MAN that is born of a Woman the pride and the shame of Creation; Man that soars upward to Heaven, and sinks to the nethermost Hell; Man that is lower than the brute and yet higher in rank than the Angels; Man with vile lusts that dishonour, and yearnings that soar to the skies; That can die for the Truth -- ay, in torture; that wallows in sensual pleasures; And is drowned in fathomless sloughs and abysses of shameful desire; That is full of compassion and pity and ruth for his suffering brethren; That robs and tortures and slays, defacing the image of God. Dark riddle unsolved, dumb Sphinx, with a twofold nature eternal, That speaks no word though the ages fleet by on invisible wings Unaltered, though diverse in faith and in race, for good or for evil; High in knowledge, buried in ignorance, always unchangeably, Man. Thee I sing, and thine is the Hymn that I essay with accents unworthy, Thy high glory, thy deep disgrace, the crown of the world and its shame! Ah! Heaven, through what aeons unnumbered thou wert, while the fires of Creation Burned fierce, and the earth and the sea still seethed in a tropical haze. Monstrous growths in the ooze or the jungle, or cleaving the ill-defined aether, Mailed dreadfully, rending talons, fangs horrible, cavernous jaws! What power was it strengthened thy arm in a world of rapine and slaughter? What steeled thy spirit undaunted 'mid terrors by night and by day? What else than the force which compelled thy isolate units together As never the brute was drawn, for mutual solace and aid. Long ages of suffering were thine, unarmed 'mid a monstrous creation, Hidden deep in the caves of the rocks, by the fear of thy ravening foes, Till the sure blight came with the years on that primal order gigantic, And the mailed monsters dwindled and failed from the temperate ocean and earth. Then fighting for food, men with men, while the slow-fashioned flint-heads primaeval That had pierced thro' the mastodon's mail, were reddened with fratricide blood, Till at last the faint language of signs, in a dumb world vacant of reason Grew slowly through age-long degrees, to the ultimate wonder of speech. Yet amid all the bloodshed and terror, the famine and nakedness always, Were the Father's and Mother's love, and the innocent smile of the child. Oh ages, known only to God! Oh dim generations forgotten! Of like nature were ye with our own, of like passions, glory and shame. Thus through ages and ages of Time marched the long successions unending, The hunter, the fisher waxed skilful through sad generations of men, Step by step came new powers and new arts, and o'er all the Creation dominion, And man graved on the mastodon's tusk the first faint beginnings of Art. Fire came from the Sun, or the storm-cloud, and with it the forging of metals; No more the savage tears raw, the blood-stained flesh of his prey, But with hatchet of bronze levels slowly the broad-leaved trees of the forest, And builds him a hut to escape from the sun, and the snow and the rain. Then sews him a garment of skins to ward off the rigour of winter, And the hearth gives comfort and light through the dark and desolate hours; The husbandman tills the earth with rude shares of newly forged iron, And sows with each coming of Spring hoarded treasures of life-bearing grain; Silent ages! but always the gains of the long Past harvested safely, Gathered little by little, at length, brought the triumph of conquering Man! And last, through a rift in the clouds, like the blessed Sun seen and then hidden, There dawns on Man's upturned vision some broken image of God; Obscured by vague terrors as yet, bloody rites and foul superstitions, Yet holding within it the power to raise up the man from the brute. Then after long aeons of pain, step by step, the savage ascending, The scattered huts grew to the village, and then to the wall-circled town, Strong towers with rampart and moat, the hut giving place to the palace, Halls of marble, long colonnades, and ceilings fretted with gold, The pride of the races that lived their forgotten histories vanished, The gains of the Empires unsung, whose speech and whose records were dead, Ere the black-bearded kings from their chariots pursued the pitiful thousands, Or transfixed the pard or the lion with shafts from the merciless bow. Or who by the mystical Nile, grave, priest-like, Lords of the Bondsmen, Swayed through long dynasties dim the voiceless bewildering years --; Those whose name and whose fame together have perished, older than legend, Whose ruins, the sand or the forest hides deep in its silence profound. Perished! gone! clean-forgotten of men! but surely repeating for ever Man's story of life and endeavour, and conquest, and failure, and death. Age upon age passed away, and the graven records unfading Were carved no more on the rocks, but writ on the tablets of mind; The glory of Greece shone forth, the sage, the hero, the poet, The lips of Wisdom were touched with a new-born sweetness and fire, The painter, the sculptor revered the perfect half-divine body, And saw through the veil of the flesh, the immanent Godhead displayed. The Godlike was clothed with life by the voice of the sage, of the minstrel, Half-divine show the heroes immortal who fought in the fabulous Troy -- Oh, fair blossom of Man's young summer, oh, glory and radiance departed, Oh, white lily springing from mire too foul for the savage to-day. Then, the blossom of Beauty past, from strong roots far reaching ascended A gnarled tree of secular strength, the o'ershadowing greatness of Rome; Not Beauty, but Law with Might, Titanic, disciplined, fearless, Wearing down the pride of the Strong, but sparing the weak and cast-down. Beneath that strong Law universal, man faded, and manacled Freedom Grew faint, and withered and sank 'neath the blight of a cankering peace, Till law fell, trampled down in the dust by the feet of the tyrannous Caesars, And only a phantom remained of the power, and the glory of old, And in deep sloughs of sense and of blood, unredeemed by the Beauty of Hellas, Sank the rugged manhood and stern of the legions that conquered the world; And not even the new-born Dawn proclaiming its heavenly message, Which shone forth, from dying Judaea, could pierce the thick gathering gloom --; The West paused long on its march, the weary Orient slumbered, No ears had Mankind to hear, the Word that was sent for their Peace. Then there rushed from the ends of the Earth, horde on horde, invincible, awful, On the shame of a moribund world, the unnumbered avengers of blood, And the heart of the giant was pierced and the shattered idol fell earthward, And the prisoners of Time were set free, and Mankind delivered from Rome. Then ages on ages of blood that cleansed the dark stains of Man's story, And again the tired world awoke in the light of a long-deferred day, And the hope of the Race sheltered safe, in the sacred hush of the Cloister, Keeping some faint glimmer alight in a world whereof Darkness was King. And each century added new rays, till at length from slumber awaking, The mighty West leapt to its feet, and again was Humanity free; A new breath breathed on the Race and the swift generations sped onward, Adding each some laborious gift to the sum of the gains of the whole. Still the long processions speed onward, and still each man in his station, Brings his loyal oblation of work to lay on the altar of Good, Busy toilers of wider view, a great army of seekers devoted, O'er all the wide kingdom of knowledge spread tireless and thirsting to know; Weigh the Sun and the Stars in the scales, scan the uttermost heaven and discover The long-locked wandering star whose vast orbit brings it again; Can predict its return ages hence though no eye now living shall see it, And conjecture on faint far planets the work of intelligent hands; Who with re-inforced vision explore the invisible hidden Creation, The death-dealing germs of Disease, the secrets of Life and of Death; Who imprison and guide at their pleasure the nameless force of the lightning, Till it conquers the darkness of Night, or whirls them o'er sea and o'er land, Who shall make them a way through the air, leaving cloud and tempest beneath them, Till the ends of the earth are linked fast in a holy communion of Peace; Who shall learn by the power of just laws to raise up the down-trodden thousands, Till Nature's unequal gifts are redressed by the wisdom of men. Bring new fire, oh Promethean Science! rise higher, oh glorified Manhood! Till thou gain to full knowledge at last of the infinite purpose of God! But can this be the cave-man of old, the naked savage primaeval, Hiding deep in the depths of the rocks from the winged Lizard's pitiless jaw? Wondrous gain! but broken too oft by reversals and degenerations, Not always the secular march lay onward and upward to Light, The old Empires faded and sank leaving naught but some ruins Cyclopic Buried deep in the sands, or o'ergrown in the twilight of tropical woods. The Temples, the altars are gone, the tall carven columns lie prostrate, Gods and men lie buried together; dumb histories, glory, and shame, All are gone, and the peasant who delves 'mid the shapeless mounds starts to discover Deep hidden, the gold and the gems of the ghosts of a sepulchred Past. Still over the populous East, crude beliefs, thin philosophies, changeless From the first beginnings of Time, clog millions of wandering feet, And the naked savage obscene, fetish-ridden, unreasoning, brute-like Gibbers still with faint jargons of speech through the limitless wastes of the South. Shall we hold with more credulous souls the faith in a purpose Eternal, Marching on without haste or delay to the final triumph of Good? Yea, the great Scheme fulfils itself always, though slowly with long intermissions, Wave on wave of the inflowing tide seems at times to ebb back to the sea; Where to-day are the wonders of Painting, the breathing Marbles immortal, The floreate capitals carven, the vaulted, vaporous aisles? The skill of the craftsmen who reared the huge bulk of structures colossal, The lost Arts, and triumphs of Knowledge, the hidden Arcana of Faith? A great silence swallows them all, they have perished, and no man remembers, And the gains of the Past are re-won after ages of travail and tears. Man that cowered long time in the caves, scant in numbers, feeble, forgotten, Is the crown and summit of things, and has filled and governs the world, But not yet can he govern his soul; gross desires, mean ideals, enslave him; Not wherefore he came nor whence, nor whither he goeth he knows. Life's swift fleeting seasons perplex him, youth passes, dull age creeps upon him. Few are blest, while the multitudes labour through brief lives and fortunes forlorn, To the grave from the cradle they bear, the unsatisfied dim generations, Toil and suffering, hunger and cold, scant pleasure and undeserved pain, The shadow of fratricide war, broods deep o'er the shuddering peoples, And the round world rolls on through cycles of sorrow, and bloodshed, and pain. Nay, oh man, though vainly it seem, still aspire, struggle onward and upward! In the Future live, not the Past, trample down the inherited brute! Rise from sensual deeps, rise upward. He who made thee knows to what purpose, Spurn aside, one by one, with the years, the sordid rags of the Past. Give ear to the clear voice calling with mystical accents unceasing, That bids thee aspire and ascend in the faith of an ultimate Good. Not for thee are the problems perplext of the methods and ends of the Maker, Turn with steadfast unwavering gaze to the Light of the half-discerned Sun; Tread down in the mire of dead years the reproach of the travailing ages, Raise the wandering savage alike, and the waifs of the sin-laden streets; The ruffian, the wanton, the thief, the bondsmen of Pleasure or Mammon, Wasting weariful lives in the chase of ignoble profitless ends. Last of all make the Demon of War put off his false halo of Glory, And a league of Brethren conspire for the final triumph of Peace, Till the calm voice of Justice shall drown the cries of tumultuous Passion, And the criminal shrink from himself at the clear call of Godhead within; Then, O Man that art born of a Woman, the crown, not the shame of Creation, Be thou filled with the glory of God, as the waters cover the Deep! |