Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, LUCIFER: PART SIX, by JOHN COWPER POWYS


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

LUCIFER: PART SIX, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: But not unscathed did those gay revellers pass
Last Line: In pride yet haughtier, marched the milky way.
Subject(s): Devil; Fate; Fools; Revolutions; Stars; Time; War; Satan; Mephistopheles; Lucifer; Beelzebub; Destiny; Idiots


But not unscathed did those gay revellers pass.
Each moment grew the crowd more dense.
Fierce rose
The tumult. On all sides promiscuous flew
The jibes and taunts, the yells and obloquies.
Then from amid the press an old man climbed
The worn steps of the Cross; with his right hand
He clutched the red flag; with his left the feet
Of the mute Christ; and over all the crowd
Flung a resistless flood of passionate words --
The uproar sank. None stirred. Men held their breath;
Such power hath Passion's pulse to put to shame
Brute tumult. "Do your worst, ye throats of brass";
Cried he; "ye hearts of adamant and stone!
Foreheads of wood! Pile on us tyrannies!
Glut your gross wits with mocking! Still it waves
Above ye, ever above ye, the red flag
Ye spit on! Cast it under your vile feet!
Trample it in the dung! Yet will be found
Hands to uplift it. Yes! from year to year
Sprinkled with fresh blood redder shall it grow,
And redder, till it bloom a burning rose,
A flame, a star, a pinnacle of fire,
A splendid Sun that no man can put out!
Over its fold serpents may trail their slime,
Owls may build nests in it, bats breed, and toads
Gender within it. Evil men may war
Against it; yea! The high gods pitch their tents
To compass it about and cast it down.
Still to the winds inviolate it shall wave,
The world's last hope! Mock on, mock on, proud fools!
Your boyish scorn is like a handful of leaves
Flung in the whirlwind's face!" Thus crying he fixed
His wild eyes on the hushed Cathedral spire,
Crimson with sunset. "Blood enough ye've spilt"
Gasped he; "and more blood yet ye're doomed to spill
Ere the red vengeance of the People descend!"
He ceased. The crowd was silent. Then a bold slave
Of the Power he challenged leapt on him and hurled
The old man to the pavement. Dead he lay
Before them. But the red flag from his hand
Caught on the outstretched arm of the high Cross,
Waved like an unimprisoned soul, and kept
Faith with the dead. Slow bore they him away
Pitying; and fast, like children who in sport
Stumble on tragic sorrow and repent
Their ill-timed mirth, yet grudge their play impaired,
Some one way, some another, they all dispersed.
Then lost those towers and spires their golden glow;
And a breeze born of sunset swept the dust
In eddying circles, and the twilight fell.
But Satan leant against the Cross and spoke
Low to his own heart, while the red flag flapped
Above him, and the unheeding traffic passed.
"Well hath he done, well perished, this old man!
Loveliest in death are those who die in vain.
Out of 'in vain' is living beauty born.
Yea! Life from topmost peaks of Being cries
'In vain' to the great stars. But not the less,
With other weapons than vain oratory,
And other force than flags, I prosecute
My deathless war. I too am in the van
Of the Revolution. The fierce popular Cause
Is not far from me. What I do I do
As much for them as for myself. But I
Am not to be misled by burning words
To worship mist. It may be I shall found
Cosmopolis. It may be I shall build
The City from whose flaming ramparts God
Shall sink unmourn'd. It may be. Or perchance
I too shall fall on darkness with this old man.
Enough! Let this be as the event shall prove.
The tossing sea of Time hath many tides;
And one may lift me on its crest, and bear
Safe into harbour; or one may drag me down
Leagues-deep in whelming whirlpools. I am prepared,
Fortified, self-sustained, to bear what Chance
Sends or does not send. Only I know well
Men are but blown sand, tossed by every wind;
And Force, not Reason or Justice, rules the world.
Mine by the Force then, mine the will, to set
Four-square the Cosmopolitan City. God,
Blundering, hath led this Race to ruin's brink.
I save it; or I sink with it. Enough!"
While on the slow wheels of reluctant day
Night hung, a monstrous shadow, Satan passed
Forth from the haunts of men. A mountain range,
Rough with vast gulfs and clefts and precipices,
Received him. Clambering up through storm-tost pines,
Through wind-swept passes crowned with toppling crags,
Alone he steered his way. It seemed his form
Grew larger in those glooms. His own resolve,
Leaping before him like a chamois, drew
Strength from the heights and vastness from the hills.
Long leagues he struggled; then at last emerged
Upon the embattled mountain's extreme edge.
He left the shadowy trees, and on the night
Came forth; a form portentous; having Space,
Silence, and the immeasurable Sky,
About him; and beneath him, far, far down,
Earth's turbulent memories and the cities of men.
Then from his heart, as from a cistern drain'd,
Doubt and dismay and festering bitterness
Melted, and gave him peace. Satan at last
Was Satan. In that large and liquid air
His spirit retook its natural shape, regained
Its impaired stature and breath'd deep and free.
That pure air's delicate ablution cleansed
All poisonous stain of human virulence
Away. In that unearthly twilight bathed,
Things human and divine, and his own task
Stupendous, gathered to themselves a soft
Luminous ether. Clear and calm they lay,
Wrapt in a liquid glory. Both the Earth
Which was, and the fairer Earth which he would build,
Slept side by side, washed by eternal seas;
Side by side slept, while over them his mind
Brooded on outstretched wing, and poised itself
Exultant. Like a visionary ship
His soul went sailing down a tranced tide;
A tide that far beyond all human wars,
Yea, and beyond the wars of mighty gods,
Bore him upon its brimmed and rocking flood;
Till o'er the wreck-strewn margins of the world
It swept, and all their misty levels drowned;
Even as the salt waves of the common shore
Drown the long windrow of its weeds and shells.
So Satan found his hour; and to himself,
After long sojourn under alien skies,
Returned content. Before him he beheld
Wrapt in transparent twilight, hung immense
Over unfathomable gulfs of air,
A rock-hewn promontory, such as well
Had served to make a place whence Gods might look
Upon the circling planets and watch the stars
Their orbed progress through the midnight wheel.
Dark verdure, monstrous growths, huge tufts of moss,
Trailed from it, and the vast rock-promontory,
Swept by no mist, blurred by no softening cloud,
Reached forth into the immeasurable void.
As from impending mountain-ridge the arm
Gigantic, of some titan rebel, sends
Grim fear, unwonted guest, into the heart
Of Sovran Gods, or as from Syrian mount
Israel's Deliverer over the red spears
From sunrise unto sunset held outstretched
Hands that were Canaan's ruin, so this pier
Enormous ran into the placid sea
Of hushed air-waves, whereof the liquid depths
Scarce quivered, as in charmed peace they lay,
Rocking the ivory boat-keel of the Moon.
Pale amber lustre tinged the West. The plain,
Deep unplumb'd leagues below, lay like a mat
Woven of primitive darkness for the feet
Of Night to walk on. The great rock itself
Was as the fragment of an earlier world
Flung there and left. The monstrous leaves that clutched
Space from its edge had roots that reached a Past
Desolately inhuman; and with thirst
Demonic, horrid patience, saurian glee,
Seemed waiting such a past's malign return.
On this dark promontory against the sky
Satan stood forth. No words could tell the grace
Of his proud form, the pride of his bowed head,
As the large desolation of that place
Folded its wings about him. All unmoved
At sight of purple plain or amber sky
Transparent, or the pearl-white ivory keel,
Air-borne, of the cold Moon, he plunged a fixed
Impenetrable regard into the void.
Then with scarce-audible speech he broke the weight
Of that huge silence; and his words, like roll
Of long-pent thunder, went reverberating
Far down, and turned the twilight into Night.
"Is this the hour, is this the hour," he cried,
"So long imagined, laboured for so long,
And yet scarce hoped, so high the adventure? Sink,
Sink then, ye Doubts, Dismays, Reluctances,
Withdrawings, Retreats, and Fear-spawn'd Scruples, sink
Into the vast and wandering waste of air!
Back to the Chaos that engendered ye
Foul Shades! This is my hour. Upon this hour
I stand as on a world-deep rock. No space
The abysses yawn with, holds the flood can tear
Me from this vantage. Never on me more
Shall the unconscious sky look down in scorn,
Or the Moon hint her pity. To no fate
I owe this hour, my hour. I myself
Am fate and henceforth fate-like will I hang
Over the yielded breasts of the pregnant years,
Until they bear no babes, but such as, born
Stamp'd with mine image, carry on their brows
My purpose and my glory. Chance and my own
Will have begot this day. My will alone
Shall gender what this prosperous day conceives."
He spoke and raised his hands and stretched them forth,
Moulding the night air in impassioned palms;
As though like potter's clay the future slept
Between them. Then with unmoved face he turned
Contemptuous, and strode back, and made himself
Mist in the mist. The dark rock-promontory
Once more hung lonely. One by one the stars
Rose, and took up their station. With the same
Bright callousness they rose, as when at first
Men named them stars. Their rising swept the Earth
Into its rightful place of littleness;
And o'er the heads of gods and giants swung,
In patient unperturbed indifference,
The punctual planets; and the planets above,
In pride yet haughtier, marched the Milky Way.




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