The Visions of England Part 13

Unknown, unnamed beneath one turf they sleep, Beneath one sky, one heaven-uplifted sign Of love a.s.sured, divine: While o'er each mound the quiet mosses creep, The silent dew-pearls weep: --Fit haven-home for thee, O gentlest heart Of Falkland! all unmeet to find thy part In those tempestuous times of canker'd hate When Wisdom's finest touch, and, by her side, Forbearance generous-eyed To fix the delicate balance of the State Were needed;--King or Nation, which should hold Supreme supremacy o'er the kingdoms old.

--G.o.d's heroes, who? . . . Not most, or likeliest, he Whom iron will cramps to one narrow road, Driving him like a goad Till all his heart decrees seem G.o.d's decree; That worst hypocrisy When self cheats self, and conscience at the wheel Herself is steer'd by pa.s.sion's blindfold zeal; A nether-world archangel! Through whose eyes Flame the red mandates of remorseless might; A gloom of lurid light That holds no commerce with the crystal skies; Like those rank fires that o'er the fen-land flee, Or on the mast-head sign the wrath to be.

As o'er that ancient weird Arlesian plain Where Zeus hail'd boulder-stones on the giant crew, And changed to stone, or slew, No bud may burgeon in Spring's gracious rain, No blade of gra.s.s or grain: --So bare, so scourged, a prey to chaos cast The wisest despot leaves his realm at last!

Though for the land he toil'd with iron will, Earnest to reach persuasion's goal through power, The fruit without the flower!

And pray'd and wrestled to charm good from ill; Waking perchance, or not, in death,--to find Man fights a losing fight who fights mankind!

And as who in the Theban avenue, Sphinx ranged by Sphinx, goes awestruck, nor may read That ancient awful creed Closed in their granite calm:--so dim the clue, So tangled, tracking through That labyrinthine soul which, day by day Changing, yet kept one long imperious way: Strong in his weakness; confident, yet forlorn; Waning and waxing; diamond-keen, or dull, As that star Wonderful, Mira, for ever, dying and reborn:-- Blissful or baleful, yet a Power throughout, Throned in dim alt.i.tude o'er the common rout.

Alas, great Chief! The pity of it!--For he Lay on his unlamented bier; his life Wreck'd on that futile strife To wed things alien by heaven's decree, Sword-sway with liberty:-- Coercing, not protecting;--for the Cause Smiting with iron heel on England's laws: --Intolerant tolerance! Soul that could not trust Its finer instincts; self-compell'd to run The blood-path once begun, And murder mercy with a sad 'I must!'

Great lion-heart by guile and coa.r.s.eness marr'd; By his own heat a hero warp'd and scarr'd.

Despot despite himself!--And when the cry Moan'd up from England, dungeon'd in that drear Sectarian atmosphere, With glory he gilt her chains; in Spanish sky Flaunting the Red Cross high;-- Wars, just or unjust, ill or well design'd, Urged with the will that masters weak mankind.

--G.o.d's hammer Thou!--not hero!--Forged to break The land,--salve wounds with wounds, heal force by force; Sword-surgeon keen and coa.r.s.e:-- To all who worship power for power's own sake,-- Strength for itself,--Success, the vulgar test,-- Fit idol of bent knee, and servile breast!

--O in the party plaudits of the crowd Glorious, if this be glory!--o'er that shout A small still voice breathes out With subtle sweetness silencing the loud Hoa.r.s.e vaunting of the proud,-- A song of exaltation for the vale, And how the mountain from his height shall fail!

How G.o.d's true heroes, since this earth began, Go sackcloth-clad through scourge and sword and scorn, Crown'd with the bleeding thorn, Down-trampled by man's heel as foes to man, And whispering _Eli_, _Eli_! as they die,-- Martyrs of truth and Saint Humility.

These conquer in their fall: Persuasion flies Wing'd, from their grave: The hearts of men are turn'd To worship what they burn'd: Owning the sway of Love's long-suffering eyes, Love's sweet self-sacrifice; The might of gentleness; the subduing force Of wisdom on her mid-way measured course Gliding;--not torrent-like with fury spilt, Impetuous, o'er Himalah's rifted side, To ravage blind and wide, And leave a lifeless wreck of parching silt;-- Gliding by thorpe and tower and grange and lea In tranquil transit to the eternal sea.

--Children of Light!--If, in the slow-paced course Of vital change, your work seem incomplete, Your conquest-hour defeat, Won by mild compromise, by the invisible force That owns no earthly source; Yet to all time your gifts to man endure, G.o.d being with you, and the victory sure!

For though o'er G.o.ds the Giants in the course May lord it, Strength o'er Beauty; yet the Soul Immortal, clasps the goal; Fair Wisdom triumphs by her inborn force: --Thus far on earth! . . . But, ah!--from mortal sight The crowning glory veils itself in light!

_Envoy_

--Seal'd of that holy band, Rest here, beneath the foot-fall hushing sod, Wrapt in the peace of G.o.d, While summer burns above thee; while the land Disrobes; till pitying snow Cover her bareness; till fresh Spring-winds blow, And the sun-circle rounds itself again:-- Whilst England cries in vain For thy wise temperance, Lucius!--But thine ear The violent-impotent fever-restless cry, The faction-yells of triumph, will not hear: --Only the thrush on high And wood-dove's moaning sweetness make reply.

Lucius Cary, second Viscount Falkland, may perhaps be defined as at once the most poetically chivalrous and the most philosophically moderate amongst all who took part in the pre-restoration struggles. He was killed in the royal army at the first battle of Newbury, Sep. 20, 1643, aged but 33 years, and buried, without mark or memorial, in the church of Great Tew (North Oxfordshire), the manor of which he owned.

_English Eastern_; The common brake-fern and its allies seem to betray tropical sympathies by their late appearance and sensitiveness to autumnal frost.

_That Arlesian plain_; Now named the _Crau_. It lies between Aries and the sea--a bare and malarious tract of great size covered with shingle and boulders. Aeschylus describes it as a 'snow-shower of round stones,'

which Zeus rained down in aid of Heracles, who was contending with the Ligurians.

_Mira_; A star in the _Whale_, conspicuous for its singular and rapid changes of apparent size.

_The Cause_; After pa.s.sing through several phases this word, in Cromwell's mouth, with the common logic of tyranny, became simply a synonym for personal rule.

_Smiting with iron heel_; The terrorism of the Protector's government, and the almost universal hatred which it inspired, are powerfully painted by Hallam. 'To govern according to law may sometimes be an usurper's wish, but can seldom be in his power. The protector abandoned all thought of it. . . . All illusion was now (1655) gone, as to the pretended benefits of the civil war. It had ended in a despotism, compared to which all the illegal practices of former kings, all that had cost Charles his life and crown, appeared as dust in the balance.'

_The blood-path_; The trials under which Gerard and Vowel were executed in 1654, Slingsby and Hewit in 1658, are the most flagrant instances of Cromwell's perversion of justice, and contempt for the old liberties of England. But they do not stand alone.

_Guile and coa.r.s.eness_; 'A certain coa.r.s.e good nature and affability that covered the want of conscience, honour, and humanity: quick in pa.s.sion, but not vindictive, and averse to unnecessary crimes,' is the deliberate summing-up of Hallam,--in the love of liberty inferior to none of our historians, and eminent above all for courageous impartiality,--_iustissimus unus_.

_With glory he gilt_; See _Appendix_ C.

_Success, the vulgar test_; See Matthew Arnold's finely discriminative _Essay_ on Falkland.

MARSTON MOOR

July 2: 1644

O, summer-high that day the sun His chariot drove o'er Marston wold: A rippling sea of amber wheat That floods the moorland vale with gold.

With harvest light the valley laughs, The sheaves in mellow sunshine sleep; --Too rathe the crop, too red the swathes Ere night the scythe of Death shall reap!

Then thick and fast o'er all the moor The crimson'd sabre-lightnings fly; And thick and fast the death-bolts dash, And thunder-peals to peals reply.

Where Evening arched her fiery dome Went up the roar of mortal foes:-- Then o'er a deathly peace the moon In silver silence sailing rose.

Sweet hour, when heaven is nearest home, And children's kisses close the day!

O disaccord with nature's calm, Unholy requiem of the fray!

White maiden Queen that sail'st above, Thy dew-tears on the fallen fling,-- The blighted wreaths of civil strife, The war that can no triumph bring!

--O pale with that deep pain of those Who cannot save, yet must foresee,-- Surveying all the ills to flow From that too-victor victory;

When 'gainst the unwisely guided King The dark self-centred Captain stood, And law and right and peace went down In that red sea of brothers' blood;--

O long, long, long the years, fair Maid, Before thy patient eye shall view The shrine of England's law restored, Her homes their native peace renew!

_That day_; The actual fight lay between 7 and 9 p.m.

_Too-victor victory_; At Naseby, says Hallam,--and the remark, (though Charles was not personally present), is equally true of Marston Moor--'Fairfax and Cromwell triumphed, not only over the king and the monarchy, but over the parliament and the nation.'

_Unwisely guided_; 'Never would it have been wiser, in Rupert,' remarks Ranke, 'to avoid a decisive battle than at that moment. But he held that the king's letter not only empowered, but instructed him to fight.'

_Red sea_; 'The slaughter was deadly, for Cromwell had forbidden quarter being given': (Ranke, ix: 3).

THE FUGITIVE KING

August 7: 1645

Cold blue cloud on the hill-tops, Cold buffets of hill-side rain:-- As a bird that they hunt on the mountains, The king, he turns from Rhos lane: A writing of doom on his forehead, His eyes wan-wistful and dim; For his comrades seeking a shelter: But earth has no shelter for him!

Gray silvery gleam of armour, White ghost of a wandering king!

No sound but the iron-shod footfall And the bridle-chains as they ring: Save where the tears of heaven, Shed thick o'er the loyal hills, Rush down in the hoa.r.s.e-tongued torrent, A roar of approaching ills.

But now with a sweeping curtain, In solid wall comes the rain, And the troop draw bridle and hide them In the bush by the stream-side plain.

King Charles smiled sadly and gently; ''Tis the Beggar's Bush,' said he; 'For I of England am beggar'd, And her poorest may pity me.'

--O safe in the fadeless fir-tree The squirrel may nestle and hide; And in G.o.d's own dwelling the sparrow Safe with her nestlings abide:-- But he goes homeless and friendless, And manlike abides his doom; For he knows a king has no refuge Betwixt the throne and the tomb.