Part 7

_For all the wealth wherewith Thou hadst endowed her, For all our shepherds gone astray like sheep, For all Thy temple's jewels ground to powder, We sit alone and weep._

_Because our soul is chastened as with lashes, Because Thine anger like a stormy deep Goes over us, in sackcloth and in ashes We sit alone and weep._

Nobody gave them heed; indeed each man was thinking how to speed His interests, and if the prey would satisfy ambition or need.

To honest minds with zeal imbued the Pope's indulgence, their own merit Bestowed some licence to be lewd, and take--their preachers said "inherit."

Even I who was in love with Christ, I with the conscience clean and cold That hankered not for lands or gold, was wondering how to clinch my hold

On reputation, while our chiefs, before we could consolidate, Rode a great wallop round the State and split it into petty fiefs.

Their overlords revolted me. Alas, for our brief unity! Edessa snarled at Antioch, Jerusalem at Tripoli.

Poor Godfrey, who would not accept a crown where his Redeemer wore Thorns, nor be strong where Jesus wept! From the beginning weakness crept

Into our councils. Worse, we watched the bulk of our brave lads disperse Well-pleased. At most we raised the ghost of needful power to hold their post.

Franks and Provincials, German brutes that bullied babes and prostitutes, Lombards and Flemings, made for home with clapping and the sound of flutes.

It flowed away, the unstable stuff, to whom a cause was but a noun. They stood to sea. Thank heaven 'twas rough! My place was here with my renown.

They vanished ... home ... to Sunflower-tress ... home, where a man may die obscure! Far off a carle of Albemarle trolled chanties like a Siren's lure.

_East, are you calling still, Who tried your strength of will For naught on brown Ulysses long ago? We have an island too, And haul away from you To cleaner kin that bend a stronger bow._

_Your caravans string out On many a golden route The turbaned Magi's offerings; but we Steer forth on loner trails Through rough wind-scented vales To England, the oasis of the sea._

_Child Jesus chose you, East, Not that He loved us least, But just because His Father had foreseen The dear and only Son Might dwell too long upon Our swinging greys and many-coloured green._

So we were left alone. The spring broke out in buds of bickering. Each summer brought contentious fruit. Strife waxed with every waning king.

And I waxed also, better known, resolved to reap what I had sown. My childless manhood fixed my heart. The Holy Land was all my own.

I grew in grace with man--I hoped with God; from Beersheba to Dan I went about my Father's work. Faith could not shirk what Faith began.

Sometimes qualms came. I looked askance on Bishop Daimbert's schemes to enhance His seat. The native Christians sighed they missed the Caliph's tolerance.

Not that had hurt me, but the void which love will make if unemployed. I spent my strength to keep him quiet, and free the thoughts that he decoyed,

Till woods and Rhone were out of range. I often wondered at the change In nature's child, in me. The formulæ were there. "God's ways are strange."

Yet in my struggle with the powers of darkness I recalled the showers Of light that fought the undergrowth to catch the singing of the flowers.

Time passed, and no one seemed to reck of Zenghi, the first Atabek, Though every year we failed to act the Saracens grew more compact.

In vain I urged that we might fall, so slender was our human wall, So numberless the foe beside the Templars and the Hospital.

The answer was that dyke and fosse were useless when we had the Cross, With other relics by the score, to guard against defeat or loss.

My prophecies of coming ills fell on deaf ears and weakly wills. I did my best. You know I did, who saw me peer beyond the hills

Where Karak like a lighthouse loomed at waves of sand that never spumed, The tideless main, an ocean-plain bare, petrified. Its silence boomed.

I saw in all that vastitude, the one, the drab, the many-hued, No sign of life, no moving speck; and yet I knew that trouble brewed.

I tortured every hour to find material things to prop behind-- Forgive me, God!--Your earthly realm. The need was great, for it was blind.

The mathematics of Abul Hassan, three hundred years at school In Arabic philosophy, showed that the West was still a fool.

Nay, gently, call her still a babe. How should she know that I, the Great, Had learned from savages to prate of compass and of astrolabe.

Our miracles were not so sure to heal as Rhazes' simplest cure. His friends the moon and stars obeyed the rules that Abul Wafa made.

My stolen lore raised me above my fellows. Everything but love Was mine, respect, authority. The jealous Churchmen dared not move.

Our infant realm could not dispense with me, its shield and main defence. I knew the Damascene recipe for making steel, and made it cheap.

My mind was fertile in resorts. I spent the pilgrims' fees on forts, And settled, for their skill in trade, Venetian slavers at our ports.

Howbeit I trembled lest our main enthusiasm should be for gain. I stripped myself to work against the working of the money-brain.

And I was glad I passed for mad and single-eyed as Galahad. I sacrificed in saving Christ the profit that I might have had.

Nothing that I could do availed. My tongue grew bitter, girded, railed. My labour only builded Me, but not the kingdom. So I failed.

Our Viscounts could but show their gums, while from Aleppo, Hama, Homs, The foe crept onward like the months, culling our conquests like ripe plums.

For all response in Chastel Blanc and towering Markab-of-the-Sea Some clerkly knight in red-crossed white recited magic formulæ;

Then darkly hinted science, hell and I were leagued, because their spell Would not or could not stave the blow that I foresaw. Edessa fell.

Curse our degenerate Poullains! The breed had need of spurs not reins. To stand an empty sack upright was easier than to warm their veins

Save with amours. One night I knelt to pray; but on the battlement Hard by a lordling twanged a harp. I smelt the bastard's eastern scent.

He thought his leman lay behind my casement, where the jasmin twined And almost jingled.... Oh the woods at home and whitethroats calling blind!

_Suppose you left that window and came down To meet me. Do not turn away. Also you need not frown. I only say: "Suppose."_

_Suppose--you are a woman of resource-- The fastenings of your door undone. No! They are not.... Of course! But, just for fun, Suppose._

_Suppose that--safe among the trees below The terraces--you chanced to find ... Impossible!... I know, But never mind. Suppose._

_Suppose that--being there--an eager arm Drew you towards the little dell.... Why redden? Where's the harm? You might as well Suppose...._

_Suppose that, bending over you, a man Breathed words of which you knew the gist. Suppose it!... Yes, you can.... No, I insist.... Suppose!_

_Suppose you shut the window? Now? Pray do, And take a lonely night to learn This tune shut in with you. Till I return, Suppose...._

Then I peeped out. Some breath divine had made his face, compared with mine, An angel's. Love with all its faults had set there our Creator's sign.

That shook me. One of us was wrong. Which? He or I? His soul was vexed Neither by this world nor the next, but floated in a bubble of song.

It haunted me, as he had said; it chimed and rhymed about my bed. It filled my head with Sunflower-tress; but she--I writhed--was old or dead.

Was all my suffering a waste? Had superstition wed me chaste To Its effect? Was this my Cause? My tutor in the dark grimaced.

I saw him snug at home, and how he would have chuckled at my vow! Well, who laughs last.... I pictured him a dotard or in hell by now.

I prayed for help all night; and, warned by lost Edessa, Baldwin made Great efforts to placate our God. The answer was a fresh crusade.

This was an answer none could doubt. We heard a preacher more devout Than ours was quartering the west, and pulling true believers out.

He hight Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, the home of light and miracles. The wives and mothers trembled so before his spirit's tentacles,

They hid their males--in vain. He swept the Emperor Conrad with him, kept The collar of his pale adept, emasculated Louis Sept.

He cured King's Evils, raised the dead, he cast out devils by the gross. 'Twas said he promised us twelve legions of angels.... From the darkest regions

Men flocked to Metz and Ratisbon. News came of more than half a million, Not counting those that rode apillion. Our battle was as good as won.

Such glorious news might well inflame our hopes. We waited. Nothing came, Not even light Turcopuli nor Conrad's Golden-footed Dame.

Our Poullains first began to whine; the fainthearts said the fault was mine. Saint Bernard was the oracle of Europe, I of Palestine.

And nothing came ... no troops.... The Greek misled, starved, poisoned, murdered them, Betrayed them to the Turk, whose bleak deserts went over them. Week by week

We waited. Nothing. Cadmus saw them cut to bits, Attalia's maw Could not be sated with their ruck. King Louis' mind had just one flaw:

He would not hear of strategy, staked all on supernatural help. And nothing came, and nothing came. Our half-bred curs began to yelp

"Good God, if truly God is good!" They kissed the Cross. Gems hid the wood. Had He forgotten? Was He deaf? Could such things be? Who understood?

Not I, though I had kept my word to save the Lamb by fire and sword. And after twelve long lustra spent in service this was my reward.

Louis and Conrad struggled through one day with some small retinue. I watched. Almost I could foretell what they and Providence would do.

And I remember, as we fared, a Sufi--so the sect is named-- Sat by the road as though he cared no jot for us, while he declaimed:

_Her home is in the heart of spaciousness, In the mid-city of ideals. The site Is harmony, the walls are made of light. There with the mother-thoughts she stands to bless The godlike sons sent forth with her caress To make new worlds. I see them all unite Into the whole that our most starry flight Of worship knew far off, and strove to express. What can we do for her? We run to ask As restless children for a grown-up task, While wisdom in the porch, their kind old host, Smiles at nurse nature, and replies: The most, The least that we can do for Beauty is To love for love's sake and serve God for His._

But Conrad drove his lance in jest right through the ragamuffin's chest, Because his creed was not as ours; and on we rode. I lost my zest.

To take Damascus was our plan, relying on a talisman. I knew that this would not suffice, for I was still a fighting man.

It ended in repulse and shame. Saint Bernard proved we were to blame For want of faith. Ah, some of us had had too much. We said the same

Of him. At our return thick mobs of women filled the church with bobs And bows, poor puppets, trying hard to sing between their stifled sobs:

_God, whose Son has fathomed sorrow, Give a mother strength to say: Mine has faced and found To-morrow. I will try to face To-day._

They turned to me. They thought me wise because I had been led by lies To blind myself to them; and now I saw things through a woman's eyes,

And I went out. Not yet the end. Since innocence alone could save, Saints hit on infant infantry, and fifty thousand found the grave.

My gorge rose, yet I stopped my ears. I had no hope, but I was tarred With fame too much to show my fears. My duty lay in dying hard.

Oh irony! That fame increased the more its robes were patched and pieced. My whole ambition was fulfilled when power and confidence had ceased.

The women kissed my feet, my horse; they clung to me like my remorse. I that set out to make the world had made myself believe by force.

Nay, I that knew we were reprieved at best, had I in truth believed? My youth came back. I seemed to meet my tutor's sneer in every street.

Fate cursed us with three minor kings, a leper then. Against these Things Salah-ad-Din combined the entire orient. I wished our fate had wings

Instead of feet to end our dumb, keen, futile questionings, to numb The brain that binds us with the chain of kingdom go and kingdom come.

One of our knights for plunder's sake undid us, roused the foe who brake In through the pass of Banias, cutting our lands in two like cake.

The hour was here, but not the man. That murderer Guy de Lusignan Was sent to head our fight for life. The craven took for talisman

ME and my hundred years, alas, a relic of the man I was. I toiled to still our private feuds. We marched upon Tiberias,

For none would listen when I urged our leaders to await attack. We marched across the waterless inferno. Summer burnt us black.

The Moslems scorched us with Greek fire. As rain upon a funeral pyre Their arrows hissed in sheets upon the smoking scrub. "Go on!" "Retire!"

Our rabble cried, starting aside like broken bows; they tried to hide, Split, fled for refuge to a hill, did nothing while the Templars died.

When all was lost I cut my way out through the thicket of the fray, And galloped for Jerusalem to adjure Guy's Queen to stand at bay.

In this last desperate passage each proud noble still opposed his friend. A little while and we were penned, and yet a little while a breach

Was made. Jehovah's chosen seat was tottering, but no Paraclete Came down to comfort us. I made some sallies. Then the Queen would treat.

Perhaps in our appeal for ruth my wording stumbled on the truth, "One God that went by many names," or else I knew Him in my youth,

Or else that Sufi haunted me with something that I could not see, Something that only had not been because we would not let it be.

And when the foe marched in, I own that I was thinking of the Rhone Long, long ago, and wondering--a child once more--if it had grown.

Yet there remained the sharpest cup to drain: the moan of us went up, When from the topmost dome was hurled the Sign that should have ruled the world.

Down, down it rumbled with our grand designs. All we had built or planned, Toiled, bled for, crumbled at a touch, was ruined like a house of sand.

So soon we pass. The wind knows why. The efforts of a century, Three generations' handiwork failed in the twinkling of an eye.

And I was sad to think that shadows occupy us all. I had No hope of earth. What boots a toy that thinks its maker raving mad?

My soul had passed through every phase and, counting forty thousand days, Was farther off than at the start from comprehending heaven's ways

Or bowing to them. I came nearest when I pressed my childish ear Earthward through briar and bramble bowers to catch the singing of the flowers.

The last remains of faith were shaken when I, the oracle, was taken. My pride was made to sleep in chains. I prayed that I might never waken,

But woke. They gave me to a _rais_ who wanted cattle, not advice. He flogged me down to Damietta. I was old and fetched no price.

Nathless my battling heart was brave enough to work me till I dropped. I passed for twopence to a Copt who sold me as a galley-slave

To Muscat. In the rhythmic stroke, old, undefeated, gnarled as oak I creaked and strained against my fate, until that Sufi-something broke.

'Twas not my heart. An inner morn put the dark age in me to scorn, And in the light I found myself, a child at play with worlds unborn,

For all that I had thought and read, and fought and watched the world be led By any who contrived to cut a knot with that blunt tool, the head.

I laughed to think how sparrows might look down upon our highest flight, While each succeeding age would have its oracle or stagyrite,

Would trace the good we never did, the evil that we never saw, And out of our blind pyramid extract a stepping-stone to Law.

Here, where ambition had to cease in servitude, I tasted peace, Free of illusion stretched and yawned. A fool would clamour for release.

I make the rowers' bench a throne to think, and thought implies Alone, Of changing woods and endless streams. My happiness is all my own.

And often, when my mates deplore a brother who shall row no more, I talk about my wolf-cub, Life. They think I speak in metaphor.

They gather round me all agog, they think a chronicle and log Of Progress lies in withered hands. Their cry is for an epilogue.

Has aught been drafted yet? A blot, an echo void and polyglot. Each century is written off as preface. Yes, most true.... Of what?

My gathered weight had held me bound to find for every fog a ground, For every riddle a reply, an end to Being that goes round.

Now I can say, I do not know if there will be a book at all, Or if the deepest chapters go beyond some writing on the wall,

Though wiser worlds will yet embark, sworn to eclipse our sorry trades, Succeed, and leave their little mark: a dynasty of thought that fades,

Fresh undergrowths of formulæ. Through these no _human_ eye can see The open glade--the _last_ crusade, in which Jerusalem might be

The symbol of all peopled space, and Time an emblem of the day On which the nations march as one to liberate and not to slay.

A story has no finish when it leads to nowhere out of ken? O friend, the lack of knowledge brings wisdom within the reach of men;

For whether hope can ever fit the future matters not a whit. My duty is to tug my oar--so long as I am chained to it.

XIX

FUSION

It was fulfilled. The giant _dhow_ bestirred Herself, burst from her slender moorings, ran Exulting on her course beyond the green Thin shallows to the deeper violet Of that great gem wherein the continents Are flaws. With creaking oars and fluttering sails The wingèd ghost swept outward. On the prow Unveiled the Queen stood whiter than the sails, And save the revelation made no sign; And all the sound of singing was brought low. Then, as the vision vanished in the hushed Twilight that painted out the caravan, Leaving the pilgrims but a _burnûs_-blur On the drab canvas of the shore, a wail Rose, and to them the Dreamer's last reply: