Classic Poem

The cup is overflowing. Pour, pour yet,
My Famulus — pour with free arm-sweep still,
And when the wine is running o'er the brim,
Sparkling with golden bubbles in the sun,
I will stoop down and drink the full great draught
Of glory, and as did those heroes old
Drinking ambrosia in the happy isles,
Dilate at once to perfect demigod.
Meantime, I feast my eyes as the wine runs
And the cup fills. Fill up, my Famulus!
Pour out the precious juice of all the earth,
Pour with great arm-sweep, that the world may see.

O Famulus — O Spirit — O good Soul,
Come close to me and listen — curl thyself
Up in my breast — let us drink ecstasy
Together; for the charm thou taughtest me
I working like slow poison in the veins
Of the great Nations: each, a wild-beast tamed,
Looks mildly in mine eyes and from my hand
Eats gently; and this day I speak the charm
To Russia, and, behold! the crafty eyes
Blink steepily, while on the fatal lips
Hovers the smile of appetite half-fed,
Half-hungry: he being won, all else is won,
And at our feet, our veritable slave,
Lies Europe. Whisper now, Soul of my Soul,
Since we have won this Europe with the sword,
How we shall portion it to men anew.

First, in the centre of the West, I set
My signet like a star, and on a rock
Base the imperial Throne: seated whereon,
The royal crown of France upon my head,
At hand the iron crown of Lombardy,
And in my sceptre blended as a sign
The hereditary gems of Italy,
Spain, Holland, I shall see beneath my feet
My Puppets sit with strings that reach my hand:
Murat upon the throne of Italy,
Jerome upon new-born Westphalia,
Louis the lord of Holland, and perchance
A kinsman in the Prussian dotard's place;
And, lower yet, still puppets to my hand,
Saxony, Würtemberg, Bavaria,
The petty principalities and powers,
All smiling up in our hot thunderous air; —
And all the thrones, the kingdoms, and the powers
That break to life beneath them, murmuring
" Hail, King of Europe — Emperor of the West."

Thus far. Still farther? Driven to the East,
First by fond cunning, afterwards by blows,
The Russian's eyes bloodshot with greed will watch,
While still our flood-tide inexhaustible
Of Empire washes to the Danube, rolls
Into the Baltic, and with one huge wave
Covers the plains of Poland. Then at last
The mighty Empires of the East and West
Shall clash together in the final blow,
And that which loses shall be driven on
To lead the heathen on in Asia,
And that which hurls the other to such doom
Shall be the chosen Regent of the World.
Shall this be so, O Spirit? Pour, O pour —
Yea, let me feast mine eyes upon the wine,
Albeit I drink not. See! — Napoleon,
Waif from the island in the southern sea.
Sun to whom all the Kings o' the earth are stars,
Sword before which all earthly swords are straws,
Child of the Revolution, Crown and Head,
Heart, Soul, Arm, King, of all Humanity!

O Famulus — in God's name keep my soul
From swooning to vain-glory. I believe
God (not the other) sends thee, that thy mouth
May fill me with a message for the race,
And purge the peevish and distemper'd world
Of her hereditary plague of Kings.
For Man, I say, all in due season grow
Back to the likeness hat he wore at first,
One mighty nation pling the green earth,
One equal people with one King and head,
One Kingdom with one Temple, and therein
No priest, no idol, no ark sacrifice,
But spheric music and the dreamy light
Of heaven's mild azure and the changeless stars.
The curse of earth hath been the folly of peace
Under vain rulers, so dividing earth,
That twenty thousand kings of Lilliput
Strutted and fretted heaven and teased the time,
Kept nature's skin for ever on the sting
Like vermin, and perplex'd Humanity.
With petty pangs and peevish tyranny,
While the soul sickened of obscure disease,
And the innumerable limbs of state
Moved paralysed, most inert, or dead.
Came Revolution like avenging fire;
And in the red flash miserable men
Beheld themselves and wondered — saw their Kings
Still strutting Lilliputian in the glare, —
And laugh'd till heaven rung, — gave one fierce look
To heaven, and rose. Outraged Columbia
Breath'd o'er the sea, and scorch'd the insolent cheek
Of Albion. Albion paled before the flame.
The darken'd embers faded in the West,
And all was still again; when one mad morn
Men wakening, saw the heights of France afire!
Earth shook to her foundation, and the light
Illumed the hemispheres from west to east,
And men that walk beneath and under us,
Holding their heads to other stars, beheld
The glory flaming from the underworld.
The little Kings of Europe, lily-pale,
Scream'd shrill to one another. Germany
In her deep currents of philosophy
Mirror'd the fiery horror. Russia groaned,
Sheeted in snows that took the hue of blood
Under the fierce reflection. Italy,
Spain and the Tyrol, wild Helvetia.
Caught havoc; and even on the white English crags
A few strong spirits, in a race that binds
Its body in chains and calls them Liberty,
And calls each fresh link Progress, stood erect
With faces pale that hunger'd to the light.
Then, like a hero in his anguish, burnt
Poor gentle Louis, whom the stars destined
To be a barber and who was a King,
And as he flamed and went like very straw,
Earth shriek'd and fever'd France grew raving mad.

Pass o'er the wild space of delirium,
When France upon her stony bed of pain
Raved, screamed, blasphemed, was medicined with blood,
Forgot all issues and the course of time;
And come to that supremer, stiller hour
When, facing these fierce wasps of Kings who flocked
To sting the weary sufferer to death.
I rose and stood behind her, drove them back,
So! with a sword-sweep. Those were merry days,
My Spirit! These were spring days, winds of war
Sharp-blowing, but the swallow on the way
Already bringing summer from the south!
Then one by one I held these little Kings
Between my fingers and inspected them
Like curious insects, while with buzz and hiss
Their tiny stings were shooting in and out;
And how I laugh'd
To think such wretched vermin had so long
Tortured unhappy Man, and to despair
Driven him and his through infinite ways of woe!
When, with one sweep of his great arm, one blow
Of his sharp palm, he might annihilate
Such creatures by the legion and in sooth
Exterminate the breed! O Spirit of Man!
A foolish Titan! foolish now as then,
Guided about the earth like a blind man
By any hand that leads,
And then and now unconscious of a frame
Whose strength, into one mighty effort gathered,
Might shake the firmament of heaven itself!
...Well, we have done this service. We have freed
Earth from its pest of Kings, so that they crawl
Powerless and stingless; we have medicined
Desperate disease with direful remedies;
And lo, the mighty Spirit of mankind
Hath stagger'd from the sick-bed to his feet,
And feebly totters, picking darken'd steps,
And while I lead him on scarce sees the sun,
But questions feebly " Whither?" Whither? Indeed
I am dumb, and all Earth's voices are as dumb —
God is not dumber on His throne. In vain
I would peer forward, but the path is black.
Ay, — whither?

O what peevish fools are mortals,
Tormented by a raven on each shoulder,
" Whither?" and " wherefore?" Shall I stand and gape
At heaven, straining eyes into the tomb,
Like some purblind philosopher or bard
Asking stale questions of the Infinite
Dumb with God's secret? questioning the winds,
The waves, the stars, all things that live and move,
All signs, all augurs? Never yet hath one
Accorded answer. " Whither?" Death replies
With dusky smile. " Wherefore?" The echoes laugh
Their " wherefore? wherefore?" Of the time unborn,
And of the inevitable Law, no voice
Bears witness. The pale Man upon the Cross
Moan'd, — and beheld no further down the Void
Than those who gather'd round to see Him die.

Ay, — but the Soul, being weather-wise, can guess
The morrow by the sunset, can it not?
And there are signs about the path whereon
I guide the foolish Titan, that imply
Darkness and hidden dangers. All these last
I smile at; but, O Soul within my Soul,
'Tis he, the foolish Titan's self, I fear:
For, though I have a spell upon him now,
And say it, and he follows, any morn
(Awakening from his torpor as he woke
One bloody morn in Paris and went wild),
He may put out his frightful strength again,
And with one mighty shock of agony
Bring down the roof of Empire on my head.
He loves me now, and to my song of war
Murmurs deep undertone, and as he goes
Fondles the hand that leads; but day by day
Must I devise new songs and promises,
More bloody incantation, lest he rouse
And rend me. Oftentimes it seems he leads,
I follow, — he the Tyrant, I the Slave, —
And it, perchance, were better had I paused
At Amiens, nor with terrible words and ways
Led him thus far, still whispering in his ear
That he at last shall look on " Liberty."

Liberty? Have I lull'd him with a Lie?
Or shall the Titan Spirit of man be led
To look again upon the face of her,
His first last love, a spirit woman-shaped,
Whom in the sweet beginning he beheld,
Adored, loved, lost, pursued, whom still in tears
He yearns for; in whose name alone all Kings
Have led and guided him a space and throve,
Denying whom all Kings have died in turn,
Whose memory is perfume, light and dream,
Whose hope is incense, music, bliss, and tears,
To him whose great heart with immortal beat
Measures the dark march of Humanity.
I do believe this Shape he saw and loved
Was but a Phantasm, unsubstantial, strange,
A vision never to be held and had,
A spectral woman ne'er to be enjoyed;
But such a thought whisper'd into his ear
Were rank as blasphemy cried up at God.
The name is yet a madness, a supreme
Ecstasy and delirium! All things
That cry it, move the tears into the eyes
Of the sad Titan. Echoed from the heights
Of France, it made him mad, and in his rage
He tore at Earth's foundations. Evermore
He turns his suffering orbs upon the dark,
Uplifts his gentle hands to the chill stars,
Pauses upon the path, and in the ear
Of him who leadeth cries with broken voice,
" How long, how long, how long?"

And unto him,
This Titan, I, supreme of all the earth,
Am but a pigmy (let me whisper it!)
And I have won upon him with strange lies,
And he has suffered all indignities,
Bonds, chains, a band to blindfold both his eyes,
Patient and meek, since I have sworn at last
To lead him to the trysting-place where waits
His constant love and most immortal Bride.
Still in mine ears he murmureth her name,
And follows. I have le him on through fire,
Blood, darkness, tears, and still he hath been tame,
Though ofttimes shrinking from things horrible,
And on and on he follows even now,
Blindfold, with slower and less willing feet —
I fear with slower and less willing feet —
And still I ead, through lurid light from heaven,
Whither I know not. " Whither!" Often-times
My great heart fails, lest on some morn we reach
That portal o'er which flaming Arch is writ,
" All hope abandon ye who enter here!"
And he, perceiving he hath been befool'd,
Will cast me from him with his last fierce breath
Down through the gate into some pit of doom.

Meantime he follows smiling. O Famulus!
Could I but dream that she, the Shape he seeks,
Whom men name Liberty, and gods name Peace,
Were human, could inhale this dense dark air,
Could live and dwell on earth, and rear the race,
'Twere well, — for by Almighty God I swear
I would find out a means to join their hands
And bless them, and abide their grateful doom.
But she he seeks I know to be a dream,
A vision of the rosy morning mist,
A creature foreign to the earth and sea,
Ne'er to be look'd upon by mortal soul
Out of the mortal vision. Wherefore still
I fear this Titan. I can never appease
His hungry yearning wholly. He will bear
No future chains, no closer blindfolding,
And if a fatal whisper reach his ear,
I and all mine are wholly wreck'd and lost.
Yet is this Titan old so weak of wit,
So senile-minded though so huge of frame,
So deaf to warning voices when they cry,
That, should no angel light from heaven an speak
The mad truth in his ear, he will proceed
Patiently as a lamb. He counteth not
The weary years; his eyes are shut indeed
With a half-smile, to see the mystic Face
Pictured upon his brain; only at times
He lifteth lids and gazeth wildly round,
Clutching at the cold hand of him that guides, —
But with a whisper he is calm'd again,
Relapsing back into his gentle dream.
O he is patient, and he will await
Century after century in peace,
So that he hears sweet songs of her he seeks,
So that his guides do speak to him of her,
So that he thinks to clasp her in the end.

The end? Sweet sprite, the end is what I fear —
If I might live for ever, Famulus! —
Why am I not immortal and a god?
I have caused tears enough, as bitter tears
As ever by the rod divine were struck
Out of this rock of earth. O for a spell
Wherewith to cheat old Death, whose feet I hear
Afar off, for I hate the bony touch
Of hands that change the purple for the shroud!
Yet I could go in peace (since all must go)
So that my seed were risen and in its eyes
I saw assurance of imperial thoughts,
Strength, and a will to grasp the thunderbolt
I leave unhurl'd beside the Olympian throne.
Ah God, to die, and into the dark gloom
Drag that throne with me, to the hollow laugh
Of the awakening Titan! All my peers
Are ciphers, all my brethren are mere Kings
Of the old fashion, only strengthen'd now
By my strong sunshine; reft of that, they die,
Like sunflowers in the darkness. Death, old Death,
Touch me this day, or any dark day soon,
And I and mine are like the miser's hoard,
A glorious and a glittering pile of gold
Changed to a fluttering heap of wither'd leaves.

This must not be. No, I must have a child.
I must be firm and from my bed divorce
The barren woman. Furthermore, to link
My throne with all the lesser thrones of earth,
I must wed the seed of Kings. Which seed, which child?
Which round ripe armful of new destiny?
Which regal mould for my imperial issue?
Thine, fruitful house of Hapsburg? Russia, thine?
The greater, not the lesser. I must wed
Seed of the Czar, and so with nuptial rites
Unite the empires of the East and West.

Fill, fill, my Famulus, the golden cup
I thirst for; all the peril as I gaze
Hath faded. I no more with fluttering lips
Cry " Whither?" but with hands outstretch'd I watch
Rubily glistening glory. It shall thrive!
King of the West, sowing the seed of Kings
First of the Empire of the Golden Age,
The sleeping Titan, and the quiet Sea;
Light of the Lotus and all mortal eyes,
Whose orbit nations like to heliotropes
Shall follow with lesser circle and sweet sound!