Songs of Two Nations Part 5

La Legende des Siecles:--Ratbert.

1

By the dead body of Hope, the spotless lamb Thou threwest into the high priest's slaughtering-room, And by the child Despair born red therefrom As, thank the secret sire picked out to cram With spurious sp.a.w.n thy misconceiving dam, Thou, like a worm from a town's common tomb, Didst creep from forth the kennel of her womb, Born to break down with catapult and ram Man's builded towers of promise, and with breath And tongue to track and hunt his hopes to death: O, by that sweet dead body abused and slain, And by that child mismothered,--dog, by all Thy curses thou hast cursed mankind withal, With what curse shall man curse thee back again?

2

By the brute soul that made man's soul its food; By time grown poisonous with it; by the hate And horror of all souls not miscreate; By the hour of power that evil hath on good; And by the incognizable fatherhood Which made a whorish womb the shameful gate That opening let out loose to fawn on fate A hound half-blooded ravening for man's blood; (What prayer but this for thee should any say, Thou dog of h.e.l.l, but this that Shakespeare said?) By night deflowered and desecrated day, That fall as one curse on one cursed head, "Cancel his bond of life, dear G.o.d, I pray, That I may live to say, The dog is dead!"

1869.

XV

MENTANA: THIRD ANNIVERSARY

1

Such prayers last year were put up for thy sake; What shall this year do that hath lived to see The piteous and unpitied end of thee?

What moan, what cry, what clamour shall it make, Seeing as a reed breaks all thine empire break, And all thy great strength as a rotten tree, Whose branches made broad night from sea to sea, And the world shuddered when a leaf would shake?

From the unknown deep wherein those prayers were heard, From the dark height of time there sounds a word, Crying, Comfort; though death ride on this red hour, Hope waits with eyes that make the morning dim, Till liberty, reclothed with love and power, Shall pa.s.s and know not if she tread on him.

2

The hour for which men hungered and had thirst, And dying were loth to die before it came, Is it indeed upon thee? and the lame Late foot of vengeance on thy trace accurst For years insepulchred and crimes inhea.r.s.ed, For days marked red or black with blood or shame, Hath it outrun thee to tread out thy name?

This scourge, this hour, is this indeed the worst?

O clothed and crowned with curses, canst thou tell?

Have thy dead whispered to thee what they see Whose eyes are open in the dark on thee Ere spotted soul and body take farewell Or what of life beyond the worm's may be Satiate the immitigable hours in h.e.l.l?

1870.

XVI

THE DESCENT INTO h.e.l.l

January 9th, 1873

1

O Night and death, to whom we grudged him then, When in man's sight he stood not yet undone, Your king, your priest, your saviour, and your son, We grudge not now, who know that not again Shall this curse come upon the sins of men, Nor this face look upon the living sun That shall behold not so abhorred an one In all the days whereof his eye takes ken.

The bond is cancelled, and the prayer is heard That seemed so long but weak and wasted breath; Take him, for he is yours, O night and death.

h.e.l.l yawns on him whose life was as a word Uttered by death in hate of heaven and light, A curse now dumb upon the lips of night.

2

What shapes are these and shadows without end That fill the night full as a storm of rain With myriads of dead men and women slain, Old with young, child with mother, friend with friend, That on the deep mid wintering air impend, Pale yet with mortal wrath and human pain, Who died that this man dead now too might reign, Toward whom their hands point and their faces bend?

The ruining flood would redden earth and air If for each soul whose guiltless blood was shed There fell but one drop on this one man's head Whose soul to-night stands bodiless and bare, For whom our hearts give thanks who put up prayer, That we have lived to say, The dog is dead.

XVII

APOLOGIA

If wrath embitter the sweet mouth of song, And make the sunlight fire before those eyes That would drink draughts of peace from the unsoiled skies, The wrongdoing is not ours, but ours the wrong, Who hear too loud on earth and see too long The grief that dies not with the groan that dies, Till the strong bitterness of pity cries Within us, that our anger should be strong.

For chill is known by heat and heat by chill, And the desire that hope makes love to still By the fear flying beside it or above, A falcon fledged to follow a fledgeling dove, And by the fume and flame of hate of ill The exuberant light and burning bloom of love.