University of Virginia Library

Man's sacramental house has many halls
And secret passages contrived in walls,
With darken'd chambers, suited for repose,
Down quiet corridors—remote from those
Wherein the guests and menials daily tread.
Sad rooms are set for watchers by the dead,
And secret alcoves, plann'd on lonely stairs,
Open, wherein fond lovers unawares
Are seldom taken by the stealthy spy.
There also towers and turrets are built high,
Where those ascend whom solitary thought
Has inward contemplation's sweetness taught.
Halls of convention may be found and vast
Saloons for banqueting and music; last,
There, too, are chapels of a thousand creeds,
By hearts devoted to the greater needs,
And solemn places more remote than these
Wherein adepts set forth their mysteries.

Now, howsoe'er a man his life divide
'Midst things of sanctity or things decried,
One corner cover'd by the dome alone
Can knowledge or mere rumour make his own;
Yet in that house are casements opening
On vistas of the strange and unknown thing
Which spreads without humanity's abode.
Where lead the paths therein? Where leads the road?
What lies beyond the fastness and the fell,
Or the great deeps of sea which surge and swell?
O mist of valleys and æonian snows!
O desperate days and nights without repose!
There is no man that knoweth, save a dream
Shall hint him somewhat of the clouded scheme;
Or voices equally unknown outseek
The watcher on his balcony, and speak
A message in his shrinking ear, about
The joy or sorrow that is stored without.
Thereafter visions and the power of song,
With deep prophetic tongues, to him belong;
Or, by desirable and awful things
O'erwhelm'd, his body from the house he flings,
When in a twinkling of the eye he learns
The all or nothing, but at least returns
Into the mansion of mankind no more.

The house has seemingly no public door
For coming and for going; here the dead
Sleep in the vaults beneath with easy head;
Or if their souls into the unpierced space
Go forth, the watcher cannot see their face;
And if at times against the windows press
Poor phantom aspects full of dreariness,
The horror of the eyes for those within
Cuts off the sympathy of kith and kin.

Now this is, therefore, to dissuade a few
From heeding tidings, whether false or true,
Which in these later days are rumour'd round—
To say some open portal has been found,
Or one which can be open'd by the hand,
For easy entrance in the unknown land;
That Nature high-exalted then is seen;
That dead men greet us with a front serene;
That when the secret mazes have been trod
The mind may feel itself alone with God,
And can see truth and beauty with pure eyes.
In sooth we know not which way beauty lies,
Or on what heights and in what wells and deeps
Truth, which is also beauty, wakes or sleeps,
Much less of how it shall the soul befall
In this place or in that to find the All.
But not denying that a door may be
Set back by him who hath its master-key,
Let one who, ere the ending of his days,
Has much endured and travail'd in strange ways,
Exhort his brothers not in life's short span
To leave unqualified the roof of man,
Or seek, especially in ways unknown,
What it may feel like when with God alone.
Our sacramental house has veils undrawn
And curtains never raised at eve or dawn;
It burns alone the instituted lights
And all that shews therein are only rites.
We know indeed the soul with her strong fires
Beyond these human ministries aspires
In spirit and in truth to reach her end;
But not in vain do veils the soul defend;
Nor yet in vain do Nature, Grace and Art,
Their ceremonial formulæ impart;
And not in vain does God His glory dim
By many clouds, that we can gaze on Him.
A time may come when He shall put them by
And, standing lip to lip and eye to eye,
From all conventions sign the soul's release,
With true Pax tecum and with kiss of peace
More closely married than is rhyme with rhyme.
Great is the speech of parables meantime,
And up and down the house of man there pass
The sacred pageants of a life-long mass:
O let the arid speculations end,
Till from the altar-steps the priests descend!

There is indeed a certain narrow road
Which in a sense leads forth from our abode,
But not by ways from vantage points descried
Through desert places of the world outside.
Open it lies for those to walk therein
Who having put away the life of sin,
With the long quest of their desire and gain,
Do in their own souls seek and so attain
The individual knowledge of their end.
Peace on those paths for the elect attend!
May the great universe expand for them
Through many kingdoms to their diadem!
And underneath the white light of their crown
May those who go to God find God come down,
Since in the secret centre of their heart
Who came from Him from Him did never part.
But howsoe'er encompass'd by the hosts
This is the life of life and not of ghosts,
Nor does it lie beyond the walls of each.
Hard is this path to learn of, hard to reach
And few there are that seek it, or can teach
The rending of the veils that guard it here—
Too well protected since it lies too near.
Therein the waking comes, the rest is dream;
Yet this is also in the mystic scheme
And, steep'd awhile in life's magnetic trance,
The souls that slumber may in sleep advance
And something still behold through their smoked lens—
Sic salve, Domine omnipotens!