Read Ebook: Satan Absolved: A Victorian Mystery by Blunt Wilfrid Scawen

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THE LORD GOD

And the reason?

SATAN

Hear. Thou gavest them no mind, no sensual atmosphere, Who wert Thyself their soul. Though thou should drowse for aye, They should not swerve, nor flout Thee, nor abjure Thy way, Not by a hair's breadth, Lord.

THE LORD GOD

Thou witnessest for good.

SATAN

I testify for truth. In all that solitude Of spheres involved with spheres, of prodigal force set free, There hath been no voice untrue, no tongue to disagree, No traitor thought to wound with less than perfect word. Such was Thy first Creation. I am Thy witness, Lord. 'Twas worthy of Thyself.

THE LORD GOD

And of the second?

SATAN

Stop. How shall I speak of it unless Thou give me hope; I who its child once was, though daring to rebel; I who Thine outcast am, the banished thief of Hell, Thy too long reprobate? Thou didst create to Thee A world of happy Spirits for Thy company, For Thy delight and solace, as being too weary grown Of Thy sole loneliness--'twas ill to be alone. And Thou didst make us pure, as Thou Thyself art pure. Yet was there seed of ill--What Spirit may endure The friction of the Spirit? Where two are, Strife is. Thou gavest us mind, thought, will; all snares to happiness.

THE LORD GOD

Unhappy blinded one. How sinnedst thou? Reveal.

SATAN

Lord, through my too great love, through my excess of zeal. Listen. Thy third Creation....

THE LORD GOD

Ha! The Earth! Speak plain. Now will I half forgive thee. What of the Earth, of men? Was that not then the best, the noblest of the three?

SATAN

Ah, glorious Lord God! Thou hadst Infinity From which to choose Thy plan. This plan, no less than those, Was noble in conception, when its vision rose Before Thee in Thy dreams. Thou deemedst to endow Time with a great new wonder, wonderful as Thou, Matter made sensitive, informed with Life, with Soul. It grieved Thee the Stars knew not. Thou couldst not cajole Their music into tears, their beauty to full praise. Thou askedst one made conscious of Thy works and ways, One dowered with sense and passion, which should feel and move And weep with Thee and laugh, one that alas, should love. Thus didst thou mould the Earth. We Spirits, wondering, eyed Thy new-born fleshly things, Thy Matter deified. We saw the sea take life, its myriad forms all fair. We saw the creeping things, the dragons of the air, The birds, the four-foot beasts, all beautiful, all strong, All brimming o'er with joyaunce, new green woods among, Twice glorious in their lives. And we, who were but spirit, Envied their lusty lot, their duplicated merit, Their feet, their eyes, their wings, their physical desires, The anger of their voices, the fierce sexual fires Which lit their sentient limbs and joined them heart to heart, Their power to act, to feel, all that corporeal part Which is the truth of love and giveth the breathing thing The wonder of its beauty incarnate in Spring. What was there, Lord, in Heaven comparable with this, The mother beast with her young? Not even Thy happiness, Lord of the Universe! What beautiful, what bold, What passionate as she? She doth not chide nor scold When at her dugs he mumbleth. Nay, the milk she giveth Is as a Sacrament, the power by which he liveth A double life with hers. And they two in a day Know more of perfect joy than we, poor Spirits, may In our eternity of sober loneliness. This was the thing we saw, and praised Thee and did bless.

THE LORD GOD

Where then did the fault lie? Thou witnessest again. Was it because of Death, Life's complement,--or Pain, That thou didst loose thy pride to question of My will?

SATAN

Nay, Lord, Thou knowest the truth. These evils are not ill. They do but prove Thy wisdom. All that lives must perish, Else were the life at charge, the bodily fires they cherish, Accumulating ills. The creatures thou didst make Sink when their day is done. They slough time like the snake How many hundred sunsets? Yet night comes for rest, And they awake no more,--and sleep,--and it is best. What, Lord, would I not give to shift my cares and lie Enfolded in Time's arms, stone-dead, eternally? No. 'Twas not Death, nor Pain; Pain the true salt of pleasure, The condiment that stings and teaches each his measure, The limit of his strength, joy's value in his hand. It was not these we feared. We bowed to Thy command, Even to that stern decree which bade the lion spring Upon the weakling steer, the falcon bend her wing To reive the laggard fowl, the monster of the deep Devour and be devoured. He who hath sown shall reap. And we beheld the Earth by that mute law controlled, Grow ever young and new, Time's necklace of pure gold Set on Creation's neck. We gazed, and we applauded The splendour of Thy might, Thy incarnated Godhead. And yet--Lord God, forgive--Nay, hear me. Thou wert not Content with this fair world in its first glorious thought. Thou needs must make thee Man. Ah, there Thy wisdom strayed. Thou wantedst one to know Thee, no mere servile jade, But a brave upright form to walk the Earth and be Thy lieutenant with all and teach integrity, One to aspire, adorn, to stand the roof and crown Of thy Creation's house in full dominion, The fairest, noblest, best of Thy created things-- One thou shouldst call Thy rose of all Time's blossomings. And thou evolvedst Man!--There were a thousand forms, All glorious, all sublime, the riders of Thy storms, The battlers of Thy seas, the four-foot Lords of Earth, From which to choose Thy stem and get Thee a new birth. There were forms painted, proud, bright birds with plumes of heaven And songs more sweet than angels' heard on the hills at even, Frail flashing butterflies, free fishes of such hue As rainbows hardly have, sleek serpents which renew Their glittering coats like gems, grave brindled-hided kine, Large-hearted elephants, the horse how near divine, The whale, the mastodon, the mighty Behemoth, Leviathan's self awake and glorious in his wrath. All these thou hadst for choice, competitors with Thee For Thy new gift and prize, Thy co-divinity. Yet didst Thou choose, Lord God, the one comedian shape In Thy Creation's range, the lewd bare-buttocked ape, And calledst him, in scorn of all that brave parade, King of Thy living things, in Thine own likeness made! Where, Lord, was then Thy wisdom? We, who watched Thee, saw More than Thyself didst see. We recognised the flaw, The certainty of fault, and I in zeal spake plain.

THE LORD GOD

Thou didst, rebellious Spirit, and thy zeal was vain. Thou spakest in thy blindness. Was it hard for God, Thinkest thou, to choose His graft, to wring from the worst clod His noblest fruiting? Nay. Man's baseness was the test, The text of His all-power, its proof made manifest. There was nought hard for God.

SATAN

Except to win Man's heart. Lord, hear me to the end. Thy Will found counterpart Only in Man's un-Will. Thy Truth in his un-Truth, Thy Beauty in his Baseness, Ruth in his un-Ruth, Order in his dis-Order. See, Lord, what hath been To Thy fair Earth through him, the fount and origin Of all its temporal woes. How was it ere he came In his high arrogance, sad creature without shame? Thou dost remember, Lord, the glorious World it was, The beauty, the abundance, the unbroken face Of undulent forest spread without or rent or seam From mountain foot to mountain, one embroidered hem Fringing the mighty plains through which Thy rivers strayed, Thy lakes, Thy floods, Thy marshes, tameless, unbetrayed, All virgin of the spoiler, all inviolate, In beauty undeflowered, where fear was not nor hate. Thou knowest, Lord of all, how that sanct solitude Was crowded with brave life, a thousand forms of good Enjoying Thy sweet air, some strong, some weak, yet none Oppressor of the rest more than Thy writ might run. Armed were they, yet restrained. Not even the lion slew His prey in wantonness, nor claimed beyond his due. He thinned their ranks,--yet, lo, the Spring brought back their joy. Short was his anger, Lord. He raged not to destroy. Oh, noble was the World, its balance held by Thee, Timely its fruits for all, 'neath Thy sole sovereignty. But he! he, the unclean! The fault, Lord God, was Thine. Behold him in Thy place, a presence saturnine, In stealth among the rest, equipped as none of these With Thy mind's attributes, low crouched beneath the trees, Betraying all and each. The wit Thou gavest him He useth to undo, to bend them to his whim. His bodily strength is little, slow of foot is he, Of stature base, unclad in mail or panoply. His heart hath a poor courage. He hath beauty none. Bare to the buttocks he of all that might atone. Without Thy favour, Lord, what power had he for ill? Without thy prompting voice his violence had scant skill. The snare, the sling, the lime, who taught him these but Thou? The World was lost through Thee who fashioned him his bow. And Thou hast clean forgot the fair great beasts of yore, The mammoth, aurochs, elk, sea-lion, cave-bear, boar, Which fell before his hand, each one of them than he Nobler and mightier far, undone by treachery. He spared them not, old, young, calf, cow. With pitfall hid In their mid path they fell, by his guile harvested, And with them the World's truth. Henceforth all walked in fear, Knowing that one there was turned traitor, haply near. This was the wild man's crime.

THE LORD GOD

He erred in ignorance. As yet he was not Man. Naught but his form was Man's.

SATAN

Well had he so remained. Lord God, thou thoughtest then To perfect him by grace, among the sons of men To choose a worthiest man. "If he should know," saidst Thou "The evil from the good, the thing We do allow "From that We do forbid! If We should give him shame, "The consciousness of wrong, the red blush under blame! "If he should walk in light beholding truth as We!" Thou gavest him Conscience, Creed, Responsibility, The power to worship Thee. Thou showedst him Thy way. Thou didst reveal Thyself. Thou spakest, as one should say Conversing mouth to mouth. Old Adam and his Eve Thou didst array in aprons Thy own hands did weave. Enoch was taken up. To Noah Thou didst send Salvation in Thine ark. Lord Abraham was Thy friend. These are the facts recorded, facts--say fables--yet Impressed with the large truth of a new value set Upon Man's race and kind by Thy too favouring will. Man had become a "Soul," informed for good and ill With Thy best attributes, Earth's moral arbiter, Tyrant and priest and judge. Woe and alas for her! Think of the deeds of Man! the sins! No wilding now, But set in cities proud, yet marked upon his brow With label of all crime.

THE LORD GOD

The men before the Flood? We did destroy them all.

SATAN

Save Noah and his brood. In what were these more worthy? Did they love Thee more, The men of the new lineage? Was their sin less sore, Their service of more zeal? Nay. Earth was hardly dry Ere their corruption stank and their sin sulphurously Rose as a smoke to heaven, Ur, Babel, Nineveh, The Cities of the Plain. Bethink Thee, Lord, to-day What their debasement was, who did defile Thy face And flout Thee in derision, dogs in shamelessness!

THE LORD GOD

Nay, but there loved me one.

SATAN

The son of Terah?

THE LORD GOD

He.

SATAN

I give Thee Thy one friend. Nay, more, I give Thee three-- Moses, Melchisedec.

THE LORD GOD

And Job.

SATAN

Ay, Job. He stands In light of the new Gospel, Captain of Thy bands, And prince of all that served Thee, fearing not to find Thy justice even in wrong with no new life behind, Thy justice even in death. In all, four men of good Of the whole race of Shem, Heaven's stars in multitude. I speak of the old time and the one chosen Nation To whom Thou gavest the law.

THE LORD GOD

Truce to that dispensation. It was an old world hope, made void by Jacob's guile. His was a bitter stem. We bore with it awhile, Too long, till We grew weary. But enough. 'Tis done. What sayest thou of the new, most wise Apollyon?

SATAN

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