<html xmlns:tei="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0"><body><h1 align="" class="head">The Man Who Saw</h1><div class="stanza"><p class="line">THE master weavers at the enchanted loom</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:%"> Of Legend, weaving long ago those tales</p><p class="line">Through which there wanders the grey thread of truth,</p><p class="line">Lost in the gorgeous arras of romance,</p><p class="line">Tell how King Vortigern resolved to build</p><p class="line">A Tower of Safety, mid the solitudes</p><p class="line">That are the hem of the great druid robe</p><p class="line">Of Snowdon, Mount of Eagles. So each day</p><p class="line">The builders laboured, marrying stone to stone ;</p><p class="line">But ever in the night an adversary</p><p class="line">Invisible as malevolent cancelled those</p><p class="line">Cold nuptials, and with impish wanton rage</p><p class="line">Shattered the walls. And thither, from beyond</p><p class="line">That congress of grave mountains, met like seers</p><p class="line">And bards august, though in a rivalry</p><p class="line">Of silence rather than of song--from where</p><p class="line">The vales are not so tranced with awe, nor yet</p><p class="line">So far below the hilltops as to feel</p><p class="line">Aching estrangement--fortune one day brought</p><p class="line">A youth whose very brow was a command.</p><p class="line">His name of Merlin had not clambered then</p><p class="line">To fearsome greatness, like a dusky star ;</p><p class="line">Yet ev'n thus early his subduing eyes</p><p class="line">Seemed to have known all things in life but tears ;</p><p class="line">And standing where wrecked hopes bestrewed the ground,</p><p class="line">He said to them whose toil was shards and dust:</p><p class="line">" Go search beneath your tower's foundations ; there</p><p class="line">Are the Unbuilders, busy while you build ;</p><p class="line">The Undoers are there." And every man obeyed.</p><p class="line">And digging deep, they found a hollow abysm,</p><p class="line">Where waters gnawed the ribs of the Earth, and sapped</p><p class="line">Her sinews, till her frame tottered infirm ;</p><p class="line">Where also monsters heaved their tumid bulk</p><p class="line">In ancient ambush, and with tremors vast</p><p class="line">Palsied those ramparts as they yearned to rise :</p><p class="line">Blind dragon shapes, of blindest darkness born,</p><p class="line">That save in darkness could not live an hour,</p><p class="line">And, touched by Light, made their dull moan, and died.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line" style="text-indent:%">Such is the tale, which one, who chronicled</p><p class="line">Old shadowy wars in sanctuaries of peace,</p><p class="line">Found amid crumbled pomps, the hushed domain</p><p class="line">Of mildew, and the empire of the moth,</p><p class="line">Nigh on eight hundred years ago. And now,</p><p class="line">Out of that land where Snowdon night by night</p><p class="line">Receives the confidences of lonesome stars,</p><p class="line">And where Carnarvon's ruthless battlements</p><p class="line">Magnificently oppress the daunted tide,</p><p class="line">There comes--no fabled Merlin, son of mist,</p><p class="line">And brother to the twilight, but a man</p><p class="line">Who in a time terrifically real</p><p class="line">Is real as the time ; formed for the time ;</p><p class="line">Not much beholden to the munificent Past,</p><p class="line">In mind or spirit, but frankly of this hour;</p><p class="line">No faggot of perfections, angel or saint,</p><p class="line">Created faultless and intolerable;</p><p class="line">No meeting-place of all the heavenlinesses;</p><p class="line">But eminently a man to stir and spur</p><p class="line">Men, to afflict them with benign alarm,</p><p class="line">Harass their sluggish and uneager blood,</p><p class="line">Till, like himself, they are hungry for the goal;</p><p class="line">A man with something of the cragginess</p><p class="line">Of his own mountains, something of the force</p><p class="line">That goads to their loud leap the mountain streams.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line" style="text-indent:%">And he too comes to bid the builders probe</p><p class="line">Deep underneath the Tower of Safety, lest</p><p class="line">A pit lie cavernous and covert there,</p><p class="line">A long baulked, ravening emptiness, a grave</p><p class="line">That famishes for its expected food.</p><p class="line">Nay, in his hands he takes the delver's spade,</p><p class="line">Lays bare the hollow, o'er which to build at all</p><p class="line">Were to build woe and ruin, and 'stablishes</p><p class="line">A mightier tower, bastioned so broad and firm,</p><p class="line">In life, in manhood, and in womanhood,</p><p class="line">Founded upon so massy a human rock,</p><p class="line">And with such living bulwarks against them</p><p class="line">Who first poured death from where the lark strews bliss,</p><p class="line">That when, at last, ours shall be Triumph, though</p><p class="line">Triumph perhaps too weary to rejoice,</p><p class="line">Save with a mournful jubilation--when</p><p class="line">Hate shall reel back from these embattled walls,</p><p class="line">And having spent so long its hurtling bolts</p><p class="line">With such poor thrift, shall stand before the stars</p><p class="line">Bankrupt of thunder--then indeed shall Time</p><p class="line">Add yet another name to those the world</p><p class="line">Salutes with an obeisance of the soul:</p><p class="line">The name of him, the man of Celtic blood,</p><p class="line">Whom Powers Unknown, in a divine caprice,</p><p class="line">Chose and did make their instrument, wherewith</p><p class="line">To save the Saxon : the man all eye and hand,</p><p class="line">The man who saw, and grasped, and gripped, and held.</p><p class="line">Then shall each morrow with its yesterday</p><p class="line">Vie, in the honour of nobly honouring him,</p><p class="line">Who found us lulled and blindfold by the verge</p><p class="line">Of fathomless perdition and haled us back.</p><p class="line">And poets shall dawn in pearl and gold of speech,</p><p class="line">Crowning his deed with not less homage, here</p><p class="line">On English ground, than yonder whence he rose:</p><p class="line">Yonder where crash the cataracts through the chasms,</p><p class="line">And unto the dark tempests the dark hills</p><p class="line">Offer their stubborn sides all gored, but keep</p><p class="line">A heart invincible and impregnable;</p><p class="line">While with long arm and piercing spear the sea</p><p class="line">Thrusts far into the valleys, that of old</p><p class="line">Heard the twin raptures of the harp and sword,</p><p class="line">The heroic strife, and the heroic strings,</p><p class="line">Amid the battling torrents, and beneath</p><p class="line">The happier peaks, that without strife, prevail.</p></div></body></html> · Great War