The Dream of Man

To the eye and the ear of the DreamerThis Dream out of darkness flew,Through the horn or the ivory portal,But he wist not which of the two.

It was the Human Spirit,Of all men's souls the Soul,Man the unwearied climber,That climbed to the unknown goal.And up the steps of the ages,The difficult steep ascent,Man the unwearied climberPauseless and dauntless went.Æons rolled behind himWith thunder of far retreat,And still as he strove he conqueredAnd laid his foes at his feet.Inimical powers of nature,Tempest and flood and fire,The spleen of fickle seasonsThat loved to baulk his desire,The breath of hostile climates,The ravage of blight and dearth,The old unrest that vexesThe heart of the moody earth,The genii swift and radiantSabreing heaven with flame,He, with a keener weapon,The sword of his wit, overcame.Disease and her ravening offspring,Pain with the thousand teeth,He drave into night primeval,The nethermost worlds beneath,Till the Lord of Death, the undying,Ev'n Asraël the King,No more with Furies for heraldsCame armed with scourge and sting,But gentle of voice and of visage,By calm Age ushered and led,A guest, serenely featured,Entering, woke no dread.And, as the rolling æonsRetreated with pomp of sound,Man's spirit, grown too lordlyFor this mean orb to bound,By arts in his youth undreamed ofHis terrene fetters broke,With enterprise etherealSpurning the natal yoke,And, stung with divine ambition,And fired with a glorious greed,He annexed the stars and the planetsAnd peopled them with his seed.

Then said he, "The infinite ScriptureI have read and interpreted clear,And searching all worlds I have found notMy sovereign or my peer.In what room of the palace of natureResides the invisible God?For all her doors I have opened,And all her floors I have trod.If greater than I be her tenant,Let him answer my challenging call:Till then I admit no rival,But crown myself master of all."And forth as that word went bruited,By Man unto Man were raisedFanes of devout self-homage,Where he who praised was the praised;And from vast unto vast of creationThe new evangel ran,And an odour of world-wide incenseWent up from Man unto Man;Until, on a solemn feast-day,When the world's usurping lordAt a million impious altarsHis own proud image adored,God spake as He stept from His ambush:"O great in thine own conceit,I will show thee thy source, how humble,Thy goal, for a god how unmeet."

Thereat, by the word of the MakerThe Spirit of Man was ledTo a mighty peak of vision,Where God to His creature said:"Look eastward toward time's sunrise."And, age upon age untold,The Spirit of Man saw clearlyThe Past as a chart out-rolled,--Beheld his base beginningsIn the depths of time, and his strife,With beasts and crawling horrorsFor leave to live, when lifeMeant but to slay and to procreate,To feed and to sleep, amongMere mouths, voracities boundless,Blind lusts, desires without tongue,And ferocities vast, fulfillingTheir being's malignant law,While nature was one hunger,And one hate, all fangs and maw.

With that, for a single moment,Abashed at his own descent,In humbleness Man's SpiritAt the feet of the Maker bent;But, swifter than light, he recoveredThe stature and pose of his pride,And, "Think not thus to shame meWith my mean birth," he cried."This is my loftiest greatness,To have been born so low;Greater than Thou the ungrowingAm I that for ever grow."And God forbore to rebuke him,But answered brief and stern,Bidding him toward time's sunsetHis vision westward turn;And the Spirit of Man obeyingBeheld as a chart out-rolledThe likeness and form of the Future,Age upon age untold;Beheld his own meridian,And beheld his dark decline,His secular fall to nadirFrom summits of light divine,Till at last, amid worlds exhausted,And bankrupt of force and fire,'Twas his, in a torrent of darkness,Like a sputtering lamp to expire.

Then a war of shame and angerDid the realm of his soul divide;"'Tis false, 'tis a lying vision,"In the face of his God he cried."Thou thinkest to daunt me with shadows;Not such as Thou feign'st is my doom:From glory to rise unto gloryIs mine, who have risen from gloom.I doubt if Thou knew'st at my makingHow near to thy throne I should climb,O'er the mountainous slopes of the agesAnd the conquered peaks of time.Nor shall I look backward nor rest meTill the uttermost heights I have trod,And am equalled with Thee or above Thee,The mate or the master of God."

Ev'n thus Man turned from the Maker,With thundered defiance wild,And God with a terrible silenceReproved the speech of His child.And man returned to his labours,And stiffened the neck of his will;And the æons still went rolling,And his power was crescent still.But yet there remained to conquerOne foe, and the greatest--althoughDespoiled of his ancient terrors,At heart, as of old, a foe--Unmaker of all, and renewer,Who winnows the world with his wing,The Lord of Death, the undying,Ev'n Asraël the King.

And lo, Man mustered his forcesThe war of wars to wage,And with storm and thunder of onsetDid the foe of foes engage,And the Lord of Death, the undying,Was beset and harried sore,In his immemorial fastnessAt night's aboriginal core.And during years a thousandMan leaguered his enemy's hold,While nature was one deep tremor,And the heart of the world waxed cold,Till the phantom battlements wavered,And the ghostly fortress fell,And Man with shadowy fettersBound fast great Asraël.

So, to each star in the heavens,The exultant word was blown,The annunciation tremendous,Death is overthrown!And Space in her ultimate bordersProlonging the jubilant tone,With hollow ingeminations,Sighed, Death is overthrown!And God in His house of silence,Where He dwelleth aloof, alone,Paused in His tasks to hearken:Death is overthrown!

Then a solemn and high thanksgivingBy Man unto Man was sung,In his temples of self-adoration,With his own multitudinous tongue;And he said to his Soul: "Rejoice thouFor thy last great foe lies bound,Ev'n Asraël the Unmaker,Unmade, disarmed, discrowned."

And behold, his Soul rejoiced not,The breath of whose being was strife,For life with nothing to vanquishSeemed but the shadow of life.No goal invited and promisedAnd divinely provocative shone;And Fear having fled, her sister,Blest Hope, in her train was gone;And the coping and crown of achievementWas hell than defeat more dire--The torment of all-things-compassed,The plague of nought-to-desire;And Man the invincible queller,Man with his foot on his foes,In boundless satiety hungred,Restless from utter repose,Victor of nature, victorOf the prince of the powers of the air,By mighty weariness vanquished,And crowned with august despair.

Then, at his dreadful zenith,He cried unto God: "O ThouWhom of old in my days of strivingMethought I needed not,--now,In this my abject glory,My hopeless and helpless might,Hearken and cheer and succour!"And God from His lonely height,From eternity's passionless summits,On suppliant Man looked down,And His brow waxed human with pity,Belying its awful crown."Thy richest possession," He answered,"Blest Hope, will I restore,And the infinite wealth of weaknessWhich was thy strength of yore;And I will arouse from slumber,In his hold where bound he lies,Thine enemy most benefic;--O Asraël, hear and rise!"

And a sound like the heart of natureRiven and cloven and torn,Announced, to the ear universal,Undying Death new-born.Sublime he rose in his fetters,And shook the chains asideEv'n as some mortal sleeper'Mid forests in autumntideRises and shakes off lightlyThe leaves that lightly fellOn his limbs and his hair unheededWhile as yet he slumbered well.

And Deity paused and hearkened,Then turned to the undivine,Saying, "O Man, My creature,Thy lot was more blest than Mine.I taste not delight of seeking,Nor the boon of longing know.There is but one joy transcendent,And I hoard it not but bestow.I hoard it not nor have tasted,But freely I gave it to thee--The joy of most glorious striving,Which dieth in victory."Thus, to the Soul of the Dreamer,This Dream out of darkness flew,Through the horn or the ivory portal,But he wist not which of the two.