Chapter II: Part 2

The goal is ever; all things tend;
Faiths must waver; Love shall mend;
Never issue come to rest--
Earthen course, or starry span,
Will of God, or heart of man--
Pillowed not upon His breast.

GREATNESS.

O, thou, the fierce englamored,
Hence, at never cease, invoked of man,
Who, in the vast procession of the sybil days,
Holds up the light he fain would follow, but may not conceive;
Whose boundless charter and whose nameless goal outpasseth Time:--
Hast thou, on sufferance of thy liege, the Truth
The Same, unwearied on whose fiat waits the mutinous Dark,
Whose breath, withal, fans bright the spheres,
Concords the music of their millioned primes;
Whose utter Essence, tho' in substance clad,
Yon skies contain not, tho' the heart may hold:--
Hast thou, the warrant winked-at, yet the trust, supreme,
On behalf of privilege that might all beseech--
Some love past limit, save its ever self--
Hast thou, thus, wandered from those shores afar,
Thy starry synods and the hosting lights,
To meet thine image in these mortal ways,
So fangled, paltried, and so bitter small--
Thine mighty image, which no shadow frets--
Such slave to glozing aspect and rude things of Here,
So pent in durance to the marble law, whose
nurse are grim coercion and the bloody hand?
But, shalt thou not change it, till its lines enlarge,
False take-offs dwindle, and their craft stand out,
Nor mate vain-glory for vile thrift of both,
And fierce engendering of their dwarfish breed?
Shalt thou not change it, let Fame's note come true;
For her brazen trumpet the small silvery flute,
Which draws its heart-strains from the pith of Just,
And winds accordant with the patient soul?
Shall its gloried flame not whiter burn,
The snuff and dross attract no more,
Set lurid off thy streaming torch,
Whose glow and essence than the sun-paths fed,
Outpeers the lustre of their myriad fount,
The solemn, fiery-bearing, the uncompassed Night?

Yea, shalt thou not change it, bid thine features grow,
The lines more matching, scope and plan more true,
Dispel refraction and all hemming False,
Which, girt with mortal tribulation, hang
Their warping shadows twixt the Light and thee?
Shall Great be greater not, tho' it lowly comes,
The reward o'ertook not ere the Right say well?
Shalt thou sink hellward not the sorry law,
Which bids rude Strength--be it brain, or brawn's--
Sit, lofty scorning, by the counseling heart,
So unaccompanied place its monstrous tribute at vain
Feet of pride, and brutish idols of the adoring sense,
On specious plea of covetous ambition--all its rage to have and wield--
Give wage to sorrow than be frankly served
By lasting wisdom and the patient hope,
While Policy and Smug Expedience wink Fresh Cues at all?

Shall thy fair likeness not refigured speak,
Each trait come moulded t'ward this crowning True--
That, Mind, the mightiest, shall outsee itself,
No gift, not servant, round more full the Soul,
Nor in the bounteous equipment find
The meanest haughty crest, nay tricksiest spur upon that crest,
Whereon to hang the damned assurance of a law
Exempting answer to the gauging Just;
But from the grace and undeserved oblation draw,
Bring heavenly down--whether in man or men,
In gathered Nations, or the singler few--
Fresh-purposed to the will, fresh trusting
And sustaining there, the guardian angel of humility,
The lifting spirit of the thankful heart?

Shalt thou not make it goodly clear,
'Tis not Endeavor which alone achieves,
Save as it aim averts not, but for grace upholds,
Crowns true some spirit, would set struggling forth,
At vast contention and in emulous pride,
Yon speechless comment which the Hopes give out,
For fresh construction of the rigid text,
The nice enactment, tho' dispiteous code,
Whose leased expression and whose outward sum
Are Nature's equities and ways about?

Ay, shall thus, fresh copied not, thine image shine;
Shalt thou not thus acquit thyself, re-message Faith,
The act affirm her, and the daily thought,
Full-knowing that her life lies there, and only hostage unto groping man?
Shalt thou not thus draw gracious near,
Till all hearts enfold thee, and, in their rude despite,
The scoring Fates cry wondering out,
"Our worst is done; there is now no more;
Our record writes itself, to justice dedicate
And happy Good."
If not--alas, misprision and the futile trust!
If not--if Destiny still a boggler stand,
Knows Hence from Hither, nor which way were best,
If yet the rude purveyor, Time,
Finds in the vast commission and despatch of him,
In his prospects and his comings-on,
The near or far, unfeatured still that dream of thee,
No Perfect ever, scarce thy better there,
But that blots shall lasting stain it, give it
Fresh relief, traduce the glory he had meant
Hold forth; if yet the Vain come worshipped,
And the Brute must thrive, more subtly nourished,
But its breed the same, while the Free,
Tho' of outward credit, wear a golden clog,
Pollutes his title, and defaults the heart:
In few, if Fact be consecrate, the Brain its God,
No Faith to hallow, save what Reason hold,
Rank-rooting never in no soil but Self,
Till Hope, an exile--say she breathe at all--
Strangered and out of rights, eats her own heart,
In weary banishment and quail of man:--
If this be so, if that could be--were it better not,
Thus tricked and thwarted of thy clearer self,
This Present, pathless, with worse maze before--
Were it better not, white days should cease them,
And the Stars to roll, invite disruption, and, thro' wrack
Of things, with leveling Chaos plead afresh some chance
For nobler being and the worthier life?
Or, say, that doubting vastly his at all retrieve,
Since still petitioned on crude lines of This,
Grudged, narrowed, and beset with voidless happenings of the mortal hour:
Say that:
Hence, judging nothing blessed that he might contrive,
And, lest things that had been from their graves stand forth,
Teem their once imperfections, all infirm they bore,
Yea, on mere vision of the dread event,
Cry wildly out against the Call,
That, taunting, drew them from Death's perfect shade,
To stalk once more, at dull repeat,
Or fevered rush--one goal for both--
Their weary paces in some time-bound Here,
Its hope unpremised, and no Hence made out:
Say that--all that--and, were it better not, were it not wise,
If yet so judging from what lay at hand,
Such guess to go by and provide a cue--
Were it better not, were it not well,
Might faith not do it, and the sense subscribe,
Let it come to this, if words may broach it,
May bear out the thought: to this--that man call down,
Call clamorous down, as only umpire twixt
All What and Not; twixt blind Reliance--
Her yet remnant there--her fond contention,
And the crucial Fact; as sole unraveler
Of thick webs of False; for lasting clearance
Of the perjured Fates, that usurp thin image
To the trick of True--Call wildly down,
All hearts clean emptied of their bane, the pride--
If Miracle knew how; might holily, not grossly, do it--
No breather left not, whom the riddance bore
Not in its sorry and unhallowed stead--
Crude absence presenced, and new light let in--
Some sacred, lofty, and prophetic strain,
Which so should dare it, and,
Which, curb to Fear, did dread no Judgment,
Not appealed with this--that each cause that
Drew him, and each star that led,
Must find him shelter, nay, close-challenged, stand
His clear accessory before the fact,
Like found, in common, with indicted man:--
Which so should dare--
All this premise yielded, and its case at rest--
Call fondly down,
While the infinite Mercies, sitting wide 'bove All,
Did, scruteless Justicers, take up the claim,
Which Pain and Sorrow for the world-heart draws,
And, which, past all precedent, would thus call down--
Ere Grace pronounce it, ere its fiat fall,
Against some boundless Issue, some yet Pure toward,
Unstained, surely, by gross touch of him,
Man's wayward intimate, sore licensed Time,
For his purgation and clear suit of all--
Would dare call down--yea, righteous down--
All breathers joining, of a mind for once,
Accord achieved, and a truce at last,
No thought so common, nor no wish so near
As that this scene be halted, and the long act done,
Its show a burden, and its flaunt a woe,--
Call fondly, wildly, tho' how vainly, down,
The long remitted, yet etern withheld,
While boundless Loving by great Patience sits--
Twin-seed and concept of the boweled Ruth,
That, sainting, quickens to immaculate God--
Would yet call down, call monstrous down,
The infinite respited, his aye unushered
And unthundered Doom?

PETER CRONJE.

Paardeberg, Feb., 1900.

Unto the templed haunts of her that sits,
And to acclaim of echoes writes the stirring deeds of men--
Each noisy plaudit that reverberate flits
Across the tablet's white, to never lift its breath again.

Each solemn impress, too, the burin graves,
And clear and fast, to living strokes, the stone-page holds
'Gainst his rude blot whose gulf enwaves
With sweeping crest all flash and strain of baser moulds.

To her who wreathes the Days, their laurel twines,
Or, decks no brow Fame's love to tell,
Came wisest Clio, Story's far-recording Muse,
A page in hand, whose bitter brief but glowing lines
Each trophied shaft, that rose, made prouder swell,
Blaze fresh its graphic lore with nobler hues.

To her,--this word on lip: "Build Sister now
past shock of Days my latest shrine;
Based build it past their dim beseech,
Who up thro' Time wan ghost-hands reach,
To slur with doubt his fair'st design:
Be yare! The Heavens lo, for tribute pine!"

And mark, they pact! 'Fore Chancel-bar the high vows plight:
Ordained the Altar, while uprose through flame,
Clear-set 'gainst unspent yet and brooding night
The sweet, wild star--the beacon flash of Cronje's name.

CHRISTIAN DE WET.[2]

Fame long took wary note of him,
So did proud England, too, who, from his hand,
In the blood-red, flowery vintage of her land,
Has drained his pledges to their bitter brim,
Till, within the fiery cups, well-nigh an Empire swim,
Staggers for sure foot, wonders at that dizzy head,
What craze infatuate demons in yon soft spot bred,
Whence this vile feeling in each once firm limb?

What worked such odious rouse in one so free?
Made this man loathe her, so defy all fate,
That in his eye the price has fallen of all things but Hate,
Wide Earth, unregioned, where her realms not be?
Cries here not, summoning, out, like from some Fury's song,
For 'ts dreadful due, some fierce, intolerable Wrong?

[2] For a final estimate of De Wet see pages 101-102.

OOM PAUL.

This is he: the same, who on the warrant of a man
Stood up, gave Fortune battle; to her bitterest face
Cried out, "I'll front your minions ere their slave-hand trace
On free men's backs, in sorry writing as no other can,
The crooked cypher which smug worldlings plan,
Expound, to key and color of their lust-fed wills,
As the all-in-all a tardy Destiny fulfills,
By its star, ports safe, 'gainst stress of man,
Her, hereto, drifting and unruddered van.

The same, who had his breeding at their rude expense,
Whose hardy training, to the pithy core,
So took, each fated tutor wonders evermore
Who wed such aptness to mere mortal sense.
In the gross, a bear; broad streak of fox; unsaintly, grim;
Withal, what Titan's mettle gave its heat to him,
What Spark re-tempered, that may ne'er grow cold,
This hero's substance from a peasant's mold?

CECIL RHODES.

Equipped, who doubts, above Life's common leave,
Where, privy to her council, mind and will
Bar lesser men, past plea of question, do fulfill
The searchless Fates--What did this man achieve
That Hope should stand deject, should at his parting grieve?
What bated sum of human ill
Files now, along with Wrong, its lessened bill?
What brutish yokes less hardened cleave?
How did he ease them--with what large conceive?
What forces muster 'gainst the Dark, but their array
Broke from the leadership of trusting Day,
Gave faction life, grew to command,
And, cozening, won him from the straighter way--
The same, in whose plain view yon heavens stand,
Rear wide this word, tho' blurred with Dust,
"That truly great must first be just."

CHAMBERLAIN.

Stalk Right, from crafty cover of the Might;
Commend your passes with the opportune;
Expound this lesson, never learnt too soon--
To rate all vision by the outward sight;
Hold all truth misty, save yon tricksy light,
Which fatuous dazzles from the specious star,
Where worldly holdings, hedged with mortgage, are,
Each brazen title which still suffered write
Such scribes, rude-figured, on the scroll of Fate:
All this--and yet, who doubts but they fulfill,
Tho' at sorry single, some more general Will,
Hold dumb intelligence with Wisdom's state;
That, tho' locked in cypher yet the issue read,
Their blatant faction, 'gainst some halcyon date,
Works out, affirming, whence they silent speed,
His Council perfect, with no voice at odds,
The boundless findings of all-patient God's?

SALISBURY.

Removed from his sires by long stretch of years,
Yet so closely virtued, to their wisdom bred,
Their bloods long wasted, but which then ran red,
Their dogged valors, which had now been fears,
Are still his coaches and untimely peers,
Sit at his board, carve at the ghostly spread,
Flout tame the sweeter wine, for which the ages bled,
And cups paid bitter down in price of tears,
As, rising to his call, they quench their eerie fast,
And toast, in heady measures of a wormy Old,
'Gainst newer truths that mock their pledgescold,
This, their own grim shadow from a weary past.
And yet, if were their eyes awake, should they not grow
To keener vision, should a cuter ear
Not catch Time's footfall, nor so dare the Law,
Which, how so trespass do impugn it here--
As if its charter on mere probate ran--
Stars yet Time's reaches since his maze began,
Illumes the pathway of the utmost sphere:
Yon law of Free, within whose widening groove,
For franker answer 'tward the Life, 'tward all--
Some response more worthy of the conscious soul--
God, man, and thing, and Nations move?
Ay; should they not wonder at that slow-to-learn will,
Heir to large occasions, but to spurn them still?

PEACE PENDING.

Vae Victis! Nay, what Triumph rings
Exultant with that haughty word?
To grace its clarion, tempering brings
No music of a nobler chord?

Twice trophied, not what gentler strain?
Which, wiped no blot its honor caught,
Would, rank at heart, with flustered brain,
Still foul the cheer kind victory brought?

In the bugle's drown the choral song,
What strange, deep notes 'twould auguring breathe?
Deck fresh the brow of fated Strong
With teemy bud of baser wreath?

For, lo, it was a gallant fight!
And, tho' ravening Nature still stood up,
Pledged fierce, in her own drops, the bleeding Right,
Nay, bade her drain the chaliced Cup.

Tho' unlineal stripped the lineal True,
Set low the faith, acclaimed the doubt,
What witness here but purging threw
Its passioned gage, to bear it out,

That worse than steel or murd'rous flare
Of gaping mouth, whose sudden gust
Flicks out the flame of little life, it were to bear
The yoke that galls with rude Unjust;

That they slay not half, who merely kill,
Nor holds within the execution of the sword
Yon cunning stab which numbs the will,
In its drowse lays on the bondsman's cord;

That sweet blood spilt in noble cause,
Somehow, sustaining blends with Heaven's dew,
So partner'd, for fresh come-up grows,
Past choke of False, the larger True;

No harvest else come worth its seed,
Which holds not fast, gives o'er to taunt
This word--not what is bred, but what we breed
Foregathered hoard, but what we plant,
Alone shall lift mid prides that sink,
To foison come, 'mid thorny steeps of mazy ways,
Where ruthless heats far-fated drink,
Make nought the sap of lustful days;

So pledged alone endure, enlarge,
Make good, withal, some vicared trust,
Undue to hope yon scruteless charge
Whose brief is Time and riddling Dust;

So nurtured, rear, while Right unfolds,
Athwart rude stretch of the perplexing Plan's,
Some keep, some faith, that sheltering holds,
Sets God twice forth, thro' will of Man's.

Oh, yes, it was a gallant fight,
In free men's gashes writ on Story's page,
Nor, till her sad tome close in utter night,
And Destiny muse Time's vanished stage.

Shall hours blank its annaled score,
But bear it down t'ward yet to-comes,
At echoed gleam, set forth yon lore,
Which word, nor thought, nor heart-heave sums--

Yon love of Free, whose far-off fount,
Which, say it flow through beast and slave,
Withal, bids man stand up, assert, account
Exalt the gift--some Self, some Soul it gracious gave;

Yon voice of Just, whose auguring sooth
Wide-visioned bounds these Nears and Fars,
While infinite Patience, she, the Truth,
Revealed, fulfills her myriad Stars.

PEACE.

The gentle word has gone abroad, and on mens' lips
A tremor hangs, a gladness flutters at the kindly sound,
As, at fond repeat, with gathered tone, the quaver slips
On swelling heart-heaves 'bout the world's round,

Charms to its strain the aliens 't tongue,
In yon same music which the high Hopes know,
Since, true to wisdom, their brave cheer was sung,
Confounding Darkness where the dim Doubts go.

And shall heart not heed it, nor its welcome plight;
This cup, not feast it, match its deep propose?
Unpledging riot, shall the brutal Might
Not own the Fountain whence all fathom draws?

Bathe sweet those gashes and the bitter bruise,
Shall Strength, not holding of her heavyhand,
Unleague all compact, which, to spite the Truce,
Made Hell confederate with her blind command;

Let new days deck her in a nobler wreath,
A serener vision lift that groveling brow,
Duress and rancor, while they bated breathe,
Against some Presence where the deep Fates bow,

And, veiled speakers, with mute lay-on hands
Ordain, atoning, while the sky-paths chime,
In anthems swelling past their starren strands,
That ever postulant, sore-vicared Time.

Why then--shall Hope not speak it, find no moan was lost,
She, whose heave of sorrow bade the Destinies shrive,
Say why her ventures came so sorely tossed,
So hard at sea, till Faith did question their at-all arrive?

Shall Hope not find it--how Mistrust was out,
Yon fierce old reckoner, whose too absolute course
And wary checkings by his peer, the Doubt,
Still foul the bearings of the archer Source?

For, has Peace not spoken? on men's lips
Hangs not a quaver, like some Gladness there,
Some soothing spirit, from whose balm-wing slips,
Fanned wide, this message, it would brothering bear?

Has Peace not spoken, has the gentle word,
Invoking, blessed not the ear again?
Has Earth not witnessed, not the Heavens heard,
Its joy fall healing on the hearts of men?

AFTER.

On reading Louis Botha's article in the Contemporary Review for the month of November, 1902.

How came his right that he should dare,
He, and his two mates-at-noble-arms,
To stand erect, and not with bowed heads and bare,
Beg mites for build-up of their homestead-farms,
Their hearths which Ravage blacked with sorry flame,
Their children stricken within pesthouse gates,
And all rank glories wherein Empire came,
To foist her mission on these latter dates;
Not be lions of the hour, garb their pride
In neat devisings at the conqueror's hands;
But let their prayer on yon throb go wide
Which fellows justice with the far-offs't strands?
O, hearts, whose fires whet the valiant sword;
Pushed how to heave the suppliant word!
O, guilty act! and worthy Fortune's frown,
That ye should speak, let yet accord
This worthy latter with your erst renown!
Still trust, stand nobly up, tho' all seem down!

CHRISTIAN DE WET.[3]

One year later--on appearance of his "Three Years' War."

No book alone is this, but very life;
A throbbing volume with warm blood-beats writ,
To vouch whose pages did the brave deed sit,
His traits tho' lurid with angry strife;
To blaze whose image did not Freedom first,
To her wide symbol, past best trick of art,
In quivering flame-strokes, as no imprint durst
Trace plain each feature on her mighty heart?
Nay, in her fierce love, so drew them, that to mortal sight
They took on the lineaments of horrid hate,
What were but flashes of her beaconed light,
The fervent visions of large things that wait;
For this man did love her for no worldly store,
Might never derogate with venal breath
The divine injunction which her message bore
To voice her biddings, yea, 'gainst grappling Death.

And, when such manhood cries you, "peace," "no more,"
Shall not his foeman reach a brother's hand,
Such day not with a double lustre pour
Its countenance o'er the darkened land?
Shall Love not smile and understand?

[3] A sequel to lines on page 84.

SINE DIE.

Full zodiacs three the fiery sun,
Thro' maze of stars, his web has spun,
Since War's late grimy page begun
To blaze its line--the bloody hand
Whose lurid strokes bade Peace to stand.

And, World-heart, O, what hast thou won?
And, is the sad act past and done?
Or, does its score, sunk wide and deep,
In some blind hell fierce-copied keep,
For Days, which, tho' their loath pace creep,
Oft span with strides each reckoned Far;
For such--for Broil's rude, loud, and noted star
To trace once more upon the Light
Yon awful cypher of the Night?

A CONCORDANCE.

The Dawn that 'woke this train of songs--each simple lay--
The lowering, then, and stirring hours,
Have 'cross those dim fields passed away,
Where History, gathering ghostly flowers,
Erst flush with life, now chill and gray,
Would bind them fair, their story tell,
The silent bloom Death loves so well;
Nay, haply show, how from their seed,
What large effects may leveling breed.

That Dawn has sped--trite Day knows all;
The roistering winds that ravening blew
Have ceased their brawl,
Mad sport that drew
War's winged hounds, and harpies flew,
Fanned foul the airs and thicked their breath,
Each heave at bouts with throttling Death.
While from the din there rose, I thought,
Brave strains of man no fear might toss:
If, echoing these, a few I wrought
Into rude posies, strove to cross
Their wildness with the rose of art,--
Ah! they were such slips as throws the heart,

Grafts tongue on thought; here grew to breathe
Those clear-felt notes not theirs to choose.
Which, humbly, while their love did wreathe
A passioned chaplet for the Muse;
Did they, to match her large faith there,
To vie the crown she auguring bear,
Not weave as well, to extol her sooth,
A sister garland for the Truth?