Thou, said the Monarch, here? Thou, Perceval, summon’d before me?...
Then as his waken’d mind to the weal of his country reverted,
What of his son, he ask’d, what course by the Prince had been follow’d.
Right in his Father’s steps hath the Regent trod, was the answer:
Firm hath he proved and wise, at a time when weakness or error
Would have sunk us in shame, and to ruin have hurried us headlong.
True to himself hath he been, and Heaven has rewarded his counsels.
Peace is obtain’d then at last, with safety and honour! the Monarch
Cried, and he clasp’d his hands;... I thank Thee, O merciful Father!
Now is my heart’s desire fulfill’d.
With honour surpassing
All that in elder time had adorn’d the annals of England,
Peace hath been won by the sword, the faithful minister answer’d.
Paris hath seen once more the banners of England in triumph
Wave within her walls, and the ancient line is establish’d.
While that man of blood, the tyrant, faithless and godless,
Render’d at length the sport, as long the minion of Fortune,
Far away, confined in a rocky isle of the ocean,
Fights his battles again, and pleased to win in the chamber
What he lost in the field, in fancy conquers his conqueror.
There he reviles his foes, and there the ungrateful accuses
For his own defaults the men who too faithfully served him;
Frets and complains and intrigues, and abuses the mercy that spared him.
Oh that my King could have known these things! could have witness’d how England
Check’d in its full career the force of her enemy’s empire,
Singly defied his arms and his arts, and baffled them singly,
Roused from their lethal sleep with the stirring example the nations,
And the refluent tide swept him and his fortune before it.
Oh that my King, ere he died, might have seen the fruit of his counsels!
Nay, it is better thus, the Monarch piously answer’d;
Here I can bear the joy; it comes as an earnest of Heaven.
Righteous art Thou, O Lord! long-suffering, but sure are thy judgements.
Then having paused awhile, like one in devotion abstracted,
Earth ward his thoughts recurr’d, so deeply the care of his country
Lay in that royal soul reposed: and he said, Is the spirit
Quell’d which hath troubled the land? and the multitude freed from delusion,
Know they their blessings at last, and are they contented and thankful?
Still is that fierce and restless spirit at work, was the answer;
Still it deceiveth the weak, and inflameth the rash and the desperate.
Even now, I ween, some dreadful deed is preparing;
For the Souls of the Wicked are loose, and the Powers of Evil
Move on the wing alert. Some nascent horror they look for,
Be sure! some accursed conception of filth and of darkness
Ripe for its monstrous birth. Whether France or Britain be threaten’d,
Soon will the issue show; or if both at once are endanger’d,
For with the ghosts obscene of Robespierre, Danton, and Hebert,
Faux and Despard I saw, and the band of rabid fanatics,
They whom Venner led, who rising in frantic rebellion
Made the Redeemer’s name their cry of slaughter and treason.
IV. THE GATE OF HEAVEN.
Thus as he spake, methought the surrounding space dilated.
Over head I beheld the infinite ether; beneath us
Lay the solid expanse of the firmament spread like a pavement:
Wheresoever I look’d, there was light and glory around me.
Brightest it seem’d in the East, where the New Jerusalem glitter’d.
Eminent on a hill, there stood the Celestial City;
Beaming afar it shone; its towers and cupolas rising
High in the air serene, with the brightness of gold in the furnace,
Where on their breadth the splendour lay intense and quiescent:
Part with a fierier glow, and a short quick tremulous motion,
Like the burning pyropus; and turrets and pinnacles sparkled,
Playing in jets of light, with a diamond-like glory coruscant.
Groves of all hues of green their foliage intermingled,
Tempering with grateful shade the else unendurable lustre.
Drawing near, I beheld what over the portal was written:
This is the Gate of Bliss, it said; thro’ me is the passage
To the City of God, the abode of beatified Spirits.
Weariness is not there, nor change, nor sorrow, nor parting;
Time hath no place therein; nor evil. Ye who would enter,
Drink of the Well of Life, and put away all that is earthly.
O’er the adamantine gates an Angel stood on the summit.
Ho! he exclaim’d, King George of England cometh to judgment!
Hear Heaven! Ye Angels hear! Souls of the Good and the Wicked
Whom it concerns, attend! Thou, Hell, bring forth his accusers!
As the sonorous summons was utter’d, the Winds, who were waiting,
Bore it abroad thro’ Heaven; and Hell, in her nethermost caverns,
Heard, and obey’d in dismay.
Anon a body of splendour
Gather’d before the gate, and veil’d the Ineffable Presence,
Which, with a rushing of wings, came down. The sentient ether
Shook with that dread descent, and the solid firmament trembled.
Round the cloud were the Orders of Heaven... Archangel and Angel,
Principality, Cherub and Seraph, Thrones, Dominations,
Virtues, and Powers. The Souls of the Good, whom Death had made perfect,
Flocking on either hand, a multitudinous army,
Came at the aweful call. In semicircle inclining,
Tier over tier they took their place: aloft, in the distance,
Far as the sight could pierce, that glorious company glisten’d.
From the skirts of the shining assembly, a silvery vapour
Rose in the blue serene, and moving onward it deepen’d,
Taking a denser form; the while from the opposite region
Heavy and sulphurous clouds roll’d on, and completed the circle.
There with the Spirits accurst, in congenial darkness enveloped,
Were the Souls of the Wicked, who wilful in guilt and in error,
Chose the service of sin, and now were abiding its wages.
Change of place to them brought no reprieval from anguish;
They in their evil thoughts and desires of impotent malice,
Envy, and hate, and blasphemous rage, and remorse unavailing,
Carried a Hell within, to which all outer affliction,
So it abstracted the sense, might be deem’d a remission of torment.
At the edge of the cloud, the Princes of Darkness were marshall’d:
Dimly descried within were wings and truculent faces;
And in the thick obscure there struggled a mutinous uproar,
Railing, and fury, and strife, that the whole deep body of darkness
Roll’d like a troubled sea, with a wide and a manifold motion.
V. THE ACCUSERS.
On the cerulean floor by that dread circle surrounded,
Stood the soul of the King alone. In front was the Presence
Veil’d with excess of light; and behind was the blackness of darkness.
Then might be seen the strength of holiness, then was its triumph,
Calm in his faith he stood, and his own clear conscience upheld him.
When the trumpet was blown, and the Angel made proclamation —
Lo, where the King appears! Come for
ward ye who arraign him!
Forth from the lurid cloud a Demon came at the summons.
It was the Spirit by which his righteous reign had been troubled;
Likest in form uncouth to the hideous Idols whom India
(Long by guilty neglect to hellish delusions abandon’d,)
Worships with horrible rites of self-immolation and torture.
Many-headed and monstrous the Fiend; with numberless faces,
Numberless bestial ears erect to all rumours, and restless,
And with numberless mouths which were fill’d with lies as with arrows.
Clamours arose as he came, a confusion of turbulent voices,
Maledictions, and blatant tongues, and viperous hisses;
And in the hubbub of senseless sounds the watchwords of faction,
Freedom, Invaded Rights, Corruption, and War, and Oppression,
Loudly enounced were heard.
But when he stood in the Presence,
Then was the Fiend dismay’d, though with impudence clothed as a garment;
And the lying tongues were mute, and the lips which had scatter’d
Accusation and slander, were still. No time for evasion
This, in the Presence he stood: no place for flight; for dissembling
No possibility there. From the souls on the edge of the darkness,
Two he produced, prime movers and agents of mischief, and bade them
Show themselves faithful now to the cause for which they had labour’d.
Wretched and guilty souls, where now their audacity? Where now
Are the insolent tongues so ready of old at rejoinder?
Where the lofty pretences of public virtue and freedom?
Where the gibe, and the jeer, and the threat, the envenom’d invective,
Calumny, falsehood, fraud, and the whole ammunition of malice?
Wretched and guilty souls, they stood in the face of their Sovereign,
Conscious and self-condemn’d; confronted with him they had injured,
At the Judgement-seat they stood.
Beholding the foremost,
Him by the cast of his eye oblique, I knew as the firebrand
Whom the unthinking populace held for their idol and hero,
Lord of Misrule in his day. But how was that countenance alter’d
Where emotion of fear or of shame had never been witness’d;
That invincible forehead abash’d; and those eyes wherein malice
Once had been wont to shine with wit and hilarity temper’d,
Into how deep a gloom their mournful expression had settled!
Little avail’d it now that not from a purpose malignant,
Not with evil intent he had chosen the service of evil;
But of his own desires the slave, with profligate impulse,
Solely by selfishness moved, and reckless of aught that might follow.
Could he plead in only excuse a confession of baseness?
Could he hide the extent of his guilt; or hope to atone for
Faction excited at home, when all old feuds were abated,
Insurrection abroad, and the train of woes that had follow’d!
Discontent and disloyalty, like the teeth of the dragon,
He had sown on the winds; they had ripen’d beyond the Atlantic;
Thence in natural birth sedition, revolt, revolution;
France had received the seeds, and reap’d the harvest of horrors;..
Where... where should the plague be stay’d? Oh, most to be pitied
They of all souls in bale, who see no term to the evil
They by their guilt have raised, no end to their inner upbraidings!
Him I could not choose but know, nor knowing but grieve for.
Who might the other be, his comrade in guilt and in suffering,
Brought to the proof like him, and shrinking like him from the trial?
Nameless the libeller lived, and shot his arrows in darkness;
Undetected he pass’d to the grave, and leaving behind him
Noxious works on earth, and the pest of an evil example,
Went to the world beyond, where no offences are hidden.
Mask’d had he been in his life, and now a visor of iron
Rivetted round his head, had abolish’d his features for ever.
Speechless the slanderer stood, and turn’d his face from the Monarch
Iron-bound as it was,.. so insupportably dreadful
Soon or late to conscious guilt is the eye of the injured.
Caitiffs, are ye dumb? cried the multifaced Demon in anger;
Think ye then by shame to shorten the term of your penance?
Back to your penal dens!... And with horrible grasp gigantic
Seizing the guilty pair, he swung them aloft, and in vengeance
Hurl’d them all abroad, far into the sulphurous darkness.
Sons of Faction, be warn’d! And ye, ye Slanderers! learn ye
Justice, and bear in mind that after death there is judgement.
Whirling, away they flew. Nor long himself did he tarry,
Ere from the ground where he stood, caught up by a vehement whirlwind,
He too was hurried away; and the blast with lightning and thunder
Vollying aright and aleft amid the accumulate blackness,
Scatter’d its inmates accurst, and beyond the limits of ether
Drove the hircine host obscene: they howling and groaning
Fell precipitate, down to their dolorous place of endurance.
Then was the region clear; the arrowy flashes which redden’d
Through the foul thick throng, like sheeted argentry floating
Now o’er the blue serene, diffused an innocuous splendour,
In the infinite dying away. The roll of the thunder
Ceased, and all sounds were hush’d, till again from the gate adamantine
Was the voice of the Angel heard thro’ the silence of Heaven.
VI. THE ABSOLVERS.
Ho! he exclaim’d, King George of England standeth in judgement!
Hell hath been dumb in his presence. Ye who on earth arraign’d him,
Come ye before him now, and here accuse or absolve him!
For injustice hath here no place.
From the Souls of the Blessed
Some were there then who advanced; and more from the skirts of the meeting,
Spirits who had not yet accomplish’d their purification,
Yet being cleansed from pride, from faction and error deliver’d,
Purged of the film wherewith the eye of the mind is clouded,
They, in their better state, saw all things clear; and discerning
Now in the light of truth what tortuous views had deceived them,
They acknowledged their fault, and own’d the wrong they had offer’d;
Not without ingenuous shame, and a sense of compunction,
More or less, as each had more or less to atone for.
One alone remain’d, when the rest had retired to their station:
Silently he had stood, and still unmoved and in silence,
With a steady mien, regarded the face of the Monarch.
Thoughtful awhile he gazed; severe, but serene, was his aspect;
Calm, but stern; like one whom no compassion could weaken,
Neither could doubt deter, nor violent impulses alter;
Lord of his own resolves,.. of his own heart absolute master.
Aweful Spirit! his place was with ancient sages and heroes:
Fabius, Aristides, and Solon, and Epaminondas.
Here then at the Gate of Heaven we are met! said the Spirit;
King of England! albeit in life opposed to each other,
Here we meet at last. Not unprepared for the meeting
Ween I; for we had both outlived all enmity, rendering
Each to each that justice which each from each had withholden.
In the course of events, to thee I seem�
�d as a Rebel,
Thou a Tyrant to me;... so strongly doth circumstance rule men
During evil days, when right and wrong are confounded.
Left to our hearts we were just. For me, my actions have spoken,
That not for lawless desires, nor goaded by desperate fortunes,
Nor for ambition, I chose my part; but observant of duty,
Self-approved. And here, this witness I willingly bear thee,..
Here, before Angels and Men, in the aweful hour of judgement,..
Thou too didst act with upright heart, as befitted a Sovereign
True to his sacred trust, to his crown, his kingdom, and people.
Heaven in these things fulfill’d its wise, though inscrutable purpose,
While we work’d its will, doing each in his place as became him.
Washington! said the Monarch, well hast thou spoken and truly,
Just to thyself and to me. On them is the guilt of the contest,
Who, for wicked ends, with foul arts of faction and falsehood,
Kindled and fed the flame: but verily they have their guerdon.
Thou and I are free from offence. And would that the nations,
Learning of us, would lay aside all wrongful resentment,
All injurious thought, and honouring each in the other
Kindred courage and virtue, and cognate knowledge and freedom,
Live in brotherhood wisely conjoin’d. We set the example.
They who stir up strife, and would break that natural concord,
Evil they sow, and sorrow will they reap for their harvest.
VII. THE BEATIFICATION.
When that Spirit withdrew, the Monarch around the assembly
Look’d, but none else came forth; and he heard the voice of the Angel,..
King of England, speak for thyself! here is none to arraign thee.
Father, he replied, from whom no secrets are hidden,
What should I say? Thou knowest that mine was an arduous station,
Full of cares, and with perils beset. How heavy the burthen
Thou alone canst tell! Short-sighted and frail hast Thou made us,
And Thy judgements who can abide? But as surely Thou knowest
The desire of my heart hath been alway the good of my people,
Complete Poetical Works of Robert Southey Page 189