IV

What Truths hath gleaned that Sage consumed

by many a moon that waxt and waned?

What Prophet-strain be his to sing?

What hath his old Experience gained?

There is no God, no man-made God;

a bigger, stronger, crueller man;

Black phantom of our baby-fears,

ere Thought, the life of Life, began.

Right quoth the Hindu Prince of old,*

“An Ishwara for one I nill,

Th’ almighty everlasting Good

who cannot ’bate th’ Eternal Ill:”

* Buddha.

“Your gods may be, what shows they are?”

hear China’s Perfect Sage declare;*

“And being, what to us be they

who dwell so darkly and so far?”

* Confucius.

“All matter hath a birth and death;

’tis made, unmade and made anew;

“We choose to call the Maker ‘God’:—

such is the Zâhid’s owly view.

“You changeful finite Creatures strain”

(rejoins the Drawer of the Wine)*

“The dizzy depths of Inf’inite Power

to fathom with your foot of twine”;

* The Soofi or Gnostic opposed to the Zâhid.

“Poor idols of man’s heart and head

with the Divine Idea to blend;

“To preach as ‘Nature’s Common Course’

what any hour may shift or end.”

“How shall the Shown pretend to ken

aught of the Showman or the Show?

“Why meanly bargain to believe,

which only means thou ne’er canst know?

“How may the passing Now contain

the standing Now—Eternity?—

“An endless _is_ without a _was_,

the _be_ and never the _to-be?_

“Who made your Maker? If Self-made,

why fare so far to fare the worse

“Sufficeth not a world of worlds,

a self-made chain of universe?

“Grant an Idea, Primal Cause,

the Causing Cause, why crave for more?

“Why strive its depth and breadth to mete,

to trace its work, its aid to ’implore?

“Unknown, Incomprehensible,

whate’er you choose to call it, call;

“But leave it vague as airy space,

dark in its darkness mystical.

“Your childish fears would seek a Sire,

by the non-human God defin’d,

“What your five wits may wot ye weet;

what _is_ you please to dub ‘design’d;’

“You bring down Heav’en to vulgar Earth;

your maker like yourselves you make,

“You quake to own a reign of Law,

you pray the Law its laws to break;

“You pray, but hath your thought e’er weighed

how empty vain the prayer must be,

“That begs a boon already giv’en,

or craves a change of law to see?

“Say, Man, deep learnèd in the Scheme

that orders mysteries sublime,

“How came it this was Jesus, that

was Judas from the birth of Time?

“How I the tiger, thou the lamb;

again the Secret, prithee, show

“Who slew the slain, bowman or bolt

or Fate that drave the man, the bow?

“Man worships self: his God is Man;

the struggling of the mortal mind

“To form its model as ’twould be,

the perfect of itself to find.

“The God became sage, priest and scribe

where Nilus’ serpent made the vale;

“A gloomy Brahm in glowing Ind,

a neutral something cold and pale:

“Amid the high Chaldean hills

a moulder of the heavenly spheres;

“On Guebre steppes the Timeless-God

who governs by his dual peers:

“In Hebrew tents the Lord that led

His leprous slaves to fight and jar;

“Yahveh,* Adon or Elohîm,

the God that smites, the Man of War.

* Jehovah.

“The lovely Gods of lib’ertine Greece,

those fair and frail humanities

“Whose homes o’erlook’d the Middle Sea,

where all Earth’s beauty cradled lies,

“Ne’er left its blessèd bounds, nor sought

the barb’arous climes of barb’arous gods

“Where Odin of the dreary North

o’er hog and sickly mead-cup nods:

“And when, at length, ‘Great Pan is dead’

uprose the loud and dol’orous cry

“A glamour wither’d on the ground,

a splendour faded in the sky.

“Yea, Pan was dead, the Nazar’ene came

and seized his seat beneath the sun,

“The votary of the Riddle-god,

whose one is three and three is one;

“Whose sadd’ening creed of herited Sin

spilt o’er the world its cold grey spell;

“In every vista showed a grave,

and ’neath the grave the glare of Hell;

“Till all Life’s Po’esy sinks to prose;

romance to dull Real’ity fades;

“Earth’s flush of gladness pales in gloom

and God again to man degrades.

“Then the lank Arab foul with sweat,

the drainer of the camel’s dug,

“Gorged with his leek-green lizard’s meat,

clad in his filthy rag and rug,

“Bore his fierce Allah o’er his sands

and broke, like lava-burst upon

“The realms where reigned pre-Adamite Kings,

where rose the Grand Kayânian throne.*

* Kayâni—of the race of Cyrus; old Guebre heroes.

“Who now of ancient Kayomurs,

of Zâl or Rustam cares to sing,

“Whelmed by the tempest of the tribes

that called the Camel-driver King?

“Where are the crown of Kay Khusraw,

the sceptre of Anûshirwân,

“The holy grail of high Jamshîd,

Afrâsiyab’s hall?—Canst tell me, man?

“Gone, gone, where I and thou must go,

borne by the winnowing wings of Death,

“The Horror brooding over life,

and nearer brought with every breath:

“Their fame hath filled the Seven Climes,

they rose and reigned, they fought and fell,

“As swells and swoons across the wold

the tinkling of the Camel’s bell.”

V

There is no Good, there is no Bad;

these be the whims of mortal will:

What works me weal that call I ‘good,’

what harms and hurts I hold as ‘ill:’

They change with place, they shift with race;

and, in the veriest span of Time,

Each Vice has worn a Virtue’s crown;

all Good was banned as Sin or Crime:

Like ravelled skeins they cross and twine,

while this with that connects and blends;

And only Khizr* his eye shall see

where one begins, where other ends:

* Supposed to be the Prophet Elijah.

What mortal shall consort with Khizr,

when Musâ turned in fear to flee?

What man foresees the flow’er or fruit

whom Fate compels to plant the tree?

For Man’s Free-will immortal Law,

Anagkê, Kismet, Des’tiny read

That was, that is, that aye shall be,

Star, Fortune, Fate, Urd, Norn or Need.

“Man’s nat’ural state is God’s design;”

such is the silly sage’s theme;

“Man’s primal Age was Age of Gold;”

such is the Poet’s waking dream:

Delusion, Ign’orance! Long ere Man

drew upon Earth his earliest breath

The world was one contin’uous scene

of anguish, torture, prey and Death;

Where hideous Theria of the wild

rended their fellows limb by limb;

Where horrid Saurians of the sea

in waves of blood were wont to swim:

The “fair young Earth” was only fit

to spawn her frightful monster-brood;

Now fiery hot, now icy frore,

now reeking wet with steamy flood.

Yon glorious Sun, the greater light,

the “Bridegroom” of the royal Lyre,

A flaming, boiling, bursting mine;

a grim black orb of whirling fire:

That gentle Moon, the lesser light,

the Lover’s lamp, the Swain’s delight,

A ruined world, a globe burnt out,

a corpse upon the road of night.

What reckt he, say, of Good or Ill

who in the hill-hole made his lair,

The blood-fed rav’ening Beast of prey,

wilder than wildest wolf or bear?

How long in Man’s pre-Ad’amite days

to feed and swill, to sleep and breed,

Were the Brute-biped’s only life,

a perfect life sans Code or Creed?

His choicest garb a shaggy fell,

his choicest tool a flake of stone;

His best of orn’aments tattoo’d skin

and holes to hang his bits of bone;

Who fought for female as for food

when Mays awoke to warm desire;

And such the Lust that grew to Love

when Fancy lent a purer fire.

Where then “Th’ Eternal nature-law

by God engraved on human heart?”

Behold his simiad sconce and own

the Thing could play no higher part.

Yet, as long ages rolled, he learnt

from Beaver, Ape and Ant to build

Shelter for sire and dam and brood,

from blast and blaze that hurt and killed;

And last came Fire; when scrap of stone

cast on the flame that lit his den,

Gave out the shining ore, and made

the Lord of beasts a Lord of men.

The “moral sense,” your Zâhid-phrase,

is but the gift of latest years;

Conscience was born when man had shed

his fur, his tail, his pointed ears.

What conscience has the murd’erous Moor,

who slays his guest with felon blow,

Save sorrow he can slay no more,

what prick of pen’itence can he know?

You cry the “Cruelty of Things”

is myst’ery to your purblind eye,

Which fixed upon a point in space

the general project passes by:

For see! the Mammoth went his ways,

became a mem’ory and a name;

While the half-reasoner with the hand*

survives his rank and place to claim.

* The Elephant.

Earthquake and plague, storm, fight and fray,

portents and curses man must deem

Since he regards his self alone,

nor cares to trace the scope, the scheme;

The Quake that comes in eyelid’s beat

to ruin, level, ’gulf and kill,

Builds up a world for better use,

to general Good bends special Ill:

The dreadest sound man’s ear can hear,

the war and rush of stormy Wind

Depures the stuff of human life,

breeds health and strength for humankind:

What call ye them or Goods or Ills,

ill-goods, good-ills, a loss, a gain,

When realms arise and falls a roof;

a world is won, a man is slain?

And thus the race of Being runs,

till haply in the time to be

Earth shifts her pole and Mushtari*-men

another falling star shall see:

* The Planet Jupiter.

Shall see it fall and fade from sight,

whence come, where gone no Thought can tell,—

Drink of yon mirage-stream and chase

the tinkling of the camel-bell!