The Baptistery, or the way of eternal life :: :: University of Virginia Library

Is this the Holy Church on earth,
Which nothing earthly taints;
Jerusalem of heavenly birth;
The City of the Saints;
Wisdom's true house, and seven-fold pillar'd halls,
Whose streets are by good Angels trod,
Her boundaries th' eternal walls,
Her gates that lead alone unto the throne of God?
E'en so proclaims th' unnumber'd tongue
A thousand years along.

2.

O mystery of mysteries!
O Salem worthy of a Saviour's tears!
For what are these idolatries,
Nurs'd in thy hidden courts and open skies?
Is this the City of the light where this black pall appears?
That he who runs may read on thee
Something of fearful mystery.

237

3.

Then art thou that dread Power on seven hills,
Where deep imbedded, 'neath ancestral halls,
The air some monster dead with foul contagion fills?
Where evil spirits haunt the walls,
And the old Serpent finds a home,
And hides him in the relics dark of old imperial Rome?
There coil'd beneath that ancient Capitol
Doth he again his deadly length unroll,
The woman's seed in his embrace to fold,
A deeper empire still in souls of men to hold?
E'en so proclaims th' unnumber'd tongue
The flowing years along.

4.

O mystery of mysteries!
For where hath e'er Devotion drunk so deep
Of penitential sighs?
Where with so grave a tone hath true Love learn'd to weep?
Can Antichrist so oft to prayer and vigil call,
And with the depths of holiness the sinner's heart appal?

5.

Yet what are things we hear of thee,
The things we hear and see?
That she who made the kingdom known,—
A thousand idol-shrines hath overthrown,—
Now teems herself with dark idolatry.
A thousand Martyrs' bones within her bosom lie;

238

But her own hands are stain'd with blood
Of Christian brotherhood!
She who the faith hath guarded well
As in a holy Citadel,
Worships her God enshrin'd in local space,
As in a carnal resting-place.

6.

O name most holy, yet most sinful, styl'd,
Most glorious and yet most defil'd!
Most haughty, yet most lowly still,—
O mystery unspeakable!

7.

Wonderful sight for good or ill!
Whose very name men's deepest hearts doth thrill
For love or hate;
She seems the judgment of our God to wait.
O keep me, Christ, to gaze upon this mystery,
And yet unharm'd pass by:—
Where Thou hast set to do Thy secret will,
Bidding me in Thine own appointed state
Await Thy sentence, and be still.

8.

I will not speak of thee with scorn,
Lest I Christ's very Bride, the Ancient-born,
Yea, His own awful Spirit, have revil'd.
I will not cease o'er thee to mourn,
Lest I with Christ's own foe at last be reconcil'd.

239

II.

1.

O lead me to thy Martyrs' tomb, O gently lead,
Thou City of the Dead;
I would forget thee what thou art
To learn of thee as thou hast been:
Let that high vision not depart.
O gently lead me to thy haunts unseen;
Let me through all thy secret caverns wind;
Leave sounds of earth and ruder thoughts behind,
Lest they disturb the mystery
Which lingers o'er the cells wherein their ashes lie.

2.

Peace to the shrines wherein they sleep!
Walk softly, gently by,
Lest thou shouldst break the memories deep
Wherein they buried lie;
Each word doth mar some holy spell,
Or crumble hallow'd dust from off their silent cell.

3.

O quiet stillness, yet how deep,
How imperturb'd, and dead the gloom!
Is this in arms of Christ to sleep?—
To thee we yearn, O Rome, O Rome,
As exiles to their home,
Wilt thou not here be reconcil'd?
Erring thyself receive thine erring child,—
Each own herself by sin and hate defil'd,
And o'er each other weep,
Lock'd once again in one embrace
In this thy Martyrs' resting-place?

240

4.

Stay, stay awhile, for see afar
Twilight let in, like nightly star,
Opens the shades,—in calm profound
Keeping her watch on holy ground.
Pil'd in their beds they sleep around;
Cells of the dead, which on each side
Amid their scant memorials hide;
As haste and terror could entomb
In the deep-cavern'd catacomb:
Where the rough mortar in the gloom
Holds some mute emblem, which might plead
Their hope in dying, or their need.

5.

The Martyr's Heaven-beseeching mood,
And hands in praying attitude;
Letters uncouth, or symbols rude,
In outline dimly character'd;
The Cross, the palm, the fish, the bird,—
The bird which flies and finds release
Bearing the olive-branch of peace;—
The hart, where cooling waters flow,
With antler'd forehead bending low;—
The courser speeding to the goal
As to eternity the soul;
They seem Faith's watchers at the grave,
Their hallow'd resting-place to save;
Whose voices in the bosom heard
A thousand echoes there have stirr'd.

6.

What is this vase with stains imbued?
It is the holy Martyr's blood;

241

This is the sponge that drank the gore,
This is the urn that keeps the store:
O blest memorials lying by,
And he whose dust doth with them lie.
But who is he? and what his name?
What deeds shall him in Judgment claim?
What were his pains? and what the life
Which had prepar'd him for the strife?

7.

See signals here of love bereft,
By artless haste in sorrow left?
And still their rudely-carv'd farewell
Speaks of the things tongue cannot tell;
While at their graves her watch doth keep
Silence unutterably deep;
Symbols which at Death's portal dwell
Speak words that are unspeakable;—
Bring to the heart things hid from view,
The language of the world where all is true.

8.

A litte onward;—on each side
The dormitory ranges wide
In storied mansions, where to view
The subterranean avenue
Opes branching shades, and still anew
The pale light breaks in to illume
Some rude memorial in the gloom,
And draws the footsteps to a tomb.

9.

Far onward yet, where Twilight dim
Seems her faint-glimmering lamp to trim.

242

Now finish'd more the marble stone
Hath ta'en the impress, and makes known
Their story or their faith sublime;
Memorials wrought in breathing time:
When ling'ring love to them hath turn'd,
As Persecution feebler burn'd;—
With more of art, of nature less,
More beauty, less impressiveness.

10.

Now spreads the deep sepulchral glade
To shrines retir'd in cavern'd shade;
Walls, which some pictur'd tale in wreathe,
With living inspiration breathe.
The Shepherd on his shoulders brings
His long-lost sheep: or Jonah springs
From Resurrection's ocean womb,
Cast new-born from his watery tomb.
Here Noah from his house of wood,
Upon the watery solitude,
Puts forth his hand, to welcome home
The dove that shall no longer roam,
With olive rudely manifest
Her welcome to that ark of rest.
Here Christ by the sepulchral cave,
With voice omnipotent to save:
Here 'mid the lions Daniel prays;
Here walk the Princes three in the unharming blaze.

11.

Like echoes from their tombs around
Such living lessons seem to bound;

243

Reverberating on they pass,
Responsive borne from grave to grave,
And die afar upon the wave
Of some Baptismal fountain deep,
Where in a distant shrine dark waters sleep.

12.

Still on and onward, without end,
Like the dim moonlight, ways extend:
Shrines, cells, and tombs together press,
A subterranean wilderness,
Branching on all sides without bound,
City of Churches underground;
The empire of the silent dead
Christ's ancient Kingdom's quiet bed.
O resting-places of the good,
How peopled is your solitude!
How deep, intense, and calm the prayer
From shrines and altars hidden there!
How solemn is the requiem said
Within the City of the Dead
Where every shrine is but a tomb,
Each Altar speaks of martyrdom.

13.

Darkness itself doth with them dwell
By silence made more terrible:
As when Night lets her curtain fall,
The stars in the aerial hall
Come forth to sight, and stand around,
Ineffable, august, profound.

244

In calm wild watches, stern and still,
The Dead around the twilight fill.

14.

Far in the fear-inspiring gloom
They hide their awful face in Expectation's womb,
Yet find a voice, and seem to say,
Out of the deep to Thee I call,
The deep sepulchral hall;
As they who watch for dawning day,
We wait Thy coming in, Thou Everlasting ray.

III.

1.

Here where Death holds his silent court,
Did youthful Jerome erst resort;
Through Sunday evenings musing long,
A living guest the dead among:
For Sabbath thoughts O suited well!
Here feelings drank unspeakable,
Which through his after life diffuse
Philosophy of sabler hues;
By stern and pensive sadness bred,
The wisdom which is with the dead.
O Saints and Martyrs ever blest,
This is the Sabbath of your rest,—
Where shall we learn such wisdom high
As in your silent company?

2.

And scenes like these were sure the home
Of the true bard of Martyrdom;

245

Such,—the last conflicts of the good,
Whose deaths have peopled this abode,—
Touch'd his deep heart, and fill'd his tongue,
When “grave and great” Prudentius sung.

3.

Here, from the terrors of the grave,
The new-born Church with power to save
Issued, as from a shrouding cave:
Like that fam'd Antioch's martyr-maid,
As by the Painter's art display'd,—
Meek Margaret in calmness treading
Upon the dragon, 'neath her spreading
His scaly length in death extended,
His hell-eyes on her fiercely bended,
She in the gloom of lurid night
Treads, like an Angel of the light.

4.

By his own arms subdued, the foe
Doth now his martyr-fires forego;
But with the martyr's soul imbued
Religion drank her sterner mood,
And rising in immortal mould
The Cross did for her anchor hold,
Peopling with Saints the courts of Heaven,
To whom that virgin soul was given
Which learns a daily death to die,
That so their prayers from earth might readier reach the sky.

246

5.

Thence Rome, at her Apostle's tomb
And grave of Martyrs, did assume
Her attitude and form divine,
Girding herself with discipline.
Here her deep fountains would I sound,
Her ancient fountains under ground.
While all around corruption clings,
Here would I turn to clearer springs,—
That lake with all its thousand rills,
Which, unpolluted, there distils
Amid the mist-enshrouded hills,
Where calmly on them seems to press
Something of everlastingness.

6.

In Time's dark hidden womb,
That seems itself to mantle from our sight,
Silence and the sepulchral damp
The Church's cradle hides, the Mother of all light.
And in the darkness of the Martyr's tomb,
I too would light my lamp
To guide me onward to the Day of doom.

7.

Nothing of earth around doth stir,
Stillness and subterranean shade
Her Saints doth sepulchre.
In darkness are her pillars laid,
And her eternal walls are there,
Founded in the obscure of night;
As mists on clouded mountain height

247

Cradle some mighty river's birth
'Mid the foundations of the earth.

8.

Silence and gloom, and night profound,
In you a spirit breathes around!
It is to know the dead are near,
And Christ before Whom they appear:
Therefore the dark doth our dim sense astound,
Deep underground.

9.

When dreariness itself doth seem most drear,
When darkest is the thunder-cloud,
Then unseen worlds do seem most near,
And in the tempest's shroud
Suddenly break upon the eye and ear,
'Mid blackest mountains echoing loud.

10.

Clouds and thick darkness are His dwelling-place,
And night His tabernacle;
As Moses when he saw His faee,
Where everlasting shades around Him dwell;
Blackness around and night profound
His mantle skirts had bound.

11.

From the thick sable of the tomb,
Wrapt in impenetrable gloom,
Unutterably silent doom,
The Everlasting day is born,
As night precedes the morn.

248

12.

Darkness is stable 'neath His feet,
His goings are a cloud,
In dead of night the soul her God must meet,
And in the grave, which night and silence shroud.
His footsteps in dark waters are,
Ten thousand fathoms deep,
Where Ocean's fountains sleep,
Nor Sun nor Moon nor Stars are gleaming there.

13.

Lord, in this night be Thou my guide,
Lead Thou me on through these dark shadowy lands;
Through wilderness of tombs on every side
I wander in the dark, and stretch forth feeble hands.
O let me hold Thee, be my guiding Star,
Hold Thou my hand, while step by step afar
I seek Thy light; until these shadows flee
Let me but feel Thee near, and follow Thee.