ROBERT WILLIAMS BUCHANAN (1841 - 1901)

{The Drama of Kings 1871}

                                                                                                                                                                 55

BUONAPARTE. The CZAR. JEROME BUONAPARTE.

LOUIS BUONAPARTE. The KINGS of SAXONY,

BAVARIA, WURTEMBERG. The PRINCE PRIMATE

VON DALBERG. The HEREDITARY PRINCES and

DUKES OF THE RHENISH CONFEDERATION.

BUONAPARTE.

Thank God Almighty for a peaceful day.
Would we had never nobler game to chase
Than that just slain on Jena. What say’st thou,
Von Dalberg? Is there any living thing
Runs faster from the hunter than a hare?

PRINCE PRIMATE.

A man, Sire, when the hunter is a God.

BUONAPARTE.

Sayst thou? Well, be of courage, tho’ we saw
Men’s backs at Jena. Here indeed we stand
In pomp of peace and perfect amity,
The constellated rulers of the earth,                                                    56
Forming (God willing) for the years unborn
A prosperous and golden horoscope.
We miss our cousin Austria. Were he here
Our pageantry were perfect, and we grieve
To see him sitting sullen far away,
Like some poor cudgel-player with crack’d crown
Scowling upon the victor in the game;
But since he holds aloof persistently,
And will not be entreated, we will try
Without his help to mend the tatter’d realm,
And tonic the sick stomach of the time.
Long centuries of social night indeed
Have lent to our belovëd cousin’s eyes
A certain owl-like hatred of the light,
And, taking little note how time slips by,
He in the nineteenth century would preserve
The worm-worn charters left by mighty Charles.
The Holy Roman Empire did its work,                                              57
Flourish’d, decay’d, grew rotten, till at last
We threw the wither’d fragments (for in truth
They were as stumbling-blocks to all earth’s Kings)
To the limbo of all logs—Oblivion.
O there is much to say, and more to do,
Ere we can heal earth’s wounds, and right man’s wrong,
And open up the last long reign of peace.
Meantime thank God for one most peaceful day.

Enter LOUISA of PRUSSIA.

BUONAPARTE.

Why, how now, lady? On thy knees—in tears—
Rise—rise,—this is not well.

QUEEN.

                                         Tho’ I should rest
My forehead in the dust beneath thy feet,
Tho’ thou shouldst trample this sad face to clay,                                58
I could not fall more low in misery;
Yet not for mere self-sorrow do I weep,
No, not for sorrow, but for pity, Sire,
Rending my heart with pain unutterable;
And not in self-abasement do I kneel,
No, for I am thy peer, a crownëd Queen,
But pleading, praying, as a mother doth
For her lost children, interceding now
For my poor people, who like scatter’d sheep
Cry homeless up and down the blood-stain’d land.

BUONAPARTE.

Rise, lady! Well? In sooth there is no rest
For Princes, and by these hysteric tears
Our peaceful day is broken. Calm thyself!
Drops that become a lovely woman’s face
Suit ill the proud-fringed eyelids of a Queen.
How can we serve thee?

                                                                                                         59

QUEEN (in a low voice).

                     O Sire, first and last,
By being honest with us in our woe,
By publishing our perfect sum of doom,
Nor suffering our tortured eyes and ears
To watch and listen, hoping on in vain,
While in the secret chambers of thy soul
New treasons hatch themselves to policy.

BUONAPARTE.

Dost thou accuse us of dishonesty?

QUEEN.

It bodes no good to any in the world,
When France and Russia from the self-same cup
Together drink “swift death to Germany!”

BUONAPARTE.

Hearest thou, brother?

                                                                                                                                                           60

CZAR.

                               Ay, I hear, and smile.
Our gentle sister speaks her heart in ire,
Forgetful of our love and fellowship
Proved under Heaven on many a bloody field.

QUEEN.

I forget nought. Would that ’twere possible
To drink forgetfulness of thine and thee.
What dost thou here at Erfurt by the side
Of thy sworn foe smiling in amity?
What dost thou here on alien German soil
Sunning thyself beneath the Emperor’s eyes,
When scarce a summer moon hath come and gone
Since thou wert standing at our palace-gate
Calling all Europe’s curse upon his head?

CZAR.

Doubtless we called, for those were troublous times—
Forget not also, that we called in vain,
That Prussia slept when we would have her rise,                                61
And then too late, when all the world was changed,
Awaken’d up on Jena!

BUONAPARTE.

                                           Add, moreover:
Our brother Russia, sick of fretful broils,
And most peace-loving, takes in honesty
Our hand and on our loving friendship leans;—
Unto his eyes we bare the heart of France
In council; to none other France shall stoop.

QUEEN.

And ye—ye Princes, idly standing by,
What is it that ye think, and say, and do?

JEROME.

They bless the hand that made and keeps them Kings.

                                                                                                                                                                 62

SAXONY.

Duty and perfect love we owe to France,
Whereby indeed we live, and thrive, and grow.

QUEEN.

Hear them, ye blessed Spirits of the Dead!
Dread Kings of Hapsburg, hear! Thou kingly Soul
Who walkest in the shades of Sans Souci,—
Hear them! By France these lacqueys live and grow!
On France’s prop these sweet-pea-Princes bloom!

BUONAPARTE.

Peace, lady—or, if thou must play the shrew,
Go back to him who sent thee here, to him
Whom ’tis thy wifely privilege to scold.

QUEEN.

He speaks of peace. Hear him again, ye dead!
The firebrand of the earth doth speak of peace.

                                                                                                                                                                 63

BUONAPARTE.

By Heaven, these women, whose big eyes can rain
So easily, know how to thunder too.
Lady, get hence, get hence,—call as thou wilt,
The dead are deaf and will not answer thee.—
Old Fritz is snug asleep among his dogs;
And even though he heard thee, he would groan
And sleep again—so little did he love
Life, men and women, the mad world,—and wives;
And for the rest ’twas only yesterday
We took away the same old heathen’s sword,
And now it hangs above our hearth in France,
In memory of one who was a King,
In token Prussia once begat a man,
And of a land that was a people once,
But now hath pined away into a voice.
Come, brother.

                                                                                                                                                                 64

QUEEN.

                       Stay.

BUONAPARTE.

                               How?

QUEEN.

                                         Stay. I appeal
To Man against thee! I cry out to God
To shame thee!—if on this unhappy day,
Taking the hand of thy sworn enemy,
Thou addest one wrong to the million wrongs
Heap’d upon Prussia’s head by thee and thine.

CZAR.

O peace;—thou tearest thy patch’d cause the more,
With so intemperate and fierce a tongue
Crying against anointed majesty!—

QUEEN.

1 am anointed who cry out to thee—
I whose fair royalty, though it bleeds so deep,
Is worth a thousand empires such as rise                                           65
Based on the bloody tumult of a day!

JEROME.

A kingdom founded by a hunchback ape,
The puppet of a harlot of the town!

QUEEN.

Who prates of apes and harlots? and forsooth
Of puppets? What, the King of marionettes,
Who holds our stolen fiefs upon the Elbe!
Emperor of Punchinello! mighty Lord
Of Pierrots, fiddlestrings, and dancing-girls!

CZAR (to BUONAPARTE).

Why dost thou smile upon the woman so,
Folding thine arms and nodding to beat time
Like one that listens to a merry play?

BUONAPARTE.

Tho’ I have brought the pick and pride of France
As players hither in my retinue,
The best of them is dull and wearisome                                             66
To her whose speech we have just hearken’d to.
Fair Queen, adieu! We honour thee the more
For rating us so roundly and so well,
And love thy luckless Kingdom none the less:
Indeed it shall not perish,—thou shalt learn
That the Earth’s masters can be generous.
                           [Exeunt all but the QUEEN.

QUEEN.

Pitiless! pitiless! pitiless! pitiless!
“Earth’s masters?”—O thrice miserable Earth
If these are masters of thy continents!
Bodies without a heart! tyrants whose thrones
Are based upon unutterable pain,
One on the frozen ice of the East’s despair,
One on the bloody lava hard and black
Scatter’d by the volcano of the West!
What hope for the poor world if these join hands,
Murder with Avarice, Poison with the Sword,
Cunning with Hatred, Pride with Cruelty,
The heir of Despots with the Parvenu,                                                67
Moloch, whose cold and leaden eyeballs gloat
On old familiar woes deep as the grave,
With the quick soul of subtler Lucifer
Ever devising novel agonies!
O Spirit of God, who with mysterious breath
Dost fashion e’en the will of men-like fiends
And fiend-like men to obey thee and to work
Thy strange dim ends, thy doom, thy deep revenge,
Penetrate this day into very Hell,—
Into the heart of Earth that is as Hell,—
Work in the council-chamber, in the ears
Of these arch-tyrants whisper doubts and fears,
Disturb their privy-councils, let them mark
The viper on each other’s smiling lips,
And while they seek to cheat humanity
And portion Europe’s bleeding body in twain,
Let each outwit the other,—like two thieves
Fall at each other’s throats,—fiery with greed
Strike in new hatred at each other’s hearts,—
And struggle, to the laughter of the world,
Till one or both fall impotent and dead!

                                             [Enter STEIN.                                    68

STEIN.

All happy greetings to your Majesty!

QUEEN.

Ah, faithful friend, such greetings ill befit
A poor weak woman lost in misery.
Look, I am weeping—ah, what bitter tears:
A beggar’s, Stein, a beggar’s, even such
As weary women, starving, ragged, sick,
Shed when they ask (as I have asked) for alms.

STEIN.

Of whom? of France? Alms! of the Emperor?

QUEEN.

Emperor, Cæsar, Satan, what ye will.
To him, Napoleon, to this Corsican,
I, I, Louisa, in whose veins there runs
The royal blood of honest Kings and Queens,
Have knelt, cried, pleaded, interceded, prayed,                                  69
Conjured like any starving beggar-girl,
Craving one crust of comfort all in vain.
He stood here; he, this man, this parvenu,
Compound of Scapin and Olympian Jove,
This monster of the earthquake, this foul thing
Bred of the world’s corruption; here he stood,
While at his back the trembling puppets waited
Whom with one string he works upon their thrones;
And as I pleaded for the plunder’d land,
He, with compassion such as one might cast
Upon the dead corse of an enemy,
Mingled with flashes of sheer mockery,
Did ever and anon, with haughty smile
Raising his eyebrows, motion to the Czar.
O friend, we are trampled on in our despair,
Mocked in our miserable overthrow,
Robbed, plunder’d, butcher’d, spat upon, despised!
And now indeed would yonder heartless men,
Yonder two fatal powers of frost and fire,                                         70
Portion our fair dominions in two halves,
Deeming us worse than the intestate dead.

STEIN.

Madam, be calm: this is the one dark hour
Ere daybreak. Look to the east; for there is hope.

QUEEN.

What hope? what hope? Impoverish’d, wounded, sick,
Penniless, swordless, we are lost past hope;
Our last hope died on Jena; there, indeed,
Dead Prussia lies, cold, gazing up at God!

STEIN.

On Jena Prussia died,—if the strange swoon
Of Lazarus was dying. Christ went by,
And Lazarus smiling in his grave-clothes rose,
Wiser—ah, how much wiser!—out of death.

QUEEN.

Christ died. The age of miracles is past.

                                                                                                                                                                 71

STEIN.

Called by new names, Hope, Faith, or Liberty,
Called by a thousand names, by each man’s mouth,
Called by the name that man deems loveliest,
A Spirit walketh still about the Earth
Compassing resurrection. At this hour
Strange stirs disturb the darkness of the grave,
Deep aspirations of the cold dark lands
Ready to burst their swathing clothes and live.
The Figure comes, I see its shadow loom
Gigantic in the east—it comes this way,—
A ghostly liberator comes this way;
And when it sayeth “Rise,” dead Germany
Shall spring erect, one life, one heart, one soul!

QUEEN.

O Stein! are these not words to an old song,
A tune with little meaning which men sing
To keep their hearts from breaking utterly?

                                                                                                                                                                 72

STEIN.

Sure as the earthquake shook the frame of France
And swallow’d up the pallid King and Court,
Tempest is gathering here. The Tyrol trembles,
Austria is sharpening her sword anew,
Bavaria groans under the yoke of France:
All ripens, ’tis the darkness of the cloud
Full charged with thunder: at the one word “Rise!”
The cloud shall burst, graves open, lightning flash,
Prussia rise smiling, and the Despot fall.
O lady! learn to hear and utter forth
The word men love, the strange word “Liberty!”
Stand up above thy people (all men’s hearts
Answer the flash of a fair woman’s face),
And in the chosen moment point them on
With passionate invocation and appeal.
Not once again let slow suspicion part
Teuton from Teuton, but may all the powers
Heat their slow thunders to a thunderbolt,                                         73
Such as shall shake the fabric of the world.
England is with us, by us fights the Swede,
The Turk new-threaten’d ranges on our side:
These one by one shall spring erect to strike
Like sleepers waken’d by the shriek of “fire.”
On Jena Prussia’s feeble body died,
The peevish frame worn out with long disease
Struck, fell, and ended. There shall rise instead
A MAN, touch’d and miraculously strengthen’d,
Calm with exceeding knowledge and strange truth
Gain’d only in such utterness of doom,
And with a light in his inspired eyes
Before which Buonaparté’s soul shall quail.

QUEEN.

Thy voice awakens echoes in my heart
Like something strange and supernatural.
Stein, I believe thee; and thy lips have lent
New light and inspiration. Yes, yes, yes,
No more divided councils, but one heart,                                           74
One soul, one hope, one mighty Germany!

STEIN.

So runs the song indeed, your Majesty,
An old tune and a true one, long forgot
For new French chansonettes and lute-playing.
Let every Teuton throat but utter it,
And lo! the very wind of the strong cry
Will storm the wondering world. This man, this arm
And head of France, has never yet beheld
A foeman worthy of a great man’s steel;
His enemies have been divided nations,
Kings purblind, selfish, trembling for their crowns,
Statesmen that chose their brief wild hour of power
To strip the shrine and rob the treasury,
Half-hearted leaders guiding with shut eyes
Brute-mercenaries clamouring for gold.
To these the light of the man’s lurid Star
Hath been a blinding portent and deep awe,                                       75
A superstition paralysing will
And numbing the strong arm in act to strike.

QUEEN.

Strong words, Stein, yet God knows, so true, so true!

STEIN.

The legions of the conqueror are weak
Against the strength of the free Thought of Man,
Which, fluid like the water or the air,
More subtle than the glistening mercury,
Inseparable by the sword, coheres
In mystical divine affinity;
And, spite of all that tyranny can plan
To separate the wondrous elements,
Gathers its drops and particles anew,
Imperishable by the laws of God.
Why see how England, floating on the sea,
Winding her arm around the Continent,
Seizes the proud foot of the conqueror,
And holds him, while with impotent fierce hate                                   76
He striketh at her helmëd head in vain.
See how a few poor peasants with one will,
Led by a few mad monks with shaven crowns,
Have rent the vulnerable ranks of France
And scattered them like wind-blown chaff,—in Spain.
The Spirit of Man begins to know its strength;
That strength once known, it is invincible.

CHORUS.

Our eyes are troubled with strange tears,
     Our souls are startled to strange light,
We stand snow-pale like one that fears
     Loud sounds of earthquake in the night;
A mystic voice is in our ears,—
Afar the River of the years
     Pauses and flashes white—
And o’er it in the East appears
     Dim gleams of rose-red light.

                                                                                                                                                                 77

SEMI-CHORUS II.

The dark clouds where the set sun lies
     Are parted back like raven hair
From off a maiden’s gentle eyes;
     Beyond, most lily-like and fair,
White, shaded soft with azure dyes,
Heaven opens; and from out the skies
     Comes one with pensive care—
Before whose path a white dove flies
     Thro’ the rich amber air.

SEMI-CHORUS I.

She hasteneth not, but her cheeks glow,
     Her feet scarce stir, her glances stray
Oft backward; while her soft feet sow
     Brightness beneath them as of day,
And whiteness as of softest snow;
And she, thro’ locks bright breezes blow,
     Smiles as no mortal may—
Her feet come hither, but how slow!
     Her eyes look not this way.

                                                                                                                                                                 78

A VOICE.

Sing ye a song, right loud and strong,
     To speed her on her way.

CHORUS.

O thou whose shape at last breaks the darkness of the Vast,
                   Come, O come,
Dream no longer there afar; like a swiftly shooting star,
                   Hasten home!

Like waves that murmur white round the reflex of a light
                   In the sea,
Like buds that feel all blind for the warm light and the wind,
                   Murmur we.

We see and know thee now by the white immortal brow;
                   By the eyes
Dim from death’s divine eclipse; by the melancholy lips                                          79
                   Sweetly wise.

We have named thee by a name sweeter far than Love or Fame,
                   Or all breath,
Thy name is Liberty, and another name of thee
                   Hath been Death.

By the blood that we have shed, by the lost and by the dead,
                   By our wrong,
By our anguish, by our tears, by the leaden load of years,
                   Come along.

SEMI-CHORUS I.

She hears, she hears, with glistening tears,
     She turneth sad and sweet,
With quick glad breath she hasteneth—
     O God, she cometh fleet.

                                                                                                                                                                 80

SEMI-CHORUS II.

Sing we a song most wild and strong,
     To hasten her blest feet.

CHORUS.

See the lightning and the rain, see the bloody fields of slain,
                   See the sword
That we draw with fierce desire to wreak the dreadful ire
                   Of the Lord;

Hear that other name Revenge, that shall wither up and change
                   Nature’s worst;
Hear the judgment God hath written, by whose lightning shall be smitten
                   Kings accurst;

See the wreck of crowns and thrones, watch the earthquake, hear the groans
                   Of the great,
See the prince’s golden porch dash’d to ashes, mark the Church                           81
                   Desolate;

Picture wrongs as yet undone, and the red fields to be won
                   Ere we die;
Then O leader of the van, O thrice holy hope of man,
                   Hear our cry!

SEMI-CHORUS I.

O wherefore shrinks that Spirit frail,
     Like one that shrinks from something dire?
Her lips are parted, her feet fail
     And falter, and with sudden fire
She looketh hither while we hail
Her advent, and quick sighs assail
     Her gentle breast and tire
Her glad heart: there she lingers pale—
     Half terror, half desire.

                                                                                                                                                                 82

SEMI-CHORUS II.

O dim and faint, with cheeks snow-white,
     She pauses hearkening to our hymn:
Against the gentle heavenly light,
     With rose-shades on each rounded limb,
She stands in sudden act of flight
Bent forward, with her tear-stain’d sight
     Piercing the distance dim;—
Below stands One on the world’s height,
     And lo! she looks on him.

SEMI-CHORUS I.

Ah woe, ah woe, who stands below,
     Still, tall, a shape of clay,
Before whose breath slow lingereth
     That fair shape far away?

SEMI-CHORUS II.

Be our song deep and strong,
     A thunder-song this day.

                                                                                                                                                                 83

CHORUS.

O shape that towerest there in the black and dreadful air,
                   Napoleon!
O Man, O crowned King, heark unto us while we sing,
                   And beware.

Underneath thy feet this day lie the nations cold as clay,
                   Cold and dead;
But, behold, to bid them “Rise” waiteth one with blessed eyes
                   Overhead.

With light shadow in the sea, lo, she pausing looks on thee,
                   Napoleon!
And ye pause there eye to eye, while the world rings with the cry
                   Of the free.

She cometh from the Lord; with no fire, with no sword                                84
                   See her rise!
She cometh fair and mild, but all things tame or wild
                   Love her eyes.

More than all men that are, she perceives thee from afar,
                   Napoleon!
And the reason she doth weep is because she pities deep
                   Thy sad star.

For she loveth all that be, even Kings, yea, even thee
                   And thy seed,
She would have thee like the rest very beautiful and blest,
                   Being freed.

And by Man’s own hand alone, not by hers which smiteth none,
                   Napoleon!
By the might of Man’s own plan must the traitor against Man                      85
                   Be o’erthrown.

For by her no blood doth flow, and she worketh no man woe,
                   No man fear;
But when all the blood is done, she the gentle-hearted one
                   Cometh here.

Yet not till thou art slain will she walk upon the plain,
                   Napoleon!
We must slay and smite thee down, thou must perish, she must crown
                   What we gain.

But since thy soul is flame, and o’er fiery fierce to tame
                   Thy desire,
Lie thee down and try to cease, while she cometh white as peace,
                   Bright as fire.

Lie thee down and die, and rest, with that fierce flame in thy breast,             86
                   Napoleon!
And by her whose day is nigh, the grave where thou dost lie
                   Shall be blest.

For the dead lands as they rise shall but bless thy closëd eyes,
                   Lying there,
And thy sleep shall broken be by no voices of the sea
                   Or the air.

But when wild winds blow this way, we shall think of thy wild day,
                   Napoleon!
And when hurricane and rain shake the sea and sky and plain,
                   We shall say:

“Ev’n as these that rend and rave, was this Man upon whose grave
                   Poets sing:
A wild wind that in wrath clear’d the mists before the path                          87
                   Of the Spring.”

BUONAPARTE, reading a dispatch. A CARDINAL.

BUONAPARTE.

Why, how now? Hath Pope Pius lost his wits?
Or hath he drunk too deep of that proud wine
Which ever and anon hath made your Popes
Reel drunken off their seats? Is the man mad,
That he should howl in our imperial ear
The flat old thunders that so long have turned
The small-beer kingdoms sour with jeopardy?
And thou—thou whose dry lineaments look white
With secret brimstone, art thou also mad,
With front so insolent and tread so proud
To step into the presence of thy lord?

                                                                                                                                                                 88

CARDINAL.

I have no lord but Christ, and under Him
Christ’s Vicar and thy Master. While thy soul
Trusted and honour’d these, we render’d thee
Like trust and honour: but, on this dark day,
When thou dost raise thyself into the seat
Of God’s anointed Priest, I hold thee less
Than the least man who underneath the skies
Falls on his knee and sues to the Lord God.

BUONAPARTE.

So free! So loud! Runneth the new song thus,
Lord Cardinal?

CARDINAL.

                       E’en thus, and at thy choice
Love or defiance come, by me, from Rome.

                                                                                                                                                                 89

BUONAPARTE.

Have ye thought well of what ye do, who name
Defiance to the great imperial power
Which made and can unmake ye in a day?

CARDINAL.

We have weighed all. We know thy boasted strength.
We who defy the Devil and all his works
Are not to quail at any lesser hand,
However evil and however strong.

BUONAPARTE.

Pause there. Now, not to question in the dark,
Open thy mouth and give thy wrongs a name.

CARDINAL.

Read them, Sire! By his Holiness’ own hand
Writ on the scroll thou holdest. I am come
If thou wouldst question any issue there.

                                                                                                                                                                 90

BUONAPARTE.

I question every scratch, Lord Cardinal!
Theme, title, every word and character,
First scrawl to last, down to the last round oath
Whereby thy moon-struck master styles himself
Christ’s Vicar and my peer. He lectures me
As tho’ I were a schoolboy and high dunce
Of all earth’s dunces! Let him look to it,
Or by St. Peter and his rusty Key,
That turns so slowly in the lock of Heaven,
This hand shall set the foolscap on his head
And fix. a scarecrow on the heights of Rome
For all the world to point at passing by!

CARDINAL.

Blaspheme not, lest God’s Angels strike thee down.

BUONAPARTE.

God’s Angels never came to the thin squeak
Of trebly dotard and degenerate Rome.
Return to him who sent thee; tell him so.                                            91
Tell him, moreover, as thou lovest him,
Some further truths his tipsy soul forgets.
Who set him on his semi-regal seat?
Who propt up his stale scarecrow of a creed
Again within the hollow Vatican?
Who by a lifted finger can and will
Consign both Pope and Rome to sudden doom,
Early oblivion, and the parting curse
Of all the Rome-sick lands of Christendom?
Ask him these questions, and be answer’d straight,
By bloodless cheek, wild eye, and quivering lips
That flutter with the name they fear to speak.

CARDINAL.

One Name alone hath power to shake him so;
And ’tis a Name which, spoken audibly,
Shall yet shake thee too, even were thy throne
Rooted as deep as the slow fires of Hell,                                            92
And towering high as the proud arch of Heaven.
Napoleon, beware the wrath of God!
Farewell!

BUONAPARTE.

Stay!—Stay, old man; thou shalt not stir,
Till thou hast heard our message to the end.
Now, mark me, for I swear by Peter’s pence
I am resolved. Your Pope, in this same scroll,
Strings grievance upon grievance garrulously,
Thus ending, “What Rome was of old, Rome is,
The mistress of the conscience of the world,
Spiritual sovereign of all human Kings,
And temporally subject unto none.”
Further, this Pope, this apostolic echo,
Yielding no jot of any boon we crave,
Forgetful of his predecessor’s doom,
Vows excommunication and God’s wrath,
Curse by bell, book, and candle, all the old                                       93
Stale stuff of necromancy, if our foot
Encroaches further on the Papal soil,
If with our impious and heedless sword
We still imperil Holy Church’s power,
Her fame, her name, her aim in Christendom.
Is this so? Have I phrased your thunder right?

CARDINAL.

All these things have we written down for truth.

BUONAPARTE.

Good. Listen now to me. Your Pope and I
Need waste no specious lying terms to mince
The matter of this creed whereby he swears:
First, friend, ’tis a bald theologic lie,
And next, a moral falsehood long detected,
And last, a practical impediment
To every step the blind old world would take
To Freedom. Well, what then? I knew that well,                                 94
I knew by heart the nature of King Log,
When, that wild day in France, I thrust my hand
And pluckt him from the Fire, and set him up
There where he stands, my ninepin of a Pope
To trundle over with a cannon-ball!
I did not think the world of human souls
Was ready yet for the keen mountain air
Of Freedom; I believed they must be bent
And driven; and I saw in Graybeard Church
The rusty fetters fitted for my purpose,
St. Peter’s, fasten’d as an ankle-chain
About the stumbling Soul ages ago
To keep its stray feet from the mountain tops.
Wherefore I said, “King Log shall serve my turn,
Shall sit and scatter unction as he lists,
And I will sprinkle o’er the continents
Cardinals, bishops, priests, all lesser logs,
To fool the people with their feast-day shows,
And hold the wild geese back from anarchy.”                                    95
So said, so done. Pope Pius ruled at Rome,
By grace of God and Buonaparté; France
Took back her dolls and idols; the old door
Of knowledge creak’d and closed again on Man;
And, used as scarecrows on earth’s harvest fields,
Your vestments frighten’d off the last black birds
Of Revolution. In the lull I throve,
Giving men greater gifts than liberty,—
Food, power, and glory,—till, behold, my rule
Took form and consecration, shot its branches
O’er the green western world, slew one by one
Its enemies half hearted, and this day,
Here in Germania, yonder over France,
North, south, east, west, a mighty sword-sweep round,
The Empire shines, great heart of Christendom;
Shines, still expanding by the law of growth,                                      96
Larger and richer, taking and giving forth
Light, like the sun at mid-day. Even now,
At our full noon of glory, rises up
King Log, my creature, casting as he stands
The shadow six-foot long of his own grave,
And crying, “I am greater—I by grace
Of God supremer—I by sun and star,
The light, the soul, the head of Christendom!”
Therefore I answer, “To thy puddle, Log!
The frogs will worship thee with their old croak;
But, meantime, lest thou perish quite, begone—
Out of my sunshine!”

CARDINAL.

                               O proud man, beware!
Innumerable evil stars like thine
Have shot across the welkin and been lost,
Empire on empire hath been heap’d to dust.
Century hath been crusht on century,—
But Rome abides imperishably fair,
Based on the crystal Rock of holy thought.
The Figure thronëd on the blessed Seat                                             97
Hath changed as the swift generations change;
But still the Seat stands, and the Rock endures,
And ever cometh God’s Hierophant
To reign there, flashing thence mysterious light
Into the consciences of all earth’s Kings.
Against thy sword the Figure sitting there
Doth interpose the incorporeal Soul,
A thing thou canst not slay by any steel,
A shape which has abided from the first
And shall abide when thou art back to dust.
When thou wouldst trench on the divine domain,
And be a second conscience to the world,
God’s Vicar, perishable form and sign
Of the imperishable faith of man,
Doth in the very Soul’s name bid thee pause.

BUONAPARTE.

Thou comest a few centuries too late
To interpose against the might of Kings
A shadow, such a shadow, the mere ghost                                        98
Seen by a shivering coward in the dark.
Old man, the world and I have wholly lost
Our faith in spectres, and philosophers
Aver this thing ye christen Soul, to awe
The world by, is but lustre given out
By bodies, like the phosphorescent light
Shed forth by certain jellies in the sea.
Be that pure fiction or a dim-seen truth
We fear no terror incorporeal,
Which, like your own in Rome, abides unseen,
Silent and physically impotent.

CARDINAL.

Is this thine answer to the Pope of Rome?

BUONAPARTE.

No!—Tell God’s Vicar, as he styles himself,
That when in guise of priestly sanctity
And in humility he seeks the ear
Of Buonaparte, when he comes in love
Grateful for service and for very life,                                                  99
We will incline our will unto his wish,
And as our equal meet and cherish him;
But coming with toy-thunderbolt in hand,
With haughty looks and spiritual pride,
He shall be cast again into the fire
From which we snatch’d his body long ago.
In brief, another word such as these words
That we have read and thou hast echoëd,
And we will seize him in the heart of Rome,
And hale him screaming up and down the earth
A captive fastened to the fiery heels
Of conquest, and of all his Cardinals
Will make a bonfire that shall gladden Man
Where’er the false and juggling creed of Rome
Hath cast its shadow on the human heart!

CARDINAL.

These mad words will I straightway bear to Rome,
And be thou sure that there shall come full soon
A direr, darker, and less drunken hour,                                            100
When thou, no longer mad with fancied height
And stolen glory, shalt bewail the day
When thou did’st raise thy impious eyes so high,
And cast aside in recklessness of power
Thy deepest strength—Rome’s prayers and silent aid.

BUONAPARTE.

Go!

CARDINAL.

           I obey, leaving God’s curse behind,
To trouble thee in thy supremest hour.

CHORUS.

SEMI-CHORUS I.

Echo the curse!

SEMI-CHORUS II.

                           Ah nay, ah nay!
Curse not, but rather wait and pray.

                                                                                                                                                                 101

SEMI-CHORUS I.

Echo the curse!

SEMI-CHORUS II.

                           O echo not
That which shameth human thought—
’Tis so easy and so vain
To curse, and all may curse again!

SEMI-CHORUS I.

Echo the curse!

SEMI-CHORUS II.

                           Away, away!
Curse not, but turn to God and pray.
What would ye curse? The wintry snow,
The rain that falls, the winds that blow,
All mighty things that come and go;—
Your curses cannot cast them low.

SEMI-CHORUS I.

What shall avail, if this be so?

                                                                                                                                                                 102

SEMI-CHORUS II.

It hath been written from the first
He who deals curses shall be curst;
Strike, but blaspheme not; overcast
King, Pope, and Idol, first and last;
Strike more, curse less; for ah, man’s curse
Wearies the soul-sick universe.

SEMI-CHORUS I.

Echo the curse! Lo, where he stands,
Casting o’er many weary lands
Darkness like blood; before his frown
And the fierce brightness of his crown
All withers!—curse him! Drag him down!

 VOICES.

Shall not man’s curses drag him down?

SEMI-CHORUS II.

Never—O hush and cease!
Wait, pray, and be at peace.

                                                                                                                                                                 103

A VOICE.

                                               Peace?

SEMI-CHORUS II.

Is God a tempest that ye call so loud?
Is God a whirlwind or a thunder-cloud?—
Is God an avalance that a mere cry
May loosen from the cold heights of the sky,
To fall at your wild will and crush the proud?

Nay, He is none of these. But soon or late,
Being the dark strength of inadequate
And seeming-vanquish’d things, He works his will:
Mad words avail not. He is deep and still,
Subtle as Love and sure of foot as Fate.

He is the gentle force destroying wrong
As water weareth stone; secret, yet strong;
Mighty, yet merciful; He is the dew                                                    104
Round the King’s feet, suck’d up into the blue,
Grown to the thunderbolt whose flash ere long

Strikes the King dead. But pray ye loud or low,
He will not hasten help or lessen woe—
He slayeth all things by the secret law
Through which He made them and from which they draw
Light, strength, and life; all these being gone, they go.

If it will cheer your hearts while ye wait here,
Pray, but of cursing comes no sort of cheer.
God works within all wrongs, and wastes indeed
The secret force on which they live and feed;
This being withdrawn, they die and disappear.

SEMI-CHORUS I.

Shall we then wait with folded hands
Impotent, while the tyrant stands
Lord of the earth and air and brine—                                                 105
Shall we then wait and make no sign?

A VOICE.

Echo Rome’s curse!

SEMI-CHORUS I.

                                 Yea,—at his frown
And at the brightness of his crown
All withers; curse him, drag him down—

A VOICE.

Shall not our curses drag him down?

SEMI-CHORUS II.

Nay, but arise, if so your hearts aspire,
Arise and strike him down with sword and fire.
God gave ye hands for that, God made ye strong,
Body and soul, to rise and right your wrong;
But on the burning flame of your desire

Fear falls like salt. What shall avail your sighs                                    106
And imprecations if ye will not rise,
Lords of your living wills and hands of might?
Man knows no wrong but man himself may right,
Being a Titan who sits down and cries

Like a sick weary child upon the ground,
And knoweth not his strength, and gazeth round
On water, earth, and heaven, with blind sick stare:
Though of a glorious kingdom he is heir,
And all things free await to see him crown’d.

Echo Rome’s curse? O weary sons of man,
Echo no more as any cavern can—
For have ye not been echoing day by day
Whatever idle sound hath blown your way,
Gentle or awful, since the world began?

God gave ye living wills for other aim,
Voices for other sounds than moans of blame,
Hands for more use than folding on the breast;                                   107
Daily the sun goes down into the west—
How long shall it go down upon your shame?

For if on any day ye would be free,
If any day with one voice like the sea
Ye do demand your freedom every one,—
Utter the word, ’tis given, all is done,
And ye share freedom with all things that be.

But now ye yield to wild divided cries—
Broken abroad and echoing any lies;—
A thousand feeble voices go and come,
But to your own souls’ utterance ye are dumb,—
For that all wait,—earth, ocean, air, and skies:

All lesser things that flit ’tween pole and pole,
All liberated things that leap and roll
Unfetter’d under yonder heaven, await
The one free voice triumphant over Fate,
The one free voice of Man, the Life, the Soul.

                                                                                                                                                                 108

SEMI-CHORUS I.

Are we not bound?

SEMI-CHORUS II.

                             Ye are not bound;
Ye cry, ye follow empty sound,
This way and that way, round and round.

SEMI-CHORUS I.

Have we not sought and never found?
Are we not chain’d and undertrod
Bv God and Man?

SEMI-CHORUS II.

                                 By Man, not God—
By your own hands, by your own will,
Are your bonds fashion’d, and no skill
But yours can break them. Slaves! still grieving,
Impotent, trembling, self-deceiving,                                                   109
Over the woes of your own weaving!
Gull’d by false creeds and moral lies,
Changeful as are the April skies,
At all times weak and never wise!
Standing beside Time’s running River,
Seeing your own shades there for ever,
Knowing them not for what they be,
And blaming them most bitterly!
O hush, blaspheme no more—your curse
Wearies the soul-sick universe:
Curses of every creed that Man
Hath built to God since time began,
From Israël’s first curse of power
Down to the curse of Rome this hour.
Hush, let God be; the voice ye raise
Hinders His work in secret ways;
Strike ye at wrong with all your might,
And if ye fail to set it right,
Pray if ye list—no prayer is ill;
But curse not what ye cannot kill:—
Leave it to God, whose law alone
Wears it, as water weareth stone.

_____

The Drama of Kings continued

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