Songs Old and New | ||
“THE THREE WAKINGS.”
[_]
Among the ancient Laplanders magic was an hereditary art. There were,
however, some magicians of a higher character, to whom, in three supernatural
sicknesses or trances—one in childhood, one in youth, and one in
manhood—the spirits themselves taught the secrets of the invisible world.
These were honoured by the whole nation as seers.
—Mone Geschichte des Heidenthums.
Among the ancient Laplanders magic was an hereditary art. There were, however, some magicians of a higher character, to whom, in three supernatural sicknesses or trances—one in childhood, one in youth, and one in manhood—the spirits themselves taught the secrets of the invisible world. These were honoured by the whole nation as seers. —Mone Geschichte des Heidenthums.
Argument.
—The poet-child plays on the margin of the river of Life. There the First Trance overpowers him. He awakens from it to the wonderful beauty of the universe. The magic boat bears him away from the broad stream of life to the regions of fancy. There the Second Trance overshadows him. In it he is aroused to the sense of duty and the necessity of work. He girds himself for the strife. In the flush of the triumph which succeeds it, he is overcome by the Third Trance. In it are revealed to him the grace of God, redemption, and the free service of love.
I.
The infant poet played;
The grave old rocks above him
Laughed at the mirth he made.
Lay idle on the shore,
Without or sail or oar.
Quivered and fluttered in glee,
And the merry rills from the mighty hills
Shouted as loud as he.
For they deemed him one of them;
And the snowdrop laughed in her quiet joy,
Till she shook on her delicate stem.
And its depths no sailor knows;
It comes from a place no foot can trace,
'Mid the clouds and the ancient snows;
Many a gallant bark;—
(Do they know that at last o'er a chasm vast
It leaps into the dark?)
Were his playmates glad and sweet,
To bathe his snowy feet;
Were the flowers of the sky,—
Too high, perhaps, to gather,
But too beautiful to die;
Its heavens and its sea,
Was his play-room, full of play-mates,
Each one as glad as he.
Strange languor o'er him stole;
His eyes grew dim, and faint each limb,
And dark the sunny soul,
Folded him to her breast,
And birds and waves and breezes
Lulled him to quiet rest.
II.
When he broke that magic trance,
Rose from the ground, and gazed around
With a new and rapturous glance.
Expanded as he slept,
That such a tide of light and joy
Around his senses swept?
Not a breeze the waters moved,
But it thrilled through sense and spirit,
Like the voice of one beloved.
From his depths of light on high—
Each lowly flower from its dewy bower,—
Beamed like a loving eye.
In love and wonder meek;
Or had she learned to speak?
And no stranger guest was he:
As the silvery fish in the silvery brook
Leaps in its wanton glee,
When the early mists are curled,—
His spirit bathed and revelled
In the beauty of the world.
He was content to see;
It was enough to listen—
It was enough to be!
In this Eden to abide,
But the pearly boat began to float
Languidly down the tide.
Where the great navies lay,
From the din and strife away.
Made music as it went,
Like lyres and lutes and silvery flutes,
In sweet confusion blent;
Roofed with many a gem,
(But one of the countless number
Had graced a diadem);
Where reigned nor sun nor moon,
But a magic light as still as night,
And warm as the softest noon.
By those shores of wondrous things,
'Mid the murmur of dreamy voices,
And the waving of viewless wings;
Where the gems lay thick as flowers,
Like the fountain 'midst leafy bowers;
Where, in the chequered glade,
With wild but tuneful laughter,
The fairy people played;
And the unclouded sky,
Where the stately Attic temple
Reared its white shafts on high;
The brave and wise and strong,
Earth's loftiest and sweetest souls,
Lived and made life a song;
Where the thunderbolts were made,
And spirits and gods and mighty men
Met in the mystic shade.
Smiled brotherly on him;
Crept over soul and limb.
Lay heavy on his breath,
And the fair world was shadowed o'er
With a darkness as of death;
And the light of the common day,
And the common air on his fevered brow,
And the fields of his childish play;
The vessel moored at last,
And he stept on the bank, and languidly sank
'Mid the graves of the great that were past.
III.
With its soft and gorgeous light,
Beneath the solemn night;
In their grand reality;
'Mid the shadowy glooms of many tombs,
On the shores of a heaving sea.
Lay glittering by his side;
Breastplate and casque and girdle,
And a sword of temper tried.
On his brow were dented deep;
And he woke to a steadfast purpose
From the night of that awful sleep;
Beside his couch had been,
Clad in the old prophetic garb
And stern with the prophet's mien.
“What is outshines what seems;
Life has no time for dreams.
Knowest thou nought of sin?
Hast thou not heard the groans without,
Or felt the sting within?
Thy brethren toil in chains;
The body is racked by hunger,
And the heart has sharper pains.
Are sinking into the grave;
And tender hearts are growing hard
For the want of a hand to save.
Are perishing around;
And thou pourest out thy cup of life
Upon the barren ground.
Rise, arm thee for the fight;
Strike boldly for the right!
Rise, clothed with vigour new:
This fallen earth is no place for mirth;
Arise, go forth and do!”
Through all his nature ran,
And from that sleep of visions deep
The Boy awoke a Man.
Through beauty and weal and ill,
And his eyes were lit, and his frame was knit
By the strength of a fixëd will.
Was but the lamp of life;
The abounding earth, in her beauty and mirth,
But the field of the mortal strife.
'Neath ages of wrong and shame,
Till life to the stiff limbs came.
Where the strong bear down the weak,
With the flaming swords of living words,
He fought for the poor and meek.
Or sick to be soothed and upheld;
Or a generous deed lay hidden,
Or a generous purpose quelled;
For the want of a cheering word;—
The music of his earnest voice
Above the din was heard;
And the tongue of envy hushed,
And a tumult of wild, exulting praise
Throughout the nations rushed.
And hasted his steps to greet;
And bowed beneath his feet.
Over his soul was thrown,
And he on the height of his human might
Lay desolate and lone;
His spirit turned on high,
And he called on the God of his childhood
With a loud and bitter cry:
And bow the reverent knee;
But I am not God, nor a godlike man,
That thus they kneel to me.
They call me just and good;
And I cannot stay my failing breath,
Nor do the things I would.
But in me is no might to save;
And I sink into the grave.
With Thee, with Thee, is might;
O stay me with Thy love and strength,
O clothe me with Thy light!”
IV.
Which came upon him then,
No fitful gleams of a land of dreams
Which burst on his dazzled ken;
Of the land which we see afar,
Where earth's firmest ground dissolves away,
And men see things as they are.
In a famine-stricken land,
The gifts of a gracious hand.
In idle and thankless waste;
And when from its idlesse startled,
It gave away the rest,
To garland its guilty head,—
It took the homage as its due,
Then cried like the rest for bread.
He cried, “It is I; it is I;
Father, forgive, forgive my sin!”
And he cried with a bitter cry.
Once more he looked on high,
And in the depths of heaven,—
In the calm of the upper sky,—
A glory surpassing bright,
Clad in unborrowed light.
And lay aside the crown,
And to that land of famine
Come, touched with pity, down;
And minister to all:
No service was for Him too mean,
No care of love too small.
They crowned Him with no crown;
And the dying bed they made for Him
Was not a bed of down.
Falls dimly on mortal ears;
The angels were mute with wonder,
And the poet with grateful tears.
The captive heart was free,—
Let me Thy servant be!”
In the home where he played a child;
His mother held his feverish hand,
His sisters wept and smiled.
With a pure and fervent love;
He loved God's sun and earth and skies,
Though his home lay far above.
Fused to a golden cup;
It would carry water for parched lips,
So he thankfully took it up.
To tread where his Master trod,
To gather and knit together
The family of God:
To pass through this world of sin,
From the place of peace within;
And a heart set free from care,
To minister to every one
Always and everywhere.
A lonely man he stood;
Around him gathered tenderly
A lowly brotherhood.
Yet the world knew them not;
It had not known their Master,—
And they sought no higher lot.
And He knew them Who died and rose;
And the poet knew that the lowest place
Was that which the Highest chose.
Songs Old and New | ||