Thy rose of all Time’s blossomings.
And thou evolvedst Man!—There were a thousand forms,
All glorious, all sublime, the riders of Thy storms,
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
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.
All these thou hadst for choice, competitors with Thee
For Thy new gift and prize, Thy co-divinity.
Yet didst Thou choose, Lord God, the one comedian shape
In Thy Creation’s range, the lewd bare-buttocked ape,
And calledst him, in scorn of all that brave parade,
King of Thy living things, in Thine own likeness made!
Where, Lord, was then Thy wisdom? We, who watched Thee, saw
More than Thyself didst see. We recognised the flaw,
The certainty of fault, and I in zeal spake plain.

  The Lord God Thou didst, rebellious Spirit, and thy zeal was vain.
Thou spakest in thy blindness. Was it hard for God,
Thinkest thou, to choose His graft, to wring from the worst clod
His noblest fruiting? Nay. Man’s baseness was the test,
The text of His all-power, its proof made manifest.
There was nought hard for God.   Satan Except to win Man’s heart.
Lord, hear me to the end. Thy Will found counterpart
Only in Man’s un-Will. Thy Truth in his un-Truth,
Thy Beauty in his Baseness, Ruth in his un-Ruth,
Order in his dis-Order. See, Lord, what hath been
To Thy fair Earth through him, the fount and origin
Of all its temporal woes. How was it ere he came
In his high arrogance, sad creature without shame?
Thou dost remember, Lord, the glorious World it was,
The beauty, the abundance, the unbroken face
Of undulent forest spread without or rent or seam
From mountain foot to mountain, one embroidered hem
Fringing the mighty plains through which Thy rivers strayed,
Thy lakes, Thy floods, Thy marshes, tameless, unbetrayed,
All virgin of the spoiler, all inviolate,
In beauty undeflowered, where fear was not nor hate.
Thou knowest, Lord of all, how that sanct solitude
Was crowded with brave life, a thousand forms of good
Enjoying Thy sweet air, some strong, some weak, yet none
Oppressor of the rest more than Thy writ might run.
Armed were they, yet restrained. Not even the lion slew
His prey in wantonness, nor claimed beyond his due.
He thinned their ranks,—yet, lo, the Spring brought back their joy.
Short was his anger, Lord. He raged not to destroy.
Oh, noble was the World, its balance held by Thee,
Timely its fruits for all, ’neath Thy sole sovereignty.
But he! he, the unclean! The fault, Lord God, was Thine.
Behold him in Thy place, a presence saturnine,
In stealth among the rest, equipped as none of these
With Thy mind’s attributes, low crouched beneath the trees,
Betraying all and each. The wit Thou gavest him
He useth to undo, to bend them to his whim.
His bodily strength is little, slow of foot is he,
Of stature base, unclad in mail or panoply.
His heart hath a poor courage. He hath beauty none.
Bare to the buttocks he of all that might atone.
Without Thy favour, Lord, what power had he for ill?
Without thy prompting voice his violence had scant skill.
The snare, the sling, the lime, who taught him these but Thou?
The World was lost through Thee who fashioned him his bow.
And Thou hast clean forgot the fair great beasts of yore,
The mammoth, aurochs, elk, sea-lion, cave-bear, boar,
Which fell before his hand, each one of them than he
Nobler and mightier far, undone by treachery.
He spared them not, old, young, calf, cow. With pitfall hid
In their mid path they fell, by his guile harvested,
And with them the World’s truth. Henceforth all walked in fear,
Knowing that one there was turned traitor, haply near.
This was the wild man’s crime.   The Lord God He erred in ignorance.
As yet he was not Man. Naught but his form was Man’s.   Satan Well had he so remained. Lord God, thou thoughtest then
To perfect him by grace, among the sons of men
To choose a worthiest man. “If he should know,” saidst Thou
“The evil from the good, the thing We do allow
“From that We do forbid! If We should give him shame,
“The consciousness of wrong, the red blush under blame!
“If he should walk in light beholding truth as We!”
Thou gavest him Conscience, Creed, Responsibility,
The power to worship Thee. Thou showedst him Thy way.
Thou didst reveal Thyself. Thou spakest, as one should say
Conversing mouth to mouth. Old Adam and his Eve
Thou didst array in aprons Thy own hands did weave.
Enoch was taken up. To Noah Thou didst send
Salvation in Thine ark. Lord Abraham was Thy friend.
These are the facts recorded, facts—say fables—yet
Impressed with the large truth of a new value set
Upon Man’s race and kind by Thy too favouring will.
Man had become a “Soul,” informed for good and ill
With Thy best attributes, Earth’s moral arbiter,
Tyrant and priest and judge. Woe and alas for her!
Think of the deeds of Man! the sins! No wilding now,
But set in cities proud, yet marked upon his brow
With label of all crime.   The Lord God The men before the Flood?
We did destroy them all.   Satan Save Noah and his brood.
In what were these more worthy? Did they love Thee more,
The men of the new lineage? Was their sin less sore,
Their service of more zeal? Nay. Earth was hardly dry
Ere their corruption stank and their sin sulphurously
Rose as a smoke to heaven, Ur, Babel, Nineveh,
The Cities of the Plain. Bethink Thee, Lord, to-day
What their debasement was, who did defile Thy face
And flout Thee in derision, dogs in shamelessness!   The Lord God Nay, but there loved me one.   Satan The son of Terah?   The Lord God He.   Satan I give Thee Thy one friend. Nay, more, I give Thee three—
Moses, Melchisedec.   The Lord God And Job.   Satan Ay, Job. He stands
In light of the new Gospel, Captain of Thy bands,
And prince of all that served Thee, fearing not to find
Thy justice even in wrong with no new life behind,
Thy justice even in death. In all, four men of good
Of the whole race of Shem, Heaven’s stars in multitude.
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!
And of all men a Jew! for poor Earth’s ransoming.
Thrice glorious inspiration! Who but He had dared
Come naked, as He came, of all His kingship bared,
Not one of us to serve Him, neither praised nor proud
But just as the least are, the last ones of the crowd.
He had not Man’s fierce eye. No beast fell back abashed
To meet Him in the woods, as though a flame had flashed.
He lay down with the foxes. The quails went and came
Between His feet asleep. They did not fear His blame.
He had not Man’s hard heart. He had not Man’s false hand.
His gesture was as theirs. Their wit could understand
He was their fellow flesh. To Him so near to God
What difference lay ’twixt Man and the least herb He trod?
He came to save them all, to win all to His peace.
What cared He for Man, Jew, more than the least of these?
And yet He loved His kind, the sick at heart, the poor,
The impotent of will, those who from wrong forbore,
Those without arms to strike, the lost of Israel.
Of these He made His kingdom—as it pleased Him well—
Kingdom without a king. His thought was to bring back
Earth to its earlier way, ere Man had left the track,
And stay his rage to slay. “Take ye no thought,” said He,
“Of what the day may bring. Be as the lilies be.
“They toil not, nor do spin, and yet are clothed withal.
“Choose ye the lowest place. Be guileless of all gall.
“If one shall smite you, smile. If one shall rob, give more.
“The first shall be the last, and each soul hold its store.
“Only the eyes that weep—only the poor in spirit—
“Only the pure in heart God’s kingdom shall inherit.”
On this fair base of love Thy Son built up His creed,
Thinking to save the world. And Man, who owned no need
Of any saving, slew Him.   The Lord God It was the Jews that slew
In huge ingratitude Him who Himself was Jew.
O perfidi Judæi! Yet His creed prevailed.
Thou hast thyself borne witness. If Shem’s virtue failed,
Japhet hath found us sons who swear all by His name.
Nay, thou hast testified the Christian faith finds fame
In every western land. It hath inherited
All that was once called Rome. The Orient bows its head
Perturbed by the white vision of a purer day.
Ham’s heritage accepts new salves for its decay,
And there are worlds reborn beyond the ocean’s verge
Where men are not as men, mad foam on the salt surge,
But live even as He taught them in love’s noblest mood,
Under the law of Jesus.   Satan Where, O glorious God?
In what land of the heathen—and I know them all,
From China to Peru, from Hind to Senegal,
And onward through the isles of the great Southern main.
Where is this miracle? Nay, nay, the search were vain.   The Lord God It is the angels’ hearsay.   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.