly through heavens
Within the human soul; on the other side,
The unseen Composed of whose transcendent life
The music speaks in souls made still to hear.
He clung to hisvera causa. In that law
He saw the way of the Power, but not the Power
Determining the way. Did men reject
The laws of Newton, binding all the worlds,
Because they still knew nothing of the Power
That bound them? The stone fell. He knew not why.
The sun controlled the planets, and the law
Was constant; but the mystery of it was masked
Under a name; and no man knew the Power
That gripped the worlds in that unchanging bond,
Or whether, in the twinkling of an eye,
The Power might not release them from that bond,
As a hand opens, and the wide universe
Change in a flash, and vanish like a shadow,
As prophets had foretold.
He could not think
That chance decreed the boundless march of law
He saw in the starry heavens. Yet he could think
Of “chance” on earth; and, while he thought, declare
“Chance” was not “chance” but law unrecognised;
Then, even while he said it, he would use
The ambiguous word, base his own law on “chance”;
And, even while he used it, there would move
Before his eyes in every flake of colour,
Inlaid upon the butterfly’s patterned wing,
Legions of atoms wheeling each to its place
In ever constant law; and he knew well
That, even in the living eye that saw them,
The self-same Power that bound the starry worlds
Controlled a myriad atoms, every one
An ordered system; and in every cloud
Of wind-blown dust and every breaking wave
Upon the storm-tossed sea, an infinite host
Of infinitesimal systems moved by law
Each to its place; and, in each growing flower,
Myriads of atoms like concentred suns
And planets, these to the leaf and those to the crown,
Moved in unerring order, and by a law
That bound all heights and depths of the universe,
In an unbroken unity. By what Power?
There was one Power, one only known to man,
That could determine action. Herschel knew it;
The power whereby the mind uplifts the hand
And lets it fall, the living personal Will.
Ah, but his task, his endless task on earth,Bent his head earthward. He must find the wayBefore he claimed the heights. No Newton he;Though men began to acclaim him and his lawAs though they solved all mysteries and annulledAll former creeds, and changed the heart of heaven.No Newton he; not even a Galileo;But one who patiently, doggedly laboured on,As Tycho Brahe laboured in old days,Numbering the stars, recording fact on fact,For those, who, after centuries, might discernThe meaning and the cause of what he saw.Visions of God and Heaven were not for him,Unless his “facts” revealed them, as the crownOf his own fight for knowledge.It might beThe final test of man, the narrow wayProving him worthy of immortal life,That he should face this darkness and this deathWorthily and renounce all easy hope,All consolation, all but the wintry smileUpon the face of Truth as he discerns it,Here upon earth, his only glimmer of light,Leading him onward to an end unknown.Faith! Faith! O patient, inarticulate soul,If this were faithlessness, there was a Power,So whispered Shadow-of-a-Leaf, that shared it with him;The Power that bowed His glory into darknessTo make a world in suffering and in death,The passionate price that even the OmnipotentMust pay for love, and love’s undying crown.
Ah, but his task, his endless task on earth,
Bent his head earthward. He must find the way
Before he claimed the heights. No Newton he;
Though men began to acclaim him and his law
As though they solved all mysteries and annulled
All former creeds, and changed the heart of heaven.
No Newton he; not even a Galileo;
But one who patiently, doggedly laboured on,
As Tycho Brahe laboured in old days,
Numbering the stars, recording fact on fact,
For those, who, after centuries, might discern
The meaning and the cause of what he saw.
Visions of God and Heaven were not for him,
Unless his “facts” revealed them, as the crown
Of his own fight for knowledge.
It might be
The final test of man, the narrow way
Proving him worthy of immortal life,
That he should face this darkness and this death
Worthily and renounce all easy hope,
All consolation, all but the wintry smile
Upon the face of Truth as he discerns it,
Here upon earth, his only glimmer of light,
Leading him onward to an end unknown.
Faith! Faith! O patient, inarticulate soul,
If this were faithlessness, there was a Power,
So whispered Shadow-of-a-Leaf, that shared it with him;
The Power that bowed His glory into darkness
To make a world in suffering and in death,
The passionate price that even the Omnipotent
Must pay for love, and love’s undying crown.
He hardly heard the whisper; could not hear itAnd keep his own resolve. He bowed his headIn darkness; and, henceforth, those inward gatesInto the realms of the supernal lightBegan to close.He knew that they were closing;And yet—was this the dark key to Creation?—He shared the ecstasy also; shared that senseOf triumph; broke the Bread and drank the WineIn sacred drops and morsels of the truth;Shared, in renouncement of all else but truth,A sense that he could never breathe in wordsTo any one else, a sense that in this ageIt was expedient that a man should loseThe glory, and die this darker new-found death,To save the people from their rounded creeds,Their faithless faith, and crowns too lightly won.
He hardly heard the whisper; could not hear it
And keep his own resolve. He bowed his head
In darkness; and, henceforth, those inward gates
Into the realms of the supernal light
Began to close.
He knew that they were closing;
And yet—was this the dark key to Creation?—
He shared the ecstasy also; shared that sense
Of triumph; broke the Bread and drank the Wine
In sacred drops and morsels of the truth;
Shared, in renouncement of all else but truth,
A sense that he could never breathe in words
To any one else, a sense that in this age
It was expedient that a man should lose
The glory, and die this darker new-found death,
To save the people from their rounded creeds,
Their faithless faith, and crowns too lightly won.
...
...
O, yet the memory of one midnight hour!Would that she knew. Would God that she knew now....Truer than all his knowledge was that cry;The cry of the blind life struggling through the dark,Upward ... the blind brow lifted to the unseen.
O, yet the memory of one midnight hour!
Would that she knew. Would God that she knew now....
Truer than all his knowledge was that cry;
The cry of the blind life struggling through the dark,
Upward ... the blind brow lifted to the unseen.
He groped along the dark unending wayAnd saw, although he knew not what he saw,Out of the struggle of life, a mightier lawEmerging; and, when man could rise no higherBy the fierce law of Nature, he beheldNature herself at war against herself.He heard, although he knew not what he heard,A Voice that, triumphing over her clashing chords,Resolved them into an infinite harmony.Whose was that Voice? What Power within the fleshCast off the flesh for a glory in the mind,And leapt to victory in self-conquering love?What Voice, whose Power, cast Nature underfootIn Bruno, when the flames gnawed at his flesh;In Socrates; and, in those obscure ChristsWho daily die; and, though none other sees,Lay hands upon the wheel of the universeAnd master it; and the sun stands dark at noon?These things he saw but dimly. All his lifeHe moved along the steep and difficult wayOf Truth in darkness; but the Voice of TruthWhispered in darkness, out of the mire and day,And through the blood-stained agony of the world,“Fear nothing. Follow Me. Iamthe Way.”So, when Death touched him also, and England boreHis dust into her deepening innermost shrine,The Voice he heard long since, and could not hear,Rose like the fuller knowledge, given by DeathTo one that could best lead him upward now,Rose like a child’s voice, opening up the heavens,I am the Resurrection and the Life.
He groped along the dark unending way
And saw, although he knew not what he saw,
Out of the struggle of life, a mightier law
Emerging; and, when man could rise no higher
By the fierce law of Nature, he beheld
Nature herself at war against herself.
He heard, although he knew not what he heard,
A Voice that, triumphing over her clashing chords,
Resolved them into an infinite harmony.
Whose was that Voice? What Power within the flesh
Cast off the flesh for a glory in the mind,
And leapt to victory in self-conquering love?
What Voice, whose Power, cast Nature underfoot
In Bruno, when the flames gnawed at his flesh;
In Socrates; and, in those obscure Christs
Who daily die; and, though none other sees,
Lay hands upon the wheel of the universe
And master it; and the sun stands dark at noon?
These things he saw but dimly. All his life
He moved along the steep and difficult way
Of Truth in darkness; but the Voice of Truth
Whispered in darkness, out of the mire and day,
And through the blood-stained agony of the world,
“Fear nothing. Follow Me. Iamthe Way.”
So, when Death touched him also, and England bore
His dust into her deepening innermost shrine,
The Voice he heard long since, and could not hear,
Rose like the fuller knowledge, given by Death
To one that could best lead him upward now,
Rose like a child’s voice, opening up the heavens,
I am the Resurrection and the Life.