Moreover, if all hope of improvement ends with this life (a doctrine in which such extremes as Atheism and Calvinism strangely agree), what becomes of all the commonest forms of humanity, its intermediate failures, too bad for a heaven and too good for a hell; to say less of insane, idiotic, and other helpless creatures; and the millions of the untaught in Christendom, who never have had a chance, and billions of the Heathen brutalised through the ages by birth and evil custom?
Yes; for all there must be in the near hereafter continuous new chances of improvement and hopes of better life.
There is one poem in the volume superadded to my Dramatics which I will introduce here, as it is quite a _tour de force_ in its way of double rhyming throughout, and has, moreover, excellent moral uses: so I wish it read more widely.
_Behind the Veil._ "Mysteries! crowding around us, How ye perplex and confound us,-- Each our ignorance screening Hidden in words without meaning! "Who knoweth aught that is certain Veil'd behind mystery's curtain?
Seeing the wisest of guesses Foolishness only expresses.
"Ancestry?
ruthlessly moulding Bodies and souls in unfolding; How such a mixture confuses Judgment's indulgent excuses,-- "While the derivative nature, Still a responsible creature, Yields individual merits, Biassed by what it inherits.
"Circumstance?
mighty to fashion Instant occasion for passion, Gripping with clutch of a bandit Weakness too weak to withstand it,-- "What?
shall it mar me or make me?
Neither, till faith shall forsake me-- For, with good courage to nerve me, Circumstance only can serve me! "Destiny?
doth it then seem so?
Or can the will we esteem so, Change the decree at a bidding, Us of that destiny ridding,-- "If with no fatalist weakness, Battling in boldness and meekness, We are determined to master Every defeat and disaster?
"Providence?
ordering all things, Both of the great and the small things, Equally each of us guiding, Guarding, destroying, providing,-- "Fixt, beyond human forecasting, Both as to blessing and blasting,-- Yet, though we darkly discern Him, Quick'ning the prayer that may turn Him! "Evil ?--O direst enigma, Whispered and terrible stigma By fools to the Good One imputed, As if everlastingly rooted! "How so?
shall wrong to no ending Still with the Right be contending?
Must not the bitterest leaven Melt in the mercy of Heaven?
"Or can old Baal, the sun-god, Boast there are two gods, not one god, Satan, the rebel infernal, Regent with Christ the Supernal?
"Come, blessed end, through the ages, When no more wickedness rages, When no iniquity hinders, But sin is burnt down to its cinders!-- "Cruelties ?--somehow permitted,-- With its mute victims unpitied, Tortured in nature's defiance On the false pretext of science,-- "Shall not some aeon of gladness, Balance the throes of pain-madness,-- Must not the crime of the cruel Burn into souls as its fuel?
"Never can wisdom's creation Be stultified annihilation, But every poor unit that liveth Shall live in the life that He giveth,-- "Yea, for that aeon of glory, Revealed in millennial story, When earth with beatified features, Shines the new Heaven of creatures.
"Death?
Is it all things, or nothing?
Either the Spirit unclothing Unto new living for ever,-- Or the dread penalty--never! "Death,--if thou art but the portal, Leading to glories immortal, Why should we tremble to near thee, How be the cowards to fear thee, "Since the worlds blazing above us, Peopled by angels who love us, Stand our fatherly mansions, Fitted for spirits' expansions?
"Where are the dead?
and what doing?
Still their old trifles pursuing?
Or in the trance of a slumber, Crowded by dreams without number ?-- "Dreams of unspeakable sadness, Breams of ineffable gladness,-- As the quick conscience remembers Evil and good in their embers,-- "As it lives over in quiet, Time and its orgies of riot, Or the good gifts and good graces, Bright'ning its happier phases,-- "As it sees photograph'd clearly, Crystalised sharply and nearly, Life and its million transactions, Fancies and feelings and factions,-- "Every prayer ever uttered, Every curse ever muttered, All the man's lowest and highest,-- These are thyself, when thou diest! "Filling thee, after thy measure, From the full river of pleasure, Or, as the fruit of thy sowing, Pangs of remorse ever growing,-- "In thee all Heaven upspringing, Or its dread opposite flinging Blackness and darkness about thee,-- Both are within, not without thee! "Yet,--in that darkness, we grope for Somewhat far off, yet to hope for, That through some future repentance, Justice may soften its sentence.
"Ere from the dead He had risen, 'He preached to the spirits in prison,'-- Is this a text that His aid is Still to be hoped for in Hades?
"'Wrath may endure for a season,' Both in religion and reason,-- But if its end must be never, Where is His mercy for ever'?
"Ay,--after long retribution, Mercy may drag from pollution Souls that have suffered for ages, Working out sin's bitter wages,-- "So that the end shall be glorious, Good over evil victorious, And this black sin-night of sorrow, Blaze into gladness to-morrow!" And so I make an end of this autobiography, with the humble prayer that I may have grace given to finish my course in this life usefully and with honour, at peace with God and man; mindful of that caution of Tellus, the Athenian, as recorded by Herodotus, "not to judge any man happy until he is dead;"-- the Christian adds, "and is alive again!" Let me conclude with some noble lines of Ovid in his Epilogue to the Metamorphoses, which I have Englished below:-- "Jamque opus exegi: quod nec Jovis ira, nec ignes, Nec poterit ferrum, nec edax abolere vetustas.
Cum volet illa dies, quae nil nisi corporis hujus Jus habet, incerti spatium mihi finiat aevi,-- Parte tamen meliore mei super alta perennis Astra ferar: nomenque erit indelebile nostrum.
Quaque patet domitis Romana potentia terris, Ore legar populi; perque omnia saecula fama Si quid habent veri vatum praesagia VIVAM." "Now have I done my work: which not Jove's ire Can make undone, nor sword nor time nor fire.
Whene'er that day, whose only powers extend Against this body, my brief life shall end, Still in my better portion evermore Above the stars undying shall I soar.
My name shall never die; but through all time Whenever Rome shall reach a conquer'd clime, There, in that people's tongue, shall this my page Be read and glorified from age to age:-- Yea, if the bodings of my spirit give True note of inspiration, I shall live!" THE END.
Transcriber's Notes Page 44: added closing parenthesis after "contempt]!" Page 296: added closing parenthesis after "patriotic but peculiar" Page 297: removed opening parenthesis after "Rifledom--were once to a comma".