The Lord of the Sea Part 53

"Thou scrawled'st 'I mean' in rocks and men, in trends and streams; the prophets raved, to sages' ken Thou shewed'st dreams; Thou shrouded'st dark the How and When in starry schemes, and trends and streams."

"The jungles blare, the glebe-lands low and bleat for Thee; the generations rage and go, agaze for Thee; creation travaileth in woe, with groans for Thee, agaze for Thee."

"Adonai, come! with cras.h.i.+ng rote of chariots come; or moonlight-mild, alone, afloat, Messussah, come; with floods of lutes, or thundering throat, but come! O, come! Messussah come."

"The Arctics hawk-up their haunted heart, and raucous, spue; and north-winds, wawling calls, outstart, to droop anew; the clouds like scouts updart, depart, and truceless do, and droop anew."

"How long! They breeds have waited fain what sibyls ween; Thou scribbled'st in their secret brain 'I scheme; I mean'; the constellations stray and strain: Break out! be seen what sibyls ween".

"The pampas stamp and, nomad, low, reposeless, lone; raging the generations trow, and drudge, and drown; a anguished glance this latter woe throws to Thy Throne, reposeless, lone"...

Before them, above them, as they sang stood--a man.

Hard by a wall of that Moslem mosque, once a chapel which marked the supposed spot of "the Ascension", he stood, in an att.i.tude of suspense, astonishment, his body half-twisted--Spinoza.

An instant, and he was aware of Jerusalem lying "as a city that is compact" before him--not to the east--to the west! Yet another instant, and he realized that the whole tract of humanity--man, woman, child--was on its face before him.

A faintness overcame him, shame, dismay; then, his blood now rus.h.i.+ng to his brow, his mouth sent out the pa.s.sionate shout:

"Not to _me!_ Not to _me! I am the Lord of the Sea....!_"

But when the people heard this, saw him, knew him, they remained in adoration....

By a special s.h.i.+p they had sent him a pet.i.tion to come; here he was weeks sooner than s.h.i.+p or airs.h.i.+p could have conveyed him: and they took him as the answer to their supplication, the answer which Heaven willed, in the sure and certain faith that he would cure their ache, and the ache of the world.

An acclamation like the voice of many waters arose and rolled below him, and on the bosom of that tumult he moved among them into the Holy City, as darkness covered all.

He took the t.i.tle of Shophet, or Judge, and for sixty years ruled over Israel.

It has been said that the initial "pull" over other nations possessed by Israel (in respect of the sea-forts remaining in the Gulf of Aden, Yellow Sea, Western Pacific) was the cause of his rise as of some thrice-ardent Star of the Morning and asterisk dancing in the dawn's dark: for the other nations, timorous of one another, made never an attempt to build; but, for our share, we insist that anyway Judaea was bound to become what she became--indeed, sea-rent after the Regency collapse was decreased at the three forts, and suddenly in the twelfth year of his judges.h.i.+p Spinoza ordered its stoppage.

By which period the University of Jerusalem had become the chief nerve-centre of the world's research and upward effort: for in creating a "civilized State"--"proud and happy"--Spinoza did it with that spinning rapidity of the modernization of j.a.pan, so that in whatever respects it was not a question of months, it was a question of not many years.

For, as in the soul of the Jewish people abode as before that genius for righteousness which wrote the Bible, and as the soul of righteousness lies even in this; Thou shalt not steal, therefore Israel with some little pain attained to this: whereupon with startling emphasis was brought to pa.s.s that statement: "Righteousness exalteth a nation".

For the promise says: "I will put a new spirit within them"; and this--very rapidly--found fulfilment.

Whereupon others fast, faster, found fulfilment, so that a stale and bitter word was in Pall Mall, saying: "The lot of them seem to have formed themselves into a syndicate to run the prophecies".

Again the promise has it: "I shall be with them"; and again: "They shall be a cleansed nation"; and again: "They shall fear Him".

The transformation was rapid for the reason that it was natural, seeing that it had been Europe only that, like a Circe, had bewitched them into b.e.a.s.t.i.a.l shapes, "sharks", and "bulls", and "bears", mediaeval Jews, for example, having been debarred from every pursuit save commerce: so that Shylock was obliged to turn into a Venetian; and, in ceasing to be a Hebrew, became more Venetian than the Venetians, for the reason that he had more brains, ready to beat them at any game they cared to mention; but the genuine self of Shylock was a vine-dresser or sandal-maker, as Hillel was a wood-chopper, David a shepherd, Amos a fig-gatherer, Saul an a.s.s-driver, Rabbi Ben Zakkai a sail-maker, Paul a tent-maker: so that the return to simplicity and honesty was quickly accomplished.

And now, that done, behold a wonder: at the whirling of a wand the swine of Circe converted back to biped man; whereupon without fail whatsoever he does it shall astonis.h.i.+ngly prosper: that succession of wits, seers, savants, Heines, Einsteins, inspired mouths, pens of iridium, brushes from the archangel's plumage, discoveries, new Americas, elations, sensations--in therapeutics--in aero-nautics-beyond-the-atmosphere--in the powers involved in sub-atoms--in the powers, latent till now, involved in soul...for now each of millions was free to think, free to manifest his own particular luck and knack in discovery, having a country, foothold, not hovering like Noah's dove, urging still the purposeless wing not to pitch into nowhere: for the promise says: "Ye shall not sow and another reap, ye shall not plant and another garner", but in a land of gentlemen ye shall live, as it were to swellings of music, while a n.o.ble height grows upon your smooth foreheads, and the sum-total of the blending movements of your bodies and brains shall, as seen from heaven, appear the minuet of a people.

Within forty years mighty works had been done: forts, irrigation of deserts, reclamation of the Dead Sea, pa.s.sionate temples clapped to the lower clouds about the perpetual lamp, and that baroque Art of the Orient which at the Judges progresses in Summer through the country would draw mult.i.tudes of foreigners to gape at so great pomp, at Corinthian cities full of grace and riches which had arisen to crown with many crowns that plain of Mesopotamia, and where desolate Tyre had mourned her purples, and old Tadmor in the Wilderness (Palmyra) had sat in dirt; to gape, too, at a Jerusalem which in twenty years had crossed the Valley of Jehosophat, and might really then be called "the Golden", a purged Babylon, a London burnt to ashes and rebuilt somewhere else: for the Shophet proved true Duke and Leader, born mountaineer, climbing from pinnacle to wild pinnacle, becking his people after him with many a meaningful gesture skyward and suggesting smile; and Israel followed his thrilling way, hearing always the Excelsior of his calling as it were the voice direct of Heaven. What no merits of his could give, the land which he had chosen gave, Mesopotamia pretty soon proving herself a treasury of mineral riches: here is bdellium and the onyx-stone; and where the streaming Pison, dawdling, draws his twine of waters over that happy valley of Havilah, there is gold--h.o.a.rd stored from before the Eozoic, as misers bury for their heirs, in mine and friable quarry, rollick rain: "and the gold of _that_ land is good".

Here was not merely progress, but progress at increasing speed--acceleration--finally resembling flight, as of eagle or phoenix, eye fixed on the sun: Tyre by the fiftieth year having grown into the biggest of ports, her quays unloading 6,700,000 tons a year, mart of tangled masts, felucca, galiot, junk, cargoes of Tars.h.i.+sh and the Isles, Levantine stuffs, spice from the Southern Sea; while Jerusalem had grown into the recognized school of the wealthier youth of Europe, Asia and America.

For it says: "The Kings of the earth shall bring their honour and glory unto her"; and again: "She shall reign gloriously".

And not Israel alone reaped the fruits of his own fine weather, but his dews fell wide. For it says: "They shall be as dew from the Lord"; and again: "They shall fill the face of the earth with fruit"; and again: "All nations shall call them blessed".

And so it was: for the example of Israel, his suasive charm, proved compelling as suns.h.i.+ne to shoots, so that that heart of Spinoza lived to see the spectacle of a whole world deserting the gory path of Rome to go up into those uplands of mildness and gleefulness whither invites the smile of that lily Galilean.

The mission of "unbelieving" Israel was to convert Christendom to Christianity: and this he did.

We watch the Judge coming down the Mount of Olives in the midst of a jubilant throng all involved in a noise of timbrels and instruments of music: for his life was simple and one with the life of his people.

It is evening, all the west yonder a bewitched Kingdom charm-embathed, wherein a barge of Venus bethronged with loves and roses voyages on a sea of dalliance en route for the last Beatific--the last, the seventh, Heaven--whitherward gads all a pilgrim-swarm of enraptured spirits, all, all thitherward, Paul caught up with clothes aflaunt, and soaring eagle, Enoch transfigured, green hippogriff, hop of squatted frog; and thitherward trots with blinkings, bleating, the Ram of the Golden Fleece, the flagrant flamingos flap and go.

The Judge, h.o.a.ry-headed now, in a robe of cloth-of-silver which rippled, had but now got home from a Pilgrimage; and the time was Simcath Torah, the Rejoicing of the Law, and the carrying of Candles, in the month.

Tishri: silver his robe and silver his hair that hung round a brown and puckered skin, but silvery, too, his every tooth still, and his vigour good; and, as down the Mount of Olives he stepped, he saw Mount Sion and that Temple that he had piled, across whose roughened frontispiece of gold glowed in a bow, bold like the rainbow's, in characters of blazing sapphire and chrysoprase, that inscription:

"Y'HOVAH B'KOKMAR YSAD ARETS, CONEN SHAMAIM B'THBUNAH"

and, as he saw it, lo, buoyancy caught the old man's feet: for the cymballing and music had grown very fiercely hot, so that all the congregation reeled in dance; and as the la.s.so drops round the astonished prairie-horse and draws asprawl, so dancing caught and drew his foot, and he danced.

And his wife Rebecca, mother of many sons, prying from a window-lattice, writhed odd the eyebrows of the cynic, one beyond the other: for not with foot alone he danced, but his wrung belly laboured in that travail of Orient dancing; and she turned and smiled to Margaret Loveday a turned-down smile, implying shrug, implying girding, her eyelids lowered, yet indulgent of his nature's rage.

And not with foot and abdomen alone he danced, but his two balancing palms danced to the beat of the heat of the music's heart; and with heel and toe he danced. And as he danced, he sang, all apant, filling up with nonsense-sounds when the rhythm's imperative tramp outran his improvisation; and singing he danced, and dancing sang: with abdomen and arms he danced, and with toe and heel he danced.

And dancing he sang:

My hands, be dancing to G.o.d, your Guide, And peal my pipes, and riot my feet, and writhe to His Heat, my tripes.

So fair!

With Rum-te-te-Tum te Tum, And Rum and Tum, and Rum-te-te-Tum, and Rum-te-te-Tum, te Tum.

So fair!

This freehold for seraphs free!

That flame! those skies!

and Blest is Her Name, and blest are my eyes, that see.

I'll dance, I'll dance like a ram, for fun, I'll smack the sun, I'll dance at the breeze I'll dance till I breed a son.

For Thou!

Thou bringest Thine ends to pa.s.s: This hump so high, this lump and her sigh, Thou lead'st through the Nee- dle's Eye.

'Tis well the saurians sprawled, and roared!

'Tis well Thou art!

and well that Thou wast, and well when at last they soared!

And well, O well that Thou art to be When seraph hearts will laugh by this brook, and break for the love of Thee.

Thy years shall still by increase te Tum, And dance and dance, With Rum-te-te-Tum....

so, singing, he danced, and, dancing, sang; and their sounds grew faint; and they entered into the City of Glory, and their sounds failed....

They took him for the Sent of Heaven, nor did the results of his glorious reign gainsay such a notion: the good Loveday, indeed, had the agreeable fancy that our greatest are really One, who eternally runs the circle of incarnation after incarnation from h.o.a.ry old ages till now--the Ancient of Days, his hair white like wool, quietly turning up anew when the time yearns, and men are near to yield to the enemy: Proteus his name, and ever the shape he takes is strange, unexpected, yet ever sharing the same three traits of vision, rage and generousness--the Slayer of the Giant--Arthur come back--the Messenger of the Covenant--the genius of our species--Jesus the Oft-Born.