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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="/comments.php?id=536535" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>Satan Absolved</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=536535" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">(In the antechamber of Heaven. Satan walks alone. Angels in groups conversing.)<br>Satan. To--day is the Lord's ``day.'' Once more on His good pleasure<br>I, the Heresiarch, wait and pace these halls at leisure<br>Among the Orthodox, the unfallen Sons of God.<br>How sweet in truth Heaven is, its floors of sandal wood,<br>Its old--world furniture, its linen long in press,<br>Its incense, mummeries, flowers, its scent of holiness!<br>Each house has its own smell. The smell of Heaven to me<br>Intoxicates and haunts,--and hurts. Who would not be<br>God's liveried servant here, the slave of His behest,<br>Rather than reign outside? I like good things the best,<br>Fair things, things innocent; and gladly, if He willed,<br>Would enter His Saints' kingdom--even as a little child.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=536535" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">[Laughs. I have come to make my peace, to crave a full amaun,<br>Peace, pardon, reconcilement, truce to our daggers--drawn,<br>Which have so long distraught the fair wise Universe,<br>An end to my rebellion and the mortal curse<br>Of always evil--doing. He will mayhap agree<br>I was less wholly wrong about Humanity<br>The day I dared to warn His wisdom of that flaw.<br>It was at least the truth, the whole truth, I foresaw<br>When He must needs create that simian ``in His own<br>Image and likeness.'' Faugh! the unseemly carrion!<br>I claim a new revision and with proofs in hand,<br>No Job now in my path to foil me and withstand.<br>Oh, I will serve Him well! <br>[Certain Angels approach. But who are these that come<br>With their grieved faces pale and eyes of martyrdom?<br>Not our good Sons of God? They stop, gesticulate,<br>Argue apart, some weep,--weep, here within Heaven's gate!<br>Sob almost in God's sight! ay, real salt human tears,<br>Such as no Spirit wept these thrice three thousand years.<br>The last shed were my own, that night of reprobation<br>When I unsheathed my sword and headed the lost nation.<br>Since then not one of them has spoken above his breath<br>Or whispered in these courts one word of life or death<br>Displeasing to the Lord. No Seraph of them all,<br>Save I this day each year, has dared to cross Heaven's hall<br>And give voice to ill news, an unwelcome truth to Him.<br>Not Michael's self hath dared, prince of the Seraphim.<br>Yet all now wail aloud.--What ails ye, brethren? Speak!<br>Are ye too in rebellion? Angels. Satan, no. But weak<br>With our long earthly toil, the unthankful care of Man.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=536535" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Satan. Ye have in truth good cause. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=536535" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Angels. And we would know God's plan,<br>His true thought for the world, the wherefore and the why<br>Of His long patience mocked, His name in jeopardy.<br>We have no heart to serve without instructions new.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=536535" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Satan. Ye have made a late discovery.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=536535" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Angels. There is no rain, no dew,<br>No watering of God's grace that can make green Man's heart,<br>Or draw him nearer Heaven to play a godlier part.<br>Our service has grown vain. We have no rest nor sleep;<br>The Earth's cry is too loud.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=536535" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Satan. Ye have all cause to weep<br>Since you depend on Man. I told it and foretold.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=536535" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Angels. Truly thou didst.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=536535" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Satan. Dear fools! But have ye heart to hold<br>Such plaint before the Lord, to apprise Him of this thing<br>In its full naked fact and call your reckoning?</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=536535" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Angels. We dare not face His frown. He lives in ignorance.<br>His pride is in His Earth. If He but looks askance<br>We tremble and grow dumb.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=536535" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Satan. And ye will bear it then?</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=536535" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Angels. We dare not grieve His peace. He loves this race of men.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=536535" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Satan. The truth should hardly grieve.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=536535" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Angels. He would count it us for pride.<br>He holds Mankind redeemed, since His Son stooped and died.<br>We dare not venture.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=536535" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Satan. See, I have less than you to lose.<br>Give me your brief.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=536535" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Angels. Ay, speak. Thee He will not refuse.<br>Mayhap thou shalt persuade Him.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=536535" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Satan. And withal find grace.<br>The Lord is a just God. He will rejudge this case,<br>Ay, haply, even mine. O glorious occasion!<br>To champion Heaven's whole right without shift or evasion<br>And plead the Angels' cause! Take courage, my sad heart,<br>Thine hour hath come to thee, to play this worthiest part<br>And prove thy right, thine too, to Heaven's moralities,<br>Not worse than these that wait, only alas more wise!</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=536535" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Angels. Hush! Silence! The Lord God!</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=536535" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">(Entereth the Lord God, to whom the Angels minister. He taketh His seat upon the throne.)<br>The Lord God. Thank ye, My servants all.<br>Thank ye, good Seraphim. To all and several,<br>Sons of the House, God's blessing</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=536535" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">(aside) who ne'er gave God pain.<br>Impeccable white Spirits, tell Me once again<br>How goeth it with the World, My ordered Universe,<br>My Powers and Dominations? Michael, thou, rehearse<br>The glory of the Heavens. Tell Me, star and star,<br>Do they still sing together in their spheres afar?<br>Have they their speech, their language? Are their voices heard?</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=536535" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Michael. All's well with the World. Each morn, as bird to answering bird,<br>The Stars shout in Thy glory praise unchanged yet new.<br>They magnify Thy name.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=536535" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">The Lord God. Truth's self were else untrue.<br>Time needs be optimist nor foul its own abode.<br>Else were Creation mocked<br>(aside)and haply I not God.<br>In sooth all's well with the World. And thou My Raphael,<br>How fare the Spirit hosts? Say, is thy world, too, well?</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=536535" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Raphael. All's well with the World. We stand, as aye, obedient.<br>We have no thought but Thee, no asking, no intent<br>More than to laud and worship, O most merciful,<br>Being of those that wait.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=536535" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Satan<br>(aside). The contemplative rule<br>Out--ministers the active. These have right to boast,<br>Who stand aye in His presence, beyond the Angel host.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=536535" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">The Lord God. And none of ye grow weary?</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=536535" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Raphael. Nay in truth.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=536535" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">The Lord God. Not one?</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=536535" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Satan<br>(aside). God is a jealous God. He doubteth them.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=536535" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Raphael. Nay, none.<br>We are not as the Angels.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=536535" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">The Lord God. These have their devoirs,<br>The search, the novelty. Ye drowse here in your choirs,<br>Sleep--walkers all,--while these, glad messengers, go forth<br>Upon new joyous errands, Earthwards, South and North,<br>To visit men and cities. What is strange as Man?<br>What fair as his green Globe in all Creation's plan?<br>What ordered as his march of life, of mind, of will?<br>What subtle as his conscience set at grips with ill?<br>Their service needs no sleep who guide Man's destinies!</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=536535" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">(After a pause). Speak, Gabriel, thou the last. Is Man grown grand andwise?<br>Hath he his place on Earth, prince of Time's fashionings,<br>Noblest and fairest found, the roof and crown of things?<br>Is the World joyful all in his most perfect joy?<br>Hath the good triumphed, tell, o'er pain and Time's annoy,<br>Since Our Son died, who taught the way of perfect peace?<br>Thou knowest it how I love these dear Humanities.<br>Is all quite well with Man?</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=536535" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Gabriel. All's well with the World, ay well.<br>All's well enough with Man.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=536535" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Satan<br>(aside). Alas, poor Gabriel.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=536535" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">The Lord God. How meanest thou ``enough''? Man holdeth then Earth's seat,<br>Master of living things. He mild is and discreet,<br>Supreme in My Son's peace. The Earth is comforted<br>With its long rest from toil, nor goeth aught in dread,<br>Seeing all wars have ceased, the mad wars of old time.<br>The lion and the lamb lie down in every clime.<br>There is no strife for gold, for place, for dignities,<br>All holding My Son's creed! The last fool hath grown wise.<br>He hath renounced his gods, the things of wood and stone!</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=536535" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Gabriel. The Christian name prevaileth. Its dominion<br>Groweth in all the land. From Candia to Cathay<br>The fear of Christ is spread, and wide through Africa.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=536535" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">The Lord God. The fear? And not the love?</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=536535" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Gabriel. Who knoweth Man's heart? All bow,<br>And all proclaim His might. The manner and the how<br>It were less safe to argue, since some frailties be.<br>We take the outward act to prove conformity.<br>All's well enough with Man--most well with Christendom.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=536535" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">The Lord God. Again thou sayest ``enough.'' How fareth it in Rome?<br>Hath My vicegerent rest?</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=536535" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Gabriel. He sitteth as of old<br>Enthroned in Peter's chair with glories manifold.<br>He sang a mass this morning and I heard his prayer.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=536535" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">The Lord God. For Peace?</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=536535" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Gabriel. And Power on Earth.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=536535" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">The Lord God. For Power? Hath he no care<br>Other than his temporal rule?</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=536535" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Gabriel. He hath his pastime too.<br>He is Italian born and doeth as these do,<br>He is happy uccellando, deeming it no sin<br>In his own Vatican, its garden walls within,<br>Watching his fowling--nets. ``I watch and pray,'' saith he:<br>``Vigilate et orate.''</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=536535" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Satan<br>(aside). O simplicity!</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=536535" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">The Lord God. And are the Kings with him? Do all pray with one breath?</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=536535" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Gabriel. Some priests and poor I saw,--</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=536535" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Satan<br>(aside). The poor he always hath.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=536535" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Gabriel His guards, his chamberlains.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=536535" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">The Lord God. The mighty ones, the proud,<br>Do they not kneel together daily in one crowd?<br>Have they no common counsel?</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=536535" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Gabriel. Kings have their own needs,<br>Demanding separate service.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=536535" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Satan<br>(aside). Ay, and their own creeds.<br>One cause alone combines them, and one service--mine.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=536535" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">The Lord God Thou sayest?</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=536535" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Gabriel. Man still is Man.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=536535" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">The Lord God. We did redeem his line<br>And crown him with new worship. In the ancient days<br>His was a stubborn neck. But now he hath found grace,<br>Being born anew. His gods he hath renounced, sayest thou?<br>He worshippeth the Christ? What more?</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=536535" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Gabriel. Nay, 'tis enow.<br>He is justified by faith. He hath no fear of Hell<br>Since he hath won Thy grace. All's well with Man,--most well.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=536535" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">The Lord God. ``All's well!'' The fair phrase wearieth. It hath a new false ring.<br>Truce, Gabriel, to thy word--fence. Mark my questioning.<br>Or rather no--not thou, blest Angel of all good,<br>Herald of God's glad tidings to a world subdued,<br>Thou lover tried of Man. I will not question thee,<br>Lest I should tempt too sore and thou lie cravenly.<br>Is there no other here, no drudge, to do that task<br>And lay the secret bare, the face behind the mask?<br>One with a soul less white, who loveth less, nay hates;<br>One fit for a sad part, the Devil's advocate's;<br>One who some wrong hath done, or hath been o'erborne of ill,<br>And so hath his tongue loosed? O for a Soul with will!<br>O for one hour of Satan!</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=536535" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Satan. He is here, Lord God,<br>Ready to speak all truths to Thy face, even ``Ichabod,<br>Thy glory is departed,'' were that truth.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=536535" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">The Lord God. Thou? Here?</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=536535" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Satan. A suppliant for Thy pardon, and in love, not fear,<br>One who Thou knowest doth love Thee, ay, and more than these.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=536535" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">The Lord God. That word was Peter's once.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=536535" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Satan. I speak no flatteries;<br>Nor shall I Thee deny for this man nor that maid,<br>Nor for the cock that crew.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=536535" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">The Lord God. Thou shalt not be gainsaid.<br>I grant thee audience. Speak.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=536535" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Satan. Alone?</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=536535" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">The Lord God. 'Twere best alone,<br>Angels, ye are dismissed.<br>(The Angels depart.)Good Satan, now say on.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=536535" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Satan<br>(alone with The Lord God). Omnipotent Lord God! Thou knowest all. I speak<br>Only as Thy poor echo, faltering with words weak,<br>A far--off broken sound, yet haply not unheard.<br>Thou knowest the Worlds Thou madest, and Thine own high word<br>Declaring they were good. Good were they in all sooth<br>The mighty Globes Thou mouldedst in the World's fair youth,<br>Launched silent through the void, evolving force and light.<br>Thou gatheredst in Thy hand's grasp shards of the Infinite<br>And churnedst them to Matter; Space concentrated,<br>Great, glorious, everlasting. The Stars leaped and fled,<br>As hounds, in their young strength. Yet might they not withdraw<br>From Thy hand's leash and bond. Thou chainedst them with law.<br>They did not sin, those Stars, change face, wax proud, rebel.<br>Nay, they were slaves to Thee, things incorruptible.<br>I might not tempt them from Thee.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=536535" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">The Lord God. And the reason?</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=536535" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Satan. Hear.<br>Thou gavest them no Mind, no sensual atmosphere,<br>Who wert Thyself their Soul. Though thou should drowse for aye,<br>They should not swerve, nor flout Thee, nor abjure Thy way,<br>Not by a hair's breadth, Lord.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=536535" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">The Lord God. Thou witnessest for good.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=536535" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Satan. I testify for truth. In all that solitude<br>Of spheres involved with spheres, of prodigal force set free,<br>There hath been no voice untrue, no tongue to disagree,<br>No traitor thought to wound with less than perfect word.<br>Such was Thy first Creation. I am Thy witness, Lord.<br>'Twas worthy of Thyself.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=536535" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">The Lord God. And of the second?</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=536535" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Satan. Stop.<br>How shall I speak of it unless Thou give me hope;<br>I who its child once was, though daring to rebel;<br>I who Thine outcast am, the banished thief of Hell,<br>Thy too long reprobate? Thou didst create to Thee<br>A world of happy Spirits for Thy company,<br>For Thy delight and solace, as being too weary grown<br>Of Thy sole loneliness. 'Twas ill to be alone.<br>And Thou didst make us pure, as Thou Thyself art pure.<br>Yet was there seed of ill. What Spirit may endure<br>The friction of the Spirit? Where two are, Strife is.<br>Thou gavest us Mind, Thought, Will; all snares to happiness.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=536535" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">The Lord God. Unhappy blinded one! How sinnedst thou? Reveal.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=536535" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Satan. Lord, through my too great love, through my excess of zeal.<br>Listen. Thy third Creation. . . .</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=536535" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">The Lord God. Ha! The Earth? Speak plain.<br>Now will I half forgive thee. What of the Earth, of men?<br>Was that not then the best, the noblest of the three?</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=536535" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Satan. Ah, glorious Lord God! Thou hadst Infinity<br>From which to choose Thy plan. This plan, no less than those,<br>Was noble in conception, when its vision rose<br>Before Thee in Thy dreams. Thou deemedst to endow<br>Time with a great new wonder, wonderful as Thou,<br>Matter made sensitive, informed with Life, with Soul.<br>It grieved Thee the Stars knew not. Thou couldst not cajole<br>Their music into tears, their beauty to full praise.<br>Thou askedst one made conscious of Thy works and ways,<br>One dowered with sense and passion, which should feel and move<br>And weep with Thee and laugh, one that, alas, should love.<br>Thus didst Thou mould the Earth. We Spirits, wondering, eyed<br>Thy new--born fleshly things, Thy Matter deified.<br>We saw the sea take life, its myriad forms all fair.<br>We saw the creeping things, the dragons of the air,<br>The birds, the four--foot beasts, all beautiful, all strong,<br>All brimming o'er with joyance, new green woods among,<br>Twice glorious in their lives. And we, who were but spirit,<br>Envied their lusty lot, their duplicated merit,<br>Their feet, their eyes, their wings, their physical desires,<br>The anger of their voices, the fierce sexual fires<br>Which lit their sentient limbs and joined them heart to heart,<br>Their power to act, to feel, all that corporeal part<br>Which is the truth of love and giveth the breathing thing<br>The wonder of its beauty incarnate in Spring.<br>What was there, Lord, in Heaven comparable with this,<br>The mother beast with her young? Not even Thy happiness,<br>Lord of the Universe! What beautiful, what bold,<br>What passionate as she? She doth not chide nor scold<br>When at her dugs he mumbleth. Nay, the milk she giveth<br>Is as a Sacrament, the power by which he liveth<br>A double life with hers. And they two in one day<br>Know more of perfect joy than we, poor Spirits, may<br>In our eternity of sober loneliness.<br>This was the thing we saw, and praised Thee and did bless.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=536535" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">The Lord God. Where then did the fault lie? Thou witnessest again.<br>Was it because of Death, Life's complement,--or Pain,<br>That thou didst loose thy pride to question of My will?</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=536535" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Satan. Nay, Lord, Thou knowest the truth. These evils are not ill.<br>They do but prove Thy wisdom. All that lives must perish,<br>Else were the life at charge, the bodily fires they cherish,<br>Accumulating ills. The creatures Thou didst make<br>Sink when their day is done. They slough time like the snake<br>How many hundred sunsets? Yet night comes for rest,<br>And they awake no more,--and sleep,--and it is best.<br>What, Lord, would I not give to shift my cares and lie<br>Enfolded in Time's arms, stone--dead, eternally?<br>No. 'Twas not Death, nor Pain; Pain the true salt of pleasure,<br>The condiment that stings and teaches each his measure,<br>The limit of his strength, joy's value in his hand.<br>It was not these we feared. We bowed to Thy command,<br>Even to that stern decree which bade the lion spring<br>Upon the wealking steer, the falcon bend her wing<br>To reive the laggard fowl, the monster of the deep<br>Devour and be devoured. He who hath sown shall reap.<br>And we beheld the Earth by that mute law controlled,<br>Grow ever young and new, Time's necklace of pure gold<br>Set on Creation's neck. We gazed, and we applauded<br>The splendour of Thy might, Thy incarnated Godhead.<br>And yet (Lord God, forgive. Nay, hear me) Thou wert not<br>Content with this fair world in its first glorious thought:<br>Thou needs must make thee Man. Ah, there Thy wisdom strayed.<br>Thou wantedst one to know Thee, no mere servile jade,<br>But a brave upright form to walk the Earth and be<br>Thy lieutenant with all and teach integrity,<br>One to aspire, adorn, to stand the roof and crown<br>Of thy Creation's house in full dominion,<br>The fairest, noblest, best of Thy created things;<br>One Thou shouldst call Thy rose of all Time's blossomings.<br>And Thou evolvedst Man!--There were a thousand forms,<br>All glorious, all sublime, the riders of Thy storms,<br>The battlers of Thy seas, the four--foot Lords of Earth,<br>From which to choose Thy stem and get Thee a new birth.<br>There were forms painted, proud, bright birds with plumes of heaven<br>And songs more sweet than angels' heard on the hills at even,<br>Frail flashing butterflies, free fishes of such hue<br>As rainbows hardly have, sleek serpents which renew<br>Their glittering coats like gems, grave brindle--hided kine,<br>Large--hearted elephants, the horse how near divine,<br>The whale, the mastodon, the mighty Behemoth,<br>Leviathan's self awake and glorious in his wrath.<br>All these Thou hadst for choice, competitors with Thee<br>For Thy new gift and prize, Thy co--divinity.<br>Yet didst Thou choose, Lord God, the one comedian shape<br>In Thy Creation's range, the lewd bare--buttocked ape,<br>And calledst him, in scorn of all that brave parade,<br>King of Thy living things, in Thine own likeness made!<br>Where, Lord, was then Thy wisdom? We, who watched Thee, saw<br>More than Thyself didst see. We recognised the flaw,<br>The certainty of fault, and I in zeal spake plain.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=536535" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">The Lord God. Thou didst, rebellious Spirit, and thy zeal was vain.<br>Thou spakest in thy blindness. Was it hard for God,<br>Thinkest thou, to choose His graft, to wring from the worst clod<br>His noblest fruiting? Nay. Man's baseness was the test,<br>The text of His all--power, its proof made manifest.<br>There was nought hard for God.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=536535" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Satan. Except to win Man's heart.<br>Lord, hear me to the end. Thy Will found counterpart<br>Only in Man's un--Will. Thy Truth in his un--Truth,<br>Thy Beauty in his Baseness, Ruth in his un--Ruth,<br>Order in his dis--Order. See, Lord, what hath been<br>To Thy fair Earth through him, the fount and origin<br>Of all its temporal woes. How was it ere he came<br>In his high arrogance, sad creature without shame?<br>Thou dost remember, Lord, the glorious World it was,<br>The beauty, the abundance, the unbroken face<br>Of undulent forest spread without or rent or seam<br>From mountain foot to mountain, one embroidered hem<br>Fringing the mighty plains through which Thy rivers strayed,<br>Thy lakes, Thy floods, Thy marshes, tameless, unbetrayed,<br>All virgin of the spoiler, all inviolate,<br>In beauty undeflowered, where fear was not nor hate.<br>Thou knowest, Lord of all, how that sanct solitude<br>Was crowded with brave life, a thousand forms of good<br>Enjoying Thy sweet air, some strong, some weak, yet none<br>Oppressor of the rest more than Thy writ might run.<br>Armed were they, yet restrained. Not even the lion slew<br>His prey in wantonness, nor claimed beyond his due.<br>He thinned their ranks,--yet, lo, the Spring brought back their joy.<br>Short was his anger, Lord. He raged not to destroy.<br>Oh, noble was the World, its balance held by Thee,<br>Timely its fruits for all, 'neath Thy sole sovereignty.<br>But he! he, the unclean! The fault, Lord God, was Thine.<br>Behold him in Thy place, a presence saturnine,<br>In stealth among the rest, equipped as none of these<br>With Thy mind's attributes, low crouched beneath the trees,<br>Betraying all and each. The wit Thou gavest him<br>He useth to undo, to bend them to his whim.<br>His bodily strength is little, slow of foot is he,<br>Of stature base, unclad in mail or panoply.<br>His heart hath a poor courage. He hath beauty none.<br>Bare to the buttocks he of all that might atone.<br>Without Thy favour, Lord, what power had he for ill?<br>Without Thy prompting voice his violence had scant skill.<br>The snare, the sling, the lime, who taught him these but Thou?<br>The World was lost through Thee who fashioned him his bow.<br>And Thou hast clean forgot the fair great beasts of yore,<br>The mammoth, aurochs, elk, sea--lion, cave--bear, boar,<br>Which fell before his hand, each one of them than he<br>Nobler and mightier far, undone by treachery.<br>He spared them not, old, young, calf, cow. With pitfall hid<br>In their mid path they fell, by his guile harvested,<br>And with them the World's truth. Hence forth all walked in fear,<br>Knowing that one there was turned traitor, haply near.<br>This was the wild man's crime.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=536535" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">The Lord God. He erred in ignorance.<br>As yet he was not Man. Naught but his form was Man's.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=536535" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Satan. Well had he so remained. Lord God, Thou thoughtest then<br>To perfect him by grace, among the sons of men<br>To choose a worthiest man. ``If he should know,'' saidst Thou<br>``The evil from the good, the thing We do allow<br>From that We do forbid! If We should give him shame,<br>The consciousness of wrong, the red blush under blame!<br>If he should walk in light beholding truth as We!''<br>Thou gavest him Conscience, Creed, Responsibility,<br>The power to worship Thee. Thou showedst him Thy way.<br>Thou didst reveal Thyself. Thou spakest, as one should say<br>Conversing mouth to mouth. Old Adam and his Eve<br>Thou didst array in aprons Thy own hands did weave.<br>Enoch was taken up. To Noah Thou didst send<br>Salvation in Thine ark. Lord Abraham was Thy friend.<br>These are the facts recorded, facts (say fables) yet<br>Impressed with the large truth of a new value set<br>Upon Man's race and kind by Thy too favouring will.<br>Man had become a Soul, informed for good and ill<br>With Thy best attributes, Earth's moral arbiter,<br>Tyrant and priest and judge. Woe and alas for her!<br>Think of the deeds of Man! the sins! No wilding now,<br>But set in cities proud, yet marked upon his brow<br>With label of all crime.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=536535" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">The Lord God. The men before the Flood?<br>We did destroy them all.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=536535" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Satan. Save Noah and his brood.<br>In what were these more worthy? Did they love Thee more,<br>The men of the new lineage? Was their sin less sore,<br>Their service of more zeal? Nay. Earth was hardly dry<br>Ere their corruption stank and their sin sulphurously<br>Rose as a smoke to Heaven, Ur, Babel, Nineveh,<br>The Cities of the Plain. Bethink Thee, Lord, to--day<br>What their debasement was, who did defile Thy face<br>And flout Thee in derision, dogs in shamelessness!</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=536535" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">The Lord God. Nay, but there loved Me one.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=536535" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Satan. The son of Terah?</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=536535" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">The Lord God. He.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=536535" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Satan. I give Thee Thy one friend. Nay, more, I give Thee three--<br>Moses, Melchisedec.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=536535" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">The Lord God. And Job.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=536535" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Satan. Ay, Job. He stands<br>In light of the new Gospel, Captain of Thy bands,<br>And prince of all that served Thee, fearing not to find<br>Thy justice even in wrong with no new life behind,<br>Thy justice even in death. In all, four men of good<br>Of the whole race of Shem, Heaven's stars in multitude.<br>(I speak of the old time and the one chosen Nation<br>To whom Thou gavest the law.)</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=536535" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">The Lord God. Truce to that dispensation.<br>It was an old--world hope, made void by Jacob's guile.<br>His was a bitter stem. We bore with it awhile,<br>Too long, till We grew weary. But enough. 'Tis done.<br>What sayest thou of the new, most wise Apollyon?</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=536535" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Satan. Ah, Lord, wilt Thou believe me? That was a mighty dream,<br>Sublime, of a world won by Thy Son's stratagem<br>Of being Himself a Man--the rueful outcast thing!<br>And of all men a Jew! for poor Earth's ransoming.<br>Thrice glorious inspiration! Who but He had dared<br>Come naked, as He came, of all His kingship bared,<br>Not one of us to serve Him, neither praised nor proud<br>But just as the least are, the last ones of the crowd.<br>He had not Man's fierce eye. No beast fell back abashed<br>To meet Him in the woods, as though a flame had flashed.<br>He lay down with the foxes. The quails went and came<br>Between His feet asleep. They did not fear His blame.<br>He had not Man's hard heart. He had not Man's false hand.<br>His gesture was as theirs. Their wit could understand<br>He was their fellow flesh. To Him, so near to God,<br>What difference lay 'twixt Man and the least herb He trod?<br>He came to save them all, to win all to His peace.<br>What cared He for Man, Jew, more than the least of these?<br>And yet He loved His kind, the sick at heart, the poor,<br>The impotent of will, those who from wrong forbore,<br>Those without arms to strike, the lost of Israel.<br>Of these He made His kingdom--as it pleased Him well--<br>Kingdom without a king. His thought was to bring back<br>Earth to its earlier way, ere Man had left the track,<br>And stay his rage to slay. ``Take ye no thought,'' said He,<br>``Of what the day may bring. Be as the lilies be.<br>They toil not, nore do spin, and yet are clothed withal.<br>Choose ye the lowest place. Be guileless of all gall.<br>If one shall smite you, smile. If one shall rob, give more.<br>The first shall be the last, and each sould hold its store.<br>Only the eyes that weep--only the poor in spirit--<br>Only the pure in heart God's kingdom shall inherit.''<br>On this fair base of love Thy Son built up His creed,<br>Thinking to save the world. And Man, who owned no need<br>Of any saving, slew Him.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=536535" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">The Lord God. It was the Jews that slew<br>In huge ingratitude Him who Himself was Jew.<br>O perfidi Judaei! Yet His creed prevailed.<br>Thou hast thyself borne witness. If Shem's virtue failed,<br>Japhet hath found us sons who swear all by His name.<br>Nay, thou hast testified the Christian faith finds fame<br>In every western land. It hath inherited<br>All that was once called Rome. The Orient bows its head<br>Perturbed by the white vision of a purer day.<br>Ham's heritage accepts new salves for its decay,<br>And there are worlds reborn beyond the ocean's verge<br>Where men are not as men, mad foam on the salt surge,<br>But live even as He taught them in love's noblest mood,<br>Under the law of Jesus.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=536535" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Satan. Where, O glorious God?<br>In what land of the heathen--and I know them all,<br>From China to Peru, from Hind to Senegal,<br>And onward through the isles of the great Southern main.<br>Where is this miracle? Nay, nay, the search were vain.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=536535" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">The Lord God. It is the angels' hearsay.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=536535" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Satan. A romance, Lord. Hear<br>The word of one Thy wanderer, sphere and hemisphere,<br>For ever on Thy Earth, who, shepherding Thy seas<br>No less than Thy green valleys, hath nor rest nor peace,<br>But he must learn the way of all who in them dwell;<br>To whom there is no secret, naught untold, no Hell<br>Where any sin may hide but he hath wormed it out<br>From silence to confession till his ears grew hot;<br>Who knoweth the race of Man as his own flesh; whose eye<br>Is cruel to evasion and the lips that lie,<br>And who would tell Thee all, all, all to the last act<br>Of tragic fooling proved which seals Man's counterpact.<br>--What was the true tale, think Thee, of Thy Son that died?<br>What of the souls that knew Him, Him the crucified,<br>After their Lord was gone? They waited for Him long,<br>The sick He had made whole, the wronged consoled of wrong,<br>The women He had loved, the fisher folk whose ears<br>Had drunk in His word's wisdom those three wondrous years,<br>And deemed Him prophet, prince, His kingdom yet to come,<br>Nay from the grave new--risen and had been seen of some.<br>What did they teach? Awhile, they told His law of peace,<br>His rule of unresistance and sweet guilelessness,<br>His truce with mother Earth, His abstinence from toil,<br>His love of the least life that wanton hands despoil,<br>The glory of His tears, His watching, fasting, prayer,<br>The patience of His death, His last word of despair.<br>And as He lived they lived--awhile--expectant still<br>Of His return in power to balance the Earth's ill.<br>They would not deem Him dead. But, when He came not, lo,<br>Their reason went astray. Poor souls, they loved Him so,<br>They had such grief for Him, their one true God in Man<br>Revealed to their sad eyes in all a World grown wan,<br>That they must build a creed, a refuge from their fears<br>In His remembered words and so assuage their tears.<br>His kingdom? It was what? Not all a dream? Forbid<br>That fault, that failure, Heaven, for such were death indeed.<br>His promises of peace, goodwill on earth to men,<br>Which needed a fulfilment, lest faith fail? How then<br>Since no fulfilment came, since He had left them lone<br>In face of the world's wolves, for bread had given a stone?<br>How reconcile His word with that which was their life,<br>Man's hatred and God's silence in a world of strife?<br>Was there no path, no way? Nay, none on this sad Earth<br>Save with their Lord to suffer and account it mirth.<br>And so awhile they grieved. Then rose a subtlety.<br>(Lord God, Thou knowest not wholly how men crave to lie<br>In face of a hard truth too grievous to their pride.)<br>To these poor fisher folk, thus of their Lord denied,<br>Came a new blinding vision. They had seen Thy Son<br>How often after death, no ghost, no carrion,<br>But a plain man alive, who moved among them slow,<br>And showed His feet and hands, the thorn prints on His brow,<br>The spear wound in His side. He had come to comfort them,<br>Confirm them in the faith, by His love's stratagem.<br>How if this thing were real? if this, that proved Him God,<br>Proved also themselves spirits, not mere flesh and blood<br>One with the beasts that perish, but immortal souls,<br>Even as we angels are who fill Heaven's muster rolls<br>And so shall live for aye? ``Here,'' argued they, ``it stands<br>The kingdom of His Heaven, a house not made with hands,<br>Wherein we too new--born, but in no earthly case,<br>Shall enter after death.'' On this fair fragile base<br>Their sorrow built its nest. It gave a hope to men<br>And pandered to their pride. And lo the world's disdain<br>Was changed to acclamation. Kings and emperors kneeled<br>Before the Crucified, a living God revealed,<br>Who made them heirs with Him of His own glory. (Mark<br>The ennobling phrase and title.) No base Noah's ark<br>Man's fount of honour now, but God's eternal choice<br>Made of His human race, predestined to His joys<br>From the first dawn of time,--the very Universe<br>Resolved to a mere potsherd, shattered to rehearse<br>The splendour of Man's advent, the one act and end<br>To which Creation moved, and where even we must tend,<br>The spirit hosts of Heaven! Stark mad insolence!<br>Rank blasphemy proclaimed in Rome's halls and Byzance,<br>Through all the Imperial lands, as though, forsooth, Thou, Lord,<br>Couldst, even if Thou wouldst, raise this fantastic horde<br>Of bodies to Thy glory, shapes dispersed and gone<br>As lightly as Time's wracks swept to oblivion!<br>Yet all believed this creed. Space, straightway grown too strait,<br>Shrank from these Christened kings, who held Earth reprobate<br>Save for their own high calling. Heaven had become their throne,<br>A fief for their new pride, in which they reigned alone,<br>In virtue of their faith, above Time's humbler show,<br>And Earth became their footstool. All were masters now<br>Of the brute beasts despised who had no sould to save,<br>And lords too of the heathen doomed beyond the grave.<br>God's kingdom had begun. It compassed all the lands<br>And trafficked wealth and power. It issued its commands,<br>And in default it slew in Thy high holy name,<br>Thine the all merciful! Alas for the world's shame!<br>Alas for the world's reason, for Thy Son's sane creed<br>Of doing only good each day to its own need,<br>Of being as the least of these in wise humility!<br>Behold our Christian Saints, too proud to live or die<br>As all flesh dies and lives, their emperors and kings<br>Clothed in the robes of life as with an eagle's wings,<br>Their Popes dispensing power, their priests absolving sin.<br>Nay. They have made a Hell their damned shall dwell within,<br>With me for their gaolmaster in a world to come<br>Of which they hold the keys! God's curse on Christendom!</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=536535" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">The Lord God. Hush, traitor, thou blasphemest. If things once were so,<br>'Twas in a darkened age, the night of long ago.<br>None now believe in Hell.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=536535" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Satan. Or Heaven. Forgive it, Lord,<br>I spoke it in my haste. See, I withdraw the word.<br>Thy Christendom is wise, reformed. None buy nor sell<br>Seats now at Thy right hand;<br>(aside)grown quite unsaleable.<br>None now believe nor tremble. Yet is their sin as sore.<br>(Lord, hear me to the end.) Thou dravest me out of yore<br>An exile from Thy sight, with mission to undo<br>And tempt Man to his death. I had fallen from Heaven's blue<br>By reason of my pride. Thou wouldst have service done<br>Unreasoning, on the knees, as flowers bend to the Sun,<br>Which withers them at noon, nor ask of his white fires<br>Why they consume and slay. I had fallen by my desires<br>Which were too large for one not God, because I would<br>Have shown Thee the truth bare, in no similitude<br>As a slave flattering speaks and half despises him<br>He fawns on, but in love, which stands erect of limb<br>Claiming an equal part, which reasons, questions, dares,<br>And calls all by its name, the wheat wheat, the tares tares,<br>The friend friend, the foe foe. Thou wast displeased at this,<br>And deemed I envied Man his portion in Thy bliss,<br>The Man that Thou hadst made and in Thy royal faith<br>Held worthy of all trust, Thy lord of life and death,<br>One to be proved and tried, as gold is tried by fire,<br>And fare the purer forth. Of me Thou didst require<br>The sad task of his tempting. I, forsooth, must sue<br>And prompt to evil deeds, make the false thought seem true,<br>The true thought false, that he, thus proved, thus tried, might turn<br>And hurl me a dog's word, as Jesus did, in scorn:<br>``Get thee behind Me, Satan!'' To this penance chained<br>I bowed me in despair, as Thou, Lord, hadst ordained,<br>Cast out from Thee and cursed. It was a rueful task<br>For one who had known Thee to wear the felon's mask<br>And tempt this piteous child to his base sins of greed,<br>His lusts ignoble, crimes how prompt in act and deed,<br>To urge him to rebellion against God and good<br>Who needed none to urge. His savage simian blood<br>Flamed at a word, a sign. He lied, he thieved, he slew,<br>By instinct of his birth. No virtue but he knew<br>Its countervice and foil, without my wit to aid.<br>No fair thought but he chose the foul thought in its stead.<br>Ah, sad primaeval race! Thou saidst it was not Man<br>This thing armed with the stone which through thy forests ran,<br>Intent to snare and slay. Not Man the senseless knave<br>Who struck fire from his flint to burn Thy gorses brave,<br>Thy heaths for his lean kine, who, being the one unclean,<br>Defiled thy flower--sweet Earth with ordure heaps obscene<br>To plant his rice, his rye. Not Man, saidst Thou, because<br>He knew not of Thy way nor had he learned Thy laws,<br>And was stark savage still. Not Man? Behold to--day<br>Thy tamed Man as he lives, Thy Son of Japhet, nay<br>Thy new true--Christened King, the follower of Thy Christ,<br>Who sweareth by Thy name and his own mailéd fist<br>That Thou art Lord of all and he the Lord of Thee,<br>Heaven's instrument ordained to teach integrity.<br>Thinkest Thou the man is changed, the ape that in him is,<br>Because his limbs are clothed which went in shamelessness?<br>Are his lusts bridled more because his parts are hid?<br>Nay, Lord, he doeth to--day as those forefathers did,<br>Only in greater guile. I will tell Thee his full worth,<br>This Man's, the latest born, Thy creature from his birth<br>Who lords it now, a king, this white Man's who hath pressed<br>All Earth to his sole bondage and supreme behest,<br>This Man of all Mankind. Behold him in Thy place,<br>Administering the World, vicegerent of Thy grace<br>And agent named of Thee, the symbol and the sign<br>Of Thy high will on Earth and purposing divine,<br>Clothed in his robes of power. Whence was he? What is he<br>That he asserteth thus his hand's supremacy?<br>His lineage what? Nay, Lord, he cometh of that mad stem<br>Harder in act than Ham's, more subtle than of Shem,<br>The red Japhetic stock of the bare plains which rolled<br>A base--born horde on Rome erewhile in lust of gold,<br>Tide following tide, the Goth, Gaul, Vandal, Lombard, Hun,<br>Spewed forth from the white North to new dominion<br>In the fair southern lands, with famine at their heel<br>And rapine in their van, armed to the lips with steel.<br>These made their spoil of all, the pomp of the world's power,<br>Its wealth, its beauty stored, all Rome's imperial dower,<br>Her long renown, her skill, her art, her cultured fame,<br>And with the rest her faiths bearing the Christian name.<br>From this wild bitter root of violent lust and greed<br>New Christendom upsprang, a pagan blood--stained creed,<br>Pagan in spite of Christ, for the old gods cast down<br>Still ruled it in men's hearts and lured them to renown,<br>Ay in Thy name, Lord God, by glamour of the sword,<br>And for Thy dead Son's sake, as in the days abhorred.<br>Like bulls they strove, they slew, like wolves they seized the prey,<br>The hungriest strongest first, and who should say them nay?<br>After the Goth the Gaul, after the Gaul the Dane,<br>Kings in descent from Thor, peace sued to them in vain.<br>Thou knowest, Lord God, their story. It is writ in blood,<br>The blood of beast and man, by their brute hands subdued,<br>Down to the latest born, the hungriest of the pack,<br>The master wolf of all, men call the Sassenach,<br>The Anglo--Norman dog, who goeth by land and sea<br>As his forefathers went in chartered piracy,<br>Death, fire in his right hand.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=536535" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">The Lord God. Satan, once more beware.<br>Thy tongue hath a wide license, yet it runneth far.<br>This Anglo--Saxon man hath a fair name with some.<br>He standeth in brave repute, a priest of Christendom,<br>First in civility, so say the Angel host,<br>Who speak of him with awe as one that merits most.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=536535" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Satan. The Angels fear him, Lord.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=536535" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">The Lord God. How fear?</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=536535" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Satan. They fear his tongue,<br>Unscrupulous to speak, the right he hath in wrong,<br>The wrong he hath in right. They doubt he hath Thine ear,<br>Lord of the Universe. They are excused of fear.<br>They see his long success, his victory over good,<br>They count the nations lost which were of kindlier blood<br>But could not stand before him, his great subtlety,<br>His skill in the arts, the crafts. They mark the powers that be<br>In earth, air, water, fire, all banded in his plan<br>And used to the world's hurt as never yet by Man.<br>They look on Thee, Lord God, as one that careth not,<br>On him as Thy supplanter and the iron as hot<br>Which shall reforge the chain by which the Earth is bound.<br>They fear to awaken Thee from Thy long sleep profound.<br>He hath become their God, one impious and profane,<br>But strong and unreproved, ascendant on Thy wane.<br>They kneel to the new--comer as all courtiers use<br>Who fear a change of king. Their news is an ill news.<br>Nay, Lord, 'tis but a lie. I know it well, their story.<br>'Tis but the man's own boast, his mouthings of vain glory<br>Repeated day by day with long reiterate stress,<br>Till the world half believes in sheer ear--weariness,<br>And they, who think to please, retail it as their own.<br>What say they of him, Lord? That he hath one God alone,<br>Is not as the lewd nations, keepeth Thy Sabbath holy,<br>Nor Thy name vainly taketh in the ways of folly,<br>Hath a wise polity, his Church and State close blent,<br>A lordly bench of bishops, peers of Parliament,<br>A Convocation House which yearly witnesseth,<br>A King by grace of God, Defender of the Faith,<br>Thy ten commandments set in all his Courts of Law.<br>They show his fanes restored by highway, hedge and shaw,<br>His missions to the Jews, his Church societies,<br>The zeal of his free sects, each than the rest more wise,<br>The wealth of his chief priests, his weekly public prayer,<br>Things proving him devout more than the nations are.<br>They cite his worldly worth, his virtue these beyond,<br>His high repute in trade, his word held as his bond,<br>The valour of his dealings, his long boast of truth,<br>The prudent continence of his unwedded youth,<br>Uxorious faith in marriage, husband of one wife,<br>Nor taking her next sister to his widowed life.<br>These tales they hear and bring, some true, some false, but all<br>Of the common Saxon brag for first original.<br>So too of his world--science, social schemes, reforms,<br>His school--boards, gaols new systemed, signalling of storms,<br>Posts, railways, Homes for orphans, Charities organised,<br>His Mansion House funds floated, alms economised,<br>His hospitals, museums, baths, parks, workhouses,<br>And that last glorious marvel, his free Daily Press.<br>A wonderful Saxon truly, each day interviewed<br>By his own wondering self and found exceeding good.<br>All this and more they cite. That he hath virtues, well,<br>Let it be granted him. Those pay who most would sell,<br>And more who most would buy. Alms to his credit stand<br>In his account with time, and add strength to his hand,<br>Serving his best advantage in the enlarged domain<br>Of his Man's selfishness, which works for the World's bane<br>More surely than his vices. He hath outlived the day<br>Of the old single graspings, where each went his way<br>Alone to plunder all. He hath learned to curb his lusts<br>Somewhat, to smooth his brawls, to guide his passionate gusts,<br>His cry of ``mine, mine, mine'' in inarticulate wrath.<br>He dareth not make raid on goods his next friend hath<br>With open violence, nor loose his hand to steal,<br>Save in community and for the common weal<br>'Twixt Saxon man and man. He is more congruous grown,<br>Holding a subtler plan to make the world his own<br>By organised self--seeking in the paths of power.<br>He is new drilled to wait. He knoweth his appointed hour<br>And his appointed prey. Of all he maketh tool,<br>Even of his own sad virtues, to cajole and rule,<br>Even of Thee, Lord God.--I will expound this thing,<br>The creed of these white thieves which boast of Thee, their King,<br>As partner in their crimes. The head knaves of the horde,<br>Those who inspire the rest and give the masterword,<br>The leaders of their thought, their lords political,<br>Sages, kings, poets, priests, in their hearts one and all<br>(For all their faith avowed and their lip service done<br>In face of Thy high fires each day beneath the sun),<br>Ay, and their prelates too, their men of godliest worth,<br>Believe no word of Thee as Master of their Earth,<br>Controller of their acts, no word of Thy high right<br>To bend men to obedience and at need to smite,<br>No word of Thy true law, the enforcement of Thy peace,<br>Thy all--deciding arm in the world's policies.<br>They ignore Thee on the Earth. They grant Thee, as their ``God,''<br>The kingdom of the heavens, seeing it a realm untrod,<br>Untreadable by man, a space, a res nullius<br>Or No--Man's Land, which they as loyal men and pious<br>Leave and assign to Thee to deal with as Thou wilt,<br>To hold as Thy strong throne or loose as water spilt<br>For sun and wind to gather in the wastes of air.<br>Whether of a truth Thou art they know not, Lord, nor care;<br>Only they name Thee ``God,'' and pay Thee their prayers vain,<br>As dormant over--lord and pensioned suzerain,<br>The mediatised blind monarch of a world, outgrown<br>Of its faith's swaddling--clothes, which wills to walk alone,<br>The Earth? Not so. 'Tis theirs, the prize of the strong hand,<br>The strongest being their own by sea alike and land.<br>``Thy Will be done,'' they cry, ``Father which art in Heaven''<br>(Where Thou canst harm nor hurt not one day in the seven).<br>And if they add ``on Earth'' they deem Thee impotent,<br>Seeing Thee drowse thus long and leave men to their bent.<br>They mean ``Thy Will in Heaven,'' or in their ``World to come.''<br>``Terram autem dedit filiis hominum.''<br>So think their chiefs, their lords. For the blind mass of men,<br>Which live and toil and die heart--hungry in their pen,<br>They have no god but gold, the lord of their distress,<br>And gold's slave, drink, that buys a night's forgetfulness.<br>Of Thee they have no heed to chide them or to cheer.<br>The fear of Thee with these is their law's officer.<br>Lord God, if Thou but saw the pagan hearts they hide,<br>The base greeds of their being, the lusts undenied,<br>The Mammons that they worship! But Thou dost not see,<br>Or Thou hadst purged long since this worst profanity<br>From the World's better way and thereby saved Thy name<br>Profaned in their foul mouths from its long daily shame.<br>Thou dost not hear, nor see. The smoke of their foul dens<br>Broodeth on Thy fair Earth as a black pestilence,<br>Hiding the kind day's eye. No flower, no grass there groweth,<br>Only their engines' dung which the fierce furnace throweth.<br>Their presence poisoneth all and maketh all unclean.<br>Thy streams they have made sewers for their dyes aniline.<br>No fish therein may swim, no frog, no worm may crawl,<br>No snail for grime may build her house within their wall.<br>Thy beasts they have enslaved in blindness underground.<br>The voice of birds that sang to them is a lost sound.<br>Nay, they have tarred Time's features, pock--marked Nature's face,<br>Brought all to the same jakes with their own lack of grace.<br>In all Thy living World there is no sentient thing<br>Polluteth and defileth as this Saxon king,<br>This intellectual lord and sage of the new quest,<br>The only wanton he that fouleth his own nest.<br>And still his boast goeth forth. Nay, Lord, 'tis shame to Thee<br>This slave, being what he is, should ape divinity,<br>The poorest saddest drudge, the least joy--lifted heart<br>In all a World where tears are sold in open mart,<br>That he should stand, Thy choice, to preach Thy law, and set<br>His impress on the Earth in full apostolate,<br>Thy missioner and priest. He goeth among the nations,<br>Saith he, to spread Thy truth, to preach Thy law of patience,<br>To glorify Thy name! Not selfishly, forsooth,<br>But for their own more good, to open them the truth,<br>To teach them happiness, to civilise, to save,<br>To smite down the oppressor and make free the slave.<br>To bear the ``White Man's Burden,'' which he yearns to take<br>On his white Saxon back for his white conscience' sake.<br>Huge impudent imposture!--Lord, there were fair lands<br>Once on Thy Earth, brave hills, bright isles, sweet coral strands,<br>Noble savannahs, plains of limitless waving green,<br>Lakes girt with giant forests, continents unseen,<br>Unknown by these white thieves, where men lived in the way<br>Of Thy good natural law with Thy free beasts at play<br>And partners with Thy birds, men who nor toiled nor span,<br>Nor sowed, nor reaped, nor delved for the red curse of Man,<br>The gold that kills the soul; who knew nought of the fire<br>Which in his guns he storeth, naught of the desire<br>More deadly still concealed in his fire--drink of death;<br>Who went unclothed, unshamed, for garment a flower wreath;<br>Whose women lived unsold and loved their natural kin,<br>Nor gave aught to the stranger in the wage of sin;<br>Who blessed Thee for their babes and through the woods, like Eve,<br>Wandered in happy laughter, glorying to conceive.<br>Yea, Lord, and there were others,--shut communities<br>Of souls still on Thy path and strange to the new lies,<br>Yet not, as these were, wild, but held in discipline<br>Of orderly commandment, servants true of Thine<br>And doers of Thy law, though ignorant, untaught<br>Save by an inward grace of self--restraining thought<br>And light intuitive. No shedders they of blood,<br>But with all creatures friends, with men in brotherhood,<br>Blameless of wine, of strife; in innocent arts well skilled<br>But schoolless of all guile as an unchristened child.<br>To these with mouthings fine come the white gospellers,<br>Our Saxon mission--men black--coated to the ears.<br>--``Which be your gods?'' ask they; ``Do ye adore the Christ?<br>Know ye the Three in One, or walk ye in the mist?''<br>``Sirs, we have One, not Three. Our poor ancestral wit<br>Encompasseth no more.'' ``Then be ye damned for it.<br>This is our Bible, read. In the long after--death<br>Ye shall be burned with fire. It is God's self that saith.''<br>``We do not live again.'' ``In this life, ye shall live<br>According to our gospel, nor profanely wive<br>Save with one spouse alone.'' ``Our law hath given us three.<br>Three Gods to one sole wife were multiplicity.''<br>``These pagans are blasphemers! Who is on our side?<br>See, we have gold to give. We may not be denied.''--<br>And they baptize them Christians. Cometh the trader next,<br>His bible too in hand, its free--trade for his text.<br>He teacheth them to buy.--``We nothing need.'' ``Yet take.<br>The want will come anon and keep your wits awake.<br>Here are the goods we sell, cloth, firelocks, powder, rum,<br>Ye shall go clothed like lords, like kings of Christendom.''<br>``We live best naked.'' ``Fie.'' ``We have no use for arms.<br>The fire--drink is forbid.'' ``The thing forbid hath charms.<br>Nay. We will make you men, soldiers to brawl and fight<br>As all good Christians use, and God defend the right.<br>The drink will give you courage. Take it. 'Tis the sign<br>Of manhood orthodox, its sacramental wine,<br>Or how can you be worthy your new Christian creed?<br>Drink.''--And they drink to Jesus and are borne to bed.<br>He teacheth them to sell.--``We need coin for our draught.<br>How shall we bring the price, since ye give naught for naught?<br>We crave the fire--drink now.'' ``Friends, let not that prevent.<br>We lend on all your harvests, take our cent per cent.''<br>``Sirs, but the crop is gone.'' ``There is your land in lots.''<br>``The land? It was our fathers'.'' ``Curse ye for idle sots,<br>A rascal lazing pack. Have ye no hands to work?<br>Off to the mines and dig, and see it how ye shirk.''<br>``As slaves?'' ``No, not as slaves. Our principles forbid.<br>Free labourers, if you will. We use that word instead.<br>The `dignity of labour' ye shall learn for hire.<br>No paltering. No excuse. The white man hates a liar,<br>And hates a grumbling hand. Enough if we provide<br>Tools with the drink and leave your backs with a whole hide.<br>These lands are ours by Charter. If you doubt it, bring<br>Your case before the Courts, which will expound the thing.<br>As for your women folk. Look, there are ways well known<br>All women have of living in a Christian town.<br>Moreover you do ill. One wife the law allows,<br>And you, you say, have four. Send three round to our house.''<br>--Thus is Thy gospel preached. Its issue, Lord, behold<br>In the five Continents, the new world and the old,<br>The happier tribes of Man despoiled, enslaved, betrayed<br>To the sole white Man's lust, husband and wife and maid,<br>Their laughter drowned in tears, their kindness in mad wrath,<br>Their dignity of joy in a foul trance of death,<br>Till at the last they turn and in their anguish rend.<br>Then loud the cry goeth forth, the white man's to each friend:<br>``Help! Christians, to our help! These black fiends murder us.''<br>And the last scene is played in death's red charnel house.<br>The Saxon anger flames. His ships in armament<br>Bear slaughter on their wings. The Earth with fire is rent,<br>And the poor souls misused are wiped from the world's face<br>In one huge imprecation from the Saxon race,<br>In one huge burst of prayer and insolent praise to Thee,<br>Lord God, for Thy high help and proved complicity.<br>Nay Lord, 'tis not a lie, the thing I tell Thee thus.<br>Their bishops in their Churches lead, incredulous,<br>The public thanks profane. They sanctify the sword:<br>``Te Deum laudamus. Give peace in our time, O Lord.''<br>Hast Thou not heard their chaunting? Nay, Thou dost not hear,<br>Or Thou hadst loosed Thy hand like lightning in the clear<br>To smite their ribald lips with palsy, these false priests,<br>These Lords who boast Thine aid at their high civic feasts,<br>The ignoble shouting crowds, the prophets of their Press,<br>Pouring their daily flood of bald self--righteousness,<br>Their poets who write big of the ``White Burden.'' Trash!<br>The White Man's Burden, Lord, is the burden of his cash.<br>--There! Thou hast heard the truth. Thy world, Lord God of Heaven,<br>Lieth in the hands of thieves who pillage morn and even.<br>And Thou still sleepest on! Nay but Thou needs must hear<br>Or abdicate Thy name of High Justiciar<br>Henceforward and for ever. It o'erwhelmeth Thee<br>With more than temporal shame. Thy silence is a Sea<br>Crying through all the spheres in pain and ceasing not<br>As blood from out the ground to mark crime's murder spot:<br>``There is no hope--no truth. He hath betrayed the trust.<br>The Lord God is unjust. The Lord God is unjust.''<br>[A cry without. This is their cry in Heaven who give Thee service true.<br>Arise, Lord, and avenge as was Thy wont to do.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=536535" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">[The Angels re--enter in disorder, weeping.<br>The Lord God. What tears be these, my Sons? What ails ye that ye weep?<br>Speak, Shepherds of the flock! Ye that have cared my sheep!<br>Ye that are charged with Man! Is it as this One saith?<br>Is Satan then no liar who loudly witnesseth<br>Man's ruin of the World?</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=536535" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">The Angel of Pity<br>(coming forward). Lord, it is even so.<br>Thy Earth is a lost force, Man's lazar--house of woe,<br>Undone by his lewd will. We may no longer strive.<br>The evil hath prevailed. There is no soul alive<br>That shall escape his greed. We spend our days in tears<br>Mourning Thy world's lost beauty in the night of years.<br>All pity is departed. Each once happy thing<br>That on Thy fair Earth went, how fleet of foot or wing,<br>How glorious in its strength, how wondrous in design,<br>How royal in its raiment tinctured opaline,<br>How rich in joyous life, the inheritor of forms<br>All noble, all of worth, which had survived the storms,<br>The chances of decay in the World's living plan<br>From the remote fair past when still ignoble Man<br>On his four foot--soles went and howled through the lone hills<br>In moody bestial wrath, unclassed among Earth's ills:<br>Each one of them is doomed. From the deep Central Seas<br>To the white Poles, Man ruleth pitiless Lord of these,<br>And daily he destroyeth. The great whales he driveth<br>Beneath the northern ice, and quarter none he giveth,<br>Who perish there of wounds in their huge agony.<br>He presseth the white bear on the white frozen sea<br>And slaughtereth for his pastime. The wise amorous seal<br>He flayeth big with young; the walrus cubs that kneel<br>But cannot turn his rage, alive he mangleth them,<br>Leaveth in breathing heaps, outrooted branch and stem.<br>In every land he slayeth. He hath new engines made<br>Which no life may withstand, nor in the forest shade<br>Nor in the sunlit plain, which wound all from afar,<br>The timorous with the valiant, waging his false war,<br>Coward, himself unseen. In pity, Lord, look down<br>On the blank widowed plains which he hath made his own<br>By right of solitude. Where, Lord God, are they now,<br>Thy glorious bison herds, Thy ariels white as snow,<br>Thy antelopes in troops, the zebras of Thy plain?<br>Behold their whitened bones on the dull track of men.<br>Thy elephants, Lord, where? For ages thou didst build<br>Their frames' capacity, the hide which was their shield<br>No thorn might pierce, no sting, no violent tooth assail,<br>The tusks which were their levers, the lithe trunk their flail.<br>Thou strengthenedst their deep brain. Thou madest them wise to know<br>And wiser to ignore, advised, deliberate, slow,<br>Conscious of power supreme in right. The manifest token<br>Of Thy high will on earth, Thy natural peace unbroken,<br>Unbreakable by fear. For ages did they move<br>Thus, kings of Thy deep forest swayed by only love.<br>Where are they now, Lord God? A fugitive spent few<br>Used as Man's living targets by the ignoble crew<br>Who boast their coward skill to plant the balls that fly,<br>Thy work of all time spoiled, their only use to die<br>That these sad clowns may laugh. Nay, Lord, we weep for Thee,<br>And spend ourselves in tears for Thy marred majesty.<br>Behold, Lord, what we bring--this last proof in our hands,<br>Their latest fiendliest spoil from Thy fair tropic lands,<br>The birds of all the Earth unwinged to deck the heads<br>Of their unseemly women; plumage of such reds<br>As not the sunset hath, such purples as no throne,<br>Not even in heaven, showeth (hardly, Lord, Thine own),<br>Such azures as the sea's, such greens as are in Spring<br>The oak trees' tenderest buds of watched--for blossoming,<br>Such opalescent pearls as only in Thy skies<br>The lunar bow revealeth to night's sleep--tired eyes.<br>Behold them, Lord of Beauty, Lord of Reverence,<br>Lord of Compassion, Thou who metest means to ends,<br>Nor madest Thy world fair for less than Thine own fame,<br>Behold Thy birds of joy lost, tortured, put to shame<br>For these vile strumpets' whim! Arise, or cease to be<br>Judge of the quick and dead! These dead wings cry to Thee!<br>Arise, Lord, and avenge!</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=536535" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">The Angels. We wait upon Thy word.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=536535" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">[The Lord God covereth His face.<br>Satan. Thou hearest them, Lord God.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=536535" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">The Lord God. Good Satan, I have heard.<br>Thou art more just than I--alas, more just than I.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=536535" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">The Angels. Behold the Lord God weepeth.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=536535" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">The Angel of Pity. What eyes should be dry<br>If for a crime eyes weep? This crime transcendeth crime.<br>And the Lord God hath pity.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=536535" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Satan. In His own good time.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=536535" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">The Lord God. Alas, the time is late. I do repent Me sore<br>The wrong I did thee, Satan, in those griefs of yore,<br>The wrong I did the Earth. Yet is Eternity<br>A long day for atonement. Thou thyself shalt be<br>My instrument here of wrath to purge this race of Man<br>And cast him on Time's dunghill, whence he first began.<br>What, Angel, is thy counsel? Shall we unseal again<br>The fountains of the heavens, send our outpoured rain,<br>And flood him with new waters? Shall it be by fire?<br>Shall we embraize the earth in one vast funeral pyre<br>By impact of a star? Let loose a sulphurous wind?<br>Belch rocks from the Earth's bowels? Shall we strike Man blind<br>With an unbearable light? Shall we so shake the hills,<br>The plains, that he fall palsied, grind him in the mills<br>Of a perpetual hail, importune him with snow,<br>Scourge him with noise unceasing, or the glutinous flow<br>Of a long pestilent stench? Speak, Satan, all thy thought,<br>Thou who the traitor knowest. How may he be brought<br>Best to annihilation?</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=536535" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Satan. Lord, by none of these,<br>Thy floods, Thy flames, Thy storms were puerilities.<br>He hath too large a cunning to be taken thus.<br>He would outride Thy waves, outblast Thy sulphurous<br>Winds with his counter--winds. He liveth on foul air<br>As on the breath of heaven. He hath nor thought nor care<br>For Thy worst lightning strokes, holding their principle<br>Rock--firm in his own hand. All natural powers fulfil<br>His brain's omnipotence. He standeth at each point<br>Armed for defiant war in harness without joint.<br>Though Thou shouldst break the Earth in twain he should not bend.<br>Thou needest a force to aid Thee, an ally, a friend,<br>A principle of good which shall outwit his guile<br>With true white guilelessness, his anger with a smile,<br>His force with utter weakness. Only thus, Lord God,<br>Shalt Thou regain Thy Earth, a purified abode,<br>And rid it of the Human.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=536535" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">The Lord God. And the means? Thy plan<br>Needeth a new redemption.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=536535" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Satan. Ay, but not of Man.<br>He is beyond redeeming, or Thy Son had died<br>Not wholly to this loss. Who would be crucified<br>To--day must choose another, a young fleshly form,<br>Free from the simian taint, were it but flower or worm,<br>Or limpet of the rock, or grieving nightingale,<br>Wherein to preach his gospel. Yet should he previl,<br>If only for truth's sake and that this latest lie<br>Should be laid bare to shame, Time's fraud, Humanity.<br>Choose Thee an Angel, Lord; it were enough. Thy Son<br>Was a price all too great even had the world been won.<br>Nor can it be again. An Angel shall suffice<br>For Thy new second sending, so Thou guide the choice<br>To a more reasoned issue--so Thou leave Mankind<br>Henceforth to his sole ways as at his outset, blind<br>To all but his own lusts, untutored by Thy grace.<br>This is the road, Lord God. I bow before Thy face.<br>I make Thee my submission to do all Thy will,<br>So Thou absolve and pardon.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=536535" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">The Lord God. O incomparable<br>Good servant, Satan! Thou art absolved indeed.<br>It was thy right to pardon thy God's lack of heed,<br>His wrath at thy wise counsel. Nay, thou shamest Me.<br>Be thou absolved, good Angel, Ego absolvo te<br>Ab omnibus peccatis. Once more be it thy right<br>To stand before God's throne for ever in His sight,<br>And trusted more than these. Speak, Satan, what thou wilt,<br>All shall be granted thee, the glory with the guilt<br>Of the Earth lost and won. Who is it thou wouldst send<br>Agent and messenger to work to this new end?<br>What Angel of them all? I pledge thee My full faith<br>It shall be as thou wilt.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=536535" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Satan. Who g</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br/></a><a href="https://poems.citatepedia.com/">poem</a> by <strong><a rel="author" href="https://authors.citatepedia.com/by.php?a=Wilfrid+Scawen+Blunt">Wilfrid Scawen Blunt</a></strong></div>

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