Sir Lancelot A Legend of The Middle Ages. By Frederick William Faber: Second edition |
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| I. |
| II. |
| III. |
| IV. |
| V. |
| VI. |
| VII. |
| VIII. |
| IX. | BOOK IX.
THE ABSOLUTION. |
| X. |
 | Sir Lancelot |  |
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BOOK IX. THE ABSOLUTION.
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Three years we wandered, pilgrims, now on foot
And now on horseback, and sometimes we joined
A caravan of traders, but more oft
Were by ourselves, and with infrequent speech
Beguiled the way; companions, not from choice,—
From loathsome fascination on my side,
On his from a desire, as it appeared,
(Much as he said which sounded otherwise,)
To inflict his presence on me, and a joy
At my repugnance, manifested oft
By look and word and gesture of disdain,
Or of impatience rather, for was I
A man who could find aught so far below him
As might appear an object of disdain?
We left our cavern in the cedar grove—
Methinks I see the firefly columns now
Build and unbuild their wizard temples there
On the soft verdant gloom;—we left our cave
Ere spring had breathed upon the sward, or swelled
The bulb of wild flowers, or had studded yet
The cedar boughs with emerald points minute,
The promise of the year, a scanty growth
Of paler green, that looks like powdered dust,
Upon those long-lived trees. A sinuous course
We took, a Cainlike penance which the Jew
With an intolerable waywardness
Determined, unopposed; for I was fain
Alway to recognise the Hand of Heaven
Guiding my punishment, in that self-will
Wherewith the fearful man to right or left
Swerved ever from his purpose oft declared.
And now on horseback, and sometimes we joined
A caravan of traders, but more oft
Were by ourselves, and with infrequent speech
Beguiled the way; companions, not from choice,—
From loathsome fascination on my side,
On his from a desire, as it appeared,
(Much as he said which sounded otherwise,)
To inflict his presence on me, and a joy
At my repugnance, manifested oft
By look and word and gesture of disdain,
Or of impatience rather, for was I
A man who could find aught so far below him
As might appear an object of disdain?
We left our cavern in the cedar grove—
Methinks I see the firefly columns now
Build and unbuild their wizard temples there
On the soft verdant gloom;—we left our cave
Ere spring had breathed upon the sward, or swelled
The bulb of wild flowers, or had studded yet
The cedar boughs with emerald points minute,
The promise of the year, a scanty growth
Of paler green, that looks like powdered dust,
Upon those long-lived trees. A sinuous course
We took, a Cainlike penance which the Jew
264
Determined, unopposed; for I was fain
Alway to recognise the Hand of Heaven
Guiding my punishment, in that self-will
Wherewith the fearful man to right or left
Swerved ever from his purpose oft declared.
First o'er the hills we reached Samosata,
Where old Euphrates elbows to the west,
And thence to Orfa and Mosùl; northward
Across the Tigris to that lake immense
Of Van, and Urmia in the hills enclosed
Of green Aderbijàn, till from the shore
Of gloomy Astara we saw outspread
The misty Caspian. After sojourn here,
Unto the Steppe of Urgantz we took sail,
And mid the ruined towns and swampy lakes
Of the rude Usbecks wandered wearily,
Sick of the loathsome diet and wild ways
Of that gaunt region. Thence, the Oxus past,
Unto the dreary desolate Karak
By Sihon's triple streams we journeyed on,
Coasting the sea of Aral in and out
By indentations choked with islands lone,
Which the foul seabirds tenant; and once more
Turned westward o'er the fenny wilderness,
Rounding the head of Caspian o'er the sands
Of Oural unto Astracan, who sits
In her barbarian splendour on the mouths
Of the dark-watered Volga. Thence we roamed
O'er populous Circassia to the steeps
Of dreadful Caucasus, and tarried there
Mid sights and sounds terrific, day and night.
Where old Euphrates elbows to the west,
And thence to Orfa and Mosùl; northward
Across the Tigris to that lake immense
Of Van, and Urmia in the hills enclosed
Of green Aderbijàn, till from the shore
Of gloomy Astara we saw outspread
The misty Caspian. After sojourn here,
Unto the Steppe of Urgantz we took sail,
And mid the ruined towns and swampy lakes
Of the rude Usbecks wandered wearily,
Sick of the loathsome diet and wild ways
Of that gaunt region. Thence, the Oxus past,
Unto the dreary desolate Karak
By Sihon's triple streams we journeyed on,
Coasting the sea of Aral in and out
By indentations choked with islands lone,
Which the foul seabirds tenant; and once more
Turned westward o'er the fenny wilderness,
Rounding the head of Caspian o'er the sands
Of Oural unto Astracan, who sits
In her barbarian splendour on the mouths
Of the dark-watered Volga. Thence we roamed
O'er populous Circassia to the steeps
Of dreadful Caucasus, and tarried there
Mid sights and sounds terrific, day and night.
O Father! were it well, I could reveal
This day appalling mysteries endured
Within the hollow Caucasus, where reign
The elements chaotic as at first,
And shapeless solitudes, and brutes of eld,
And shades deformed, and voices all uncouth!
There day and night keep not nor recognize
Divine partitions, while the storms and beasts,
Outbellowing each other, overwhelm
The heart of man with horror and dismay,
And yet less dreadful than the oppressive calms,
Which with a pregnant silence most enhance
The unearthly character of that wild chain,
By wondering humanity of old
Selected as the theatre whereon
The man, unrighteously benevolent,
His curse, magnificently fabled, bore,
By the contagious voice of poets sung.
Enough that in the cold and heat, both fierce
And direful, of that jaggèd Caucasus,
And its sepulchral glens of cloud-bleached rock,
I passed with but indifferent success
A hard ordeal; yet should I have been
More calm but for the presence of the Jew,
Which heightened every horror of the place,
As though it did impersonate the fiend,
Outcast seducer of poor sinning men.
This day appalling mysteries endured
265
The elements chaotic as at first,
And shapeless solitudes, and brutes of eld,
And shades deformed, and voices all uncouth!
There day and night keep not nor recognize
Divine partitions, while the storms and beasts,
Outbellowing each other, overwhelm
The heart of man with horror and dismay,
And yet less dreadful than the oppressive calms,
Which with a pregnant silence most enhance
The unearthly character of that wild chain,
By wondering humanity of old
Selected as the theatre whereon
The man, unrighteously benevolent,
His curse, magnificently fabled, bore,
By the contagious voice of poets sung.
Enough that in the cold and heat, both fierce
And direful, of that jaggèd Caucasus,
And its sepulchral glens of cloud-bleached rock,
I passed with but indifferent success
A hard ordeal; yet should I have been
More calm but for the presence of the Jew,
Which heightened every horror of the place,
As though it did impersonate the fiend,
Outcast seducer of poor sinning men.
Spirit of Earth! that, like an empress, keep'st
Thy court amid the labyrinthine dells,
The caverned cloisters and old beetling pines
Of Caucasus! how didst thou entertain
Us two with savage hospitality,
Terrific splendours, and portentous shows
Of jousting elements! What wondrous scenes
And wild processions ever meet and mix
Within that spacious hall, where dwell the kings
Of nature, and the bodied elements,
And phantom-flashes of unbodied powers,
Such as the spirit of the cloudless calms,—
All unpartitioned, as loud chaos was,
Unsorted by the musical constraint
Of that old spoken Law, the primal Voice!
Thy court amid the labyrinthine dells,
The caverned cloisters and old beetling pines
Of Caucasus! how didst thou entertain
Us two with savage hospitality,
Terrific splendours, and portentous shows
Of jousting elements! What wondrous scenes
And wild processions ever meet and mix
Within that spacious hall, where dwell the kings
266
And phantom-flashes of unbodied powers,
Such as the spirit of the cloudless calms,—
All unpartitioned, as loud chaos was,
Unsorted by the musical constraint
Of that old spoken Law, the primal Voice!
Ah! woe is me for that unresting Jew,
With body wrenched and broken on the wheel
Of endless travel, with unbroken pride,
Unbroken hatred of the Blessèd Christ!
I see him, yea, I see him at this hour,
Within the confines of this chapter-house:
In my far-kenning spirit I behold
The Hebrew pacing onward, mid the spasms
Of earthquake, in whose volumes of white dust
The low-hung moon looks red, while scarce on high
The comet shakes its long pale crackling hairs
In terrible proximity to earth.
Round him the whirlwinds bark among the glens,
And cry like bloodhounds on a human track,
Through Dalestàn: and in the sullen dawn
Of those Caucasian depths I see him still.
The dizzy lightnings glare, above, beneath,
Grazing the rocks with horrible rebound,
And flashing in the bright sun's lidless eyes,
While the hot bolts from out the hissing lakes
With momentary plunge heave up on high
Columns of angry foam: I see the veins
Of the old earth beneath the torture start
Of stern volcanoes, in their chambers sunk,
Questioning the greedy hills till they confess
Their riches, and the gold and silver runs
Among the subterranean floors, whose roots
Of livid marble crack with grasping fire,
From the hill tops to those enduring bars
Which Jonas saw beneath the clear green sea.
I see his shadow on the tawny plains,
Freckled with frost-rime of perennial salt,
Of desert Khiva, on the horizon marked
Colossal, half on earth and half in air,
Against the flaming chambers of the west,
Where the wild sky unloads its wains of clouds
Into the setting sun, as one who feeds
A greedy fire, which, blazing up, out-throws,
As the new fuel falls upon the old,
Thick swarms of ruddy sparks, and, far and wide,
Splashes of flame, as from a fountain, flings,
That reach in falling streaks the backward east:
I see him there, as if about to step
From off earth's rim into the setting sun.
I see him in the strange ethereal calms,
Those intermissions of discordant wind,
When the white-shafted frost goes forth to shoot
The lamp-like globes of the descending dew;
And thin blue meteors sail along the rims
Of rosy avalanches, shrinking now,
Now touching with a crisp and gentle sound
The icy fringe; while ever and anon
An old snow-laden cedar softly shakes
Its stiff black hair, and countless whirling stars,
A whispering shower of stealthy parachutes,
Sink to the earth; and still, and still, far on
Where mist-wreaths, like a crimson-wrinkled sea
At sunset, steal along the quiet glens,
I see the Figure, dimly magnified
By roseate vapours, of the steadfast Jew.
With body wrenched and broken on the wheel
Of endless travel, with unbroken pride,
Unbroken hatred of the Blessèd Christ!
I see him, yea, I see him at this hour,
Within the confines of this chapter-house:
In my far-kenning spirit I behold
The Hebrew pacing onward, mid the spasms
Of earthquake, in whose volumes of white dust
The low-hung moon looks red, while scarce on high
The comet shakes its long pale crackling hairs
In terrible proximity to earth.
Round him the whirlwinds bark among the glens,
And cry like bloodhounds on a human track,
Through Dalestàn: and in the sullen dawn
Of those Caucasian depths I see him still.
The dizzy lightnings glare, above, beneath,
Grazing the rocks with horrible rebound,
And flashing in the bright sun's lidless eyes,
While the hot bolts from out the hissing lakes
With momentary plunge heave up on high
Columns of angry foam: I see the veins
Of the old earth beneath the torture start
Of stern volcanoes, in their chambers sunk,
Questioning the greedy hills till they confess
Their riches, and the gold and silver runs
Among the subterranean floors, whose roots
Of livid marble crack with grasping fire,
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Which Jonas saw beneath the clear green sea.
I see his shadow on the tawny plains,
Freckled with frost-rime of perennial salt,
Of desert Khiva, on the horizon marked
Colossal, half on earth and half in air,
Against the flaming chambers of the west,
Where the wild sky unloads its wains of clouds
Into the setting sun, as one who feeds
A greedy fire, which, blazing up, out-throws,
As the new fuel falls upon the old,
Thick swarms of ruddy sparks, and, far and wide,
Splashes of flame, as from a fountain, flings,
That reach in falling streaks the backward east:
I see him there, as if about to step
From off earth's rim into the setting sun.
I see him in the strange ethereal calms,
Those intermissions of discordant wind,
When the white-shafted frost goes forth to shoot
The lamp-like globes of the descending dew;
And thin blue meteors sail along the rims
Of rosy avalanches, shrinking now,
Now touching with a crisp and gentle sound
The icy fringe; while ever and anon
An old snow-laden cedar softly shakes
Its stiff black hair, and countless whirling stars,
A whispering shower of stealthy parachutes,
Sink to the earth; and still, and still, far on
Where mist-wreaths, like a crimson-wrinkled sea
At sunset, steal along the quiet glens,
I see the Figure, dimly magnified
By roseate vapours, of the steadfast Jew.
For even thus I wandered with him once
Through Dalestàn, and over Caucasus.
And thence descending, by Telav, we came
To Erivan, and in another week
Beheld the sun set over Ararat.
And there with impious foot the Hebrew strove
To climb the sacred mountain's double cone,
And reach the undecaying Ark which lies,
By Angels guarded, on the dazzling peak.
Once with a bold yet not presumptuous faith,
And an exceeding reverence for the Ship,
The inland Ship which was unto our race
A second Eden—how unlike the first!—
Whence as from out a well the tribes of men
Flowed forth afresh,—once with such venturous faith
A monk essayed to climb the mystic hill
In honour of that Sign, most worshipful
And wondrous of all relics on the earth,
Except the Gracious Wood by Helena
Found, and self-multiplied, and so dispersed
Throughout the compass of the East and West,
Like broken bread, to hearts that hungered for it.
But ever while the monk lay down to sleep,
Wearied by his long toil, with noiseless arms
Angels convey'd him to the mountain foot;
And he full oft renewed his patient course.
At length in pity for the footsore man
A Spirit monished him to lay aside
His rude emprise, while for his simple heart
Rich guerdon he received, a piece of wood
From off the unreached Ark, a holy prize
At Etschmiadsin by the Primate kept,
Honoured with incense and liturgic song.
Through Dalestàn, and over Caucasus.
268
To Erivan, and in another week
Beheld the sun set over Ararat.
And there with impious foot the Hebrew strove
To climb the sacred mountain's double cone,
And reach the undecaying Ark which lies,
By Angels guarded, on the dazzling peak.
Once with a bold yet not presumptuous faith,
And an exceeding reverence for the Ship,
The inland Ship which was unto our race
A second Eden—how unlike the first!—
Whence as from out a well the tribes of men
Flowed forth afresh,—once with such venturous faith
A monk essayed to climb the mystic hill
In honour of that Sign, most worshipful
And wondrous of all relics on the earth,
Except the Gracious Wood by Helena
Found, and self-multiplied, and so dispersed
Throughout the compass of the East and West,
Like broken bread, to hearts that hungered for it.
But ever while the monk lay down to sleep,
Wearied by his long toil, with noiseless arms
Angels convey'd him to the mountain foot;
And he full oft renewed his patient course.
At length in pity for the footsore man
A Spirit monished him to lay aside
His rude emprise, while for his simple heart
Rich guerdon he received, a piece of wood
From off the unreached Ark, a holy prize
At Etschmiadsin by the Primate kept,
Honoured with incense and liturgic song.
I need not tell how that mysterious cone
Baffled the Hebrew with its steep ascent
Seven times repeated. While the convent bells
Summoned Arguri's monks to early Mass,
We left the glittering Ararat behind;
And thence across the variable charms
Of hill and dale through all the Armenian coasts,
Until by Malazkerd and Erzeroum
We came at length unto the shrubby shores
Of Trebizond, the lover of the joust,
By paynim champions from the soldan's court,
The chivalry of rich Iconium,
Frequented now, with ducal splendour gay
By the Comnenian dynasty adorned.
Baffled the Hebrew with its steep ascent
Seven times repeated. While the convent bells
269
We left the glittering Ararat behind;
And thence across the variable charms
Of hill and dale through all the Armenian coasts,
Until by Malazkerd and Erzeroum
We came at length unto the shrubby shores
Of Trebizond, the lover of the joust,
By paynim champions from the soldan's court,
The chivalry of rich Iconium,
Frequented now, with ducal splendour gay
By the Comnenian dynasty adorned.
From Trebizond across the Euxine Sea
We sailed to Feodosia, whence we climbed
The hills to Arabat mid groves of date
And old pomegranate trees, and wound our way
Among the net work of innumerous lakes
Which pierce that sweet peninsula from east
Almost to Perekop upon the west
Of Taurida; and through the mulberry plains
Of Dnieper, with mysterious barrows sown,
We journeyed to the cataracts that sound
O'er vacant leagues of sombre treeless steppe,
The chamber of the whirlwind, and descending
We crossed the Cherson pastures, where the grass,
Tall as a waving coppice, in the burst
Of springtide suffocates the wandering flocks
Caught unawares, and in its matted depths,
Muffling the cry of torture, oft entombs
The vainly struggling ram. Then taking ship
In the salt inlets, a tempestuous voyage
Brought our poor bark into the Bosphorus,
And to the quays of Pera. Brief delay
Detained us in the eastern capital,
And thence by Adrianopoli we rode
Unto Belgrade, the junction of the Save
And yellow Danube, and far onward still,
Over the fatal fields and oozy shores
Where the wild Picard, all undaunted, led
His hosts to perish by Hungarian swords,
Unto imperial Passau came at last.
We sailed to Feodosia, whence we climbed
The hills to Arabat mid groves of date
And old pomegranate trees, and wound our way
Among the net work of innumerous lakes
Which pierce that sweet peninsula from east
Almost to Perekop upon the west
Of Taurida; and through the mulberry plains
Of Dnieper, with mysterious barrows sown,
We journeyed to the cataracts that sound
O'er vacant leagues of sombre treeless steppe,
The chamber of the whirlwind, and descending
We crossed the Cherson pastures, where the grass,
Tall as a waving coppice, in the burst
Of springtide suffocates the wandering flocks
Caught unawares, and in its matted depths,
Muffling the cry of torture, oft entombs
The vainly struggling ram. Then taking ship
In the salt inlets, a tempestuous voyage
Brought our poor bark into the Bosphorus,
And to the quays of Pera. Brief delay
Detained us in the eastern capital,
And thence by Adrianopoli we rode
270
And yellow Danube, and far onward still,
Over the fatal fields and oozy shores
Where the wild Picard, all undaunted, led
His hosts to perish by Hungarian swords,
Unto imperial Passau came at last.
And, thence abruptly turning to the north,
We left the rolling Danube, and passed on
Across Bohemia's dim and singular wolds,
Wave after wave of huge and bulky swells,
Uplands forlorn whose troubled silence moans
With sounds as if of subterraneous winds,
Whose hard-won island spots of yellow corn
Upon the surface of the chilly soil,
And long blue lines of ever-wailing fir,
Enhance the bleak appearance of the land,
Making the scene weigh heavy on the heart.
Ah me! it is a melancholy sight
To see the glory of the setting sun
Squandered upon that bare disconsolate realm,
Crowning with golden light the unwilling hills,
While a wan smile, a momentary thought
Of joy, by force illumes the dismal firs,
And fades, while they redouble their sad sighs!
We left the rolling Danube, and passed on
Across Bohemia's dim and singular wolds,
Wave after wave of huge and bulky swells,
Uplands forlorn whose troubled silence moans
With sounds as if of subterraneous winds,
Whose hard-won island spots of yellow corn
Upon the surface of the chilly soil,
And long blue lines of ever-wailing fir,
Enhance the bleak appearance of the land,
Making the scene weigh heavy on the heart.
Ah me! it is a melancholy sight
To see the glory of the setting sun
Squandered upon that bare disconsolate realm,
Crowning with golden light the unwilling hills,
While a wan smile, a momentary thought
Of joy, by force illumes the dismal firs,
And fades, while they redouble their sad sighs!
The man, whose feet the purposes of life
May chance to lead o'er those Bohemian downs,
Should travel when the silent witching moon
Floats up above the gloomy moors, and then
Ruffles with argent light the mournful earth,
Builds castles in the vacant fallow fields,
Or from a miserable ruined grange,—
Disperses to a minster's lordly breadth
The village tower, and wildly magnifies
Each single tree to an umbrageous grove,
Peopling the midnight air behind the firs
With hanging back-ground of voluptuous wood.
May chance to lead o'er those Bohemian downs,
Should travel when the silent witching moon
Floats up above the gloomy moors, and then
Ruffles with argent light the mournful earth,
Builds castles in the vacant fallow fields,
Or from a miserable ruined grange,—
Disperses to a minster's lordly breadth
The village tower, and wildly magnifies
Each single tree to an umbrageous grove,
271
With hanging back-ground of voluptuous wood.
Northward we went till, on a nodding rock
Where the cold Moldau makes a lucid curve,
We saw a glistering city perched on high,
And covering half the crescent plain below.
It looked no strong creation of the west,
But in the sunshine fluttering like a dream
Winged from some Asian lake or fairy shore
Of Bosphorus, with sheeny spires o'ertopped,
Turrets and gables, fretted balconies
And grimly figured eaves, thin cupolas,
A glorious bridge with its twin church-like towers,
And palaces with blazing copper roofs,
Where the proud Czeckian nobles keep their courts,
And mid the moving sentries, silent ranks
Of sculptured knights and pontiffs strangely blent,
And starry vanes, a multitudinous show,—
A mirage in the sunset, on those hills
And barren uplands a reflection cast,
So it appeared, by that all-seeing orb
From oriental city viewed far off,
Bagdad, or Tripoli, or Ispahan,
O'er which his slanting beams had lately looked.
The bells rang out, the sun with placid rim
Behind the many-steepled Hradschin sunk,
As we passed through the clanging gates of Prague.
Where the cold Moldau makes a lucid curve,
We saw a glistering city perched on high,
And covering half the crescent plain below.
It looked no strong creation of the west,
But in the sunshine fluttering like a dream
Winged from some Asian lake or fairy shore
Of Bosphorus, with sheeny spires o'ertopped,
Turrets and gables, fretted balconies
And grimly figured eaves, thin cupolas,
A glorious bridge with its twin church-like towers,
And palaces with blazing copper roofs,
Where the proud Czeckian nobles keep their courts,
And mid the moving sentries, silent ranks
Of sculptured knights and pontiffs strangely blent,
And starry vanes, a multitudinous show,—
A mirage in the sunset, on those hills
And barren uplands a reflection cast,
So it appeared, by that all-seeing orb
From oriental city viewed far off,
Bagdad, or Tripoli, or Ispahan,
O'er which his slanting beams had lately looked.
The bells rang out, the sun with placid rim
Behind the many-steepled Hradschin sunk,
As we passed through the clanging gates of Prague.
Thence to the right through many a sombre street
We walked until we reached a place of graves,
The Jewish burying ground with elders dank,
Thick as the eastern cypress rows, o'ergrown.
There were the pilgrim-people's sordid tombs,
With native characters engraved; and bands
Of Hebrew children played about the grove,
That melancholy grove which might inspire
Such sadness as befits a Jewish heart.
There lay the sons of Aaron, symbolized
By open palms whose rudely carven thumbs
Rested upon each other; and alone,
Beneath an old fantastic elder-trunk,
A famous doctor slept, and all who passed
Laid a small stone upon his shady tomb,
Or copper coin, if haply they were rich.
With mute obeisance, my companion placed
A stone thereon, and when I followed close,
Like reverence not according, a young boy,
Of swarthy fairness and smooth oval brow,
Stepped forth and with rude gesture seized my hand,
While his black eyes with beautiful anger glowed,
But a word, uttered in their native tongue
By the old Jew, reproved the forward act.
We walked until we reached a place of graves,
The Jewish burying ground with elders dank,
Thick as the eastern cypress rows, o'ergrown.
There were the pilgrim-people's sordid tombs,
With native characters engraved; and bands
Of Hebrew children played about the grove,
272
Such sadness as befits a Jewish heart.
There lay the sons of Aaron, symbolized
By open palms whose rudely carven thumbs
Rested upon each other; and alone,
Beneath an old fantastic elder-trunk,
A famous doctor slept, and all who passed
Laid a small stone upon his shady tomb,
Or copper coin, if haply they were rich.
With mute obeisance, my companion placed
A stone thereon, and when I followed close,
Like reverence not according, a young boy,
Of swarthy fairness and smooth oval brow,
Stepped forth and with rude gesture seized my hand,
While his black eyes with beautiful anger glowed,
But a word, uttered in their native tongue
By the old Jew, reproved the forward act.
Thence, by a postern half engulfed in earth,
We passed into a gloomy Synagogue,
A domelike vault with nobly sculptured roof,
Which in the uncertain twilight of the place
Seemed on its centre to repose and swing
With artful poise upon the pillared shafts.
It was an ancient pile, and local faith
Throws back its building into those far times,
When on the Laurenzberg, where now the fires
Of that true Martyr are by godly monks
Extolled in rite and song, the idolaters
Worshipped the fierce devouring element.
With such kind wisdom on all dark beliefs
The Church a better honour doth engraft,
And wins the erring to a sweeter faith.
Nay, mounting higher still, traditions tell
Of Jewish worship on the Moldau bank
Before the Almighty by the ensanguined hand
Of Roman Titus tore the temple down
From its tall rock, and marred the chosen Mount.
We passed into a gloomy Synagogue,
A domelike vault with nobly sculptured roof,
Which in the uncertain twilight of the place
Seemed on its centre to repose and swing
With artful poise upon the pillared shafts.
It was an ancient pile, and local faith
Throws back its building into those far times,
When on the Laurenzberg, where now the fires
Of that true Martyr are by godly monks
Extolled in rite and song, the idolaters
Worshipped the fierce devouring element.
With such kind wisdom on all dark beliefs
The Church a better honour doth engraft,
And wins the erring to a sweeter faith.
Nay, mounting higher still, traditions tell
Of Jewish worship on the Moldau bank
273
Of Roman Titus tore the temple down
From its tall rock, and marred the chosen Mount.
In each embrasure and around the base
Of the two pillars, lay unsightly heaps
Of dust, which the laborious tide of time
Had drifted there, and now were sacred held.
Nine times the Jewish workmen had essayed
To cleanse the building, and nine times had death
Smitten the foremost of them to the ground.
A gorgeous drapery, damp-stained, hung low
Behind a dull red cresset, which had burned
A hundred years, by wavering breath of air
Still unextinguished, or by act of man.
Of the two pillars, lay unsightly heaps
Of dust, which the laborious tide of time
Had drifted there, and now were sacred held.
Nine times the Jewish workmen had essayed
To cleanse the building, and nine times had death
Smitten the foremost of them to the ground.
A gorgeous drapery, damp-stained, hung low
Behind a dull red cresset, which had burned
A hundred years, by wavering breath of air
Still unextinguished, or by act of man.
In this old Synagogue the Wandering Jew
A vigil alway keeps, before he goes
To that encounter by the ghastly lake
On the dark out-post of the cloudy Alps.
All night he knelt before the dusky veil,
Which now and then the cold air gently shook;
And all night long two Jews kept up a chant
In under-tones, monotonous and sad,
From side to side responsive in the dark.
But when the sunrise stole with dismal grey
Through the dim panes, they rose and bowing low
Took from behind the veil a yellow scroll,
An ancient writing of the Decalogue,
And put it to the Wanderer's trembling lips.
A vigil alway keeps, before he goes
To that encounter by the ghastly lake
On the dark out-post of the cloudy Alps.
All night he knelt before the dusky veil,
Which now and then the cold air gently shook;
And all night long two Jews kept up a chant
In under-tones, monotonous and sad,
From side to side responsive in the dark.
But when the sunrise stole with dismal grey
Through the dim panes, they rose and bowing low
Took from behind the veil a yellow scroll,
An ancient writing of the Decalogue,
And put it to the Wanderer's trembling lips.
That selfsame morn once more across the downs
We passed, and in six days of toilsome march
Hailed the bright Inn at Passau once again,
The glistening Inn, a lucid avenue
With its impetuous waters mountain-born
Meeting the Danube by St. Mary's Church:
And thence between the river's wooded shores
In a frail barge of uncompacted planks
We stemmed the current up to Ratisbon.
By this time, father, had a mighty change
Come o'er my spirit; grief had been so long
My fellow, and repentant thought my food,
It pleased our Saviour to ungird the bands
Of deep remorse which had so strangled hope.
And not without some influence too had been
The external world, with whose most rugged sights,
And desperate adventures, I had closed
In necessary combat, nor repined.
And from the surface of the earth went up,
Methought with somewhat of a healing force,
A mist like that which in true Eden once
Silently fertilized the flowery ground.
Nor without virtue had that penance been,—
The torture of the Jew's unresting eye,
Among the cedars hard by Antioch borne,
And by the lakes and Asiatic steppes,
At sunrise on the hills, and at midnight,
Least tolerable then, upon the sea.
Whether it was indeed that heaven relaxed
My penance at this season, or that change
Diverted me with customary power,
Or that the vision of the Christian West
Wrought old associations to a balm,
Fragrant and healing to a wounded heart,—
Whatever lurking causes might concur,
From that day forward did I feel convinced,—
And O with what a sweet constraint it came
And took possession of my willing faith!—
That a new epoch had begun with me,
A glimmering ray which might dawn into hope,
But was not hope as yet.
I can recall
With pleased fidelity that evening scene,
When with slow sail we came near Ratisbon.
The banks were flat, and smiling fields outstretched
Sparkling on either side with silvery green
From recent showers, which fled as we advanced.
Before us lay that old historic town
Upon a back-ground of dark thunder-cloud,
Pencilled with streaky spires of thin blue smoke,
Which rose unsteady and dispersed. The towers
Of the low-roofed cathedral in the heart
Of the black cloud stood forth, each with a gleam
Of whitest sunshine gloriously crowned.
And o'er the antique bridge which nobly spans
The hurrying river was a vision seen,
A heavenly sign, a bridge above a bridge,
A vaulted rainbow roof which overhung
That old stone bridge, an arch of braided hues,
Which from the centre of the city rose,
And dropped its bright foundations on the bank
Exactly where the stern portcullis kept
The northern access of the town. Ah me!
Fair, very fair, seemed Ratisbon that night:
The very walls wave-worn, and battlements
Lofty and grim, an air of welcome had,
And on the casements of the Rathaus glanced
The many-twinkling sunshine; all was sweet,
And grateful to a heartsick wanderer,
And to this hour I think of Ratisbon
As though it were in some true sense my home.
But for the presence of the hateful Jew,
And the cold light of his indifferent gaze,
That evening by the Danube would have been
Even to a wretched sinner like myself
A simple joy, a beauty undefiled.
We passed, and in six days of toilsome march
Hailed the bright Inn at Passau once again,
The glistening Inn, a lucid avenue
With its impetuous waters mountain-born
Meeting the Danube by St. Mary's Church:
274
In a frail barge of uncompacted planks
We stemmed the current up to Ratisbon.
By this time, father, had a mighty change
Come o'er my spirit; grief had been so long
My fellow, and repentant thought my food,
It pleased our Saviour to ungird the bands
Of deep remorse which had so strangled hope.
And not without some influence too had been
The external world, with whose most rugged sights,
And desperate adventures, I had closed
In necessary combat, nor repined.
And from the surface of the earth went up,
Methought with somewhat of a healing force,
A mist like that which in true Eden once
Silently fertilized the flowery ground.
Nor without virtue had that penance been,—
The torture of the Jew's unresting eye,
Among the cedars hard by Antioch borne,
And by the lakes and Asiatic steppes,
At sunrise on the hills, and at midnight,
Least tolerable then, upon the sea.
Whether it was indeed that heaven relaxed
My penance at this season, or that change
Diverted me with customary power,
Or that the vision of the Christian West
Wrought old associations to a balm,
Fragrant and healing to a wounded heart,—
Whatever lurking causes might concur,
From that day forward did I feel convinced,—
And O with what a sweet constraint it came
And took possession of my willing faith!—
That a new epoch had begun with me,
A glimmering ray which might dawn into hope,
But was not hope as yet.
275
With pleased fidelity that evening scene,
When with slow sail we came near Ratisbon.
The banks were flat, and smiling fields outstretched
Sparkling on either side with silvery green
From recent showers, which fled as we advanced.
Before us lay that old historic town
Upon a back-ground of dark thunder-cloud,
Pencilled with streaky spires of thin blue smoke,
Which rose unsteady and dispersed. The towers
Of the low-roofed cathedral in the heart
Of the black cloud stood forth, each with a gleam
Of whitest sunshine gloriously crowned.
And o'er the antique bridge which nobly spans
The hurrying river was a vision seen,
A heavenly sign, a bridge above a bridge,
A vaulted rainbow roof which overhung
That old stone bridge, an arch of braided hues,
Which from the centre of the city rose,
And dropped its bright foundations on the bank
Exactly where the stern portcullis kept
The northern access of the town. Ah me!
Fair, very fair, seemed Ratisbon that night:
The very walls wave-worn, and battlements
Lofty and grim, an air of welcome had,
And on the casements of the Rathaus glanced
The many-twinkling sunshine; all was sweet,
And grateful to a heartsick wanderer,
And to this hour I think of Ratisbon
As though it were in some true sense my home.
But for the presence of the hateful Jew,
And the cold light of his indifferent gaze,
That evening by the Danube would have been
Even to a wretched sinner like myself
276
And not less gratefully does Ratisbon
Rest with a cherished pressure of sweet thought
On my remembrance, for that in its streets
Unconsciously I parted from the Jew,
And saw his face no more. Perchance it was
His work with me was done, and in my heart
Further collision now with such an one
Might have unmanned my penitence. But oft
My thoughts will wander to his awful lot.
The world is evil; yet the worst of men
Disclose unthought-of goodness to the hearts
That know them best and converse with them most.
Even in our enmities we may full soon
Discern the growing truth,—that knowledge feeds,
Not lessens, our respect unto our kind:
But it was not so with that blighted Jew.
Rest with a cherished pressure of sweet thought
On my remembrance, for that in its streets
Unconsciously I parted from the Jew,
And saw his face no more. Perchance it was
His work with me was done, and in my heart
Further collision now with such an one
Might have unmanned my penitence. But oft
My thoughts will wander to his awful lot.
The world is evil; yet the worst of men
Disclose unthought-of goodness to the hearts
That know them best and converse with them most.
Even in our enmities we may full soon
Discern the growing truth,—that knowledge feeds,
Not lessens, our respect unto our kind:
But it was not so with that blighted Jew.
Father, it may be he is beating now
Forlorn and footsore on the sleety steppe
Of desolate Urgantz, or clinging fast,
Till the blood oozes from beneath his nails,
Unto a precipice in Caucasus,
While the fierce whirlwind howls along the pass.
O wretched mortal of unnumbered years,
Blown by the breath of fate through heat and cold,
And storm and calm, and by the fourfold curse
Of seasons wrongly alternating scourged,
How horrible thy path, how desolate
The obscurity of ignominious scorn
Which is thy portion, while upon the rack
Of thine unearthly travel thou art whirled
For ever o'er the heads of all thy kind,
In fearful exaltation punished most!
O wretched one, who dwellest in a sphere
Where thou art all alone, who art not man,
Angel, or devil, but art thus enclosed,
In misery a species by thyself,
Without a mate, without a kindred life,
With a dead heart, but with a living soul,
Living through wild excess of blind despair,
If such a thing there could be as excess
In that which neither end nor measure bound!
O silent phantom, that in ghostly youth
And bright-eyed age art borne about the earth,
A momentary preacher, here or there
Beheld and not forgotten, how dost thou
Darken with some half palpable eclipse
The traveller's way, a transitory gloom
Strange as the figured shadows on the plain
Cast in the starlight when no hills or trees
Are nigh, a dusky dappled umbrage thrown
From intermediate veils of grosser air!
O sleepless Hebrew! journeying evermore,
Who once or twice in every age appear'st,
A spectral admonition of our faith,
Before the quailing eye of Christendom,
Exhausting now, but as an antepast
Of woes severer far and hotter pains,
A temporal eternity of grief,
The agony of weary sleeplessness,
The aching of unrespited fatigue,—
How fearful is thy lot, when I who owe
My life unto thy succour, dare not pray
That thou mightst be unburdened now at length
Of this most lone, most singular destiny!
Forlorn and footsore on the sleety steppe
Of desolate Urgantz, or clinging fast,
Till the blood oozes from beneath his nails,
Unto a precipice in Caucasus,
While the fierce whirlwind howls along the pass.
O wretched mortal of unnumbered years,
Blown by the breath of fate through heat and cold,
And storm and calm, and by the fourfold curse
Of seasons wrongly alternating scourged,
How horrible thy path, how desolate
The obscurity of ignominious scorn
Which is thy portion, while upon the rack
Of thine unearthly travel thou art whirled
For ever o'er the heads of all thy kind,
In fearful exaltation punished most!
O wretched one, who dwellest in a sphere
277
Angel, or devil, but art thus enclosed,
In misery a species by thyself,
Without a mate, without a kindred life,
With a dead heart, but with a living soul,
Living through wild excess of blind despair,
If such a thing there could be as excess
In that which neither end nor measure bound!
O silent phantom, that in ghostly youth
And bright-eyed age art borne about the earth,
A momentary preacher, here or there
Beheld and not forgotten, how dost thou
Darken with some half palpable eclipse
The traveller's way, a transitory gloom
Strange as the figured shadows on the plain
Cast in the starlight when no hills or trees
Are nigh, a dusky dappled umbrage thrown
From intermediate veils of grosser air!
O sleepless Hebrew! journeying evermore,
Who once or twice in every age appear'st,
A spectral admonition of our faith,
Before the quailing eye of Christendom,
Exhausting now, but as an antepast
Of woes severer far and hotter pains,
A temporal eternity of grief,
The agony of weary sleeplessness,
The aching of unrespited fatigue,—
How fearful is thy lot, when I who owe
My life unto thy succour, dare not pray
That thou mightst be unburdened now at length
Of this most lone, most singular destiny!
Then upon his departure there ensued
A season of more tranquil thought, a calm
Of recollection rather than of peace.
The battling tumult of disordered hopes,
The passionate collision of my fears,
Slowly subsided, like the running sea
When the wild storm hath ridden by; and then
From out the turbulent confusion came,
Sinking and reascending turn by turn,
An undistinguishable form that rose
And fell, and on the surface of my thoughts,
Like a wrecked purpose, dimly weltering lay
Far off, yet ever as it floated grew
More palpable, until with formal pomp
The apparition laboured into sight,
Confronting me, a cognizable shape,
Which in the listening silence of my heart
Proclaimed itself a duty, whose behests
Conscience uneasily discerned for law.
It bade me seek the punishment ordained
Of God for him by whom the blood of man
Is shed, and whose exaction hath been laid
A solemn burden, reverently endured,
On human Law, the echo of God's Voice
And Vicar of His Justice.
A season of more tranquil thought, a calm
Of recollection rather than of peace.
278
The passionate collision of my fears,
Slowly subsided, like the running sea
When the wild storm hath ridden by; and then
From out the turbulent confusion came,
Sinking and reascending turn by turn,
An undistinguishable form that rose
And fell, and on the surface of my thoughts,
Like a wrecked purpose, dimly weltering lay
Far off, yet ever as it floated grew
More palpable, until with formal pomp
The apparition laboured into sight,
Confronting me, a cognizable shape,
Which in the listening silence of my heart
Proclaimed itself a duty, whose behests
Conscience uneasily discerned for law.
It bade me seek the punishment ordained
Of God for him by whom the blood of man
Is shed, and whose exaction hath been laid
A solemn burden, reverently endured,
On human Law, the echo of God's Voice
And Vicar of His Justice.
Dark as seemed
The mated solitude where I had dwelt,
It was a respite from that awful doom,
Which seals the strivings of the penitent.
Not in the wildness of abandoned hope,
Nor goaded by intolerable thoughts,
Nor yet detected by my hideous crime
Loathing the prison of self-consciousness,
And peering through the surface of my speech,—
Nor passively allured, as happens oft,
By those regards, through conscience multiplied,
Wherewith the eye of justice fascinates
The guilty, and with incantation mute
Attracts them to herself,—but in the strength
Of a submissive will and sacred fear,
I journeyed onward to the English shore,
Unshaken, nay, with terrors half appeased,
And in the rectitude of my resolve
Finding even somewhat of a trembling cheer.
The mated solitude where I had dwelt,
It was a respite from that awful doom,
Which seals the strivings of the penitent.
Not in the wildness of abandoned hope,
Nor goaded by intolerable thoughts,
Nor yet detected by my hideous crime
Loathing the prison of self-consciousness,
And peering through the surface of my speech,—
Nor passively allured, as happens oft,
By those regards, through conscience multiplied,
Wherewith the eye of justice fascinates
279
Attracts them to herself,—but in the strength
Of a submissive will and sacred fear,
I journeyed onward to the English shore,
Unshaken, nay, with terrors half appeased,
And in the rectitude of my resolve
Finding even somewhat of a trembling cheer.
There is an awe, a most unsettling awe,
Which yet unnerves not, in a bold resolve,
Raising the animal spirits while it fills
The soul with dim forebodings, half afraid
Of such disclosure of its innate powers
As gleams through one determinate deed of will,
The solemn freedom of a Human Act!
O when we bear in mind both what we are,
And with whose Presence we are all enclosed,
The freedom of the Human Will seems less
A marvel than that we should dare to use
That almost penal gift. A Human Act,
Tied often to unending consequence,
Seemingly self-attached to His decrees
Who is immutable, and with a power
Of making unborn ages mournful heirs
Of its bequests, which may not be declined,—
A Human Act, such as each solar day
Begets in countless numbers,—what a force
Resides therein, which superstitious fear
Might well-nigh worship with its darkest rites!
Which yet unnerves not, in a bold resolve,
Raising the animal spirits while it fills
The soul with dim forebodings, half afraid
Of such disclosure of its innate powers
As gleams through one determinate deed of will,
The solemn freedom of a Human Act!
O when we bear in mind both what we are,
And with whose Presence we are all enclosed,
The freedom of the Human Will seems less
A marvel than that we should dare to use
That almost penal gift. A Human Act,
Tied often to unending consequence,
Seemingly self-attached to His decrees
Who is immutable, and with a power
Of making unborn ages mournful heirs
Of its bequests, which may not be declined,—
A Human Act, such as each solar day
Begets in countless numbers,—what a force
Resides therein, which superstitious fear
Might well-nigh worship with its darkest rites!
How strange is that deliberate cheerfulness
Wherewith men act, who yet endure the sense
That they are creatures, vilest property
Of Him so far above them, and their lives
No more their own than any outward thing!
If there is baseness in self-will, no less
Repugnant to self-sacrifice and faith
Is an obedient sullenness, that mood
Of discontented acquiescence bred
In sterile natures by the uneasy thought,
That we may not be masters to ourselves:
And miserably guilty those bad hearts,
Who, in the shade of their bedarkened wills
Sitting their whole lives long, pretend to be
Beneath the umbrage of Divine Decrees,
The only humble of the sons of men!
Father! such substance hath a Human Act
That I have dreamed the Saints might haply see
The sin of Adam in a bodily shape,
A person, not a mere contagious thing;
Yet pardon me! I must not dream to-day.
Wherewith men act, who yet endure the sense
That they are creatures, vilest property
Of Him so far above them, and their lives
No more their own than any outward thing!
If there is baseness in self-will, no less
280
Is an obedient sullenness, that mood
Of discontented acquiescence bred
In sterile natures by the uneasy thought,
That we may not be masters to ourselves:
And miserably guilty those bad hearts,
Who, in the shade of their bedarkened wills
Sitting their whole lives long, pretend to be
Beneath the umbrage of Divine Decrees,
The only humble of the sons of men!
Father! such substance hath a Human Act
That I have dreamed the Saints might haply see
The sin of Adam in a bodily shape,
A person, not a mere contagious thing;
Yet pardon me! I must not dream to-day.
How blest are they who, through baptismal doors
Entering the Holy Church, can to the yoke
And duty of the Creature superadd
The self-forgetting heart of the Redeemed,
And quiet courage of the Sanctified!
And well may they, who see God can be touched
With spiritual contact in His priests,
Anticipate the Judgment, and rehearse
For that solemnity, and so confess
(Kneeling before the priest who disappears
In faith's keen vision of her Priest on high)
Their Human Acts, retaining undivulged
Such deeds of good as not being wrought alone
Are scarcely human; by this humbling pain,
As by a holy ritual solemnized,
Deposing all their actions in the light
Of Omnipresence; seeking, not being sought,
And so reversing that first guilty change
In Adam's fall, his flight before the Voice
Amid lost Eden's unavailing shades!
Shame was the first fruits of the fall, and shame
The matter of the Atonement, and to-day,
To sweet Confession, as a vase, consigned,
Shame is medicinal to us who sin,
A natural reparation, yet divine,
And in itself contains the healing Cross,
Infecting it with supernatural power.
O happy, happy they whom grace hath helped
Unto an honest will, and who have nerved
Themselves to this most salutary shame,
By whom the Judgment hath already been
In part enacted, and who thus have made
The very details of their common lives
A solemn chain of linkèd sacraments!
Entering the Holy Church, can to the yoke
And duty of the Creature superadd
The self-forgetting heart of the Redeemed,
And quiet courage of the Sanctified!
And well may they, who see God can be touched
With spiritual contact in His priests,
Anticipate the Judgment, and rehearse
For that solemnity, and so confess
(Kneeling before the priest who disappears
In faith's keen vision of her Priest on high)
Their Human Acts, retaining undivulged
Such deeds of good as not being wrought alone
Are scarcely human; by this humbling pain,
As by a holy ritual solemnized,
Deposing all their actions in the light
Of Omnipresence; seeking, not being sought,
And so reversing that first guilty change
In Adam's fall, his flight before the Voice
281
Shame was the first fruits of the fall, and shame
The matter of the Atonement, and to-day,
To sweet Confession, as a vase, consigned,
Shame is medicinal to us who sin,
A natural reparation, yet divine,
And in itself contains the healing Cross,
Infecting it with supernatural power.
O happy, happy they whom grace hath helped
Unto an honest will, and who have nerved
Themselves to this most salutary shame,
By whom the Judgment hath already been
In part enacted, and who thus have made
The very details of their common lives
A solemn chain of linkèd sacraments!
O can the shame of whispering our disgrace
In the sole audience of a gifted priest
Be other than a sweetest right, far off
Copying that chastest sorrow, the deep shame
Wreaked on the Lord by vile unwashen hands,
When with ineffable shrinking were laid bare
His Virginal Limbs unto the soldiers' gaze?
And if in such unclothing of our hearts
As monsters we may seem, disgrace hath grown
A cherished thing since Jesus stooped thereto.
Is there no faith, no joy in self-revenge?
When for the healing of themselves men court
The cleansing discipline at others' hands,
Or to put out the light of haughty eyes,
And from the good opinion of themselves
To be by instantaneous act outlawed,
Prompted by half reluctant lowliness
Call one beneath them, and insist to have
Their face by shameful spittings vilified,
Their looks dishonourably marred, there is
A thrilling sweetness in the indignity
That quickens love of Christ almost to tears!
In the sole audience of a gifted priest
Be other than a sweetest right, far off
Copying that chastest sorrow, the deep shame
Wreaked on the Lord by vile unwashen hands,
When with ineffable shrinking were laid bare
His Virginal Limbs unto the soldiers' gaze?
And if in such unclothing of our hearts
As monsters we may seem, disgrace hath grown
A cherished thing since Jesus stooped thereto.
Is there no faith, no joy in self-revenge?
When for the healing of themselves men court
The cleansing discipline at others' hands,
Or to put out the light of haughty eyes,
And from the good opinion of themselves
To be by instantaneous act outlawed,
Prompted by half reluctant lowliness
Call one beneath them, and insist to have
Their face by shameful spittings vilified,
282
A thrilling sweetness in the indignity
That quickens love of Christ almost to tears!
If each temptation baffled is an act
Above our nature, each desire restrained
A heavenly thing, each bending of the knee
In lowly praise or self-abhorring prayer
A supernatural motion, think, O think
All day and night what supernatural acts
Are being performed upon the face of earth!
O think when darkness deepens solitude,
And when the night-air vibrates with the wings
Of the lost angels, multiplying sin,—
When the wild weather brings a silentness
Of human toils, and thought, thus respited
From the salubrious action of fatigue,
Feeds upon thought, and so engenders crime—
Ponder, O ponder till thou art consoled
The acts, which evil in its strife with good
Is raising above mortal stature then,
And canonizing with reluctant skill!
Above our nature, each desire restrained
A heavenly thing, each bending of the knee
In lowly praise or self-abhorring prayer
A supernatural motion, think, O think
All day and night what supernatural acts
Are being performed upon the face of earth!
O think when darkness deepens solitude,
And when the night-air vibrates with the wings
Of the lost angels, multiplying sin,—
When the wild weather brings a silentness
Of human toils, and thought, thus respited
From the salubrious action of fatigue,
Feeds upon thought, and so engenders crime—
Ponder, O ponder till thou art consoled
The acts, which evil in its strife with good
Is raising above mortal stature then,
And canonizing with reluctant skill!
So did I venture then to estimate
My purpose of surrender, to endure
The death I owed, but from which I had fled;
And in the presence of my own resolve,
Which was but partially my own, I stood
Most gravely cheered, and with a lightened heart.
And yet, methinks, when first I saw the beams
Of the calm sunset on the hauberks glance
Of those who kept their watch upon the walls
Of Pevensey, whose unillumined front
Faced the grey sea, my purpose somewhat shrunk,
So fair appeared my native land, so sweet
Even the poor residues of outlawed life,
So like a dream the guilty past, as though
An effort of the mind could shake it off,
And leave me pure and happy as a child!
The fishers on the beach, the castle guards,
The traders in the town,—all life appeared
Bound on a wheel of order and content
So peaceably revolving, could it be
The pains of one forgotten criminal
Might yet enhance the welfare of the State?
My purpose of surrender, to endure
The death I owed, but from which I had fled;
And in the presence of my own resolve,
Which was but partially my own, I stood
Most gravely cheered, and with a lightened heart.
And yet, methinks, when first I saw the beams
Of the calm sunset on the hauberks glance
Of those who kept their watch upon the walls
Of Pevensey, whose unillumined front
Faced the grey sea, my purpose somewhat shrunk,
So fair appeared my native land, so sweet
Even the poor residues of outlawed life,
283
An effort of the mind could shake it off,
And leave me pure and happy as a child!
The fishers on the beach, the castle guards,
The traders in the town,—all life appeared
Bound on a wheel of order and content
So peaceably revolving, could it be
The pains of one forgotten criminal
Might yet enhance the welfare of the State?
Roused from this passing dream, that self-same night
Beheld me in the forest, with the stars
Spangling the summer skies above my head,
Journeying to Winton, in whose ancient shades
The court then lay: and there at Henry's feet
I made confession of my guilt, and sued
For punishment. My fiefs already gone,—
For services performed in Palestine
My life was rendered me, a woful term,
Yet mercifully granted, to be passed
In penance, from the favour of the Church,
For an uncertain term, and from her keys,
And her appliances of grace, cast forth.
Beheld me in the forest, with the stars
Spangling the summer skies above my head,
Journeying to Winton, in whose ancient shades
The court then lay: and there at Henry's feet
I made confession of my guilt, and sued
For punishment. My fiefs already gone,—
For services performed in Palestine
My life was rendered me, a woful term,
Yet mercifully granted, to be passed
In penance, from the favour of the Church,
For an uncertain term, and from her keys,
And her appliances of grace, cast forth.
Within the abbey of St. Cross I stood,
Divested of my chains, to hear that doom
With direful ceremonial then pronounced,
And while the ritual darkness o'er my soul
Projected miserable fears, and shades
Of dreadful expectation, I went forth,
Stricken, and set at large. A sudden storm
Fell with thin misty sheets of whirling rain
Upon the breadth of sealike mead outstretched
Between the walls of Winton and St. Cross;
And now and then white sunbeams pierced the cloud,
And raced each other on the green chalk hills,
Or for a moment blanched the minster tower,
Which scarce o'ertopped the grove of ancient trees.
And the sweet pastoral Itchin, whose full stream
Twinkled with beaded rain-drops, slowly rose,
Fretting the loose earth from its sedgy bank,
And gurgling through the long grass in the fields.
Divested of my chains, to hear that doom
With direful ceremonial then pronounced,
And while the ritual darkness o'er my soul
Projected miserable fears, and shades
Of dreadful expectation, I went forth,
Stricken, and set at large. A sudden storm
Fell with thin misty sheets of whirling rain
Upon the breadth of sealike mead outstretched
Between the walls of Winton and St. Cross;
And now and then white sunbeams pierced the cloud,
284
Or for a moment blanched the minster tower,
Which scarce o'ertopped the grove of ancient trees.
And the sweet pastoral Itchin, whose full stream
Twinkled with beaded rain-drops, slowly rose,
Fretting the loose earth from its sedgy bank,
And gurgling through the long grass in the fields.
Beneath the gable of the abbey mill
I screened myself within an elder clump,
Rather by habit prompted than annoyed
By the rude beating storm, so calm compared
With that blind wretchedness which ruled within.
So penal seemed that gift of lengthened life,
The life which I had once so longed to keep!
My soul, concentering all its thoughts on death,
Grew calm, because its end was near, and now,
That end put further off, lost all the power,
Which steadfast concentration had conferred.
Ah! with what mild encounter did I meet
The placid offices of nature there,
Cradling my heart to peace, to trust, to love!
For even in those unlikely shades she lurked
To minister to all who lingered near,
With love as universal as the grace,
Which wanders through the byeways of the world
Compelling humble souls. There was I soothed
Beyond all hope, and soberly beguiled,
By the calm concourse of familiar sounds,
Which alternated with the cheerless wind
That sighed and sobbed upon the mossy roof:—
The momentary beating of the wheel,
The panting of the stream which, leaping down,
Was dissipated in its breathless fall,
The singing drops upon the black mill-pool,
The winnowing of the elder boughs that caught
The troubled current, or with nodding leaves
Quaked in the ceaseless whirlwind of the wheel.
I screened myself within an elder clump,
Rather by habit prompted than annoyed
By the rude beating storm, so calm compared
With that blind wretchedness which ruled within.
So penal seemed that gift of lengthened life,
The life which I had once so longed to keep!
My soul, concentering all its thoughts on death,
Grew calm, because its end was near, and now,
That end put further off, lost all the power,
Which steadfast concentration had conferred.
Ah! with what mild encounter did I meet
The placid offices of nature there,
Cradling my heart to peace, to trust, to love!
For even in those unlikely shades she lurked
To minister to all who lingered near,
With love as universal as the grace,
Which wanders through the byeways of the world
Compelling humble souls. There was I soothed
Beyond all hope, and soberly beguiled,
By the calm concourse of familiar sounds,
Which alternated with the cheerless wind
That sighed and sobbed upon the mossy roof:—
The momentary beating of the wheel,
The panting of the stream which, leaping down,
Was dissipated in its breathless fall,
The singing drops upon the black mill-pool,
285
The troubled current, or with nodding leaves
Quaked in the ceaseless whirlwind of the wheel.
Beneath the rustling elders there, whose eaves
Of sombre and unsunny foliage hung
Dipping their half-ripe berries in the grass,
And whence the rain-drops glanced as from a shield,
My weary spirit, slowly gathering strength
Of self-possession, ventured to look forth
Upon that desert world, that lonely range
Of life now left her; but her wandering thoughts
Sent out, like Noe's raven, came no more
Either to kindle hope, or certify
Fears, best endured when all the worst is known.
The earth, whose gloom was tremulously lit
By flashes from the dread cherubic swords,
To Adam's eye less comfortless might seem
Than to an excommunicated soul
The blissful aspect of wide Christendom,
Peopled with benedictions, rife with grace,
So that its very kingdoms sing for joy!
But woe unto the lost and outcast heart,
For whom the verdict of the mighty Church
Transmutes it all into a foreign land,
A foreign tongue whose accents musical
He cannot catch, a silent wilderness
Coiled like a fatal ring around his feet,
Which he o'erlooks but may not overstep,
Unpopulous, void, vacant, terrible!
Of sombre and unsunny foliage hung
Dipping their half-ripe berries in the grass,
And whence the rain-drops glanced as from a shield,
My weary spirit, slowly gathering strength
Of self-possession, ventured to look forth
Upon that desert world, that lonely range
Of life now left her; but her wandering thoughts
Sent out, like Noe's raven, came no more
Either to kindle hope, or certify
Fears, best endured when all the worst is known.
The earth, whose gloom was tremulously lit
By flashes from the dread cherubic swords,
To Adam's eye less comfortless might seem
Than to an excommunicated soul
The blissful aspect of wide Christendom,
Peopled with benedictions, rife with grace,
So that its very kingdoms sing for joy!
But woe unto the lost and outcast heart,
For whom the verdict of the mighty Church
Transmutes it all into a foreign land,
A foreign tongue whose accents musical
He cannot catch, a silent wilderness
Coiled like a fatal ring around his feet,
Which he o'erlooks but may not overstep,
Unpopulous, void, vacant, terrible!
Fearful it was in that dread hour to think
Of man, of mortal happiness and hope,
Of cheerful duties and affectionate bonds,
Such as were common as the dust of earth
Within that white-walled city. I was stung
By such sweet thoughts, and since my penance was
So righteously awarded, I was left
Without the bulwark of imagined wrong
To fortify my pride. Upon the grass
And oozy herbs that grew in that dank shade,
I flung myself in bitterness of heart,
And wept with fiery tears; and there the eye
Of all mankind in pitiless regard
And with intelligent dislike appeared
To gaze upon me; and more fearful far,
The dead looked forth from out the dewy earth
With eyes that beamed intolerable love,
Disquieted with grief; and from her peace
Methought my mother fixed on me her glance,
As I had seen it oft in hours of sin,
An apparition haunting me for good;—
Ah! had it beamed with anger or with scorn
It would have been less terrible,—but no,
It wore the old approving smile, the look
Of radiant pleasure and maternal love,
Which seemed to thrust me lower than before
In vileness and degrading shame. I lay
Bowed to the earth beneath my awful curse,
As though my sin was fresh that very hour,
And the intervening years, with what they brought,
Cancelled, annulled as though they had not been.
Of man, of mortal happiness and hope,
Of cheerful duties and affectionate bonds,
Such as were common as the dust of earth
Within that white-walled city. I was stung
286
So righteously awarded, I was left
Without the bulwark of imagined wrong
To fortify my pride. Upon the grass
And oozy herbs that grew in that dank shade,
I flung myself in bitterness of heart,
And wept with fiery tears; and there the eye
Of all mankind in pitiless regard
And with intelligent dislike appeared
To gaze upon me; and more fearful far,
The dead looked forth from out the dewy earth
With eyes that beamed intolerable love,
Disquieted with grief; and from her peace
Methought my mother fixed on me her glance,
As I had seen it oft in hours of sin,
An apparition haunting me for good;—
Ah! had it beamed with anger or with scorn
It would have been less terrible,—but no,
It wore the old approving smile, the look
Of radiant pleasure and maternal love,
Which seemed to thrust me lower than before
In vileness and degrading shame. I lay
Bowed to the earth beneath my awful curse,
As though my sin was fresh that very hour,
And the intervening years, with what they brought,
Cancelled, annulled as though they had not been.
But never did I less desire to die
Than in that hour; though like a frightened child
Cowering beneath some dull nocturnal fear,
I deemed that death was nigh, and with faint voice
Prayed broken prayers for respite to repent,
And felt my heart to see if it still beat,
And prayed again. O holy monk! it seems
An awful thing, a very awful thing,
To lay our hands upon our hearts, and feel
How slight the separation is of life
From death, a feeble beating motion there,
Scarce audible but in the dead of night,
Or when the causeless fear of death surrounds
And keeps the thoughts at bay, a quivering pulse
Which ever seems upon the point to stop,
Twixt each pulsation halting as in doubt.
And yet no less a bulwark doth dispart
Our living and our dying than the Mind
Of God Most High, nor can that beating stop
Without a solemn act of Will Divine.
Yet when at times Eternity doth sound
With audible faint knocking at our hearts,
Asking its frightened welcome, that our fears
May haply so rehearse the act of death—
As the sea-water gurgles at our ears
When we lie down with but a plank between
Our helpless selves and a most horrible end—
'Tis hard to smile, and say in childlike peace,
That the weak plank is an Almighty Will!
Than in that hour; though like a frightened child
Cowering beneath some dull nocturnal fear,
I deemed that death was nigh, and with faint voice
Prayed broken prayers for respite to repent,
And felt my heart to see if it still beat,
And prayed again. O holy monk! it seems
An awful thing, a very awful thing,
287
How slight the separation is of life
From death, a feeble beating motion there,
Scarce audible but in the dead of night,
Or when the causeless fear of death surrounds
And keeps the thoughts at bay, a quivering pulse
Which ever seems upon the point to stop,
Twixt each pulsation halting as in doubt.
And yet no less a bulwark doth dispart
Our living and our dying than the Mind
Of God Most High, nor can that beating stop
Without a solemn act of Will Divine.
Yet when at times Eternity doth sound
With audible faint knocking at our hearts,
Asking its frightened welcome, that our fears
May haply so rehearse the act of death—
As the sea-water gurgles at our ears
When we lie down with but a plank between
Our helpless selves and a most horrible end—
'Tis hard to smile, and say in childlike peace,
That the weak plank is an Almighty Will!
Between two moods thus swayed, now self-possessed
And calm, now into puerile dismay
And trembling fancies broken, and conceits
Of panic mastering all the nerves of will,
I lay for hours within that elder shade,
Musing in trance-like thought upon the world
Of happiness, and grief with others borne,
For others suffered, therefore no such curse
As that which preyed on me. Thus did I muse,
When suddenly before my spirit's eye
There was as if a breaking down of bars,
A swift disparking of obstructed hopes,
Till the whole unimpeded future lay
Open, endurable; and far within
I heard the thunder which a rapturous thought
Makes in the mind when it reveals itself,
And passes on: the peopled world was lost,
Swept from my vision as the breeze at sea
Breaks up the fading outline of the shore,
And clears the boundless ocean to the eye.
Then rose serene in glorious light profound,
Fairest of images, calm Solitude,
Unpeopled Silentness, where Cain himself,
If humbled he had brooked the godlike Eye
Of Solitude and bowed before the Voice
Of solemn Silence, might have won repose,
Seeking for mercy through self-chastisement,
That borrows only from the Cross its power,—
The simplest and divinest of all trusts,
And most complete abandonment of self.
And calm, now into puerile dismay
And trembling fancies broken, and conceits
Of panic mastering all the nerves of will,
I lay for hours within that elder shade,
Musing in trance-like thought upon the world
Of happiness, and grief with others borne,
For others suffered, therefore no such curse
As that which preyed on me. Thus did I muse,
When suddenly before my spirit's eye
There was as if a breaking down of bars,
A swift disparking of obstructed hopes,
288
Open, endurable; and far within
I heard the thunder which a rapturous thought
Makes in the mind when it reveals itself,
And passes on: the peopled world was lost,
Swept from my vision as the breeze at sea
Breaks up the fading outline of the shore,
And clears the boundless ocean to the eye.
Then rose serene in glorious light profound,
Fairest of images, calm Solitude,
Unpeopled Silentness, where Cain himself,
If humbled he had brooked the godlike Eye
Of Solitude and bowed before the Voice
Of solemn Silence, might have won repose,
Seeking for mercy through self-chastisement,
That borrows only from the Cross its power,—
The simplest and divinest of all trusts,
And most complete abandonment of self.
Thus, when to me the thought of humankind
Had grown unbearable through that access
Of love, which came upon me in the hour
When I was put forth from them as unclean,
The nakedness of Solitude appeared
A port and shelter, an oasis sunk
Below the horizon of the misty sands,
Where yet sweet grace, which like the desert rains,
From its own plenitude o'erflows the earth
In seeming waste, might fertilize the ground,
And I, so reached, like some poor withered palm,
Might drink the moisture and perchance revive
In the lone air thus bountifully cooled,
Thus mercifully tempered to my needs.
Had grown unbearable through that access
Of love, which came upon me in the hour
When I was put forth from them as unclean,
The nakedness of Solitude appeared
A port and shelter, an oasis sunk
Below the horizon of the misty sands,
Where yet sweet grace, which like the desert rains,
From its own plenitude o'erflows the earth
In seeming waste, might fertilize the ground,
And I, so reached, like some poor withered palm,
Might drink the moisture and perchance revive
In the lone air thus bountifully cooled,
Thus mercifully tempered to my needs.
Nay, father, is not that transcending life
Which the Saints live, laid up with Christ in God,
O is it not perpetual Solitude,
Exile from base delights and soiling cares,
With hopes and fears and sympathetic ties
Unearthly, with a Wedlock of its own,
Which through chastised virginity of soul
Is like a fruitful womb unto the Lord
With evangelic travail bearing sons,
And with a civil Conversation which transcends
The offices of human polity,
And, veiled behind the water of a rite,
A most miraculous Sonship, and a Food
In the world's presence eaten, yet unknown,
Unseen by it, but such a wondrous Food
That it were well with all the Angelie Hosts
If unto them that Flesh might be vouchsafed?
Is not that life one endless Solitude
From earthly things, a Kingdom all within,
Yet with a mystic Furniture without,
Where Faith is Regent, and the simplest Laws
Are mysteries and supernatural words,—
A Realm inscrutably concealed, though nigh
To all, with Visitations from above,
Outward Alliances spread far and wide
Into the world of spirit, Succours coming
And Messengers departing every hour,
Burdened with secret liturgies, and tears
Despatched to moisten Incense up in Heaven,
And an Indwelling King, engrossed all day,
Entire in each, yet present in all hearts,
With preparation as of one who calls
His army round him in a hostile land,—
A very holy, peopled Solitude?
Which the Saints live, laid up with Christ in God,
289
Exile from base delights and soiling cares,
With hopes and fears and sympathetic ties
Unearthly, with a Wedlock of its own,
Which through chastised virginity of soul
Is like a fruitful womb unto the Lord
With evangelic travail bearing sons,
And with a civil Conversation which transcends
The offices of human polity,
And, veiled behind the water of a rite,
A most miraculous Sonship, and a Food
In the world's presence eaten, yet unknown,
Unseen by it, but such a wondrous Food
That it were well with all the Angelie Hosts
If unto them that Flesh might be vouchsafed?
Is not that life one endless Solitude
From earthly things, a Kingdom all within,
Yet with a mystic Furniture without,
Where Faith is Regent, and the simplest Laws
Are mysteries and supernatural words,—
A Realm inscrutably concealed, though nigh
To all, with Visitations from above,
Outward Alliances spread far and wide
Into the world of spirit, Succours coming
And Messengers departing every hour,
Burdened with secret liturgies, and tears
Despatched to moisten Incense up in Heaven,
And an Indwelling King, engrossed all day,
Entire in each, yet present in all hearts,
With preparation as of one who calls
His army round him in a hostile land,—
A very holy, peopled Solitude?
Once landed then on that free shore, my chains
Methought would drop from off me by the law
Of nature; for the very shore it seemed
Of that eternal world where all are bound,
The space of desert littoral, which all
Must penetrate and traverse here or there.
All must be mates of Solitude for once,
In the wide-spreading silence of old age,
Or in the loneliness of dying thought,
Or in that summing up, distinct and strong,
That inward life condensed into a point
Of time, a momentary act, when death
Bears us like lightning o'er the trackless sands.
Where all must pass why should we fear to dwell?
There are who through exceeding love of God
Have tenanted that region all their lives,
And their chaste anthems murmur on it still;
Where love hath dwelt is surely fear's best home!
Methought would drop from off me by the law
290
Of that eternal world where all are bound,
The space of desert littoral, which all
Must penetrate and traverse here or there.
All must be mates of Solitude for once,
In the wide-spreading silence of old age,
Or in the loneliness of dying thought,
Or in that summing up, distinct and strong,
That inward life condensed into a point
Of time, a momentary act, when death
Bears us like lightning o'er the trackless sands.
Where all must pass why should we fear to dwell?
There are who through exceeding love of God
Have tenanted that region all their lives,
And their chaste anthems murmur on it still;
Where love hath dwelt is surely fear's best home!
I will away then, said I, to that shore
Where our eternal havens are: though void
Of all those shelters for our nameless fears,
That constant harbourage of thought in hours
Of inward sinking, which the grateful sense
Of nearness to our kind affords, even then
When for some cause we shun their company;
Though void of these, it is a sacred shore
With boundless prospects that enlarge the heart,
And with a freshness better far than mirth,
Than beauty more magnificent, a face
Of bold eternal freshness, like the sea
Rolling its unchained length of silvery green,
Shaking its white-maned breakers in the sun,
And thundering, like a cloud in summer noons,
While winter's slavery binds the household earth,
And wavy tracts of snow and leafless trees,
Black buried farms and cold untrodden ways,
Wither our very liberty of thought,
While we confess the elements our lords.
Where our eternal havens are: though void
Of all those shelters for our nameless fears,
That constant harbourage of thought in hours
Of inward sinking, which the grateful sense
Of nearness to our kind affords, even then
When for some cause we shun their company;
Though void of these, it is a sacred shore
With boundless prospects that enlarge the heart,
And with a freshness better far than mirth,
Than beauty more magnificent, a face
Of bold eternal freshness, like the sea
Rolling its unchained length of silvery green,
Shaking its white-maned breakers in the sun,
And thundering, like a cloud in summer noons,
While winter's slavery binds the household earth,
And wavy tracts of snow and leafless trees,
Black buried farms and cold untrodden ways,
291
While we confess the elements our lords.
I will away then, said I, to that shore
And feed upon that freshness, until fear
Begets compunction, and compunction love,
And love her beacon trims by that seaside,
Diffusing there a silent power of light
Whose fanning wings move slowly through the air,
Parting the raven darkness, till they touch
Upon the opposing shore; and he who kneels
In act of prayer may through his hollowed hands,
As through a telescope, discern that bourne,
Which all may reach who set their shattered helms,
And point them truly by that beckoning orb,
The starry signal of the Magdalen.
And feed upon that freshness, until fear
Begets compunction, and compunction love,
And love her beacon trims by that seaside,
Diffusing there a silent power of light
Whose fanning wings move slowly through the air,
Parting the raven darkness, till they touch
Upon the opposing shore; and he who kneels
In act of prayer may through his hollowed hands,
As through a telescope, discern that bourne,
Which all may reach who set their shattered helms,
And point them truly by that beckoning orb,
The starry signal of the Magdalen.
Then I bethought me of my native hills
And meres profound by winter unenslaved,
True types of solitude, as I have seen
The lakes and mountains on a winter's day,
Pacing the beautiful and silent shores
Of Windermere, unharassed by the sound
Even of my feet upon the snowy beech.
A glossy calm is bound upon the lake
With a dull glistening, like a lucid coat
Of flaky snow, while overhead the sky
Sways like a tottering dome of purple grey.
Above the horizon, all around, a rim
Is left between the sombre clouds and earth,
A hazy tract of thick and turbid white,
Which like a blinded lattice doth emit,
Weakly suffused, a light of troubled red,
As if from flaming furnaces behind,—
The sunset's ineffectual witness there.
And like a visionary region float
The woods, scarce lower than the stooping clouds,
And all untied by aught of visible chain
To the calm earth, with tree-tops, half of black
Silently weeping, and half silvered o'er
Where they have met the greeting of the wind;
And all the twigs in beautiful array—
Fabrics of summer foliage are less fair—
Glisten like some ingenious work composed
Of ebony and silver, to the west
Bearded with rime, and in a hundred styles
And mutable devices crystallized
With noiseless art, while morning's feeble sun,
Felt though unseen, hath blackened all the boughs
Upon the east; and groups of spikèd pine
Are set with pearls opaque: and O how still
Appear the swelling mountains in the mist,
While all the impoverished cataracts are heard
Roaring like creatures tamed; and at my feet,
Half on the wing, half on the water, coots,
Or wild ducks, with their oarlike pinions cleave
Their black cold-gushing wakes upon the mere;
And from the womb of some cloud-curtained vale
The bellowing of the miner's blast is heard,
Making the air to tingle for awhile,
Waving the ponderous skirts of lowering mist,
And thrilling on the silent snowy shore.
And meres profound by winter unenslaved,
True types of solitude, as I have seen
The lakes and mountains on a winter's day,
Pacing the beautiful and silent shores
Of Windermere, unharassed by the sound
Even of my feet upon the snowy beech.
A glossy calm is bound upon the lake
With a dull glistening, like a lucid coat
Of flaky snow, while overhead the sky
Sways like a tottering dome of purple grey.
Above the horizon, all around, a rim
Is left between the sombre clouds and earth,
A hazy tract of thick and turbid white,
Which like a blinded lattice doth emit,
Weakly suffused, a light of troubled red,
As if from flaming furnaces behind,—
The sunset's ineffectual witness there.
And like a visionary region float
292
And all untied by aught of visible chain
To the calm earth, with tree-tops, half of black
Silently weeping, and half silvered o'er
Where they have met the greeting of the wind;
And all the twigs in beautiful array—
Fabrics of summer foliage are less fair—
Glisten like some ingenious work composed
Of ebony and silver, to the west
Bearded with rime, and in a hundred styles
And mutable devices crystallized
With noiseless art, while morning's feeble sun,
Felt though unseen, hath blackened all the boughs
Upon the east; and groups of spikèd pine
Are set with pearls opaque: and O how still
Appear the swelling mountains in the mist,
While all the impoverished cataracts are heard
Roaring like creatures tamed; and at my feet,
Half on the wing, half on the water, coots,
Or wild ducks, with their oarlike pinions cleave
Their black cold-gushing wakes upon the mere;
And from the womb of some cloud-curtained vale
The bellowing of the miner's blast is heard,
Making the air to tingle for awhile,
Waving the ponderous skirts of lowering mist,
And thrilling on the silent snowy shore.
Such and so quiet seemed that land to me,
As is the solitary winter lake,
An unimpeded calm, and restful haven.
As is the solitary winter lake,
An unimpeded calm, and restful haven.
Therefore to my hereditary hills
I went, and mid their woods and treeless wolds,
And purple moorlands veined with argent brooks,
With solitude have long consorted now,
Become inured to her strange discipline,
In love with her wild nurture, and have learned
Her written cypher, to the eye or ear
A changeful revelation, and whose lore
Voluminous, profoundly varied, still
Goes on in mazy sweetness year by year
Expounding and illustrating itself
In deep instructive sequence. My wild voyage
Amid the horrors of the Caucasus,
And central lakes of Asia, and grey steppes
O'er which the wind in its tired passage faints,
Was the harsh pupillage wherein I learned
The wisdom of the jealous-featured earth,
The language of her shows, the direful powers,
Which in the tempest and the calm reside
And sounding elements, that terrify
With their collision mortal wanderers cast
Mid those fierce angels in the dreadful seats
Of that mysterious continent, whereon
Alone the Feet of the Most High have stood.
For there the powers of nature have been wont
To bow before no delegated voice,
But suit their goings out and comings in
To His immediate Word, while good and ill
Stirring like pomps of shadow o'er the earth,
Are but the troubled umbrage of the fight,
The actual fight, delivered on those shores,
In those primeval haunts where man first dwelt,
And where the voices of elected seers
Have sung the measures of his destinies,
Which the Creator, clothed in Human Flesh,
Hath sealed in Person on the Blessèd Rood!
I went, and mid their woods and treeless wolds,
And purple moorlands veined with argent brooks,
With solitude have long consorted now,
Become inured to her strange discipline,
293
Her written cypher, to the eye or ear
A changeful revelation, and whose lore
Voluminous, profoundly varied, still
Goes on in mazy sweetness year by year
Expounding and illustrating itself
In deep instructive sequence. My wild voyage
Amid the horrors of the Caucasus,
And central lakes of Asia, and grey steppes
O'er which the wind in its tired passage faints,
Was the harsh pupillage wherein I learned
The wisdom of the jealous-featured earth,
The language of her shows, the direful powers,
Which in the tempest and the calm reside
And sounding elements, that terrify
With their collision mortal wanderers cast
Mid those fierce angels in the dreadful seats
Of that mysterious continent, whereon
Alone the Feet of the Most High have stood.
For there the powers of nature have been wont
To bow before no delegated voice,
But suit their goings out and comings in
To His immediate Word, while good and ill
Stirring like pomps of shadow o'er the earth,
Are but the troubled umbrage of the fight,
The actual fight, delivered on those shores,
In those primeval haunts where man first dwelt,
And where the voices of elected seers
Have sung the measures of his destinies,
Which the Creator, clothed in Human Flesh,
Hath sealed in Person on the Blessèd Rood!
Asia, first-born of history wert thou!
O sacred land! through Blood and Tears of God
Instinct with thrills of consecrated life,
Within whose mountainous bosom lies the dust
Of venerable Adam, and the grave
Delved by the Lord for him who led the Church
From the dark Nile-banks, and the odorous earth
Which was the bed of that most sorrowing Maid,
The Virgin-Mother, and whose ancient tombs
Have had one resurrection, by the streets
Of Salem witnessed! Through the ponderous shades,
Which the old empires cast upon thy breast,
Still redly gleams the cloven path of fire,
Whereby the unburied Prophet, caught from earth,
Into the hidden Eden was conveyed,
And those intolerably radiant Steps
Of Him who scaled the ethereal ridges back
With His new nature, His victorious spoils,
To His eternal glory with His Sire!
O sacred land! through Blood and Tears of God
Instinct with thrills of consecrated life,
294
Of venerable Adam, and the grave
Delved by the Lord for him who led the Church
From the dark Nile-banks, and the odorous earth
Which was the bed of that most sorrowing Maid,
The Virgin-Mother, and whose ancient tombs
Have had one resurrection, by the streets
Of Salem witnessed! Through the ponderous shades,
Which the old empires cast upon thy breast,
Still redly gleams the cloven path of fire,
Whereby the unburied Prophet, caught from earth,
Into the hidden Eden was conveyed,
And those intolerably radiant Steps
Of Him who scaled the ethereal ridges back
With His new nature, His victorious spoils,
To His eternal glory with His Sire!
Methinks the man to whom it hath been given
To set his foot upon that awful soil,
To see the sun on pebbly Jordan glance,
To hear the wind among the cedars sigh
Of terraced Lebanon, or watch the stars
From seaside Carmel, or from Olivet
Bear off the hoary dust upon his shoes,
Nay, walk one hour upon the furthest coast,
And feel that Asia is beneath his feet,—
Methinks the man, to whom it was vouchsafed,
Were sphered some little higher than his kind,
And, with such priesthood vested, might attract
The eye of us far Westerns as he passed
Along our streets,—if Jesus had not said,
The deepest and most wondrous truth that e'er
Fell on the ear of our astonished world,
That he who did His Father's Will in faith,
Though faith there never was which mated hers,
Stood equal with that wondrous Maid of grace,
The Mortal Woman, Mother of our God!—
A written truth, yet haply raised above
Lawful rehearsal by a sinner's lips,
For whom it were sweet privilege enough
To think with far less daring thoughts of her
Who sits above all creatures now assumed.
To set his foot upon that awful soil,
To see the sun on pebbly Jordan glance,
To hear the wind among the cedars sigh
Of terraced Lebanon, or watch the stars
From seaside Carmel, or from Olivet
Bear off the hoary dust upon his shoes,
Nay, walk one hour upon the furthest coast,
And feel that Asia is beneath his feet,—
Methinks the man, to whom it was vouchsafed,
Were sphered some little higher than his kind,
And, with such priesthood vested, might attract
The eye of us far Westerns as he passed
Along our streets,—if Jesus had not said,
The deepest and most wondrous truth that e'er
Fell on the ear of our astonished world,
That he who did His Father's Will in faith,
Though faith there never was which mated hers,
295
The Mortal Woman, Mother of our God!—
A written truth, yet haply raised above
Lawful rehearsal by a sinner's lips,
For whom it were sweet privilege enough
To think with far less daring thoughts of her
Who sits above all creatures now assumed.
In that probation of wild travel then
I learned the mystic language of the earth
From her oracular lineaments, composed
In the calm semblance of midnight and noon,
Her scenic writing blazoned evermore
In shifting scrolls, with difficulty learned
And piece by piece, as one who toils and toils
Some foreign tongue to master, a strange task
Which all unlike our other knowledge seems
Rather the work of time than intellect.
I learned the mystic language of the earth
From her oracular lineaments, composed
In the calm semblance of midnight and noon,
Her scenic writing blazoned evermore
In shifting scrolls, with difficulty learned
And piece by piece, as one who toils and toils
Some foreign tongue to master, a strange task
Which all unlike our other knowledge seems
Rather the work of time than intellect.
The rest thou know'st: within this hilly tract
Nature hath been to me the supplement
Of what the Church withdrew; a partial aid
Indeed it was, and I but hungered more
For what I lost, and yet a real aid,
By her not disavowed, as I believe.
The shape of sin, which in this solitude
Hath haunted me, a word will briefly tell.
It was the loss of balance in my mind:
Either inclining to a hope too high,
Too vigorously winged, for one who fell
As I had fallen, or depending low
To a despondency and flagging faith,
Which did dishonour by its craven doubts
To the sweet love which drew our Lord from Heaven.
Nature hath been to me the supplement
Of what the Church withdrew; a partial aid
Indeed it was, and I but hungered more
For what I lost, and yet a real aid,
By her not disavowed, as I believe.
The shape of sin, which in this solitude
Hath haunted me, a word will briefly tell.
It was the loss of balance in my mind:
Either inclining to a hope too high,
Too vigorously winged, for one who fell
As I had fallen, or depending low
To a despondency and flagging faith,
Which did dishonour by its craven doubts
To the sweet love which drew our Lord from Heaven.
Father! the hour draws on when I must die;
My ear is all unmuffled, and I catch
The footfall of that solemn messenger.
Father! I kneel before thee, to the Church
Who speaks in Thee, and to my only Lord
Whom she doth represent! O blessèd Church!
Most awful, most affectionate Mother! here
I call the hills to witness, and the sea
And the dark forests and the flooded brooks,
The caves high up, and countless tops of pine
Above whose level I have made my prayers,
If I have uttered one proud word, or paid
Thee aught but benediction for the curse
For my salvation mercifully bound
Upon thine erring child. O Mother Church!
Whom as the Presence of my God I fear,
Forego thy healing wrath; once ere my death
O let my famished spirit feast on song,
And manifold thanksgiving, and the Host
Upon unbloody Altars sacrificed;
That in thy visible bosom here received
I may in hopeful type discern my lot
Hereafter, and may find the peaceful Fires,
Our first safe resting-place beyond the grave,
Fore-opened by thy golden Keys on earth.
Mother of Saints! receive thy sinful son:
I crave thine Absolution ere I die!
My ear is all unmuffled, and I catch
296
Father! I kneel before thee, to the Church
Who speaks in Thee, and to my only Lord
Whom she doth represent! O blessèd Church!
Most awful, most affectionate Mother! here
I call the hills to witness, and the sea
And the dark forests and the flooded brooks,
The caves high up, and countless tops of pine
Above whose level I have made my prayers,
If I have uttered one proud word, or paid
Thee aught but benediction for the curse
For my salvation mercifully bound
Upon thine erring child. O Mother Church!
Whom as the Presence of my God I fear,
Forego thy healing wrath; once ere my death
O let my famished spirit feast on song,
And manifold thanksgiving, and the Host
Upon unbloody Altars sacrificed;
That in thy visible bosom here received
I may in hopeful type discern my lot
Hereafter, and may find the peaceful Fires,
Our first safe resting-place beyond the grave,
Fore-opened by thy golden Keys on earth.
Mother of Saints! receive thy sinful son:
I crave thine Absolution ere I die!
Thus spake the Knight; and down the Abbot's cheeks
The tears flowed fast: the merciful old man
Was moved, and blessing Jesus for the powers
To frailest vessels of poor earth consigned,
He laid his hands upon the Penitent,
And with the Cross untied the icy curse.
It was not age that made them tremulous,
But the sweet Spirit who fulfilled his soul
And shed Himself with every ritual word.
The golden evening gathered gently round,
Throwing the coloured shadows from the panes
With Saints and Martyrs duskily annealed;
When vespers chimed Sir Lancelot was shrived.
The tears flowed fast: the merciful old man
Was moved, and blessing Jesus for the powers
To frailest vessels of poor earth consigned,
He laid his hands upon the Penitent,
And with the Cross untied the icy curse.
It was not age that made them tremulous,
But the sweet Spirit who fulfilled his soul
297
The golden evening gathered gently round,
Throwing the coloured shadows from the panes
With Saints and Martyrs duskily annealed;
When vespers chimed Sir Lancelot was shrived.
Service is o'er; with swift and noiseless steps,
And graceful modesty of outward mien,
Which of itself might win a worldling's heart,
The monks have glided from the twilight church,
Save a few kneeling forms that here and there
The morrow's meditation choose, or make
Their scrutiny of conscience, or adore
The Hidden Presence on the shrine reserved,
That Sanctuary, that most Domestic Home
Of gentle nuns and self-renouncing monks.
There too Sir Lancelot knelt: the mountain wind
And the wide ocean could not half so much
Dilate his soul, as those long solemn aisles,
Dim glittering Altars, incense-burdened air,
The recent benediction of the Host,
And mutely preaching symbols of the Faith.
The sudden peace that haply may confront
The unbodied soul, which but a moment since
Was struggling on the death-bed, may afford
No unjust image of the rapturous calm,
Which fell from heaven upon that joyous man,
Once more within a Christian church enclosed.
And far off kneeling in the misty nave
Which sunset still imperfectly illumed,
His gladness found an utterance, not in prayer,
But objectless recital to himself
Of what was all around him, growing now
Familiar as it used to be of old,
But with a childish wonder pondered still
Thus in spontaneous rhythm his words broke forth,
No formal prayer, but happy prayer-like hymn,
As if to reassure his doubting mind
That what he saw was no delusive dream.
And graceful modesty of outward mien,
Which of itself might win a worldling's heart,
The monks have glided from the twilight church,
Save a few kneeling forms that here and there
The morrow's meditation choose, or make
Their scrutiny of conscience, or adore
The Hidden Presence on the shrine reserved,
That Sanctuary, that most Domestic Home
Of gentle nuns and self-renouncing monks.
There too Sir Lancelot knelt: the mountain wind
And the wide ocean could not half so much
Dilate his soul, as those long solemn aisles,
Dim glittering Altars, incense-burdened air,
The recent benediction of the Host,
And mutely preaching symbols of the Faith.
The sudden peace that haply may confront
The unbodied soul, which but a moment since
Was struggling on the death-bed, may afford
No unjust image of the rapturous calm,
Which fell from heaven upon that joyous man,
Once more within a Christian church enclosed.
And far off kneeling in the misty nave
Which sunset still imperfectly illumed,
His gladness found an utterance, not in prayer,
But objectless recital to himself
Of what was all around him, growing now
Familiar as it used to be of old,
But with a childish wonder pondered still
298
No formal prayer, but happy prayer-like hymn,
As if to reassure his doubting mind
That what he saw was no delusive dream.
THE HYMN.
See, see how evening's sloping shadows grow
Upon the massy nave, and all the stone
Is flecked with little clouds of colour, thrown
From the west window; on the ground they go,
Silently creeping eastward, while the air
Thickens within the choir, and so conceals
The Altar, whose benignant presence there
The slowly rocking lamp alone reveals.
Ah me, how still! Our Lady's Vesper song
Hath died away amid the choral throng;
But the pure-visaged moon, that climbs elate
The throne of day, now strikes with trembling light
The painted lattice, where the livelong night
Saint Mary chants her lone Magnificat.
Upon the massy nave, and all the stone
Is flecked with little clouds of colour, thrown
From the west window; on the ground they go,
Silently creeping eastward, while the air
Thickens within the choir, and so conceals
The Altar, whose benignant presence there
The slowly rocking lamp alone reveals.
Ah me, how still! Our Lady's Vesper song
Hath died away amid the choral throng;
But the pure-visaged moon, that climbs elate
The throne of day, now strikes with trembling light
The painted lattice, where the livelong night
Saint Mary chants her lone Magnificat.
Hail, Mary, hail! O Maiden-Mother, hail!
In thankfulness I lean upon the thought
Of thy mysterious chastities; unsought
Comes the sweet faith thy prayers can never fail
In that high Heaven where thou hast been assumed;
And with this hope my spirit newly plumed
Strives upward, like a weary dove in sight
Of her lost refuge, steering by the light
Wherewith thy name hath silently illumed
The Church below, cheering the gradual night
The world hath forced upon the primal day
Of our sweet faith; and I, on penance cast
Till patient yearning should retrieve the past,
May bless thee for the succour of thy ray!
The light is vocal, wavering on the glass;—
The jewel midway in the braided hair,
The eyes, the lifted hand, are speaking there,
And o'er the lips the argent quiverings pass.
She sings! she sings! but thirsty silence drinks
The heavenly sound before its burden sinks
Into my listening ear. Hail, Mary, hail!
Hail thou that art the haven of the heart
Accessible in all our moods, a veil
Obscuring not, but gifted to impart
New aspects of the Cross: though sin erase
That Sign from Heaven, before our downcast eyes,
Which fall on thee, its sweet reflection lies
Like a soft shadow in a moonlit place.
Hail, Mary, hail! O Wondrous Mother! pray
To thy dear Son who takes our sins away!
In thankfulness I lean upon the thought
Of thy mysterious chastities; unsought
Comes the sweet faith thy prayers can never fail
In that high Heaven where thou hast been assumed;
And with this hope my spirit newly plumed
Strives upward, like a weary dove in sight
Of her lost refuge, steering by the light
Wherewith thy name hath silently illumed
The Church below, cheering the gradual night
The world hath forced upon the primal day
299
Till patient yearning should retrieve the past,
May bless thee for the succour of thy ray!
The light is vocal, wavering on the glass;—
The jewel midway in the braided hair,
The eyes, the lifted hand, are speaking there,
And o'er the lips the argent quiverings pass.
She sings! she sings! but thirsty silence drinks
The heavenly sound before its burden sinks
Into my listening ear. Hail, Mary, hail!
Hail thou that art the haven of the heart
Accessible in all our moods, a veil
Obscuring not, but gifted to impart
New aspects of the Cross: though sin erase
That Sign from Heaven, before our downcast eyes,
Which fall on thee, its sweet reflection lies
Like a soft shadow in a moonlit place.
Hail, Mary, hail! O Wondrous Mother! pray
To thy dear Son who takes our sins away!
| Sir Lancelot | |