Part 6

So complain not, as if to strike away From life ere extreme age, if then, a day Were robbery. We have, all grant, no right O’er the past; Nature, keeping this in sight, Inquires what better title then have we To stake out a claim in futurity. Past—no beginning—future—no end—are one; Neither heeds when Man comes; when he is gone; And you—when time casts you out, why lament, More than its neglect in the old descent? For grievances a fairer you might choose In the undue postponement of repose. Sleep is prized as a respite from Earth’s strife, Yet is checkered by dreams that mimic life; And death loathed as carrion bird of air, Though sleep’s original, with no nightmare! But, perhaps, not delights of life so much You grieve to lose as that to quit your touch Upon life, is to leave you face to face With Hell’s Powers, and at their cruel grace. Dread not; whatever penalties you owe You will pay to the full, but not Below. Hell’s horrors are mere bugbears; and, as they, Shadows from the realities of day; Warnings as well. In no drear realm beneath Wanders Tantalus, with fear-frozen breath Lest the huge rock shall snap the slender thread, And thunder down upon his helpless head. It is a parable. The weight of cares, The uncertainties in human affairs— These men attribute to the wrath of God; Charging Heaven with strokes from Fortune’s rod. Never huge Tityos lay chained upon Torturing bank of pitchy Acheron. Had such monster lived, and his writhing bulk Paved, no mere nine acres, a guilt-logged hulk, But the whole Earth’s circle, neither he could Supply vultures groping his breast for food, Nor his nerves endure ages of the strain Of waiting, with the everlasting pain. The crazed lover in whose heart desire delves, And lust gnaws, is Tityos for ourselves. Look; spy you not passions everywhere Mounting red-billed from entrails to the air? Not in Hell is the stone pushed up, that will Foil Sisyphus by rolling down the hill. ’Tis our Office-badges we see each year Candidates praying, buying leave to wear— Ungrateful burden—and worse, after all, Not be licensed to be the people’s thrall! The Danaids again; who could in truth Believe that in despite of bridal ruth Fifty girls, save one, would shed forth a flood, At their father’s dictate, of kindred blood, Or, if so, have paid for the deed in Hell By drawing, in cracked pitchers, from a well? Myth ill planned; but ponder it he who feeds Cross-grained diseases of the soul, ill weeds, That usurp life’s field, and divert the gaze From joys that might be his for many days, To outbursts as self-mocking as the freak Of pouring water into jars that leak. Cerberus too, the Furies, and the gloom Steaming from black Cocytus, and the boom Of Tartarus, flames and shrieks, horrors seen By none but bards. They never could have been; Yet such were, are, will be, at our own hearth, So long as wrong is rampant on the Earth. Thriving guilt is haunted. As if to mock Its rise, is hurled from the Tarpeian rock, Shivers in dungeons, is scourged, branded, all To stamp sin’s end, and emphasize pride’s fall. If Justice often lags, alas, to find Fit chastisement for crime, and may seem blind, Conscience is keener-sighted; and its goad And whip spare not; no mercy for the load. How cheered would be the sinner could he think Dying cleared accounts; he had but to sink In death, and the weight dropped? Part of his curse Is that fancy paints future torments worse. The Wise assure him Hell is not; in vain; Life, his, is Hell; Eternity of pain. To wrongdoers and wronged too brief a space Human life has seemed to avenge a race On heinous crimes against it; hence rose Dis, Balanced by Elysian fields of bliss. But you, the Multitude, why are you sad That life is short, you, neither good, nor bad? Is it not for an ordinary man Audacious to complain how short his span, When, Ancus, with his royal work to do, Closed his eyes on light, younger than are you? Other kings, and lords many, in the pride Of life, who ruled great nations since have died. By a sudden treason He breathed his last Who paved a road by which his legions passed O’er the sea’s salt pools, scornful of the roar As foot and horsemen crossed from shore to shore. Scipio, thunderbolt of war, at whom Carthage shuddered, messenger of her doom, Gave his bones without protest to the grave As much of course as if a scullion slave. Did they who trained the energies of mind To serve, and exalt, or please, humankind, Pioneered in the Sciences to arm Against gross Dulness, and by Arts to charm, Repine when the summons came to leave off, And not echo it with a glad “Enough”! Ministers of the Muses, with the rest, Peerless Homer, by all their king confessed, Raised not a single murmur, did not plead For one song more before they joined the dead. Democritus, not stooping to complain, When he missed the old readiness of brain, Stayed for no rougher monitors of age; Spared death the toil of posting the last stage, When the sun arises the stars that shone In high Heaven, leave it to flame alone. Epicurus was the sun; in his light Wisdom of other men became as night, His page tracks life to its source; there the whole Is moulded by this father of the soul. Mortal being is a medley; but as bees, Ranging up and down, among flow’rs and trees, In a woodland glade, sip everywhere, Scorning nothing suckled by sunny air, And turn all to honey, so his wise pen Transmutes words into golden sweets for men. As his thought wells up from a mind divine, Terrors bred of animal blood resign Their hold, world’s walls crumble in dust away, I see in light clearer than that of day Earth—above it, through it; but nought to tell Of an Under-world, torture-jail of Hell. Heaven stands revealed; the Gods’ quiet home, Where nor clouds, nor rain and snow-storms dare come, And in large air they breathe immortally, Unknowing sin or grief, content to Be. Ah! the debt that I owe, joy mixed with awe, For all I learned through him of Nature’s law! If lives stretched for goodness, well might his vie For an exemption from the rule to die; Nothing more certain, as his light grew dim, Than his waiver of it, if pressed on him. And You make a fuss at death, fret and fume, When how does your life differ from a tomb? You rid yourself of half of it in sleep; For the other half, when you think you keep Awake, bemused you yawn and snore, a prey To sick nightmares although it is broad day, Chief of your evils being that you fail To extort from them what it is you ail. Cruel the weight, you cry, upon your breast; It wears you out, and robs you of your rest. Seek whence it came, and by what right it took You for pack-horse, and why it is you brook The burden; put it, put your brain and heart To the question. When you and Reason part, The nightmare will be gone, and you will find You have regained possession of your mind. Ignorance of Causes;—that is the main Virus in the pest of which you complain. You rush about with it, are discontent To return no sounder than when you went. Ho! to the villa from the house in Town— As driving a fire engine—headlong down. Doze; with the fury that you galloped down, Gallop up, just to sup alone in Town! Why! to escape yourself—from whom, be sure, You cannot flee out of whatever door. Yourself you loathe for sickness! And its Cause? None else than being blind to Nature’s laws. Life-in-death—it fleets! Moments its concern; Yet in them what may not a mortal learn! Study those laws, I say; they keep the key Of the Universe and Eternity; The clue to what hereafter shall be made Of this stuff in which, men, we masquerade.

Take to heart my counsel; do not from fear For life, shun ills your duty is to bear. The end’s stamped on each mortal lot by Fate; No human force avails to change the date. And why crave to live on? You’ll find nought new; Nothing but the old objects to pursue; No fresh joys from life to be hammered; just Battered failures, and savouring of dust. We covet years, in the hope that they will Be generous beyond the past, and still, Although they be, hope, covet, as at first; So wide-mouthed faith; so unquenchable thirst! Never does it occur to you to glance At Fortune’s caprices, the whims of Chance, To reflect that, if added, years will not, Whatever the number, affect one jot The accounts between life and death. No strife Can be, infinite Death with finite Life. What that called “Death”? A sea beyond, before; Boundless, everlasting; no port, no shore. And “Life”? An accident. Whether at birth it fall, Or in a thousand years, concerns not Death at all!

Earth’s Decay

Bk. II. vv. 1145-1175

Ah! the good times, when Earth was young and new, And, day by day, in strength and beauty grew; When out of her bountiful bosom sprang Each instant, some fresh wonder into view.

Instead, the mournful change! now, day by day, The rule for the old Mother is decay. Ill is the continual drain supplied, As used particles rarefy away.

It is not as in the primeval age. Nought mattered it to her that at this stage, In the gay effervescence of her youth, Blind forces beat on her; she mocked their rage.

Her garrison lacks food for its support. Pounded by batteries of ev’ry sort, The walls already are a pile of dust. No hope to hold longer the great World-fort.

Futurity has ceased to be for Earth As in her prime of jollity and mirth. She is worn out, and weak with motherhood; No more, as once, has vigour to give birth

To all kinds of being, race after race, Creatures monstrous in size, perfect in grace; All her own make; by no gold cord let down With glory on them from a higher place,

Or cast up by the lashing, wailing tide.— She bears not, as when laughed on ev’ry side Cattle, corn, pastures, vines, to make hearts glad, Earth’s gifts to Man, her glory, and her pride.

A changed scene ours; no longer Nature heaps The barns with sheaves; well, if the farmer keeps, After cost of labour and grain he sowed, A balance from the harvest that he reaps.

His land in ancient days required no toil, Except to clear the corn from off the soil; Much less, an armoury of tools, with beeves, And a train of hirelings to drudge and moil.

Some aged ploughman will be heard complain, That “labour as he may, how small the gain! Harder times these than those his father knew; A grateful task to be God-fearing then!

True, that, man for man, a husbandman’s plot Might seem, in measurement, a smaller plot Than is now allowed; but reckon by yield, And how unequal is the present lot!”

Not without cause the impulse to repine That we live in times of weakness—decline Throughout—in wisdom, honest cheer, and worth— Ev’n in fruitfulness of a shrivelled vine.

But look at home ere you begin to ring Changes on offence from without; to bring Indictments against Fortune and the Gods; While none’s in fault but Earth herself—poor thing!

Primeval Man

Bk. V. vv. 781-1159

In the beginning Earth at her own will Spread a verdant glitter on plain and hill. Flowery meadows shone, gay, birthday sheen, Many-coloured embroidery of green. Meanwhile fresh germs were nursing strength beyond The modest grass that carpeted the ground. In them all a strange, a wild yearning woke To taste upper air; from the soil trees broke. Ah the sense of liberty, the keen zest Of a roaming instinct that stirred Earth’s breast! Thus she by herself in bush and tall grove Probed the mystery of the realm above; Foliage anticipating in space The down and feathers of a wingéd race. Next, in many, manifold modes, not come From salt pools, or sky-dropped, but from the womb— Bewildering variety of birth— Of the one universal Mother, Earth, Life, under impulses of rain, heat, light, Found organs of movement, even of flight. Nor yet is her inventiveness outworn; Still, through the same forces, are fresh forms born. But well it may have been that in old days, When Earth was quicker, livelier, in ways, Air larger, the diversity in kind Was more, the size greater, than now we find, Vitality faster in ev’rything. Thus, eggs would be hatched by the sun in Spring, As the cicala strips its body bare Of its fine coat, and needs no mother’s care. And now Earth’s motherliness that had first Found its scope in herbage, in due course nursed Human life itself. Wombs from moist heat grew Soil-fixed by roots that nutriment thence drew. This children, when they broke forth, sucked, and then, Issuing to air, walked erect as Men. Owing thus to one source—Earth’s breast—their milk, For clothes her breath, for couch turf soft as silk. Fit season for creative pow’rs to wake, When cold did not numb, gusts confusion make, And unlike natures could in peace assume Their just traits, and find, without jostling, room. With fair intervals since the birth of Man, Almost each beast and bird we know began To range mountains and air, although at length Earth, like to mortal mothers, waned in strength. Change is Nature’s prime law; stage follows stage; And the engine by which she works is age. A plant from flower droops into decay; Another from dust blossoms for its day. Earth is in endless flux; she cannot bear Qualities once loved; kinds are not which were. Legend is thus encouraged to relate Tales of wonders in Earth’s creative state. We hear of bodies twofold, each a kind, Bound in one frame, but with a single mind. Inconceivable Centaurs! At three years A horse is full-grown and all burdens bears; At that age a boy can but play, and rest; Yearns aloud in sleep for his mother’s breast. Hardly is life for the young man begun When the wind-galled steed’s course long since was run. And Scylla? She might have chos’n to be fish, Or to bark as dogs, and have had her wish; But as a pair! And Chimæra again? Well for the Three to work as each is fain; But, however it is with dragons, goat And lion boast not of a flame-proof coat. So, of the new Earth and Heaven—dreams told Of rivers running sudden floods of gold; Trees with gems for flowers; giants of height To wade deep-rushing waters, and a might That could make Olympus a ruined heap; As if, because young Earth was used to keep Elements and seeds dormant, when they came At length to life, they need not be the same! Fancy “improved” them from real freaks, born, Living, if lives scarce human, and forlorn. From instinct creative, but cross-grained, Earth Brought monsters—aspect and limbs strange—to birth; Abnormal the whole—some with parts too few, Some with more, though all human, than were due. Horse-men, mermaids, dragons, gold-streams, gemmed trees. For Nature are impossibilities. Had they once existed, there is no cause Why the race should have ceased through Nature’s laws. The freaks of Earth were actual, and led Earthly men’s lives; horror, if they had bred, As they might have but for good Nature’s grace! She, guardian of the purity of race, Rejecting them from the kind, by her ban Of Childlessness, saved the descent of Man! Nature works marvels; many are combined, When she plants, and bars trespass on, a kind. First, long experiments will have been tried Before candidates find their way inside. Even with claim allowed, how many have Left, to prove they lived, nothing but a grave! Food may have failed, elbow-room, or good will In new-come neighbours strong to do them ill. Among survivors a part owe their life To native power to outlast long strife. A habit may have been acquired to keep Vigils while the enemies were asleep; Or consciously they set wit against wit, And, with life for stakes, enjoy playing it. That is reynard’s way; lions’, less, resource, Than valiant rage has been the ruling force; And a third quality has saved a race, Agility—deers’ pow’r to devour space. Again, Man is grand destroyer; so breeds, Many, owe survival to his large needs. Dogs might have been classed with wolves; but we prize Them as loyal light sleepers, best allies. Some kinds, beasts of burden, willing or not, Exchange protection, meals, for freedom’s lot. To flocks and herds attack by beasts of prey Was a nightly scare; it has passed away. They are secured from that, or lack of food, Since their extinction would lose Man a good. But kinds that neither can resist a raid, Nor have the right to call Man to their aid, What for them but death, if worth while as spoil, Or sharp riddance, cumberers of the soil? Such final dooms as these may well have struck A multitude of kinds out of life’s book; And Earth, as women, fills not gaps; her stage Of maternity obeys laws of age. Not Man, first-born of Earth, of those that fail; Child of a lusty mother, hard and hale; Built on a frame-work of big, solid bone, With tough sinews to weld the flesh in one; Not made with heat to faint, or cold to freeze, To sicken with strange meat, or by disease. Men led wandering wild beasts’ lives; the sun Had revolutions numberless to run Ere they harrowed fields, guided the curved ploughs, Planted young orchards, or lopped rotting boughs. Meanwhile they gathered Earth’s alms, well content With the chance harvests sunshine, showers sent; Though food on which our ancestors relied Was that the boundless woods of oak supplied. Acorns were their mainstay, with, in large store, Berries that young Earth’s teeming fallows bore. They felt not how miserable they were; For Nature pitied, and gave ample fare. To slake thirst they but had to track the sound Of torrents tumbling from great hills around— A call their fellows, the wild beasts, knew well. And oft a man would linger in some cell Of Wood-Nymph invited by the cool air, Since thence broke springs unfailing. Here and there They bubbled round rocks, loitering to play With each; then would awhile sleep on their way In soft green moss, before all joined, to flow, One easy gliding stream, to the smooth plain below. As yet men had not learned to tan a skin Robbed from some beast, and dress themselves therein. Forest, or mountain cave, was the sole home— If that,—they knew. When, as they chanced to roam, A storm burst, rain, or whirlwind, they would lie, Grimy, in the thick scrub, till it passed by. Each one was for himself; none of them could Rise to an idea of common good; “Custom”, “Morals”, things unknown; and what use In laws, when no act required an excuse? Aught a man saw, and liked, he took; so long As none other saw, liked, and was as strong. The only need, a standard how to test Animal worth—live as fitted that best. Savage love, although not without its storms, Was simpler than ours, direct, free from forms. If two agreed in those natural days, They wedded, as were weddings; went their ways. Were he willing, not she, he won consent With a stick: and she had to be content. When rich the wooer, quick the bargain made, And the price in acorns, or berries paid. In our times, though passion may burn, its flame We call discreetly by some other name; Is it force to warn daughters that to wed Poverty means just a mother’s death bed? And as for a sale of hearts, dare compare A lawyer’s settlements with a swine’s fare! Still, in essence a likeness we may find In our modes to those of the new-world kind. Hunters all, by virtue of speed of foot, Patience no less, they ran down any brute; Hands as dexterous hurled a storm of stones, And wielded clubs that crashed through flesh and bones. Rarely were they baulked, or had to lie low, Hunted, the hunters, by a stronger foe! Sometimes night surprised them, led by the chase Far from their customary haunts. Small case They made of that; strewed leaves, and on the heap Threw themselves, like wild beasts, and were asleep. Pity not that beneath no roof they lay, As darkness followed on the close of day. They wailed not, doubting its return, for light, Till with rosy torch the Sun banished night. The two had from their childhood come and gone; Why fear the Dark, unwatched, might rule alone? To them who never knew of locks and bars, A roof seemed a worse guardian than the stars. Rather it was when they had sought repose In caves they met most danger from their foes. It might occur to some wandering beast, Making the night hideous, to infest A recess it passed: and, however glad The tenant to buy life with all he had, His fate would be to glut a lion’s maw. Plunged live in a live tomb by tooth and claw; Though worse their doom, who, with huge gobbets jagged From the bleeding flesh, about the woods dragged Noisome centres of horror and pest—palms Trembling o’er sores for which they knew no balms; Calling with agonizing cries on death To sink their remains to the world beneath. Alas! Though measure age with age; nor let Us in compassion for a few forget How hosts that, eagles gleaming, marched to war, Return, less thousands weltering in gore; A navy that rode yesterday the waves, To-day is matchwood, corpses robbed of graves. Ocean in Earth’s infancy swelled with pride, And lightly laid its empty threats aside; Laughing tides might mean treachery, or not; Mortals could plead no wreck to prove a plot; Famine slew a good few in the Age of Flint; Surfeit’s as homicidal as is stint; For themselves poisoned meats rude nomads dressed; With polished art we serve them to a guest! A stage on; huts, plaited boughs; men therein Who stripped for clothes their prey of fur and skin. Chief of all discoveries theirs to learn How the thing we call “Fire” will flame and burn. First, lightning brought it, darting from above; Though men might watch its birth in any grove, For when gales blow, the old trees sway about, And from the boughs in friction sparks flash out. The sun taught many uses; how the heat— Repeated rays—will gradually beat Hardness mellow, and, with fire’s aid, prepare The soil’s crude fruits and grain for human fare. Thus, from a hearth and rough shed, rose a home, With revolutions many thence to come; And when stop? With comfort, unknown of old, Men grew impatient of rude toil and cold. Plenty and leisure stirred the torpid heart; And love and tenderness required their part. Marriage fought free-love; couples plighted troth; And offspring were the property of both. Pledges of love, they had power to warm Beyond the circle where they were life’s charm. How could a father keep a heart of stone, When he felt a child’s throbbing on his own? Tenderness breeds tenderness; men at length Recognized binding duties owed by strength To weakness—assuming what it has willed Must be done—in the stammer of a child Dictating to its father. From the hearth Sympathy with helplessness spread through Earth. Right of the weak was the keystone whereon Neighbours that would not do or see wrong done, Founded their leagues; AND THOUGH SOME BASE WAR-LORD WOULD HERE AND THERE BE FALSE TO HIS SWORN WORD, THE BEST, THE MAIN PART, STOOD BY THEIRS, PURE, CHASTE:— Else, mankind had perished, Earth been a waste!