Part 5 (1/2)
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 kings.h.i.+p 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.