ROBERT WILLIAMS BUCHANAN (1841 - 1901)
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ROBERT WILLIAMS BUCHANAN (1841 - 1901) |
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{The Drama of Kings 1871}
The KAISER. The CHIEFS. The IMPERIAL CHANCELLOR. The GOVERNOR OF PARIS.
CHANCELLOR. Behold! where even in our triumph-hour
CHORUS. Woe to thee, Paris; then thy cup is full.
GOVERNOR. O Sire and Princes, leaders of the host,
KAISER. Yield up thy sword, and waste no further breath;
THE CHIEFS. Glory to God. Long live the Emperor! 421 CHANCELLOR. ’Tis finished; at our feet great France lies dead.
CHORUS. O God who leadest on the mortal race,
END OF THE TRILOGY.
423
425 EPILOGUE.
Enter TIME. O SPIRITS seated in your just degrees, Is this the end? I hear ye smiling ask. Wherefore, I say, these Kings whom ye have seen “O foolish mortal race,” I hear ye cry, Ay, but I weary. O I weary. Sleep
431
BEFORE THE CURTAIN.
433
EPILUDE.
Enter, on the stage, the CHANCELLOR, followed
THE LORD. NOW what are ye who hither come and kneel?
CHANCELLOR. The poor spent players of the Tragedy.
THE LORD. First, ye who played the lowliest parts of all, 434 SPIRITS. We come! THE LORD. And ye who spake a little speech and went,
CHANCELLOR (unmasking). Here.
THE LORD. Thy dark part was excellently played—
LUCIFER. Master of souls—that part I also played.
THE LORD. And Buonaparté. 435 LUCIFER. My pet character!—
THE LORD. None could have played them better, or so well: 436 LUCIFER. Since we have played the drama to Thy liking, 437 THE LORD. ’Tis well. Sing on.
CHORUS. The Soul shall arise.
SEMI-CHORUS I. As from night springs golden-wingëd morrow,
SEMI-CHORUS II. From darkness, and from coldness, and from sorrow 438 SEMI-CHORUS I. As a wild, wild rose-tree when ’tis snowing
SEMI-CHORUS II. Like a fount by spring’s warm breath unfrozen,
CHORUS OF THE DEAD. Where we sleeping lie, where we sleeping lie,
CHORUS OF CITIZENS. He cometh late, this greatest under God, 441 SEMI-CHORUS I. As the young lamb by its dam runs leaping,
SEMI-CHORUS II. He shall guide her blind feet very slowly,
CHORUS. The Soul shall arise. 442 SEMI-CHORUS I. He shall rise a creature and a spirit,
SEMI-CHORUS II. He shall hear her voice and answer brightly;
SEMI-CHORUS I. Shall they dwell for evermore together,
SEMI-CHORUS II. Peace! ye souls who make sad acclamation, 443 [note] Comfort, O true and free, [1:i] Towering to yonder skies In the fair City then Hunger and Thirst and Sin 444 There, on the fields around, In the fair City of men No man of blood shall dare 445 Now, while days come and go, When, stately, fair, and vast, Flower of blessedness, 446 O but he lingereth, Quicken, O Soul of Man! Earth and all things that be 447
THE END.
[Notes: Hearken, O pure and free, In the revision of The Drama of Kings this final verse is replaced by four new verses and this version (with slight revisions) was then included in the third volume of The Poetical Works of Robert Buchanan (Henry S. King, 1874) as ‘The City Of Man’. This was placed after the revised version of Napoleon Fallen and The Drama of Kings - ‘Political Mystics’ - as ‘L’Envoi to Vol. III’. In the 1884 edition of The Poetical Works of Robert Buchanan this version of ‘The City of Man’ was included as the final part of ‘Political Mystics’. The alterations to the final version of ‘The City of Man’ are as follows:
449
451
NOTES. _____
Page 3. Close round it snowing
un cerchio d’igne. . . .
Page 8. Have ye forgot the sin of Phrynichos? This sin was the celebration of the miseries of the Ionians, in a tragedy called the Capture of Miletos. When, however, two years after the Battle of Salamis, Phrynichos chronicled the defeat of Xerxes, he met with an enthusiastic reception, and his success encouraged Æschylos to write the Persæ,—in some respects the very finest of the extant Greek tragedies, for the very reasons which make it inferior in ghastly tremendousness to the Orestean Trilogy. 452 Page 23. Enter STEIN. Of Stein’s character as a patriot and a statesman, it is unnecessary to say one word. How cruelly Prussia rewarded him for his services is well known; but the day of his apotheosis is at hand. We all know Arndt’s songs, and his soul through them. Jahn is less familiar to all but historical students; he was, however, a great creature—a source of constant inspiration to German patriots, and particularly the Gymnasiarchs. For particulars concerning these men, and many others as great in soul, who, rising in the moment of peril to save their country, were first welcomed, and after victory treated as lunatics and criminals, see Richter (“Geschichte des Deutschen Freiheitskrieges”) and the volume called “Geschichte des Lützowschen Frei-corps,” published in 1826, at Berlin.
Page 28. O spirits dreaming, &c. Omnes enim per se divum natura necesse est, &c.
Page 40. But yestermorn the old man Wieland stood Menzel (Geschichte des Deutschens), while justly inveighing against the literary heroes of Weimar, who were incapable of a patriotic sentiment, alleges that Wieland was kept standing an hour in Napoleon’s presence, and when, unable from his old age to continue on his feet, he asked permission to retire, Napoleon is said to have considered it an unwarrantable liberty. This is manifestly unjust to Buonaparte, who reserved all his brutality for queens and political opponents. Wieland himself, in his letters, gives an excellent account of the interview: it is more interesting and less familiar than the interview with Goethe.
Page 57. Enter LOUISA OF PRUSSIA. I have here taken a slight liberty with history. The high-minded queen’s famous interviews with Buonaparte took place at Tilsit, a year previous to the Congress at Erfurt in 1808, and two years after Buonaparte, standing at the tomb of Frederick Sanspareil, had publicly aspersed Louisa’s fame.
Page 69. Compound of Scapin and Olympian Jove. So the Abbé de Pradt, in his savage character of Napoleon, against whom he felt all the bitterness of a slighted tool:—
Page 73. On Jena Prussia’s feeble body died, &c. Everbody has followed the miserable campaign of 1806. “Les Prussiens sont encore plus stupides que les Autrichiens,” cried Buonaparte, amazed at the wretched pottering of the Duke of Brunswick, adding afterwards, on hearing that the enemy expected him from Erfurt when he was already at Nuremberg, “Ils se tromperont furieusement, ces perruques!”
Page 87. Why, how now, hath Pope Pius lost his wits? &c. There can be no doubt that Napoleon’s sharp dispute with, and subsequent savage treatment of, the aged Pope made the French supremacy trebly odious to the Catholic population. Pius VII. showed a spirit worthy of a grander cause. Of course, he was contending against the avalanche; but even such opposition hastened its rush into the gulf that awaited it.
Page 117. O Spirit of Man! This picture of the Spirit of Man must not be read with any reference to the shallow and barbarous myth of Prometheus, which represents the demigod-like spirit of Humanity contending against a Deity of unutterable malevolence. 456 Page 128. Light of the Lotus and all mortal eyes, Proclus, in his “Discourse on Magic,” preserved in the Latin translation of Ficinus, has the following exquisitely-beautiful passage:—
Page 161. Strange are the bitter things A portion of this chorus is versified from Dio Chrysostom’s “Treatise on Arbitrary Government.” “Napoleon Fallen,” when published in its first rough shape, opened with a chorus of German citizens, somewhat too colloquial in manner to suit the mystic quality of the scenes which followed, and therefore now suppressed. Most of the other choruses are new, and those retained are entirely altered and remodelled.
Page 239. With Sin and Death our mothers’ milk was sour, This measure is used once or twice by Shelley. 458 Page 250. Yet he, too, fell. Early or late, all fall. An eminent friend “admits” that I do full justice to Napoleon on the intellectual side, but “is inclined to dispute” his title to a “moral consciousness,” and to question whether he is “capable” of any such “remorse” as I portray. This is another illustration of how many meanings men may find in a poem according to their different lights. So far from attempting to represent the speaker as feeling mere “remorse,” I was portraying, in his final soliloquy, a mood of unutterable perversity—a line of thought only possible to a fourth-rate intellect in which the moral consciousness was virtually inert and dead. From my own point of view, so utter was the wicked hopelessness of this soliloquy, that I should certainly have altered it, had my conscience not told me that every word was dramatically true.
Page 288. Worshipping Thammus and all gods obscene. See the superb passage in “Paradise Lost,” Book I., line 446. Thammuz came next behind,
Page 300. How long shall I to this sick world, this mass To the reader who may question the moral truth of my representation of Count Bismarck, I recommend a careful study of his speeches now collected and published at Berlin. Once 459 more, however, let me warn the student that the great statesman is approached from the divine side, during the highest mood of which, from the dramatic point of view, he is capable. That mood, unhappily, is a low enough one.
Page 412. O to waken Lützow’s spirit! Richter writes thus of the corps organized by Lützow during the German War of Liberation:—
Deign, King of Heaven, A crude early version of this “final song” was printed as a sequel to “Napoleon Fallen;” but “Christ” appeared there instead of “the Soul” in the final passages. I found that the words, “Christ shall arise and reign,” were too literally interpreted as a statement that Jesus Christ was to come in the flesh 461 and rule the world; and as I meant nothing of the sort, but only that the spiritual part of Christ should be present during the reign of the perfect Spirit of Humanity, I have taken good care this time to avoid misconstruction. There is another misconstruction which I fear—that of a mere pantheistic reading of my “Cantata.” Surely, however, no reader who has followed my representation of divine agencies throughout the Drama will do me the injustice of supposing that I consider man by any means the highest of beings. There are times, indeed, when I doubt if he is the highest of animals. We find on examination that those gentlemen who insist most on the superiority of man in the scale of nature, insist quite as much on the adjective “white,” and coming a little nearer home, on the adjective “British.” The formula that man is highest of beings, when uttered here in Britain, then generally resolves itself into this other formula—“the British white man is the highest of beings.” Conceive a chain of development culminating in Mr. Carlyle at one point, at another in Mr. Disraeli, and at another in ex-Governor Eyre.
463
A NOTE FOR THE ADEPT.
465
ON MYSTIC REALISM. “Poesie ist das absolut Reelle. Dies ist der Kern meiner Philosophie. __________ IN the present work, and in the works which have preceded it from the same pen, an attempt is made to combine two qualities which the modern mind is accustomed to regard apart—reality and mystery, earthliness and spirituality; and this combination, whether a merit or a fault, is a consequence of natural temperament, and perfectly incurable. The writer dropped into a world a few years ago like a being fallen from another planet. His first impression was one of surprise and awe;—he stood and wondered—and here, on the same spot, he stands and wonders still. What is nearest to him seems so sublime, unaccountable, and inexhaustible, and occasionally, indeed, so droll and odd, that he has never ceased to regard it with all the eyes of his soul from that day to this. Others may go to the mountain-tops and interrogate the spheres. Wiser men may peruse the Past, and see there, afar away, the dreamy poetry for which the spirit eternally yearns. More acquiescent men may look heavenward, slowly and strangely losing the habit of earthly perception altogether. With all these, with all who love beauty near or afar away, in any shape or form, abides the twofold blessing of reverence and love. But the Mystic is occupied hopelessly with what immediately surrounds him. Minuter examination leads only to extremer joy 466 and wonder. To him this ever-present reality is the only mystery, and in its mystery lies its sublime fascination and beauty. Only what is most real and visible and certain is marvellous, and only that which is marvellous has the least fascination. What he sees may be seen by every soul under the sun, for it is the soul’s own reflection in the river of life glassed to a mirror by its own speed. Die Masse könnt ihr nur durch Masse zwingen; ROBERT BUCHANAN.
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[Notes: Opening sentence: IN the contents of the preceding volumes an attempt is made to combine two qualities which the modern mind is accustomed to regard apart—reality and mystery, earthliness and spirituality; and this combination, whether a merit or a fault, is a consequence of natural temperament, and perfectly incurable. Page 467: The personal key-note to all his work—poor enough, God knows, is all that work from his own point of view—is to be found in the ‘Book of Orm,’ 1 and the climax of all in the poem entitled ‘The Man Accurst.’ The mention of ‘The Book of Orm’ prompts this footnote: The Author trusts that future readers will not be misled by the Celtic framework of this poem, which is as modern as any of the rest, and might be entitled, representing as it does the spiritual and non-dramatic side of the Author’s nature, the ‘Book of Robert Buchanan.’ Intellectually, it is the key to all his writings. Page 468: In the list of writers, Tennyson is omitted. Page 469: The 1874 version leaves the original after the sentence: If ordinary people perceived the sublime mysteries of contemporary life, if ordinary people understood the faces and souls they behold daily, it would be a waste of time to sing to them. And continues to the end as follows: Whether from too elaborate a collegiate education, or from class pride, or from actual deficiency of imagination, they do really associate vulgarity with a certain class of subjects, they do really feel that contemporary life is not naturally poetic, they do really breathe more freely under the masks of the old drama, than when face to face with the terrific commonplaces and sublime vulgarities of great cities. Views of contemporary life, to please them, must be greatly idealised or subdued to the repose of Greek sculpture; but, for the most part, they would consign contemporary material to the comic writer, and reserve our ordinary daily surroundings for the use of the manufacturers of Adelphi farces. In ‘Pindar and Poets unrivalled,’ they confine their sympathy to tradition, and care most for statuesque woes and nude intellectualities moving on a background of antique landscape. If they are to find a poetic theme on the soil, they must go very far back in the chronicle—say, as far as Boadicea, The more misty the figures, the less their vulgarity, in the eyes of those who wish to build colleges on Parnassus, and who learn Greek in order to address the Muses, forgetting that the nine ladies now favour the moderns, and have almost entirely forgotten their beautiful native tongue.
1 De Quincey on Wordsworth’s Poetry, p. 260. 2 In answer to thoughts like this, I have heard it urged that Art is not local but cosmopolitan, and that the artist should aim, as all great artists have aimed, at universality. It is true that the highest art owes its permanence to its universality, but it is also true that the intensity of the local insight, the keenness of the artist’s apprehension of his own time, is the very cause that his work compasses universal truth: since each man’s spiritual experience, if rightly depicted, must correspond, in numberless soul-touching particulars, with the combined experience of the world. There is no catholicity, no universality, no true art, to be got by chill aiming at these things; they are the product of individual natures, acted upon by the great forces of the world and the period. It is nonsense to point to Greek art, especially Greek sculpture, as ‘universal’ in the sense of non-nationality. Nothing can be more Greek, and that is why nothing can be more great. ] |
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