*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 54870 *** PHILOSOPHIES BY RONALD ROSS K.C.B., F.R.C.S., D.Sc., LL.D., F.R.S., C.B. LONDON JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W. 1923 FIRST EDITION....... _September, 1910_ _Reprinted_..... _December, 1910_ _Reprinted_..... _June, 1911_ _Reprinted_..... _August, 1923_ ALL RIGHTS RESERVED _Printed in Great Britain by_ _Hazell, Watson & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury._ PREFACE These verses were written in India between the years 1881 and 1899, mostly during my researches on malaria. Friends who have read that part of them which is called _In Exile_ complained that they could not easily follow the movement of it; and as I am now publishing the poems together with a text-book on malaria—and also because I desire very strongly to rid my mind of this subject which has occupied it for twenty years—I take the opportunity to give such explanation of the work as I can find expression for. In 1881 I joined the military medical service of India, and was called upon to serve during the next seven years in Madras, Bangalore, Burma, and the Andaman Islands. Having abundant leisure, I occupied most of it in the study of various sciences and arts, in all of which I attempted some works to the best of my ability. For this I make no excuse to my conscience, since to my mind art and science are the same, and efforts in both, however poor the result may be, are to be commended more than idleness. Near the end of the seven years, however, I began to be drawn toward certain thoughts which from the first had occurred to me in my profession, especially as to the cause of the widespread sickness and of the great misery and decadence of the people of India. Racked by poverty, swept by epidemics, housed in hovels, ruled by superstitions, they presented the spectacle of an ancient civilisation fallen for centuries into decay. One saw there both physical and mental degeneration. Since the time of the early mathematicians science had died; and since that of the great temples art had become ornament, and religion dogma. Here was the living picture of the fate which destroyed Greece, Rome, and Spain; and I saw in it the work of nescience—the opposite of science. . . . Returning to Britain in 1888, I qualified myself for pathological researches, and about 1890 or 1891 entered upon a careful study of malarial fever, in the hope of finding out accurately how it is caused and may be prevented. On August 20, 1897, I was fortunate enough to find the clue to the problem—which, I believe, would not have been discovered but for such good fortune; and the next year I ascertained the principal facts which I had been in search of. These poems are the notes of the wayside. As for _In Exile_, I do not remember the date—but it was early in the course of the labour—when my thoughts began to shape themselves into a kind of sonnet of three short stanzas. It was a pleasure and relief after the day’s work to mould them thus, for each set of stanzas required a different balance and structure within its narrow limits, and was, so to speak, inscribed on small squares of stone, to be put away and arranged thereafter. Later, when my researches had attained to success, a sudden disastrous interruption of them compelled me to set aside the verses also, and it was not until nine years afterwards that I found time to arrange them for rough printing. They were then put nearly in the order of writing, some fragments being finished but most omitted. I have blamed myself for this, because the omissions give to the whole a more sombre cast than is natural to me, or than I had intended; but now I judge I was right in it. The poem, such as it is, is not a diary in verse, but rather the figure of a work and of a philosophy. . . . I find I cannot rise with those who would soar above reason in the chase of something supernal. Infinities and absolutes are still beyond us; though we may hope to come nearer to them some day by the patient study of little things. Our first duty is the opposite of that which many prophets enjoin upon us—or so I think. We must not accept any speculations merely because they now appear pleasant, flattering, or ennobling to us. We must be content to creep upwards step by step; planting each foot on the firmest finding of the moment; using the compass and such other instruments as we have; observing without either despair or contempt the clouds and precipices above and beneath us. Especially our duty at present is to better our present foothold; to investigate; to comprehend the forces of nature; to set our state rationally in order; to stamp down disease in body, mind, and government; to lighten the monstrous misery of our fellows, not by windy dogmas, but by calm science. The sufferings of the world are due to this, that we despise those plain earthly teachers, reason, work, and discipline. Lost in many speculations, we leave our house disordered, unkept, and dirty. We indulge too much in dreams; in politics which organise not prosperity but contention; in philosophies which expressly teach irrationalism, fakirism, and nescience. The poor fakir seated begging by the roadside; with his visions—and his sores! Such is man. . . . An old philosophy this—like the opposite one. The poem gathers itself under it and attempts to use the great symbols of that wonderful Land, the drought, the doubt, the pains of self, the arid labour, the horrors of whole nations diseased, the crime of Nescience, parodying God’s words, and the victory of His thunder and rain. The dated stanzas near the end, except the first two lines of the second quatrain, were written the day after the discovery of the parasites of malaria in mosquitos. There are some repetitions, and I fear worse faults; but it is too late to mend them. I am much indebted to Mr. John Masefield and Mrs. Masefield for assisting me in the correction of the proofs. THE AUTHOR. DECEMBER 2, 1909. CONTENTS PRELUDES INDIA.............................. 1 THOUGHT............................ 2 SCIENCE............................ 2 POWER.............................. 3 DOGMA.............................. 4 FROTH.............................. 4 LIBERTY............................ 5 THE THREE ANGELS................... 5 APOLOGUES RETURN............................. 6 THE STAR AND THE SUN............... 6 THE WORLD’S INHERITORS............. 7 DEATH-SONG OF SAVAGERY............. 9 OCEAN AND THE DEAD................. 10 OCEAN AND THE ROCK................. 11 THE BROTHERS....................... 12 ALASTOR............................ 13 LABOURS SONNET............................. 15 VISION............................. 16 THOUGHT AND ACTION................. 18 THE INDIAN MOTHER.................. 20 GANGES-BORNE....................... 20 INDIAN FEVERS...................... 21 THE STAR........................... 21 PETITION........................... 22 IN EXILE PART I............................. 23 DESERT......................... 23 PART II............................ 26 VOX CLAMANTIS.................. 26 SELF-SORROWS................... 29 EXILE.......................... 30 PART III........................... 32 SOUL-SCORN..................... 32 RESOLVE........................ 33 DESERT-THOUGHTS................ 33 THE GAINS OF TIME.............. 35 INVOCATION..................... 36 DESPAIRS....................... 37 PART IV............................ 38 INDURATION..................... 38 WISDOM’S COUNSEL............... 39 IMPATIENCE..................... 40 WORLD-SORROWS.................. 40 PHILOSOPHIES................... 41 LIES........................... 43 TRUTH-SERVICE AND SELF-SERVICE. 43 WRATHS......................... 45 VISION OF NESCIENCE............ 45 PART V............................. 46 THE DEEPS...................... 46 LOSS........................... 47 PART VI............................ 49 DEATH.......................... 49 PART VII........................... 51 THE MONSOON.................... 51 REPLY.......................... 53 PÆANS MAN................................ 55 LIFE............................... 56 WORLD-SONG......................... 56 Transcriber’s Notes can be found at the end of this eBook. * * * * * PRELUDES INDIA Here from my lonely watch-tower of the East An ancient race outworn I see— With dread, my own dear distant Country, lest The same fate fall on thee. Lo here the iron winter of curst caste Has made men into things that creep; The leprous beggars totter trembling past; The baser sultans sleep. Not for a thousand years has Freedom’s cry The stillness of this horror cleaved, But as of old the hopeless millions die, That yet have never lived. Man has no leisure but to snatch and eat, Who should have been a god on earth; The lean ones cry; the fat ones curse and beat, And wealth but weakens worth. O Heaven, shall man rebelling never take From Fate what she denies, his bliss? Cannot the mind that made the engine make A nobler life than this? Madras, 1881. * * * * * THOUGHT Spirit of Thought, not thine the songs that flow To fill with love or lull Idalian hours. Thou wert not nurtured ’mid the marish flowers, Or where the nightshade blooms, or lilies blow: But on the mountains. From those keeps of snow Thou seëst the heavens, and earth, and marts and towers Of teeming man; the battle smoke that lours Above the nations where they strive below;— The gleam of golden cohorts and the cloud Of shrieking peoples yielding to the brink— The gleam, the gold, the agony, the rage; The civic virtue of a race unbow’d; The reeling empire, lost in license, sink; And chattering pigmies of a later age. 1881-2. * * * * * SCIENCE I would rejoice in iron arms with those Who, nobly in the scorn of recompense, Have dared to follow Truth alone, and thence To teach the truth—nor fear’d the rage that rose. No high-piled monuments are theirs who chose Her great inglorious toil—no flaming death; To them was sweet the poetry of prose, But wisdom gave a fragrance to their breath. Alas! we sleep and snore beyond the night, Tho’ these great men the dreamless daylight show; But they endure—the Sons of simple Light— And, with no lying lanthorne’s antic glow, Reveal the open way that we must go. 1881-2. * * * * * POWER Caligula, pacing thro’ his pillar’d hall, Ere yet the last dull glimmer of his mind Had faded in the banquet, where reclined He spent all day in drunken festival, Made impious pretence that Jove with him, Unseen, walk’d, talk’d and jested; for he spoke To nothing by his side; or frown’d; or broke In answering smiles; or shook a playful rim Of raiment coyly. ‘Earth,’ he said, ‘is mine— No vapour. Yet Caligula, brother Jove, Will love thee if he find thee worthy love; If not, his solid powers shall war with thine And break them, God of Cloud.’ The courtiers round, As in the presence of two deities, bent In servile scorn: when, like a warning sent, An utterance of earthquake shook the ground, Awful, but which no human meaning bore. With glaring eyeballs narrowing in dismay, The huddled creature fallen foaming lay, Glass’d in the liquid marbles of the floor. 1881-2. * * * * * DOGMA To a poor martyr perisht in the flame Lo suddenly the cool and calm of Heaven, And One who gently touch’d and tended, came. ‘For thee, O Lord,’ he cried, ‘my life was given.’ When thus the Pitiful One: ‘O suffering man, I taught thee not to die, but how to live; But ye have wrongly read the simple plan, And turn to strife the Heav’nly gift I give. I taught the faith of works, the prayer of deeds, The sacrament of love. I gave, not awe, But praise; no church but God’s; no form, no creeds; No priest but conscience and no lord but law. Behold, my brother, by my side in Heaven Judas abhor’d by men and Nero next. How then, if such as these may be forgiven, Shall one be damn’d who stumbles at a text?’ 1881-2. * * * * * FROTH This bubbling gossip here of fops and fools, Who have no care beyond the coming chance, Rough-rubs the angry soul to arrogance And puts puff’d wisdom out of her own rules. True, knowledge comes on all winds, without schools, And every folly has her saw: perchance Some costly gem from silliest spodomance May be unash’d; and mind has many tools. But still, love here rains not her heav’nly dew, Nor friendship soothes the folly-fretted sense; But pride and ignorance, the empty two, Strut arm-in-arm to air their consequence, And toil bleeds tears of gold for idle opulence. 1881-2. * * * * * LIBERTY When Cassius fell and Brutus died, Resentful Liberty arose, Where from aloft the mountain snows She watch’d the battle’s breaking tide; And as she rent her azure robe Darkness descended o’er the globe. ‘Break never, Night,’ she cried, ‘nor bring Before I come again the morn With all her heav’nly light, for scorn Of this base world so slumbering; Where men for thrice five hundred years Their sin shall mourn, and me, in tears.’ 1882. * * * * * THE THREE ANGELS Heav’n vex’d in heaven heard the World And all the grief thereof, and sent The angel Strength. Swift he unfurl’d His wings and flasht his sword and went: But still the cry of Earth rang to the firmament. Then gentle Love, most loved in heaven, Heav’n sent to Earth. His large eyes shone, Upcast with glory from God given, And darkening downward from the Throne He fell: nor bated yet the far terrestrial moan. Then all the host of heav’n, amazed, Cried, ‘Next let Wisdom go and prove Himself and conquer.’ But he raised His face and answer’d, ‘Heav’n above, Like them, alone I fail; send with me Strength and Love.’ 1882. * * * * * APOLOGUES * * * * * RETURN Muse, in my boyhood’s careless days My rev’rence for thee was not small, Altho’ I roam’d by Star and Sea And left thee, seeking other ways— I left thee, for I knew that all Return by Sea and Star to thee. Not worthy he to hear thy song, Him thou thyself despisest most, Who dares not leave thee and arise To face the World’s discordant throng; Since thou’rt best gain’d by being lost, And Earth is in thy Heav’nly eyes. 1886-7. * * * * * THE STAR AND THE SUN In Darkness, and pacing the Thunder-Beat Shore By many Waves, No sound being near to me there but the hoarse Cicala’s cry, While that unseen Sword, the Zodiacal Light, Falchion of Dawn, Made clear all the Orient, wanning the Silvery Stars, I heard the fine flute of the Fast-Fading Fire, The Morning Star, Pipe thus to the Glimmering Glories of Night, And sing, O World, If I too must leave thee then who can remain? But lo! from the Deep The Thundering Sun upsprang and responded, I. Andamans, 1886-7. * * * * * THE WORLD’S INHERITORS God gazing down from Heaven saw the World. Mighty, himself a heav’n, he fill’d the heavens. His beard fell like a wasted thunder at eve, And all his robe was woven with white stars, And on his breast a star. The World was dark. Deep in a forest there, Where not the rill that routed in the wood Dared break the silence, nor one murmur of night Wound to the stagnant, chill, and listening air, Five children slumbering lay. One ruddy as the red grapes of the south; One duskier, breather of more burning air; One blue-eyed, blond, and golden-crown’d with locks; One finely fashion’d in an even mould; And one hard wrought as steel. Lord of the Woods their Sire; enormous, rough, Hair-tangled like the north-bear: but his Mate Queen of a myriad palaces that shone With chalcedon and jasper, justly wrought, And gems of jewel’d stone. Who when he saw her won her; loved her well; By her abhor’d: and so he slew her then, And gazed upon her beauty dead, and died Himself, lamenting his wild woods. And these Their wondrous offspring were. Europe, A.D. 500. The World beheld them and adored—adored, And fear’d, and sought to slay them; for The battle-brood of gods is battle-born. But they endured; nor in the thunder found Harm, or the bolt of death. And God look’d down and spake, and thro’ the Earth The murmur ran, terranean like the shock When central earthquakes jar, until the Deep Foams tingling to the icèd poles; and said, To these I give the World. Andamans, 1886-7. * * * * * DEATH-SONG OF SAVAGERY I have heard it—I have heard the Forest Strive to bring me comfort, and the Ocean Roll large-tongued consolation round me. I have heard the weakling Wildbirds crying, And the wailing Winds proclaim me brother. I have heard these things and yet I perish. From the Flowers, the myriad mouths of Forest, Honey’d words have come, and from the Billows, Bursting, issue of sweet cheering voices. In this Midnight and moon-glamour’d Darkness, Winds and Wildbirds crying give me pity; But, altho’ I hear them, lo! I perish. For a mighty Voice rolls thro’ my Spirit, Crying, As thou wert, so art, and shalt be, Ever and for ever and for ever, Son of Midnight and moon-glamour’d Darkness, Rayless, lightless, and thy One Star faded, Child of Night and Ocean, till thou perish. Andamans, 1886-7. Epilogue to the author’s romance The Child of Ocean. * * * * * OCEAN AND THE DEAD THE DEAD: ‘Dost dare to rouse us from our sleep, Eternal, given of God, O Deep?’ OCEAN: ‘A thunder on your bones! In life You waged with me your pigmy strife.’ THE DEAD: ‘Living, but humble mariners we; Dead, Ocean, what are we to thee?’ OCEAN: ‘You hoped to find within your graves Eternal refuge from my waves.’ THE DEAD: ‘Living, we faced thee full of fears; Dying, thy roar was in our ears.’ OCEAN: ‘Dead, I will break your bones for ever. Man may forgive, but Nature never.’ Andamans, 1886-7. In 1740 the cemeteries of Dunwich were laid bare by the sea. * * * * * OCEAN AND THE ROCK THE ROCK: ‘Cease, O rude and raging Sea, Thus to waste thy war on me. Hast thou not enough assail’d, All these ages, Fool, and fail’d?’ OCEAN: ‘Gaunt and ghastly Skeleton, Remnant of a time that’s gone, Tott’ring in thy last decay Durst thou still to darken day?’ THE ROCK: ‘Empty Brawler, brawl no more; Cease to waste thy watery war On my bastion’d Bases broad, Sanctified by Time and God.’ OCEAN: ‘Thou that beëst but to be, Scornest thou my energy? Not much longer lasts the strife. I am Labour, I am Life.’ THE ROCK: ‘Roar, then, roar, and vent thy Surge; Thou not now shalt drone my dirge. Dost imagine to dismay This my iron breast with Spray?’ OCEAN: ‘Relic of primeval Slime, I shall whelm thee in my time. Changeless thou dost ever die; Changing but immortal I.’ Andamans, 1886-7. * * * * * THE BROTHERS Beneath Socotra, and before The mariner makes the Libyan shore, Or him the Doubtful Cape beguiles, Black in the Night two dreadful Isles. By Allah chain’d to Ocean’s bed, Each shows above an awful head, And front to front, envisaged, frown To frown retorts—by loud renown The Brothers. But no love between: Tho’ bound, they nurse a mutual spleen; And, when the thundering Waves engage In battle, vent immortal rage. DARZÉ: ‘Ho! Thro’ the Midnight learn my hate. When God releases, then thy fate.’ SAMHÉ: ‘When God unbinds thy fetter’d feet, For mercy him, not me, entreat.’ DARZÉ: ‘Dost think, because thy head is high, That thou art more divine than I?’ SAMHÉ: ‘Because thy looks are earthward given Thou hatest one who looks to Heaven.’ DARZÉ: ‘Because thou gazest at the Sun Think’st thou thou art the nobler one?’ SAMHÉ: ‘For them who with the Stars converse There is no better and no worse.’ DARZÉ: ‘So! hold thy old philosophy! Truth and the World enough for me. For humble Truth was born on Earth, But Lies, forsooth, have better birth!’ SAMHÉ: ‘I watch the white Stars rise and fall; I hear the vanish’d Eagles call; For me the World is but a Sod; I strive to see the eyes of God.’ 1888. The islands about which this legend is told are known as Jezírat Darzé and Jezírat Samhé, east of Cape Gardafui—one high and the other low. * * * * * ALASTOR ’Tis said that a noble youth of old Was to his native village lost, And to his home, and agèd sire; For he had wander’d (it is told) Where, pinnacled in eternal frost, Apollo leads his awful Choir. Awful, for nought of human warms The agony of their song sublime, Which like the breath of ice is given Ascending in vapour from all forms, Where gods in clear alternate chime Reveal their mystery-thoughts to Heaven. Nor in those regions of windless cold Is fiery the Sun, tho’ fierce in light; But frozen-pale the numbèd Moon Wanders along the ridges that fold Enormous Peaks, what time the Night Rivals with all her stars the Noon. For there, not dimly as here, the Stars, But globèd and azure and crimson tinct, Climb up the windless wastes of snow, Gold-footed, or thro’ the long-drawn bars Of mountain mist, with eyes unblink’d And scorn, gaze down on the World below; Or high on the topmost peak and end Of ranges stand with sudden blaze, Like Angels born in spontaneous birth; Or wrap themselves in flame and descend Between black foreheads of rock in haze, Slowly, like grievèd gods to earth. And there for ever the patient Wind Rakes up the crystals of dry snow, And mourns for ever her work undone; And there for ever, like Titans blind, Their countenance lifting to Heaven’s glow, The sightless Mountains yearn for the Sun. There nightly the numbèd eagle quells (Full-feather’d to his feet of horn) His swooning eye, his eyrie won, And slumbers, frozen by frosty spells Fast to the pinnacle; but at Morn Unfetter’d leaps toward the Sun. . . . . . He heard, he saw. Not to the air Dared breathe a breath; but with his sight Wreak’d on Immortals mortal wrong, And dared to see them as they were— The black Peaks blacken’d in their light, The white Stars flashing with their song. So fled. But when revealing Morn Show’d him, descended, giant-grown, Men ant-like, petty, mean and weak, He rush’d, returning. Then in scorn Th’ Immortals smote him to a Stone That aches for ever on the Peak. 1888. * * * * * LABOURS * * * * * SONNET High Muse, who first, where to my opening sight, New-born, the loftiest summits of the world, Silent, with brows of ice and robes unfurl’d Of motionless thunder, shone above the night, Didst touch my infant eyes and fill with light Of snow, and sleepless stars, and torrents hurl’d, And fragrant pines of morning mist-empearl’d, And music of great things and their delight: Revisit me; resume my soul; inspire With force and cold out of the north—not given To sickly dwellers in these southern spots, Where all day long the great Sun rolls his fire Intol’rable in the dusty march of heaven, And the heart shrivels and the spirit rots. Madras, 1890. * * * * * VISION A valley of far-fallen rocks, Like bones of mouldering mountains, spread, And ended by the barren blocks Of mountains doom’d or dead: No rivage there with green recess Made music in that wilderness. Despairing fell the sore-spent Sun, And cried, ‘I die,’ and sank in fire; Like conquering Death, the Night came on And ran from spire to spire; And swollen-pale ascended soon, Like Death in Life, the leprous Moon. On windy ledges lined with light, Between the still Stars sparsely strewn, Two Spirits grew from out the Night Beneath the mistless Moon, And held deep parley, making thought With words sententious half distraught. One full-robed; in his hand a book; His lips, that labour’d for the word, Scarce moved in utterance; and his look Sought, not his face who heard, But that Sad Star that sobs alway Upon the breast of dying Day. One, weary, with two-handed stress Leant on his shoulder-touching spear His beard blown o’er the hairiness Of his great breast; and clear His eyes shot speculation out To catch the truth or quell the doubt. 1. ‘The dreams of Hope, of blue-eyed Hope, Melt after morn and die in day; Love’s golden dew-globe, lit aslope, Dulls with a downward ray; Canst thou with all thy thought renew The flying dreams or drying dew?’ 2. ‘Not I creator. Hour by hour I labour without stress or strife To gain more knowledge, greater power, A nobler, longer life. By thought alone we take our stand Above the world and win command.’ 1. ‘Know, Knowledge doth but clip our wings, And worldly Wisdom weaken worth, To make us lords of little things, And worm-gods of the earth. Were earth made Heaven by human wit, Some wild star yet might shatter it.’ 2. ‘The wings of Fancy are but frail, And Virtue’s without Wisdom weak; Better than Falsehood’s flowery vale, The Truth, however bleak. Tho’ she may bless not nor redeem, The Truth is true, and reigns supreme.’ 1. ‘Not all, but few, can plead and prove And crown their brows with Truth and pass; Their little labours cannot move The mountain’s mighty mass. To man in vain the Truth appeals, Or Heav’n ordains, or Art reveals.’ 2. ‘So self-consuming thought. But see The standards of Advance unfurl’d; The buds are breaking on the lea, And Spring strikes thro’ the world. Tho’ we may never reach the Peak, God gave this great commandment, Seek.’ . . . . . The ponderous bolts of Night were drawn; The pale Day peer’d thro’ cloudy bars; The Wind awoke; the sword of Dawn Flasht thro’ the flying Stars; The new-born Sun-Star smote the Gloom: The Desert burst in endless Bloom. Bangalore, 1890. * * * * * THOUGHT AND ACTION The Angel of the Left Hand spake. His speech Fell as when on some shuddering arctic beach The icy Northern creeps from reach to reach And curdles motion and with thrilling spell Fixes the falling ripple. ‘Peace and quell,’ He said, ‘the action not maturèd well. What scorn to build with labour, round on round, And lay the costly marbles, when ’tis found The whole design at last inapt, unsound! Beware the bitter moment when awake We view the mischief that our visions make— The good things broken in a mad mistake. But rather use the thought that is divine; And know that every moment of design Will save an hour of action, point for line. And leave to others loss or victory; And like the stars of heaven seek to be The wise man’s compass but beyond the sea.’ Then He upon the Right. His words came forth Like the full Southern blowing to the north. ‘The time is come,’ he said, ‘to try thy worth. For when Thought’s wasted candles wane and wink, And meditations like the planets sink, The sun of Action rushes from the brink. Stand not for ever in the towers of Thought To watch the watery dawning waste to nought The distant stars deluding darkness brought. Not timorous weak persuasion, but the brand Of Action—not discussion, but command— Can rouse the ranks of God and storm the land, Where men who know the day still doze again; Not walls of dust can dam th’ outrageous main, Nor mitigation seize the world and reign. Fear not. Unsheath the naked falchion. Try The end. For in the end, who dares deny, The utter truth shall slay the utter lie.’ Bangalore, 1890-3. * * * * * THE INDIAN MOTHER Full fed with thoughts and knowledges sublime, And thundering oracles of the gods, that make Man’s mind the flower of action and of time, I was one day where beggars come to take Doles ere they die. An Indian mother there, Young, but so wretched that her staring eyes Shone like the winter wolf’s with ravening glare Of hunger, struck me. For to much surprise A three-year child well nourish’d at her breast, Wither’d with famine, still she fed and press’d— For she was dying. ‘I am too poor,’ she said, ‘To feed him otherwise’; and with a kiss Fell back and died. And the soul answeréd, ‘In spite of all the gods and prophets—this!’ Bangalore, 1890-3. * * * * * GANGES-BORNE The fingers which had stray’d Thro’ shining clusters of his children’s hair Now lifeless moved, and play’d With horrible tresses of the ripples there; His eyes, as if he pray’d, Were cast beneath long eyelids, wan and spare. Rock’d by the roaring flood, He seem’d to speak as in debate with doom, Uplooking, while the flood Bore him with thunder to the ocean foam. God’s face, a luminous cloud, Look’d thro’ the midnight, black, and horrible gloom. Bangalore, 1890-3. * * * * * INDIAN FEVERS In this, O Nature, yield I pray to me. I pace and pace, and think and think, and take The fever’d hands, and note down all I see, That some dim distant light may haply break. . . . . . . The painful faces ask, can we not cure? We answer, No, not yet; we seek the laws. O God, reveal thro’ all this thing obscure The unseen, small, but million-murdering cause. Bangalore, 1890-3. * * * * * THE STAR Far across the Loneland, far across the Sea, Far across the Sands, O silver shining Sister of the Silence, Sister of the Dew, Sister of the Twilight, lighten me. Ever art thou beaming. I, with eyes upcast, Gazing worn and weary from this Dark World, Ask of thee thy Wisdom, steadfast Eye of God, That I be as Thou art while I last. 1890-3. * * * * * PETITION Truth, whom I hold divine, Thy wings are strong to bear Thro’ day or desperate night; For, ever those eyes of thine, Fix’d upward full of prayer, Are seeking for the light. Guide me and bear. Descend Into the sulphurous void— Tho’ I so weak, thy wings Stronger than him who, pen’d In hell unmerited, buoy’d Poets past infernal springs. Take me and bear. Descend Into these deeps of death, Wherever the light may lead, Wherever the way may wend; And give to my failing breath, O Spirit, thy words of deed. 1890-3. * * * * * IN EXILE * * * * * I * * * * * DESERT I This profit yet remains Of exile and the hour That life in losing gains Perhaps a fuller flower. Not less the prunèd shoot, Not less the barren year, Which yields the perfect fruit, Which makes the meaning clear. For on this desert soil A blessing comes unsought— Space for a single toil, Time for a single thought. When in distractions tost, Since oft distractions claim For moments never lost Of each its higher aim, We live, we learn the wealth The joyous hours may bring, But jealous time by stealth Puts all of it to wing; Pursuing empty arts We gain no noble goal, And lose, in learning parts, The grandeur of the whole. If Patience, pouring tears— She cannot but lament The long unfruitful years Of exile, idly spent— Have patience, she will find They were not all in vain, But each has left behind A little store of gain— A wider wisdom bought With labour; problems solved; The themes of inner thought More thoroughly revolved. So one who entertain’d The prosperous of the earth; No good from any gain’d, But lost his wealth and worth; In wrath he gather’d round The indigent and old; Each wretch, amazed he found, Had left a gift of gold. So one who sought a land Where all the earth is ore; But had he sifted sand He would have gather’d more. II The Sun arose and took The lofty heav’ns of right; From out the heav’ns he shook The pestilence of his light. He paced upon his path And from his right hand hurl’d The javelins of his wrath, Contemptuous of the world. Before his scornful lips The forests fell down dead, And scowling in eclipse Disbanding thunders fled. He fills the hills with fire And blasts the barren plain; He hath stript the stricken briar, And slain the thorn again. He cracks the rocks, and cakes The quagmires into crust, And slays the snake, and makes The dead leaf writhe in dust. He halts in heav’n half way And blackens earth with light; And the dark doom of day Lies on us like the night. A Land of clamorous cries; Of everlasting light; Of noises in the skies And noises in the night. There is no night; the Sun Lives thro’ the night again; The image of the Sun Is burnt upon the brain. O God! he still returns; He slays us in the dust; The brazen Death-Star burns And stamps us into dust. III The air is thunder-still. What motion is with us? Deep shocks of thunder fill The deep sky ruinous; As if, down lumbering large Upon these desert tracts, He had fallen about the marge In cloudy cataracts. And spot by spot in dust The writhing raindrops lie, And turn like blood to rust— Writhe, redden, shrink, and dry. A Land where all day long, Day-long descanting dirge, The heavy thunders hang And moan upon the verge; Where all day long the kite Her querulous question cries, And circles lost in light About the yellow skies; And thou, O Heart, art husht In the deep dead of day, Half restless and half crusht, Half soaring too away. Day-long the querulous kite Her querulous question cries, And sails, a spot of night, About the vasty skies. The puff’d cheeks of typhoons Blow thro’ the worthless clouds That roll in writhing moons In skies of many moods, None fruitful; and the clouds Take up the dust and dance A dance of death and shrouds— Mock, mow, retire, advance. IV Where is the rain? We hear The footsteps of the rain, Walking in dust, and, near, Dull thunders over the plain. Cloud?—dust. The wind awakes; The base dust we have trod Smokes up to heaven and takes The thunderings of God. No rain. The angry dust Cries out against the rain; The clouds are backward thrust; The monstrous Sun again. We hoped the rain would fall After the dreadful day, For we heard the thunders call Each other far away. We hoped for rain because After thunder rain is given; And yet it only was The mockery of heaven. He is the lord of us; He will unconquered sink, Red, but victorious, And smoking to the brink. Shout, barren thunders, shout And rattle and melt again! So fall the fates about, So melt the hopes of men. Rattle aloft and wake The sleepers on the roofs, Wild steeds of heav’n, and shake Heav’n with your echoing hoofs. Awake the weary at night Until they cry, “The rain!”— Then take to tempestuous flight And melt into air again. V This is the land of Death; The sun his taper is Wherewith he numbereth The dead bones that are his. He walks beside the deep And counts the mouldering bones In lands of tumbling steep And cataracts of stones. About his feet the hosts Of dead leaves he hath slain Awaken, shrieking ghosts Demanding life again. O silent Sepulchre, Great East, disastrous clime; O grave of things that were; O catacombs of time; O silent catacombs; O blear’d memorial stones; Where laughing in the tombs Death plays with mouldering bones; And through dead bones the stalk Of the living herb is thrust; And we, the living, walk In wastes of human dust. Dust—thou art dust. Thy Sun, Thy lord, and lord of dust, Doth stamp thee into one Great plain of dust; and dust Thy heav’ns, thy nights, thy days; Thy temples and thy creeds; Thy crumbling palaces; Thy far forgotten deeds,— Infinite dust. Half living, We clothe ourselves in dust And live, not to be living, But because we must. Thy winds are full of death; Death comes we know not whence; Thy forests have a breath Of secret pestilence; Thy rivers rolling large Are blest with no sweet green, But silent at the marge The waiting monsters seen. No scented silence, eve, But night a noisy gloom; And we thy captives live, The derelicts of doom. * * * * * II * * * * * VOX CLAMANTIS I Long, long the barren years; Long, long, O God, hast thou Appointed for our tears This term of exile. Lo, Life is but nothing thus: Old friendships perishèd; Not hand in hand with us The dying father dead; Narrow’d the mind that should Thro’ all experience range And grow; in solitude Unheard the wheels of change. When sadly numbering The wasted golden hours Our fate hath put to wing, That had perchance been ours To have seen, to have known, to have trod About from pole to girth This heritage of God, This wondrous sculptured earth, Seeing that never again The usurer Time gives back, How should we not complain This Present, barren-black? We said, ‘We must not mourn; The end is always good; Well past the pain well borne.’ But Sorrow in her mood Would not be comforted, And cried, ‘I know the truth; Where are the distant dead, And where the wasted youth? Let Wisdom take her ground And Hope do what she can; Ill heals the dreadful wound That severs half a man.’ Sorrow, not so beguiled, Would take my hand and lead, But waiting Wisdom smiled And took my hand instead, And answered, ‘Well I rede The shackled win the goal; The body’s strengthener Need, And Sorrow of the soul. But mine the part be given To guide and hers to follow, And so win thro’ to heaven.’ And Sorrow said, ‘I follow.’ II To sadness and to self We should not enter in— Sadness the shadow of self And self the shadow of sin— Unless because the whole Of human life appears Clear only when the soul Is darken’d thro’ with tears. The day too full of light With light her own light mars; But in the shading night The shining host of stars. That, leaving manhood, men Should kiss the hands of grief And, loving but the wen, The wart, the wither’d leaf, Amass a hoard of husks When joy is in the corn Nor ever evening dusks Without the tints of morn, Informs with doubt if good Be, or omnipotent; Since in the brightest blood This idle discontent. Joy, jester at herself, And happiness, of woe, If self at peace with self Know not, when shall he know? So one, a prosperous man; Nightly the people fill His toast, and what he can Is only what he will. They shout; his name is wed With thunders; torches flare; Tost in a wretched bed He chews a trifling care. III One says in scorn, ‘The strife To live well keeps us well, And ’tis the unworthy life That makes the prison cell.’ And one, ‘An angel stood On sands of withering heat; The flowerless solitude Grew green beneath his feet.’ A third, ‘Many would lief Endure thy solitude As else. Ascribe thy grief To poison in the blood.’ And I, ‘O Soul, content Yet in thine exile dwell, And live up to thy bent. Not more than well is well; But take the sports divine, The largesse of the earth; Wind-drinking steeds be thine And blowsèd chase—the mirth Of those who wisely draw Their lives in nature’s vein And live in the large law, Of slaying or being slain. ‘Or learn by looking round. Lift up thine eyes. Avow The gardener of thy ground Doth worthier work than thou. From his poor cot he wends At early break of day; His pretty charges tends In his unskilful way. Much wearied with his toil He labours thro’ the hours, And pours upon the soil Refreshment for his flowers. ‘Tho’ bent with aged stoop, To him no rest is given, But the heads of those that droop He raises up to heaven. Half ready for the grave, His weakness he forgets, More scrupulous to save The breath of violets. But at the evening hour When he shall seek repose, The voice of every flower Will bless him as he goes.’ * * * * * SELF-SORROWS I These stones that idly make An idle land and lie, Fantastic forms, or break Down crumbling hills not high In arid cataracts Where meagre cattle stray To search the meagre tracts Of bitter grass: for aye They move not, live not, lie Dull eyes that watch the world, And exiles asking why God brought them here or hurl’d. We would we could have torn This winding web of fate Which round us barely born Hath bought us to this state Of being cast away Among these tombs. The river Of life here day by day Runs downward slower ever Into black washes. True Yet holds our destiny— To live a year or two, Look round us once and die. If we should try to trace In portions, line by line, The beauty of a face To know why thus divine, Seeing but many curves, We miss the inner soul And find no part deserves That merit of the whole. And so to analyse Thy mournful spirit vain, O Exile; but our sighs Suffice to prove the pain. To grow from much to more In knowledge, and to put A power to every power, A foot before a foot, Toward that goal of good That glimmers thro’ the night Above the time and mood, A star of constant light; At last to meet the dark, The goal not reach’d indeed, But full of hours and work, Are, Exile, not thy creed. And less to leap to catch The spinning spokes of change; In our brief life to snatch All aspects and to range Full-face with every view; To sit with those who toil, Great spirits, toiling too; Still less to fan or foil Those fires that, rushing fast Thro’ all the people’s life, Break roaring round the past In renovating strife. If in the energic West Man ever grows more large, Like ocean without rest Exploring at the marge, Here lower yet he turns For ever downward thrust— The baleful Sun-God burns And breaks him into dust; Or like his native plains Where nothing new appears, Or hath appeared, remains Unchanged a thousand years. II Tho’ sorrows darkly veiled At all men’s tables (nor The guests make question, paled, Nor children hush before Those presences of grief) Sit, yet to all men due Due rights; the sweet relief Of home; the friendship true; The dying word; to feel Their country in their keep; To heave along the wheel, And push against the steep. But in this wilderness, Wed to a rock or two, What joys have we to bless? Far, far, our friends and few; And thou, O happy Land, We dream of thee in vain— One moment see, then stand Within this waste again. The great earth in her zones Matureth day by day; But we, like waiting stones, Know time but by decay. Grief hath a shadow, shame; And manhood, meanly tost In woes without a name And sorrows that are lost, Look’d at, when in the streets True sorrow, seal’d with sores And wrap’d in rags, entreats A charity from ours, Manhood can best control; But this dark exile hath Worse wounds, and of the soul— A misery and a wrath. * * * * * EXILE I Happy the man who ploughs All day his native croft; He looks to heaven and knows, Smiling, the lark aloft. Happy the man whose toil Leads on laborious hills; The rock beneath the soil The measure of his ills. Happiest, who can go forth Thro’ every age and clime, His home the whole of earth, His heritage all time. In vasty Wilds and with No crimson petals pranckt The shallow briars breathe And bloom and die unthankt. And we the useless Briar, And round us Desert spread The red Sun rolls his fire And smites the Desert dead; Death, Silence, and the Star With scornful nostrils curl’d; And half-forgotten, far, The movements of the world. II One hour released I rusht About the world again; The living thousands crusht; The streets were full of rain; I felt the north wind sting And glory’d in the sleet; I heard my footsteps ring Along the frosty street; And saw—less seen than felt— Swift-flashing Italy, And that bright city built Upon the mirroring Sea. III My country, my England, home, Are thy flowers bright, thy bells Ringing the spring welcome, The winter long farewells? Are thy fields fair—each flower Fill’d with the heav’nly dew, My country, at this hour When I am thinking of you? Art thou so far, so fair? Across what leagues of foam, My country? Art thou still there, My England, my country, my home? IV This hateful desert land Is pent by a great sea That booms upon the strand For ever. Salt the sea And salt the shore; the thorn And cactus stand and gaze Upon these waves; new-born The young grass ends her days; Straightly the beach is lined. I wander to the shore. The sunset dies behind, The full moon springs before. Of these great Deeps that link The land I love with this, I wander to the brink, I watch the waters kiss This lonely shore. O Waves, O Winds and Waters, where My country? Sing, O Waves, And tell me of it here. O Night? O Moon that comest, A sad face fronting mine? O dusking Deep that boomest, What tidings of it thine? V O Homeland, at this hour What joys are thine? This moon What lovers in what bower Sees? and what jocund tune From smoky villages Is heard? What homely light Shines welcome through the trees? What watch-dog barks delight? What lingering linnet flings Her good-night in the air? What honeysuckle rings Her chime of fragrance there? One moment, and I see The cot, the lane, the light, The moon behind the tree, The evening turn to night; One moment know the scent Of smoke of fragrant fires, And hear the cattle pent Within the wattled byres. One moment—and I wake; The vision fades and falls; These lifeless deserts make Me adamantine walls. * * * * * III * * * * * SOUL-SCORN No cloak of cloudy wrack The mistless mystery mars, But all the desert is black Beneath the quivering stars. I hear the pinions creak Of night-birds, beating by; And lost hyaenas shriek Unto the spectral sky. The Stars, immortal Sons Of God, are full of fire; But we, rejected ones, Know heav’n but in desire. My Soul said, ‘Art thou dead? The chasm of night is riv’n; What dost thou see?’ I said, ‘The full-fired fires of heav’n.’ ‘Look not but see,’ he said. I said, ‘I know not whether They are the hosts of God Clashing their spears together. So bright the stars appear Their splendour smokes in heav’n; I think indeed I hear Their distant voices ev’n.’ He said, ‘See not but know.’ I said, ‘I cannot see; I think perhaps they go To some great victory.’ He said, ‘For ever they go, Still onward, on and on; And that is why they know The victory’s clarion.’ I said, ‘I am too weak To do more than I must.’ He said, ‘Then cease to seek And perish in the dust.’ * * * * * RESOLVE Bound in misfortune’s bands, Blindfold and brought to nought, I would reach out my hands And touch eternal thought. I cannot choose but try Behind these prison bars To measure earth and sky And know the whole of stars; And what I rede I write, Vain visions as they rise, Vain visions of the night, Unworthy others’ eyes. I said, ‘Tho’ dungeon’d here In these deep dens of night, My soul shall persevere To seek supernal light; Untainted Truth to know From that fair face of Lies Whose heav’nly features glow Like Truth’s, save in the eyes; Till, after all these years, The wisdom come unsought To see the stars as spheres And sound the bounds of thought.’ * * * * * DESERT-THOUGHTS I hold with them who see Nor only idly stand The deed of thought to be Worth many deeds of hand. Ever as we journey sink The old behind the new, And Heav’n commands we think As justly as we do. One golden virtue more Than virtue we must prize, One iron duty more Than duty, to be wise. Who to himself hath said, ‘This chamber must be closed; This tract of truth I dread, This darkness God-imposed May not be lifted,’ keeps An ever-open door Thro’ which deception creeps, Confounding more and more, Until to wild extremes Of falsehood driv’n he dies, Intoxicate with dreams And drunk with a thousand lies. And more if he have taken A secret lie for friend, He shall be found forsaken, And terrible his end. So one doth travelling ride; A dreadful forest fears; Rejoiced at length a guide He meeteth unawares. With thunder overthrown Day dies in solitude; The guide, a monster grown, Devours him in the wood. Idle and base the cry ‘If it be so, so be it; But if it be so, then I Will look not lest I see it.’ Or this, ‘If it be so We lose this thing or that; ’Twere better not to know.’ The lightning spareth not The timorous soul who hides His head in danger thus: The iron fact abides; Things were not made for us. Who answers, who repines? Not he who works in love, But he who thinks divines The thing he cannot prove. He takes his stand and rolls The phrase he hopes for Heav’n, But cheats the hungry souls And gives them bread of leav’n. His ears are filled with wax, His bandaged eyeballs blind, And yet no doubts perplex, And he can see the wind. Though all in science good, By incessant question found, Beyond it strayed we brood And argue round and round; And where we hoped the end, Such distance we have come, Amazed we only find The point we started from; And fancies, like the breath We utter, do but prove A cloud above, beneath, To fog us as we move. We climb from cloud to cloud The airy precipice; Fain would we reach to God; We fall thro’ the abyss. The vapours will not bear. Wild-clutching we are hurl’d Thro’ measurements of air Again upon the world. Clear rings the answer high, ‘The mystery makes itself; The mystery is a lie; Be cleansed and know thyself.’ If with unshaken will, Resolving not to stray But to be rising still, We clamber day by day From truth to truth, at last, In valleys of the night Not lost, we know the vast And simple upper light, Only one labouring knows. The base, tumultuous wreck Of rock and forest shows; The summit, a single peak. So sought, so seen, so found. And what the end so high? A summit splendour crown’d Between the earth and sky, Where with sidereal blaze The mistless planets glow, And stars unsully’d gaze On unpolluted snow. No strife the vast reveals But perfect peace indeed— The thunder of spinning wheels At rest in eternal speed. * * * * * THE GAINS OF TIME Loll’d in the lap of home; Full-fed with fruits of time Ripen’d on labour’d loam By others, since the prime; Ingrate, we give no thought To all these golden things The toiling past hath brought, The toiling present brings. But on this silent shore And waste barbarian, We hear the engines roar And mind the might of man. So one in savage lands: He enters all alone; No weapon in his hands. The secret spears unthrown, The creepers lose their guile, Seeing his face, distrest They know not why. A smile, A sign or two, a jest, And all on bended knees Withhold the savage stroke. With beating heart he sees The lessening steamer-smoke. He draws a power to be From powers sacrificed; And in his eyes we see The teaching of the Christ, And all the great beside, The oracles of time From Delphic clefts have cried Or crasht in thundering rhyme. A book his finger parts; He moves thro’ adverse cries; Master of many arts And careless of the skies. What are thy mighty deeds, O Past, thy gains, O Time? A dust of ruin’d creeds, A scroll or two of rhyme? A temple earthquake-dasht? A false record of things? A picture lightning-flasht Of cruel eyes of kings? No, these: a wiser rule; A science of ampler span; A heart more pitiful; More mind; a nobler man. * * * * * INVOCATION I Thee most we honour, thee, Great Science. Hold thy way. The end thou canst not see, But in the end the day. Seek without seeking ends, And shatter without ruth; On thee our fate depends; Be faithful, keep the truth. We think it false to dream Beyond the likely fact; We grant thee, Truth, supreme, Whatever thou exact. I pray thee, Truth, control My destiny distraught, And move my sightless soul In thy high ways of thought. Hold thou my hand. I go Wherever thou wilt guide, Tho’ bleak the bitter snow And black the mountain side. Or if thou bid’st descend, I fear not for myself, Tho’ raging thunders rend And lightnings lash, the gulf. My deeds I will endow, My spirit render clean, O Truth, with thee; and thou Wilt make the desert green; And haply show withal The wells that will not sink, Sweet pastures for the soul, And in the desert drink. Confounded by these briars, Thy stars will compass me And be the beacon fires To light mine eyes to thee. II But in my state infirm That Spirit comes and cries To me in wrath, ‘O worm, They see not who have eyes, How thou that hast not? Know, My children drink the sun, Taking them wings to go Where others walk or run: Yet scarcely one life-taught Can ever rightly heed The issue of a thought Or do a fruitful deed.’ * * * * * DESPAIRS I I call no curse on fate, I call no curse on thee, O barren bitter state Of exile, such to me. I would but only this: I wish that I could go And see the thing that is, And, seeing, better know; And take things in my hand And find if false or fit; But in this far-off land What hope is there of it? There is no hope of it; I see but sad despair, Unless it may be writ God cureth care by care. So one in prison thrust; He ages span by span, But in the prison dust Becomes a better man. So one is blind from birth; All day he sitteth still; He cannot see the earth, But heaven when he will. II I thought that I might rise And, looking to the stars, Lift up my blinded eyes And bless God unawares, In words whose merit this— Poor buds of blighting air— To know no loveliness But breathe the scent of prayer; Since Heaven hath decreed Who suffers lives with God, And he who writes indeed Must write in his own blood I thought, tho’ fetter’d fast, I yet might move my hands To cast or to recast Some labour—sift the sands For knowledge—search the vast Some hidden hope to find— Perhaps to help at last The cause of humankind. O hope abandon’d! Not In me the worth or wit. God gave this lowly lot Because I merit it. In humble ways I move Myself to little things; The heated hands I prove, I watch the light that springs Or fades in fever’d eyes; My only solace here, Not to be rich or wise But to have done with fear. God sees the silent space Where footstep never trod; And in the lonely place The listener is God. * * * * * IV * * * * * INDURATION Deep, deep in league with Fate, Fate fast in league with Sorrow, And Sorrow with my state, I would that I could borrow, O Deep, a depth from thee, O Fate, thy fixèd calm, O Sorrow, what to me Thou givest not, thy balm; That I might worthier show A scorn of your controls, And let Misfortune know Iron chains make iron souls. If chain’d we could but take Contagion from the steel, And wisdom’s mantle shake Around us head to heel, And chill the eyes and rest No longer violent, The steel, still more imprest, Would banish discontent. The strongest chains are burst When we have done with care; A joy lives in the worst, A gladness in despair. So when great clouds all night Hold high debate of thunder In awful tones that fright The huddled cities under; And roar their rage and move About the breadths of space, And sudden flashes prove The madness in their face; At length, when break of day Shows heav’nly peace newborn, They muttering melt away Before the might of morn. * * * * * WISDOM’S COUNSEL I But Wisdom wearying said, ‘I know a nobler way. Let Fate with Sorrow wed And give the Deep his day; But turn thine eyes and see With some more love sincere The prisoners that with thee Are also dungeon’d here— The pale flower in the chink, The spider at the grate, The bird that comes to drink His tollage from thy plate.’ Grief, sitting sad’ning still With cold eyes inward cast, Looks round the empty will And dreary chambers vast Of thought. She cannot sit; She loathes her selfish tears; She looks once more without, And lo! worse grief appears. Her tears bechidden freeze; She watches the world’s need, And deeper sorrow sees, And that that weeps indeed. There is no misery Attired in mourning wear, Worse misery may not see, And that that goeth bare. We have no heavy cross To some one’s is not small; We weep no heavy loss But some one weeps his all; And not the grief unseen, And not the aching mind, Cries like the sorrow seen And shivering in the wind. II Half stun’d I look around And see a land of death— Dead bones that walk the ground And dead bones underneath; A race of wretches caught Between the palms of Need And rub’d to utter naught, The chaff of human seed; And all like stricken leaves, Despondent multitudes The wind of winter drives About the broken woods. The toiler tills the field, But at his bosom coil’d The blood-leach makes him yield The pence for which he toil’d, And grows and drops off fat From these poor breathless ones, Who know not this or that But work themselves to bones; And this one fever’d flags, And that one hopeless tries, Or uncomplaining drags A giant leg, and dies. * * * * * IMPATIENCE Vain drug! If I am sick Can others’ sickness heal? Or dead, death make me quick? I care not what they feel. What reck I? Let me go. Is not my bosom full? The sorrow that I know Makes others’ sorrow dull. I will shut up the soul, For only joy is just. Stones with the river roll, And we ev’n as we must. Why should I think of thee, O Wisdom, and thy lies? Better laugh and foolish be Than laugh not and be wise. The wild-birds heed thee not; Of thee no torrents roar; The deep seas know no jot Of all thy little lore; But man who cannot ’scape To follow thee and trust, Thou takest by the nape And grindest in the dust. * * * * * WORLD-SORROWS I Lo! here accursèd caste Hath made men things that creep; The beggars totter past, The baser sultans sleep; The limping lepers crawl, The tricking traders cheat; The lean ones cry and fall, The fat ones curse and beat; Never hath freedom’s cry The stifling stillness cleaved; The hopeless millions die That yet have never lived. No noble god of earth, Man can but snatch and eat; Starvation murders worth, Wealth makes the beast complete. What horror here! Is this Thy revelation, Truth? I shake at the abyss. What hunger, rage, and ruth, How hopeless! Heaven, we men Are not the gods we think!— Base pismires of the fen That fight and bite and sink. II O myriad-childed Mother, Sitting among their graves Who thee and one another Have made for ever slaves, Great East; O aged Mother, Too old for Fear and Hope— Fear that is Pleasure’s brother, And Sorrow’s sister, Hope— As erst in ages gone, So now, thou art half dead, Thy countenance turned to stone By an eternal dread. With lips that dare not move And awful lids apart, While yet faint pulses prove The life about thy heart, Thou sitt’st at dreadful gaze Into the dreadful Vast: For thou canst well appraise The future by the past, Where thou beholdest Death Confound and desolate, And men like ants beneath The giant feet of Fate. III Are these thy mighty deeds, O Past, thy gains, O Time? This wrack of ruin’d creeds, This scroll or two of rhyme?— A temple earthquake-dasht; A false record of things; A picture, lightning-flasht, Of cruel eyes of kings; A mangled race that bleeds In cruel custom’s claws, Besotted by their creeds, And murder’d by their laws? Right easily understood Fate’s lesson is, tho’ slow; She takes a nation’s blood To jot a word or two. And for sufficient space To write a line of hers, She wipes away a race And dashes down the verse, And cries, ‘So much to each, And man may mark or not; But what I choose to teach Shall never be forgot.’ * * * * * PHILOSOPHIES I If it be not to be, Or being be in vain, That high philosophy Shall ever counsel men To mend this mindless state In which, as in the East, We drift on floods of fate, As helpless as the beast, Then here the issue is— Look on this land and weep— A race as ruin’d as this, A misery as deep. II Seeing how pent we are Within our human ways, That save in ceaseless war We cannot spend our days, In struggle each with each To get a breathing space, While Heaven, out of reach, Looks on with scornful face; I wonder, for man’s sake, Cannot that mind of his Which made the engine make A better state than this? Here sitting in my place There comes to me unsought The beautiful sad face Of this undying thought. And with it as in scorn The present state descried Of monsters heaven-born And angels crucify’d, Where, scourged to unnatural toil, In palsy’d posture bent, Man creeping near the soil Forgets the firmament. III Since, since we first began To measure near and far, And know that the thoughts of man His chiefest actions are, A thousand cries in sooth Call us thro’ time amain, And every cry a truth And every truth a gain, And yet the needful task, To mend this state withal, Remains undone; we ask, What is the good of all? Do, cries the lofty seer; Believe, the prelate cries; Be, beauty’s priest austere Persuades. The man replies, ‘We have three beds at home Where eight of us must lie; Three blankets and one room, My children, wife and I. All day our work we mind; But little money gain; At night the wintry wind Whines thro’ the window-pane.’ So one doth read at ease With comfortable wine Devout philosophies That say, for him, divine, To be, to bear, to act, To know oneself, be strong, Are all the heav’ns exact. He answers, ‘I am strong; I fear not any fate; I do; I nobly bear.’ A beggar at his gate Cries in the bitter air. * * * * * LIES I Come, lie to us, let us glow; Pour out the red wine; speak; Pour out the sweet lies—so We shall be warm and sleek. Tell us in manner high The flattering things that soothe; But hush the outer cry And crush the inner truth. What matters all the din Of truth—discordant cries? We quaff the joyous wine And lap ourselves in lies. The lordly anthem peals The while the people rot; The gilded church reveals The penury of their lot. No matter—let them starve! The gorgeous mass atones; These glorious arches serve To sepulchre their bones. Come, hymn the dying wretch With pæans on the harps; Nard and vermilion fetch To paint and scent the corpse. II Into the hand of man, When by the gods first form’d, They gave this talisman, The dull stone Reason, arm’d With which to brave the skies And make the earth his throne. But to his infant eyes A brighter treasure shone— The tinsel Fancy, flame Illusive; and alas, He flung away the gem And took the glittering glass. III Vain, vain the visions—vain, Dreams that intoxicate In the dark day when men Come face to face with fate. Not out of knowledge grown The empty dogmas rise, But gilded bubbles blown From the foul froth of lies. Cease! Let the lies be hurl’d Back to the darkling past. Truth, only, saves the world, And Science rules the vast. * * * * * TRUTH-SERVICE AND SELF-SERVICE I Alas! we know not what Withholds us from the goal For ever; an inner rot Consumes the seeing soul. Only the truth will serve; But he who follows it, And finds, has not the nerve To rule the world with it. The cunning keep the crown; And fate decrees that he Who lives with truth alone Shall win no victory. II Not to be granted great, Not to be crowned in youth, His soul is passionate With anger for the truth. He feels the spirit-drouth, He seeks the mad emprise To mock the mocking mouth And smite the lips of lies. Not his the happy guile To veil the flinching eye, Here where we sit and smile To hear each other lie. But ours to live, forsooth; We keep a decent face And seize the skirts of truth And skip into a place; With bearded wisdom thence Our noble plan unfold For gathering good—pretence Indeed for gathering gold. But he—he cannot rise; He slowly falls apart; For all these human lies Are needles in his heart. He has the truth, he thinks; He shivers in his rags; The laughing liar chinks His bursting money-bags Of lie-begotten pelf, And climbs the ladder of lies To fortune—for himself, And not for wisdom, wise. We crown the charlatan; But show to him who shapes A priceless work for man The gratitude of apes. So one with toil hath writ The work which is his life. Being poor, he has no wit; His reader is his wife; They live in direst need; No fortunate patron shows The work for men to read; He dies, and no one knows. A jealous rival burns The work he will not save; The buried poet turns And mutters in his grave. III Old Ape, old Earth, we smile, Thou ancient Land of Lies, At all thy simple guile, Thy wisdom that’s not wise. Scum of the populace, The chatterer, cheat, and fool, Thou puttest in high place To scourge thee and to rule; But him who thee hath given The good food of the land Or water out of heaven Thou bitest in the hand. * * * * * WRATHS My soul is full of fire, Wrath and tempestuous dirge; I feel but one desire, To find a sword and scourge: Since man, by right of birth And nature’s gift at least A god upon the earth, Remaineth but a beast, Ill-ruling, blind and halt, And not by powers’ unknown, Or far-off Heaven’s, fault, But chiefly by his own. Lies!—let us drink them up, The sweet and bitter lies! Man takes the maddening cup And drinks and dreams and dies. Pure as revealing morn The angel Truth stands there; But we, oh basely born! Dare not to look at her. Not by eternal laws Condemn’d to eternal ruth, We suffer; but because We dare not face the truth. We wreath and sanctify us To the inferior gods; For things which vilify us We lash ourselves with rods. We rip our veins and bleed Before the gods of mire; For Moloch, without need, Consume our babes in fire; But the greatest God of all In eternal silence reigns; To His high audience-hall No human soul attains. * * * * * VISION OF NESCIENCE I A vision of the night. I started in my bed. A finger in the night Was placed upon my head. A ray of corruption, blue As in encharnel’d air On corpses comes. I knew A Death, a Woman there. Delirious, knee to knee, They drank of love like wine, He skeleton thin, and she Most beautiful, most divine. He with his eyes half warm’d Out of their wan eclipse With lipless kisses storm’d Upon her living lips, And like a vulture quaff’d, And raised his hideous head With joy aloft, and laugh’d Like vultures sipping blood. The purple, fold by fold, Fell from her, and, unseen, The diadem of gold By which I knew her queen. Nor he unknown: for at His feet the fiery brand And freezing fetters that Endow him with command. And on his head a crown Of thirsty thorns of flame That flicker’d up and down In words that went and came Like God’s, ‘I am of God’; And said, ‘Duty to me Is duty unto God’; And said, ‘Come unto me, And I will give you rest.’ Then as I wonder’d, lo! I saw the Woman waste To nothing; and he, as tho’ Blood nourisht by her blood, Grow grosser in the gloom And leprous like the toad That battens in the tomb. And both corrupted pined. And lo! a voice that wept, And then a faint far wind Of laughter; and I slept. II Methought the heav’ns were crusht; A myriad angels stood; A wind of thunder rusht Before the feet of God. He spake: ‘Accursèd men, I find your earth a hell; Show me what ye have done; I bade ye order well.’ They said, ‘Well we have pray’d, Lord, and for Heaven’s hope A thousand temples made.’ And His lightning lickt them up. * * * * * V * * * * * THE DEEPS I Spirit, tho’ without a name, Great, the left hand of God; Who coolest the quick flame And bendest back the rod His awful right hand bears, Till the dull worm of earth No worse in darkness fares Than things of brighter birth, Nor in the lapse of hell All everlasting gloom, Help us to suffer well These dark days of our doom. Swift Smiter of extremes, Who only lettest us live; Who feedest with bright dreams At midnight, and dost give Even to the poorest wretch Of this distressful land A draught, a rag, a stretch Of soil, a loving hand, Ours too the guardian Thou; And if no other good Thou wilt bestow, endow At least with fortitude. II Long, long the barren years. A deeper darkness grows; The road-side tree appears No more; the shadows close. Lost, I sit down with night And weave night-horrors here— Sad voices heard in flight, And warnings in the air, And convocations of thunder Above tumultuous woods, And white stars weeping under Black threatening of clouds. * * * * * LOSS I Death too hath come with Sorrow. Sorrow enough to-day Brings Death with her to-morrow, Unwelcome guest, to stay With us. If I be sick I know not, care not, and The night is very thick; My tract of toil is sand. Hated the daily toil; Hated the toil I loved; Daily the worthless soil Sinks back as it is moved. II I seized the hands of Grief; I would not thus be thrown; But Death came like a thief Behind and seized my own I held debate with Pain, And half persuaded her; Then came the utterance plain Of Death, the Answerer. ‘Cryest thou so before Thou sufferest?’ he said; ‘Wait yet a little more And thou shalt cry indeed.’ Sorrow so darkly veiled Will take my hand and lead. O Wisdom, thou hast failed, And Sorrow, she must lead; And Death with her. He goes Before and readeth plain The painful list of those Dear ones whom he hath slain. They fail, they fall, they sink, Torn from the treacherous sands; The deeps of death they drink And reach out madden’d hands. A mist across the deep Of future and of past, The rock whereon we creep, The present we hold fast, Visible alone. Around, The rolling wreathes of fog; The unseen surges sound; Dead eyes are in the fog. We have no airy scope; We are not things that fly; We are but things that grope From hand to hand and die. Not many friends, O God, Ours, and so far, so dear. So far that less manhood, Losing, can nobly bear The loss, as, having, more Must love. What bitter loss To us so distant. For No dying word to us; No hand in ours; not even To see the well-known spot, The room, the chair is given; To visit the sacred plot. * * * III O Lily that to the lips Pal’st at the name of death, And with’rest in eclipse, And yieldest a sickly breath: And Rose that sheddest thy leaves And tremblest as they fall,— Know ye what power bereaves And takes the sum of all? Now slowly perishing Down to the leafless core, Ye die; no lovely thing; A heart, and nothing more. IV If we could think that death As surely as we dream, To us who dwell beneath The summit of supreme Prospective—Love and Peace— Will open Heav’nly sweets; It would be wise to cease, If ceasing thus completes; Unless the further faith, Malefiant power pursue In death those who in death Have hoped to struggle thro’. V The tropic night is husht With hateful noises—hark! The fluttering night-moth crusht By reptiles in the dark About the bed; the sound Of tiny shrieks of pain; Of midnight murders round; Of creatures serpent-slain. A moan of thunder fills The stagnant air; and soon A black cloud from the hills Devours the helpless moon. Those faces stampt in air When all the hateful night We toss, and cannot bear The heated bed, and night Is full of silent sounds That walk about the bed (The whining night-fly wounds The ear; the air is dead; The darkness madness; heat A hell): appear and gaze; Are silent; at the feet Stand gazing; going gaze. * * * * * VI * * * * * DEATH I The Sun said, ‘I have trod The hateful Darkness dead, And the hand of approving God Is placed upon my head.’ And cried, ‘Where art thou, Night? Come forth, thou Worm; appear, That I may slay thee quite.’ And the Night answered, ‘Here.’ And the Sun said, ‘My might Is next to His, Most High; Canst thou destroy me, Night?’ And the Night answered, ‘Aye.’ II This moonèd Desert round, Those deeps before me spread, I sought for Hope, and found Him beautiful, but dead. In this resounding Waste I sought for Hope, and cried, ‘Where art thou, Hope?’—Aghast, I found that he had died. I cried for Hope. The Briars Pointed the way he’d gone; Cold were the Heav’nly Fires, Colder the numb-lipped Moon. ‘Where art thou, Hope?’—‘I go, Returning,’ he had said; I found him white as snow And beautiful, but dead. He would return, he said. When that I heeded not, Lo, he had fallen dead. Dead; Hope is dead; is not. I tear my hands with briars, My face in earth I thrust; I curse the heav’nly fires, I drink the desert dust. A threat of thunder fills Us. Lo, a voice! The waves A breathless horror stills; The sand, a sea of graves. Methought the mocking Moon Open’d her yellow lips And spake. The Planets swoon In vapoury eclipse. ‘Fool, all the world is dust; Even I who shine on thee. There perish and add thy dust To that sepulchral sea.’ III In exile here I trod And with presumptuous breath Call’d out aloud for God: The Answer came from Death. O World, thy quest is cold; O World, who answereth? Distracted thou hast call’d; The Answer came from Death. I call’d for God and heard No voice but that of Death: Then came the bitter word, ‘Fool, God himself is Death. Great Death; not little death That nips the flowers unfurl’d And stays the infant’s breath; But Death that slays the world. And in despair I ran, And stumbled at the marge, And saw from span to span Death’s ocean rolling large; And only the breadth accursed Of billows barring hope, That thunder’d, ‘Death,’ and burst In tears upon the slope. Nor in the Heavens hope. The Sun drew in and shrank His flashes from the cope, And answer’d, ‘Death,’ and sank. I sought the sacred Night And solace of the Stars, For surely in their light No shade of Death appears. Like tears their Answer came, Dropt one by one from heaven; Their Answer was the same; No other word was given. IV But then the Silence said, ‘Resolve thy visioning mind: Is action for the dead Or seeing in the blind? Cry not with fruitless breath. Is it not understood, If God had utter’d Death Then also Death is good? Abandon Wrath and Ruth. Touch not the High, nor ask. For God alone the Truth. Perform thy daily task.’ * * * * * VII * * * * * THE MONSOON I What ails the solitude? Is this the Judgment Day? The sky is red as blood; The very rocks decay And crack and crumble, and There is a flame of wind Wherewith the burning sand Is ever mass’d and thin’d. Even the sickly Sun Is dimmèd by the dearth, And screaming dead leaves run About the desolate earth. Die then; we are accurst! And strike, consuming God! The very tigers thirst Too much to drink of blood; The eagle soareth not; The viper bites herself; The vulture hath forgot To rend the dying wolf. The world is white with heat; The world is rent and riv’n; The world and heavens meet; The lost stars cry in heav’n. * * * II Art thou an Angel—speak, Stupendous Cloud that comest? What wrath on whom to wreak? Redeemest thou, or doomest? Thine eyes are of the dead; A flame within thy breast Thy giant wings outspread, Like Death’s, upon the west Thy lifted locks of hair Are flames of fluttering fire; Thy countenance, of Despair Made mad with inner ire. III Who cries! The night is black As death and not as night; The world is fallen back To nothing; sound and light And moon and stars and skies, Thunder and lightning—all Gone, gone! Not even cries The cricket in the hall, The dog without. At last The end of all the hours. Was that a Spirit pass’d Between the slamming doors? We slept not yet we wake! Was it a voice that cried, ‘Awake, ye sleepless; wake, Ye deathless who have died’? No voice. No light, no sound. It was the fancy that At midnight makes rebound Of thoughts we labour at At mid-day. Let us sleep. The night is very black, The heat a madness—sleep Before the day comes back. Who cries!—The voice again! It is the storm that breaks! The tempest and the rain! The quivering crash that shakes! The thunder and the flash, The brand that rips and roars, The winds of God that dash And split a thousand doors! The chariots of God That gallop on the plain And shake the solid sod! Awake!—The rain, the rain! Thunder and burst, O Sky; Thunder and boil, O Deep; Let the thick thunder cry; Let the live lightning leap! Smite white light like the sword Of Heav’n from heav’n’s height; Consume the thing abhor’d And quell the dreadful night! Smite white light like the brand Of God from heav’n to earth; And purge the desolate land Of this destroying dearth! IV O Wilderness of Death, O Desert rent and riv’n, Where art thou?—for the breath Of heav’n hath made thee Heav’n. I know not now these ways; The rocky rifts are gone, Deep-verdured like the braes Of blest Avilion. Here where there were no flowers The heav’nly waters flow, And thro’ a thousand bowers Innum’rable blossoms blow. * * * * * * * * REPLY I This day relenting God Hath placed within my hand A wondrous thing; and God Be praised. At His command, Seeking His secret deeds With tears and toiling breath, I find thy cunning seeds, O million-murdering Death. I know this little thing A myriad men will save. O Death, where is thy sting? Thy victory, O Grave? August 21, 1897. II Before Thy feet I fall, Lord, who made high my fate; For in the mighty small Thou showedst the mighty great. Henceforth I will resound But praises unto Thee; Tho’ I was beat and bound, Thou gavest me victory. Tho’ in these depths of night Deep-dungeon’d I was hurl’d, Thou sentest me a light Wherewith to mend the world. O Exile, while thine eyes Were weary with the night Thou weepedst; now arise And bless the Lord of Light. Hereafter let thy lyre Be bondsman to His name; His thunder and His fire Will fill thy lips with flame. He is the Lord of Light; He is the Thing That Is; He sends the seeing sight; And the right mind is His. III The cagèd bird awake All night laments his doom, And hears the dim dawn break About the darken’d room; But in the day he sips, Contented in his place, His food from human lips, And learns the human face. So tho’ his home remain Dark, and his fields untrod, The exile has this gain, To have found the face of God. Confounded at the close, Confounded standing where No further pathway shows, We find an angel there To guide us. God is good; The seeing sight is dim; He gives us solitude That we may be with Him. By that we have we lose; By what we have not, get; And where we cannot choose The crown of life is set. Lo, while we ask the stars To learn the will of God, His answer unawares Strikes sudden from the sod. Not when we wait the word The word of God is giv’n; The voice of God is heard As much from earth as heav’n. The voice of God is heard Not in the thunder-fit; A still small voice is heard, Half-heard, and that is it. * * * * * PÆANS * * * * * MAN Man putteth the world to scale And weigheth out the stars; Th’ eternal hath lost her veil, The infinite her bars; His balance he hath hung in heaven And set the sun therein. He measures the lords of light And fiery orbs that spin; No riddle of darkest night He dares not look within; Athwart the roaring wrack of stars He plumbs the chasm of heaven. The wings of the wind are his; To him the world is given; His servant the lightning is, And slave the ocean, even; He scans the mountains yet unclimb’d And sounds the solid sea. With fingers of thought he holds What is or e’er can be; And, touching it not, unfolds The sealèd mystery. The pigmy hands, eyes, head God gave A giant’s are become. But tho’ to this height sublime By labour he hath clomb, One summit he hath to climb, One deep the more to plumb— To rede himself and rule himself, And so to reach the sum. 1898. * * * * * LIFE From birth to death the life of man Is infinite on the earth, To know and do that which he can And be what he is worth. Our mortal life, however wrought, Eternity is indeed; For every moment brings a thought, And every thought’s a deed; And that is so much infinite Which may be divided much; And if we live with might and mirth Our human life is such. For him who has not might and mirth That which is not now is never; And he who can live well on earth Does live in heaven for ever. 1898. * * * * * WORLD-SONG O Vision inviolate, O Splendour supernal, We stand in Thy white light like lamps alit in day; Before Thee, Omnipotent, in sight of Thy glory, Our countenance is witherèd like stars in the sun. Before Thee our symphonies are still’d into silence; Thy wisdom we wot not nor ever shall we know; But from Thy high throne, O God, Thy voice and Thy thunder In utterance reïterate give glory and strength. FINIS * * * * * Transcriber’s Notes: Punctuation has been corrected without note. Archaic spellings and hyphenation have been retained. Other errors have been corrected as noted below. Original list of Contents at the beginning contained only listings for Parts in the section _IN EXILE_ so links for individual poem titles have been added for reader convenience. page 26, But but because we must. ==> But because we must. End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Philosophies, by Ronald Ross *** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 54870 ***