Satan

A romance, Lord. Hear The word of one Thy wanderer, sphere and hemisphere, For ever on Thy Earth, who shepherding Thy seas No less than Thy green valleys hath nor rest nor peace, But he must learn the way of all who in them dwell; To whom there is no secret, naught untold, no hell Where any sin may hide but he hath wormed it out From silence to confession till his ears grew hot; Who knoweth the race of Man as his own flesh; whose eye Is cruel to evasion and the lips that lie, And who would tell Thee all, all, all to the last act Of tragic fooling proved which seals Man's counterpact. --What was the true tale, think Thee, of Thy Son that died? What of the souls that knew Him, Him the crucified, After their Lord was gone? They waited for Him long, The sick He had made whole, the wronged consoled of wrong, The women He had loved, the fisher folk whose ears Had drunk in His word's wisdom those three wondrous years, And deemed Him prophet, prince, His kingdom yet to come, Nay from the grave new-risen and had been seen of some. What did they teach? Awhile, they told His law of peace, His rule of unresistance and sweet guilelessness, His truce with mother Earth, His abstinence from toil, His love of the least life that wanton hands despoil, The glory of His tears, His watching, fasting, prayer, The patience of His death, His last word of despair. And as He lived they lived--awhile--expectant still Of His return in power to balance the Earth's ill. They would not deem Him dead. But, when He came not, lo, Their reason went astray. Poor souls, they loved Him so, They had such grief for Him, their one true God in Man Revealed to their sad eyes in all a World grown wan, That they must build a creed, a refuge from their fears In His remembered words and so assuage their tears. His kingdom? It was what? Not all a dream? Forbid That fault, that failure, Heaven, for such were death indeed. His promises of peace, goodwill on earth to men, Which needed a fulfilment, lest faith fail? How then Since no fulfilment came, since He had left them lone In face of the world's wolves, for bread had given a stone? How reconcile His word with that which was their life, Man's hatred and God's silence in a world of strife? Was there no path, no way? Nay, none on this sad Earth Save with their Lord to suffer and account it mirth. And so awhile they grieved. Then rose a subtlety-- Lord God, Thou knowest not wholly how men crave to lie In face of a hard truth too grievous to their pride-- To these poor fisher folk, thus of their Lord denied, Came a new blinding vision. They had seen Thy Son How often after death, no ghost, no carrion, But a plain man alive, who moved among them slow, And showed His feet and hands, the thorn prints on His brow, The spear wound in His side. He had come to comfort them, Confirm them in the faith, by His love's stratagem. How if this thing were real: If this, that proved Him God, Proved also themselves spirits, not mere flesh and blood One with the beasts that perish, but immortal souls, Even as we angels are who fill Heaven's muster rolls And so shall live for aye? "Here," argued they, "it stands "The kingdom of His Heaven, a house not made with hands, "Wherein we too new-born, but in no earthly case, "Shall enter after death." On this fair fragile base Their sorrow built its nest. It gave a hope to men And pandered to their pride. And lo the world's disdain Was changed to acclamation. Kings and emperors kneeled Before the Crucified, a living God revealed, Who made them heirs with Him of His own glory. Mark The ennobling phrase and title. No base Noah's ark Man's fount of honour now, but God's eternal choice Made of His human race, predestined to His joys From the first dawn of time,--the very Universe Resolved to a mere potsherd, shattered to rehearse The splendour of Man's advent, the one act and end To which Creation moved, and where even we must tend, The spirit hosts of Heaven--Stark mad insolence! Rank blasphemy proclaimed in Rome's halls and Byzance, Through all the Imperial lands, as though, forsooth, Thou, Lord, Couldst, even if Thou wouldst, raise this fantastic horde Of bodies to Thy glory, shapes dispersed and gone As lightly as Time's wracks swept to oblivion! Yet all believed this creed. Space, straightway grown too strait, Shrank from these Christened kings, who held Earth reprobate Save for their own high calling. Heaven had become their throne, A fief for their new pride, in which they reigned alone, In virtue of their faith, above Time's humbler show, And Earth became their footstool. All were masters now Of the brute beasts despised who had no souls to save, And lords too of the heathen doomed beyond the grave. God's kingdom had begun. It compassed all the lands And trafficked wealth and power. It issued its commands, And in default it slew in Thy high holy name, Thine the all merciful! Alas for the world's shame! Alas for the world's reason, for Thy Son's sane creed Of doing only good each day to its own need, Of being as the least of these in wise humility! Behold our Christian Saints, too proud to live or die As all flesh dies and lives, their emperors and kings Clothed in the robes of life as with an eagle's wings, Their Popes dispensing power, their priests absolving sin. Nay. They have made a hell their damned shall dwell within, With me for their gaolmaster in a world to come Of which they hold the keys! God's curse on Christendom!