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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
PEREGRINUS, by LASCELLES ABERCROMBIE Poem Explanation Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: Much bruit have I about the world, and fame Last Line: Death of peregrinus. Subject(s): Religion; Theology | |||
Persons. Peregrinus Proteus. Marcon, a Christian. Chorus of Corinthian youths. ARGUMENT. PEREGRINUS, a man notable when the Christian Church was young, having famously lived a wicked life, publicly burnt himself in Greece. LUCIAN has left one account of the manner of his dying. Another account is here set forth. BEFORE THE PYRE. Peregrinus. Much bruit have I about the world, and fame, A baying hound, hath never left my sleuth Nor left to noise the air with feats of mine. But to be known have I much viciousness Performed, and gone in lust for many years. And now I come to burn myself, and this Shall be the famousest of all my deeds. I mean to be a flame and a flying smoke, A wide astonishment to the dim minds That hamper all the world. But I escape From that obsequious fame that dogged my life Yelping, a voice to please ignorant ears. Now as my flesh shall marry the lit air In golden burning, news of my bright death Shall run a fiery gait upon the thoughts Of upright men, an unaccustomed ardour. Yet I grieve over my dear desires and lusts That have to be so cruelly destroyed. But there's no help; they are a mutiny, They grow too strong, and would be masters in me. I'll not have that. I'll ruin them with the flame Rather than drive a team I cannot steer. Moreover, as I burn my living flesh, I write a message which, if men will read And follow in the way I link them on, Will make more joy and beauty in the earth Than all the hopes of Heaven and fears of God. When men shall fear their Selves, and after that Worship their Selves (for worship's the one way To make a thing sacred and worthy worship) Men will have come to their full stature then. Therefore I go into the pains of fire To shew the world a symbol of such worship: Nor can I any other way now give Clean priestly service to my sacred part. This Marcon too shall preach me to the lands, I the Nehushtan and the Moses he. Lo, Marcon comes, and up the ladder I Reluctant climb: I tread no more on grass, The earth shall no more be a road for my feet. But I am climbing higher than this frame Of timber, higher than any flame shall lunge, When it is burning me, I climb aloft, And draw man's thought towering after me. It is not anguish of the fire comes now, But the mighty anguish of becoming holy After long dwelling in the shops of lust. Air, thou fresh pleasant creature, dear to breathe, Wilt thou become a fierceness in my lungs? And thou, dusk evening, shalt soon be torn With blaze, and reel at the manner of my end. Here am I at the top. Lonely it seems; And I am hung over the risk of death. Marcon. A hateful thing is friendship false; yet good And profitable may it be if God Bends, as he can, the crooked ill to straight. I was a friend to Peregrinus,friend In seeming: with the falsehood I serve God. This man, to draw the moths o' the world to his Strange lores, here willingly will burn himself, A death uncouth, to take the world aghast; And worse than the loose heats and smokes of his life Will be the pestilent reek of his wild death. I must prevent him perfecting his death. Godless and fraudulent he lived: his flesh So trampled on his mind, no doubting knew Great-lusted Peregrinus, but he sinned His life away, not pausing 'twixt his bouts; He was mere ravening of the baser kind, Till in these storms unto a vile harbour This poor ship drave, into the shelter of hell, And rides calm, anchor'd to the devil's heart. O, I have sicken'd at his blasphemy, Applauding it and adding my own wit (Which God forgive) to keep him in those ways. He holds he hath a better tongue than Christ To make men leave the dirt and stand upright; And, lest he found a head to dupe indeed, I as disciple swallowed all his teaching, His crazy watchwords (how I spew them out) Self-serving, self-delight, ay, and self-worship. And madly he will give himself to stand In fire until he chars to death, for hopes Of startling all the unaware dark minds To manfulness, with a new faith the world Rumouring farther abroad than Galilee And Olivet have gone about the mouths Of nations, and are sacred in men's ears: And flames perhaps look nobler than a cross. God gave me cunning; and I swore to be The preacher of his notions. He will die Trusting his words to me. I swore besides From Corinth to collect with choice a sage Assembly of staid witnesses. For them He waits, for them I have swept up A ribald crowd of youths; well known to these By fame is Peregrinus. I have said That he will burn himself lest he should lose (For he perceives men's ears grow tired of him) His infamy, and come to an obscure end: But openly, in concourse, he will set The doors of death on fire, and burst a way By flames through the forbiddance of his flesh, And win great mention in the talk of feasts. Thissport it is to themthey come to view With glee unruly; yea, behold they come, Less gentle pack than wolves, announced by wine Upon the air, laughter and flown gibing, The snarling happiness of cruel men. How have men's mouths become so terrible? Chours. Two here alone; Have we been fooled, we are enough To snatch the jest from these, And with what merry injuries we please Bind it on them. 'Tis like we shall be entertained Whatever case befall. When God sent down strict duties To school His men, the kinder Devil sent Pleasures in a gay troop; Tunefully they dance over the heart; And of them all the queen is Cruelty, The subtlest, the least sensuous, Keener than keen odours, Fiercer than fierce wine in the brain, Reaching into the life of us farther than love, A rapture with no satisfaction in it, Making the lungs gasp, forgetting to breathe, And the heart stand still, trembling. But also it is gravely thought That pleasures be indeed from God's hands To be a means of climbing from the earth. And not amiss that city would be judged The princeliest, the nearest heaven, Which had stept up all rungs of lower pleasures, And had abandoned all the sorts of delight For this amazement of the nerves, This sharp delicious ransack of the brain, This ravishing wild piracy of the soul, Cruelty. This need not crawl laborious through a sense, This hath no masterful appetites Warily to serve, capricious gate-keepers, Now welcoming in pleasure to the mind As high-birtht lady they are glad to see Coming to cheer their lord, Now shutting sulky doors Before her entrance, calling her ill-names, Saying they are sick, Cannot rise to draw the bolts, Nor would let her tempt Their lord, the mind, to harlotry. But Cruelty hath no gates, Nor qualmish porters in her way: Though she get help from sense, For struggle, eyes, Ears for cries, Smelling when we use the fire, Yet in the main she is mere intelligence; And a dull thing seemeth sense And sensual delight, To one who has let the exquisite Passion of cruelty trouble his heart To blithe laughter, and learnt Skill in tormenting. To me in warm love busied, or in cups, A whisper came, A quiet fame, That Peregrinus would all willingly Torture his living limbs with fire. Then I arose from soft enjoyment, From wine and lust and hours of scent, To try the thinnest highest element Delight can use for being, Cruelty; Hail, Marcon, we are come, Hail to thy crazed victim. Pay us now our jest, this man's torment. Mar. Mayhap I yet may use persuasion On him. My master, Peregrinus there! Per. Art eager then? art thou as ready as I? Mar. The worshippers are come: they wait the priest. Per. And soon the priest shall put on holy robes. Mar. Not a soft weaving, such as loves the skin. Per. But golden, but a glory, the wealth of flame. Mar. Shall man not love his life, but prefer death? Per. He shall love Self better than he loves life. Mar. And yet thou say'st, death utterly scatters Self. Per. Nothing it matters if that be or not. Mar. How pleasant in the beating heart is life. Per. But if a man hath left to rule his lusts, Which are to teach him wonder only,fed And pamper'd them unwisely, till he knows Beasts of desire are in him, bloated things, And his imagination is no more Than a byre full of moaning appetites, And danger is that they may break out wild, Root up and dung the orchard of his soul And in foul mischief plough it and stamp to mud, And the lord Self be under maniac hoofs, Then better than such outrage is to die. Mar. What gain to Self is that, if Self is murder'd? Per. The gain of standing upright to the end. Mar. Fixed, then, thou art to burn life out of thee? Per. Yes, and to be the king of all my being. Mar. O, but it is a dreadful way to death. Per. The worse the pain, the kinglier am I. Hast thou forgot, moreover, that this act Is as an angel standing upon earth Amid a burning secrecy of wings, Summoning hearts to heed news out of Heaven? "Take care that no harm come, Man, to thy Self, And death is better than to be defiled." I am to announce the holiness of Self; I am the trumpet, but thou art the herald. Mar. Stop, I will sit no more beside thy danger; Burn thyself as thou wilt, but now at last Know I detest, spit out, and fear thy doctrine, As God does thee. Thou art the Devil's friend: Burn now and to eternity. I am A Christian. Per. A slave. O lying tongue I half suspected this. Love thou thy malice, I am not harmed. This serious company Shall now proclaim my ending to the world. Chorus. He comes to speak. Look well for fear in him, For that's the seasoning in a man's torment. Per. O men, desire no great farewell of me. I have strapt indeed a harness against fear Upon me, but he shoots many arrows. And there's no breast given as target to him His sharp archery may not wound at length, However forged about with the mind's brass. Yet must I tell you why I burn myself. Behold, the world and all the beings in it A multitude of waves upon a sea. But as a chance of flows and currents often Seizes the watery substance into whirl, And in the sea doth separately exist That whirl, so is the kind of man in the world Or scatter a pool of quicksilver and see How easily the drops are one again; But if one drop have rolled among some dirt, The skin it now hath keeps it out of the rest. So is man's nature floating in the world, Having acquired a dirt of strange desires To keep him still unmixt with the one substance. Take not too closely, though, that "dirt": I mean Only to nail upon your memories This ruling word: how utterly apart Man, by the Self he hath, is from the world. Chorus. What, is he teaching? Come, let's have some tales Among ourselves.It seems a well-built pyre. Per. So then there is a new creature in the old Draught of eternal flowing substance down The spacious alley of the will of God, Gathered perplexity of substance, called The Self of Man: and let it be a boat Steered by strong wilful oars about the tide. It is well said, Be good and love mankind; But it is better said, Be beautiful And love yourselves: for this contains the other. How can you love what is not beautiful? I would have each man passionately in love With his own Self: see that it take no harm, And let not the base breathing of the world, The nuzzling friendship of such mouths as munch Garbage, come tarnishing your silver thought. The one sure thing in all the world is Self; See that it be Self worthy the having, And namely one that is never satisfied With its own excellence. I know a way The kind of Man may be a holy kind, And dress itself in beauty as the sun Wears naturally, excellent in the heavens, For self-delight his golden gear of virtue. For none who love and honour their own selves Would do the frauds, malices, sneakings, lies, The huffing impudence and bragg'd lechery, That cause the life of man to smear a scum Over the world as if a sewer had burst. But cease to stand about the swampy earth And grieve to find the mud holding your ankles When you would seek, following a light-foot dream, The good firm land that has not been in storms Of evil rain, nor been drowned nastily. Follow no dreams; try not to mend the world, But mend yourselves. Ye love unthriftily God and your neighbour; call in your rambling love, Ye need it all yourselves to shore your wills From resting on the soft uncleanly sin. When you have thus grown strong (and you shall find Mercy the prop to make a soul most strong), Then you shall join me in this mystery, Self-worship, and not die (as I must do) To enter it. For worship can make holy, And man shall be a sacred thing at last When difficulty he learns to be the priest Of his own Self, lighting clean fires of worship With every faculty of flesh and soul. And henceforth in the world shall walk a ghost With the appearance of blown fire, to haunt The ease of men, and amaze them out of comfort. For here I lift up to the world a token, A burning type of high self-love, the world's Instance of the self-worship's ritual. I have sinned the unforgivable sin against Myself, rendering body and mind unfit To be inhabited by a sacred thing, And profit ye thereby. For greatest wrong Compels this greatest act of worship from me. I made of my desires not ecstasy But lust; as rooms of mere delight I lived in passions, not seeing that they were Porches only into wonder, and made To be past through, but not inhabited. And like a deadly climate they have grieved And spoilt my nature, crept into my marrow, And made intolerable wrong in my soul. But I will not have myself so dismayed Or with wild infamous handling hurt and pusht From being throned. I come to burn myself. And as I stand naked before the hot Mouth of the hungry fire, and am devoured, As by its dreadful love I am enjoyed, And have no being except pain until Perfectly I become the mate of flame, Then know that I with golden voice announce And sound over the world from midst my bright Rapture out of dishonourable life, That henceforth in the hearts of men shall be Their own worship: Self is the sacred thing. Now let thy torches be prepared, Marcon. Chorus. Oft have I wisht I had beheld the famous sport The King of Egypt gave unto his court, When she, the fairest of his wives, Thinking she was not husbanded enough, In action went the same way as her thought. Her the king gave choice,on swords to die Or else to have her face publicly Tortured into hideousness. And joy ran down the anxious streets When the king let cry amid blown horns His mercy, that her beauty should be murder'd, But she might keep her life They say the thing went happily: It might have been a panther Beneath the struggled men, So spat and yelled the lady, Bit and scratched, butted and kickt, Tore at the irons and shook hands with burning To save a little of her look; After, when the heat-loosen'd flesh set firm, Her lips were ludicrously writhed. But this thing promises a greater joke Than that Egyptian quip. And after this I think I shall not wish so much That I had seen her face, Her undelighted grin, When first they trapt her visage in a gin Of white-hot wires and were ingenious To screw with branding her neck-sinews Into a rigid wrying tackle, And the smoke of her own flesh was tangled in her hair. Per. Friends, friends, good friends, it was a jest. Chorus. Now it begins; now mark him well, dear souls. Per. What fool hath taken the ladder? Bring it back. Chorus. You see, 'tis as the wise heads say. A beast But gives, howe'er elaborately killed, A single pleasure. But a man gives twain, Both killing and ridiculous fear of death. Per. The ladder, Marcon; dear Marcon, bring me the ladder. What art thou doing with that torch, thou fool? Keep off, take care of all those flying sparks, Stamp it into the sand;no, no, good Marcon, Bring it not near the faggots, see how it spits Hot resin. Hold it away, curst fool, away. You there, Corinthians, hold that murderous man; Bind him, throttle him, friends, and let me down. Chorus. This is the best: on us he calls to save. Per. Have ye not had enow of jest? and more Will come; hereafter I will make myself Your banquets' laughing stock, the clown of feasts, But only let me down.I will not die. Chorus. Thou wilt not die! Fool, dost thou think we have left Our night's pursuits, and will not see thee die? Marcon, light thou the pyre, or we will hurl Thee into it, and burn the pair of you. Per. Ah,now I see what bloody men ye are; And I must die mockt at by such a herd, And they will make a jest of me over the world, No honourable report. Marcon, too, Forswears his part; into what strange darkness Has been betrayed the shining of my death? That would have been a medicine for all minds Enfeebled with the bane of help from Heaven And roused them from the pallets of sick ease Which self-mistrust, that priestly surgery, Drove them to lie on; but not now, not now I burn myself, like hyssop, for the world. What then? Why, it is as it should be now. For now privately I shall do my worship And have my own approval, no stared applause, Far better rite. To my own holiness, To my Self, is all my being sacrificed: I am the Champion against my own wrong. Marcon, my heart is braced; yare with thy fires. Chorus. Little flames, merry flames, modest low chucklings, This is but maidenly pretence of shyness; Little flames, happy flames, what are these secrets You so modestly whisper one another? Do we not know your golden desires, And the brave way you tower into lust Mightily shameless? Why do you inly skulk among the timber? Stand up, yellow flames, take the joy given you; Resins and spunkwood, faggots and turpentine, A deal of spices, a great cost of benzoin, Everything proper for your riot, O flames. Leap up the bavins, Run up these joys we have built like a stair for you; Fuel lies topmost waiting your frenzy Better than sap, better than tar, For you to kindle. 'Tis flesh and blood, life and feeling, Desperate moisture besieged by your heat, Silly resistance to your golden desires, Agony wrestling with pitiless glee, Mad Peregrinus; Rarely delightful to you, I guess. Ha, didst hear? A cry, like a frightened bird, flew out, But sudden it stopt, as a hunter Shot the wild flight. Flames, flames, rejoice, ye have found him! Up with you now, stroke him first and singe him gently, Call out some vagaries from him, And then take hold of the man And tie his soul up in torment. Ah, but I wish I could be as flames are; No more deal in such peddlings of desire As senses cheaply buy, But quite become desire As you do, flames. Mar. Now I have done good service to the Lord With my false friendship; for the man is gone And his hugg'd wickedness along with him To be unseen, and no more to God's eyes Hateful, smother'd beyond all offending In violent places full of the old worm. O flame, O nature prosperous for the Lord, O captain over the angers of just Heaven, Have now thy hottest, holiest zeal, and turn The mercy of the air to indignation. Slacken not thou from whiteness, be not red Nor even gold, but white and terribly white, The utter purity thou hadst from God When he began to war. Be fiercely good, Till thou hast lickt this evil up, and made him Flakes of fire in the night. But thou, O Lord, Let me be pleasant and delightful to thee; Forget not me, if I have served thee here. And thou, blue-kirtled Mary, who on earth Didst nourish God, an infancy of flesh Taking the simple milk of thy dear breast Instead of spiritual thrones adoring; When he, thy Son, down to his promist judgment Rides out of Heaven upon Eternity Harnesst under his hands, and with one stroke Of wielded holiness on this clotted nature Breaks up mortality and turns to ghost The whole fixt starry creature of the world, An universal Easter of all being, Mary, look that I come into the light. Chorus. Did the much-wander'd Peregrinus Or the much-lying ('tis the same) Say ever he had seen the Phœnix burning? Into those brave tales of his, The hairy giants who desired him for meat, The Northern dragons that he slew, And showed the tooth of one, (But that, I have heard, came from an alligartha's jaws: He found it dead and rotting once, And fought with nothing fiercer than a stink,) Into those excellent impudences Surely the Phœnix came, Shrieking as the flames tired upon her, And all the Arabian air Full of the messages of burning myrrh? For methinks he would be making now An image of such vision. But when these ashes whiten, Will a famous ghost spring out, Spurning the glow-hearted logs Till into sparks they lighten, A more perpetual life? Ay, in immortal laughter, Like a beetle overcome in amber, We will catch his ghost. See, thou crazy ghost, Lovingly we have limed thee In imperishable gum of merriment, Tomb thou never shalt escape. At many a feast, when chaplets are awry And tipsy spilth is wasting half the wine And all the lanterns sway, Thou shalt be handed round and praised More than Atlantic pearl or topaz out of Meroe, Thou precious ghost, safe from time In a clear sepulchre of laughter. Ah! Ah! How greatly flared the pyre, With what a roar its framework fell, The scaffolding all loosed with fire. Did see, my friends, that neck of flame Leap from these ended agonies? There is a crimson dazzle in my eyes; Was there not a mighty swag of smoke Like, most like, a big unnatural bat? It was over us, with sparkling eyes, And large hollow wings outspread; Did they not flap heavily Like wings of a demon huge vampire Bloated with sleepy blood? Did it not hiss and scream? Or was it moisture of a pine made steam And forcing through the wood? 'Tis likely, for as I lookt again Nothing was there to abash the stars, And all quite vain Of smoke the golden flames did spire. Well, we will take thy lesson, As near as we can get to it. The world is a muddy place, Mankind is an unpleasant race; What shall we do with our time here? There is no good answer at all, Save this, the thing of most delight, For which all, except fools, must fight, Is to be known and pointed out in the street. Fame must be bought at any price, Folly, ignomy, or vice, It matters not, so fame is bought. And better it is to die as thou hast done Than to live unknown. Mar. O stop this foolish noise, you murderers, For such you are who swarmed to this affair Merely to see him die, and would not help him. Chorus. Look at this angry man. Who was it told The city of this jest? And didst thou help? Mar. I let him die becauseyou will not take me His thoughts burnt like wicked sulphur, and spoilt God's pleasure in the fragrant prayers of saints. Chorus. And how did his burning flesh smell to thy god? Agreeably to his nose? Mar. Peace, insolent mouth. Chorus. But why should Peregrinus burn himself? Mar. Because he thought to loose over the earth Widely a running blasphemy, and dip Men's thoughts in his, as in a vat of brimstone. Chorus. But this is wild talk. Did he not die for fame? Mar. Not as you think. But, friends, I would not have This thing much known; tell it not commonly. Semi-chorus. The world shall hear, the world shall laugh, And he who paints with nimblest fancy What on the top was hid, How flame and smoke leapt down his throat and tore His inwards with convulsing storm, The hideous end of his vain life, He shall most jocular hearers find, Raise the merriest laughter. And if this Marcon spread abroad Any of this notion, That Peregrinus had some other purpose Than a mere craze for infamy So dying in this manner, He shall be laught to scorn and for a fool Pointed at by mockers. Chorus. In olden time they held it was the gods Plagued to madness such as he Who sought with shouted fame To make the world his temple; And, though now we have no gods, Strangeness visits still brains of men, As shooting-stars furrow clear skies Into unusual lights. But what care whence it comes? For being here, good it is for laughter. It is unwise to question, But it is very wise to laugh; Behold, gone is Peregrinus, Of his mad death only a smoulder left. Now never was there in the world a game So merry as this ravishing Death of Peregrinus. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...MYSTIC BOUNCE by TERRANCE HAYES MATHEMATICS CONSIDERED AS A VICE by ANTHONY HECHT UNHOLY SONNET 11 by MARK JARMAN SHINE, PERISHING REPUBLIC by ROBINSON JEFFERS THE COMING OF THE PLAGUE by WELDON KEES A LITHUANIAN ELEGY by ROBERT KELLY EPILOGUE FROM EMBLEMS OF LOVE by LASCELLES ABERCROMBIE |
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