Prologue

The vision of a Pilgrimage
Made in this our modern Age
By one who went from faith to doubt,
Through all the evil rabble rout
Of mad disorder, and new lore,
That saps foundations firm before.
Many men, and many lands
He wandered over ; mind expands ;
The heart by loving learns to love.
And more by losing ; darkly throve
Foreboding also, when the rod
He saw the oppressor wield, who trod
On human hearts, the doubt of God.
Yet, charging all on man, he goes,
In part for solace, to the shows
Of world-illusion, by fair sense
Held captive ; when delivered thence,
Suffereth for that offence
In cloisterly, devout seclusion.
Him the importunate confusion
Following, hales from meditation,
Where, far from earthly tribulation.
He lies, with action closely furled.
Pondering the riddle of the world.
Involved in pensive solitude
The hermit may no longer brood ;
Wave-washed from his rock-island home,
Once more affronts the wandering foam.
A pretty boudoir of toy Art
Surveys, but only to depart.
World's indifference he tries,
Behind respectabilities.
Which are as walls built thick and high
To ward offence from ear and eye.
And yet his heart obeys the lure
Of sundry, who propound their cure
For social sickness ; curious mind
Blindest leader of the blind
Will follow ; but, alas ! no goal
Crowns who yield to their control ;
Long builded order fades away
From these, who to the desert stray ;
Nor hoped oasis beams upon their way.
Then, finding refuge in lone Nature,
He, wearying of her mystic stature.
Returns where poor Humanity
Doth agonise, do evil, die.
On icy heights, amid the scorn
Of gods and demons, vulture-torn !
Learns at length that not alone
Fault of ours hath wrought our moan.
Whence cometh evil, who shall say.
In man, the creature of a day ?
The dumb Sphinx-Nature dooms no less
Than men, though ne'er so pitiless ;
Turns her thumbs down, votes for death.
The whole creation travaileth
With conflict, suffering, and care ! . . .
Spirits in the murk of air
Wail and whisper doubt, despair ;
Whom angels answer, to dispel
Inner night that o'er him fell.
He dared the invisible invoke,
And so the mirthful scorn provoke
Of latter-day omniscience,
That doth all knowledge, save through sense,
Prohibit ; yet he deemed there spoke
Voices verily to him,
And forms unearthly, fair, or grim,
Came palpable, now pale and dim ;
Yet often hard to be divined
He found it, if to his own mind
Or theirs a thought should be assigned,
Believing he the problem solved
By holding both alike involved . . .
Last, Devil-driven to end all,
Enveloped in Despair's bleak pall.
Love plucks him from the final fall ;
Offers hope and mercy mild,
In guise of a dear little child ;
With olive-leaf from forth the dark,
A dove taps at life's wildered ark.
And so the prodigal comes home.
Though not to where he wandered from.
Scarce may any wanderer find
The very place he left behind.
But he returns to faithful labour ;
In Art reflecting Nature, neighbour,
And a soul whereover lay
Brooding problems of to-day.
As in a lonely mountain lake
Mirrored vapours roll and break,
Sullenly involved, unravel,
Murmur tempest while they travel.

Apollo with the Python wages
Awful warfare of the ages !
It may be the All draweth breath
From good and evil, life and death.

A dream of childly happiness,
A dream of children's dire distress ;
A vision, fain to reconcile
Powerful oppressions of the vile,
And what appears a casual slaughter
By elements of fire or water,
With Love and Righteousness, which are
More than earth, or moon, or star,
Grander than the night and day,
World-foundation old and grey.
If aught more real lie below,
It is not less than these, we know ;
May only complemental lie
To their sublime eternity.