St. Augustine's Holiday and Other Poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

Study of the Song of Songs—Two schools of interpretation—The first represented by M. Renan's “Le Cantique”—The vaudeville theory —The second represented by St. Bernard's LXXXVI. Sermons upon Canticles—The influence of the book upon the saint's life— His early days—His mother Aleth—His renunciation of the world and of the worldly side of the Church—He brings with him his whole family, including his father, Sir Tescelin, and his sister, Humbeline —Clairvaux—Spiritual power of St. Bernard's teaching—Visit of St. Malachy, Archbishop of Armagh, to Clairvaux—His death there —Death of his brother Girard—Incapacity of nature to console— St. Bernard's sermon on Cant. i. 5—The Pope visits Clairvaux— Simplicity of his reception—Sermon on Cant. ii. 16—Conclusion —Cant. v. 2, 5—Summary of the spiritual interpretation.

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Note.—In the composition of this poem, I have constantly availed myself of the interesting and accurate notices (Note sur Fontaine-les-Dijon, patrie de St. Bernard, par l'Abbé Chenevet) and other local papers in the fourth volume of Migne's edition of St. Bernard's works, pp. 1621-1661.

The death of St. Malachy at Clairvaux took place in 1148. St. Bernard has written the archbishop's life, which is here closely followed. The visit of Pope Innocent to Clairvaux was many years earlier, in 1131. Ernald's account has been carefully used. “A pauperibus Christi, non purpurâ et bysso ornatis, nec cum deauratis Evangeliis

occurrentibus, sed pannosis agminibus scopulosam bajulantibus crucem, non tumultuantium classicorum tonitruo, non clamosâ jubilatione, sed suppressâ modulatione affectuosissime susceptus est. Flebant episcopi, fleba tipse summus Pontifex; omnes mirabantur congregationis illius gravitatem. Nihil in ecclesiâ illâ videbat Romanus quod cuperet. Nihil in oratorio nisi nudos viderunt parietes. Solennitas non cibis, sed virtutibus agebatur. Panis ibi autopyrus pro simila, pro careno sapa, pro rhombis olera, pro quibuslibet deliciis legumina ponebantur. Si forte piscis inventus est, domino Papæ appositus est, et aspectu, non usu, in commune profecit” (St. Bernard, “Vita,” lib. ii., Auctore Ernaldo., ap. opp. S. Bernard, iv. 272). Passages from the Sermons on the Canticles are freely transferred to the poem. Mr. Frederic Harrison's beautiful and appreciative article on St. Bernard did not reach me until my verses were almost finished. Of such a writer one can but say, “Cum talis sis, utinam noster esoes.”

I read the “Song of Songs”—I thought it pure,
The very flame of the full love of God;
And over it there hung the clear obscure
Of Syrian night, and scents were blown abroad
Whose very names breathe on us mystic breath—
Myrrh, and the violet-striped habatseleth.

Strange words of beauty hung upon mine ear—
Semada, that is scent and flower in one
Of the young vine-blooms in the prime of the year;
Senir, Amana, Carmel, Lebanon,
Eloquent of rivers and of mountain trees,
Dim in the Oriental distances.

And purple paradise of pomegranate flowers,
Kopher, kinnamon, balsam, wealth of nard,
And things that thickets fill in summer hours,
Blue as a sky white-clouded, golden-starr'd,
Whereby we may surmise not far from thence
Mountains of myrrh and hills of frankincense.

I read the Hebrew late into the night;
At last the lilies faded, and the copse
Had no more fragrance, and I lost delight,
As when in some sweet tongue a poem stops,
Half understood—yet being once begun,
Our hearts are strangely poorer when 'tis done.

Two volumes lay before me. One a tome
Which heretofore for years had stood between
Tender Augustine, terrible Hierome;
And the last Father's name was duly seen
In faded letters betwixt leather thongs—
“Saint Bernard's Sermons on the Song of Songs.”

The other, fresh from Paris, “Le Cantique,”
Look'd a thin volume of a new romance.
Yet did I pray, “O Spirit whom I seek,
Teach me by which of these two lights of France,
The unbegun Beginning I may reach,
Thy sweetest novelty in oldest speech.”

So the two books I read; the first whereof,
A drama of earth's flame this song did deem—
Five acts with epilogue, tale of true love,
Shepherd and vine-dresser—such shiyr shyriym
Idyllic as Theocritus might trill—
Say rather, a soft Hebrew vaudeville.

Solomon sweeps by with threescore mighty men,—
Poor dove, all fluttering in the falcon's beak,
So foully carried from her quiet glen!
He flashes on with her so sweetly weak,
Elderly, evil-eyed, and evil-soul'd,
Scented and cruel in a cloud of gold.

To the accursèd palace they have come.
Dresses like rainbows float through the Harem.
To the faint plash of fountains never dumb
Are sung wild songs of earth's unholiest flame.
The large-eyed odalisks are lolling there;
The tambour taps, and bounds the bayadère.

Ah! as in dreams her shepherd singing stands:
“Arise, my love, my fair one, come away;
The winter has pass'd over into lands
Whose heritage is rain, whose heavens are grey.
Flow'rs for my flow'r, the turtle's voice is heard—
It is the green time for the singing bird.

“The exhalation of the vine-bloom flows
On the rich air. Why is my white dove mute
In the cleft of the rock? Behold, the fig-tree throws
Her aromatic heart into her fruit.
Save for me only spring is everywhere.
O let me hear thee from thy mountain stair.”

Which hearing, in her heart she hums her lilt,
Learnt long ago of some dark vine-dresser.
Sing it, O maiden, whensoe'er thou wilt.
The vine-leaf shadow o'er thee is astir—
“Let not the little foxes from thee 'scape,
Spoiling our vines that have the tender grape.”

And so, O peasant girl, be won for wife.
No young Theresa of the Hebrews thou;
Yet an illusion traverses thy life
Which gives ideal light to thy dark brow,
Which makes home beautiful, and proudly sings
Songs of defiant purity to kings.

And if no ecstasy lights up thy face,
No flame of seraphim consumes thy heart;
If thou hast natural truth, not heavenly grace;
At least, O sunburnt Shulamite! thou art
A tender witness to a purer lot
In the base centuries when love was not.

I smiled a moment. Then a discontent
Filled me with grief and spiritual shame.
“Where then?” I cried, “is the old ravishment,
The ointment pour'd forth of the Holiest Name?
This song was once as fair for souls to mark
As the sod fresh cut to the prison'd lark—

“A daisied sod whereon the bird in rapture
Quivers, remembering a little while
The large inheritance before his capture,
When from some azure and unmeasured mile
He rain'd down music, where the shadows pass
From the white cloud-sails o'er the glittering grass.”

And a voice said, “Take thou the other book;
Therewith the life of the great Abbot scan.
Behold its peace and purity, and look!
He guides the restless intellect of man—
All streams that from all monasteries part,
And the king's council, and the woman's heart.

“He cleaves through heresy with one bright word,
Weak with the weakest, stronger than the strong,
Holds love a sharper weapon than the sword,
Helpeth all them to right who suffer wrong;
And as he walks the world, in street or dell,
The dry earth blossoms into miracle.”

I read the double columns thro' and thro',
Till the Saint's eyes look'd at me from the line.
Methought the heav'n above the book was blue,
And love's green land before me lay divine;
And, “Hearken to him,” said a voice to me,
Cor meum vulnerasti is the key,

“Whereto the riddle is no riddle more.
The Bride and Spouse he ever doth rehearse,
One epithalamium sings he o'er and o'er—
Christ and the Church; and for the measured verse
Forbidden true Cistercians, as he knows,
Takes a saint's vengeance in impassion'd prose.”

“What time the world in winter morn is white,
The prints upon the snow are for thine eye
A record of the chronicles of night—
Such snow be this sweet song, a mystery
On whose white surface thou may'st see the faint
And heavenward traces of a pilgrim saint.”

“Draw me,” One saith. “We will run after Thee.”
The Boy's eyes open'd on a golden land—
Forest and chase, river and lilied lea,
And steeds to rein, and vassals to command,
And the light rippled in the summer air
In softer gold on Bernard's chestnut hair.

Full shy he was, and grave and sweet of speech,
Of skill in riding and running at the ring,
And ever ready to give right to each;
Which seeing, his father smiled upon the thing,
And said to Aleth, with a proud bright glance,
“What if our boy be Burgundy's first lance?

“What if he wed a maid of high estate?
With her a castle by broad acres girt.
He that will greatly rise must wisely wait;
So I will mail him in his battle-shirt,
And send him to the wars, that he may be
All that beseems a knight of his degree.”

But Lady Aleth, faintly smiling, said,
“Ah, this boy Bernard is of other stamp.
But yesterday he sigh'd, ‘I will not wed.
Mother, I hate the revel and the camp,
The drops of blood upon our castle walks,
And the fierce beauty of my father's hawks.

“‘I will no poesy of earthly loves,
I put from me all Ovid's magic spell;
Two voices hold me only—one the dove's,
The Spouse's one, in God's sweet canticle;
And my heart hears one singing every day,
“Arise, my love, my fair one, come away.”’”

“What must be, must,” replied Sir Tescelin.
“Squires carry knights' spurs germinant at their heel;
Young priest becomes young prelate without sin;
If Bishop Bernard at the altar kneel,
Were he less saint, an if his saintship gain
A glorious abbacy, a broad domain?”

But “Nay,” quoth she, “nor may this come to pass.
Now, I will tell thee what is in his heart
In his own words, yesterday after Mass:
‘Mother, a voice is calling me apart;
All the day long it sayeth within me,
“Draw me, O Lord; we will run after Thee.”

“‘Sometimes meseems the trump of Judgment sounds;
Sometimes God pierceth me, and sometimes wins,
With great attraction of the five sweet Wounds,
With fierce light flashing on my little sins.
That which I yearn for is not court nor strife,
But the beginning of a saintly life—

“‘The lore that scarcely may be learn'd aright
From any parchment on a dusty shelf,
The stern self-discipline of God's true knight,
Who bravely wars the warfare against self,
Bow'd in a penitence at the bleeding Feet,
Whereof the very bitterness is sweet.

“‘Sinful with all the sinful I would go
To the one heart human, and yet divine;
Nor lavish all my love on aught below,
Nor bow too deeply at another shrine,
As if in all heav'n's host there were for such
A truer pity or a tenderer touch.

“‘Nothing from self, all from His perfect Name—
To say the good thing in me is mine own,
That were as if the chamber wall should claim
The golden sunbeam shimmering on the stone;
That were to drain the ocean with thy lips,
Or turn back Jordan with thy finger-tips.

“‘Perchance our Church has too much of the earth;
Our abbots, peradventure, are too rich;
We ask too often—“What is the see worth?”
Forget the fane to overgild the niche.
Give me no jewell'd mitre, no red garb,
No bowing vassals, and no milk-white barb.

“‘Nay, over-gaudy grown with time that grows,
Religion robes herself in rainbow dyes.
Ah, sighs and tears! the sighs she doth enclose
In bubbles, and the tears she petrifies;
And pomp enwrappeth in a golden pall
The rich rigidity of ritual.

“‘First, let the soul be beautiful within;
Then the soul's beauty duly shall create
Form, colour, harmony, to awe and win—
Outward from inward as inseparate
As music from the river when it flows,
Shadow from light, or fragrance from the rose.

“‘My portion be the austere and lowly fane,
The quiet heart that praises ere it sings,
The genuine tears that fall like timely rain,
The happy liberty from outward things,
The wing that winnoweth the ample air,
The heaven's gate touch'd by the soft hand of prayer.

“‘The sunshine-veinèd vintage stored for years,
Quaff'd with quaint laughter in the refectory,
Of this I will have none—but tender tears,
The lore of saints, the spiritual glory,
The brotherhood, the cross whereof one saith,
No ill thing glides where'er it shadoweth.

“‘I saw a great Cistercian abbey rise,
And out of heaven there fell a voice divine—
“Enter in, son of Aleth! on this wise,
Reformer of the Order, all is thine.
Rise, come away;” whereon I did rejoice
In the irresistible music of that voice.

“‘“But first,” I pleaded, “Lord, thou know'st I have
Six brothers and a sister, in all seven.
Lover of souls, O infinite to save,
Give me all these for company in heaven.
Draw them in also;” and then bolder grown—
“I would be saved, O Lord, but not alone.”

“‘And then I saw sculptured above the gate
“The vale of Wormwood is a vale of Light;”
And outside there was wailing, war, and hate,
And a voice of agony out in the black night;
But in I drew the six from that wild teen,
And last of all my fair-hair'd Humbeline.

“‘Then, thee, my mother, too, I drew thee in—
Not fair as thou art now, but cold and pale.
O gentlest heart that ever conquer'd sin!
O Christ's sweet Shulamite in the nun's white veil!
And on thy lips I laid the Host that hour,
And rain'd down tears on thee, my winter flower!

“‘And last of all my father. I could hear
What were the things that to himself he said:
“Will he not leave me for another year?
Can he not wait till the old man is dead?
I would much rather die in my old room
Than in a cloister of Cistercian gloom.

“‘“I would much rather rest with my rough race,
Close to the altar, in the church I built;
I would the villagers should see my face
And Aleth's marble under a canopy gilt,
Whispering—This was a joyous knight and just,
They say he is a thousand years in dust.

“‘“A thousand years he wears his shirt of mail,
And his good hound is couchant at his feet;
If that tough cheek of his be deathly pale,
'Tis but the stone that makes such paleness meet,
And in his calm eye come what tide soe'er
Is sure regard of everlasting prayer.

“‘“Yet is it certain what monks say—that souls
Are lost in circles of light as in a flood,
That the saints worship day and night in stoles,
Posed without end in marble attitude,
Or like the angels on a vestment shown
Stitch'd in a sapphire prayer before the throne?

“‘“All the night long Sir Tescelin looks to the east,
And the sweet lady by him never stirs.
But when the thin moon wanes down to her least,
And dawn plays faint about his marble spurs,
Doth he not sometimes seem to waken? Hist!
Doth the white falcon flutter on his fist?

“‘“All the night long he prays, I have no doubt,
When o'er the October moon the big clouds whirl,
And ever and anon she cometh out
With fleece of rainbow and of mother o' pearl—
Her flying touch some minutes' space being still
White on the broken waters by the mill.

“‘“But is not yon stiff hound about to yawn?
The lady to hear mass as is her wont?
Are not the rustics going to the lawn
To see the gallants gathering for the hunt?
Ah! this is idle talk, for well know I
Such things are not in that eternity.

“‘“But what and if my appointed time draws near,
And I and all I have is doom'd to death;
And what and if for all that I hold dear,
The grace of the fashion of it vanisheth;
And if this poor old heart at last must go
Like a tree broken by its weight of snow—

“‘“May I not die upon my Aleth's bed,
With shadows of the long familiar trees
Making their chequer-work upon my head,
Amid the humming of my yellow bees,
Where to the sun my peacocks spread their stains
Upon my castle terrace of Fontaines?”

“‘Nay, for all that, dear father, at the fold
Thou knockest. Thy son openeth, and from heaven
A voice falls musical for thee: “Behold
Thou and thy children whom the Lord has given.
Listen to Bernard's voice, and enter in,
Sweet Lady Aleth, stout Sir Tescelin!”’”

The Abbey stands in Clairvaux. Bernard speaks
From the stone pulpit by the brethren hewn,
Of the “Name,” or “Lilies,” or “Till morning breaks,”
Making discourse till late in the afternoon;
Pathos and majesty in his speech were blent,
Sweetness magnetic and magnificent.

“Whence skillest thou?” his brother Girard said,
“To trace these love-links ever feast and fast?
Thou hast not much perused the deathless dead;
Yet shall these words of thine for ever last,
Little in space, but sparks of living flame,
Little indeed, but roses all the same.

“And happy we, to whom in thee are given
Such sweets both new and old, such lily flowers,
Such precious antepast of feasts of heaven.
High joy for us of these monastic bowers,
To gather on this green Burgundian sod
Thy pale gold honey, O thou bee of God.”

“I know not brother,” and the Abbot smiled;
“Yet thou rememberest the forest well.
A few years since the snow was on it piled.
Thou knowest how often ere the vesper bell,
My meditation was prolonged—and ye
Said it was sweet—perchance in flattery.

“Nathless the young narcissus snow-drops came
With spring (our rustics call them ‘angels’ tears’);
A hundred greens were out, no two the same;
The happy promise given by young years
For ever, and for evermore belied,
Lit the young leaves, and smiled some hours, and died.

“So came the spring to Burgundy. Then spoke
A voice from out the depths where earth's life stirs.
The ‘Song of Songs’ reads well under the oak—
A soft interpretation sigh the firs;
And God's good Spirit taught me what to teach
Through the uncountable whispers of the beech.

“From the anemones pass'd to me my thought,
Through the woods trembling in their thin white robe.
A subtler music came to me unsought
Upon the washing of the murmurous Aube;
And the long sunset rays on the great boles
Wrote me the comment of the holy souls.

“For were the Canticle a passion strain,
And if it spake of aught beneath the sky,
Then from its images thy heart could gain
A love-snatch only, or a botany;
Whereas, he finds in it who truly tries,
Strength from the strong, and wisdom from the wise.

“Here is the ocean of the love divine
For the whole Church. What smaller than a sea
Can hold a sea? and yet thy heart and mine
Reflection of it hath for thee and me,
As one clear bubble sphereth for the eye
The azure amplitude of wave and sky.

“And this love-strain is never over-told.
When God Himself is our musician, say,
Wilt thou correct Him to a strain less bold,
And teach the mighty Master how to play?
Two, two alone can hear these tender things—
The soul that listens, and the soul that sings.”

Late, late, in the October afternoon,
The monks sat listening spell-bound in the choir;
The voice went ringing on, a lovely tune,
A touch of pathos, or a shaft of fire.
The sunset flared blood-red, the wild marsh hen
Shriek'd through the long reed lances of the fen.

Within was spring. Voice to low breezes set
Through the greenwood, over the mountain's brink—
Voice of Christ's dove, His undefilèd—yet,
Not so much sweet itself of song, I think,
As the soft sign whereby we understand
That all things sweet are gathering in the land.

“O that some saint might come to us, and teach
From his rich certainty our poor perhaps!
Yea, by his death preach what I cannot preach—
How earth's hopes scare at last, as when there taps
Some broken branch of bloom through storm and rain,
Like death's white finger on the window-pane.”

Scarce was the sermon done, the blessing o'er,
A train of horsemen halted at the gate.
“My Lord the Abbot,” said the janitor,
“One like an angel comes to us full late,
Primate of a green island o'er the sea;
His name, too, is an angel's—Malachy.”

Four or five days flow'd on in fair discourse;
Gracious his speech and stately his regard.
Oft would he warn them with prophetic force
That he was come to them to meet the Lord.
He rode to Clairvaux in October mist,
The Feast-day of St. Luke the Evangelist.

Something of fever flush'd his pallid cheek;
To Bernard mournfully a little while
Out of his spirit's trouble did he speak
Of certain tribesmen in his restless isle.
“Patience,” he cried, “that tree of hidden root,
And bitter rind, that hath so sweet a fruit,

“Be the good guerdon of the bishop's heart,
The turbulent sheep who shepherds in that land.
Full often must he bear, with breaking heart,
The long ingratitude, the plot well plann'd,
The deep suspicion hid with laughing eye,
The poison'd dagger sheath'd with flattery.

“They do possess such imitative grace,
Such exquisite sympathy when needed most,
Such fine emotion feign'd with mobile face,
Such passionate speech—withal the enormous boast,
The shallowness of hearts that seem so deep,
The candid lie that makes you laugh and weep.

“O grand traditions, forged me any morn,
Ethereal sentiment for solid gold,
Vows soon unvow'd, oaths laughingly forsworn,
Facts no historian happens to have told,
Fair, faint, false legends of a golden spring,
A past that never was a present thing.

“The thrush sings sweetest with his speckled breast
Against the hawthorn jags, their poets say;
His loveliest notes are agony exprest,
So that the little pain seems rapture: they,
So sharp, so soft, so pitiless, so forlorn,
Sing like the thrush, and stab ye like the thorn.

“God's pardon rest on them. All that is o'er,
The time of my departure is at hand,
And here my rest shall be for evermore,
Far from Armagh and from that fatal land.”
So he; yet still his frame was full of grace,
And death seem'd distant from that comely face,

Yet on All Saints, “Behold,” the leeches said,
“Before to-morrow must the Archbishop die;”
Her loftiest rite the monastery made,
And sang her music of festivity.
Thankless the task, inopportune the art,
To sing sweet songs to sorrow's heavy heart.

And sorrow was in that Cistercian home—
Sorrow untuned the chant of choir and priest.
One only tasted of Christ's honeycomb,
One only knew the fulness of the feast.
All Saints to Malachy was but the small
Dim vesper of his glorious festival.

“Lover and friend are darkness—light within.
Love is eternal; and I love my Lord,
And love ye all; haply my love may win
Somewhat from Thee, O Christ! whom I regard
Humanly pitying, for man's heart is Thine;
Divinely helping, being Thyself divine.

“Let me not fall into the bitter pain
Of death eternal for any pains of death.
Let Christ's omnipotence manifested reign,
Making omnipotent one who languisheth,
Whose thought and will and memory growing dim,
A trinity of misery, call to Him.”

So, near the twilight was the veil withdrawn.
Into a morn-red sea did his sail sweep—
A sea not dim with twilight, flushed with dawn,
If grey mists melt, if God's belovèd sleep,
Why search the sea mists when he sails no more?
Why weep for him whose weeping all is o'er?

Then, though all look'd to see the fair soul sail
Into the mystery o'er life's furthest line,
The moment that it cross'd might none prevail
To note for a memorial, or divine
The very moment on God's clock to tell
When all was over, and when all was well.

Only the Abbot softly said—“Behold,
Life is a sea, whose waters ever swing;
A wood, whose leaves like bells are ever toll'd.
A tranquil God makes tranquil everything.
Here is no trembling leaf, no wrinkling wave,
But such serenity as sleepers have.

“Sleep, brother, sleep, until the golden year;
Until thou sing, ‘Let us arise and see
If the vine flourish—whether the grapes appear,
If all the red buds gem the Passion tree?’
Till on our hearts shall breathe a better day,
And chase the clouds of human things away.”

Ah! never sorrow comes that comes alone.
Deep calleth unto deep, and wave to wave;
Saint calleth unto saint, and ere hath grown
Grass on one sod, there is another grave.
The angels of one death-bed come again—
White clouds returning after God's own rain.

And Girard died. The funeral just o'er,
The monks were gather'd. Now, it happen'd so
That in the scroll which Bernard evermore
His garden made eternally in blow,
Unto the place in order was he come—
Nigra, O filiæ! sed formosa sum.”

“Curtains of Solomon, tents of Kedar—such
This body is—the tent which robs our sight
So that it sees not through the foldings much
Of the uncircumscribèd plenitude of light.”
Thus in the presence of these childlike men
He tells his sorrows sweetly o'er again.

By the bier tearless had stood Clairvaux's chief,
Tearless the rite intoned in priestly vest,
And done despite unto the spirit of grief,
Lest they, perchance, should say who knew not Christ,
“See, the pierced Hand dries not all tears that flow,
The wounded Heart is not for every woe.”

“And shall they say thou knowest me no more,
After this human flesh which we wear still,
Than I am known by light waves on the shore,
Or breezes blowing round a sunny hill?
Ah! there be some who bid us mourners dwell
With Nature's sympathies, so shall it be well.

“Mystic condolences of morn and eve
Shall touch the heartache tenderly away,
The rivers and the great woods interweave
A consolation lips can never say;
And with the sighing of the summer sea,
Come cadences that chant, ‘we pity thee.’

“It is not so; who truly mourn shall trace
Something sardonic in that fixed regard,
The quiet sarcasm of a great cold face,
Staring for ever on, terribly starr'd—
A silver depth of delicate despair,
An uncompassionate silence everywhere.

“Ah! as we weep three voices bid us guess,
Three contradictions cross above our dead;
Earth answers us ‘perhaps,’ and ‘no,’ and ‘yes.’
‘Perhaps,’ by glad streams is conjecturèd;
Resurgent roses breathe faint ‘yes’; but ‘no’
Sighs o'er the undeceiving death-white snow.

“How speaks that pitiless power impersonal?
‘I who stand stirless on the starlit tracts;
I who impalpably pervade the All;
I who am white on the long cataracts;
I through oeonian centuries who perform
Instinct of spring, or impulse of the storm;

“‘I in the greenwood who at May-time move
With straggling clouds of hyacinth dark blue;
Who neither laugh nor weep, nor hate nor love,
Who sleep at once and work, both old and new—
Work with such myriad wheels that interlace,
Sleep with such splendid dreams upon my face;—

“‘When thou hast ask'd me “Are my loved ones near?
Surely this golden silence doth contain
Them deathlessly; their dim eyes hold some tear
Delicious, born not of the showers of pain”—
When thou hast question'd me at hush of eve,
What right hast thou to say that I deceive?

“‘Perhaps they say, “I pardon thee that wrong;
Nay, love thee more divinely for it all;”
Perhaps they strengthen thee when thou art strong,
Perhaps they walk with thee when shadows fall.
But this is all I have for thee; the fair
Absolute certitude is other where.’

“But we will comfort us for him to-day
Whom in that altar tomb of ours we hid.
Faith's ‘Yes’ shall rise although the sky be grey,
Like a bird singing on a coffin-lid,
And like a rescuer victorious Hope
Wade far out in death's foam to catch the rope.

“Think'st thou of me bath'd in the sea of bliss?
Art thou unmindful of me, holy mind?
Thou who of light hast enter'd the abyss,
Art thou with God's great splendour intertwined,
A chalice with His fulness fill'd too high
For wine-drops of earth's colour'd memory?

“Then must I think of thee, my Girard, aye,
As I might think upon some lucent tide;
As I might think of some fair summer day,
Profuse of shadows on the mountain-side;
As I might think of the high snows far kenn'd,
A cold white splendid quiet without end?

“Nay, that were life which truly liveth not,
Life lower than our life, and not above.
Thou, thou art near to God in thy fair lot;
Nearer to God is fuller of God's love—
Fuller of Him who looks on us to bless,
Who is impassible, not compassionless.

“God's life is to have mercy and forgive;
One spirit with Him, thou, my Girard, art;
Wherefore thro' that great life which thou dost live
There is unsuffering sympathy in thy heart.
Thou carest, though no care can pass thy gate,
And passioning not art still compassionate.

“O, that strange tide! what time the midnight came—
Thy last. The darkness darkened not. It grew
Into a dawn for thee—a flush of flame,
A midnight dawn, translucent through and through.
Dying he sings, or e'er his lips grow dumb,
‘Laudate in excelsis Dominum.’

“Then with such look as erst I saw him cast
In dear old days upon Sir Tescelin,
‘Father,’ he cried, ‘my Father, oh, how vast
Our glory to be sons!’ and so pass'd in
To perfect climates—spring, and summer sun,
Autumn's exuberance, winter's rest in one.”

Sweet was the last day when the Pontiff rode
From Lyons to Clairvaux. Upon the hill
The burning sunset had already glow'd.
Superbly looks the retinue, and still
The Roman clergy and the courtly throng
Wait for the pageant and the perfect song.

They paused, but no procession went to meet
The movement of the rainbow-colour'd wave;
No carpet was there for the Pontiff's feet,
No crowd of knights and dames, as in the nave
Of Rheims or Rouen; and as on he fared
No herald bow'd to him, no trumpet blared.

Lo! for the purple prelates, monks in serge;
For the gemm'd crucifix a cross of stone;
For music dying on the vast dim verge
Of the groin'd roof, a sweet low monotone,
Like the sea's sigh heard on a headland path—
Such mystic beauty the Church Latin hath.

Now it sounds grand, and solemnly it rolls.
Like blind men hearing ocean, so hear we
Therein the adoration of all souls,
Voices out of a vast eternity,
The wondrous sighs that soar while they complain,
The unperturbèd rapture, the sweet pain.

Now intervolving richly type with type,
Reticulated sounds with sounds enlace—
The thoughts by summers long of prayers made ripe,
Writ by some gentle Tacitus of grace.
Leaf shadows on them now, a bird-lilt chime—
Now a grand hammer-stroke of triple rhyme.

They sang; straight out those heartfelt praises broke,
Like the old arrows kindling as they flew;
They speak the accent that their Master spoke,
Seeing life's highest object clearly through
Earth's perturbations—like the calm star higher
Seen steadfast through the comet's hair of fire.

Each knight bethought him of the tender days,
Of small hands lifted at his mother's knee;
Each priest felt purer with that burst of praise,
Each bishop fell to praying for his see.
While knight and priest and bishop concert kept,
The Pontiff lifted up his voice, and wept.

“Out of the ground the evil weed shall spring,
The pestilence shall spread o'er Christian lands;
Black shall the plague be, fell the blossoming—
Behold, the self-convicted sophist stands,
Posing those principles, denying these,
Weaving himself into parentheses.”

“The gold dust rub thou off the radiant moth,
The death's head of the heresy show thou there;
From the fell skull tear thou the fine cerecloth,
Lift up thy voice, O Bernard! do not spare,
Though the swarms thicken round thee, though the fly
Of France shall hiss to that of Italy.”

“What though Abelard promise new-born thought,
And Arnold liberty—that word of fire;
Speak thou calm truth from God's own treasure brought,
The better freedom from our own desire;
The Church's dogma lion-like in rest
Of strong repose that faces foemen best.”

Time for collation, food of garden growth,
The ripe fruit crush'd into the temperate cup;
Then, silence made, proudly and gladly both
The seneschal proclaimeth, standing up:
“Enough for each and all the brethren hope,
And one fair fish for our dread lord the Pope.”

The sumptuous Roman in that stern hall miss'd
The chased orfevery, the peacock's pride,
The heavy cup, the tint of amethyst;
And each to each around the table sigh'd,
“Well till the light of Burgundy wax dim
To hear a saint, but not to dine with him!”

But the Pope, wholly wrapp'd in Bernard, learn'd
That love hath lore which makes it wondrous wise.
Still in the lamp of these saints' hearts have burn'd
Time's clearest lights; they with their gentle eyes,
In the deep fold of God's pavilion hid,
Knew the world better than the worldlings did.

Then to the church. No pictured forms were there.
With the eternal golden headache cinct;
No heaven of precious stones without soft air
Or sunny distance sweetly indistinct.
“I love,” said Bernard, “no such rigid sky;
Our heaven is Christ, not lapis lazuli.”

The Romans look'd for altar cloth's design,
Fulgent as the Byzantine work, and stiff
With rough meandering of the golden line;
A miracle of colouring—as if
In charmèd looms the sunset clouds were trick'd,
And magic wrought the matchless acupict.

The Romans look'd for vestments to display,
Radiant with all the colours of the morn,
Rich with pineapple, and pomegranate spray:
But Bernard pray'd—“Let art again be born,
With beauty not this lower atmosphere's.
He paints Christ ill who paints Him not with tears.”

Then after psalms and vespers all expect,
The Pontiff bow'd and bade the Abbot speak.
He rose, his chestnut hair with thin grey fleck'd,
A little flush upon his pallid cheek,
And oped the Song at that place of the lay
Which saith, “Pascitur inter lilia.”

Preluding something for the knights' behalf,
Of virgin knights who keep a virgin will—
Serious, who almost deem it sin to laugh,
Bearing the red cross upon Sion's hill;
Who with strong arm corporeal possest
The place corporeal of our Jesus' rest,

He added—“Jesus, Lily for our eyes.
Lo! from the midst those spikelets all of gold,
Cinct with the white disposèd circlet-wise.
Golden divinity in this behold,
With fair Humanity pure white around Him,
Christ with the crown wherewith his Mother crown'd Him.

“Lily and lilies, fair perfumèd towers,
And all things that be His true lilies are—
His birth, His words, His works, His passion hours,
His life risen beyond the morning star.
Joy to our sinful hearts from each is sent;
For each is white, and each is redolent.

“Ah! we are poor, and yet it shall be well
If we can keep our narrow garden so
That He who feeds among the lilies dwell
In hearts where we have made one lily grow—
So that each little life be turned by grace
Into one lily perfect in its place.”

I closed both books; the double spell was o'er.
I slept, but a voice spake with gentle might,
“Open to me, open the long closèd door;
My locks are fillèd with the drops of night.
From some far shore, perchance across the sea,
Through drift and rain, O soul, I come to thee.”

I saw a Hand, and raised my hands from thence—
Were my hands wet with myrrh or tears so late?
If there were myrrh, 'twas myrrh of penitence;
Of penitence that I had made him wait.
If there were tears, it was because I knew
That Hand of love was love-pierced through and through.

Then to the Frenchman's vaudeville I turn'd—
There stands a law for every tongue of man,
They only can interpret who have learn'd;
To the unlearn'd it is barbarian.
Lay of the lily, dreamland of the dove!
Love hath a tongue they only know who love.

Cant. iii. 6-11. M. Renan, “Étude sur le Cantique,” pp. 30, 31, 190, 191.

“Nullos se magistros habuisse nisi quercus et fagos joco illo gratioso inter amicos dicere solet.” (S. Bernard, Vita, opp. iv. 240.)