University of Virginia Library

‘Father, my quiet life hath lain
In the hollows where the dews and rain
From one day into another remain,
Cold and green. One sin alone
Up through my peace like a thorn hath grown:
I have tried to be humble in vain; I've thought
More of my gifts than a poor child ought;
I have believed to me was given
The powers of the Saints—of miracles even;
And I fear me Jesu hath sent his leven
To burn away the crown of pride
That, try as I might, I never could hide.
And to bear the great God's chastening,
With the bodily sense, is a fearful thing!

‘Father dear, last night I woke
As a hand was gently laid on me,
And a soft voice close beside me spoke:
“Good brother, brother Anthony,
A king is dying here close by,
Aud wants thy ghostly aid.” I rose
Upon mine elbow 'mazedly;
This beggar-voice, whose could it be?
Who could have come where no path goes,
Among the shingle and birks that close
My cell about? A faint light made
By the moon there was, and across it a shade
Moved; from behind me a face right fair
Suddenly stooped, half hid by its hair,
Yet round the white brow might be seen
A fretted gold thread. “Come, brother,” quoth he,
“Or death before us may have been”——
“Nay, I ween it must not be:
To deal out God's body to the dying,
To sain the soul through the dark night flying,
I'm powerless. I'm no priest: go round
To the Clerk of Isenford.” “That ground
I travelled now; but it is said
That yesternight the clerk is dead.”
“Then mount ye the hill to the cenoby.”
“Time is too short,” he made reply;
And got the better of me then,
I thought myself singled out among men,
Appointed by the Saints to do
This holy thing: I rise and go;
The pax ye left last yule with me
I put in my bosom hastily;
I follow him along by the river. Anon
He opened a door in a garden wall,
And muttered some words I can't recall,
Then stept we down long steps of stone,
Still down and evermore downwards—dark
It was, and yet I heard, by chance,
As we spoke together, the early lark;
Anon it seemed as if I must dance,
Not walk, so giddy and light was I;
And then there seemed to be houses round,
Unsteadily resting on the ground,
As if they but seemed, and might change or fly;
With pictures were they painted o'er,
And settles stood by every door.
Past these we went, I following him,
The heavy heat making my head to swim
As if I were drunken. Then came a sound,
The regular chaunt of a litany—
Doubtless to Hecat or Venus—and they
Who chanted it were seen nowhere,
Neither on ground nor in the air:
Nor was there green field or blue sky,
Or tree or stream, but all was brown,
And flames like lamps leapt up and down:
Nor saw I aught living in doublet or gown,
Till we came to the market-place, where stood,
Instead of a cross, an image of wood,
A huge-faced image, with ass's ears,
And horns and a tongue and eyes full of leers,
Bodyless, only a block, whence grew
Lopped arms and shameless parts—before
The image flickered a flame dark blue,
And round it, hand in hand, a score
Of dark brown men and women ran,
Naked as devils: I tried to ban;
I had no book or cross, but the pax,
With the blessed body sealed in silver and wax!
The pax was gone, and that was how
They gained such power upon me now.
My winsome guide laid hold on me,
Capering as if his bare feet were on thorns;
But the beauty, I trow, was quite gone now—
I saw he too had horns!
Oh, had I at the first but seen
The fire in his eyen—oh, well had it been!
Alas! how they did pierce and play
About me and into me, into my heart!
And the place wherever he made them dart
Was lit up by a quivering gleam,
Like that from sunlit glass or stream.
I turned and ran; but round and round
Still danced the fiends till I fell in a swound,
And I woke anon where about me, I trow,
Was kingly ornament enow:
On a couch of gold, on a tiger's hide,
I lay, and a creature meek and mild,
Wimpled like a sister of Transatide,
Smoothed my hair down like a child,
And laid my face against her side.
Oh, but it was strange and new,
The unrest that within me grew:
I believed her a sister—some glamour,
Some smoke of the pit, some nameless power,
Was there; but I prevailed at last!
Her arms about my head she cast;
“I am a princess,” the serpent said,
Ere you arrived was my father dead;
And you must now rule here, for I
Can give you knowledge and sovereignty,
With a crown to cover your tonsured head.”;
Woe's me! I listened, sorry and sad
That she was a devil or I was mad:
I lay still and listened, and then she drew
From a small red distaff that stood by itself,
And moved to her hand like a living elf,
A fine green thread she cunningly threw
Around me and round. Then a can of green flame
Or of wine—I knew not whence it came—
She called it wine—to my mouth she pressed,
And whispered so softly, “Drink now, and rest.”
I was wearing to sleep, and my lips were dry;
A want, not of will, but of energy,
Was saving me, till at last she sung—
Thank thee, O thou foolish red tongue!
Is there a better place over the sky?
Is there a fairer race living on high?
Is there a hell, can any man tell?
For he knoweth nought when the shroud is wrought;
But I've heard it said by the midday breeze,
In the churchyard trees, and by the grey seas,
Upon midsummer night, when the moon is in flight,
That Paradise is but a shade
Made by the evening clouds in the air,
A delusion and a snare.
So brother dear, oh, harbour here,
And live with me; for a mortal year
Will be nothing to thee, if thou wilt not tine
The offer of my bright green wine.
I tried right sore, but no word could say,
While she touched me, that accursed May,
With her thread and her wine,—I feared them now,
And she knew the fear upon my brow;
I saw her trembling through her hair,
And then at once I was aware
That she was changed or gone; for there,
Instead of her, another stood,
Also clad in a wimple and hood;
My book and my beads, with the little black rood,
She held towards me, and she sung
With a sharp clear voice, and a bright red tongue:
Nay, look not so, for it grieves us mo'
Than I can tell, and of heaven and hell,
What they are made of, and where they lie,
And how to find them by-and-by,
Thou shalt teach, and we shall hear—
I broke upon her silly song
By grasping at the hallowed gear;—
Ah, when I found it in my grasp,
The rood was changed into an asp.
But the thread was broken, and I was strong,
For I struggled up and out of her reach;
I found my voice,—that vile asp tried
To get into my mouth,—but three times I cried
Upon the name of Christ—the wall
About me splits, and the devils fall
And break like images of board,—
Such is the power of the name of the Lord!
‘Long I threaded the streets about,
That I might find some pathway out;
Nor could I tell the west from east:
So I was lost. By many a door
Fallen, and many a settle before,
The naked creatures broken lay,
Like sculptor's fragments cast away.
And yet their eyes could follow me,
Although they could not move or turn;
I stumbled over them; I could spurn
Their breasts and limbs,—but those wide-open eyes!
Ah, me! at last I saw on high
This hill against the morning sky;—
Was it not hard from thence to see
This chapel at hand, and between it and me—
Enchantment—like a wall of glass,
It seemed I never, never could pass?
Then I remembered the spell whereby
The possessed wherever they list can fly;
That spell brother Lupus, cursed be he!
Brought from the pagans of Sicily:
And I was lifted from the ground,
Bats and ribbed things clipping me round,
And thrown down; then, oh! such a race
I ran,—for everything gave me chase,
Wolves, moles, birds, stones, hosts of flies;
And the faces of women and men I know
Died many and many a year ago,
Kept up with me, their white, light eyes
Close to my face; all vampires, so
They bit my neck, they sucked my blood,
They caught my ankles, they twisted my hood,
And at last—at last they stole
My senses; without sense I ran,
Like a jointed frame without a soul;
Yet I knew the joints, alas! began
To double and crack;—but oh! God's bliss!
About my feet a stream doth hiss,
The cold, running stream, and I am free,
With daylight, father, and with thee!’

When the stricken child had thus confessed,
Humbly he crossed his hands on his breast,
Waiting. The abbot raised his eyen,
That closèd this half-hour had been,
And answered: ‘Thy name, Anthony,
Was once borne by a Saint; if so
It be with thee as with him, and mo',
Whom Jesu put in Satan's power
To bait them for a day and hour,
It doth behove thee back to go
Into thy hermitage again;
And if from grace thou art astray,
Anthony, gird thyself amain
With prayer and fast; this penance do,
And when thou vanquishest the foe,
Thou shalt rule, and I obey!’

He turned about, but the kneeling man
Caught the skirt of his camlet and began
To wail like the stork in the fowler's hand:
‘Father! aught but this demand
Let me but live in the cenoby,
And penance day and night I'll dree;
Send me not to live alone—’
‘The will of God, my will be done!’
Querulously the old man cried,
And thrust the penitent aside.

The sound of their parting steps is gone,
His heart sinks like his knees on the stone,
The asperging drops still shine on his head,
The smoke of the censer scarce is shed;
For they brought him hither with chant and bell,
Relics and incense-pot as well.
His long thin hands together are prest,
Finger to finger before his breast
Through their closed lids you may see
His eyeballs moving restlessly,
As if he listened with shut eyes,
For thus the senses sympathise!
And now he sings, but far to find
Is every rhyme he would unwind:

He stops, forgetting the rest; the lamp
Through its misty nimbus crackles; a tramp
Is heard without, a laugh and a call;—
He answers not: against the wall
All round the bigging the knocking goes,
From west to east as a witch-dance flows:
Then up on the thatch it begins to scratch;
There's a long thin line seen crossing the shrine,
Mistier still in the thickening damp;
By its dainty thread right over his head,
A spider spins, for a moment it stops,
Then right upon his bald head drops.
Ah! he comes as he came before,—
Only since they sprinkled the latch,
And set that cross upon the door,
He must enter by the thatch!
Anthony fell like a murdered man,
And that long-legged imp-spiderling ran
Over his face: now raised on his hands
He stares about, the hour-glass stands
Right upon end with its drizzling sands,
And the friendly mort-head, round and round
Rolls about with a crazy sound,
A gasping creak, it tries to speak,
Eyeballs from its caves gleam out!
The horns—the horns begin to sprout!

Next morn betimes they came to see
How fared their young brother Anthony,
But he was gone, nor could they trace
His footsteps nor his resting-place.

'Tis well to spend the wintry day
Of age from tumults quite away:
When love is past, and we leave off strife,
Having long borne our lots in life.
Answering the daily need,
With brand and buckler to conquer or bleed;
Or for the burgher's watch so drear,
Filling the wallet with good cheer,
Or in the booth or market-stand
Where moil befits both tongue and hand:
But work is heavy from morn to eve,
With sorrow still watching behind like a reeve,
And the only shelter sure and fair
Is the cloister and cowl to the man of care,
To the man upon whom the great black hand
Of chastening waxeth tight, whose head
Is bowed, so he no more can stand
In the guild-hall he aforetime led.
Nor less to him who wickedly
Seeketh temptations, the lusts of the eye
And the pride of life; for surely God
Lends the heart a worm, the back a rod,
To punish those forgetting Him;
And His punishments are grim!
Abasing the haughty in velvet and fur,
Who hold their foreheads against the thunder,
And laugh to see the patched poor wonder,
Who travel with riders before and behind,
Riding over the halt and blind,
Who empty the stoup with the wassailer,
Over the chamber of the dying,—
Who wear the night with dice and lying,
Lying and cursing over the dice,
And to the chirp of the violette,
With a headless amorette
Dance until the cock crows thrice.

There was a time when Saints were rife,
Whose cross was ever their staff of life;
From Camelot to Egypt's river,
Blessings fell from Gabriel's quiver;
Nor was it wonderful to see
The holy rood stoop down to greet
The worshipper whose heart was sweet,
Whose deeds and thoughts did well agree,—
Who never dropt his beads to scratch,
Though his cassock was as coarse as thatch:
This age was likened to the sun
Upholding life since time begun.

Then glorious still, though glorious less,
The second age of holiness,
Was likened to the harvest-moon,
Whose sweet white face doth wane so soon.

Then came the third last age of light;
Darker it was, yet grand and bright,
Like the company of stars by night.

But sun, and moon, and stars are gone,
And we the watchers left alone
With no more cheer than candlewick
Through a horn lantern, yellow and thick.
So now in the race, for one who wins,
Six shall stumble with wounded shins;
For the rood is stiff whoever kneels,
And God never stops His chariot wheels,
Nor looks out of His narrow window,
Over the drifts and steeps of snow;
But Satan for a thousand years
Has gotten a lease of our hopes and fears—
To catch men's souls by their eyes and ears.
Let us everyone beware
Little faith or overcaring,
Pride of heart or overdaring,
Lest we come within his snare.

In after years on that spot grew
Cloisters of stone all fair and new:
And Camaldules at least five-score
Lived where these few had housed before;
Then in the guest-hall oft was told
This story of the times of old,
And of a beggar-man, who lay
With crutch and cup by night and day,
Begging and muttering before
Saint Peter's great west door.
This beggar, when aught was flung in his cup,
If 'twas not silver would grumble and grutch,
And strive to raise his body up,
To reach the almoner with his crutch!
Then as the midnight struck, they said,
He lay stretched out as if he were dead,
When a hornèd stranger, strong and grim,
Through the locked city-gate came toward him,
And took his daily spoils away.
Some thought him a Saint, and gave him food
Day by day, as Christians should;
But others averred that Satan had
Sworn him his slave and driven him mad,
And that his name was Anthony.
But whether he was the same who fled
From his cell that night can never be said.