Classic Poem

Ahead Of His Time

Auld Saunders the Great was a mere bonnet-laird,
And o' riches but sma' was his share;
Contented was he wi' a cot-hoose and yaird,
Wi' wisdom, wi' knowledge, and lair.
And he was a character in his ain way,
That to no common idol would bow;
And the things that he did, and the words that he'd say,
Kept the haill parish aye in a lowe.

A plain, unpretending apostle was he,
Wi' a tourie-tapt, twa-storey heid,
And under each arch'd brow a double-ring'd e'e,
In the centre a bonnie blue bead —
An e'e that was never intended to leer,
That tauld o' a spirit high-toned,
Yet seem'd half unconscious of things that were near,
And always seem'd looking beyond.

At times there was something would keek thro' the blue,
Wi' a strange and a weird kind o' gleam,
And as you approach'd him it seem'd as if you
Had waken'd him oot o' a dream.
'Twas hard to decipher the lines of that broo,
Or to read what was writ on his face,
Yet his air and his negligent manner somehoo
Had a naitural kind o' a grace.

But when he was roos'd, oh, how chang'd was his look!
And what terrible things he wad say!
He wad get to his English, and talk like a book
For the length o' a lang simmer's day.
When charged wi' some mean thing his spirit did spurn,
A deevil look'd out o' his e'e,
And the bead in the middle, the way it wad burn
It was worth gaun a lang gaet to see.

Wi' what rapture in boyhood I heard him discourse
On man and on ither strange things;
For his thoughts had a grandeur, a power, and a force,
That bore me aloft on their wings.
They bore me to regions undreamt o' before,
And then, what a rapture was mine!
For I felt that on pinions my spirit did soar
From the human up to the divine.

For great men he seem'd to care little ava,
Their systems he lov'd to confute;
Save Shakespeare and Bacon, and some ane or twa,
He cared na a bodle aboot.
" Napoleon the mighty was waur than a wean,
And hadna the wisdom to see,
Despite his big intellect, and his coarse brain,
That naething can stan' on a lee.

" Owre earth like a terrible tempest he pass'd,
Loving naething ootside o' himsel';
And sae his card-castles a' vanish'd at last,
As doun to destruction he fell.
But still when to earth some great conqueror comes,
And fools offer homage profound,
'Mid the blaring of trumpets, the beating of drums,
The calm voice of wisdom is drown'd.

" The prophets, the priests, the Messiahs of earth,
The sad-eyed and lone, weary ones,
No heralding trumpets blare forth at their birth,
No shouting, nor thunder of drums;
But the world grows sick of the drum and the fife,
Of the wreck and the ruin they've wrought;
And here in the great battle-field of our life
Henceforth shall our battles be fought.

" Here bloated wealth rears her palatial abode;
E'en where the starv'd laborer dies,
And our pray'rs and our praises, ascending to God,
Are mix'd with his curses and cries.
Then boast not of what fighting forefathers did;
From your crest wipe the dark bloody stain;
In charity let their achievements be hid,
But boast of them never again.

" Go forth to the great battle-field of our time,
'Tis there you are called on to-day;
Go, shelter the weak from temptation and crime,
And your heart's better instincts obey.
'Gainst fraud and injustice the battle shall be,
And all the iniquities old;
The hero-to-be must humanity free
From the terrible fetters of gold.

" The angel of warning o'er Britain now floats —
Hearest thou what the spectre doth say? —
Hush! stern oaths are mutter'd in grim, dusky throats,
To rend from the spoiler the prey. "
While frankly and fearlessly Saunders foretold
The wrath and the evil to come,
He look'd like a seer, or a prophet of old,
Who could not, or would not, be dumb.

The schulemaister, tho' little else than a fule,
When he heard o' sic doctrines, did glower:
" Thae precepts, " quo' he, " wouldna dae in the schule,
Od, I wouldna be maister an hour! "
The Bailie, wha aye was juist stovin' wi' drink,
His wrath oot on Saunders did pour:
Said he, " Civilization he'd turn to a sink,
A thing I could never endure. "

" Na, na! " said the Provost, " wise folk maun take care,
And no let the rabble comman';
Keep healthy distinction atween rich an' puir —
That's the bulwark and stay o' the lan'.
Let the pot but ance boil owre; wi' scum an' wi' ase,
We'll no' can see ither for soot,
And then in the hubbub, a' heids an' a' thraws,
E'en the vera fire's sel' will gang oot. "

Sir Tammas pronounced Saunders waur than an ass:
" For, the creature, he seems unaware
That God in His mercy provided a class
Baith to guide and to govern the puir.
Sic doctrines, " he said, " wad sune ruin the state,
Workin' folk wad sune rise in revolt; "
Sae for safety he'd shove Saunders oot o' the gaet,
And keep it 'neath key, lock, and bolt.

PART II .

Unheeding their clatter, auld Saunders for hours
Would sit in contemplative mood;
While his e'en would be fix'd on the bonnie wee flow'rs,
'Twas thus he wad mutter and brood:
" We're puir little creatures all building for time —
Thro' pride and ambition we strive —
But Truth is the only one temple sublime,
That shall all other temples survive.

" The splendors of titles, of rank, and of power,
That isolate men from their kind,
The pure human spirit they rob and deflower,
And dwarf while they fetter and blind.
While high, haughty mortals, unsocial, austere,
And cold to the very heart's core,
To whom no one living thing ever was dear;
With self the one God they adore —

" What millions are living a meaningless life,
And know neither friendship nor love;
And never once felt, in the tumult and strife,
The warm brooding wings of the dove;
Whose lives are a fiction — mask bowing to mask —
Who know not what 'tis to be free —
Rich bond-slaves, who go thro' their pitiful task,
That dare not to think and to be!

" They meet but as strangers — as strangers depart,
All wrapt in a triple disguise —
Nor know they what's meant by communion of heart,
And life is a commerce of lies.
How God-like this same human nature can be,
When free from the worm at the core;
How grand the communion of souls that are free,
And mutually love and adore!

" We live upon sympathy, kindness, and love;
Each other we never can know,
Till the spirit of kindness descends from above,
And the wells of affection o'erflow.
Beside human nature's pure, glad living fount
What great golden harvests have grown,
Lang, lang, or ere Moses gaed up to the Mount,
Or commandments were written on stone.

" Who has not met beings of high moral worth,
That stept with a carriage sublime,
Who were rais'd far above the ambitions of earth,
And the fleeting distinctions of time —
With spirits as pure as the sun's golden ray,
That illumines the swamp and the fen;
Still scattering blessings along their life's way?
Yes, such are the monarchs of men!

" And there is a sister with meek, modest grace,
And eyes that are fix'd on the ground:
Where'er there's affliction that pitying face
Is sure to be hov'ring around.
Whene'er I encounter those pitying eyes,
A draft of pure glory I get,
And I cry, " Tho' surrounded by folly and lies
There's hope for Humanity yet! "

PART III

" Sic doctrines were contra to natur", " folk said,
And it was agreed thro' the toun,
That " tho' they micht dae weel to mak' a parade,
In the market they wadna gang doun.
Sic doctrines micht suit vera weel wi' them a'.
Wha' hae riches and siller galore,
But the auld proverb says that love aye flees awa'
When poortith comes in at the door. "

The Bailie, he said, wi' a nicher and smile:
" This love doctrine never will dae;
It's the fear o' the gallows, o' hell, and the jile,
Or I micht e'en mysel' gang astray.
He's only juist trying himsel' to deceive,
There've been wars since the worl' it began,
Sae this turtle-dove doctrine I dinna believe,
For I feel there's a deevil in man. "

But Saunders paid little attention, for a'
On Faith and on Hope he did lean;
He believ'd far owre muckle — aye, that was the flaw,
Baith wi' jiker and pitying frien'.
Yet his was a grand, a magnificent faith,
That robs e'en the grave o' its gloom —
That bridges the great gulf that yawns over death,
Yea, glorifies death and the tomb.

" Our forefathers' faith is a' past, " he wad say,
" The fire on the altar's gone out,
And nothing is left save the cold ashes grey,
And darkness and terrible doubt.
Sad-eyed, weary ones, who bade farewell to Hope,
When the last fitful glimmer had gone,
Encompass'd with darkness, they stumble and grope
In the vast and the vacant unknown.

" Look up, weary ones, for the first streak of day
Descends on the mountain and lawn;
The mists of the midnight are passing away,
And here are the " Heralds of Dawn!"
Hush! hearken! it is the great trumpet of change
That's filling the earth and the air,
And new forms of beauty surpassingly strange
Are starting to life ev'rywhere.

" While faithless and hopeless, at this very hour,
As all undecided ye stand,
A Spirit gigantic — a new living pow'r —
Is stalking abroad thro' the land;
Proclaiming earth's sorrows are passing away,
By the pow'r of the Spirit outcast,
And ancient iniquities hear and obey
The summons to judgment at last.

" Before it the errors of ages give way,
The old idols tremble and fall,
And the temples of selfishness sink to decay,
And the Christ-spirit looms over all.
The air is alive, yea, with beings unseen,
Who once dwelt in mansions of clay,
And o'er us, in joy or in sorrow, they lean,
And walk in our streets in mid-day.

" We mortals are mere rudimentals of man,
While passing thro' sense into soul;
Nor can we conceive of the Spirit's vast plan,
Till death forms us into a whole:
With faculties broaden'd, brute instincts rubb'd out,
And freed from the passions of clay,
To a region where never comes darkness or doubt,
The spirit soars singing away.

" Not dead are the dear ones that left us lang syne,
Ah, no! they have only withdrawn,
And still round our hearts their affections entwine
In the land of the beautiful dawn.
Each high aspiration, each prayer sincere,
Each true deed without earth's alloy,
To the friends gone before us they straightway appear
As pure, living fountains of joy.

" They sit down beside them, and muse on the past,
On dear ones still left in the night,
And dream of the time when they'll join us at last
In the evergreen land of delight.
The height which the greatest can ever attain,
In this murky planet of ours,
Is but the initial of heart and of brain,
The germ of humanity's powers.

" But their intuitions have hardly a bound:
E'en the growth of the grass on the lea
To their delicate organs would heave with the sound
And the roar of the fathomless sea.
With senses unknown to the children of earth,
Those beings majestic are fraught;
They breathe in the air where ideas have birth,
And bathe in the fountains of thought. "

E'en according to him, folk in some o' the stars
Exist on a glorious plane;
And to them wha inhabit the planet ca'd Mars
E'en Shakespeare wad seem but a wean.
And often he wonder'd why folk spent their time
On mere little tales of the past,
While here in our presence God's working, sublime,
On a scale overwhelmingly vast.

His miracles were not all wrought in the past:
The same sun is shining to-day,
And the stars ev'ry night, from infinitudes vast,
Come to herald the moon on her way.
All, all is a wonder, this soul and this sense,
From dust unto Deity, all;
And the wonder of wonders, the wonder immense,
Is that we are living at all!

PART IV

The villagers hung on ilk word that he said,
For they kent he was upricht and true;
Yet deep in their souls was an undefined dread
He was prompted by some demon crew;
And the story, it ran, that on ilk Sabbath e'en,
At the meeting o' nicht and o' day,
To the far-off death region by beings unseen
Auld Saunders was wafted away.

'Twas there, they mainteen'd, that he got a' his lair,
Learn'd to prophesy what wad befa';
O' this they were perfectly positive sure
That he wasna owre canny ava.
He spak' o' ane that he ca'd Swedenborg aft,
And wise Willie often wad say:
" The twasome are red-wud, aye, perfectly daft,
And to Bedlam are straught on their way! "

And aft to his comrades he'd laughingly say,
Wi' a wink and a leer in his e'e,
" I won'er what bee's in his bonnet the day?
Let's in, lads, and sune wull we see. "
But somehow puir Willie aye got the warst o't;
His wutty things never wad tell;
In presence o' Saunders they stuck in his throat,
Or still-born and flat doun they fell.

And aft as he wended his way awa' hame,
Rather huff'd at the fate 'o his jokes,
" He's mad! yet to match him, " wad Willie exclaim,
" Wad amaist take anither John Knox. "
His sayings kept ringing the haill kintry roun';
E'en the king o' the shoemakers' craft,
A lang and a lean-looking infidel loun,
Pronounced him decidedly daft.

" They're wun'erfu', truly, the things that he says,
And ingeni'us, there's never a doot,
But for him to believe them, ah, there is the craze —
It's the last spark o' reason gaun oot! "
There was ane wha could catch something very like sense,
And he e'en gaed so far as to say
He could see gleams of grandeur and glory immense
Until he grew blin' wi' the ray.

And some ithers thocht that nane should be alloo'd
To blaspheme in sic a like way:
" He deserv'd a tar barrel, " they bauldly avoo'd,
" For leading young laddies astray. "
The haill toun agreed he was cloored in the pate,
And nae doot wad end wi' some crime —
It never cam' into their pows he was great,
An' leevin' aheid o' his time.

And aften I thocht that the deils in the hells
Maun hae lauch'd, wi' a lauchter sae grim,
At the puir silly bodies, sae prood o' themsels,
A' sittin' in judgment on him.
For he lack'd but ambition, that vice o' the gods,
To set the worl' a' on a blaze;
When tauld sae, he only said, " What is the odds
If I couldna make men change their ways?

" Ambitious! for what? For the wreath that adorns
The bard's or the scientist's name?
Believe me, the green laurel covers but thorns,
And Heart-Break's the hand-maid of Fame.
Yet I am ambitious — ambitious to see
Still more of the Spirit's vast plan,
From sin and from sorrow to set myself free,
And live the true life of a man. " English