THE GNOME. (A Fantasy.) BY ROBERT BUCHANAN. I. T Dusseldorf in the Bolkerstrass, In seventeen hundred and ninety-nine, From every mountain and meadow-sward, And busily down in the silent street, Yea, all the spirits, black, blue, and red, Which Philosophy long had driven away— And they cried, "Of dullness the world is sick, "For Man the mortal hath grown so wise, To heaven he thrusteth his bumptious brow He believes in nothing beneath the skies "Too grave to laugh and too proud to play, Like a jackass on a green. "He deems us slain with the creeds long dead, But we mean, ere many an hour hath fled, And at Dusseldorf, as the moon sail'd by, II. Children by millions has Deutschland born, Dim was his brow with the moon-dew dim, A cry, like the cry of the Elves and Gnomes, But his hair was bright as the sweet moonlight, He would lie and smile for hours. And the human mother who watched his rest But night by night in the mystic shine The spirits of meadow and mountain came, For the Elves and Gnomes had played their trick, III. He drank the seasons from year to year, For up he leapt in the crowded street, All crown'd with wig, and leaves, and flowers, And began a magical song, full sweet, Of the wonderful elfin bowers. He sang of the pale Moon silvern shod, The Stars and the Spirits that feed their flame ; [But where others utter the praise of God He smiled, and he skipt the Name.] Sweet as the singing of summer eves, He sang in the midst of the wondering folk; And he told of the beautiful woodland things He told of the knight in the Pixy's cave Dim were the faces of those that heard ; They sighed for the mystical moonlit time; And they stood in a dream, with their spirits stirred To the thrill of that runic rhyme. But ever, just as the spell was done, He laughed, as shrill as a bugle horn ; And they rubbed their eyes in the garish sun To the sound of the Goblin's scorn! IV. Then over the Earth the tidings went, To the Kings above and the crowds below, That a Gnome, a magical Gnome, was sent To play his pranks below. "All things that are holy in mortal sight," Quoth those that gathered his pranks to see, "He turns, with a scrutiny mock-polite, To a goblin glamourie! "He dances his dance in the dark church-aisle, He makes grimaces behind Earth's Kings, He mocks, with a diabolical smile, The highest and holiest things. "He jeers man's folly and gain and loss, "He fondles the beautiful Maiden's head "Full of flowers are his eager hands, As by lovely woman he lies caressed, But he laughs! and they turn to ashes and sands, "Nothing he spares neath the sad blue heaven, V. Then some one [surely the son of a goose!] 'Tis an ignis fatuus broken loose, Or a goblin wicked and grim. "For his sweetest sport is with sacred Kings, "He tricks the world in a goblin revel, He turns all substance to flowers and foam; The Philosophers came, those wondrous men ! And they showed him how in equation clear And they proved that the only Actual here They prodded his ribs with their finger-points, And the Gnome laughed madly thro' all his joints, And o'er their fingers a glamour grew, They turned to Phantoms and gazed askance, And he sprinkled their brows with the moonlight dew, And led them a mocking dance. They skipt along at his wicked beck, He left them, fool'd to their hearts' contentEach in his quagmire, up to the neck, Deep in the argument! VI. But the hand of the Human was on the Gnome, Philosophers grey and Kings on their thrones In Paris, the City of sin and light, Propt on his pillows he sat-a sight Most pitiful to see. For his cheeks were white as his own moonshine, And his limbs were shrunk, while his wondrous eyne A skeleton form, with a thin white hand, He lay alone in the chamber dim ; But he beckon'd and laugh'd-and all the land Of Faëry flock'd to him! *See Hegel passim. |