Read Ebook: Captain Sword and Captain Pen: A Poem by Hunt Leigh

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Ebook has 131 lines and 25571 words, and 3 pages

A wound unutterable--Oh God! Mingles his being with the sod.

His nails are in earth, his eyes in air, And "Water!" he crieth--he may not forbear. Brave and good was he, yet now he dreams The moon looks cruel; and he blasphemes.

"Water! water!" all over the field: To nothing but Death will that wound-voice yield. One, as he crieth, is sitting half bent; What holds he so close?--his body is rent. Another is mouthless, with eyes on cheek; Unto the raven he may not speak. One would fain kill him; and one half round The place where he writhes, hath up beaten the ground. Like a mad horse hath he beaten the ground, And the feathers and music that litter it round, The gore, and the mud, and the golden sound. Come hither, ye cities! ye ball-rooms, take breath! See what a floor hath the dance of death!

The floor is alive, though the lights are out; What are those dark shapes, flitting about? Flitting about, yet no ravens they, Not foes, yet not friends--mute creatures of prey; Their prey is lucre, their claws a knife, Some say they take the beseeching life. Horrible pity is theirs for despair, And they the love-sacred limbs leave bare. Love will come to-morrow, and sadness, Patient for the fear of madness, And shut its eyes for cruelty, So many pale beds to see. Turn away, thou Love, and weep No more in covering his last sleep; Thou hast him--blessed is thine eye! Friendless Famine has yet to die.

A shriek!--Great God! what superhuman Peal was that? Not man, nor woman, Nor twenty madmen, crush'd, could wreak Their soul in such a ponderous shriek. Dumbly, for an instant, stares The field; and creep men's dying hairs.

O friend of man! O noble creature! Patient and brave, and mild by nature, Mild by nature, and mute as mild, Why brings he to these passes wild Thee, gentle horse, thou shape of beauty? Could he not do his dreadful duty, Nor link thee to his melancholy?

Two noble steeds lay side by side, One cropp'd the meek grass ere it died; Pang-struck it struck t' other, already torn, And out of its bowels that shriek was born.

Now see what crawleth, well as it may, Out of the ditch, and looketh that way. What horror all black, in the sick moonlight, Kneeling, half human, a burdensome sight; Loathly and liquid, as fly from a dish; Speak, Horror! thou, for it withereth flesh.

"The grass caught fire; the wounded were by; Writhing till eve did a remnant lie; Then feebly this coal abateth his cry; But he hopeth! he hopeth! joy lighteth his eye, For gold he possesseth, and Murder is nigh!"

O goodness in horror! O ill not all ill! In the worst of the worst may be fierce Hope still. To-morrow with dawn will come many a wain, And bear away loads of human pain, Piles of pale beds for the 'spitals; but some Again will awake in home-mornings, and some, Dull herds of the war, again follow the drum. From others, faint blood shall in families flow, With wonder at life, and young oldness in woe, Yet hence may the movers of great earth grow. Now, even now, I hear them at hand, Though again Captain Sword is up in the land, Marching anew for more fields like these In the health of his flag in the morning breeze.

Sneereth the trumpet, and stampeth the drum, And again Captain Sword in his pride doth come; He passeth the fields where his friends lie lorn, Feeding the flowers and the feeding corn, Where under the sunshine cold they lie, And he hasteth a tear from his old grey eye. Small thinking is his but of work to be done, And onward he marcheth, using the sun: He slayeth, he wasteth, he spouteth his fires On babes at the bosom, and bed-rid sires; He bursteth pale cities, through smoke and through yell, And bringeth behind him, hot-blooded, his hell. Then the weak door is barr'd, and the soul all sore, And hand-wringing helplessness paceth the floor, And the lover is slain, and the parents are nigh--

Oh God! let me breathe, and look up at thy sky! Good is as hundreds, evil as one; Round about goeth the golden sun.

HOW CAPTAIN SWORD, IN CONSEQUENCE OF HIS GREAT VICTORIES, BECAME INFIRM IN HIS WITS.

But to win at the game, whose moves are death, It maketh a man draw too proud a breath: And to see his force taken for reason and right, It tendeth to unsettle his reason quite. Never did chief of the line of Sword Keep his wits whole at that drunken board. He taketh the size, and the roar, and fate, Of the field of his action, for soul as great: He smiteth and stunneth the cheek of mankind, And saith "Lo! I rule both body and mind."

Captain Sword forgot his own soul, Which of aught save itself, resented controul; Which whatever his deeds, ordained them still, Bodiless monarch, enthron'd in his will: He forgot the close thought, and the burning heart, And pray'rs, and the mild moon hanging apart, Which lifteth the seas with her gentle looks, And growth, and death, and immortal books, And the Infinite Mildness, the soul of souls, Which layeth earth soft 'twixt her silver poles; Which ruleth the stars, and saith not a word; Whose speed in the hair of no comet is heard; Which sendeth the soft sun, day by day, Mighty, and genial, and just alway, Owning no difference, doing no wrong, Loving the orbs and the least bird's song, The great, sweet, warm angel, with golden rod, Bright with the smile of the distance of God.

Captain Sword, like a witless thing, Of all under heaven must needs be king, King of kings, and lord of lords, Swayer of souls as well as of swords, Ruler of speech, and through speech, of thought; And hence to his brain was a madness brought. He madden'd in East, he madden'd in West, Fiercer for sights of men's unrest, Fiercer for talk, amongst awful men, Of their new mighty leader, Captain Pen, A conqueror strange, who sat in his home Like the wizard that plagued the ships of Rome, Noiseless, show-less, dealing no death, But victories, winged, went forth from his breath.

Three thousand miles across the waves Did Captain Sword cry, bidding souls be slaves: Three thousand miles did the echo return With a laugh and a blow made his old cheeks burn.

Then he call'd to a wrong-maddened people, and swore Their name in the map should never be more: Dire came the laugh, and smote worse than before. Were earthquake a giant, up-thrusting his head And o'erlooking the nations, not worse were the dread.

Then, lo! was a wonder, and sadness to see; For with that very people, their leader, stood he, Incarnate afresh, like a Caesar of old; But because he look'd back, and his heart was cold, Time, hope, and himself for a tale he sold. Oh largest occasion, by man ever lost! Oh throne of the world, to the war-dogs tost!

He vanished; and thinly there stood in his place The new shape of Sword, with an humbler face, Rebuking his brother, and preaching for right, Yet aye when it came, standing proud on his might, And squaring its claims with his old small sight; Then struck up his drums, with ensign furl'd, And said, "I will walk through a subject world: Earth, just as it is, shall for ever endure, The rich be too rich, and the poor too poor; And for this I'll stop knowledge. I'll say to it, 'Flow Thus far; but presume no farther to flow: For me, as I list, shall the free airs blow.'"

'Twas painful to see his extravagant way; But heart ne'er so bold, and hand ne'er so strong, What are they, when truth and the wits go wrong?

FOOTNOTES:

The American War.

The French War.

Napoleon.

The Duke of Wellington, or existing Military Toryism.

The Glorious Three Days.

OF CAPTAIN PEN, AND HOW HE FOUGHT WITH CAPTAIN SWORD.

Out laugh'd the captains of Captain Sword, But their chief look'd vex'd, and said not a word, For thought and trouble had touch'd his ears Beyond the bullet-like sense of theirs, And wherever he went, he was 'ware of a sound Now heard in the distance, now gathering round, Which irk'd him to know what the issue might be; But the soul of the cause of it well guess'd he.

Indestructible souls among men Were the souls of the line of Captain Pen; Sages, patriots, martyrs mild, Going to the stake, as child Goeth with his prayer to bed; Dungeon-beams, from quenchless head; Poets, making earth aware Of its wealth in good and fair; And the benders to their intent, Of metal and of element; Of flame the enlightener, beauteous, And steam, that bursteth his iron house; And adamantine giants blind, That, without master, have no mind.

Heir to these, and all their store, Was Pen, the power unknown of yore; And as their might still created might, And each work'd for him by day and by night, In wealth and wondrous means he grew, Fit to move the earth anew; Till his fame began to speak Pause, as when the thunders wake, Muttering, in the beds of heaven: Then, to set the globe more even, Water he call'd, and Fire, and Haste, Which hath left old Time displac'd-- And Iron, mightiest now for Pen, Each of his steps like an army of men-- And out of the witchcraft of their skill, A creature he call'd, to wait on his will-- Half iron, half vapour, a dread to behold-- Which evermore panted and evermore roll'd, And uttered his words a million fold. Forth sprang they in air, down raining like dew, And men fed upon them, and mighty they grew.

Ears giddy with custom that sound might not hear, But it woke up the rest, like an earthquake near; And that same night of the letter, some strange Compulsion of soul brought a sense of change; And at midnight the sound grew into a roll As the sound of all gath'rings from pole to pole, From pole unto pole, and from clime to clime, Like the roll of the wheels of the coming of time;-- A sound as of cities, and sound as of swords Sharpening, and solemn and terrible words, And laughter as solemn, and thunderous drumming, A tread as if all the world were coming. And then was a lull, and soft voices sweet Call'd into music those terrible feet, Which rising on wings, lo! the earth went round To the burn of their speed with a golden sound; With a golden sound, and a swift repose, Such as the blood in the young heart knows; Such as Love knows, when his tumults cease; When all is quick, and yet all is at peace.

And when Captain Sword got up next morn, Lo! a new-fac'd world was born; For not an anger nor pride would it shew, Nor aught of the loftiness now found low, Nor would his own men strike a single blow: Not a blow for their old, unconsidering lord Would strike the good soldiers of Captain Sword; But weaponless all, and wise they stood, In the level dawn, and calm brotherly good; Yet bowed to him they, and kiss'd his hands, For such were their new lord's commands, Lessons rather, and brotherly plea; Reverence the past, quoth he; Reverence the struggle and mystery, And faces human in their pain; Nor his the least, that could sustain Cares of mighty wars, and guide Calmly where the red deaths ride.

"But how! what now?" cried Captain Sword; "Not a blow for your gen'ral? not even a word? What! traitors? deserters?"

"Ah no!" cried they; "But the 'game's' at an end; the 'wise' wont play."

"And where's your old spirit?"

"The same, though another; Man may be strong without maiming his brother."

"But enemies?"

"Enemies! Whence should they come, When all interchange what was known but to some?"

"But famine? but plague? worse evils by far."

"O last mighty rhet'ric to charm us to war! Look round--what has earth, now it equably speeds, To do with these foul and calamitous needs? Now it equably speeds, and thoughtfully glows, And its heart is open, never to close?

No: Captain Sword a sword was still, He could not unteach his lordly will; He could not attemper his single thought; It might not be bent, nor newly wrought: And so, like the tool of a disus'd art, He stood at his wall, and rusted apart.

'Twas only for many-soul'd Captain Pen To make a world of swordless men.

POSTSCRIPT;

CONTAINING SOME REMARKS ON WAR AND MILITARY STATESMEN.

POSTSCRIPT;

CONTAINING SOME REMARKS ON WAR AND MILITARY STATESMEN.

The object of this poem is to show the horrors of war, the false ideas of power produced in the minds of its leaders, and, by inference, the unfitness of those leaders for the government of the world.

The author intends no more offence to any one than can be helped: he feels due admiration for that courage and energy, the supposed misdirection of which it deplores; he heartily acknowledges the probability, that that supposed misdirection has been hitherto no misdirection, but a necessity--but he believes that the time is come when, by encouraging the disposition to question it, its services and its sufferings may be no longer required, and he would fain tear asunder the veil from the sore places of war,--would show what has been hitherto kept concealed, or not shown earnestly, and for the purpose,--would prove, at all events, that the time has come for putting an end to those phrases in the narratives of warfare, by which a suspicious delicacy is palmed upon the reader, who is told, after everything has been done to excite his admiration of war, that his feelings are "spared" a recital of its miseries--that "a veil" is drawn over them--a "truce" given to descriptions which only "harrow up the soul," &c.

Suppose it be necessary to "harrow up the soul," in order that the soul be no longer harrowed? Moralists and preachers do not deal after this tender fashion with moral, or even physical consequences, resulting from other evils. Why should they spare these? Why refuse to look their own effeminacy in the face,--their own gaudy and overweening encouragement of what they dare not contemplate in its results? Is a murder in the streets worth attending to,--a single wounded man worth carrying to the hospital,--and are all the murders, and massacres, and fields of wounded, and the madness, the conflagrations, the famines, the miseries of families, and the rickety frames and melancholy bloods of posterity, only fit to have an embroidered handkerchief thrown over them? Must "ladies and gentlemen" be called off, that they may not "look that way," the "sight is so shocking"? Does it become us to let others endure, what we cannot bear even to think of?

I have not thought proper to put notes to the poem, detailing the horrors which I have touched upon; nor even to quote my authorities, which are unfortunately too numerous, and contain worse horrors still. They are furnished by almost every history of a campaign, in all quarters of the world. Circumstances so painful, in a first attempt to render them public for their own sakes, would, I thought, even meet with less attention in prose than in verse, however less fitted they may appear for it at first sight. Verse, if it has any enthusiasm, at once demands and conciliates attention; it proposes to say much in little; and it associates with it the idea of something consolatory, or otherwise sustaining. But there is one prose specimen of these details, which I will give, because it made so great an impression on me in my youth, that I never afterwards could help calling it to mind when war was spoken of; and as I had a good deal to say on that subject, having been a public journalist during one of the most interesting periods of modern history, and never having been blinded into an admiration of war by the dazzle of victory, the circumstance may help to show how salutary a record of this kind may be, and what an impression the subject might be brought to make on society. The passage is in a note to one of Mr Southey's poems, the "Ode to Horror," and is introduced by another frightful record, less horrible, because there is not such agony implied in it, nor is it alive.

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