To a Socialist in London

Novethical system, no contemplation or action,No reason'd attitude of mind nor principle of faith,Neither Sōcratical wisdom nor saintly devotion,Buildeth a fortress against heart-ache & compassionate grief,Nor responds to desire, nor with true mastery yieldethEasy repose to the mind; And since all our study endethEmptily in full doubt,--fathoming the divine intentionIn this one thing alone, that, howsōe'er it affect us,'Twas never intended for mortal fancy to compass,--Ivhave concluded that from first purposes unknownNone should seek to deduce idēal laws to be liv'd by;And, loving art, am true to the Muse, & pōetry extol:Therefore 'twas that afore I prais'd & heartily enjoy'dYour human verses, FRASER, when nobody bought them,More than again I praise those serious exhortations,Wherewith you wu'd amend the degraded people about you.Nay tho' like a prophet with heav'n-sent dignity inspir'd,With ready convincement and stern example assuring,Mightily you proclaim your love-messag' in the assembly,Exhibiting panacēas of ancient ill, propagatingOut of a Scotch cerebrum the reforming zeal of a TOLSTOI,I listen all unmov'd, as a sceptic among the believers.Yet what a charm has an earnest soul, whom sympathy unchecktFor human suffering has strengthen'd and dedicatedBravely to serve his kind, to renounce his natural instinct,And liv' apart, indulging in acts of mercy, delightedIn wisdom's rock-hewn citadelvher law to illustrate,Embodying the pattern of self-integrity complete.Yea, what a charm pervades discourse, that loftily reason'dPoints the narrow pathway throu' this world's ugly disorder;How very fair will appear any gate of cleanliness, openFrom the city's tumult, its rank impurity, its dreadVulgarity's triumph: Nay sure & bounteous as Truth,Beautiful in confusion appeareth Simplicity's way.--'Simple it is, (yóu say) God is good,--Nature is ample,--'Earth yields plenty for all,--and all might share in abundance,'Were profit and labour but fairly divided among them.'Scarce any laws are needed in our Utopia but these,--'No fruitless labour to provide mere useless adornment,'No money encouraging man's sloth & slavery, no rents'Of titeld landlords, no pamper'd luxury breeding'Fleshly disease, worst fiend & foe of mind body and soul;'All should work, and only produce life's only requirements:'So with days all halfholidays, toil healthfully enjoy'd,'Each might, throu' leisure hours of amusement pīety and peace,'In the domestic joys & holy community partake.--'--This wer' a downleveling, my friend; yoū need, to assure me,Fix a limit to the folk; else, as their number is increas't,Their happiness may dwindle away, & what was at outsetGoal & prize, the provoker of all your wise revolution,Will by subdivision disappear in course of atainment.When goods arevincreas'd, mouths arevincreas'd to devour them:If the famine be reliev'd this season in India, next dearthWill be a worse. Yoū know how one day Herschel acostedSúch a philanthropical Save-all, who claimed to acomplishSome greatest happiness for a greatest number; 'Attend, man;(Saíd-he) Resólve me anon one query: Suppose Adam and EveFirst crēated on Earth but twice ten centuries ere Christ,That they gat four children in all, who liv'd, getting alsoFour to the pair: Had thus mankind ever equaly increastBy moderate families but doubling in each generation,How many souls would now be alive to revise the conundrumOf greatest happiness? Novanswer? Well, 'tis a long sum.Say if on earth such a crowd could stand. No? Pray then imágineAll earth's land as a plain, & all this company thereon,Piled together like peas in a pintpot: How many layers?No guess? Then how high the column? How far wu'd it extendInto the sky?--To the moon?--Further--To the sun?--To the sun! Pshaw!That column of happy men would reach up, as I fathom its height,Million dīameters of Neptune's infinit' orbit.'Myvobjection annoys your kindly philanthropy?--'It proves'Too much.'--Yes nature shows in that scrutiny bankrupt;Mere matter in deposit gives out. Yóu wish to determineNo limit of future polities: your actual objectIs to relieve suffering, to repeal injustice acruingFrom monied inheritance, which makes a nonentity potentFor public mischief, who might, if usefully harness'dIn common employment, have assisted social order.Why should Law give fifty talents where Nature alloys one?For money is the talent of supreme empery: Gold, GoldEnvieth all, getteth all, absorbeth, mastereth all things:It pusheth out & thrusteth away pitilessly the weak ones,Those ill-fated, opprest, unfortun'd needy: Beneath themYawns the abyss. Down down they fall, as a stream on a mountain,With ceaseless cataract. None hearkeneth; only the silentGrave, that darkly devours their cry of desperate anguish.Spáre me the story; believe more feel this grief than avow it:'Tis put aside from thought with death's incurable evil;Left for them, that assume mankind as cause, to lament it.And what if all Nature ratify this merciless outrage?If her wonder of arch-wonders, her fair animal life,Her generate creatures, her motion'd warmblooded offspring,Haunters of the forest & royal country, her antler'dMild-gazers, that keep silvan sabbath idly without end;Her herded galopers, sleeksided stately careerersOf trembling nostril; her coy unapproachable estrays,Stealthy treaders, climbers; her leapers furry, lissom-limb'd;Her timorous burrowers, and grangers thrifty, the sandyPlaymates of the warren; her clumsy-footed, shaggy roamers;Her soarers, the feather'd fast-fliers, loftily floatingSky-sailers, exiles of high solitudinous eyries;Her perching carolers, twitterers, & sweetly singing birds;All ocean's finny clans, mute-mouthers, watery breathers,Furtive arrow-darters, and fan-tail'd easy balancers,Silvery-scale, gilt-head, thorn-back, frill'd harlequinadingGlobe and slimy ribbon: Shell-builders of many-chamber'dPearly dwellings, soft shapes mosslike or starry, adorningWith rich floral fancy the gay rock-garden of ebb-tide:All life, from the massive-bulkt, ivory-tusht, elephantineCentēnarian, acknowledging with crouching obeisanceMan's will, ev'n to the least petty whiffling ephemeral insect,Which in a hot sunbeam engend'ring, when summer is high,Vaunteth an hour his speck of tinsely gaudiness and dies:Ah! what if all & each of Nature's favorite offspring,'Mong many distinctions, have this portentous agreement,MOUTH, STOMACH, INTESTINE? Question that brute apparatus,So manifoldly devis'd, set alert with furious instinct:What doth it interpret but this, that LIFE LIVETH ON LIFE?That the select creatures, whovinherit earth's domination,Whose happy existence is Nature's intelligent smile,Are bloody survivors of a mortal combat, a-tweenwhilesChanting a brief pæan for victory on the battlefield?Since that of all their kinds most owe their prosperous estateUnto the art, whereby they more successfully destroy'dTheir weaker brethren, more insatiably devour'd them;And all fine qualities, their forms pictorial, admired,Their symmetries, their grace, & beauty, the loveliness of them,Were by Murder evolv'd, to 'scape from it or to effect it.'Surely again (yoū say) too much is proven, it argues'Mere horror & despair; unless persuasion avail us'That the moral virtues are man's idēa, awaken'd'By the spirit's motions; & therefore not to be conceiv'd'In Nature's outward & mainly material aspect,'As that is understood. You, since you hold that opinion,'Run your own ship aground invoking Nature against me.'--Then withdraw the appeal, my friend, to her active alīance;Bē pessimist Nature with a pitchfork manfully expell'd,Not to return. Yet soul in hand, with brutal alegiance,Hunters & warriors do not forget the comandment.See how lively the old animal continueth in them:Of what trifling account they hold life, yet what a practis'dArt pursue to preserve it: if I should rightly define sportSLAUGHTER WITH DANGER, what were more serious and brave?Their love of air, of strength, of wildness, afford us an inklingOf the delight of beasts, with whom they might innocentlyBoast a fellow-feeling, summoning them forth to the combat.Nay dream not so quickly to see her ladyship expell'd.Those prowling Līons of stony Kabylia, whose roarFrights from sleep the huddled herdsmen, soon as the sudden nightFalls on Mount Atlas, those grave uxorious outlawsWandering in the Somali desert or waste Kalahari,Sound a challenge that amid summer-idling London is answer'dHaply in Old Bond Street, where some fashionably attired youthDaintily stands poising the weapon foredoom'd to appay them:Orvhe mentally sighteth a tiger of India, that lowCrouches among the river jungles, or hunts desolatingGrassy Tarâi, 'neath lofty Himálya, or far southwardOutacamund, Mysore's residency, the Nilgherry mountainsBy Malabar; yea, and ere-long shall sight him in earnest,Stalked as a deer, surprised where hē lay slumbering at noonUnder a rock full-gorged, or deep in reedy covert hidBy the trackers disturbed: Two grand eyes shall for a momentGlare upon either side the muzzle. Woe then to the hunter,If hē blench! That fury beclouded in invisible speedWhat marksman could arrest? what mortal abide his arrachement?Standing above the immense carcase hē gratefully praisethGod for a man-eater so fine, so worthy the slaying.See him again; 'tis war: one hill-rock strongly defendedChecks advance, to be stormed at cost of half the assailants.Gaily away they go, Highlanders, English, or Irish,Or swart Ghoorkas against the leaden hail, climbing, ascending,Lost in a smoke, scattering, creeping, here there, ever upwards:Till some change cometh o'er confusion. Who winneth? ah! see!Ours have arrived, and he who led their bravery is there.None that heard will ever forget that far-echoing cheer:Such heard Nelson, above the crashings & thundering of guns:At Marathon 'twas heard and all time's story remembers.See him again, when at home visitingvhis episcopal uncle:That good priest contrast with this good captain, assay them:Find a common-measure equating their rival emotions;Ēvaporate the rubbish, the degrading pestiferous fussOf stuck-up importance, the palatial coterie, weigh outThen the solids: whose life would claim the award of an umpireFor greatest happiness? High-priest or soldier? Adjudge itBy their books: Let a child give sentence. Ev'n as a magnetTurns and points to the north, so children's obstinate insightFlies to the tale of war, hairbreadth scapes, daring achievements,Discoveries, conquests, the romance of history: these thingsWin them away from play to devour with greedy attentionTill they long to be men; while all that clerkly palaverTastes like wormwood.--'Avast! (I hear yoū calling) Avast there!I forbid the appeal.'--Well, style my humour atrocious;Granted a child cannot understand; yet see what a huge growthStands to be extermin'd, ere you can set dibble in ground.Nay, more yet; that mighty forest, whose wildness offends you,And silences appal, where earth-life self-suffocatingSeethes, lavish as sun-life in a red star's fi'ry corona;That waste magnificence, and vain fecundity, breedingGīants & parasites embrac'd in flowery tangle,Interwoven alive and dead, where one tyrannous treeBlights desolating around it a swamp of rank vegetation;Where Reason yet dreams unawakt, & throu' the solemn dayOnly the monkey chatters, & discordant the parrot screams:All this is in man's heart with dateless sympathy worshipt,With filial reverence, & awful pīeties involv'd;While that other picture, your formal fancy, the gardenOf your stingy promise, must that not quench his imágin'dIdēals of beauty, his angel hope of attainment?What to him are the level'd borders, the symmetric allotments,Where nothing exceedeth, nothing encroacheth, nor assaileth;Where Reason now drudgeth a sad monomaniac, all dayWatering & weeding, digging & diligently manuringHer label'd families, starch-makers, nitrogen-extract-Purveyors, classified potherbs & empty pretendersOf medical virtues; nay ev'n and their little impulseT'ward liberal fruiting disallow'd by stern regulation;So many beans to a pod, with so many pods to a beanstalk;Prun'd, pincht, economiz'd miserly til' all is abortion,Save in such specimens as, but for an extravagant care,Had miserably perish'd. What madness works to delude you,Bēing a man, that yoū see not mankind's predilectionIs for Magnificence, Force, Freedom, Bounty; his inbornLove for Beauty, his aim to possess, his pride to devise it:And from everlasting his heart is fixt with affectionsPrēengag'd to a few sovranly determinate objects,Toys of an ēternal distraction. Beautiful is GOLD,Clear as a trumpet-call, stirring where'er it appearethAll high pow'rs to battle; with mágisterial ardourGlowing among the metals, elemental drops of a fire-god'sLife-blood of old outpour'd in Chāos: Mágical alsoEV'RY recondite j[=ew]el of Earth, with their seraphim-names,RUBY, JACYNTH, EMERALD, AMETHYST, SAPPHIRE; amaranthineStarry essences, elect emblems of purity, heirloomsOf deathless glories, most like to divine imanences.Then that heart-gladdening highpriz'd ambrosia, blendingTheir dissolute purples & golds with sparkling aroma,That ruddy juice exprest from favour'd vintages, infus'dWith cosmic laughter, when upon some sécular epactBlandly the sun's old heart is stirr'd to a septennial smile,Causing strangefortun'd comfort to melancholy mortals:Friend to the flésh, if mind be fatigued; rallying to the sound mind,When succour is needed 'gainst fainting weariness of flesh;Shall Wine not be belov'd? Or now let Aristotle answerWhat goods are,--Time leaves the scholar's inventory unchang'd;--All Virtues & Pow'rs, Honour & Pleasure, all that in our lifeMakes us self-sufficient, Friends, Riches, Comeliness, and Strength;They thatvhave these things in plenty desire to retain them,And win more; while they that lack are pleas'd to desire them.Nay and since possession will leave the desire unappeasèd,Save in mere appetites that vary with our physical state,Surely delight in goods is an ecstasy rather attendantOn their mental image, than on experienc'd operation.So the shepherd envies the monarch, the monarch the shepherd's lot,--'O what a life were this, How sweet, how lovely!' the king cries.Whence, I say, as a man feels brave who reads of ACHILLES;One looking on riches may learn some kindred elation,And whatever notions of fortune, luxury, comfort,Genius or virtue, are shown to him, only as aspectsOf possible bēing, 'tis so much gain to desire them;Learning Magnificence in mean obscurity, tastingSomething of all those goods which Fate outwardly denies him.But say none shall again be king or prosperous or great,--Arguing 'all eminence is unequal, unequal is unjust',--Should that once come about, then alas for this merry England,Sunk in a grey monotone of drudgery, dreamily poringO'er her illumin'd page of history, faln to regretfulWorship of ancestors, with nought now left to delight her,Nought to attain, save one nurst hope, one ambition onlyRed Revolution, a wild Reawakening, & a Renaissance.Impatiently enough yoū hear me, longing to refute me,While Ivin privileg'd pulpit my period expand.Who could allow such a list of strange miscellaneous items,So-call'd goods, Strength, Ríches, Honour, Gold, Genius, and Wine?Is not Wisdom above Rubies? more than Coral or Pearl?Yours is a scheme deep-laid on true distinctive asortment,Parting use or good from useless or evil asunder;Dismissing accessories, while half my heathenish invoiceAre Vanity's vanities. Well; truly, as old SOLOMON said,So they be: What is excepted? What scapes his araignment?Is't Pleasure or Wisdom? Nay ask THEOLOGIA: Good-works,Saith-she, offend her nostril. If I distinguish, asserting,Say, that if Ivenjoyed my neighbour's excessive incomeI would hire me a string-quartett not an automaton car,You blame equally both our tastes for luxury, indeedHis shows more of a use. If man's propensity is vain,Vulgar, inane, unworthy; 'tis also vain to bewail it:Think you to change his skin? 'Twere scale by scale to regraft itWith purer traditions; and who shall amend the amenders?Nay let bé the bubbles, till man grow more solid in mind,Condemn not the follies: My neighbour's foolery were worse,Sat he agape listening to Mozart, intently desiringAll that time to be rattling alóng on a furious engineIn caoutchouc carapace, with a trail of damnable oilstench.Yea, blame not the pleasures; they are not enough; pleasure onlyMakes this life liveable: nor scout that doctrine as unsound:Consider if mankind from puling birth to bitter deathKnew nought but the sorrows, endured unrespited alwaysThose agonizing assaults which no flesh wholly can escape;Were his hunger a pang like his starvation, alievementThereof a worse torture, like that which full many die with;Did love burn his soul as fire his skin; did affectionsRend his will, as Turks rend men with horses asunder;Were his labour a breathless effort; his slumber occasionFor visiting Furies to repair his temple of anguish;Were thoughts all mockeries; slow intelligence a deception;His mind's far ventures, her voyages into the unseenBut horror & terrified nightmare; None then had ever heardPraise of a Crēator, nor seen any Dēity worshipped.'Twas for heav'nly Pleasure that God did first fashion all thing,Nor with other benefit would holy Religion attract usPicturing of Paradise. Consult our Lady's Evangel,Where Saint Luke,--colouring (was it unconsciously, suppose you?)Fact and fable alike,--contrasts a beggar with a rich man,And from holding a fool's happiness too greatly in esteemMakes pleasure ēternal the balance of temporal evil,And the reverse; nor shrinks, ascribing thus to the next worldVaster inequalities, harsher perversity than this.You have a soul's paradise, its entry the loop of a needle,Come hither & prithy tell me what I must do to be savèdI, that feeding on Idēals in temperat' estateSeem so wealthy to poor Lazarus, so needy to Dives:What from my heav'n-bound schooner's dispensable outfitHas to be cast o'erboard? What see yoū here that offends you?These myriad volumes, these tons of music:--allow themOr disallow? Fiddle and trichord?--Must all be relinquished?Such toys have not a place in your socīety; you sayNobody shall make them, nor made may justly acquire them.Yet, should a plea be alleged for life's most gracious adornment,For contemplative art's last transcendental achievement,Grief's almighty solace, frolicking Mirth's Purification,For Man's unparagon'd High-pōetess, inseparate MuseCompanion, the belov'd most dearly among her sisters,Revivifīer of age, fairest instructor of all grace,His peacemaker alert with varied sympathy, whose speechNot to arede and love is wholly to miss the celestialConsolatries, the divine interpreting of physical life,--Yoū wince? make exception? allow things musical? admitSo many faked viols, penny trumpets, and amateurishPerformers? Nay, nay! stand firm, for concession is vain.Music is outmeasurably a barefaced luxury, her pleaWill cover art, (--almost to atone art's vile imitations--);My Japanese paintings, my fair blue Cheney, HellenicStatues and Caroline silver, my beautiful Aldines,Prized more highly because so few, so fondly familiar,Need no tongue to defend them against rude hands, that assail themOnly because their name is RARITY; hands insensate,Rending away pitilessly the fair embroideries of life,That close-clust'ring man, his comfort pared to the outskirtsOfvhis discomfort, may share in meanness unenviedBut what if Ivunveil the figure that closely beside youHalf hides his Hell-charred skeleton with mysteries obscene,That foul one, that Moloch of all Utopias, ancientPoisoner & destroyer-elect of innumerous unborn?Know you the story of our hive-bees, the yellow honey-makers,Whose images from of old have haunted Pōetry, settlingOn the blossoms of man's dream-garden, as on the summer-flow'rs,Pictures of happy toil, sunny glances, gendering alwaysSuch sweet thoughts, as be by slumbrous music awaken'd?How all their outward happiness,--that fairy demeanourOf busy contentment, singing at their work,--is an inbornEmpty habit, the relics of a time when considerate joyTruly possest their tiny bodies; when golden abundanceWas not a State-kept hoard; when feasts were plentiful indulg'dWith wine well-fermented, or old-stored spicy metheglin:For they died not then miserably within the second moonForgotten, unrespected of all; but slept many winters,Saw many springs, liv'd, lov'd like men, consciously rejoicingIn Nature's promises, with like hopes and recollections.Intelligence had brought them Scīence, Genius enter'd;Seers and sages arose, great Bees, perfecting among themCopious inventions, with man's art worthily compared.Then was a time when that, which haps not in ages of ages,Strangely befel: they stole from Nature's secresy one key,Found the hidden motive which works to varīety of kind;And thus came wondrously possest of pow'r to determineTheir children's qualities, habitudes, yea their specialized formMasculine or feminine to produce, or asexual offspringRedow'rd and differenced with such alternative organsAs they chose, to whate'er preferential function adapted,Wax-pocket or honey-bag, with an instinct rightly acordant.We know well the result, but not what causes effectedTheir decision to prefer so blindly the race to the unit,As to renounce happiness for a problem, a vain abstraction;Making home and kingdom a vast egg-factory, whereinFood and life are stor'd up alike, and strictly proportion'dIn loveless labour with mean anxīety. WondrousTheir reason'd motive, their altrūistic obedienceUnto a self-impos'd life-sentence of prison or toil.Wonder wisely! then ask if these ingenious insects,(Who made Natur' against her will their activ' acomplice,And, methodizing anew her heartless system, avertedFrom their house the torrent of whelming natural increase,)Are blood-guiltless among their own-born prógeny: What skillKeeps their peace, or what price buys it? Alack! 'tis murder,Murder again. No worst Oriental despot, assuring'Gainst birthright or faction or envy his ill-gotten empire,So decimates his kin, as do these rown-bodied egg-queensSurprise competitors, and stab their slumbering infants,Into the wax-cradles replunging their double-edged stings.Or what a deed of blood some high-day, when the summervhathTheir clammy cells o'erbrim'd, and already ripening orchardsAnd late flow'rs proclaim that starving winter approacheth,Nor will again any queen lead forth her swarm, dispeoplingTheir strawbuilt citadel; then watch how these busy workersCease for awhile from toil; how crowding upon the devotedDrones they fall; those easy fellows gave some provocation;Yet 'tis a foul massacre, cold murder of unsuspectingLife-long companions; and done bloodthirstily:--is notExercise of pow'r a delight? have yóu not a doctrineThat calls duty pleasure? What an if they make merry, saying'Lazy-livers, runagates, evil beasts, greedy devourers,'Too happy and too long ye've liv'd, unashamed to have outliv'd'Your breeders, feeders, warmers and toiling attendants;'Had-ye ever been worthy a public good to accomplish,'Each had nobly perish'd long-ago. Unneeded, obese ones,'Impious encumbrance, whose hope of service is over,'Who did not, now can not, assist the community, YE DIE!'My parable may serve. What wisdom man hath attain'd toCame to him of Nature's goodwill throu' tardy selection:Should her teaching accuse herself and her method impugn,I may share with her the reproach of approving as artistFar other idēals than what seem needful in action.This difficulty besets our time. If you have an answer,Write me it, as you keep your salt in savour; or if toilGrant you an indulgence, here lies fair country, direct thenYour Sabbath excursion westward, and spend a summer-dayPreaching among the lilies what youvhave preached to the chimneys.