Part 7

_Vivat Linnæus!_ And out the old Master came, Jauntily as a throstle-cock in Spring, His big bright eyes aglow; the fine curved beak, The kindly lips, the broad well-sculptured brow, All looked as though the wisdom that had shaped them Desired that they should always wear a smile To teach the world that kindness makes men happy. He shook his head at his uproarious troop, And chose his officers for the day’s campaign: One, for a marksman, with a fowling-piece, To bring down bird or beast, if need arose; One for a bugler, to recall their lines From echoing valley and hill, when something rare Lay in the Master’s hand; one to make notes Of new discoveries; one for discipline; all For seeking out the truth, in youth and joy. To-day they made for Jumkil, miles away Along the singing river, where that prize The _Sceptrum Carolinum_ used to grow. And, ever as they went, Linnæus touched All that they saw with gleams of new delight. As when the sun first rises over the sea Myriads of ripples wear a crest of fire; And over all the hills a myriad flowers Lift each a cup of dew that burns like wine; And all these gleams reflect one heavenly light; He changed the world around him; filled the woods With rapture; made each footpath wind away Into new depths of elfin-land. The ferns Became its whispering fringe; and every stile A faerie bridge into a lovelier world. His magic sunlight touched the adventurous plants That grew on the thatch of wayside cottages, _Crepis_ and _Bromus_, with the straggling brood Of flowers he called _tectorum_, dancing there Above the heads of mortals, like swart gnomes In rusty red and gold. “My Svartbäck Latin,” Linnæus laughed, “may make the pedants writhe; But I would sooner take three slaps from Priscian Than one from Mother Nature.” Ancient books Had made their pretty pattern of the world. They had named and labelled all their flowers by rote, Grouping them in a little man-made scheme Empty of true significance as the wheel Of stars that Egypt turned for her dead kings. His was the very life-stream of the flowers; And everywhere in Nature he revealed Their subtle kinships; wedded bloom and bloom; Traced the proud beauty, flaunting in her garden, To gipsy grandsires, camping in a ditch; Linked the forgotten wanderers to their clan; Grouped many-coloured clans in one great tribe; And gathered scores of scattered tribes again Into one radiant nation. He revealed Mysterious clues to changes wild as those That Ovid sang—the dust that rose to a stem, The stem that changed to a leaf, the crowning leaf That changed to a fruitful flower; and, under all, Sustaining, moving, binding all in one, One Power that like a Master-Dramatist, Through every act and atom of the world Advanced the triumph that must crown the whole. Unseen by man—that drama—here on earth It must be; but could man survey the whole, As even now, in flashes, he discerns Its gleaming moments, vanishing sharp-etched scenes Loaded with strange significance, he would know, Like Shadow-of-a-Leaf, that not a cloud can sail Across a summer sky, but plays its part. There’s not a shadow drifting on the hills, Or stain of colour where the sun goes down, Or least bright flake upon the hawk-moth’s wing But that great drama needs them. The wild thrush, The falling petal, the bubble upon the brook, Each has its cue, to sing, to fall, to shine, And exquisitely responds. The drunken bee Blundering and stumbling through a world of flowers Has his own tingling entrances, unknown To man or to himself; and, though he lives In his own bee-world, following his own law, He is yet the unweeting shuttle in a loom That marries rose to rose in other worlds, And shapes the wonder of Springs he cannot see. O, little bee-like man, thou shalt not raise Thy hand, or close thine eyes, or sigh in sleep; But, over all thy freedom, there abides The law of this world-drama. Under the stars, Between sweet-breathing gardens in the dusk, I heard the song of the students marching home. I saw their eyes, mad nightingales of joy, Shining with youth’s eternal ecstasy. I saw them tossing vines entwined with flowers Over girls’ necks, and drawing them all along; Flags flying, French horns blowing, kettle-drums throbbing, And Carl Linnæus marching at their head. Up to the great old barn they marched for supper,— Four rounds of beef and a cask of ripened ale; And, afterwards, each with his own flower-fettered girl, They’d dance the rest of the summer night away.

Greybeards had frowned upon this frolic feast; But Carl Linnæus told them “Youth’s a flower, And we’re botanic students.” Many a time, In green fur-cap and crimson dressing-gown, He sat and smoked his pipe and watched them there On winter nights; and when the fiddles played His Polish dance, Linné would shuffle it too. But now, to-night—they had tramped too many miles. The old man was tired. He left them at the door, And turned to his own house, as one who leaves Much that he loved behind him. As he went They cheered their chief—“Vivat, vivat, Linnæus!” And broke into their frolic song again.

I saw him in the shadowy house alone Entering the room, above whose happy door The watchword of his youth and his old age Was written in gold—_Innocue vivito._ _Numen adest._ I saw him writing there His last great joyous testament, to be read Only by his own children, as he thought, After he’d gone; an ecstasy of praise, As though a bird were singing in his mind, Praise, praise, to the Giver of life and love and death!

_God led him with His own Almighty Hand,_ _And made him grow up like a goodly tree._ _God filled his heart with such a loving fire_ _For truth, that truth returned him love for love._ _God aided him, with all that his own age_ _Had yet brought forth, to speed him on his way._ _God set him in a garden, as of old,_ _And gave him, for his duty and delight,_ _The task that he loved best in all the world._ _God gave him for his help-mate, from his youth_ _Into old age, the wife he most desired._ _And blessed him with her goodness._ _God revealed_ _His secrets to him; touched his eyes with light_ _And let him gaze into His Council Hall._ _God so determined even his defeats_ _That they became his greatest victories._ _God made his enemies as a wind to fill_ _His homeward-rushing sails. Wherever he went_ _The Lord was with him, and the Lord upheld him._ And yet, O yet, one glory was to come; One strangest gate into infinitude Was yet to be swung back and take him home. _I know not how the fields that gave us birth_ _Draw us with sweetness, never to be forgotten_ _Back through the dark._ I saw him groping out, As through a mist, into a shadowy garden; And this was not Uppsala any more, But the lost garden where his boyhood reigned. The little dwindling path at Journey’s End Ran through the dark, into a path he knew.

_Carl! Carl! Carl! Now where is that elfkin hiding!_ Down by the lake, from the alders, only the red-cap Whistled three notes. Then all grew quiet again.

_Carl! O Carl!_ Her voice, though he could not answer, Called him. He knew she was there, though he could not see her. He stood and listened. The leaves were listening, too.

He tiptoed through the garden. His grey head Turning to left and right with birdlike glances. He passed by the little garden his father gave him. He knew its breath in the night. His heart stood still. She was there. He saw her at last. Her back was towards him. He saw her fair young head, through the deepening shadows, Bending, breathlessly, forward to watch a child At the edge of the lake, who watched a floating flower. He watched her, rapt, intent. She watched her son, Intent and rapt. Tears in his heart, he waited, dark and still, Feeling a mystery near him.

VII—LAMARCK AND THE REVOLUTION

I

LAMARCK AND BUFFON

What wars are these? Far off, a bugle blew. Out of oblivion rose the vanished world. I stood in Amiens, in a narrow street Outside a dark old college. I saw a boy, A budding Abbé, pallid from his books, Beaked like a Roman eagle. He stole out Between grim gates; and stripping off his bands, Hastened away, a distance in his eyes; As though, through an earthly bugle, he had heard A deeper bugle, summoning to a war Beyond these wars, with enemies yet unknown. I saw him bargaining for a starveling horse In Picardy and riding to the North, Over chalk downs, through fields of poppied wheat. A tattered farm lad, sixteen years of age, Followed like Sancho at his master’s heel: Up to the flaming battle-front he rode; Flinging a stubborn “no” at those who’d send him Back to learn war among the raw recruits, He took his place before the astonished ranks Of grenadiers, and faced the enemy’s fire. Death swooped upon them, tearing long red lanes Through their massed squadrons. His commander fell Beside him. One by one his officers died. Death placed him in command. The shattered troops Of Beaujolais were wavering everywhere. “Retreat!” the cry began. In smoke and fire, Lamarck, with fourteen grenadiers, held on. “This is the post assigned. This post we hold Till Life or Death relieve us.” Who assigned it? Who summoned him thither? And when peace returned Was it blind chance that garrisoned Lamarck Among the radiant gardens of the south, Dazzled him with their beauty, and then slipt That volume of Chomel into his hand, _Traité des Plantes_? Was it blind accident, Environment—O, mighty word that masks The innumerable potencies of God,— When his own comrade, in wild horse-play, wrenched And crippled him in body, and he returned Discharged to Paris, free to take up arms In an immortal army? Was it chance That lodged him there, despite his own desire, So high above the streets that all he saw Out of his window was the drifting clouds Flowing and changing, drawing his lonely mind In subtle ways to Nature’s pageantry, And the great golden laws that governed all?

Was it blind chance that drew him out to watch The sunset clouds o’er Mont Valérien, Where the same power, for the same purpose, drew Jean Jacques Rousseau? Flowers and the dying clouds Drew them together, and mind from mind caught fire?

What universal Power through all and each Was labouring to create when first they met And talked and wondered, whether the forms of life Through earth’s innumerable ages changed? Were species constant? Let the rose run wild, How swiftly it returns into the briar! Transplant the southern wilding to the north And it will change, to suit the harsher sky. Nourish it in a garden,—you shall see The trailer of the hedgerow stand upright, And every blossom with a threefold crown. Buffon, upon his hill-top at Montbard In his red turret, among his flowers and birds, Gazing through all his epochs of the world, Had guessed at a long ancestry for man, Too long for the upstart kings. He could not prove it; And the Sorbonne, with _Genesis_ in its hand, Had frowned upon his æons. _In six days_ _God made the heaven and earth._ He had withdrawn, Smiling as wise men smile at children’s talk; And when Lamarck had visited him alone, He smiled again, a little ironically. “Six epochs of the world may mean six days; But then, my friend, six days must also mean Six epochs. Call it compromise, or peace. They cannot claim the victory. There are some Think me too—orthodox. O, I know the whine That fools will raise hereafter. Buffon quailed; Why did not Buffon like our noble selves Wear a vicarious halo of martyrdom? Strange—that desire of small sadistic eyes At ease on the shore to watch a shipwrecked man Drowning. Lucretius praised that barbarous pleasure. Mine is a subtler savagery. I prefer To watch, from a little hill above their world, The foes of science, floundering in the waves Of their new compromise. Every crooked flash Of irony lightening their dark skies to-day Shows them more wickedly buffeted, in a sea Of wilder contradictions. I had no proof. Time was not ripe. The scripture of the rocks Must first be read more deeply. But the law Pointed to one conclusion everywhere, That forms of flesh and bone, in the long lapse Of time, were plastic as the sculptor’s clay, And born of earlier forms. Under man’s eyes, Had not the forms of bird and beast been changed Into new species? Children of the wolf, Greyhound and mastiff, in their several kinds, Fawned on his children, slept upon his hearth. The spaniel and the bloodhound owned one sire. Man’s own selective artistry had shaped New flowers, confirmed the morning glory’s crown, And out of the wild briar evoked the rose. Like a magician, in a few brief years, He had changed the forms and colours of his birds. He had whistled the wild pigeons from the rocks; And by his choice, and nature’s own deep law, Evoked the rustling fan-tails that displayed Their splendours on his cottage roof, or bowed Like courtiers on his lawn. The pouter swelled A rainbow breast to please him. Tumblers played Their tricks as for a king. The carrier flew From the spy’s window, or the soldiers’ camp, The schoolboy’s cage, the lover’s latticed heart, And bore his messages over turbulent seas And snow-capt mountains, with a sinewy wing That raced the falcon, beating stroke for stroke.”

II

LAMARCK, LAVOISIER, AND NINETY-THREE

So, seizing the pure fire from Buffon’s hand, Lamarck pressed on, flinging all else aside, To follow all those clues to his own end. Ten years he spent among the flowers of France, Unravelling, and more truly than Linné, The natural orders of their tangled clans; Then, in “six months of unremitting toil,” As Cuvier subtly sneered, he wrote his book, The _Flore Française_; compact, as Cuvier knew, And did not care to say, with ten years’ thought. But Buffon did not sneer. The great old man, A king of men, enthroned there at Montbard, Aided Lamarck as Jove might aid his son. He sent the book to the king’s own printing press. Daubenton wrote his foreword; and Rousseau Had long prepared the way. “Linné of France,” The stream of praise through every salon flowed. _Une science à la mode_, great Cuvier sneered.

Was it blind chance that crushed Lamarck again Back to his lean-ribbed poverty? Buffon died. Lamarck, who had married in his prosperous hour, Had five young mouths to feed. With ten long years Of toil he had made the great _Jardin du Roi_ Illustrious through the world. As his reward The ministers of the king now granted him A keepership at one thousand francs a year; And, over him, in Buffon’s place, they set The exquisite dilettante, Bernardin Saint Pierre, a delicate twitcher of silken strings. Lamarck held grimly to the post assigned. Under that glittering rose-pink world he heard Titanic powers upsurging from the abyss. Then, in the blood-red dawn of ninety-three, The bright crust cracked. The furious lava rolled Through Paris, and a thundercloud of doom Pealed over thrones and peoples. Flash on flash, Blind lightnings of the guillotine replied. Blind throats around the headsman’s basket roared. The slippery cobbles were greased with human blood. The torch was at the gates of the Bastille. Old towers, old creeds, old wrongs, at a Mænad shout, Went up in smoke and flame. Earth’s dynasties Rocked to their dark foundations. Tyrants died; But in that madness of the human soul They did not die alone. Innocence died; And pity died; and those whose hands upheld The torch of knowledge died in the bestial storm. Lavoisier had escaped. They lured him back Into the Terror’s hot red tiger-mouth, Promising, “Face your trial with these your friends, And all will be set free. If not, they die.” He faced it, and returned. The guillotine Flashed down on one and all. Let the wide earth, Still echoing its old wrath against the kings And priests who exiled, stoned and burned and starved The bearers of the fire, remember well How the Republic in its red right hand Held up Lavoisier’s head, and told mankind In mockery, colder than the cynical snarl Of Nero, “The Republic has no need Of savants. Let the people’s will be done On earth, and let the headless trunk of Truth Be trampled down by numbers. Tread in the mire All excellence and all skill. Daub your raw wounds With dirt of the street; elect the sick to health. It is the people’s will, and they shall live. Nay, crown the eternal Power who rules by law With this red cap of your capricious will, And ye shall hear His everlasting voice More clearly than ye heard it when He spoke In stillness, through the souls of lonely men, On starry heights. Lift up your heads and hear His voice in the whirling multitude’s wild-beast roar, _Not these men, but Barabbas_.” Must the mind Turn back to tyranny, then, and trust anew To harnessed might? The listening soul still heard A more imperative call. Though Evil wore A myriad masks and reigned as wickedly In peoples as in kings, Truth, Truth alone, Whether upheld by many or by few, Wore the one absolute crown. Though Pilate flung His murderous jest at Truth—the law remained That answered his dark question; man’s one clue, The law that all true seekers after Truth Hold in their hands; the law, a golden thread That, loyally followed, leads them to full light, Each by his own dark way, till all the world Is knit together in harmony that sets free. Bridge-builders of the universe, they fling Their firm and shining roads from star to star, From earth to heaven. At his appointed task, Lamarck held grimly on (as once he gripped His wavering grenadiers) till Life or Death Relieved him. But he knew his cause at last. _Jardin du Roi_ became _Jardin des Plantes_; And the red tumult surging round his walls Died to a whisper of leaves. His mind groped back, Back through the inconceivable ages now, To terrible revolutions of the globe, Huge catastrophic rendings of the hills, Red floods of lava; cataracts of fire; Monstrous upheavals of the nethermost deep; Whereby as Cuvier painted them, in hues Of blind disaster, all the hosts of life In each æonian period, like a swarm Of ants beneath the wheels of Juggernaut, Were utterly abolished. Did God create After each earth-disaster, then, new hosts Of life to range her mountains and her seas; New forms, new patterns, fresh from His careless Hand, Yet all so closely akin to those destroyed? Or did this life-stream, from one fountain-head, Through the long changes of unnumbered years Flow on, unbroken, slowly branching out Into new beauty, as a river winds Into new channels? One, singing through the hills, Mirrors the hanging precipice and the pine; And one through level meadows curves away, Turns a dark wheel, or foams along a weir, Then, in a pool of shadow, drowns the moon.

III

AN ENGLISH INTERLUDE: ERASMUS DARWIN

Already in England, bearing the same fire, A far companion whom he never knew Had long been moving on the same dark quest, But through what quiet secluded walks of peace.

Out of the mist emerged the little City Of Lichfield, clustering round its Minster Pool That, like a fragment of the sky on earth, Reflected its two bridges, gnarled old trees, Half-timbered walls; a bare-legged child at play Upon its brink; two clouds like floating swans, Two swans like small white clouds; a boy that rode A big brown cart-horse lazily jingling by; And the cathedral, like a three-spired crown, Set on its northern bank. Then, from the west, Above it, walled away from the steep street, I saw Erasmus Darwin’s bluff square house. Along its front, above the five stone steps That climbed to its high door, strange vines and fronds Made a green jungle in their dim prison of glass. Behind, its windows overlooked a close Of rambling mellow roofs, and coldly stared At the cathedral’s three foreshortened spires, Which seemed to draw together, as though in doubt Of what lay hidden in those bleak staring eyes.