Francis William Lauderdale Adams: Verses about Faith

THIS is what I pray
In this horrible day,
In this terrible night —
I may still have light.
Such as I have had,
That I go not mad.
This is what I seek —
I may keep me meek
Till mine eyes behold,
Till my lips have told
All this hellish Crime. —
Then it's sleeping time!

(Song of the American Sons of Labour)

The Song

O WE knew so well, dear Father,
When we answered to your call,
And the Southern Moloch stricken
Shook and tottered to his fall —
O we knew so well you loved us,
And our hearts beat back to yours
With the rapturous adoration
That through all the years endures!
Mothers, sisters bade us hasten
Sweethearts, wives with babe at breast;
For the Union, faith and freedom,
For our hero of the West!
And we wrung forth victory blood-stained
From the desperate hands of Crime,
And our Cause blazed out Man's beacon
Through the endless future time!
And forgiven, forever we bade it
Cease, that envy, hatred, strife,
As he willed, our murdered Father
That had sealed his love with life!
O dear Father, was it thus, then?
Did we this but in a dream?
Is it real, this hideous present?
Does our suffering only seem?
Bend and listen, look and tell us!
Are these joyless toilers We?
Slaves more wretched, patient, piteous
Than the slaves we fought to free!
Are these weak, worn girls and women
Those whose mothers yet can tell
How they kissed and clasped men god-like
With fierce faces fronting hell?
Bend and listen, look and tell us!
Is this silent waste, possessed
By bloat thieves and their task-masters,
Thy free, thy fair, thy fearless West?
Are these Eastern mobs of wage-slaves,
Are these cringing debauchees,
Sons of those who slung their rifles —
Shook the old Flag to the breeze?

(After reading his 'Modern Painters')
YES, you do well to mock us, you
Who knew our bitter woe —
To jeer the false, deny the true
In us blind-struggling low,
While, on your pleasant place aloft
With flowers and clouds and streams,
At our black sweat and toil you scoffed
That marred your idle dreams.
'Oh, freedom, what was that to us,'
(You'd shout down to us there),
'Except the freedom foul, vicious,
From all of good and fair?
'Obedience, faith, truth, chivalry,
To us were empty names.' —
The like to you (might we reply)
Whose noisy life proclaims
Presumption, want of human love,
Impatience, filthy breath,
The snob in soul who looks above,
Trampling on what's beneath.
When did you strive, in nobler part,
With love and gentleness,
To help one soul, to win one heart
To joy and hope and peace?
Go to, vain Prophet, without faith
In God who maketh new,
With hankerings for this putrid death,
This flesh-feast of the few,
This social structure of red mud,
This edifice of slime,
Whose bricks are bones, whose mortar's blood,
Whose pinnacle is Crime! —
Go to, for we who strain our power
For light and warmth and scope,
For wives', for children's happier hour,
Can teach you faith and hope.
Hark to the shout of those who cleared
The Missionary Ridge!
Look on those dead who never feared
The battle's bloody bridge!
Watch the stern swarm at that last breach
March up that came not thence —
And learn Democracy can teach
Divine obedience.
Pass through that South at last brought low
Where loyal freemen live,
And learn Democracy knows how
To utterly forgive.
Come then, and take this free-given bread
Of us who've scarce enough;
Hush your proud lips, bow down your head
And worship Human Love!

. . . In a dark street she met and spoke to me,
Importuning, one wet and mild March night.
We walked and talked together. O her tale
Was very common; thousands know it all!
'Seduced'; a gentleman; a baby coming;
Parents that railed; London; the child born dead;
A seamstress then, one of some fifty girls
'Taken on' a few months at a dressmaker's
In the crush of the 'season' at ten shillings a week!
The fashionable people's dresses done,
And they flown off, these fifty extra girls
Sent — to the streets: that is, to work that gives
Scarcely enough to buy the decent clothes
Respectable employers all demand
Or speak dismissal. Well, well, well, we know!
And she — 'Why, I have gone on down and down,
And there's the gutter, look, that I shall die in!'
'My dear,' I say, 'where hope of all but that
Is gone, 'tis time, I think, life were gone too.'
She looks at me. 'That I should kill myself?'
'That you should kill yourself.' — 'That would be sin,
And God would punish me!' — 'And will not God
Punish for this?' She pauses; then whispers:
'No, no, He will forgive me, for He knows!'
I laughed aloud: 'And you,' she said, 'and you,
Who are so good, so noble' . . . 'Noble? Good?'
I laughed aloud, the great sob in my throat.
O my poor Darling, O my little lost Sheep
Of this vast flock that perishes alone
Out in the pitiless desert! — Yet she'd speak:
She'd ask me: she'd entreat: she'd demonstrate.
O I must not say that! I must believe!
Who made the sea, the leaves so green, the sky
So big and blue and pure above it all?
O my poor Darling, O my little lost Sheep,
Entreat no more and demonstrate no more;
For I believe there is a God, a God
Not in the heaven, the earth, or the waters; no,
But in the heart of Man, on the dear lips
Of angel Women, of heroic Men!
O hopeless Wanderer that would not stay,
('It is too late, I cannot rise again!')
O Saint of faith in love behind the veils,
('You must believe in God, for you are good!')
O Sister who made holy with your kiss,
Your kiss in that wet dark mild night of March,
There in the hideous infamous London streets,
My cheek, and made my soul a sacred place,
my poor Darling, O my little lost Sheep!

I
THERE was a time when all thy sons were proud
To speak thy name,
England, when Europe echoed back aloud
Thy fearless fame:
When Spain reeled shattered helpless from thy guns
And splendid ire,
When from Canadian snows to Indian suns
Pitt's soul was fire.
O that in days like these were, fair and free
From shame and scorn,
Fate had allowed, benignly, pityingly
That I was born!
O that, if struck, then struck with glorious wounds,
I bore apart
(Not torn with fangs of leprous coward hounds)
My bleeding heart!
II
We hate You — not because of cruel deeds
Staining a glorious effort. They who live
Learn in this earth to give and to forgive,
Where heart and soul are noble and fate's needs
Imperious: No, nor yet that cruel seeds
Of power and wrong you've sown alternative,
We hate You, we your sons who yet believe
That truth and justice are not empty creeds!
No, but because of greed and garbled pay,
Wages of sin and death: because you smother
Your conscience, making cursèd all the day.
Bible in one hand, bludgeon in the other,
Cain-like you come upon and slay your brother,
And, kneeling down, thank God for it, and pray!
III
I whom you fed with shame and starved with woe,
I wheel above You,
Your fatal vulture, for I hate You so,
I almost love You!
I smell your ruin out. I light and croak
My sombre lore,
As swaggering You go by, O 'heart of oak'
Rotten to the core!
Look westward! Ireland's vengeful eyes are cast
On freedom won.
Look eastward! India stirs from sleep at last.
You are undone!
Look southward, where Australia hears your voice,
And turns away!
O brutal Hypocrite, she makes her choice
With the rising day!
Foul Esau, you who sold your high birthright
For gilded mud,
Who did the wrong and, priestlike, called it right,
And swindled God! —
The hour is gone of insult, pain and patience;
The hour is come
When they arise, the faithful mightier Nations,
To drag you down!
IV
England, the land I loved
With passionate pride,
For hate of whom I live
Who for love had died,
Can I, while shines the sun,
That hour regain
When I again may come to you
And love again?
No, not while that Flag
Of greed and lust
Flaunts in the air, untaught
To drag the dust! —
Never, till expiant,
I see You kneel,
And, brandished, gleams aloft
The foeman's steel!
Ah, then to speed, and laugh,
As my heart caught the knife
'Mother, I love you! Here,
Here is my life!'

(For the Australian Labour Federation)

FLING out the Flag! Let her flap and rise in the rush of the eager air,
With the ring of the wild swan's wings as she soars from the swamp and
her reedy lair.
Fling out the Flag! And let friend and foe behold, for gain or loss,
The sign of our faith and the fight we fight, the Stars of the Southern
Cross!
Oh! Blue's for the sky that is fair for all, whoever, wherever he be,
And Silver's the light that shines on all for hope and for liberty,
And that's the desire that burns in our hearts, for ever quenchless and
bright,
And that's the sign of our flawless faith and the glorious fight we fight!
What is the wealthiest land on earth, if the millions suffer and cry,
And all but the happy selfish Few would fain curse God and die?
What are the glorious Arts, as they sit and sing on their jewelled thrones,
If their hands are wet with blood and their feet befouled with festering
bones?
What are the splendid Sciences, driving Nature with a bit of steel,
If only the Rich can mount the car and the Poor are dragged at the
wheel?
Wealth is a curse, and Art a mock, and Science worse than a lie,
When they're but the gift of the greedy Thieves, the leeches that suck
men dry!
Nay, brothers, nay! it is not for this — for a land of wealth and woe —
That we hoped and trusted all these years, that we toiled and struggled
so!
It is not for a race of taskmasters and pitiful cringing slaves,
That our strength and skill raised up happy homes and dreamed of
fearless graves.
It is not for a Cause that is less than for all, that is not for Truth but a lie,
That we raise our faces and grip our hands, and lift our voices high,
As we fling out the Flag that friend and foe may see, for gain or loss,
The sign of our faith and the fight we fight, the Stars of the Southern
Cross!
As the sky above is fair for all, whoever, wherever he be,
As the blessèd stars on all shed their light of hope and of liberty:
So let the earth, this fertile earth, this well-loved Southern land,
Be fair to all, be free to all, from strand to shining strand!
Let boy and girl and woman and man in it at least be sure,
That all can earn their daily bread with hearts as proud as pure;
Let man and woman and girl and boy in it for ever be
Heirs to the best this world can give, happy, fearless, free!
Fling out the Flag! Let her flap and rise in the rush of the eager air,
With the ring of the wild swan's wings as she soars from the swamp and
her reedy lair!
Fling out the Flag! and let friend and foe behold, for gain or loss,
The sign of our faith and the fight we fight, the Stars of the Southern
Cross!
Oh! Blue's the sky that is fair for all, whoever, wherever he be,
And Silver's the light that shines on all, for hope and for liberty;
And that's the desire that burns in our hearts, for ever quenchless and
bright,
And that's the sign of our flawless faith, and the glorious fight we fight.

'Forty Years After'

COMRADE, yet a little further I would go before the night
Closes round and chills in darkness all the glorious sunset light —
Yet a little, by the cliff there, till the stately home I see
Of the man who once was with us, comrade once with you and me!
Nay, but leave me, pass alone there; stay awhile and gaze again
On the various-jewelled waters and the dreamy southern main,
For the evening breeze is sighing in the quiet of the hills,
Moving down in cliff and terrace to the singing sweet sea-rills,
While the river, silent-stealing, thro' the copse and thro' the lea
Winds her waveless way eternal to the welcome of the sea.
Yes, within that green-clad homestead, gardened grounds and velvet ease
Of a home where culture reigneth and the chambers whisper peace,
Is the Man, the Seer and Singer, who (ah, years and years away!)
Lifted up a face of gladness at the breaking of the day.
For the noontide's desperate ardours that had seen the Roman town
Wrap the boy Keats, 'by the hungry generations trodden down,'
In his death-shroud with the ashes of the fairy Child of Storm,
Fluttering skylark in the breakers, caught and smothered by the foam,
And had closed those eyes heroic, weary for the final peace,
Byron maimed and maddened, strangled in the anguish that was
Greece —
For this noontide passed to darkness, brooding doubt and wild dismay,
Where the silly sparrows chirruped and the eagles swooped away,
Till once more the trampled Peoples and the murdered soul of Man
Raised a haggard face half-wondering where the new-born Day began,
Where the sign of Faith's renewal, Faith's and Hope's, and Love's,
outgrew
In the golden sun arising; and we hailed it, we and you!
O you hailed it, and your heart beat, and your pretty woman's lays,
In the fathomless vibration of our rapturous amaze,
Died for ever on your harpstrings, and you rose and struck a chord
High, full, clear, heroic, godlike, 'for the glory of the Lord!'
Noble words you spoke; we listened; and we dreamed the day had come
When the faith of God and Christ should sound one cry with Man's
freedom —
When the men who stood beside us, eager with hell's troops to cope,
Radiant, thrilled exultant, proud, with the magnificence of hope!
'Forward! forward!' ran our watchword. 'Forward! forward!' by our
side
You gave back the glorious summons. Would that day that you had died!
Better lying fallen, death-struck, breathless, bleeding, on your face,
With your bright sword pointing onward, dying happy in your place!
Better to have passed in spirit from the battle-storm's eclipse
With the great Cause in your heart and with the war-shout on your lips!
Better to have fallen charging, having known the nobler time,
In the fiery cheer and impulse of our serried battle-line —
Than to stand and watch your comrades, in the hail of fire and lead,
Up the slopes and thro' the smoke-clouds, thro' the dying and the dead,
Till the sun strikes through a moment, to our one victorious shout,
On our bayonets bristling brightly as we carry the redoubt!
O half-hearted, pusillanimous, faltering heart and fuddled brain
That remembered Egypt's flesh-pots, and turned back and dreamed
again —
Left the plain of blood and battle for the quiet of the hills,
And the sunny soft contentment that the woody homestead fills.
There you sat and sang of Egypt, of its sober solid graves,
(Pyramids, you call them, Sphinxes), mortared with the blood of slaves,
Houses, streets and stately palaces, the mart, the regal stew
Where freedom 'broadens down' so slow it stops with lords and you!
O you mocked at our confusion, O you told us of our crimes,
Us ungentle, not like warriors of the sweet idyllic times,
Flowers of eunuch-hearted kings and courts where pretty poet knights
Tilted gaily, or slew stake-armed peasants, hundreds, in the fights?
O you drew the hideous picture of our bravest and our best,
Patient martyrs, desperate swordsmen, for the Cause that gives not
rest —
Men of science, 'vivisectors!' democrats, the 'rout of beasts' —
Writers, essayists and poets, 'Belial's prophets, Moloch's priests!'
Coward, you have made the great refusal! you have won the gilded
praise
Of the wringers of his heart's-blood from the peasant's sunless days,
Of the Lord and the Land-owner, of the Rich-man who has bound
Labour on the wheel to break him, strew his rent limbs on the ground,
With a vulture eye aglare on brothers, sisters that he had,
Crying 'Troops and guns to shoot them, if the hunger drive them mad!'
Coward, faithless, unbelieving, that had courage but to take
What of pleasure and of beauty men have won for manhood's sake,
Blustering long and loudest at the hideousness and pain
These you praise have brought upon us; blustering long and loud again
At our agony and anguish in this desperate fight of ours,
Grappling with anarch custom and the darkness and the powers!
O begone, then, from among us! Echo not, however faint,
Our great watch-word, our great war-shout, sweet and sickly poet saint!
Sit there dreaming in your gardens, looking out upon the sea,
Till the night-time closes round you and the wind is on the lea.
Enter then within your chambers in the rich and quiet light:
Never think of us who struggle in the tempest and the night.
Soothe your fancy with your visions; bend a gracious senile ear
To the praise your guests are murmuring in the tone you love to hear.
Honoured of your Queen, and honoured of the gentlest and the best,
Lord and commoner and rich-man, smirking tenant, shopman, priest,
All distinguished and respectable, the seamy sons of light,
O what, O what are these who call you coward in the night?
Ay, what are we who struggled for the cause of Science, say,
Darwin, Huxley, Spencer, Haeckel, marshalling our stern array?
We who raised the cry for Culture, Goethe's spirit leading on,
Marching gladly with our captains, Renan, Arnold, Emerson?
We, we are not tinkers, tinkers of the kettle cracked and broke,
Tailors squatted cross-legged, patching at the greasy, worn-out cloak!
We are those that faced mad Fortune, cried: 'The Truth and only she!
Onward, upward! If we perish, we at least will perish free!'
We have lost our souls to win them, in the house and in the street
Falling stabbed and poisoned, making a victory of defeat.
We have lost life's happy present, we have paid death's heavy debt,
We have won, have won the Future, and its sons shall not forget!
Enter, then, within your chamber in the rich and quiet light:
Never think of us who struggle in the tempest and the night;
Spread your nostrils to the incense, hearken to the murmured hymn
Of the praising people, rising from the temple fair and dim.
Ah, but we here in the tempest, we here struggling in the night,
See the worshippers out-stealing; see the temple emptying quite;
See the godhead turning ghostlike; see the pride of name and fame
Paling slowly, sad and sickly, with forgetfulness and shame! . . .
Darker, darker grows the night now, louder, louder howls the wind;
I can hear the dash of breakers and the deep sea moves behind,
I can see the foam-capped phalanx rushing on the crumbling shore,
Slowly but surely shattering its rampart evermore.
Hark! my comrade's voice is calling, and his solitary cry
On the great dark swift air-currents like Fate's summons sweepeth by.
Farewell, then, whom once I loved so, whom a boy I thrilled to hear
Urging courage and reliance, loathing acquiescent fear.
I must leave you; I must wander to a strange and distant land,
Facing all that Fate shall give me with her hard unequal hand —
I once more anew must face them, toil and trouble and disease,
But these a man may face and conquer, for there waits him death and
peace
And the freedom from dishonour and denial e'er confessed
Of what he knows is truest, what most beautiful and best!
O farewell, then! I must leave you. You have chosen. You are right.
You have made the great refusal; you have shunned the wind and night.
You have won your soul, and won it — No, not lost it as they tell —
Happy, blest of gods and monarchs, O a long, a long farewell!
Freshwater, Isle of Wight.

I
DOWN in the woodlands, where the streamlet runs,
Close to the breezy river, by the dells
Of ferns and flowers that shun the summer suns
But gather round the lizard-haunted wells,
And listen to the birds' sweet syllables —
Down in the woodlands, lying in the shade,
Among the rushes green that shook and gleamed,
I, I whose songs were of my heart's blood made,
Found weary rest from wretchedness, it seemed,
And fell asleep, and as I slept, I dreamed.
II
I dreamed I stood beside a pillar vast
Close to a little open door behind,
Whence the small light there was stole in aghast,
And for a space this troubled all my mind,
To lose the sunlight and the sky and the wind.
For I could know, I felt, how all before,
Though high and wonderful and to be praised,
In heart and soul and mind oppressed me sore.
Nevertheless, I turned, and my face raised,
And on that pageant and its glory gazed.
The pillars, vast as this whereby I stood,
Hedged all the place about and towered up high,
Up, and were lost within a billowy cloud
Of slow blue-wreathing smoke that fragrantly
Rose from below. And a great chaunt and cry
Of multitudinous voices, with sweet notes,
Mingled of music solemn, glad, serene,
Swayed all the air and gave its echoes throats.
And priests and singers various, with proud mien,
Filled all the choir — a strange and wondrous scene.
And men and women and children, in all hues
Of colour and fresh raiment, filled the nave;
And yet it seemed, this vast place did refuse
Room for the mighty army that did crave,
And only to the vanguard harbourage gave.
And, as I gazed and watched them while they knelt
(Their prayers I watched with the incense disappear),
And could not know my thoughts of it, I felt
A touch upon mine arm, and in mine ear
Some words, and turned my face to see and hear.
There was a man beside me. In that light,
Tho' dim, remote, and shadowy, I could see
His face swarthy yet pale, and eyes like night,
With a strange, far sadness, looking at me.
It seemed as if the buffets of some sea
Had beaten on him as he faced it long.
The salty foam, the spittle of its wrath
Had blurred the bruises of its fingers strong,
Striking him pitilessly from out its path,
Yet had he braved it as the willow hath.
He turned his look from me and where we stood,
His far strange look of sadness, and it seemed
This temple vast, this prayerful multitude,
These priests and singers celebrant who streamed
In gorgeous ranks towards the fane that gleamed,
Were to him as some vision is, untrue,
Tho' true we take it, undeceived the while,
But, since it was unknown to him all through,
And hid some meaning (it might be of guile),
He turned once more, and spake in gentle style.
'Nay, this,' he said, 'is not the Temple, nor
The children of Israel these, whom less sufficed
Of chaunt and ritual. They whom we abhor,
The Phoenicians, to their gods have sacrificed!'
I said, 'Nay, sir, this is the Mass of Christ.'
'The Mass of Christ?' he murmured. And I said
'This is the day on which He came below,
And this is Rome, and far up overhead
Soars the great dome that bids the wide world know
St. Peter still rules o'er his Church below!'
'The Christ?' he said, 'and Peter, who are they?'
I answered, 'Jesus was he in the days long past,
And Peter was his chief disciple.' 'Nay,'
He answered, 'for of these the lot was cast
On poverty.' I said, 'That is all past!'
Then as I might, as for some stranger great
(Who saw all things under an unknown sun),
I told him of these things both soon and late,
Then, when I paused and turned, lo! he was gone,
Had left me, and I saw him passing on.
On, up the aisle, he passed, his long black hair
Upon his brown and common coat; his head
Raised, and his mien such aspect fixed did wear
As one may have whose spirit long is sped
(Though he still lives) among the mighty dead.
He paused not, neither swerved not, till he came
Unto the fane and steps. Nor there he learned
Awe, but went on, till rose a shrill acclaim,
And the High Priest from the great altar turned,
And raised the golden sign that blazed and burned.
And a slow horror grew upon us all —
On priests and people, and on us who gazed —
As that Great King, alive beneath the pall,
Heard his own death-service that moaned and praised
So all we were fearful, expectant, dazed.
Then unknown murmurs round the High Priest rose
Of men in doubt; and all the multitude
Swayed, as one seized in a keen travail's throes,
Where, on the last steps of the altar stood,
The Man — the altar steps all red like blood.
The singing ceased; the air grew clear and dead,
Save for the organ tones that sobbed and sighed.
In a hushed voice the High Priest gazing, said,
'Who are you?' and the Man straightway replied,
'I, I am Jesus whom they crucified!'
His voice was low yet every ear there heard,
And every eye was fixed upon him fast;
And, when he spake, the people all shuddered,
As a great corn-field at the south wind's blast,
And the Man paused, but spake again at last:
'I am the Galilean. I was born
Of Joseph and of Mary in Nazareth.
But God, our Father, left me not forlorn,
But breathèd in my soul his sacred breath,
That I should be his prophet, and fear not death.
'I taught the Kingdom of Heaven; the poor, the oppressed
I loved. The rich, the priests, did hear my cry
Of hate and retribution that lashed their rest.
Wherefore they caught and took and scourged me. I
Was crucified with the thieves on Calvary!'
At that it seemed the very stones did quake,
And a great rumour grew and filled the place;
The pillars, the roof, the dome above did shake,
And a fierce cry and arms surged up apace,
Like to a storm-cloud round that dark pale face.
And yet once more he spake, and we did hear:
'Who are you? What is this you do?' he said.
'I was the Christ. Who is this here
You worship?' From that silence of the dead,
'Tear him in pieces,' cried a voice and fled.
Howls, yells, and execrations, blazing eyes,
And threatening arms — it was unloosened hell!
And in the midst, seized, dragged along with cries
Of hate exultant, still I saw him well,
His strange sad face; then sickened, swooned, and fell!
* The Emperor Charles V., mightiest of mediaeval kings, had the weird
fancy to assist at a representation of his own death service.
III
Slowly from out that trance did I arouse;
Slowly, with pain, and all was weary and still,
Even as a dreamer dreams some sweet carouse,
And faints at touch of breath and lips that thrill,
And yet awakes and yet is dreaming still.
So I. And when my tired eyes look, mine ears,
Echoing those late noises, listen, and
I seek to know what 'fore me now appears,
For long I cannot know nor understand,
But lie as some wrecked sailor on the strand.
Then bit by bit I knew it — how I lay
On the hard stones, crouched by a pillar tall:
The wind blew bleak and raw; the skies were grey;
Up broad stone steps folk passed into the wall,
Both men and women: there was no sun at all.
I moved, I rose, I came close to, and saw;
And then I knew the place wherein I was;
Here in the city high, the ravening maw
Of all men's toil and kindly Nature's laws,
I stood, and felt the dreary winter's flaws.
And by me rose that lampless edifice
Of England's soul shrunk to a skeleton,
Whose dingy cross the grimy air doth pierce —
London, that hell of wastefulness and stone,
The piled bones of the sufferers dead and gone!
And, when I knew all this, and thought of it,
And thought of all the hateful hours and dread
That smirched my youth here, struck, and stabbed, and lit
The plundered shrine of trust and love that fled,
And left my soul stripped, bleeding worse than dead,
Wrath grew in me. For all around I knew
The accursèd city worked on all the same,
For all the toiling sufferers. The idle few,
The vermin foul that from this dung-heap came,
Made of our agony their feast and game.
And when, with hands clenched tight, with eyes of fire,
Sombre and desperate, I moved on apace,
Within my soul brooded a dark desire;
I reached the stream of those who sought this place,
And turned with them and saw a sudden face.
I knew it, as it was there, meeting mine —
I knew it with its strange sad gaze, the eyes
Night-like. Yet on it now no more did shine,
As 'twere that inner light of victories,
Won from the fiend that lives by the god that dies.
But very weary, as my waking was,
But stunned, it seemed, and as if cowed at last,
Were look and bearing of him: I felt the cause
Even as I looked. My wrath and thought were passed
I came and took his arm and held it fast.
And, as some fever-struck delirious man,
In some still pausing of his anguish-throes,
Forgetful of it all, how it began,
Rises from off his bed and dons his clothes,
And seeks (his footsteps seek) some place he knows;
And there he wanders voiceless, like a ghost,
His weariness confusing him, until
Worn-out, he helplessly perceives he's lost:
So was he here, this man, stricken and still —
Day, place, folk, all incomprehensible!
My hold aroused him. We looked face in face,
And in a little I could watch the wonder,
'Where he had seen me,' in his great eyes, chase
The torpor and oblivion asunder.
Close by there was a porch, I drew him under.
There, after pause, I asked, 'What do you here?'
He said: 'I came, I think, to seek and see
Something which I much long for and yet fear.
I have passed over many a land and sea
I never knew: my Father guided me.
'I think,' he said, 'that I am come to find
Here, in this cold dark place, what in that blue
And sunny south but wounded all my mind.
But I am weary and cannot see things true,
There is a cloud around me. And with you?'
'Come, then,' I said, 'come then, if you must know
What that great saint hath done for us, who is
The second builder of your Church below.
Paul, that was Saul, the Prince of Charities!
He saw you once. Now see him once — in this!'
We went out side by side into the stream
Of folk that passed on upwards thro' the wall
(There was a gateway there), and in the beam
Of the dull light we stood and pillars tall,
And I said 'Look,' and he looked at it all.
Somewhat it was as he had seen before,
Yet darker, gloomier, though some hues were gay.
For all these people had, it seemed, full store
Of quiet ease, and loved the leisured day;
They sang of joy, but little joy had they.
It was the function of the rich, of those
To whom contentment springs from booty's fill,
Gorged to a dull, religious, rank repose.
He raised his voice. He spake the words, 'I will!'
There came a sound from some about, 'Be still!'
Heedless, as one begrimed with blood and smoke,
The leader of a charge shattered in rout,
Strips off his tatters and bids the ranks re-yoke,
And leads them back to carry the redoubt,
So was he, strong once more, and resolute.
But, as he moved into the aisle, there rose
Men round him, grim and quiet, and a hand
Firmly upon each arm and wrist did close,
And held him like an engine at command.
He cried: 'Loose me! You do not understand!'
'Loose me,' he cried, 'I, Jesus, come to tell——'
No answer made they, but without a word
Moved him away. Their office they knew well
With the impious outcasts who the good disturb
In their worship of their Queen and of their Lord.
'Twas finished ere we heard him. At the door
They thrust him out, and I, who followed him,
Knowing that he could enter it no more,
Led him away, his faltering steps, his slim
Frail form within mine arm; his eyes were dim.
Out and away from this I gently guided
Through wretched streets I knew. (Is not my blood
Upon their stones?). A few poor sots derided,
But we passed on unheeding, as we could,
Till by a little door we paused and stood.
We entered. 'Twas a chamber bare and small,
With chairs and benches and a table. There
Some six or seven men sat: I knew them all.
I said, 'Food, food and drink!' Some did repair
At once, without a word, to bring their fare.
He sat down by the table listless. But
When bread was brought him, water, and red wine,
Slowly his white waste hand he stretched, and put
On to the bread and brake it; a divine
Smile touched his lips, and on his brow did shine.
They gathered round him with strange quiet glances,
These soldiers of the army Night hath tried,
One spake the question of their countenances —
'Who are you?' Then he whisperingly replied,
'I, I am Jesus, whom they crucified!'
At that a murmur rang among them all.
There was one man so white he seemed as dead,
Save for his eyes, and when he heard them call:
'Christ, it is Christ,' he bent to him his head,
And the thin bitter lips hissed as they said:
'The name of Christ has been the sovereign curse,
The opium drug that kept us slaves to wrong.
Fooled with a dream, we bowed to worse and worse;
‘In heaven,’ we said, ‘He will confound the strong.’
O hateful treason that has tricked too long!
'Had we poor down-trod millions never dreamed
Your dream of that hereafter for our woe,
Had the great powers that rule, no Father seemed,
But Law relentless, long and long ago
We had risen and said, ‘We will not suffer so.’
'O Christ, O you who found the drug of heaven,
To keep consoled an earth that grew to hell,
That else to cleanse and cure its sores had striven,
We curse that name!' A fierce hard silence fell,
And Jesus whispered, 'Oh, and I as well!'
He raised his face! See, on the Calvary hill,
Submissive with such pride, betrayed and taken,
Transfixed and crucified, the prey of ill,
Of a cup less bitter had he there partaken,
He then by God, as now by Man, forsaken!
'Vain, was it vain, all vain?' had mocked him then;
Now the triumphant gibe of hell had said,
'Not vain! a curse, a speechless curse to men!'
His great eyes gazed on it. He bowed his head,
Without a word, and shuddered. He was dead!
And when I saw this, with a low hoarse cry
I caught him to mine arms and to my breast,
And put my lips to his that breathed one sigh,
And kissed his eyes, and by his name addressed
My Friend, my Master, him whom I loved best.
'Jesus,' I whispered, 'Jesus, Jesus, speak!'
For it did seem that speech from him must break;
But suddenly I knew he would not speak,
Never, never again! My heart did shake:
My stricken brain burst; I shrieked and leaped awake.
IV
Down in the woodlands, where the streamlet runs,
Close to the breezy river, by the dells,
Of ferns and flowers that shun the summer suns
But gather round the lizard-haunted wells,
And listen to the birds' sweet syllables —
Down in the woodlands, lying in the shade,
Among the rushes green that shook and gleamed,
I woke and lay, and of my dream dreams made,
Wondering if indeed I had but dreamed,
Or dreamed but now, so real that dream had seemed.
Then up above I saw the turquoise sky,
And, past the blowy tree-tops swung aloft,
Two pigeons dared the breeze ecstatically,
And happy frogs, couched in the verdure soft,
Piped to each other dreamily and oft.
And, as I looked across the flowery woods,
Across the grasses, sun and shade bedight,
Under the leaves' melodious interludes,
Flowing one way, the blessèd birds' delight,
I saw her come, my love, clothed on with light!
Flowers she had, and in her hair and hands,
Singing and stooping, gathering them with words,
Whose music is past all speech understands,
But God is glad thereof, as of his birds;
I watched her, listening, till I heard the words
Leap from her lips of a bold battle-song,
The clarion clear that silences the strife.
She marched exultantly to it along,
No more a joyous girl, a sacred wife,
But a soldier of the Cause that's more than life!
O well I knew the song that she was singing,
But now she gave her music to my rhyme,
Her rapturous music thro' the wild woods ringing,
Asserting Truth and Trust, arraigning Crime,
And bidding Justice 'bring the better time!'
O Love, sing on, sing on, O girt with light,
Shatter the silence of the hopeless hours;
O mock with song triumphant all the night,
O girl, O wife, O crowned with fruits and flowers,
Till day and dawn and victory are ours!