Satan Absolved Part 5

Truce to that dispensation.

It was an old world hope, made void by Jacob's guile.

His was a bitter stem. We bore with it awhile, Too long, till We grew weary. But enough. 'Tis done.

What sayest thou of the new, most wise Apollyon?

SATAN

Ah, Lord, wilt Thou believe me? That was a mighty dream, Sublime, of a world won by Thy Son's stratagem Of being himself a Man--the rueful outcast thing!

And of all men a Jew! for poor Earth's ransoming.

Thrice glorious inspiration! Who but He had dared Come naked, as He came, of all His kingship bared, Not one of us to serve Him, neither praised nor proud But just as the least are, the last ones of the crowd.

He had not Man's fierce eye. No beast fell back abashed To meet Him in the woods, as though a flame had flashed.

He lay down with the foxes. The quails went and came Between His feet asleep. They did not fear His blame.

He had not Man's hard heart. He had not Man's false hand.

His gesture was as theirs. Their wit could understand He was their fellow flesh. To Him so near to G.o.d What difference lay 'twixt Man and the least herb He trod?

He came to save them _all_, to win _all_ to His peace.

What cared He for Man, Jew, more than the least of these?

And yet He loved His kind, the sick at heart, the poor, The impotent of will, those who from wrong forbore, Those without arms to strike, the lost of Israel.

Of these He made His kingdom--as it pleased Him well-- Kingdom without a king. His thought was to bring back Earth to its earlier way, ere Man had left the track, And stay his rage to slay. "Take ye no thought," said He, "Of what the day may bring. Be as the lilies be.

"They toil not, nor do spin, and yet are clothed withal.

"Choose ye the lowest place. Be guileless of all gall.

"If one shall smite you, smile. If one shall rob, give more.

"The first shall be the last, and each soul hold its store.

"Only the eyes that weep--only the poor in spirit-- "Only the pure in heart G.o.d's kingdom shall inherit."

On this fair base of love Thy Son built up His creed, Thinking to save the world. And Man, who owned no need Of any saving, slew Him.

THE LORD G.o.d

It was the Jews that slew In huge ingrat.i.tude Him who Himself was Jew.

O perfidi Judaei! Yet His creed prevailed.

Thou hast thyself borne witness. If Shem's virtue failed, j.a.phet hath found us sons who swear all by His name.

Nay, thou hast testified the Christian faith finds fame In every western land. It hath inherited All that was once called Rome. The Orient bows its head Perturbed by the white vision of a purer day.

Ham's heritage accepts new salves for its decay, And there are worlds reborn beyond the ocean's verge Where men are not as men, mad foam on the salt surge, But live even as He taught them in love's n.o.blest mood, Under the law of Jesus.

SATAN

Where, O glorious G.o.d?

In what land of the heathen--and I know them all, From China to Peru, from Hind to Senegal, And onward through the isles of the great Southern main.

Where is this miracle? Nay, nay, the search were vain.

THE LORD G.o.d

It is the angels' hearsay.

SATAN

A romance, Lord. Hear The word of one Thy wanderer, sphere and hemisphere, For ever on Thy Earth, who shepherding Thy seas No less than Thy green valleys hath nor rest nor peace, But he must learn the way of all who in them dwell; To whom there is no secret, naught untold, no h.e.l.l Where any sin may hide but he hath wormed it out From silence to confession till his ears grew hot; Who knoweth the race of Man as his own flesh; whose eye Is cruel to evasion and the lips that lie, And who would tell Thee all, all, all to the last act Of tragic fooling proved which seals Man's counterpact.

--What was the true tale, think Thee, of Thy Son that died?

What of the souls that knew Him, Him the crucified, After their Lord was gone? They waited for Him long, The sick He had made whole, the wronged consoled of wrong, The women He had loved, the fisher folk whose ears Had drunk in His word's wisdom those three wondrous years, And deemed Him prophet, prince, His kingdom yet to come, Nay from the grave new-risen and had been seen of some.

What did they teach? Awhile, they told His law of peace, His rule of unresistance and sweet guilelessness, His truce with mother Earth, His abstinence from toil, His love of the least life that wanton hands despoil, The glory of His tears, His watching, fasting, prayer, The patience of His death, His last word of despair.

And as He lived they lived--awhile--expectant still Of His return in power to balance the Earth's ill.

They would not deem Him dead. But, when He came not, lo, Their reason went astray. Poor souls, they loved Him so, They had such grief for Him, their one true G.o.d in Man Revealed to their sad eyes in all a World grown wan, That they must build a creed, a refuge from their fears In His remembered words and so a.s.suage their tears.

His kingdom? It was what? Not all a dream? Forbid That fault, that failure, Heaven, for such were death indeed.

His promises of peace, goodwill on earth to men, Which needed a fulfilment, lest faith fail? How then Since no fulfilment came, since He had left them lone In face of the world's wolves, for bread had given a stone?

How reconcile His word with that which was their life, Man's hatred and G.o.d's silence in a world of strife?

Was there no path, no way? Nay, none on this sad Earth Save with their Lord to suffer and account it mirth.

And so awhile they grieved. Then rose a subtlety-- Lord G.o.d, Thou knowest not wholly how men crave to lie In face of a hard truth too grievous to their pride-- To these poor fisher folk, thus of their Lord denied, Came a new blinding vision. They had seen Thy Son How often after death, no ghost, no carrion, But a plain man alive, who moved among them slow, And showed His feet and hands, the thorn prints on His brow, The spear wound in His side. He had come to comfort them, Confirm them in the faith, by His love's stratagem.

How if this thing were real: If this, that proved Him G.o.d, Proved also themselves spirits, not mere flesh and blood One with the beasts that perish, but immortal souls, Even as we angels are who fill Heaven's muster rolls And so shall live for aye? "Here," argued they, "it stands "The kingdom of His Heaven, a house not made with hands, "Wherein we too new-born, but in no earthly case, "Shall enter after death." On this fair fragile base Their sorrow built its nest. It gave a hope to men And pandered to their pride. And lo the world's disdain Was changed to acclamation. Kings and emperors kneeled Before the Crucified, a living G.o.d revealed, Who made them heirs with Him of His own glory. Mark The enn.o.bling phrase and t.i.tle. No base Noah's ark Man's fount of honour now, but G.o.d's eternal choice Made of His human race, predestined to His joys From the first dawn of time,--the very Universe Resolved to a mere potsherd, shattered to rehea.r.s.e The splendour of Man's advent, the one act and end To which Creation moved, and where even we must tend, The spirit hosts of Heaven--Stark mad insolence!

Rank blasphemy proclaimed in Rome's halls and Byzance, Through all the Imperial lands, as though, forsooth, Thou, Lord, Couldst, even if Thou wouldst, raise this fantastic horde Of bodies to Thy glory, shapes dispersed and gone As lightly as Time's wracks swept to oblivion!

Yet all believed this creed. s.p.a.ce, straightway grown too strait, Shrank from these Christened kings, who held Earth reprobate Save for their own high calling. Heaven had become their throne, A fief for their new pride, in which they reigned alone, In virtue of their faith, above Time's humbler show, And Earth became their footstool. All were masters now Of the brute beasts despised who had no souls to save, And lords too of the heathen doomed beyond the grave.

G.o.d's kingdom had begun. It compa.s.sed all the lands And trafficked wealth and power. It issued its commands, And in default it slew in Thy high holy name, Thine the all merciful! Alas for the world's shame!

Alas for the world's reason, for Thy Son's sane creed Of doing only good each day to its own need, Of being as the least of these in wise humility!

Behold our Christian Saints, too proud to live or die As all flesh dies and lives, their emperors and kings Clothed in the robes of life as with an eagle's wings, Their Popes dispensing power, their priests absolving sin.

Nay. They have made a h.e.l.l their d.a.m.ned shall dwell within, With me for their gaolmaster in a world to come Of which they hold the keys! G.o.d's curse on Christendom!

THE LORD G.o.d

Hush, traitor, thou blasphemest. If things once were so, 'Twas in a darkened age, the night of long ago.

None now believe in h.e.l.l.

SATAN

Or Heaven. Forgive it, Lord, I spoke it in my haste. See, I withdraw the word.

Thy Christendom is wise, reformed. None buy nor sell Seats now at Thy right hand, (_aside_) grown quite unsaleable.

None now believe nor tremble--Yet is their sin as sore.

Lord, hear me to the end. Thou dravest me out of yore An exile from Thy sight, with mission to undo And tempt Man to his death. I had fallen from Heaven's blue By reason of my pride. Thou wouldst have service done Unreasoning, on the knees, as flowers bend to the Sun, Which withers them at noon, nor ask of his white fires Why they consume and slay. I had fallen by my desires Which were too large for one not G.o.d, because I would Have shewn Thee the truth bare, in no similitude As a slave flattering speaks and half despises him He fawns on, but in love, which stands erect of limb Claiming an equal part, which reasons, questions, dares, And calls all by its name, the wheat wheat, the tares tares, The friend friend, the foe foe. Thou wast displeased at this, And deemed I envied Man his portion in Thy bliss, The Man that Thou hadst made and in Thy royal faith Held worthy of all trust, Thy lord of life and death, One to be proved and tried, as gold is tried by fire, And fare the purer forth. Of me Thou didst require The sad task of his tempting. I, forsooth, must sue And prompt to evil deeds, make the false thought seem true, The true thought false, that he, thus proved, thus tried, might turn And hurl me a dog's word, as Jesus did, in scorn "Get thee behind Me, Satan!" To this penance chained I bowed me in despair, as Thou, Lord, hadst ordained, Cast out from Thee and cursed. It was a rueful task For one who had known _Thee_ to wear the felon's mask And tempt this piteous child to his base sins of greed, His l.u.s.ts ign.o.ble, crimes how prompt in act and deed, To urge him to rebellion against G.o.d and good Who needed none to urge. His savage simian blood Flamed at a word, a sign. He lied, he thieved, he slew, By instinct of his birth. No virtue but he knew Its countervice and foil, without my wit to aid.

No fair thought but he chose the foul thought in its stead.

Ah sad primaeval race! Thou saidst it was not Man This thing armed with the stone which through thy forests ran, Intent to snare and slay. Not Man the senseless knave Who struck fire from his flint to burn Thy gorses brave, Thy heaths for his lean kine, who, being the one unclean, Defiled thy flower-sweet Earth with ordure heaps obscene To plant his rice, his rye. Not Man, saidst Thou, because He knew not of Thy way nor had he learned Thy laws, And was stark savage still. Not Man? Behold to-day Thy tamed Man as he lives, Thy Son of j.a.phet, nay Thy new true-Christened King, the follower of Thy Christ, Who sweareth by Thy name and his own mailed fist That Thou art Lord of all and he the Lord of Thee, Heaven's instrument ordained to teach integrity.

Thinkest Thou the _man_ is changed, the _ape_ that in him is Because his limbs are clothed which went in shamelessness?

Are his l.u.s.ts bridled more because his parts are hid?

Nay, Lord, he doeth to-day as those forefathers did, Only in greater guile. I will tell Thee his full worth, This Man's, the latest born, Thy creature from his birth Who lords it now, a king, this white Man's who hath pressed All Earth to his sole bondage and supreme behest, This Man of all Mankind. Behold him in Thy place, Administering the World, vicegerent of Thy grace And agent named of Thee, the symbol and the sign Of Thy high will on Earth and purposing divine, Clothed in his robes of power. Whence was he? What is he That he a.s.serteth thus his hand's supremacy?

His lineage what? Nay, Lord, he cometh of that mad stem Harder in act than Ham's, more subtle than of Shem, The red j.a.phetic stock of the bare plains which rolled A base born horde on Rome erewhile in l.u.s.t of gold, Tide following tide, the Goth, Gaul, Vandal, Lombard, Hun, Spewed forth from the white North to new dominion In the fair southern lands, with famine at their heel And rapine in their van, armed to the lips with steel.

These made their spoil of all, the pomp of the world's power, Its wealth, its beauty stored, all Rome's imperial dower, Her long renown, her skill, her art, her cultured fame, And with the rest her faiths bearing the Christian name.

From this wild bitter root of violent l.u.s.t and greed New Christendom upsprang, a pagan blood-stained creed, Pagan in spite of Christ, for the old G.o.ds cast down Still ruled it in men's hearts and lured them to renown, Ay in Thy name, Lord G.o.d, by glamour of the sword, And for Thy dead Son's sake, as in the days abhorred.

Like bulls they strove, they slew, like wolves they seized the prey, The hungriest strongest first, and who should say them nay.

After the Goth the Gaul, after the Gaul the Dane, Kings in descent from Thor, peace sued to them in vain.

Thou knowest, Lord G.o.d, their story. It is writ in blood, The blood of beast and man, by their brute hands subdued, Down to the latest born, the hungriest of the pack, The master wolf of all men call the Sa.s.senach, The Anglo-Norman dog, who goeth by land and sea As his forefathers went in chartered piracy, Death, fire in his right hand.

THE LORD G.o.d

Satan, once more beware.

Thy tongue hath a wide license, yet it runneth far.

This Anglo-Saxon man hath a fair name with some.

He standeth in brave repute, a priest of Christendom, First in civility, so say the Angel host Who speak of him with awe as one that merits most.

SATAN

The Angels fear him, Lord.

THE LORD G.o.d