Robert Buchanan

“ The wise man blinking thro' his spectacles,
The boy, his little image, by his side,
Like small by greater owl; and evermore
When, hastening home, they pass'd some shadowy shrine
The father drew his treasure closer to him,
Lest some dark phantom from within the porch
Should mar the crystal mirror of his soul.
The seasons sped; at sixteen years of age
Justinian was famous in the haunts
Where wise men gather, and in deep debate
Could hold his own among gray honor'd heads
And pass with pedants for a prodigy. ”

“ Justinian answer'd, Soon or late, death comes —
A little earlier, or a little later,
What matter? In the end we falter back
Into the nothingness from which we rose.
Well have you taught me, father, that our
life Is but the climbing and the falling wave.
I do not fear to die. ”

“ No teacher save his father, and, indeed,
Since never teacher could be tenderer,
He did not miss the lore of love itself.
As patient as a woman, firm yet fond,
Hoarding his very heart up in the boy,
The father tended, taught him, watch'd him grow.
At eight years old Justinian lisped in Greek,
And readily construed Lucretius ”

“ As signal of decay? No, no, not Death!
Not Death, but Life, now made the blue eyes gleam
So marvellously bright; the small hands grow
Thin and blue vein'd, with pink blood glimmering thro'
Like light thro' alabaster ”

“ We mathematically demonstrate
Infinite God as infinitely false
To infinite impossibility.
Henceforth a grievous shadow quits the earth,
While man, the fruitage and the flower of things,
Walks fetterless and free. ”

“ Denuding Buckle and his theory
Of history's four stages. How men smiled,
When some one blabb'd and the strange truth was told,
To find the grown man's pompous periods
Dissected into folly by a boy! ”

“ Throbb’d through its own soft sunlight rapturously.
Propp’d in his chair Justinian gazed around.
“Father,” he said, “dear father, hold my hand —
In all the world there is no comfort left
Like feeling your kind touch. Now listen to me! ”

“ She bless’d him; and the old man look’d at her,
Trembling as in a trance; but suddenly
Uprising, in a hollow voice he cried,
Pointing her to the door with quivering hands,
“Begone! profane him not! from life to death
I kept him safe from Superstition’s touch!
My boy! you shall not take him from me now!”
__________
The following is the original text of the passages of Lucretius translated in the text and printed in italics: —
↑ Nam tibi de summa coeli ratione deûmque
Disserere incipiam, et rerum primordia pandam;
Unde omnes natura creet res, auctet alatque ”

“ Nullam rem e nihilo gigni divinitus unquam. . . .
Quas ob res, ubi viderimus nil posse creari
De nihilo, tum, quod sequimur, jam rectius inde
Perspiciemus, et unde queat res quæque creari,
Et quo quæque modo fiant opera sine divûm. ”