A Minor Prophet

I have a friend, a vegetarian seer,By name Elias Baptist Butterworth,A harmless, bland, disinterested man,Whose ancestors in Cromwell's day believedThe Second Advent certain in five years,But when King Charles the Second came instead,Revised their date and sought another world:I mean—not heaven but—America.A fervid stock, whose generous hope embracedThe fortunes of mankind, not stopping shortAt rise of leather, or the fall of gold,Nor listening to the voices of the timeAs housewives listen to a cackling hen,With wonder whether she has laid her eggOn their own nest-egg. Still they did insistSomewhat too wearisomely on the joysOf their Millennium, when coats and hatsWould all be of one pattern, books and songsAll fit for Sundays, and the casual talkAs good as sermons preached extempore.

And in Elias the ancestral zealBreathes strong as ever, only modifiedBy Transatlantic air and modern thought.You could not pass him in the street and failTo note his shoulders' long declivity.Beard to the waist, swan-neck, and large pale eyes;Or, when he lifts his hat, to mark his hairBrushed back to show his great capacity—A full grain's length at the angle of the browProving him witty, while the shallower menOnly seem witty in their repartees.Not that he 's vain, but that his doctrine needsThe testimony of his frontal lobe.

On all points he adopts the latest views;Takes for the key of universal MindThe "levitation" of stout gentlemen;Believes the Rappings are not spirits' work,But the Thought-atmosphere's, a stream of brainsIn correlated force of raps, as provedBy motion, heat, and science generally;The spectrum, for example, which has shownThe selfsame metals in the sun as here;So the Thought-atmosphere is everywhere:High truths that glimmered under other namesTo ancient sages, whence good scholarshipApplied to Eleusinian mysteries—The Vedas—Tripitaka—Vendidad—Might furnish weaker proof for weaker mindsThat Thought was rapping in the hoary past,And might have edified the Greeks by rapsAt the greater Dionysia, if their earsHad not been filled with Sophoclean verse.And when all Earth is vegetarian—When, lacking butchers, quadrupeds die out,And less Thought-atmosphere is reabsorbedBy nerves of insects parasitical,Those higher truths, seized now by higher mindsBut not expressed (the insects hindering),Will either flash out into eloquence.Or better still, be comprehensibleBy rappings simply, without need of roots.'Tis on this theme—the vegetarian world—That good Elias willingly expands:He loves to tell in mildly nasal tonesAnd vowels stretched to suit the widest views,The future fortunes of our infant Earth—When it will be too full of human kindTo have the room for wilder animals.Saith he, Sahara will be populousWith families of gentlemen retiredFrom commerce in more Central Africa,Who order coolness as we order coal.And have a lobe anterior strong enoughTo think away the sand-storms. Science thusWill leave no spot on this terraqueous globeUnfit to be inhabited by man.The chief of animals: all meaner brutesWill have been smoked and elbowed out of life.No lions then shall lap Caffrarian pools,Or shake the Atlas with their midnight roar:Even the slow, slime-loving crocodile,The last of animals to take a hint,Will then retire forever from a sceneWhere public feeling strongly sets against him.Fishes may lead carnivorous lives obscure,But must not dream of culinary rankOr being dished in good society.Imagination in that distant age,Aiming at fiction called historical,Will vainly try to reconstruct the timesWhen it was men's preposterous delightTo sit astride live horses, which consumedMaterials for incalculable cakes;When there were milkmaids who drew milk from cowsWith udders kept abnormal for that endSince the rude mythopœic periodOf Aryan dairymen, who did not blushTo call their milkmaid and their daughter one—Helplessly gazing at the Milky Way,Nor dreaming of the astral cocoa-nutsQuite at the service of posterity.'Tis to be feared, though, that the duller boys,Much given to anachronisms and nuts(Elias has confessed boys will be boys),May write a jockey for a centaur, thinkEuropa's suitor was an Irish bull,Æsop a journalist who wrote up Fox,And Bruin a chief swindler upon 'Change.Boys will be boys, but dogs will all be moral,With longer alimentary canalsSuited to diet vegetarian.The uglier breeds will fade from memory,Or, being palæontological,Live but as portraits in large learned books,Distasteful to the feelings of an ageNourished on purest beauty. Earth will holdNo stupid brutes, no cheerful queernesses,No naïve cunning, grave absurdity.Wart-pigs with tender and parental grunts,Wombats much flattened as to their contour,Perhaps from too much crushing in the ark,But taking meekly that fatality;The serious cranes, unstung by ridicule;Long-headed, short-legged, solemn-looking curs,(Wise, silent critics of a flippant age);The silly straddling foals, the weak-brained geeseHissing fallaciously at sound of wheels—All these rude products will have disappearedAlong with every faulty human type.By dint of diet vegetarianAll will be harmony of hue and line,Bodies and minds all perfect, limbs well-turned,And talk quite free from aught erroneous.

Thus far Elias in his seer's mantle:But at this climax in his prophecyMy sinking spirits, fearing to be swamped,Urge me to speak. "High prospects these, my friend,Setting the weak carnivorous brain astretch;We will resume the thread another day.""To-morrow," cries Elias, "at this hour?""No, not to-morrow—I shall have a cold—At least I feel some soreness—this endemic—Good-by."

No tears are sadder than the smileWith which I quit Elias. BitterlyI feel that every change upon this earthIs bought with sacrifice. My yearnings failTo reach that high apocalyptic mountWhich shows in bird's-eye view a perfect world,Or enter warmly into other joysThan those of faulty, struggling human kind.That strain upon my soul's too feeble wingEnds in ignoble floundering: I fallInto short-sighted pity for the menWho living in those perfect future timesWill not know half the dear imperfect thingsThat move my smiles and tears—will never knowThe fine old incongruities that raiseMy friendly laugh; the innocent conceitsThat like a needless eyeglass or black patchGive those who wear them harmless happiness;The twists and cracks in our poor earthenware,That touch me to more conscious fellowship(I am not myself the finest Parian)With my coevals. So poor Colin Clout,To whom raw onion gives prospective zest,Consoling hours of dampest wintry work,Could hardly fancy any regal joysQuite unimpregnate with the onion's scent:Perhaps his highest hopes are not all clearOf waftings from that energetic bulb:'Tis well that onion is not heresy.Speaking in parable, I am Colin Clout.A clinging flavor penetrates my life —My onion is imperfectness: I cleaveTo nature's blunders, evanescent typesWhich sages banish from Utopia."Not worship beauty?" say you. Patience, friend!I worship in the temple with the rest;But by my hearth I keep a sacred nookFor gnomes and dwarfs, duck-footed waddling elvesWho stitched and hammered for the weary manIn days of old. And in that pietyI clothe ungainly forms inheritedFrom toiling generations, daily bentAt desk, or plough, or loom, or in the mine,In pioneering labors for the world.Nay, I am apt when floundering confusedFrom too rash flight, to grasp at paradox,And pity future men who will not knowA keen experience with pity blent,The pathos exquisite of lovely mindsHid in harsh forms—not penetrating themLike fire divine within a common bushWhich glows transfigured by the heavenly guest,So that men put their shoes off; but encagedLike a sweet child within some thick-walled cell,Who leaps and fails to hold the window-bars,But having shown a little dimpled handIs visited thenceforth by tender heartsWhose eyes keep watch about the prison walls.A foolish, nay, a wicked paradox!For purest pity is the eye of loveMelting at sight of sorrow; and to grieveBecause it sees no sorrow, shows a loveWarped from its truer nature, turned to loveOf merest habit, like the miser's greed.But I am Colin still: my prejudiceIs for the flavor of my daily food.Not that I doubt the world is growing stillAs once it grew from Chaos and from Night;Or have a soul too shrunken for the hopeWhich dawned in human breasts, a double morn,With earliest watchings of the rising lightChasing the darkness; and through many an ageHas raised the vision of a future timeThat stands an Angel with a face all mildSpearing the demon. I too rest in faithThat man's perfection is the crowning flower,Toward which the urgent sap in life's great treeIs pressing—seen in puny blossoms now.But in the world's great morrows to expandWith broadest petal and with deepest glow.

Yet, see the patched and plodding citizenWaiting upon the pavement with the throngWhile some victorious world-hero makesTriumphal entry, and the peal of shoutsAnd flash of faces 'neath uplifted hatsRun like a storm of joy along the streets!He says, "God bless him!" almost with a sob,As the great hero passes; he is gladThe world holds mighty men and mighty deeds;The music stirs his pulses like strong wine,The moving splendor touches him with awe—'Tis glory shed around the common weal,And he will pay his tribute willingly,Though with the pennies earned by sordid toil.Perhaps the hero's deeds have helped to bringA time when every honest citizenShall wear a coat unpatched. And yet he feelsMore easy fellowship with neighbors thereWho look on too; and he will soon relapseFrom noticing the banners and the steedsTo think with pleasure there is just one bunLeft in his pocket, that may serve to temptThe wide-eyed lad, whose weight is all too muchFor that young mother's arms: and then he fallsTo dreamy picturing of sunny daysWhen he himself was a small big-cheeked ladIn some far village where no heroes came,And stood a listener 'twixt his father's legsIn the warm firelight, while the old folk talkedAnd shook their heads and looked upon the floor;And he was puzzled, thinking life was fine—The bread and cheese so nice all through the yearAnd Christmas sure to come. Oh that good time!He, could he choose, would have those days againAnd see the dear old-fashioned things once more.But soon the wheels and drums have all passed byAnd tramping feet are heard like sudden rain:The quiet startles our good citizen;He feels the child upon his arms, and knowsHe is with the people making holidayBecause of hopes for better days to come.But Hope to him was like the brilliant westTelling of sunrise in a world unknown,And from that dazzling curtain of bright huesHe turned to the familiar face of fieldsLying all clear in the calm morning land.Maybe 't is wiser not to fix a lensToo scrutinizing on the glorious timesWhen Barbarossa shall arise and shakeHis mountain, good King Arthur come again,And all the heroes of such giant soulThat, living once to cheer mankind with hope,They had to sleep until the time was ripeFor greater deeds to match their greater thought.Yet no! the earth yields nothing more DivineThan high prophetic vision—than the SeerWho fasting from man's meaner joy beholdsThe paths of beauteous order, and constructsA fairer type, to shame our low content.But prophecy is like potential soundWhich turned to music seems a voice sublimeFrom out the soul of light; but turns to noiseIn scrannel pipes, and makes all ears averse.

The faith that life on earth is being shapedTo glorious ends, that order, justice, love,Mean man's completeness, mean effect as sureAs roundness in the dew-drop—that great faithIs but the rushing and expanding streamOf thought, of feeling, fed by all the past.Our finest hope is finest memory,As they who love in age think youth is blestBecause it has a life to fill with love.Full souls are double mirrors, making stillAn endless vista of fair things beforeRepeating things behind: so faith is strongOnly when we are strong, shrinks when we shrink.It comes when music stirs us, and the chordsMoving on some grand climax shake our soulsWith influx new that makes new energies.It comes in swellings of the heart and tearsThat rise at noble and at gentle deeds—At labors of the master-artist's handWhich, trembling, touches to a finer end,Trembling before an image seen within.It comes in moments of heroic love,Unjealous joy in joy not made for us—In conscious triumph of the good withinMaking us worship goodness that rebukes.Even our failures are a prophecy,Even our yearnings and our bitter tearsAfter that fair and true we cannot grasp;As patriots who seem to die in vainMake liberty more sacred by their pangs.

Presentiment of better things on earthSweeps in with every force that stirs our soulsTo admiration, self-renouncing love,Or thoughts, like light, that bind the world in one,—Sweeps like the sense of vastness, when at nightWe hear the roll and dash of waves that breakNearer and nearer with the rushing tide,Which rises to the level of the cliffBecause the wide Atlantic rolls behind,Throbbing respondent to the far-off orbs.