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Poems from Manuscripts Circa 1909 1910
Perfect thy motion ever within me, Master of mind. Grey of the brain, flash of the lightning, Brilliant and blind, These thou linkest, the world to mould, Writing the thought in a scroll of gold Violet lined.
Tablet of brain thou hast made for thy writing, Master divine. Calmly thou writest or full of thy grandeur Flushed as with wine. Then with a laugh thou erasest the scroll, Bringing another, like waves that roll And sink supine.
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ACHAB Stamp out, stamp out the sun from the high blue And all o’erarching firmament of heaven; Forget the mighty ocean when it spumes Under the thunder-deafened cliffs and soars To crown their tops with spray, but never hope That Baal will excuse, Baal forgive. That’s an ambition more impossible, A thought more rebel from the truth.
ESARHADDON Baal! It seems to me that thou believ’st in Baal!
ACHAB And what dost thou believe in? The gross crowd Believe the sun is God or else a stone. This though I credit not, yet Baal lives.
ESARHADDON And if he lives, then you and I are Baal, Deserve as much the prayer and sacrifice As he does. Nay, then, sit and tell him, “Lord, If thou art Baal, let the fire be lit Upon thy altar without agency, Let men believe.” Can God do this, and if He cannot, if he needs a flint and fuel And human hands to light his sacred fire, Is he not less than man? The flint and fuel Are for our work sufficient. What is he If not a helpless name that cannot live Unless men’s lips repeat him?
Page – 286 ACHAB And the flint, The fuel? Who made these or formed the hands That lit the fire? the lips that prove him nothing? Or who gave thee thy clear and sceptic brain, Thy statecraft and thy bold and scornful will Despising what thou usest? Was it thou That mad’st them?
ESARHADDON No, my parents did. Say then The seed is God that touched my mother’s womb And by familiar process built this house Inhabited by Esarhaddon.
ACHAB Who Fashioned the seed?
ESARHADDON It grew from other seed, That out of earth and water, light and heat, And ether, eldest creature of the world. All is a force that irresistibly Works by its nature which it cannot help, And that is I and that the wood and flint, That Achab, that Assyria, that the world.
ACHAB How came the force in being?
ESARHADDON From of old It is.
Page – 287 ACHAB Then why not call it Baal?
ESARHADDON For me I care not what ’tis called, Mithra or God. You call it Baal, Perizade says ‘Tis Ormuzd, Mithra and the glorious Sun. I say ’tis force.
ACHAB Then wherefore strive to change Assyria’s law, o’erthrow the cult of Baal?
ESARHADDON I do not, for it crumbles of itself. Why keep the rubbish? Priest, I need a cult More gentle and less bloody to the State, Not crying at each turn for human blood Which means the loss of so much labour, gold, Soldiers and strength. This Mithra’s worship is. Come, priest, you are incredulous yourself, But guard your trade, so do I mine, so all. Will it be loss to you, if it be said Baal and Mithra, these are one, but Baal Changes and grows more mild and merciful, A friend to men? Or if instead of blood’s Unprofitable revenue we give Offerings of price, and heaps of captive gold In place of conquered victims?
ACHAB So you urge, The people’s minds are not so mobile yet.
Page – 288 ESARHADDON If you and I agree, who will refuse? I care not, man, how it is done. Invent Scriptures, forge ancient writings, let the wild Mystics who slash their limbs on Baal’s hill, Cry out the will of Baal while they slash. You are subtle, if you choose. The head of all Assyria’s state ecclesiastical, Assured a twentieth of my revenues, And right of all the offerings votaries heap On Mithra, that’s promotion more than any Onan can give, the sullen silent slave, Or Ikbal Sufa with his politic brain.
ACHAB Why that?
ESARHADDON You think I do not know! I see Each motion of your close conspiring brains, Achab.
ACHAB And if you do, why hold your hand?
ESARHADDON That’s boldly questioned, almost honestly. Because a State is ill preserved by blood. The policy that sees a fissure here, A wall in ill repair, and builds it up, Is better than to raze the mansion down And make it new. I know the people’s mind Sick of a malady no leech can name; I see a dangerous motion in the soil,
Page – 289 And make my old foundations sure. Achab, You know I have a sword, and yet it sleeps; I offer you the gem upon the hilt And friendship. Will you take it? See, I need A brain as clear as yours, a heart as bold. What should I do by killing you, but lose A statesman born?
ACHAB You have conquered, King. I yield.
ESARHADDON ‘Tis well. Here is my hand on our accord.
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