Part 6

At daybreak they pressed on. Strange hills arose Clustering before them, hills whose fragrant turf, Softer than velvet, hid what savage hearts! At noon they saw, beside the road, a gash Rending the sunlit skin of that green peace; An old abandoned quarry, half overgrown With ferns, and masked by boughs. They left the road And looked at it. Volcanic rock! A flood Of frozen lava! They marked its glossy blackness, the rough cords And wrinkles where, as the fiery waves congealed, It had crept on a little; and strangely there New beauty, like the smile on truth’s hard face, Gleamed on them. Never did bracken and hart’s tongue ferns Whisper a tale like those whose dauntless roots Were creviced in that grim rock. They tracked it up Through heather and thyme. They saw what human eyes Had seen for ages, yet had never seen,— The tall green hill, a great truncated cone, Robed in wild summer and haunted by the bee, But shaped like grey engravings that they knew Of Etna and Vesuvius. Near its crest They saw the sunlight on a shepherd’s crook, Bright as a star. A flock of nibbling sheep Flowed round it like a cloud, a rambling cloud With drifting edges that broke and formed again Before one small black barking speck that flew Swift as a bird about a cloud in heaven. Thyme underfoot, wild honey in the thyme; But, under the thyme and honey, if eyes could see, In every runnel and crevice and slip and patch, A powdery rubble of pumice, black and red, Flakes of cooled lava and stones congealed from fire. It was no dream. A butterfly spread its fans White, veined with green, on a rock of sunlit slag, Slag of the seething furnaces below. They reached the summit; and, under them, beheld The hollow cup, the crater, whence that flood Out of the dreadful molten heart of the earth Poured in red fury to create Auvergne. But now, instead of smoke and fire, they saw Red of the heather in that deep grassy hollow, And heard, instead of the hissing of the abyss, The small grey locust, stridulent in the sun. They came to Clermont. All its dark old streets Were built of lava. By the _Place de Jaude_, O, strangely in their own swift race for truth, They met the phantom of an earlier fire! They found the house where Pascal first beheld The sunlight, through a window in lava-stone; And many a time had passed, a brooding child, With all his deep celestial thoughts to come, Through that volcanic porch, but never saw The wonder of the walls wherein he slept. They saw, through mists, as I through mists discerned Their own strange drama, that scene within the scene. They climbed the very hill that Pascal made A beacon-height of truth—the Puy de Dôme, Where Florin Périer, at his bidding, took His tubes of soft quicksilver; and, at the base, And, at the summit, tested, proved, and weighed The pressure of that lovely body of light, Our globe-engirdling air. On one swift hint, One flash of truth that Torricelli caught From Galileo, and Pascal caught in turn, He weighed that glory. Ever the drama grew. The vital fire, in yet more intricate ways (As life itself, enkindling point by point In the dark formless embryo, grows to power), Coursed on, from mind to mind, each working out Its separate purpose, yet all linked in one. For those two pilgrims, on the cone-shaped hill That Pascal knew, and yet had never known, Met his great spirit among the scoriac flakes, And found themselves, in vision, on that pure height Where all the paths to truth shall one day meet. They met his brooding spirit as they climbed. They passed the dead man’s words from mouth to mouth, With new significance, deeper and more strange Even than they knew. _“We are on fire to explore_ _The universe, and build our tower of truth_ _Into the Infinite. Then the firm earth laughs,_ _Opens, under its cracked walls, an abyss.”—_ _Lavoisier! Malesherbes! Friends of Jean Guettard._ _Was it only the whisper of Shadow-of-a-Leaf that showed me_ _Gleams of the Terror approaching, a wild storm_ _Of fiercer, hell-hot lava, and that far sound_ _Of tumbrils.... The Republic has no need_ _Of savants!_ _This dream went by, with the dead man’s words._ They reached the highest crest. Before their eyes The hill-scape opened like a mighty vision That, quietly, has come true. They stood there, dumb, To see what they foresaw, the invisible thought Grown firm as granite; for, as a man might die In faith, yet wake amazed in his new world, They saw those chains of dead volcanoes rise, Cone behind cone, with green truncated crowns, And smokeless craters, on the dazzling blue. There, in the very sunlit heart of France, They saw what human eyes had daily seen Yet never seen till now. They stood and gazed, More lonely in that loneliness of thought Than wingèd men, alighting on the moon.

Old as the moon’s own craters were those hills; And all their wrath had cooled so long ago That as the explorers on their downward path Passed by a cup-shaped crater, smooth and green, Three hundred feet in depth and breadth, they saw, Within it, an old shepherd and his flock Quietly wandering over its gentle slopes Of short sweet grass, through clumps of saffron broom. They asked him by what name that hill was known. He answered, _The Hen’s Nest_! “Hen’s Nest,” cried Jean Guettard, “the good God grant This fowl be not a phœnix and renew Its feathers in Auvergne.” They chuckled aloud, And left the shepherd wondering, many a day, What secret knowledge in the stranger’s eye Cast that uncanny light upon the hill, A moment, and no more; and yet enough To make him feel, even when the north wind blew, Less at his ease in that green windless cup; And, once or twice, although he knew not why, He turned, and drove his flock another way.

IV

AT PARIS

“Few know the name of Jean Guettard to-day,” Said Shadow-of-a-Leaf; for now the mists concealed All that clear vision. “I often visited him, Between the lights, in after years. He lived Alone at Paris then, in two lean rooms, A sad old prisoner, at the Palais Royal; And many a time, beside a dying fire, We talked together. I was only a shadow, A creature flickering on the fire-lit wall; But, while he bowed his head upon his hands And gazed into the flame with misted eyes, I could steal nearer and whisper time away. And sometimes he would breathe his thoughts aloud; And when at night his faithful servant, Claire, Stole into the room to lay his frugal meal, She’d glance at him with big brown troubled eyes To find him talking to himself alone.

And sometimes when the masters of the hour Won easy victories in the light world’s fashion, With fables, easily spun in light quick minds, He’d leave the Academy thundering its applause, And there, in his bare room, with none to see But Shadow-of-a-Leaf, he would unfold again —Smiling a little grimly to himself— Those curious beautiful tinted maps he drew, The very first that any man had made To show, beneath the kingdoms made by man, The truth, that hidden structure, ribbed with rock, And track the vanished ages by the lives And deaths imprinted there. They had made him rich In nothing but the truth. He had mapped the rocks. “The time is not yet come,” he used to say, “When we can clothe them with a radiant Spring Of happy meanings. I have never made A theory. That’s for happier men to come; It will be time to answer the great riddle When we have read the question. Here and there Already, I note, they use this work of mine And shuffle the old forerunner out of sight. No matter. Let the truth live. I shall watch Its progress, proudly, from the outer dark; More happily, I believe, thus free from self, Than if my soul went whoring after fame. One thing alone I’ll claim. It is not good To let all lies go dancing by on flowers. This—what’s his name?—who claims to be the first To find a dead volcano in Auvergne, And sees, in that, only an easy road To glory for himself, shall find, ere long, One live volcano in old Jean Guettard. The fool has forced me to it; for he thinks That I’ll claim nothing. I prefer my peace; But truth compels me here. I’ll set my heel On him, at least. Malesherbes will bear me out. As for the rest—no theory of the earth Can live without these rock-ribbed facts of mine, The facts that I first mapped, I claim no more. These rocks, these bones, these fossil ferns and shells, Of which the grinning moon-calf makes a jest, A byword for all dotage and decay, Shall yet be touched with beauty, and reveal The secrets of the book of earth to man.”

“He made no theory,” whispered Shadow-of-a-Leaf, “And yet, I think, he looked on all these things Devoutly; on a sea-shell turned to stone As on a sacred relic, at whose touch Time opened like a gate, and let him pass Out of this mocking and ephemeral world Through the eternal ages, home to God. And so I watched him, growing old and grey, In seeking truth; a man with enemies, Ten enemies for every truth he told; And friends that still, despite his caustic tongue, Loved him for his true heart. Yet even these Never quite reached it; never quite discerned That even his gruffest words were but the pledge Of his own passionate truth; the harsh pained cry For truth, for truth, of one who saw the throng Bewildered and astray, the ways of love Grown tortuous, and the path to heaven grown dim Through man’s unheed for truth. I saw him greet Condorcet, at the Academy. “We have lost Two members. I condole with you, my friend. It is their last _éloges_ you’ll speak to-day! How will you bury their false theories? In irony, or in academic robes? No matter. There’ll be only one or two Who really know; and I shall not be there To vex you, from my corner, with one smile. Lord, what a pack of lies you’ll have to tell! It is the custom. When my turn arrives— ’Twill not be long,—remember, please, I want Truth, the whole truth, or nothing.” I saw one night A member walking home with him—to thank him For his support that morning. Jean Guettard Turned on his threshold, growling like a bear. “You owe me nothing. I believed my vote Was right, or else you never should have had it. Pray do not think I liked you.” A grim door Opened and closed like iron in the face Of his late friend and now indignant foe; To whom no less, if he had needed it, Guettard would still have given his own last sou. He came into his lonely room that night, And sat and stared into the fluttering fire. I, Shadow-of-a-Leaf, was there; and I could see More in his eyes than even Condorcet saw, Condorcet, who of all his friends remained Most faithful to the end. But, at the hour When Claire would lay his supper, a light hand tapped Timidly on his door. He sat upright And turned with startled eyes. “Enter,” he called. A wide-eyed, pale-faced child came creeping in. “What! Little Claire!” he cried. “Your mother is not better!” She stood before him, The fire-light faintly colouring her thin face,— “M’sieur, she is very ill. You are a doctor. Come, quickly.” Through the narrow, ill-lighted streets Old Jean Guettard went hobbling, a small hand Clutching his own, and two small wooden shoes Clattering beside him, till the child began To droop. He lifted her gently in his arms And hobbled on. The thin, white, tear-stained face, Pressing against his old grey-bristled cheek, Directed him, now to left and now to right. “O, quick, M’sieur!” Then, into an alley, dark As pitch, they plunged. The third door on the right! Into the small sad house they went, and saw By the faint guttering candle-light—the mother, Shivering and burning on her tattered bed. Two smaller children knelt on either side Worn out with fear and weeping. All that night Guettard, of all true kings of science then, Obscure, yet first in France and all the world, Watched, laboured, bathed the brow and raised the head, Moistened the thirsting lips, and knew it vain; Knew, as I knew, that in a hundred years Knowledge might conquer this; but he must fight A losing battle, and fight it in the dark No better armed than Galen. He closed her eyes At dawn. He took the children to his house; Prayed with them; dried their tears; and, while they slept, Shed tears himself, remembering—a green hill, A Rock against the sky.

He cared for them, as though they were his own. Guettard, the founder of two worlds of thought, Taught them their letters. “None can tell,” he said, “What harvests are enfolded for the world In one small grain of this immortal wheat. But I, who owe so much to little things In childhood; and have seen, among the rocks, What vast results may wait upon the path Of one blind life, under a vanished sea, Bow down in awe before this human life.”

V

THE RETURN

Ever, as he grew older, life became More sacred to him. “In a thousand years Man will look back with horror on this world Where men could babble about the Lamb of God, Then turn and kill for food one living thing That looks through two great eyes, so like their own. I have had living creatures killed for me; But I will have no more.” “Though Nature laughed His mood to scorn,” said Shadow-of-a-Leaf, “the day Will come (I have seen it come a myriad times) When, through one mood like this, Nature will climb Out of its nature, and make all things new. Who prophesied cities, when the first blind life Crawled from the sea, to breathe that strange bright air, And conquer its own past?”— “I have no theory of this wild strange world,” Said Jean Guettard, “But, if the God that made it dies with us Into immortal life....” “There, there’s the meaning,” whispered Shadow-of-a-Leaf, “Could we but grasp it. There’s the harmony Of life, and death, and all our mortal pain.” I heard that old man whispering in the dark, “O, little human life, so lost to sight Among the eternal ages, I, at least, Find in this very darkness the one Fact That bows my soul before you.” Once again The mists began to roll away like smoke. I saw a patch of vines upon the hill Above Étampes; and through the mists I saw Old Jean Guettard, with snowy wind-blown hair, Nearing the shrouded summit. As he climbed, Slowly the last thin veils dissolved away. He lifted up his eyes to see the Rock. The hill was bare. His facts were well confirmed. Sun, wind, and rain, and the sharp chisels of frost Had broken it down. The Rock was on its way In brook and river, with all the drifting hills, And all his life, to the remembering sea. He looked around him, furtively. None was near. Down, on his knees, Among the weather-worn shards of his lost youth, Dropt Jean Guettard. The mist closed over him. The world dissolved away. The vision died, Leaving me only a voice within the heart, Far off, yet near, the whisper of Shadow-of-a-Leaf.

_The rain had beaten. The wind had blown._ _The hill was bare as the sky that day._ _Mother and Child from the height had gone._ _The wind and rain, said Jean Guettard,_ _Had crumbled even the Rock away._

VI—IN SWEDEN

LINNÆUS

It was his garden that began it all, A magical garden for a changeling child.

“The garden has bewitched him! Carl! Carl! O, Carl! Now where is that elfkin hiding?”

It was the voice of Christina, wife of the Pastor, Nils Linnæus, the Man of the Linden-tree. Youthful and comely, she stood at her door in the twilight, Calling her truant son. Her flaxen hair Kerchiefed with crisp white wings; her rose-coloured apron And blue-grey gown, like a harebell, yielding a glimpse Of the shapeliest ankle and snowiest stocking in Sweden; She stood at her door, a picture breathed upon air.

She called yet again, and tilted her head to listen As a faint, flushed, wild anemone turning aside From a breeze out of elf-land, teasing her delicate petals, The breeze of the warm, white, green-veined wings of her wooer; And again, a little more troubled at heart, she called, “Supper-time, Carl!” But out of the fragrant pinewoods Darkening round her, only the wood-pigeon cooed. Down by the lake, from the alders, only the red-cap Whistled three notes. Then all grew quiet again. Yet, he was there, she knew, though he did not answer. The lad was at hand, she knew, though she could not see him. Her elf-child, nine years old, was about and around her, A queer little presence, invisible, everywhere, nowhere, Hiding, intensely still.... She listened; the leaves All whispered, “Hush!” It was just as though Carl had whispered, “Hush! I am watching. “Hush! I am thinking. “Hush! I am listening, too.”

She tiptoed through the garden, her fair head Turning to left and right, with birdlike glances, Peeping round lichened boulders and clumps of fern. She passed by the little garden his father gave him, Elfdom within an elfdom, where he had sown Not only flowers that rightly grow in gardens, The delicate aristocracies of bloom, But hedgerow waifs and ragamuffin strays That sprawled across his borders everywhere And troubled even the queendom of the rose With swarming insurrections. At last she saw him, His tousled head a little golden cloud Among the dark green reeds at the edge of the lake, Bending over the breathless water to watch— What? She tiptoed nearer, until she saw The spell that bound him. Floating upon the lake, A yard away, a water-lily closed Its petals, as an elfin cygnet smooths Its ruffled plumes, composing them for sleep.

He watched it, rapt, intent. She watched her son, Intent and rapt, with a stirring at her heart, And beautiful shining wonder in her eyes, Feeling a mystery near her. Shadow-of-a-Leaf Whispered. The garden died into the dark. Mother and child had gone—I knew not whither. It seemed as though the dark stream of the years Flowed round me. Then, as one that walks all night Lifts up his head in the early light of dawn, I found myself in a long deserted street Of little wooden houses, with thatched roofs. It was Uppsala. Over the silent town I heard a skylark quivering, up and up, As though the very dew from its wild wings Were shaken to silvery trills of elfin song. _Tirile, tirile, tirile_, it arose, Praising the Giver of one more shining day.

Then, with a clatter of doors and a yodelling call Of young men’s voices, the Svartbäcken woke; And down the ringing street the students came In loose blue linen suits, knapsack on back And sturdy stick in hand, to rouse old Carl For their long ramble through the blossoming fields. I saw them clustering round the Master’s door. I heard their jolly song—_Papa Linnæus_:

Linnæus, Papa Linnæus, He gave his pipe a rap. He donned his gown of crimson. He donned his green fur-cap. He walked in a meadow at daybreak To see what he might see; And the linnet cried, “Linnæus! O hide! Here comes Linnæus. Beware of old Linnæus, The Man of the Linden-tree.”

So beautiful, bright and early He brushed away the dews, He found the wicked wild-flowers All courting there in twos; And buzzing loud for pardon, Sir Pandarus, the bee: “Vincit Amor, Linnæus, Linnæus, Papa Linnæus!” O, ho, quoth old Linnæus, The Man of the Linden-tree.

Quoth he, ’Tis my conviction These innocents must be wed! So he murmured a benediction, And blessed their fragrant bed; And the butterflies fanned their blushes And the red-cap whistled in glee, _They are married by old Linnæus,_ _Linnæus, Papa Linnæus!_ _Vivat, vivat Linnæus,_ _The Man of the Linden-tree_.