He wander'd on, alone, on foot,—alone,
As in the waste his earlier steps had known.
Forth went the peasant—Adam's curse begun;—
Home went the peasant in the western sun;
He heard the bleating fold, the lowing herd,
The last shrill carol of the nestling bird!
He saw the rare lights of the hamlet gleam
And fade;—the stars grow stiller on the stream;
Swart, by the woodland, cower'd the gipsy tent
Whence peer'd dark eyes that watch'd him as he went—
He paused and turn'd:—Him more the outlaws charm
Than the trim hostel and the happy farm.
Strangers, like him, from antique lands afar,
Aliens untamed where'er their wanderings are,
High Syrian sires of old;[V]—dark fragments torn
From the great creed of Isis,—now forlorn
In rags—all earth their foe, and day by day
Worn in the strife with social Jove away—
Wretched, 'tis true, yet less enslaved, their strife,
Than our false peace with all this masque of life,
Convention's lies,—the league with Custom made,
The crimes of glory, and the frauds of trade.
Rest and rude food the lawless Nomads yield;
The dews rise ghost-like from the whitening field,
And ghost-like on the wanderer glides the sleep
Through which the phantom Dreams their witching Sabbat keep!
At dawn, while yet, around the Indian, lay
The dark, fantastic groups,—resumed the way;
Before his steps the landscape spreads more free
And fresh from man;—ev'n as a broadening sea,
When, more and more the harbour left behind,
The lone sail drifts before the strengthening wind.
Behold the sun!—how stately from the East,
Bright from God's presence, comes the glorious Priest!
Deck'd as beseems the Mighty One to whom
Heaven gives the charge to hallow and illume!
How, as he comes,—through the Great Temple, Earth,
Peels the rich Jubilee of grateful mirth!
The infant flowers their odour-censers swinging,
Through aislëd glades Air's Anthem-Chorus ringing;
While, like some soul lifted aloft by love,
High and alone the sky-lark halts above,
High, o'er the sparkling dews, the glittering corn,
Hymns his frank happiness and hails the morn!
He stands upon the green hill's lighted brow,
And sees the world at smiling peace below,
Hamlet and farm, and thy best type, Desire
Of the sad Heart,—the heaven-ascending spire!
He stood and mused, and thus his musing ran:—
"How strong, how feeble, is thine art, O Man!
Thou coverest Earth with wonders—at thy hand
Curbs the meek water, blooms the subject land:
Why halts thy magic here?—Why only deck'd
Earth's sterile surface, mournful Architect?
Why art thou powerless o'er the world within?
Why raise the Eden, yet retain the sin?
Why, while the earth, thou but enjoy'st an hour,
Proclaims thy splendour and attests thy power,
Why o'er the spirit does thy sorcery cease?—
Lo the sweet landscape round thee lull'd in peace!
Why wakes each heart to sorrow, care, and strife?
Why with yon temple so at war the life?
Why all so slight the variance, or in grief
Or guilt,—the sum of suffering and relief,
Between the desert's son whose wild content
Redeems no waste, enthralls no element,
And ye the Magians?—ye the giant birth
Of Lore and Science—Brahmins of the Earth?
Behold the calm steer drinking in the stream,
Behold the glad bird glancing in the beam.
Say, know ye pleasure,—ye, the Eternal Heirs
Of stars and spheres—life's calm content, like theirs?
Your stores enrich, your powers exalt, the few,
And curse the millions wealth and power subdue;
And ev'n the few!—what lord of luxury knows
The joy in strife, the sweetness in repose,
Which bless the houseless Arab?—Still behind }
Ease waits Disgust, and with the falling wind }
Droop the dull sails ordain'd to speed the mind. }
Increasing wants the sum of care increase,
The piled-up knowledge but sepulchres peace,
Ye quell the instincts, the free love, frank hate,
And bid hard Reason hold the scales of Fate—
What is your gain?—from each slain instinct springs
A hydra passion, poisoning while it stings;
Free love, foul lust;—the frank hate's manly strife
A plotting mask'd dissimulating life;—
Truth flies the world—one falsehood taints the sky
Each form a phantom, and each word a lie!
"Yet what am I?—the crush'd and baffled foe,
Who dared the strife, yet would denounce the blow.
What arms had I against this world to wield?
What mail the naked savage heart to shield?
To this hoar world I brought the trusts of youth,
Warm zeal for men, and fix'd repose in truth—
Amongst the young I look'd for young desires,
Love which adores, and Honour which aspires—
Amongst the old, for souls set free from all
The earthlier chains which young desires enthrall,
Serene and gentle both to soothe and chide,
The sires to pity, yet the seers to guide—
And lo! this civilised and boasted plan,
This order'd ring and harmony of man,
One hideous, cynic, levelling orgy, where
Youth Age's ice, and Age Youth's fever share—
The unwrinkled brow, the calculating brain,
The passion balanced with the weights of gain,
And Age more hotly clutching than the boy
At the lewd bauble and the gilded toy.
"Why should I murmur?—why accuse the strong?
I own Earth's law—the conquer'd are the wrong,
Am I ambitious?—in this world I stand
Closed from the race, an Alien in the land.
Dare I to love?—O soul, O heart, forget
That dream, that frenzy!—what is left me yet?
Revenge!"—His dark eyes flash'd—yet straightway died
The passionate lightning—"No!—revenge denied!
All the wild man in the tame slave is dead,
The currents stagnate in the girded bed!
Back to my desert!—yet, O sorcerer's draught,
O smooth false world,—what soul that once has quaff'd,
Renounces not the ancient manliness?
Now, could the Desert the charm'd victim bless?
Can the caged bird, escaped from bondage, share
As erst the freedom of the hardy air?
Can the poor peasant, lured by Wealth's caprice
To marts and domes, find the old native peace
In the old hut?—on-rushing is the mind:
It ne'er looks back on what it leaves behind.
Once cut the cable and unfurl the sail,
And spreads the boundless sea, and drifts the hurrying gale!
"Come then, my Soul, thy thoughts thy desert be!
Thy dreams thy comrades!—I escape to thee!
Within, the gates unbar, the airs expand,
No bound but Heaven confines the Spirit's Land!
Such luxury yet as what of Nature lives
In Art's lone wreck, the lingering instinct gives;
Joy in the sun, and mystery in the star,
Light of the Unseen, commune with the Far;
Man's law,—his fellow, ev'n in scorn, to save,
And hope in some just World beyond the Grave!"
So went he on, and day succeeds to day,
Untired the step, though purposeless the way;
At night his pause was at the lowliest door,
The beggar'd heart makes brothers of the Poor;
They who most writhe beneath Man's social wrong,
But love the feeble when they hate the strong.
Laud not to me the optimists who call
Each knave a brother—Parasites of all—
Praise not as genial his indifferent eye,
Who lips the cant of mock philanthropy;
He who loathes ill must more than half which lies
In this ill world with generous scorn despise;
Yet of the wrong he hates, the grief he shares,
His lip rebuke, his soul compassion, wears;
The Hermit's wrath bespeaks the Preacher's hope
Who loves men most—men call the Misanthrope!
At times with honest toil reposed—at times
Where gnawing wants beset despairing crimes,
Both still betray'd the sojourn of his soul,
Here wise to cheer, there fearless to control.
His that strange power the Church's Fathers had
To awe the fierce and to console the sad;
For he, like them, had sinn'd;—like them had known
Life's wild extremes;—their trials were his own!
Were we as rich in charity of deed
As gold—what rock would bloom not with the seed?
We give our alms, and cry—"What can we more?"
One hour of time were worth a load of ore!
Give to the ignorant our own wisdom!—give
Sorrow our comfort,—lend to those who live
In crime, the counsels of our virtue,—share
With souls our souls, and Satan shall despair!
Alas, what converts one man, who would take
The cross and staff, and house with Guilt, could make!
Still, in his breast, 'midst much that well might shame
The virtues Christians in themselves proclaim,
There dwelt the Ancient Heathen;—still as strong
Doubts in Heaven's justice,—curses for man's wrong.
Revenge, denied indeed, still rankled deep
In thought—and dimm'd the day, and marr'd the sleep
And there were hours when from the hell within
Faded the angel that had saved from sin;
When the fell Fury, beckoning through the gloom,
Cried "Life for life—thou hast betray'd the tomb!"
For the grim Honour of the ancient time
Deem'd vengeance duty and forgiveness crime;
And the stern soul fanatic conscience scared,
For blood not shed, and injury weakly spared;—
Woe, if in hours like these, O more than woe,
Had the roused tiger met the pardon'd foe!