Author: Scott Mannion

How much I love this writer’s manly style! By such men led, our press had ever been The public conscience of our noble isle, Severe and quick to feel a civic sin, To raise the people and chastise the times With such a heat as lives in great creative rhymes. O you, the Press! what good from you might spring! What power is yours to blast a cause or bless! I fear for you, as for some youthful king, Lest you go wrong from power in excess. Take heed of your wide privileges! we The thinking men of England, loathe a tyranny. A freeman is, I doubt not, freest here; The single voice may speak his mind aloud; An honest isolation need not fear The Court, the Church, the Parliament, the crowd. No, nor the Press! and look you well to that— We must not dread in you the nameless autocrat. And you, dark Senate of the public pen, You may not, like yon tyrant, deal in spies. Yours are the public acts of public men, But yours are not their household privacies. I grant you one of the great Powers on earth, But be not you the blatant traitors of the hearth. You hide the hand that writes: it must be so, For better so you fight for public ends; But some you strike can scarce return the blow; You should be all the nobler, O my friends. Be noble, you! nor work with faction’s tools To charm a lower sphere of fulminating fools. But knowing all your power to heat or cool, To soothe a civic wound or keep it raw, Be loyal, if you wish for wholesome rule: Our ancient boast is this—we reverence law. We still were loyal in our wildest fights, Or loyally disloyal battled for our rights. O Grief and Shame if while I preach of laws Whereby to guard our Freedom from offence— And trust an ancient manhood and the cause Of England and her health of commonsense— There hang within the heavens a dark disgrace, Some vast Assyrian doom to burst upon our race. I feel the thousand cankers of our State, I fain would shake their triple-folded ease, The hogs who can believe in nothing great, Sneering bedridden in the down of Peace Over their scrips and shares, their meats and wine, With stony smirks at all things human and divine! I honour much, I say, this man’s appeal. We drag so deep in our commercial mire, We move so far from greatness, that I feel Exception to be character’d in fire. Who looks for Godlike greatness here shall see The British Goddess, sleek Respectability. Alas for her and all her small delights! She feels not how the social frame is rack’d. She loves a little scandal which excites; A little feeling is a want of tact. For her there lie in wait millions of foes, And yet the ‘not too much’ is all the rule she knows. Poor soul! behold her: what decorous calm! She, with her week-day worldliness sufficed, Stands in her pew and hums her decent psalm With decent dippings at the name of Christ! And she has mov’d in that smooth way so long, She hardly can believe that she shall suffer wrong. Alas, our Church! alas, her growing ills, And those who tolerate not her tolerance, But needs must sell the burthen of their wills To that half-pagan harlot kept by France! Free subjects of the kindliest of all thrones, Headlong they plunge their doubts among old rags and bones. Alas, Church writers, altercating tribes— The vessel and your Church may sink in storms. Christ cried: Woe, woe, to Pharisees and Scribes! Like them, you bicker less for truth than forms. I sorrow when I read the things you write, What unheroic pertness! what un-Christian spite! Alas, our youth, so clever yet so small, Thin dilletanti deep in nature’s plan, Who make the emphatic One, by whom is all, An essence less concentred than a man! Better wild Mahmoud’s war-cry once again! O fools, we want a manlike God and Godlike men! Go, frightful omens. Yet once more I turn To you that mould men’s thoughts; I call on you To make opinion warlike, lest we learn A sharper lesson than we ever knew. I hear a thunder though the skies are fair, But shrill you, loud and long, the warning-note: Prepare!... Associate Producer Membership Required You must be a Associate Producer member to access this content.Join NowAlready a member? Log in here

NO DOUBT but ye are the People—your throne is above the King’s. Whoso speaks in your presence must say acceptable things: Bowing the head in worship, bending the knee in fear— Bringing the word well smoothen—such as a King should hear. Fenced by your careful fathers, ringed by your leaden seas, Long did ye wake in quiet and long lie down at ease; Till ye said of Strife, “What is it?” of the Sword, “It is far from our ken”: Till ye made a sport of your shrunken hosts and a toy of your armed men. Ye stopped your ears to the warning—ye would neither look nor heed— Ye set your leisure before their toil and your lusts above their need. Because of your witless learning and your beasts of warren and chase, Ye grudged your sons to their service and your fields for their camping-place. Ye forced them to glean in the highways the straw for the bricks they brought; Ye forced them follow in byways the craft that ye never taught. Ye hindered and hampered and crippled; ye thrust out of sight and away Those that would serve you for honour and those that served you for pay. Then were the judgments loosened; then was your shame revealed, At the hands of a little people, few but apt in the field. Yet ye were saved by a remnant (and your land’s long-suffering star), When your strong men cheered in their millions while your striplings went to the war. Sons of the sheltered city—unmade, unhandled, unmeet— Ye pushed them raw to the battle as ye picked them raw from the street. And what did ye look they should compass? Warcraft learned in a breath, Knowledge unto occasion at the first far view of Death? So? And ye train your horses and the dogs ye feed and prize? How are the beasts more worthy than the souls, your sacrifice? But ye said, “Their valour shall show them”; but ye said, “The end is close.” And ye sent them comfits and pictures to help them harry your foes: And ye vaunted your fathomless power, and ye flaunted your iron pride, Ere—ye fawned on the Younger Nations for the men who could shoot and ride! Then ye returned to your trinkets; then ye contented your souls With the flannelled fools at the wicket or the muddied oafs at the goals. Given to strong delusion, wholly believing a lie, Ye saw that the land lay fenceless, and ye let the months go by Waiting some easy wonder, hoping some saving sign Idle—openly idle—in the lee of the forespent Line. Idle—except for your boasting—and what is your boasting worth If ye grudge a year of service to the lordliest life on earth? Ancient, effortless, ordered, cycle on cycle set, Life so long untroubled, that ye who inherit forget It was not made with the mountains, it is not one with the deep. Men, not gods, devised it. Men, not gods, must keep. Men, not children, servants, or kinsfolk called from afar, But each man born in the Island broke to the matter of war. Soberly and by custom taken and trained for the same, Each man born in the Island entered at youth to the game— As it were almost cricket, not to be mastered in haste, But after trial and labour, by temperance, living chaste. As it were almost cricket—as it were even your play, Weighed and pondered and worshipped, and practised day and day. So ye shall bide sure-guarded when the restless lightnings wake In the womb of the blotting war-cloud, and the pallid nations quake. So, at the haggard trumpets, instant your soul shall leap Forthright, accoutred, accepting—alert from the wells of sleep. So at the threat ye shall summon—so at the need ye shall send Men, not children or servants, tempered and taught to the end; Cleansed of servile panic, slow to dread or despise, Humble because of knowledge, mighty by sacrifice. But ye say, “It will mar our comfort.” Ye say, “It will minish our trade.” Do ye wait for the spattered shrapnel ere ye learn how a gun is laid? For the low, red glare to southward when the raided coast-towns burn? (Light ye shall have on that lesson, but little time to learn.) Will ye pitch some white pavilion, and lustily even the odds, With nets and hoops and mallets, with rackets and bats and rods? Will the rabbit war with your foemen—the red deer horn them for hire? Your kept cock—pheasant keep you?—he is master of many a shire. Arid, aloof, incurious, unthinking, unthanking, gelt, Will ye loose your schools to flout them till their brow-beat columns melt? Will ye pray them or preach them, or print them, or ballot them back from your shore? Will your workmen issue a mandate to bid them strike no more? Will ye rise and dethrone your rulers? (Because ye were idle both? Pride by Insolence chastened? Indolence purged by Sloth?) No doubt but ye are the People; who shall make you afraid? Also your gods are many; no doubt but your gods shall aid. Idols of greasy altars built for the body’s ease; Proud little brazen Baals and talking fetishes; Teraphs of sept and party and wise wood-pavement gods— These shall come down to the battle and snatch you from under the rods? From the gusty, flickering gun-roll with viewless salvoes rent, And the pitted hail of the bullets that tell not whence they were sent. When ye are ringed as with iron, when ye are scourged as with whips, When the meat is yet in your belly, and the boast is yet on your lips; When ye go forth at morning and the noon beholds you broke, Ere ye lie down at even, your remnant, under the yoke? No doubt but ye are the People—absolute, strong, and wise; Whatever your heart has desired ye have not withheld from your eyes. On your own heads, in your own han... 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Hushed are the whimpering winds on the hill, Dumb is the shrinking plain, And the songs that enchanted the woods are still As I shoot to the skies again! Does the blood grow black on my fierce bent beak, Does the down still cling to my claw? Who brightened these eyes for the prey they seek? Life, I follow thy law! For I am the hawk, the hawk, the hawk! Who knoweth my pitiless breast? Who watcheth me sway in the wild wind’s way? Flee– flee– for I quest, I quest. As I glide and glide with my peering head, Or swerve at a puff of smoke, Who watcheth my wings on the wind outspread, Here– gone– with an instant stroke? Who toucheth the glory of life I feel As I buffet this great glad gale, Spire and spire to the cloud-world, wheel, Loosen my wings and sail? For I am the hawk, the island hawk, Who knoweth my pitiless breast? Who watcheth me sway in the sun’s bright way? Flee– flee– for I quest, I quest. My mate in the nest on the high bright tree Blazing with dawn and dew, She knoweth the gleam of the world and the glee As I drop like a bolt from the blue. She knoweth the fire of the level flight As I skim, close, close to the ground, With the long grass lashing my breast and the bright Dew-drops flashing around. She watcheth the hawk, the hawk, the hawk (Oh, the red-blotched eggs in the nest!) Watcheth him sway in the sun’s bright way. Flee– flee– for I quest, I quest. She builded her nest on the high bright wold, She was taught in a world afar The lore that is only an April old Yet old as the evening star. Life of a far off ancient day In an hour unhooded her eyes. In the time of the budding of one green spray She was wise as the stars are wise. An eyas in eyry, a yellow-eyed hawk, On the old elm’s burgeoning breast, She watcheth me sway in the wild wind’s way. Flee– flee– for I quest, I quest. She hath ridden on white Arabian steeds Thro’ the ringing English dells, For the joy of a great queen, hunting in state, To the music of golden bells. A queen’s fair fingers have drawn the hood And tossed her aloft in the blue, A white hand eager for needless blood. I hunt for the needs of two. A haggard in yarak, a hawk, a hawk! Who knoweth my pitiless breast? Who watcheth me sway in the sun’s bright way? Flee– flee– for I quest, I quest. Who fashioned her wide and splendid eyes That have stared in the eyes of kings? With a silken twist she was looped to their wrist: She has clawed at their jewelled rings! Who flung her first thro’ the crimson dawn To pluck him a prey from the skies, When the love-light shone upon lake and lawn In the valleys of Paradise? Who fashioned the hawk, the hawk, the hawk, Bent beak and pitiless breast? Who watcheth him sway in the wild wind’s way? Flee– flee– for I quest, I quest. Is there ever a song in all the world Shall say how the quest began With the beak and the wings that have made us kings And cruel– almost– as man? The wild wind whimpers across the heath Where the sad little tufts of blue And the red-stained grey little feathers of death Flutter! Who fashioned us? Who? Who fashioned the scimitar wings of the hawk, Bent beak and arrowy breast? Who watcheth him sway in the sun’s bright way? Flee– flee– for I quest, I quest.... Associate Producer Membership Required You must be a Associate Producer member to access this content.Join NowAlready a member? Log in here

From Clee to heaven the beacon burns, The shires have seen it plain, From north and south the sign returns And beacons burn again. Look left, look right, the hills are bright, The dales are light between, Because ’tis fifty years to-night That God has saved the Queen. Now, when the flame they watch not towers About the soil they trod, Lads, we’ll remember friends of ours Who shared the work with God. To skies that knit their heartstrings right, To fields that bred them brave, The saviours come not home to-night: Themselves they could not save. It dawns in Asia, tombstones show And Shropshire names are read; And the Nile spills his overflow Beside the Severn’s dead. We pledge in peace by farm and town The Queen they served in war, And fire the beacons up and down The land they perished for. “God save the Queen” we living sing, From height to height ’tis heard; And with the rest your voices ring, Lads of the Fifty-third. Oh, God will save her, fear you not: Be you the men you’ve been, Get you the sons your fathers got, And God will save the Queen.... Associate Producer Membership Required You must be a Associate Producer member to access this content.Join NowAlready a member? Log in here

” Britons, proceed, the subject Deep command, Awe with your navies every hostile land.   In vain their threats, their armies all in vain: They rule the balanc’d world, who rule the main.“… Below is the final scene of the opera, the dramatic scene bookmarks the singing of the Ode Rule Britannia so reveals some great context. English King, Alfred the Great has just won a great battle, and returns to the island village of Athelneu: his hiding place, and the makeshift fortress from which he staged his resistance war against the great heathen Danish army… …VILLAGE OF ATHELNEY  CORIN, EMMA, kneeling to ALFRED.  ALFRED.  Rise, my honest shepherd.   I came to thee a peasant, not a prince:   And, what exalts a king o’er other men,   Stript of the toys of royalty? Yet more,   Thy rural entertainment was sincere,   Plain, hospitable, kind: such as, I hope,   Will ever mark the manners of this nation. You friendly lodg’d me, when by all deserted: And shall have ample recompense. CORIN.   One boon,Is all I crave.   ALFRED.   Good shepherd, speak thy wish.  CORIN.   Permission, in your wars, to serve your Grace: For tho here lost in solitary shades,   A simple swain, I bear an English heart:   A heart that burns with rage to see those Danes, Those foreign  ruffians, those inhuman pirates, Oft our inferiors prov’d, thus lord it o’er us.  ALFRED.  Brave countryman, come on. ‘Tis such as thou, Who from   affection serve, and free-born zeal, To guard whate’er is dear   and sacred to them, That are a king’s best honor and defence.  EMMA sings the following song: 1. If those, who live in shepherd’s bower,  Press not the rich and stately bed:   The new-mown hay and breathing flower  A softer couch beneath them spread.   2. If those, who sit at shepherd’s board,  Soothe not their taste by wanton art;  hey take what Nature’s gifts afford,  And take it with a chearful heart.  3. If those, who drain the shepherd’s bowl,  No high and sparkling wines can boast;  With wholesome cups they chear the soul,  And crown them with the village toast.  4. If those, who join in shepherd’s sport,  Gay-dancing on the daizy’d ground,  Have not the splendor of a court;  Yet Love adorns the merry round.  END BACK TO SCENE: ALFRED.  My lov’d ELTRUDA! thou shalt here remain, With gentle EMMA, and this reverend Hermit. Ye silver streams, that murmuring wind around This dusky spot, to you I trust my all!   O close around her, woods! for her, ye vales, Throw forth your flowers, your softest lap diffuse!  And Thou! whose secret and expansive hand Moves all the springs of this vast universe: Whose government astonishes; who here,   In a few hours, beyond our utmost hope,   Beyond our thought, yet doubting, hast clear’d up The storm   of fate: preserve what thy kind will, Thy bountiful   appointment, makes so dear   To human hearts! preserve my queen and children! Preserve   the hopes of England! while I go   To finish thy great work, and save my country.   ELTRUDA.  Go, pay the debt of honor to the public.   If ever woman, ALFRED, lov’d her husband More fondly than herself, I claim that virtue, That heart-felt happiness. Yet, by our loves   I swear, that in a glorious death with thee   I rather would be wrapt, than live long years To charm thee from the rugged paths of honor: So much I think thee born for beauteous deeds, And the bright course of glory.   ALFRED. Matchless woman!   Love, at thy voice, is kindled to ambition. Be this my dearest triumph, to approve me A husband worthy of the best ELTRUDA!  HERMIT.   Behold, my Lord, our venerable Bard,  Aged and blind, him whom the Muses favour.   Yet ere you go, in our lov’d country’s praise,   That noblest theme, hear what his rapture breathes:   CUE. AN ODE:  RULE BRITANNIA  1. When Britain first, at heaven’s command,  Arose from out the azure main;   This was the charter of the land,   And guardian Angels sung this strain:  “Rule Britannia, rule the waves;   “Britons never will be slaves.”  2. The nations, not so blest as thee,   Must, in their turns, to tyrants fall:  While thou shalt flourish great and free,  The dread and envy of them all.   “Rule, Britannia, rule the waves:  “Britons never will be slaves.   3. Still more majestic shalt thou rise,   More dreadful, from each foreign stroke:  As the loud blast that tears the skies,  Serves but to root thy native oak.   “Rule, Britannia, rule the waves:  “Britons never will be slaves.  4. Thee haughty tyrants ne’er shall tame:  All their attempts to bend thee down,  Will but arrouse thy generous flame;  But work their woe, and thy renown.  “Rule, Britannia, rule the waves:  “Britons never will be slaves.  5. To thee belongs the rural reign;   Thy cities shall with commerce shine:  All thine shall be the subject main,  And every shore it circles thine.   “Rule, Britannia, rule the waves:  “Britons never will be slaves.   6.  The Muses, still with freedom found,  Shall to thy happy coast repair:   Blest isle! with matchless beauty crown’d,  And manly hearts to guard the fair.  “Rule, Britannia, rule the waves:  “Britons never will be slaves.  END BACK TO SCENE: HERMIT.  ALFRED, go forth! lead on the radiant years, To thee reveal’d in vision.—Lo! they rise! Lo! patriots, heroes, sages, croud to birth: And bards to sing them in immortal verse!  I see thy commerce, Britain, grasp the world: All nations serve thee; every foreign flood, Subjected, pays its tribute to the Thames. Thither the golden South obedient pours  His sunny treasures: thither the soft East  Her spices, delicacies, gentle gifts:  And thither his rough trade the stormy North. See, where beyond the vast Atlantic surge, By boldest keels untouch’d, a dreadful space!  Shores, yet unfound, arise! in youthful prime, With towering forests, mighty rivers crown’d! These stoop to Britain‘s thunder. This new world, Shook to its centre, trembles at her name:  And there, her sons, with aim exalted, sow The seeds of rising empire, arts, and arms.  Britons, proceed, the subject Deep command, Awe with your navies every hostile land.   In vain their threats, their armies all in vain: They rule the balanc’d world, who rule the main. The END. ... Associate Producer Membership Required You must be a Associate Producer member to access this content.Join NowAlready a member? Log in here

“According to the ancient and laudable custom of the schools, I, as one of your wandering scholars returned, have been instructed to speak to you. The only penalty youth must pay for its enviable privileges is that of listening to people known, alas, to be older and alleged to be wiser. On such occasions youth feigns an air of polite interest and reverence, while age tries to look virtuous. Which pretences sit uneasily on both of them. On such occasions very little truth is spoken. I will try not to depart from the convention. I will not tell you how the sins of youth are due very largely to its virtues; how its arrogance is very often the result of its innate shyness; how its brutality is the outcome of its natural virginity of spirit. These things are true, but your preceptors might object to such texts without the proper notes and emendations. But I can try to speak to you more or less truthfully on certain matters to which you may give the attention and belief proper to your years. When, to use a detestable phrase, you go out into “the battle of life,” you will be confronted by an organized conspiracy which will try to make you believe that the world is governed by the idea of wealth for wealth’s sake, and that all means which lead to the acquisition of that wealth are, if not laudable, at least expedient. Those of you who have fitly imbibed the spirit of our university—and it was not a materialistic university which trained a scholar to take both the Craven and the Ireland in England—will violently resent that thought, but you will live and eat and move and have your being in a world dominated by that thought. Some of you will probably succumb to the poison of it. Now, I do not ask you not to be carried away by the first rush of the great game of life. That is expecting you to be more than human. But I do ask you, after the first heat of the game, that you draw breath and watch your fellows for a while. Sooner or later, you will see some man to whom the idea of wealth as mere wealth does not appeal, whom the methods of amassing that wealth do not interest, and who will not accept money if you offer it to him at a certain price. At first you will be inclined to laugh at this man, and to think that he is not “smart” in his ideas. I suggest that you watch him closely, for he will presently demonstrate to you that money dominates everybody except the man who does not want money. You may meet that man on your farm, in your village, or in your legislature. But be sure that, whenever or wherever you meet him, as soon as it comes to a direct issue between you, his little finger will be thicker than your loins. You will go in fear of him; he will not go in fear of you. You will do what he wants; he will not do what you want. You will find that you have no weapon in your armoury with which you can attack him, no argument with which you can appeal to him. Whatever you gain, he will gain more. I would like you to study that man. I would like you better to be that man, because from the lower point of view it doesn’t pay to be obsessed by the desire of wealth for wealth’s sake. If more wealth is necessary to you, for purposes not your own, use your left hand to acquire it, but keep your right for your proper work in life. If you employ both arms in that game, you will be in danger of stooping, in danger also of losing your soul. But in spite of everything you may succeed, you may be successful, you may acquire enormous wealth. In which case I warn you that you stand in grave danger of being spoken and written of and pointed out as “a smart man.” And that is one of the most terrible calamities that can overtake a sane, civilised man today. They say youth is the season of hope, ambition, and uplift—that the last word youth needs is an exhortation to be cheerful. Some of you here know—and I remember—that youth can be a season of great depression, despondencies, doubts, and waverings, the worse because they seem to be peculiar to ourselves and incommunicable to our fellows. There is a certain darkness into which the soul of the young man sometimes descends—a horror of desolation, abandonment, and realized worthlessness, which is one of the most real of the hells in which we are compelled to walk. I know of what I speak. This is due to a variety of causes, the chief of which is the egotism of the human animal itself. But I can tell you for your comfort that the chief cure for it is to interest yourself, to lose yourself in some issue not personal to yourself—in another man’s trouble or, preferably, another man’s joy. But, if the dark hour does not vanish, as sometimes it doesn’t, if the black cloud will not lift, as sometimes it will not, let me tell you again for your comfort that there are many liars in the world, but there are no liars like our own sensations. The despair and the horror mean nothing, because there is for you nothing irremediable, nothing ineffaceable, nothing irrecoverable in anything you may have said or thought or done. If, for any reason, you cannot believe or have not been taught to believe in the infinite mercy of Heaven, which has made us all, and will take care we do not go far astray, at least believe that you are not yet sufficiently important to be taken too seriously by the Powers above us or beneath us. In other words, take anything and everything seriously except yourselves. I regret that I noticed certain signs of irreverent laughter when I alluded to the word “smartness.” I have no message to deliver, but, if I had a message to deliver to a University which I love, to the young men who have the future of their country to mould, I would say with all the force at my command, Do not be “smart.” If I were not a doctor of this University with a deep interest in its discipline, and if I did not hold the strongest views on that reprehensible form of amusement known as “rushing,” I would say that, whenever and wherever you find one of your dear little playmates showing signs of smartness in his work, his talk, or his play, take him tenderly by the hand—by both hands, by the back of the neck if necessary—and lovingly, playfully, but firmly, lead him to a knowledge of higher and more interesting things.”... Associate Producer Membership Required You must be a Associate Producer member to access this content.Join NowAlready a member? Log in here

1. The wind bloweth where it listeth, and after the same manner in every country. Be not puffed up with a breath (of it) 2. Of a portion set aside a portion or ever the days come when thou shalt see there is no work in them 3. For he that hath not must serve him that hath; even to the peril of the soul 4. Take the wage for thy work in silver and (it may be) gold; but accept not honours nor any great gifts 5. Is ye ox yoked till men have need of him; or the camel belled while yet she is free? And wouldst thou be eved with these? 6. Pledge no writing till it is written; and seek not payment on (any) account the matter shall be remembered against thee.” 7. There is a generation which selleth dung in the street and saith: “To the pure all things are pure.” 8. But count (thou) on the one hand how may be so minded; and after write according to thy knowledge. 9. Because not all evil beareth fruit in a day; and it may be some shall curse thy grave for the iniquity of thy works in their youth 10. The fool brayeth in his heart there is no God; therefore his imaginings are terribly returned on him; and that without interpreter 11. Get skill, and when thou has it, forget; lest the bird on her nest mock thee, and He that is Highest look down 12. Get knowledge; it shall not burst thee; and amass under thy hand a peculiar treasure of words: 13. As a King heapeth him jewels to bestow or cast aside; or being alone in his palace, fortifieth himself beholding (them). 14. So near as thou canst, open not thy whole mind to any man. 15. The bounds of his craft are appointed to each from of old; they shall not be known to the cup-mates or the companions “16. For three things my heart is disquieted; and for four that I cannot bear: 17. For a woman who esteemeth ”“herself a man; and a man that delighteth in her company; 18. For people whose young men are cut off by the sword; and for the soul that regardeth not these things. 19. In three things, yea and in four, is the metal of the workman made plain: 20. In excessive labour; in continual sloth; in long waiting; and in the day of triumph. 21. There is one glory of the sun and another of the moon and a third of the stars: yet are all these appointed for the glory of the earth which alone hath no light. 22. Hold not back (any) part of a price. 23. Despise no man even in thy heart; for the custom of it shall make thy works of none effect 24. Use not overmuch to frequent the schools of the scribes; for idols are there and (all) the paths return upon themselves. 25. Envy no man’s work nor deliver judgement upon it in the gate, for the end is bitterness. 26. Consider now those blind worms of the deep which fence themselves about as it were with stone against their fellows; 27. And reaching the intolerable light of the sun straightway[…]” “ sun straightway perish leaving but their tombs; 28. By those whose mere multitude the sea is presently stayed; the tide itself divideth at that place. 29. Small waves after storm laying there seeds, nuts and the bodies of fish, (at last) an island ariseth crowned with palms; thither the sea-birds repair. 30. Till man coming taketh all to his use and hath no memory of aught below (his feet) 31. Out of the dust which had life come all things and shalt thou be other than they? 32. Nevertheless, my son, dare thou greatly to believe.... Associate Producer Membership Required You must be a Associate Producer member to access this content.Join NowAlready a member? Log in here

Why do they prate of the blessings of peace? we have made them a curse, Pickpockets, each hand lusting for all that is not its own; And lust of gain, in the spirit of Cain, is it better or worse Than the heart of the citizen hissing in war on his own heath-stone? But these are the days of advance, the works of the men of mind, When who but a fool would have faith in a tradesman’s ware or his word? Is it peace or war? Civil war, as I think, and that of a kind The viler, as underhand, not openly bearing the sword. Sooner or later I too may passively take the print Of the golden age – why not? I have neither hope nor thurst; May make my heart as a millstone, set my face as a flint, Cheat and be cheated, and die – who knows? We are ashes and dust. Peace singing under her olive, and slurring the days gone by, When the poor are hovell’d and hustled together, each sex, like swine, When only the ledger, lives and when only not all men lie; Peace in her vineyard – yes! – but a company forges the wine. And the vitriol madness flushes up in the ruffian’s head, Till he filthy by-lane rings to the yell of the trampled wife, And chalk and alum and plaster are sold to the poor for bread And the spirit of murder works in the very means of life.... Associate Producer Membership Required You must be a Associate Producer member to access this content.Join NowAlready a member? Log in here