The Shadow of the Sword | Page 2

is a proof of the failure of the Christian religion, so far, to enfranchise the world.
I have cast "The Shadow of the Sword" as a crumb upon the waters. It may do some good; it cannot by any possibility do any harm. The idea has been described as transcendental, like (to compare small things with great) the sublime ideas of the Founder of Christianity. It has been accepted, and praised without stint, by many, as an attack on Despotism in the person of the first Napoleon. I trust, however, that it is something more--an attack on War in the abstract, as the deadliest and most loathsome representation of the retrograde movement of modern political thought. Once more, "the time grows near the birth of Christ." The Holy Name will be murmured from a thousand pulpits, echoed by a million hearts; but Christ still sleeps, despite His promise to arise, and sad-eyed Science is telling us that He will never arise at all. Blocking the mouth of the Sepulchre lies now, instead of the old stone, a monstrous implement--the GATLING GUN!
Robert Buchanan.
Southend, Dec. 21 1882

Proem
Nineteen sad sleepless centuries
Had shed upon the dead CHRIST'S eyes
Dark blood and dew, and o'er them still
The waxen lids were sealed chill.
Drearily through the dreary years
The world had waited on in tears,
With heart clay-cold and eyelids wet,
But He had not arisen yet.
Nay, Christ was cold; and, colder still,
The lovely Shapes He came to kill
Slept by His side. Ah, sight of dread!
Dead CHRIST, and all the sweet gods dead!
He had not risen, tho' all the world
Was waiting; tho', with thin lips curl'd,
Pale ANTICHRIST upon his prison
Gazed yet denying, He had not risen;
Tho' every hope was slain save Him,
Tho' all the eyes of Heaven were dim,
Despite the promise and the pain,
He slept--and had not risen again.
Meantime, from France's funeral pyre,
Rose, god-like, girt around with fire,
Napoleon!
--On eyes and lips
Burnt the red hues of Love's eclipse;
Beneath his strong triumphal tread
All days the human winepress bled;
And in the silence of the nights
Pale Prophets stood upon the heights,
And, gazing thro' the blood-red gloom
Far eastward, to the dead CHRIST'S tomb,
Wail'd to the winds. Yet CHRIST still slept:
And o'er His white Tomb slowly crept
The fiery Shadow of a Sword!
Not Peace; a Sword.
And men adored
Not Christ, nor Antichrist, but CAIN;
And where the bright blood ran like rain
He stood, and looking, men went wild;--
For lo! on whomsoe'er he smiled
Came an idolatry accurst,
But chief, Cain's hunger and Cain's thirst
For bloodshed and for tears; and when
He beckon'd, countless swarms of men
Flew thick as locusts to destroy
Hope's happy harvests, sown in joy
Yea, verily; at each finger-wave
They swarm'd--and shared the crimson grave
Beneath his Throne.
Then, 'neath the sun
One man of France--and he, indeed,
Lowest and least of all man's seed--
Shrank back, and stirr'd not!--heard Cain's cry,
But flew not!--mark'd across the sky
The Shadow of the Sword, but still
Despair'd not!--Nay, with steadfast will,
He sought Christ's Tomb, and lying low,
With cold limbs cushion'd on the snow,
He waited!--But when Cain's eye found
His hiding-place on holy ground,
And Cain's hand gript him by the hair,
Seeking to drag him forth from there,
He clutch'd the stones with all his strength,
Struggled in silence--and at length,
In the dire horror of his need,
Shrieked out on CHRIST!
Did CHRIST rise?
READ.
Chapter 1
FULL SUNSHINE
"Rohan, Rohan! Can you not hear me call? It is time to go. Come, come! It frightens me to look down at you. Will you not come up now, Rohan?"
The voice that cries is lost in the ocean-sound that fills the blue void beneath; it fades away far under, amid a confused murmur of wings, a busy chattering of innumerable little newborn mouths; and while the speaker, drawing dizzily back, feels the ground rise up beneath her feet and the cliffs prepare to turn over like a great wheel, a human cry comes upward, clear yet faint, like a voice from the sea that washes on the weedy reefs of blood-red granite a thousand feet below.
The sun is sinking far away across the waters, sinking with a last golden gleam amid the mysterious Hesperides of the silent air, and his blinding light comes slant across the glassy calm till it strikes on the scarred and storm-rent faces of these Breton crags, illuminating and vivifying every nook and cranny of the cliffs beneath, burning on the summits and brightening their natural red to the vivid crimson of dripping blood, changing the coarse grass and yellow starwort into threads of emerald and glimmering stars, burning in a golden mist around the yellow flowers of the overhanging broom, and striking with fiercest ray on one naked rock of solid stone which juts out like a huge horn over the brink of the abyss, and around which a strong rope is noosed and firmly knotted.
Close to this horn of rock, in the full glory of the sunset light, stands a young girl, calling aloud to one who swings unseen