Mare aeternis!
In the night, flashes of lightning illumining your moving acres,
Sky-thunder answering sea-thunder,
Sky and sea wrestling in a broken blackness ...
The whistling of the wind in the teeth of the night ...
Slash of the rain and the crackling of the broom and grass on the sand-dunes ...
All life seeks cover: the bird to his nest, the nestling to the brooding wing,
And inland beasts to their lairs ...
Mare aeternis! Intolerable power,
Trampling destructiveness,
Shattering energy ...
Between such forces who can stand and walk?
Who can survive between such a sea and such a sky?
Yet I see a lantern on the shore,
I see staggering yellow light on oilskin, the double motion of legs,
Flap of a coat about a button, a halo of slanting rain around the swinging lantern ...
It is the solitary walking by the sea,
It is the solitary stooping now and then to study the crooked tide-lines, the debris and driftage when a billow pulls back,
It is the solitary battling against the risen outstretched combers and their devouring mouths,
Battling against the loosed skies and the lightning, wading his way through a double thunder ...
Seaward the lightning reveals a swirling quadrangle of the deep,
And the solitary looking, feels his heart tighten and become a knot. . . .
Are those human heads and slippery naked human bodies struggling among the white-caps?
Is the sea-water blood, reddening round them? Is it their own blood reddens the sea?
Look, with sharp blades they are stabbing and hacking at each other ...
The sheeted lightning fails, burying the mêlee in blackness ...
" Humanity! humanity! " cries the solitary ...
" O you, my flesh, flesh of the adoration and the dream of brotherhood and of love,
Flesh of the infinite clear and quiet reason,
Flesh of the music of the isles of Greece,
Flesh of the coming of the Christ,
Flesh dedicated to divine vision,
Are you madness and murder and ravening bestiality?
What is in the heart of man, what is in his soul?
What sky-terror? what sea-horror?
What snake's venom does a man spit? and what dragon's fire?
You sons of God, is your mother the earthquake and the avalanche?
" Mare aeternis! I know now what song your storm is singing;
What hymn of hate yells in the gale and the roaring swale and the thundering sky ...
I know now your love of the suffering and anguish of others,
Your tiger-love of enemies,
You who knew how to invent racks and cannons and vapors of dense poison and spirits of body-smothering flame ... "
And as the solitary cried out, a mob in a breaker broke about him,
And with loud shouts they ringed him toward the sea ...
He did not fight them: he fought a beast that suddenly reared out of his own depths,
And the billow fell away ...
But one shouted from the sea-fringe ...
" Who are you, traitor, who stand aside from the battle? "
" What have I to do with the battle? " asked the solitary ...
" If you are not with us, " cried the other, " you are with the enemy! "
" Neither with the enemy, nor with you, " the solitary answered ...
" Are you not a human being? " the other cried. " And are you not of our nation?
And is not the voice of the people the voice of God? "
" Yes, " answered the solitary, " the voice of the people is the voice of God,
And it is also the voice of the Devil ... "
The night dragged away the questioner: but the solitary was troubled ...
He stooped and read the crooked writing in the sand ...
And he read: " Obey the law of your being ...
Obey the law of sea and self in your own soul ...
Accept your destiny ...
Neither resist them nor obey them: they know not what they do ...
Evade, and go on " ...
Under the cover of the storm, the solitary, muffling his lantern, picked his way ...
And he mused:
" When shall the voice of the people be voices , and these voices, neither God nor devil, but human?
When shall the cause cease to be a sacred cause, and one's friends cease to be saints and one's enemies Satans?
When shall humanity cease to be a sea, an energy of nature, a clash of opposites, and become human?
When shall a man cease to walk in the steps of his gods and half-gods
And walk in his own steps?
When shall men cease from violence against others and turn the battle against the evil in themselves?
Do they not know that the evil they bayonet is an evil within them?
And when shall they cease from demanding that the free return to their bondage? "
" Yea, " mused the solitary,
" The deep sea and I are in league.
How then can I obey the surface sea of humanity which is but the froth, toy and slave of the deep sea?
Whom have I harmed? whom have I opposed?
Why are they jealous of me? why do they destroy the strong and those who refuse to be bound with their bondage?
What do they fear at the hands of free men? Are they not shouting for freedom all the time?
They cry: " We must be free"; but if anyone becomes free, they put him in chains and thrust him in jail ...
Not freedom they seek: but power ...
The sea wants power and sensual sultry nights,
And noise, and motion, and bondage, and abandon ...
The sea loves the taste of many things
But loves nothing so much as the taste of human blood " ...
The solitary went plunging through the night,
And the great storm reeled about him,
By lightning-illumination he saw terrible sights,
Visions of the deep that wrung his heart and blinded him with angry tears ...
He saw a crumbling acre of skinny wretches, a toss of beseeching hands, and heard the animal cry of hunger,
Starving children floated dying on the sliding foam,
Wailing mothers crouched over babies and the waves washed them apart,
The cruel lightning slashed down among them, the tide boiled with blood ...
And darkness carried their sorrow afar ...
And he saw an acre of wild gayety, a dance of Dionysian fury in the sea,
Eerie phosphorescence over the combers' crests, and the naked passion of men and women,
And a laughter more horrible than the wail of hunger in that sea of blood ...
And he saw at one place two lovers quarrelling,
And each was trying to win back the soul he had lost in the other,
For their love was a living each of the other's life,
And now each hated the other because he had lost his own freedom,
And since each soul was in the other each stab they gave stabbed only themselves ...
Their hate was perfect, for their love was great ...
And in that scene the solitary seemed to see the whole struggle of humanity ...
And he saw many other sights, and some of surpassing beauty,
Sudden glimpses so tenderly beautiful that pity softened him ...
The friend who took his friend's place in guilt and died for him ...
The worn mother smiling with devout joy over the triumph of her son,
The unspoiled magic of first love, a boy and a girl shy and reverent before each other ...
The lonely scientist giving up all things to cure a malign disease ...
Joyous singers, innocent children, teachers patient with the young ...
Much of wonder, pity and sweetness ... moon-glimpses in a thunderstorm ...
And the solitary thought: " Surely I cannot walk apart from all this ...
Surely I am flesh of this flesh ...
How can I go on in loneliness on the shore when the deep is a cry and a question and a beseeching of hands?
My folk is caught in the sea-nets, struggling, blind and in darkness ...
Their terror and ecstasy are here — not on some distant planet —
And I am here ... What can I do? what is my portion of the guilt and glory? "
He held his lantern to the crooked tide-lines,
And he read:
" The fruit ripens, and when it is ripened it falls,
And the animals eat of it
Green fruit is no gift to hungry mouths — but only the ripened and mellow fruit ... "
Walking on, he pondered the riddle ...
" Can it mean, " he mused, " that when I am ripe, I too shall be a gift?
It is true I have nothing to give to mankind but myself ...
Myself through my works ...
Must I let my works ripen in me, and when they are ripe, let them drop?
I live through the gifts of the sea — I should die this instant if humanity withheld its service, its dreams, its comradeship ...
Then I must give back all of myself ... give back love and understanding and comradeship and the day's work,
Yea, and the life-work ...
" And I understand, " he cried at last ...
" To ripen, I must grow by my own law,
Even as an apple grows by its own law ...
Hence, I go against others only when they demand that I follow their law;
I must resist such violence, and hold to my way ...
Only thus may I become a gift to the folk ...
But if I join with this group and that, if I enter their set wars, and their sea of passions,
Then growth is warped by that which is beyond the human,
Then again I am only water in water, a helpless wave of the sea ...
The free soul must give himself
But himself can only emerge and be born when he comes out of other selves,
When he obeys, not others, but himself ... "
In the night, flashes of lightning illumining your moving acres,
Sky-thunder answering sea-thunder,
Sky and sea wrestling in a broken blackness ...
The whistling of the wind in the teeth of the night ...
Slash of the rain and the crackling of the broom and grass on the sand-dunes ...
All life seeks cover: the bird to his nest, the nestling to the brooding wing,
And inland beasts to their lairs ...
Mare aeternis! Intolerable power,
Trampling destructiveness,
Shattering energy ...
Between such forces who can stand and walk?
Who can survive between such a sea and such a sky?
Yet I see a lantern on the shore,
I see staggering yellow light on oilskin, the double motion of legs,
Flap of a coat about a button, a halo of slanting rain around the swinging lantern ...
It is the solitary walking by the sea,
It is the solitary stooping now and then to study the crooked tide-lines, the debris and driftage when a billow pulls back,
It is the solitary battling against the risen outstretched combers and their devouring mouths,
Battling against the loosed skies and the lightning, wading his way through a double thunder ...
Seaward the lightning reveals a swirling quadrangle of the deep,
And the solitary looking, feels his heart tighten and become a knot. . . .
Are those human heads and slippery naked human bodies struggling among the white-caps?
Is the sea-water blood, reddening round them? Is it their own blood reddens the sea?
Look, with sharp blades they are stabbing and hacking at each other ...
The sheeted lightning fails, burying the mêlee in blackness ...
" Humanity! humanity! " cries the solitary ...
" O you, my flesh, flesh of the adoration and the dream of brotherhood and of love,
Flesh of the infinite clear and quiet reason,
Flesh of the music of the isles of Greece,
Flesh of the coming of the Christ,
Flesh dedicated to divine vision,
Are you madness and murder and ravening bestiality?
What is in the heart of man, what is in his soul?
What sky-terror? what sea-horror?
What snake's venom does a man spit? and what dragon's fire?
You sons of God, is your mother the earthquake and the avalanche?
" Mare aeternis! I know now what song your storm is singing;
What hymn of hate yells in the gale and the roaring swale and the thundering sky ...
I know now your love of the suffering and anguish of others,
Your tiger-love of enemies,
You who knew how to invent racks and cannons and vapors of dense poison and spirits of body-smothering flame ... "
And as the solitary cried out, a mob in a breaker broke about him,
And with loud shouts they ringed him toward the sea ...
He did not fight them: he fought a beast that suddenly reared out of his own depths,
And the billow fell away ...
But one shouted from the sea-fringe ...
" Who are you, traitor, who stand aside from the battle? "
" What have I to do with the battle? " asked the solitary ...
" If you are not with us, " cried the other, " you are with the enemy! "
" Neither with the enemy, nor with you, " the solitary answered ...
" Are you not a human being? " the other cried. " And are you not of our nation?
And is not the voice of the people the voice of God? "
" Yes, " answered the solitary, " the voice of the people is the voice of God,
And it is also the voice of the Devil ... "
The night dragged away the questioner: but the solitary was troubled ...
He stooped and read the crooked writing in the sand ...
And he read: " Obey the law of your being ...
Obey the law of sea and self in your own soul ...
Accept your destiny ...
Neither resist them nor obey them: they know not what they do ...
Evade, and go on " ...
Under the cover of the storm, the solitary, muffling his lantern, picked his way ...
And he mused:
" When shall the voice of the people be voices , and these voices, neither God nor devil, but human?
When shall the cause cease to be a sacred cause, and one's friends cease to be saints and one's enemies Satans?
When shall humanity cease to be a sea, an energy of nature, a clash of opposites, and become human?
When shall a man cease to walk in the steps of his gods and half-gods
And walk in his own steps?
When shall men cease from violence against others and turn the battle against the evil in themselves?
Do they not know that the evil they bayonet is an evil within them?
And when shall they cease from demanding that the free return to their bondage? "
" Yea, " mused the solitary,
" The deep sea and I are in league.
How then can I obey the surface sea of humanity which is but the froth, toy and slave of the deep sea?
Whom have I harmed? whom have I opposed?
Why are they jealous of me? why do they destroy the strong and those who refuse to be bound with their bondage?
What do they fear at the hands of free men? Are they not shouting for freedom all the time?
They cry: " We must be free"; but if anyone becomes free, they put him in chains and thrust him in jail ...
Not freedom they seek: but power ...
The sea wants power and sensual sultry nights,
And noise, and motion, and bondage, and abandon ...
The sea loves the taste of many things
But loves nothing so much as the taste of human blood " ...
The solitary went plunging through the night,
And the great storm reeled about him,
By lightning-illumination he saw terrible sights,
Visions of the deep that wrung his heart and blinded him with angry tears ...
He saw a crumbling acre of skinny wretches, a toss of beseeching hands, and heard the animal cry of hunger,
Starving children floated dying on the sliding foam,
Wailing mothers crouched over babies and the waves washed them apart,
The cruel lightning slashed down among them, the tide boiled with blood ...
And darkness carried their sorrow afar ...
And he saw an acre of wild gayety, a dance of Dionysian fury in the sea,
Eerie phosphorescence over the combers' crests, and the naked passion of men and women,
And a laughter more horrible than the wail of hunger in that sea of blood ...
And he saw at one place two lovers quarrelling,
And each was trying to win back the soul he had lost in the other,
For their love was a living each of the other's life,
And now each hated the other because he had lost his own freedom,
And since each soul was in the other each stab they gave stabbed only themselves ...
Their hate was perfect, for their love was great ...
And in that scene the solitary seemed to see the whole struggle of humanity ...
And he saw many other sights, and some of surpassing beauty,
Sudden glimpses so tenderly beautiful that pity softened him ...
The friend who took his friend's place in guilt and died for him ...
The worn mother smiling with devout joy over the triumph of her son,
The unspoiled magic of first love, a boy and a girl shy and reverent before each other ...
The lonely scientist giving up all things to cure a malign disease ...
Joyous singers, innocent children, teachers patient with the young ...
Much of wonder, pity and sweetness ... moon-glimpses in a thunderstorm ...
And the solitary thought: " Surely I cannot walk apart from all this ...
Surely I am flesh of this flesh ...
How can I go on in loneliness on the shore when the deep is a cry and a question and a beseeching of hands?
My folk is caught in the sea-nets, struggling, blind and in darkness ...
Their terror and ecstasy are here — not on some distant planet —
And I am here ... What can I do? what is my portion of the guilt and glory? "
He held his lantern to the crooked tide-lines,
And he read:
" The fruit ripens, and when it is ripened it falls,
And the animals eat of it
Green fruit is no gift to hungry mouths — but only the ripened and mellow fruit ... "
Walking on, he pondered the riddle ...
" Can it mean, " he mused, " that when I am ripe, I too shall be a gift?
It is true I have nothing to give to mankind but myself ...
Myself through my works ...
Must I let my works ripen in me, and when they are ripe, let them drop?
I live through the gifts of the sea — I should die this instant if humanity withheld its service, its dreams, its comradeship ...
Then I must give back all of myself ... give back love and understanding and comradeship and the day's work,
Yea, and the life-work ...
" And I understand, " he cried at last ...
" To ripen, I must grow by my own law,
Even as an apple grows by its own law ...
Hence, I go against others only when they demand that I follow their law;
I must resist such violence, and hold to my way ...
Only thus may I become a gift to the folk ...
But if I join with this group and that, if I enter their set wars, and their sea of passions,
Then growth is warped by that which is beyond the human,
Then again I am only water in water, a helpless wave of the sea ...
The free soul must give himself
But himself can only emerge and be born when he comes out of other selves,
When he obeys, not others, but himself ... "
Reviews
No reviews yet.