The Ascent of Man Part 3

The wine-cup of pleasure red-sealing their doom.

Brief lives like bright rockets which, aridly glowing, Fall burnt out to ashes and reel to the tomb.

On, on, loud and louder the rough night was blowing, Shrill singing was mixed with strange cries of despair; And high overhead the black sky, redly glowing,

Loomed over the city one ominous glare, As dark yawning funnels from foul throats for ever Belched smoke grimly flaming, which outraged the air.

On, on, by long quays where the lamps in the river Were writhing like serpents that hiss ere they drown, And poplars with palsy seemed coldly to s.h.i.+ver,

On, on, to the bare desert end of the town.

When lo! the wind stopped like a heart that's ceased beating, And nought but the waters, white foaming and brown,

Were heard as to seaward their currents went fleeting.

But hark! o'er the lull breaks a desolate moan, Like a little lost lamb's that is timidly bleating

When, strayed from the shepherd, it staggers alone By tracks which the mountain streams shake with their thunder, Where death seems to gape from each boulder and stone.

I turned to the murmur: the clouds swept asunder And wheeled like white sea-gulls around the white moon; And the moon, like a white maid, looked down in mute wonder

On a boy whose wan eyelids were closed as in swoon.

Half nude on the ground he lay, wasted and chilly, And torn as with thorns and sharp brambles of June;

His hair, like a flame which at twilight burns stilly, In a halo of light round his temples was blown, And his tears fell like rain on a storm-stricken lily

Where he lay on the cold ground, abandoned, alone.

With heart moved towards him in wondering pity, I tenderly seized his thin hand with my own:

Crying, "Child, say how cam'st thou so far from the city?

How cam'st thou alone in such pitiful plight, All blood-stained thy feet, with rags squalid and gritty,

A waif by the wayside, unhoused in the night?"

Then rose he and lifted the bright locks, storm driven, Which flamed round his forehead and clouded his sight,

And mournful as meres on a moorland at even His blue eyes flashed wildly through tears as they fell.

Strange eyes full of horror, yet fuller of heaven,

Like eyes that from heaven have looked upon h.e.l.l.

The eyes of an angel whose depths show where, burning And lost in the pit, toss the angels that fell.

"Ah," wailed he in tones full of agonized yearning, Like the plaintive lament of a sickening dove On a surf-beaten sh.o.r.e, whence it sees past returning

The wings of the wild flock fast fading above, As they melt on the sky-line like foam-flakes in motion: So sadly he wailed, "I am Love! I am Love!

"Behold me cast out as weed spurned of the ocean, Half nude on the bare ground, and covered with scars I perish of cold here;" and, choked with emotion,

Gave a sob: at the low sob a shower of stars Broke shuddering from heaven, pale flaming, and fell Where the mid-city roared as with rumours of wars.

"Be these G.o.d's tears?" I cried, as my tears 'gan to well.

"Ah, Love, I have sought thee in temples and towers, In shrines where men pray, and in marts where they sell;

"In tapestried chambers made tropic with flowers, Where amber-haired women, soft breathing of spice, Lay languidly lapped in the gold-dropping showers

"Which gladdened and maddened their amorous eyes.

I have looked for thee vainly in churches where beaming The Saints glowed embalmed in a prism of dyes,

"Where wave over wave the rapt music went streaming With breakers of sound in full anthems elate.

I have asked, but none knew thee, or knew but thy seeming;

"A mask in thy likeness on high seats of state; And they bound it with gold, and they crowned it with glory, This thing they called love, which was bond slave to hate.

"And they bowed down before it with brown heads and h.o.a.ry, They wors.h.i.+pped it nightly, loud hymning its praise, While out in the cold blast, none heeding its story,

"Love staggers, an outcast, with l.u.s.t in its place."

Love s.h.i.+vered and sighed like a reed that is shaken, And lifting his hunger-nipped face to my face:

"Nay, if of the world I must needs die forsaken, Say thou wilt not leave me to dearth and despair.

To thy heart, to thy home, let the exile be taken,

"And feed me and shelter----" "Where, outcast, ah, where?

Like thee I am homeless and spurned of all mortals; The House of my fathers yawns wide to the air.

"Stalks desolation across the void portals, Hope lies aghast on the ruinous floor, The halls that were thronged once with star-browed immortals,

"With G.o.ds statue-still o'er the world-whirr and roar, With fauns of the forest and nymphs of the river, Are cleft as if lightning had struck to their core.

"The luminous ceilings, where soaring for ever Dim hosts of plumed angels smoked up to the sky, With G.o.d-litten faces that yearned to the giver

"As vapours of morning the sun draws on high, Now ravaged with rain hear the hollow winds whistle Through rifts in the rafters which echo their cry.

"Blest walls that were vowed to the Virgin now bristle With weeds of sick scarlet and plague-spotted moss, And stained on the ground, choked with thorn and rank thistle,

"Rots a worm-eaten Christ on a mouldering Cross.

From the House of my fathers, distraught, broken-hearted, With a pang of immense, irredeemable loss,

"On my wearying pilgrimage blindly I started To seek thee, oh Love, in high places and low, And instead of the glories for ever departed,

"To warm my starved life in thy mightier glow.

For I deemed thee a Presence ringed round with all splendour, With a sceptre in hand and a crown on thy brow;

"And, behold, thou art helpless--most helpless to tender Thy service to others, who needest their care.

Yea, now that I find thee a weak child and slender,

"Exposed to the blast of the merciless air, Like a lamb that is shorn, like a leaf that is shaken, What, Love, now is left but to die in despair?

"For Death is the mother of all the forsaken, The grave a strait bed where she rocks them to rest, And sleep, from whose silence they never shall waken,

"The balm of oblivion she sheds on their breast."

Then I seized him and led to the brink of the river, Where two storm-beaten seagulls were fluttering west,