ROBERT WILLIAMS BUCHANAN (1841 - 1901)

{Napoleon Fallen 1871}

Night. NAPOLEON sleeping. Chorus of SPIRITS.

A VOICE.

What shapes are ye whose shades darken his rest this night?

CHORUS.

Cold from the grave we come, out of the dark to the light.

                                                                                                                                                                 96

A VOICE.

Voices ye have that moan, and eyes ye have that weep.
Ah, woe for him who feels such shadows round his sleep!

CHORUS.

Tho’ thou wert buried and dead, still would we seek and find thee,             [note]
Fly where thou wilt, thou shalt hear feet from the tomb behind thee.
Sleep? shall thy soul have sleep? Nay, but it shall be shaken.
Gather around him there, spirits of earth and air, trouble him till he awaken!

                                                                                                                                                                 97

A VOICE.

Who, in imperial raiment, darkly frowning, stand,
Laurel-leaves in their hair, sceptred, yet sword in hand?

ANOTHER VOICE.

Who in their shadow looms, woman-eyed, woe-begone,
And bares his breast to show the piteous wounds thereon?

CHORUS.

Peace, they are kings; they are crown’d; kings, tho’ their realms have departed;
Realms of the grave they have, and they walk in the same weary-hearted.
Sleep? Did their souls have sleep? Nay, for like his was their being.                        98
Gather around him there, spirits of earth and air, wake him to hearing and seeing.

SPIRIT OF HORTENSE.

Woe! O ye shades unblest,
Leave ye my child to rest,
     Leave me here weeping.
This night, at least, have grace,
See, the poor weary face
     Child-like in sleeping.

SPIRIT OF CÆSAR.

Greater than thou, I fell: thy day is o’er.
Thou reap the world with swords! thou wear the robe I wore!
Back to thy books and read again how, in his hour of pride,                                  99
At the foot of Pompey’s statue, slain by slaves, Imperial Caesar died.

SPIRIT OF HORTENSE.

Woe! From his bed depart,
Ye who first taught his heart
     Bloody ambition.
Back! he is God’s in sleep;
Ah, in his heart burn deep
     Pain and contrition.

SPIRIT OF BONAPARTE.

Greater than thou, I fell; die, and give place.
Thou take from my cold grave the glory and the grace!
Thou rise victorious where I fell! Back to thy books, thou blind!                            100
Read how I watch’d the weary Sea, less vast than my imperial mind.

NAPOLEON (in sleep).

Dost thou too frown, dark Spirit of our house?
Scorn be thy meed for scorn. Thou hadst become
A theme for nameless bards, a lullaby
For country folk to rock their cradles with,
A sound, a voice, an echo of a name
Dying most melancholy. In my mouth
Thy name became a trumpet once again,
And woods and wilds, to earth’s remotest peaks,
Echoed “Napoleon.” Cursed be the name,
Cursed be thou, this day! . . . O mother! mother!                              101

SPIRIT OF HORTENSE.

Father in Heaven, they rise!—
Spirits with dreadful eyes
     Hither are creeping.
Thrice on his brow I write
Thy blessed Cross this night,
     Moaning and weeping.

A VOICE.

What spirit art thou, with cold still smile and face like snow?

SPIRIT.

Orsini; and avenged. Too soon I struck the blow.

                                                                                                                                                                 102

A VOICE.

And thou, with bloody breast, and eyes that roll in pain?                            [l.i]

SPIRIT.

I am that Maximilian, miserably slain.

A VOICE.

And ye, O shadowy things, featureless, wild, and stark?

CHORUS.

We are the nameless ones whom he hath slain in the dark!

                                                                                                                                                                 103

A VOICE.

Ye whom this man hath doom’d, Spirits, are ye all there?

CHORUS.

Not yet; we come, we come—we darken all the air.                                   [l.ii]

A VOICE.

O latest come, and what are ye? Why do ye moan and call?

CHORUS.

O hush! O hush! we come to speak the bitterest curse of all.                       [l.iv]

HORTENSE.

Woe!—for the spirits wild,
Woman and man and child,
     Hither are creeping.                                                            104
Thrice on his brow I write
Thy blessed Cross this night,
     Moaning and weeping.

                                                                                                                                                               [note]

CHORUS.

     Ours is the bitterest curse of all;—for we
         Are Souls that perish’d, foully slain by thee.
Ah! would that thou hadst slain our bodies too, like theirs!
     We ate of shame and sorrow till we ceased,
     We drank all poisonous things at thy foul feast—
Back from the grave we come, with curses deep, not prayers.

     With Sin and Death our mothers’ milk was sour,
     The womb wherein we grew from hour to hour
Gather’d pollution dark from the polluted frame—                                     105
     Beside our cradles naked Infamy
     Caroused, and Lust sat smiling hideously—
We grew like evil weeds apace, and knew not shame.

     With incantations and with spells most rank,
     The fount of Knowledge where we might have drank,
And learnt to love the taste, was hidden from our eyes;
     And if we learn’d to spell out written speech,
     Thy slaves were by, and we had books to teach
Falsehood and Filth and Sin, Blasphemies, Scoffs, and Lies.

     We drank of poison, ev’n as flowers drink dew;                                    106
     We ate and drank of poison till we grew
Noxious, polluted, black, like that whereon we fed;
     We never felt the light and the free wind—
     Sunless we grew, and deaf, and dumb, and blind—
How should we dream of God, souls that were slain and dead?

     Love, with her sister Reverence, passed our way
     As angels pass, unseen, but did not stay—
We had no happy homes wherein to bid them dwell;
     We turn’d from God’s blue heaven with eyes of beast,
     We heard alike the atheist and the priest,                                              107
And both these lied alike to smooth our hearts for Hell.

     Of some, both Soul and Body died; of most,
     The Body fatten’d on, while the poor ghost,
Prison’d from the sweet day, was withering in woe;
     Some robed in purple quaff’d their fatal cup,
     Some out of rubied goblets drank it up—
We did not know God was; but now, O God, we know.

     Ah woe, ah woe, for those thy sceptre swayed,
     Woe most for those whose bodies, fair arrayed,
Insolent, sat at ease, smiled at thy feet of pride;                                          108
     Woe for the harlots, with their painted bliss!
     Woe for the red wine-oozing lips they kiss!
Woe for the Bodies that lived, woe for the Souls that died!

     Lambs of thy flock, but oh! not white and fair;
     Beasts of the field, tamed to thy hand, we were;
Not men and women—nay, not heirs to light and truth:
     Some fattening, ate and fed; some lay at ease;
     Some fell and linger’d of a long disease;
But all look’d on the ground—beasts of the field forsooth.

     It is too late—it is too late this night—                                                   109
     To bid us live again in the fair light;
Back from the grave we come, with curses deep, not prayers.
     Ours is a darker doom than theirs, who died
     Strewing with blood the pathway of thy pride—
Ah, would that thou hadst slain our bodies too, like theirs!

SEMI-CHORUS I.

Tho’ thou wert buried and dead, still would they seek thee and find thee.
Fly where thou wilt thou shalt hear feet from the grave behind thee.             [l.viii]

                                                                                                                                                               [note]

HORTENSE.

Woe! woe! woe!

                                                                                                                                                                 110

SEMI-CHORUS II.

Ye who beheld dim light thro’ the chink of the dungeon gleaming,               [l.i]
And watch’d your shade on the wall, till it took a sad friend’s seeming;
Ye who in dark disguise fled from the doom and the danger,                       [l.iii]
And dragging a patriot’s chain died in the land of the stranger.
Men whom he set aside to die like beasts in the traces!                              [l.v]
Women he set aside for the trade of polluting embraces!
Say, shall his soul have sleep? or shall it be darken’d and shaken?              [l.vii]

CHORUS.

Gather around him there, spirits of earth and air, trouble him till he awaken.   [l.viii]

                                                                                                                                                                 111

NAPOLEON (awakening).

Who’s there? Who speaks?—All silent. O how slowly
Moveth the dark and melancholy night.
I cannot rest—I am too sick at heart—
I have had ill dreams. The inevitable Eyes
Are watching, and the weary void of sleep
Has voices strangely sad.                                                                  [l.vi]
                       [He rises, and paces the chamber.

                                     O those dark years
Of Empire! He who tames the tiger, and lies
Pillow’d upon its neck in a lone cave,
Is safer. Who could sleep on such a bed?
Mine eyes were ever dry of the sweet dew                                       [l.xi]
God scatters on the lids of happy men;                                             112
Watching with fascinated gaze the orbs,
Ring within ring of blank and bestial light,
Where the wild fury slept: seeking all arts
To soothe the savage instinct in its throes
Of passionate unrest; with one hand holding                                      [l.vi]
Sweet things within my palm for it to lap,                                           [l.vii]
And with the other, held behind my back,
Clutching the secret steel: oft, lest the thing                                        [l.ix]
Should fasten on its master, cunningly
Turning its wrath against the shapes that moved
Outside its splendid lair; until at last,
Let forth to the mad light of War, it sprang
Shrieking, and sought to rend me. O thou beast!
Art thou so wild this day? and dost thou thirst
To fix on thine imperial ruler’s throat?
Why, I have bidden thee “down,” and thou hast crouch’d                 113 [l.i]
Tamely as any hound! Thou shalt crouch yet,
And bleed with shamefuller stripes!

                                             Let me be calm,
Not bitter. ’Tis too late for bitterness.
Yet I could gnaw my heart to think how France
Hath fail’d me! nay, not France, but rather those
Whom to high offices and noble seats
In France’s name I raised. I bought their souls—
What soul can power not buy?—and, having lost
The blessed measure of all human truth,
Being soulless, these betrayed me; yea, became
A brood of lesser tigers hungering                                                     114
With their large eyes on mine. I did not build
My throne on sand; no, no,—on Lies and Liars,
Weaker than sand a thousandfold!
                                                       In this
I did not work for evil. Though my means
Were dark and vile perchance, the end I sought
Was France’s weal, and underneath my care
She grew as tame as any fatted calf.
I never did believe in that stale cry
Raised by the newsman and the demagogue,
Tho’ for mine ends I could cry “Liberty!”
As loud as any man. The draff of men
Are as mere sheep and kine, with heads held down
Grazing, or resting blankly ruminant.
These must be tended, must be shepherded.                                      115
But Frenchmen are as wild things scarcely tamed,
Brute-like yet fierce, mad too with some few hours
Of rushing freely with an angry roar.
These must be awed and driven. By a scourge
Dripping with sanguine drops of their own blood,
I awed them: then I drove them: then in time
I tamed them. Fool! deeming them wholly mine,
I sought to snatch a little brief repose;
But with a groan they found me, and I woke;
And, since they seem’d to suffer pain, I said,
“Loosen the yoke a little,” and ’twas done,
And they could raise their heads and gaze at me;
And the wild hunger deepen’d in their eyes,                                      116
While fascinated on my throne I sat,
Forcing a melancholy smile of peace.
O had I held the scourge in my right hand!
Tighten’d the yoke instead of loosening!
It had not been so ill with me as now.
But Pity found me with her sister Fear,
And lured me. He who sitteth on a throne
Should have no counsellers who come in tears;
But rather that still voice within his brain,
Imperturbable as his own cold eyes,
And viewless as his coldly flowing blood;
Rather a heart as strong as the great heart
Driving the hot blood thro’ a lion’s thews;                                        [l.xiv]
Rather a will that moves to its desire
As steadfast as the silent-footed cloud.
What peevish humour did my mother mix
With that important ichor of our race                                                [l.xviii]
Which, unpolluted, filled mine uncle’s veins?                                      117
He lash’d the world’s Kings to his triumph-car,
And sat like marble while the fiery wheels
Dript blood beneath him: tho’ the live earth shriek’d
Below him, he was calm, and, like a god,
Cold to the eloquence of human tears,
Cold to the quick, cold as the light of stars,
Cold as the hand of Death on the damp brow,
Cold as Death brooding on a battle-field
In the white after-dawn,—from west to east,
Royal he moved as the red wintry sun.
He never flatter’d Folly at his feet;
He never sought to syrup Infamy;
He, when the martyrs curst him, drew around him
The purple of his glory, and passed on
Indifferently, like Olympian Jove.                                                       118
There was no weak place in the steel he wore,
Where woman’s tongues might reach his mighty heart                       [l.iii]
As they have reach’d at mine. O had I kept
A heart of steel, a heart of adamant;
Had I been deaf to clamour and the peal
Of peevish fools; had I for one strong hour
Conjured mine uncle’s soul to mix with mine,
Sedan had never slain me! I am lost
By the damn’d implements mine own hands wrought—
Things that were made as slavish tools of peace,
Never as glittering weapons meet for war.
He never stoop’d to use such peaceful tools!
But, for all uses,
Made the sword serve him—yea, for sceptre and scythe;                  119
Nay more, for Scripture and for counsellor.

Yet he too fell. Early or late, all fall.
No fruit can hang for ever on the tree.
Daily the tyrant and the martyr meet
Naked at Death’s door, with the fatal mark,
Both brows being branded. Doth the world then slay
Only its anarchs? Doth the lightning flash
Smite Cæsar and spare Brutus? Nay, by heaven!
Rather the world keeps for its paracletes
Torture more subtle and more piteous doom
Than it dispenses to its torturers.
Tiberius, with his foot on the world’s neck,
Smileth his cruel smile and groweth gray,
Half dead already with the weight of years,
Drinking the death he is too frail to feel,                                            120
While in his noon of life the Man Divine
Hath died in anguish at Jerusalem.
[He opens a Life of Jesus and reads. A long pause.

Here too the Teuton works, crafty and slow,
Anatomizing, gauging, questioning,
Till that fair Presence which redeem’d the world
Dwindles into a phantom and a name.
Shall he slay Kings, and spare the King of Kings?
In her fierce madness France denied her God,
But still the Teuton doth destroy his God,
Coldly as he outwits an enemy.
Yet doth he keep the name upon his lips,
And, coldly dedicating the dull deed
To the abstraction he hath christen’d God,
To the creation of his cogent brain,
Conjures against the blessed Nazarene,                                             121
That pallid apparition masculine,
That shining orb hemm’d in with clouds of flesh;
Till, darken’d with the woe of his own words,
The fool can turn to Wilhelm’s wooden face
And Bismarck’s crafty eyes, and see therein
Human regeneration, or at least
The Teuton’s triumph mightier than Christ’s.
Lie there, Iconoclast! Thou art thrice a fool,
Who, having nought to set within its place
But civic doctrine and a naked sword,
Would tear from out its niche the piteous bust
Of Him whose face was Freedom’s morning star.                            [l.xiii]
                 [Takes up a second Book, and reads.

Mark, now, how speciously Theology,
Leaving the broken fragments of the Life
Where the dull Teuton’s hand hath scatter’d them,                            122
Takes up the cause in her high fields of air.
“Darkness had lain upon the earth like blood,                                    [l.iii]
And in the darkness human things had shriek’d
And felt for God’s soft hand, and agonised.
But, overhead, the awful Spirit heard
Yet stirred not, on His throne. Then lastly, One
Dropt like a meteor stone from suns afar,
And stirred and stretch’d out hands, and lived, and knew
That He indeed had dropt from suns afar,
That He had fallen from the Father’s breast,
Where He had slumber’d for eternities;
Hither in likeness of a man He came—
He, Jesus, wander’d forth from heaven and said,
“‘Lo, I, the deathless one, will live and die!                                       123
Evil must suffer—Good ordains to suffer—
Our point of contact shall be suffering,
There will we meet, and ye will hear my voice;
And my low voice shall echo on thro’ time,                                       [l.v]
And one salvation, proved in bloody tears,                                       [l.vi]
Be the salvation of humanity.’”

Ah, old Theology, thou strikest home!
“Evil must suffer—Good ordains to suffer”—
Says’t thou? Did He then quaff His cup of tears
Freely, who might have dash’d it down, and ruled?
The world was ready with an earthly crown,
And yet He wore it not. Ah, He was wise!
Had He but sat upon a human throne,
With all the kingdom’s beggars at His feet,
And all its coffers open at His side,                                                    124
He had died more shameful death, yea, He had fallen
Even as the Cæsars. Rule the world with Love?
Tame savage human nature with a kiss?
Turn royal cheeks for the brute mob to smite?
He knew men better, and He drew aside,
Ordain’d to do and suffer, not to reign.

My good physician bade me search in books
For solace. Can I find it? Verily,
From every page of all man’s hand hath writ
A dark face frowns, a voice moans “Vanity!”
There is one Book—one only—that for ever
Passeth the understanding and appeaseth
The miserable hunger of the heart—
Behold it—written with the light of stars                                            125
By God in the beginning.
                       [Looks forth. A starry night.

                                           I believe
God is, but more I know not, save but this,
He passeth not as men and systems pass,
For while all change, the Law by which they change
Survives, and is for ever, being God.
Our sin, our loss, our misery, our death,
Are but the shadows of a dream: the hum
Within our ears, the motes within our eyes;
Death is to us a semblance and an end,
But is as nothing to that central Law
Whereby we cannot die.
                                         Yonder blue dome,
Gleaming with meanings mystically wrought,
Hath been from the beginning, and shall be
Until the end. How many awe-struck eyes                                        126
Have look’d and spelt one word—the name of God,
And call’d it as they listed, Law, Fate, Change,
And marvell’d for its meaning till they died;
And others came and stood upon their graves,
And read the same, and marvelling too, gave place.                         [l.vi]
The Kings of Israel watch’d it with wild orbs,
Madden’d, and cried the Name, and drew the sword.
Above the tented plain of Troy it bent
After the sun of day had set in blood.
The superstitious Roman look’d by night
And trembled. All these faded phantom-like,
And lo! where it remaineth, watch’d with eyes
As sad as any of those this autumn night,—
The Higher Law writ with the light of Stars                                        127
By God in the beginning . . .
                                         Let me sleep!
Or I shall gaze and gaze till I grow wild,
And never sleep again. Too much of God
Maketh the heart sick. Come then forth, thou charm,
Thou silent spell wrung from the blood-red flower,
With power to draw the curtains of the soul
And shut the inevitable Eyes away.                                                   [l.ix]
         [Drinks a sleeping draught and lies down.

O mother, at thy knees I said a prayer—                                          [l.x]
Lead me not into temptation, and, O God,
Deliver me from evil. Is it too late
To murmur it this night? This night, O God,
Whate’er Thou art and wheresoe’er Thou art,
This night at least, when I am sick and fallen,                                    128
Deliver me from evil!                                                                      [l.ii]
                                                   [He sleeps.

CHORUS OF CITIZENS.

     O thou with features dire,                                                            [note]
Who crouchest at our gates this bloody day,
     With God’s Name on thy forehead burnt in fire,
What art thou? Speak, and say!
     What is thy kindred, monster? Who thy sire?
Whose word wilt thou obey?
     God never made so black a thing as thou,
     God never wrote that name upon thy brow;
Thou art too foul for God, to whom we pray.
Fatal thou broodest on our hearths, with eyes                                    129
     Glazëd in hunger only blood can sate.
     Begone!—within our breasts the sick heart dies
     To see thee crouch and wait:
O blasphemy of nature, at our cries
     God cometh soon or late.
Famine, and Thirst, and Horror at thy back
Lie moaning; Fire and Ruin mark thy track;
     Begone, and die, thou thing of Sin and Hate!
         Die now, ere once again
         The sharp sob of the slain
Goes up the azure voids, and knocks at Heaven’s Gate.

CHORUS.

Christ shall arise.
Power and its vanity,
Pride’s black insanity,                                                            130
Lust and its revelry,
Shall, with war’s devilry,
Pass from humanity:
     Christ shall arise.

SEMI-CHORUS I.

Kings shall pass like shadows from His whiteness,
     Swords be turn’d to scythes and reap the wheat.

SEMI-CHORUS II.

Slaves that crawl’d round thrones shall fear His brightness,
     Thrones shall be as dust around His feet.

                                                                                                                                                               131

CHORUS OF CITIZENS.

     How long, O Lord, how long,
Shall we linger, frail and feeble as we are?
     Thou art slow who shouldst be swift to right our wrong,
     Thou wert promised in our very cradle song:
Thou hast come and gone above us like a Star!
     ’Tis a story of old times that Thou art strong;
But Thou comest not, Thou comest not from far:
     And the cruel fall upon us in their throng,—
And we bleed beneath the tramping feet of War.

                                                                                                                                                                 132

SEMI-CHORUS I.

Peace! He shall arise; be dumb and duteous;
     Listen, hush your wild hearts, and be wise.

SEMI-CHORUS II.

Sin shall look and die: He is so beauteous;
     Make your spirits pure to bear His eyes.

CHORUS OF THE DEAD.

Where we sleeping lie, where we sleeping lie,
We hear the sound, and our spirits cry;
As we sleeping lie in the Lord’s own Breast,
Calm, so calm, for the place is blest,
We, who died that this might be,
Souls of the great, and wise, and free;
Souls that sung, and souls that sighed,                                                133
Souls that pointed to God and died;
Souls of martyrs, souls of the wise;
Souls of women with weeping eyes;
Souls whose graves like waves of the sea
     Cover the world from west to east;
Souls whose bodies ached painfully,
     Till they broke to prophetic moan and ceased;
Souls that sleep in the gentle night,
We hear the cry and we see the light.
Did we die in vain? did we die in vain?
Ah! that indeed were the bitterest pain!
But no, but no, ’twere a Father’s guilt
If a drop of our blood was vainly spilt.
Not a life, nay, not a breath,
But killed some shape of terror and death;—
And we see the light and we bless the cry,
Where we sleeping lie, where we sleeping lie.

                                                                                                                                                                 134

SEMI-CHORUS I.

Blest are ye who followed Him and feared not,
     Yea, into the dark shadow of the tomb!

SEMI-CHORUS II.

Woe for those who saw ye and revered not;
     Better they were formless in the womb!

CHORUS.

     Christ shall arise.
Scorning all vanity,
Sweetness and sanity,
Meekness and lowliness,
Shall to love’s holiness
Shepherd humanity.
     Christ shall arise.

                                                                                                                                                                 135

CHORUS OF CITIZENS.

He cometh late, this God!
Promised for countless years, He cometh late.
Where shall He dwell? The cities of our state
     Are level with the sod.
Shall He upbuild them then? Meantime we wait,
     And see black footsteps where our martyrs trod.
He cometh late, forsooth He cometh late,
     This promised Lord our God!
Nor do we see the earth that He will claim,
     Is riper yet than when He went away.
There are more ruins only, and the same
     Are multiplied each day.
All lands are bloody, and a crimson flame
     Eats Hope’s poor heart away.
Where shall we turn for peace? whom shall we trust for stay?             136
The anarchs of the world still sit and sway
The hearts of men to evil;—Hunger and Thirst
Moan at the palace door; and birds of prey
Still scream above the harvest as at first.
         Should He then come at all,
         This God on whom ye call,
How should He dwell on earth? would He not find it curst?

SEMI-CHORUS I.

Nay, for the Lamb shall wrap the world in whiteness;
     Nay, for the wise shall make it fair and sweet.
Slaves and fools shall perish in the brightness!                                   137
     Thrones shall be as dust around His feet!

SEMI-CHORUS II.

Peace! ye make a useless lamentation.
     Peace! ye wring your hands o’er things of stone.
Comfort! ye shall find a habitation
     Fairer than the fairest overthrown.

FINAL CHORUS, OR EPODE.

         Comfort, O true and free,                                                      [note]
         Soon shall there rise for ye
A CITY fairer far than all ye plan;
         Built on a rock of strength,
         It shall arise at length,
Stately and fair and vast, the CITY meet for man!

         Towering to yonder skies,                                                      138
         Shall the fair City rise,
In the sweet dawning of a day more pure:
         House, mart, and street and square,
         Yea, and a Fane for prayer,
Fair, and yet built by hands, strong, for it shall endure.

         In the fair City then,
         Shall walk white-robëd men,
Wash’d in the river of peace that watereth it;
         Woman with man shall meet
         Freely in mart and street,
At the great council-board woman with man shall sit.

         Hunger and Thirst and Sin
         Shall never pass therein;
Fed with pure dews of love, children shall grow;                               139
         Nought shall be bought and sold,
         Nought shall be given for gold,
All shall be bright as day, all shall be white as snow.

         There, on the fields around,
         All men shall till the ground,
Corn shall wave yellow, and bright rivers stream;
         Daily, at set of sun,
         All, when their work is done,
Shall watch the heavens yearn down and the strange starlight gleam.

         In the fair City of men,
         All shall be silent then,
While on a reverent lute, gentle and low,
         Some holy Bard shall play
         Ditties divine, and say                                                            140
Whence those that hear have come, whither in time they go.

         No man of blood shall dare
         Wear the white mantle there;
No man of lust shall walk in street or mart;
         Yet shall the magdalen
         Walk with the citizen;
Yet shall the sinner grow gracious and pure of heart.

         Now, while days come and go,
         Doth the fair City grow,
Surely its stones are laid in sun and moon.
         Wise men and pure prepare
         Ever this City fair.
Comfort, O ye that weep: it shall arise full soon.

         When, stately, fair, and vast,                                                   141
         It doth uprise at last,
Who shall be King thereof, say, O ye wise?—
         When the last blood is spilt,
         When the fair City is built,
Unto the throne thereof, a Monarch shall arise.

         Hearken, O pure and free,
         When ’tis upbuilt for ye,
Out of the grave He shall arise again;
         He whose blest soul did plan
         This the fair CITY of MAN,
In his white robes of peace, CHRIST shall arise, and reign.

_______________________________________________
VIRTUE AND CO., PRINTERS, CITY ROAD, LONDON.

[Notes:
Alterations in the 1884 edition of The Poetical Works of Robert Buchanan:
Page 96, the Chorus section is revised as follows:

CHORUS.

Tho’ thou wert buried and dead,
     Still would we seek thee and find thee,
Ever there follows the tread
     Of feet from the tomb behind thee;
Sleep, shall thy soul have sleep?
     Nay, but be broken and shaken.
Gather around him and weep,
     Trouble him till he awaken.

Page 97, the Chorus section is revised as follows:

CHORUS.

Peace, they are Kings, they are crowned;
     Kings, tho’ their realms have departed,
Realms of the grave they have found,
     And they walk in the same heavy-hearted.
Sleep? did their souls have sleep?
     Nay, for like his was their being.
Gather around him and weep,
     Awake him to hearing and seeing.

Page 98, the ‘Spirit of Hortense’ section is omitted.
Page 98, the ‘Spirit of Cæsar’ section is revised as follows:

SPIRIT OF CÆSAR.

Greater than thou I fell. Die; for thy day is o’er.
Thou reap the world with swords? thou wear the robe I wore?
Up like the bird of Jove, I rose from height to height,
Poised on the heavenly air, eyes to the blood-red light;
Swift came the flash of wrath, one long-avenging glare—
Down like a stone I fell, down thro’ the dizzy air;
Dark burnt the heaven above, red ran the light of day,
In the great square of Rome, bloody I fell, and lay.

Page 99, the ‘Spirit of Hortense’ section is omitted and is replaced by the following:

CHORUS.

Kings of the realms of fear,
     Each the sad ghost of the other,
One by one step near,
     Look in the eyes of a brother.
Hush! draw nearer and speak—
     And ere he waketh each morrow
Blow on his bloodless cheek
     With the chilly wind of your sorrow.

Page 99, the ‘Spirit of Bonaparte’ section is revised as follows:

SPIRIT OF BUONAPARTE.

Greater than thou I fell. Die, Icarus, and give place.
Thou take from my cold grave the glory and the grace!
Out of the fire I came, onward thro’ fire I strode;
Under my path earth burnt, o’er it the pale stars glow’d;
Sun of the earth, I leapt up thro’ the wondering sky,
Naming my name with God’s, Kings knelt as I went by.
Aye; but my day declined;—to one glad cry of the free
My blood-red sunset died on the eternal Sea.

Page 100, the ‘Napoleon (in sleep)’ section is omitted.
Page 101, the ‘Spirit of Hortense’ section is omitted.
Page 102, l. i: And thou, with bleeding breast and eyes that roll in pain?
Page 102, ‘CHORUS’ replaced with ‘VOICES’.
Page 103, l. ii: Not yet; they come, they come—they darken all the air.
Page 103, l. iv: O hush! O hush! they come to speak the bitterest curse of all.
Page 103, the ‘Hortense’ section is omitted.
Page 104, ‘CHORUS’ is replaced with ‘SPIRITS’. The first verse is omitted, verses 7 and 8 are transposed, and verse 9 is omitted. There is no break between verses 2 and 3, and no break between verses 4, 5, 6 and 8.
Page 109, l. viii: Ever there follows the tread
                             Of feet from the grave behind thee.
Page 109: ‘HORTENSE’ is replaced with ‘SPIRIT OF HORTENSE.’
Page 110, l. i: Ye who saw sad light fall,
                           Thro’ the chink of the dungeon gleaming,
Page 110, l. iii: Ye who in speechless pain
                             Fled from the doom and the danger,
Page 110, l. v: Men who stagger’d and died,
                           Even as beasts in the traces,
Page 110, l. vii: Say, shall his soul have sleep,
                             Or shall it be troubled and shaken?
Page 110, l. viii: Gather around him and weep,
                             Trouble him till he awaken.
Page 111, l. vi: Hath voices strangely sad.
Page 111, l. xi: Mine eyes were ever dry of the pure dew
Page 112, l. vi: Of passionate unrest. One cold hand held
Page 112, l. vii: Sweet morsels for the furious thing to lap,
Page 112, l. ix: I clutch’d the secret steel: oft, lest its teeth
Page 113, l. i: Why, have I bidden thee ‘down,’ and thou hast crouch’d
Page 116, l. xiv: Driving the hot life through a lion’s thews;
Page 116, l. xviii: With that immortal ichor of our race
Page 118, l. iii: Where women’s tongues might reach his mighty heart
Page 121, l. xiii: Of Him whose face was Sorrow’s morning star.
Page 122, l. iii: ‘Darkness hath lain upon the earth like blood,
Page 123, l. v: And my low tones shall echo on thro’ time,
Page 123, l. vi: And one salvation proved in fatal tears
Page 126, l. vi: And read in their turn, and marvelling gave place.
Page 127, the ‘stage direction’ after l. ix is omitted.
Page 127, l. x: Dead mother, at thy knees I said a prayer—
Page 128, the ‘stage direction’ after l. ii is omitted.
Page 128, the remaining sections are replaced by the following:

CHORUS.

Under the Master’s feet the generations
     Like ants innumerably come and go:
He leans upon a Dial, and in patience
     Watches the hours crawl slow.

In His bright hair the eternal stars are burning,
     Around His face Heaven’s glories burn sublime:
He heeds them not, but follows with eyes yearning
     The Shadow men call Time.

Some problem holds Him, and He follows dreaming
     The lessening and lengthening of the shade.—
Under His feet, ants from the dark earth streaming,
     Gather the men He made.

He heeds them not nor turns to them His features—
     They rise, they crawl, they strive, they run, they die;
How should He care to look upon such creatures,
     Who lets great worlds roll by?

He shall be nowise heard who calls unto Him,
     He shall be nowise seen who seeks His face;
The problem holds Him—no mere man may woo Him,
     He pauseth in His place.

So hath it been since all things were created,
     No change on the immortal Face may fall,
Having made all, God paused, and fascinated,
     Watch’d Time, the shade of all.

Call to the Maker in thine hour of trial,
     Call with a voice of thunder like the sea:
He watches living shadows on a Dial,
     And hath no ears for thee.

He watches on—He feels the still hours fleeing,
     He heeds thee not, but lets the days drift by;
And yet we say to thee, O weary being,
     Blaspheme not, lest thou die.

Rather, if woe be deep and thy soul wander,
     Ant among ants that swarm upon a sod,
Watching thy shadow on the grass-blade, ponder
     The mystery with God.

So may some comfort reach thy soul wayfaring,
     While the days run and the swift glories shine,
And something God-like shall that soul grow, sharing
     The attitude divine.

Silent, supreme, sad, wondering, quiescent,
     Seeking to fathom with the spirit-sight
The problem of the Shadow of the Present
     Born of eternal Light.

Page 137, the ‘FINAL CHORUS, OR EPODE’ section is revised as ‘The City Of Man’. ]

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