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Why cheat the fool and give his dreams persistence?
Have we not proved that Spirits such as thou
Are visions like those Elves, without existence?
The man is grey,—his race is almost run,—
Through Death’s dark gate his feet full soon must wander;
Like lights on some sad feast-day, one by one
The stars have been put out in Heaven yonder.
THE ÆON.
What toad is this that croaks here in the shade?
Out!—let us see thee,—old Abomination!
VOICE.
Thou pose as friend of Man? Stick to thy trade
Of cheats and lying, filth and fornication.
Thou knowest men are mad such dreams to cherish, 368
Since they are beasts, and like the beasts must perish!
Teach them to live their lives and eat and revel,
Tell them to snatch their pleasure ere it flies,—
A retrospective sentimental Devil
Is but a priest or parson in disguise.
THE ÆON.
Brekekekex! koäx, koäx! [54:1]
Toads and frogs, they are croaking still!
Round bald heads and slimy backs
Huddle together under the hill.
Ever thus since Time began
They’ve crawled and spat on the path of Man,—
Up to the heights where the moon shines clear!
Leave the infernal croakers here!
VOICES.
If I desire to end my days at peace with all theologies,
To win the penny-a-liner’s praise, the Editor’s apologies,
Don’t think I mean to cast aside the Christian’s pure beatitude,
Or cease my vagrant steps to guide with Christian prayer and platitude.
No, I’m a Christian out and out, and claim the kind appellative
Because, however much I doubt, my doubts are simply Relative;
For this is law, and this I teach, tho’ some may think it vanity,
That whatsoever creed men preach, ’tis Essential Christianity!
In Miracles I don’t believe, or in Man’s Immortality— 369
The Lord was laughing in his sleeve, save when he taught Morality;
He saw that flesh is only grass, and (tho’ you grieve to learn it) he
Knew that the personal Soul must pass and never reach Eternity.
In short, the essence of his creed was gentle nebulosity
Compounded for a foolish breed who gaped at his verbosity;
And this is law, and this I teach, tho’ you may think it vanity,
That whatsoever creed men preach, ’tis Essential Christianity!
THE ÆON.
They’re having a little spread of their own
In a ruin’d Church with a crumbling steeple—
Priests and parsons, eclectic grown,
Hob and nob with the scribbling people;
Journalists, poets, and criticasters
Join in the literary revel.
Salutation, my merry masters!
Don’t you know me? Your friend, the Devil!
VOICES.
Go away, for you don’t exist!
God and yourself have reached finality;
All now left in a World of Mist
Is the creed of sensuous Morality.
A VOICE.
I freely tipple Omar’s wine with ladies scant of drapery;
I think Mahomet’s Heaven fine, tho’ somewhat free and capery;
I feel a great respect for Joss, altho’ he’s none too beautiful; 370
To fetishes, as to the Cross, I’m reverent and dutiful;
I creep beneath the Buddhist’s cloak, I beat the tom-tom cheerily,
And smile at other Christian folk who take their creed too drearily;
For this is law, and this I teach aloud to all gigmanity,
That whatsoever creed men preach, ’tis Essential Christianity!
To all us literary gents the future life’s fantastical,
And both the Christian Testaments are only “wrote sarcastical”;
They’re beautiful, we all know well, when viewed as things poetical,
But all their talk of Heaven and Hell is merely theoretical.
But we are Christian men indeed, who, striking pious attitudes,
Raise on a minimum of creed a maximum of platitudes!
For this is law, and this we teach, with grace and with urbanity,
That whatsoever creed men preach, ’tis Essential Christianity!
THE ÆON.
Phantoms of men, that never knew
The golden Boyhood and the Fable, [61:2]
Leave them to feast, as dogs may do,
On fragments from the Churchman’s table—
Trimmers and tinkers, neither false nor true,
Low foreheads, sensual mouths, and minds unstable!
Away, away! the peaks up yonder
Grow brighter yet while we are upward soaring;
Between us and the moon wild spirits wander, 371
Their eyes on that divine white Light, adoring.
THE ELVES.
The bugles are blowing from height to height,
Under the heavens so blue;
Hark, they are ringing from height to height
With a hark and a hey halloo!
ECHOES.
Halloo! halloo! halloo!
THE POET.
Where art thou, Master?
THE ÆON (far off).
Here above thee!
Follow on through the shadows grey,
And if thy limbs are too slow to move thee,
Grasp the skirt of a passing Fay!
VOICES.
Fast through the night, from height to height,
In thy train, O Queen, we flee—
There is Mary Beaton, and Mary Seaton,
And Mary Carmichael, and me!
THE POET.
In a blood-red robe that parts to show
The wondrous bosom white as snow,
Around her neck a thin red line, 372
A pale crown on her golden hair,
She flitteth through the grey moonshine,
For ever sweet, for ever fair.
Haggard and fierce, with dripping sword,
Beside her stalks her savage lord,
And following her, the Maries share
Her loveliness and her despair.
O rose-red mouth, O sphinx-like eyes
That witched the Boy and fired his blood,—
Still on my soul, O Mary, lies
Thy spell of woful womanhood!
Deathless, a Queen, thou reignest still
In Memory’s desolate domain,
And as we gaze, our pulses thrill
To share thy passion and thy pain!
VOICES.
Fast through the night, from height to height,
O Queen, we follow thee,—
There is Mary Beaton, and Mary Seaton,
And Mary Carmichael, and me!
THE POET.
Fairyland of Love and Sorrow,
Thickly close your shadows round me!
Once again your dreams I borrow,
Love hath kiss’d me, clasp’d me, crown’d me!
Out of every dell and hollow
Bright shapes beckon, and I follow!
Forms of olden myth and fancy 373
Witch the night with necromancy;
Elf and Lover, Gnome and Lady,
Kiss and clasp in woodlands shady;
From the torrent Kelpies crying
Hail the Fays above them flying;
Hither, thither, upward streaming
To the stars above them beaming,
To the heights by dream-shapes haunted,
Fly the Fairy Folk enchanted!
VOICES.
The bugle is blowing from height to height
Under the heavens of blue,—
We fly, we fly through the mists of night,
With a hark and a hey halloo!
ECHOES.
Halloo! halloo! halloo!
THE ÆON.
On the topmost peak I stand,
Come, ye Dreams and Shadows, come!
At the lifting of my hand
Kneel around me and be dumb!
O crowd of woful things,
Gods, and Demi-gods, and Fays,
Hush your hearts and fold your wings,
While the Emblem I upraise!
374
VOICES.
See! see! see!
THE POET.
Why gaze they downward, hungering from the peaks
To some dim Shape that climbeth from below?
Why turn thine own eyes thither, while thy cheeks
Seem wan with some new woe?
VOICES.
See! see! see!
He cometh hither, the Jew,
The Weariful One they slew
’Tween thief and thief on the Tree!
With hair as white as snow
He climbeth from below,
His feet and hands drip blood,—
Alack! He traileth on,
Though old and woebegone,
His heavy Cross of wood!
THE JEW.
How long, O God, how long!
THE POET.
O piteous cry,
For ever heard while the swift years rush by!
Vapour and mist enfold the feeble form,
Beneath him as he goes the abysses loom,
Answer’d by woful Spirits of the Storm
Moaning he trails his Cross through gulfs of gloom.
375
VOICES.
Dry thy tears and raise thy head,
He is quick that once was dead!
THE POET.
Christ of the broken Heart, and is it Thou
Who standest ’mong thy brethren there on high?
Erect and silver-hair’d, thou takest now
The gentle benediction of the Sky;
Tumultuous, multitudinous, as the crests
Of storm-vex’d billows on a moonstruck sea,
The gods flock round and smite their naked breasts,
Calling aloud on Thee!
And towering o’er them, ring’d with Shapes divine,
Osiris, Zeus, Apollo, Vishnu, Brahm,
Forms of the Phallus, Virgins of the Shrine,
Thou standest starry-eyed, supreme and calm,
And on thy mirror’d head the waves of Light
Creep soft and silvern from a million spheres,
Sprinkling ablution from the baths of Night
And shining on thy face worn thin with tears.
Saviour of men, if thou hast spoken truth,
Blesser of men, if men by pain are blest,
Scorner of darkness, star of Love and ruth,
Grey time-worn Phantom of the world’s unrest,
Now to the heights thou comest, and before thee
All gods that men have made are kneeling low,
Thy brother and sister stars in Heaven adore thee,
Lord of Eternal Woe!
And yet, O Father Christ, I seek not thee,
Though to thy spell I yearn and bend the knee;
Thou hast no power my empty heart to fill, 376
Thou hast no answer to my soul’s despair,
Thine eyes are holy but thy touch is chill,
Heaven still is homeless though thou shinest there!
MATER SERAPHICA.
Son of my Soul! light of my eyes!
Still with my blessing on thy brow,
Cast off thy burthen, and arise!
THE POET.
Holy of Holies, is it thou?
Thou livest, thou art not dead and cold!
Thy touch is warm, as ’twas of old!
And on thy face there shines anew
The Love Divine from which I grew!
O mother! all Eternity
Burns to one steadfast light in thee,
And all the tears of all Creation
Cease, to thy glad transfiguration!
SHE SPEAKS.
Lean thy head on my breast!
THE POET.
O the bliss, O the rest!
It is worth all the pain
To be with thee again!
SHE SPEAKS.
All thy sorrows are done,—
I am with thee, my son!
377
EPODE.
This is the Song the glad stars sung when first the Dream began,
This is the Dream the world first knew when God created Man,
This is the Voice of Man and God, blent (even as mine and thine!)
Where’er the soul of the Silence wakes to the Love which is Divine!
How should the Dream depart and die, since the Life is but its beam?
How should the Music fade away, since the Music is the Dream?
How should the Heavens forget their faith, and the Earth forget its prayer,
When the Heavens have plighted troth to Earth, and the Love Divine is there?
The Song we sing is the Starry Song that rings for an endless Day,
The endless Day is the Light that dwells on the Love that passeth away,
The Love that ever passeth away is the Love (like thine and mine!)
That evermore abideth on in the heart of the Love Divine!
[Notes:
v. 51, l. 1: The Greek quotation is from Luke 4:8 - “Get thee behind me, Satan!
v. 54, l. 1: From Aristophanes’ Frogs.
Alterations in the 1901 edition of The Complete Poetical Works of Robert Buchanan:
v. 6, l. 1: Sinners and sages
v. 61, l. 2: The golden Boyhead and the Fable, ]
379
L’ENVOI.
“I END AS I BEGAN.”
381
L’ENVOI.
I END as I began,
I think as first I thought;
Woe worth the world, if Man
Only of dust is wrought,
Only to dust must go
After his life’s brief span;—
I think so still, and so
I end as I began.
When first I learnt to know
The common strife of all,
My boy’s heart shared the woe
Of those who fail and fall,
For all the weak and poor
My tears of pity ran,—
And still they flow, ev’n more
Than when my life began!
I reverenced from the first
The Woman-Soul divine,
(Mother, that faith was nurst
On that brave breast of thine!)
Pointing the heavenward way,
The angel-guide of man,
She seems to me to-day
As when my faith began!
Revolter, sword in hand, 382
Friend of the weak and worn,
A boy, I took my stand
Among the Knights forlorn;
Eager against the Strong
To lead the martyr’d van,
I strive ’gainst Lust and Wrong
As when the fight began!
Never to bow and kneel
To any brazen Lie,—
To love the worst, to feel
The least is ev’n as I,—
To hold all fame unblest
That helps no struggling man,—
In this, as in the rest,
I end as I began!
The creeds I’ve cast away
Like husks of garner’d grain,
And of them all this day
Does never a creed remain;
Save this, blind faith that God
Evolves thro’ martyr’d Man:
Thus, the long journey trod,
I end as I began!
I dream’d when I began
I was not born to die,
And in my dreams I ran
From shining sky to sky;—
And still, now life grows cold 383
And I am grey and wan,
That infant’s Dream I hold,
And end as I began!
385
PROSE NOTE.
_____
THE resolution to fuse the various poems here printed into one homogeneous book, under one title, The New Rome, originated in a suggestion of Mr. Herbert Spencer, that the author should devote himself to a “satire on the times.”
“There is an immensity of matter calling for strong denunciation and display of white hot anger,” Mr. Spencer wrote, “and I think you are well capable of dealing with it. More especially I want some one who has the ability, with sufficient intensity of feeling, to denounce the miserable hypocrisy of our religious world, with its pretended observances of Christian principles, side by side with the abominations which it habitually assists and countenances. In our political life, too, there are multitudinous things which invite the severest castigation,—the morals of party strife, and the ways in which men are, with utter insincerity, sacrificing their convictions for the sake of political and social position.”
Urged by this great authority, I did attempt (as may be gathered from the introductory Dialogue of this book) to write a Satire, but I soon found that I lacked the necessary equipment, and was drifting into mere imitation of defunct masters. Moreover, I was only pretending to be in a passion. In point of fact, I had no “hate” in me; I was too disheartened and sad, and too sorry for poor Humanity. 386 The longer I lived, too, the more clearly I saw the hopelessness of mere denunciation. Rating priests and politicians for their inadequacy was simply repeating one of the very few blunders made by the gentlest and most benign of philanthropists. It was cursing the Barren Fig Tree!
Then the Devil came to my assistance, the Æon, whom I had found to be the spirit of supreme Love and Pity, the Soul of carnal Light and Knowledge, struggling to dispel the cosmic darkness, and curst by all the priests of all the creeds for so doing. Inspired by him, I proceeded to complete my picture of The New Rome in the series of detached poems which I have now printed. I had been taught by sharp experience that such poems were not wanted by the public, that all modern Society expected from its poets was a little verbal music and a great deal of acquiescence and patriotic sentiment. The critic clamoured for moral mannerisms and “beautiful ideas.” The middle classes wanted amiable platitudes, and the governing classes wanted to be let alone. For a verse-writer to be a thinker and a pioneer, in revolt against political and religious abominations, was regarded as an impertinence; his business was to twang the lyre or strum the banjo, leaving politics to the thieves and thinking to the philosophers. To tell the truth, or what seemed to me to be the truth, would please no one but my friend the Devil. Well, my diabolical instinct was too strong for me, and this book is another proof that I am past all ordinary salvation. If I must go to Hell for writing out my mature convictions, and for disregarding the Literary Licensing Authorities, why then (to quote John Mill) to Hell I will go. Better men and nobler poets have been 387 sent thither before me. They report, curiously enough, that Hell is now the only place where anybody believes in Heaven.
Some of the poems contained in this volume have already appeared in magazines and newspapers, e.g., “Justinian” in the Contemporary Review, “The New Buddha” in the North American Review, the section called “The Last Christians” in the Buchanan Ballads, and several of the brief topical pieces in the Star. The bulk of the work, however, is now published for the first time. The title is self-explanatory, but the close parallel between our own period and that of the Roman Empire in the time of Juvenal will be best appreciated by those familiar with the works of the great Roman satirist.
R. B.
[Note:
Further extracts from Herbert Spencer’s letter to Buchanan, which is quoted above, also appear in The Life and Letters of Herbert Spencer by David Duncan (London: Williams & Norgate, 1911. Cheap edition. First published: Methuen & Co., 1908).
pp. 307-308
... His concern about himself, when placed side by side with his concern for others, is seen to have its source in an intellectual dissatisfaction which gave him no rest until he had probed every question to the bottom, and a sympathetic impulse which compelled him whenever he saw anything wrong to try to put it right.
TO ROBERT BUCHANAN.
7 October, 1891.
Only yesterday did I finish The Outcast. . . . I read through very few books, so you may infer that I derived much pleasure. There are many passages of great beauty and many others of great vigour, and speaking at large, I admire greatly your fertile and varied expression. One thing in it which I like much is the way in which the story is presented in varied forms as well as under various aspects.
One thing I wish you had done, which I have often contended should be done, namely, make the mode of expression vary with the subject matter and feeling, rising from rhythmical prose up to the most concentrated lyric. Long poems to me almost always seem monotonous, and the monotony is in large measure due to the uniformity in the style and versification. In style you have in this poem been varied enough, but I should have liked to see greater variety of versification. As a matter of art, too, if you will allow me to make such a suggestion, I should say that there is a tendency to redundancy, especially in descriptive passages. Your fertile imagination I think needs controlling by a tighter rein. . . .
I wish you would presently undertake a satire on the times. There is an immensity of matter calling for strong denunciation and display of white-hot anger, and I think you are well capable of dealing with the signs of our times. More especially I want some one, who has the ability to do it with sufficient intensity of feeling, to denounce the miserable hypocrisy of our religious world with its pretended 308 observance of Christian principles side by side with the abominations which it continually commits and countenances abroad. It might very well be symbolized as “The Impenitent Thief,” and I should like you to nail it to the cross.
In our political life, too, there are multitudinous things which invite severest castigation—the morals of party strife and the way in which men are, with utter insincerity, sacrificing their convictions for the sake of political and social position, careless of the mischief which they are doing. I wish you would think this over.
Some weeks before this on reading Mr. Buchanan’s notice of “Justice,” he had written to the same effect.
I am glad you have taken occasion to denounce the hypocrisy of the Christian world; ceaseless in its professions of obedience to the principles of its creed, and daily trampling upon them in all parts of the world. I wish you would seize every occasion which occurs (and there are plenty of them) for holding up a mirror, and showing to those who call themselves Christians that they are morally pagans.]
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