Rupert Atkinson

Promethean

GOD dreaming in his star-enshrouded sky
Bethought himself of me, so even I
Who was till then as nothing, leapt to life —
How rude a structure first, what subtle knife
Wielded by how magnificent a touch
Has moulded me to what I am — as much
As centuries on centuries were piled
While I, with panting steps each day beguiled
From gas to earth, from earth to life, became
A pulsing embryo and there the flame
Of sense burst in me, hushed, ineffable.

God dreamed of me, say I? I cannot tell.
Suppose this were so, surely then a dream
Which were as vacancy, which would beseem
No God that I shall bow to ... . Let me peer
Into the soul of earth and view more near
This burning nakedness my perjured praise
Trembles to think about and on the ways
My breath is tribute to — gaunt legs and arms,
Spine rounded in a head, these dubious charms,
Since man's, may suit the flesh-born here — but me?
Nay, surely not — not that my hope can be
Much mightier than my baseness whence upsprings
The futile hankering which gives me wings
Fashioned to fall to dust; God took no thought
To fashion me, or had I thus been wrought? —

And He is this one pregnant universe,

Vapour at first till sun became averse

And beaconed into power — thus grew the earth

And all the labouring constellations' dearth;

And I myself, at length, a cold light gleamed:

God dreamed perchance but knew not that he dreamed.

I live and when I perish I shall be
Unconscious of death's fell indignity;
This bears one consolation and again
To know that being less than baseness then
I shall be more than now in all I wish
Or all I cherished with my feverish
And rebel longing tamed. Well, let that be:
At least it took all time to fashion me !

Half I have thought that love would prove divine
Assurance that I sought and God would shine
Straightway in heaven before my dazzled eyes;
Half I have thought the faith which fortifies
The soul to joy and strength would give at length
Me power to speak, and therefore greater strength
So that my conjured faith would there arouse
The God that I had longed for! Life endows
— Weak, abject fool — no greater end than this,
To feel when hot in blood the bitter bliss
Breathed from the mouth that feeds a hungry heart,
To feel anon the glory and the smart
Of warring wills, to know how life is sore

With dread of paralytic death before

Where lies the blank ere life was ours. — My soul

Yet be assured of this — that I control

Within my power my wants since I desire

All that shall be to happen and require

No less the pain that agonises me

Than love's hot rapture; and though I may not flee

From death still death has been my choice and I

Shall surely sometime only seek to die;

And till I perish all my fear herein

Is sunk, for death is baser than all sin.

Alive, we dream of death uncomforted:

I hope we'll dream we're living when we're dead!

Lay not our destiny within God's power?
Since He alone existed could His dower
Fail in the slightest? Is not He supreme
(Because alone existing) though He seem
Unto our purblind sight as visionless?
Creator, can He lack our consciousness? ....
It matters not. Creator though He be
Conscious or mute and senseless, unto me
All hope is futile and all the ends of man
Apart from me as ere the world began.
What dross is this dull universe to make
Its noblest work gross man, him who can slake
His love but in his lust, who only lives
Until his hunger languishes, who gives
Thought only for himself and those he loves,
Who are his panderers, who only moves
Reeking with doubt long troubled from his birth
So to his death, fit creature of this earth.

And I myself am thus, indifferent

Rotting each moment, till my strength is spent

Decreed to life the dupe of every fate

And careless equally of every state;

Who laugh when laugh I must, who toil or mourn

When the need stirs within and I shall turn

Resigned at length to death and fill the sum

Of life and go whence all the world has come.

And you believe? — ^Well, I have only yearned

For fortitude of faith — and God has earned

A curse or two beside much blasphemy

With words that fell beneath my fury's plea

And my hot rage beneath my hate's desire !

Yea, if the world is senseless my dim fire,

My thought and will, is greater, though such shape

As the stale earth determines, though escape

Is futile still — nay, can I ever strive

For though my life is loathed, I stay alive?

Yet this I know, that hate is mine for I

Welcome what ill betide me when thereby

This idiot-fashioning of my flesh is shown

The folly of my scorn for I drop down

Even to hell, to worse than hell, to death.

Void endless death, unmeaning, utter death. . . .

And diffidence transmutes all 1 believe
To weakling grief — then how can life retrieve
My body's flame of soul? You with brow
Worn with long years of grubbing study, now
You of the cleric garb, you say you know;
So one belies the other; which? — Although
All men who ponder mock me, I from hell
Have won my creed from silence; all is well.
If God has light, if He can see and feel,
How paltry in his might that He reveals
Such want of art in making man! If God
Is space and vapour, animal and clod.
Plain, mountain, star and ocean, striving, still
Unconscious, aimless, void of thought or will —
Be of the two whichever one, I smile
Sure victor either way — I have this guile
If He be conscious that I wreck this plan
Contemning earth and flesh, though but a man;
Or if He is but earth, as I opine.
He is less than I : I think the laugh is mine.