And Merival listened as the jurymen Philosophied the case of Elenor Murray, And life at large. And having listened spoke: "I like the words Llewellyn George has said. Love is a sea which wrecks and sinks our craft, But re-creates the hands that build again; And like a tidal wave which sponges out An island or a city, lifts and leaves Fresh seeds and forms of beauty on the peaks. The whinchat in the mud upon its claws, Storm driven from its course to sea, brings life Of animal and plant to virgin shores, And islands strange and new. These happenings Of Elenor Murray carry beauty forth, Unhurt amid the storm-cloud, darkness, fire, To lives and eras. And our country too, So ruined and so weltering, like a ball Of mud made in a missile by a god May bear, no less, a pearl at core, a truth, A liberty, a genius, beauty,--thrown In mischief by the god, and staining walls Of this our temple; in a day to be Dried up, cracks open, and the pearl appears To be set in a precious time beyond Our time and vision. This is what I mean: Call Elenor egoist, and make her work, And life the means of rich return to her In exaltation, pride;--a missile of mud, It carries still the pearl of her, the seed Of finer spirits. We must open eyes To see inside the mud-ball. If it be We conquered slavery of the negro through, Because of economic forces, yet We conquered it. Trade, cotton, were the mud Upon the whinchat's claws containing seeds Of liberties to be, and carried forth In mid seas of the future to sunny isles, More blest than ours. And as for this, you know The English blotted slavery from their books And left their books unbalanced in point of cash, But balanced richly in a manhood gain. I warn you, David Barrow, pessimist, Against a general slur on life and man. Deride the Christian ethic, if you choose, You must retain its word of benevolence; Or better, you must honor man, whose heart Leaps up to its benevolence, from whose heart The Christian doctrine of benevolence Did issue to this world. If Christian doctrine Be man-made, not a miracle, as it is All man-made, still it's out of generous fire Of human spirit; that's the thing divine.... Now how is Elenor Murray wonderful To me viewed through this mass of evidence? Why, as the soul maternal, out of which All goodness, beauty, and benevolence, All aspiration, sacrifice, all death For truth and liberty blesses life of us. This soul maternal, passion to create New life and guide it into happiness, Is Mother Mary of all tenderness, All charity, all vision, rises up From its obscurity and primal force Of romance, passion and the child, to realms, Democracies, republics; never flags To make them brighter, freer, so to spread Its ecstasy to all, and take in turn Redoubled ecstasy! The tragedy Is that this Elenor for her mother gift Is cursed and tortured, sent a wanderer;