UC-NRLF CAUK)HIA Circulating Library, PRESENTED BY 1 '""" "'-. . 1.- -.-.., ' '* H A ;;; ,3 .; ' , A SONG FOR MY SON, BY GEORGE HENRY MARTIN. " Veritas temporis filia" LONDON : WATTS & CO., 17, JOHNSON'S COURT, FLEET STREET. 1890. IOAN STACK This from the humblest in the ranks Of Thought rebellious ; and content The bowman if his sheaf be spent Only in harassing the flanks Of prideful Wrongs great armament. i Though Pain must aye of Life be part, Nor while the ivorld shall spin its round May Sin be slain or Evil bound By league of hand and brain and heart, At least, may Falsehood be discrowned. 105 ^-nr^s PROEM. A MIGHTY monarch lived of old, an empire wide and fair was his ; Unfathomable oceans rolled 'tween realm and realm far provinces Whose kinglets were his vassals true, by him alone upheld in place, And, rendering their homage due, existing only by his grace. By wondrous kingly craft he bound these units in one system vast, That so his watchful eye was round the whole of his dominion cast. His single will did hold in check these realms diverse, nigh numberless ; Each prince thereof obeyed his beck. Potent to punish or redress, Avenge all crime, and right all wrong ; to slay or save, to crush or raise, Howe'er remote, high-placed, or strong, howe'er concealed in hidden ways The evil-doers or the good, so wise and powerful was he : thus, His kingship was a fatherhood, just, merciful, ubiquitous. Though, pity 'tis, for us are lost the precious archives of his reign, Beneath the mould of many a host, on long-forgotten battle-plain, 'Neath cities buried in the sands, lay certain tablets graven o'er ; These came to light, in many lands ; thereby we know that, long before Recorded epochs of our race, there did exist such realm as his, Though now the curious cannot trace that ancient kingdom's boundaries. 6 PROEM. This monarch, with some deep intent, but unrevealed (nor scroll nor stone Is left for our enlightenment, so this must needs remain unknown), Conceived a method passing strange to practise with a certain isle One small, but fair, and within range of his own trumpets for a while. He suddenly, not deigning word of change in purpose to the few There dwelling (a barbaric herd), all signs of sovereignty withdrew ! His court, his ministers, his seat of judgment, and his glittering guard Were straight removed afar ; complete was the abandonment ; nor ward,. Nor aid, nor countenance of him had that lone people any more. Savage they were, yet weak, and dim of intellect, and harassed sore On every side by ruthless foes : where should they look for help to- whom ? Royal force withdrawn, great were their woes, and miserable seemed their doom. This king had ever sought to train his people to rely in chief On their own strength and skill ; in vain their supplications for relief Ere they had strenuously wrought their utmost all that in them lay, Of craft or talent leaving naught untried, and in th' incessant fray Acquitting them as valiant men, well plying hand or wielding blade ; Then for he knew and not till then, did he put forth his hand to aid, . What, then, had moved their father-king to leave them in such plight as- this? Not wrath at some great trespassing, for sure such method were not his; His anger raged not, blind, to smite alike the greater and the less, Making his enemies to bite the dust in mere vindictiveness (Like one whereof we read) ; his laws were plain, their penalties direct ; His proclamation ran : " Such cause, inevitable such effect." Propitiation had no part no power availed not a whit ; Nay, all untutored in such art, this simple race knew naught of it. Neither vicarious sacrifice ; one, sure, had been accounted mad PROEM. 7 To name such thing, and in their eyes iniquitous the judge that bade The culprit go unpunished, free, because a guiltless substitute Stood ready 'neath the gallows-tree ; such freak had struck them wonder- mute. They looked to reap as they had sown, nor other outcome held they meet ; For thus their king had taught, and shown how that the fruitage, rank or sweet, Would follow, poisoning or to bless, as surely as the day to night. For law to lack that steadfastness these folk had deemed a piteous plight. (Though seeming stern, methinks that mode were in the end more mer- ciful, And more king-worthy than a code caprice or wrath may render null.) Thus much these island-dwellers knew, and 'twas sufficient for their needs. Small knowledge ; yea, but known for true, of greater worth than all our creeds. And this each did apply within the round of his necessities. What arts he had were naught akin to ours : small craft was his To build, and little skill of hand to work in wood and stone ; for aught Of this, if needed in the land, the king's deft-handed agents wrought. And for the rest ; to guard his den, where lay his love and little ones, From hungry beast or hostile men, and so to train his agile sons ; To risk his life to find them food, or lose it shielding them from harm ; The mother so to rear her brood that, fleet of foot and strong of arm, Quick of resource and sharp of eye, subtle of wit and brave of heart, They held their own, nor feared to die sufficed this, they'd done their part. So were they left. But since on none, before, was condemnation passed But always the transgressing one well knew how came he to be cast For death or durance, this, their doom to be abandoned by their king 8 PROEM. Seemed the more cruel from one of whom they ne'er had dreamed so hard a thing. Long on the lofty cliffs, the steep confining them within their home, Across the void the vaporous deep they watched for him again to come. He came not any more to them. How fared he died to whom bequeathed His glorious realm and diadem, to us no word hath history breathed. (Remember ye, these things befell ere Clio took in hand her style.) What records have been found but tell the tale of this deserted isle. Moreover, they are hard to read, and hidden from the ken of most, Who little reck thereof; indeed, for them they are as good as lost. Albeit, he who had bereft this tribe of help and rule benign, On many a monument had left his cypher set in deep design ; And wrought devices that displayed far-seeing and judicious care In divers plans right deftly laid to make their island safe and fair. Innumerable proofs remained some plain to all, some buried far That there, in ages past, had reigned one wiser than our wisest are. The generation that had seen the splendours of his sovereignty Passed from the earth ; their sons might glean somewhat of how it used to be, But as these dwindled, year by year, that period and that king became First a bright memory, then a mere tradition, then naught but a name. The all-sufficient code he framed, since it had been but day by day And only orally proclaimed, soon slipt from all men's minds away. Yet still one law one primal rule, well called of gold nay (for it lights The dim soul of the veriest fool, and glimmers for the blindest wights) Of purest diamond-crystal, say, set indestructible, a gem Flashing sure guidance with a ray unquenchable illumined them, Or would, had they but followed it, and dealt in all things as it led ; So simple to the dullest wit, yet in its scope unlimited. PROEM. 9 Though there it shone amid the dark for any to discern that would, Long years elapsed and none did mark that relic in close neighbourhood ; Until some honest soul by strong conflicting impulses perplext, Fain to do right and shun the wrong, yet by misgivings sadly vext, 'Mid many pathways puzzled sore, and wandering as in a maze, Urged this and that way straight before him suddenly beheld it blaze. Right glad he called unto his kin the seekers, thinkers, and the sage (For such lived, surely, even in that rude and unenlightened age). These gathered, curious, round the prize, and one, a patriarch, hale though hoar, Close scanning it with eager eyes, exclaimed, " Behold 'tis graven o'er ! It bears the very seal of him the cypher-royal of that wise one Of olden time, whereof our dim and differing traditions run. " We know this signet ; we have conned it set on many a beauteous thing, Of marvel and of awe beyond our ken and our interpreting. But see ! this lies within our reach ; we grasp it, and on every side Its flash illuminates, for each a revelation and a guide. How many a dark and crooked path had this made plain and luminous ! Who sayeth now that king, in wrath departing, had forgotten us ?" So the wise ones their fellows taught that first of rules to understand ; And, finding it so good, they sought for other tokens from that hand ; And others found they by and by ; but deeper hid, and needing more Skill to decipher and apply the signs and principles they bore ; In course of time these, too, became diffused and known among them all, Giving them handicraft to frame fair things from rough material. So cities did they build, where lay the swamp and wilderness of weeds ; Right goodly structures fashioned they, adapted deftly to their needs, Wrought wondrously in wood and stone, changing the aspect of the earth, io PROEM. So that their fathers had not known 'twas the same land that gave them birth. So grew and flourished they ; but ne'er a higher law, a better plan, Unto those islanders was e'er revealed for man to deal with man. Yet those who have explored their isle, and studied all their works and ways, Declare them prone to greed and guile ; and doubt if in these later days Their sum of happiness be more (though proud and prosperous they be) Than under that old King before he disappeared beyond the sea ; Because that primal rule, though plain 'twas writ for all, scarce any keep, So do they work each other's bane, and make the weaker ones to weep. A foolish race, to suffer such a martyrdom of pain and grief ! Though duped, still credulous, they clutch at this and that to find relief ; Their idols, e'en their gods they change, throning disthroning them at will, And some may be of a sort most strange ; these help not, nor can stay the ill. Poor sufferers ; within each one lieth the remedy ; for sure Themselves have wrought their woes, and none but they themselves can work the cure. NflTIONUL SECUUR SI ' 7 (Bethnal Green Branch,) ** LIBRA HALL,** R A SONG FOR MY SON. TAKE, my son, upon thy journey this memorial of me ; In the race and in the tourney let this token be for thee Not the mere words of thy father the reflection of his thought ; Old world-truths long patent, rather, taken from rich mines, and wrought Into missive form to win thee from the Specious to the True, And to stir thy soul within thee to pursue and cleave thereto. Dowered or no with ample measure at capricious Fortune's hands Blessed or no with ease and leisure, if thou'lt but discern, there stands One attendant at thy shoulder, One to thy young eyes, maybe, Seemingly of aspect colder than the others beckoning thee. If that One thou wilt but follow, she shall gift thee more than all ; When all else hath proved but hollow, her delights shall never pall. Take her hand ; for she will light thee unto many a treasure-store, And for all thy pains requite thee, though the toil thereto be sore. She with runic song will charm thee on the march and at the halt ; And she none the less will arm thee for defence and for assault With the weaponry thou needest for the battle-day to come, If her tutelage thou heedest, nor forsak'st as burdensome. 12 A SONG FOR MY SON. So thy monitress shall dip thee in her waters by the heel, And, invulnerate, equip thee but with other gear than steel. For the slayer and the smiter hath not honour as of yore ; 'Tis the keen and cogent writer swayeth peoples more and more ; By the singer and the speaker shall humanity be stirred, And armaments prove weaker than the lightnings of their word. Heed, my son, heed that thou givest keen attention to the Tale Of the land wherein thou livest, piercing through the specious veil Woven by ingenious writers, glittering-hued and gem-bedecked, Gaudy-wrought with crowns and mitres ; peer beyond this, and detect How in what plight fared the many, while the prideful, ravening few Strove for kingship ; let not any pageantry obstruct thy view. Sycophancy o'er that Story hath a dazzling glamour flung, Hiding in a haze of glory (so yclept to lure the young) Murder, rapine, lust, and plunder of defenceless, harmless folk ; Dastard ruffianism under kingly robe and ermined cloak ; Ruthless grinding of the tillers and the toilers and the meek, Usurpation by the killers and the spoilers of the weak. Chroniclers these things indited (whether by design or no), So the shallow and short-sighted give no thought to look below, 'Neath the blazonry concealing grievous wrongs and cruelties ; Read thou them with heart and feeling, not with mere scholastic eyes. Recollect, too, in an age when few could read, and fewer write, Fewer still dared pen a page unpleasing to the monarch's sight. From such partisan narration copyists have handed down Unto each young generation the tradition of a crown By its contact sanctifying ; so, for any crowned thing Dolt, poltroon, or God-denying lunatic once throned as King, At his sovereign will and pleasure sorrowing men must toil and bleed, Yielding up their lives and treasure to subserve his pride and greed. A SONG FOR MY SON. 13 This, that Tale, as mostly writ, perpetuates in youthful minds ; Compassion is benumbed by it ; the common herd, the serfs and hinds, To eyes of embryo Chathams are of small account as grains of sand, By King and Kaiser, Queen and Czar tossed easily from hand to hand. So surviveth the idea thus ever nourished anew That God ordained the eirth to be a portion for the prideful few. Most tenacious that tradition, though with million evils fraught ; Breeding slaves whose manumission is but slowly, hardly bought. Right Divine ! The first king given Saul (say Books that cannot lie) Was sent to mark the wrath of Heaven ; with monition from on high Warning of the traits of royal anointed ones their gentle ways. Loyalty ! Yea, my son, be loyal to Conscience only all thy days. Are, then, all men equal ? No ; for none to rule and none be ruled, Things were ne'er designed so ; but be ye not by phrases fooled. Sovereignty is to the strongest, that is so, and aye will be ; Once 'twas he of sharpest, longest sweep of sword and war-axe he Who, his way to kingship winning by his courage, proved his claim ; So it was in the beginning ; 'tis the same now yet not the same. Who governeth, who beareth sway, unto whom do the people yield ? Not the gilt manikins that play with weaponry they cannot wield : Not the small puppets tricked in gauds and robes belonging to the Great, Whom hungry Opulence applauds, expectant, at the palace-gate. The sovereign power that moveth men these weaklings cannot stay nor stem, J Tis nigh maturity, and then lo, it shall make an end of them. Look thou discerningly, and see how Forms whereout the life has fled Do exercise authority and awe the multitude, though dead : Until the slowly-gathering storm in hearts of men that hate deceit Breaks fierce, and sweeps away the Form that was but hollow and a cheat. So shall the new supplant the old that hath become corrupt and foul ; Help thou the fabric to re-mould which shelters but the bat and owl. 14 A SONG FOR MY SON. The order of the world is change 'tis trite as two and two are four ; Yet but in form, an aspect strange but masks phenomena, no more. Say some : " All truth has been foretold ; naught can be better than our best; Unto one faith the soul must hold as final, else are we unblest." Grasp thou this truth, as old as time, yet blinked and blinked from age to age From the first quickening mass of slime all things have grown from stage to stage. Of genesis, keen search hath solved thus much for us : We know that One From protoplasmic pulp evolved such types as graced the Parthenon. As in primordial forms, brute Strength blind, blundering, cruel won foremost place, Till, after countless aeons, at length, wide-eyed, endued with skill and grace- Nay, majesty, the tawny king roamed peerless, mighty-voiced and grand, At sound whereof each living thing quailed, knowing none might him withstand ; So 'mong the psychal forces, blind conglomerated embryons, That swam in dimly pregnant mind (when our far sires were but the sons Of anthropoids) the first of all that came to perfect form and birth Was that grand quality we call by name of Courage ; and its worth, Right quickly recognised, made chief him that did most thereof display ; Yet 'twas but as an outer leaf within whose folds all virtue lay. These first-born twins by right shall rule ; for where men dwell the truth will hold That there will also dwell the fool, the dastard, and the sordid-souled : These twain, but under other forms more subtle and less gross, shall reign, A SONG FOR MY SON. 15 What revolutionary storms soe'er may rage, what gods be slain. These two the peoples so applaud so heartily revere as true, They even bow before the gaud and garb that appertain thereto. He of the loyalest heart, and who with readiest love and sacrifice Doeth sincerest homage to the truly Great and Strong and Wise, At mumming counterfeits thereof the sharper-barbed shaft will wing ; The quicker gibe, the louder scoff, and the more bitter taunt will fling When Littleness, Ineptitude, and stolid Selfishness are seen With royal insignia endued, and aping the majestic mien. He that doth most revere the High, the Holy, the Sublime, the True, More keenly and more jealously with closer scrutiny doth view The idols set before his 'eyes and shrined for his adoring gaze ; And if discerned for falsities, in sharper scorn, in fiercer blaze Of anger doth his soul outbreak : him the more mighty impulse stirs To overturn them, and awake their duped and drowsy worshippers. But bethink thee, when a nation deems it fortunate indeed, Braying fulsome adulation of its monarch if he lead But a life of due abstention from the scandalous and vile ; As 'twere gracious condescension if he do not more defile The regalia than his fathers, and but stay the hand malign : Such the royalist beslathers with laudation nigh divine. See, if the sovereign do but feign propriety, th' idolaters shout Pseans in nauseating strain ; if she do but display throughout A decent, inoffensive life the graces of the homeliest dame, The virtues of the humblest wife, and do no flagrant deed of shame, In grateful admiration prone, the pack of cringing flunkeys cry, " Sure ne'er was such illustrious one as this our demi-deity !" See the servile always loyal acclaim with blatant, flattering breath One bedecked in trappings royal, with naught of regal underneath ; One who reigneth but by reason of collateral descent 1 6 A SONG FOR MY SON. From a plotter of high treason to the people : he had rent, Save for thwarting, into tatters the thin fabric of their rights, Leaving care of kingly matters to licentious parasites. One whose right to rule derives through yet another's tainted blood, E'en that king whose name survives, a synonym for dastard-hood ; Genius hath the record graven of that doubly treacherous one, Verily the falsest craven that did e'er pollute a throne ; More contemptible defacer of the scutcheon of his race Blacker-hearted one and baser ne'er did squat in Alfred's place. A right deriving through a strain but little purer than of these ; That of a scion called to reign, yet half afraid to cross the seas To guard his faithful people's weal of such a kingly sort was he ; Nor wit nor heart, nor soul to feel the sacrament of sovereignty ; A libertine, and of the worst the cold, ungallant, churlish breed ; First of the alien kings that cursed this land with most prolific seed. And in his train there flocked at beck the jay, the vulture, and the kite ; With hungry eye and craning neck they followed, scenting spoil ; a flight Of famished harpies, from their nigh-exhausted feeding-grounds un- cooped, Chuckling in gutturals to descry a prey so fat and foolish, swooped, With keen tenacious talons, swift upon these fair and fruitful lands ; And highest place was bribe or gift from George's blowsy harlot's hands. On, through his progeny, devolves th' insignia that in the eyes Of miscalled loyalty absolves from all that sovereignty implies. To re-narrate the lives and rule of these anointed ones would be To stir a foetid sewage-pool a foul, unlovely work : but we Are bidden to behold with pride the constitutional device Whereby their seed are sanctified. Say, Demos, are they worth their price ? A SONG FOR MY SON. 17 No spark of heroism, no gleam of genius nay, of intellect Did one display to half redeem their negligence ; 'mong these elect There stood no right true man, much less a leader and a chief of men : Nameless, unbridled lecherousness, the cock-pit and the gambling den, The brutal pugilistic duel such were the pastimes of them all ; Finding their sport but in the cruel, their pleasure in the sensual. There reigned not one whose soul aspired above the sordid and the coarse : Ignoble, bestial, they bemired the fount of honour at its source, So that the taint thereof became contagious even to the best ; Since they that bore the kingly name were creatures the unkingliest The dolt, the sot, the debauchee, the coxcomb, and the gamester-cheat ; Strength, Courage, Genius these royal three were thrust for such from Harold's seat. Through such devolves this sacred right this subtle, sanctifying grace, Unto this last ; and, lo, a sight a sham enthroned in Wisdom's place, With dandy-sycophants set round to intercept the vulgar groan. Since Sloth and Avarice are crowned, needs must be Valour mocked for one Brutal-tongued as craven-hearted, star-bedizened, struts and swells In the garb of a departed hero, brave, if nothing else. Mark ye that alien race ; with one tradition are they all imbued, For subjects fraught with evils uncomputable in magnitude. All of that line were from their birth upon one baneful fiction fed ; That though for most be dole and dearth, long labour-ache and lack of bread, There must no due nor tribute fail to fill their goblet to the brim, Though the rich wine be pressed by pale emaciate Misery hunger-grim : That there must be for them no lack of splendour or emolument, Though men be mad with want, and black each heart and brow with discontent : That though the outcry of distress make sad the sunlight, there must be 1 8 \ A SO JVC FOR MY SON. No gaud, no gem, no plume the less to grace their glittering pageantry : That peoples live to pleasure them not they to guard the people's weal, The flood of human ills to stem, the mass of misery to heal. The care that chiefly stirreth these royal dullards to activity Is to make safe and hide the keys of their vast wealth from scrutiny ; Possessions filched from a befooled and blinded people in the past, When common rights were over-ruled ; when Brunswick's swarm of harpies cast Rapacious glance o'er many a wide and fair demesne, and clutched at them, Seizing, with claim quick ratified; and none did dare the theft condemn. The least of their concerns, the last to trouble their repose serene, Is care for those whose lives are passed in constant jeopardy between The wolf that must be stayed within, and vampires threatening from without ; Who, pinching, toil and, sorrowing, spin unceasingly, in carking doubt Of how to win the morrow's meal. Such be not kingly cares ; yet loyal Should workers be, and proud, as leal purveyors to the Stomach Royal ! One instinct only, but one thought, did and doth dominate them all To grasp and to retain, but naught bestow ; nay, making constant call, With most imperial impudence, upon the toilers' little store To add to their magnificence and their aggrandisement the more. A vulgar and a vulturous line ! nor true nor firm in anything Save to insist on their divine prerogative of plundering. Shall a system of succession giving unto such as these Richest realms for a possession hold a nation to its knees ? Shall the profligate inherit them, the miser, and the fool, It being held as merit that they do but feign to rule ? Shall the shades of tyrants buried fleece us through their feeble sons ? Give thy answer from the serried ranks of the rebellious ones. , " cd Be it thine to swell the number i i in Tin I iliFTi iTijirtmii'l __ *'s^ Shall this heavy thing encumber any more the weary land ? Be it thine to join the others who have pondered on the wrong, And to animate thy brothers, for the battle will be long. Seek thy place among their forces, gathering silently but fast, With thy talents, thy resources, all the faculties thou hast ; Striving so to scatter seedful truths abroad that they shall bring The unthinking to grow heedful, till they recognise this thing This begilded idol standing open-mouthed and hungry-mawed, Tribute, tithe, and toll demanding, fed by statutory fraud To be futile, false, and hollow ; so to undermine its base That they who are to follow thee shall drag it from its place. Living, as thou dost, possessing liberty of thought and deed, See thou valuest that blessing, for 'twas won right hardly ; heed Whose high heroism wrought it aye, and mark in spite of ivhom ; Whose self-sacrifices bought it, though at price of fiery doom ; Who' maintained it 'gainst incessant royal encroachment, subtly planned, And bequeathed it to the present us their children, this their land. Mark the foes thereof, gigantic truly ravening Greed and Pride, And Another, belching frantic malediction far and wide. Mark her well, for thou wilt meet her at each step of thy advance, E'en through life ; but, to unseat her champion, needs but tip thy lance With the crystal Truth she hateth, 'tis the thing she most doth fear ; Yet must watch, for aye she waiteth to attack thee from the rear. Ere our fathers (as thou learnest) brake their fetters link by link, Time was when the studious, earnest seekers, all who dared to think, And to speak the thought that stirred them, though 'twere only under breath, W.ere it new, had need to gird them for a conflict to the death With a monster keen as ruthless, quick in craft as cruel of hand : Thou but seest her tottering, toothless, and this canst not understand. 20 A SONG FOR MY SON. Thou art free to think and utter whatsoe'er thou deemest right ; But did thy forefathers mutter truths now popular and trite, Quick as panther and as direful in ferocity nay, more, Straight upon them sprang an ireful Church that never then forbore Were it suckling mother, tender maid, or prattling little one In her savage hate to rend her victims limb from limb ere done. Thou art free to love thy brother, and to fare with him as thine, Though he worship at another and, to thee, an unknown shrine. This is worth thy recognition, for it was not always so It had wrought thy soul's perdition, nor so very long ago ; If to such thou hadst but given food and drink for kinhood's sake, Thou hadst lost thy hopes of Heaven it had brought thee to the stake : Look around thee, and thou seest fearless, open-mannered folk ; If thou to their thought agreest not, thine own thou needst not cloak. Long as thou dost naught offensive to thy fellows' sense or weal, Thou needst not be apprehensive, and thy deed or word conceal : Neither monarch nor his minion, priest nor titled popinjay, Dare disturb thee for opinion uttered in the public-way. Slow, to this, hath been our progress ; only since the realm was rent From the clutches of that Ogress, hateful, yet omnipotent, And her sorcerous fortress shaken, were the people's eyes unsealed, Did the minds of men awaken ; for the tyrant's doom had pealed Pealed, but ere the retribution be exacted to the full, Ere the day of restitution, long the strife and terrible. Slow, through outrage, dole, and slaughter, our deliverance, even since ;: For the Hag's misgotten daughter, harlot to a lecher-prince, Sitting throned but little lower than the mother sat before, Proved as pitiless in power, wreaking penalties as sore ; And, as in succubcean dream, the wise discerned a monstrous thing God's Truth revised, maintained supreme by grace of an ungodly king I A SONG FOR MY SON. 21 But the shrewd were set a-thinking, witnessing a thing so odd ; Wakeful, once fooled by a winking Virgin and a wafer-God, Sundry of them 'gan to search, and e'en to eye the Book askant : There might be a king and Church exchanging winks significant ! Thus strange doubts were set abrew, since now it was declared enough To hold the doctrine stamped as true by such an one as Butcher Bluff ! Search, nor cease till thou hast mastered all the story of this time, Spite of glozers of that dastard crowned embodiment of crime. Mark the hybrid Church that flung its shadow o'er the people's homes The blood-sodden soil whence sprung its roots : its victims' catacombs Are underneath it ; and, above, the fumes of burning flesh lie dense. Yet will thy teachers maunder of its " civilising influence." Thou must needs be keen to sunder fact from fable ; when thou hast, Thou wilt clearly see that under mighty empires in the past (For thee, as the Tale thou connest, re-arising from their dust), Long as men were truthful, honest, sober, merciful, and just, Free were they to make oblation to that form of the Divine Worthiest of their adoration that they deemed the holiest shrine, Where or whatsoe'er conceived they the Omnipotent to be ; Whatso'er ideal believed they truest, worshipped they. Thus free Were the peoples till that day when there appeared in Eastern lands, Girt with spears and armed array, a Symbol borne by bloody hands ; And its heralds, stern and dolorous, showed thereon a legend writ, Of a sort to catch the timorous, and to win the weak of wit ; Of a sort to breed deniers of a righteous Judge on high ; To beget a race of liars feigning to believe a lie ; To engender strife ; to deaden pity in the human soul ; Smiling lands to blast and redden, turning gladness into dole ; Hearts of men to break or harden wheresoe'er its shadow fell, Till it filled our Father's Garden with the flames and shrieks of Hell ; 22 A SONG FOR MY SON. Till the earth, for most, became a place of horror and despair, And the highest, holiest Name a name to curse with only ; ne'er Theretofore had persecution, deaf to ruth and frenzy-blind, Wrought such havoc and pollution in the conscience of mankind. Ne'er wept the world so, seeing done such bloody work at human hands ; Nay, through Time's glass had never run such ruddy and tear-sodden sands ! Thou wilt see that mankind oweth these things to a cursed creed ; Wherefrom, surely as there groweth deadly bane from hemlock-seed, Issued forth a raging devil armed with torch and rack and rod ; Hear it : Work he good or evil, man shall not be judged of God jRy the things that he achieveth ; nay, his soul shall live or die By the things that he believeth, and be blessed or banned thereby. Herein, as close-coiled within the cobra's egg lies poison-death, Lurks the baneful origin of madnesses whereat the breath Chokes in utterance. Mark and ponder well the outcome of that Lie ; All the beauty, all the wonder writ for us 'twixt earth and sky, Set as secret lessons, hidden only that they may be sought, All became a book forbidden, harbouring a demon Thought. Foul and fanged and fast-engendered crawled its offspring o'er the earth, Vilifying all that rendered human life of any worth ; Smiting, numbing, and besliming, with envenomed tooth and tongue, All man's faculties for climbing up beyond the mists that hung O'er his spiritual being at the dawning of his mind God-gifts for his own self-freeing from the woes of humankind. All his blessed, wondrous dower of loving heart and subtle brain, All his glorious, mystic power of intellect they would have slain, Had these things not been of Heaven ; mingled with but mortal clay, Crushed and trampled (but as leaven, ever working weal), they lay Stricken, fearful of betraying stir of thought or sign of life, Neither song nor speech essaying, for the horror that was rife. A SONG FOR MY SON. 23 See the deadly poison lurking in that fatalest of creeds ; Trace the virus spreading, working ; the malignant things it breeds, Multiform and pestilential ; see, at last, these coalesced ; Witness, then, an all-potential monster rear its hydra crest, All the tyrannies uniting to itself, and with its breath Making foul the earth, and blighting souls with spiritual death. Mark : its dupe, his mind infected, paralysed, and made afraid, In his mad mistrust rejected, as insidious, the aid Wherewithal his God supplied him, his equipment for the fight Given to sustain and guide him in his struggle t'wards the light : So that he became a creature cowering as if under ban, Terror-struck, with scarce a feature of the brave and honest Man. For dominant, and clad with might, behold this Incubus, the Church, Loud-denying him his right to freely reason, think, and search ; Aye, his right inalienable, to discern by fearless quest Whether tales be fact or fable, whether things abide the test Furnished for his self-protection, set within his heart and soul For a safeguard and direction through the mists that hide his goal. Rights, these, that by man may never be surrendered but with shame ; Duties, these, that whosoever shirks and delegates the same Doth do so at his peril ; yea, the tyrant king and priest shall grind And devour him as their prey ; him soul and body shall they bind, Strip and yoke to serve their lust : nor shall the gods be pitiful, But leave such craven in the dust, degraded and contemptible. What but trial and search incessant, and audacious questioning, From the dim Past to the Present, hath availed man anything ? Pensively his gaze projecting over earth and into space, Fearlessly the false detecting truly 'twas by these our race Won its victories and mounted arduously, stage by stage, Through the centuries uncounted from the first strong Thinker's age. 24 A SONG FOR MY SON. The primeval man that cowered ape-like in his dwelling-place, Rock-hewn cave or nest embowered, but beheld Panthea's face Dark with menace ; he but saw around, below and overhead, Threatening forms of fear and awe, but phantoms dire and forces dread Lightning-bolt and thunder-crash, keen winter's biting blast and stress, Were as foes that seemed to dash their strength against his nakedness. Plagues and evils that attacked him famine, drought, and pestilence ; Maladies and pains that racked him, aidless in his impotence ; Havoc of the fearsome quaking, cracking earth beneath his feet ; Ruin of the storm-cloud breaking, wrapping him with flaming sheet ; Fire and flood that left him bare of shelter and bereft of kin These for aeons cowed him ere the first true seer discerned therein The inscrutable Creator's emissaries grim and stern, High-commissioned inculcators of the precept " Seek and Learn ! Seek throughout thy habitation, search thine whole environment ; All its deep interpretation learn thou, and let none prevent ! All to sense or soul existent put thou sharply to the proof \ Search and scrutiny persistent ply these for thine own behoof." These the ministers that scourged him into effort self-reliant ; This the mandate high that urged him to investigate, defiant Of the cunning fetish-monger and the cursing mystery-man ; Servile to their craft no longer, nor obeisant to their ban, Strove he, baffling their endeavour to intimidate his mind ; Else had he remained forever destitute, abased, and blind. Ours had been a story bare of soaring thought and lofty deed Had our fathers failed to dare the priestly ban, and given heed To the cursing crew that bade them search no farther. But behold, He whose ancestor, skin-clad, nomadic roamed the woods and wold, Hunger-driven, making war with plaited noose and flint-stone axe, Hath linked the levin to his car, and scaled the heights of parallax. A SONG FOR MY SON. 25 Look back, in imagination, to the twilight of his prime From thy safe and hard-won station to the uncomputed time When he, on his first awaking to the powers that lay in him, From the bonds of terror breaking, into the assailants grim That so harassed and pursued him, shot the arrows of his thought, Fronting them that erst subdued him with his weapons newly wrought. When he had discerned the sources of his maladies and woes- Found the elemental forces not to be malignant foes, But benign, though minatory, agents pliant to his skill Grown resourceful, deft, no more he cowered when they wrought him ill ; .Seeing in their tumult other than consuming wrath and death ; Learning that the bounteous Mother for our weal thus laboureth. Then arose that spectral Terror 'mong the peoples to condemn Energy and Thought as error, cursing and arresting them. 'Neath its hateful domination man, distraught by new alarms, At its tyrannous dictation flung aside his proper arms ; Conscience, test of reason, these he straight abandoned for its creed, ,So that he became an easy prey to priestly craft and greed. Though the bigotry that brought him to such pass is yet alive In the Church that aye hath taught him but to suffer not to strive ; Ever, since she drilled and schooled him not to question, but obey ; Ever, since the Fathers fooled him, since the pontiffs held their sway- Playing, in the name of Heaven, the lecher, murderer, and thief Hath his progress been the even measure of his disbelief. Disbelief that revelation lit but one the Hebrew race ; Disbelief in a salvation by capricious act of grace ; In man's pre-ordained perdition ere he issued from the womb ; In a priest's divine commission to assign reward or doom ; In a Deity demanding of His creatures tyrant-wise, Reason, Thought, and Understanding slain as grateful sacrifice. 26 A SONG FOR MY SON. So far as he hath rejected these things, and his mind thereof Cleared and purged and disinfected (spite of pharisaic scoff), Just so far is he enabled to pursue his quest for Truth, And to read aright the fabled stories of his planet's youth ; Verily to love his neighbour, though in thrall to idols base ; And undauntedly to labour for the welfare of his race. As his old false beacon crumbled, and its red glare flickered dim, So with a more truly humbled spirit hath he worshipped Him ; More devoutly sought His presence, and more duly kept His law ; Leaving theories of His essence for the dogmatist to draw Heir of the patristic spiders that with futile labour spun, Analysers and dividers of the High and Holy One. In so far as he hath broken from the bondage of that Creed, Freely searched and thought and spoken, fearing not nor giving heed To the Church's curse the flaming torture here and afterward ; Lies, though crowned, as lies proclaiming, by their menace undebarred So far hath he rendered fertile regions barren heretofore, Ploughing up the tangled, sterile waste of " theologic " lore ; Through its murky labyrinth clearing pathways unto regions new, Into daylight pioneering seekers of the high and true ; Judging with a wider vision of his future by his past ; Wak'ning to his true position in the universal vast ; Loftiest peak and deepest ocean forcing to declare their tale, And the stellar atoms, motion measuring by rule and scale. As his mind refused submission to the yoke, and dared rebel, It regained its strength volition, paralysed beneath that spell ; It uprose, re-animated, from its servitude to fear, And his soul was liberated from the dungeon dark and drear Builded by his crafty masters to obscure it and confine, And devised that so his pastors might distort the Light divine. A SONG FOR MY SON. 27 As he hath escaped that prison, and his captors hath defied, So he hath advanced and risen ; nay, the more he hath denied Credence to his priestly teachers, more he hath been just and kind Unto all his fellow-creatures, with a justice unconfined To one sect or race or nation ; with a mercy unwithheld E'en from him who seeks salvation elsewise than from books of eld ; Elsewise than in basest barter as the price of guiltless blood ; Yielding to the Peasant-Martyr but the claims of brotherhood ; Thinking not to buy redemption whensoever he hath erred ; Seeking not to win exemption from the penalties incurred To escape the retribution following with unfaltering tread By a dastard substitution of another in his stead. As he hath revolted, turning in deep loathing from that Lie, So have cultivation, learning all the useful arts whereby Human suffering and affliction find relief made speedier way ; For the Church's malediction and her forces' whole array Ever have been set to bar the march of all that maketh free Ever hath she striv'n to mar the dawning smile of Liberty. Study well the annals pages blood-writ and aglare with flame Of her empire through the ages of her undisputed claim ; When all Christendom obeyed the voice of her as voice of God, When, omnipotent, she swayed the destinies thereof, and trod On the necks of prince and Caesar aye, with courtesy sharp and scant. Swiftly bringing to their knees her vassal-kings recalcitrant. With dominion unresisted, with authority supreme, Binding, loosing as she listed, oh, what grand and glorious dream Had been realised for waiting, suffering mortals, even here, Had she striv'n towards abating sorrow in this lower sphere ! Feeble Right had never yielded unto Wrong's tyrannic might Had her armed strength been wielded as its champion in the fight. 28 A SONG FOR MY SON. The chivalry of Europe leapt her beck and bidding to obey ; Had but her uplifted sceptre been the signal, in that day, Not for her too zealous legions, led by Craft and urged by Greed, To invade and plunder regions unenlightened by her creed, But to set the weak and lowly victims of the despot free, All had testified the Holy Spirit moved her verily ! Thus enthroned, and in her hands the keys of Heaven and of Hell, Clothed with power unchallenged stands the record that she used it well ? Witness, ye who perished under cruelest torments at her hands In the furnace, torn asunder rise and speak, ye, from the lands In the old days given over to her for a pastorate, Prom the hallowed graves that cover you, the brave, the wise, the great ! Bear your witness, O ye sainted victims of her ruthless might, Whom her virulence attainted of the crime of seeking light Crime of groping upwards through the blackest night the world hath known ; When right loud and piteous grew the universal sob and groan : When o'er every homestead hovered shadows fraught with fire and doom, And when Learning's lamp was covered, quenched in sacerdotal gloom : When at every hearth sat terror, lest the father, wife, or son Were accused, suspect of error, and their gladsome days were done ; Lest, unwittingly, by word light-spoken, they perchance had strayed, And quick Spite had overheard, rejoicing, so they were betrayed To the Church's cruel purgation to the torture (ne'er the less Wrought she thus by inspiration of the God of Righteousness !) : When fanatical Suspicion lurked alike in cot and hall, And the Holy Inquisition shed a horror over all ; For it spread a net so none might hope to hide beyond its reach, Nor escape the toils it spun for snaring winged Thought and Speech Subtly set to trap and strangle such in whatsoever guise, And of purpose to entangle Knowledge in a web of lies. A SONG FOR MY SON. 29 Bear your witness, O ye martyrs done to death but not o'erawed, Were not her Decretal charters forgeries, and based on fraud ? This the monkish scribes oft muttered in their cups, but ne'er avowed Till the patent fact was uttered in the market-place, aloud : Say, ye, if by her endeavour Truth and Justice might prevail Witness, ye ! or did she ever fight against them tooth and nail ? Do they tell thee I am railing at a phantom of the past, And but foolishly assailing one who long ago was cast Out from her assumed dominion : one whom those she sought to harm Have been fortunate to pinion, disentitle, and disarm ; One now moribund, and bearing rule no more for peace or strife, Ghastly-hideous only, wearing but similitude of life ? Who is this, be-mitred, standing but a step below the throne, Sworn, gold-gorged yet more demanding what is this proud-visaged one But that ancient tyrant's daughter yea, her own true child is she, Albeit the angry beldame brought her forth in hate, abortively ; For this offspring doth inherit all the jealous arrogance All the persecuting spirit that hath barred mankind's advance. On her front she bears the naevus aye, her prideful parent's mark, And her rule had been as grievous, merciless, malign, and dark, But that our brave fathers slipt the meshes round about them spun ; Challenged, vanquished, and stript her of her weapons one by one. Though she feigneth well beware ! her cursings, petulant and shrill r Tell us how the world would fare had she the power to work her will. All the subtleties devised to awe, bewilder, and delude, Whereby the Mother terrorised the superstitious multitude ; All th' accumulated lore the pious falsehoods, forgeries, Frauds and fables all her store of craftily-designed lies, Wrought and writ to fright unlearned, credulous, and simple folk, Hath the cunning daughter turned to account, to fit her yoke 30 A SONG FOR MY SON. On the indolent successors of the earnest men who taught Their papistical oppressors not to harass honest thought. She hath flourished, for a season, for the populace are loth To re-vindicate their Reason, lain for centuries in sloth ; And the many, at the present, murmur drowsily her cant Are but dully acquiescent where our sires were protestant. Like her parent, she hath striven aye to practise on their fears ; Like her parent, she hath thriven on their blood and sweat and tears ; Like her, she hath sought to darken every beacon save her own. As ye love your freedom, hearken and take heed mistrust the crone ! Blindly-stubborn is her temper, sanguined is her banner's hue, Haughty is her crest, and "Semper eadem " her legend true. Search her record : In each movement tending to the commonweal, To enlightenment, improvement in the arts to soothe and heal, Check disease, and overcome it ; or to free our fellow man ; Or, when from some hard-won summit, keen explorers in the van, Beyond her narrow ken, discovered tracks to guide or lights to cheer, She hath lagged behind and hovered, shrieking curses, in the rear. Mark her method now : Thou notest when the vanguard hath prevailed 'Spite her savage ban and protest, and the innovation, hailed Far and wide with acclamation, thriveth, an established thing To a purblind generation, heedless of her hindering, She (whom, truly, nothing shameth), having wrought her best and worst To retard and damn it, claimeth to have blessed it from the first ! Do they tell thee I but fight a hoary and disabled foe E'en as he that doth but smite a wounded giant, stricken low : For she, though diseased and dying, certain service wrought of yore, Hospice and relief supplying when the earth was given o'er For apportionment among the fiercest hearts and sharpest swords ; When the strongest they that swung the mightiest blades became its lords ? A SONG FOR MY SON. 31 That her word was to contentious, savage rulers as a law When none other the licentious, predatory hordes might awe : Preaching Peace Goodwill, as ne'er such message had been preached before, Daring all things to declare the symbol and the word she bore : Fair-built sanctuaries founding 'mid a rough world's strife and clash, 'Mid the ravaged lands resounding ever with the battle-crash ? That her walled domains afforded for the studious and the sage Sheltered safe-guard 'mong the hoarded wealth of the Augustan age ; Lodgment for the priceless olden scrolls wherein the few might seek Lore and solace in the golden wisdom of the lucid Greek ; Refuge and retreat for weary sinners in her cloistered shades, So their last days were less dreary, passed among her glebes and glades ? Do they tell thee this same Power, gigantic-looming, seeming-cruel, Made a citadel and tower for Peace and Love, while dubious duel Truth 'gainst Falsehood, Right 'gainst Might was waged before a passive God ; That its champions turned the fight, and, lo, where'er its legions trod The holy, final Truth dispelled the darkness for mistaken men ; Thought, grown presumptuous, was quelled : so He made bright His face again ? Do they bid thee, in the manner of this Faith's apologists, Mark the progress of its banner ; its emergence from the mists, Dubious, fabulous, concealing its first consecration, till, Triumphing, it waved o'er kneeling millions, bowed in heart and will ? Naught but God's own grace could speed it thus, all conquering, from its prime ! (So, e'en, will the Christian plead), and, with a confidence sublime, Ask what Faith inspires the powers, the foremost, mightiest of the race, And, like a rock-built beacon, towers refulgent o'er the rest ? What place Upon the habitable earth hath it not reached and lit ? What land 32 A SONG FOR MY SON. Lying within the globe's wide girth, whose people grasped the vigorous hand Its roving followers out-held, but, prospering greatly, hath become A place, where, erst, the savage dwelled, for peaceful men to make a home ? Lo, the regions wild that flourished where this Church hath shed her seed; Lo, the thriving peoples nourished on her sweet and gentle creed ; Lo, the honour of thy daughters and the freedom of thy sons Are secure where'er her waters have baptised the faithful ones. Though schismatical polluters made the stream thereof as brine, Yet these blessings (say thy tutors) prove its fount to be divine. 'Tis a fair defence, and subtle, but it toucheth not the mark ; Tis the method of the cuttle seeking to escape the shark, But with a difference, e'en this : The finny one obscures his track, Making the enemy to miss its prey, in clouds of fluid black. Christian, from point to point hard-pressed, getteth the sun in rear, and lo, Flashing in light from heel to crest, would daze his adversary so. Thou doughty champion, mouthing Peace and Love and Holy brother- hood, Thy shield is pierced ; 'twere time to cease thy sophistry. Behold, the blood Of myriad victims to thy creed hath splashed thee to the very brow ; Dost think them dead and dumb indeed? They cry unto us even now I That light thou deem'st about thy head rayed down from the Eternal Throne, A halo on thy banner shed is seen for other than thine own. That light thou takest for a sign of Grace upon the conquests won Beneath thy Symbol, doth but shine in spite of it ; yea, for that sun Long struggled dimly ere it brake, resplendent, through the dire eclipse A SONG FOR MY SON. 33 That followed in thy standard's wake. That sunshine whose glad radiance tips Height after height puts thee to shame ; yet, being shameless, thou, forsooth, Wouldst arrogate it in the name of one thou persecutedst Truth. Thy Truth, thy Symbol (called thine), thy Revelation, and thy Creed ! Were these things verities divine, our plight were piteous indeed. We know thy Church was ever wont to slay, or, were't a deathless thing, To steal, and claim, with brazen front, 'twas nurtured 'neath her sheltering. Thy holy books these he who runs may read for fabulous and forged. Thy golden plunder this our sons may hope to live to see disgorged. Thy Light My precious Truth indeed ! What higher, deeper, nobler truths To guide the pilgrim, or to lead the ductile minds of babes and youths ; To draw men from pursuit of pelf, so they shall labour for the sake Of others rather than of self have ever been revealed than spake The gentle Buddha, and the wise Confucius, Plato, Socrates, Whose wisdom shall endure when dies thy barbarous deity ? and these But gathered up wide scattered grains, and uttered forth in speech of gold The echoes of forgotten fanes come down to them from times untold : Yet in beneficence and worth these are as purest gems to dross By side of aught wherefor the earth must thank the prophets of the Cross. We know thy crafty Church but thieved these gems and set them as her own, Though generations have believed them to be hers and hers alone. Of new ? She hath bestowed one jewel unique yea, verily she hath ! A triune deity more cruel, more fierce in his insensate wrath, More savage in his jealous hate than any of the idols whom 34 A SONG FOR MY SON. He cursed and could not tolerate ; more slow to save, more swift to doom, More hideously unjust to man or virtuous or vile and more Ferociously vindictive than were any that had reigned before. Thy Symbol, that thou callest thine, and showest unto infant eyes As shaped in Heaven thy God's own sign, for thee descended from the skies, Ne'er sacred held before : this is but borrowed by thy Church and ta'en, Like all her other properties, from many an ancient pagan fane Where rose the sacrifice and psalm to Baal, Moloch, Ashtaroth ; Zeus, Adonai, Serapis, Brahm ; Osiris, Isis, Pasht, and Thoth. In old Phoenicia, Babylon, Etruria, Ind, and hoar Thibet, On obelisk and pylus on the banks of farthest Nile, was set That symbol ; aye, and there it bore significance of fructuous life, Unnumbered centuries before 'twas borne by her in bloodiest strife ; Long long before she taught mankind the proper hue thereof was red, Its shape a hiked blade designed the blood of infidels to shed. Her scriptures, she would teach our youth, were writ by trembling scribes- the while God's awful voice pealed forth His truth, and His own hand did guide the style, His lightnings playing o'er the scroll made holy by His very word ; He sealing with His seal the whole ! Yea, every child that tale hath heard From lips of Christian priest, and tongue of minister most sanctified, Charged by thy Church to train the young in truthful ways and thus they lied. Her new Evangel, she would teach, was writ by apostolic hands By sainted witnesses, who each fared forth o'er the Judaean sands Ever attendant on their Lord, so every wondrous work he wrought A SONG FOR MY SON. 35 And every precept, word for word remembering all, omitting naught- They wrote upon the sacred page, e'en as 'tis set before our eyes : So tells she them of tender age ; thus, knowingly, again she lies. Her Gospel by whose hands 'twas writ thou know'st no more than any child. Her canon who determined it ? Were the manifold scriptures piled (As Pappus saith) upon the floor, the Council praying for a sign ; When, lo, the Books Inspired leapt o'er the false, and proved themselves divine By self-arrangement on the top, so were the lowermost cast out ? This tale sufficed, then, to stop the mouths of any who might doubt. A murk, wherein the keenest miss all clue for certain guidance, lies O'er that Jew's apotheosis, o'er the inception and the rise Of the tradition of his life. Unknown his place and year of birth ; 'Mong the conflicting stories rife, which can we count of any worth ? 'Twas not till after centuries three that any book thereof was held As of supreme authority, and pious faith therein compelled. And many a zealous scribe did add thereto whate'er he deemed they lacked, Portents and miracles none forbade ; such fraud was thought a pious act. Thou knowest thou wouldst not hang a dog upon such shadowy evidence As thou dost fish from out that fog of fable with such diligence To prove thy Gospel from the first was held as God's own Testament ; Yet on such proof thy Church hath cursed all who denied 'twas Heaven- sent. To terrify or to beguile those who her precious Word denied, No artifice no fraud so vile, so infamous but she hath plied, No forger but whose guilt she shared. Well knoweth she the tome she quotes As Holy Writ was but declared the Word of God by human votes Eliminating from a mass of manuscript pseudonymous The Books ye impudently pass as wrought by miracle for us. 36 A SONG FOR MY SON. Her Creed she putteth forth as one the Galilean did impose On his disciples, as the Son co-eval with the Father ; those (She would imply) did verily hear how that salvation might be bought Did hearken to announcement clear thereof, and reverently caught The blessed phrases as they fell from him in ecstasy sublime, And so transmitted them, thus well attested, even to our time. If shrinking from that lie direct, yet do thy priests convey the same To children ere they can reflect from whence their Sabbath bogies came. Canst tell us unto whom, and when, that Man e'er spake one word of it ? Had Mary, or the Magdalen, or the first Twelve e'er heard of it ? This creed by Heaven revealed to thee who holds it ? who hath ever held It in its pristine purity ? did mystic Paul when he rebelled ? We know that 'tween the year of grace that saw the martyred Nazarene And that when first thy creed we trace, long centuries did intervene. We know thy formula (that binds but those whom it hath made as fools) Was long evolving from the minds of fanatics of various schools ; Know whose authoritative voice cried, " Quibblers, cease ! the Faith define ! " Ye cannot? Then will / make choice, and say what shall be held divine !" We know what wranglings 'twixt enraged be-mitred disputants were rife ; What conflict long and fierce they waged, how tigerish was their hateful strife Around the quiddities thereof ; what frauds what deeds of blood and shame (Well meriting the pagan's scoff) they wrought therefor ere it became Defined and formulated, firm established, fixed by royal decree. We trace how, from the triple germ Fear, Hate, and crass Credulity Up-grew the baneful, hideous thing thy creed, that after centuries seven A half-barbaric Frankish King approved as final and of Heaven ! The voices that have turned the scale in Council, voting "False or True?" - A SONG FOR MY SON. 37 The hands that made that vote prevail, and gave thy Faith its form and hue, That shaped and set thy precious jewel, were those of savage monsters twain, Most pious, infamous, and cruel e'en Constantine and Charlemagne. Thus through thy Church's whole career bloodguiltiness and guile are seen. Slaying in fury, and in fear denying such hath ever been ; Aye crafty to conceal the Truth of Falsehood quick to take avail ; These were her methods, and, in sooth, 'tis but of late they 'gan to fail. Deceit and false pretensions these have marked her every word and act; And this the dullest student sees when he her progress hath re-tracked. Saladin's sword had slept in sheath, nor had the sceptic cared to cast These wickednesses in the teeth of her whose reign is over-past, But for her stubborn attitude and ineradicable guile. Stern, sulphurous dogma t'wards the rude she holds, and, with the Augur's smile, Dispenses where strong Doubt is rife (being cloven-tongued and double faced) Her Waters of Eternal Life diluted to the drinker's taste. Arrogantly she doth persist in claims that crumble at the test Of Reason, the keen analyst. Though the well-proved the trustiest Pilots of Intellect her ark have left, a floundering derelict ; Though of authority stripped stark, a spectacle, she stands convict Of million immoralities, her oracles discredited, Yet, obstinate, she still denies all light divine but that she shed. We of the wider hope and thought, would she recant, are willing still To recognise the good she wrought as partly balancing the ill. But, lo, she is as one that stands upon the main-truck's footing small, A SONG FOR MY SON. And cannot, though right fain, use hands to clamber down without a fall. For her no more to claim to be sole mouth-piece of the Holy One Would hasten such catastrophe as needs must leave her clean undone. But, till that day, nor truce nor cess of conflict will there be, nor lack Of eager-souled recruits to press, impetuous, to the attack. Each morn that dawns, each sun that sets, beholds her enemies' advance, Beholds enrolment of cadets. Her dupes are wakening from their trance ; No gear but hatred of deceit they need to rout her and compel Her veterans to make complete surrender of her citadel. Long as she uttereth the lie of a primeval curse shall we Assail her and her deity as most unholy ; long as she Across the grave at man doth fling her blasphemous malignities ; Long as she doth assert a single claim as being more than this One evolutionary force, one factor in the growth of good, That sped our race along its course t'wards universal brotherhood. Maybe ye ask : If God ne'er spake direct to Moses on the Mount, Nor, taking flesh, taught by the Lake of Galilee if this we count As fable, dubious is our plight. What certainty what guarantee That Right, in human eyes, is Right, that Sin is really Sin, have we ? Whence came the Decalogue, whereto ye yield obedience -from Man ? How, then, are ye assured 'tis true, and part of the Almighty's plan ? Setting our sacred creeds aside, if souls must ever be content To take mere human voice for guide, no surety, but bewilderment, Must be our wretched state for aye. Though men taught truth before our Lord, They did but stumble on the Way ; 'tis now attested by his Word. On what foundation would ye build, to what firm bed-rock would ye go, If that prediction were fulfilled which tells our System's overthrow ? A SONG FOR MY SON. 39 Such words evince that deep disease wherefrom ye must be shaken free The soul's desire for slothful ease, its craving for Finality. Buddha the wise can here instil a truth into the Christian mind : " Though many a veil may lift, there will be ever veil on veil behind." That rock immutable ye seek, nowhere exists for soul or sense ; Man ever built, and grew from weak to strong, upon Experience. And what is that whereon ye base such servile, blind, unquestioning faith Is it not this : That in such place in Scripture such an one " thus saith " ? The Church of Rome was wise to make her claim.* Of what avail to us A Voice that long aforetime spake, unless it be continuous ? Ye hold your Book for true, I wis, because ye are so told ; what then ? Why, ye have nothing more than this -faith in the faith of other men. We yield in reverence to none, nor chary of due praise are we For that immortalised One type of divinest charity. Whether of flesh, in part -or whole, or if but an ideal wrought And imaged forth from out the soul of sad humanity ; though naught But a sweet-featured myth to whom the quickened conscience of the age Clung struggling for deliverance from the grossness of Rome's tutelage.. Or man or mythus, we revere that Figure hallowed and enshrined, Than whose was ne'er more simple, clear, yet blessed message to man- kind; We grant its truth as from above, yet hold we what it hath of good Not more of God than is the love, the selflessness of motherhood ; Than the heart-impulse to adore and deify th' heroic-souled That moved our ancestors before a song was sung or tale was told. We hold the spirit breathed therein not more divine than was the flame That glowed in others of our kin whose lives illumed the past ; the same That tipped the tongue of Cicero, and guided Euclid when he wrought * Claim to Papal Infallibility. 40 A SONG FOR MY SON. As pioneer to whom we owe the scaling-steps of highest thought ; That kindled Curtius* to his leap, Leonidas to bar the pass, Damon his plighted word to keep, and lit the heart of Pythias. But think'st thou 'twas th' inherent worth the dazzling truth of this, thy creed, That moved the princes of the earth to foster it and spread its seed ? Those crafty savages were keen to see that naught within their ken Could prove so mighty a machine for making slaves of sturdy men. They judged aright ; they had the wit to hail and echo its commands, To urge its precepts, and to fit the gentlest to their iron hands. Right willing converts did they prove ; what creed more welcome to the strong ? For lo, a voice as from above forbade resistance unto wrong. They grasped a faith so full of grace and promise as a very jewel It taught submission blind and base to tyranny, however cruel ; It taught endurance dumb, inert, under the burden and the rod : Slight need the despot to convert ; small marvel 'twas proclaimed of God! The charity ye name of Christ lit not the heart of prince or priest To mouth and prate thereof sufficed ; and of the blessed Three the least Enforced in deed, as though of small avail to save the soul, was this ; But all the parasitic, all the stupefying falsities Devised by zealotry of old, that stultified the nascent faith, Were forced upon mankind to hold e'en under penalty of death. These falsehoods and the priests thereof we gird our loins to assail; At these we fling the gibe and scoff, if other speech may not avail. These, consecrated, championed, borne abroad at point of sword and lance, * The birth, ministry, and crucifixion of Jesus are not one whit better attested, historically, than is the heroic deed of Curtius. There must have been a certain divinity in the moral atmosphere to generate the earlier legend. A SONG FOR MY SON. 41 Though hideous nightmares that the morn shall scatter, yet forbid advance. These spectres, still, on Sabbath days start up across the pilgrim's path, And shriek aloud in all the ways the gospel of eternal wrath. The name wherewith ye would attest and stamp these blasphemies hath been The motto of the crudest and blackest fiends the world hath seen ; The lip-cry of man's direst foes ; their invocation as they lit The martyr's pyre and watched his throes : for this we loathe the sound of it. Nay, it but stiffeneth our knees when mouthed by you in the same breath With such profanities as these, for 'tis a very Word of Death. Was it omniscience to reveal truth of such import as concerned All humankind's eternal weal, by means and in such wise as turned The warrior's sword, the zealot's tongue, the student's heart against their kin ; Ne'er to disperse the mists that hung, opaque, around its origin ? Was't loving mercy so to word such message that it wrought to man More hurt and misery, and stirred more strife than aught since Time began ? Was it omnipotence to vouchsafe but such ill-guarded testament As hath been borne to us, a waif upon the flood of accident ; A transcript torn, defaced ; a scroll not more attested nay, less well Than any glyphic mummy-roll ; one that but few can even spell ; And one whose garbled fragments set most learned doctors by the ears O'er their decipherment even yet, while reverent Scepticism sneers ? If thy religion be the true, and doubt thereof be deadliest sin, Among the bold heresiarchs who found naught of saving grace therein Whom must ye count ? Accursed, lost, and driven from their Father's face 42 A SONG FOR MY SON. There, 'mid the shrieking holocaust, thy God exacteth ye must place The gentlest, purest, noblest sons of earth, the selfless and the sage ; The grandest, the sublimest ones, who wrought for love, nor looked for wage. Writhing, incarcerate, among the flame-tormented there must be The paladins of Thought, of Song, of Science, of Philosophy, The fruits of whose life-labour bless uncounted millions of their kind ; Whose music lightens toil and stress, awakening in the worldliest mind Echoes in holiest antiphon ; whose work illumes, relieves, and saves Even the pharisee that on the Sabbath spits upon their graves. Whom must ye count as surely saved, and set among the seraphim ? They that with human ashes paved the blackened earth ; they that made dim With tears the eyes with anguish mad the hearts of millions of their kin ; They that but cursed the world, and bade its children sow no hopes therein ; They that but sorrow wrought, and death ; the cruel, the craven, and the foul ; Each monster that with dying breath but gasped thy creed and saved his soul. Meseems this gospel-truth hath need of many an apologist ; How comes it, if 'tis God's irideed? Betake thee unto church, and list To the State-hireling hypocrites, who, finding godliness great gain, Renounce their conscience and their wits. To make th' eternal mystery plain, Yea into Nay they deftly change and Nay as deftly into Yea ; Syntax inspired they re-arrange, and with the words of Scripture play E'en as a juggler with his balls ; by subtleties tortuous, serpentine, They prove the infamous and false to be the gracious and divine ; A message of despair to man if words hold meaning they translate A SONG FOR MY SON. 43 As solace ; everlasting ban as blessing ; and, the while ye wait, Fables that in our race's youth bemused the barbarous will be Transmuted into holy truth by theologic alchemy. The honest souls who truly find glad tidings of great joy in this We pity, as we do the blind, nor grudge their miserable bliss. But Falsehood throned ne'er lacks its troop of mercenaries, base as bold, Traitors to Intellect, that stoop to sell their supple tongues for gold ; Blasphemers of most impious sort, most infidel and mischievous ; On such, with justice, we retort these epithets they fling at us. No lie too monstrous, and no wrong, for learned pundits to maintain As true and Heaven-ordained, so long as the great multitude remain Too fearful or too indolent to use their spiritual eyes, And speak their inmost thought ; content egregiously to subsidise Self-interest to defend a Faith that filleth with such goodly things Its hierophants, and halloweth the tyranny of priests and kings. What spiritual faith soe'er what dogmas touching things divine Could thrive in the same atmosphere, find kindred sustenance, and twine Round the same hearts where grew such foul, pestiferous, and bitter bane As ripened in the jealous soul of bigot Ferdinand of Spain, And filled the brains that could devise the Inquisition's devilment Of such, all human sense outcries " A lie ! a lie self-evident !" Whatsoever faith could flourish in the mental soil and air That could generate and nourish fanatism till it bare Such horrid fruitage as the work of St. Bartholomew's red night (When torch and arquebuse and dirk wrought service in the Church's sight), As the cruel work of Calvin's hands Alva's, the crimes of Benedict And pious Torquemada, stands at Reason's bar thrice self-convict. 44 A SONG FOR MY SON. A creed belief wherein can stir to strife whereof the logic leads The sanctimonious murderer to perpetrate atrocious deeds ; A creed that could engender hate so merciless in man that he Could torture, burn, and mutilate his kin with equanimity For immaterial mistake in mysteries beyond all ken ; A faith that, firmly held, can make a hell of earth and fiends of men, Betokeneth its origin betrayeth whence it was inspired Beareth its condemnation in the curse of those whom most it fired. Humanity revolts thereat, calm Intellect derides it all, And Science, silent, long hath sat weaving its winding-sheet and pall. Time shall demolish and efface that hideous falsity, and bring To birth a better cultured race, unfrighted by the fatal thing. Nay, the evangel ye pretend was sped to earth from Heaven direct Did never in such wise descend ; therein keen, reverent eyes detect No revelation breaking through the order that we see around ; Nor heaven nor earth proclaims the True. Your theologic scheme is found To be of human germ and growth, born of the fertile heart and brain, And, like all earth-seed, holding both of goodly fruit and deadly bane. Priestcraft, in league with temporal powers, by arts of pharmacy malign Extracted from the holiest flowers that round the soul of man did twine The very sweetest, fairest plants that in his teeming heart-soil sprang, Most deadly drugs, intoxicants, like to curare and to bangue, That paralysed his human-hood and sunk him into stupor dull, Or maddened him to deeds of blood and infamies unspeakable : The while, his spiritual lords throve, plundering him bereft of sense, And, by the murderous dirks and swords of fanatics, gained opulence. So doth the sovereign of to-day, whose treasury is overfilled, A SONG FOR MY SON. 45 Draw gold for hoard or vain display from potent poison-drops distilled From the God-given wholesome grain. Twin foes, these, of the commonweal ; They thrive but by the lack and bane of those they feign to guard and heal. We grant 'twas piety did move patristic zealots to surround The jewels Charity and Love, that were to them as newly found, With laboured safeguard of their own hard masonry cemented fast, And set them in such altar-stone as, walled and sheltered from the blast Of stormful times, should aye withstand, even unto the end of days, The stroke of sacrilegious hand : for this we yield them meed of praise. A monument of zealous care for holiest things that structure stands ; But they that built were unaware that Truth, howe'er divine, expands That Thought was destined to be free ; and thus their edifice became A citadel for Tyranny right glad of sanction to proclaim Th' immutability of things whereby the fair and fruitful earth Was but the appanage of kings, to feed their lusts and make them mirth. The fabric piety designed became the hold of all to whom The brighter promise for mankind foretold a surer, swifter doom ; Of all man's foes the federated despots that foresaw their fall In each and any change of state that tended to the weal of all ; Of all the prideful powers that sought to crush, enslave, and render dumb The peoples, and to stifle thought. But now that fortress hath become A fortress but in phantasy. For as the trellised creepers hide Some mouldering ruin from the eye, so through the soil on either side Pity and Humankindness sprung, a verdant bine whose clustering boughs With thicket overgrowth have hung the walls of that stern prison-house, Have interlaced into a mass of densest foliaged evergreen, High-mantling, so by none that pass can any masonry be seen, 46 A SONG FOR MY SON. Nor sign of structure anywhere. Part, and peer through that wall of leaves No solid barriers are there ! He who so penetrates perceives The living tendrils have in-grown and crumbled the cement away From base to cope ; each loosened stone is honeycombed with such decay They are no more than fragile crust, and at the leagued assailants' blow The whole would topple into dust. Faith's stronghold now is even so. Ye who in chorus mouth the words of unintelligible creeds (With prayers that are but welded sherds of censers found among the weeds O'ergrowing pagan altars), say, know ye at all whose work they be ? Know ye whose mandate ye obey, saying, " Three in One, and One in Three," With other jargon intricate, that neither ye nor any sage, Howe'er inspired by pious hate, can find upon your sacred page ? Zealous for holy-days and feasts, none of these things ye know nor care; But, smiling, pay your unctuous priests to prophesy smooth things and fair; To promise you salvation, though ye play the murderer and thief E'en to your very death-day, so ye but profess the true Belief That thus of sin ye may be quit ; exhorting only that ye strive To hold the Faith, nor fail one whit, and save your wretched souls alive. As in the days of Constantine, faith subsidised becometh proud. Th' imperial creed is the divine for courtiers, for the servile crowd That ever hasten to avow belief in any patent fraud, And scramble eagerly to bow to any fetish, and applaud Whatever mummery it please the Dandy-Royal to make the mode ; Whose tongues, as supple as their knees, can paean merge in palinode. A SONG FOR MY SON. 47 Ye that of Christian England prate, ye smug believers, sleek, serene, Would ye behold a wondrous great conversion, such as ne'er was seen ? Ye feign to ban the demon Doubt ; let but its voice speak from the throne The million-throated realm would shout the heresy it dares not own. Ye copy, as ye do the cloth and cut of royalty's pantaloons, Your Christianity and both unto your souls are equal boons. A foolish Faith, a barbarous Creed, at best, are these ye feign to hold. How long will't be before ye heed this truth, as simple as 'tis old : Nor God nor son of God can save the sinner from the doom of sin, Nor any from the circling wave of consequence to all within The influence of the evil thing. This faith, firm-held, made manifest In every act, shall surely bring salvation to the sinfullest. Of this the wise were well-assured a thousand years before your Christ ; Since whom it hath become obscured, the Church declaring it sufficed To grovel, suppliant, craven-wise, for pardon through another's blood Shed in vicarious sacrifice and sanctified such dastard-hood ! Thus wrought she ills the most malign, in that her discipline did draw Mankind from faith in the Divine Immutability of Law. The narrow hopes, the selfish aims, the horror of her sacred page Aglare with Hell's tormenting flames, our stupor 'neath her tutelage, Are as a nightmare of our youth. Thank God, whate'er where'er He be, Who from her paralysing " Truth " hath set our fainting spirits free ! Free to proclaim abroad aloud the frauds, the infamies she wrought To hold man's soul enslaved and cowed, and maim the pinions of his thought. Free to approach that Altar High she hath ensanguined and defaced ; To bid our spell-bound brother lie no longer grovelling, self-abased, In sordid sanctimonious dust, and teach him that his winged career 48 A SONG FOR MY SON. ' ' : Is hindered but by* sdf-ifiistru strand bounded only by his fear ; That, high or deep*, there iieth ria&ght that's, needful for the sons of men Beyond the grasp of human thought, or out of range of mortal ken. The storm that shall disperse the blight of falsity and fear she cast Approacheth ; to our hopeful sight the scud thereof is flying past ; Men's souls, like buds in arid land, are all athirst, and pray 'twere here To freshen, so they might expand. 'Twas long a-brew, and in her ear It jrumbleth but as yet afar ; so sniffs she high, and in her pride Still thinks to stay the dawn, to bar the sunshine, and arrest the tide, Aye, the dawn of a to-morrow when the righteous shall prevail, And the bloodshed and the sorrow she hath wrought be as a tale ; The sunshine of great gladness in deliverance from her creed That drove men into madness, being set before the deed ; The tide that shall o'erleap her when it riseth in the day Of the tempest that shall sweep her and her blasphemies away ! (Bethnal Green Branch, ) * LIE7.A HALL,*- CHAPTER AND VERSE FOR STATEMENTS MADE OR IMPLIED IN THE FOREGOING. With acknowledgment s> for material^ to the Writings of MRS. ANNIE BESANT, JULIAN, MR. BRADLAUGH, SALADIN, MR. G. W. FOOTE, and Others. THE object of this Appendix is to assist the young investigator to a knowledge of certain important facts, especially of Church history, which are studiously veiled or ignored in the ordinary books of instruc- tion, and are admitted by tutors only with extreme reluctance. The reason of this concealment must be that the truth is in reality some- thing very different from, or even the exact opposite of, what is generally taught. " A plotter of high treason to the people " /. 16. See any English History, reign of James I., for account of that monarch's disputes with the House of Commons ; and the sturdy oppo- sition to his pretensions maintained by his second and last Parliaments. See, also, how all the principal offices of State were filled by the creatures of Buckingham, who ruled the king as he pleased. Sophia, the grand-daughter of James I., having married the Duke of Brunswick, was the ancestress of the present reigning family of Guelphs. SO CHAPTER AND VERSE. " One whose right to rule derives through yet another's tainted blood " -p. 16. As the right to the crown was transmitted, through the "tainted blood " of James II., to Queen Anne, the failure of whose issue brought the House of Brunswick to the throne of England, it may be said of Victoria that her " right to rule derives " through James II., the grand- son of James I. That such a creature as James II. should have been held as transmitting the sacred right of sovereignty to his offspring is the fact the writer wishes to emphasize for consideration. " Genius hath the record graven of that doubly treacherous one " p. 16. See Macaulay's portrait of James II., done in indelible ink. " A scion called to reign, yet half afraid to cross the seas To guard his faithful people's weal " -p. 16. See Thackeray's " Four Georges " and Hallam's " History." " Bemired the fount of honour So that the taint became contagious even to the best " /. 17. The Triennial Parliaments were lengthened by a corrupt majority. For the committal of the Septennial Bill there was a majority of seventy- two ; and about eighty-two members of the House had either fingered Walpole's gold or pocketed the bank-notes left " by accident " under their plates. In the ten years which preceded the Septennial Act the sum expended for Secret Service was .337,960. In the ten years following the passing of that Act the sum expended for Secret Service was ^1,453,400. See records of the reign of George I. " Mark ye that alien race ; with one tradition are they all imbued " /. if. It was gravely maintained (by the Stuarts and their adherents) that the Supreme Being regarded hereditary monarchy, as opposed to other forms of government, with peculiar favour ; that the rule of succession, in order of primogeniture, was a divine institution, anterior to the Christian, and even to the Mosaic, dispensation ; that no human power could deprive the legitimate prince of his " rights ;" that his authority was necessarily always despotic ; that the laws by which, in England and other countries, the prerogative was limited were to be regarded merely as concessions which the sovereign had freely made, and might CHAPTER AND VERSE. 51 at his pleasure resume ; and that any treaty into which a king might enter with his people was merely a declaration of his present intentions, and not a contract of which the performance could be demanded (Macaulay). Anyone whose duties have brought him within the circle of the Court of Victoria, and into personal contact with the chief members of the Guelph Family, must have discerned the scarce-concealed resentment they feel at the constitutional restraints imposed on them. They are arrant Stuarts in temperament and disposition, with the Hanoverian miserliness and stolidity superadded. They by no means heartily accept their position, exalted and luxurious though it be ; and even the careless observer " in close attendance " can see their mental attitude to be that of injured divinities, charing under a wrongful depri- vation of much of their due freedom, splendour, and prerogative by a pestilent democratic spirit. (G. H. M.'s note ; compared with, and abundantly corroborated by, those of others who have had the same opportunities of observing as himself.) " The care that chiefly stirreth these royal dullards to activity Is to make safe and hide the keys of their vast wealth from scrutiny " p. 18. In no single matter did Queen Victoria display such great and anxious activity as in that of preventing the publication of the Prince Consort's will, which has never been proved. " Brunswick's swarm of harpies " -p. 18. George I. brought with him no wife to England, but he was accom- panied by at least two of his mistresses ; and our peerage roll was enriched by the addition of Madame Kilmansegg as Countess of Darlington, and Mademoiselle Erangard Melosine de Schulenberg as Duchess of Kendal and Munster, Baroness of Glastonbury and Countess of Faversham. Lord Chesterfield says of George I. : " No woman came amiss to him, if she were only very willing and very fat." John Heneage Jesse, in his " Memoirs of the Court of England," speaking of the Duchess of Kendal, the Countess of Platen (George I.'s co-partner in the murder of Philip, Count Konigsmark), and others less known to infamy, says : " George I. had the folly and wickedness to encumber himself with a seraglio of German prostitutes." The Duchess of Kendal had .7,500 a year, the profits of the place of Master of the Horse, and much other plunder from the national purse. 52 CHAPTER AND VERSE. 11 To grasp and to retain, but nought bestow " /. /