Volume Iii Part 15 (1/2)
O she that made the brave appeal For manhood when our time was dark, And from our fetters drove the spark Which was as lightning to reveal New seasons, with the swifter play Of pulses, and benigner day; She that divinely shook the dead From living man; that stretched ahead Her resolute forefinger straight, And marched toward the gloomy gate Of earth's Untried, gave note, and in The good name of Humanity Called forth the daring vision! she, She likewise half corrupt of sin, Angel and Wanton! can it be?
Her star has foundered in eclipse, The shriek of madness on her lips; Shreds of her, and no more, we see.
There is horrible convulsion, smothered din, As of one that in a grave-cloth struggles to be free.
III
Look not for spreading boughs On the riven forest tree.
Look down where deep in blood and mire Black thunder plants his feet and ploughs The soil for ruin: that is France: Still thrilling like a lyre, Amazed to s.h.i.+vering discord from a fall Sudden as that the lurid hosts recall Who met in heaven the irreparable mischance.
O that is France!
The brilliant eyes to kindle bliss, The shrewd quick lips to laugh and kiss, b.r.e.a.s.t.s that a sighing world inspire, And laughter-dimpled countenance Where soul and senses caught desire!
IV
Ever invoking fire from heaven, the fire Has grasped her, unconsumable, but framed For all the ecstasies of suffering dire.
Mother of Pride, her sanctuary shamed: Mother of Delicacy, and made a mark For outrage: Mother of Luxury, stripped stark: Mother of Heroes, bondsmen: thro' the rains, Across her boundaries, lo the league-long chains!
Fond Mother of her martial youth; they pa.s.s, Are spectres in her sight, are mown as gra.s.s!
Mother of Honour, and dishonoured: Mother Of Glory, she condemned to crown with bays Her victor, and be fountain of his praise.
Is there another curse? There is another: Compa.s.sionate her madness: is she not Mother of Reason? she that sees them mown Like gra.s.s, her young ones! Yea, in the low groan And under the fixed thunder of this hour Which holds the animate world in one foul blot Tranced circ.u.mambient while relentless Power Beaks at her heart and claws her limbs down-thrown, She, with the plungeing lightnings overshot, With madness for an armour against pain, With milkless b.r.e.a.s.t.s for little ones athirst, And round her all her n.o.blest dying in vain, Mother of Reason is she, trebly cursed, To feel, to see, to justify the blow; Chamber to chamber of her sequent brain Gives answer of the cause of her great woe, Inexorably echoing thro' the vaults, ''Tis thus they reap in blood, in blood who sow: 'This is the sum of self-absolved faults.'
Doubt not that thro' her grief, with sight supreme, Thro' her delirium and despair's last dream, Thro' pride, thro' bright illusion and the brood Bewildering of her various Motherhood, The high strong light within her, tho' she bleeds, Traces the letters of returned misdeeds.
She sees what seed long sown, ripened of late, Bears this fierce crop; and she discerns her fate From origin to agony, and on As far as the wave washes long and wan Off one disastrous impulse: for of waves Our life is, and our deeds are pregnant graves Blown rolling to the sunset from the dawn.
V
Ah, what a dawn of splendour, when her sowers Went forth and bent the necks of populations And of their terrors and humiliations Wove her the starry wreath that earthward lowers Now in the figure of a burning yoke!
Her legions traversed North and South and East, Of triumph they enjoyed the glutton's feast: They grafted the green sprig, they lopped the oak.
They caught by the beard the tempests, by the scalp The icy precipices, and clove sheer through The heart of horror of the pinnacled Alp, Emerging not as men whom mortals knew.
They were the earthquake and the hurricane, The lightnings and the locusts, plagues of blight, Plagues of the revel: they were Deluge rain, And dreaded Conflagration; lawless Might.
Death writes a reeling line along the snows, Where under frozen mists they may be tracked, Who men and elements provoked to foes, And G.o.ds: they were of G.o.d and beast compact: Abhorred of all. Yet, how they sucked the teats Of Carnage, thirsty issue of their dam, Whose eagles, angrier than their oriflamme, Flushed the vext earth with blood, green earth forgets.
The gay young generations mask her grief; Where bled her children hangs the loaded sheaf.
Forgetful is green earth; the G.o.ds alone Remember everlastingly: they strike Remorselessly, and ever like for like.
By their great memories the G.o.ds are known.
VI
They are with her now, and in her ears, and known.
'Tis they that cast her to the dust for Strength, Their slave, to feed on her fair body's length, That once the sweetest and the proudest shone; Scoring for hideous dismemberment Her limbs, as were the anguish-taking breath Gone out of her in the insufferable descent From her high chieftains.h.i.+p; as were she death, Who hears a voice of justice, feels the knife Of torture, drinks all ignominy of life.
They are with her, and the painful G.o.ds might weep, If ever rain of tears came out of heaven To flatter Weakness and bid conscience sleep, Viewing the woe of this Immortal, driven For the soul's life to drain the maddening cup Of her own children's blood implacably: Unsparing even as they to furrow up The yellow land to likeness of a sea: The bountiful fair land of vine and grain, Of wit and grace and ardour, and strong roots, Fruits perishable, imperishable fruits; Furrowed to likeness of the dim grey main Behind the black obliterating cyclone.
VII
Behold, the G.o.ds are with her, and are known.
Whom they abandon misery persecutes No more: them half-eyed apathy may loan The happiness of pitiable brutes.
Whom the just G.o.ds abandon have no light, No ruthless light of introspective eyes That in the midst of misery scrutinize The heart and its iniquities outright.
They rest, they smile and rest; have earned perchance Of ancient service quiet for a term; Quiet of old men dropping to the worm; And so goes out the soul. But not of France.
She cries for grief, and to the G.o.ds she cries, For fearfully their loosened hands chastize, And icily they watch the rod's caress Ravage her flesh from scourges merciless, But she, inveterate of brain, discerns That Pity has as little place as Joy Among their roll of gifts; for Strength she yearns.
For Strength, her idol once, too long her toy.