Matin Bells and Scarlet and Gold :: :: University of Virginia Library

Under crimson skies of sunset did the little child go forth,
But his sorrow with him went
And a holy discontent,
And he turned his glances southward and he looked into the north;
For the royal sun was dying
Like a hero in a battle-field and on a gory bed,
And a restless wind was crying
Like a sin that cannot slumber though with darkness on it shed;

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And his eyes were full of visions and his heart was big with prayer
While he sought some other toy,
That would be a lasting joy
And defeat the coming shadow and the curse of Time the Slayer.

O he dwelt upon the east and ranged abroad throughout the west,
With a weariness of soul
That thus early took its toll,
In the waking of the windows and the budding of the breast;
For the day had left him nothing,
Though it gave him only blisses of its blossom and its dew;
And a surfeit as of lothing
Now possest him, as he sadly asked for pleasure yet anew;
Till his baby hands discovered all but one thing was a loss,
And it sank into his life
With its emptiness and strife,
When he read on the horizon as in fire the sacred Cross.

It was written on his forehead and engraven on his hand,
But the sunset on him lay
From the breaking of the day,
And it breathed a mask of mourning for the brightness of the land;
While he asked of all a token
That would lead him on his journey and might be a certain sign,
Just a word of helping spoken
Or a miracle of promise where the portents seemed malign;
And around him every beacon looked misguiding as he moved,
Like a traveller whose gaze
Cannot pierce the closing haze,

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And goes doubtfully and dimly forth by stages still unproved.

It was sculptured in his bosom and was mingled with his blood,
And the iron entered far;
It eclipsed the very star,
And lay under the foundations and kept purging with the flood;
But he could not read the writing,
While he bent so low and earthward and found treasures in the dust;
Till he felt a true delighting,
In the beauty of affliction and the blindnesses of trust;
And he saw it then behind the flower and then beneath the gloss
Of the purple and the pride,
As a comrade at his side,
And he found the key of mysteries was in the sacred Cross.

There was light upon the meadow and a glory girt the mount,
But a burden on her prest
As a serpent at the breast,
Though she gathered gold of buttercups and drank the silver fount;
And not sweet to her the manna
Of the wilderness that fell around and gave her daily food,
For she needed yet a banner
That would shine before the shadowed way and cheer her every mood;
And she sought it in the breezes of each passing hope or whim,
She pursued it too in gain,
And inquired for it in vain
Of the cup of nectared happiness that overflowed its brim.

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But the thorn was in her paradise, the thistle at her feet,
And the cruel pavement stones
Where the sorrows sat on thrones,
Told the same thing in the murmur of the brazen-throated street;
And with clear prophetic waving
The one flag it flew before her on the cloud-land and the wind,
And in readiness of saving
It encompassed like an atmosphere and followed her behind;
Till at last she read the message of the cedar and the moss,
In the greatest and the least,
At the funeral and feast,
And was bathed through all her being gladly in the sacred Cross.

They were few and they were lowly and yet beautiful and free,
Though a curtain as if cut
Out of ebony had shut
All the avenues around them and left portal none to see;
So they asked but for a rifting
In the weary walls of darkness and a glimpse of guiding blue,
With a reverent uplifting
Of the hands that craved the Fatherhood and could not find a clue;
O they bowed upon the threshold of the awful and unknown
With the sacrifice of tears,
And dim services of fears,
While their idols now were shattered and the altars overthrown.

On their knees they begged for mercy and epiphany of might
That would strengthen them for toil,
And wash off the sinful soil

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With the cleansing of compassion, and awake the inward light.
But there came no voice of pity
From the silence of the cloister and the secret of the shrine
Or the madness of the City,
Though they felt the God was near them and they were themselves Divine;
Till a door within them opened and behind the veil of dross,
They beheld the seal of Truth,
Which bestows on worlds their youth,
And the heavenward-pointing finger of the sad and sacred Cross.

Lo, he leant across the centuries with pale prophetic glance,
In his passion for some thought
Upon fiery anvils wrought,
Which would solve the endless riddle of dear life and its romance;
A fit watchword for wise telling,
And a battle-cry to weld the nations on a common ground
After idle sentinelling
Of the seekers and the sages, one which all could rally round;
And he wanted just a lightning line or thundering phrase of flame,
Which might marry to the real
The impossible ideal,
And unite the gray philosophies and future in one name.

But none answered him, no signal flashed athwart the sullen sky
But his own reflected part,
And the beating of his heart
Was the only echo wafted from the dumb eternity;
And he read his lifetime's pages
In the wrinkled mist that crept beneath the summit where he stood,
And a curse upon the stages

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Of his brother and above the glory of bright woman-hood;
Till he saw on humble Calvaries where billows tear and toss,
And embraced within his soul
As his guidance and control,
The red beauty of the nails and kissing of the sacred Cross.