Part 6

We fancy that God can only manage His world by big battalions abroad, when all the while He is doing it by beautiful babies at home. When a wrong wants righting, or a truth wants preaching, or a continent wants opening, God sends a baby into the world to do it. That is why, long, long ago, a babe was born in Bethlehem.

FRANK W. BOREHAM (_Mountains in the Mist_).

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REINFORCEMENTS

When little boys with merry noise In the meadows shout and run; And little girls, sweet woman buds, Brightly open in the sun; I may not of the world despair, Our God despaireth not, I see; For blithesomer in Eden’s air These lads and maidens could not be.

Why were they born, if Hope must die? Wherefore this health, if Truth should fail? And why such Joy, if Misery Be conquering us and must prevail? Arouse! our spirit may not droop! These young ones fresh from Heaven are; Our God hath sent another troop, And means to carry on the war.

THOMAS TOKE LYNCH (1818-1871).

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O wind, a word with you before you pass; What did you to the Rose that on the grass Broken she lies and pale, who loved you so?

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THE WIND

Roses must live and love, and winds must blow.

PHILIP BOURKE MARSTON (_The Rose and the Wind_).

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WHAT OF THE DARKNESS?

What of the Darkness? Is it very fair? Are there great calms, and find ye silence there? Like soft-shut lilies all your faces glow With some strange peace our faces never know, With some great faith our faces never dare: Dwells it in Darkness? Do ye find it there?

Is it a Bosom where tired heads may lie? Is it a Mouth to kiss our weeping dry? Is it a Hand to still the pulse’s leap? Is it a Voice that holds the runes of sleep? Day shows us not such comfort anywhere: Dwells it in Darkness? Do ye find it there?

Out of the Day’s deceiving light we call, Day, that shows man so great and God so small. That hides the stars and magnifies the grass; O is the Darkness too a lying glass Or, undistracted, do ye find truth there? What of the Darkness? Is it very fair?

R. LE GALLIENNE.

These lines were written of _the blind_, but become even more beautiful and true if applied to a different subject, _the dead_.

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Continuing the work of creation, _i.e._, co-operating as instruments of Providence in bringing order out of disorder ... is only a part of the mission of mankind, and the time will come again when its due rank will be assigned to contemplation and the calm culture of reverence and love. Then poetry will resume her equality with prose.... But that time is not yet, and the crowning glory of Wordsworth is that he has borne witness to it and kept alive its traditions in an age, which, but for him, would have lost sight of it entirely.

J. S. MILL.

In that utilitarian period the figure of the great poet stands out in sheer sublimity. Apart from the depressing atmosphere of the time, one needs to remember how serenely he continued to deliver his high message in spite of the most deadly want of appreciation. At thirty he received £10 from his poems and nothing more until he was sixty-five! The quotation is from a letter in Caroline Fox’s _Journals_.

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My sarcastic friend says, with the utmost gravity, that no man with less than a thousand pounds a year can afford to have private opinions upon certain important subjects. He admits that he has known it done upon eight hundred a year; but only by very prudent people with small families.

SIR A. HELPS (_Companions of my Solitude_).

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’Tis an old theme, this Divine Love, and it cannot be exhausted. Men have not outlived it, angels cannot outlearn it. It swayed the ancient world by many a fair god and goddess; its light has been cast over ages of Christian controversy and warfare; it is still the guiding Star of the Sea to each voyager after the nobler faith. The youth leaves the old shore of belief, only because love has left it. His starved affections will no longer accept stone, though pulverized flour-like and artfully kneaded, for bread. Their white sails fill the purple and the sombre seas, and they hail each other to ask for the summer-land, where faith climbs to beauty, and the lost bowers of childhood’s trust may be found again.

MONCURE DANIEL CONWAY (1832-1907).

This fine writer was a Unitarian minister, but afterwards became a “Free-thinker.”

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There are in this loud stunning tide Of human care and crime, With whom the melodies abide Of th’ everlasting chime; Who carry music in their heart Through dusky lane and wrangling mart. Plying their daily task with busier feet, Because their secret souls a holy strain repeat.

JOHN KEBLE (_The Christian Year_, “_St. Matthew._”)

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THE DARK COMPANION

There is an orb that mocked the lore of sages Long time with mystery of strange unrest; The steadfast law that rounds the starry ages Gave doubtful token of supreme behest;

But they who knew the ways of God unchanging, Concluded some far influence unseen— Some kindred sphere through viewless others ranging, Whose strong persuasions spanned the void between;

And knowing it alone through perturbation And vague disquiet of another star, They named it, till the day of revelation, “The Dark Companion”—darkly guessed afar.

But when, through new perfection of appliance, Faith merged at length in undisputed sight, The mystic mover was revealed to science, No Dark Companion, but—a speck of light:

No Dark Companion, but a sun of glory: No fell disturber, but a bright compeer: The shining complement that crowned the story: The golden link that made the meaning clear.

Oh, Dark Companion, journeying ever by us, Oh, grim Perturber of our works and ways, Oh, potent Dread, unseen, yet ever nigh us, Disquieting all the tenor of our days—

Oh, Dark Companion, Death, whose wide embraces Overtake remotest change of clime and skies— Oh, Dark Companion, Death, whose grievous traces Are scattered shreds of riven enterprise—

Thou, too, in this wise, when, our eyes unsealing, The clearer day shall change our faith to sight, Shalt show thyself, in that supreme revealing, No Dark Companion, but a thing of light:

No ruthless wrecker of harmonious order: No alien heart of discord and caprice: A beckoning light upon the Blissful Border: A kindred element of law and peace.

So, too, our strange unrest in this our dwelling, The trembling that thou joinest with our mirth, Are by thy magnet-communing compelling Our spirits farther from the scope of earth.

So, doubtless, when beneath thy potence swerving, ’Tis that thou lead’st us by a path unknown, Our seeming deviations all subserving The perfect orbit round the central throne.

...

The night wind moans. The Austral wilds are round me. The loved who live—ah, God! how few they are! I looked above; and Heaven in mercy found me This parable of comfort in a star.

J. BRUNTON STEPHENS (_Convict Once and other Poems_).

The “Dark Companion” is no doubt the star known as the “Companion of Sirius.” Certain peculiarities in the motion of Sirius led Bessel in 1844 to the belief that it had an obscure companion, with which it was in revolution. The position of the companion having been ascertained by calculation, it was at last found in 1862. It is equal in mass to our sun but is obscured by the brilliancy of Sirius, which is the brightest of the fixed stars. Brunton Stephens’ poem was published in Melbourne in 1873.

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SEQUEL TO “MY QUEEN”

“_When and where shall I earliest meet her_,” etc.

Yes, but the years run circling fleeter, Ever they pass me—I watch, I wait— Ever I dream, and awake to meet her; She cometh never, or comes too late.

Should I press on? for the day grows shorter— Ought I to linger? the far end nears; Ever ahead have I looked, and sought her On the bright sky-line of the gathering years.

Now that the shadows are eastward sloping, As I screen mine eyes from the slanting sun, Cometh a thought—It is past all hoping, Look not ahead, she is missed and gone.

Here on the ridge of my upward travel, Ere the life-line dips to the darkening vales, Sadly I turn, and would fain unravel The entangled maze of a search that fails.

When and where have I seen and passed her? What are the words I forgot to say? Should we have met had a boat rowed faster? Should we have loved, had I stayed that day?

Was it her face that I saw, and started, Gliding away in a train that crossed? Was it her form that I once, faint-hearted, Followed awhile in a crowd and lost?

Was it there she lived, when the train went sweeping Under the moon through the landscape hushed? Somebody called me, I woke from sleeping, Saw but a hamlet—and on we rushed.

Listen and linger—She yet may find me In the last faint flush of the waning light— Never a step on the path behind me; I must journey alone, to the lonely night.

But is there somewhere on earth, I wonder, A fading figure, with eyes that wait, Who says, as she stands in the distance yonder, “He cometh never, or comes too late?”

SIR ALFRED LYALL.

* * * * *

Too late for love, too late for joy, Too late, too late! You loitered on the road too long, You trifled at the gate: The enchanted dove upon her branch Died without a mate; The enchanted princess in her tower Slept, died, behind the grate; Her heart was starving all this while You made it wait.

Ten years ago, five years ago, One year ago, Even then you had arrived in time, Though somewhat slow; Then you had known her living face Which now you cannot know: The frozen fountain would have leaped, The buds gone on to blow, The warm south wind would have awaked To melt the snow.

CHRISTINA ROSSETTI (_The Prince’s Progress_).

* * * * *

Where waitest thou, Lady I am to love? Thou comest not! Thou knowest of my sad and lonely lot; I looked for thee ere now!...

Where art thou, sweet? I long for thee, as thirsty lips for streams! Oh, gentle promised Angel of my dreams, Why do we never meet?

Thou art as I,— Thy soul doth wait for mine, as mine for thee; We cannot live apart; must meeting be Never before we die ...?

SIR EDWIN ARNOLD (_À Ma Future_).

* * * * *

Mild is the parting year, and sweet The odour of the falling spray; Life passes on more rudely fleet, And balmless is its closing day.

I wait its close, I court its gloom, But mourn that never must there fall Or on my breast or on my tomb The tear that would have sooth’d it all.

W. S. LANDOR.

* * * * *

The devil has made the stuff of our life and God makes the hem.

VICTOR HUGO (_By the King’s Command_).

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I think, I said, I can make it plain that there are at least six personalities distinctly to be recognized as taking part in a dialogue between John and Thomas.

Three Johns: The real John—known only to his Maker. John’s ideal John—never the real one, and often very unlike him. Thomas’s ideal John—never the real John, nor John’s John, but often very unlike either.

Three Thomases: The real Thomas. Thomas’s ideal Thomas. John’s ideal Thomas.

Only one of the three Johns is taxed; only one can be weighed on a platform balance; but the other two are just as important in the conversation. Let us suppose the real John to be old, dull, and ill-looking. But as the Higher Powers have not conferred on men the gift of seeing themselves in the true light, John very possibly conceives himself to be youthful, witty, and fascinating, and talks from the point of view of this ideal. Thomas, again, believes him to be an artful rogue, we will say; therefore he _is_, so far as Thomas’s attitude in the conversation is concerned, an artful rogue, though really simple and stupid. The same conditions apply to the three Thomases. It follows that, until a man can be found who knows himself as his Maker knows him, or who sees himself as others see him, there must be at least six persons engaged in every dialogue between two. Of these the least important, philosophically speaking, is the one that we have called the real person. No wonder two disputants often get angry, when there are six of them talking and listening all at the same time.

(A very unphilosophical application of the above remarks was made by a young fellow, answering to the name of John, who sits near me at table. A certain basket of peaches, a rare vegetable little known to boarding-houses, was on its way to me _via_ this unlettered Johannes. He appropriated the three that remained in the basket, remarking that there was just one apiece for him. I convinced him that his practical inference was hasty and illogical, but in the meantime he had eaten the peaches.)

O. W. HOLMES (_Autocrat of the Breakfast Table_).

* * * * *

When aweary of your mirth, From full hearts still unsatisfied ye sigh, And, feeling kindly unto all the earth, Grudge every minute as it passes by, Made the more mindful that the sweet days die— Remember me a little then, I pray, The idle singer of an empty day.

W. MORRIS (_The Earthly Paradise_).

* * * * *

A HYMN TO GOD THE FATHER.

Wilt Thou forgive that sin where I begun, Which was my sin, though it were done before? Wilt Thou forgive that sin, through which I run, And do run still, though still I do deplore?— When Thou hast done, Thou hast not done; For I have more.

Wilt Thou forgive that sin which I have won Others to sin, and made my sins their door? Wilt Thou forgive that sin which I did shun A year or two, but wallowed in a score?— When Thou hast done, Thou hast not done; For I have more.

I have a sin of fear, that when I’ve spun My last thread, I shall perish on the shore; But swear by Thyself, that at my death Thy Son Shall shine, as He Shines now and heretofore; And having done that, Thou hast done: I fear no more.

JOHN DONNE (1573-1631).

In line (1) the reference is to the old doctrine that the guilt of Adam and Eve’s “original sin” tainted all generations of man; (3) “run,” ran; (8) his sin—the example he has set—is the door which opened to others the way of sin.

In this fine poem there are _puns_. In the last verse one pun is on the words “Son” and “Sun,” Christ being the “Sun of righteousness who arises with healing in his wings” (_Malachi_ iv, 2). Also in the fifth, eleventh, and seventeenth lines, the play is on the last word “done” and the poet’s name Donne, which was pronounced _dun_.[17] (It was occasionally written Dun, Dunne, or Done: see Grierson’s _Poems of John Donne_, Vol. II, pp. lvii, lxxvii, lxxxvii, 8 and 12. Contrariwise, the adjective “dun,” dull-brown, was spelt _donne_ in the poet’s time.) We are accustomed only to the jocular use of puns, but here there is a serious intention to give two meanings to one expression. Such a use of puns was one of the “quaint conceits” of that period of our literature, and it is found also in serious Persian poetry.

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Very likely female pelicans like so to bleed under the selfish little beaks of their young ones: it is certain that women do. There must be some sort of pleasure, which we men don’t understand, which accompanies the pain of being scarified.

THACKERAY (_Pendennis_).

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The golden moments in the stream of life rush past us, and we see nothing but sand; the angels come to visit us, and we only know them when they are gone.

GEORGE ELIOT (_Felix Holt_).

* * * * *

LET IT BE THERE.

Not there, not there! Not in that nook, that ye deem so fair;— Little reck I of the bright, blue sky, And the stream that floweth so murmuringly, And the bending boughs, and the breezy air— Not there, good friends, not there!

In the city churchyard, where the grass Groweth rank and black, and where never a ray Of that self-same sun doth find its way Through the heaped-up houses’ serried mass— Where the only sounds are the voice of the throng, And the clatter of wheels as they rush along— Or the plash of the rain, or the wind’s hoarse cry, Or the busy tramp of the passer-by, Or the toll of the bell on the heavy air— Good friends, let it be _there_!

I am old, my friends—I am very old— Fourscore and five—and bitter cold Were that air on the hill-side far away; Eighty full years, content, I trow, Have I lived in the home where ye see me now, And trod those dark streets day by day, Till my soul doth love them; I love them all, Each battered pavement, and blackened wall, Each court and corner. Good sooth! to me They are all comely and fair to see— They have _old faces_—each one doth tell A tale of its own, that doth like me well, Sad or merry, as it may be, From the quaint old book of my history. And, friends, when this weary pain is past, Fain would I lay me to rest at last In their very midst; full sure am I, How dark soever be earth and sky, I shall sleep softly—I shall know That the things I loved so here below Are about me still—so never care That my last home looketh all bleak and bare— Good friends, let it be _there_!

THOMAS WESTWOOD (1814-1888).

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Every man hath his gift, one a cup of wine, another heart’s blood.

HAFIZ.

Some poets sing of wine or sensuous enjoyment, but Hafiz pours out his heart’s blood in song. Presumably wine and blood are contrasted because of their similar appearance.

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The devil could drive woman out of Paradise; but the devil himself cannot drive the Paradise out of a woman.

G. MACDONALD (_Robert Falconer_).

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THE PULLEY

When God at first made man, Having a glass of blessings standing by, “Let us,” said He, “pour on him all we can; Let the world’s riches, which dispersed lie, Contract into a span.”

So strength first made a way, Then beauty flowed, then wisdom, honour, pleasure; When almost all was out, God made a stay, Perceiving that, alone of all His treasure, _Rest_ in the bottom lay.

“For if I should,” said He, “Bestow this jewel also on My creature, He would adore My gifts instead of Me, And rest in Nature, not the God of Nature: So both should losers be.

“Yet let him keep the rest, But keep them with repining restlessness; Let him be rich and weary, that at least, If goodness lead him not, yet weariness May toss him to My breast.”

GEORGE HERBERT (1593-1633).

“The Pulley” because by the desire for rest after toil and tribulation God _draws man up_ to Himself.

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(Darwin’s _Origin of Species_ was published in November, 1859.) At the Oxford meeting of the British Association in 1860 Huxley had on Thursday, June 28, directly contradicted Professor Owen’s statement that a gorilla’s brain differed more from a man’s than it did from the brain of the lowest of the Quadrumana (apes, monkeys, and lemurs). He was thus marked out as the champion of evolution. On the Saturday, although the public were not admitted, the members crowded the room to suffocation, anxious to hear the brilliant controversialist, Bishop Wilberforce, take part in the debate. An unimportant paper was read bearing upon Darwinism, and a discussion followed. The Bishop, inspired by Owen, began his speech. He spoke in dulcet tones, persuasive manner, and with well-turned periods, but ridiculing Darwin badly and Huxley savagely. “In a light, scoffing tone, florid and fluent, he assured us there was nothing in the idea of evolution: rock-pigeons were what rock-pigeons had always been. Then, turning to Huxley, with a smiling insolence, he begged to know, _was it through his grandfather or his grandmother that he claimed his descent from a monkey_.”

As he said this, Huxley turned to his neighbour and said, “The Lord hath delivered him into mine hands!” On rising to speak, he first gave a forcible and eloquent reply to the scientific part of the Bishop’s argument. Then “he stood before us and spoke those tremendous words—words, which no one seems sure of now, nor, I think, could remember just after they were spoken, for their meaning took away our breath, though it left us in no doubt as to what it was. “He was not ashamed to have a monkey for his ancestor: but he would be ashamed to be connected with a man who used great gifts to obscure the truth.” No one doubted his meaning, and the effect was tremendous. One lady fainted and had to be carried out; I, for one, jumped out of my seat.” (_Macmillan’s_, 1898.) There is no verbatim report of this incident, but the varying accounts agree in outline.

(_Extracted from Life of Huxley._)

One object of this book is to bring back the memories of the seventy-eighties—and of overwhelming interest at the time was the alleged conflict between religion and science. Through Darwin’s great discovery and Herbert Spencer’s world-wide extension of the evolution theory, so much was found covered by law that men were blinded to the fact that the essential question of causality, lying behind all law, was still untouched.

The important and thrilling incident referred to above took place in 1860, when I was two years old, but it was still an absorbing topic thirteen or fourteen years later, and is one of my most vivid recollections.

Wilberforce (1805-1873) was a great Churchman and, indeed, has been said to be the greatest prelate of his age, although his nickname “Soapy Sam” led to a popular depreciation of his merits. (This epithet originally meant that he was evasive on certain questions, but it took a further meaning from his persuasive eloquence.) In this instance he meddled with a subject of which he was ignorant. Owen, who instigated him to make this attack on Darwin and Huxley had at first welcomed the theory of evolution, but quailed before the orthodox indignation against the necessary extension of that theory to the origin of man. Huxley (1825-1895) was thirty-five years of age when he thus showed himself a strong debater and a power in the scientific world.

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