ROBERT WILLIAMS BUCHANAN (1841 - 1901)

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{The Outcast 1891}

 

                                                                                                                                                                   42

AD LECTOREM.

 

Herein lies a Mystery,
     If you but knew it!
Peruse this strange History—
     You’ll never see thro’ it,
Till Love learns your blunder
     And comes to assist you:
When, smiling and weeping,
With heart wildly leaping,
You’ll find, to your wonder,
     God’s Angels have kissed you!

 

                                                                                                                                                                 43

GENTLE READER,
Read herein,
English’d and versified out of the Double Dutch,
THE STRANGE FLIGHTS
of
PHILIP VANDERDECKEN,
called the
FLYING DUTCHMAN,
Being a Record of
His Amours in all climes and countries;
His experiences of all complexions;
HIS CONVERSATIONS
with the great Goethe, and other persons of reputation,
some still living;
His curious and often improper
REFLECTIONS on
MEN, MANNERS, and MORALS;
with a full, true, and particular account of
HIS VARIOUS RELIGIOUS OPINIONS;
The whole showing, in a series of
Startling Episodes,
How, having been
DAMNED,
By reading the philosophy of Spinoza,
He was finally
SAVED
By the Love of a Woman.

 

                                                                                                                                                                   45

outcastp45illus

                                                                                                                                                                   47

CANTO I

 

MADONNA.

 

MORE than a hundred years have fled
Since Philip Vanderdecken read
Spinoza, and was damn’d . . . .
                                           For days
He ponder’d in a dark amaze
The Demonstration Absolute
Mortal nor angel can confute,
Which proves the Eternal One must be
Divorced from Personality;
Establishes sans contradiction
The fact more terrible than fiction
Of the mysterious Substance shed
Through stone and tree, the quick and dead,
Suns and the glow-worm, bread and leaven,
     Sunlight and moonlight, Fool and Seer,
Earth-dung, the nebulæ of Heaven,
     Shakespere’s calm smile and Arouet’s sneer
And having ponder’d every cranny
O’ the argument, not missing any,
The Captain, standing all forlorn
In his brave vessel off Cape Horn,
Swore with a mighty oath and round                                                   48
Spinoza’s argument was sound!
‘Damn me for evermore,’ said he,
‘If any Personal God there be!
If there be any worth a straw
Stronger than primal Force and Law,
Why, let Him show his power and keep
Our vessel struggling on the Deep
For ever and for ever.’ Thus
This Mariner most impious
Call’d on the Spirit of Creation
To approve Himself—by his damnation!

Becalm’d on billows bright as brass
That slowly ’neath her keel did pass
But broke not, lay the lonely Barque
Scorch’d by the sunlight, stiff and stark.
From the high poop the Captain view’d
The sad and watery solitude.
Tall, lithe, and sinewy, marble pale
Despite the stings of many a gale,
With hair as ebon black as night,
Black eyes alive with ominous light,
     White teeth, and lips of lustrous red,
Rings on his fingers waxen white
     As frozen fingers of the dead;
And though the garb that wrapt his form
Was rough and fit to face the storm,

outcastp49illus

And of a long-past fashion, he                                                             49
Was dandified exceedingly;
His whole appearance, all would grant,
Byronically elegant!
Nor young nor old, but just the age
To cozen maidens not too sage,
And kindle thoughts and looks that burn
In dames of a romantic turn.
The ship, a Dutchman weather-beaten,
With wind-worn sails and decks wormeaten,
High poop, and for a figurehead
A Woman Form with arms outspread
Stript to the waist, and serpent hair
Falling upon her shoulders bare,
Roll’d like a log, and rose and fell
Groaning upon the molten swell.
His crew, a hideous band, were such men
As only can be found ’mong Dutchmen—
Squat, fat, red night-capp’d, hairy dogs,
Gruesome and guttural as hogs,
Yet ghostly, with lack-lustre eyes
Full of strange light and dark surmise;
Faces that could not smile, although
Their voices croak’d with laughter low,
As they crept feebly to and fro.
They all were scar’d as by a brand
Held in some cruel Demon’s hand,
And show’d the trace of every sin
That blurs the soul or stains the skin.                                                 
50
Most were the very froth and scum
Of mortal mariners, but some
Were well-born rogues of education
Gone wrong through vice and dissipation.
The mate, the meanest rascal there,
A lean thin rogue with hoary hair,
Could quote a thousand sayings pat in
Sanscrit and Hebrew, Greek and Latin,
And by the metaphysicians show
That black was white and soot was snow;
For he, so arm’d with wicked knowledge,
Had been Professor of a College,
And occupied with reverend air
The moral-philosophic chair,
Till wine and women, which so few shun,
Had brought him down to destitution,
And he had been compell’d to gain
His bread upon the stormy main.

The ruffians shared their Captain’s doom,
     But each to him was as a satyr;
They watch’d him, while with looks of gloom
     He ponder’d deep on Mind and Matter;
Clustering at the mast they stood
     Like hounds that feel their master nigh;
They knew the devil in his blood
     And fear’d the lightning of his eye—
Then broke to many a mutter’d curse                                                 
51
On him and all the Universe;
For well they knew by many a sign,
     Within them and without, that they
Were exiles from the Grace Divine
And doom’d to toss upon the brine,
     Branded and curst, and cast away!

Three days and nights the calm had lain
     Upon the seas with blistering rays,
Hot as a forge the suffering Main
     Lay throbbing, flashing back the blaze;
On gaping decks and sails that hung
     Like shrunken foliage dry to death,
The heaven sent down a serpent’s tongue
     Of sunlight, and with fiery breath
The burning Skies, the scorching Sea,
Embraced each other lustfully.
But salamander-like, while all
     His seamen cursed the sultry weather,
The Captain paced with calm footfall
     The blistering decks for hours together.
Indifferent to the beams that fell
On his proud head like flames of Hell,
E’en thus he poised and weigh’d and sifted
     The Problem with Spinoza’s aid;
But when his eyes at last were lifted
     And his decision at last was made,
Suddenly, with a troublous motion,                                                    
52
The sleeping waters of the Ocean
Awoke and moan’d! thick cloud and gloom
     Enwrapt the ship, and sudden thunder,
With blood-red gleams and sulphurous fume,
     Tore the great darken’d Deep asunder!
And, lo! like monsters fiery-eyed
The great waves rose on every side,
And shriek’d, tumultuously driven
Beneath the fiery scourge of Heaven.
‘Hoho!’ the Captain laughed, ‘is this
     Your answer, O ye Elements!
The same old argument, I wis,
     To justify Divine intents!
Think you I quail because you grumble?
     Think you I change because you swear?
By heaven, the Universe shall crumble
     Before you cow me into prayer!
Away! away! I heed your screaming
No more than any teapot’s steaming!
Roar yourself hoarse, ye slavish surges,
     In awe of what appals the creature!
Swallow the pill that twists and purges
     Your watery bowels, mother Nature!
I, son of man, being man at least,
     Can still preserve my self-respect here:
What churns you Elements to yeast,
What terrifies each mindless beast
     Awes not the form that stands erect here!                                     
53
Away! away!—Hell and the Devil
Approve your dread, while
I hold revel,
And, scornful of your protestation,
Laugh, lord and master of Creation!’

Long nights and days, through gulfs of gloom,
    
The ship accurst was fiercely driven—
Now swallow’d deep in ocean-spume,
     Now lifted like a straw to heaven—
Like some struck bird that ere it dies
Trails its wet wings and seeks to rise,
But flutters feebly down again
Smit by the lash of wind and rain.
Still on the decks the Captain clung,
Lick’d by the lightning’s serpent-tongue;
And still his cold defiant cry
Answer’d the threats of sea and sky.
But when the Seventh Day dawn’d, behold!
A thin pale Hand of fluttering gold
Stole thro’ the clouds, and silently
Touch’d the wild bosom of the Sea,
So that it softly rose and fell
With tearful sob and windless swell;
And gently on the waters lay
The silence of the Sabbath Day.

O gracious day of peace and calm!
     When, sweetly and supremely blest,
On the world’s wounded heart falls balm                                           
54
     And frankincense of perfect rest!
After Creation’s storm and grief,
     After life’s fever and life’s woe,
One long deep breath of soft relief
     Eases all Nature’s lasting woe!
The Sabbath of the Universe
     Abides, though gods and systems cease—
The human doom, the primal curse,
     Is hush’d to sacramental peace.
Now and for ever, comes the sign
     God giveth His belovëd sleep,
While music of some choir divine
     Steals softly in from Deep to Deep!
It touch’d the Outcast’s weary brow,
     It calm’d his stormy soul’s distress.
He had not fear’d God’s wrath, but now
     He trembled at God’s gentleness!
Standing in desolation there,
     He seem’d to hear from far away
Soft chimes that fill the Sabbath air
     When happy mortals flock to pray;
And o’er green uplands he could see
A spire—Faith’s finger—peacefully
Pointing to Heaven!—A moment thus
He linger’d, pale and tremulous,
Then through his heart again there stole
The pride that poisons sense and soul,
And from his brow he shook again                                                    
55
The benediction all may gain—
‘A day of rest! A day of peace!’
     Perish the lie,’ he fiercely said—
‘Nay, not till Heaven and Earth shall cease,
     Till Death shall mingle quick and dead!
If God could rest, Man resteth never!
Storm is his portion now and ever—
He laughs that one day out of seven
Shall justify the frauds of Heaven!
Accept your Sabbath, winds and waves,
     Rest for a little from your sorrow,—
The cruel Hand that made ye slaves
     Shall lash your backs again to-morrow!
Man knows no Sabbath, no cessation
Of utter storm and tribulation!
Man stands erect, defiant, knowing
From Death he comes, is deathward going!
Man, first of things and last of blunders,
     The crown of Nature and her shame,
Stands firm, and neither prays nor wonders,
     Lord of the Tomb from which he came!’

Suddenly, as he spake, the Barque
     With mist and cloud was wrapt around,
But as between the dawn and dark
     Soft lights of sunrise with no sound
Part the dim twilight and reveal
The morning-star as bright as steel,                                                    
56
E’en so the mist was blown apart
Like dark leaves round a lily’s heart,
And in the core thereof were seen
Still brightning shafts of golden sheen,
Dazzling his sight—yet dimly there
     He saw, or seem’d to see, a Form
With saffron robe and golden hair,
Walking with rosy feet all bare
     The Waters slumbering after storm!

A Maiden Shape, her sad blue eyes
Soft with the peace of Paradise,
She walk’d the waves; in her white hand
Pure lilies of the Heavenly Land
Hung alabaster white, and all
The billows ’neath her soft footfall
Heaved glassy still, and round her head
     An aureole burnt of golden flame,
As nearer yet with radiant head,                                                        
[l.xix]
     Fixing her eyes on his, she came!
Then as she paused upon the Sea,
Gazing upon him silently
With looks insufferably bright
     And gentle brows beatified,
He knew our Lady of the Light—
     Mary Madonna heavenly-eyed.

outcastp56illus

     How still it was! The clouds above                                                      57
Paused quietly and did not move;
The waves lay down like lambs—the air
Was hush’d in sad suspense of prayer—
While coming closer with no sound
She hover’d pale and golden crown’d
And named his name! And even as one
     Who from dark dreams of night doth stir,
And fronts the shining of the sun,
     With haggard eyes, he look’d on her!

But as he gazed his sense grew clear,
His dazzled brain shook off its fear,
And all his spirit fever-fraught
From agonies of cruel thought,
Rose up again in callous scorn—
     ‘Vision or ghost, whate’er you be,
Welcome afloat this Sabbath morn,
     Bright shining Wonder of the Sea!
Methinks I seem to know,’ he said,
     ‘That face so fine, that form so fair,—
They hung in childhood o’er my bed,
And from the village altar shed
     Soft influence over folk at prayer.
And yet, I know, ’tis only fancy,
     Some bright delusion of the brain,
Poor Nature plays such necromancy
     To cheat our reason, all in vain.
I would each optical illusion                                                                58
That sets poor mortals in confusion
Were beautiful and bright and pleasant
As that which haunts my sight at present!
Rose of a Maid, I bend in duty
Before thy miracle of beauty!
Speak, let me hear thee—if a spirit
     Is capable of conversation,
By Venus, I would gladly hear it
     ’Mid these dull gulfs of desolation?’                                               [l.x]

How still it was!—and could it be
A voice that answer’d, or the Sea
Just stirring softly in surcease
Of tempest into throbs of peace?
Low as his own heart’s beat, yet clear
And sweet, there stole upon his ear
An answer faint like Sabbath bells
Heard far away from leafy dells
Buried in leaves and haze, so still
And soft it only seems the thrill
Of silence through the summer air—
A sigh of rapture and of prayer!

 

MADONNA.

Child of the Storm, whose spirit knows
No reverence and no repose,
Who disbelievest God the Lord                                                          59
And holdest Humankind abhorr’d,
Knowest thou Me?

 

VANDERDECKEN.

                               Madonna, yes!
How oft thy radiant loveliness
Has shone upon me with soft eyes
In earthly picture-galleries!
By Raphael’s and Murillo’s brushes,
So skilled to catch thy lightest blushes,
By Tintoretto and the rest,
Thou’rt even fairer than I guess’d!

 

MADONNA.

Dost thou believe in God my Son?

 

VANDERDECKEN.

A categoric question, one
Most difficult to answer rightly
And, at the same time, quite politely!
Frankly, Spinoza’s text has showed
The impersonality of God;
And for thy Son, well, I opine                                                             60
No mortal man can be Divine,
Nor may a maid who takes a mate
Conceive yet be immaculate!

 

MADONNA.

Blasphemer! Is there man or woman,
Or any shape divine or human,
Or any thing, save Death and Sin,
Thy wicked soul believeth in?

 

VANDERDECKEN.

Madonna, no! I grieve to tell
I question Heaven and smile at Hell,
Believe all human creatures are
Accurst in each particular,
Especially the sex of madam
Who gave the fruit to falling Adam!

 

MADONNA.

Christ help thee! Hast thou never loved?
Never known woman’s love, or proved
The depth of faith that dwelleth in her?

                                                                                                         61

VANDERDECKEN.

Never, as sure as I’m a sinner!
I like the sex, ’neath sun and moon
Have found full many a bonne fortune;
But that deep faith have never met.

 

MADONNA.

Yet woman’s love might save thee yet!

 

VANDERDECKEN.

Madonna, how? Though now, I fear,
Past saving, I would gladly hear!

 

MADONNA.

Then listen! By the charity
Of Him who loveth even thee,
By Him whose feet flash’d down on dust
Shall bruise the hydra heads of Lust,
By Him, my Son, who cannot rest
E’en in the Gardens of the Blest,
But ever listening strains His ears
To catch the sound of human tears,
From Him, who fain would kiss thy brow,
I offer thee redemption.

                                                                                                         62

VANDERDECKEN.

                                     How?

 

MADONNA.

Thy doom it is to wildly beat
Without a home to rest thy feet,
Monster, yet featured like a man,
And lonely as Leviathan.
So far thy doom hath been fulfill’d
And found thee stubborn and self-will’d,
But now my Son shall suffer thee,
     One short year out of every ten,
To leave thy Ship upon the Sea
     And wander ’mong thy fellow-men.
There shalt thou seek (and mayst thou find!)
Some gentle shape of womankind,
Who in the end shall freely give
Her life to death that thou mayst live;
Who loving thee, and thee alone,
Flesh of thy flesh, bone of thy bone,
Heart of thy heart, content to share
Thy loneliness and thy despair,
Shall from the fountains of her soul
Baptize thy brows and make thee whole.
Then, with that woman, hand in hand,
Shalt thou before the Master stand,
Saying, ‘By her thy love hath sent,                                                      63
Lord, I believe, and I repent!’

 

VANDERDECKEN.

Madonna, this thy boon to me
Seems somewhat of a mockery!
Have I not proved, do I not know,
By long experience here below,
No woman, howsoever tender,
So capable of self-surrender?
Love comes, love goes, and is the one
Sweet conquering thing beneath the sun,
But never have I seen or noted
One human creature so devoted
That I could say, ‘Her soul is mine,
And God is good, and Love divine!’
Spare me the respite, if you please,
And let me stop upon the seas.

 

MADONNA.

Not so! The Lord, my Son, commands,
And thou shalt search through many lands,
Yea, search and search, though it should be
Through most forlorn Eternity.
Thy manhood, in immortal prime
Shall triumph over Death and Time,                                                     64
Thy face into the very Tomb
Shall peer, yet keep its living bloom;
Nature shall aid, from Earth’s dark breast
Shalt thou take gold to aid thy quest.
Begin thy search whene’er thou wilt,
Pass on through clouds of sin and guilt,
Range every clime, search every nation,
Until thou light on thy salvation!

 

So saying, as a star grows bright
Then flashes into sudden night,
She vanish’d! and the sleeping Main
Awaken’d monster-like again,
Shook the loose brine from its fierce hair,
And shriek’d in tempest-toss’d despair,
Then crouching for a moment, roar’d
Before the Lightning’s sudden sword,
Thrust thro’ and thro’ and thro’ it, and then
Drawn flashing up to the heavens again!
With whistling shroud and thundering sail,
The Ship sped on before the gale,
The seamen lifting spectral faces
With ‘Hillo! hillo!’ took their places,
And on the poop, while on they flew,
The Captain thunder’d to his crew.

     From night to day, from day to night,
Through gulfs of gloom the ship took flight,                                         65
Until, although the bitter blast
     Shriek’d still, and the great waves made moan,
The troubled heavens grew clear at last,
And through the storm-mist drifting fast
     A cold wan Moon was wildly blown,
And on the surge-vex’d ocean ways
Shed down her melancholy rays.
Then gazing southward through the night
     They saw, o’er seas that blackly roll’d,
A starry beal-fire blazing bright—                                                       [l.xi]
     The Southern Cross of glistening gold!

Suddenly, as they look’d thereon,
The blast fell still—the Storm had gone!
And though the waves, too sad for rest,
Still heaved as one tumultuous breast,
The wind grew faint and stirr’d like dim
     Breath on a mirror o’er the Sea,
While near the heaving ocean-rim
     The great Cross crimson’d balefully!
Then while deep dread and dim eclipse
     Lay on the watery solitude,
And on the decks with soundless lips
     And awe-struck hearts the outcasts stood,
Out of the ghostly twilight stole
Great frozen Spectres from the Pole.
Silent and dim and marble pale,                                                          66
Like ship on ship with frozen sail,
They crept from out the vaporous gloom,
     Each misted with its own cold breath,
And cluster’d round the Ship of Doom
     Like shrouded giant shapes of Death.

Still grew the Deep with scarce a stir—
     Still lay the Barque while all around
The Bergs, like one vast Sepulchre,
     Closed in upon it with no sound!
Small as a shallop floating lone
Under great mountain-peaks of stone,
Seem’d the great Ship, while o’er it rose
Crag beyond crag of ice and snows!
And now the little light had fled,
Chill shadows fill’d the air with dread,
And on the cold decks kneeling dumb,
Thinking the end of all had come,
With haggard faces seam’d with tears
Gather’d the woe-worn marineres.
But in their midst, erect and tall,
     The Captain stood without emotion—
He whom God’s wrath could ne’er appal
     Smiled at those Spectres of the Ocean.
Still unsubdued and undismay’d,
Calm and superior, he survey’d

outcastp66illus

The crumbling peaks of strange device,                                               67
    
The threatening towers, the chasms dark,
The cruel silent walls of ice
     That closed and closed to crush the Barque!
And for a time his lips were seal’d,
     But when his soul found speech at last
His voice like thunder round him peal’d
     From chasm to chasm cold and vast!
‘Welcome,’ he cried, ‘ye shapes of Death!
     Goats of the Goatherd throned on high!
Come, Phantoms born of God’s cold breath,
     And crush the dust that longs to die!
Give him the coup de grâce, ye Slaves
     Of that blind Force he scorneth still.
Annihilate him as he craves,
     Ye Monsters, at your Master’s will!
Yet, if the hour be not yet here,
Crouch down like dogs and disappear,
Fade, Phantoms, from his path, and creep
To pasture further on the Deep!’

Thunder on thunder answer’d him!
The great Gulf heaved, the heavens grew dim,
And like to thunder-clouds storm-driven
Together, crashing rent and riven,
Totter’d those shapes of ice and snow,
As if an Earthquake rock’d below!
While toppling peaks and crumbling towers
Darken’d the air with frozen showers,                                                  68
Shrieking and waving frosty wings
The Bergs replied like living things!
And smother’d ’neath the snows that fell
As thick as lava snows of Hell,
Lay the doom’d Ship upon its side,
     Beaten and bent, but undestroy’d,
While still its Captain’s voice defied
     God and those Spectres of the Void.
‘Judgment! swift judgment and no shrift,’
     He cried, ‘are all for which we yearn;
This life that was a Monster’s gift
     Back to the Giver we return!’
But as he spake a forkèd track
Of windless waters ebon-black
Was rent between the frozen mass
Of mountains—that the Ship might pass!
And faintly, feebly quivering,
A bird with trailing broken wing,
The Ship crept on!

                               Then loud and clear
Above the thunders roaring near,
The Captain laugh’d! ‘On to Cape Horn—
We’ll round the Cape at merry morn—
Up! up! hoist sail!’ And at the word
The frozen crew at last were stirr’d,
And gazing round with spectral faces
With ‘Hillo! hillo!’ took their places;                                                    69
And slowly, through the Shapes of Snow
That drew aside to let it go,
Crimson’d by brightening beams of day
The Ship of Death pursued its way.

 

[Notes:
Alterations in the 1901 edition of The Complete Poetical Works of Robert Buchanan:
Page 56, l. xix: As nearer yet with radiant tread,
Page 58, l. x: ’Mid these dull gulfs of desolation!’
Page 65, l. xi: A starry bale-fire blazing bright— ]

_____

 

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