The Visions of England Part 15

Then the vision is pure no longer; refracted above us arise The phantasmal figures of pa.s.sion; earth's mirage exhaled to the skies.

And they go as the castled clouds o'er the verge when the tempest is laid, Towering Ambition, and Glory, and Self as Duty array'd:-- Idols no less than that idol whom l.u.s.tful Ammon of yore With the death-scream of children, a furnace of blood, was fain to adore!

So these, in the shrine of the soul, for a Moloch sacrifice cry, The conscience of candid childhood, the pure directness of eye:-- Till the man yields himself to himself, accepting his will as his fate, And the light from above within him is darkness; the darkness how great!

O Land whom the G.o.ds,--loving most,--most sorely in wisdom have tried, England! since Time was Time, thrice swept by the conqueror tide, Why on thyself thrice turn, thrice crimson thy greenness in gore, With the slain of thy children, as sheep, thy meadows whitening-o'er?

Race impatiently patient; tenacious of foe as of friend; Slow to take flame; but, enflamed, that burns thyself out to the end: Slow to return to the balance, once moved; not easily sway'd From the centre, and, star-like, retracing thy orbit through sunlight and shade!

--Without hate, without party affection, we now look back on the fray, Through the mellowing magic of time the phantoms emerging to day!

Grasping too much for self, unjust to his rival in strife, Each foe with good conscience and honour advances; war to the knife!

Lo, where with feebler hand the Stuart essays him to guide The disdainful coursers of Henry, the Tudor car in its pride!

For he saw not the past was past; nor the swirl and inrush of the tide, A nation arising in manhood; its will would no more be denied.

They would share in the labour and peril of State; they must perish or win; 'Tis the instinct of Freedom that cries; a voice of Nature within!

Narrow the cry and sectarian oft: true sons of their age; Justice avenged unjustly; yet more in sorrow than rage; Till they drank the poison of power, the Circe-cup of command, And the face of Liberty fail'd, and the sword was s.n.a.t.c.h'd from her hand.

Now Law 'neath the scaffold cowers, and,--shame engendering shame,-- The h.e.l.l-pack of war is laid close on the land for ruin and flame.

For as things most holy are worst, from holiness when they decline, So Law, in the name of law once outraged, demon-divine, Swoops back as Anarchy arm'd, and maddens her lovers of yore, Changed from their former selves, and clothed in the chrisom of gore.

Then Falkland and Hampden are gone; and darker counsels arise; Vane with his tortuous soul, through over-wisdom unwise; Pym, deep stately designer, the subtle in simple disguised, Artist in plots, projector of panics he used, and despised!

--But as, in the mountain world, where the giants each lift up their horn To the skies defiant and pale, and our littleness measure and scorn, Frowning-out from their far-off summits: and eye and mind may not know Which is hugest, where all are huge: But, as from the region we go Receding, the t.i.tan of t.i.tans comes forth, and above him the sky Is deepest: and lo!--'tis the White One, the Monarch!--He mounts, as we fly!

Or as over the sea the gay ships and the dolphins glisten and flit, And then that Leviathan comes, and takes his pastime in it; And wherever he ploughs his dark road, they must sink or follow him still, For his is the bulkiest strength, the proud and paramount will!

--Thou wast great, O King! (for we grudge not the style thou didst yearn- for in vain, But a river of blood was between and an ineffaceable stain), Great with an earth-born greatness; a t.i.tan of awe, not of love; 'Twas strength and subtlety balanced; the wisdom not from above.

For he leant o'er his own deep soul, oracular; over the pit As the Pythia throned her of old, where the rock in Delphi was split; And the vapour and echo within he mis-held for divine; and the land Heard and obey'd, unwillingly willing, the voice of command.

--Soaring enormous soul, that to height o'er the highest aspires; All that the man can seize being nought to what he desires!

And as, in a palace nurtured, the child to courtesy grows, Becoming at last what it acts; so man on himself can impose, Drill and accustom himself to humility, till, like an art, The lesson the fingers have learn'd appears the command of the heart; Whilst pride, as the snake at the charmer's command, coils low in its place, And he wears to himself and his fellows the mask that is almost a face.

Truest of hypocrites, he!--in himself entangled, he thinks Earth uprising to Heaven, while earth-ward the heavenly sinks: Conscience, we grant it, his guide; but conscience drugg'd and deceived; Conscience which all that his self-belief whisper'd as duty believed.

And though he sought earnest for G.o.d, in life-long wrestle and prayer, Yet the sky by a veil was darken'd, a phantom flitting in air; For a cloud from that seething cavernous heart fumed out in his youth, And whatever he will'd in the strength of the soul was imaged as truth:-- Grew with his growth: And now 'tis Ambition, disguised in success; And he walks with the step a.s.sured, that cares not its issue to guess, Clear in immediate purpose: and moulding his party at will, He thrones it o'er obstinate sects, his ideal constrain'd to fulfil.

Cool in his very heat, self-master, he masters the realm: G.o.d and His glory the flag; but King Oliver lord of the helm!

As he needs, steers crooked or straight: with his eye controlling the proud, While blandness runs from his tongue, as the candidate fawns on the crowd; Sagest of t.i.tans, he stands; dark, ponderous, muddy-profound, Greatness untemper'd, untuned; no song, but a chaos of sound:-- Yet the key-note is ever beneath: 'Mere humble instruments! See!

Poor weak saints, at the best: but who has triumph'd as we?'

Thanks the Lord for each ma.s.sacre-mercy, His glory, for His is the Cause: Catlike he bridles, and purrs about G.o.d: but within are the claws, The lion-strength is within!--Vane, Ludlow, Hutchinson, knew, When the bauble of Law disappear'd, and the sulky senate withdrew: When the tyrannous Ten sword-silenced the land, and the necks of the strong By the heel of their great Dictator were bruised, wrong trampling on wrong.

Least willing of despots! and fain the fair temple of Law to restore, Sheathing the sword in the sceptre: But lo! as in legends of yore, Once drawn, once redden'd, it may not return to the scabbard!--and straight On that iron-track'd path he had framed to the end he is goaded by Fate.

And yet, as a temperate man, to flavour some exquisite dish, Without stint pours forth the red wine, thus only can compa.s.s his wish; Upon Erin the death-mark he brands, the Party and Cause to secure; Not bloodthirsty by birth; just, liquor 'twas needful to pour; Only the wine of man's blood! . . . But the horrible sacrament thrill'd Right through the heart of a nation; nor yet is the memory still'd; E'en yet the dim spectre returns, the ghost of the murderous years, Blood flushing out in hatred; or blood trans.m.u.ted to tears!

--Ah strange drama of Fate! what motley pageantries rise On the stage of this make-shift world! what irony silenced in sighs!

For as when the Switzer looks down on the dell, from the pa.s.s and the snow, Sees the peace of the fields, the white farms, the clear equable streamlet below, And before him the world unknown, the blaze of the shadowless Line, Riches ill-purchased in exile, the toiling plantation and mine; And the horn floats up the faint music of youth from his forefathers'

fold, And he sighs for the patient life, the peace more golden than gold:-- So He now looks back on the years, and groans 'neath the load he must bear, Loving this England that loathed him, and none the burden to share!

Gagging not gaining souls: to the close he wonders in vain Why he cannot win hearts: why 'tis only the will that resigns to his reign.

As that great image in Dura, the land perforce must obey, Unloved, unlovely,--and not the feet only of iron and clay,-- Atlas of this wide realm! in himself he summ'd up the whole; Its children the Cause had devour'd: the sword was childless and sole.

--Ah strange drama of Fate! what motley pageantries rise On the stage of this make-shift world! what irony silenced in sighs!

In the strait beneath Etna for as the waves ebb, and Scylla betrays The monster below, foul scales of the serpent and slime,--could we gaze On Tyranny stript of her tinsel, what vision of dool and dismay!

Terror in confidence clothed, and anarchy biding her day: Selfishness hero-mask'd; stage-tricks of the shabby-sublime; Impotent gaspings at good; and the deluge after her time!

--Is it war that thunders o'er England, and bursts the millennial oak From his base like a castle uprooted, and shears with impalpable stroke The sails from the ocean, the houses of men, while the Conqueror lay On the morn of his crowning mercy, and life flicker'd down with the day?

Is it war on the earth, or war in the skies, or Nature who tolls Her pa.s.sing-bell as from earth they go up, her imperial souls?

--He rests:--'Tis a lion-sleep: and the sternness of Truth is reproved: The sleep of a leader of men; unhuman, to watch him unmoved!

In the stillness of pity and awe we remember his troublesome years, For man is the magnet to man, and mortal failure has tears.

--He rests:--On the ma.s.sive brows, as a rock by the sunrise is crown'd, His pa.s.sionate love for the land, in a glory-coronal bound!

And Mercy dawns fast o'er the dead, from the bier as we turn and depart, England for England's sake clasp'd firm as a child to his heart.

--He rests:--And the storm-clouds have fled, and the sunshine of Nature repress'd Breaks o'er the realm in smiles, and the land again has her rest.

He rests: the great spirit is hid where from heaven the veil is unroll'd, And justice merges in love, and the dross is purged from the gold.

The general point of view from which this subject is here approached is given in the following pa.s.sages:--'The whole nation,' says Macaulay (1659), 'was sick of government by the sword, and pined for government by the law.' Hence, when Charles landed, 'the cliffs of Dover were covered by thousands of gazers, among whom scarcely one could be found who was not weeping with delight . . . Every where flags were flying, bells and music sounding, wine and ale flowing in rivers to the health of him whose return was the return of peace, of law, and of freedom.' Nor was this astonishing: the name of the Commonwealth, a greater than Macaulay remarks, 'was grown infinitely odious: it was a.s.sociated with the tyranny of ten years, the selfish rapacity of the Rump, the hypocritical despotism of Cromwell, the arbitrary sequestrations of committee-men, the iniquitous decimations of military prefects, the sale of British citizens for slavery in the West Indies, the blood of some shed on the scaffold without legal trial, . . . the persecution of the Anglican Church, the baccha.n.a.lian rant of sectaries, the morose preciseness of puritans . . .

It is universally acknowledged that no measure was ever more national, or has ever produced more testimonies of public approbation, than the restoration of Charles II. . . . For the late government, whether under the parliament or the protector, had never obtained the sanction of popular consent, nor could have subsisted for a day without the support of the army. The King's return seemed to the people the harbinger of a real liberty, instead of that b.a.s.t.a.r.d Commonwealth which had insulted them with its name' (Hallam: _Const. Hist_. ch. x and xi).

_Peace in her car_; It will be seen that the Rospigliosi _Aurora_, Guido's one inspired work, has been here before the writer's memory.

_On thyself thrice turn_; The civil wars of the Barons, the Roses, and the Commonwealth.

_He saw not_; Ranke's dispa.s.sionate summary of the attempted 'arrest of five members,' which has been always held one of the King's most arbitrary steps, as it was, perhaps, the most fatal, ill.u.s.trates the view here taken: 'The prerogative of the Crown, _in the sense of the early kings_' (unconditional right of arrest, in cases of treason), 'and the privilege of Parliament, _in the sense of coming times_, were directly contradictory to each other': (viii: 10).

_Till they drank the poison_; A sentence weighty with his judicial force may be here quoted from Hallam:--'The desire of obtaining or retaining power, if it be ever sought as a means, is soon converted into an end.'

The career of the Long Parliament supports this judgment: of it 'it may be said, I think, with not greater severity than truth, that scarce two or three public acts of justice, humanity, or generosity, and very few of political wisdom and courage, are recorded of them from their quarrel with the King to their expulsion by Cromwell': (_Const. Hist_. ch. x: Part i).

_The chrisom_; Name for the white cloth in which babes were veiled immediately after Baptism.

_Artist in plots_; See Ranke (viii: 5) for Pym's skilful use of a supposed plot, (the main element in which was known by himself to be untrue), in older to terrify the House and ensure the destruction of Stafford; and Hallam (ch. ix).--Admiration of Pym may be taken as a proof that a historian is ignorant of, or faithless to, the fundamental principles of the Const.i.tution:--as the worship of Cromwell is decisive against any man's love of liberty, whatever his professions.

_O King_; 'Cromwell, like so many other usurpers, felt his position too precarious, or his vanity ungratified, without the name which mankind have agreed to worship.' The conversations recorded by Whitelock are conclusive on this point: 'and, though compelled to decline the crown, he undoubtedly did not lose sight of the object for the short remainder of his life' (_Hallam_).

_The sky by a veil_; See _Appendix_ D.

_And he walks_; 'He said on one occasion, _He goes furthest who knows not whither he is going_': (Ranke: xii: 1).

_Purrs about G.o.d_; Examples, (the tone of which justifies this phrase, and might deserve a severer), may be found by the curious in the frailties of poor human nature, _pa.s.sim_, in Cromwell's 'Letters and Speeches,' for which, (although not always edited with precise accuracy), we are indebted to Mr. T. Carlyle. But the view which he takes of his 'hero,' whether in regard of many particular facts alleged or neglected, or of the general estimate of Cromwell as a man,--as it appears to the author plainly untenable in face of proved historical facts, is here rejected.

The familiar figure of the Tyrant, too long known to the world,--with the iron, the clay, and the little gold often interfused also in the statue,--has been always easily recognisable by unbia.s.sed eyes in Oliver Cromwell. His tyranny was substantially that of his kind, before his time and since, in its actions, its spirit, its result. Fanaticism and Paradox may come with their apparatus of rhetoric to blur, as they whitewash, the lineaments of their idol. Such eulogists may 'paint an inch thick': yet despots,--political, military, ecclesiastical,--will never be permanently acknowledged by the common sense of mankind as worthy the great name of Hero.

_The tyrannous Ten_; The Major-Generals, originally ten, (but the number varied), amongst whom, in 1655, the Commonwealth was divided. They displayed 'a rapacity and oppression beyond their master's' (Hallam): a phrase amply supported by the hardly-impeachable evidence of Ludlow.

_The horrible sacrament_; See _Appendix_ D.

_Why he cannot win hearts_; 'In the ascent of this bold usurper to greatness . . . he had encouraged the levellers and persecuted them; he had flattered the Long Parliament and betrayed it; he had made use of the sectaries to crush the Commonwealth; he had spurned the sectaries in his last advance to power. These, with the Royalists and Presbyterians, forming in effect the whole people . . . were the perpetual, irreconcilable enemies of his administration' (Hallam ch. x).

_Stage-tricks_; See the curious regal imitations and adaptations of the Protector during his later years, in matters regarding his own and his family's t.i.tles and state, or the marriage of his daughters.

_Mortal failure_; See _Appendix_ D.

THE POET'S EUTHANASIA

November: 1674

Cloked in gray threadbare poverty, and blind, Age-weak, and desolate, and beloved of G.o.d; High-heartedness to long repulse resign'd, Yet bating not one jot of hope, he trod The sunless skyless streets he could not see; By those faint feet made sacrosanct to me.

Yet on that laureate brow the sign he wore Of Phoebus' wrath; who,--for his favourite child, When war and faction raised their rancorous roar, Leagued with fanatic frenzy, blood-defiled, To the sweet Muses and himself untrue,-- Around the head he loved thick darkness threw.

--He goes:--But with him glides the Pleiad throng Of that imperial line, whom Phoebus owns His ownest: for, since his, no later song Has soar'd, as wide-wing'd, to the diadem'd thrones That, in their inmost heaven, the Muses high Set for the sons of immortality.

Most loved, most lovely, near him as he went, Vergil: and He, supremest for all time, In h.o.a.ry blindness:--But the sweet lament Of Lesbian love, the Parian song sublime, Follow'd:--and that stern Florentine apart Cowl'd himself dark in thought, within his heart

Nursing the dream of Church and Caesar's State, Empire and Faith:--while Fancy's favourite child, The myriad-minded, moving up sedate Beckon'd his countryman, and inly smiled:-- Then that august Theophany paled from view, To higher stars drawn up, and kingdoms new.