Poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

BEING A MONOLOGUE OF THAT INDUSTRIOUS SCHOLAR, RESUSCITATED AT THE CALL OF CARDINAL WISEMAN, IN HIS DISCOURSE ON THE OPENING OF HARTLEPOOL R. C. CHURCH, AUGUST 1851.

I

Ah, holy Christ! who calls me now,
Straining the skin back over this brow—
Drawing and cording together the bones
With strings of nerve among sand and stones?

He hears the loud voice of the Cardinal,

Ah, holy Christ! the cups of joints
Some piercing ichor now anoints;
And, conjured from far parts, I feel,
Working hither like screws of steel,
Fragments of hands and toes. Again
The body of death, with its care and pain,
Receives me, and I strive to rise,
To open ears and open eyes.
I'm no more passive in God's hand,
Lying straight in heaven-land.

148

Ah, holy Christ! if it be thy law
That I the blind life-senses draw
Again upon me,—the lusts of the flesh,
The lusts of the eye, and the weary mesh
Of cogitating, learning, preaching,—

and thinks himself as he was when he died.

Shed more unction on my teaching,
Make me diligent; not slow,
Like Alfin, who could hear no crow
Of morning cock, but started up
At the first clang of the cook's tin cup.
Oh, this wretched body of death!
I clutch about me scant of breath;—
That foot still swollen too;—there's no lamp
To find the balsam:—foul and damp
Is all about me; certainly
Shrivelled will all the parchment be.
But from that last dear task I'm free:
Finished the Gospel was, clear writ
In linguam vulgi ere the fit
Came over me, and on the floor
I swooned away—unlatch the door,
Or I shall die outright! Oh, God—
I stand sun-smitten on the sod!
Kyrie eleison!

149

II

Where then is Jarrow, where the brave
Stone church with its belfry o'er the nave?
Or the clositer all of smooth wrought stone

He looks in vain for old Jarrow Church.

Outside? Some weird hath overthrown
The land; I'm not myself,—that stream
Is not the Tyne! the wild Dane's gleam
Of sword and fire must have shone here
If this be Jarrow, this the dear
Candida casa, with broad roof-fall,
And two glass windows painted small
And beautiful. Alas, for all
The brethren! for old Ulph who fought
Hard with the psalter, yet could not
Learn to read; and Wulf who made
My bed, good man! and for long years laid
My needfuls ready for me, so
That I might all my cares bestow
On making books. Alas and woe,
For all the books! the penitential
Reading book, missal so essential,
Singing book, numeral; all gone—
Bare as a pagan I stand alone!
This very day may be Easter tide
And I not know it: let me hide

He thinks he is not himself till he sees the sky and the sea.

150

I' the grave again, for I have lost
Count of days, yule, pentecost,—
And fear I am no Christian ghost,
Not Bede, not Bede.
But now I wake: behold the sky
Blue as it ever was; blue, and as high:
And great clouds lying all along the land
Far back, and waves upon the strand
Coming and going still. Everywhere
Are life-sounds filling the milk-warm air;
The spider's warps are hung out on each bough,
Clear dew-pools light the hollows of large blades;
Surely the year is ripe to Autumn now,—
An autumn seared o'er with the self-same shades
Once knew I in the body; and the sod
Feels to the foot the same, each clod
Troubling these poor toes torn by flints
And thorns, that oft-times left their prints
Sea-filled on sands or in the marsh frozen black,
Between Wearmouth and Jarrow, hastening back
From Benedict to Ceolfred through the slack.

III

A thousand years, oh Father, in Thy sight
Are as one day, one day without a night:
The outward stream of things for ever flows;
Whatever lived or grew still lives and grows;

151

The sensuous world still shines as erst it shone,
And I am here to sing the antiphone.
But what is man before Thee and his ways;
Yea, even the sanctuary and the shrine
By which he clings and where-before he prays,
Thereby to find some pass to the divine!
For here I fall back through a yeast of years,
The expected day of Doom through all my tears
I've seen not: Father Peter in the porch
Of God's house nor the penitential scorch
Have blessed me; but I shiver as of old,
Weak and half blind and cold.

The great salt sea doth answer me alone,
Like Tophet against heaven, its undertone
Maintaining evermore against the song
Of earth: the white foam blows along

and the promontory of Tynemouth.

These unchanged sands. Ah, now I see
The Tyne-mouth rock, and memory turns to me
Now shall I find out Jarrow, and again
Take up the inkhorn and that history
Begun long since: how shall I gain
Tidings of all the change gone by
While I have slept?—but patience wears
The hardest stone through, toils and cares
For learning's sake are treasury stairs.
On I fare,—
Utterly new things every where.

152

Lo! this must be Jerusalem,

He sees Newcastle-on-Tyne and enters the same.

Or Rome whose sacred bulwarks stem
The Tiber's waves; among the cities this
Must be the queen o' the world, to kiss
Whose dust kings come, and I am thought
Worthy to be miraculously brought
Across the world to witness it,
And to record the same. Here, as I sit,
Long ships come sailing past on wheels,
Burning internally, with towers that smoke
Furl out behind them; hundreds of great keels
Masted and banner'd broad moles choke
With merchandise untold; among
Those tall glass-windowed houses throng
Fair women, each more costly in her gear
Than Benedict himself, whose mass-cloths dear
To us from Rome came: on both hands
Booths with raiments from all strands,
Perfumes and spices, fruits and luxuries
Unknown to me, splendours that blind the eyes,

He hears a barrelorgan on the street;

And make the heart ache with too much. Anon
Ravishing music from the pavement-stone
Springs up, but no musician I discern—
Only a shrine-like hutch dragged by three hounds
And a man grinding:—wonderous quern,
From whence such wealth of goodliest sounds
Are brought so fast! Oh, would our quair
Had known such help! or is't the snare

153

Of Satan,—ear-delusion, vain
As goblin-gold whose only gain
Is a dry leaf? Now I wander o'er
A wilderness of smiths, with store

and now he sees smiths' shops and a railway train.

Of reeking furnaces, and cells made bright
By magic flames from brazen bars as white
As sunshine: faces mild, horned hands,
Have these men! Lo, through smoke-clouds black
Behemoth comes,—alack, alack!
With red eyes glaring in the gloom,
And many nostrils snorting spume;
Behind it chariots numberless,
Windowed and gilt and bound with brass;
Swift as a storm, they pant and blow
Along their iron way; now slow,—
And docile they turn round; they pause,
And from each chariot's ample jaws
Wells out a stream of folk. Can these
Be children of the 'Cursed one,
And this the land of Babylon
Apocalyptic, mirth and ease,
Gold and fine linen, mead and wine,
The only goods? I see no sign
Of faithful souls, of holy shrine,
Of learning, the priest's divining rod,
And yet the folk seem blessed by God.

But I am wrong! right fortunate
Hath been my sleep so long and late,

154

And now my waking when the land
Seems filled with power, when soul and hand
Work equally, when God's ferule
Seems placed within man's grasp, to school
All nature, and with chains anneal'd
By knowledge bind the world.—Around,

He enters the North of England Literary Society's library, and sees ten thousand books.

From pillared vault unto the ground,
Treasuries of fair books arise
Before these greedy grave-cleansed eyes.
Books great and small, an ampler host
Than pope or patriarch could boast
In the old time when Jarrow wall
Rose as we thought so fair and tall,
And I, while daylight lasted, wore
These fingers, adding to our store
Some five or six. Sure now I see
Learning, the priest's divining rod,
Hath done the work, and, under God,
Brought angels down to help and guide,
Wrought miracles on wind and tide,
Or else by necromantic lore
Man hath multiplied his store,
And, now forsaken and alone,
Neither God nor saint doth own.
Learning, the priest's rod no more,
Is the common staff in every hand,—
Evil, the tree of knowledge bore,

155

And now bears good, by which men stand
Kings over nature.

History
Is here too, sending present day
Back on the past: each ancient scribe
Glozed and sifted by the tribe

He finds among them his own books printed. Also others about the modern ages, and about history, controversy and polemics.

Of scholiasts; for the flow of years,
With all their dusty blank arrears,
Have changèd not humanity,
Nor any law man liveth by.
Ah, now I see my own poor name,
My own books, saved from out the flame
That tower and town wreck'd, graven fair,
Fairly and excellently there;
Now no transcriber's fingers soil
The sheepskin or the Latin spoil!
And here I learn what time hath done
Since my life ceased before the sun:
How the Pagan's steel-scaled arm
Strikes the land with deadly harm;
And Cuthbert's corse with weary hand
Translate they to the Irish strand;
How soon again the Cross prevails,
And the ship of the Church puts out her sails,
Gladdening the prosperous centuries:—
But read I right? the people cries

156

Against her; she no more gives alms
Of spiritual love-milk, but with shalms
And pipings drinks the secular wine:—
Read I right? now clerk and lay
Each other in God's name burn and slay,
While o'er those foul fires rises still
A light as of the judgment-day,—
As of God's face behind a hill,
Before which all else wanes away;
‘Freedom of faith for every man,
For God alone can bless or ban;
Right of private judgment.’ Nay,
Were these not always just? again—
‘Reason, this life's law, we'll maintain
To be the law likewise between
Man and his Maker: by the seen
Measure we the unseen’—These
Are terrible words; may Christ appease
Such questions: yet all round I see
The latest still is wisest in all gifts
Experience brings amidst our strife.
Surely the perilous hill of Science lifts
Us up above the ills of life:
Surely by Excellence in my old dim day,
And by its light the Church held sway,
And certes if the clerk fall off
Behind the laic, he becomes a scoff.
Surely God's word is not as ours to hold
One meaning only, soon effete and cold;

157

But, shining with a heaven-lit flame,
It must illuminate all times the same.

Sweet sounds of bells! oh, dearly loved,—

He hears church bells and tries to enter St. Nicholas' Parish Church.

Reproaching me that I have roved
Into the dangers of strange Liberty,
With duties self-sustained so dread and high.
Let me be guided, goodly sounds of bells!
Back like a child to these green wells
Whereat its mother, its young heart yet calm,
Taught it to drink from hollowed palm.
Saintly sound! I cheerfully,
With all these princely people follow thee
Up those wide stretching steps. Beneath
This carven porch I hold my breath
In wonder less than thankfulness
That I once more my God confess.
The gathered thousands, each and all
Hold our Lord's Book graven small
In their right hands; and all can read!
Let me rejoice that thus the seed
I tried to sow hath borne so well,
Despite the powers of earth and hell.
Each man a clerk, perhaps a priest,—
I enter to the sacred feast—
I strive to enter, strive in vain:
Some hidden girths my limbs restrain!

But the Cardinal calls him back.

158

Ah! Holy Christ, I faint and quail,
As if under the wind of an iron flail.
Holy Jesu, he calls again,
Renewing that resurrection pain,
Dispersing my so late-found gain,
Yoking me round with a strangling chain,
Dragging me to him when I would fain
Rise and press on ward: against my will,
As a staff in an old man's hand am I
Thrust about ingloriously,
Perinde cadaver!—recross I the hill,
Back to the sea-shore forced to fly;—
Cardinal, master! there he stands,
With rosy face and large red hands,
Clad all in scarlet!—Woe's me! how
Can I go back to my old cell now!
Man clad in scarlet, who art thou?
The whiff of death comes out of thee,
And the poor ancient childish past
Returns around me like the sea,
Drowning my new brave Life: I'm cast
Mistily sinking—oh, my God!
Lay me again beneath the sod.