VII—LAMARCK AND THE REVOLUTION

What wars are these? Far off, a bugle blew.Out of oblivion rose the vanished world.I stood in Amiens, in a narrow streetOutside a dark old college. I saw a boy,A budding Abbé, pallid from his books,Beaked like a Roman eagle. He stole outBetween grim gates; and stripping off his bands,Hastened away, a distance in his eyes;As though, through an earthly bugle, he had heardA deeper bugle, summoning to a warBeyond these wars, with enemies yet unknown.I saw him bargaining for a starveling horseIn Picardy and riding to the North,Over chalk downs, through fields of poppied wheat.A tattered farm lad, sixteen years of age,Followed like Sancho at his master’s heel:Up to the flaming battle-front he rode;Flinging a stubborn “no” at those who’d send himBack to learn war among the raw recruits,He took his place before the astonished ranksOf grenadiers, and faced the enemy’s fire.Death swooped upon them, tearing long red lanesThrough their massed squadrons. His commander fellBeside him. One by one his officers died.Death placed him in command. The shattered troopsOf Beaujolais were wavering everywhere.“Retreat!” the cry began. In smoke and fire,Lamarck, with fourteen grenadiers, held on.“This is the post assigned. This post we holdTill Life or Death relieve us.”Who assigned it?Who summoned him thither? And when peace returnedWas it blind chance that garrisoned LamarckAmong the radiant gardens of the south,Dazzled him with their beauty, and then sliptThat volume of Chomel into his hand,Traité des Plantes?Was it blind accident,Environment—O, mighty word that masksThe innumerable potencies of God,—When his own comrade, in wild horse-play, wrenchedAnd crippled him in body, and he returnedDischarged to Paris, free to take up armsIn an immortal army? Was it chanceThat lodged him there, despite his own desire,So high above the streets that all he sawOut of his window was the drifting cloudsFlowing and changing, drawing his lonely mindIn subtle ways to Nature’s pageantry,And the great golden laws that governed all?Was it blind chance that drew him out to watchThe sunset clouds o’er Mont Valérien,Where the same power, for the same purpose, drewJean Jacques Rousseau? Flowers and the dying cloudsDrew them together, and mind from mind caught fire?What universal Power through all and eachWas labouring to create when first they metAnd talked and wondered, whether the forms of lifeThrough earth’s innumerable ages changed?Were species constant? Let the rose run wild,How swiftly it returns into the briar!Transplant the southern wilding to the northAnd it will change, to suit the harsher sky.Nourish it in a garden,—you shall seeThe trailer of the hedgerow stand upright,And every blossom with a threefold crown.Buffon, upon his hill-top at MontbardIn his red turret, among his flowers and birds,Gazing through all his epochs of the world,Had guessed at a long ancestry for man,Too long for the upstart kings.He could not prove it;And the Sorbonne, withGenesisin its hand,Had frowned upon his æons.In six daysGod made the heaven and earth.He had withdrawn,Smiling as wise men smile at children’s talk;And when Lamarck had visited him alone,He smiled again, a little ironically.“Six epochs of the world may mean six days;But then, my friend, six days must also meanSix epochs. Call it compromise, or peace.They cannot claim the victory.There are someThink me too—orthodox. O, I know the whineThat fools will raise hereafter. Buffon quailed;Why did not Buffon like our noble selvesWear a vicarious halo of martyrdom?Strange—that desire of small sadistic eyesAt ease on the shore to watch a shipwrecked manDrowning. Lucretius praised that barbarous pleasure.Mine is a subtler savagery. I preferTo watch, from a little hill above their world,The foes of science, floundering in the wavesOf their new compromise. Every crooked flashOf irony lightening their dark skies to-dayShows them more wickedly buffeted, in a seaOf wilder contradictions.I had no proof.Time was not ripe. The scripture of the rocksMust first be read more deeply. But the lawPointed to one conclusion everywhere,That forms of flesh and bone, in the long lapseOf time, were plastic as the sculptor’s clay,And born of earlier forms.Under man’s eyes,Had not the forms of bird and beast been changedInto new species? Children of the wolf,Greyhound and mastiff, in their several kinds,Fawned on his children, slept upon his hearth.The spaniel and the bloodhound owned one sire.Man’s own selective artistry had shapedNew flowers, confirmed the morning glory’s crown,And out of the wild briar evoked the rose.Like a magician, in a few brief years,He had changed the forms and colours of his birds.He had whistled the wild pigeons from the rocks;And by his choice, and nature’s own deep law,Evoked the rustling fan-tails that displayedTheir splendours on his cottage roof, or bowedLike courtiers on his lawn. The pouter swelledA rainbow breast to please him. Tumblers playedTheir tricks as for a king. The carrier flewFrom the spy’s window, or the soldiers’ camp,The schoolboy’s cage, the lover’s latticed heart,And bore his messages over turbulent seasAnd snow-capt mountains, with a sinewy wingThat raced the falcon, beating stroke for stroke.”

What wars are these? Far off, a bugle blew.

Out of oblivion rose the vanished world.

I stood in Amiens, in a narrow street

Outside a dark old college. I saw a boy,

A budding Abbé, pallid from his books,

Beaked like a Roman eagle. He stole out

Between grim gates; and stripping off his bands,

Hastened away, a distance in his eyes;

As though, through an earthly bugle, he had heard

A deeper bugle, summoning to a war

Beyond these wars, with enemies yet unknown.

I saw him bargaining for a starveling horse

In Picardy and riding to the North,

Over chalk downs, through fields of poppied wheat.

A tattered farm lad, sixteen years of age,

Followed like Sancho at his master’s heel:

Up to the flaming battle-front he rode;

Flinging a stubborn “no” at those who’d send him

Back to learn war among the raw recruits,

He took his place before the astonished ranks

Of grenadiers, and faced the enemy’s fire.

Death swooped upon them, tearing long red lanes

Through their massed squadrons. His commander fell

Beside him. One by one his officers died.

Death placed him in command. The shattered troops

Of Beaujolais were wavering everywhere.

“Retreat!” the cry began. In smoke and fire,

Lamarck, with fourteen grenadiers, held on.

“This is the post assigned. This post we hold

Till Life or Death relieve us.”

Who assigned it?

Who summoned him thither? And when peace returned

Was it blind chance that garrisoned Lamarck

Among the radiant gardens of the south,

Dazzled him with their beauty, and then slipt

That volume of Chomel into his hand,

Traité des Plantes?

Was it blind accident,

Environment—O, mighty word that masks

The innumerable potencies of God,—

When his own comrade, in wild horse-play, wrenched

And crippled him in body, and he returned

Discharged to Paris, free to take up arms

In an immortal army? Was it chance

That lodged him there, despite his own desire,

So high above the streets that all he saw

Out of his window was the drifting clouds

Flowing and changing, drawing his lonely mind

In subtle ways to Nature’s pageantry,

And the great golden laws that governed all?

Was it blind chance that drew him out to watchThe sunset clouds o’er Mont Valérien,Where the same power, for the same purpose, drewJean Jacques Rousseau? Flowers and the dying cloudsDrew them together, and mind from mind caught fire?

Was it blind chance that drew him out to watch

The sunset clouds o’er Mont Valérien,

Where the same power, for the same purpose, drew

Jean Jacques Rousseau? Flowers and the dying clouds

Drew them together, and mind from mind caught fire?

What universal Power through all and eachWas labouring to create when first they metAnd talked and wondered, whether the forms of lifeThrough earth’s innumerable ages changed?Were species constant? Let the rose run wild,How swiftly it returns into the briar!Transplant the southern wilding to the northAnd it will change, to suit the harsher sky.Nourish it in a garden,—you shall seeThe trailer of the hedgerow stand upright,And every blossom with a threefold crown.Buffon, upon his hill-top at MontbardIn his red turret, among his flowers and birds,Gazing through all his epochs of the world,Had guessed at a long ancestry for man,Too long for the upstart kings.He could not prove it;And the Sorbonne, withGenesisin its hand,Had frowned upon his æons.In six daysGod made the heaven and earth.He had withdrawn,Smiling as wise men smile at children’s talk;And when Lamarck had visited him alone,He smiled again, a little ironically.“Six epochs of the world may mean six days;But then, my friend, six days must also meanSix epochs. Call it compromise, or peace.They cannot claim the victory.There are someThink me too—orthodox. O, I know the whineThat fools will raise hereafter. Buffon quailed;Why did not Buffon like our noble selvesWear a vicarious halo of martyrdom?Strange—that desire of small sadistic eyesAt ease on the shore to watch a shipwrecked manDrowning. Lucretius praised that barbarous pleasure.Mine is a subtler savagery. I preferTo watch, from a little hill above their world,The foes of science, floundering in the wavesOf their new compromise. Every crooked flashOf irony lightening their dark skies to-dayShows them more wickedly buffeted, in a seaOf wilder contradictions.I had no proof.Time was not ripe. The scripture of the rocksMust first be read more deeply. But the lawPointed to one conclusion everywhere,That forms of flesh and bone, in the long lapseOf time, were plastic as the sculptor’s clay,And born of earlier forms.Under man’s eyes,Had not the forms of bird and beast been changedInto new species? Children of the wolf,Greyhound and mastiff, in their several kinds,Fawned on his children, slept upon his hearth.The spaniel and the bloodhound owned one sire.Man’s own selective artistry had shapedNew flowers, confirmed the morning glory’s crown,And out of the wild briar evoked the rose.Like a magician, in a few brief years,He had changed the forms and colours of his birds.He had whistled the wild pigeons from the rocks;And by his choice, and nature’s own deep law,Evoked the rustling fan-tails that displayedTheir splendours on his cottage roof, or bowedLike courtiers on his lawn. The pouter swelledA rainbow breast to please him. Tumblers playedTheir tricks as for a king. The carrier flewFrom the spy’s window, or the soldiers’ camp,The schoolboy’s cage, the lover’s latticed heart,And bore his messages over turbulent seasAnd snow-capt mountains, with a sinewy wingThat raced the falcon, beating stroke for stroke.”

What universal Power through all and each

Was labouring to create when first they met

And talked and wondered, whether the forms of life

Through earth’s innumerable ages changed?

Were species constant? Let the rose run wild,

How swiftly it returns into the briar!

Transplant the southern wilding to the north

And it will change, to suit the harsher sky.

Nourish it in a garden,—you shall see

The trailer of the hedgerow stand upright,

And every blossom with a threefold crown.

Buffon, upon his hill-top at Montbard

In his red turret, among his flowers and birds,

Gazing through all his epochs of the world,

Had guessed at a long ancestry for man,

Too long for the upstart kings.

He could not prove it;

And the Sorbonne, withGenesisin its hand,

Had frowned upon his æons.In six days

God made the heaven and earth.

He had withdrawn,

Smiling as wise men smile at children’s talk;

And when Lamarck had visited him alone,

He smiled again, a little ironically.

“Six epochs of the world may mean six days;

But then, my friend, six days must also mean

Six epochs. Call it compromise, or peace.

They cannot claim the victory.

There are some

Think me too—orthodox. O, I know the whine

That fools will raise hereafter. Buffon quailed;

Why did not Buffon like our noble selves

Wear a vicarious halo of martyrdom?

Strange—that desire of small sadistic eyes

At ease on the shore to watch a shipwrecked man

Drowning. Lucretius praised that barbarous pleasure.

Mine is a subtler savagery. I prefer

To watch, from a little hill above their world,

The foes of science, floundering in the waves

Of their new compromise. Every crooked flash

Of irony lightening their dark skies to-day

Shows them more wickedly buffeted, in a sea

Of wilder contradictions.

I had no proof.

Time was not ripe. The scripture of the rocks

Must first be read more deeply. But the law

Pointed to one conclusion everywhere,

That forms of flesh and bone, in the long lapse

Of time, were plastic as the sculptor’s clay,

And born of earlier forms.

Under man’s eyes,

Had not the forms of bird and beast been changed

Into new species? Children of the wolf,

Greyhound and mastiff, in their several kinds,

Fawned on his children, slept upon his hearth.

The spaniel and the bloodhound owned one sire.

Man’s own selective artistry had shaped

New flowers, confirmed the morning glory’s crown,

And out of the wild briar evoked the rose.

Like a magician, in a few brief years,

He had changed the forms and colours of his birds.

He had whistled the wild pigeons from the rocks;

And by his choice, and nature’s own deep law,

Evoked the rustling fan-tails that displayed

Their splendours on his cottage roof, or bowed

Like courtiers on his lawn. The pouter swelled

A rainbow breast to please him. Tumblers played

Their tricks as for a king. The carrier flew

From the spy’s window, or the soldiers’ camp,

The schoolboy’s cage, the lover’s latticed heart,

And bore his messages over turbulent seas

And snow-capt mountains, with a sinewy wing

That raced the falcon, beating stroke for stroke.”

So, seizing the pure fire from Buffon’s hand,Lamarck pressed on, flinging all else aside,To follow all those clues to his own end.Ten years he spent among the flowers of France,Unravelling, and more truly than Linné,The natural orders of their tangled clans;Then, in “six months of unremitting toil,”As Cuvier subtly sneered, he wrote his book,TheFlore Française; compact, as Cuvier knew,And did not care to say, with ten years’ thought.But Buffon did not sneer. The great old man,A king of men, enthroned there at Montbard,Aided Lamarck as Jove might aid his son.He sent the book to the king’s own printing press.Daubenton wrote his foreword; and RousseauHad long prepared the way.“Linné of France,”The stream of praise through every salon flowed.Une science à la mode, great Cuvier sneered.Was it blind chance that crushed Lamarck againBack to his lean-ribbed poverty?Buffon died.Lamarck, who had married in his prosperous hour,Had five young mouths to feed. With ten long yearsOf toil he had made the greatJardin du RoiIllustrious through the world. As his rewardThe ministers of the king now granted himA keepership at one thousand francs a year;And, over him, in Buffon’s place, they setThe exquisite dilettante, BernardinSaint Pierre, a delicate twitcher of silken strings.Lamarck held grimly to the post assigned.Under that glittering rose-pink world he heardTitanic powers upsurging from the abyss.Then, in the blood-red dawn of ninety-three,The bright crust cracked. The furious lava rolledThrough Paris, and a thundercloud of doomPealed over thrones and peoples. Flash on flash,Blind lightnings of the guillotine replied.Blind throats around the headsman’s basket roared.The slippery cobbles were greased with human blood.The torch was at the gates of the Bastille.Old towers, old creeds, old wrongs, at a Mænad shout,Went up in smoke and flame. Earth’s dynastiesRocked to their dark foundations. Tyrants died;But in that madness of the human soulThey did not die alone. Innocence died;And pity died; and those whose hands upheldThe torch of knowledge died in the bestial storm.Lavoisier had escaped. They lured him backInto the Terror’s hot red tiger-mouth,Promising, “Face your trial with these your friends,And all will be set free. If not, they die.”He faced it, and returned. The guillotineFlashed down on one and all.Let the wide earth,Still echoing its old wrath against the kingsAnd priests who exiled, stoned and burned and starvedThe bearers of the fire, remember wellHow the Republic in its red right handHeld up Lavoisier’s head, and told mankindIn mockery, colder than the cynical snarlOf Nero, “The Republic has no needOf savants. Let the people’s will be doneOn earth, and let the headless trunk of TruthBe trampled down by numbers. Tread in the mireAll excellence and all skill. Daub your raw woundsWith dirt of the street; elect the sick to health.It is the people’s will, and they shall live.Nay, crown the eternal Power who rules by lawWith this red cap of your capricious will,And ye shall hear His everlasting voiceMore clearly than ye heard it when He spokeIn stillness, through the souls of lonely men,On starry heights. Lift up your heads and hearHis voice in the whirling multitude’s wild-beast roar,Not these men, but Barabbas.”Must the mindTurn back to tyranny, then, and trust anewTo harnessed might? The listening soul still heardA more imperative call. Though Evil woreA myriad masks and reigned as wickedlyIn peoples as in kings, Truth, Truth alone,Whether upheld by many or by few,Wore the one absolute crown. Though Pilate flungHis murderous jest at Truth—the law remainedThat answered his dark question; man’s one clue,The law that all true seekers after TruthHold in their hands; the law, a golden threadThat, loyally followed, leads them to full light,Each by his own dark way, till all the worldIs knit together in harmony that sets free.Bridge-builders of the universe, they flingTheir firm and shining roads from star to star,From earth to heaven. At his appointed task,Lamarck held grimly on (as once he grippedHis wavering grenadiers) till Life or DeathRelieved him. But he knew his cause at last.Jardin du RoibecameJardin des Plantes;And the red tumult surging round his wallsDied to a whisper of leaves.His mind groped back,Back through the inconceivable ages now,To terrible revolutions of the globe,Huge catastrophic rendings of the hills,Red floods of lava; cataracts of fire;Monstrous upheavals of the nethermost deep;Whereby as Cuvier painted them, in huesOf blind disaster, all the hosts of lifeIn each æonian period, like a swarmOf ants beneath the wheels of Juggernaut,Were utterly abolished.Did God createAfter each earth-disaster, then, new hostsOf life to range her mountains and her seas;New forms, new patterns, fresh from His careless Hand,Yet all so closely akin to those destroyed?Or did this life-stream, from one fountain-head,Through the long changes of unnumbered yearsFlow on, unbroken, slowly branching outInto new beauty, as a river windsInto new channels? One, singing through the hills,Mirrors the hanging precipice and the pine;And one through level meadows curves away,Turns a dark wheel, or foams along a weir,Then, in a pool of shadow, drowns the moon.

So, seizing the pure fire from Buffon’s hand,

Lamarck pressed on, flinging all else aside,

To follow all those clues to his own end.

Ten years he spent among the flowers of France,

Unravelling, and more truly than Linné,

The natural orders of their tangled clans;

Then, in “six months of unremitting toil,”

As Cuvier subtly sneered, he wrote his book,

TheFlore Française; compact, as Cuvier knew,

And did not care to say, with ten years’ thought.

But Buffon did not sneer. The great old man,

A king of men, enthroned there at Montbard,

Aided Lamarck as Jove might aid his son.

He sent the book to the king’s own printing press.

Daubenton wrote his foreword; and Rousseau

Had long prepared the way.

“Linné of France,”

The stream of praise through every salon flowed.

Une science à la mode, great Cuvier sneered.

Was it blind chance that crushed Lamarck againBack to his lean-ribbed poverty?Buffon died.Lamarck, who had married in his prosperous hour,Had five young mouths to feed. With ten long yearsOf toil he had made the greatJardin du RoiIllustrious through the world. As his rewardThe ministers of the king now granted himA keepership at one thousand francs a year;And, over him, in Buffon’s place, they setThe exquisite dilettante, BernardinSaint Pierre, a delicate twitcher of silken strings.Lamarck held grimly to the post assigned.Under that glittering rose-pink world he heardTitanic powers upsurging from the abyss.Then, in the blood-red dawn of ninety-three,The bright crust cracked. The furious lava rolledThrough Paris, and a thundercloud of doomPealed over thrones and peoples. Flash on flash,Blind lightnings of the guillotine replied.Blind throats around the headsman’s basket roared.The slippery cobbles were greased with human blood.The torch was at the gates of the Bastille.Old towers, old creeds, old wrongs, at a Mænad shout,Went up in smoke and flame. Earth’s dynastiesRocked to their dark foundations. Tyrants died;But in that madness of the human soulThey did not die alone. Innocence died;And pity died; and those whose hands upheldThe torch of knowledge died in the bestial storm.Lavoisier had escaped. They lured him backInto the Terror’s hot red tiger-mouth,Promising, “Face your trial with these your friends,And all will be set free. If not, they die.”He faced it, and returned. The guillotineFlashed down on one and all.Let the wide earth,Still echoing its old wrath against the kingsAnd priests who exiled, stoned and burned and starvedThe bearers of the fire, remember wellHow the Republic in its red right handHeld up Lavoisier’s head, and told mankindIn mockery, colder than the cynical snarlOf Nero, “The Republic has no needOf savants. Let the people’s will be doneOn earth, and let the headless trunk of TruthBe trampled down by numbers. Tread in the mireAll excellence and all skill. Daub your raw woundsWith dirt of the street; elect the sick to health.It is the people’s will, and they shall live.Nay, crown the eternal Power who rules by lawWith this red cap of your capricious will,And ye shall hear His everlasting voiceMore clearly than ye heard it when He spokeIn stillness, through the souls of lonely men,On starry heights. Lift up your heads and hearHis voice in the whirling multitude’s wild-beast roar,Not these men, but Barabbas.”Must the mindTurn back to tyranny, then, and trust anewTo harnessed might? The listening soul still heardA more imperative call. Though Evil woreA myriad masks and reigned as wickedlyIn peoples as in kings, Truth, Truth alone,Whether upheld by many or by few,Wore the one absolute crown. Though Pilate flungHis murderous jest at Truth—the law remainedThat answered his dark question; man’s one clue,The law that all true seekers after TruthHold in their hands; the law, a golden threadThat, loyally followed, leads them to full light,Each by his own dark way, till all the worldIs knit together in harmony that sets free.Bridge-builders of the universe, they flingTheir firm and shining roads from star to star,From earth to heaven. At his appointed task,Lamarck held grimly on (as once he grippedHis wavering grenadiers) till Life or DeathRelieved him. But he knew his cause at last.Jardin du RoibecameJardin des Plantes;And the red tumult surging round his wallsDied to a whisper of leaves.His mind groped back,Back through the inconceivable ages now,To terrible revolutions of the globe,Huge catastrophic rendings of the hills,Red floods of lava; cataracts of fire;Monstrous upheavals of the nethermost deep;Whereby as Cuvier painted them, in huesOf blind disaster, all the hosts of lifeIn each æonian period, like a swarmOf ants beneath the wheels of Juggernaut,Were utterly abolished.Did God createAfter each earth-disaster, then, new hostsOf life to range her mountains and her seas;New forms, new patterns, fresh from His careless Hand,Yet all so closely akin to those destroyed?Or did this life-stream, from one fountain-head,Through the long changes of unnumbered yearsFlow on, unbroken, slowly branching outInto new beauty, as a river windsInto new channels? One, singing through the hills,Mirrors the hanging precipice and the pine;And one through level meadows curves away,Turns a dark wheel, or foams along a weir,Then, in a pool of shadow, drowns the moon.

Was it blind chance that crushed Lamarck again

Back to his lean-ribbed poverty?

Buffon died.

Lamarck, who had married in his prosperous hour,

Had five young mouths to feed. With ten long years

Of toil he had made the greatJardin du Roi

Illustrious through the world. As his reward

The ministers of the king now granted him

A keepership at one thousand francs a year;

And, over him, in Buffon’s place, they set

The exquisite dilettante, Bernardin

Saint Pierre, a delicate twitcher of silken strings.

Lamarck held grimly to the post assigned.

Under that glittering rose-pink world he heard

Titanic powers upsurging from the abyss.

Then, in the blood-red dawn of ninety-three,

The bright crust cracked. The furious lava rolled

Through Paris, and a thundercloud of doom

Pealed over thrones and peoples. Flash on flash,

Blind lightnings of the guillotine replied.

Blind throats around the headsman’s basket roared.

The slippery cobbles were greased with human blood.

The torch was at the gates of the Bastille.

Old towers, old creeds, old wrongs, at a Mænad shout,

Went up in smoke and flame. Earth’s dynasties

Rocked to their dark foundations. Tyrants died;

But in that madness of the human soul

They did not die alone. Innocence died;

And pity died; and those whose hands upheld

The torch of knowledge died in the bestial storm.

Lavoisier had escaped. They lured him back

Into the Terror’s hot red tiger-mouth,

Promising, “Face your trial with these your friends,

And all will be set free. If not, they die.”

He faced it, and returned. The guillotine

Flashed down on one and all.

Let the wide earth,

Still echoing its old wrath against the kings

And priests who exiled, stoned and burned and starved

The bearers of the fire, remember well

How the Republic in its red right hand

Held up Lavoisier’s head, and told mankind

In mockery, colder than the cynical snarl

Of Nero, “The Republic has no need

Of savants. Let the people’s will be done

On earth, and let the headless trunk of Truth

Be trampled down by numbers. Tread in the mire

All excellence and all skill. Daub your raw wounds

With dirt of the street; elect the sick to health.

It is the people’s will, and they shall live.

Nay, crown the eternal Power who rules by law

With this red cap of your capricious will,

And ye shall hear His everlasting voice

More clearly than ye heard it when He spoke

In stillness, through the souls of lonely men,

On starry heights. Lift up your heads and hear

His voice in the whirling multitude’s wild-beast roar,

Not these men, but Barabbas.”

Must the mind

Turn back to tyranny, then, and trust anew

To harnessed might? The listening soul still heard

A more imperative call. Though Evil wore

A myriad masks and reigned as wickedly

In peoples as in kings, Truth, Truth alone,

Whether upheld by many or by few,

Wore the one absolute crown. Though Pilate flung

His murderous jest at Truth—the law remained

That answered his dark question; man’s one clue,

The law that all true seekers after Truth

Hold in their hands; the law, a golden thread

That, loyally followed, leads them to full light,

Each by his own dark way, till all the world

Is knit together in harmony that sets free.

Bridge-builders of the universe, they fling

Their firm and shining roads from star to star,

From earth to heaven. At his appointed task,

Lamarck held grimly on (as once he gripped

His wavering grenadiers) till Life or Death

Relieved him. But he knew his cause at last.

Jardin du RoibecameJardin des Plantes;

And the red tumult surging round his walls

Died to a whisper of leaves.

His mind groped back,

Back through the inconceivable ages now,

To terrible revolutions of the globe,

Huge catastrophic rendings of the hills,

Red floods of lava; cataracts of fire;

Monstrous upheavals of the nethermost deep;

Whereby as Cuvier painted them, in hues

Of blind disaster, all the hosts of life

In each æonian period, like a swarm

Of ants beneath the wheels of Juggernaut,

Were utterly abolished.

Did God create

After each earth-disaster, then, new hosts

Of life to range her mountains and her seas;

New forms, new patterns, fresh from His careless Hand,

Yet all so closely akin to those destroyed?

Or did this life-stream, from one fountain-head,

Through the long changes of unnumbered years

Flow on, unbroken, slowly branching out

Into new beauty, as a river winds

Into new channels? One, singing through the hills,

Mirrors the hanging precipice and the pine;

And one through level meadows curves away,

Turns a dark wheel, or foams along a weir,

Then, in a pool of shadow, drowns the moon.

Already in England, bearing the same fire,A far companion whom he never knewHad long been moving on the same dark quest,But through what quiet secluded walks of peace.Out of the mist emerged the little CityOf Lichfield, clustering round its Minster PoolThat, like a fragment of the sky on earth,Reflected its two bridges, gnarled old trees,Half-timbered walls; a bare-legged child at playUpon its brink; two clouds like floating swans,Two swans like small white clouds; a boy that rodeA big brown cart-horse lazily jingling by;And the cathedral, like a three-spired crown,Set on its northern bank.Then, from the west,Above it, walled away from the steep street,I saw Erasmus Darwin’s bluff square house.Along its front, above the five stone stepsThat climbed to its high door, strange vines and frondsMade a green jungle in their dim prison of glass.Behind, its windows overlooked a closeOf rambling mellow roofs, and coldly staredAt the cathedral’s three foreshortened spires,Which seemed to draw together, as though in doubtOf what lay hidden in those bleak staring eyes.There dwelt that eager mind, whom fools derideFor laced and periwigged verses on his flowers;Forgetting how he strode before his age,And how his grandson caught from his right handA fire that lit the world.I saw him there,In his brown-skirted coat, among his plants,Pondering the thoughts, at which that dreamer sneered,Who, through a haze of opium, saw a starTwinkling within the tip of the crescent moon.Dispraise no song for tricks that fancy plays,Nor for blind gropings after an unknown light,But let no echo of Abora praise for thisThe drooping pinion and unseeing eye.Seek, poet, on thy sacred height, the strengthAnd glory of that true vision which shall grasp,In clear imagination, earth and heaven,And from the truly seen ascend in powerTo those high realms whereof our heaven and earthAre images and shadows, and their lawOur shining lanthorn and unfailing guide.There, if the periwigged numbers failed to fly,Let babbling dreamers who have also failedWait for another age. The time will comeWhen all he sought and lost shall mount and sing.He saw the life-stream branching out before him,Its forms and colours changing with their sky:Flocks in the south that lost their warm white fleece;And, in the north, the stubble-coloured hareGrowing snow-white against the winter snows.The frog that had no jewel in his head,Except his eyes, was yet a fairy prince,For he could change the colours of his coatTo match the mud of the stream wherein he reigned;And, if he dwelt in trees, his coat was green.He saw the green-winged birds of ParaguayHardening their beaks upon the shells they cracked;The humming-bird, with beak made needle-fineFor sucking honey from long-throated blooms;Finches with delicate beaks for buds of trees,And water-fowl that, in their age-long plashingAt the lake’s edge, had stretched the films of skinBetween their claws to webs. Out through the reedsThey rowed at last, and swam to seek their prey.He saw how, in their war against the world,Myriads of lives mysteriously assumedThe hues that hid them best; the butterfly dancingWith its four petals among so many flowers,Itself a wingèd flower; the hedgerow birdsWith greenish backs like leaves, but their soft breastsLight as a downy sky, so that the hawk,Poised overhead, sees only a vanishing leaf;Or, if he swoops along the field below them,Loses their silvery flight against the cloud.He saw the goldfinch, vivid as the bloomsThrough which it flutters, as though their dews had splashedRed of the thistle upon its head and throat,And on its wings the dandelion’s gold.He saw the skylark coloured like its nestIn the dry grass; the partridge, grey and brownIn mottled fields, escaping every eye,Till the foot stumbles over it, and the clumpOf quiet earth takes wing and whirrs away.I saw him there, a strange and lonely soul,An eagle in the Swan of Lichfield’s pen,Stretching clipped wings and staring at the sky.He saw the multitudinous hosts of life,All creatures of the sea and earth and air,Ascending from one living spiral thread,Through tracts of time, unreckonable in years.He saw them varying as the plastic clayUnder the Sculptor’s hands.He saw them flowingFrom one Eternal Fount beyond our world,The inscrutable and indwelling Primal Power,His onlyvera causa; by whose willThere was no gulf between the first and last.There was no break in that long line of lawBetween the first life drifting in the sea,And man, proud man, the crowning form of earth,Man whose own spine, the framework of his pride,The fern-stem of his life, trunk of his tree,Sleeps in the fish, the reptile, and the orang,As all those lives in his own embryo sleep.What deeper revolution, then, must shakeThose proud ancestral dynasties of earth?What little man-made temples must go down?And what august new temple must arise,One vast cathedral, gargoyled with strange life,Surging through darkness, up to the unknown end?

Already in England, bearing the same fire,A far companion whom he never knewHad long been moving on the same dark quest,But through what quiet secluded walks of peace.

Already in England, bearing the same fire,

A far companion whom he never knew

Had long been moving on the same dark quest,

But through what quiet secluded walks of peace.

Out of the mist emerged the little CityOf Lichfield, clustering round its Minster PoolThat, like a fragment of the sky on earth,Reflected its two bridges, gnarled old trees,Half-timbered walls; a bare-legged child at playUpon its brink; two clouds like floating swans,Two swans like small white clouds; a boy that rodeA big brown cart-horse lazily jingling by;And the cathedral, like a three-spired crown,Set on its northern bank.Then, from the west,Above it, walled away from the steep street,I saw Erasmus Darwin’s bluff square house.Along its front, above the five stone stepsThat climbed to its high door, strange vines and frondsMade a green jungle in their dim prison of glass.Behind, its windows overlooked a closeOf rambling mellow roofs, and coldly staredAt the cathedral’s three foreshortened spires,Which seemed to draw together, as though in doubtOf what lay hidden in those bleak staring eyes.

Out of the mist emerged the little City

Of Lichfield, clustering round its Minster Pool

That, like a fragment of the sky on earth,

Reflected its two bridges, gnarled old trees,

Half-timbered walls; a bare-legged child at play

Upon its brink; two clouds like floating swans,

Two swans like small white clouds; a boy that rode

A big brown cart-horse lazily jingling by;

And the cathedral, like a three-spired crown,

Set on its northern bank.

Then, from the west,

Above it, walled away from the steep street,

I saw Erasmus Darwin’s bluff square house.

Along its front, above the five stone steps

That climbed to its high door, strange vines and fronds

Made a green jungle in their dim prison of glass.

Behind, its windows overlooked a close

Of rambling mellow roofs, and coldly stared

At the cathedral’s three foreshortened spires,

Which seemed to draw together, as though in doubt

Of what lay hidden in those bleak staring eyes.

There dwelt that eager mind, whom fools derideFor laced and periwigged verses on his flowers;Forgetting how he strode before his age,And how his grandson caught from his right handA fire that lit the world.I saw him there,In his brown-skirted coat, among his plants,Pondering the thoughts, at which that dreamer sneered,Who, through a haze of opium, saw a starTwinkling within the tip of the crescent moon.Dispraise no song for tricks that fancy plays,Nor for blind gropings after an unknown light,But let no echo of Abora praise for thisThe drooping pinion and unseeing eye.Seek, poet, on thy sacred height, the strengthAnd glory of that true vision which shall grasp,In clear imagination, earth and heaven,And from the truly seen ascend in powerTo those high realms whereof our heaven and earthAre images and shadows, and their lawOur shining lanthorn and unfailing guide.There, if the periwigged numbers failed to fly,Let babbling dreamers who have also failedWait for another age. The time will comeWhen all he sought and lost shall mount and sing.He saw the life-stream branching out before him,Its forms and colours changing with their sky:Flocks in the south that lost their warm white fleece;And, in the north, the stubble-coloured hareGrowing snow-white against the winter snows.The frog that had no jewel in his head,Except his eyes, was yet a fairy prince,For he could change the colours of his coatTo match the mud of the stream wherein he reigned;And, if he dwelt in trees, his coat was green.He saw the green-winged birds of ParaguayHardening their beaks upon the shells they cracked;The humming-bird, with beak made needle-fineFor sucking honey from long-throated blooms;Finches with delicate beaks for buds of trees,And water-fowl that, in their age-long plashingAt the lake’s edge, had stretched the films of skinBetween their claws to webs. Out through the reedsThey rowed at last, and swam to seek their prey.He saw how, in their war against the world,Myriads of lives mysteriously assumedThe hues that hid them best; the butterfly dancingWith its four petals among so many flowers,Itself a wingèd flower; the hedgerow birdsWith greenish backs like leaves, but their soft breastsLight as a downy sky, so that the hawk,Poised overhead, sees only a vanishing leaf;Or, if he swoops along the field below them,Loses their silvery flight against the cloud.He saw the goldfinch, vivid as the bloomsThrough which it flutters, as though their dews had splashedRed of the thistle upon its head and throat,And on its wings the dandelion’s gold.He saw the skylark coloured like its nestIn the dry grass; the partridge, grey and brownIn mottled fields, escaping every eye,Till the foot stumbles over it, and the clumpOf quiet earth takes wing and whirrs away.I saw him there, a strange and lonely soul,An eagle in the Swan of Lichfield’s pen,Stretching clipped wings and staring at the sky.He saw the multitudinous hosts of life,All creatures of the sea and earth and air,Ascending from one living spiral thread,Through tracts of time, unreckonable in years.He saw them varying as the plastic clayUnder the Sculptor’s hands.He saw them flowingFrom one Eternal Fount beyond our world,The inscrutable and indwelling Primal Power,His onlyvera causa; by whose willThere was no gulf between the first and last.There was no break in that long line of lawBetween the first life drifting in the sea,And man, proud man, the crowning form of earth,Man whose own spine, the framework of his pride,The fern-stem of his life, trunk of his tree,Sleeps in the fish, the reptile, and the orang,As all those lives in his own embryo sleep.

There dwelt that eager mind, whom fools deride

For laced and periwigged verses on his flowers;

Forgetting how he strode before his age,

And how his grandson caught from his right hand

A fire that lit the world.

I saw him there,

In his brown-skirted coat, among his plants,

Pondering the thoughts, at which that dreamer sneered,

Who, through a haze of opium, saw a star

Twinkling within the tip of the crescent moon.

Dispraise no song for tricks that fancy plays,

Nor for blind gropings after an unknown light,

But let no echo of Abora praise for this

The drooping pinion and unseeing eye.

Seek, poet, on thy sacred height, the strength

And glory of that true vision which shall grasp,

In clear imagination, earth and heaven,

And from the truly seen ascend in power

To those high realms whereof our heaven and earth

Are images and shadows, and their law

Our shining lanthorn and unfailing guide.

There, if the periwigged numbers failed to fly,

Let babbling dreamers who have also failed

Wait for another age. The time will come

When all he sought and lost shall mount and sing.

He saw the life-stream branching out before him,

Its forms and colours changing with their sky:

Flocks in the south that lost their warm white fleece;

And, in the north, the stubble-coloured hare

Growing snow-white against the winter snows.

The frog that had no jewel in his head,

Except his eyes, was yet a fairy prince,

For he could change the colours of his coat

To match the mud of the stream wherein he reigned;

And, if he dwelt in trees, his coat was green.

He saw the green-winged birds of Paraguay

Hardening their beaks upon the shells they cracked;

The humming-bird, with beak made needle-fine

For sucking honey from long-throated blooms;

Finches with delicate beaks for buds of trees,

And water-fowl that, in their age-long plashing

At the lake’s edge, had stretched the films of skin

Between their claws to webs. Out through the reeds

They rowed at last, and swam to seek their prey.

He saw how, in their war against the world,

Myriads of lives mysteriously assumed

The hues that hid them best; the butterfly dancing

With its four petals among so many flowers,

Itself a wingèd flower; the hedgerow birds

With greenish backs like leaves, but their soft breasts

Light as a downy sky, so that the hawk,

Poised overhead, sees only a vanishing leaf;

Or, if he swoops along the field below them,

Loses their silvery flight against the cloud.

He saw the goldfinch, vivid as the blooms

Through which it flutters, as though their dews had splashed

Red of the thistle upon its head and throat,

And on its wings the dandelion’s gold.

He saw the skylark coloured like its nest

In the dry grass; the partridge, grey and brown

In mottled fields, escaping every eye,

Till the foot stumbles over it, and the clump

Of quiet earth takes wing and whirrs away.

I saw him there, a strange and lonely soul,

An eagle in the Swan of Lichfield’s pen,

Stretching clipped wings and staring at the sky.

He saw the multitudinous hosts of life,

All creatures of the sea and earth and air,

Ascending from one living spiral thread,

Through tracts of time, unreckonable in years.

He saw them varying as the plastic clay

Under the Sculptor’s hands.

He saw them flowing

From one Eternal Fount beyond our world,

The inscrutable and indwelling Primal Power,

His onlyvera causa; by whose will

There was no gulf between the first and last.

There was no break in that long line of law

Between the first life drifting in the sea,

And man, proud man, the crowning form of earth,

Man whose own spine, the framework of his pride,

The fern-stem of his life, trunk of his tree,

Sleeps in the fish, the reptile, and the orang,

As all those lives in his own embryo sleep.

What deeper revolution, then, must shakeThose proud ancestral dynasties of earth?What little man-made temples must go down?And what august new temple must arise,One vast cathedral, gargoyled with strange life,Surging through darkness, up to the unknown end?

What deeper revolution, then, must shake

Those proud ancestral dynasties of earth?

What little man-made temples must go down?

And what august new temple must arise,

One vast cathedral, gargoyled with strange life,

Surging through darkness, up to the unknown end?

Fear nothing, Swan of Lichfield. Tuck thy headBeneath thy snowy wing and sleep at ease.Drift quietly on thy shadowy Minster Pool.No voice comes yet to shake thy placid world.Far off—in France—thy wingless angels makeStrange havoc, but the bearer of this fire,The wise physician’s unknown comrade, toilsObscurely now, through his more perilous night,Seeking hisvera causa, with blind eyes.Blind, blind as Galileo in his age,Lamarck embraced his doom and, as in youth,Held to the post assigned, till Life or DeathRelieved him. All those changes of the worldHe had seen more clearly than his unknown friend;And traced their natural order.He saw the sea-gull like a flake of foamTossed from the waves of that creative sea;The fish that like a speckled patch of sandSlides over sand upon its broad flat side,And twists its head until its nether eyeLooks upward, too, and what swam upright onceIs fixed in its new shape, and the wry mouthGrimaces like a gnome at its old foes.He saw the swarming mackerel shoals that swimNear the crisp surface, rippled with blue and greenRound their dark backs to trick the pouncing gull,But silver-bellied to flash like streaks of lightOver the ravenous mouths that from belowSnap at the leaping gleams of the upper sea.And all these delicate artistries were wroughtBy that strange Something-Else which blind men call“Environment,” and the name is all their need;A Something-Else that, through the sum of things,Labours unseen; and, for its own strange ends,Desirous of more swiftness and more strength,Will teach the hunted deer to escape and fly,Even while it leads the tiger to pursue.He saw that sexual war; the stags that foughtIn mating-time; the strong confirmed in powerBy victory. Lust and hunger, pleasure and pain,Like instruments in a dread Designer’s hand,Lured or dissuaded, tempted and transformed.He saw dark monsters in primeval forestsTearing the high green branches down for foodAge after age, till from their ponderous headsOut of their own elastic flesh they stretchedA trunk that, like a long grey muscular snake,Could curl up through the bunches of green leaves,And pluck their food at ease as cattle browse;Life’s own dark effort aiding that strange PowerWithout, and all controlled in one great plan,Grotesquely free, and beautifully at oneWith law, upsurging to the unknown end.All Nature like a vast chameleon changed;And all these forms of life through endless years,Changing, developing, from one filament rose.Man, on the heights, retravelled in nine moonsAll that long journey in little, never to loseWhat life had learned on its æonian way:Man on the heights; but not divided nowFrom his own struggling kindred of the night.Few dared to think it yet and set him freeThrough knowledge of himself and his own power;Few, yet, in France or England. Let him baskWhere in six days God set him at his easeAmong His wingless angels; there to hateThe truth, until he breaks his own vain heartAnd finds the law at last and walks with God,Who, not abhorring even the mire and clayIn the beginning, breathed His life through all.This was hisvera causa. Hate, contempt,Ridicule, like a scurrilous wind swooped downFrom every side. Great Cuvier, with the friendsOf orthodoxy, sneered—could species changeTheir forms at will? Could the lean tiger’s needTo crouch in hiding stripe his tawny fleshWith shadows of the cane-break where he lay?Could the giraffe, by wishing for the leavesBeyond his reach, add to his height one inch?Or could the reptile’s fond desire to flyCreate his wings?Could Cuvier read one lineOf this blind man, he might have held his peace,Found his ownversa causa, and sunk his pride;And even the wiser Darwin, when he came,Might have withheld his judgment for an hour,And learned from his forerunner. But, in their haste,They flung away his fire; and, as he fell,They set their heels upon it and stamped it out.Not always does the distant age restoreThe balance, or posterity renewThe laurel on the cold dishonoured browUnjustly robbed and blindly beaten down.He laboured on in blindness. At his sideOne faithful daughter, labouring with her pen,As he dictated, wrote, month after month,Year after year; and, when her father died,She saw him tossed into the general grave,The pauper’s fosse, where none can trace him now,In Montparnasse, but wrapt in deeper peaceAmong the unknown and long-forgotten dead.

Fear nothing, Swan of Lichfield. Tuck thy head

Beneath thy snowy wing and sleep at ease.

Drift quietly on thy shadowy Minster Pool.

No voice comes yet to shake thy placid world.

Far off—in France—thy wingless angels make

Strange havoc, but the bearer of this fire,

The wise physician’s unknown comrade, toils

Obscurely now, through his more perilous night,

Seeking hisvera causa, with blind eyes.

Blind, blind as Galileo in his age,

Lamarck embraced his doom and, as in youth,

Held to the post assigned, till Life or Death

Relieved him. All those changes of the world

He had seen more clearly than his unknown friend;

And traced their natural order.

He saw the sea-gull like a flake of foam

Tossed from the waves of that creative sea;

The fish that like a speckled patch of sand

Slides over sand upon its broad flat side,

And twists its head until its nether eye

Looks upward, too, and what swam upright once

Is fixed in its new shape, and the wry mouth

Grimaces like a gnome at its old foes.

He saw the swarming mackerel shoals that swim

Near the crisp surface, rippled with blue and green

Round their dark backs to trick the pouncing gull,

But silver-bellied to flash like streaks of light

Over the ravenous mouths that from below

Snap at the leaping gleams of the upper sea.

And all these delicate artistries were wrought

By that strange Something-Else which blind men call

“Environment,” and the name is all their need;

A Something-Else that, through the sum of things,

Labours unseen; and, for its own strange ends,

Desirous of more swiftness and more strength,

Will teach the hunted deer to escape and fly,

Even while it leads the tiger to pursue.

He saw that sexual war; the stags that foughtIn mating-time; the strong confirmed in powerBy victory. Lust and hunger, pleasure and pain,Like instruments in a dread Designer’s hand,Lured or dissuaded, tempted and transformed.

He saw that sexual war; the stags that fought

In mating-time; the strong confirmed in power

By victory. Lust and hunger, pleasure and pain,

Like instruments in a dread Designer’s hand,

Lured or dissuaded, tempted and transformed.

He saw dark monsters in primeval forestsTearing the high green branches down for foodAge after age, till from their ponderous headsOut of their own elastic flesh they stretchedA trunk that, like a long grey muscular snake,Could curl up through the bunches of green leaves,And pluck their food at ease as cattle browse;Life’s own dark effort aiding that strange PowerWithout, and all controlled in one great plan,Grotesquely free, and beautifully at oneWith law, upsurging to the unknown end.All Nature like a vast chameleon changed;And all these forms of life through endless years,Changing, developing, from one filament rose.Man, on the heights, retravelled in nine moonsAll that long journey in little, never to loseWhat life had learned on its æonian way:Man on the heights; but not divided nowFrom his own struggling kindred of the night.Few dared to think it yet and set him freeThrough knowledge of himself and his own power;Few, yet, in France or England. Let him baskWhere in six days God set him at his easeAmong His wingless angels; there to hateThe truth, until he breaks his own vain heartAnd finds the law at last and walks with God,Who, not abhorring even the mire and clayIn the beginning, breathed His life through all.This was hisvera causa. Hate, contempt,Ridicule, like a scurrilous wind swooped downFrom every side. Great Cuvier, with the friendsOf orthodoxy, sneered—could species changeTheir forms at will? Could the lean tiger’s needTo crouch in hiding stripe his tawny fleshWith shadows of the cane-break where he lay?Could the giraffe, by wishing for the leavesBeyond his reach, add to his height one inch?Or could the reptile’s fond desire to flyCreate his wings?Could Cuvier read one lineOf this blind man, he might have held his peace,Found his ownversa causa, and sunk his pride;And even the wiser Darwin, when he came,Might have withheld his judgment for an hour,And learned from his forerunner. But, in their haste,They flung away his fire; and, as he fell,They set their heels upon it and stamped it out.Not always does the distant age restoreThe balance, or posterity renewThe laurel on the cold dishonoured browUnjustly robbed and blindly beaten down.He laboured on in blindness. At his sideOne faithful daughter, labouring with her pen,As he dictated, wrote, month after month,Year after year; and, when her father died,She saw him tossed into the general grave,The pauper’s fosse, where none can trace him now,In Montparnasse, but wrapt in deeper peaceAmong the unknown and long-forgotten dead.

He saw dark monsters in primeval forests

Tearing the high green branches down for food

Age after age, till from their ponderous heads

Out of their own elastic flesh they stretched

A trunk that, like a long grey muscular snake,

Could curl up through the bunches of green leaves,

And pluck their food at ease as cattle browse;

Life’s own dark effort aiding that strange Power

Without, and all controlled in one great plan,

Grotesquely free, and beautifully at one

With law, upsurging to the unknown end.

All Nature like a vast chameleon changed;

And all these forms of life through endless years,

Changing, developing, from one filament rose.

Man, on the heights, retravelled in nine moons

All that long journey in little, never to lose

What life had learned on its æonian way:

Man on the heights; but not divided now

From his own struggling kindred of the night.

Few dared to think it yet and set him free

Through knowledge of himself and his own power;

Few, yet, in France or England. Let him bask

Where in six days God set him at his ease

Among His wingless angels; there to hate

The truth, until he breaks his own vain heart

And finds the law at last and walks with God,

Who, not abhorring even the mire and clay

In the beginning, breathed His life through all.

This was hisvera causa. Hate, contempt,

Ridicule, like a scurrilous wind swooped down

From every side. Great Cuvier, with the friends

Of orthodoxy, sneered—could species change

Their forms at will? Could the lean tiger’s need

To crouch in hiding stripe his tawny flesh

With shadows of the cane-break where he lay?

Could the giraffe, by wishing for the leaves

Beyond his reach, add to his height one inch?

Or could the reptile’s fond desire to fly

Create his wings?

Could Cuvier read one line

Of this blind man, he might have held his peace,

Found his ownversa causa, and sunk his pride;

And even the wiser Darwin, when he came,

Might have withheld his judgment for an hour,

And learned from his forerunner. But, in their haste,

They flung away his fire; and, as he fell,

They set their heels upon it and stamped it out.

Not always does the distant age restore

The balance, or posterity renew

The laurel on the cold dishonoured brow

Unjustly robbed and blindly beaten down.

He laboured on in blindness. At his side

One faithful daughter, labouring with her pen,

As he dictated, wrote, month after month,

Year after year; and, when her father died,

She saw him tossed into the general grave,

The pauper’s fosse, where none can trace him now,

In Montparnasse, but wrapt in deeper peace

Among the unknown and long-forgotten dead.

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