Volume Iii Part 12 (1/2)

She sprang from dust to drink of earth's cool dew, The breath of swaying gra.s.ses share, Mankind embrace, their weaklings rear, At wrestle with the tyrannic strong; Her forehead clear to her mate, virgin anew, As immortals may be in the mortal sphere.

Read through her launching heart, who had lain long With Earth and heard till it became her own Our good Great Mother's eve and matin song: The humming burden of Earth's toil to feed Her creatures all, her task to speed their growth, Her aim to lead them up her pathways, shown Between the Pains and Pleasures; warned of both, Of either aided on their hard ascent.

Now when she looked, with love's benign delight After great ecstasy, along the plains, What foulest impregnation of her sight Transformed the scene to mult.i.tudinous troops Of human sketches, quaver-figures, bent, As were they winter sedges, broken hoops, Dry udder, vineless poles, worm-eaten posts, With features like the flowers defaced by deluge rains?

Recked she that some perverting devil had limned Earth's proudest to spout scorn of the Maker's hand, Who could a day behold these deathly hosts, And see, decked, graced, and delicately trimmed, A ribanded and gemmed elected few, Sanctioned, of milk and honey starve the land:- Like melody in flesh, its pleasant game Olympianwise perform, cloak but the shame: Beautiful statures; hideous, By Christian contrast; pranked with golden chains, And flexile where is manhood straight; Mortuaries where warm should beat The brotherhood that keeps blood sweet: Who dared in cantique impious Proclaim the Just, to whom was due Cathedral grat.i.tude in the pomp of state, For that on those lean outcasts hung the sucker Pains, On these elect the swelling Pleasures grew.

Surely a devil's land when that meant death for each!

Fresh from the breast of Earth, not thus, With all the body's life to plump the leech, Is Nature's way, she knew. The abominable scene Spat at the skies; and through her veins, To cloud celestially sown, Ran venom of what nourishment Her dark sustainer subterrene Supplied her, stretched supine on the rack, Alive in the shrewd nerves, the seething brains, Under derisive revels, p.r.o.ne As one clamped fast, with the interminable senseless blent.

VI

Now was her face white waves in the tempest's sharp flame-blink; Her skies shot black.

Now was it visioned infamy to drink Of earth's cool dew, and through the vines Frolic in pearly laughter with her young, Watching the healthful, natural, happy signs Where hands of lads and maids like tendrils clung, After their sly shy ventures from the leaf, And promised bunches. Now it seemed The world was one malarious mire, Crying for purification: chief This land of France. It seemed A duteous desire To drink of life's hot flood, and the crimson streamed.

VII

She drank what makes man demon at the draught.

Her skies lowered black, Her lover flew, There swept a shudder over men.

Her heavenly lover fled her, and she laughed, For laughter was her spirit's weapon then.

The Infernal rose uncalled, he with his crew.

VIII

As mighty thews burst manacles, she went mad: Her heart a flaring torch usurped her wits.

Such enemies of her next-drawn breath she had!

To tread her down in her live grave beneath Their dancing floor sunned blind by the Royal wreath, They ringed her steps with crafty prison pits.

Without they girdled her, made nest within.

There ramped the lion, here entrailed the snake.

They forced the cup to her lips when she drank blood; Believing it, in the mother's mind at strain, In the mother's fears, and in young Liberty's wail Alarmed, for her encompa.s.sed children's sake, The sole sure way to save her priceless bud.

Wherewith, when power had gifted her to prevail, Vengeance appeared as logically akin.

Insanely rational they; she rationally insane; And in compute of sin, was hers the appealing sin.

IX

Amid the plash of scarlet mud Stained at the mouth, drunk with our common air, Not lack of love was her defect; The Fury mourned and raged and bled for France Breathing from exultation to despair At every wild-winged hope struck by mischance Soaring at each faint gleam o'er her abyss.

Heard still, to be heard while France shall stand erect, The frontier march she piped her sons, for where Her crouching outer enemy camped, Attendant on the deadlier inner's hiss.

She piped her sons the frontier march, the wine Of martial music, History's cherished tune; And they, the saintliest labourers that aye Dropped sweat on soil for bread, took arms and tramped; High-breasted to match men or elements, Or Fortune, harsh schoolmistress with the undrilled: War's ragged pupils; many a wavering line, Torn from the dear fat soil of champaigns hopefully tilled, Torn from the motherly bowl, the homely spoon, To jest at famine, ply The novel scythe, and stand to it on the field; Lie in the furrows, rain-clouds for their tents; Fronting the red artillery straighten spine; Buckle the s.h.i.+ver at sight of comrades strewn; Over an empty platter affect the merrily filled; Die, if the multiple hazards around said die; Downward measure a foeman mightily sized; Laugh at the legs that would run for a life despised; Lyrical on into death's red roaring jaw-gape, steeled Gaily to take of the foe his lesson, and give reply.

Cheerful apprentices, they shall be masters soon!

X

Lo, where hurricane flocks of the North-wind rattle their thunder Loud through a night, and at dawn comes change to the great South- west, Hounds are the hounded in clouds, waves, forests, inverted the race: Lo, in the day's young beams the colossal invading pursuers Burst upon rocks and were foam; Ridged up a torrent crest; Crumbled to ruin, still gazing a glacial wonder; Turned shamed feet toe to heel on their track at a panic pace.

Yesterday's clarion c.o.c.k scudded hen of the invalid comb; They, the triumphant tonant towering upper, were under; They, violators of home, dared hope an inviolate home; They that had stood for the stroke were the vigorous hewers; Quick as the trick of the wrist with the rapier, they the pursuers.

Heavens and men amazed heard the arrogant crying for grace; Saw the once hearth-reek rabble the scourge of an army dispieced; Saw such a s.h.i.+ft of the hunt as when t.i.tan Olympus clomb.

Fly! was the sportsman's word; and the note of the quarry rang, Chase!

XI

Banners from South, from East, Sheaves of pale banners drooping hole and shred; The captive brides of valour, Sabine Wives Plucked from the foeman's blushful bed, For glorious muted battle-tongues Of deeds along the horizon's red, At cost of unreluctant lives; Her toilful heroes homeward poured, To give their fevered mother air of the lungs.

She breathed, and in the breathing craved.