The Ascent of Man. Mathilde Blind

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      Or now the pastures where his flocks did graze,

      Parched, withered, shrivelled by the imminent blaze

      Of the great ball of fire that glares above,

      Glow dry like iron heated in a stove;

      Turning upon themselves, the tortured sheep,

      With blackening tongues, drop heap on gasping heap,

      Their rotting flesh sickens the wind that moans

      And whistles poisoned through their chattering bones;

      While the thin shepherd, staring sick and gaunt,

      Will search the thorns for berries, or yet haunt

      The stony channels of some river-bed

      Where filtering fresh perchance a liquid thread

      Of water may run clear. – Now dark o'erhead,

      Thickening with storm, the wintry clouds will loom,

      And wrap the land in weeds of mournful gloom;

      Shrouding the sun and every lesser light

      Till earth with all her aging woods grows white,

      And hurrying streams stop fettered in their flight.

      Then famished beasts freeze by the frozen lakes,

      And thick as leaves dead birds bestrew the brakes;

      And, cowering blankly by the flickering flame,

      Man feels a presence without form or name,

      When by the bodies of his speechless dead

      In barbarous woe he bows his stricken head.

      Then in the hunger of his piteous love

      He sends his thought, winged like a carrier dove —

      Through the unanswering silence void and vast,

      Whence from dim hollows blows an icy blast —

      To bring some sign, some little sign at last,

      From his lost chiefs – the beautiful, the brave —

      Vanished like bubbles on a breaking wave,

      Lost in the unfathomed darkness of the grave.

      When, lo, behold beside him in the night, —

      Softly beside him, like the noiseless light

      Of moonbeams moving o'er the glimmering floor

      That come unbidden through the bolted door, —

      The lonely sleeper sees the lost one stand

      Like one returned from some dim, distant land,

      Bending towards him with his outstretched hand.

      But when he fain would grasp it in his own,

      He melts into thin moonshine and is gone —

      A spirit now, who on the other shore

      Of death hunts happily for evermore. —

      A Son of Life, but dogged, while he draws breath,

      By her inseparable shadow – death,

      Man, feeble Man, whom unknown Fates appal,

      With prayer and praise seeks to propitiate all

      The spirits, who, for good or evil plight,

      Bless him in victory or in sickness smite.

      Those are his Dead who, wrapped in grisly shrouds,

      Now ride phantasmal on the rushing clouds,

      Souls of departed chiefs whose livid forms

      He sees careering on the reinless storms,

      Wild, spectral huntsmen who tumultuously,

      With loud halloo and shrilly echoing cry,

      Follow the furious chase, with the whole pack

      Of shadowy hounds fierce yelping in the track

      Of wolves and bears as shadowy as the hosts

      Who lead once more as unsubstantial ghosts

      Their lives of old as restlessly they fly

      Across the wildernesses of the sky.

      When the wild hunt is done, shall they not rest

      Their heads upon some swan-white maiden's breast,

      And quaff their honeyed mead with godlike zest

      In golden-gated Halls whence they may see

      The earth and marvellous secrets of the Sea

      Whereon the clouds will lie with grey wings furled,

      And in whose depths, voluminously curled,

      The serpent looms whose girth engirds the world?

      Far, far above now in supernal power

      Those spirits rule the sunshine and the shower!

      How shall he win their favour; yea, how move

      To pity the unpitying gods above,

      The Dæmon rulers of life's fitful dream,

      Who sway men's destinies, and still would seem

      To treat them lightly as a game of chance,

      The sport of whim and blindfold circumstance —

      The irresponsible, capricious gods,

      So quick to please or anger; whose sharp rods

      Are storms and lightnings launched from cloven skies;

      Who feast upon the shuddering victim's cries,

      The smell of blood, and human sacrifice.

      But ever as Man grows they grow with him;

      Terrific, cruel, gentle, bright, or dim,

      With eyes of dove-like mercy, hands of wrath,

      Procession-like, they hover o'er his path

      And, changing with the gazer, borrow light

      From their rapt devotee's adoring sight.

      And Ormuzd, Ashtaroth, Osiris, Baal —

      Love spending gods and gods of blood and wail —

      Look down upon their suppliant from the skies

      With his own magnified, responsive eyes.

      For Man, from want and pressing hunger freed,

      Begins to feel another kind of need,

      And in his shaping brain and through his eyes

      Nature, awakening, sees her blue-arched skies;

      The Sun, his life-begetter, isled in space;

      The Moon, the Measurer of his span of days;

      The immemorial stars who pierce his night

      With inklings of things vast and infinite.

      All shows of heaven and earth that move and pass

      Take form within his brain as in a glass.

      The tidal thunder of the sea now roars

      And breaks symphonious on a hundred shores;

      The fitful flutings of the vagrant breeze

      Strike gusts of sound from virgin forest trees;

      White leaping waters of wild cataracts fall

      From crag and jag in lapses musical,

      And streams meandering amid daisied leas

      Throb with the pulses of tumultuous seas.

      From hills and valleys smoking mists arise,

      Steeped in pale gold and amethystine dyes.

      The land takes colour from him, and the flowers

      Laugh in his path like sun-dyed April showers.

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