The Unknown Eros | Page 8

the people cast their
caps o'erhead,
And swear the threaten'd doom is ne'er to dread

That's come, though not yet past.
All front the horror and are none
aghast;
Brag of their full-blown rights and liberties,
Nor once
surmise
When each man gets his due the Nation dies;
Nay, still
shout 'Progress!' as if seven plagues
Should take the laggard who
would stretch his legs.
Forward! glad rush of Gergesenian swine;

You've gain'd the hill-top, but there's yet the brine.
Forward! to meet
the welcome of the waves
That mount to 'whelm the freedom which
enslaves.
Forward! bad corpses turn into good dung,
To feed
strange futures beautiful and young.
Forward! God speed ye down the
damn'd decline,
And grant ye the Fool's true good, in abject ruin's
gulf
As the Wise see him so to see himself!
Ah, Land once mine,
That seem'd to me too sweetly wise,
Too
sternly fair for aught that dies,
Past is thy proud and pleasant state,

That recent date
When, strong and single, in thy sovereign heart,

The thrones of thinking, hearing, sight,
The cunning hand, the
knotted thew
Of lesser powers that heave and hew,
And each the
smallest beneficial part,
And merest pore of breathing, beat,
Full
and complete,

The great pulse of thy generous might,
Equal in
inequality,
That soul of joy in low and high;
When not a churl but
felt the Giant's heat,
Albeit he simply call'd it his,
Flush in his
common labour with delight,
And not a village-Maiden's kiss
But
was for this
More sweet,
And not a sorrow but did lightlier sigh,


And for its private self less greet,
The whilst that other so majestic
self stood by!
Integrity so vast could well afford
To wear in
working many a stain,
To pillory the cobbler vain
And license
madness in a lord.
On that were all men well agreed;
And, if they
did a thing,
Their strength was with them in their deed,
And from
amongst them came the shout of a king!
But, once let traitor coward meet,
Not Heaven itself can keep its feet.

Come knave who said to dastard, 'Lo,
The Deluge!' which but
needed 'No!'
For all the Atlantic's threatening roar,
If men would
bravely understand,
Is softly check'd for evermore
By a firm bar of
sand.
But, dastard listening knave, who said,
''Twere juster were the
Giant dead,
That so yon bawlers may not miss
To vote their own
pot-belly'd bliss,'
All that is past!
We saw the slaying, and were not
aghast.
But ne'er a sun, on village Groom and Bride,
Albeit they
guess not how it is,
At Easter or at Whitsuntide,
But shines less gay
for this!
XVIII. THE TWO DESERTS.
Not greatly moved with awe am I
To learn that we may spy
Five
thousand firmaments beyond our own.
The best that's known
Of the
heavenly bodies does them credit small.
View'd close, the Moon's fair
ball
Is of ill objects worst,
A corpse in Night's highway, naked,
fire-scarr'd, accurst;
And now they tell
That the Sun is plainly seen
to boil and burst
Too horribly for hell.
So, judging from these two,

As we must do,
The Universe, outside our living Earth,

Was all
conceiv'd in the Creator's mirth,
Forecasting at the time Man's spirit
deep,
To make dirt cheap.
Put by the Telescope!
Better without it
man may see,
Stretch'd awful in the hush'd midnight,
The ghost of
his eternity.
Give me the nobler glass that swells to the eye
The
things which near us lie,
Till Science rapturously hails,
In the
minutest water-drop,
A torment of innumerable tails.
These at the
least do live.
But rather give
A mind not much to pry
Beyond our

royal-fair estate
Betwixt these deserts blank of small and great.

Wonder and beauty our own courtiers are,
Pressing to catch our gaze,

And out of obvious ways
Ne'er wandering far.
XIX. CREST AND GULF.
Much woe that man befalls
Who does not run when sent, nor come
when Heaven calls;
But whether he serve God, or his own whim,

Not matters, in the end, to any one but him;
And he as soon
Shall
map the other side of the Moon,
As trace what his own deed,
In the
next chop of the chance gale, shall breed.
This he may know:
His
good or evil seed
Is like to grow,
For its first harvest, quite to
contraries:
The father wise
Has still the hare-brain'd brood;

'Gainst evil, ill example better works than good;
The poet, fanning his
mild flight
At a most keen and arduous height,
Unveils the tender
heavens to horny human eyes
Amidst ingenious blasphemies.

Wouldst raise the poor, in Capuan luxury sunk?
The Nation lives but
whilst its Lords are drunk!
Or spread Heav'n's partial gifts o'er all,
like dew?
The Many's weedy growth withers the gracious Few!

Strange opposites, from those, again, shall rise.
Join, then, if thee it
please, the bitter jest
Of mankind's progress; all its spectral race

Mere impotence of rest,
The heaving vain of life which cannot cease
from self,
Crest altering still to gulf
And gulf to crest
In endless
chace,
That leaves the tossing water anchor'd in its place!
Ah, well
does he who does but stand aside,
Sans hope or fear,
And marks the
crest and gulf in station sink and rear,
And prophesies 'gainst trust in
such a tide:
For he sometimes is prophet, heavenly taught,

Whose
message is that he sees only nought.
Nathless, discern'd may be,
By listeners at the doors of destiny,
The
fly-wheel swift and still
Of God's incessant will,
Mighty to keep