PRINCE HOHENSTIEL-SCHWANGAU

SAVIOR OF SOCIETY

[1871]

Υδραν φονεύσας, μυρίων τ ̓ ἄλλων πόνων
διῆλθον ἀγέλας

τὸ λοίσθιον δὲ τόνδ ̓ ἔτλην τάλας πόνον,
δῶμα θριγκῶσαι κακοῖς.

I slew the Hydra, and from labor pass'd
To labor-tribes of labors! Till, at last,
Attempting one more labor, in a trice,
Alack, with ills I crowned the edifice.

You have seen better days, dear? So have I—
And worse too, for they brought no such bud-mouth
As yours to lisp "You wish you knew me!" Well,
Wise men, 't is said, have sometimes wished the same,
And wished and had their trouble for their pains.
Suppose my Edipus should lurk at last

Under a pork-pie hat and crinoline,

And, latish, pounce on Sphinx in Leicester Square? Or likelier, what if Sphinx in wise old age,

Grown sick of snapping foolish people's heads,

And jealous for her riddle's proper rede,

Jealous that the good trick which served the turn

Have justice rendered it, nor class one day

With friend Home's stilts and tongs and medium-ware,

What if the once redoubted Sphinx, I say,

(Because night draws on, and the sands increase, And desert-whispers grow a prophecy,)

Tell all to Corinth of her own accord,

Bright Corinth, not dull Thebes, for Laïs' sake,
Who finds me hardly gray, and likes my nose,
And thinks a man of sixty at the prime?
Good! It shall be ! Revealment of myself!

But listen, for we must co-operate;

I don't drink tea: permit me the cigar!

First, how to make the matter plain, of course
What was the law by which I lived. Let's see:
Ay, we must take one instant of my life

Spent sitting by your side in this neat room:
Watch well the way I use it, and don't laugh!
Here's paper on the table, pen and ink:

Give me the soiled bit

not the pretty rose!

See! having sat an hour, I'm rested now,
Therefore want work

and spy no better work

For eye and hand and mind that guides them both,
During this instant, than to draw my pen

From blot One - thus

up, up to blot Two
Which I at last reach, thus, and here's my line
Five inches long and tolerably straight:
Better to draw than leave undrawn, I think,
Fitter to do than let alone, I hold,

Though better, fitter, by but one degree.

Therefore it was that, rather than sit still

Simply, my right-hand drew it while my left.

thus

Pulled smooth and pinched the moustache to a point.

Now I permit your plump lips to unpurse :
"So far, one possibly may understand
Without recourse to witchcraft!"
Thus folks begin with Euclid, -
Trying to square the circle!

True, my dear.

finish, how?

at any rate,

Solving abstruser problems than this first,

"How find the nearest way 'twixt point and point."

Deal but with moral mathematics so

Master one merest moment's work of mine,

Even this practising with pen and ink,

Demonstrate why I rather plied the quill

Than left the space a blank,

you gain a fact,

And God knows what a fact's worth! So proceed

By inference from just this moral fact

I don't say, to that plaguy quadrature,

"What the whole man meant, whom you wish you knew," But, what meant certain things he did of old,

Which puzzled Europe, — why, you'll find them plain,
This way, not otherwise: I guarantee,
Understand one, you comprehend the rest.
Rays from all round converge to any point:
Study the point then ere you track the rays'

The size o' the circle's nothing; subdivide

Earth, and earth's smallest grain of mustard-seed,
You count as many parts, small matching large,
If you can use the mind's eye: otherwise,
Material optics, being gross at best,

You

Prefer the large and leave our mind the small
And pray how many folk have minds can see?
Certainly you
and somebody in Thrace
Whose name escapes me at the moment.
Lend me your mind then! Analyze with me
This instance of the line 'twixt blot and blot
I rather chose to draw than leave a blank,
Things else being equal. You are taught thereby
That 't is my nature, when I am at ease,
Rather than idle out my life too long,
To want to do a thing—to put a thought,
Whether a great thought or a little one,
Into an act, as nearly as may be.
Make what is absolutely new

I can't,

Mar what is made already well enough

I won't: but turn to best account the thing

That's half-made - that I can. Two blots, you saw

I knew how to extend into a line

Symmetric on the sheet they blurred before
Such little act sufficed, this time, such thought.

Now, we'll extend rays, widen out the verge,
Describe a larger circle; leave this first
Clod of an instance we began with, rise
To the complete world many clods effect.
Only continue patient while I throw,
Delver-like, spadeful after spadeful up,

Just as truths come, the subsoil of me, mould

Whence spring my moods: your object, — just to find,

Alike from handlift and from barrow-load,

What salts and silts may constitute the earth

If it be proper stuff to blow man glass,

Or bake him pottery, bear him oaks or wheat

What 's born of me, in brief; which found, all's known.

If it were genius did the digging-job,

Logic would speedily sift its product smooth

And leave the crude truths bare for poetry;

But I'm no poet, and am stiff i' the back.

What one spread fails to bring, another may.

In

goes the shovel and out comes scoop- as here!

I live to please myself. I recognize

Power passing mine, immeasurable, God-
Above me, whom He made, as heaven beyond
Earth - to use figures which assist our sense.
I know that He is there as I am here,

say

By the same proof, which seems no proof at all,
It so exceeds familiar forms of proof.
Why "there," not "here"? Because, when I
I treat the feeling with distincter shape
That space exists between us: I, not He,
Live, think, do human work here no machine,
His will moves, but a being by myself,
His, and not He who made me for a work,
Watches my working, judges its effect,
But does not interpose. He did so once,
And probably will again some time
not now,
Life being the minute of mankind, not God's,
In a certain sense, like time before and time
After man's earthly life, so far as man
Needs apprehend the matter. Am I clear?
Suppose I bid a courier take to-night

(. . . Once for all, let me talk as if I smoked
Yet in the Residenz, a personage:

I must still represent the thing I was,
Galvanically make dead muscle play,
Or how shall I illustrate muscle's use?)
I could then, last July, bid courier take
Message for me, post-haste, a thousand miles.
I bid him, since I have the right to bid,
And, my part done so far, his part begins;
He starts with due equipment, will and power,
Means he may use, misuse, not use at all,
At his discretion, at his peril too.

I leave him to himself: but, journey done,
I count the minutes, call for the result
In quickness and the courier quality,
Weigh its worth, and then punish or reward
According to proved service; not before.

"there

Meantime, he sleeps through noontide, rides till dawn,

Sticks to the straight road, tries the crooked path,
Measures and manages resource, trusts, doubts
Advisers by the wayside, does his best
At his discretion, lags or launches forth,
(He knows and I know) at his peril too.
You see? Exactly thus men stand to God:
I with my courier. God with me. Just so

I have His bidding to perform; but mind
And body, all of me, though made and meant
For that sole service, must consult, concert
With my own self and nobody beside,
How to effect the same: God helps not else.
"Tis I who, with my stock of craft and strength,
Choose the directer cut across the hedge,

Or keep the foot-track that respects a crop.
Lie down and rest, rise
and run,
up

Feed free, all that's

my

live spare,

business: but, arrive,

Deliver message, bring the answer back,

And make my bow, I must: then God will speak,
Praise me or haply blame as service proves.
To other men, to each and every one,

Another law! what likelier? God, perchance,
Grants each new man, by some as new a mode,
Intercommunication with Himself,
Wreaking on finiteness infinitude;

By such a series of effects, gives each
Last His own imprint: old yet ever new
The process: 't is the way of Deity.
How it succeeds, He knows: I only know
That varied modes of creatureship abound,
Implying just as varied intercourse

For each with the creator of them all.

Each has his own mind and no other's mode.

What mode may yours be? I shall sympathize!
No doubt, you, good young lady that you are,
Despite a natural naughtiness or two,

Turn eyes up like a Pradier Magdalen
And see an outspread providential hand

Above the owl's-wing aigrette - guard and guide-
Visibly o'er your path, about your bed,

Through all your practisings with London-town.
It points, you go; it stays fixed, and you stop;
You quicken its procedure by a word

Spoken, a thought in silence, prayer and praise.
Well, I believe that such a hand may stoop,
And such appeals to it may stave off harm,
Pacify the grim guardian of this Square,
And stand you in good stead on quarter-day:
Quite possible in your case; not in mine.
66 Ah, but I choose to make the difference,
Find the emancipation?" No, I hope!
If I deceive myself, take noon for night,
Please to become determinedly blind