University of Virginia Library

PREFATORY THOUGHTS.

A DIALOGUE.

A.—
The Church with her deep mysteries and rites
Portray'd in semblance of Cathedral aisles,
With pillar'd shades of stone, and cloistral walks,
Deadens and stiffens our expansive thoughts
Of her ethereal essence, casing them
In dead cold marble; every finite form
That would set forth a nature infinite
Must circumscribe it.

B.—
Yes, in that design
Your argument was straiten'd to that mould,
But so the Church is oft disclos'd to man,
As a material Temple wrought of stones:
Yet often as a glorious living Form.

A.—
Then might we not in verse delineate
A vision of the Bride invisible,
In Heavenly grace and beauty warm with life,
With Saints and Angels peopling all her courts?
The secret struggles of the pilgrim soul,
And accidents that throng this mortal course
Oft Holy Writ reveals as living things,—
Spirits of good and evil. Angel forms
Tend on the Cradle and the Tomb of Christ,
And at His Judgment-seat come forth to view.

B.—
Such a device seems of a scope too vast,
Of nature too ethereal to embrace
In mould and language of poetic thought.

A.—
The portraitures in these old cloistral books
Have bodied forth to meet the eye of sense
Stores of divinest wisdom: these might range
To aid our new conception, and thus wed
Painting with poesy; and haply stand
As storied walls of a Baptismal cell,
Or bring around a mimic theatre,
Shifting the sceneries of pictur'd life,
And shew as in a mirror things of Heaven.

B.—
You scarce could weed from out this varied field
(Which seems a wilderness of type and thought)
Emblems of Roman worship, but therein
The microscopic eye of fear or hate
Would spy some poisonous herb, and thence would arm
Her venom'd barbs against you.

A.—
Such vain talk
I heed not,—taking all religious care
That nought be left that bears the taint of ill
To injure blameless souls; for much I fear
That e'en the tokens of her piety,
The rosary, the amice, cowl, and veil,
Are so allied with evil, that they seem
As deeply steep'd in some enchanter's well,
And not in Holy Baptism. What forbids,
But e'en from shades where baneful weeds lie hid,
I still may gather flowers, and bid them grow
In the home vineyard of our mother Church?
These symbols have I gaz'd on long and oft,
Threading their morals and their mysteries,
Beguil'd therein to deeper—holier thoughts.
And surely heart-expanding Charity,
If aught she finds that ministers to good,
To others would like instruments supply.
These scenes are eloquent beyond all words,
For objects pleading through the visual sense
Are stronger than discourses to the ear,
More powerfully they reach and move the soul.

B.—
But grant no sign of Rome in these appears;—
Yet these appeals to the more sensual eye
Do savour of her worship; in her courts
Imagination holds too high a place,
Leagued with material things, and charms the heart
Prone to idolatry, unconscious glides
To sense from spirit; upward to ascend
Is hard; it is on earth to live in Heaven.

A.—
Yes, dangers on each side beset our road;
When zeal, imbued with puritanic leaven,
Clogs up heart-easing Heaven-born poesy,
The soul thus stifled breeds dark mutinies,
Irreverence, irreligion, hollow words,
Hypocrisies; yet on the other side
Let loose it runs on to material things,
And blends with sensuous idolatry.
The Church, 'tis thought, is wakening through the land,
And seeking vent for the o'erloaded hearts
Which she has kindled,—pours her forth anew,—
Breathes life in ancient worship,—from their graves
Summons the slumbering Arts to wait on her,
Music and Architecture, varied forms
Of Painting, Sculpture, and of Poetry;
These are allied to sense, but soul and sense
Must both alike find wing and rise to Heaven;
Both soul and body took the Son of man,
Both soul and body must in Him serve God.

B.—
If lowliness of heart and reverent faith
Be with us, we through these conflicting tides,
May reach our Heavenly haven; if these guides
Be wanting, we alike shall fail at last,
Whether we stretch our canvass to the gale,
Or creep along the shore: yet in these days
I would hold back and fear. There are, 'tis said,
Spirits abroad impatient of our Church,
Her weakness and her children's, which is great,
Or driven by harshness to unfilial thoughts,
And yearn for union with intruding Rome.

A.—

B.—
All this I doubt not; and the uncouth shapes,
Harsh-featur'd oft and quaint and rude of limb,
Wherein her stores of wisdom she retains,
Are hallow'd by severe antiquity.
But who with modern lessons such would blend?
And look you here; now these are fearful sights,
Monstrous, ill-shap'd, and gaunt, and terrible,
From which this gentle Age with lifted hands
Will turn, and 'gainst thy volume close the door.

A.—
This Age needs them the more. Self-loving Times,—
Which fain would from religion crop the flower,
And leave the thorns behind,—require the more,
That we should not omit that bitter part
Which in each healthful chalice blends below.

B.—
Yes, if design could match the dreadful theme,
And execution match design: yet here
There is put forth no breathing eloquence,
No stern embodying of inspirèd thought,
Which could it meet the thoughtful gaze of men
Would fill the eyes with tears, the breath with sighs,
Like rain and winds upon the stagnant lake,
And so amend the heart.

A.—
Such eloquence
Each to himself must minister; and oft
Doubtless a heart, yearning for things of Heaven,
Hath fed on storied walls, o'er cottage hearth,
And rude embroideries of quaint device,
Which Taste would mock at. Pure religious care
Would strive to wed performance with design,
Till both give birth to heart ennobling thought,
Full of high adoration. Yet ne'er yet
Could warmest rhetoric of high discourse,
Nor earnest fear with gravest eloquence,
So form the picture e'en of that dread Day,
But while meek spirits tremble, others scoff
Or cavil, or at phrase or doctrine carp,
Bringing God's herald to their judgment-seat
And not themselves before the throne of God.
One well we know hath given such utterance
To the deep flood of his own fervent thoughts,
That seem'd to us some stream of Paradise,
Flowing o'er Eden's gems of golden thought,
Troubled indeed, and strong, and passionate,
But such as flow'd from 'neath the throne of God—
Of Judgment and of Baptism and of Sin.
And when our hearts in trembling silence long
Stored deep his words, and were bow'd down to earth,
Nor wish'd to be uplifted; then we found
'Twas the light theme of after-dinner talk,
Chance meetings by the way, debate, and strife,
And controversial whisp'rings; tender souls
So pitiful forsooth, and full of care
Lest that their brethren's spirits be cast down
By theme so terrible, and over-wrought!
Alas, in them no fear of such despair!

B.—
I grant it; yet I doubt if these rude shapes
Are themes of wholesome terror; haply such
Might be envelop'd in the cloud and shade,
Or set in outline; such thus dimly seen
Are oft more eloquent; the mind supplies
Its own Diviner language, and fills up
The picture: Painting it is said hath less,
The statue more, of breathing poesy.

A.—
Yes, for strong passion oft when left half-told
Breathes inspiration and true eloquence,
Far more than many words: and it were well
If thus our limner could portray these shapes,
That they should stand reveal'd in outline dim,
More statue-like, more full of poetry;—
Or half withdraw from sight, and clothe in shade,
For night and darkness is their fit abode.
And thus in Holy Writ such vision comes,
With spirits, where the stars are gleaming through
Their bodiless and pure ethereal forms.
But if Sin puts on shape to meet the eye,
These hideous forms, or foul deformities,
Most meetly speak her qualities and frame;
For such is Sin in God's creation fair,
Foul treason 'gainst the Majesty of Heaven,
Against all goodness, beauty, harmony;
Monsters, dark creeping things, and hideous snakes,
In nature are the types which speak her forms.
And sure much harmful influence is wrought,
By those proud spirits of the later age
Who throw heroic grandeur o'er the shape
Of the Arch-Evil One,—in dread sublime
Throning him, as that bard we may admire
But cannot love.

B.—
Still some, as well you know,
Esteem'd for wisdom among those we love,
Shrink from this language to the eye display'd,
And cannot but disprove.

A.—
This thought full long
Shook my strong purpose, much creating doubt;
But now no more, by judgments strong outweigh'd
And sacred reasonings. Minds of various men
Are variously attemper'd; in the soul
There is an eye and ear, as in the frame,
Attun'd or not attun'd to harmonies;
Some more than others catch responding notes
Of sound or language. Some from tongue and pen
Banish all figure, comprehend it not:
Others read wisdom through similitudes,
Through medium of external sign and form,
Their speech by nature rich with images.
And this, if I with reverence so may speak,
Is God's own language; yea, that Eastern tongue
Which He hath chosen to converse with man
Is form'd of symbols. Is not all His world
And all His word one speaking parable,
Speaking to sense of things invisible?
All things with Him are double, each event
Doth throw its shadow forward; all His word
Is a full store of countless images,
Who knows them best is most Divinely wise.

B.—
Those figures are of God, but yours of man.
Yet grant such is God's teaching; still, methinks,
Should we enshrine these forms uncouth and strange
In spiritual temples of the inner mind,
We should do wrong to pure immortal Truth,
Blending it with such semblance mean and poor.

A.—
All earthly things are poor to speak Divine:
For what are types that set forth things of God,
Moses to Jesus, or the Ark to Heaven?
What is the ruin which on Sodom rains,
Or armies compassing lost Sion's walls,
To that great Dooms-day which they harbinger?
Poor shadows all of dread reality.
Language suggests, the feeding eye receives,
And healthful minds convert to aliment,
Th' unhealthy turn to bane; hence sickly souls,
And those replenish'd with immortal bloom.
A graver question haunts me—

B.—
Should a child
Drink in these lessons with a greedy eye
And in the dreadful stillness of dead night
Cry out,—of fearful forms and eyes uncouth
That fright his slumbers:—

A.—
You have truly touch'd
But cloth'd in fairer utterance the thought
That moves me;—better far that Ocean's depths
Should overwhelm our pictur'd themes, than we
Offend Christ's little ones: yet much I doubt
If objects that affright the tender mind
Make it to fall, nay, sometimes cause to stand,
And nothing here I trust may find a shape
That so should terrify; for I prefer
Judgments of Childhood to the worldly wise
As less by bias sway'd.

B.—
Well, if so be
The test is easy, here Murcutio comes
Along th' embowering walk, where evening shades
Fall, and the purple clouds are trooping by.

A.—
Him would I make my judge.

B.—
You have in him
Both judge and advocate; for all these things
Partake of those wild tales which Childhood loves,
Of haunted castles and enchanted lore.
Who has not conn'd, and with Aladdin's lamp
Wander'd through tales of Araby, and scenes
Of watery realms conceal'd beneath the sea,
Beauteously terrible; or Spenser's world
Of sword and spear ethereal! These, methinks,
Touch Childhood as akin to the unseen,
The infinite and wild that speak of Heaven,—
The image hid in chambers of the heart
Which pants for the ideal, in a soul
Fresh from the hands of God: but here he comes.

A.—
Mercutio, you and I these pictured scenes
Have often trac'd together, and have touch'd
On deep grave themes, until we pass'd to thoughts
That left us musing and in better worlds,
With such a winning interest that seem'a
To set your sports behind, and for awhile
Left you more thoughtful:—think you this design
Is such as would affright you, or create
Visions of fear? have ever such remain'd
Sleeping or sleepless hanging on your thoughts,
And our discourse appear'd to rise in dreams
Making night terrible? See this dread scene
The Day of final doom.

M.—
I think that these
Might issue from the limner's hand, so wrought
As not to terrify: no more than sights
In Gothic aisles and old Cathedrals dim,
Which sickness might invest with her own hues
Of terror,—no more than at dead of night
When Contemplation summons up the theme
Of the great Judgment. Words of Holy Writ,—
Of the undying worm and place of fire—
Will oft stand forth with power unknown before,
When night and darkness bring the unseen near.

A.—
How fraught with grave instruction is this scene!
How eloquent! how full of warning thought!
Look here, this is the great Archangel's trump
Which Scripture speaks of; and observe that here
The centre and circumference is this,
That all hearts shall be open'd;—and this mark,
'Tis made throughout to hang on this alone,
Whether we have lov'd God, or have lov'd self;
These are the mirrors wherein souls are seen,
These are the books, on this the scale depends:
This is announc'd to the Eternal years:
See, Virtue looks alone upon this love,
And these now pass unharm'd into the Sun
Of Glory: here note the designer's skill
To mark the King and Queen when crownless now,—
They issue from deep-rended monuments,
Which bear the stamp of ancient Royalties.

M.—
And are they blessed? we would have them so,
Kings have been Martyrs.

A.—
It would seem that these
Arise too late, the blessed now are gone,
“The dead in Christ rise first.” The painter means
Christ's kingdom is the poor's. And here is one
Torn from the blessed, and who bids his friends
A long farewell! But let us dwell no more
On the dread scene;—we now have power to choose

M.—
Sure these must reach the heart; and oftentimes
When I pursued them step by step with you,
I seem'd to drink in sermons full of thought.
They differ from th' enchanted tales in this,
Those terrify but soothe not; these of yours
Of terror yet of sure protection speak:
These terrors are but wholesome thoughts of crime,
These enemies are sins,—the shield is God.

A.—