Songs of Two Nations Part 4

IX

THE AUGURS

Lay the corpse out on the altar; bid the elect Slaves clear the ways of service spiritual, Sweep clean the stalled soul's serviceable stall, Ere the chief priest's dismantling hands detect The ulcerous flesh of faith all scaled and specked Beneath the bandages that hid it all, And with sharp edgetools oec.u.menical The leprous carcases of creeds dissect.

As on the night ere Brutus grew divine The sick-souled augurs found their ox or swine Heartless; so now too by their after art In the same Rome, at an uncleaner shrine, Limb from rank limb, and putrid part from part, They carve the corpse--a beast without a heart.

X

A COUNSEL

O strong Republic of the n.o.bler years Whose white feet s.h.i.+ne beside time's fairer flood That shall flow on the clearer for our blood Now shed, and the less brackish for our tears; When time and truth have put out hopes and fears With cert.i.tude, and love has burst the bud, If these whose powers then down the wind shall scud Still live to feel thee smite their eyes and ears, When thy foot's tread hath crushed their crowns and creeds, Care thou not then to crush the beast that bleeds, The snake whose belly cleaveth to the sod, Nor set thine heel on men as on their deeds; But let the worm Napoleon crawl untrod, Nor grant Mastai the gallows of his G.o.d.

1869.

XI

THE MODERATES

_Virtutem videant intabescantque relicta_.

She stood before her traitors bound and bare, Clothed with her wounds and with her naked shame As with a weed of fiery tears and flame, Their mother-land, their common weal and care, And they turned from her and denied, and sware They did not know this woman nor her name.

And they took truce with tyrants and grew tame, And gathered up cast crowns and creeds to wear, And rags and shards regilded. Then she took In her bruised hands their broken pledge, and eyed These men so late so loud upon her side With one inevitable and tearless look, That they might see her face whom they forsook; And they beheld what they had left, and died.

February 1870.

XII

INTERCESSION

_Ave Caesar Imperator, moriturum te saluto._

1

O Death, a little more, and then the worm; A little longer, O Death, a little yet, Before the grave gape and the grave-worm fret; Before the sanguine-spotted hand infirm Be rottenness, and that foul brain, the germ Of all ill things and thoughts, be stopped and set; A little while, O Death, ere he forget, A small s.p.a.ce more of life, a little term; A little longer ere he and thou be met, Ere in that hand that fed thee to thy mind The poison-cup of life be overset; A little respite of disastrous breath, Till the soul lift up her lost eyes, and find Nor G.o.d nor help nor hope, but thee, O Death.

2

Shall a man die before his dying day, Death? and for him though the utter day be nigh, Not yet, not yet we give him leave to die; We give him grace not yet that men should say He is dead, wiped out, perished and past away.

Till the last bitterness of life go by, Thou shalt not slay him; till those last dregs run dry, O thou last lord of life! thou shalt not slay.

Let the lips live a little while and lie, The hand a little, and falter, and fail of strength, And the soul shudder and sicken at the sky; Yea, let him live, though G.o.d nor man would let Save for the curse' sake; then at bitter length, Lord, will we yield him to thee, but not yet.

3

Hath he not deeds to do and days to see Yet ere the day that is to see him dead?

Beats there no brain yet in the poisonous head, Throbs there no treason? if no such thing there be, If no such thought, surely this is not he.

Look to the hands then; are the hands not red?

What are the shadows about this man's bed?

Death, was not this the cupbearer to thee?

Nay, let him live then, till in this life's stead Even he shall pray for that thou hast to give; Till seeing his hopes and not his memories fled Even he shall cry upon thee a bitter cry, That life is worse than death; then let him live, Till death seem worse than life; then let him die.

4

O watcher at the guardless gate of kings, O doorkeeper that serving at their feast Hast in thine hand their doomsday drink, and seest With eyeless sight the soul of unseen things; Thou in whose ear the dumb time coming sings, Death, priest and king that makest of king and priest A name, a dream, a less thing than the least, Hover awhile above him with closed wings, Till the coiled soul, an evil snake-shaped beast, Eat its base bodily lair of flesh away; If haply, or ever its cursed life have ceased, Or ever thy cold hands cover his head From sight of France and freedom and broad day, He may see these and wither and be dead.

Paris: September 1869.

XIII

THE SAVIOUR OF SOCIETY

1

O son of man, but of what man who knows?

That broughtest healing on thy leathern wings To priests, and under them didst gather kings, And madest friends to thee of all man's foes; Before thine incarnation, the tale goes, Thy virgin mother, pure of sensual stings, Communed by night with angels of chaste things, And, full of grace, untimely felt the throes Of motherhood upon her, and believed The obscure annunciation made when late A raven-feathered raven-throated dove Croaked salutation to the mother of love Whose misconception was immaculate, And when her time was come she misconceived.

2

Thine incarnation was upon this wise, Saviour; and out of east and west were led To thy foul cradle by thy planet red Shepherds of souls that feed their sheep with lies Till the utter soul die as the body dies, And the wise men that ask but to be fed Though the hot shambles be their board and bed And sleep on any dunghill shut their eyes, So they lie warm and fatten in the mire: And the high priest enthroned yet in thy name, Judas, baptised thee with men's blood for hire; And now thou hangest nailed to thine own shame In sight of all time, but while heaven has flame Shalt find no resurrection from h.e.l.l-fire.

December 1869.

XIV

MENTANA: SECOND ANNIVERSARY

Est-ce qu'il n'est pas temps que la foudre se prouve, Cieux profonds, en broyant ce chien, fils de la louve?