Ere broke the storm, yon blood-red tide,
Man’s will, ’gainst very Fate is bound
To probe and check, but which he, callous, failed to sound:
Had I not made his tacks go wide,
Charmed lasting ’round with my good noose
The brazen throat that poohed the truce,
Yet from her deep lip that answereth not,
Save where with pupil’s grace you tend her school,
Sought shuffling plea, acclaimed for Rule,
Yon vaunted policy, whose flattering rot
Outwits itself, aborts all plan
Thro’ fierce array of brawling man;
Whose passing equity, the worldly Sure,
Might never yet a neutral stand, did witness bear—
Yon hosting skies no plainer there—
Than that Nations’ lives may not endure,
But shall buoy up dark things of Night,
That, at issue, watch the orient Light;
Be as brief posts twixt here and hence,
Time, the user-of-them-for his haste,
Their barred entail what feeds his waste,
Slaves his command, confounds all whence;
When Aggression evermore fierce yokeman go,—
Cries ’s rage no halt,—with Nature’s grim and blood-red law.
A-well,—so set, to some such words,
So substanced to their dour pith,
Tho’ the pen, at push for its wherewith,
May, chance, interpreting the rousing chords,
And, as becomes an instrument of Breath,
Be scanting what their phrenzy saith,—
Yet thus, from past all conscious source,
Mark, manner, privilege of Thought,
Trite limit of the time-bound brought,
Rang his appeal, whose fierce discourse,
Lest Truth, sore tossed, succumb despair,
Exhort no more, inspiring tongued the womby air.
Whereon, as if to merge each single act,
Fuse straying motive, pledge them one,
Have, whence ’mid blaze of myriad sun,
The Theme enacts, or, where trite performs the meanest fact,
Some prompting Light declare, “this scene spake true,
Broad-based on Just to climax grew.”
Nay, as to have once more this Sponsor say:
“Tho’ wrath with ruth perplex my theme,
And thro’ pall of cloud my pathways gleam,
And truckling augurs bode them nay;
Yet came ne’er so lost my omened sooth,
But some light broke dim with warning truth.”
Even so, as some such charge they bore,
Now blent, as they were one, those Voices three:
Their mingled strains, consonantly,
Took jointly up this general score,
Whose burden—scale and pace to utmost star—
Did, rounding, swell their awful bar:
“Had we had leave, as we have will,
Laid on the rod, nor spared the hand,
But that dim Fates did baffling stand,
Called out: “Leave off, forbear, till we fulfill,
While etern Purpose, evermore at large,
Abeyant files your bitter charge!”
“Might we have shook us in our strength,
Hadn’t we laid low, by his ruffian heel,
This ogred Wrong—his mealy trick his bloat appeal—
Cramped hell to hold his felon’s length?
Her warders been, saved England’s shame,
Ere Execration he her other name?