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 THE PURPLE EAST
 
 THE PURPLE EAST 
 
 A SERIES OF SONNETS ON ENGLAND'S 
 DESERTION OF ARMENIA 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM iWATSON 
 
 V_x 
 
 WITH A FRONTISPIECE 
 
 BY 
 
 G. F. WATTS R.A. 
 
 LONDON : JOHN LANE VIGO ST. 
 1896
 
 Copyrighted in the United States 
 All rights reserved 
 
 SECOND EDITION
 
 PREFACE 
 
 A WORD as to the origin of these Sonnets may 
 perhaps be expedient. The first of them, 
 " The Turk in Armenia," was published as long 
 ago as March 2, 1895, during the Premier- 
 ship of Lord Rosebery ; was subsequently in- 
 cluded in the Author's latest volume of verse ; 
 and is here reprinted with some alteration. 
 The occasion of the one entitled " Repudiated 
 Responsibility " was a recent public utterance 
 of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. This 
 and its companion pieces, with the exception 
 of three which now see the light for the first 
 time, were contributed in rapid succession to 
 the Westminster Gazette, during December and 
 January 1895-6 ; several have since undergone 
 considerable revision. After the publication 
 of the first seven, there appeared a reply, from
 
 8 PREFACE 
 
 the pen of the present Poet Laureate, in the 
 shape of three sonnets, entitled "A Vindication 
 of England," and addressed "To the Author 
 of ' The Purple East.' " Their substance may 
 with perfect truth and fairness be recapitulated 
 in a few words of prose. The Poet Laureate 
 assured me First, that whosoever in any 
 circumstances arraigns this country for any- 
 thing that she may do or leave undone, thereby 
 covers himself with shame; secondly, that 
 although the continued torture, rape, and 
 massacre of a Christian people under the eyes 
 of a Christian continent may be a lamentable 
 thing, it is best to be patient, seeing that 
 the patience of God Himself can never be 
 exhausted; and thirdly, that if I were but 
 with him in his pretty country-house, were 
 but comfortably seated " by the yule-log's 
 blaze," and joining with him in seasonable 
 conviviality, the enigmas of Providence and 
 the whole mystery of things would presently 
 become transparent to me, and more espe- 
 cially after "drinking to England," I should
 
 PREFACE 9 
 
 be enabled to understand that " she bides her 
 hour behind the bastioned brine." To the 
 Laureate's amiable effusion, with its conven- 
 tional patriotism and its absolute penury of 
 argument, pages 31-4 of this booklet are of 
 the nature of a reply. 
 
 Passing to less personal issues, I myself 
 have but little hope that any mere written 
 word can bear visible fruit while the spiritual 
 frost lies so hard upon the land as at this 
 time. I am indeed loth to go so far as the 
 great Painter who suffers my pen to be 
 ennobled by temporary association with his 
 pencil, and who has expressed to me his 
 belief that " nothing at this moment is possible 
 except a national mourning." With profound 
 veneration for the genius that has so often 
 transfused the poet's emotion and the mystic's 
 vision in the splendours of colour and form, 
 I must hope that herein at least he is 
 wrong; that something besides lamentation 
 alone is even yet possible : though I, too, feel 
 that without it without penitent tears for our
 
 10 PREFACE 
 
 tragic errors as the first condition of effort 
 nothing that is worth the doing can be 
 done. 
 
 In the sphere of practical action, if, not- 
 withstanding our paramount naval power, not- 
 withstanding the moral support, and surely, in 
 such a cause, and in eventual emergency, the 
 material support, of all the nobler elements 
 of Anglo-Saxon civilisation throughout the 
 world, the position of England relatively to 
 the European imbroglio and to her own 
 Egyptian, South African, and American com- 
 plications be really such as to render hope- 
 less any Crusade of this Empire against that 
 Vicegerency of Hell which is acquiesced in 
 as the Ottoman Government, then let us do 
 what many earnest-minded Englishmen, even 
 among those who are no enthusiastic friends 
 of Russia, are urging as the only possible 
 solution of a problem that cries aloud, with 
 the tongues of thrice a hundred thousand 
 martyrs, to be solved. If in very truth 
 England herself cannot move if she must
 
 PREFACE H 
 
 perforce sit like the victim of the wand of 
 Comus, her nerves 
 
 " Chained up in alabaster, 
 And she a statue, or as Daphne was, 
 Root-bound, that fled Apollo" 
 
 then let her at least abandon her selfish 
 obstruction of those who can move and who 
 would. And if an appeal to the national 
 conscience is vain, let us fall back for a 
 moment upon lower ethical considerations, and 
 ask ourselves whether in the end it will even 
 advantage us to have postponed the rescue of 
 a dying people to our own alleged interests in 
 the maintenance of a diabolical tyranny. To 
 have been the accessory to a tremendous crime, 
 whether before or after the fact, whether by 
 direct complicity or by the passive connivance 
 of non-intervention where effective interven- 
 tion was possible, will not permanently aid a 
 nation, any more than it would aid an indivi- 
 dual, to go about the business of life with that 
 inmost self-approval which can afford to ignore 
 the adverse judgments of the half-informed,
 
 12 PREFACE 
 
 and which is more potent than any plaudits to 
 sustain and secretly inspire. Wanting that 
 silent ratification, unfortified by that inward 
 sanction, a nation must needs lose vigour and 
 assurance. Her walk grows feverish, and her 
 rejoicings troubled, for a shadowy accuser 
 waylays her footsteps, and haunts the back- 
 ground of her feasts. 
 
 WILLIAM WATSON.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 THE TURK IN ARMENIA . . Page 15 
 
 CRAVEN ENGLAND . . ,17 
 
 THE PRICE OF PRESTIGE . . 19 
 
 How LONG ? * . . .21 
 
 REPUDIATED RESPONSIBILITY . . 23 
 
 ENGLAND TO AMERICA . . . 25 
 
 A BIRTHDAY .... 27 
 
 THE TIRED LION . . .29 
 
 THE BARD-IN-WAITING . . 31 
 
 LEISURED JUSTICE . . . . 33 
 
 THE PLAGUE OF APATHY . , 35 
 
 THE KNELL OF CHIVALRY ... 37 
 
 A TRIAL OF ORTHODOXY . . 39 
 
 "!F" . . . . -41 
 
 A HURRIED FUNERAL ... 43 
 
 A WONDROUS LIKENESS . . . 45 
 
 LAST WORD .... 47
 
 THE TURK IN ARMENIA 
 
 WHAT profits it, O England, to prevail 
 In camp and mart and council, and 
 
 bestrew 
 
 With argosies thy oceans, and renew 
 With tribute levied on each golden 
 
 gale 
 Thy treasuries, if thou canst hear the 
 
 wail 
 Of women martyred by the turbaned 
 
 crew 
 Whose tenderest mercy was the sword that 
 
 slew,
 
 16 THE TURK IN ARMENIA 
 
 And lift no hand to wield the purging 
 
 flail? 
 We deemed of old thou held'st a charge 
 
 from Him 
 
 Who watches girdled by His seraphim, 
 To smite the wronger with thy destined 
 
 rod. 
 Wait'st thou His sign? Enough, the 
 
 unanswered cry 
 
 Of virgin souls for vengeance, and on high 
 The gathering blackness of the frown of 
 
 God!
 
 CRAVEN ENGLAND 
 
 NEVER, O craven England, nevermore 
 Prate thou of generous effort, righteous aim ! 
 Betrayer of a people, know thy shame! 
 Summer hath passed, and Autumn's 
 
 threshing-floor 
 
 Been winnowed; Winter at Armenia's door 
 Snarls like a wolf; and still the sword and 
 
 flame 
 
 Sleep not; thou only sleepest; and the same 
 Cry unto heaven ascends as heretofore; 
 The guiltless perish, and no man regards ; 
 And sunk in ease, and lost to noble pride, 
 
 B
 
 l8 CRAVEN ENGLAND 
 
 Stirred by no clarion blowing loud and wide, 
 Thy sons forget what Truth and Honour 
 
 meant, 
 
 And, day by day, to sit among the shards 
 Of broken faith are miserably content.
 
 THE PRICE OF PRESTIGE 
 
 You in high places; you that drive the 
 
 steeds 
 
 Of Empire; you that say unto our hosts, 
 "Go thither," and they go; and from our 
 
 coasts 
 Bid sail the squadrons, and they sail, their 
 
 deeds 
 Shaking the world: lo! from a land that 
 
 pleads 
 
 For mercy where no mercy is, the ghosts 
 Look in upon you faltering at your posts 
 Upbraid you parleying while a People bleeds
 
 20 THE PRICE OF PRESTIGE 
 
 To death. What stays the thunder in your 
 
 hand? 
 
 A fear for England ? Can her pillared fame 
 Only on faith forsworn securely stand, 
 On faith forsworn that murders babes and 
 
 men? 
 Are such the terms of Glory's tenure? 
 
 Then 
 Fall her accursed greatness, in God's name!
 
 HOW LONG? 
 
 HEAPED in their ghastly graves they lie, the 
 
 breeze 
 Sickening o'er fields where others vainly 
 
 wait 
 For burial: and the butchers keep high 
 
 state 
 
 In silken palaces of perfumed ease. 
 The panther of the desert, matched with 
 
 these, 
 
 Is pitiful; beside their lust and hate, 
 Fire and the plague-wind are compassionate, 
 And soft the deadliest fangs of ravening seas.
 
 22 HOW LONG ? 
 
 How long shall they be borne? Is not the 
 
 cup 
 
 Of crime yet full ? Doth devildom still lack 
 Some consummating crown, that we hold 
 
 back 
 The scourge, and in Christ's borders give 
 
 them room ? 
 How long shall they be borne, O England? 
 
 Up, 
 Tempest of God, and sweep them to their 
 
 doom!
 
 REPUDIATED RESPONSIBILITY 
 
 I HAD not thought to hear it voiced so 
 
 plain, 
 Uttered so forthright, on their lips who 
 
 steer 
 This nation's course : I had not thought to 
 
 hear 
 
 That word re-echoed by an English thane, 
 Guilt's maiden-speech when first a man lay 
 
 slain, 
 "Am I my brother's keeper?" Yet full 
 
 near 
 It sounded, and the syllables rang clear
 
 24 REPUDIATED RESPONSIBILITY 
 
 As the immortal rhetoric of Cain. 
 
 " Wherefore should we, sirs, more than they 
 
 or they 
 
 Unto these helpless reach a hand to save ? " 
 An English thane, in this our English air, 
 Speaking for England ? Then indeed her 
 
 day 
 
 Slopes to its twilight, and for Honour there 
 Is needed but a requiem, and a grave.
 
 ENGLAND TO AMERICA 
 
 O TOWERING Daughter, Titan of the West, 
 Behind a thousand leagues of foam secure ; 
 Thou toward whom our inmost heart is pure 
 Of ill intent : although thou threatenest 
 With most unfilial hand thy mother's breast, 
 Not for one breathing-space may Earth 
 
 endure 
 
 The thought of War's intolerable cure 
 For such vague pains as vex to-day thy 
 
 rest! 
 But if thou hast more strength than thou 
 
 canst spend
 
 26 ENGLAND TO AMERICA 
 
 In tasks of Peace, and find'st her yoke too 
 
 tame, 
 
 Help us to smite the cruel, to befriend 
 The succourless, and put the false to shame. 
 So shall the ages laud thee, and thy name 
 Be lovely among nations to the end.
 
 A BIRTHDAY 
 
 IT is the birthday of the Prince of Peace : 
 Full long ago He lay with steeds in stall, 
 And universal Nature knew through all 
 Her borders that the reign of Pan must 
 
 cease. 
 
 The fatness of the land, the earth's increase, 
 Cumbers the board; the holly hangs in 
 
 hall; 
 Somewhat of her abundance Wealth lets 
 
 fall; 
 
 It is the birthday of the Prince of Peace. 
 The dead rot by the wayside; the unblest
 
 28 A BIRTHDAY 
 
 Who live, in caves and desert mountains 
 
 lurk 
 Trembling, His foldless flock, shorn of their 
 
 fleece. 
 Women in travail, babes that suck the 
 
 breast, 
 Are spared not. Famine hurries to her 
 
 work. 
 It is the birthday of the Prince of Peace.
 
 THE TIRED LION 
 
 SPEAK once again, with that great note of 
 
 thine, 
 Hero withdrawn from Senates and their 
 
 sound 
 
 Unto thy home by Cambria's northern bound, 
 Speak once again, and wake a world supine. 
 Not always, not in all things, was it mine 
 To follow where thou led'st: but who hath 
 
 found 
 
 Another man so shod with fire, so crowned 
 With thunder, and so armed with wrath 
 
 divine ?
 
 30 THE TIRED LION 
 
 Lift up thy voice once more ! The nation's 
 
 heart 
 
 Is cold as Anatolia's mountain snows. 
 Oh, from these alien paths of base repose 
 Call back thy England, ere thou too depart 
 Ere, on some secret mission, thou too start 
 With silent footsteps, whither no man knows.
 
 THE BARD-IN-WAITING 
 
 TREACHERY'S apologist, whose numbers rung, 
 But yesterday, remonstrant in my ear; 
 Thou to whom England seems a mistress 
 
 dear, 
 
 Insatiable of honey from thy tongue : 
 Because I crouch not fawning slaves among, 
 How is my service proved the less sincere ? 
 Have not I also deemed her without peer? 
 Her beauty have not I too seen and sung? 
 But for the love I bore her lofty ways, 
 What were to me her stumblings and her 
 
 slips ?
 
 32 THE BARD-IN-WAITING 
 
 And lovely is she still, her maiden lips 
 Pressed to the lips whose foam around her 
 
 plays ! 
 But on her brow's benignant star whose 
 
 rays 
 Lit them that sat in darkness, lo ! the 
 
 eclipse.
 
 LEISURED JUSTICE 
 
 "SHE bides her hour." And must I then 
 
 believe 
 
 That when the day of peril is o'erpast, 
 She who was great because so oft she cast 
 All thought of peril to the waves that heave 
 Against her feet, shall greatly undeceive 
 Her purblind son who dreamed she shrank 
 
 aghast 
 
 From Duty's signal, and shall act at last, 
 When there is naught remaining to retrieve ? 
 At last ! when the last altar is defiled, 
 And there are no more maidens to deflower 
 
 c
 
 34 LEISURED JUSTICE 
 
 When the last mother folds with famished 
 
 arms 
 To her dead bosom her last butchered 
 
 child- 
 Then shall our England, throned beyond 
 
 alarms, 
 Rise in her might! Till then, "she bides 
 
 her hour."
 
 THE PLAGUE OF APATHY 
 
 No tears are left ; we have quickly spent 
 
 that store ! 
 
 Indifference like a dewless night hath come. 
 From wintry sea to sea the land lies 
 
 numb. 
 
 With palsy of the spirit stricken sore, 
 The land lies numb from iron shore to 
 
 shore. 
 The unconcerned, they flourish : loud are 
 
 some, 
 And without shame. The multitude stand 
 
 dumb.
 
 36 THE PLAGUE OF APATHY 
 
 The England that we vaunted is no more. 
 Only the witling's sneer, the worldling's 
 
 smile, 
 The weakling's tremors, fail him not who 
 
 fain 
 Would rouse to noble deed. And all the 
 
 while, 
 
 A homeless people, in their mortal pain, 
 Toward one far and famous ocean isle 
 Stretch hands of prayer, and stretch those 
 
 hands in vain.
 
 THE KNELL OF CHIVALRY 
 
 O VANISHED morn of crimson and of gold, 
 
 youth and roselight and romance, wherein 
 
 1 read of paynim and of paladin, 
 
 And Beauty snatched from ogre's dungeoned 
 
 hold! 
 
 Ever the recreant would in dust be rolled, 
 Ever the true knight in the joust would win, 
 Ever the scaly shape of monstrous Sin 
 At last lie vanquished, fold on writhing fold. 
 Was it all false, that world of princely deeds, 
 The splendid quest, the good fight ringing 
 clear ?
 
 3b THE KNELL OF CHIVALRY 
 
 Yonder the Dragon ramps with fiery gorge, 
 Yonder the victim faints and gasps and 
 
 bleeds ; 
 
 But in his merry England our St. George 
 Sleeps a base sleep beside his idle spear.
 
 A TRIAL OF ORTHODOXY 
 
 THE clinging children at their mother's knee 
 Slain ; and the sire and kindred one by one 
 Flayed or hewn piecemeal ; and things name- 
 less done, 
 
 Not to be told: while imperturbably 
 The nations gaze, where Rhine unto the sea, 
 Where Seine and Danube, Thames and 
 
 Tiber run, 
 
 And where great armies glitter in the sun, 
 And great kings rule, and man is boasted 
 
 free! 
 What wonder if yon torn and naked throng
 
 40 A TRIAL OF ORTHODOXY 
 
 Should doubt a Heaven that seems to wink 
 and nod, 
 
 And having moaned at noontide, " Lord, how 
 long?" 
 
 Should cry, "Where hidest Thou?" at even- 
 fall, 
 
 At midnight, "Is He deaf and blind, our 
 God?" 
 
 And ere day dawn, "Is He indeed at all?"
 
 YEA, if ye could not, though ye would, lift 
 
 hand 
 
 Ye halting leaders to abridge Hell's reign; 
 If, for some cause ye may not yet make 
 
 plain, 
 Yearning to strike, ye stood as one may 
 
 stand 
 
 Who in a nightmare sees a murder planned 
 And hurrying to its issue, and though fain 
 To stay the knife, and fearless, must 
 
 remain 
 Madly inert, held fast by ghostly band;
 
 42 "IF" 
 
 If such your plight, most hapless ye of 
 
 men! 
 But if ye could and would not, oh, what 
 
 plea, 
 Think ye, shall stead you at your trial, 
 
 when 
 
 The thunder-cloud of witnesses shall loom, 
 With Ravished Childhood on the seat of 
 
 doom, 
 At the Assizes of Eternity?
 
 A HURRIED FUNERAL 
 
 A LITTLE deeper, sexton. You forget, 
 She you would bury 'neath so thin a crust 
 Of loam, was fiery-souled, and ev'n in dust 
 She may lie restless, she may toss and 
 
 fret, 
 
 Nay, she might break a seal too lightly set, 
 And vex, unmannerly, our ease ! She must 
 Beneath no lack of English earth lie thrust, 
 Would we unhaunted sleep! Nay, deeper 
 
 yet. 
 Quick, friend, the cortege comes. There 
 
 that will serve;
 
 44 A HURRIED FUNERAL 
 
 Deep enough now; and thou'lt need all thy 
 
 nerve, 
 
 If, in her coffin, at the last, amid 
 The mourners in the customary suits, 
 And to the scandal of these decent mutes, 
 This corpse of England's Honour burst the 
 
 lid!
 
 A WONDROUS LIKENESS 
 
 STILL, on Life's loom, the infernal warp and 
 
 weft 
 
 Woven each hour! Still, in august renown, 
 A great realm watching, under God's great 
 
 frown ! 
 
 Ever the same ! The little children cleft 
 In twain : the little tender maidens reft 
 Of maidenhood ! And through a little town 
 A stranger journeying, wrote this record 
 
 down, 
 " In all the place there was not one man 
 
 left."
 
 46 A WONDROUS LIKENESS' 
 
 friend, the sudden lightning of whose pen 
 Makes Horror's countenance visible afar, 
 And Desolation's face familiar, 
 
 1 think this very England of my ken 
 
 Is wondrous like that little town, where are 
 In all the streets and houses no more men.
 
 LAST WORD 
 
 AND save to mourn, is there nought left to 
 
 do, 
 Nought ye can do, O sons of England? 
 
 Yes: 
 
 Ye can arise, reclaim your manliness, 
 And flee the things that are unmaking you. 
 Still in your midst there dwells a remnant, 
 
 who 
 
 Love not an unclean Art, a Stage no less 
 Unclean, a gibing and reviling Press, 
 A febrile Muse, and Fiction febrile too. 
 And they it is would pluck you from this slime
 
 4 8 LAST WORD 
 
 Whereof the rank miasma clouds your brain 
 With sloth that slays and torpor that is 
 
 crime 
 Till ye can feel nought keenly, see nought 
 
 plain. 
 Hearken their call, and heed, while yet is 
 
 time, 
 Lest ye be lulled too deep to wake again. 
 
 Printed by BALLANTYNE HANSON &> Co. 
 London &* Edinburgh