St. J. We were not made.
I told you, Martha; it is man that makes—
And birds and beavers, spiders, bees and ants;
All conscious Matter makes and mars a little:
But of the staple of the Universe,
Unconscious Matter, what we know is this:
That it becomes in systems, suns and earths,
In plants and beasts and men, a Universe.
Lady S. That seems more wonderful than to be made:
I feel it may be true. But, oh, dear Gervase,
What is the use, what is the end of it?
St. J. No end, and no beginning anywhere:
Only eternity, eternal Matter
And Matter's form, imagination—No;
Not form: how metaphysic tarnishes
A simple word! Only imagination,
The most exalted name of Matter, wrought
From flame to ice, from ice again to flame
Through suns and planets, verdure, battle, blood,
Degrees of being, and miracles of change.
Lady S. Why should it be? What purpose can it serve?
St. J. It must be, since it is; and must be so,
Or certainly it would be otherwise.
It serves no purpose, it is beautiful:
That is the whole. Your children, dead, had no
Beginning and will have no end. They once
Were fire; that fire, transmuted into love,
Distilled them from your womb, and was
Itself your children: cooled again, it rests
In earth, and will be limpid fire once more,
When all the orbs that hang about the sun
Return into its bosom, or other radiant
Passion of Matter impregnate space anew.
Lady S. I need not die then, since I cannot end?
St. J. Oh now my brain rejoices! Terror lurked
Beneath that white austerity of mine,
Lest when I tried my message in the fire—
The first time: true; but with a woman, and one
Whom dread of death and fancied need of death
Kindles to any news and change of mood:
I say, I feared lest your intense despair,
That gilds my truth at once, should burn it up.
But now you think there never can be need
For terror, doubt, or agony of mind
In presence of a sinless Universe,
Where all is mystery, all imagination,
All beauty, passion, power unending, all
The purest Matter.
Lady S. I can live; but where?
Where can I find a home for this new thought?
Not in the theatre, not in the church,
Not in the houses or the books of men!
St. J. I have a mansion in a forest-aisle
Where a deep silence, intimately felt,
And poignant as a perfume, like a mode
Of subtle splendour evermore becomes.
A green and branching honeycomb of glades,
A sylvan city clusters round my house;
And near it in an arbour sancro-sanct,
A chapelle ardent of the forest, lies
In state a famous memory. There it was
The queen of the Iceni stood at bay,
A desperate hind against the Roman pack,
In that last battle of her overthrow.
The trench she dug, the mound she reared are held
By oak and beech; but in this inmost bower
Beside her camp forlorn, this secret haunt
Of emerald shadow, emerald light, a crypt
Of living silence, sculptured boscage, turf
That gathers incense from the generous earth,
There on this virgin ground, a green and bronze
Carpet of fragrancies and couch of state,
These doomed things are enshrined.
Lady S. I might begin
To live again in such a woodland haven,
If I were free.