Wilfrid Scawen Blunt

“ Satan ’Tis not for the World’s sake,
Lord God of Heaven and Earth, that I petition make,
But for Thy justice foiled. It irketh me to know
That I have tutored Man against Thee, to this woe,
And given him sure success. Yet is the World’s self good,
[Pg 52] And I would prove it Thee, lest Man’s ingratitude
Should so affect all truth, all honour, all high faith,
That Thou Thyself, Lord God, shouldst fall a prey to death
And leave him in dominion. What to me were Heaven
With this thought unappeased—even thus absolved, forgiven,
Yet by myself condemned? The Lord God Ah, Satan. ”

“ Time needs be optimist nor foul its own abode.
Else were Creation mocked—and haply I not God.
In sooth all’s well with the World. And thou my Raphael,
How fare the Spirit hosts? Say, is thy world, too, well? Raphael All’s well with the World. We stand, as aye, obedient.
We have no thought but Thee, no asking, no intent
More than to laud and worship, O most merciful,
Being of those that wait. Satan (aside) The contemplative rule
Out-ministers the active. These have right to boast,
Who stand aye in His presence, beyond the Angel host. The Lord God And none of ye grow weary? ”

“ Satan Ay, but not of Man.
[Pg 49] He is beyond redeeming, or Thy Son had died
Not wholly to this loss. Who would be crucified
To-day must choose another, a young fleshly form,
Free from the simian taint, were it but flower or worm,
Or limpet of the rock, or grieving nightingale,
Wherein to preach his gospel. Yet should he prevail,
If only for truth’s sake and that this latest lie
Should be laid bare to shame, Time’s fraud, Humanity.
Choose Thee an Angel, Lord; it were enough. Thy Son
Was a price all too great even had the world been won. ”

“ The battlers of Thy seas, the four-foot Lords of Earth,
From which to choose Thy stem and get Thee a new birth.
There were forms painted, proud, bright birds with plumes of heaven
And songs more sweet than angels’ heard on the hills at even,
Frail flashing butterflies, free fishes of such hue
As rainbows hardly have, sleek serpents which renew
[Pg 18] Their glittering coats like gems, grave brindled-hided kine,
Large-hearted elephants, the horse how near divine,
The whale, the mastodon, the mighty Behemoth,
Leviathan’s self awake and glorious in his wrath. ”

“ Is as a charge o’erspent, who hath no fear to die,
But gladly would lie down and be for aye no more,
The flotsam of Time’s waves upon Death’s outer shore,
Forgotten and forgetting. Grant me, Lord God, this,
In penance for the past, Death’s full forgetfulness. [Pg 51] The Lord God And thou wouldst be incarnate? Satan As the least strong thing,
The frailest, the most fond, an insect on the wind,
Which shall prevail by love, by ignorance, by lack
Of all that Man most trusteth to secure his back,
To arm his hand with might. ”

“ The destruction of beauty in the name of science, the destruction of happiness in the name of progress, the destruction of reverence in the name of religion, these are the pharisaic crimes of all the white races; but there is something in the Anglo-Saxon impiety crueller still: that it also destroys, as no other race does, for its mere vain-glorious pleasure. The Anglo-Saxon alone has in our day exterminated, root and branch, whole tribes of mankind. ”

“ Not Michael’s self hath dared, prince of the Seraphim.
Yet all now wail aloud. What ails ye, brethren? Speak!
Are ye too in rebellion? Angels Satan, no. But weak
With our long earthly toil, the unthankful care of Man. Satan Ye have in truth good cause. Angels And we would know God’s plan,
His true thought for the world, the wherefore and the why
Of His long patience mocked, His name in jeopardy.
We have no heart to serve without instructions new. Satan Ye have made a late discovery. ”

“ The leaders of their thought, their lords political,
Sages, kings, poets, priests, in their hearts one and all—
For all their faith avowed and their lip service done
In face of Thy high fires each day beneath the sun—
Ay, and their prelates too, their men of godliest worth,
Believe no word of Thee as master of their Earth,
Controller of their acts, no word of Thy high right,
To bend men to obedience and at need to smite,
[Pg 37] No word of Thy true law, the enforcement of Thy peace,
Thy all-deciding arm in the world’s policies.
They ignore Thee on the Earth. ”

“ With open violence, nor loose his hand to steal,
Save in community and for the common weal
’Twixt Saxon man and man. He is more congruous grown,
Holding a subtler plan to make the world his own
By organised self-seeking in the paths of power.
He is new drilled to wait. He knoweth his appointed hour
And his appointed prey. Of all he maketh tool,
Even of his own sad virtues, to cajole and rule,
Even of Thee, Lord God.—I will expound this thing,
The creed of these white thieves which boast of Thee, their king,
As partner in their crimes. ”

“ Crying through all the spheres in pain and ceasing not
As blood from out the ground to mark crime’s murder spot:
“There is no hope—no truth. He hath betrayed the trust.
“The Lord God is unjust. The Lord God is unjust.” ”

“ By impact of a star? let loose a sulphurous wind?
Belch rocks from the Earth’s bowels? Shall we strike Man blind
With an unbearable light? Shall we so shake the hills,
The plains, that he fall palsied, grind him in the mills
Of a perpetual hail, importune him with snow,
Scourge him with noise unceasing, or the glutinous flow
Of a long pestilent stench? Speak, Satan, all thy thought,
Thou who the traitor knowest. How may he be brought
Best to annihilation? [Pg 48] Satan Lord, by none of these,
Thy floods, Thy flames, Thy storms were puerilities. ”

“ Is Satan then no liar who loudly witnesseth
Man’s ruin of the World? [Pg 44] The Angel of Pity (coming forward) Lord, it is even so
Thy Earth is a lost force, Man’s lazar-house of woe,
Undone by his lewd will. We may no longer strive.
The evil hath prevailed. There is no soul alive
That shall escape his greed. We spend our days in tears
Mourning Thy world’s lost beauty in the night of years. ”

“ None now believe in Hell. Satan Or Heaven. Forgive it, Lord,
I spoke it in my haste. See, I withdraw the word.
Thy Christendom is wise, reformed. None buy nor sell
Seats now at Thy right hand, (aside) grown quite unsaleable.
None now believe nor tremble—Yet is their sin as sore.
Lord, hear me to the end. Thou dravest me out of yore
An exile from Thy sight, with mission to undo
[Pg 30] And tempt Man to his death. ”

“ Save by an inward grace of self-restraining thought
And light intuitive. No shedders they of blood,
But with all creatures friends, with men in brotherhood,
Blameless of wine, of strife. In innocent arts well skilled
But schoolless of all guile as an unchristened child.
To these with mouthings fine come the white gospellers,
Our Saxon mission-men black coated to the ears.
“Which be your gods?” ask they; “Do ye adore the Christ? ”

“ That they must build a creed, a refuge from their fears
In His remembered words and so assuage their tears.
[Pg 27] 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? ”

“ Of the whole race of Shem, Heaven’s stars in multitude.
[Pg 23] I speak of the old time and the one chosen Nation
To whom Thou gavest the law. The Lord God Truce to that dispensation.
It was an old world hope, made void by Jacob’s guile.
His was a bitter stem. We bore with it awhile,
Too long, till We grew weary. But enough. ’Tis done.
What sayest thou of the new, most wise Apollyon? Satan Ah, Lord, wilt Thou believe me? That was a mighty dream,
Sublime, of a world won by Thy Son’s stratagem
Of being himself a Man—the rueful outcast thing! ”

“ They mean “Thy Will in Heaven,” or in their “World to come.”
“Terram autem dedit filiis hominum.”
So think their chiefs, their lords. For the blind mass of men,
Which live and toil and die heart-hungry in their pen,
They have no god but gold, the lord of their distress,
And gold’s slave, drink, that buys a night’s forgetfulness.
[Pg 38] Of Thee they have no heed to chide them or to cheer,
The fear of Thee with these is their law’s officer.
Lord God, if Thou but saw the pagan hearts they hide,
The base greeds of their being, the lusts undenied,
The Mammons that they worship! ”

“ And was stark savage still. Not Man? Behold to-day
Thy tamed Man as he lives, Thy Son of Japhet, nay
Thy new true-Christened King, the follower of Thy Christ,
Who sweareth by Thy name and his own mailéd fist
That Thou art Lord of all and he the Lord of Thee,
Heaven’s instrument ordained to teach integrity.
Thinkest Thou the man is changed, the ape that in him is
Because his limbs are clothed which went in shamelessness?
Are his lusts bridled more because his parts are hid?
Nay, Lord, he doeth to-day as those forefathers did,
Only in greater guile. ”

“ He alone has depopulated continents, species after species, of their wonderful animal life, and is still yearly destroying; and this not merely to occupy the land, for it lies in large part empty, but for his insatiable lust of violent adventure, to make record bags and kill. That things are so is ample reason for the hardest words the Author can command.
To his fellow poets and poetic critics the Author too would say a word. He has chosen as the vehicle of his thought a metre to which in English they are unaccustomed, the six-foot Alexandrine couplet. ”

“ Give peace in our time, O Lord.”
Hast Thou not heard their chanting? Nay, Thou dost not hear,
Or Thou hadst loosed Thy hand like lightning in the clear
[Pg 43] To smite their ribald lips with palsy, these false priests,
These Lords who boast Thine aid at their high civic feasts,
The ignoble shouting crowds, the prophets of their Press,
Pouring their daily flood of bald self-righteousness,
Their poets who write big of the “White Burden.” Trash!
The White Man’s Burden, Lord, is the burden of his cash. ”

“ Nevertheless, he cannot expect but that he may wound by his plain speaking the feelings of those among his readers who sincerely believe that Nineteenth Century Civilisation is synonymous with Christianity, and that the English Race, above all those in existence, has a special mission from Heaven to subdue and occupy the Earth. ”

“ To his reasoned and life-long advocacy of the rights of the weak in Man’s higher evolution is due all that in the poem is intellectually worthiest, to this and to the inspiration of much personal encouragement and sympathy received by the Author at a moment of public excitement when it was onerous yet necessary for the Author to speak unpopular truths. ”

“ The great ones in their place? Did a3ll pray with one breath? Gabriel Some priests and poor I saw, Satan (aside) The poor he always hath. Gabriel His guards, his chamberlains. [Pg 10] The Lord God The mighty ones, the proud,
Do they not kneel together daily in one crowd?
Have they no common counsel? Gabriel Kings have their own needs,
Demanding separate service. Satan (aside) Ay, and their own creeds.
One cause alone combines them, and one service—mine. The Lord God Thou sayest? Gabriel Man still is Man. ”