BEAUTY OF WORSHIP
GROWTH AND OVERGROWTH
I.GROWTH
Oft have I mused what use the ancients made
Of solemn service and of stately form,
On what fair frame of visible things they stayed;
What music fell in tears or rose in storm,
What soft imaginative rites they had,
With what investiture their faith they clad.
Not then the church rose visibly encrowned;
No mighty minster towered majestic yet;
No organ gave its plenitude of sound;
And on the Alpine pinnacle was set
No carven King, whose crown is of the thorn,
No Calvary crimson in the southern morn.
No miracle of beauty and of woe
Look'd from the wall, or for the rood was hewn;
No colour'd light fell on the floor below.
Under the silver of the Italian moon,
No visible throng of angels made their home
On the white wonder of the Gothic dome.
Yet, fed with inward beauty through the years,
Much did the Church's mind anticipate
Of more majestic fanes, more tuneful tears,
Simplicity more touching, nobler state.
—So the pale bud, where quietly it grows,
Dreams itself on unseen to be a rose.
Questions by meditative wisdom ask'd
Must wait for answer till the hour beseems;
Souls were as yet unborn severely task'd
To give interpretation to such dreams;
Shapes by the master-hands as yet unfreed
Slept in the massive marble of the Creed.
The picture slept within the Gospel story;
The music slept on psalms as on a sea;
In a dim dawn before its dawn of glory
The poem slept, a thought that was to be.
The schoolmen's syllogisms, a countless train,
Were folded in some strong and subtle brain.
Christ said, ‘I need them.’ Out the colour sprang,
The music wailed and triumph'd down the aisles,
With voices like the forest's poets sang,
Invisible thoughts grew visible in smiles—
In smiles, and tears, and songs, and the exact
Majestic speech by centuries compact.
II.OVERGROWTH
‘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.’
