Livingstone in Africa/Canto VII
" Build me a hut to die in!—nevermore
May I behold my land, or my beloved."
So spake the Master; for the end was near;
Whom his dark silent followers obey.
For Livingstone, resuming his life-load
With a light heart, for all his years, and frame
Outworn with mighty labour and long pain,
Help'd even more the Mistress of his soul,
His dark and awful Mistress, Africa.
But that inveterate foe, the dire disease,22
Watching lynx-eyed for opportimity,
Found it, alas! when, with a dwindling life,
The old, but still young-hearted traveller
Would flounder, as in manhood's vigorous prime,
Through foul morasses, many hours a day.
The foe sprang on him; and he felt full well
Its gripe this time was mortal: then the flesh
Quail'd and rebell'd—let him but struggle home!
Homeward they hasten—life ebbing apace.
And first he rides; but soon they carry him.
So when they have arrived at Muilala,
He bows the head—"A hut where I may die!"
Now all the mists of death pass over him:
Terrible pain, ill dreams; with longings vain
For one glimpse of a loving face afar.
It is the hour of mortal agony.
Watchman! will the terrible night soon pass?
Then through the darkness mounts a bitter cry;
As through more darkness upon Calvary
Rose a more bitter crying from the Lord.
Gloomy the night and sullen; whose faint breath
Moans among grasses of a lonely hut;
While Bemba mourns with dying wave afar . .
. . . Behold! a dim procession slowly moves
Athwart the gloom! phantasmal Hero-forms,
Scarr'd as with thunder; marr'd, yet glorious;
Their pale brows aureoled with martyr-flame;
Lovers of men, sublime in suffering;
Patriots of all races and all time;
Christian confessors whom the world admires;
And some, whom none regarded, saving Heaven.
They are come to claim their brother; and the
First
Seems like unto the lowly Son of God.
"Strew grass upon the hut; for I am cold!"
And those dark silent followers obey.
But Majuahra kneels beside the bed;
Dark Majuahra, a young slave set free,
Kneels by a rude bed in a bough-built hut;
And while his tears fall on the wasted hand,
That never did a fellow-creature wrong,
But only wrought deliverance for all;
After the fourth day of his coming there,
At solemn midnight, noble Livingstone,
Saying, in a low voice, "I am going home!"
Quietly sleeping, enters into rest.
A lamp faint glimmers on the little slave,
As on those grand wan features of the dead . .
. . Daylight has dawn'd—the Conqueror is crown'd!
Then all consult what it were best to do.
And his true followers, whom he has loved,
And taught, and saved from bondage worse than death,
Who have shared his perils and long wanderings;
Chumah, Hamoyda, Susi, and the rest;
Resolve to bear away the dear remains,
Even to the coast—a thousand miles away!
That so the English may receive their Chief,
And bring him home—where he desired to be.
But fearing lest the village interpose,
They hide the truth of their commander's death;
And, building a high fence around a booth,
Bury the body's inner parts beneath
A shadowy tree, with solemn funeral rites;
Carving thereover name and date of death.
All that remains they reverently prepare
During twelve mournful days beneath the sun,
Embalming it with salt that purifies.
Last in rude bark of a great tree they bear him
Toward the isle of clove and cinnamon,23
Bulbul and orange, and pomegranate flower;
Carrying their dead Leader to the sea,
Who in glad triumph should have brought them there!
The Caravan.
A solemn, strange, a holy Caravan!
When was the like thereof beheld by man?
Slow journeying from unconjectured lands.
Behold! they bear him in their gentle hands;
His dark youths bear him in the rude grey bark,
As though their burden were a holiest ark.
Embalm'd they bear him from the lands of Nile,
As men bore Israel, Abraham, erewhile.
Weary and weak, and faint and fallen ill,
Through desert, jungle, forest wild and still,
By lake, and dismal swamp, and rolling river,
Slowly their dark procession winds forever.
How would the Chief exult at every sight!
Alas! those eagle eyes are seal'd in night.
Behold them winding over hill and plain,
In storm, in sunshine, calm and hurricane!
And if they may not hide what thing they bear,
Men banish them with horror and wild fear,
Far from all human dwelling; nor will feed;
Nor furnish aught to fill their bitter need;
Assailing them with hindering word and deed.
But though their burden may not wake to cheer,
The Hero-Spirit hovers very near:
Upon them rests the holy Master's power:
His soul before them moves, a mighty tower!
They, and the body, rest beneath the stars,
Or moonèd ghostly-rainbow'd cloudy bars;
Until at length they hear the sounding sea,
In all the grandeur of Eternity!
A solemn, strange, a holy Caravan!
When was the like thereof beheld by man?
Now waft him homeward in the gallant ship,
Expanding her white wings for a long flight!
It is not far from when we look'd for him.
In Maytime we had hoped to greet the sail,
Wafting our stainless conqueror to rest
In his own land, irradiate with love,
Wearing our well-earn'd honour on his brow.
Then bells would have peal'd over him, and flowers
Strewn his triumphant path, and shouts of joy
Have rent the summer air to welcome him.
So we have welcomed our victorious
Warriors yesterday from Africa—
And so alas! have mourn'd the noble band,
Who, call'd by honour, gloriously died.
A sail is sighted—he is coming home.
But all fair colours of the many nations
In harbour, flying low from many a mast,
And minute guns, and muffled voice of bells,
With reverent silence of assembling throngs,
And mourning emblems in the public ways,
Mournfully tell of how the hero comes!
Now yet a little further carry him.
Westminster opens wide her ancient doors
For more illustrious dust to enter in.
Honour the noble Scottish weaver-boy,
The lowly-born illustrious Livingstone!
With solemn music we will leave him here,
Among the ashes of our mighty fallen.
Behold! world-honour'd Shades that haunt the fane,
Statesman, or monarch, poet, soldier, sage—
The while he moves along their awful line
To his own hallow'd English sepulchre;
From yon far forest of lone Muilala
Moves to more glorious glooms of Westminster—
Bend in a grand reverent humility
Before our stainless warrior of the cross;
Uncursed of any humblest human soul;
Blest and for ever to be blest by man;
Foremost of all explorers; Liberator
Of the dark continent, and all her sons!
Africa, and America, appear
His mighty mourners; for a staunchest friend,
Stanley is here; and here the slave set free,24
Who brought his noble master to the coast;
The Negro youth, who breathed our English words
Of faithful hope, words we are breathing now,
Over that heart entomb'd in Africa.
For though she hath restored some dust to us,
In life, in death, She claims to hold his heart!
. . . Hath he not died in her own awful arms?
His sons and daughters in deep sable robed
Bear large white wreaths of blossom for his grave:
Yea, dark Death lies all buried and conceal'd
Under sweet emblems of immortal life!
Alas! if he had come to us alive,
He might have gather'd violets to-day;
Listening to our earliest nightingale
Under the woodland sprays of soft young green;
But we have strewn spring flowers upon the bier
And we have wrought in white azaleas
A cross thereover; while our kindly Queen
Has twined her delicate wreath for him; and some
Lay fadeless amaranth, with roses rare,
And his own cherish'd palms of Africa,
Palms of the conqueror, upon his breast.
Now while those ashes slowly sink to rest,
All Europe, and his Country bending over;
While solemn music soars with seraph plume;
Pearly soft sun-rays, like sweet wings of doves,
Enter yon high clerestories, and abide
Athwart grey marrying fans of the dim ceiling:
So all we mourners, piers, and monuments,
Glow with a rainbow glory, as from Heaven.
Is it not better as the Lord hath will'd?
On his own chosen battle-field he falls,
Still pressing forward, face toward the foe!
A martyr's death and tomb illume with light
His plain severe sublimity of life.
Could he have borne, who drank the liberal wind
Of deserts, like a lion or a pard,
Our stifling air of dull proprieties,
And pale decorum's mild monotony?
Who, with clear eyes on the Celestial Pole,
Loved, like an Arab, wandering wild and free!
While some surmise the dubious dim realm,25
Where he surrender'd to a sacred cause
His very life-breath in a life-long war,
Holds verily the furthest founts of Nile!
His death-cold hand unveils a Mystery,
Which all the unyielding ages from of old
Have shrouded in impenetrable gloom;
A darkness formidable from tongues confused
Of hydra-headed Error, breathing fear.
Champion of knowledge, and celestial love!
Conqueror of unconquerable Nile!
Mortal too bold! who dared to penetrate
That awful phantom-guarded Presence-chamber,
Where never mortal came!—there blinded fell,
All unaware of his own victory!
For here, between these very parallels,
Ancient Purânas of the Indian
Place Soma Giri; whence a vast long lake
Amâra flows, Amâra "of the Gods,"
And from Amâra, Nile.
Alas! he died
Unknowing all the hopeful fruit that Frere26
Ripened from those indignant words of truth,
A lone old man, among Hell's legionaries,
Unquailing hurl'd against the slave-trader.
He learn'd stern Baker's wonderful campaign:
Now, peradventure, he hath learn'd the whole!
But if Columbus, voyaging forlorn,
Wandering ever in wan ways unknown
Of shoreless ocean toward the dying day,
Daring, presumptuous mortal! to assail
Barriers Heaven piles against mankind:
If that Columbus, fronting desperate crews
Of mutinous men, with tranquil eyes unmoved
From all their high and visionary aim;
Landing at last upon another world,
Conquer'd from chaos in the power of faith,
A blooming world, that seem'd the Paradise
Of our first parents in their innocence,
And proudly named Columbia to-day—
If he, the Navigator, lives for ever
In all men's green, and grateful memory;
With Raleigh, Gama, Bruce, and Magelhaens—
Then surely shall our English Livingstone,
Honouring this our own tumultuous time;
Heroic with immortal heroism,
That burns for ever in humanity;
Rouse all the race unto a loftier life!
THE END.