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Wilfrid Scawen Blunt - Satan Absolved
Work rating: Low

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 Nor gave aught to the stranger in the wage of sin;
 Who blessed Thee for their babes and through the woods, like Eve,
 Wandered in happy laughter, glorying to conceive.
 Yea, Lord, and there were others,--shut communities
 Of souls still on Thy path and strange to the new lies,
 Yet not, as these were, wild, but held in discipline
 Of orderly commandment, servants true of Thine
 And doers of Thy law, though ignorant, untaught
 Save by an inward grace of self--restraining thought
 And light intuitive. No shedders they of blood,
 But with all creatures friends, with men in brotherhood,
 Blameless of wine, of strife; in innocent arts well skilled
 But schoolless of all guile as an unchristened child.
 To these with mouthings fine come the white gospellers,
 Our Saxon mission--men black--coated to the ears.
 --``Which be your gods?`` ask they; ``Do ye adore the Christ?
 Know ye the Three in One, or walk ye in the mist?``
 ``Sirs, we have One, not Three. Our poor ancestral wit
 Encompasseth no more.`` ``Then be ye damned for it.
 This is our Bible, read. In the long after--death
 Ye shall be burned with fire. It is God`s self that saith.``
 ``We do not live again.`` ``In this life, ye shall live
 According to our gospel, nor profanely wive
 Save with one spouse alone.`` ``Our law hath given us three.
 Three Gods to one sole wife were multiplicity.``
 ``These pagans are blasphemers! Who is on our side?
 See, we have gold to give. We may not be denied.``--
 And they baptize them Christians. Cometh the trader next,
 His bible too in hand, its free--trade for his text.
 He teacheth them to buy.--``We nothing need.`` ``Yet take.
 The want will come anon and keep your wits awake.
 Here are the goods we sell, cloth, firelocks, powder, rum,
 Ye shall go clothed like lords, like kings of Christendom.``
 ``We live best naked.`` ``Fie.`` ``We have no use for arms.
 The fire--drink is forbid.`` ``The thing forbid hath charms.
 Nay. We will make you men, soldiers to brawl and fight
 As all good Christians use, and God defend the right.
 The drink will give you courage. Take it. `Tis the sign
 Of manhood orthodox, its sacramental wine,
 Or how can you be worthy your new Christian creed?
 Drink.``--And they drink to Jesus and are borne to bed.
 He teacheth them to sell.--``We need coin for our draught.
 How shall we bring the price, since ye give naught for naught?
 We crave the fire--drink now.`` ``Friends, let not that prevent.
 We lend on all your harvests, take our cent per cent.``
 ``Sirs, but the crop is gone.`` ``There is your land in lots.``
 ``The land? It was our fathers`.`` ``Curse ye for idle sots,
 A rascal lazing pack. Have ye no hands to work?
 Off to the mines and dig, and see it how ye shirk.``
 ``As slaves?`` ``No, not as slaves. Our principles forbid.
 Free labourers, if you will. We use that word instead.
 The `dignity of labour` ye shall learn for hire.
 No paltering. No excuse. The white man hates a liar,
 And hates a grumbling hand. Enough if we provide
 Tools with the drink and leave your backs with a whole hide.
 These lands are ours by Charter. If you doubt it, bring
 Your case before the Courts, which will expound the thing.
 As for your women folk. Look, there are ways well known
 All women have of living in a Christian town.
 Moreover you do ill. One wife the law allows,
 And you, you say, have four. Send three round to our house.``
 --Thus is Thy gospel preached. Its issue, Lord, behold
 In the five Continents, the new world and the old,
 The happier tribes of Man despoiled, enslaved, betrayed
 To the sole white Man`s lust, husband and wife and maid,
 Their laughter drowned in tears, their kindness in mad wrath,
 Their dignity of joy in a foul trance of death,
 Till at the last they turn and in their anguish rend.
 Then loud the cry goeth forth, the white man`s to each friend:
 ``Help! Christians, to our help! These black fiends murder us.``
 And the last scene is played in death`s red charnel house.
 The Saxon anger flames. His ships in armament
 Bear slaughter on their wings. The Earth with fire is rent,
 And the poor souls misused are wiped from the world`s face
 In one huge imprecation from the Saxon race,
 In one huge burst of prayer and insolent praise to Thee,
 Lord God, for Thy high help and proved complicity.
 Nay Lord, `tis not a lie, the thing I tell Thee thus.
 Their bishops in their Churches lead, incredulous,
 The public thanks profane. They sanctify the sword:
 ``Te Deum laudamus. Give peace in our time, O Lord.``
 Hast Thou not heard their chaunting? Nay, Thou dost not hear,
 Or Thou hadst loosed Thy hand like lightning in the clear
 To smite their ribald lips with palsy, these false priests,
 These Lords who boast Thine aid at their high civic feasts,
 The ignoble shouting crowds, the prophets of their Press,
 Pouring their daily flood of bald self--righteousness,
 Their poets who write big of the ``White Burden.`` Trash!
 The White Man`s Burden, Lord, is the burden of his cash.
 --There! Thou hast heard the truth. Thy world, Lord God of Heaven,
 Lieth in the hands of thieves who pillage morn and even.
 And Thou still sleepest on! Nay but Thou needs must hear
 Or abdicate Thy name of High Justiciar
 Henceforward and for ever. It o`erwhelmeth Thee
 With more than temporal shame. Thy silence is a Sea
 Crying through all the spheres in pain and ceasing not
 As blood from out the ground to mark crime`s murder spot:
 ``There is no hope--no truth. He hath betrayed the trust.
 The Lord God is unjust. The Lord God is unjust.``
[A cry without.  This is their cry in Heaven who give Thee service true.
 Arise, Lord, and avenge as was Thy wont to do.

[The Angels re--enter in disorder, weeping.
The Lord God.  What tears be these, my Sons? What ails ye that ye weep?
 Speak, Shepherds of the flock! Ye that have cared my sheep!
 Ye that are charged with Man! Is it as this One saith?
 Is Satan then no liar who loudly witnesseth
Man`s ruin of the World?

The Angel of Pity
(coming forward). Lord, it is even so.
 Thy Earth is a lost force, Man`s lazar--house of woe,
 Undone by his lewd will. We may no longer strive.
 The evil hath prevailed. There is no soul alive
 That shall escape his greed. We spend our days in tears
 Mourning Thy world`s lost beauty in the night of years.
 All pity is departed. Each once happy thing
 That on Thy fair Earth went, how fleet of foot or wing,
 How glorious in its strength, how wondrous in design,
 How royal in its raiment tinctured opaline,
 How rich in joyous life, the inheritor of forms
 All noble, all of worth, which had survived the storms,
 The chances of decay in the World`s living plan
 From the remote fair past when still ignoble Man
 On his four foot--soles went and howled through the lone hills
 In moody bestial wrath, unclassed among Earth`s ills:
 Each one of them is doomed. From the deep Central Seas
 To the white Poles, Man ruleth pitiless Lord of these,
 And daily he destroyeth. The great whales he driveth
 Beneath the northern ice, and quarter none he giveth,
 Who perish there of wounds in their huge agony.
 He presseth the white bear on the white frozen sea
 And slaughtereth for his pastime. The wise amorous seal
 He flayeth big with young; the walrus cubs that kneel
 But cannot turn his rage, alive he mangleth them,
 Leaveth in breathing heaps, outrooted branch and stem.
 In every land he slayeth. He hath new engines made
 Which no life may withstand, nor in the forest shade
 Nor in the sunlit plain, which wound all from afar,
 The timorous with the valiant, waging his false war,
 Coward, himself unseen. In pity, Lord, look down
 On the blank widowed plains which he hath made his own
 By right of solitude. Where, Lord God, are they now,
 Thy glorious bison herds, Thy ariels white as snow,
 Thy antelopes in troops, the zebras of Thy plain?
 Behold their whitened bones on the dull track of men.
 Thy elephants, Lord, where? For ages thou didst build
 Their frames` capacity, the hide which was their shield
 No thorn might pierce, no sting, no violent tooth assail,
 The tusks which were their levers, the lithe trunk their flail.
 Thou strengthenedst their deep brain. Thou madest them wise to know
 And wiser to ignore, advised, deliberate, slow,
 Conscious of power supreme in right. The manifest token
 Of Thy high will on earth, Thy natural peace unbroken,
 Unbreakable by fear. For ages did they move
 Thus, kings of Thy deep forest swayed by only love.
 Where are they now, Lord God? A fugitive spent few
 Used as Man`s living targets by the ignoble crew
 Who boast their coward skill to plant the balls that fly,
 Thy work of all time spoiled, their only use to die
 That these sad clowns may laugh. Nay, Lord, we weep for Thee,
 And spend ourselves in tears for Thy marred majesty.
 Behold, Lord, what we bring--this last proof in our hands,
 Their latest fiendliest spoil from Thy fair tropic lands,
 The birds of all the Earth unwinged to deck the heads
 Of their unseemly women; plumage of such reds
 As not the sunset hath, such purples as no throne,
 Not even in heaven, showeth (hardly, Lord, Thine own),
 Such azures as the sea`s, such greens as are in Spring
 The oak trees` tenderest buds of watched--for blossoming,
 Such opalescent pearls as only in Thy skies
 The lunar bow revealeth to night`s sleep--tired eyes.
 Behold them, Lord of Beauty, Lord of Reverence,
 Lord of Compassion, Thou who metest means to ends,
 Nor madest Thy world fair for less than Thine own fame,
 Behold Thy birds of joy lost, tortured, put to shame
 For these vile strumpets` whim! Arise, or cease to be
 Judge of the quick and dead! These dead wings cry to Thee!
Arise, Lord, and avenge!

The Angels. We wait upon Thy word.

[The Lord God covereth His face.
Satan. Thou hearest them, Lord God.

The Lord God. Good Satan, I have heard.
 Thou art more just than I--alas, more just than I.

The Angels. Behold the Lord God weepeth.

The Angel of Pity. What eyes should be dry
 If for a crime eyes weep? This crime transcendeth crime.
And the Lord God hath pity.

Satan. In His own good time.

The Lord God.  Alas, the time is late. I do repent Me sore
 The wrong I did thee, Satan, in those griefs of yore,
 The wrong I did the Earth. Yet is Eternity
 A long day for atonement. Thou thyself shalt be
 My instrument here of wrath to purge this race of Man
 And cast him on Time`s dunghill, whence he first began.
 What, Angel, is thy counsel? Shall we unseal again
 The fountains of the heavens, send our outpoured rain,
 And flood him with new waters? Shall it be by fire?
 Shall we embraize the earth in one vast funeral pyre
 By impact of a star? Let loose a sulphurous wind?
 Belch rocks from the Earth`s bowels? Shall we strike Man blind
 With an unbearable light? Shall we so shake the hills,
 The plains, that he fall palsied, grind him in the mills
 Of a perpetual hail, importune him with snow,
 Scourge him with noise unceasing, or the glutinous flow
 Of a long pestilent stench? Speak, Satan, all thy thought,
 Thou who the traitor knowest. How may he be brought
Best to annihilation?

Satan. Lord, by none of these,
 Thy floods, Thy flames, Thy storms were puerilities.
 He hath too large a cunning to be taken thus.
 He would outride Thy waves, outblast Thy sulphurous
 Winds with his counter--winds. He liveth on foul air
 As on the breath of heaven. He hath nor thought nor care
 For Thy worst lightning strokes, holding their principle
 Rock--firm in his own hand. All natural powers fulfil
 His brain`s omnipotence. He standeth at each point
 Armed for defiant war in harness without joint.
 Though Thou shouldst break the Earth in twain he should not bend.
 Thou needest a force to aid Thee, an ally, a friend,
 A principle of good which shall outwit his guile
 With true white guilelessness, his anger with a smile,
 His force with utter weakness. Only thus, Lord God,
 Shalt Thou regain Thy Earth, a purified abode,
And rid it of the Human.

The Lord God. And the means? Thy plan
Needeth a new redemption.

Satan. Ay, but not of Man.
 He is beyond redeeming, or Thy Son had died
 Not wholly to this loss. Who would be crucified
 To--day must choose another, a young fleshly form,
 Free from the simian taint, were it but flower or worm,
 Or limpet of the rock, or grieving nightingale,
 Wherein to preach his gospel. Yet should he previl,
 If only for truth`s sake and that this latest lie
 Should be laid bare to shame, Time`s fraud, Humanity.
 Choose Thee an Angel, Lord; it were enough. Thy Son
 Was a price all too great even had the world been won.
 Nor can it be again. An Angel shall suffice
 For Thy new second sending, so Thou guide the choice
 To a more reasoned issue--so Thou leave Mankind
 Henceforth to his sole ways as at his outset, blind
 To all but his own lusts, untutored by Thy grace.
 This is the road, Lord God. I bow before Thy face.
 I make Thee my submission to do all Thy will,
So Thou absolve and pardon.

The Lord God. O incomparable
 Good servant, Satan! Thou art absolved indeed.
 It was thy right to pardon thy God`s lack of heed,
 His wrath at thy wise counsel. Nay, thou shamest Me.
 Be thou absolved, good Angel, Ego absolvo te
 Ab omnibus peccatis. Once more be it thy right
 To stand before God`s throne for ever in His sight,
 And trusted more than these. Speak, Satan, what thou wilt,
 All shall be granted thee, the glory with the guilt
 Of the Earth lost and won. Who is it thou wouldst send
 Agent and messenger to work to this new end?
 What Angel of them all? I pledge thee My full faith
It shall be as thou wilt.

Satan. Who goeth must die the death,
 Since death is all life`s law, and taste of corporal pain.
 And whoso dieth must die, nor think to live again.

The Lord God. Shall it be Michael? Speak.

Satan. Nay, Lord, nor Gabriel.
 They are Thy servants tried, who love Thy Heaven too well.
 Thou shalt not drive them forth to the wild wastes of Earth.
 What should they do, Lord God, with a terrestrial birth,
 With less than Thy long joys? Nay, rather choose Thee one
 Already marred with grief with Time`s disunion,
 One all too sad for Heaven, to whom Eternity
 Is as a charge o`erspent, who hath no fear to die,
 But gladly would lie down and be for aye no more,
 The flotsam of Time`s waves upon Death`s outer shore,
 Forgotten and forgetting. Grant me, Lord God, this,
 In penance for the past, Death`s full forgetfulness.

The Lord God. And thou wouldst be incarnate?

Satan. As the least strong thing,
 The frailest, the most fond, an insect on the wing,
 Which shall prevail by love, by ignorance, by lack
 Of all that Man most trusteth to secure his back,
 To arm his hand with might. What Thy Son dreamed of Man
 Will I work out anew as some poor cateran,
 The weakest of the Earth, with only beauty`s power
 And Thy good grace to aid, the creature of an hour
 Too fugitive for fight, too frail even far to fly,
 And at the hour`s end, Lord, to close my wings and die.
Such were the new redemption.

The Lord God. Thou good angel! Nay,
 The World were all unworthy such high price to pay.
I will not have thee die.

Satan. `Tis not for the World`s sake,
 Lord God of Heaven and Earth, that I petition make,
 But for Thy justice foiled. It irketh me to know
 That I have tutored Man against Thee, to this woe,
 And given him sure success. Yet is the World`s self good,
 And I would prove it Thee, lest Man`s ingratitude
 Should so affect all truth, all honour, all high faith,
 That Thou Thyself, Lord God, shouldst fall a prey to death
 And leave him in dominion. What to me were Heaven
 With this thought unappeased--even thus absolved, forgiven,
Yet by myself condemned?

The Lord God. Ah, Satan. Thy old pride
 Still lingereth in the clefts. Yet art thou not denied
 Since I have sworn thee faith. Go, thou good messenger,
 And God`s peace go with thee. Ho! ye without! Give ear!
 Bow down to the Lord Satan, Our anointed priest,
The new incarnate Word.

The Angels. All hail!

Michael
(aside). The Anti--Christ!
Source
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