The Complete Works of Brann, the Iconoclast — Volume 01Brann, William Cowper
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The Complete Works of Brann, the Iconoclast — Volume 01
Brann, William Cowper
Brann, William Cowper, 1855-1898; Essays; Reformers
And yet God suspects that Adam is not content, for we
hear him soliloquizing: "It is not good that the man
should be alone." The clay of which the first of men
is formed is beginning to assert itself. He watches the
panther fondling his playful cubs, the eagle's solicitude for
his imperial brood perched on the beetling crag, and the
paternal instinct awakes within him. He hears the mocking-
bird trilling to his mate, the dove pitying the loneliness of
Creation's mystic lord, and a fierce longing for a
companionship dearer than he has yet known takes
possession of him. To the swarming life about him his high
thoughts are incomprehensible; in God's presence his soul
swoons beneath an intellectual glory to which he cannot
rise, encumbered as he is by earthly clay. He sends his
swift-winged messenger forth to summon before his throne
every fowl of the air and every beast of the field. Down
through the gates of the garden they come, countless
thousands, and pass before their king. "But for Adam
there was not found a helpmeet for him." Sick at heart he
turns away. The sunset has lost its glory, the spheres their
music, life its sweetness. The beams of the moon chill his
blood and Arcturus leads forth his shining sons but to mock
his barrenness. The flowers that wreathe his couch stifle
him with their sensuous perfume and he flies from the
nightingale's passionate song as the slave flees the
scourge. Through the dark paths and over the moss-grown
bowlders he stumbles on, across the fields where the
fireflies glow like showers of flame, beneath the tall cedars
whose every sigh seems drawn from the depths of an
accepted lover's soul. Exhausted, he sinks down where the
waters burst from the foundations of the earth and, dividing
into four, seem to reiterate in ceaseless monotone, "Behold
my mighty sons." A feeling of utter loneliness, of hopeless
desolation falls upon him, such as hammers at the heart
when Death has despoiled us of all that Life held dear. He
pillows his head upon the sleeping lion and shields
himself from the sharp night air with the tawny mane. A
cub, already hunting in dreams, comes whining and nestles
down over his heart, while Love's brilliant star pours its
splendors full upon his face. The long black lashes,
burdened with unshed tears, drop low, a drowsiness falls
upon him and Adam sleeps. The heavens are rolled
together like a scroll and God descends in the midst of a
legion of Angels, brightest of whom is Lucifer, Son of the
Morning, not yet forever fallen. "It is not good that the man
should be alone." The fitful slumber deepens; the winds
are hushed; the song of the nightingale sinks lower and
lower, then ceases with an awe-struck sigh; the lynx and
the jackal, the horned owl and the scaly serpent slink away
into the deepest wood, while Love's emblem glows like a
globe of molten gold. Then comes a burst of melody
divine, beneath which the earth trembles like a young
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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