Primeval ManBk.V.vv. 781-1159
Bk.V.vv. 781-1159
In the beginning Earth at her own willSpread a verdant glitter on plain and hill.Flowery meadows shone, gay, birthday sheen,Many-coloured embroidery of green.Meanwhile fresh germs were nursing strength beyondThe modest grass that carpeted the ground.In them all a strange, a wild yearning wokeTo taste upper air; from the soil trees broke.Ah the sense of liberty, the keen zestOf a roaming instinct that stirred Earth’s breast!Thus she by herself in bush and tall groveProbed the mystery of the realm above;Foliage anticipating in spaceThe down and feathers of a wingéd race.Next, in many, manifold modes, not comeFrom salt pools, or sky-dropped, but from the womb—Bewildering variety of birth—Of the one universal Mother, Earth,Life, under impulses of rain, heat, light,Found organs of movement, even of flight.Nor yet is her inventiveness outworn;Still, through the same forces, are fresh forms born.But well it may have been that in old days,When Earth was quicker, livelier, in ways,Air larger, the diversity in kindWas more, the size greater, than now we find,Vitality faster in ev’rything.Thus, eggs would be hatched by the sun in Spring,As the cicala strips its body bareOf its fine coat, and needs no mother’s care.And now Earth’s motherliness that had firstFound its scope in herbage, in due course nursedHuman life itself.Wombs from moist heat grewSoil-fixed by roots that nutriment thence drew.This children, when they broke forth, sucked, and then,Issuing to air, walked erect as Men.Owing thus to one source—Earth’s breast—their milk,For clothes her breath, for couch turf soft as silk.Fit season for creative pow’rs to wake,When cold did not numb, gusts confusion make,And unlike natures could in peace assumeTheir just traits, and find, without jostling, room.With fair intervals since the birth of Man,Almost each beast and bird we know beganTo range mountains and air, although at lengthEarth, like to mortal mothers, waned in strength.Change is Nature’s prime law; stage follows stage;And the engine by which she works is age.A plant from flower droops into decay;Another from dust blossoms for its day.Earth is in endless flux; she cannot bearQualities once loved; kinds are not which were.Legend is thus encouraged to relateTales of wonders in Earth’s creative state.We hear of bodies twofold, each a kind,Bound in one frame, but with a single mind.Inconceivable Centaurs!At three yearsA horse is full-grown and all burdens bears;At that age a boy can but play, and rest;Yearns aloud in sleep for his mother’s breast.Hardly is life for the young man begunWhen the wind-galled steed’s course long since was run.And Scylla? She might have chos’n to be fish,Or to bark as dogs, and have had her wish;But as a pair!And Chimæra again?Well for the Three to work as each is fain;But, however it is with dragons, goatAnd lion boast not of a flame-proof coat.So, of the new Earth and Heaven—dreams toldOf rivers running sudden floods of gold;Trees with gems for flowers; giants of heightTo wade deep-rushing waters, and a mightThat could make Olympus a ruined heap;As if, because young Earth was used to keepElements and seeds dormant, when they cameAt length to life, they need not be the same!Fancy “improved” them from real freaks, born,Living, if lives scarce human, and forlorn.From instinct creative, but cross-grained, EarthBrought monsters—aspect and limbs strange—to birth;Abnormal the whole—some with parts too few,Some with more, though all human, than were due.Horse-men, mermaids, dragons, gold-streams, gemmed trees.For Nature are impossibilities.Had they once existed, there is no causeWhy the race should have ceased through Nature’s laws.The freaks of Earth were actual, and ledEarthly men’s lives; horror, if they had bred,As they might have but for good Nature’s grace!She, guardian of the purity of race,Rejecting them from the kind, by her banOf Childlessness, saved the descent of Man!Nature works marvels; many are combined,When she plants, and bars trespass on, a kind.First, long experiments will have been triedBefore candidates find their way inside.Even with claim allowed, how many haveLeft, to prove they lived, nothing but a grave!Food may have failed, elbow-room, or good willIn new-come neighbours strong to do them ill.Among survivors a part owe their lifeTo native power to outlast long strife.A habit may have been acquired to keepVigils while the enemies were asleep;Or consciously they set wit against wit,And, with life for stakes, enjoy playing it.That is reynard’s way; lions’, less, resource,Than valiant rage has been the ruling force;And a third quality has saved a race,Agility—deers’ pow’r to devour space.Again, Man is grand destroyer; so breeds,Many, owe survival to his large needs.Dogs might have been classed with wolves; but we prizeThem as loyal light sleepers, best allies.Some kinds, beasts of burden, willing or not,Exchange protection, meals, for freedom’s lot.To flocks and herds attack by beasts of preyWas a nightly scare; it has passed away.They are secured from that, or lack of food,Since their extinction would lose Man a good.But kinds that neither can resist a raid,Nor have the right to call Man to their aid,What for them but death, if worth while as spoil,Or sharp riddance, cumberers of the soil?Such final dooms as these may well have struckA multitude of kinds out of life’s book;And Earth, as women, fills not gaps; her stageOf maternity obeys laws of age.Not Man, first-born of Earth, of those that fail;Child of a lusty mother, hard and hale;Built on a frame-work of big, solid bone,With tough sinews to weld the flesh in one;Not made with heat to faint, or cold to freeze,To sicken with strange meat, or by disease.Men led wandering wild beasts’ lives; the sunHad revolutions numberless to runEre they harrowed fields, guided the curved ploughs,Planted young orchards, or lopped rotting boughs.Meanwhile they gathered Earth’s alms, well contentWith the chance harvests sunshine, showers sent;Though food on which our ancestors reliedWas that the boundless woods of oak supplied.Acorns were their mainstay, with, in large store,Berries that young Earth’s teeming fallows bore.They felt not how miserable they were;For Nature pitied, and gave ample fare.To slake thirst they but had to track the soundOf torrents tumbling from great hills around—A call their fellows, the wild beasts, knew well.And oft a man would linger in some cellOf Wood-Nymph invited by the cool air,Since thence broke springs unfailing. Here and thereThey bubbled round rocks, loitering to playWith each; then would awhile sleep on their wayIn soft green moss, before all joined, to flow,One easy gliding stream, to the smooth plain below.As yet men had not learned to tan a skinRobbed from some beast, and dress themselves therein.Forest, or mountain cave, was the sole home—If that,—they knew. When, as they chanced to roam,A storm burst, rain, or whirlwind, they would lie,Grimy, in the thick scrub, till it passed by.Each one was for himself; none of them couldRise to an idea of common good;“Custom”, “Morals”, things unknown; and what useIn laws, when no act required an excuse?Aught a man saw, and liked, he took; so longAs none other saw, liked, and was as strong.The only need, a standard how to testAnimal worth—live as fitted that best.Savage love, although not without its storms,Was simpler than ours, direct, free from forms.If two agreed in those natural days,They wedded, as were weddings; went their ways.Were he willing, not she, he won consentWith a stick: and she had to be content.When rich the wooer, quick the bargain made,And the price in acorns, or berries paid.In our times, though passion may burn, its flameWe call discreetly by some other name;Is it force to warn daughters that to wedPoverty means just a mother’s death bed?And as for a sale of hearts, dare compareA lawyer’s settlements with a swine’s fare!Still, in essence a likeness we may findIn our modes to those of the new-world kind.Hunters all, by virtue of speed of foot,Patience no less, they ran down any brute;Hands as dexterous hurled a storm of stones,And wielded clubs that crashed through flesh and bones.Rarely were they baulked, or had to lie low,Hunted, the hunters, by a stronger foe!Sometimes night surprised them, led by the chaseFar from their customary haunts. Small caseThey made of that; strewed leaves, and on the heapThrew themselves, like wild beasts, and were asleep.Pity not that beneath no roof they lay,As darkness followed on the close of day.They wailed not, doubting its return, for light,Till with rosy torch the Sun banished night.The two had from their childhood come and gone;Why fear the Dark, unwatched, might rule alone?To them who never knew of locks and bars,A roof seemed a worse guardian than the stars.Rather it was when they had sought reposeIn caves they met most danger from their foes.It might occur to some wandering beast,Making the night hideous, to infestA recess it passed: and, however gladThe tenant to buy life with all he had,His fate would be to glut a lion’s maw.Plunged live in a live tomb by tooth and claw;Though worse their doom, who, with huge gobbets jaggedFrom the bleeding flesh, about the woods draggedNoisome centres of horror and pest—palmsTrembling o’er sores for which they knew no balms;Calling with agonizing cries on deathTo sink their remains to the world beneath.Alas!Though measure age with age; nor letUs in compassion for a few forgetHow hosts that, eagles gleaming, marched to war,Return, less thousands weltering in gore;A navy that rode yesterday the waves,To-day is matchwood, corpses robbed of graves.Ocean in Earth’s infancy swelled with pride,And lightly laid its empty threats aside;Laughing tides might mean treachery, or not;Mortals could plead no wreck to prove a plot;Famine slew a good few in the Age of Flint;Surfeit’s as homicidal as is stint;For themselves poisoned meats rude nomads dressed;With polished art we serve them to a guest!A stage on; huts, plaited boughs; men thereinWho stripped for clothes their prey of fur and skin.Chief of all discoveries theirs to learnHow the thing we call “Fire” will flame and burn.First, lightning brought it, darting from above;Though men might watch its birth in any grove,For when gales blow, the old trees sway about,And from the boughs in friction sparks flash out.The sun taught many uses; how the heat—Repeated rays—will gradually beatHardness mellow, and, with fire’s aid, prepareThe soil’s crude fruits and grain for human fare.Thus, from a hearth and rough shed, rose a home,With revolutions many thence to come;And when stop?With comfort, unknown of old,Men grew impatient of rude toil and cold.Plenty and leisure stirred the torpid heart;And love and tenderness required their part.Marriage fought free-love; couples plighted troth;And offspring were the property of both.Pledges of love, they had power to warmBeyond the circle where they were life’s charm.How could a father keep a heart of stone,When he felt a child’s throbbing on his own?Tenderness breeds tenderness; men at lengthRecognized binding duties owed by strengthTo weakness—assuming what it has willedMust be done—in the stammer of a childDictating to its father. From the hearthSympathy with helplessness spread through Earth.Right of the weak was the keystone whereonNeighbours that would not do or see wrong done,Founded their leagues;and though some base War-LordWould here and there be false to his sworn word,The best, the main part, stood by theirs, pure, chaste:—Else, mankind had perished, Earth been a waste!Throughout it all, Mankind was being taughtTo voice the rising requirements of Thought.Gradual process! Gesture was first stage;The fingers point a want in infant age.Each creature feels what force the best to spendTo indicate a need, and gain an end.An angry calf soon after it is born,Butts with forehead not armed as yet with horn;Whelps of panthers, and cubs of lions treatAs weapons teeth to be, and clawless feet.Chickens ruffle spread-wings, as at a foe,Threatening trespassers things they might do.What emotion will not all beasts succeedIn expressing, though without speech, at need?Your Molossian draws back his large, soft lips,And shews his hard teeth! Strangers, ware, he grips!Then comes an old friend of the Master’s—hark!With frolic round and round, the joyous bark!So with the whole tribe; whether in a glowOf love they lick their pups; or to and froRoll them—mimic rage—and bare, as to glutCannibal hunger, teeth in jaws half shut.All who know but a little of the kind,And listen to the scolding match, will findWorlds of difference from the doleful bayOf hound deserted, whipt, cow’ring away.Horses, again; does not the rule apply?You tell by a steed’s neigh that mares are nigh;Straightway he feels the spur of wingéd love;They interpret his challenge to the drove.But—nostrils spread, the neigh become a snort;War steeds, jangling armour, pass—he would join the sport!Nor are birds, ospreys, gulls, without their choiceOf vents for feeling; all unlike the voice,In wooing, to the hunger-scream of strife,Or victor’s, grappling sea fish for its life.Even, it is believed, some kinds that rideThe air have means by varied cries to guideMen’s acts. Rough throated rooks and crows are saidBy secular sign-reading to have bredAn instinct when winds, floods, rain they would have,To warn of weather coming that they crave.Thus, ears attest the ways that have been foundBy lower races to converse by sound,Strange if Man, Nature’s first-born, built not speechOn sounds for meanings diverse, one for each!Fond fable that one knew all names, and thenDistributed them to dumb fellow men!Before common use, by what means learned heArticulate speech had utility?How urge men as good as deaf—so, the rule,Sulky—for no clear gain, to go to school,When Nature had already, by designFor them, through combining powers, to reign,Giv’n versatility of voice and tongueTo plan, to act, and drive the world along!Strength in union; this the great, first law,From which, and its self-sacrifice, men drawSovereignty in Nature; thence learned to bowTo chiefs in mind and heart, who taught them howTo change forms of living and life for new.From acceptance of son after sire grewKingship and kings; with cities in due course,And citadels as centres of armed force,Or royal refuges in civil strife;For complex soon became national life.Wealth counted first by cattle, and by land;And the State’s part was at the King’s command.By his own standard he apportioned it,For strength or beauty; sometimes mother-wit.Laws of inheritance grew fixed; and greatLandowners vied with kings to rule a State.Gold came; race, steel, charm, acres ceased to reign;All gave gold way, and followed in its train.An owner used it to earn rule and fame;Less for themselves—not e’en so high his aim—Than that he sought to hide some stain of earth.None blushed to rank by accidents of birth;But rank through money! Rich men would disguiseThat flaw by vouching aught else for their rise,They wished wealth for enjoyment, yet to shunOdium for it behind honours won.Vain! each peak climbed breeds on its own accountEnvy with traps to trip you as you mount;The more, and loftier, surer the flashOf a bolt, and for you, amid the crash,To find yourself contemptuously hurledInto the foul pit of the Underworld.Flee gold and power, both; neither is oneWith happiness; or sheds bliss on a throne.Few who have touched the goal aver the goodEquals the price they paid in sweat of blood.Better it satisfies to be of thoseThat obey than to sway realms, and crush foes.Hear Reason, and know wealth, absolute, whole,Is so to live that means disturb not soul.You wish to forbid Penury your door?Then adjust your house-keeping to your store.Ambition exalts to abase; your eyes,If they see, will teach you its lures are lies.Earth’s masters despised these truths; they who hadSupremacy and wealth went drunk and madWith licence; worms could bear no more; and crown,And lordship—heads with them—came tumbling down.Majesty was a ball for mobs to spurn;Awe’s excess was matched by excess of scorn.It was the dregs’ orgy; rule of brute force;And each man’s fury followed its full course.Guilt will, whatever an offence, appearLess heinous to third persons than seen near.Trial now was before a Court of one;—Judge, suitor, he to whom the hurt was done.Vengeance extreme would rouse convict, or kin,To redress disproportioned to the sin,And, unindulged, leave on the other sideA balance owing, and unsatisfied;Enmeshing in either case a wide swarmOf households pledged to work each other harm.A blood-feud chokes enterprise;—earn rewardFor deeds, when hangs over the door a sword!Then, in all ages, let him who shall dareSet rolling stones of civil feud, beware!Whatever lives earlier it may spoil,It will not miss him out; it must recoil,No peace at home for one who has, the first,Poisoned man’s faith in man; he is accurst.Skulk as he may, himself does not believeHe shall for aye be able to deceive;In sleep, fever-raging, he will proclaimHis sin, and roam clad in the sheet of shame!Drear this “mid passage”, when, as themselves thought,Emancipated, men were sold and bought;Bondsmen to cunning demagogues, who sawTheir gain in putting off the reign of Law.But ev’n the Multitude will not endureChaos, save as interlude. Hence the cure.Mankind wearies of frauds; of vengeful deeds,Infinitely renewing, like ill weeds.From lassitude it lets the wise and goodEnlist strong arms to stem the turbid flood.In time some sage arises to extractIdeas of right, that laws condense to act.Youth long since was past; Nature stood aside,Leaving Man to face problems, and replies provide.
In the beginning Earth at her own willSpread a verdant glitter on plain and hill.Flowery meadows shone, gay, birthday sheen,Many-coloured embroidery of green.Meanwhile fresh germs were nursing strength beyondThe modest grass that carpeted the ground.In them all a strange, a wild yearning wokeTo taste upper air; from the soil trees broke.Ah the sense of liberty, the keen zestOf a roaming instinct that stirred Earth’s breast!Thus she by herself in bush and tall groveProbed the mystery of the realm above;Foliage anticipating in spaceThe down and feathers of a wingéd race.Next, in many, manifold modes, not comeFrom salt pools, or sky-dropped, but from the womb—Bewildering variety of birth—Of the one universal Mother, Earth,Life, under impulses of rain, heat, light,Found organs of movement, even of flight.Nor yet is her inventiveness outworn;Still, through the same forces, are fresh forms born.But well it may have been that in old days,When Earth was quicker, livelier, in ways,Air larger, the diversity in kindWas more, the size greater, than now we find,Vitality faster in ev’rything.Thus, eggs would be hatched by the sun in Spring,As the cicala strips its body bareOf its fine coat, and needs no mother’s care.And now Earth’s motherliness that had firstFound its scope in herbage, in due course nursedHuman life itself.Wombs from moist heat grewSoil-fixed by roots that nutriment thence drew.This children, when they broke forth, sucked, and then,Issuing to air, walked erect as Men.Owing thus to one source—Earth’s breast—their milk,For clothes her breath, for couch turf soft as silk.Fit season for creative pow’rs to wake,When cold did not numb, gusts confusion make,And unlike natures could in peace assumeTheir just traits, and find, without jostling, room.With fair intervals since the birth of Man,Almost each beast and bird we know beganTo range mountains and air, although at lengthEarth, like to mortal mothers, waned in strength.Change is Nature’s prime law; stage follows stage;And the engine by which she works is age.A plant from flower droops into decay;Another from dust blossoms for its day.Earth is in endless flux; she cannot bearQualities once loved; kinds are not which were.Legend is thus encouraged to relateTales of wonders in Earth’s creative state.We hear of bodies twofold, each a kind,Bound in one frame, but with a single mind.Inconceivable Centaurs!At three yearsA horse is full-grown and all burdens bears;At that age a boy can but play, and rest;Yearns aloud in sleep for his mother’s breast.Hardly is life for the young man begunWhen the wind-galled steed’s course long since was run.And Scylla? She might have chos’n to be fish,Or to bark as dogs, and have had her wish;But as a pair!And Chimæra again?Well for the Three to work as each is fain;But, however it is with dragons, goatAnd lion boast not of a flame-proof coat.So, of the new Earth and Heaven—dreams toldOf rivers running sudden floods of gold;Trees with gems for flowers; giants of heightTo wade deep-rushing waters, and a mightThat could make Olympus a ruined heap;As if, because young Earth was used to keepElements and seeds dormant, when they cameAt length to life, they need not be the same!Fancy “improved” them from real freaks, born,Living, if lives scarce human, and forlorn.From instinct creative, but cross-grained, EarthBrought monsters—aspect and limbs strange—to birth;Abnormal the whole—some with parts too few,Some with more, though all human, than were due.Horse-men, mermaids, dragons, gold-streams, gemmed trees.For Nature are impossibilities.Had they once existed, there is no causeWhy the race should have ceased through Nature’s laws.The freaks of Earth were actual, and ledEarthly men’s lives; horror, if they had bred,As they might have but for good Nature’s grace!She, guardian of the purity of race,Rejecting them from the kind, by her banOf Childlessness, saved the descent of Man!Nature works marvels; many are combined,When she plants, and bars trespass on, a kind.First, long experiments will have been triedBefore candidates find their way inside.Even with claim allowed, how many haveLeft, to prove they lived, nothing but a grave!Food may have failed, elbow-room, or good willIn new-come neighbours strong to do them ill.Among survivors a part owe their lifeTo native power to outlast long strife.A habit may have been acquired to keepVigils while the enemies were asleep;Or consciously they set wit against wit,And, with life for stakes, enjoy playing it.That is reynard’s way; lions’, less, resource,Than valiant rage has been the ruling force;And a third quality has saved a race,Agility—deers’ pow’r to devour space.Again, Man is grand destroyer; so breeds,Many, owe survival to his large needs.Dogs might have been classed with wolves; but we prizeThem as loyal light sleepers, best allies.Some kinds, beasts of burden, willing or not,Exchange protection, meals, for freedom’s lot.To flocks and herds attack by beasts of preyWas a nightly scare; it has passed away.They are secured from that, or lack of food,Since their extinction would lose Man a good.But kinds that neither can resist a raid,Nor have the right to call Man to their aid,What for them but death, if worth while as spoil,Or sharp riddance, cumberers of the soil?Such final dooms as these may well have struckA multitude of kinds out of life’s book;And Earth, as women, fills not gaps; her stageOf maternity obeys laws of age.Not Man, first-born of Earth, of those that fail;Child of a lusty mother, hard and hale;Built on a frame-work of big, solid bone,With tough sinews to weld the flesh in one;Not made with heat to faint, or cold to freeze,To sicken with strange meat, or by disease.Men led wandering wild beasts’ lives; the sunHad revolutions numberless to runEre they harrowed fields, guided the curved ploughs,Planted young orchards, or lopped rotting boughs.Meanwhile they gathered Earth’s alms, well contentWith the chance harvests sunshine, showers sent;Though food on which our ancestors reliedWas that the boundless woods of oak supplied.Acorns were their mainstay, with, in large store,Berries that young Earth’s teeming fallows bore.They felt not how miserable they were;For Nature pitied, and gave ample fare.To slake thirst they but had to track the soundOf torrents tumbling from great hills around—A call their fellows, the wild beasts, knew well.And oft a man would linger in some cellOf Wood-Nymph invited by the cool air,Since thence broke springs unfailing. Here and thereThey bubbled round rocks, loitering to playWith each; then would awhile sleep on their wayIn soft green moss, before all joined, to flow,One easy gliding stream, to the smooth plain below.As yet men had not learned to tan a skinRobbed from some beast, and dress themselves therein.Forest, or mountain cave, was the sole home—If that,—they knew. When, as they chanced to roam,A storm burst, rain, or whirlwind, they would lie,Grimy, in the thick scrub, till it passed by.Each one was for himself; none of them couldRise to an idea of common good;“Custom”, “Morals”, things unknown; and what useIn laws, when no act required an excuse?Aught a man saw, and liked, he took; so longAs none other saw, liked, and was as strong.The only need, a standard how to testAnimal worth—live as fitted that best.Savage love, although not without its storms,Was simpler than ours, direct, free from forms.If two agreed in those natural days,They wedded, as were weddings; went their ways.Were he willing, not she, he won consentWith a stick: and she had to be content.When rich the wooer, quick the bargain made,And the price in acorns, or berries paid.In our times, though passion may burn, its flameWe call discreetly by some other name;Is it force to warn daughters that to wedPoverty means just a mother’s death bed?And as for a sale of hearts, dare compareA lawyer’s settlements with a swine’s fare!Still, in essence a likeness we may findIn our modes to those of the new-world kind.Hunters all, by virtue of speed of foot,Patience no less, they ran down any brute;Hands as dexterous hurled a storm of stones,And wielded clubs that crashed through flesh and bones.Rarely were they baulked, or had to lie low,Hunted, the hunters, by a stronger foe!Sometimes night surprised them, led by the chaseFar from their customary haunts. Small caseThey made of that; strewed leaves, and on the heapThrew themselves, like wild beasts, and were asleep.Pity not that beneath no roof they lay,As darkness followed on the close of day.They wailed not, doubting its return, for light,Till with rosy torch the Sun banished night.The two had from their childhood come and gone;Why fear the Dark, unwatched, might rule alone?To them who never knew of locks and bars,A roof seemed a worse guardian than the stars.Rather it was when they had sought reposeIn caves they met most danger from their foes.It might occur to some wandering beast,Making the night hideous, to infestA recess it passed: and, however gladThe tenant to buy life with all he had,His fate would be to glut a lion’s maw.Plunged live in a live tomb by tooth and claw;Though worse their doom, who, with huge gobbets jaggedFrom the bleeding flesh, about the woods draggedNoisome centres of horror and pest—palmsTrembling o’er sores for which they knew no balms;Calling with agonizing cries on deathTo sink their remains to the world beneath.Alas!Though measure age with age; nor letUs in compassion for a few forgetHow hosts that, eagles gleaming, marched to war,Return, less thousands weltering in gore;A navy that rode yesterday the waves,To-day is matchwood, corpses robbed of graves.Ocean in Earth’s infancy swelled with pride,And lightly laid its empty threats aside;Laughing tides might mean treachery, or not;Mortals could plead no wreck to prove a plot;Famine slew a good few in the Age of Flint;Surfeit’s as homicidal as is stint;For themselves poisoned meats rude nomads dressed;With polished art we serve them to a guest!A stage on; huts, plaited boughs; men thereinWho stripped for clothes their prey of fur and skin.Chief of all discoveries theirs to learnHow the thing we call “Fire” will flame and burn.First, lightning brought it, darting from above;Though men might watch its birth in any grove,For when gales blow, the old trees sway about,And from the boughs in friction sparks flash out.The sun taught many uses; how the heat—Repeated rays—will gradually beatHardness mellow, and, with fire’s aid, prepareThe soil’s crude fruits and grain for human fare.Thus, from a hearth and rough shed, rose a home,With revolutions many thence to come;And when stop?With comfort, unknown of old,Men grew impatient of rude toil and cold.Plenty and leisure stirred the torpid heart;And love and tenderness required their part.Marriage fought free-love; couples plighted troth;And offspring were the property of both.Pledges of love, they had power to warmBeyond the circle where they were life’s charm.How could a father keep a heart of stone,When he felt a child’s throbbing on his own?Tenderness breeds tenderness; men at lengthRecognized binding duties owed by strengthTo weakness—assuming what it has willedMust be done—in the stammer of a childDictating to its father. From the hearthSympathy with helplessness spread through Earth.Right of the weak was the keystone whereonNeighbours that would not do or see wrong done,Founded their leagues;and though some base War-LordWould here and there be false to his sworn word,The best, the main part, stood by theirs, pure, chaste:—Else, mankind had perished, Earth been a waste!Throughout it all, Mankind was being taughtTo voice the rising requirements of Thought.Gradual process! Gesture was first stage;The fingers point a want in infant age.Each creature feels what force the best to spendTo indicate a need, and gain an end.An angry calf soon after it is born,Butts with forehead not armed as yet with horn;Whelps of panthers, and cubs of lions treatAs weapons teeth to be, and clawless feet.Chickens ruffle spread-wings, as at a foe,Threatening trespassers things they might do.What emotion will not all beasts succeedIn expressing, though without speech, at need?Your Molossian draws back his large, soft lips,And shews his hard teeth! Strangers, ware, he grips!Then comes an old friend of the Master’s—hark!With frolic round and round, the joyous bark!So with the whole tribe; whether in a glowOf love they lick their pups; or to and froRoll them—mimic rage—and bare, as to glutCannibal hunger, teeth in jaws half shut.All who know but a little of the kind,And listen to the scolding match, will findWorlds of difference from the doleful bayOf hound deserted, whipt, cow’ring away.Horses, again; does not the rule apply?You tell by a steed’s neigh that mares are nigh;Straightway he feels the spur of wingéd love;They interpret his challenge to the drove.But—nostrils spread, the neigh become a snort;War steeds, jangling armour, pass—he would join the sport!Nor are birds, ospreys, gulls, without their choiceOf vents for feeling; all unlike the voice,In wooing, to the hunger-scream of strife,Or victor’s, grappling sea fish for its life.Even, it is believed, some kinds that rideThe air have means by varied cries to guideMen’s acts. Rough throated rooks and crows are saidBy secular sign-reading to have bredAn instinct when winds, floods, rain they would have,To warn of weather coming that they crave.Thus, ears attest the ways that have been foundBy lower races to converse by sound,Strange if Man, Nature’s first-born, built not speechOn sounds for meanings diverse, one for each!Fond fable that one knew all names, and thenDistributed them to dumb fellow men!Before common use, by what means learned heArticulate speech had utility?How urge men as good as deaf—so, the rule,Sulky—for no clear gain, to go to school,When Nature had already, by designFor them, through combining powers, to reign,Giv’n versatility of voice and tongueTo plan, to act, and drive the world along!Strength in union; this the great, first law,From which, and its self-sacrifice, men drawSovereignty in Nature; thence learned to bowTo chiefs in mind and heart, who taught them howTo change forms of living and life for new.From acceptance of son after sire grewKingship and kings; with cities in due course,And citadels as centres of armed force,Or royal refuges in civil strife;For complex soon became national life.Wealth counted first by cattle, and by land;And the State’s part was at the King’s command.By his own standard he apportioned it,For strength or beauty; sometimes mother-wit.Laws of inheritance grew fixed; and greatLandowners vied with kings to rule a State.Gold came; race, steel, charm, acres ceased to reign;All gave gold way, and followed in its train.An owner used it to earn rule and fame;Less for themselves—not e’en so high his aim—Than that he sought to hide some stain of earth.None blushed to rank by accidents of birth;But rank through money! Rich men would disguiseThat flaw by vouching aught else for their rise,They wished wealth for enjoyment, yet to shunOdium for it behind honours won.Vain! each peak climbed breeds on its own accountEnvy with traps to trip you as you mount;The more, and loftier, surer the flashOf a bolt, and for you, amid the crash,To find yourself contemptuously hurledInto the foul pit of the Underworld.Flee gold and power, both; neither is oneWith happiness; or sheds bliss on a throne.Few who have touched the goal aver the goodEquals the price they paid in sweat of blood.Better it satisfies to be of thoseThat obey than to sway realms, and crush foes.Hear Reason, and know wealth, absolute, whole,Is so to live that means disturb not soul.You wish to forbid Penury your door?Then adjust your house-keeping to your store.Ambition exalts to abase; your eyes,If they see, will teach you its lures are lies.Earth’s masters despised these truths; they who hadSupremacy and wealth went drunk and madWith licence; worms could bear no more; and crown,And lordship—heads with them—came tumbling down.Majesty was a ball for mobs to spurn;Awe’s excess was matched by excess of scorn.It was the dregs’ orgy; rule of brute force;And each man’s fury followed its full course.Guilt will, whatever an offence, appearLess heinous to third persons than seen near.Trial now was before a Court of one;—Judge, suitor, he to whom the hurt was done.Vengeance extreme would rouse convict, or kin,To redress disproportioned to the sin,And, unindulged, leave on the other sideA balance owing, and unsatisfied;Enmeshing in either case a wide swarmOf households pledged to work each other harm.A blood-feud chokes enterprise;—earn rewardFor deeds, when hangs over the door a sword!Then, in all ages, let him who shall dareSet rolling stones of civil feud, beware!Whatever lives earlier it may spoil,It will not miss him out; it must recoil,No peace at home for one who has, the first,Poisoned man’s faith in man; he is accurst.Skulk as he may, himself does not believeHe shall for aye be able to deceive;In sleep, fever-raging, he will proclaimHis sin, and roam clad in the sheet of shame!Drear this “mid passage”, when, as themselves thought,Emancipated, men were sold and bought;Bondsmen to cunning demagogues, who sawTheir gain in putting off the reign of Law.But ev’n the Multitude will not endureChaos, save as interlude. Hence the cure.Mankind wearies of frauds; of vengeful deeds,Infinitely renewing, like ill weeds.From lassitude it lets the wise and goodEnlist strong arms to stem the turbid flood.In time some sage arises to extractIdeas of right, that laws condense to act.Youth long since was past; Nature stood aside,Leaving Man to face problems, and replies provide.
In the beginning Earth at her own willSpread a verdant glitter on plain and hill.Flowery meadows shone, gay, birthday sheen,Many-coloured embroidery of green.Meanwhile fresh germs were nursing strength beyondThe modest grass that carpeted the ground.In them all a strange, a wild yearning wokeTo taste upper air; from the soil trees broke.Ah the sense of liberty, the keen zestOf a roaming instinct that stirred Earth’s breast!Thus she by herself in bush and tall groveProbed the mystery of the realm above;Foliage anticipating in spaceThe down and feathers of a wingéd race.Next, in many, manifold modes, not comeFrom salt pools, or sky-dropped, but from the womb—Bewildering variety of birth—Of the one universal Mother, Earth,Life, under impulses of rain, heat, light,Found organs of movement, even of flight.Nor yet is her inventiveness outworn;Still, through the same forces, are fresh forms born.But well it may have been that in old days,When Earth was quicker, livelier, in ways,Air larger, the diversity in kindWas more, the size greater, than now we find,Vitality faster in ev’rything.Thus, eggs would be hatched by the sun in Spring,As the cicala strips its body bareOf its fine coat, and needs no mother’s care.And now Earth’s motherliness that had firstFound its scope in herbage, in due course nursedHuman life itself.Wombs from moist heat grewSoil-fixed by roots that nutriment thence drew.This children, when they broke forth, sucked, and then,Issuing to air, walked erect as Men.Owing thus to one source—Earth’s breast—their milk,For clothes her breath, for couch turf soft as silk.Fit season for creative pow’rs to wake,When cold did not numb, gusts confusion make,And unlike natures could in peace assumeTheir just traits, and find, without jostling, room.With fair intervals since the birth of Man,Almost each beast and bird we know beganTo range mountains and air, although at lengthEarth, like to mortal mothers, waned in strength.Change is Nature’s prime law; stage follows stage;And the engine by which she works is age.A plant from flower droops into decay;Another from dust blossoms for its day.Earth is in endless flux; she cannot bearQualities once loved; kinds are not which were.Legend is thus encouraged to relateTales of wonders in Earth’s creative state.We hear of bodies twofold, each a kind,Bound in one frame, but with a single mind.Inconceivable Centaurs!At three yearsA horse is full-grown and all burdens bears;At that age a boy can but play, and rest;Yearns aloud in sleep for his mother’s breast.Hardly is life for the young man begunWhen the wind-galled steed’s course long since was run.And Scylla? She might have chos’n to be fish,Or to bark as dogs, and have had her wish;But as a pair!And Chimæra again?Well for the Three to work as each is fain;But, however it is with dragons, goatAnd lion boast not of a flame-proof coat.So, of the new Earth and Heaven—dreams toldOf rivers running sudden floods of gold;Trees with gems for flowers; giants of heightTo wade deep-rushing waters, and a mightThat could make Olympus a ruined heap;As if, because young Earth was used to keepElements and seeds dormant, when they cameAt length to life, they need not be the same!Fancy “improved” them from real freaks, born,Living, if lives scarce human, and forlorn.From instinct creative, but cross-grained, EarthBrought monsters—aspect and limbs strange—to birth;Abnormal the whole—some with parts too few,Some with more, though all human, than were due.Horse-men, mermaids, dragons, gold-streams, gemmed trees.For Nature are impossibilities.Had they once existed, there is no causeWhy the race should have ceased through Nature’s laws.The freaks of Earth were actual, and ledEarthly men’s lives; horror, if they had bred,As they might have but for good Nature’s grace!She, guardian of the purity of race,Rejecting them from the kind, by her banOf Childlessness, saved the descent of Man!Nature works marvels; many are combined,When she plants, and bars trespass on, a kind.First, long experiments will have been triedBefore candidates find their way inside.Even with claim allowed, how many haveLeft, to prove they lived, nothing but a grave!Food may have failed, elbow-room, or good willIn new-come neighbours strong to do them ill.Among survivors a part owe their lifeTo native power to outlast long strife.A habit may have been acquired to keepVigils while the enemies were asleep;Or consciously they set wit against wit,And, with life for stakes, enjoy playing it.That is reynard’s way; lions’, less, resource,Than valiant rage has been the ruling force;And a third quality has saved a race,Agility—deers’ pow’r to devour space.Again, Man is grand destroyer; so breeds,Many, owe survival to his large needs.Dogs might have been classed with wolves; but we prizeThem as loyal light sleepers, best allies.Some kinds, beasts of burden, willing or not,Exchange protection, meals, for freedom’s lot.To flocks and herds attack by beasts of preyWas a nightly scare; it has passed away.They are secured from that, or lack of food,Since their extinction would lose Man a good.But kinds that neither can resist a raid,Nor have the right to call Man to their aid,What for them but death, if worth while as spoil,Or sharp riddance, cumberers of the soil?Such final dooms as these may well have struckA multitude of kinds out of life’s book;And Earth, as women, fills not gaps; her stageOf maternity obeys laws of age.Not Man, first-born of Earth, of those that fail;Child of a lusty mother, hard and hale;Built on a frame-work of big, solid bone,With tough sinews to weld the flesh in one;Not made with heat to faint, or cold to freeze,To sicken with strange meat, or by disease.Men led wandering wild beasts’ lives; the sunHad revolutions numberless to runEre they harrowed fields, guided the curved ploughs,Planted young orchards, or lopped rotting boughs.Meanwhile they gathered Earth’s alms, well contentWith the chance harvests sunshine, showers sent;Though food on which our ancestors reliedWas that the boundless woods of oak supplied.Acorns were their mainstay, with, in large store,Berries that young Earth’s teeming fallows bore.They felt not how miserable they were;For Nature pitied, and gave ample fare.To slake thirst they but had to track the soundOf torrents tumbling from great hills around—A call their fellows, the wild beasts, knew well.And oft a man would linger in some cellOf Wood-Nymph invited by the cool air,Since thence broke springs unfailing. Here and thereThey bubbled round rocks, loitering to playWith each; then would awhile sleep on their wayIn soft green moss, before all joined, to flow,One easy gliding stream, to the smooth plain below.As yet men had not learned to tan a skinRobbed from some beast, and dress themselves therein.Forest, or mountain cave, was the sole home—If that,—they knew. When, as they chanced to roam,A storm burst, rain, or whirlwind, they would lie,Grimy, in the thick scrub, till it passed by.Each one was for himself; none of them couldRise to an idea of common good;“Custom”, “Morals”, things unknown; and what useIn laws, when no act required an excuse?Aught a man saw, and liked, he took; so longAs none other saw, liked, and was as strong.The only need, a standard how to testAnimal worth—live as fitted that best.Savage love, although not without its storms,Was simpler than ours, direct, free from forms.If two agreed in those natural days,They wedded, as were weddings; went their ways.Were he willing, not she, he won consentWith a stick: and she had to be content.When rich the wooer, quick the bargain made,And the price in acorns, or berries paid.In our times, though passion may burn, its flameWe call discreetly by some other name;Is it force to warn daughters that to wedPoverty means just a mother’s death bed?And as for a sale of hearts, dare compareA lawyer’s settlements with a swine’s fare!Still, in essence a likeness we may findIn our modes to those of the new-world kind.Hunters all, by virtue of speed of foot,Patience no less, they ran down any brute;Hands as dexterous hurled a storm of stones,And wielded clubs that crashed through flesh and bones.Rarely were they baulked, or had to lie low,Hunted, the hunters, by a stronger foe!Sometimes night surprised them, led by the chaseFar from their customary haunts. Small caseThey made of that; strewed leaves, and on the heapThrew themselves, like wild beasts, and were asleep.Pity not that beneath no roof they lay,As darkness followed on the close of day.They wailed not, doubting its return, for light,Till with rosy torch the Sun banished night.The two had from their childhood come and gone;Why fear the Dark, unwatched, might rule alone?To them who never knew of locks and bars,A roof seemed a worse guardian than the stars.Rather it was when they had sought reposeIn caves they met most danger from their foes.It might occur to some wandering beast,Making the night hideous, to infestA recess it passed: and, however gladThe tenant to buy life with all he had,His fate would be to glut a lion’s maw.Plunged live in a live tomb by tooth and claw;Though worse their doom, who, with huge gobbets jaggedFrom the bleeding flesh, about the woods draggedNoisome centres of horror and pest—palmsTrembling o’er sores for which they knew no balms;Calling with agonizing cries on deathTo sink their remains to the world beneath.Alas!Though measure age with age; nor letUs in compassion for a few forgetHow hosts that, eagles gleaming, marched to war,Return, less thousands weltering in gore;A navy that rode yesterday the waves,To-day is matchwood, corpses robbed of graves.Ocean in Earth’s infancy swelled with pride,And lightly laid its empty threats aside;Laughing tides might mean treachery, or not;Mortals could plead no wreck to prove a plot;Famine slew a good few in the Age of Flint;Surfeit’s as homicidal as is stint;For themselves poisoned meats rude nomads dressed;With polished art we serve them to a guest!A stage on; huts, plaited boughs; men thereinWho stripped for clothes their prey of fur and skin.Chief of all discoveries theirs to learnHow the thing we call “Fire” will flame and burn.First, lightning brought it, darting from above;Though men might watch its birth in any grove,For when gales blow, the old trees sway about,And from the boughs in friction sparks flash out.The sun taught many uses; how the heat—Repeated rays—will gradually beatHardness mellow, and, with fire’s aid, prepareThe soil’s crude fruits and grain for human fare.Thus, from a hearth and rough shed, rose a home,With revolutions many thence to come;And when stop?With comfort, unknown of old,Men grew impatient of rude toil and cold.Plenty and leisure stirred the torpid heart;And love and tenderness required their part.Marriage fought free-love; couples plighted troth;And offspring were the property of both.Pledges of love, they had power to warmBeyond the circle where they were life’s charm.How could a father keep a heart of stone,When he felt a child’s throbbing on his own?Tenderness breeds tenderness; men at lengthRecognized binding duties owed by strengthTo weakness—assuming what it has willedMust be done—in the stammer of a childDictating to its father. From the hearthSympathy with helplessness spread through Earth.Right of the weak was the keystone whereonNeighbours that would not do or see wrong done,Founded their leagues;and though some base War-LordWould here and there be false to his sworn word,The best, the main part, stood by theirs, pure, chaste:—Else, mankind had perished, Earth been a waste!
In the beginning Earth at her own will
Spread a verdant glitter on plain and hill.
Flowery meadows shone, gay, birthday sheen,
Many-coloured embroidery of green.
Meanwhile fresh germs were nursing strength beyond
The modest grass that carpeted the ground.
In them all a strange, a wild yearning woke
To taste upper air; from the soil trees broke.
Ah the sense of liberty, the keen zest
Of a roaming instinct that stirred Earth’s breast!
Thus she by herself in bush and tall grove
Probed the mystery of the realm above;
Foliage anticipating in space
The down and feathers of a wingéd race.
Next, in many, manifold modes, not come
From salt pools, or sky-dropped, but from the womb—
Bewildering variety of birth—
Of the one universal Mother, Earth,
Life, under impulses of rain, heat, light,
Found organs of movement, even of flight.
Nor yet is her inventiveness outworn;
Still, through the same forces, are fresh forms born.
But well it may have been that in old days,
When Earth was quicker, livelier, in ways,
Air larger, the diversity in kind
Was more, the size greater, than now we find,
Vitality faster in ev’rything.
Thus, eggs would be hatched by the sun in Spring,
As the cicala strips its body bare
Of its fine coat, and needs no mother’s care.
And now Earth’s motherliness that had first
Found its scope in herbage, in due course nursed
Human life itself.
Wombs from moist heat grew
Soil-fixed by roots that nutriment thence drew.
This children, when they broke forth, sucked, and then,
Issuing to air, walked erect as Men.
Owing thus to one source—Earth’s breast—their milk,
For clothes her breath, for couch turf soft as silk.
Fit season for creative pow’rs to wake,
When cold did not numb, gusts confusion make,
And unlike natures could in peace assume
Their just traits, and find, without jostling, room.
With fair intervals since the birth of Man,
Almost each beast and bird we know began
To range mountains and air, although at length
Earth, like to mortal mothers, waned in strength.
Change is Nature’s prime law; stage follows stage;
And the engine by which she works is age.
A plant from flower droops into decay;
Another from dust blossoms for its day.
Earth is in endless flux; she cannot bear
Qualities once loved; kinds are not which were.
Legend is thus encouraged to relate
Tales of wonders in Earth’s creative state.
We hear of bodies twofold, each a kind,
Bound in one frame, but with a single mind.
Inconceivable Centaurs!
At three years
A horse is full-grown and all burdens bears;
At that age a boy can but play, and rest;
Yearns aloud in sleep for his mother’s breast.
Hardly is life for the young man begun
When the wind-galled steed’s course long since was run.
And Scylla? She might have chos’n to be fish,
Or to bark as dogs, and have had her wish;
But as a pair!
And Chimæra again?
Well for the Three to work as each is fain;
But, however it is with dragons, goat
And lion boast not of a flame-proof coat.
So, of the new Earth and Heaven—dreams told
Of rivers running sudden floods of gold;
Trees with gems for flowers; giants of height
To wade deep-rushing waters, and a might
That could make Olympus a ruined heap;
As if, because young Earth was used to keep
Elements and seeds dormant, when they came
At length to life, they need not be the same!
Fancy “improved” them from real freaks, born,
Living, if lives scarce human, and forlorn.
From instinct creative, but cross-grained, Earth
Brought monsters—aspect and limbs strange—to birth;
Abnormal the whole—some with parts too few,
Some with more, though all human, than were due.
Horse-men, mermaids, dragons, gold-streams, gemmed trees.
For Nature are impossibilities.
Had they once existed, there is no cause
Why the race should have ceased through Nature’s laws.
The freaks of Earth were actual, and led
Earthly men’s lives; horror, if they had bred,
As they might have but for good Nature’s grace!
She, guardian of the purity of race,
Rejecting them from the kind, by her ban
Of Childlessness, saved the descent of Man!
Nature works marvels; many are combined,
When she plants, and bars trespass on, a kind.
First, long experiments will have been tried
Before candidates find their way inside.
Even with claim allowed, how many have
Left, to prove they lived, nothing but a grave!
Food may have failed, elbow-room, or good will
In new-come neighbours strong to do them ill.
Among survivors a part owe their life
To native power to outlast long strife.
A habit may have been acquired to keep
Vigils while the enemies were asleep;
Or consciously they set wit against wit,
And, with life for stakes, enjoy playing it.
That is reynard’s way; lions’, less, resource,
Than valiant rage has been the ruling force;
And a third quality has saved a race,
Agility—deers’ pow’r to devour space.
Again, Man is grand destroyer; so breeds,
Many, owe survival to his large needs.
Dogs might have been classed with wolves; but we prize
Them as loyal light sleepers, best allies.
Some kinds, beasts of burden, willing or not,
Exchange protection, meals, for freedom’s lot.
To flocks and herds attack by beasts of prey
Was a nightly scare; it has passed away.
They are secured from that, or lack of food,
Since their extinction would lose Man a good.
But kinds that neither can resist a raid,
Nor have the right to call Man to their aid,
What for them but death, if worth while as spoil,
Or sharp riddance, cumberers of the soil?
Such final dooms as these may well have struck
A multitude of kinds out of life’s book;
And Earth, as women, fills not gaps; her stage
Of maternity obeys laws of age.
Not Man, first-born of Earth, of those that fail;
Child of a lusty mother, hard and hale;
Built on a frame-work of big, solid bone,
With tough sinews to weld the flesh in one;
Not made with heat to faint, or cold to freeze,
To sicken with strange meat, or by disease.
Men led wandering wild beasts’ lives; the sun
Had revolutions numberless to run
Ere they harrowed fields, guided the curved ploughs,
Planted young orchards, or lopped rotting boughs.
Meanwhile they gathered Earth’s alms, well content
With the chance harvests sunshine, showers sent;
Though food on which our ancestors relied
Was that the boundless woods of oak supplied.
Acorns were their mainstay, with, in large store,
Berries that young Earth’s teeming fallows bore.
They felt not how miserable they were;
For Nature pitied, and gave ample fare.
To slake thirst they but had to track the sound
Of torrents tumbling from great hills around—
A call their fellows, the wild beasts, knew well.
And oft a man would linger in some cell
Of Wood-Nymph invited by the cool air,
Since thence broke springs unfailing. Here and there
They bubbled round rocks, loitering to play
With each; then would awhile sleep on their way
In soft green moss, before all joined, to flow,
One easy gliding stream, to the smooth plain below.
As yet men had not learned to tan a skin
Robbed from some beast, and dress themselves therein.
Forest, or mountain cave, was the sole home—
If that,—they knew. When, as they chanced to roam,
A storm burst, rain, or whirlwind, they would lie,
Grimy, in the thick scrub, till it passed by.
Each one was for himself; none of them could
Rise to an idea of common good;
“Custom”, “Morals”, things unknown; and what use
In laws, when no act required an excuse?
Aught a man saw, and liked, he took; so long
As none other saw, liked, and was as strong.
The only need, a standard how to test
Animal worth—live as fitted that best.
Savage love, although not without its storms,
Was simpler than ours, direct, free from forms.
If two agreed in those natural days,
They wedded, as were weddings; went their ways.
Were he willing, not she, he won consent
With a stick: and she had to be content.
When rich the wooer, quick the bargain made,
And the price in acorns, or berries paid.
In our times, though passion may burn, its flame
We call discreetly by some other name;
Is it force to warn daughters that to wed
Poverty means just a mother’s death bed?
And as for a sale of hearts, dare compare
A lawyer’s settlements with a swine’s fare!
Still, in essence a likeness we may find
In our modes to those of the new-world kind.
Hunters all, by virtue of speed of foot,
Patience no less, they ran down any brute;
Hands as dexterous hurled a storm of stones,
And wielded clubs that crashed through flesh and bones.
Rarely were they baulked, or had to lie low,
Hunted, the hunters, by a stronger foe!
Sometimes night surprised them, led by the chase
Far from their customary haunts. Small case
They made of that; strewed leaves, and on the heap
Threw themselves, like wild beasts, and were asleep.
Pity not that beneath no roof they lay,
As darkness followed on the close of day.
They wailed not, doubting its return, for light,
Till with rosy torch the Sun banished night.
The two had from their childhood come and gone;
Why fear the Dark, unwatched, might rule alone?
To them who never knew of locks and bars,
A roof seemed a worse guardian than the stars.
Rather it was when they had sought repose
In caves they met most danger from their foes.
It might occur to some wandering beast,
Making the night hideous, to infest
A recess it passed: and, however glad
The tenant to buy life with all he had,
His fate would be to glut a lion’s maw.
Plunged live in a live tomb by tooth and claw;
Though worse their doom, who, with huge gobbets jagged
From the bleeding flesh, about the woods dragged
Noisome centres of horror and pest—palms
Trembling o’er sores for which they knew no balms;
Calling with agonizing cries on death
To sink their remains to the world beneath.
Alas!
Though measure age with age; nor let
Us in compassion for a few forget
How hosts that, eagles gleaming, marched to war,
Return, less thousands weltering in gore;
A navy that rode yesterday the waves,
To-day is matchwood, corpses robbed of graves.
Ocean in Earth’s infancy swelled with pride,
And lightly laid its empty threats aside;
Laughing tides might mean treachery, or not;
Mortals could plead no wreck to prove a plot;
Famine slew a good few in the Age of Flint;
Surfeit’s as homicidal as is stint;
For themselves poisoned meats rude nomads dressed;
With polished art we serve them to a guest!
A stage on; huts, plaited boughs; men therein
Who stripped for clothes their prey of fur and skin.
Chief of all discoveries theirs to learn
How the thing we call “Fire” will flame and burn.
First, lightning brought it, darting from above;
Though men might watch its birth in any grove,
For when gales blow, the old trees sway about,
And from the boughs in friction sparks flash out.
The sun taught many uses; how the heat—
Repeated rays—will gradually beat
Hardness mellow, and, with fire’s aid, prepare
The soil’s crude fruits and grain for human fare.
Thus, from a hearth and rough shed, rose a home,
With revolutions many thence to come;
And when stop?
With comfort, unknown of old,
Men grew impatient of rude toil and cold.
Plenty and leisure stirred the torpid heart;
And love and tenderness required their part.
Marriage fought free-love; couples plighted troth;
And offspring were the property of both.
Pledges of love, they had power to warm
Beyond the circle where they were life’s charm.
How could a father keep a heart of stone,
When he felt a child’s throbbing on his own?
Tenderness breeds tenderness; men at length
Recognized binding duties owed by strength
To weakness—assuming what it has willed
Must be done—in the stammer of a child
Dictating to its father. From the hearth
Sympathy with helplessness spread through Earth.
Right of the weak was the keystone whereon
Neighbours that would not do or see wrong done,
Founded their leagues;and though some base War-Lord
Would here and there be false to his sworn word,
The best, the main part, stood by theirs, pure, chaste:—
Else, mankind had perished, Earth been a waste!
Throughout it all, Mankind was being taughtTo voice the rising requirements of Thought.Gradual process! Gesture was first stage;The fingers point a want in infant age.Each creature feels what force the best to spendTo indicate a need, and gain an end.An angry calf soon after it is born,Butts with forehead not armed as yet with horn;Whelps of panthers, and cubs of lions treatAs weapons teeth to be, and clawless feet.Chickens ruffle spread-wings, as at a foe,Threatening trespassers things they might do.What emotion will not all beasts succeedIn expressing, though without speech, at need?Your Molossian draws back his large, soft lips,And shews his hard teeth! Strangers, ware, he grips!Then comes an old friend of the Master’s—hark!With frolic round and round, the joyous bark!So with the whole tribe; whether in a glowOf love they lick their pups; or to and froRoll them—mimic rage—and bare, as to glutCannibal hunger, teeth in jaws half shut.All who know but a little of the kind,And listen to the scolding match, will findWorlds of difference from the doleful bayOf hound deserted, whipt, cow’ring away.Horses, again; does not the rule apply?You tell by a steed’s neigh that mares are nigh;Straightway he feels the spur of wingéd love;They interpret his challenge to the drove.But—nostrils spread, the neigh become a snort;War steeds, jangling armour, pass—he would join the sport!Nor are birds, ospreys, gulls, without their choiceOf vents for feeling; all unlike the voice,In wooing, to the hunger-scream of strife,Or victor’s, grappling sea fish for its life.Even, it is believed, some kinds that rideThe air have means by varied cries to guideMen’s acts. Rough throated rooks and crows are saidBy secular sign-reading to have bredAn instinct when winds, floods, rain they would have,To warn of weather coming that they crave.Thus, ears attest the ways that have been foundBy lower races to converse by sound,Strange if Man, Nature’s first-born, built not speechOn sounds for meanings diverse, one for each!Fond fable that one knew all names, and thenDistributed them to dumb fellow men!Before common use, by what means learned heArticulate speech had utility?How urge men as good as deaf—so, the rule,Sulky—for no clear gain, to go to school,When Nature had already, by designFor them, through combining powers, to reign,Giv’n versatility of voice and tongueTo plan, to act, and drive the world along!Strength in union; this the great, first law,From which, and its self-sacrifice, men drawSovereignty in Nature; thence learned to bowTo chiefs in mind and heart, who taught them howTo change forms of living and life for new.From acceptance of son after sire grewKingship and kings; with cities in due course,And citadels as centres of armed force,Or royal refuges in civil strife;For complex soon became national life.Wealth counted first by cattle, and by land;And the State’s part was at the King’s command.By his own standard he apportioned it,For strength or beauty; sometimes mother-wit.Laws of inheritance grew fixed; and greatLandowners vied with kings to rule a State.Gold came; race, steel, charm, acres ceased to reign;All gave gold way, and followed in its train.An owner used it to earn rule and fame;Less for themselves—not e’en so high his aim—Than that he sought to hide some stain of earth.None blushed to rank by accidents of birth;But rank through money! Rich men would disguiseThat flaw by vouching aught else for their rise,They wished wealth for enjoyment, yet to shunOdium for it behind honours won.Vain! each peak climbed breeds on its own accountEnvy with traps to trip you as you mount;The more, and loftier, surer the flashOf a bolt, and for you, amid the crash,To find yourself contemptuously hurledInto the foul pit of the Underworld.Flee gold and power, both; neither is oneWith happiness; or sheds bliss on a throne.Few who have touched the goal aver the goodEquals the price they paid in sweat of blood.Better it satisfies to be of thoseThat obey than to sway realms, and crush foes.Hear Reason, and know wealth, absolute, whole,Is so to live that means disturb not soul.You wish to forbid Penury your door?Then adjust your house-keeping to your store.Ambition exalts to abase; your eyes,If they see, will teach you its lures are lies.
Throughout it all, Mankind was being taught
To voice the rising requirements of Thought.
Gradual process! Gesture was first stage;
The fingers point a want in infant age.
Each creature feels what force the best to spend
To indicate a need, and gain an end.
An angry calf soon after it is born,
Butts with forehead not armed as yet with horn;
Whelps of panthers, and cubs of lions treat
As weapons teeth to be, and clawless feet.
Chickens ruffle spread-wings, as at a foe,
Threatening trespassers things they might do.
What emotion will not all beasts succeed
In expressing, though without speech, at need?
Your Molossian draws back his large, soft lips,
And shews his hard teeth! Strangers, ware, he grips!
Then comes an old friend of the Master’s—hark!
With frolic round and round, the joyous bark!
So with the whole tribe; whether in a glow
Of love they lick their pups; or to and fro
Roll them—mimic rage—and bare, as to glut
Cannibal hunger, teeth in jaws half shut.
All who know but a little of the kind,
And listen to the scolding match, will find
Worlds of difference from the doleful bay
Of hound deserted, whipt, cow’ring away.
Horses, again; does not the rule apply?
You tell by a steed’s neigh that mares are nigh;
Straightway he feels the spur of wingéd love;
They interpret his challenge to the drove.
But—nostrils spread, the neigh become a snort;
War steeds, jangling armour, pass—he would join the sport!
Nor are birds, ospreys, gulls, without their choice
Of vents for feeling; all unlike the voice,
In wooing, to the hunger-scream of strife,
Or victor’s, grappling sea fish for its life.
Even, it is believed, some kinds that ride
The air have means by varied cries to guide
Men’s acts. Rough throated rooks and crows are said
By secular sign-reading to have bred
An instinct when winds, floods, rain they would have,
To warn of weather coming that they crave.
Thus, ears attest the ways that have been found
By lower races to converse by sound,
Strange if Man, Nature’s first-born, built not speech
On sounds for meanings diverse, one for each!
Fond fable that one knew all names, and then
Distributed them to dumb fellow men!
Before common use, by what means learned he
Articulate speech had utility?
How urge men as good as deaf—so, the rule,
Sulky—for no clear gain, to go to school,
When Nature had already, by design
For them, through combining powers, to reign,
Giv’n versatility of voice and tongue
To plan, to act, and drive the world along!
Strength in union; this the great, first law,
From which, and its self-sacrifice, men draw
Sovereignty in Nature; thence learned to bow
To chiefs in mind and heart, who taught them how
To change forms of living and life for new.
From acceptance of son after sire grew
Kingship and kings; with cities in due course,
And citadels as centres of armed force,
Or royal refuges in civil strife;
For complex soon became national life.
Wealth counted first by cattle, and by land;
And the State’s part was at the King’s command.
By his own standard he apportioned it,
For strength or beauty; sometimes mother-wit.
Laws of inheritance grew fixed; and great
Landowners vied with kings to rule a State.
Gold came; race, steel, charm, acres ceased to reign;
All gave gold way, and followed in its train.
An owner used it to earn rule and fame;
Less for themselves—not e’en so high his aim—
Than that he sought to hide some stain of earth.
None blushed to rank by accidents of birth;
But rank through money! Rich men would disguise
That flaw by vouching aught else for their rise,
They wished wealth for enjoyment, yet to shun
Odium for it behind honours won.
Vain! each peak climbed breeds on its own account
Envy with traps to trip you as you mount;
The more, and loftier, surer the flash
Of a bolt, and for you, amid the crash,
To find yourself contemptuously hurled
Into the foul pit of the Underworld.
Flee gold and power, both; neither is one
With happiness; or sheds bliss on a throne.
Few who have touched the goal aver the good
Equals the price they paid in sweat of blood.
Better it satisfies to be of those
That obey than to sway realms, and crush foes.
Hear Reason, and know wealth, absolute, whole,
Is so to live that means disturb not soul.
You wish to forbid Penury your door?
Then adjust your house-keeping to your store.
Ambition exalts to abase; your eyes,
If they see, will teach you its lures are lies.
Earth’s masters despised these truths; they who hadSupremacy and wealth went drunk and madWith licence; worms could bear no more; and crown,And lordship—heads with them—came tumbling down.Majesty was a ball for mobs to spurn;Awe’s excess was matched by excess of scorn.It was the dregs’ orgy; rule of brute force;And each man’s fury followed its full course.Guilt will, whatever an offence, appearLess heinous to third persons than seen near.Trial now was before a Court of one;—Judge, suitor, he to whom the hurt was done.Vengeance extreme would rouse convict, or kin,To redress disproportioned to the sin,And, unindulged, leave on the other sideA balance owing, and unsatisfied;Enmeshing in either case a wide swarmOf households pledged to work each other harm.A blood-feud chokes enterprise;—earn rewardFor deeds, when hangs over the door a sword!Then, in all ages, let him who shall dareSet rolling stones of civil feud, beware!Whatever lives earlier it may spoil,It will not miss him out; it must recoil,No peace at home for one who has, the first,Poisoned man’s faith in man; he is accurst.Skulk as he may, himself does not believeHe shall for aye be able to deceive;In sleep, fever-raging, he will proclaimHis sin, and roam clad in the sheet of shame!Drear this “mid passage”, when, as themselves thought,Emancipated, men were sold and bought;Bondsmen to cunning demagogues, who sawTheir gain in putting off the reign of Law.But ev’n the Multitude will not endureChaos, save as interlude. Hence the cure.Mankind wearies of frauds; of vengeful deeds,Infinitely renewing, like ill weeds.From lassitude it lets the wise and goodEnlist strong arms to stem the turbid flood.In time some sage arises to extractIdeas of right, that laws condense to act.Youth long since was past; Nature stood aside,Leaving Man to face problems, and replies provide.
Earth’s masters despised these truths; they who had
Supremacy and wealth went drunk and mad
With licence; worms could bear no more; and crown,
And lordship—heads with them—came tumbling down.
Majesty was a ball for mobs to spurn;
Awe’s excess was matched by excess of scorn.
It was the dregs’ orgy; rule of brute force;
And each man’s fury followed its full course.
Guilt will, whatever an offence, appear
Less heinous to third persons than seen near.
Trial now was before a Court of one;—
Judge, suitor, he to whom the hurt was done.
Vengeance extreme would rouse convict, or kin,
To redress disproportioned to the sin,
And, unindulged, leave on the other side
A balance owing, and unsatisfied;
Enmeshing in either case a wide swarm
Of households pledged to work each other harm.
A blood-feud chokes enterprise;—earn reward
For deeds, when hangs over the door a sword!
Then, in all ages, let him who shall dare
Set rolling stones of civil feud, beware!
Whatever lives earlier it may spoil,
It will not miss him out; it must recoil,
No peace at home for one who has, the first,
Poisoned man’s faith in man; he is accurst.
Skulk as he may, himself does not believe
He shall for aye be able to deceive;
In sleep, fever-raging, he will proclaim
His sin, and roam clad in the sheet of shame!
Drear this “mid passage”, when, as themselves thought,
Emancipated, men were sold and bought;
Bondsmen to cunning demagogues, who saw
Their gain in putting off the reign of Law.
But ev’n the Multitude will not endure
Chaos, save as interlude. Hence the cure.
Mankind wearies of frauds; of vengeful deeds,
Infinitely renewing, like ill weeds.
From lassitude it lets the wise and good
Enlist strong arms to stem the turbid flood.
In time some sage arises to extract
Ideas of right, that laws condense to act.
Youth long since was past; Nature stood aside,
Leaving Man to face problems, and replies provide.