And when Captain Sword got up next morn,

Produced by David Edwards, Emmy and the Online Distributed

Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was

produced from images generously made available by The

Internet Archive/American Libraries.)

[Illustration: [_To face the Title._]

CAPTAIN SWORD AND CAPTAIN PEN.

=A Poem.=

BY LEIGH HUNT.

WITH SOME REMARKS ON

WAR AND MILITARY STATESMEN.

--If there be in glory aught of good,

It may by means far different be attained,

Without ambition, war, or violence.--MILTON.

LONDON:

CHARLES KNIGHT, LUDGATE STREET.

1835.

TO

THE RIGHT HONOURABLE THE

LORD BROUGHAM AND VAUX,

WITH WHOM THE WRITER HUMBLY DIFFERS ON SOME POINTS,

BUT DEEPLY RESPECTS FOR HIS MOTIVES ON ALL;

GREAT IN OFFICE FOR WHAT HE DID FOR THE WORLD,

GREATER OUT OF IT IN CALMLY AWAITING HIS TIME TO DO MORE;

THE PROMOTER OF EDUCATION; THE EXPEDITER OF JUSTICE;

THE LIBERATOR FROM SLAVERY;

AND (WHAT IS THE RAREST VIRTUE IN A STATESMAN)

ALWAYS A DENOUNCER OF WAR,

=These Pages are Inscribed=

BY HIS EVER AFFECTIONATE SERVANT,

Jan. 30, 1835. LEIGH HUNT.

ADVERTISEMENT.

This Poem is the result of a sense of duty, which has taken the Author

from quieter studies during a great public crisis. He obeyed the impulse

with joy, because it took the shape of verse; but with more pain, on

some accounts, than he chooses to express. However, he has done what he

conceived himself bound to do; and if every zealous lover of his species

were to express his feelings in like manner, to the best of his ability,

individual opinions, little in themselves, would soon amount to an

overwhelming authority, and hasten the day of reason and beneficence.

The measure is regular with an irregular aspect,--four accents in a

verse,--like that of Christabel, or some of the poems of Sir Walter

Scott:

Càptain Swòrd got ùp one dày--

And the flàg full of hònour, as thòugh it could feèl--

He mentions this, not, of course, for readers in general, but for the

sake of those daily acceders to the list of the reading public, whose

knowledge of books is not yet equal to their love of them.

[Illustration:

STEPPING IN MUSIC AND THUNDER SWEET,

WHICH HIS DRUMS SENT BEFORE HIM INTO THE STREET.

_Canto_ I. _p._ 1.]

CAPTAIN SWORD AND CAPTAIN PEN.

I.

HOW CAPTAIN SWORD MARCHED TO WAR.

Captain Sword got up one day,

Over the hills to march away,

Over the hills and through the towns,

They heard him coming across the downs,

Stepping in music and thunder sweet,

Which his drums sent before him into the street.

And lo! 'twas a beautiful sight in the sun;

For first came his foot, all marching like one,

With tranquil faces, and bristling steel,

And the flag full of honour as though it could feel,

And the officers gentle, the sword that hold

'Gainst the shoulder heavy with trembling gold,

And the massy tread, that in passing is heard,

Though the drums and the music say never a word.

And then came his horse, a clustering sound

Of shapely potency, forward bound,

Glossy black steeds, and riders tall,

Rank after rank, each looking like all,

Midst moving repose and a threatening charm,

With mortal sharpness at each right arm,

And hues that painters and ladies love,

And ever the small flag blush'd above.

And ever and anon the kettle-drums beat

Hasty power midst order meet;

And ever and anon the drums and fifes

Came like motion's voice, and life's;

Or into the golden grandeurs fell

Of deeper instruments, mingling well,

Burdens of beauty for winds to bear;

And the cymbals kiss'd in the shining air,

And the trumpets their visible voices rear'd,

Each looking forth with its tapestried beard,

Bidding the heavens and earth make way

For Captain Sword and his battle-array.

He, nevertheless, rode indifferent-eyed,

As if pomp were a toy to his manly pride,

Whilst the ladies lov'd him the more for his scorn,

And thought him the noblest man ever was born,

And tears came into the bravest eyes,

And hearts swell'd after him double their size,

And all that was weak, and all that was strong,

Seem'd to think wrong's self in him could not be wrong;

Such love, though with bosom about to be gored,

Did sympathy get for brave Captain Sword.

So, half that night, as he stopp'd in the town,

'Twas all one dance, going merrily down,

With lights in windows and love in eyes,

And a constant feeling of sweet surprise;

But all the next morning 'twas tears and sighs;

For the sound of his drums grew less and less,

Walking like carelessness off from distress;

And Captain Sword went whistling gay,

"Over the hills and far away."

II.

HOW CAPTAIN SWORD WON A GREAT VICTORY.

Through fair and through foul went Captain Sword,

Pacer of highway and piercer of ford,

Steady of face in rain or sun,

He and his merry men, all as one;

Till they came to a place, where in battle-array

Stood thousands of faces, firm as they,

Waiting to see which could best maintain

Bloody argument, lords of pain;

And down the throats of their fellow-men

Thrust the draught never drunk again.

It was a spot of rural peace,

Ripening with the year's increase

And singing in the sun with birds,

Like a maiden with happy words--

With happy words which she scarcely hears

In her own contented ears,

Such abundance feeleth she

Of all comfort carelessly,

Throwing round her, as she goes,

Sweet half-thoughts on lily and rose,

Nor guesseth what will soon arouse

All ears--that murder's in the house;

And that, in some strange wrong of brain,

Her father hath her mother slain.

Steady! steady! The masses of men

Wheel, and fall in, and wheel again,

Softly as circles drawn with pen.

Then a gaze there was, and valour, and fear,

And the jest that died in the jester's ear,

And preparation, noble to see,

Of all-accepting mortality;

Tranquil Necessity gracing Force;

And the trumpets danc'd with the stirring horse;

And lordly voices, here and there,

Call'd to war through the gentle air;

When suddenly, with its voice of doom,

Spoke the cannon 'twixt glare and gloom,

Making wider the dreadful room:

On the faces of nations round

Fell the shadow of that sound.

Death for death! The storm begins;

Rush the drums in a torrent of dins;

Crash the muskets, gash the swords;

Shoes grow red in a thousand fords;

Now for the flint, and the cartridge bite;

Darkly gathers the breath of the fight,

Salt to the palate and stinging to sight;

Muskets are pointed they scarce know where,

No matter: Murder is cluttering there.

Reel the hollows: close up! close up!

Death feeds thick, and his food is his cup.

Down go bodies, snap burst eyes;

Trod on the ground are tender cries;

Brains are dash'd against plashing ears;

Hah! no time has battle for tears;

Cursing helps better--cursing, that goes

Slipping through friends' blood, athirst for foes'.

What have soldiers with tears to do?--

We, who this mad-house must now go through,

This twenty-fold Bedlam, let loose with knives--

To murder, and stab, and grow liquid with lives--

Gasping, staring, treading red mud,

Till the drunkenness' self makes us steady of blood?

[Illustration:

DOWN GO BODIES--SNAP BURST EYES--

TROD ON THE GROUND ARE TENDER CRIES.

_Canto_ II. _p. 8._]

[Oh! shrink not thou, reader! Thy part's in it too;

Has not thy praise made the thing they go through

Shocking to read of, but noble to do?]

No time to be "breather of thoughtful breath"

Has the giver and taker of dreadful death.

See where comes the horse-tempest again,

Visible earthquake, bloody of mane!

Part are upon us, with edges of pain;

Part burst, riderless, over the plain,

Crashing their spurs, and twice slaying the slain.

See, by the living God! see those foot

Charging down hill--hot, hurried, and mute!

They loll their tongues out! Ah-hah! pell-mell!

Horses roll in a human hell;

Horse and man they climb one another--

Which is the beast, and which is the brother?

Mangling, stifling, stopping shrieks

With the tread of torn-out cheeks,

Drinking each other's bloody breath--

Here's the fleshliest feast of Death.

An odour, as of a slaughter-house,

The distant raven's dark eye bows.

Victory! victory! Man flies man;

Cannibal patience hath done what it can--

Carv'd, and been carv'd, drunk the drinkers down,

And now there is one that hath won the crown:

One pale visage stands lord of the board--

Joy to the trumpets of Captain Sword!

His trumpets blow strength, his trumpets neigh,

They and his horse, and waft him away;

They and his foot, with a tir'd proud flow,

Tatter'd escapers and givers of woe.

Open, ye cities! Hats off! hold breath!

To see the man who has been with Death;

To see the man who determineth right

By the virtue-perplexing virtue of might.

Sudden before him have ceas'd the drums,

And lo! in the air of empire he comes!

All things present, in earth and sky,

Seem to look at his looking eye.

III.

OF THE BALL THAT WAS GIVEN TO CAPTAIN SWORD.

But Captain Sword was a man among men,

And he hath become their playmate again:

Boot, nor sword, nor stern look hath he,

But holdeth the hand of a fair ladye,

And floweth the dance a palace within,

Half the night, to a golden din,

Midst lights in windows and love in eyes,

And a constant feeling of sweet surprise;

And ever the look of Captain Sword

Is the look that's thank'd, and the look that's ador'd.

There was the country-dance, small of taste;

And the waltz, that loveth the lady's waist;

And the galopade, strange agreeable tramp,

Made of a scrape, a hobble, and stamp;

And the high-stepping minuet, face to face,

Mutual worship of conscious grace;

And all the shapes in which beauty goes

Weaving motion with blithe repose.

And then a table a feast displayed,

Like a garden of light without a shade,

All of gold, and flowers, and sweets,

With wines of old church-lands, and sylvan meats,

Food that maketh the blood feel choice;

Yet all the face of the feast, and the voice,

And heart, still turn'd to the head of the board;

For ever the look of Captain Sword

Is the look that's thank'd, and the look that's ador'd.

[Illustration:

THERE WAS THE COUNTRY DANCE, SMALL OF TASTE;

AND THE WALTZ, THAT LOVETH THE LADY'S WAIST.

_Canto_ III. _p._ 14.]

Well content was Captain Sword;

At his feet all wealth was pour'd;

On his head all glory set;

For his ease all comfort met;

And around him seem'd entwin'd

All the arms of womankind.

And when he had taken his fill

Thus, of all that pampereth will,

In his down he sunk to rest,

Clasp'd in dreams of all its best.

IV.

ON WHAT TOOK PLACE ON THE FIELD OF BATTLE THE NIGHT AFTER THE VICTORY.

'Tis a wild night out of doors;

The wind is mad upon the moors,

And comes into the rocking town,

Stabbing all things, up and down,

And then there is a weeping rain

Huddling 'gainst the window-pane,

And good men bless themselves in bed;

The mother brings her infant's head

Closer, with a joy like tears,

And thinks of angels in her prayers;

Then sleeps, with his small hand in hers.

Two loving women, lingering yet

Ere the fire is out, are met,

Talking sweetly, time-beguil'd,

One of her bridegroom, one her child,

The bridegroom he. They have receiv'd

Happy letters, more believ'd

For public news, and feel the bliss

The heavenlier on a night like this.

They think him hous'd, they think him blest,

Curtain'd in the core of rest,

Danger distant, all good near;

Why hath their "Good night" a tear?

Behold him! By a ditch he lies

Clutching the wet earth, his eyes

Beginning to be mad. In vain

His tongue still thirsts to lick the rain,

That mock'd but now his homeward tears;

And ever and anon he rears

His legs and knees with all their strength,

And then as strongly thrusts at length.

Rais'd, or stretch'd, he cannot bear

The wound that girds him, weltering there:

And "Water!" he cries, with moonward stare.

["I will not read it!" with a start,

Burning cries some honest heart;

"I will not read it! Why endure

Pangs which horror cannot cure?

Why--Oh why? and rob the brave

And the bereav'd of all they crave,

A little hope to gild the grave?"

Ask'st thou why, thou honest heart?

'Tis _because_ thou dost ask, and because thou dost start.

'Tis because thine own praise and fond outward thought

Have aided the shews which this sorrow have wrought.]

A wound unutterable--Oh God!

Mingles his being with the sod.

["I'll read no more."--Thou must, thou must:

In thine own pang doth wisdom trust.]

His nails are in earth, his eyes in air,

And "Water!" he crieth--he may not forbear.

Brave and good was he, yet now he dreams

The moon looks cruel; and he blasphemes.

["No more! no more!" Nay, this is but one;

Were the whole tale told, it would not be done

From wonderful setting to rising sun.

But God's good time is at hand--be calm,

Thou reader! and steep thee in all thy balm

Of tears or patience, of thought or good will,

For the field--the field awaiteth us still.]

"Water! water!" all over the field:

To nothing but Death will that wound-voice yield.

One, as he crieth, is sitting half bent;

What holds he so close?--his body is rent.

Another is mouthless, with eyes on cheek;

Unto the raven he may not speak.

One would fain kill him; and one half round

The place where he writhes, hath up beaten the ground.

Like a mad horse hath he beaten the ground,

And the feathers and music that litter it round,

The gore, and the mud, and the golden sound.

Come hither, ye cities! ye ball-rooms, take breath!

See what a floor hath the dance of death!

The floor is alive, though the lights are out;

What are those dark shapes, flitting about?

Flitting about, yet no ravens they,

Not foes, yet not friends--mute creatures of prey;

Their prey is lucre, their claws a knife,

Some say they take the beseeching life.

Horrible pity is theirs for despair,

And they the love-sacred limbs leave bare.

Love will come to-morrow, and sadness,

Patient for the fear of madness,

And shut its eyes for cruelty,

So many pale beds to see.

Turn away, thou Love, and weep

No more in covering his last sleep;

Thou hast him--blessed is thine eye!

Friendless Famine has yet to die.

[Illustration:

COME HITHER, YE CITIES! YE BALL-ROOMS TAKE BREATH!

SEE WHAT A FLOOR HATH THE DANCE OF DEATH.

_Canto_ IV. _p._ 22.]

A shriek!--Great God! what superhuman

Peal was that? Not man, nor woman,

Nor twenty madmen, crush'd, could wreak

Their soul in such a ponderous shriek.

Dumbly, for an instant, stares

The field; and creep men's dying hairs.

O friend of man! O noble creature!

Patient and brave, and mild by nature,

Mild by nature, and mute as mild,

Why brings he to these passes wild

Thee, gentle horse, thou shape of beauty?

Could he not do his dreadful duty,

(If duty it be, which seems mad folly)

Nor link thee to his melancholy?

Two noble steeds lay side by side,

One cropp'd the meek grass ere it died;

Pang-struck it struck t' other, already torn,

And out of its bowels that shriek was born.

Now see what crawleth, well as it may,

Out of the ditch, and looketh that way.

What horror all black, in the sick moonlight,

Kneeling, half human, a burdensome sight;

Loathly and liquid, as fly from a dish;

Speak, Horror! thou, for it withereth flesh.

"The grass caught fire; the wounded were by;

Writhing till eve did a remnant lie;

Then feebly this coal abateth his cry;

But he hopeth! he hopeth! joy lighteth his eye,

For gold he possesseth, and Murder is nigh!"

O goodness in horror! O ill not all ill!

In the worst of the worst may be fierce Hope still.

To-morrow with dawn will come many a wain,

And bear away loads of human pain,

Piles of pale beds for the 'spitals; but some

Again will awake in home-mornings, and some,

Dull herds of the war, again follow the drum.

From others, faint blood shall in families flow,

With wonder at life, and young oldness in woe,

Yet hence may the movers of great earth grow.

Now, even now, I hear them at hand,

Though again Captain Sword is up in the land,

Marching anew for more fields like these

In the health of his flag in the morning breeze.

Sneereth the trumpet, and stampeth the drum,

And again Captain Sword in his pride doth come;

He passeth the fields where his friends lie lorn,

Feeding the flowers and the feeding corn,

Where under the sunshine cold they lie,

And he hasteth a tear from his old grey eye.

Small thinking is his but of work to be done,

And onward he marcheth, using the sun:

He slayeth, he wasteth, he spouteth his fires

On babes at the bosom, and bed-rid sires;

He bursteth pale cities, through smoke and through yell,

And bringeth behind him, hot-blooded, his hell.

Then the weak door is barr'd, and the soul all sore,

And hand-wringing helplessness paceth the floor,

And the lover is slain, and the parents are nigh--

Oh God! let me breathe, and look up at thy sky!

Good is as hundreds, evil as one;

Round about goeth the golden sun.

V.

HOW CAPTAIN SWORD, IN CONSEQUENCE OF HIS GREAT VICTORIES, BECAME INFIRM

IN HIS WITS.

But to win at the game, whose moves are death,

It maketh a man draw too proud a breath:

And to see his force taken for reason and right,

It tendeth to unsettle his reason quite.

Never did chief of the line of Sword

Keep his wits whole at that drunken board.

He taketh the size, and the roar, and fate,

Of the field of his action, for soul as great:

He smiteth and stunneth the cheek of mankind,

And saith "Lo! I rule both body and mind."

Captain Sword forgot his own soul,

Which of aught save itself, resented controul;

Which whatever his deeds, ordained them still,

Bodiless monarch, enthron'd in his will:

He forgot the close thought, and the burning heart,

And pray'rs, and the mild moon hanging apart,

Which lifteth the seas with her gentle looks,

And growth, and death, and immortal books,

And the Infinite Mildness, the soul of souls,

Which layeth earth soft 'twixt her silver poles;

Which ruleth the stars, and saith not a word;

Whose speed in the hair of no comet is heard;

Which sendeth the soft sun, day by day,

Mighty, and genial, and just alway,

Owning no difference, doing no wrong,

Loving the orbs and the least bird's song,

The great, sweet, warm angel, with golden rod,

Bright with the smile of the distance of God.

Captain Sword, like a witless thing,

Of all under heaven must needs be king,

King of kings, and lord of lords,

Swayer of souls as well as of swords,

Ruler of speech, and through speech, of thought;

And hence to his brain was a madness brought.

He madden'd in East, he madden'd in West,

Fiercer for sights of men's unrest,

Fiercer for talk, amongst awful men,

Of their new mighty leader, Captain Pen,

A conqueror strange, who sat in his home

Like the wizard that plagued the ships of Rome,

Noiseless, show-less, dealing no death,

But victories, winged, went forth from his breath.

Three thousand miles across the waves[A]

Did Captain Sword cry, bidding souls be slaves:

Three thousand miles did the echo return

With a laugh and a blow made his old cheeks burn.

Then he call'd to a wrong-maddened people, and swore[B]

Their name in the map should never be more:

Dire came the laugh, and smote worse than before.

Were earthquake a giant, up-thrusting his head

And o'erlooking the nations, not worse were the dread.

Then, lo! was a wonder, and sadness to see;

For with that very people, their leader, stood he,

Incarnate afresh, like a Cæsar of old;[C]

But because he look'd back, and his heart was cold,

Time, hope, and himself for a tale he sold.

Oh largest occasion, by man ever lost!

Oh throne of the world, to the war-dogs tost!

He vanished; and thinly there stood in his place

The new shape of Sword, with an humbler face,[D]

Rebuking his brother, and preaching for right,

Yet aye when it came, standing proud on his might,

And squaring its claims with his old small sight;

Then struck up his drums, with ensign furl'd,

And said, "I will walk through a subject world:

Earth, just as it is, shall for ever endure,

The rich be too rich, and the poor too poor;

And for this I'll stop knowledge. I'll say to it, 'Flow

Thus far; but presume no farther to flow:

For me, as I list, shall the free airs blow.'"

[Illustration:

THEN SUDDENLY CAME HE WITH GOWNED MEN,

AND SAID, "NOW OBSERVE ME--I'M CAPTAIN PEN."

_Canto V. p. 34._]

Laugh'd after him loudly that land so fair,[E]

"The king thou set'st over us, by a free air

Is swept away, senseless." And old Sword then

First knew the might of great Captain Pen.

So strangely it bow'd him, so wilder'd his brain,

That now he stood, hatless, renouncing his reign;

Now mutter'd of dust laid in blood; and now

'Twixt wonder and patience went lifting his brow.

Then suddenly came he, with gowned men,

And said, "Now observe me--_I'm_ Captain Pen:

_I'll_ lead all your changes--I'll write all your books--

I'm every thing--all things--I'm clergymen, cooks,

Clerks, carpenters, hosiers--I'm Pitt--I'm Lord Grey."

'Twas painful to see his extravagant way;

But heart ne'er so bold, and hand ne'er so strong,

What are they, when truth and the wits go wrong?

FOOTNOTES:

[A] The American War.

[B] The French War.

[C] Napoleon.

[D] The Duke of Wellington, or existing Military Toryism.

[E] The Glorious Three Days.

VI.

OF CAPTAIN PEN, AND HOW HE FOUGHT WITH CAPTAIN SWORD.

Now tidings of Captain Sword and his state

Were brought to the ears of Pen the Great,

Who rose and said, "His time is come."

And he sent him, but not by sound of drum,

Nor trumpet, nor other hasty breath,

Hot with questions of life and death,

But only a letter calm and mild;

And Captain Sword he read it, and smil'd,

And said, half in scorn, and nothing in fear,

(Though his wits seem'd restor'd by a danger near,

For brave was he ever) "Let Captain Pen

Bring at his back a million men,

And I'll talk with his wisdom, and not till then."

Then replied to his messenger Captain Pen,

"I'll bring at my back a _world_ of men."

Out laugh'd the captains of Captain Sword,

But their chief look'd vex'd, and said not a word,

For thought and trouble had touch'd his ears

Beyond the bullet-like sense of theirs,

And wherever he went, he was 'ware of a sound

Now heard in the distance, now gathering round,

Which irk'd him to know what the issue might be;

But the soul of the cause of it well guess'd he.

Indestructible souls among men

Were the souls of the line of Captain Pen;

Sages, patriots, martyrs mild,

Going to the stake, as child

Goeth with his prayer to bed;

Dungeon-beams, from quenchless head;

Poets, making earth aware

Of its wealth in good and fair;

And the benders to their intent,

Of metal and of element;

Of flame the enlightener, beauteous,

And steam, that bursteth his iron house;

And adamantine giants blind,

That, without master, have no mind.

Heir to these, and all their store,

Was Pen, the power unknown of yore;

And as their might still created might,

And each work'd for him by day and by night,

In wealth and wondrous means he grew,

Fit to move the earth anew;

Till his fame began to speak

Pause, as when the thunders wake,

Muttering, in the beds of heaven:

Then, to set the globe more even,

Water he call'd, and Fire, and Haste,

Which hath left old Time displac'd--

And Iron, mightiest now for Pen,

Each of his steps like an army of men--

(Sword little knew what was leaving him then)

And out of the witchcraft of their skill,

A creature he call'd, to wait on his will--

Half iron, half vapour, a dread to behold--

Which evermore panted and evermore roll'd,

And uttered his words a million fold.

Forth sprang they in air, down raining like dew,

And men fed upon them, and mighty they grew.

Ears giddy with custom that sound might not hear,

But it woke up the rest, like an earthquake near;

And that same night of the letter, some strange

Compulsion of soul brought a sense of change;

And at midnight the sound grew into a roll

As the sound of all gath'rings from pole to pole,

From pole unto pole, and from clime to clime,

Like the roll of the wheels of the coming of time;--

A sound as of cities, and sound as of swords

Sharpening, and solemn and terrible words,

And laughter as solemn, and thunderous drumming,

A tread as if all the world were coming.

And then was a lull, and soft voices sweet

Call'd into music those terrible feet,

Which rising on wings, lo! the earth went round

To the burn of their speed with a golden sound;

With a golden sound, and a swift repose,

Such as the blood in the young heart knows;

Such as Love knows, when his tumults cease;

When all is quick, and yet all is at peace.

And when Captain Sword got up next morn,

Lo! a new-fac'd world was born;

For not an anger nor pride would it shew,

Nor aught of the loftiness now found low,

Nor would his own men strike a single blow:

Not a blow for their old, unconsidering lord

Would strike the good soldiers of Captain Sword;

But weaponless all, and wise they stood,

In the level dawn, and calm brotherly good;

Yet bowed to him they, and kiss'd his hands,

For such were their new lord's commands,

Lessons rather, and brotherly plea;

Reverence the past, quoth he;

Reverence the struggle and mystery,

And faces human in their pain;

Nor his the least, that could sustain

Cares of mighty wars, and guide

Calmly where the red deaths ride.

"But how! what now?" cried Captain Sword;

"Not a blow for your gen'ral? not even a word?

What! traitors? deserters?"

"Ah no!" cried they;

"But the 'game's' at an end; the 'wise' wont play."

"And where's your old spirit?"

"The same, though another;

Man may be strong without maiming his brother."

"But enemies?"

"Enemies! Whence should they come,

When all interchange what was known but to some?"

"But famine? but plague? worse evils by far."

"O last mighty rhet'ric to charm us to war!

Look round--what has earth, now it equably speeds,

To do with these foul and calamitous needs?

Now it equably speeds, and thoughtfully glows,

And its heart is open, never to close?

[Illustration:

AND SO, LIKE THE TOOL OF A DISUS'D ART,

HE STOOD AT HIS WALL, AND RUSTED APART.

_Canto_ VI. _p. 44._]

"Still I can govern," said Captain Sword;

"Fate I respect; and I stick to my word."

And in truth so he did; but the word was one

He had sworn to all vanities under the sun,

To do, for their conq'rors, the least could be done.

Besides, what had _he_ with his worn-out story,

To do with the cause he had wrong'd, and the glory?

No: Captain Sword a sword was still,

He could not unteach his lordly will;

He could not attemper his single thought;

It might not be bent, nor newly wrought:

And so, like the tool of a disus'd art,

He stood at his wall, and rusted apart.

'Twas only for many-soul'd Captain Pen

To make a world of swordless men.

POSTSCRIPT;

CONTAINING SOME REMARKS ON WAR AND MILITARY STATESMEN.

POSTSCRIPT;

CONTAINING SOME REMARKS ON WAR AND MILITARY STATESMEN.

The object of this poem is to show the horrors of war, the false ideas

of power produced in the minds of its leaders, and, by inference, the

unfitness of those leaders for the government of the world.

The author intends no more offence to any one than can be helped: he

feels due admiration for that courage and energy, the supposed

misdirection of which it deplores; he heartily acknowledges the

probability, that that supposed misdirection has been hitherto no

misdirection, but a necessity--but he believes that the time is come

when, by encouraging the disposition to question it, its services and

its sufferings may be no longer required, and he would fain tear asunder

the veil from the sore places of war,--would show what has been hitherto

kept concealed, or not shown earnestly, and for the purpose,--would

prove, at all events, that the time has come for putting an end to those

phrases in the narratives of warfare, by which a suspicious delicacy is

palmed upon the reader, who is told, after everything has been done to

excite his admiration of war, that his feelings are "spared" a recital

of its miseries--that "a veil" is drawn over them--a "truce" given to

descriptions which only "harrow up the soul," &c.

Suppose it be necessary to "harrow up the soul," in order that the soul

be no longer harrowed? Moralists and preachers do not deal after this

tender fashion with moral, or even physical consequences, resulting from

other evils. Why should they spare these? Why refuse to look their own

effeminacy in the face,--their own gaudy and overweening encouragement

of what they dare not contemplate in its results? Is a murder in the

streets worth attending to,--a single wounded man worth carrying to the

hospital,--and are all the murders, and massacres, and fields of

wounded, and the madness, the conflagrations, the famines, the miseries

of families, and the rickety frames and melancholy bloods of posterity,

only fit to have an embroidered handkerchief thrown over them? Must

"ladies and gentlemen" be called off, that they may not "look that way,"

the "sight is so shocking"? Does it become us to let others endure,

what we cannot bear even to think of?

Even if nothing else were to come of inquiries into the horrors of war,

surely they would cry aloud for some better provision against their

extremity _after_ battle,--for some regulated and certain assistance to

the wounded and agonized,--so that we might hear no longer of men left

in cold and misery all night, writhing with torture,--of bodies stripped

by prowlers, perhaps murderers,--and of frenzied men, the other day the

darlings of their friends, dying, two and even several days after the

battle, of famine! The field of Waterloo was not completely cleared of

its dead and dying till nearly a week! Surely large companies of men

should be organized for the sole purpose of assisting and clearing away

the field after battle. They should be steady men, not lightly

admitted, nor unpossessed of some knowledge of surgery, and they should

be attached to the surgeon's staff. Both sides would respect them for

their office, and keep them sacred from violence. Their duties would be

too painful and useful to get them disrespected for not joining in the

fight--and possibly, before long, they would help to do away their own

necessity, by detailing what they beheld. Is that the reason why there

is no such establishment? The question is asked, not in bitterness, but

to suggest a self-interrogation to the instincts of war.

I have not thought proper to put notes to the poem, detailing the

horrors which I have touched upon; nor even to quote my authorities,

which are unfortunately too numerous, and contain worse horrors still.

They are furnished by almost every history of a campaign, in all

quarters of the world. Circumstances so painful, in a first attempt to

render them public for their own sakes, would, I thought, even meet with

less attention in prose than in verse, however less fitted they may

appear for it at first sight. Verse, if it has any enthusiasm, at once

demands and conciliates attention; it proposes to say much in little;

and it associates with it the idea of something consolatory, or

otherwise sustaining. But there is one prose specimen of these details,

which I will give, because it made so great an impression on me in my

youth, that I never afterwards could help calling it to mind when war

was spoken of; and as I had a good deal to say on that subject, having

been a public journalist during one of the most interesting periods of

modern history, and never having been blinded into an admiration of war

by the dazzle of victory, the circumstance may help to show how salutary

a record of this kind may be, and what an impression the subject might

be brought to make on society. The passage is in a note to one of Mr

Southey's poems, the "Ode to Horror," and is introduced by another

frightful record, less horrible, because there is not such agony implied

in it, nor is it alive.

"I extract" (says Mr Southey) "the following picture of consummate

horror from notes to a poem written in twelve-syllable verse, upon the

campaign of 1794 and 1795: it was during the retreat to Deventer. 'We

could not proceed a hundred yards without perceiving the dead bodies of

men, women, children, and horses, in every direction. One scene made an

impression upon my memory which time will never be able to efface. Near

another cart we perceived a stout-looking man and a beautiful young

woman, with an infant, about seven months old, at the breast, all three

frozen and dead. The mother had most certainly expired in the act of

suckling her child; as with one breast exposed she lay upon the drifted

snow, the milk to all appearance in a stream drawn from the nipple by

the babe, and instantly congealed. The infant seemed as if its lips had

but just then been disengaged, and it reposed its little head upon the

mother's bosom, with an overflow of milk, frozen as it trickled from the

mouth. Their countenances were perfectly composed and fresh, resembling

those of persons in a sound and tranquil slumber.'"

"The following description (he continues) of a field of battle is in the

words of one who passed over the field of Jemappe, after Doumourier's

victory: 'It was on the third day after the victory obtained by general

Doumourier over the Austrians, that I rode across the field of battle.

The scene lies on a waste common, rendered then more dreary by the

desertion of the miserable hovels before occupied by peasants.

Everything that resembled a human habitation was desolated, and for the

most part they had been burnt or pulled down, to prevent their affording

shelter to the posts of the contending armies. The ground was ploughed

up by the wheels of the artillery and waggons; everything like herbage

was trodden into mire; broken carriages, arms, accoutrements, dead

horses and men, were strewed over the heath. _This was the third day

after the battle: it was the beginning of November, and for three days a

bleak wind and heavy rain had continued incessantly._ There were still

remaining alive several hundreds of horses, and of the human victims of

that dreadful fight. I can speak with certainty of having seen more than

four hundred men _still living_, unsheltered, _without food_, and

without any human assistance, most of them confined to the spot where

they had fallen _by broken limbs_. The two armies had proceeded, and

abandoned these miserable wretches to their fate. _Some of the dead

persons appeared to have expired in the act of embracing each other._

Two young French officers, who were brothers, had crawled under the side

of a dead horse, where they had contrived a kind of shelter by means of

a cloak: they were both mortally wounded, and groaning _for each other_.

One very fine young man had just strength enough to drag himself out of

a hollow partly filled with water, and was laid upon a little hillock

groaning with agony; A GRAPE-SHOT HAD CUT ACROSS THE UPPER PART OF HIS

BELLY, AND HE WAS KEEPING IN HIS BOWELS WITH A HANDKERCHIEF AND HAT. He

begged of me to end his misery! He complained of dreadful thirst. I

filled him the hat of a dead soldier with water, which he nearly drank

off at once, and left him to that end of his wretchedness which could

not be far distant.'"

"I hope (concludes Mr Southey), I have always felt and expressed an

honest and Christian abhorrence of wars, and of the systems that produce

them; but my ideas of their immediate horrors fell infinitely short of

this authentic picture."

Mr Southey, in his subsequent lives of conquerors, and his other

writings, will hardly be thought to have acted up to this "abhorrence of

wars, and of the systems that produce them." Nor is he to be blamed for

qualifying his view of the subject, equally blameless (surely) as they

are to be held who have retained their old views, especially by him who

helped to impress them. His friend Mr Wordsworth, in the vivacity of his

admonitions to hasty complaints of evil, has gone so far as to say that

"Carnage is God's daughter," and thereby subjected himself to the

scoffs of a late noble wit. He is addressing the Deity himself:--

"But thy most dreaded instrument,

In working out a pure intent,

Is man, array'd for mutual slaughter:

Yea, Carnage is thy daughter."

Mr Wordsworth is a great poet and a philosophical thinker, in spite of

his having here paid a tremendous compliment to a rhyme (for

unquestionably the word "slaughter" provoked him into that imperative

"Yea," and its subsequent venturous affiliation); but the judgment, to

say no more of it, is rash. Whatever the Divine Being intends, by his

permission or use of evil, it becomes us to think the best of it; but

not to affirm the appropriation of the particulars to him under their

worst appellation, seeing that he has implanted in us a horror of them,

and a wish to do them away. What it is right in him to do, is one

thing; what it is proper in us to affirm that he actually does, is

another. And, above all, it is idle to affirm what he intends to do for

ever, and to have us eternally venerate and abstain from questioning an

evil. All good and evil, and vice and virtue themselves, might become

confounded in the human mind by a like daring; and humanity sit down

under every buffet of misfortune, without attempting to resist it:

which, fortunately, is impossible. Plato cut this knotty point better,

by regarding evil as a thing senseless and unmalignant (indeed no

philosopher regards anything as malignant, or malignant for malignity's

sake); out of which, or notwithstanding it, good is worked, and to be

worked, perhaps, finally to the abolition of evil. But whether this

consummation be possible or not, and even if the dark horrors of evil be

necessary towards the enjoyment of the light of good, still the horror

must be maintained, where the object is really horrible; otherwise, we

but the more idly resist the contrast, if necessary--and, what is

worse, endanger the chance of melioration, if possible.

Did war appear to me an inevitable evil, I should be one of the last men

to shew it in any other than its holiday clothes. I can appeal to

writings before the public, to testify whether I am in the habit of

making the worst of anything, or of not making it yield its utmost

amount of good. My inclinations, as well as my reason, lie all that way.

I am a passionate and grateful lover of all the beauties of the

universe, moral and material; and the chief business of my life is to

endeavour to give others the like fortunate affection. But, on the same

principle, I feel it my duty to look evil in the face, in order to

discover if it be capable of amendment; and I do not see why the

miseries of war are to be spared this interrogation, simply because they

are frightful and enormous. Men get rid of smaller evils which lie in

their way--nay, of great ones; and there appears to be no reason why

they should not get rid of the greatest, if they will but have the

courage. We have abolished inquisitions and the rack, burnings for

religion, burnings for witchcraft, hangings for forgery (a great triumph

in a commercial country), much of the punishment of death in some

countries, all of it in others. Why not abolish war? Mr Wordsworth

writes no odes to tell us that the Inquisition was God's daughter;

though Lope de Vega, who was one of its officers, might have done

so--and Mr Wordsworth too, had he lived under its dispensation. Lope de

Vega, like Mr Wordsworth and Mr Southey, was a good man, as well as a

celebrated poet: and we will concede to his memory what the English

poets will, perhaps, not be equally disposed to grant (for they are

severe on the Romish faith) that even the Inquisition, _like War_, might

possibly have had some utility in its evil, were it no other than a

hastening of Christianity by its startling contradictions of it. Yet it

has gone. The Inquisition, as War may be hereafter, is no more. Daughter

if it was of the Supreme Good, it was no immortal daughter. Why should

"Carnage" be,--especially as God has put it in our heads to get rid of

it?

I am aware of what may be said on these occasions, to "puzzle the will;"

and I concede of course, that mankind may entertain false views of their

power to change anything for the better. I concede, that all change may

be only in appearance, and not make any real difference in the general

amount of good and evil; that evil, to a certain invariable amount, may

be necessary to the amount of good (the overbalance of which, with a

most hearty and loving sincerity, I ever acknowledge); and finally, that

all which the wisest of men could utter on any such subject, might

possibly be nothing but a jargon,--the witless and puny voice of what

we take to be a mighty orb, but which, after all, is only a particle in

the starry dust of the universe.

On the other hand, all this may be something very different from what we

take it to be, setting aside even the opinions which consider mind as

everything, and time and space themselves as only modifications of it,

or breathing-room in which it exists, weaving the thoughts which it

calls life, death, and materiality.

But be his metaphysical opinions what they may, who but some fantastic

individual, or ultra-contemplative scholar, ever thinks of subjecting to

them his practical notions of bettering his condition! And how soon is

it likely that men will leave off endeavouring to secure themselves

against the uneasier chances of vicissitude, even if Providence ordains

them to do so for no other end than the preservation of vicissitude

itself, and not in order to help them out of the husks and thorns of

action into the flowers of it, and into the air of heaven? Certain it

is, at all events, that the human being is incited to increase his

amount of good: and that when he is endeavouring to do so, he is at

least not fulfilling the worst part of his necessity. Nobody tells us,

when we attempt to put out a fire and to save the lives of our

neighbours, that Conflagration is God's daughter, or Murder God's

daughter. On the contrary, these are things which Christendom is taught

to think ill off, and to wish to put down; and therefore we should put

down war, which is murder and conflagration by millions.

To those who tell us that nations would grow cowardly and effeminate

without war, we answer, "Try a reasonable condition of peace first, and

then prove it. Try a state of things which mankind have never yet

attained, because they had no press, and no universal comparison of

notes; and consider, in the meanwhile, whether so cheerful, and

intelligent, and just a state, seeing fair play between body and mind,

and educated into habits of activity, would be likely to uneducate

itself into what was neither respected nor customary. Prove, in the

meanwhile, that nations are cowardly and effeminate, that have been long

unaccustomed to war; that the South Americans are so; or that all our

robust countrymen, who do not "go for soldiers," are timid

agriculturists and manufacturers, with not a quoit to throw on the

green, or a saucy word to give to an insult. Moral courage is in

self-respect and the sense of duty; physical courage is a matter of

health or organization. Are these predispositions likely to fail in a

community of instructed freemen? Doubters of advancement are always

arguing from a limited past to an unlimited future; that is to say, from

a past of which they know but a point, to a future of which they know

nothing. They stand on the bridge "between two eternities," seeing a

little bit of it behind them, and nothing at all of what is before; and

uttering those words unfit for mortal tongue, "man ever was" and "man

ever will be." They might as well say what is beyond the stars. It

appears to be a part of the necessity of things, from what we see of the

improvements they make, that all human improvement should proceed by the

co-operation of human means. But what blinker into the night of next

week,--what luckless prophet of the impossibilities of steam-boats and

steam-carriages,--shall presume to say how far those improvements are to

extend? Let no man faint in the co-operation with which God has honoured

him.

As to those superabundances of population which wars and other evils are

supposed to be necessary in order to keep down, there are questions

which have a right to be put, long before any such necessity is assumed:

and till those questions be answered, and the experiments dependent upon

them tried, the interrogators have a right to assume that no such

necessity exists. I do not enter upon them--for I am not bound to do so;

but I have touched upon them in the poem; and the "too rich," and other

disingenuous half-reasoners, know well what they are. All passionate

remedies for evil are themselves evil, and tend to re-produce what they

remedy. It is high time for the world to show that it has come to man's

estate, and can put down what is wrong without violence. Should the

wrong still return, we should have a right to say with the Apostle,

"Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof;" for meanwhile we should

"not have done evil that good may come." That "good" may come! nay,

that evil may be perpetuated; for what good, superior to the

alternatives denounced, is achieved by this eternal round of war and its

causes? Let us do good in a good and kind manner, and trust to the

co-operation of Providence for the result. It seems the only real way of

attaining to the very best of which our earth is capable; and at the

very worst, necessity, like the waters, will find its level, and the

equity of things be justified.

I firmly believe, that war, or the sending thousands of our

fellow-creatures to cut one another to bits, often for what they have no

concern in, nor understand, will one day be reckoned far more absurd

than if people were to settle an argument over the dinner-table with

their knives,--a logic indeed, which was once fashionable in some places

during the "good old times." The world has seen the absurdity of that

practice: why should it not come to years of discretion, with respect to

violence on a larger scale? The other day, our own country and the

United States agreed to refer a point in dispute to the arbitration of

the king of Holland; a compliment (if we are to believe the newspapers)

of which his majesty was justly proud. He struck a medal on the strength

of it, which history will show as a set-off against his less creditable

attempts to force his opinions upon the Belgians. Why should not every

national dispute be referred, in like manner, to a third party? There is

reason to suppose, that the judgment would stand a good chance of being

impartial; and it would benefit the character of the judge, and dispose

him to receive judgments of the same kind; till at length the custom

would prevail, like any other custom; and men be astonished at the

customs that preceded it. In private life, none but school-boys and the

vulgar settle disputes by blows; even duelling is losing its dignity.

Two nations, or most likely two governments, have a dispute; they reason

the point backwards and forwards; they cannot determine it; perhaps they

do not wish to determine; so, like two carmen in the street, they fight

it out; first, however, dressing themselves up to look fine, and pluming

themselves on their absurdity; just as if the two carmen were to go and

put on their Sunday clothes, and stick a feather in their hat besides,

in order to be as dignified and fantastic as possible. They then "go at

it," and cover themselves with mud, blood, and glory. Can anything be

more ridiculous? Yet, apart from the habit of thinking otherwise, and

being drummed into the notion by the very toys of infancy, the

similitude is not one atom too ludicrous; no, nor a thousandth part

enough so. I am aware that a sarcasm is but a sarcasm, and need not

imply any argument; never includes all;--but it acquires a more

respectable character when so much is done to keep it out of

sight,--when so many questions are begged against it by "pride, pomp,

and circumstance," and allegations of necessity. Similar allegations may

be, and are brought forward, by other nations of the world, in behalf of

customs which we, for our parts, think very ridiculous, and do our

utmost to put down; never referring them, as we refer our own, to the

mysterious ordinations of Providence; or, if we do, never hesitating to

suppose, that Providence, in moving us to interfere, is varying its

ordinations. Now, all that I would ask of the advocates of war, is to

apply the possible justice of this supposition to their own case, for

the purpose of thoroughly investigating the question.