Poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

The day is cloudy;—it should be so:
And the clouds in flocks to the eastward go;
For the world may not see the glory there,
Where Christ and His Saints are met in the air.
There is a stir among all things round,
Like the shock of an earthquake underground,
And there is music in the motion,
As soft and deep as a summer ocean.

158

All things that sleep awake to-day,
For the Cross and the crown are won;
The winds of spring
Sweet songs may bring
Through the half-unfolded leaves of May;
But the breeze of spring
Hath no such thing
As the musical sounds that run
Where the anthem note by God is given,
And the Martyrs sing,
And the Angels ring
With the cymbals of highest Heaven.
In Heaven above, and on earth beneath,
In the holy place where dead men sleep,
In the silent sepulchres of death,
Where angels over the bodies keep
Their cheerful watch till the second breath
Into the Christian dust shall creep—
In heights and depths and darkest caves,
In the unlit green of the ocean waves—
In fields where battles have been fought,
Dungeons where murders have been wrought—
The shock and the thrill of life have run:
The reign of the Holy is begun!
There is labour and unquietness
In the very sands of the wilderness,
In the place where rivers ran,
Where the Simoom blast
Hath fiercely past
O'er the midnight caravan.
From sea to sea, from shore to shore,
Earth travails with her dead once more.
In one long endless filing crowd,
Apostles, Martyrs, Saints, have gone,

159

Where behind yon screen of cloud
The Master is upon His Throne!
Only we are left alone!—
Left in this waste and desert place,
Far from our natural home;
Left to complete our weary race,
Until His Kingdom come.
Alas for us that cannot be
Among that shining company!
But once a year with solemn hand
The Church withdraws the veil,
And there we see that other land,
Far in the distance pale:
While good church-bells are loudly ringing
All on the earth below,
And white-robed choirs with angels singing,
Where stately organs blow:
And up and down each holy street
Faith hears the tread of viewless feet,
Such as in Salem walked when He
Had gotten Himself the victory.
So be it ever year by year,
Until the Judge Himself be here!

2.THE MIDDLE HOME.

The Dead—the mighty, quiet Dead!
Each in his moist and silent bed
Hath laid him down to rest,
While the freed spirit slowly fled
Unto the Patriarch's breast.

160

Perchance awhile it lingered near,
As loth to quit its earthly bier,
Until the funeral rite was done,
And the Church closed upon her son.

There is a place where spirits come,
Beneath the shrine to live,
A mystic place, a middle home,
Which God to them doth give.
What mortal fancy can disclose
The secrets of their calm repose?
It is a quietness more deep
Than deadest swoon or heaviest sleep,
A rest all full of waking dreams,
Of magic sounds, and broken gleams,
Outside the walls of heaven;
So near, the Souls may hear the din
Of thousand Angel choirs within,
And some dear prospect too may win,—
As, in the light of even,
Long absent exiles may have seen
The home, the woods, the orchards green,
Wherein their childish time was spent,
Ere on their pilgrimage they went;
And, as they look upon the show,
The thought of early love returns
Unto the straining eye that burns
With tears that age forbids to flow.
It is a rest, yet torment dire,
Repose within the lap of fire,
Because it is God's will,—
Another life of heavenly birth,
Which men live quicker than on earth,
Happy, resigned, and still:
A pardoning Father's first caress,
A glorious penal blessedness!

161

There then outside the heavenly gate
The souls beneath the Altar wait—
The Altar whereon Christ was laid,
True Meat for all the living made,
And Shelter for the Dead!
Their bodies are not yet like His,
Their souls not strong enough for bliss,
Or love unmixed with dread.
They cannot brook the vision yet,
Those radiant lights that never set;
And so the Son of Man hath thrown
His awful Veil o'er spirits lone.
O'ershadowed by His Flesh they lie,
As though behind a charmèd screen,
Hid from the piercing of the Eye
That may not look on things unclean!

Say, who are those that softly glide
Each pure and saintly soul beside,
Like Angels, only that they bear
More thought and sadness in their air,
As though some stain of earth did rest
Its pensive weight upon their breast,
And lodged a fearfulness within
That could not rise from aught but sin?
Nor ever on their silent face
Doth gentle mirth leave any trace,
Save when their downcast eye doth rest
Upon the Symbol on their breast,
Then are their features lit the while
With something like an earthly smile,
As though a thought were in their heart
Which it were rudeness to impart.

162

These are the righteous works of Faith,
Wrought in the fight with Sin and Death—
Dear shadows of each holy thing,
The goodly fruits and flowers that spring
From the rich Tree of Life;
Alms-deeds, and praise, and vigils past
In penitential prayer and fast,
Boldness in faith, and wrongs forgiven,
And self-denying toils for heaven,
And gentleness in strife.
These follow all the souls that come
Unto their rest and middle home;
And by their sides for ever stay
To witness at the solemn day,—
In fear as nigher still and nigher
Through the thin veils of cleansing fire,
They see the angels from above
Descend upon their tasks of love
The spirits to release,
To bear them to that Vision bright,
That throne in whose tremendous sight
The soul shall find eternal light
And everlasting peace.

S. Bernard, Serm. in Fest. Omn. Sanct.