D. H. S. Nicuotson.

WN, det, Joe bisoe
2 RICHARD ROLLE OF HAMPOLE
I Lufe es thoght, wyth grete desyre, of a fayre louyng ; Lufe I lyken til a fyre pat sloken may na thyng ; Lufe vs clenses of oure syn, lufe vs bote sall bryng ; Bea pe keynges hert may wyn, lufe of ioy may syng.
Il Pe settel of lufe es lyft hee, for in til heuen it ranne ;
Pe bede of blysse it gase ful nee, I tel pe as I kanne,
Pof vs thynk pe way be dregh ; luf co ils god & manne,
Iv (is es hatter pen pe cole, lufe may nane be-swyke ; Pe flawme of lufe wha myght it thole, if it war ay I-lyke? Luf vs comfortes, & mase in qwart, & lyftes tyl heuen-ryke; Lut rauysches Cryste in tylowr hert, I wate na lustitlyke.
v
Lere to luf, if pou wy] lyfe when pou sall hethen fare. All pi thoght til hym pou gyf, pat may pe kepe fra kare ; Loke pi hert fra hym noght twyn, if pou in wandreth ware, Sa pou may hym welde & wyn and luf hym euer-mare.
vI
Thesu pat me lyfe hase lent, In til pi lufe me bryng, Take til pe al myne entent, pat pow be my 3hernyng. Wa fra me away war went & comne war my couytyng, If pat my sawle had herd & hent pe sang of pi louyng.
louyng] object of love, beloved sloken] quenc bote] remedy _settel] seat _—lyft] lifted hee] high __ sle] deceit-
ful? bede]bed? neejnigh pof]Though dregh] long hatter] hotter be-swyke] deceive thole] bear I-lyke]
the same mase in qwart] makes healthy heuen-ryke heaven’s kingdom lust] desire Lere] Learn nothes| hence twyn] separate in wandreth ware] shouldst be in trouble welde] possess lent] given 3hernyng] desire hent] grasped, apprehended
RICHARD ROLLE OF HAMPOLE 3
VII Pi lufe es ay lastand, fra bat we may it fele : Pare-in make me byrnand, pat na thyng gar it kele. My thoght take in to pi hand, & stabyl it ylk a dele, Pat I be noght heldand to luf pis worldes wele.
VIII If I lufe any erthly thyng pat payes to my wyll, & settes my ioy & my lykyng when it may com me tyll, I mai drede of partyng, pat wyll be hate and yll: For al my welth es bot wepyng, when pyne mi saule sal
spyll.
Ix Pe ioy pat men hase sene, es lyckend tyl be haye, Pat now es fayre & grene, and now wytes awaye. Swylk es pis worlde, I wene, & bees till domes-daye, All in trauel & tene, fle pat na man it maye.
x If pou luf in all pi thoght, and hate pe fylth of syn, And gyf hym bisawle pat it boght, pat he pe dwell with-in: Als Crist pi sawle hase soght & per-of walde noght blyn, Sa pou sal to blys be broght, & heuen won with-in.
XI Pe kynd of luf es pis, par it es trayst and trew: To stand styll in stabylnes, & chaunge it for na new. Pe lyfe }at lufe myght fynd or euer in hert it knew, Fra kare it tornes pat kyend, & lendes in myrth & glew,
fra pat] from the time that gar it kele] may cause it to cool ylk a dele] every whit, completely [lit. every one part] heldand] inclined payes to] pleases hate] grievous pyne] pain spyll] destroy haye] grass ready for mowing wytes] passes Swylk] such tene] affliction pat... it] which blyn] cease won] dwell —_ kynd] nature, quality par] when trayst] faithful pe lyfe] The man, the soul kyend] nature, quality lendes] places glew] joy
4 RICHARD ROLLE OF HAMPOLE
XII
for now lufe pow, I rede, Cryste, as I pe tell:
And with aungels take pi stede—pat ioy loke pou noght sell !
In erth pow hate, I rede, all pat pi lufe may fell :
For luf es stalworth as pe dede, luf es hard as hell.
XII
Luf es a lyght byrthen, lufe gladdes 3ong and alde, Lufe es with-owten pyne, als lofers hase me talde ; Lufe es a gastly wynne, pat makes men bygge & balde, Of lufe sal he na thyng tyne pat hit in hert will halde.
XIV
Lufe es pe swettest thyng pat man in erth hase tane, Lufe es goddes derlyng, lufe byndes blode & bane.
In lufe be owre lykyng, Ine wate na better wane,
For me & my lufyng lufe makes bath be ane.
xv
Bot fleschly lufe sal fare as dose pe flowre in may,
And lastand be na mare pan ane houre of a day,
And sythen syghe ful sare par lust, par pride, par play, When pai er casten in kare, til pyne pat lastes ay.
XVI
When pair bodys lyse in syn, pair sawls mai qwake & drede: For vp sal ryse al men, and answer for pair dede ;
If pai be fonden in syn, als now pair lyfe pai lede,
Pai sall sytt hel within, & myrknes hafe to mede.
For now] Therefore rede] advise stede] place fell} abate pe dede] death gastly] spiritual wynne] wine bygge] strong tyne] lose wane] dwelling sythen]
afterwards syghe] lament myrknes] darkness
RICHARD ROLLE OF HAMPOLE 5
XVII Riche men pair handes sal wryng, & wicked werkes sal by In flawme of fyre bath knyght & keyng, with sorow schamfully. If pou wil lufe, pan may pou syng til Cryst in melody, Pe lufe of hym ouercoms al thyng, parto pou traiste trewly.
XVIII [1] sygh & sob, bath day & nyght, for ane sa fayre of hew. Par es na thyng my hert mai light, bot lufe, pat es ay new. Wha sa had hym in his syght, or in his hert hym knew, His mournyng turned til ioy ful bryght, his sang in til glew.
XIX In myrth he lyfes, nyght & day, pat lufes pat swete chylde: It es Ihesu, forsoth I say, of all mekest & mylde. Wreth fra hym walde al a-way, pof he wer neuer sa wylde ; He pat in hert lufed hym, pat day fra euel he wil hym schylde. XX Of Ihesu mast lyst me speke, pat al my bale may bete. Me thynk my hert may al to-breke, when I thynk on pat swete. In lufe lacyd he hase my thoght, pat I sal neuer forgete : Ful dere me thynk he hase me boght, with blodi hende & fete. XXI For luf my hert es bowne to brest, when I pat faire behalde. Lufe es fair pare it es fest, pat neuer will be calde. Lufe vs reues pe nyght rest, in grace it makes vs balde ; Of al warkes luf es pe best, als haly men me talde.
by] pay dearly for hew] form, aspect turned] would turn Wreth] Anger pof] though bale] woe bete] amend lacyd] caught hende] hands
bowne to brest] ready to burst reues}] bereaves
6 RICHARD ROLLE OF HAMPOLE
XXII
Na wonder gyf I syghand be & sipen in sorow be sette : Ihesu was nayled apon pe tre, & al blody for-bette ;
To bynk on hym es grete pyte, how tenderly he grette— Pis hase he sufferde, man, for pe, if pat pou syn wyll lette.
XXIII Pare es na tonge in erth may tell of lufe pe swetnesse ; Pat stedfastly in lufe kan dwell, his ioy es endlesse. God schylde pat he sulde til hell pat lufes & langand es, Or euer his enmys sulde hym qwell, or make his luf be lesse ! XXIV
Thesu es lufe pat lastes ay: til hym es owre langyng ;
Thesu pe nyght turnes to pe day, pe dawyng in til spryng.
Thesu, pynk on vs, now & ay: for pe we halde oure keyng;
Thesu, gyf vs grace, as pou wel may, to luf pe with-owten endyng.
ANONYMOUS trsth century Quia Amore Langueo N the vaile of restles mynd I sowght in mownteyn & in mede, trustyng a treulofe for to fynd: vpon an hyll than toke I hede ; a voise I herd (and nere I yede) in gret dolour complaynyng tho, “see, dere soule, my sydes blede Quia amore langueo.’ for-bette] scourged grette] wept lette] leave
sulde] should [go] qwell] destroy, slay dawyng] dawn spryng] day-spring nere] nearer yede] went
ANONYMOUS
Vpon thys mownt I fand a tree; vndir thys tree a man sittyng ; from hede to fote wowndyd was he, hys hert blode I saw bledyng ; A semely man to be a kyng, A graciose face to loke vnto. I askyd hym how he had paynyng, he said, ‘ Quia amore langueo.’ I am treulove that fals was neuer ; my sistur, mannys soule, I loued hyr thus ; By-cause I wold on no wyse disseuere, I left my kyngdome gloriouse ; I purueyd hyr a place full preciouse ; she flytt, I folowyd, I luffed her soo that I suffred thes paynés piteuouse Quia amore langueo.
My faire love and my spousé bryght, I saued hyr fro betyng, and she hath me bett ; I clothed hyr in grace and heuenly lyght, this blody surcote she hath on me sett ; for langyng love I will not lett ; sweté strokys be thes, loo ; I haf loued euer als I hett, Quia amore langueo.
I crownyd hyr with blysse and she me with thorne, I led hyr to chambre and she me to dye; I browght hyr to worship and she me to skorne, I dyd hyr reuerence and she me velanye. To love that loueth is no maistrye, hyr hate made neuer my love hyr foo; ask than no moo questions whye, but Quia amore langueo. hett] promised
ANONYMOUS
Loke vnto myn handys, man! thes gloues were geuen me whan I hyr sowght ; they be nat white, but rede and wan, embrodred with blode my spouse them bowght ; they wyll not of, I lefe them nowght, I wowe hyr with them where euer she goo ; thes handes full frendly for hyr fowght, Quia amore langueo.
Maruell not, man, thof I sitt styll, my love hath shod me wordyr strayte ; she boklyd my fete as was hyr wyll with sharp nailes, well thow maist waite ! in my love was neuer dissaite, for all my membres I haf opynd hyr to; my body I made hyr hertys baite,
Quia amore langueo.
In my syde I haf made hyr nest, loke, in me how wyde a wound is here! this is hyr chambre, here shall she rest, that she and I may slepe in fere. here may she wasshe, if any filth were ; here is socour for all hyr woo ; cum if she will, she shall haf chere, Quia amore langueo.
I will abide till she be redy, I will to hyr send or she sey nay ; If she be rechelesse I will be gredi, If she be dawngerouse I will hyr pray. If she do wepe, than byd I nay ; myn armes ben spred to clypp hyr to3 crye onys, ‘I cum!’ now, soule, assaye ! Quia amore langueo. waite] take heed baite] enticement, nourishment
in fere] together dawngerouse] difficult of approach, haughty
ANONYMOUS 9
I sitt on an hille for to se farre, I loke to the vayle, my spouse I see ; now rynneth she awayward, now cummyth she narre, yet fro myn eye syght she may nat be; sum waite ther pray, to make hyr flee, I rynne tofore to chastise hyr foo ; Tecouer, my soule, agayne to me, Quia amore langueo.
My swete spouse, will we goo play ? apples ben rype in my gardine ; I shall clothe the in new array, thy mete shall be mylk, honye, & wyne, now, dere soule, latt us go dyne, thy sustenance is in my skrypp, loo! tary not now, fayre spousé myne, Outa amore langueo.
Yf thow be fowle, I shall make thee clene, if thow be seke, I shall the hele ; yf thow owght morne, I shall be-mene ; spouse, why will thow nowght with me dele? thow fowndyst neuer love so lele ; what wilt thow, sowle, that I shall do? I may of vnkyndnes the appele, Quia amore langueo.
What shall I do now with my spouse ? abyde I will hyre iantilnesse ; wold she loke onys owt of hyr howse of flesshely affeccions and vnclennesse ; hyr bed is made, hyr bolstar is in blysse, hyr chambre is chosen, suche ar no moo; loke owt at the wyndows of kyndnesse, Quia amore langueo. farre] farther narre] nearer B3
10 ANONYMOUS
Long and love thow neuer so hygh, yit is my love more than thyfi may be; thow gladdyst, thow wepist, I sitt the bygh, yit myght thow, spouse, loke onys at me! spouse, shuld I alway fede the with childys mete ? nay, love, nat so! I pray the, love, with aduersite, Qutia amore langueo.
My spouse is in chambre, hald 3oure pease! make no noyse, but lat hyr slepe ; my babe shall sofre noo disease, I may not here my dere childe wepe, for with my pappe I shall hyr kepe ; no wondyr thowgh I tend hyr to, thys hoole in my side had neuer ben so depe, but Quia amore langueo.
Wax not wery, myfi owne dere wyfe ! what mede is aye to lyffe in comfort ? for in tribulacion, I ry more ryfe ofter tymes than in disport ; In welth, in woo, euer I support ; than, dere soule, go neuer me fro! thy mede is markyd, whan thow art mort, in blysse ; Quia amore langueo.
It
ROBERT SOUTHWELL 11561-1595
I dye alive
LIFE! what letts thee from a quicke decease? O death! what drawes thee from a present praye? My feast is done, my soule would be at ease, My grace is saide; O death! come take awaye.
I live, but such a life as ever dyes ;
I dye, but such a death as never endes ; My death to end my dying life denyes,
And life my living death no whitt amends.
Thus still I dye, yet still I do revive ; My living death by dying life is fedd ;
Grace more then nature kepes my hart alive, Whose idle hopes and vayne desires are deade,
Not where I breath, but where I love, I live; Not where I love, but where I am, I die; The life I wish, must future glory give, The deaths I feele in present daungers lye.
Of the Blessed Sacrament of the Aulter
HE angells’ eyes, whome veyles cannot deceive, Might best disclose that best they do descerne; Men must with sounde and silent faith receive More then they can by sence or reason lerne ; God’s poure our proofes, His workes our witt exceede, The doer’s might is reason of His deede.
12 ROBERT SOUTHWELL
A body is endew’d with ghostly rightes ; And Nature’s worke from Nature’s law is free ; In heavenly sunne lye hidd eternall lightes, Lightes cleere and neere, yet them no eye can see ; Dedd formes a never-dyinge life do shroude ; A boundlesse sea lyes in a little cloude.
The God of hoastes in slender hoste doth dwell, Yea, God and man with all to ether dewe, That God that rules the heavens and rifled hell, That man whose death did us to life renewe : That God and man that is the angells’ blisse, In forme of bredd and wyne our nurture is.
Whole may His body be in smallest breadd, Whole in the whole, yea whole in every crumme ; With which be one or be tenn thowsand fedd, All to ech one, to all but one doth cumme; And though ech one as much as all receive, Not one too much, nor all too little have.
One soule in man is all in everye part ;
One face at once in many mirrhors shynes ; One fearefull noyse doth make a thowsand start ; One eye at once of countlesse thinges defynes ;
If proofes of one in many, Nature frame, God may in straunger sort performe the same.
God present is at once in everye place, Yett God in every place is ever one ; So may there be by giftes of ghostly grace, One man in many roomes, yett filling none: Sith angells may effects of bodyes shewe, God angells’ giftes on bodyes may bestowe.
13
HENRY CONSTABLE 21562-? 1633
To the Blessed Sacrament
HEN thee (O holy sacrificed Lambe)
In severed sygnes I whyte and liquide see, As on thy body slayne I thynke on thee, Which pale by sheddyng of thy bloode became.
And when agayne I doe behold the same Vayled in whyte to be receav’d of mee, Thou seemest in thy syndon wrapt to bee Lyke to a corse, whose monument I am.
Buryed in me, vnto my sowle appeare,
Pryson’d in earth, and bannisht from thy syght,
Lyke our forefathers who in lymbo were,
Cleere thou my thoughtes, as thou did’st gyve them light, And as thou others freed from purgyng fyre
Quenche in my hart the flames of badd desyre.
JOSHUA SYLVESTER
The Father
LPHA and Omega, God alone: Eloi, My God, the Holy-One ; Whose Power is Omnipotence : Whose Wisedome is Omni-science : Whose Beeing is All Soveraigne Blisse ; Whose Worke Perfection’s Fulnesse is ; Under All things, not under-cast ; Over All things, not over-plac’t ;
1563-1618
JOSHUA SYLVESTER
Within All things, not there included ; Without All things, not thence excluded : Above All, over All things raigning ; Beneath All, All things aye sustayning :
Without All, All conteyning sole:
Within All, fiiing-full the Whole: Within All, no where comprehended ;
Without All, no where more extended ;
Under, by nothing over-topped :
Over, by nothing under-propped :
Unmov’d, Thou mov’st the World about; Unplac’t, Within it, or Without: Unchanged, time-lesse, Time Thou changest : Th’ unstable, Thou, still stable, rangest ;
No outward Force, nor inward Fate,
Can Thy drad Essence alterate :
To-day, To-morrow, yester-day, With Thee are One, and instant aye; Aye undivided, ended never : To-day, with Thee, indures for-ever.
Thou, Father, mad’st this mighty Ball; Of nothing thou created’st All,
After th’ dea of thy Minde, Conferring Forme to every kinde.
Thou wert, Thou art, Thou wilt be ever: And Thine Elect, rejectest never.
15
JOHN DONNE 1573-1631
Sonnet
ATTER my heart, three person’d God; for, you As yet but knocke, breathe, shine, and seeke to mend: That I may rise, and stand, o’erthrow mee,’and bend Your force, to breake, blowe, burn and make me new. I, like an usurpt towne, to’another due, Labour to’admit you, but Oh, to no end, Reason your viceroy in mee, mee should defend, But is captiv’d, and proves weake or untrue. Yet dearely’I love you,’and would be loved faine, But am betroth’d unto your enemie: Divorce mee,’untie, or breake that knot againe, Take mee to you, imprison mee, for I Except you’enthrall mee, never shall be free, Nor ever chast, except you ravish mee.
From ‘The Crosse’
HO can blot out the Crosse, which th’instrument Of God, dew’d on mee in the Sacrament? Who can deny mee power, and liberty To stretch mine armes, and mine owne Crosse to be? Swimme, and at every stroake, thou art thy Crosse ; The Mast and yard make one, where seas do tosse; Looke downe, thou spiest out Crosses in small things ; Looke up, thou seest birds rais’d on crossed wings ; All the Globes frame, and spheares, is nothing else But the Meridians crossing Parallels. Material Crosses then, good physicke bee, But yet spirituall have chiefe dignity. These for extracted chimique medicine serve, And cure much better, and as well preserve ;
16 JOHN DONNE
Then are you your own physicke, or need none, When Still’d, or purg’d by tribulation.
For when that Crosse ungrudg’d, unto you stickes, Then are you to your selfe, a Crucifixe.
As perchance, Carvers do not faces make,
But that away, which hid them there, do take ; Let Crosses, soe, take what hid Christ in thee, And be his image, or not his, but hee.
Resurrection, imperfect
LEEP sleep old Sun, thou canst not have repast
As yet, the wound thou took’st on friday last ; Sleepe then, and rest ; The world may beare thy stay, A better Sun rose before thee to day, Who, not content to’enlighten all that dwell On the earths face, as thou, enlightned hell, And made the darke fires languish in that vale, As, at thy presence here, our fires grow pale. Whose body having walk’d on earth, and now Hasting to Heaven, would, that he might allow Himselfe unto all stations, and fill all, For these three daies become a minerall ; Hee was all gold when he lay downe, but rose All tincture, and doth not alone dispose Leaden and iron wills to good, but is Of power to make even sinfull flesh like his. Had one of those, whose credulous pietie Thought, that a Soule one might discerne and see Goe from a body,’at this sepulcher been, And, issuing from the sheet, this body seen, He would have justly thought this body a soule, If not of any man, yet of the whole.
Desunt catera
JOHN DONNE 17
Goodfriday, 1613. Riding Westward
ET mans Soule be a Spheare, and then, in this, The intelligence that moves, devotion is,
And as the other Spheares, by being growne Subject to forraigne motions, lose their owne, And being by others hurried every day, Scarce in a yeare their naturall forme obey : Pleasure or businesse, so, our Soules admit For their first mover, and are whirld by it. Hence is’t, that I am carryed towards the West This day, when my Soules forme bends toward the East, There I should see a Sunne, by rising set, And by that setting endlesse day beget ; But that Christ on this Crosse, did rise and fall, Sinne had eternally benighted all. Yet dare I’almost be glad, I do not see That spectacle of too much weight for mee. Who sees Gods face, that is selfe life, must dye; What a death were it then to see God dye? It made his owne Lieutenant Nature shrinke, It made his footstoole crack, and the Sunne winke. Could I behold those hands which span the Poles, And turne all spheares at once, peirc’d with those holes ? Could I behold that endlesse height which is Zenith to us, and our Antipodes, Humbled below us? or that blood which is The seat of all our Soules, if not of his, Made durt of dust, or that flesh which was worne By God, for his apparell, rag’d, and torne ? If on these things I durst not looke, durst I Upon his miserable mother cast mine eye, Who was Gods partner here, and furnish’d thus Halfe of that Sacrifice, which ransom’d us?
18 JOHN DONNE
Though these things, as I ride, be from mine eye,
They’are present yet unto my memory,
For that looks towards them; and thou look’st towards mee,
O Saviour, as thou hang’st upon the tree ;
I turne my backe to thee, but to receive
Corrections, till thy mercies bid thee leave.
O thinke mee worth thine anger, punish mee,
Burne off my rusts, and my deformity,
Restore thine Image, so much, by thy grace,
That thou may’st know mee, and I’ll turne my face
44 Hymne to Christ, at the Authors last going into Germany
N what torne ship soever I embarke, That ship shall be my embleme of thy Arke; What sea soever swallow mee, that flood Shall be to mee an embleme of thy blood ; Though thou with clouds of anger do disguise Thy face; yet through that maske I know those eyes, Which, though they turne away sometimes, They never will despise.
I sacrifice this Iland unto thee, And all whom I lov’d there, and who lov’d mee ; When I have put our seas twixt them and mee, Put thou thy sea betwixt my sinnes and thee. As the trees sap doth seeke the root below In winter, in my winter now I goe, Where none but thee, th’Eternall root Of true Love I may know,
JOHN DONNE 19
Nor thou nor thy religion dost controule, The amorousnesse of an harmonious Soule, But thou would’st have that love thy selfe: As thou Art jealous, Lord, so I am jealous now, That lov’st not, till from loving more, thou free My soule: Who ever gives, takes libertie :
O, if thou car’st not whom I love
Alas, thou lov’st not mee.
Seale then this bill of my Divorce to All, On whom those fainter beames of love did fall; Marry those loves, which in youth scattered bee On Fame, Wit, Hopes (false mistresses) to thee. Churches are best for Prayer, that have least light: To see God only, I goe out of sight :
And to scape stormy dayes, I chuse
An Everlasting night.
PHINEAS FLETCHER
The Divine Lover
I E Lord ? can’st thou mispend One word, misplace one look on me? Call’st me thy Love, thy Friend? Can this poor soul the object be Of these love-glances, those life-kindling eyes? What? I the Centre of thy arms embraces? Of all thy labour I the prize? Love never mocks, Truth never lies. Oh how I quake: Hope fear, fear hope displaces : I would, but cannot hope: such wondrous love amazes.
1580-1650
2c PHINEAS FLETCHER
II
See, I am black as night, See I am darkness: dark as hell. Lord thou more fair than light ; Heav’ns Sun thy Shadow; can Sunns dwell With Shades ? ’twixt light, and darkness what commerce ? True: thou art darkness, I thy Light: my ray Thy mists, and hellish foggs shall pierce. With me, black soul, with me converse. I make the foul December flowry May, Turn thou thy night to me: [le turn thy night to day.
Ill
See Lord, see I am dead : Tomb’d in my self: my self my grave A drudge: so born, so bred: My self even to my self a slave. Thou Freedome, Life: can Life, and Liberty Love bondage, death? Thy Freedom I: I tyed To loose thy bonds: be bound to me: My Yoke shall ease, my bonds shall free. Dead soul, thy Spring of life, my dying side : There dye with me to live: to live in thee I dyed.
ROBERT HERRICK rt 1591-1674 Eternitie YEARES ! and Age! Farewell + Behold I go, Where I do know Infinitie to dwell.
ROBERT HERRICK 21
And these mine eyes shall see All times, how they Are lost i’? th’ Sea
Of vast Eternitie.
Where never Moone shall sway The Starres ; but she, And Night, shall be
Dzown’d in one endlesse Day.
FRANCIS QUARLES 1592-1644
Christ and Our Selves
WISH a greater knowledge, then t’attaine
The knowledge of my selfe: A greater Gaine Then to augment my selfe; A greater Treasure Then to enjoy my selfe: A greater Pleasure Then to content my selfe ; How slight, and vaine Is all selfe-Knowledge, Pleasure, Treasure, Gaine ; Vnlesse my better knowledge could retrive My Christ; unles my better Gaine could thrive In Christ; unles my better Wealth grow rich In Christ; unles my better Pleasure pitch On Christ; Or else my Knowledge will proclaime To my owne heart how ignorant I am: Or else my Gaine, so ill improv’d, will shame My Trade, and shew how much declin’d I am; Or else my Treasure will but blurre my name With Bankrupt, and divulge how poore I am; Or else my Pleasures, that so much inflame My Thoughts, will blabb how full of sores I am: Lord, keepe me from my Selfe; ”Tis best for me, Never to owne my Selfe, if not in Thee.
22 FRANCIS QUARLES
My beloved is mine, and T am his ; He feedeth among the lilies
V’N like two little bank-dividing brooks, That wash the pebbles with their wanton streams, And having rang’d and search’d a thousand nooks, Meet both at length in silver-breasted Thames, Where in a greater current they conjoin: So I my best-beloved’s am ; so he is mine.
Ev’n so we met ; and after long pursuit, Ev’n so we joyn’d; we both became entire ; No need for either to renew a suit, For I was flax and he was flames of fire : Our firm-united souls did more than twine; So I my best-beloved’s am ; so he is mine.
If all those glitt’ring Monarchs that command The servile quarters of this earthly ball, Should tender, in exchange, their shares of land, I would not change my fortunes for them all: Their wealth is but a counter to my coin: The world’s but theirs; but my beloved’s mine.
Nay, more; If the fair Thespian Ladies all Should heap together their diviner treasure : That treasure should be deem’d a price too small To buy a minute’s lease of half my pleasure ; *Tis not the sacred wealth of all the nine Can buy my heart from him, or his, from being mine, Nor Time, nor Place, nor Chance, nor Death can bow My least desires unto the least remove ; He’s firmly mine by oath; I his by vow; He’s mine by faith; and I am his by love; He’s mine by water; I am his by wine, Thus I my best-beloved’s am ; thus he is mine.
FRANCIS QUARLES 23
He is my Altar; I, his Holy Place ; I am his guest ; and he, my living food ; I’m his by penitence ; he mine by grace ; I’m his by purchase ; he is mine, by blood ; He ’s my supporting elm; and I his vine; Thus I my best beloved’s am; thus he is mine.
He gives me wealth ; I give him all my vows: I give him songs; he gives me length of dayes; With wreaths of grace he crowns my conqu’ring brows, And I his temples with a crown of Praise, Which he accepts as an everlasting signe, That I my best-beloved’s am; that he is mine.
GEORGE HERBERT 1593-1632
Laster Song
GOT me flowers to straw Thy way, I got me boughs off many a tree ; But Thou wast up by break of day, And brought’st Thy sweets along with Thee.
The sunne arising in the East,
Though he give light, and th’ East perfume, If they should offer to contest
With Thy arising, they presume.
Can there be any day but this,
Though many sunnes to shine endeavour? We count three hundred, but we misse: There is but one, and that one ever,
24 GEORGE HERBERT
Affliction Y heart did heave, and there came forth ‘O God!’ By that I knew that Thou wast in the grief, To guide and govern it to my relief, Making a scepter of the rod : Hadst Thou not had Thy part, Sure the unruly sigh had broke my heart.
But since Thy breath gave me both life and shape, Thou know’st my tallies ; and when there’s assign’d So much breath to a sigh, what’s then behinde ? Or if some yeares with it escape, The sigh then onely is A gale to bring me sooner to my blisse.
Thy life on earth was grief, and Thou art still Constant unto it, making it to be A point of honour now to grieve in me, And in Thy members suffer ill. They who lament one crosse,
Thou dying dayly, praise Thee to Thy losse.
Man
Y God, I heard this day That none doth build a stately habitation But he that means to dwell therein. What house more stately hath there been, Or can be, then is Man ? to whose creation All things are in decay.
GEORGE HERBERT 25
For Man is ev’ry thing,
And more: he isa tree, yet bears no fruit ; A beast, yet is, or should be, more : Reason and speech we onely bring ;
Parrats may thank us, if they are not mute,
They go upon the score.
Man is all symmetrie, Full of proportions, one limbe to another, And all to all the world besides ; Each part may call the farthest brother, For head with foot hath private amitie, And both with moons and tides.
Nothing hath got so farre But Man hath caught and kept it as his prey ; His eyes dismount the highest starre ; He is in little all the sphere ; Herbs gladly cure our flesh, because that they Find their acquaintance there,
For us the windes do blow, The earth doth rest, heav’n move, and fountains flow ; Nothing we see but means our good, As our delight or as our treasure ; The whole is either our cupboard of food Or cabinet of pleasure.
The starres have us to bed, Night draws the curtain, which the sunne withdraws ; Musick and light attend our head, All things unto our flesh are kinde In their descent and being ; to our minde In their ascent and cause.
26 GEORGE HERBERT
Each thing is full of dutie: Waters united are our navigation 3 Distinguished, our habitation ; Below, our drink; above, our meat ; Both are our cleanlinesse. Hath one such beautie? Then how are all things neat !
More servants wait on Man Than he’! take notice of : in ev’ry path He treads down that which doth befriend him When sicknesse makes him pale and wan. Oh mightie love! Man is one world, and hath Another to attend him.
Since then, my God, Thou hast So brave a palace built, O dwell in it, That it may dwell with Thee at last! Till then afford us so much wit, That, as the world serves us, we may serve Thee, And both Thy servants be.
Dialogue
Man
WEETEST Saviour, if my soul Were but worth the having, Quickly should I then controll Any thought of waving. But when all my cares and pains Cannot give the name of gains To Thy wretch so full of stains, What delight or hope remains ?
GEORGE HERBERT
Saviour What, childe, is the ballance thine, Thine the poise and measure? If I say, ‘ Thou shalt be Mine,’ Finger not My treasure. What the gains in having thee Do amount to, onely He Who for man was sold can see ; That transferr’d th’ accounts to Me.
Man
But as I can see no merit Leading to this favour, So the way to fit me for it Is beyond my savour. As the reason, then, is Thine, So the way is none of mine: I disclaim the whole designe ; Sinne disclaims and I resigne.
Saviour That is all :—if that I could Get without repining ; And My clay, My creature, would Follow my resigning ; That as I did freely part With my glorie and desert, Left all joyes to feel all smart——-
Man Ah, no more: Thou break’st my heart.
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28
GEORGE HERBERT
Clasping of Hands ORD, Thou art mine, and I am Thine, If mine Iam; and Thine much more Then I or ought or can be mine. Yet to be Thine doth me restore, So that again I now am mine, And with advantage mine the more, Since this being mine brings with it Thine, And Thou with me dost Thee restore : If I without Thee would be mine, I neither should be mine nor Thine.
Lord, Iam Thine, and Thou art mine ; So mine Thou art, that something more I may presume Thee mine then Thine, For Thou didst suffer to restore Not Thee, but me, and to be mine: And with advantage mine the more, Since Thou in death wast none of Thine, Yet then as mine didst me restore : O, be mine still ; still make me Thine ; Or rather make no Thine and Mine.
The Pulley HEN God at first made man, Having a glasse of blessings standing by
- Let us,’ said He, ‘ poure on him all we can ;
Let the world’s riches, which dispersed lie,
Contract into a span.’
So strength first made a way ;
Then beautie flow’d, then wisdome, honour, pleasure ;
When almost all was out, God made a stay, Perceiving that, alone of all His treasure,
Rest in the bottome lay.
GEORGE HERBERT 29
‘ For if I should,’ said He, ‘ Bestow this jewell also on My creature, He would adore My gifts in stead of Me, And rest in Nature, not the God of Nature: So both should losers be.
‘ Yet let him keep the rest, But keep them with repining restlesnesse ; Let him be rich and wearie, that at least, If goodnesse leade him not, yet wearinesse May tosse him to My breast.’
The Elixer
EACH me, my God and King, In all things Thee to see, And what I do in any thing To do it as for Thee.
Not rudely, as a beast, To runne into an action ;
But still to make Thee prepossest, And give it his perfection.
A man that looks on glasse, On it may stay his eye ;
Or if he pleaseth, through it passe, And then the heav’n espie.
All may of Thee partake : Nothing can be so mean
Which with his tincture, ‘fur Thy sake,’ Will not grow bright and clean.
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GEORGE HERBERT
A servant with this clause Makes drudgerie divine ;
Who sweeps a room as for Thy laws Makes that and th’ action fine.
This is the famous stone That turneth all to gold;
For that which God doth touch and own Cannot for lesse be told.
The Collar
STRUCK the board, and cry’d, ‘ No more ;
I will abroad.’ What, shall I ever sigh and pine? My lines and life are free ; free as the rode, Loose as the winde, as large as store. Shall I be still in suit? Have I no harvest but a thorn To let me bloud, and not restore What I have lost with cordiall fruit? Sure there was wine Before my sighs did drie it ; there was corn Before my tears did drown it. Is the yeare onely lost to me ? Have I no bayes to crown it, No flowers, no garlands gay? all blasted, All wasted? Not so, my heart ; but there is fruit, And thou hast hands. Recover all thy sigh-blown age On double pleasures ; leave thy cold dispute Of what is fit and not; forsake thy cage, Thy rope of sands,
GEORGE HERBERT 31
Which pettie thoughts have made; and made to thee Good cable, to enforce and draw, And be thy law, While thou didst wink and wouldst not see. Away! take heed ; I will abroad. Call in thy death’s-head there, tie up thy fears; He that forbears To suit and serve his need Deserves his load. But as I rav’d and grew more fierce and wilde At every word, Me thought I heard one calling, ‘ Childe’; And I reply’d, ‘ My Lord.’
CHRISTOPHER HARVEY 1597-1663
The Nativity
NFOLD thy face, unmaske thy ray, Shine forth, bright Sunne, double the day. Let no malignant misty fume, Nor foggy vapour, once presume To interpose thy perfect sight This day, which makes us love thy light For ever better, that we could That blesséd object once behold, Which is both the circumference, And center of all excellence : Or rather neither, but a treasure Unconfinéd without measure, Whose center and circumference, Including all preheminence,
32 CHRISTOPHER HARVEY
Excluding nothing but defect, And infinite in each respect, Is equally both here and there, And now and then and every where, And alwaies, one, himselfe, the same, A beeing farre above a name. Draw neer then, and freely poure Forth all thy light into that houre, Which was crownéd with his birth, And made heaven envy earth. Let not his birth-day clouded be, By whom thou shinest, and we see.
RICHARD CRASHAW 11613-1649
‘Tam not worthy that thou should’st come under my roofe.’ HY God was making hast into thy roofe, Thy humble faith, and feare, keepes him aloofe: Hee’] be thy guest, because he may not be, Hee’l come—into thy house? no, into thee.
The Recommendation
HESE Houres, and that which hovers o’re my End, Into thy hands, and hart, lord, I commend,
Take Both to Thine Account, that I and mine In that Hour, and in these, may be all thine.
That as I dedicate my devoutest Breath To make a kind of Life for my lord’s Death,
So from his living, and life-giving Death, My dying Life may draw a new, and never fleeting Breath.
RICHARD CRASHAW
To the Name above every Name, the Name of Fesus
A HYMN
SING the Name which None can say But touch’t with An interiour Ray: The Name of our New Peace ; our Good: Our Blisse : and Supernaturall Blood : The Name of All our Lives and Loves, Hearken, And Help, ye holy Doves! The high-born Brood of Day; you bright Candidates of blissefull Light, The Heirs Elect of Love ; whose Names belong Unto The everlasting life of Song ; All ye wise Soules, who in the wealthy Brest Of This unbounded Name build your warm Nest. Awake, My glory. Soul, (if such thou be, And That fair Word at all referr to Thee) Awake and sing And be All Wing; Bring hither thy whole Self ; and let me see What of thy Parent Heavn yet speakes in thee, O thou art Poore Of noble Powres, I see, And full of nothing else but empty Me, Narrow, and low, and infinitely lesse Then this Great mornings mighty Busynes, One little World or two (Alas) will never doe. We must have store. Goe, Soul, out of thy Self, and seek for More, Goe and request Great Nature for the Key of her huge Chest
MYST. (o
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34 RICHARD CRASHAW
Of Heavns, the self involving Sett of Sphears (Which dull mortality more Feeles then heares) Then rouse the nest Of nimble Art, and traverse round The Aiery Shop of soul-appeasing Sound : And beat a summons in the Same All-soveraign Name To warn each several] kind And shape of sweetnes, Be they such As sigh with supple wind Or answer Artfull Touch, That they convene and come away To wait at the love-crowned Doores of This Illustrious Day. Shall we dare This, my Soul ? we’l doe’t and bring No Other note for’t, but the Name we sing. Wake Lute and Harp And every sweet-lipp’t Thing That talkes with tunefull string ; Start into life, And leap with me Into a hasty Fitt-tun’d Harmony. Nor must you think it much T’obey my bolder touch ; I have Authority in Love’s name to take you And to the worke of Love this morning wake you ; Wake; In the Name Of Him who never sleeps, All Things that Are, Or, what’s the same, Are Musicall ; Answer my Call And come along ; Help me to meditate mine Immortall Song. Come, ye soft ministers of sweet sad mirth, Bring All your houshold stuffe of Heavn on earth ;
RICHARD CRASHAW 35
O you, my Soul’s most certain Wings, Complaining Pipes, and prattling Strings, Bring All the store Of Sweets you have; And murmur that you have no more. Come, nére to part, Nature and Art! Come ; and come strong, To the conspiracy of our Spatious song. Bring All the Powres of Praise Your Provinces of well-united Worlds can raise ; Bring All your Lutes and Harps of Heavn and Earth; What ére cooperates to The common mirthe Vessells of vocall Ioyes, Or You, more noble Architects of Intellectuall Noise, Cymballs of Heav’n, or Humane sphears, Solliciters of Soules or Eares ; And when you’are come, with All That you can bring or we can call; O may you fix For ever here, and mix Your selves into the long And everlasting series of a deathlesse Song ; Mix All your many Worlds, Above, And loose them into One of Love. Chear thee my Heart ! For Thou too hast thy Part And Place in the Great Throng Of This unbounded All-imbracing Song. Powres of my Soul, be Proud ! And speake lowd To All the dear-bought Nations This Redeeming Name, And in the wealth of one Rich Word proclaim New Similes to Nature.
36 RICHARD CRASHAW
May it be no wrong Blest Heavns, to you, and your Superiour song, That we, dark Sons of Dust and Sorrow, A while Dare borrow The Name of Your Dilights and our Desires, And fitt it to so farr inferior Lyres. Our Murmurs have their Musick too, Ye mighty Orbes, as well as you, Nor yeilds the noblest Nest Of warbling Seraphim to the eares of Love, A choicer Lesson then the joyfull Brest Of a poor panting Turtle-Dove. And we, low Wormes have leave to doe The Same bright Busynes (ye Third Heavens) with you. Gentle Spirits, doe not complain. We will have care To keep it fair, And send it back to you again. Come, lovely Name! Appeare from forth the Bright Regions of peacefull Light, Look from thine own Illustrious Home, Fair King of Names, and come. Leave All thy native Glories in their Georgeous Nest, And give thy Self a while The gracious Guest Of humble Soules, that seek to find The hidden Sweets Which man’s heart meets When Thou art Master of the Mind. Come, lovely Name; life of our hope! Lo we hold our Hearts wide ope ! Unlock thy Cabinet of Day Dearest Sweet, and come away. Lo how the thirsty Lands Gasp for thy Golden Showres ! with longstretch’t Hands,
RICHARD CRASHAW
Lo how the laboring Earth That hopes to be All Heaven by Thee, Leapes at thy Birth. The’ attending World, to wait thy Rise, First turn’d to eyes ; And then, not knowing what to doe ; Turn’d Them to Teares, and spent Them too. Come Royall Name, and pay the expence Of All this Pretious Patience. O come away And kill the Death of This Delay. O see, so many Worlds of barren yeares Melted and measur’d out in Seas of Teares, O see, The Weary liddes of wakefull Hope (Love’s Eastern windowes) All wide ope With Curtains drawn, To catch The Day-break of Thy Dawn. O dawn, at last, long look’t for Day ! Take thine own wings, and come away. Lo, where Aloft it comes! It comes, Among The Conduct of Adoring Spirits, that throng Like diligent Bees, And swarm about it. O they are wise ; And know what Sweetes are suck’t from out it, It is the Hive, By which they thrive, Where All their Hoard of Hony lyes. Lo where it comes, upon The snowy Dove’s
Soft Back; And brings a Bosom big with Loves.
Welcome to our dark world, Thou
Womb of Day! Unfold thy fair Conceptions; And display The Birth of our Bright Ioyes.
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38 RICHARD CRASHAW
O thou compacted Body of Blessings: spirit of Soules extracted ! O dissipate thy spicy Powres (Clowd of condensed sweets) and break upon us In balmy showrs ; O fill our senses, And take from us All force of so Prophane a Fallacy To think ought sweet but that which smells of Thee. Fair, flowry Name; In none but Thee And Thy Nectareall Fragrancy, Hourly there meetes An universall Synod of All sweets ; By whom it is defined Thus That no Perfume For ever shall presume To passe for Odoriferous, But such alone whose sacred Pedigree Can prove it Self some kin (sweet name) to Thee. Sweet Name, in Thy each Syllable A Thousand Blest Arabias dwell ; A Thousand Hills of Frankincense ; Mountains of myrrh, and Beds of species, And ten Thousand Paradises, The soul that tasts thee takes from thence. How many unknown Worlds there are Of Comforts, which Thou hast in keeping } How many Thousand Mercyes there In Pitty’s soft lap ly a sleeping! Happy he who has the art To awake them, And to take them Home, and lodge them in his Heart. O that it were as it was wont to be! When thy old Freinds of Fire, All full of Thee,
RICHARD CRASHAW 39
Fought against Frowns with smiles; gave Glorious chase To Persecutions ; And against the Face Of Death and feircest Dangers, durst with Brave And sober pace march on to meet A Grave. On their Bold Brests about the world they bore thee And to the Teeth of Hell stood up to teach thee, In Center of their inmost Soules they wore thee, Where Rackes and Torments striv’d, in vain, to reach thee. Little, alas, thought They Who tore the Fair Brests of thy Freinds, Their Fury but made way For Thee; And serv’d them in Thy glorious ends. What did Their weapons but with wider pores Inlarge thy flaming-brested Lovers More freely to transpire That impatient Fire The Heart that hides Thee hardly covers. What did their Weapons but sett wide the Doores For Thee: Fair, purple Doores, of love’s devising ; The Ruby windowes which inrich’t the East Of Thy so oft repeated Rising. Each wound of Theirs was Thy new Morning ; And reinthron’d thee in thy Rosy Nest, With blush of thine own Blood thy day adorning, It was the witt of love éreflowd the Bounds Of Wrath, and made thee way through All Those wounds, Wellcome dear, All-Adored Name! For sure there is no Knee That knowes not Thee. Or if there be such sonns of shame, Alas what will they doe When stubborn Rocks shall bow And Hills hang down their Heavn-saluting Heads To seek for humble Beds
40 RICHARD CRASHAW
Of Dust, where in the Bashfull shades of night Next to their own low Nothing they may ly, And couch before the dazeling light of thy dread majesty, They that by Love’s mild Dictate now Will not adore thee, Shall Then with Just Confusion, bow And break before thee.
4 Hymn to the Name and Honor of the Admirable Sainte Teresa
Fovndresse of the Reformation of the Discalced Carmelites, both men and Women ; a Woman for Angelicall heigth of speculation, for Masculine courage of performance, more then a woman. Who yet a child, out ran maturity, and durst plott a Martyrdome, OVE, thou art Absolute sole lord
Of Life and Death. To prove the word,
Wee’! now appeal to none of all
Those thy old Souldiers, Great and tall,
Ripe Men of Martyrdom, that could reach down
With strong armes, their triumphant crown ;
Such as could with lusty breath
Speak lowd into the face of death
Their Great Lord’s glorious name, to none
Of those whose spatious Bosomes spread a throne
For Love at larg to fill, spare blood and sweat ;
And see him take a private seat,
Making his mansion in the mild
And milky soul of a soft child. Scarse has she learn’t to lisp the name
Of Martyr; yet she thinks it shame
Life should so long play with that breath
Which spent can buy so brave a death,
RICHARD CRASHAW 41
She never undertook to know
What death with love should have to doe ; Nor has she e’re yet understood
Why to show love, she should shed blood Yet though she cannot tell you why,
She can Love, and she can Dy.
Scarse has she Blood enough to make A guilty sword blush for her sake ;
Yet has she’a Heart dares hope to prove How much lesse strong is Death then Love.
Be love but there ; let poor six yeares Be pos’d with the maturest Feares Man trembles at, you straight shall find Love knowes no nonage, nor the Mind. *Tis Love, not Yeares or Limbs that can Make the Martyr, or the man.
Love touch’t her Heart, and lo it beates High, and burnes with such brave heates ; Such thirsts to dy, as dares drink up,
A thousand cold deaths in one cup. Good reason. For she breathes All fire. Her weake brest heaves with strong desire Of what she may with fruitles wishes Seek for amongst her Mother’s kisses.
Since ’tis not to be had at home She’l travail to 4 Martyrdom.
No home for hers confesses she But where she may a Martyr be.
Sh’el to the Moores ; And trade with them, For this unvalued Diadem.
She’] offer them her dearest Breath, With Christ’s Name in’t, in change for death, Sh’el bargain with them ; and will give Them God ; teach them how to live
€3
42 RICHARD CRASHAW
In him: or, if they this deny,
For him she’] teach them how to Dy.
So shall she leave amongst them sown Her Lord’s Blood ; or at lest her own.
Farewel then, all the world! Adieu. Teresa is no more for you.
Farewell, all pleasures, sports, and ioyes, (Never till now esteemed toyes) Farewell what ever deare may be, Mother’s armes or Father’s knee. Farewell house, and farewell home! She’s for the Moores, and Martyrdom.
Sweet, not so fast! lo thy fair Spouse Whom thou seekst with so swift vowes, Calls thee back, and bidds thee come T’embrace a milder Martyrdom.
Blest powres forbid, Thy tender life Should bleed upon a barborous knife ¢ Or some base hand have power to race Thy Brest’s chast cabinet, and uncase A soul kept there so sweet, 6 no;
Wise heavn will never have it so.
Thou art love’s victime ; and must dy
A death more mysticall and high.
Into love’s armes thou shalt let fall
A still-surviving funerall.
His is the Dart must make the Death Whose stroke shall tast thy hallow’d breath ; A Dart thrice dip’t in that rich flame Which writes thy spouse’s radiant Name Upon the roof of Heav’n; where ay
It shines, and with a soveraign ray
Beates bright upon the burning faces
Of soules which in that name’s sweet graces
RICHARD CRASHAW
Find everlasting smiles. So rare, So spirituall, pure, and fair Must be th’immortall instrument Upon whose choice point shall be sent A life so lov’d ; And that there be Fitt executioners for Thee, The fair’st and first-born sons of fire Blest Seraphim, shall leave their quire And turn love’s souldiers, upon Thee To exercise their archerie.
O how oft shalt thou complain Of a sweet and subtle Pain. Of intolerable Ioyes ; Of a Death, in which who dyes Loves his death, and dyes again. And would for ever so be slain. And lives, and dyes ; and knowes not why
To live, But that he thus may never leave to Dy,
How kindly will thy gentle Heart Kisse the sweetly-killing Dart ! And close in his embraces keep Those delicious Wounds, that weep Balsom to heal themselves with. Thus When These thy Deaths, so numerous, Shall all at last dy into one, And melt thy Soul’s sweet mansion ; Like a soft lump of incense, hasted By too hott a fire, and wasted Into perfuming clouds, so fast Shalt thou exhale to Heavn at last In a resolving Sigh, and then O what? Ask not the Tongues of men. Angells cannot tell, suffice, Thy selfe shall feel thine own full ioyes
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44 RICHARD CRASHAW
And hold them fast for ever there
So soon as you first appear,
The Moon of maiden starrs, thy white Mistresse, attended by such bright Soules as thy shining self, shall come
And in her first rankes make thee room ; Where ’mongst her snowy family Immortall wellcomes wait for thee.
O what delight, when reveal’d Life shall stand And teach thy lipps heav’n with his hand ; On which thou now maist to thy wishes Heap up thy consecrated kisses.
What ioyes shall seize thy soul, when she Bending her blessed eyes on thee
(Those second Smiles of Heav’n) shall dart Her mild rayes through thy melting heart!
Angels, thy old freinds, there shall greet thee Glad at their own home now to meet thee.
All thy good Workes which went before And waited for thee, at the door,
Shall own thee there ; and all in one
Weave a constellation
Of Crowns, with which the King thy spouse Shall build up thy triumphant browes.
All thy old woes shall now smile on thee
And thy paines sitt bright upon thee,
All thy sorrows here shall shine.
All thy Suffrings be divine.
Teares shall take comfort, and turn gemms And Wrongs repent to Diademms.
Ev’n thy Death shall live; and new
Dresse the soul that erst they slew.
Thy wounds shall blush to such bright scarres As keep account of the Lamb’s warres.
RICHARD CRASHAW 45
Those rare Workes where thou shalt leave writt Love’s noble history, with witt Taught thee by none but him, while here They feed our soules, shall cloth Thine there. Each heavynly word by whose hid flame Our hard Hearts shall strike fire, the same Shall flourish on thy browes, and be Both fire to us and flame to thee;
Whose light shall live bright in thy Face By glory, in our hearts by grace.
Thou shalt look round about, and see Thousands of crown’d Soules throng to be Themselves thy crown. Sons of thy vowes The virgin-births with which thy soveraign spouse Made fruitfull thy fair soul, goe now And with them all about thee bow To Him, put on (hee’] say) put on (My rosy love) That thy rich zone Sparkling with the sacred flames Of thousand soules, whose happy names Heav’n keep upon thy score. (Thy bright Life brought them first to kisse the light That kindled them to starrs.) and so Thou with the Lamb, thy lord, shalt goe ; And whereso’ere he setts his white Stepps, walk with Him those wayes of light Which who in death would live to see,
Must learn in life to dy like thee.
46 RICHARD CRASHAW The Flaming Heart
Vpon the book and Picture of the seraphicall saint Teresa, (as she is vsvally expressed with a Seraphim biside her)
ELL meaning readers! you that come as freinds And catch the pretious name this peice pretends ;
Make not too much hast to’ admire
That fair-cheek’t fallacy of fire.
That is a Seraphim, they say
And this the great Teresia.
Readers, be rul’d by me; and make
Here a well-plac’t and wise mistake.
You must transpose the picture quite,
And spell it wrong to read it right ;
Read Him for her, and her for him ;
And call the Saint the Seraphim.
Painter, what didst thou understand
To put her dart into his hand !
See, even the yeares and size of him
Showes this the mother Seraphim.
This is the mistresse flame ; and duteous he
Her happy fire-works, here, comes down to see,
O most poor-spirited of men !
Had thy cold Pencil kist her Pen
Thou couldst not so unkindly err
To show us This faint shade for Her.
Why man, this speakes pure mortall frame ;
And mockes with female Frost love’s manly flame,
One would suspect thou meant’st to print
Some weak, inferiour, woman saint.
But had thy pale-fac’t purple took
Fire from the burning cheeks of that bright Booke
Thou wouldst on her have heap’t up all
That could be found Seraphicall ;
RICHARD CRASHAW 47
What e’re this youth of fire weares fair, Rosy fingers, radiant hair, Glowing cheek, and glistering wings, All those fair and flagrant things, But before all, that fiery Dart Had fill’d the Hand of this great Heart. Doe then as equall right requires, Since His the blushes be, and her’s the fires, Resume and rectify thy rude design ; Undresse thy Seraphim into Mine. Redeem this injury of thy art ; Give Him the vail, give her the dart. Give Him the vail; that he may cover The Red cheeks of a rivall’d lover. Asham’d that our world, now, can show Nests of new Seraphims here below. Give her the Dart for it is she (Fair youth) shootes both thy shaft and Thee Say, all ye wise and well-peirc’t hearts That live and dy amidst her darts, What is’t your tastfull spirits doe prove In that rare life of Her, and love? Say and bear wittnes. Sends she not A Seraphim at every shott ? What magazins of immortall Armes there shine! Heavn’s great artillery in each love-spun line. Give then the dart to her who gives the flame; Give him the veil, who gives the shame, But if it be the frequent fate Of worst faults to be fortunate ; If all’s prescription ; and proud wrong Hearkens not to an humble song ; For all the gallantry of him, Give me the suffring Seraphim,
48 RICHARD CRASHAW
His be the bravery of all those Bright things, The glowing cheekes, the glistering wings ; The Rosy hand, the radiant Dart ; Leave Her alone The Flaming Heart. Leave her that ; and thou shalt leave her Not one loose shaft but love’s whole quiver. For in love’s feild was never found A nobler weapon then a Wound. Love’s passives are his activ’st part. The wounded is the wounding heart. O Heart! the zquall poise of love’s both parts Bigge alike with wound and darts. Live in these conquering leaves; live all the same ; And walk through all tongues one triumphant Flame. Live here, great Heart; and love and dy and kill; And bleed and wound ; and yeild and conquer still. Let this immortall life wherere it comes Walk in a crowd of loves and Martyrdomes. Let mystick Deaths wait on’t ; and wise soules be The love-slain wittnesses of this life of thee. O sweet incendiary! shew here thy art, Upon this carcasse of a hard, cold, hart, Let all thy scatter’d shafts of light, that play Among the leaves of thy larg Books of day, Combin’d against this Brest at once break in And take away from me my self and sin, This gratious Robbery shall thy bounty be ; And my best fortunes such fair spoiles of me, O thou undanted daughter of desires ! By all thy dowr of Lights and Fires ; By all the eagle in thee, all the dove ; By all thy lives and deaths of love ; By thy larg draughts of intellectuall day, And by thy thirsts of love more large then they;
RICHARD CRASHAW 49
By all thy brim-fill’d Bowles of feirce desire
By thy last Morning’s draught of liquid fire ;
By the full kingdome of that finall kisse
That seiz’d thy parting Soul, and seal’d thee his ; By all the heav’ns thou hast in him
(Fair sister of the Seraphim !)
By all of Him we have in Thee ;
Leave nothing of my Self in me.
Let me so read thy life, that I
Unto all life of mine may dy.
A Song
ORD, when the sense of thy sweet grace Sends up my soul to seek thy face, Thy blessed eyes breed such desire, I dy in love’s delicious Fire. O love, I am thy Sacrifice. Be still triumphant, blessed eyes. Still shine on me, fair suns! that I
Still may behold, though still I dy,
Though still I dy, I live again ; Still longing so to be still slain, So gainfull is such losse of breath. I dy even in desire of death.
Still live in me this loving strife Of living Death and dying Life. For while thou sweetly slayest me Dead to my selfe, I live in Thee.
So RICHARD CRASHAW
Prayer
An Ode which was prefixed to a little Prayer-book given to a young Gentle-woman
O here a little volume, but great Book A nest of new-born sweets ; Whose native fires disdaining To ly thus folded, and complaining Of these ignoble sheets, Affect more comly bands (Fair one) from the kind hands And confidently look To find the rest Of a rich binding in your Brest. It is, in one choise handfull, heavenn ; and all Heavn’s Royall host; incamp’t thus small To prove that true schooles use to tell, Ten thousand Angels in one point can dwell. It is love’s great artillery Which here contracts itself, and comes to ly Close couch’t in their white bosom: and from thence As from a snowy fortresse of defence, Against their ghostly foes to take their part, And fortify the hold of their chast heart. It is an armory of light Let constant use but keep it bright, You’ find it yeilds To holy hands and humble hearts More swords and sheilds Then sin hath snares, or Hell hath darts,
RICHARD CRASHAW
Only be sure
The hands be pure That hold these weapons; and the eyes Those of turtles, chast and true;
Wakefull and wise ; Here is a freind shall fight for you, Hold but this book before their heart ; Let prayer alone to play his part,
But 6 the heart
That studyes this high Art
Must be a sure house-keeper ;
And yet no sleeper.
Dear soul, be strong.
Mercy will come e’re long And bring his bosom fraught with blessings, Flowers of never fading graces To make immortall dressings For worthy soules, whose wise embraces Store up themselves for Him, who is alone The Spouse of Virgins and the Virgin’s son. But if the noble Bridegroom, when he come Shall find the loytering Heart from home ;
Leaving her chast aboad
To gadde abroad Among the gay mates of the god of flyes ; To take her pleasure and to play And keep the devill’s holyday ; To dance th’sunshine of some smiling
But beguiling Spheares of sweet and sugred Lyes,
Some slippery Pair Of false, perhaps as fair, Flattering but forswearing eyes ;
$i
52 RICHARD CRASHAW
Doubtlesse some other heart Will gett the start Mean while, and stepping in before Will take possession of that sacred store Of hidden sweets and holy ioyes. Words which are not heard with Eares (Those tumultuous shops of noise) Effectuall wispers, whose still voice The soul it selfe more feeles then heares ; Amorous languishments ; luminous trances 3 Sights which are not seen with eyes ; Spirituall and soul-peircing glances Whose pure and subtil lightning flyes Home to the heart, and setts the house on fire And melts it down in sweet desire Yet does not stay To ask the windows leave to passe that way ; Delicious Deaths; soft exalations Of soul; dear and divine annihilations ; A thousand unknown rites Of ioyes and rarefy’d delights ; A hundred thousand goods, glories, and graces, And many a mystick thing Which the divine embraces Of the deare spouse of spirits with them will bring For which it is no shame That dull mortality must not know a name, Of all this store Of blessings and ten thousand more (If when he come He find the Heart from home) Doubtlesse he will unload Himself some other where, And poure abroad
RICHARD CRASHAW
His pretious sweets On the fair soul whom first he meets. O fair, 6 fortunate! O riche, 6 dear! O happy and thrice happy she Selected dove Who ere she be, Whose early love With winged vowes Makes hast to meet her morning spouse And close with his immortal] kisses. Happy indeed, who never misses To improve that pretious hour, And every day Seize her sweet prey All fresh and fragrant as he rises Dropping with a baulmy Showr A delicious dew of spices ; O let the blissfull heart hold fast Her heavnly arm-full, she shall tast At once ten thousand paradises ; She shall have power To rifle and deflour
The rich and roseall spring of those rare sweets Which with a swelling bosome there she meets
Boundles and infinite Bottomles treasures
Of pure inebriating pleasures
Happy proof! she shal discover What ioy, what blisse,
How many Heav’ns at once it is
To have her God become her Lover.
53
54
ANDREW MARVELL On a Drop of Dew
EE how the orient dew Shed from the bosom of the Morn Into the blowing roses, Yet careless of its mansion new, For the clear region where ’twas born, Round in its self incloses : And in its little globe’s extent Frames, as it can, its native element. How it the purple flow’r does slight, Scarce touching where it lyes, But gazing back upon the skies, Shines with a mournful light, Like its own tear, Because so long divided from the sphear. Restless it roules, and unsecure, Trembling, lest it grow impure ; Till the warm sun pitty its pain And to the skies exhale it back again. So the soul, that drop, that ray, Of the clear fountain of eternal day, (Could it within the humane flow’r be seen) Rememb’ring still its former height, Shuns the sweat leaves and blossoms green, And, recollecting its own light, Does in its pure and circling thoughts express The greater heaven in an heaven less. In how coy a figure wound, Every way it turns away ; (So the world-excluding round) Yet receiving in the day,
16a 1673
ANDREW MARVELL 55
Dark beneath, but bright above,
Here disdaining, there in love.
How loose and easie hence to go;
How girt and ready to ascend ;
Moving but on a point below,
It all about does upwards bend. Such did the manna’s sacred dew destil, White and intire, though congeal’d and chill ; Congeal’d on Earth; but does, dissolving, run Into the glories of th’ almighty sun.
The Coronet
HEN for the thorns with which I long, too long, With many a piercing wound, My Saviour’s head have crown’d, I seek with garlands to redress that wrong ; Through every garden, every mead, 1 gather flow’rs (my fruits are only flow’rs), Dismantling all the fragrant towers That once adorn’d my shepherdesse’s head : And now, when I have summ’d up all my store, Thinking (so I my self deceive) So rich a chaplet thence to weave As never yet the King of Glory wore, Alas! I find the Serpent old, That, twining in his speckled breast About the flowers disguis’d, does fold, With wreaths of fame and interest. Ah, foolish man, that would’st debase with them And mortal glory, Heaven’s diadem ! But Thou who only could’st the Serpent tame, Either his slipp’ry knots at once untie,
56 ANDREW MARVELL
And disintangle all his winding snare ;
Or shatter too with him my curious frame,
And let these wither—so that he may die—
Though set with skill, and chosen out with care ;
That they, while Thou on both their spoils dost tread, May crown Thy feet, that could not crown Thy head.
HENRY VAUGHAN
The Search
EAVE, leave, thy gadding thoughts ; Who Pores and spies Still out of Doores, descries Within them nought.
The skinne, and shell of things Though faire, are not Thy wish, nor pray’r, but got By meer Despair
of wings.
1621-1695
To rack old Elements, or Dust and say Sure here he must needs stay, Is not the way, nor just. Search well another world ; who studies this, Travels in Clouds, seeks Manna, where none is.
HENRY VAUGHAN
The Retieate
APPY those early dayes! when I Shin’d in my Angell-infancy. Before I understood this place Appointed for my second race, Or taught my soul to fancy ought But a white, Celestiall thought ; When yet I had not walkt above A mile, or two, from my first love, And looking back (at that short space,) Could see a glimpse of his bright-face; When on some gilded Cloud, or flowre My gazing soul would dwell an houre, And in those weaker glories spy Some shadows of eternity ; Before I taught my tongue to wound My Conscience with a sinfull sound, Or had the black art to dispence A sev’rall sinne to ev’ry sence, But felt through all this fleshly dresse Bright shootes of everlastingnesse. O how I long to travell back And tread again that ancient track!
That I might once more reach that plaine,
Where first I left my glorious traine, From whence th’ Inlightned spirit sees That shady City of Palme trees ;
But (ah !) my soul with too much stay Is drunk, and staggers in the way. Some men a forward motion love,
But I by backward steps would move, And when this dust falls to the urn
In that state I came return.
57
58 HENRY VAUGHAN The Morning Watch
JOYES! Infinite sweetnes! with what Howres, And shoots of glory, my soul breakes, and buds ! All the long houres Of night, and Rest, Through the still shrouds Of sleep, and Clouds, This Dew fell on my Breast ; O how it Blouds, And Spirits all my Earth! heark! In what Rings, And Hymning Circulations the quick world Awakes, and sings ; The rising winds, And falling springs, Birds, beasts, all things Adore him in their kinds. Thus all is hurl’d In sacred Hymnes, and Order, The great Chime And Symphony of nature. Prayer is The world in tune, A spirit-voyce, And vocall joyes Whose Eccho is heav’ns blisse. O let me climbe When I lye down! The Pious soul by night Is like a clouded starre, whose beames though sed To shed their light Under some Cloud Yet are above, And shine, and move Beyond that mistie shrowd. So in my Bed That Curtain’d grave, though sleep, like ashes, hide My lamp, and life, both shall in thee abide.
HENRY VAUGHAN 59
Rules and Lessons
HEN first thy Eies unveil, give thy Soul leave To do the like ; our Bodies but forerun The spirits duty ; True hearts spread, and heave Unto their God, as flow’rs do to the Sun. Give him thy first thoughts then ; so shalt thou keep Him company all day, and in him sleep....
Walk with thy fellow-creatures: note the hush
And whispers amongst them. There’s not a Spring,
Or Leafe but hath his Morning-hymn ; Each Bush
And Oak doth know J 4M ; canst thou not sing ? O leave thy Cares, and follies! go this way And thou art sure to prosper all the day....
Spend not an hour so, as to weep another,
For tears are not thine own; If thou giv’st words
Dash not thy friend, nor Heav’n ; O smother
A vip’rous thought ; some Syllables are Swords. Unbitted tongues are in their penance double, They shame their owners, and the hearers trouble. ...
When Seasons change, then lay before thine Eys
His wondrous Method ; mark the various Scenes
In heav’n ; Hail, Thunder, Rain-bows, Snow, and Ice,
Calmes, Tempests, Light, and darknes by his means ; Thou canst not misse his Praise; Each tree, herb,
flowre
Are shadows of his wisedome, and his Pow’r.
The World
SAW Eternity the other night Like a great Ring of pure and endless light, All calm, as it was bright,
60 HENRY VAUGHAN
And round beneath it, Time in hours, days, years Driv’n by the spheres
Like a vast shadow mov’d, In which the world
And all her train were hurl’d;
The doting Lover in his queintest strain Did their Complain,
Neer him, his Lute, his fancy, and his flights, Wits sour delights,
With gloves, and knots the silly snares of pleasure Yet his dear Treasure
All scatter’d lay, while he his eys did pour Upon a flowr.
The darksome States-man hung with weights and woe Like a thick midnight-fog mov’d there so slow He did nor stay, nor go ; Condemning thoughts (like sad Ecclipses) scowl Upon his soul, And Clouds of crying witnesses without Pursued him with one shout. Yet dig’d the Mole, and lest his ways be found Workt under ground, Where he did Clutch his prey, but one did see That policie, Churches and altars fed him, Perjuries Were gnats and flies, It rain’d about him bloud and tears, but he Drank them as free.
The fearfull miser on a heap of rust Sate pining all his life there, did scarce trust His own hands with the dust, Yet would not place one peece above, but lives In feare of theeves.
HENRY VAUGHAN
Thousands there were as frantick as himself And hug’d each one his pelf,
The down-right Epicure plac’d heav’n in sense And scornd pretence
While others slipt into a wide Excesse Said little lesse ;
The weaker sort slight, triviall wares Inslave Who think them brave,
And poor, despised truth sate Counting by Their victory.
Yet some, who all this while did weep and sing, And sing, and weep, soar’d up into the Ring, But most would use no wing. O fools (said I,) thus to prefer dark night Before true light, To live in grots, and caves, and hate the day Because it shews the way, The way which from this dead and dark abode Leads up to God, A way where you might tread the Sun, and be More bright than he. But as I did their madnes so discusse One whisper’d thus, This Ring the Bride-groome did for none provide But for his bride.
The Knot
RIGHT Queen of Heaven! Gods Virgin Spouse
The glad worlds blessed maid ! Whose beauty tyed life to thy house, And brought us saving ayd.
61
HENRY VAUGHAN
Thou art the true Loves-knot; by thee God is made our Allie, And mans inferior Essence he
With his did dignifie.
For Coalescent by that Band We are his body grown, Nourished with favors from his hand Whom for our head we own.
And such a Knot, what arm dares loose. What life, what death can sever? Which us in him, and him in us United keeps for ever.
The Dwelling-place
HAT happy, secret fountain,
Fair shade, or mountain, Whose undiscover’d virgin glory Boasts it this day, though not in story, Was then thy dwelling ? did some cloud Fix’d toa Tent, descend and shrowd My distrest Lord ? or did a star, Becken’d by thee, though high and far, In sparkling smiles haste gladly down To lodge light, and increase her own ? My dear, dear God! I do not know What lodgd thee then, nor where, nor how: But I am sure, thou dost now come Oft to a narrow, homely room, Where thou too hast but the least part, My God, I mean my sinful heart.
HENRY VAUGHAN 63
Quickness
ALSE life! a foil and no more, when Wilt thou be gone? Thou foul deception of all men That would not have the true come on.
Thou art a Moon-like toil ; a blinde Self-posing state ;
A dark contest of waves and winde ;
A meer tempestuous debate.
Life is a fix’d, discerning light,
A knowing Joy ; No chance, or fit: but ever bright, And calm and full, yet doth not cloy.
*Tis such a blissful thing, that still Doth vivifie,
And shine and smile, and hath the skil]
To please without Eternity.
Thou art a toylsom Mole, or less A moving mist But life is, what none can express,
A quickness, which my God hath kist.
THOMAS TRAHERNE 1 1636-1674
W onder
OW like an Angel came I down! How bright are all things here ! When first among His works I did appear O how their glory me did crown !
54
THOMAS TRAHERNE
The world resembled His Eternity, In which my soul did walk ; And every thing that I did see Did with me talk.
The skies in their magnificence, The lively, lovely air, Oh how divine, how soft, how sweet, how fair ! The stars did entertain my sense, And all the works of God, so bright and pure, So rich and great did seem, As if they ever must endure In my esteem.
A native health and innocence Within my bones did grow, And while my God did all his Glories show, I felt a vigour in my sense That was all Spirit. I within did flow With seas of life, like wine ; I nothing in the world did know But ’twas divine.
Harsh ragged objects were concealed, Oppressions, tears and cries, Sins, griefs, complaints, dissensions, weeping eyes Were hid, and only things revealed Which heavenly Spirits and the Angels prize. The state of Innocence And bliss, not trades and poverties, Did fill my sense.
The streets were paved with golden stones, The boys and girls were mine, Oh how did all their lovely faces shine! The sons of men were holy ones,
THOMAS TRAHERNE 65
In joy and beauty they appeared to me, And every thing which here I found, While like an Angel I did see, Adorned the ground.
Rich diamond and pearl and gold In every place was seen ; Rare splendours, yellow, blue, red, white and green, Mine eyes did everywhere behold. Great wonders clothed with glory did appear, Amazement was my bliss, That and my wealth was everywhere ; No joy to this!
Cursed and devised proprieties, With envy, avarice And fraud, those fiends that spoil even Paradise, Flew from the splendour of mine eyes, And so did hedges, ditches, limits, bounds, I dreamed not aught of those, But wandered over all men’s grounds, And found repose.
Proprieties themselves were mine, And hedges ornaments ; Walls, boxes, coffers, and their rich contents Did not divide my joys, but all combine. Clothes, ribbons, jewels, laces, I esteemed My joys by others worn : For me they all to wear them seemed When I was born.
MYST- D
THOMAS TRAHERNE
The Vision
LIGHT is but the preparative. The sight Is deep and infinite,
Ah me! ’tis all the glory, love, light, space, Joy, beauty and variety
That doth adorn the Godhead’s dwelling-place ; Tis all that eye can see.
Even trades themselves seen in celestial light,
And cares and sins and woes are bright.
Order the beauty even of beauty is, It is the rule of bliss,
The very life and form and cause of pleasure ; Which if we do not understand,
Ten thousand heaps of vain confused treasure Will but oppress the land.
In blessedness itself we that shall miss,
Being blind, which is the cause of bliss,
First then behold the world as thine, and well Note that where thou dost dwell. See all the beauty of the spacious case, Lift up thy pleas’d and ravisht eyes, Admire the glory of the Heavenly place And all its blessings prize. That sight well seen thy spirit shall prepare, The first makes all the other rare.
Men’s woes shall be but foils unto thy bliss, Thou once enjoying this :
Trades shall adorn and beautify the earth, Their ignorance shall make thee bright ;
THOMAS TRAHERNE
Were not their griefs Democritus his mirth ? Their faults shall keep thee right : All shall be thine, because they all conspire To feed and make thy glory higher.
To see a glorious fountain and an end, To see all creatures tend
To thy advancement, and so sweetly close In thy repose: to see them shine
In use, in worth, in service, and even foes Among the rest made thine:
To see all these unite at once in thee
Is to behold felicity.
To see the fountain is a blessed thing, It is to see the King
Of Glory face to face: but yet the end, The glorious, wondrous end is more ;
And yet the fountain there we comprehend, The spring we there adore:
For in the end the fountain best is shown,
As by effects the cause is known.
From one, to one, in one to see all things, To see the King of Kings
But once in two; to see His endless treasures Made all mine own, myself the end
Of all his labours! Tis the life of pleasures ! To see myself His friend !
Who all things finds conjoined in Him alone,
Sees and enjoys the Holy One.
67
68
THOMAS TRAHERNE
The Rapture
WEET Infancy! O fire of heaven! O sacred Light How fair and bright, How great am I, Whom all the world doth magnify !
O Heavenly Joy!
O great and sacred blessedness Which I possess ! So great a joy
Who did into my arms convey ?
From God above
Being sent, the Heavens me enflame: To praise his Name The stars do move !
The burning sun doth shew His love,
O how divine Am I! To all this sacred wealth, This life and health, Who raised ? Who mine Did make the same ? What hand divine ?
Dumbness
URE Man was born to meditate on things, And to contemplate the eternal springs
Of God and Nature, glory, bliss, and pleasure ; That life and love might be his Heavenly treasure ; And therefore speechless made at first, that He Might in himself profoundly busied be :
THOMAS TRAHERNE
And not vent out, before he hath ta’en in
Those antidotes that guard his soul from sin. Wise Nature made him deaf, too, that He might
Not be disturbed, while he doth take delight
In inward things, nor be depraved with tongues,
Nor injured by the errors and the wrongs
That mortal words convey. For sin and death
Are most infused by accursed breath,
That flowing from corrupted entrails, bear
Those hidden plagues which souls may justly fear. This, my dear friends, this was my blessed case ;
For nothing spoke to me but the fair face
Of Heaven and Earth, before myself could speak,
I then my Bliss did, when my silence, break.
My non-intelligence of human words
Ten thousand pleasures unto me affords ;
For while I knew not what they to me said,
Before their souls were into mine conveyed,
Before that living vehicle of wind
Could breathe into me their infected mind,
Before my thoughts were leavened with theirs, before
There any mixture was; the Holy Door,
Or gate of souls was close, and mine being one
Within itself to me alone was known.
Then did I dwell within a world of light,
Distinct and separate from all men’s sight,
Where I did feel strange thoughts, and such things see
That were, or seemed, only revealed to me,
There I saw all the world enjoyed by one ;
There I was in the world myself alone ;
No business serious seemed but one; no work
But one was found ; and that did in me lurk. D’ye ask me what ? It was with clearer eyes
To see all creatures full of Deities ;
70 THOMAS TRAHERNE
Especially one’s self: And to admire
The satisfaction of all true desire :
’T was to be pleased with all that God hath done ; ’Twas to enjoy even all beneath the sun :
*T was with a steady and immediate sense
To feel and measure all the excellence
Of things ; ’twas to inherit endless treasure, And to be filled with everlasting pleasure :
To reign in silence, and to sing alone,
To see, love, covet, have, enjoy and praise, in one: To prize and to be ravished ; to be true, Sincere and single in a blessed view
Of all His gifts. Thus was I pent within
A fort, impregnable to any sin:
Until the avenues being open laid
Whole legions entered, and the forts betrayed : Before which time a pulpit in my mind,
A temple and a teacher I did find,
With a large text to comment on. No ear
But eyes themselves were all the hearers there, And every stone, and every star a tongue,
And every gale of wind a curious song.
The Heavens were an oracle, and spake
Divinity : the Earth did undertake
The office of a priest ; and I being dumb (Nothing besides was dumb), all things did come With voices and instructions ; but when I
Had gained a tongue, their power began to die. Mine ears let other noises in, not theirs,
A noise disturbing all my songs and prayers.
My foes pulled down the temple to the ground ; They my adoring soul did deeply wound
And casting that into a swoon, destroyed
The Oracle, and all I there enjoyed:
THOMAS TRAHERNE 71
And having once inspired me with a sense Of foreign vanities, they march out thence In troops that cover and despoil my coasts, Being the invisible, most hurtful hosts.
Yet the first words mine infancy did hear, The things which in my dumbness did appear. Preventing all the rest, got such a root Within my heart, and stick so close unto ’t, It may be trampled on, but still will grow And nutriment to soil itself will owe.
The first Impressions are Immortal all,
And let mine enemies hoop, cry, roar, or call, Yet these will whisper if I will but hear,
And penetrate the heart, if not the ear.
My Spirit Y naked simple Life was I; That Act so strongly shin’d Upon the earth, the sea, the sky, It was the substance of my mind ; The sense itself was I. I felt no dross nor matter in my soul, No brims nor borders, such as in a bowl We see. My essence was capacity, That felt all things ; The thought that springs Therefrom’s itself. It hath no other wings To spread abroad, nor eyes to see, Nor hands distinct to feel, Nor knees to kneel ; But being simple like the Deity In its own centre is a sphere Not shut up here, but everywhere.
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THOMAS TRAHERNE
It acts not from a centre to Its object as remote, But present is when it doth view, Being with the Being it doth note Whatever it doth do. It doth not by another engine work, But by itself ; which in the act doth lurk. Its essence is transformed into a true And perfect act. And so exact Hath God appeared in this mysterious fact, That ’tis all eye, all act, all sight, And what it please can be, Not only see, Or do; for ’tis more voluble than light, Which can put on ten thousand forms, Being cloth’d with what itself adorns.
This made me present evermore With whatsoe’er I saw. An object, if it were before My eye, was by Dame Nature’s law, Within my soul. Her store Was all at once within me; all Her treasures Were my immediate and internal pleasures, Substantial joys, which did inform my mind, With all she wrought My soul was fraught, And every object in my heart a thought Begot, or was; I could not tell, Whether the things did there Themselves appear, Which in my Spirit truly seem’d to dwell; Or whether my conforming mind Were not even all that therein shin’d.
THOMAS TRAHERNE
But yet of this I was most sure, That at the utmost length, (So worthy was it to endure) My soul could best express its strength It was so quick and pure, That all my mind was wholly everywhere, Whate’er it saw, ’twas ever wholly there ; The sun ten thousand legions off, was nigh: The utmost star, Though seen from far, Was present in the apple of my eye. There was my sight, my life, my sense, My substance, and my mind; My spirit shin’d Even there, not by a transient influence : The act was immanent, yet there: The thing remote, yet felt even here.
O Joy! O wonder and delight ! O sacred mystery ! My Soul a Spirit infinite ! An image of the Deity ! A pure substantial light ! That Being greatest which doth nothing seem ! Why, ’twas my all, I nothing did esteem But that alone. A strange mysterious sphere ! A deep abyss That sees and is The only proper place of Heavenly Bliss. To its Creator ’tis so near In love and excellence, In life and sense, In greatness, worth, and nature; and so dear, In it, without hyperbole, The Son and friend of God we see. D3
74
THOMAS TRAHERNE
A strange extended orb of Joy, Proceeding from within, Which did on every side, convey Itself, and being nigh of kin To God did every way Dilate itself even in an instant, and Like an indivisible centre stand, At once surrounding all eternity. *T was not a sphere, Yet did appear, One infinite. *I'was somewhat every where, And though it had a power to see Far more, yet still it shin’d And was a mind Exerted, for it saw Infinity. Twas not a sphere, but ’twas a might Invisible, and yet gave light. O wondrous Self! O sphere of light, & sphere of joy most fair O act, O power infinite ; O subtile and unbounded air ! O living orb of sight ! Thou which within me art, yet me! Thou eye, And temple of His whole infinity ! O what a world art Thou! A world within! All things appear, All objects are Alive in Thee! Supersubstantial, rare, Above themselves, and nigh of kin To those pure things we find In His great mind Who made the world! Tho’ now eclipsed by sin There they are useful and divine, Exalted there they ought to shine,
THOMAS TRAHERNE
Amendment
T all things should be mine, This makes His bounty most divine, But that they all more rich should be, And far more brightly shine, As used by me ; It ravishes my soul to see the end, To which this work so wonderful doth tend.
That we should make the skies More glorious far before Thine eyes Than Thou didst make them, and even Thee Far more Thy works to prize, As used they be Than as they’re made, is a stupendous work, Wherein Thy wisdom mightily doth lurk.
Thy greatness, and Thy love, Thy power, in this, my joy doth move ; Thy goodness, and felicity In this exprest above All praise I see: While Thy great Godhead over all doth reign, And such an end in such a sort attain.
What bound may we assign, O God, to any work of Thine! Their endlessness discovers Thee In all to be divine ; A Deity, That will for evermore exceed the end Of all that creature’s wit can comprehend.
75
THOMAS TRAHERNE
Am I a glorious spring Of joys and riches to my King ? Are men made Gods? And may they see So wonderful a thing As God in me? And is my soul a mirror that must shine Even like the sun and be far more divine ?
Thy Soul, O God, doth prize The seas, the earth, our souls, the skies ; As we return the same to Thee They more delight Thine eyes, And sweeter be As unto Thee we offer up the same, Than as to us from Thee at first they came.
O how doth Sacred Love His gifts refine, exalt, improve ! Our love to creatures makes them be In Thine esteem above Themselves to Thee ! O here His goodness evermore admire ! He made our souls to make His creatures higher,
The Anticipation
Y contemplation dazzles in the End Of all I comprehend, And soars above all heights, Diving into the depths of all delights. Can He become the End, To whom all creatures tend, Who is the Father of all Infinites ? Then may He benefit receive from things, And be not Parent only of all springs.
THOMAS TRAHERNE 7
The End doth want the means, and is the cause, Whose sake, by Nature’s laws, Is that for which they are.
Such sands, such dangerous rocks we must beware : From all Eternity A perfect Deity
Most great and blessed He doth still appear :
His essence perfect was in all its features,
He ever blessed in His joys and creatures.
From everlasting He those joys did need, And all those joys proceed From Him eternally. From everlasting His felicity Complete and perfect was, Whose bosom is the glass, Wherein we all things everlasting see. His name is Now, His Nature is For-ever: None can His creatures from their Maker sever.
The End in Him from everlasting is
The fountain of all bliss :
From everlasting it Efficient was, and influence did emit,
That caused all. Before
The world, we do adore This glorious End. Because all benefit From it proceeds: both are the very same, The End and Fountain differ but in Name.
That so the End should be the very Spring Of every glorious thing ; And that which seemeth last,
The fountain and the cause; attained so fast
78
THOMAS TRAHERNE
That it was first; and mov’d
The Efficient, who so lov’d All worlds and made them for the sake of this ; It shews the End complete before, and is A perfect token of His perfect bliss.
The End complete, the means must needs be so, By which we plainly know, From all Eternity The means whereby God is, must perfect be. God is Himself the means Whereby He doth exist : And as the Sun by shining ’s cloth’d with beams, So from Himself to all His glory streams, Who is a Sun, yet what Himself doth list.
His endless wants and His enjoyments be From all Eternity Immutable in Him: They are His joys before the Cherubim. His wants appreciate all, And being infinite, Permit no being to be mean or small That He enjoys, or is before His sight. His satisfactions do His wants delight.
Wants are the fountains of Felicity ; No joy could ever be Were there no want. No bliss, No sweetness perfect, were it not for this, Want is the greatest pleasure Because it makes all treasure. O what a wonderful profound abyss Is God! In whom eternal wants and treasures
Are more delightful since they both are pleasures.
THOMAS TRAHERNE 79
He infinitely wanteth all His joys; (No want the soul e’er cloys.) And all those wanted pleasures He infinitely hath. What endless measures, What heights and depths may we In His felicity Conceive! Whose very wants are endless pleasures. His life in wants and joys is infinite, And both are felt as His Supreme Delight.
He’s not like us ; possession doth not cloy, Nor sense of want destroy ; Both always are together ; No force can either from the other sever. Yet there ’s a space between That ’s endless. Both are seen Distinctly still, and both are seen for ever. As soon as e’er He wanteth all His bliss, His bliss, tho’ everlasting, in Him is.
His Essence is all Act: He did that He All Act might always be. His nature burns like fire ; His goodness infinitely does desire To be by all possesst ; His love makes others blest. It is the glory of His high estate, And that which I for evermore admire, He is an Act that doth communicate.
From all to all Eternity He is That Act: an Act of bliss: Wherein all bliss to all That will receive the same, or on Him call,
80
THOMAS TRAHERNE
Is freely given: from whence
*Tis easy even to sense To apprehend that all receivers are In Him, all gifts, all joys, all eyes, even all At once, that ever will or shall appear.
He is the means of them, they not of Him, The Holy Cherubim, Souls, Angels from Him came Who is a glorious bright and living Flame, That on all things doth shine, And makes their face divine. And Holy, Holy, Holy is His Name: He is the means both of Himself and all, Whom we the Fountain, Means, and End do cal},
Love
NECTAR! O delicious stream ! O ravishing and only pleasure! Where Shall such another theme Inspire my tongue with joys or please mine ear ! Abridgement of delights ! And Queen of sights ! O mine of rarities! O Kingdom wide! O more! O cause of all! O glorious Bride! O God! O Bride of God! O King! O soul and crown of everything !
Did not I covet to behold Some endless monarch, that did always live In palaces of gold, Willing all kingdoms, realms, and crowns to give Unto my soul! Whose love A spring might prove
THOMAS TRAHERNE 81
Of endless glories, honours, friendships, pleasures, Joys, praises, beauties and celestial treasures | Lo, now I see there ’s such a King, The fountain-head of everything !
Did my ambition ever dream Of such a Lord, of suchalove! Did I Expect so sweet a stream As this at any time! Could any eye Believe it? Why all power Is used here ; Joys down from Heaven on my head do shower, And Jove beyond the fiction doth appear Once more in golden rain to come To Danae’s pleasing fruitful womb.
His Ganymede! His life! His joy! Or He comes down to me, or takes me up That I might be His boy, And fill, and taste, and give, and drink the cup. But those (tho’ great) are all Too short and small, Too weak and feeble pictures to express The true mysterious depths of Blessedness. I am His image, and His friend, His son, bride, glory, temple, end.
in Flymn upon St. Bartholomew's Day
HAT powerful Spirit lives within ! What active Angel doth inhabit here ! What heavenly light inspires my skin, Which doth so like a Deity appear !
82
THOMAS TRAHERNE
A living Temple of all ages, I Within me see A Temple of Eternity ! All Kingdoms I descry
In me.
An inward Omnipresence here Mysteriously like His within me stands, Whose knowledge is a Sacred Sphere That in itself at once includes all lands. There is some Angel that within me can Both talk and move, And walk and fly and see and love, A man on earth, a man
Above.
Dull walls of clay my Spirit leaves, And in a foreign Kingdom doth appear, This great Apostle it receives, Admires His works and sees them, standing here, Within myself from East to West I move As if I were At once a Cherubim and Sphere, Or was at once above And here.
The Soul ’s a messenger whereby Within our inward Temple we may be Even like the very Deity In all the parts of His Eternity. O live within and leave unwieldy dross ! Flesh is but clay ! O fly my Soul and haste away To Jesus’ Throne or Cross! Obey!
33
ISAAC WATTS 1674-1748
The Lucomprehensible
AR in the Heavens my God retires : My God, the mark of my desires, And hides his lovely face ; When he descends within my view, He charms my reason to pursue, But leaves it tir’d and fainting in th’ unequal chase,
Or if I reach unusual height Till near his presence brought,
There floods of glory check my flight,
Cramp the bold pinions of my wit, And all untune my thought ;
Plunged in a sea of light I roll,
Where wisdom, justice, mercy, shines ;
Infinite rays in crossing lines
Beat thick confusion on my sight, and overwhelm my
SOnL ss
Great God! behold my reason lies Adoring: yet my love would rise On pinions not her own: Faith shall direct her humble flight, Through all the trackless seas of light, To Thee, th’ Eternal Fair, the infinite Unknowa,
84 ALEXANDER POPE From ‘An Essay on Man’
LL are but parts of one stupendous whole, Whose body Nature is, and God the soul ;
That, changed through all, and yet in all the same, Great in the earth, as in th’ ethereal frame, Warms in the sun, refreshes in the breeze, Glows in the stars, and blossoms in the trees, Lives through all life, extends through all extent, Spreads undivided, operates unspent : Breathes in our soul, informs our mortal part ; As full, as perfect, in a hair as heart ; As full, as perfect, in vile man that mourns As the rapt Seraphim, that sings and burns: To him no high, no low, no great, no small— He fills, he bounds, connects, and equals all.... All nature is but art, unknown to thee : All chance, direction, which thou canst not see: All discord, harmony not understood ; All partial evil, universal good.
1688-9744
JOHN BYROM 1691-1763 A Poetical Version of a Letter from Jacob Behmen
*F TIS Man’s own Nature, which in its own Life, Or Centre, stands in Enmity and Strife,
And anxious, selfish, doing what it lists,
(Without God’s Love) that tempts him, and resists ;
The Devil also shoots his fiery Dart,
From Grace and Love to turn away the Heart.
JOHN BYROM 85
This is the greatest Trial ; ’tis the Fight Which Christ, with His internal Love and Light, Maintains within Man’s Nature, to dispel God’s Anger, Satan, Sin, and Death, and Hell; The human Self, or Serpent, to devour,
And raise an Angel from it by His Pow’r.
Now if God’s Love in Christ did not subdue In some Degree this Selfishness in you, You would have no such Combat to endure; The Serpent, then, triumphantly secure, Would unoppos’d exert its native Right, And no such Conflict in your Soul excite.
For all the huge Temptation and Distress Rises in Nature, tho’ God seeks to bless ; The Serpent feeling its tormenting State, (Which of itself is a mere anxious Hate,) When God’s amazing Love comes in, to fill And change the selfish to a God-like Will.
Here Christ, the Serpent-bruiser, stands in Man, Storming the Devil’s hellish, self-built Plan ; And hence the Strife within the human Soul,— Satan’s to kill, and Christ’s to make it whole; As by Experience, in so great Degree, God in His Goodness causes you to see... .
The next Temptation, which befalls of Course From Satan and from Nature’s selfish Force, Is, when the Soul has tasted of the Love And been illuminated from above ; Still in its Self-hood it would seek to shine, And as its own possess the Light Divine.
JOHN BYROM
That is, the soulish Nature,—take it right, As much a Serpent, if without God’s Light, As Lucifer,—this Nature still would claim For own Propriety the Heav’nly Flame, And elevate its Fire to a Degree Above the Light’s Good Pow’r, which cannot be.
This domineering Self, this Nature-Fire, Must be transmuted to a Love-Desire. Now, when this Change is to be undergone, It looks for some own Pow’r, and, finding none, Begins to doubt of Grace, unwilling quite To yield up its self-willing Nature’s Right.
It never quakes for Fear, and will not die In Light Divine, tho’ to be blest thereby : The Light of Grace it thinks to be Deceit, Because it worketh gently without Heat ; Mov’d too by outward Reason, which is blind, And of itself sees nothing of this Kind.
Who knows, it thinketh, whether it be true That God is in thee, and enlightens too ? Is it not Fancy? For thou dost not see Like other People, who as well as thee Hope for Salvation by the Grace of God, Without such Fear and Trembling at his Rod....
The own Self-will must die away, and shine, Rising thro’ Death, in Saving Will Divine ; And from the Opposition which it tries Against God’s Will such great Temptations rise ; The Devil too is loth to lose his Prey, And see his Fort cast down, if it obey.
JOHN BYROM 87
For, if the Life of Christ within arise, Self-Lust and false Imagination dies,— Wholly, it cannot in this present Life, But by the Flesh maintains the daily Strife,— Dies, and yet lives ; as they alone can tell In whom Christ fights against the Pow’rs of Hell.
The third Temptation is in Mind and Will, And Flesh and Blood, if Satan enter still ; Where the false Centres lie in Man, the Springs Of Pride and Lust, and Love of earthly Things, And all the Curses wish’d by other Men, Which are occasion’d by this Devil’s Den.
These in the Astral Spirit make a Fort, Which all the Sins concentre to support ; And human Will, esteeming for its Joy What Christ, to save it, combats to destroy, Will not resign the Pride-erected Tow’r, Nor live obedient to the Saviour’s Pow’r....
Let go all earthly Will, and be resign’d Wholly to Him with all your Heart and Mind! Be Joy or Sorrow, Comfort or Distress, Receiv’d alike, for He alike can bless,
To gain the Victory of Christian Faith Over the World and all Satanic Wrath !
WILLIAM COWPER
From ‘The Task’
'HE Lord of all, himself through all diffus’d, Sustains, and is the life of all that lives. Nature is but a name for an effect, Whose cause is God. He feeds the secret fire
1731-1800
88
WILLIAM COWPER
By which the mighty process is maintain’d,
Who sleeps not, is not weary ; in whose sight Slow circling ages are as transient days ;
Whose work is without labour ; whose designs No flaw deforms, no difficulty thwarts ;
And whose beneficence no charge exhausts.
Him blind antiquity profan’d, not serv’d,
With self-taught rites, and under various names, Female and male, Pomona, Pales, Pan,
And Flora, and Vertumnus ; peopling earth With tutelary goddesses and gods
That were not ; and commending, as they would, To each some province, garden, field, or grove. But all are under one. One spirit—His
Who wore the platted thorns with bleeding brows— Rules universal nature. Not a flow’r
But shows some touch, in freckle, streak, or stain, Of his unrivall’d pencil. He inspires
Their balmy odours, and imparts their hues,
And bathes their eyes with nectar, and includes, In grains as countless as the sea-side sands,
The forms with which he sprinkles all the earth. Happy who walks with him! whom what he finds Of flavour or of scent in fruit or flow’r,
Or what he views of beautiful or grand
In nature, from the broad majestic oak
To the green blade that twinkles in the sun, Prompts with remembrance of a present God!
89
WILLIAM BLAKE 1757-1827
The Divine Image
Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love All pray in their distress ; And to these virtues of delight Return their thankfulness.
For Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love Is God, our Father dear,
And Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love Is man, His child and care.
For Mercy has a human heart, Pity a human face,
And Love, the human form divine. And Peace, the human dress.
Then every man, of every clime, That prays in his distress, Prays to the human form divine, Love, Mercy, Pity, Peace.
And all must love the human form, In heathen, Turk, or Jew ; Where Mercy, Love, and Pity dwell There God is dwelling too,
WILLIAM BLAKE
Night
E sun descending in the west,
The evening star does shine ; The birds are silent in their nest, And I must seek for mine. The moon, like a flower, In heaven’s high bower, With silent delight Sits and smiles on the night.
Farewell, green fields and happy groves, Where flocks have took delight.
Where lambs have nibbled, silent moves The feet of angels bright ;
Unseen they pour blessing,
And joy without ceasing,
On each bud and blossom,
And each sleeping bosom.
They look in every thoughtless nest, Where birds are cover’d warm ; They visit caves of every beast,
To keep them all from harm.
If they see any weeping
That should have been sleeping, They pour sleep on their head,
And sit down by their bed.
When wolves and tigers howl for prey, They pitying stand and weep ; Seeking to drive their thirst away, And keep them from the sheep.
WILLIAM BLAKE
But if they rush dreadful, The angels, most heedful, Receive each mild spirit, New worlds to inherit.
And there the lion’s ruddy eyes Shall flow with tears of gold,
And pitying the tender cries,
And walking round the fold, Saying: ‘ Wrath, by His meekness, And, by His health, sickness
Is driven away
From our immortal day.
* And now beside thee, bleating lamb, I can lie down and sleep ;
Or think on Him who bore thy name, Graze after thee and weep.
For, wash’d in life’s river,
My bright mane for ever
Shall shine like the gold
As I guard o’er the fold.’
Broken Love
Y Spectre around me night and day Like a wild beast guards my way ; My Emanation far within Weeps incessantly for my sin.
‘A fathomless and boundless deep, There we wander, there we weep ; On the hungry craving wind
My Spectre follows thee behind.
gli
WILLIAM BLAKE
‘ He scents thy footsteps in the snow Wheresoever thou dost go,
Thro’ the wintry hail and rain, When wilt thou return again ?
* Dost thou not in pride and scorn Fill with tempests all my morn, And with jealousies and fears
Fill my pleasant nights with tears ?
‘Seven of my sweet loves thy knife Has bereavéd of their life.
Their marble tombs I built with tears, And with cold and shuddering fears.
* Seven more loves weep night and day Round the tombs where my loves lay, And seven more loves attend each night Around my couch with torches bright.
‘ And seven more loves in my bed Crown with wine my mournful head, Pitying and forgiving all
Thy transgressions great and small,
* When wilt thou return and view My loves, and them to life renew ? When wilt thou return and live ? When wilt thou pity as I forgive ?”
*O’er my sins thou sit and moan: Hast thou no sins of thy own ? O’er my sins thou sit and weep, And lull thy own sins fast asleep,
WILLIAM BLAKE 93
‘ What transgressions I commit Are for thy transgressions fit. They thy harlots, thou their slave ; And my bed becomes their grave,
‘ Never, never, I return:
Still for victory I burn.
Living, thee alone I’ll have; And when dead I’ll be thy grave.
‘ Thro’ the Heaven and Earth and Hell Thou shalt never, never quell :
I will fly and thou pursue:
Night and morn the flight renew”
‘ Poor, pale, pitiable form That I follow in a storm; Iron tears and groans of lead Bind around my aching head.
‘ Till I turn from Female love And root up the Infernal Grove. I shall never worthy be
To step into Eternity.
‘ And, to end thy cruel mocks, Annihilate thee on the rocks, And another form create
To be subservient to my fate.
‘ Let us agree to give up love, And root up the Infernal Grove ; Then shall we return and see The worlds of happy Eternity.
WILLIAM BLAKE
‘ And throughout all Eternity
I forgive you, you forgive me.
As our dear Redeemer said :
“This the Wine, and this the Bread.’
The Everlasting Gospel
HE Vision of Christ that thou dost see Is my vision’s greatest enemy. Thine has a great hook nose like thine ; Mine has a snub nose like to mine. Thine is the Friend of all Mankind ; Mine speaks in parables to the blind. Thine loves the same world that mine hates ; Thy heaven doors are my hell gates. Socrates taught what Meletus Loath’d as a nation’s bitterest curse, And Caiaphas was in his own mind A benefactor to mankind. Both read the Bible day and night, But thou read’st black where I read white.
Was Jesus gentle, or did He
Give any marks of gentility ?
When twelve years old He ran away, And left His parents in dismay. When after three days’ sorrow found, Loud as Sinai’s trumpet-sound :
‘No earthly parents I confess—
My Heavenly Father’s business !
Ye understand not what I say,
And, angry, force Me to obey. Obedience is a duty then,
And favour gains with God and men.”
WILLIAM BLAKE
John from the wilderness loud cried ; Satan glovied in his pride.
‘ Come,’ said Satan, ‘ come away,
I'll soon see if you'll obey !
yohn for disobedience bled,
But you can turn the stones to bread. God’s high king and God’s high priest Shall plant their glories in your breast, If Caiaphas you will obey,
If Herod you with bloody prey
Feed with the sacrifice, and be Obedient, fall down, worship me.” Thunders and lightnings broke around, And Jesus’ voice in thunders’ sound :
‘ Thus I seize the spiritual prey.
Ye smiters with disease, make way.
I come your King and God to seize,
Is God a smiter with disease ?”
The God of this world rag’d in vain: He bound old Satan in His chain,
And, bursting forth, His furious ire Became a chariot of fire.
Throughout the land He took His course, And trac’d diseases to their source.
He curs’d the Scribe and Pharisee, Trampling down hypocrisy.
Where’er His chariot took its way, There Gates of Death let in the Day, Broke down from every chain and bar ; And Satan in His spiritual war Drage’d at His chariot-wheels: loud howl’d The God of this world: louder roll’d The chariot-wheels, and louder still His voice was heard from Zion’s Hill,
95
WILLIAM BLAKE
And in His hand the scourge shone bright ; He scourg’d the merchant Canaanite From out the Temple of His Mind,
And in his body tight does bind
Satan and all his hellish crew ;
And thus with wrath He did subdue
The serpent bulk of Nature’s dross,
Till He had nail’d it to the Cross.
He took on sin in the Virgin’s womb
And put it off on the Cross and tomb
To be worshipp’d by the Church of Rome.
Was Jesus humble ? or did He
Give any proofs of humility?
Boast of high things with humble tone, And give with charity a stone?
When but a child He ran away,
And left His parents in dismay.
When they had wander’d three days long These were the words upon His tongue : ‘No earthly parents I confess :
I am doing My Father’s business,’
When the rich learnéd Pharisee
Came to consult Him secretly,
Upon his heart with iron pen
He wrote ‘ Ye must be born again.’
He was too proud to take a bribe ;
He spoke with authority, not like a Scribe. He says with most consummate art ‘Follow Me, I am meek and lowly of heart, As that is the only way to escape
The miser’s net and the glutton’s trap.’ What can be done with such desperate fools Who follow after the heathen schools ?
WILLIAM BLAKE
I was standing by when Jesus died ; What I call’d humility, they call’d pride. He who loves his enemies betrays his friends. This surely is not what Jesus intends ; But the sneaking pride of heroic schools, And the Scribes’ and Pharisees’ virtuous rules ; For He acts with honest, triumphant pride, And this is the cause that Jesus died. He did not die with Christian ease, Asking pardon of His enemies : If He had, Caiaphas would forgive ; Sneaking submission can always live. He had only to say that God was the Devil, And the Devil was God, like a Christian civil ; Mild Christian regrets to the Devil confess For affronting him thrice in the wilderness ; He had soon been bloody Caesar’s elf, And at last he would have been Caesar himself, Like Dr. Priestly and Bacon and Newton— Poor spiritual knowledge is not worth a button ! For thus the Gospel Sir Isaac confutes : ‘God can only be known by His attributes ; And as for the indwelling of the Holy Ghost, Or of Christ and His Father, it’s all a boast And pride, and vanity of the imagination, That disdains to follow this world’s fashion.’ To teach doubt and experiment Certainly was not what Christ meant. What was He doing all that time, From twelve years old to manly prime? Was He then idle, or the less About His Father’s business ? Or was His wisdom held in scorn Before His wrath began to burn
MYST. E
97
98
WILLIAM BLAKE
In miracles throughout the land,
That quite unnerv’d the Seraph band?
If He had been Antichrist, Creeping Jesus, He’d have done anything to please us ; Gone sneaking into synagogues,
And not us’d the Elders and Priests like dogs ; But humble as a lamb or ass
Obey’d Himself to Caiaphas.
God wants not man to humble himself : That is the trick of the Ancient Elf.
This is the race that Jesus ran:
Humble to God, haughty to man,
Cursing the Rulers before the people
Even to the Temple’s highest steeple,
And when He humbled Himself to God Then descended the cruel rod.
‘If Thou Humblest Thyself, Thou humblest Me.
Thou also dwell’st in Eternity.
Thou art a Man: God is no more:
Thy own Humanity learn to adore,
For that is My spirit of life.
Awake, arise to spiritual strife,
And Thy revenge abroad display
In terrors at the last Judgement Day. God’s mercy and long suffering
Is but the sinner to judgement to bring. Thou on the Cross for them shalt pray— And take revenge at the Last Day.’
Jesus replied, and thunders hurl’d :
‘I never will pray for the world.
Once I did so when I pray’d in the Garden; I wish’d to take with Me a bodily pardon.’ Can that which was of woman born,
In the absence of the morn,
WILLIAM BLAKE 99
When the Soul fell into sleep,
And Archangels round it weep,
Shooting out against the light
Fibres of a deadly night,
Reasoning upon its own dark fiction,
In doubt which is self-contradiction ? Humility is only doubt,
And does the sun and moon blot out, Rooting over with thorns and stems
The buried soul and all its gems.
This life’s five windows of the soul Distorts the Heavens from pole to pole, And leads you to believe a lie
When you see with, not thro’, the eye That was born in a night, to perish in a night, When the soul slept in the beams of light.
Did Jesus teach doubt ? or did He Give any lessons of philosophy,
Charge Visionaries with deceiving,
Or call men wise for not believing?...
Was Jesus born of a Virgin pure With narrow soul and looks demure ? If He intended to take on sin
The Mother should an harlot been, Just such a one as Magdalen,
With seven devils in her pen.
Or were Jew virgins still more curs’d, And more sucking devils nurs’d ?
Or what was it which He took on That He might bring salvation?
A body subject to be tempted,
From neither pain nor grief exempted ; Or such a body as might not feel
The passions that with sinners deal ?
100 WILLIAM BLAKE
Yes, but they say He never fell.
Ask Caiaphas ; for he can tell.—
‘He mock’d the Sabbath, and He mock’d The Sabbath’s God, and He unlock’d The evil spirits from their shrines,
And turn’d fishermen to divines ; O’erturn’d the tent of secret sins,
And its golden cords and pins,
In the bloody shrine of war
Pour’d around from star to star,—
Halls of justice, hating vice,
Where the Devil combs his lice.
He turn’d the devils into swine
That He might tempt the Jews to dine ; Since which, a pig has got a look
That for a Jew may be mistook.
“‘ Obey your parents.”—What says He? “Woman, what have I to do with thee? No earthly parents I confess :
I am doing my Father’s business.”
He scorn’d Earth’s parents, scorn’d Earth’s God, And mock’d the one and the other’s rod ; His seventy Disciples sent
Against Religion and Government— They by the sword of Justice fell,
And Him their cruel murderer tell.
He left His father’s trade to roam,
A wand’ring vagrant without home ; And thus He others’ labour stole,
That He might live above control.
The publicans and harlots He
Selected for His company,
And from the adulteress turn’d away God’s righteous law, that lost its prey.’
WILLIAM BLAKE
Was Jesus chaste? or did He
Give any lessons of chastity ?
The Morning blushéd fiery red :
Mary was found in adulterous bed ; Earth groan’d beneath, and Heaven above Trembled at discovery of Love.
Jesus was sitting in Moses’ chair.
They brought the trembling woman there. Moses commands she be ston’d to death What was the sound of Jesus’ breath ? He laid His hand on Moses’ law ;
The ancient Heavens, in silent awe, Writ with curses from pole to pole,
All away began to roll.
The Earth trembling and naked lay
In secret bed of mortal clay ;
On Sinai felt the Hand Divine
Pulling back the bloody shrine ;
And she heard the breath of God,
As she heard by Eden’s flood :
‘Good and Evil are no more!
Sinai’s trumpets cease to roar !
Cease, finger of God, to write !
The Heavens are not clean in Thy sight. Thou art good, and Thou alone ;
Nor may the sinner cast one stone.
To be good only, is to be
A God or else a Pharisee.
Thou Angel of the Presence Divine, That didst create this Body of Mine, Wherefore hast thou writ these laws And created Hell’s dark jaws?
My Presence I will take from thee :
A cold leper thou shalt be.
IoI
102
WILLIAM BLAKE
Tho’ thou wast so pure and bright That Heaven was impure in thy sight, Tho’ thy oath turn’d Heaven pale, Tho’ thy covenant built Hell’s jail, Tho’ thou didst all to chaos roll
With the Serpent for its soul,
Still the breath Divine does move, And the breath Divine is Love. Mary, fear not! Let me see
The seven devils that torment thee. Hide not from My sight thy sin, That forgiveness thou may’st win. Has no man condemnéd thee ?’
‘No man, Lord.’ ‘ Then what is he Who shall accuse thee ? Come ye forth, Fallen fiends of heavenly birth,
That have forgot your ancient love, And driven away my trembling Dove. You shall bow before her feet ;
You shall lick the dust for meat ; And tho’ you cannot love, but hate, Shall be beggars at Love’s gate. What was thy love? Let Me see it ; Was it love or dark deceit ?’
* Love too long from me has fled ;
*T was dark deceit, to earn my bread ; ”Twas covet, or ’twas custom, or Some trifle not worth caring for ; That they may call a shame and sin Love’s temple that God dwelleth in, And hide in secret hidden shrine
The naked Human Form Divine, And render that a lawless thing
On which the Soul expands its wing.
WILLIAM BLAKE 103
But this, O Lord, this was my sin,
When first I let these devils in,
In dark pretence to chastity
Blaspheming Love, blaspheming Thee, Thence rose secret adulteries,
And thence did covet also rise.
My sin Thou hast forgiven me ;
Canst Thou forgive my blasphemy ?
Canst Thou return to this dark hell,
And in my burning bosom dwell ?
And canst Thou die that I may live ?
And canst Thou pity and forgive ?’
Then roll’d the shadowy Man away
From the limbs of Jesus, to make them His prey, An ever devouring appetite,
Glittering with festering venoms bright ; Crying ‘ Crucify this cause of distress,
Who don’t keep the secrets of holiness !
The mental powers by diseases we bind ;
But He heals the deaf, the dumb, and the blind. Whom God has afflicted for secret ends,
He comforts and heals and calls them friends.’ But, when Jesus was crucified,
Then was perfected His galling pride.
In three nights He devour’d His prey,
And still He devours the body of clay ;
For dust and clay is the Serpent’s meat, Which never was made for Man to eat.
Seeing this False Christ, in fury and passion I made my voice heard all over the nation. What are those. . .
I am sure this Jesus will not do, Either for Englishman or Jew.
104 WILLIAM BLAKE
The Crystal Cabinet
HE Maiden caught me in the wild, Where I was dancing merrily ;
She put me into her Cabinet,
And lock’d me up with a golden key.
This Cabinet is form’d of gold
And pearl and crystal shining bright, And within it opens into a world And a little lovely moony night.
Another England there I saw, Another London with its Tower, Another Thames and other hills, And another pleasant Surrey bower,
Another Maiden like herself, Translucent, lovely, shining clear, Threefold each in the other clos’d— O, what a pleasant trembling fear !
O, what a smile! a threefold smile Fill’d me, that like a flame I burn’d ; I bent to kiss the lovely Maid,
And found a threefold kiss return’d.
I strove to seize the inmost form
With ardour fierce and hands of flame, But burst the Crystal Cabinet,
And like a weeping Babe became—
A weeping Babe upon the wild, And weeping Woman pale reclin’d, And in the outward air again
I fill’d with woes the passing wind.
WILLIAM BLAKE
Auguries of Innocence
O see a World in a grain of sand,
And a Heaven in a wild flower, Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand, And Eternity in an hour....
The bat that flits at close of eve
Has left the brain that won’t believe. The owl that calls upon the night Speaks the unbeliever’s fright. ...
Joy and woe are woven fine,
A clothing for the soul divine ; Under every grief and pine
Runs a joy with silken twine. . .
Every tear from every eye Becomes a babe in Eternity....
The bleat, the bark, bellow, and roar Are waves that beat on Heaven’s shore....
He who doubts from what he sees Will ne’er believe, do what you please. If the Sun and Moon should doubt, They'd immediately go out. ...
God appears, and God is Light,
To those poor souls who dwell in Night ; But does a Human Form display
To those who dwell in realms of Day.
E3
105
106
WILLIAM BLAKE
To Thomas Butts
O my friend Butts | write
My first vision of light, On the yellow sands sitting. The sun was emitting His glorious beams From Heaven’s high streams. Over sea, over land, My eyes did expand Into regions of air, Away from all care ; Into regions of fire, Remote from desire ; The light of the morning Heaven’s mountains adorning : In particles bright, The jewels of light Distinct shone and clear. Amaz’d and in fear I each particle gazéd, Astonish’d, amazéd ; For each was a Man Human-form’d. Swift I ran, For they beckon’d to me, Remote by the sea, Saying: ‘ Each grain of sand, Every stone on the land, Each rock and each hill, Each fountain and rill, Each herb and each tree, Mountain, hill, earth, and sea, Cloud, meteor, and star, Are men seen afar.’
eee
WILLIAM BLAKE
I stood in the streams
Of Heaven’s bright beams, And saw Felpham sweet Beneath my bright feet,
In soft Female charms ; And in her fair arms
My Shadow I knew,
And my wife’s Shadow too, And my sister, and friend. We like infants descend
In our Shadows on earth, Like a weak mortal birth. My eyes, more and more, Like a sea without shore, Continue expanding,
The Heavens commanding ; Till the jewels of light,
Heavenly men beaming bright,
Appear’d as One Man,
Who complacent began
My limbs to enfold
In His beams of bright gold; Like dross purg’d away
All my mire and my clay. Soft consum’d in delight,
In His bosom sun-bright
I remain’d. Soft He smil’d, And I heard His voice mild, Saying: ‘ This is My fold, O thou ram horn’d with gold, Who awakest from sleep
On the sides of the deep.
On the mountains around The roarings resound
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108 WILLIAM BLAKE
Of the lion and wolf,
The loud sea, and deep gulf. These are guards of My fold, O thou ram horn’d with gold!” And the voice faded mild ;
I remain’d as a child;
All I ever had known
Before me bright shone :
I saw you and your wife
By the fountains of life. Such the vision to me Appear’d on the sea.
From ‘Milton’
ND did those feet in ancient time Walk upon England’s mountains green ? And was the holy Lamb of God On England’s pleasant pastures seen?
And did the Countenance Divine Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
And was Jerusalem builded here Among these dark Satanic Mills?
Bring me my bow of burning gold! Bring me my arrows of desire !
Bring me my spear! O clouds, unfold | Bring me my chariot of fire !
I will not cease from mental fight,
Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand, Till we have built Jerusalem
In England’s green and pleasant land.
WILLIAM BLAKE 109
From “Ferusalem F To the Christians
GIVE you the end of a golden string ; Only wind it into a ball, It will lead you in at Heaven’s gate, Built in Jerusalem’s wall....
England! awake! awake! awake! Jerusalem thy sister calls !
Why wilt thou sleep the sleep of death, And close her from thy ancient walls ?
Thy hills and valleys felt her feet Gently upon their bosoms move : Thy gates beheld sweet Zion’s ways ; Then was a time of joy and love,
And now the time returns again:
Our souls exult, and London’s towers Receive the Lamb of God to dwell
In England’s green and pleasant bowers.
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH
1770-1850
From ‘The E-xcurston’ I
UCH was the Boy—but for the growing Youth What soul was his, when, from the naked top Of some bold headland, he beheld the sun Rise up, and bathe the world in light! He looked— Ocean and earth, the solid frame of earth And ocean’s liquid mass, in gladness lay
110 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH
Beneath him :—Far and wide the clouds were touched, And in their silent faces could he read Unutterable love. Sound needed none,
Nor any voice of joy ; his spirit drank
The spectacle: sensation, soul, and form,
All melted into him; they swallowed up
His animal being ; in them did he live,
And by them did he live ; they were his life.
In such access of mind, in such high hour
Of visitation from the living God,
Thought was not ; in enjoyment it expired.
No thanks he breathed, he proffered no request ; Rapt into still communion that transcends
The imperfect offices of prayer and praise,
His mind was a thanksgiving to the power
That made him ; it was blessedness and love!
I
Thou, who didst wrap the cloud Of infancy around us, that thyself, Therein, with our simplicity awhile Might’st hold, on earth, communion undisturbed ; Who from the anarchy of dreaming sleep, Or from its death-like void, with punctual care, And touch as gentle as the morning light, Restor’st us, daily, to the powers of sense And reason’s steadfast rule—thou, thou alone Art everlasting, and the blessed Spirits, Which thou includest, as the sea her waves : For adoration thou endur’st ; endure For consciousness the motions of thy will; For apprehension those transcendent truths Of the pure intellect, that stand as laws (Submission constituting strength and power)
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH Ill
Even to thy Being’s infinite majesty !
This universe shall pass away—a work Glorious ! because the shadow of thy might A step, or link, for intercourse with thee. Ah ! if the time must come, in which my feet
No more shall stray where meditation leads,
By flowing stream, through wood, or craggy wild, Loved haunts like these ; the unimprisoned Mind May yet have scope to range among her own,
Her thoughts, her images, her high desires,
If the dear faculty of sight should fail,
Still, it may be allowed me to remember
What visionary powers of eye and soul
In youth were mine; when, stationed on the top Of some huge hill, expectant, I beheld
The sun rise up, from distant climes returned Darkness to chase, and sleep ; and bring the day His bounteous gift! or saw him toward the deep Sink, with a retinue of flaming clouds
Attended ; then, my spirit was entranced
With joy exalted to beatitude ;
The measure of my soul was filled with bliss, And holiest love ; as earth, sea, air, with light, With pomp, with glory, with magnificence !
>
1 I have seen
A curious child, who dwelt upon a tract Of inland ground, applying to his ear The convolutions of a smooth-lipped shell ; To which, in silence hushed, his very soul Listened intensely ; and his countenance soon Brightened with joy ; for from within were heard Murmurings, whereby the monitor expressed
112 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH
Mysterious union with its native sea.
Even such a shell the universe itself
Is to the ear of Faith ; and there are times,
I doubt not, when to you it doth impart
Authentic tidings of invisible things ;
Of ebb and flow, and ever-during power ; | And central peace, subsisting at the heart
Of endless agitation.
Iv
To every Form of being is assigned
An active Principle :—howe’er removed From sense and observation, it subsists
In all things, in al] natures ; in the stars
Of azure heaven, the unenduring clouds, In flower and tree, in every pebbly stone That paves the brooks, the stationary rocks, The moving waters, and the invisible air. Whate’er exists hath properties that spread Beyond itself, communicating good,
A simple blessing, or with evil mixed ; Spirit that knows no insulated spot,
No chasm, no solitude ; from link to link It circulates, the Soul of all the worlds. This is the freedom of the universe ; Unfolded still the more, more visible,
The more we know ; and yet is reverenced least, And least respected in the human Mind, Its most apparent home,
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH
From ‘On the Power of Sound’
Y one pervading spirit
Of tones and numbers all things are controlled, As sages taught, where faith was found to merit Initiation in that mystery old. The heavens, whose aspect makes our minds as stil] As they themselves appear to be, Innumerable voices fill With everlasting harmony ; The towering headlands, crowned with mist, Their feet among the billows, know That Ocean is a mighty harmonist ; Thy pinions, universal Air, Ever waving to and fro, Are delegates of harmony, and bear Strains that support the Seasons in their round ; Stern Winter loves a dirge-like sound.
Break forth into thanksgiving,
Ye banded instruments of wind and chords ; Unite, to magnify the Ever-living,
Your inarticulate notes with the voice of words ! Nor hushed be service from the lowing mead, Nor mute the forest hum of noon ;
Thou too be heard, lone eagle! freed
From snowy peak and cloud, attune
Thy hungry barkings to the hymn
Of joy, that from her utmost walls
The six-days’ Work by flaming Seraphim Transmits to Heaven! As Deep to Deep Shouting through one valley calls,
All worlds, all natures, mood and measure keep For praise and ceaseless gratulation, poured
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114 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH
Into the ear of God, their Lord!
A Voice to Light gave Being ;
To Time, and Man his earth-born chronicler ;
A Voice shall finish doubt and dim foreseeing, And sweep away life’s visionary stir ;
The trumpet (we, intoxicate with pride,
Arm at its blast for deadly wars)
To archangelic lips applied,
The grave shall open, quench the stars.
O Silence! are Man’s noisy years
No more than moments of thy life ?
Is Harmony, blest queen of smiles and tears,
With her smooth tones and discords just, Tempered into rapturous strife,
Thy destined bond-slave ? No! though earth be dust And vanish, though the heavens dissolve, her stay Is in the Worp, that shall not pass away.
Ode: Lutimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood
HERE was a time when meadow, grove, and stream, The earth, and every common sight, To me did seem Apparelled in celestial light, The glory and the freshness of a dream. It is not now as it hath been of yore ;— Turn wheresoe’er I may, By night or day, | The things which I have seen I now can see no more. The Rainbow comes and goes,
And lovely is the Rose, The Moon doth with delight
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 115
Look round her when the heavens are bare, Waters on a starry night Are beautiful and fair ; The sunshine is a glorious birth ; But yet I know, where’er I go, That there hath past away a glory from the earth,
Now, while the birds thus sing a joyous song, And while the young lambs bound As to the tabor’s sound, To me alone there came a thought of grief : A timely utterance gave that thought relief, And I again am strong: The cataracts blow their trumpets from the steep ; No more shall grief of mine the season wrong ; I hear the Echoes through the mountains throng, The Winds come to me from the fields of sleep, And all the earth is gay ; Land and sea Give themselves up to jollity, And with the heart of May Doth every Beast keep holiday ;— Thou Child of Joy, Shout round me, let me hear thy shouts, thou happy Shepherd-boy !
Ye blesséd Creatures, I have heard the call Ye to each other make; I see The heavens laugh with you in your jubilee ; My heart is at your festival, My head hath its coronal, The fulness of your bliss, I feel—I feel it all. Oh evil day! if I were sullen While Earth herself is adorning,
116 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH
This sweet May-morning, And the Children are culling
On every side, In a thousand valleys far and wide,
Fresh flowers ; while the sun shines warm,
And the Babe leaps up on his Mother’s arm :— I hear, I hear, with joy I hear! —But there ’s a Tree, of many, one,
A single Field which I have looked upon,
Both of them speak of something that is gone: The Pansy at my feet Doth the same tale repeat :
Whither is fled the visionary gleam ?
Where is it now, the glory and the dream ?
Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting :
The Soul that rises with us, our life’s Star, Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar :
Not in entire forgetfulness, And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come From God, who is our home :
Heaven lies about us in our infancy !
Shades of the prison-house begin to close Upon the growing Boy,
But He beholds the light, and whence it flows, He sees it in his joy ;
The Youth, who daily farther from the east Must travel, still is Nature’s Priest, And by the vision splendid Is on his way attended ;
At length the Man perceives it die away,
And fade into the light of common day,
ea ae
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH
Earth fills her lap with pleasures of her own ; Yearnings she hath in her own natural kind, And, even with something of a Mother’s mind, And no unworthy aim, The homely Nurse doth all she can To make her Foster-child, her Inmate Man, Forget the glories he hath known, And that imperial palace whence he came.
Behold the Child among his new-born blisses, A six years’ Darling of a pigmy size ! See, where ’mid work of his own hand he lies, Fretted by sallies of his mother’s kisses, With light upon him from his father’s eyes ! See, at his feet, some little plan or chart, Some fragment from his dream of human life, Shaped by himself with newly-learnéd art ;
A wedding or a festival,
A mourning or a funeral ;
And this hath now his heart, And unto this he frames his song : Then will he fit his tongue
To dialogues of business, love, or strife ;
But it will not be long
Ere this be thrown aside,
And with new joy and pride The little Actor cons another part ; Filling from time to time his ‘ humorous stage * With all the Persons, down to palsied Age, That Life brings with her in her equipage ;
As if his whole vocation
Were endless imitation.
Thou, whose exterior semblance doth belie Thy Soul’s immensity ;
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118 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH
Thou best Philosopher, who yet dost keep Thy heritage, thou Eye among the blind, That, deaf and silent, read’st the eternal deep, Haunted for ever by the eternal mind,— Mighty Prophet! Seer blest ! On whom those truths do rest, Which we are toiling all our lives to find, In darkness lost, the darkness of the grave ; Thou, over whom thy Immortality Broods like the Day, a Master o’er a Slave, A Presence which is not to be put by ; Thou little Child, yet glorious in the might Of heaven-born freedom on thy being’s height, Why with such earnest pains dost thou provoke The years to bring the inevitable yoke, Thus blindly with thy blessedness at strife? Full soon thy Soul shall have her earthly freight, And custom lie upon thee with a weight, Heavy as frost, and deep almost as life !
O joy! that in our embers Is something that doth live, That nature yet remembers What was so fugitive ! The thought of our past years in me doth breed Perpetual benediction: not indeed For that which is most worthy to be blest ; Delight and liberty, the simple creed Of Childhood, whether busy or at rest, With new-fledged hope still fluttering in his breast :— Not for these I raise The song of thanks and praise ; But for those obstinate questionings Of sense and outward things,
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH
Fallings from us, vanishings ; Blank misgivings of a Creature Moving about in worlds not realized, High instincts before which our mortal Nature Did tremble like a guilty Thing surprised : But for those first affections, Those shadowy recollections, Which, be they what they may, Are yet che fountain-light of all our day, Are yet a master-light of all our seeing ; Uphold us, cherish, and have power to make Our noisy years seem moments in the being Of the eternal Silence: truths that wake, To perish never : Which neither listlessness, nor mad endeavour, Nor Man nor Boy, Nor all that is at enmity with joy, Can utterly abolish or destroy ! Hence in a season of calm weather Though inland far we be, Our Souls have sight of that immortal sea Which brought us hither, Can in a moment travel thither, And see the Children sport upon the shore, And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore.
Then sing, ye Birds, sing, sing a joyous song ! And let the young Lambs bound As to the tabor’s sound ! We in thought will join your throng, Ye that pipe and ye that play, Ye that through your hearts to-day Feel the gladness of the May! What though the radiance which was once so bright
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120 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH
Be now for ever taken from my sight, Though nothing can bring back the hour Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower ; We will grieve not, rather find Strength in what remains behind ; In the primal sympathy Which having been must ever be; In the soothing thoughts that spring Out of human suffering ; In the faith that looks through death, In years that bring the philosophic mind.
And O, ye Fountains, Meadows, Hills, and Groves, Forebode not any severing of our loves ! Yet in my heart of hearts I feel your might ; I only have relinquished one delight To live beneath your more habitual sway. I love the Brooks which down their channels fret, Even more than when I tripped lightly as they ; The innocent brightness of a new-born Day
Is lovely yet ; The Clouds that gather round the setting sun Do take a sober colouring from an eye That hath kept watch o’er man’s mortality ; Another race hath been, and other palms are won. Thanks to the human heart by which we live, Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears, To me the meanest flower that blows can give Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 121
From ‘Lines composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey .
OR I have learned
To look on nature, not as in the hour Of thoughtless youth ; but hearing oftentimes The still, sad music of humanity, Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power To chasten and subdue. And I have felt A presence that disturbs me with the joy Of elevated thoughts ; a sense sublime Of something far more deeply interfused, Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, And the round ocean and the living air, And the blue sky, and in the mind of man: A motion and a spirit, that impels All thinking things, all objects of all thought, And rolls through all things. Therefore am I still A lover of the meadows and the woods, And mountains ; and of all that we behold From this green earth ; of all the mighty world Of eye, and ear,—both what they half create, And what perceive; well pleased to recognize In nature and the language of the sense, The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse, The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul Of all my moral being.
From ‘The Prelude’ I S while the days flew by, and years passed on, From Nature and her overflowing soul I had received so much, that all my thoughts Were steeped in feeling ; I was only then
122 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH
Contented, when with bliss ineffable
I felt the sentiment of Being spread
O’er all that moves and all that seemeth still ; O’er all that, lost beyond the reach of thought And human knowledge, to the human eye Invisible, yet liveth to the heart ;
O’er all that leaps and runs, and shouts and sings, Or beats the gladsome air; o’er all that glides Beneath the wave, yea, in the wave itself,
And mighty depth of waters. Wonder not
If high the transport, great the joy I felt Communing in this sort through earth and heaven With every form of creature, as it looked Towards the Uncreated with a countenance
Of adoration, with an eye of love.
One song they sang, and it was audible,
Most audible, then, when the fleshly ear, O’ercome by humblest prelude of that strain, Forgot her functions, and slept undisturbed.
II
—Of that external scene which round me lay, Little, in this abstraction, did I see ; Remembered less ; but I had inward hopes And swellings of the spirit, was rapt and soothed, Conversed with promises, had glimmering views How life pervades the undecaying mind ;
How the immortal soul with God-like power Informs, creates, and thaws the deepest sleep That time can lay upon her ; how on earth, Maan, if he do but live within the light
Of high endeavours, daily spreads abroad
His being armed with strength that cannot fail.
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH
Ill Visionary power
Attends the motions of the viewless winds, Embodied in the mystery of words : There, darkness makes abode, and all the host Of shadowy things work endless changes,—there, As in a mansion like their proper home, Even forms and substances are circumfused By that transparent veil with light divine, And, through the turnings intricate of verse, Present themselves as objects recognized, In flashes, and with glory not their own.
Iv
Imagination—here the Power so called Through sad incompetence of human speech, That awful Power rose from the mind’s abyss Like an unfathered vapour that enwraps,
At once, some lonely traveller. I was lost ; Halted without an effort to break through ; But to my conscious soul I now can say—
‘I recognize thy glory’: in such strength
Of usurpation, when the light of sense
Goes out, but with a flash that has revealed The invisible world, doth greatness make abode, There harbours ; whether we be young or old, Our destiny, our being’s heart and home,
Is with infinitude, and only there ;
With hope it is, hope that can never die, Effort, and expectation, and desire,
And something evermore about to be.
Under such banners militant, the soul
Seeks for no trophies, struggles for no spoils That may attest her prowess, blest in thoughts
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That are their own perfection and reward, Strong in herself and in beatitude
That hides her, like the mighty flood of Nile Poured from his fount of Abyssinian clouds To fertilize the whole Egyptian plain.
v
The brook and road? Were fellow-travellers in this gloomy strait, And with them did we journey several hours At a slow pace. The immeasurable height Of woods decaying, never to be decayed, The stationary blasts of waterfalls, And in the narrow rent at every turn Winds thwarting winds, bewildered and forlorn, The torrents shooting from the clear blue sky, The rocks that muttered close upon our ears, Black drizzling crags that spake by the way-side As if a voice were in them, the sick sight And giddy prospect of the raving stream, The unfettered clouds and region of the Heavens, Tumult and peace, the darkness and the light— Were all like workings of one mind, the features Of the same face, blossoms upon one tree ; Characters of the great Apocalypse, The types and symbols of Eternity, Of first, and last, and midst, and without end.
vI In some green bower Rest, and be not alone, but have thou there The One who is thy choice of all the world : There linger, listening, gazing, with delight 1 The passage refers to the Simplon Pass.
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 125
Impassioned, but delight how pitiable !
Unless this love by a still higher love
Be hallowed, love that breathes not without awe; Love that adores, but on the knees of prayer,
By heaven inspired ; that frees from chains the soul, Lifted, in union with the purest, best,
Of earth-born passions, on the wings of praise Bearing a tribute to the Almighty’s Throne.
VII
This spiritual Love acts not nor can exist Without Imagination, which, in truth, Is but another name for absolute power And clearest insight, amplitude of mind, And Reason in her most exalted mood. This faculty hath been the feeding source Of our long labour: we have traced the stream From the blind cavern whence is faintly heard Its natal murmur ; followed it to light And open day ; accompanied its course Among the ways of Nature, for a time Lost sight of it bewildered and engulphed ; Then given it greeting as it rose once more In strength, reflecting from its placid breast The works of man and face of human life ; And lastly, from its progress have we drawn Faith in life endless, the sustaining thought Of human Being, Eternity, and God.
1 The labour shared between the writer and the reader of the Prelude.
126
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE 1772-1834 From ‘ Religious Musings’ T
HERE is one Mind, one omnipresent Mind,
Omnific. His most holy name is Love. Truth of subliming import! with the which Who feeds and saturates his constant soul, He from his small particular orbit flies With blest outstarting! From himself he flies, Stands in the sun, and with no partial gaze Views all creation ; and he loves it all, And blesses it, and calls it very good ! This is indeed to dwell with the Most High ! Cherubs and rapture-trembling Seraphim Can press no nearer to the Almighty’s throne. But that we roam unconscious, or with hearts Unfeeling of our universal Sire, And that in His vast family no Cain Injures uninjured (in her best-aimed blow Victorious Murder a blind Suicide) Haply for this some younger Angel now Looks down on Human Nature: and, behold ! A sea of blood bestrewed with wrecks, where mad Embattling Interests on each other rush With unhelmed rage !
Tis the sublime of man,
Our noontide Majesty, to know ourselves Parts and proportions of one wondrous whole ! This fraternizes man, this constitutes Our charities and bearings. But ’tis God Diffused through all, that doth make all one whole ; This the worst superstition, him except Aught to desire, Supreme Reality ! The plenitude and permanence of bliss !
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE 127
I Toy-bewitched,
Made blind by lusts, disherited of soul,
No common centre Man, no common sire
Knoweth! A sordid solitary thing,
Mid countless brethren with a lonely heart
Through courts and cities the smooth savage roams
Feeling himself, his own low self the whole ;
When ke by sacred sympathy might make
The whole one Self! Self, that no alien knows !
Self, far diffused as Fancy’s wing can travel !
Self, spreading still! Oblivious of its own,
Yet all of all possessing! This is Faith !
This the Messiah’s destined victory !
From ‘Depection: an Ode’ Y genial spirits fail ; And what can these? avail To lift the smothering weight from off my breast ? It were a vain endeavour, Though I should gaze for ever On that green light that lingers in the west : I may not hope from outward forms to win The passion and the life, whose fountains are within.
O Lady! we receive but what we give,
And in our life alone does Nature live :
Ours is her wedding garment, ours her shroud ! And would we aught behold, of higher worth,
Than that inanimate cold world allowed
To the poor loveless ever-anxious crowd, Ah! from the soul itself must issue forth
A light, a glory, a fair luminous cloud
1The clouds, the stars, and the moon, at which the poet was gazing.
128 SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE
Enveloping the Earth— And from the soul itself must there be sent A sweet and potent voice, of its own birth, Of all sweet sounds the life and element !
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY Flymn to Intellectual Beauty
I HE awful shadow of some unseen Power Floats though unseen among us,—visiting This various world with as inconstant wing
As summer winds that creep from flower to flower,— Like moonbeams that behind some piny mountain shower,
It visits with inconstant glance
Each human heart and countenance ; Like hues and harmonies of evening,—
Like clouds in starlight widely spread,—
Like memory of music fled,—
Like aught that for its grace may be Dear, and yet dearer for its mystery.
1792-1822
II Spirit of Beauty, that dost consecrate With thine own hues all thou dost shine upon Of human thought or form,—where art thou gone? Why dost thou pass away and leave our state, This dim vast vale of tears, vacant and desolate ? Ask why the sunlight not for ever Weaves rainbows o’er yon mountain-river, Why aught should fail and fade that once is shown, Why fear and dream and death and birth Cast on the daylight of this earth Such gloom,—why man has such a scope For love and hate, despondency and hope?
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY 129
I No voice from some sublimer world hath ever To sage or poet these responses given— Therefore the names of Demon, Ghost, and Heaven, Remain the records of their vain endeavour, Frail spells—whose uttered charm might not avail to sever, From all we hear and all we see, Doubt, chance, and mutability. Thy light alone—like mist o’er mountains driven, Or music by the night-wind sent Through strings of some still instrument, Or moonlight on a midnight stream, Gives grace and truth to life’s unquiet dream.
Iv Love, Hope, and Self-esteem, like clouds depart And come, for some uncertain moments lent. Man were immortal, and omnipotent, Didst thou, unknown and awful as thou art, Keep with thy glorious train firm state within his heart. Thou messenger of sympathies, That wax and wane in lovers’ eyes— Thou—that to human thought art nourishment, Like darkness to a dying flame ! Depart not as thy shadow came, Depart not—lest the grave should be, Like life and fear, a dark reality.
Vv While yet a boy I sought for ghosts, and sped Through many a listening chamber, cave and ruin, And starlight wood, with fearful steps pursuing Hopes of high talk with the departed dead. I called on poisonous names with which our youth is fed ; MYST. F
130 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY
I was not heard—I saw them not— When musing deeply on the lot Of life, at that sweet time when winds are wooing All vital things that wake to bring News of birds and blossoming,— Sudden, thy shadow fell on me ; I shrieked, and clasped my hands in ecstasy !
vI I vowed that I would dedicate my powers To thee and thine—have I not kept the vow ? With beating heart and streaming eyes, even now I call the phantoms of a thousand hours Each from his voiceless grave : they have in visioned bowers Of studious zeal or love’s delight Outwatched with me the envious night— They know that never joy illumed my brow Unlinked with hope that thou wouldst free This world from its dark slavery, That thou—O awful Lovetiness, Wouldst give whate’er these words cannot express.
vil The day becomes more solemn and serene When noon is past—there is a harmony In autumn, and a lustre in its sky, Which through the summer is not heard or seen, As if it could not be, as if it had not been ! Thus let thy power, which like the truth Of nature on my passive youth Descended, to my onward life supply Its calm—to one who worships thee, And every form containing thee, Whom, Spirir fair, thy spells did bind To fear himself, and love all human kind.
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY 131
From ‘Adonais’
E is made one with Nature: there is heard
His voice in all her music, from the moan Of thunder, to the song of night’s sweet bird ; He is a presence to be felt and known In darkness and in light, from herb and stone, Spreading itself where’er that Power may move Which has withdrawn his being to its own ; Which wields the world with never-wearied love,
Sustains it from beneath, and kindles it above.
He is a portion of the loveliness Which once he made more lovely: he doth bear His part, while the one Spirit’s plastic stress Sweeps through the dull dense world, compelling there, All new successions to the forms they wear ; Torturing th’ unwilling dross that checks its flight To its own likeness, as each mass may bear ; And bursting in its beauty and its might From trees and beasts and men into the Heaven’s light
The splendours of the firmament of time
May be eclipsed, but are extinguished not ;
Like stars to their appointed height they climb
And death is a low mist which cannot blot
The brightness it may veil. When lofty thought
Lifts a young heart above its mortal lair,
And love and life contend in it, for what
Shall be its earthly doom, the dead live there And move like winds of light on dark and stormy air.
The One remains, the many change and pass ; Heaven’s light forever shines, Earth’s shadows fly ; Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass,
Stains the white radiance of Eternity,
132 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY
Until Death tramples it to fragments.—Die, If thou wouldst be with that which thou dost seek! Follow where all is fled !—Rome’s azure sky, Flowers, ruins, statues, music, words, are weak
The glory they transfuse with fitting truth to speak.
Why linger, why turn back, why shrink, my Heart ? Thy hopes are gone before: from all things here They have departed ; thou shouldst now depart ! A light is passed from the revolving year, And man, and woman ; and what still is dear Attracts to crush, repels to make thee wither. The soft sky smiles,—the low wind whispers near : Tis Adonais calls! oh, hasten thither,
No more let Life divide what Death can join together.
That Light whose smile kindles the Universe,
That Beauty in which all things work and move,
That Benediction which the eclipsing Curse
Of birth can quench not, that sustaining Love
Which through the web of being blindly wove
By man and beast and earth and air and sea,
Burns bright or dim, as each are mirrors of
The fire for which all thirst ; now beams on me, Consuming the last clouds of cold mortality.
The breath whose might I have invoked in song Descends on me; my spirit’s bark is driven, Far from the shore, far from the trembling throng Whose sails were never to the tempest given; The massy earth and spheréd skies are riven ! I am borne darkly, fearfully, afar ; Whilst, burning through the inmost veil of Heaven, The soul of Adonais, like a star,
Beacons from the abode where the Eternal are.
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JOHN HENRY, CARDINAL NEWMAN : 1801-1890 Melchizedek
Without father, without mother, without descent ; having neither beginning of days, nor end of life. HRICE bless’d are they, who feel their loneliness ; To whom nor voice of friends nor pleasant scene Brings that on which the sadden’d heart can lean; Yea, the rich earth, garb’d in her daintiest dress Of light and joy, doth but the more oppress, Claiming responsive smiles and rapture high ; Till, sick at heart, beyond the veil they fly, Seeking His Presence, who alone can bless. Such, in strange days, the weapons of Heaven’s grace ; When, passing o’er the high-born Hebrew line, He forms the vessel of His vast design ; Fatherless, homeless, reft of age and place, Sever’d from earth, and careless of its wreck, Born through long woe His rare Melchizedek.
From ‘ The Dream of Gerontius’
Choir of Angelicals.
DOUBLE debt he has to pay— The forfeit of his sins : The chill of death is past, and now The penance-fire begins.
Glory to Him, who evermore By truth and justice reigns ;
Who tears the soul from out its case, And burns away its stains !
134. JOHN HENRY, CARDINAL NEWMAN
Angel. They sing of thy approaching agony, Which thou so eagerly didst question of : It is the face of the Incarnate God Shall smite thee with that keen and subtle pain ; And yet the memory which it leaves will be A sovereign febrifuge to heal the wound ; And yet withal it will the wound provoke, And aggravate and widen it the more.
Soul.
Thou speakest mysteries : still methinks I know To disengage the tangle of thy words :
Yet rather would I hear thy angel voice,
Than for myself be thy interpreter.
Angel.
When then—if such thy lot—thou seest thy Judge, The sight of Him will kindle in thy heart
All tender, gracious, reverential thoughts.
Thou wilt be sick with love, and yearn for Him, And feel as though thou couldst but pity Him, That one so sweet should e’er have placed Himself At disadvantage such, as to be used
So vilely by a being so vile as thee.
There is a pleading in His pensive eyes
Will pierce thee to the quick, and trouble thee. And thou wilt hate and loathe thyself; for, though Now sinless, thou wilt feel that thou hast sinn’d, As never thou didst feel ; and wilt desire
To slink away, and hide thee from His sight :
And yet wilt have a longing ay to dwell
Within the beauty of His countenance.
JOHN HENRY, CARDINAL NEWMAN 135
And these two pains, so counter and so keen,x— The longing for Him, when thou seest Him not ; The shame of self at thought of seeing Him,— Will be thy veriest, sharpest purgatory.
The Pillar of the Cloud
fare: Kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom, Lead Thou me on! The night is dark, and I am far from home— Lead Thou me on! Keep Thou my feet: I do not ask to see The distant scene,—one step enough for me.
I was not ever thus, nor pray’d that Thou Shouldst lead me on.
I loved to choose and see my path; but now Lead Thou me on!
I loved the garish day, and, spite of fears,
Pride ruled my will: remember not past years,
So long Thy power hath blest me, sure it still Will lead me on,
O’er moor and fen, o’er crag and torrent, till The night is gone ;
And with the morn those angel faces smile
Which I have loved long since, and lost awhile.
136
JAMES CLARENCE MANGAN 1803-1849
S. Patrick’s Hymn before Tara (From THE IJRIsH)
HRIST, as a light, Illumine and guide me!
Christ, as a shield, o’ershadow and cover me ! Christ be under me! Christ be over me!
Christ be beside me
On left hand and right ! Christ be before me, behind me, about me! Christ this day be within and without me!
Christ, the lowly and meek, Christ, the All-powerful, be In the heart of each to whom I speak, In the mouth of each who speaks to me! In all who draw near me, Or see me or hear me!
At Tara to-day, in this awful hour, I call on the Holy Trinity ! Glory to Him who reigneth in power, The God of the Elements, Father, and Son, And Paraclete Spirit, which Three are the One, The ever-existing Divinity !
Salvation dwells with the Lord,
With Christ, the Omnipotent Word.
From generation to generation
Grant us, O Lord, Thy grace and salvation !
137
RALPH WALDO EMERSON
The Problem
LIKE a church; I like a cowl ; I love a prophet of the soul ; And on my heart monastic aisles Fall like sweet strains, or pensive smiles ; Yet not for all his faith can see Would I that cowled churchman be.
Why should the vest on him allure, Which I could not on me endure?
Not from a vain or shallow thought His awful Jove young Phidias brought ; Never from lips of cunning fell
The thrilling Delphic oracle ;
Out from the heart of nature rolled The burdens of the Bible old ;
The litanies of nations came,
Like the volcano’s tongue of flame, Up from the burning core below,— The canticles of love and woe ;
The hand that rounded Peter’s dome, And groined the aisles of Christian Rome, Wrought in a sad sincerity ;
Himself from God he could not free 3 He builded better than he knew ;— The conscious stone to beauty grew.
1803-1884
Know’st thou what wove yon woodbird’s nest Of leaves, and feathers from her breast ? Or how the fish outbuilt her shell, Painting with morn each annual cell ? F3
138 RALPH WALDO EMERSON
Or how the sacred pine-tree adds
To her old leaves new myriads ?
Such and so grew these holy piles, Whilst love and terror laid the tiles. Earth proudly wears the Parthenon, As the best gem upon her zone ; And Morning opes with haste her lids, To gaze upon the Pyramids ;
O’er England’s abbeys bends the sky, As on its friends, with kindred eye ; For, out of Thought’s interior sphere, These wonders rose to upper air ;
And Nature gladly gave them place, Adopted them into her race,
And granted them an equal date With Andes and with Ararat.
These temples grew as grows the grass; Art might obey, but not surpass.
The passive Master lent his hand
To the vast soul that o’er him planned ; And the same power that reared the shrine, Bestrode the tribes that knelt within.
Ever the fiery Pentecost
Girds with one flame the countless host, Trances the heart through chanting choirs, And through the priest the mind inspires.
The word unto the prophet spoken Was writ on tables yet unbroken ; The word by seers or sibyls told, In groves of oak, or fanes of gold, Still floats upon the morning wind, Still whispers to the willing mind, One accent of the Holy Ghost
The heedless world hath never lost.
RALPH WALDO EMERSON
I know what say the fathers wise,— The Book itself before me lies,
Old Chrysostom, best Augustine, And he who blent both in his line, The younger Golden Lips or mines, Taylor, the Shakespeare of divines. His words are music in my ear,
I see his cowled portrait dear ; And yet, for all his faith could see, I would not the good bishop be.
Ode to Beauty
HO gave thee, O Beauty, The keys of this breast,—
Too credulous lover
Of blest and unblest ?
Say, when in lapsed ages
Thee knew I of old?
Or what was the service
For which I was sold?
When first my eyes saw thee,
I found me thy thrall,
By magical drawings,
Sweet tyrant of all!
I drank at thy fountain
False waters of thirst ;
Thou intimate stranger,
Thou latest and first !
Thy dangerous glances
Make women of men;
New-born, we are melting
Into nature again.
139
140
RALPH WALDO EMERSON
Lavish, lavish promiser,
Nigh persuading gods to err ! Guest of million painted forms, Which in turn thy glory warms ! The frailest leaf, the mossy bark, The acorn’s cup, the raindrop’s arc, The swinging spider’s silver line, The ruby of the drop of wine, The shining pebble of the pond, Thou inscribest with a bond,
In thy momentary play,
Would bankrupt nature to repay.
Ah, what avails it
To hide or to shun
Whom the Infinite One
Hath granted His throne ?
The heaven high over
Is the deep’s lover ;
The sun and sea,
Informed by thee,
Before me run,
And draw me on,
Yet fly me still,
As Fate refuses
To me the heart Fate for me chooses, Is it that my opulent soul
Was mingled from the generous whole ; Sea-valleys and the deep of skies Furnished several supplies ;
And the sands whereof I’m made Draw me to them, self-betrayed ? I turn the proud portfolios Which hold the grand designs
RALPH WALDO EMERSON
Of Salvator, of Guercino,
And Piranesi’s lines.
I hear the lofty paeans
Of the masters of the shell,
Who heard the starry music
And recount the numbers well ; Olympian bards who sung
Divine Ideas below,
Which always find us young,
And always keep us so.
Oft, in streets or humblest places, I detect far-wandered graces, Which, from Eden wide astray, In lonely homes have lost their way.
Thee gliding through the sea of form, Like the lightning through the storm, Somewhat not to be possessed, Somewhat not to be caressed.
No feet so fleet could ever find,
No perfect form could ever bind. Thou eternal fugitive,
Hovering over all that live,
Quick and skilful to inspire
Sweet, extravagant desire,
Starry space and lily-bell
Filling with thy roseate smell,
Wilt not give the lips to taste
Of the nectar which thou hast.
All that ’s good and great with thee Works in close conspiracy ;
Thou hast bribed the dark and lonely To report thy features only,
14)
142
RALPH WALDO EMERSON
And the cold and purple morning
Itself with thoughts of thee adorning ; The leafy dell, the city mart,
Equal trophies of thine art ;
E’en the flowing azure air
Thou hast touched for my despair ; And, if I languish into dreams,
Again I meet the ardent beams.
Queen of things! I dare not die
In Being’s deeps past ear and eye ;
Lest there I find the same deceiver,
And be the sport of Fate for ever.
Dread Power, but dear ! if God thou be, Unmake me quite, or give thyself to me!
Brahma
F the red slayer think he slays, Or if the slain think he is slain, They know not well the subtle ways I keep, and pass, and turn again,
Far or forgot to me is near ; Shadow and sunlight are the same ; The vanished gods to me appear ; And one to me are shame and fame,
They reckon ill who leave me out ; When me they fly, I am the wings ; I am the doubter and the doubt, And I the hymn the Brahmin sings,
The strong gods pine for my abode,
And pine in vain the sacred Seven ; But thou, meek lover of the good !
Find me and turn thy back on heaven,
RALPH WALDO EMERSON 143
Worship
IS is he, who, felled by foes,
Sprung harmless up, refreshed by blows He to captivity was sold, But him no prison-bars would hold: Though they sealed him in a rock, Mountain chains he can unlock : Thrown to lions for their meat, The crouching lion kissed his feet : Bound to the stake, no flames appalled, But arched o’er him an honouring vault. This is he men miscall Fate, Threading dark ways, arriving late, But ever coming in time to crown The truth, and hurl wrong-doers down. He is the oldest, and best known, More near than aught thou call’st thy own, Yet, greeted in another’s eyes, Disconcerts with glad surprise. This is Jove, who, deaf to prayers, Floods with blessings unawares. Draw, if thou canst, the mystic line Severing rightly his from thine, Which is human, which divine.
ROBERT STEPHEN HAWKER
Aishah Shechinah
SHAPE, like folded light, embodied air, Yet wreathed with flesh, and warm: All that of heaven is feminine and fair, Moulded in visible form,
1803-1875
144 ROBERT STEPHEN HAWKER
She stood, the Lady Shechinah of earth, A chancel for the sky :
Where woke, to breath and beauty, God’s own Birth, For men to see Him by.
Round her, too pure to mingle with the day, Light, that was life, abode ;
Folded within her fibres meekly lay The link of boundless God.
So linked, so blent, that when, with pulse fulfilled, Moved but that Infant Hand,
Far, far away, His conscious Godhead thrilled, And stars might understand.
Lo! where they pause, with inter-gathering rest, The Threefold, and the One ;
And lo, He binds them to her orient breast, His manhood girded on.
The zone, where two glad worlds for ever meet, Beneath that bosom ran:
Deep in that womb the conquering Paraclete Smote Godhead on to man.
Sole scene among the stars, where, yearning, glide The Threefold and the One ;
Her God upon her lap, the Virgin Bride, Her awful Child, her Son!
ROBERT STEPHEN HAWKER 145
From ‘The Quest of the Sangraal’
HEN came Sir Joseph, hight, of Arimathée, Bearing that awful vase, the Sangraal ! The vessel of the Pasch, Shere Thursday night : The selfsame Cup, wherein the faithful Wine Heard God, and was obedient unto Blood ! Therewith he knelt, and gathered blesséd drops From his dear Master’s Side that sadly fell, The ruddy dews from the great Tree of Life: Sweet Lord! what treasures! like the priceless gems, Hid in the tawny casket of a king— A ransom for an army, one by one. That wealth he cherished long; his very soul Around his ark; bent, as before a shrine ! He dwelt in orient Syria : God’s own land: The ladder-foot of heaven—where shadowy shapes In white apparel glided up and down! His home was like a garner, full of corn And wine and oil: a granary of God! Young men, that no one knew, went in and out, With a far look in their eternal eyes ! All things were strange and rare: the Sangraal As though it clung to some etherial chain, Brought down high heaven to earth at Arimathée. He lived long centuries! and prophesied. A girded pilgrim ever and anon: Cross-staff in hand, and folded at his side, The mystic marvel of the feast of blood ! Once in old time he stood in this dear land, Enthralled :—for lo! a sign! his grounded staff Took root, and branched, and bloomed, like Aaron’s rod ; Thence came the shrine, the cell: therefore he dwelt, The vassal of the vase, at Avalon !
146
ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING 1806-1861
Chorus of Eden Spirits
(Chanting from Paradise, while Adam and Eve Sly across the Sword-glare)
EARKEN, oh hearken! let your souls behind you
Turn, gently moved !
Our voices feel along the Dread to find you, O lost, beloved !
Through the thick-shielded and strong-marshalled angels, They press and pierce :
Our requiems follow fast on our evangels,— Voice throbs in verse.
We are but orphaned spirits left in Eden A time ago:
God gave us golden cups, and we were bidden To feed you so.
But now our right hand hath no cup remaining, No work to do,
The mystic hydromel is spilt, and staining The whole earth through.
Most ineradicable stains, for showing (Not interfused !)
That brighter colours were the world’s foregoing, Than shall be used.
Hearken, oh hearken! ye shall hearken surely For years and years,
The noise beside you, dripping coldly, purely, Of spirits’ tears.
The yearning to a beautiful denied you, Shall strain your powers.
ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING
Ideal sweetnesses shall over-glide you, Resumed from ours.
In all your music, our pathetic minor Your ears shall cross ;
And all good gifts shall mind you of diviner, With sense of loss.
We shall be near you in your poet-languors And wild extremes,
What time ye vex the desert with vain angers, Or mock with dreams.
And when upon you, weary after roaming, Death’s seal is put,
By the foregone ye shall discern the coming, Through eyelids shut.
From ‘The Souls Travelling’
OD, God ! With a child’s voice I cry, Weak, sad, confidingly— God, God!
Thou knowest, eyelids, raised not always up Unto Thy love (as none of ours are), droop
As ours, o’er many a tear ! Thou knowest, though Thy universe is broad, Two little tears suffice to cover all : Thou knowest, Thou, who art so prodigal Of beauty, we are oft but stricken deer Expiring in the woods—that care for none Of those delightsome flowers they die upon.
147
O blissful Mouth which breathed the mournful breath We name our souls, self-spoilt !—by that strong passion
148 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING
Which paled Thee once with sighs,—by that strong death Which made Thee once unbreathing—from the wrack Themselves have called around them, call them back, Back to Thee in continuous aspiration ! For here, O Lord, For here they travel vainly,—vainly pass From city-pavement to untrodden sward, Where the lark finds her deep nest in the grass Cold with the earth’s last dew. Yea, very vain The greatest speed of all these souls of men Unless they travel upward to the throne Where sittest Tuou, the satisfying Ong, With help for sins and holy perfectings For all requirements—while the archangel, raising Unto Thy face his full ecstatic gazing, Forgets the rush and rapture of his wings.
Fluman Life's Mystery
E sow the glebe, we reap the corn, We build the house where we may rest, And then, at moments, suddenly, We look up to the great wide sky, Inquiring wherefore we were born... For earnest or for jest ?
The senses folding thick and dark About the stifled soul within, We guess diviner things beyond, And yearn to them with yearning fond ; We strike out blindly to a mark Believed in, but not seen.
ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING
We vibrate to the pant and thrill Wherewith Eternity has curled
In serpent-twine about God’s seat ;
While, freshening upward to His feet,
In gradual growth His full-leaved will Expands from world to world.
And, in the tumult and excess Of act and passion under sun, We sometimes hear—oh, soft and far, As silver star did touch with star, The kiss of Peace and Righteousness Through all things that are done.
God keeps His holy mysteries Just on the outside of man’s dream ; In diapason slow, we think To hear their pinions rise and sink, While they float pure beneath His eyes, Like swans adown a stream.
Abstractions, are they, from the forms Of His great beauty ?—exaltations
From His great glory ?—strong previsions
Of what we shall be ?—intuitions
Of what we are—in calms and storms, Beyond our peace and passions ?
Things nameless! which, in passing so, Do stroke us with a subtle gracc.
We say, ‘ Who passes ? ’—they are dumb,
We cannot see them go or come :
Their touches fall soft, cold, as snow Upon a blind man’s face.
149
150 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING
Yet, touching so, they draw above Our common thoughts to Heaven’s unknown, Our daily joy and pain advance To a divine significance, Our human love—O mortal love, That light is not its own !
And sometimes horror chills our blood To be so near such mystic Things, And we wrap round us for defence Our purple manners, moods of sense— As angels from the face of God Stand hidden in their wings.
And sometimes through life’s heavy swound We grope tor them !—with strangled breath We stretch our hands abroad and try To reach them in our agony,— And widen, so, the broad life-wound Which soon is large enough for death.
From ‘Aurora Leigh’ RUTH, so far, in my book ;—the truth which draws Through all things upwards,—that a twofold world Must go to a perfect cosmos. Natural things And spiritual,—who separates those two In art, in morals, or the social drift Tears up the bond of nature and brings death, Paints futile pictures, writes unreal verse, Leads vulgar days, deals ignorantly with men, Is wrong, in short, at all points. We divide This apple of life, and cut it through the pips,— The perfect round which fitted Venus’ hand Has perished as utterly as if we ate Both halves. Without the spiritual, observe,
ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING | 151
The natural ’s impossible,—no form, No motion: without sensuous, spiritual Is inappreciable,—no beauty or power :
is twofold sphere the twofold man C& ss ; \
Holds firmly by the natural, to reach
The spiritual beyond it,—fixes still
The type with mortal vision, to pierce through, With eyes immortal, to the antetype
Some call the ideal,—better call the real,
And certain to be called so presently
When things shall have their names. Look long enough On any peasant’s face here, coarse and lined, You'll catch Antinous somewhere in that clay,
As perfect featured as he yearns at Rome
From marble pale with beauty; then persist, And, if your apprehension ’s competent,
You'll find some fairer angel at his back,
As much exceeding him as he the boor,
And pushing him with empyreal disdain
For ever out of sight. Aye, Carrington
Is glad of such a creed: an artist must,
Who paints a tree, a leaf, a common stone
With just his hand, and finds it suddenly
A-piece with and conterminous to his soul.
Why else do these things move him, leaf, or stone ? The bird’s not moved, that pecks at a spring-shoot ; Nor yet the horse, before a quarry, a-graze :
But man, the twofold creature, apprehends
The twofold manner, in and outwardly,
And nothing in the world comes single to him,
A mere itself,—cup, column, or candlestick,
All patterns of what shall be in the Mount ;
The whole tempural show related royally,
152 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING
And built up to eterne significance
Through the open arms of God. ‘ There’s nothing great Nor small ’, has said a poet of our day,
Whose voice will ring beyond the curfew of eve
And not be thrown out by the matin’s bell :
And truly, I reiterate, nothing’s small !
No lily-muffled hum of a summer-bee,
But finds some coupling with the spinning stars ;
No pebble at your foot, but proves a sphere ;
No chaffinch, but implies the cherubim ;
And (glancing on my own thin, veinéd wrist),
In such a little tremor of the blood
The whole strong clamour of a vehement soul
Doth utter itself distinct. Earth ’s crammed with heaven, And every common bush afire with God ;
But only he who sees, takes off his shoes,
The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries,
And daub their natural faces unaware
More and more from the first similitude.
RICHARD CHENEVIX TRENCH, ARCHBISHOP
OF DUBLIN 1807-1886
“Tf there had anywhere’
F there had anywhere appeared in space Another place of refuge, where to flee, Our hearts had taken refuge in that place, And not with Thee.
For we against creation’s bars had beat Like prisoned eagles, through great worlds had sought Though but a foot of ground to plant our feet, Where Thou wert not.
RICHARD CHENEVIX TRENCH 153
And only when we found in earth and air, In heaven or hell, that such might nowhere be— That we could not flee from Thee anywhere, We fled to Thee.
EDGAR ALLAN POE 1809-1849
The Goddess’s Song from ‘Al Aaraaf”
PIRIT! that dwellest where,
In the deep sky, The terrible and fair,
In beauty vie! Beyond the line of blue—
The boundary of the star Which turneth at the view
Of thy barrier and thy bar— Of the barrier overgone
By the comets who were cast From their pride and from their throne
To be drudges till the last— To be carriers of fire
(The red fire of their heart) With speed that may not tire
And with pain that shail not part— Who livest—that we know—
In Eternity—we feel— But the shadow of whose brow
What spirit shall reveal ? Though the beings whom thy Nesace,
Thy messenger hath known, Have dreamed for thy Infinity
A model of their own—
154 EDGAR ALLAN POE
Thy will is done, O God! The star hath ridden high Through many a tempest, but she rode Beneath thy burning eye ; And here, in thought, to thee— In thought that can alone Ascend thy empire, and so be A partner of thy throne— By wingéd Fantasy, My embassy is given, Till secrecy shall knowledge be In the environs of Heaven.
RICHARD MONCKTON MILNES, LORD HOUGHTON The Sayings of Rabia I PIOUS friend one day of Rabia asked, How she had learnt the truth of Allah wholly ?
By what instructions was her memory tasked— How was her heart estranged from this world’s folly ?
1809-1885
She answered—‘ Thou, who knowest God in parts, Thy spirit’s moods and processes can tell ;
I only know that in my heart of hearts I have despised myself and loved Him well.’
II
Some evil upon Rabia fell,
And one who loved and knew her well Murmured that God with pain undue Should strike a child so fond and true:
RICHARD MONCKTON MILNES
But she replied—‘ Believe and trust That all I suffer is most just ;
I had in contemplation striven
To realize the joys of heaven ;
I had extended fancy’s flights Through all that region of delights,— Had counted, till the numbers failed, The pleasures on the blest entailed,— Had sounded the ecstatic rest
I should enjoy on Allah’s breast ; And for those thoughts I now atone That were of something of my own, And were not thoughts of Him alone.’
Ill
When Rabia unto Mekkeh came, She stood awhile apart—alone,
Nor joined the crowd with hearts on flame Collected round the sacred stone.
She, like the rest, with toil had crossed The waves of water, rock, and sand, And now, as one long tempest-tossed, Beheld the Kaabeh’s promised land.
Yet in her eyes no transport glistened ;
She seemed with shame and sorrow bowed ; The shouts of prayer she hardly listened,
But beat her heart and cried aloud :—
‘O heart ! weak follower of the weak,
That thou should’st traverse land and sea, In this far place that God to seek
Who long ago had come to thee!”
155
156
RICHARD MONCKTON MILNES
Iv Round holy Rabia’s suffering bed The wise men gathered, gazing gravely— ‘Daughter of God!’ the youngest said, ‘Endure thy Father’s chastening bravely ; They who have steeped their souls in prayer Can every anguish calmly bear.’
She answered not, and turned aside, Though not reproachfully nor sadly ;
‘ Daughter of God!’ the eldest cried, ‘Sustain thy Father’s chastening gladly ;
They who have learnt to pray aright,
From pain’s dark well draw up delight.’
Then she spoke out—‘ Your words are fair ; But, oh! the truth lies deeper still ;
I know not, when absorbed in prayer, Pleasure or pain, or good or ill;
They who God’s face can understand
Feel not the motions of His hand.’
From ‘ Ghazeles’
LL things once are things for ever ; Soul, once living, lives for ever ;
Blame not what is only once, When that once endures for ever ; Love, once felt, though soon forgot, Moulds the heart to good for ever ; Once betrayed from childly faith, Man is conscious man for ever ; Once the void of life revealed, It must deepen on for ever,
RICHARD MONCKTON MILNES 157
Unless God fill up the heart
With Himself for once and ever: Once made God and man at once, God and man are one for ever.
ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON St. Agnes’ Eve
EEP on the convent-roof the snows Are sparkling to the moon:
My breath to heaven like vapour goes : May my soul follow soon !
The shadows of the convent-towers Slant down the snowy sward,
Still creeping with the creeping hours That lead me to my Lord:
Make Thou my spirit pure and clear As are the frosty skies,
Or this first snowdrop of the year That in my bosom lies.
1809-1894
As these white robes are soil’d and dark, To yonder shining ground ;
As this pale taper’s earthly spark, To yonder argent round ;
So shows my soul before the Lamb, My spirit before Thee ;
So in mine earthly house I am, To that I hope to be.
Break up the heavens, O Lord! and far, Thro’ all yon starlight keen,
Draw me, thy bride, a glittering star, In raiment white and clean.
158
ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON
He lifts me to the golden doors ; The flashes come and go;
All heaven bursts her starry floors, And strows her lights below,
And deepens on and up! the gates Roll back, and far within
For me the Heavenly Bridegroom waits, To make me pure of sin.
The sabbaths of Eternity, One sabbath deep and wide—
A light upon the shining sea— The Bridegroom with his bride!
Sir Galahad
Y good blade carves the casques of men, My tough lance thrusteth sure, My strength is as the strength of ten, Because my heart is pure.
The shattering trumpet shrilleth high, The hard brands shiver on the steel, The splinter’d spear-shafts crack and fly,
The horse and rider reel : They reel, they roll in clanging lists, And when the tide of combat stands, Perfume and flowers fall in showers,
That lightly rain from ladies’ hands,
How sweet are looks that ladies bend On whom their favours fall !
For them I battle till the end, To save from shame and thrall:
ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON
But all my heart is drawn above,
My knees are bow’d in crypt and shrine : T never felt the kiss of love,
Nor maiden’s hand in mine. More bounteous aspects on me beam,
Me mightier transports move and thrill ; So keep I fair thro’ faith and prayer
A virgin heart in work and will.
When down the stormy crescent goes, A light before me swims,
Between dark stems the forest glows, I hear a noise of hymns:
Then by some secret shrine I ride ; I hear a voice, but none are there;
The stalls are void, the doors are wide, The tapers burning fair.
Fair gleams the snowy altar-cloth, The silver vessels sparkle clean,
The shrill bell rings, the censer swings, And solemn chaunts resound between.
Sometimes on lonely mountain-meres I find a magic bark ;
I leap on board: no helmsman steers : I float till all is dark.
A gentle sound, an awful light ! Three angels bear the holy Grail:
With folded feet, in stoles of white. On sleeping wings they sail.
Ah, blessed vision! blood of God! My spirit beats her mortal bars,
As down dark tides the glory slides, And star-like mingles with the stars.
159
160 ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON
When on my goodly charger borne Thro’ dreaming towns I go,
The cock crows ere the Christmas morn, The streets are dumb with snow.
The tempest crackles on the leads, And, ringing, springs from brand and mai! ;
But o’er the dark a glory spreads, And gilds the driving hail.
I leave the plain, I climb the height ; No branchy thicket shelter yields ;
But blessed forms in whistling storms Fly o’er waste fens and windy fields.
A maiden knight—to me is given Such hope, I know not fear ; I yearn to breathe the airs of heaven That often meet me here. I muse on joy that will not cease, Pure spaces clothed in living beams, Pure lilies of eternal peace, Whose odours haunt my dreams ; And, stricken by an angel’s hand, This mortal armour that I wear, This weight and size, this heart and eyes, Are touch’d, are turn’d to finest air.
The clouds are broken in the sky, And thro’ the mountain-walls A rolling organ-harmony Swells up, and shakes and falls. Then move the trees, the copses nod, Wings flutter, voices hover clear : *O just and faithful knight of God! Ride on! the prize is near,’
ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON 161
So pass I hostel, hall, and grange ;
By bridge and ford, by park and pale, All-arm’d I ride, whate’er betide,
Until I find the holy Grail.
The Higher Pantheism
HE sun, the moon, the stars, the seas, the hills and the plains— Are not these, O Soul, the Vision of Him who reigns ?
Is not the Vision He? tho’ He be not that which He
seems ? Dreams are true while they last, and do we not live in
dreams ?
Earth, these solid stars, this weight of body and limb, Are they not sign and symbol of thy division from Him ?
Dark is the world to thee: thyself art the reason why ; For is He not all but thou, that hast power to feel ‘lane [7%
Glory about thee, without thee; and thou fulfillest thy
doom, Making Him broken gleams, and a stifled splendour and
gloom.
Speak to Him thou for He hears, and Spirit with Spirit
can meet— Closer is He than breathing, and nearer than hands and
feet. God is law, say the wise ; O Soul, and let us rejoice, For if He thunder by law the thunder is yet His voice. MYST. G
162 ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON
Law is God, say some: no God at all, says the fool ; For all we have power to see is a straight staff bent in a pool ;
And the ear of man cannot hear, and the eye of man can- not see ; But if we could see and hear, this Vision—were it not He ?
© Flower in the crannied wall?
LOWER in the crannied wall,
I pluck you out of the crannies ;— Hold you here, root and all, in my hand, Little flower—but if I could understand What you are, root and all, and all in all, I should know what God and man is.
From ‘In Memoriam’
I EAR friend, far off, my lost desire, So far, so near in woe and weal ; O loved the most, when most I feel There is a lower and a higher ;
Known and unknown; human, divine ; Sweet human hand and lips and eye ; Dear heavenly friend that canst not die,
Mine, mine, for ever, ever mine ;
Strange friend, past, present, and to be; Loved deeplier, darklier understood ; Behold, I dream a dream of good,
And mingle all the world with thee.
ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON 163
II Thy voice is on the rolling air ; I hear thee where the waters run ; Thou standest in the rising sun, And in the setting thou art fair.
What art thou then? I cannot guess; But tho’ I seem in star and flower To feel thee some diffusive power, I do not therefore love thee less :
My love involves the love before ;
My love is vaster passion now ;
Tho’ mix’d with God and Nature thou, I seem to love thee more and more.
Far off thou art, but ever nigh ;
I have thee still, and I rejoice ;
I prosper, circled with thy voice ; I shall not lose thee tho’ I die.
Il O living will that shalt endure When all that seems shall suffer shock, Rise in the spiritual rock, Flow thro’ our deeds and make them pure,
That we may lift from out of dust A voice as unto him that hears, A cry above the conquer’d years fo one that with us works, and trust,
With faith that comes of self-control, The truths that never can be proved Until we close with all we loved
And all we flow from, soul in soul.
164 ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON
From ‘The Holy Grail’
I
UT she, the wan sweet maiden, shore away Clean from her forehead all that wealth of hair Which made a silken mat-work for her feet ; And out of this she plaited broad and long A strong sword-belt, and wove with silver thread And crimson in the belt a strange device, A crimson grail within a silver beam ; And saw the bright boy-knight, and bound it on him, Saying, ‘ My knight, my love, my knight of heaven, O thou, my love, whose love is one with mine, I, maiden, round thee, maiden, bind my belt. Go forth, for thou shalt see what I have seen, And break thro’ all, till one will crown thee king Far in the spiritual city : ’ and as she spake She sent the deathless passion in her eyes Thro’ him, and made him hers, and laid her mind On him, and he believed in her belief.
Then came a year of miracle: O brother, In our great hall there stood a vacant chair, Fashion’d by Merlin ere he past away, And carven with strange figures ; and in and out The figures, like a serpent, ran a scroll Of letters in a tongue no man could read. And Merlin call’d it ‘ The Siege perilous,’ Perilous for good and ill; ‘ for there,’ he said, ‘No man could sit but he should lose himself :” And once by misadvertence Merlin sat In his own chair, and so was lost ; but he, Galahad, when he heard of Merlin’s doom, Cried, ‘ If I lose myself, I save myself ! ?
ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON 165
II
. . . When the hermit made an end, In silver armour suddenly Galahad shone Before us, and against the chapel door Laid lance, and enter’d, and we knelt in prayer. And there the hermit slaked my burning thirst, And at the sacring of the mass I saw The holy elements alone ; but he: ‘ Saw ye no more? I, Galahad, saw the Grail, The Holy Grail, descend upon the shrine: I saw the fiery face as of a child That smote itself into the bread, and went; And hither am I come; and never yet Hath what thy sister taught me first to see, This Holy Thing, fail’d from my side, nor come Cover’d, but moving with me night and day, Fainter by day, but always in the night Blood-red, and sliding down the blacken’d marsh Blood-red, and on the naked mountain top Blood-red, and in the sleeping mere below Blood-red. And in the strength of this I rode, Shattering all evil customs everywhere, And past thro’ Pagan realms, and made thein mine, And clash’d with Pagan hordes, and bore them down, And broke thro’ all, and in the strength of this Come victor. But my time is hard at hand, And hence I go; and one will crown me king Far in the spiritual city ; and come thou, too, For thou shalt see the vision when I go.’
While thus he spake, his eye, dwelling on mine, Drew me, with power upon me, till I grew One with him, to believe as he believed. Then, when the day began to wane, we went.
166 ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON
There rose a hill that none but man could climb, Scarr’d with a hundred wintry watercourses— Storm at the top, and when we gain’d it, storm Round us and death ; for every moment glanced His silver arms and gloom’d: so quick and thick The lightnings here and there to left and right Struck, till the dry old trunks about us, dead, Yea, rotten with a hundred years of death, Sprang into fire: and at the base we found On either hand, as far as eye could see,
A great black swamp and of an evil smell,
Part black, part whiten’d with the bones of men, Not to be crost, save that some ancient king Had built a way, where, link’d with many a bridge, A thousand piers ran into the great Sea.
And Galahad fled along them bridge by bridge, And every bridge as quickly as he crost
Sprang into fire and vanish’d, tho’ I yearn’d
To follow ; and thrice above him all the heavens Open’d and blazed with thunder such as seem’d Shoutings of all the sons of God: and first
At once I saw him far on the great Sea,
In silver-shining armour starry-clear ;
And o’er his head the Holy Vessel hung
Clothed in white samite or a luminous cloud, And with exceeding swiftness ran the boat,
If boat it were—I saw not whence it came.
And when the heavens open’d and blazed again Roaring, I saw him like a silver star—
And had he set the sail, or had the boat
Become a living creature clad with wings ?
And o’er his head the Holy Vessel hung
Redder than any rose, a joy to me,
For now I knew the veil had been withdrawn.
ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON 167
Then in 2 moment when they blazed again Opening, I saw the least of little stars
Down on the waste, and straight beyond the star I saw the spiritual city and all her spires
And gateways in a glory like one pearl—
No larger, tho’ the goal of all the saints—
Strike from the sea ; and from the star there shot A rose-red sparkle to the city, and there
Dwelt, and I knew it was the Holy Grail,
Which never eyes on earth again shall see.
The Human Cry
ALLOWED be Thy name—Halleluiah \— Infinite Ideality ! Immeasurable Reality ! Infinite Personality ! Hallowed be Thy name—Halleluiah !
We feel we are nothing—for all is Thou and in Thee ; We feel we are something—that also has come from Thee ; We know we are nothing—but Thou wilt help us to be. Hallowed be Thy name—Halleluiah !
From ‘The Ancient Sage’
F thou would’st hear the Nameless, and wilt dive Into the Temple-cave of thine own self,
There, brooding by the central altar, thou
May’st haply learn the Nameless hath a voice,
By which thou wilt abide, if thou be wise,
As if thou knewest, tho’ thou canst not know;
For Knowledge is the swallow on the lake
That sees and stirs the surface-shadow there
168 ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON
But never yet hath dipt into the abysm,
The Abysm of all Abysms, beneath, within
The blue of sky and sea, the green of earth,
And in the million-millionth of a grain
Which cleft and cleft again for evermore,
And ever vanishing, never vanishes,
To me, my son, more mystic than myself,
Or even than the Nameless is to me. And when thou sendest thy free soul thro’ heaven,
Nor understandest bound nor boundlessness,
Thou seest the Nameless of the hundred names. And if the Nameless should withdraw from all
Thy frailty counts most real, all thy world
Might vanish like thy shadow in the dark.
‘And since—from when this earth began— The Nameless never came
Among us, never spake with man, And never named the Name ’—
Thou canst not prove the Nameless, O my son, Nor canst thou prove the world thou movest in, Thou canst not prove that thou art body alone, Nor canst thou prove that thou art spirit alone, Nor canst thou prove that thou art both in one: Thou canst not prove thou art immortal, no
Nor yet that thou art mortal—nay my son, Thou canst not prove that I, who speak with thee, Am not thyself in converse with thyself,
For nothing worthy proving can be proven,
Nor yet disproven: wherefore thou be wise, Cleave ever to the sunnier side of doubt,
And cling to Faith beyond the forms of Faith She reels not in the storm of warring words,
ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON (169)
She brightens at the clash of ‘ Yes’ and ‘ No’, She sees the Best that glimmers thro’ the Worst, She feels the Sun is hid but for a night,
She spies the summer thro’ the winter bud,
She tastes the fruit before the blossom falls,
She hears the lark within the songless egg,
She finds the fountain where they wail’d ‘ Mirage ’ !
JOHN STUART BLACKIE
All things are full of God
LL things are full of God. Thus spoke Wise Thales in the days
When subtle Greece to thought awoke And soared in lofty ways.
And now what wisdom have we more? No sage divining-rod
Hath taught than this a deeper lore, ALL THINGS ARE FULL oF Gop.
1809-1895
The Light that gloweth in the sky And shimmers in the sea, That quivers in the painted fly And gems the pictured lea, The million hues of Heaven above And Earth below are one, And every lightful eye doth love The primal light, the Sun,
Even so, all vital virtue flows From life’s first fountain, God ; And he who feels, and he who knows, Doth feel and know from God. G3
170
JOHN STUART BLACKIE
As fishes swim in briny sea, As fowl do float in air,
From Thy embrace we cannot flee ; We breathe, and Thou art there.
Go, take thy glass, astronomer, And all the girth survey
Of sphere harmonious linked to sphere, In endless bright array.
All that far-reaching Science there Can measure with her rod,
All powers, all laws, are but the fair Embodied thoughts of God.
Trimurtt
RIMURTI, Trimurti. Despise not the name ; Think and know Before thou blame!
Look upon the face of Nature In the flush of June ;
Brarma is the great Creator, Life is Brahma’s boon.
Dost thou hear the zephyr blowing ? That is Brahma’s breath,
Vital breath, live virtue showing Neath the ribs of death.
Dost thou see the fountain flowing ? That is Brahma’s blood.
Lucid blood—the same is glowing In the purpling bud.
JOHN STUART BLACKIE
Brahma’s Eyes look forth divining From the welkin’s brow,
Full bright eyes—the same are shining In the sacred cow.
Air, and Fire, and running River, And the procreant clod,
Are but faces changing ever Of one changeless God.
When thy wingéd thought ascendeth Where high thoughts are free,
This is Brahma when he lendeth Half the God to thee.
Brahma is the great Creator, Life a mystic drama ;
Heaven, and Earth, and living Nature Are but masks of Brahma.
ROBERT BROWNING
From ‘ Pauline’
GOD, where does this tend—these struggling
aims ?
What would I have? What is this ‘sleep’, which seems
To bound all ? can there be a ‘ waking’ point Of crowning life? The soul would never rule— It would be first in all things—it would have
Its utmost pleasure filled,—but that complete Commanding for commanding sickens it.
The last point I can trace is, rest beneath
Some better essence than itself—in weakness ; This is ‘ myself ’—not what I think should be And what is that I hunger for but God?
172 ROBERT BROWNING
My God, my God! let me for once look on thee
As tho’ nought else existed: we alone.
And as creation crumbles, my soul’s spark
Expands till I can say, ‘ Even from myself
I need thee, and I feel thee, and I love thee ;
I do not plead my rapture in thy works
For love of thee—or that I feel as one
Who cannot die—but there is that in me
Which turns to thee, which loves, or which should love.’
Why have I girt myself with this hell-dress ? Why have I laboured to put out my life?
Is it not in my nature to adore,
And e’en for all my reason do I not
Feel him, and thank him, and pray to him—now? Can I forgo the trust that he loves me ?
Do I not feel a love which only onE...
O thou pale form, so dimly seen, deep-eyed,
I have denied thee calmly—do I not
Pant when I read of thy consummate deeds, And burn to see thy calm pure truths out-flash The brightest gleams of earth’s philosophy ?
Do I not shake to hear aught question thee ?
If I am erring save me, madden me,
Take from me powers and pleasures—let me die. Ages, so I see thee: I am knit round
As with a charm, by sin and lust and pride,
Yet tho’ my wandering dreams have seen all shapes Of strange delight, oft have I stood by thee— Have I been keeping lonely watch with thee
In the damp night by weeping Olivet,
Or leaning on thy bosom, proudly less—
Or dying with thee on the lonely cross—
Or witnessing thy bursting from the tomb!
ROBERT BROWNING 173
From ‘ Paracelsus’
I
RUTH is within ourselves ; it takes no rise From outward things, whate’er you may believe. There is an inmost centre in us all, Where truth abides in fullness ; and around, Wall upon wall, the gross flesh hems it in, This perfect, clear perception—which is truth, A baffling and perverting carnal mesh Binds it, and makes all error: and, to KNow, Rather consists in opening out a way Whence the imprisoned splendour may escape, Than in effecting entry for a light Supposed to be without.
II
I knew, I felt, (perception unexpressed, Uncomprehended by our narrow thought,
But somehow felt and known in every shift And change in the spirit,—nay, in every pore Of the body, even,)—what God is, what we are What life is—how God tastes an infinite joy
In infinite ways—one everlasting bliss,
From whom all being emanates, all power Proceeds ; in whom is life for evermore,
Yet whom existence in its lowest form
Includes ; where dwells enjoyment there is he: With still a flying point of bliss remote,
A happiness in store afar, a sphere
Of distant glory in full view ; thus climbs Pleasure its heights for ever and for ever.
The centre-fire heaves underneath the earth, And the earth changes like a human face ;
174 ROBERT BROWNING
The molten ore bursts up among the rocks, Winds into the stone’s heart, outbranches bright In hidden mines, spots barren river-beds, Crumbles into fine sand where sunbeams bask— God joys therein! The wroth sea’s waves are edged With foam, white as the bitten lip of hate, When, in the solitary waste, strange groups
Of young volcanos come up, cyclops-like, Staring together with their eyes on flame— God tastes a pleasure in their uncouth pride. Then all is still ; earth is a wintry clod:
But spring-wind, like a dancing psaltress, passes Over its breast to waken it, rare verdure
Buds tenderly upon rough banks, between
The withered tree-roots and the cracks of frost, Like a smile striving with a wrinkled face ;
The grass grows bright, the boughs are swoln with blooms Like chrysalids impatient for the air,
The shining dorrs are busy, beetles run
Along the furrows, ants make their ade ;
Above, birds fly in merry flocks, the lark
Soars up and up, shivering for very joy ;
Afar the ocean sleeps ; white fishing-gulls
Flit where the strand is purple with its tribe
Of nested limpets ; savage creatures seek
Their loves in wood and plain—and God renews His ancient rapture. Thus He dwells in all, From life’s minute beginnings, up at last
To man—the consummation of this scheme
Of being, the completion of this sphere
Of life : whose attributes had here and there Been scattered o’er the visible world before, Asking to be combined, dim fragments meant To be united in some wondrous whole,
ROBERT BROWNING 175
Imperfect qualities throughout creation,
Suggesting some one creature yet to make,
Some point where all those scattered rays should meet Convergent in the faculties of man.
From ‘Saul’ HAVE gone the whole round of Creation: I saw and I spoke ! I, a work of God’s hand for that purpose, received in my brain And pronounced on the rest of His handwork—returned Him again
His creation’s approval or censure: I spoke as I saw.
I report, as a man may of God’s work—all’s love, yet all’s law.
Now I lay down the judgeship He lent me. Each ‘aculty tasked
To perceive Him, has gained an abyss, where a dewdrop was asked,
Have I knowledge ? confounded it shrivels at Wisdom laid bare.
Have I forethought ? how purblind, how blank, to the Infinite Care !
Do I task any faculty highest, to image success ?
I but open my eyes,—and perfection, no more and no less,
In the kind I imagined, full-fronts me, and God is seen God
In the star, in the stone, in the flesh, in the soul and the clod.
And thus looking within and around me, I ever renew
(With that stoop of the soul which in bending upraises it too)
176 ROBERT BROWNING
The submission of Man’s nothing-perfect to God’s All- Complete,
As by each new obeisance in spirit, I climb to His feet !
Yet with all this abounding experience, this Deity known,
I shall dare to discover some province, some gift of my own.
There ’s a faculty pleasant to exercise, hard to hoodwink,
I am fain to keep still in abeyance, (I laugh as I think)
Lest, insisting to claim and parade in it, wot ye, I worst
E’en the Giver in one gift.—Behold! I could loveifIdurst!
But I sink the pretension as fearing a man may o’ertake
God’s own speed in the one way of love: I abstain for love’s sake.
—What, my soul ? see thus far and no farther ? when doors great and small,
Nine-and-ninety flew ope at our touch, should the hundredth appal ?
In the least things have faith, yet distrust in the greatest of all?
Do I find love so full in my nature, God’s ultimate gift,
That I doubt His own love can compete with it ? here, the parts shift ?
Here, the creature surpass the Creator, the end, what Began ?
Would I fain in my impotent yearning do all for this man,
And dare doubt He alone shall not help him, who yet alone can ?
Would it ever have entered my mind, the bare will, much less power,
To bestow on this Saul what I sang of, the marvellous dower
Of the life he was gifted and filled with ? to make such a soul,
Such a body, and then such an earth for insphering the whole ?
ROBERT BROWNING 177
And doth it not enter my mind (as my warm tears attest)
These good things being given, to go on, and give one more, the best ?
Ay, to save and redeem and restore him, maintain at the height
This perfection—succeed with life’s dayspring, death’s minute of night ?
Interpose at the difficult minute, snatch Saul, the mistake,
Saul, the failure, the ruin he seems now—and bid him awake
From the dream, the probation, the prelude, to find himself set
Clear and safe in new light and new life,—a new harmony
yet
To be run, and continued, and ended—who knows ?— or endure !
The man taught enough by life’s dream, of the rest to make sure ;
By the pain-throb, triumphantly winning intensified bliss, And the next world’s reward and repose, by the struggles in this.
I believe it! ’tis Thou, God, that givest, ’tis I who receive :
In the first is the last, in Thy will is my power to believe.
All ’s one gift : Thou canst grant it moreover, as prompt to my prayer
As I breathe out this breath, as I open these arms to the air.
From Thy will, stream the worlds, life and nature, thy dread Sabaoth :
J will ?—the mere atoms despise me! why am I not loth
178 ROBERT BROWNING
To look that, even that in the face too ? why is it I dare
Think but lightly of such impuissance ? what stops my despair ?
This ;—’tis not what man Does which exalts him, but what man Would do!
See the King—I would help him but cannot, the wishes fall through.
Could I wrestle to raise him from sorrow, grow poor to enrich,
To fill up his life, starve my own out, I would—knowing which,
I know that my service is perfect. Oh, speak through me now!
Would I suffer for him that I love ? So wouldst Thou— so wilt Thou!
So shall crown Thee the topmost, ineffablest, uttermost crown—
And Thy love fill infinitude wholly, nor leave up nor down
One spot for the creature to standin! It is by no breath,
Turn of eye, wave of hand, that salvation joins issue with death !
As Thy Love is discovered almighty, almighty be proved
Thy power, that exists with and for it, of being Beloved !
He who did most, shall bear most; the strongest shall stand the most weak.
Tis the weakness in strength, that I cry for! my flesh, that I seek
In the Godhead! Iseek and I findit. O Saul, it shall be
A Face like my face that receives thee ; a Man like to me,
Thou shalt love and be loved by, for ever: a Hand like this hand
Shall throw open the gates of new lite to thee! See the Christ stand !
ROBERT BROWNING 179
From ‘Easter Day’
E stood there. Like the smoke Pillared o’er Sodom, when day broke, —
I saw Him. One magnific pall
Mantled in massive fold and fall
His dread, and coiled in snaky swathes
About His feet: night’s black, that bathes
All else, broke, grizzled with despair,
Against the soul of blackness there.
A gesture told the mood within—
That wrapped right hand which based the chin.
That intense meditation fixed
On His procedure,—pity mixed
With the fulfilment of decree.
Motionless, thus, He spoke to me,
Who fell before His feet, a mass,
No man now.
‘ All is come to pass, Such shows are over for each soul They had respect to. In the roll Of Judgement which convinced mankind Of sin, stood many, bold and blind, Terror must burn the truth into: Their fate for them !—thou hadst to do With absolute omnipotence, Able its judgements to dispense To the whole race, as every one Were its sole object. Judgement done, God is, thou art,—the rest is hurled To nothingness for thee. This world,
180
ROBERT BROWNING
This finite life, thou hast preferred,
In disbelief of God’s own word,
To Heaven and to Infinity.
Here the probation was for thee,
To show thy soul the earthly mixed With heavenly, it must choose betwixt. The earthly joys lay palpable,—
A taint, in each, distinct as well ;
The heavenly flitted, faint and rare, Above them, but as truly were
Taintless, so, in their nature, best.
Thy choice was earth: thou didst attest *T was fitter spirit should subserve
The flesh, than flesh refine to nerve Beneath the spirit’s play. Advance
No claim to their inheritance
Who chose the spirit’s fugitive
Brief gleams, and yearned, ‘‘ This were to live Indeed, if rays, completely pure
From flesh that dulls them, could endure,— Not shoot in meteor-light athwart
Our earth, to show how cold and swart It lies beneath their fire, but stand
As stars do, destined to expand,
Prove veritable worlds, our home.” Thou saidst,—“ Let spirit star the dome Of sky, that flesh may miss no peak,
No nook of earth,—I shall not seek
Its service further!” Thou art shut Out of the heaven of spirit; glut
Thy sense upon the world: ’tis thine For ever—take it!’
ROBERT BROWNING 18
‘How? Is mine, The world ?’ (I cried, while my soul broke Out in a transport.) ‘ Hast Thou spoke Plainly in that? Earth’s exquisite Treasures of wonder and delight, For me?’
The austere voice returned,— ‘So soon made happy ? Hadst thou learned What God accounteth happiness, Thou wouldst not find it hard to guess What hell may be His punishment For these who doubt if God invent Better than they. Let such men rest Content with what they judged the best. Let the unjust usurp at will: The filthy shall be filthy still : Miser, there waits the gold for thee! Hater, indulge thine enmity ! And thou, whose heaven self-ordained Was, to enjoy earth unrestrained, Do it! Take all the ancient show! The woods shall wave, the rivers flow, And men apparently pursue Their works, as they were wont to do, While living in probation yet. I promise not thou shalt forget The Past, now gone to its account ; But leave thee with the old amount Of faculties, nor less nor more, Unvisited, as heretofore, By God’s free spirit, that makes an end. So, once more, take thy world! expend Eternity upon its shows,— Flung thee as freely as one rose
182
ROBERT BROWNING
Out of a summer’s opulence,
Over the Eden-barrier whence
Thou art excluded. Knock in vain!’
I sat up. All was still again.
I breathed free : to my heart, back fled The warmth. ‘But, all the world !’—TI said. I stooped and picked a leaf of fern,
And recollected I might learn
From books, how many myriad sorts
Of fern exist, to trust reports,
Each as distinct and beautiful
As this, the very first I cull.
Think, from the first leaf to the last ! Conceive, then, earth’s resources! Vast Exhaustless beauty, endless change
Of wonder! And this foot shall range Alps, Andes,—and this eye devour
The bee-bird and the aloe-flower ?
Then the Voice, ‘Welcome so to rate The arras-folds that variegate
The earth, God’s antechamber, well ! The wise, who waited there, could tell By these, what royalties in store
Lay one step past the entrance-door. For whom, was reckoned, not too much, This life’s munificence ? For such
As thou,—a race, whereof scarce one Was able, in a million,
To feel that any marvel lay
In objects round his feet all day ; Scarce one, in many millions more, Willing, if able, to explore
ROBERT BROWNING 183
The secreter, minuter charm !
—Brave souls, a fern-leaf could disarm Of power to cope with God’s intent,— Or scared if the south firmament
With north-fire did its wings refledge ! All partial beauty was a pledge
Of beauty in its plenitude :
But since the pledge sufficed thy mood, Retain it! plenitude be theirs
Who looked above !’
Though sharp despairs Shot through me, I held up, bore on. ‘What matter though my trust were gone From natural things ? Henceforth my part Be less with Nature than with Art ! For Art supplants, gives mainly worth To Nature; ’tis Man stamps the earth— And I will seek his impress, seek The statuary of the Greek, Italy’s painting—there my choice Shall fix!’
‘Obtain it!’ said the voice, —‘ The one form with its single act, Which sculptors laboured to abstract, The one face, painters tried to draw, With its one look, from throngs they saw...
... * But through
Life pierce,—and what has earth to do, Its utmost beauty’s appanage, With the requirement of next stage ? Did God pronounce earth “ very good ” ? Needs must it be, while understood For man’s preparatory state ;
ROBERT BROWNING
Nothing to heighten nor abate:
Transfer the same completeness here,
To serve a new state’s use—and drear Deficiency gapes every side !
The good, tried once, were bad, retried. See the enwrapping rocky niche, Sufficient for the sleep, in which
The lizard breathes for ages safe :
Split the mould—and as this would chafe The creature’s new world-widened sense, One minute after day dispense
The thousand sounds and sights that broke In on him at the chisel’s stroke,—
So, in God’s eye, the earth’s first stuff Was, neither more nor less, enough
To house man’s soul, man’s need fulfil. Man reckoned it immeasurable ?
So thinks the lizard of his vault !
Could God be taken in default,
Short of contrivances, by you—
Or reached, ere ready to pursue
His progress through eternity ?
That chambered rock, the lizard’s world, Your easy mallet’s blow has hurled
To nothingness for ever ; so,
Has God abolished at a blow
This world, wherein His saints were pent— Who, though found grateful and content, With the provision there, as thou,
Yet knew He would not disallow
Their spirit’s hunger, felt as well,— Unsated,—not unsatable,
As Paradise gives proof. Deride
Their choice now, thou who sit’st outside !
ROBERT BROWNING 185
I cried in anguish, ‘ Mind, the mind,
So miserably cast behind,
To gain what had been wisely lost !
Oh, let me strive to make the most
Of the poor stinted soul, I nipped
Of budding wings, else now equipt
For voyage from summer isle to isle !
And though she needs must reconcile Ambition to the life on ground,
Still, I can profit by late found
But precious knowledge. Mind is best— I will seize mind, forgo the rest,
And try how far my tethered strength May crawl in this poor breadth and length. Let me, since I can fly no more,
At least spin dervish-like about
(Till giddy rapture almost doubt
I fiy) through circling sciences, Philosophies and histories !
Should the whirl slacken there, then verse, Fining to music, shall asperse
Fresh and fresh fire-dew, till I strain Intoxicate, half-break my chain !
Not joyless, though more favoured feet Stand calm, where I want wings to beat The floor. At least earth’s bond is broke!’
Then (sickening even while I spoke), ‘Let me alone! No answer, pray,
To this! I know what Thou wilt say ! All still is earth’s—to know, as much
As feel its truths, which if we touch
With sense, or apprehend in soul,
What matter? I have reached the goal—
186 ROBERT BROWNING
“‘Whereto does Knowledge serve!” will burn My eyes, too sure, at every turn!
I cannot look back now, nor stake
Bliss on the race, for running’s sake.
The goal ’s a ruin like the rest!”
—‘ And so much worse thy latter quest,’ (Added the voice) ‘ that even on earth— Whenever, in man’s soul, had birth
Those intuitions, grasps of guess,
That pull the more into the less,
Making the finite comprehend Infinity,—the bard would spend
Such praise alone, upon his craft,
As, when wind-lyres obey the waft,
Goes to the craftsman who arranged
The seven strings, changed them and rechanged— Knowing it was the South that harped.
He felt his song, in singing, warped ; Distinguished his and God’s part: whence A world of spirit as of sense
Was plain to him, yet not too plain,
Which he could traverse, not remain
A guest in :—else were permanent
Heaven on earth which its gleams were meant To sting with hunger for full light— Made visible in verse, despite
The veiling weakness,—truth by means
Of fable, showing while it screens,—
Since highest truth, man e’er supplied, Was ever fable on outside.
Such gleams made bright the earth an age; Now, the whole sun’s his heritage !
Take up thy world, it is allowed,
Thou who hast entered in the cloud!’
ROBERT BROWNING 187
Then I—‘ Behold, my spirit bleeds, Catches no more at broken reeds,— But lilies flower those reeds above :
I let the world go, and take love ! Love survives in me, albeit those
I love be henceforth masks and shows, Not loving men and women: still
I mind how love repaired all ill, Cured wrong, soothed grief, made earth amends With parents, brothers, children, friends ! Some semblance of a woman yet With eyes to help me to forget,
Shall live with me; and I will match Departed love with love, attach
Its fragments to my whole, nor scorn The poorest of the grains of corn
I save from shipwreck on this isle, Trusting its barrenness may smile With happy foodful green one day, More precious for the pains. I pray, For love, then, only!’
At the word, The form, I looked to have been stirred With pity and approval, rose O’er me, as when the headsman throws Axe over shoulder to make end— I fell prone, letting Him expend His wrath, while, thus, the inflicting voice Smote me. ‘ Is this thy final choice ? Love is the best ? Tis somewhat late ! And all thou dost enumerate Of power and beauty in the world, The mightiness of love was curled
188
ROBERT BROWNING
Inextricably round about.
Love lay within it and without,
To clasp thee—but in vain! Thy soul Still shrunk from Him who made the whole, Still set deliberate aside
His love !—Now take love! Well betide Thy tardy conscience! Haste to take The show of love for the name’s sake, Remembering every moment Who, Beside creating thee unto
These ends, and these for thee, was said To undergo death in thy stead
In flesh like thine: so ran the tale. What doubt in thee could countervail Belief in it ?. Upon the ground
“ That in the story had been found
Too much love! How could God love so ?®. He who in all His works below
Adapted to the needs of man,
Made love the basis of the plan,—
Did love, as was demonstrated :
While man, who was so fit instead
To hate, as every day gave proof— Man thought man, for his kind’s behoof, Both could and did invent that scheme Of perfect love—’twould well beseem Cain’s nature thou wast wont to praise, Not tally with God’s usual ways !”
And I cowered deprecatingly—
‘Thou Love of God! Or let me die,
Or grant what shall seem Heaven almost ! Let me not know that all is lost,
Though lost it be—leave me not tied
ROBERT BROWNING 189
To this despair, this corpse-like bride ! Let that old life seem mine—no more— With limitation as before,
With darkness, hunger, toil, distress : Be all the earth a wilderness !
Only let me go on, go on,
Still hoping ever and anon
To reach one eve the Better Land!’
Then did the form expand, expand— I knew Him through the dread disguise, As the whole God within his eyes Embraced me.
Abt Fogler
(After be has been extemporizing upon the musical instru- ment of his invention)
OULD that the structure brave, the manifold music I build, Bidding my organ obey, calling its keys to their work, Claiming each slave of the sound, at a touch, as when Solomon willed Armies of angels that soar, legions of demons that lurk, Man, brute, reptile, fly,—alien of end and of aim, Adverse, each from the other heaven-high, hell-deep removed,— Should rush into sight at once as he named the ineffable Name, And pile him a palace straight, to pleasure the princess he loved !
190 ROBERT BROWNING
Would it might tarry like his, the beautiful building of mine, This which my keys in a crowd pressed and importuned to raise ! Ah, one and all, how they helped, would dispart now and now combine, Zealous to hasten the work, heighten their master his praise ! And one would bury his brow with a blind plunge down to hell, Burrow awhile and build, broad on the roots of things, Then up again swim into sight, having based me my palace well, Founded it, fearless of flame, flat on the nether springs.
And another would mount and march, like the excellent minion he was, Ay, another and yet another, one crowd but with many a crest, Raising my rampired walls of gold as transparent as glass, Eager to do and die, yield each his place to the rest : For higher still and higher (as a runner tips with fire, When a great illumination surprises a festal night— Outlining round and round Rome’s dome from space to spire) Up, the pinnacled glory reached, and the pride of my soul was in sight.
In sight? Not half! for it seemed, it was certain, to match man’s birth, Nature in turn conceived, obeying an impulse as I ; And the emulous heaven yearned down, made effort to reach the earth, As the earth had done her best, in my passion, to scale the sky:
ROBERT BROWNING 191
Novel splendours burst forth, grew familiar and dwelt
with mine, Not a point nor peak but found and fixed its wandering Stal 5 Meteor-moons, balls of blaze: and they did not pale nor pine,
For earth had attained to heaven, there was no more near nor far.
Nay more ; for there wanted not who walked in the glare and glow, Presences plain in the place ; or, fresh from the Proto- last, Furnished for ages to come, when a kindlier wind should blow, Lured now to begin and live, in a house to their liking at last ; Or else the wonderful Dead who have passed through the body and gone, But were back once more to breathe in an old world worth their new: What never had been, was now; what was, as it shall be anon ; And what is,—shall I say, matched both? for I was
made perfect too.
All through my keys that gave their sounds to a wish of
my soul, All through my soul that praised as its wish flowed visibly forth, All through music and me! For think, had I painted the whole,
Why, there it had stood, to see, nor the process so wonder-worth :
192 ROBERT BROWNING
Had I written the same, made verse—still, effect proceeds from cause, Ye know why the forms are fair, ye hear how the tale is told ; It is all triumphant art, but art in obedience to laws, Painter and poet are proud in the artist-list enrolled :—
But here is the finger of God, a flash of the will that can, Existent behind all laws, that made them and, lo, they are ! And I know not if, save in this, such gift be allowed to man, That out of three sounds he frame, not a fourth sound, but a star. Consider it well: each tone of our scale in itself is nought ; It is everywherein the world—loud, soft, and all is said: Give it to me to use! I mix it with two in my thought; And, there! Ye have heard and seen: consider and bow the head !
Well, it is gone at last, the palace of music I reared ; Gone! and the good tears start, the praises that come
too slow ; For one is assured at first, one scarce can say that he feared, That he even gave it a thought, the gone thing was to go.
Never to be again! But many more of the kind As good, nay, better perchance: is this your comfort to me? To me, who must be saved because I cling with my mind To the same, same self, same love, same God: ay, what was, shall be.
ROBERT BROWNING 193
Therefore to whom turn I but to Thee, the ineffable Name? Builder and maker, Thou, of houses not made with hands ! What, have fear of change from Thee who art ever the same? Doubt that Thy power can fill the heart that Thy power expands? There shall never be one lost good! What was, shall live as before ; The evil is null, is nought, is silence implying sound ; What was good, shall be good, with, for evil, so much good more ; On the earth the broken arcs ; in the heaven, a perfect round.
All we have willed or hoped or dreamed of good, shall
exist ; Not its semblance, but itself; no beauty, nor good, nor power Whose voice has gone forth, but each survives for the melodist
When eternity affirms the conception of an hour. The high that proved too high, the heroic for earth too hard, The passion that left the ground to lose itself in the sky, Are music sent up to God by the lover and the bard ; Enough that He heard it once: we shall hear it by and by.
And what is our failure here but a triumph’s evidence For the fullness of the days? Have we withered or agonized ? MYST. H
194 ROBERT BROWNING
Why else was the pause prolonged but that singing might issue thence ? Why rushed the discords in, but that harmony should be prized ? Sorrow is hard to bear, and doubt is slow to clear, Each sufferer says his say, his scheme of the weal and
woe : But God has a few of us whom He whispers in the ear; The rest may reason and welcome: *tis we musicians know.
Well, it is earth with me; silence resumes her reign : I will be patient and proud, and soberly acquiesce. Give me the keys. I feel for the common chord again, Sliding by semitones, till I sink to the minor,—yes, And I blunt it into a ninth, and I stand on alien ground, Surveying awhile the heights I rolled from into the deep ; Which, hark, I have dared and done, for my resting-place is found, The C Major of this life : so, now I will try to sleep.
Rabbi Ben Ezra
ROW old along with me! The best is yet to be, The last of life, for which the first was made: Our times are in His hand Who saith ‘ A whole I planned, Youth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor be afraid!’
ROBERT BROWNING 195
Not that, amassing flowers,
Youth sighed ‘ Which rose make ours,
Which lily leave and then as best recall ??
Not that, admiring stars,
It yearned ‘ Nor Jove, nor Mars ;
Mine be some figured flame which blends, transcends
them all!’
Not for such hopes and fears
Annulling youth’s brief years,
Do I remonstrate : folly wide the mark! Rather I prize the doubt
Low kinds exist without,
Finished and finite clods, untroubled by a spark,
Poor vaunt of life indeed,
Were man but formed to feed
On joy, to solely seek and find and feast :
Such feasting ended, then
As sure an end to men ;
Irks care the crop-full bird? Frets doubt the maw- crammed beast?
Rejoice we are allied
To That which doth provide
And not partake, effect and not receive !
A spark disturbs our clod ;
Nearer we hold of God
Who gives, than of His tribes that take, I must believe.
Then, welcome each rebuff
That turns earth’s smoothness rough,
Each sting that bids nor sit nor stand but go!
Be our joys three-parts pain !
Strive, and hold cheap the strain ;
Learn, nor account the pang ; dare, never grudge the throe !
196 ROBERT BROWNING
For thence,—a paradox
Which comforts while it mocks,—
Shall life succeed in that it seems to fail +
What I aspired to be,
And was not, comforts me:
A brute I might have been, but would not sinki’ the scale
What is he but a brute
Whose flesh hath soul to suit,
Whose spirit works lest arms and legs want play ? To man, propose this test—
Thy body at its best,
How far can that project thy soul on its lone way ?
Yet gifts should prove their use :
I own the Past profuse
Of power each side, perfection every turn:
Eyes, ears took in their dole,
Brain treasured up the whole ;
Should not the heart beat once ‘ How good to live and learn ?’
Not once beat ‘ Praise be Thine !
I see the whole design,
I, who saw Power, see now Love perfect too:
Perfect I call Thy plan:
Thanks that I was a man!
Maker, remake, complete,—I trust what Thou shalt do ! ’
For pleasant is this flesh ;
Our soul, in its rose-mesh
Pulled ever to the earth, still yearns for rest :
Would we some prize might hold
To match those manifold
Possessions of the brute,—gain most, as we did best !
ROBERT BROWNING 197
Let us not always say
‘ Spite of this flesh to-day
I strove, made head, gained ground upon the whole!’
As the bird wings and sings,
Let us cry ‘ All good things
Are ours, nor soul helps flesh more, now, than flesh helps soul !?
Therefore I summon age
To grant youth’s heritage,
Life’s struggle having so far reached its term:
Thence shall I pass, approved
A man, for ay removed
From the developed brute ; a God though in the germ,
And I shall thereupon
Take rest, ere I be gone
Once more on my adventure brave and new: Fearless and unperplexed,
When I wage battle next,
What weapons to select, what armour to indue.
Youth ended, I shall try
My gain or loss thereby ;
Leave the fire ashes, what survives is gold ;
And I shall weigh the same,
Give life its praise or blame:
Young, all lay in dispute; I shall know, being old
For note, when evening shuts,
A certain moment cuts
The deed off, calls the glory from the grey ;
A whisper from the west
Shoots—‘ Add this to the rest,
Take it and try its worth: here dies another day.’
198 ROBERT BROWNING
So, still within this life,
Though lifted o’er its strife,
Let me discern, compare, pronounce at last,
‘ This rage was right i’ the main,
That acquiescence vain :
The Future I may face now I have proved the Past.’
For more is not reserved
To man, with soul just nerved
To act to-morrow what he learns to-day :
Here, work enough to watch
The Master work, and catch
Hints of the proper craft, tricks of the tool’s true play.
As it was better, youth
Should strive, through acts uncouth,
Toward making, than repose on aught tound made ;
So, better, age, exempt
From strife, should know, than tempt
Further. Thou waitedst age; wait death nor be afraid !
Enough now, if the Right
And Good and Infinite
Be named here, as thou callest thy hand thine own, With knowledge absolute,
Subject to no dispute
From fools that crowded youth, nor let thee feel alone.
Be there, for once and all,
Severed great minds from small,
Announced to each his station in the Past !
Was I, the world arraigned,
Were they, my soul disdained,
Right? Let age speak the truth and give us peace at last!
ROBERT BROWNING 199
Now, who shall arbitrate ?
Ten men love what I hate,
Shun what I follow, slight what I receive ;
Ten, who in ears and eyes
Match me: we all surmise,
They, this thing, and I, that: whom shall my soul believe?
Not on the vulgar mass
Called ‘ work ’, must sentence pass,
Things done, that took the eye and had the price ; O’er which, from level stand,
The low world laid its hand,
Found straightway to its mind, could value in a trice:
But all, the world’s coarse thumb
And finger failed to plumb,
So passed in making up the main account ;
All instincts immature,
All purposes unsure,
That weighed not as his work, yet swelled the man’s amount :
Thoughts hardly to be packed
Into a narrow act,
Fancies that broke through language and escaped ;
All I could never be,
All, men ignored in me,
This, I was worth to God, whose wheel the pitcher shaped.
Ay, note that Potter’s wheel,
That metaphor ! and feel
Why time spins fast, why passive lies our clay,—
Thou, to whom fools propound,
When the wine makes its round,
‘Since life fleets, all is change; the Past gone, seize to-day!’
200 ROBERT BROWNING
Fool! All that is, at all,
Lasts ever, past recall ;
Earth changes, but thy soul and God stand sure:
What entered into thee,
That was, is, and shall be:
Time’s wheel runs back or stops: Potter and clay endure.
He fixed thee mid this dance
Of plastic circumstance,
This Present, thou, forsooth, wouldst fain arrest : Machinery just meant
To give thy soul its bent,
Try thee and turn thee forth, sufficiently impressed.
What though the earlier grooves
Which ran the laughing loves
Around thy base, no longer pause and press? What though, about thy rim,
Skull-things in order grim
Grow out, in graver mood, obey the sterner stress ?
Look not thou down but up!
To uses of a cup,
The festal board, lamp’s flash and trumpet’s peal,
The new wine’s foaming flow,
The Master’s lips aglow !
Thou, heaven’s consummate cup, what need’st thou with earth’s wheel ?
But I need, now as then,
Thee, God, who mouldest men ;
And since, not even while the whirl was worst,
Did I,—to the wheel of life
With shapes and colours rife,
Bound dizzily,—mistake my end, to slake Thy thirst :
ROBERT BROWNING 205
So, take and use Thy work !
Amend what flaws may lurk,
What strain o’ the stuff, what warpings past the aim ! My times be in Thy hand!
Perfect the cup as planned !
Let age approve of youth, and death complete the same !
WILLIAM BELL SCOTT 1812-1890
Pebbles in the Stream
ERE on this little bridge in this warm day We rest us from our idle sauntering walk. Over our shadows its continuous talk The stream maintains, while now and then a stray Dry leaf may fall where the still waters play In endless eddies, through whose clear brown deep The gorgeous pebbles quiver in their sleep. The stream still hastes but cannot pass away.
Could I but find the words that would reveal The unity in multiplicity, And the profound strange harmony I feel With those dead things, God’s garments of to-day, The listener’s soul with mine they would anneal, And make us one within eternity.
From ‘The Year of the World’
IVE reverence, O man, to mystery, Keep your soul patient, and with closed eye hear. Know that the Good is in all things, the whole Being by him pervaded and upheld. H3
202 WILLIAM BELL SCOTT
He is the will, the thwarting circumstance,
The two opposing forces equal both—
Birth, Death, are one. Think not the Lotus flower Or tulip is more honoured than the grass,
The bindweed, or the thistle. He who kneels
To Cama, kneeleth unto me; the maid
Who sings to Ganga sings to me; I am
Wisdom unto the wise, and cunning lore
Unto the subtle. He who knows his soul,
And from thence looketh unto mine ; who sees
All underneath the moon regardlessly,
Living on silent, as a shaded lamp
Burns with steady flame :—he sure shall find me— He findeth wisdom, greatness, happiness.
Know, further, the Great One delighteth not
In him who works, and strives, and is against
The nature of the present. Not the less
Am I the gladness of the conqueror—
And the despair of impotence that fails.
I am the ultimate, the tendency
Of all things to their nature, which is mine,
Put round thee garments of rich softness, hang
Fine gold about thine ankles, hands, and ears,
Set the rich ruby and rare diamond
Upon thy brow.—I made them, I also
Made them be sought by thee; thou lack’st them not ? Then throw them whence they came, and leave with them The wish to be aught else than nature forms.
Know that the great Good in the age called First, Beheld a world of mortals, ’mong whom none Enquired for Truth, because no falsehood was: Nature was Truth; man held whate’er he wished:
WILLIAM BELL SCOTT 203
No will was thwarted, and no deed was termed, Good, Evil. In much wisdom is much grief. He who increases knowledge sorrow also Takes with it, till he rises unto me, Knowing that I am in all, still the same: Knowing that I am Peace in the contented. I, Great, revealed unto the Seer, how man Had wandered, and he gave a name and form To my communings and he called it Veda. To him who understands it is great gain— Who understandeth not, to him the Sign And ritual is authority and guide,
A living and expiring confidence.
CHRISTOPHER PEARSE CRANCH {*
1813-1892 So far, so near
HOU, so far, we grope to grasp thee— Thou, so near, we cannot clasp thee— Thou, so wise, our prayers grow heedless— Thou, so loving, they are needless ! In each human soul thou shinest, Human-best is thy divinest. In each deed of love thou warmest ; Evil into good transformest. Soul of all, and moving centre Of each moment’s life we enter. Breath of breathing—light of gladness— Infinite antidote of sadness ;— All-preserving ether flowing Through the worlds, yet past our knowing, Never past our trust and loving, Nor from thine our life removing. () Zi
204 CHRISTOPHER PEARSE CRANCH
$till creating, still inspiring,
Never of thy creatures tiring ;
Artist of thy solar spaces ;
And thy humble human faces ;
Mighty glooms and splendours voicing ; In thy plastic work rejoicing ;
Through benignant law connecting Best with best—and all perfecting, Though all human races claim thee, Thought and language fail to name thee, Mortal lips be dumb before thee, Silence only may adore thee !
From ‘Ormuzd and Abriman?
Satan speaks ERE were no shadows till the worlds were made ;
No evil and no sin till finite souls, Imperfect thence, conditioned in free-will, Took form, projected by eternal law Through co-existent realms of time and space. Naught evil, though it were the Prince of evil, Hath being in itself. For God alone Existeth in Himself, and Good, which lives As sunshine lives, born of the Parent Sun. I am the finite shadow of that Sun, Opposite, not opposing, only seen Upon the nether side. No personal will am I, no influence bad Or good. I symbolize the wild and deep And unregenerated wastes of life, Dark with transmitted tendencies of race And blind mischance ; all crude mistakes of will—
CHRISTOPHER PEARSE CRANCH 205
Proclivity unbalanced by due weight
Of favouring circumstance ; all passion blown
By wandering winds ; all surplusage of force Piled up for use, but slipping from its base
Of law and order ; all undisciplined
And ignorant mutiny against the wise
Restraint of rules by centuries old endorsed,
And proved the best so long it needs no proof ;— All quality o’erstrained until it cracks :—
Yet but a surface crack; the Eternal Eye
Sees underneath the soul’s sphere, as above,
And knows the deep foundations of the world Will not be jarred or loosened by the stress
Of sun and wind and rain upon the crust
Of upper soil. Nay, let the earthquake split
The mountains into steep and splintered chasms— Down deeper than the shock the adamant
Of ages stands, symbol no less divine
Of the eternal Law than heaven above.
FREDERICK WILLIAM FABER From ‘ The Eternal Word’
I MID the eternal silences God’s endless Word was spoken ; None heard but He who always spake, And the silence was unbroken. Oh marvellous! Oh worshipful ! No song or sound is heard, But everywhere and every hour, In love, in wisdom, and in power, The Father speaks His dear Eternal Word !
1814-1863
206
FREDERICK WILLIAM FABER
Il
For ever in the eternal land The glorious Day is dawning ; For ever is the Father’s Light Like an endless outspread morning. Oh marvellous! Oh worshipful ! No song or sound is heard, But everywhere and every hour, In love, in wisdom, and in power,
The Father speaks His dear Eternal Word !
III From the Father’s vast tranquillity, In light co-equal glowing The kingly consubstantial Word Is unutterably flowing. Oh marvellous ! Oh worshipful ! No song or sound is heard, But everywhere and every hour, In love, in wisdom, and in power,
The Father speaks His dear Eternal Word !
IV For ever climbs that Morning Star Without ascent or motion; For ever is its daybreak shed On the Spirit’s boundless ocean. Oh marvellous ! Oh worshipful ! No song or sound is heard, But everywhere and every hour, In love, in wisdom, and in power, The Father speaks His dear Eternal Word!
207
EDWARD CASWALL
The Order of Pure Intuition
AIL, sacred Order of eternal Truth ! That deep within the soul, In axiomatic majesty sublime,
One undivided whole,—
Up from the underdepth unsearchable Of primal Being springs,
An inner world of thought, co-ordinate With that of outward things !
1814-1878
Hail, Intuition pure ! whose essences The central core supply
Of conscience, language, science, certitude, Art, beauty, harmony !
Great God! I thank Thy majesty supreme, Whose all-creative grace
Not in the sentient faculties alone Has laid my reason’s base ;
Not in abstractions thin by slow degrees From grosser forms refin’d ;
Not in tradition, nor the broad consent Of conscious humankind ;—
But in th’ essential Presence of Thyself, Within the soul’s abyss ;
Thyself, alike of her intelligence The fount, as of her bliss ;
Thyself, by nurture, meditation, grace, Reflexively reveal’d ;
Yet ever acting on the springs of thought, E’en when from thought conceal’d !
208
AUBREY THOMAS DE VERE Implicit Faith
1814-1902
F all great Nature’s tones that sweep Earth’s resonant bosom, far or near, Low-breathed or loudest, shrill or deep, How few are grasped by mortal ear.
Ten octaves close our scale of sound : Its myriad grades, distinct or twined,
Transcend our hearing’s petty bound, To us as colours to the blind.
In Sound’s unmeasured empire thus
The heights, the depths alike we miss ; Ah, but in measured sound to us
A compensating spell there is!
In holy music’s golden speech Remotest notes to notes respond :
Each octave is a world ; yet each Vibrates to worlds its own beyond.
Our narrow pale the vast resumes ; Our sea-shell whispers of the sea :
Echoes are ours of angel-plumes That winnow far infinity !
—Clasp thou of Truth the central core} Hold fast that centre’s central sense ! An atom there shall fill thee more Than realms on Truth’s circumference. That cradled Saviour, mute and small, Was God—is God while worlds endure ! Who holds Truth truly holds it all In essence, or in miniature.
AUBREY THOMAS DE VERE 209
Know what thou know’st! He knoweth much Who knows not many things: and he
Knows most whose knowledge hath a touch Of God’s divine simplicity.
PHILIP JAMES BAILEY
1816-1902
Knowledge
HE knowledge of God is the wisdom of man— This is the end of Being, wisdom ; this
Of wisdom, action ; and of action, rest ;
And of rest, bliss; that by experience sage
Of good and ill, the diametric powers
Which thwart the world, the thrice-born might discern
That death divine alone can perfect both,
The mediate and initiate ; that between
The Deity and nothing, nothing is.
The Atlantean axis of the world
And all the undescribed circumference,
Where earth’s thick breath thins off to blankest space Uniting with inanity, this truth
Confess, the sun-sire and the death-world too,
And undeflected spirit pure from Heaven,
That He who makes, destroying, saves the whole, The Former and Re-Former of the world
In wisdom’s holy spirit all renew.
To know this, is to read the runes of old, Wrought in the time-outlasting rock; to see Unblinded in the heart of light ; to feel
Keen through the soul, the same essential strain, Which vivifies the clear and fire-eyed stars,
Still harping their serene and silvery spell
210 PHILIP JAMES BAILEY
In the perpetual presence of the skies,
And of the world-cored calm, where silence sits In secret light all hidden ; this to know— Brings down the fiery unction from on high, The spiritual chrism of the sun,
Which hallows and ordains the regnant soul— Transmutes the splendid fluid of the frame Into a fountain of divine delight,
And renovative nature ;—shows us earth,
One with the great galactic line of life
Which parts the hemispheral palm of Heaven; This with all spheres of Being makes concord As at the first creation, in that peace Premotional, pre-elemental, prime,
Which is the hope of earth, the joy of Heaven, The choice of the elect, the grace of life,
The blessing and the glory of our God. And—as the vesper hymn of time precedes The starry matins of Eternity,
And daybreak of existence in the Heavens,— To know this, is to know we sha!l depart
Into the storm-surrounding calm on high, The sacred cirque, the all-central infinite
Of that self-blessedness wherein abides
Our God, all-kind, all-loving, all-beloved ;— To feel life one great ritual, and its laws,
Writ in the vital rubric of the blood,
Flow in, obedience, and flow out, command, In sealike circulation ; and be here
Accepted as a gift by Him who gives
An empire as an alms, nor counts it aught,
So long as all His creatures joy in Him,
The great Rejoicer of the Universe,
Whom all the boundless spheres of Being bless,
PHILIP JAMES BAILEY 211
From ‘The Mystic’
OD was, alone in unity. He willed
The infinite creation ; and it was. That the creation might exist, His Son, And that it might return to Him, the Spirit Disclosed themselves within Him ; thus triune But as the all-made must of necessity Inferior be to its creator, thus Arose the infinite imperfect, time, The spirit-host angelic, heavenly race, Brute life and vegetive, electric light, Matter and fleshly form; to human souls Nine generations from aeternity. But God, who is Love, decreed it should return By pure regeneration unto God ; Wherefore was need that He from whom came life Should taste death, but in tasting swallow up ; That commune with all creatures might be made, On this hand, and on that, with Deity. Thus death and evil expiate ends divine ; The Spirit the imperfect hallowing, death The Son; the soul regenerate hies to God ; And as in radial union with the point Infinite, both in greatness, place, and power, Lives with the maker and the all-made in love.
From ‘Festus’
I ; OD is the sole and self-subsistent one ; From Him, the sun-creator, nature was Aethereal essences, all elements, The souls therein indigenous, and man
212
PHILIP JAMES BAILEY Symbolic of all being. Out of earth
The matron moon was moulded, and the sea
Filled up the shining chasm; both now fulfil
One orbit and one nature, and all orbs
With them one fate, one universal end.
From light’s projective moment, in the earth
The moon was, even as earth i’ the sun; the sun
A fiery incarnation of the heavens.
When sun, earth, moon again make one, resumes
Nature her heavenly state ; is glorified.’
As, to the sleepless eye, form forth, at last,
The long immeasurable layers of light,
And beams of fire enormous in the east,
The broad foundations of the heaven-domed day
All fineless as the future, so uprose
On mine the great celestial certainty.
The mask of matter fell off, I beheld,
Void of all seeming, the sole substance mind,
The actualized ideal of the world.
An absolutest essence filled my soul ;
And superseding all its modes and powers,
Gave to the spirit a consciousness divine ;
A sense of vast existence in the skies ;
Boundless commune with spiritual light, and proof
Self-shown, of heaven commensurate with all life.
And I to the light of the great spirit’s eyes
Mine hungry eyes returned which, past the first
Intensifying blindness, clearlier saw
The words she uttered of triumphant truth.
For truly, and as my vision heightened, lo!
The universal volume of the heavens,
Star-lettered in celestial characters,
Moved musically into words her breath framed forth,
PHILIP JAMES BAILEY 213
And varied momently; and I perceived That thus she spake of God: I silent still And hearkening to the sea-swell of her voice: ‘ From one divine, all permanent unity comes The many and infinite; from God all just To himself and others, who to all is love, Earth and the moon, like syllables of light, Uttered by him, were with all creatures blessed By him, and with a sevenfold blessing sealed To perfect rest, celestial order ; all
The double-tabled book of heaven and earth, Despite such due deficiency as cleaves Inevitably to soul, till God resume, Progressive aye, possessing too all bliss
Elect and universal in the heavens.’
II
And none can truly worship but who have
The earnest of their glory from on high,
God’s nature in them. It is the love of God, The ecstatic sense of oneness with all things, And special worship towards himself that thrills Through life’s self-conscious chord, vibrant in him, Harmonious with the universe, which makes Our sole fit claim to being immortal ; that Wanting nor willing, the world cannot worship. And whether the lip speak, or in inspired Silence, we clasp our hearts as a shut book
Of song unsung, the silence and the speech
Is each his; and as coming from and going
To him, is worthy of him and his love.
Prayer is the spirit speaking truth to truth ; The expiration of the thing inspired.
Above the battling rock-storm of this world
214 PHILIP JAMES BAILEY
Lies heaven’s great calm, through which as through a bell, Tolleth the tongue of God eternally,
Calling to worship. Whoso hears that tongue Worships. The spirit enters with the sound, Preaching the one and universal word,
The God-word, which is spirit, life, and light ; The written word to one race, the unwrit Revealment to the thousand-peopled world. The ear which hears is pre-attuned in heaven, The eye which sees prevision hath ere birth. But the just future shall to many give
Gifts which the partial present doles to few ; To all the glory of obeying God.
EMILY BRONTE 1819-1848
The Visionary
ILENT is the house: all are laid asleep : One alone looks out o’er the snow-wreaths deep, Watching every cloud, dreading every breeze That whirls the wildering drift, and bends the groaning trees.
Cheerful is the hearth, soft the matted floor;
Not one shivering gust creeps through pane or door;
The little lamp burns straight, its rays shoot strong and far:
I trim it well, to be the wanderer’s guiding-star.
Frown, my haughty sire! chide, my angry dame! Set your slaves to spy ; threaten me with shame: But neither sire nor dame nor prying serf shall know, What angel nightly tracks that waste of frozen snow.
EMILY BRONTE 215
What I love shall come like visitant of air,
Safe in secret power from lurking human snare ; What loves me, no word of mine shall e’er betray, Though for faith unstained my life must forfeit pay.
Burn, then, little lamp; glimmer straight and clear—
Hush ! a rustling wing stirs, methinks, the air:
He for whom I wait, thus ever comes to me;
Strange Power! I trust thy might; trust thou my constancy.
Last Lines
O coward soul is mine, No trembler in the world’s storm-troubled sphere : I see Heaven’s glories shine, And faith shines equal, arming me from fear.
O God within my breast, Almighty, ever-present Deity ! Life—that in me has rest, As I—undying Life—have power in Thee!
Vain are the thousand creeds
That move men’s hearts: unutterably vain; Worthless as withered weeds,
Or idlest froth amid the boundless main,
To waken doubt in one Holding so fast by thine infinity ; So surely anchor’d on The steadfast rock of immortality.
With wide-embracing love Thy Spirit animates eternal years, Pervades and broods above, Changes, sustains, dissolves, creates, and rears.
216 EMILY BRONTE
Though earth and man were gone, And suns and universes ceased to be, And Thou were left alone, Every existence would exist in Thee. There is not room for Death, Nor atom that his might could render void : Thou—Tuov art Being and Breath, And what Tou art may never be destroy’d,
WALT WHITMAN? 1819-1894 From the ‘ Song of the Open Road’ I ROM this hour I ordain myself loos’d of limits and imaginary lines, Going where I list, my own master, total and absolute, Listening to others, and considering well what they say, Pausing, searching, receiving, contemplating, Gently, but with undeniable will, divesting myself of the holds that would hold me. I inhale great draughts of space, The east and the west are mine, and the north and the south are mine. I am larger, better than I thought, I did not know I held so much goodness. All seems beautiful to me ; I can repeat over to men and women, You have done such good to me, I would do the same to you, I will recruit for myself and you as I go; I will scatter myself among men and women as I go; I will toss the new gladness and roughness among them ; 1 By permission of Messrs. Appleton & Co., New York.
WALT WHITMAN 217
Whoever denies me, it shall not trouble me; Whoever accepts me, he or she shall be blessed, and shall bless me. ul
Here is the efflux of the Soul ;
The efflux of the Soul comes from within, through em- bower’d gates, ever provoking questions ;
These yearnings, why are they? These thoughts in the darkness, why are they?
Why are there men and women that while they are nigh me, the sunlight expands my blood ?
Why, when they leave me, do my pennants of joy sink flat and lank?
Why are there trees I never walk under, but large and melodious thoughts descend upon me?
(I think they hang there winter and summer on those trees, and always drop fruit as I pass ;)
What is it I interchange so suddenly with strangers ?
What with some driver, as I ride on the seat by his side ?
What with some fisherman, drawing his seine by the shore, as I walk by, and pause ?
What gives me to be free toa woman’s or man’s good-will? What gives them to be free to mine?
The efflux of the Soul is happiness—here is happiness ; I think it pervades the open air, waiting at all times ; Now it flows unto us—we are rightly charged.
Here rises the fluid and attaching character ;
The fluid and attaching character is the freshness and sweetness of man and woman ;
(The herbs of the morning sprout no fresher and sweeter every day out of the roots of themselves, than it sprouts fresh and sweet continually out of itself.)
218 WALT WHITMAN
Toward the fluid and attaching character exudes the sweat of the love of young and old ;
From it falls distill’d the charm that mocks beauty and attainments ;
Toward it heaves the shuddering longing ache of contact.
Allons! whoever you are, come travel with me! Travelling with me, you find what never tires.
The earth never tires ;
The earth is rude, silent, incomprehensible at first— Nature is rude and incomprehensible at first ;
Be not discouraged—keep on—there are divine things, well envelop’d ;
I swear to you there are divine things more beautiful than words can tell.
Allons! we must not stop here !
However sweet these laid-up stores—however convenient this dwelling, we cannot remain here ;
However shelter’d this port, and however calm these waters, we must not anchor here ;
However welcome the hospitality that surrounds us, we are permitted to receive it but a little while.
Ill
All parts away for the progress of souls ;
All religion, all solid things, arts, governments—all that was or is apparent upon this globe or any globe, falls into niches and corners before the procession of souls along the grand roads of the universe.
Of the progress of the souls of men and women along the grand roads of the universe, all other progress is the needed emblem and sustenance.
WALT WHITMAN 219
From ‘ Passage to India’
VAST Rondure, swimming in space, Cover’d all over with visible power and beauty, Alternate light and day and the teeming spiritual darkness, Unspeakable high processions of sun and moon and count- less stars above,
Below, the manifold grass and waters, animals, mountains, trees,
With inscrutable purpose, some hidden prophetic inten- tion,
Now first it seems my thought begins to span thee.
Down from the gardens of Asia descending radiating,
Adam and Eve appear, then their myriad progeny after them,
Wandering, yearning, curious, with restless explorations,
With questioaings, baffled, formless, feverish, with never- happy hearts,
With that sad incessant refrain, Wherefore unsatisfied soul ? and Whither O mocking life ?
Ah, who shall soothe these feverish children ?
Who justify these restless explorations ?
Who speak the secret of impassive earth ?
Who bind it to us? what is this separate Nature so unnatural ?
What is this earth to our affections? (unloving earth, without a throb to answer ours,
Cold earth, the place of graves.)
Yet soul be sure the first intent remains, and shall be carried out, Perhaps even now the time has arrived.
220 WALT WHITMAN
After the seas are all cross’d, (as they seem already cross’d,)
After the great captains and engineers have accomplish’d their work,
After the noble inventors, after the scientists, the chemist, the geologist, ethnologist,
Finally shall come the poet worthy that name,
The true son of God shall come singing his songs.
Then not your deeds only O voyagers, O scientists and inventors, shall be justified ;
All these hearts as of fretted children shall be sooth’d,
All affection shall be fully responded to, the secret shall be told,
All these separations and gaps shall be taken up and hook’d and link’d together,
The whole earth, this cold, impassive, voiceless earth, shall be completely justified,
Trinitas divine shall be gloriously accomplish’d and compacted by the true son of God, the poet,
(He shall indeed pass the straits and conquer the mountains,
He shall double the cape of Good Hope to some purpose,)
Nature and Man shall be disjoin’d and diffused no more,
The true son of God shall absolutely fuse them. . ..
Passage indeed O soul to primal thought,
Not lands and seas alone, thy own clear freshness, The young maturity of brood and bloom,
To realms of budding bibles.
O soul, repressless, I with thee and thou with me, Thy circumnavigation of the world begin,
Of man, the voyage of his mind’s return,
To reason’s early paradise,
Back, back to wisdom’s birth, to innocent intuitions, Again with fair creation.
WALT WHITMAN 221
O we can wait no longer,
We too take ship O soul
Joyous we too launch out on trackless seas,
Fearless for unknown shores on waves of ecstasy to sail,
Amid the wafting winds, (thou pressing me to thee, I thee to me, O soul,)
Caroling free, singing our song of God,
Chanting our chant of pleasant exploration.
With laugh and many a kiss,
(Let others deprecate, let others weep for sin, remorse, humiliation,)
O soul thou pleasest me, I thee.
Ah more than any priest O soul we too believe in God, But with the mystery of God we dare not dally.
O soul thou pleasest me, I thee,
Sailing these seas or on the hills, or waking in the night,
Thoughts, silent thoughts, of Time and Space and Death, like waters flowing,
Bear me indeed as through the regions infinite,
Whose air I breathe, whose ripples hear, lave me all over,
Bathe me O God in thee, mounting to thee,
I and my soul to range in range of thee.
O Thou transcendent,
Nameless, the fibre and the breath,
Light of the light, shedding forth universes, thou centre of them,
Thou mightier centre of the true, the good, the loving,
Thou moral, spiritual fountain—affection’s source—thou reservoir,
(O pensive soul of me—O thirst unsatisfied—waitest not there ?
222 WALT WHITMAN
Waitest not haply for us somewhere there the Comrade perfect ?)
Thou pulse—thou motive of the stars, suns, systems,
That, circling, move in order, safe, harmonious,
Athwart the shapeless vastnesses of space,
How should I think, how breathe a single breath, how speak, if, out of myself,
I could not launch, to those, superior universes ?
Swiftly I shrivel at the thought of God,
At Nature and its wonders, Time and Space and Death,
But that I, turning, call to thee O soul, thou actual Me,
And lo, thou gently masterest the orbs,
Thou matest Time, smilest content at Death,
And fillest, swellest full the vastnesses of Space.
Greater than stars or suns,
Bounding O soul thou journeyest forth ;
What love than thine and ours could wider amplify ?
What aspirations, wishes, outvie thine and ours O soul ?
What dreams of the ideal? what plans of purity, per- fection, strength ?
What cheerful willingness for others’ sake to give up all ?
For others’ sake to suffer all ?
Reckoning ahead O soul, when thou, the time achiev’d,
The seas all cross’d, weather’d the capes, the voyage done,
Surrounded, copest, frontest God, yieldest, the aim attain’d,
As fill’d with friendship, love complete, the Elder Brother found,
The Younger melts in fondness in his arms,
WALT WHITMAN 223
Passage to more than India!
Are thy wings plumed indeed for such far flights ? O soul, voyagest thou indeed on voyages like those ? Disportest thou on waters such as those ?
Soundest below the Sanscrit and the Vedas ?
Then have thy bent unleash’d.
Passage to you, your shores, ye aged fierce enigmas !
Passage to you, to mastership of you, ye strangling pro- blems !
You, strew’d with the wrecks of skeletons, that, living, never reach’d you.
Passage to more than India!
O secret of the earth and sky !
Of you O waters of the sea! O winding creeks and rivers !
Of you O woods and fields! of you strong mountains of my land!
Of you O prairies! of you gray rocks !
O morning red! Oclouds! O rain and snows!
O day and night, passage to you !
O sun and moon and all you stars! Sirius and Jupiter ! Passage to you !
Passage, immediate passage ! the blood burns in my veins !
Away O soul! hoist instantly the anchor !
Cut the hawsers—haul out—shake out every sail !
Have we not stood here like trees in the ground long enough ?
Have we not grovel’d here long enough, eating and drinking like mere brutes ?
Have we not darken’d and dazed ourselves with books tong enough ?
224 WALT WHITMAN
Sail forth—steer for the deep waters only,
Reckless, O soul, exploring, I with thee, and thou with me, For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to go, And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all.
O my brave soul!
O farther farther sail !
O daring joy, but safe! are they not all the seas of God ? O farther, farther, farther sail !
Chanting the Square Dei fic HANTING the square deific, out of the One
advancing, out of the sides,
Out of the old and new, out of the square entirely divine,
Solid, four-sided, (all the sides needed,) from this side Jehovah am I,
Old Brahm J, and I Saturnius am ;
Not Time affects me—I am Time, old, modern as any,
Unpersuadable, relentless, executing righteous judgements,
As the Earth, the Father, the brown old Kronos, with laws,
Aged beyond computation, yet ever new, ever with those mighty laws rolling,
Relentless, I forgive no man—whoever sins dies—I will have that man’s life ;
Therefore let none expect mercy—have the seasons, gravitation, the appointed days, mercy ? no more have I,
But as the seasons and gravitation, and as all the appointed days that forgive not,
I dispense from this side judgements inexorable without the least remorse.
WALT WHITMAN 225
Consolator most mild, the promis’d one advancing,
With gentle hand extended, the mightier God am I,
Foretold by prophets and poets in their most rapt prophecies and poems,
From this side, lo! the Lord Christ gazes—lo! Hermes I—lo! mine is Hercules’ face,
All sorrow, labour, suffering, I, tallying it, absorb in myself,
Many times have I been rejected, taunted, put in prison, and crucified, and many times shall be again,
All the world have I given up for my dear brothers’ and sisters’ sake, for the soul’s sake,
Wending my way through the homes of men, rich or poor, with the kiss of affection,
For I am affection, I am the cheer-bringing God, with hope and all-enclosing charity,
With indulgent words as to children, with fresh and sane words, mine only,
Young and strong I pass knowing well I am destin’d myself to an early death ;
But my charity has no death—my wisdom dies not, neither early nor late,
And my sweet love bequeath’d here and elsewhere never dies.
Aloof, dissatisfied, plotting revolt,
Comrade of criminals, brother of slaves,
Crafty, despised, a drudge, ignorant,
With sudra face and worn brow, black, but in the depths of my heart, proud as any,
Lifted now and always against whoever scorning assumes to rule me,
Morose, full of guile, full of reminiscences, brooding, with many wiles,
MYST, I
226 WALT WHITMAN
(Though it was thought I was baffled and dispel’d, and my wiles done, but that will never be,)
Defiant, I, Satan, still live, still utter words, in new lands duly appearing, (and old ones also,)
Permanent here from my side, warlike, equal with any, Teal as any,
Nor time nor change shall ever change me or my words,
Santa Spirita, breather, life,
Beyond the light, lighter than light,
Beyond the flames of hell, joyous, leaping easily above hell,
Beyond Paradise, pertumed solely with mine own perfume,
Including all life on earth, touching, including God, including Saviour and Satan,
Ethereal, pervading all (for without me what were all ? what were God ?),
Essence of forms, life of the real identities, permanent, positive, (namely the unseen,)
Life of the great round world, the sun and stars, and of man, I, the general soul,
Here the square finishing, the solid, I the most solid,
Breathe my breath also through these songs.
All is Truth
ME, man of slack faith so long, Standing aloof—denying portions so long; Only aware to-day of compact, all-diffused truth ; Discovering to-day there is no lie, or form of lie, and can be none, but grows as inevitably upon itself as the truth does upon itself,
Or as any law of the earth, or any natural production of the earth does.
WALT WHITMAN 227
(This is curious, and may not be realized immediately— But it must be realized ;
I feel in myself that I represent falsehoods equally with the rest,
And that the universe does.)
Where has fail’d a perfect return, indifferent of lies or the truth ?
Is it upon the ground, or in water or fire? or in the spirit of man? or in the meat and blood?
Meditating among liars, and retreating sternly into myself, I see that there are really no liars or lies after all,
And nothing fails its perfect return—And that what are called lies are perfect returns,
And that each thing exactly represents itself, and what has preceded it,
And that the truth includes all, and is compact, just as much as space is compact,
And that there is no law or vacuum in the amount of the truth—but that all is truth without exception ; And henceforth I will go celebrate anything I see or am,
And sing and laugh, and deny nothing.
Grand is the Seen
RAND is the seen, the light, to me—grand are the sky and stars, Grand is the earth, and grand are lasting time and space, And grand their laws, so multiform, puzzling, evolu- tionary ; But grander far the unseen soul of me, comprehending, endowing all those,
228 WALT WHITMAN
Lighting the light, the sky and stars, delving the earth, sailing the sea,
(What were all those, indeed, without thee, unseen soul ? of what amount without thee ?)
More evolutionary, vast, puzzling, O my soul!
More multiform far—more lasting thou than they.
DORA GREENWELL
The Blade of Grass ‘ A sword shall go through thine own heart.’—Prophecy of Simeon
1821-1882
H! little blade of grass, A little sword thou art, That in thy haste to pass Hast pierced thy mother’s heart !
Oh ! little blade of grass, A little tongue thou art Of cleaving flame,—alas ! Thou hast cleft thy mother’s heart.
Oh! little blade, upcurled Leaf, sword, or fiery dart, To win thy Father’s world Thou must break thy mother’s heart !
MATTHEW ARNOLD 1822-1888
Progress
Master stood upon the mount, and taught. He saw a fire in his disciples’ eyes ; * The old law’, they said, ‘is wholly come to naught ! Behold the new world rise !?
MATTHEW ARNOLD 229
* Was it’, the Lord then said, ‘ with scorn ye saw The old law observed by Scribes and Pharisees ? I say unto you, see ye keep that law
More faithfully than these !
* Too hasty heads for ordering worlds, alas ! Think not that I to annul the law have will’d ; No jot, no tittle from the law shall pass,
Till all hath been fulfill’d.’
So Christ said eighteen hundred years ago. And what then shall be said to those to-day, Who cry aloud to lay the old world low
To clear the new world’s way ?
* Religious fervours! ardour misapplied ! Hence, hence,’ they cry, ‘ ye do but keep man blind ! But keep him self-immersed, preoccupied,
And lame the active mind!’
Ah! from the old world let some one answer give : ‘Scorn ye this world, their tears, their inward cares ? I say unto you, see that your souls live
A deeper life than theirs !
‘Say ye: The spirit of man has found new roads, And we must leave the old faiths, and walk therein ?— Leave then the Cross as ye have left carved gods,
But guard the fire within !
* Bright, else, and fast the stream of life may roll,
And no man may the cther’s hurt behold ;
Yet each will have one anguish—his own soul Which perishes of cold.’
230 MATTHEW ARNOLD
Here let that voice make end; then let a strain,
From a far lonelier distance, like the wind
Be heard, floating through heaven, and fill again These men’s profoundest mind :
‘ Children of men! the unseen Power, whose eye For ever doth accompany mankind, Hath looked on no religion scornfully
That men did ever find.
‘Which has not taught weak wills how much they can? Which has not fall’n on the dry heart like rain ? Which has not cried to sunk, self-weary man:
Thou must be born again !
‘Children of men! not that your age excel
In pride of life the ages of your sires,
But that you think clear, feel deep, bear fruit well, The Friend of man desires.’
From ‘The Buried Life’
ATE, which foresaw
How frivolous a baby man would be, By what distractions he would be possess’d, How he would pour himself in every strife, And well-nigh change his own identity— That it might keep from his capricious play His genuine self, and force him to obey Even in his own despite, his being’s law, Bade through the deep recesses of our breast The unregarded River of our Life Pursue with indiscernible flow its way ; And that we should not see The buried stream, and seem to be
MATTHEW ARNOLD 231
Eddying about in blind uncertainty, Though driving on with it eternally.
But often, in the world’s most crowded streets, But often, in the din of strife, There rises an unspeakable desire After the knowledge of our buried life, A thirst to spend our fire and restless force In tracking out our true, original course ; A longing to inquire Into the mystery of this heart that beats So wild, so deep in us, to know Whence our thoughts come and where they go. And many a man in his own breast then delves, But deep enough, alas, none ever mines! And we have been on many thousand lines, And we have shown, on each, spirit and power, But hardly have we, for one little hour, Been on our own line, have we been ourselves ; Hardly had skill to utter one of all The nameless feelings that course through our breast, But they course on for ever unexpress’d. And long we try in vain to speak and act Our hidden self, and what we say and do Is eloquent, is well—but ’tis not true !
And then we will no more be rack’d With inward striving, and demand Of all the thousand nothings of the hour Their stupefying power ; Ah yes, and they benumb us at our call: Yet still, from time to time, vague and forlorn, From the soul’s subterranean depth upborne As from an infinitely distant land, Come airs, and floating echoes, and convey A melancholy into all our day.
232 MATTHEW ARNOLD
Only—but this is rare—
When a belovéd hand is laid in ours,
When, jaded with the rush and glare
Of the interminable hours,
Our eyes can in another’s eyes read clear,
When our world-deafen’d ear
Is by the tones of a loved voice caress’d—
A bolt is shot back somewhere in our breast,
And a lost pulse of feeling stirs again :
The eye sinks inward, and the heart lies plain, And what we mean, we say, and what we would, we know, A man becomes aware of his life’s flow,
And hears its winding murmur, and he sees
The meadows where it glides, the sun, the breeze.
And there arrives a lull in the hot race Wherein he doth for ever chase
That flying and elusive shadow, Rest.
An air of coolness plays upon his face,
And an unwonted calm pervades his breast. And then he thinks he knows
The Hills where his life rose,
And the Sea where it goes.
From ‘ Lines Written in Kensington Gardens’
ALM soul of all things! make it mine To feel, amid the city’s jar,
That there abides a peace of thine,
Man did not make, and cannot mar!
The will to neither strive nor cry, The power to feel with others give ! Calm, calm me more! nor let me die Before I have begun to live.
MATTHEW ARNOLD
From ‘Empedocles on Aetna’
‘© the elements it came from Everything will return. Our bodies to earth, Our blood to water, Heat to fire, Breath to air. They were well born, they will be well entomb’d ! But mind?...
And we might gladly share the fruitful stir
Down in our mother earth’s miraculous womb! Well might it be
With what roll’d of us in the stormy main !
We might have joy, blent with the all-bathing air, Or with the nimble radiant life of fire !
But mind—but thought—
If these have been the master part of us— Where will they find their parent element ? What will receive them, who will call them home ? But we shall still be in them, and they in us,
And we shall be the strangers of the world,
And they will be our lords, as they are now;
And keep us prisoners of our consciousness,
And never let us clasp and feel the All
233
But through their forms, and modes, and stifling veils,
And we shall be unsatisfied as now ;
And we shall feel the agony of thirst,
The ineffable longing for the life of life
Baffled for ever: and still thought and mind
Will hurry us with them on their homeless march, 13
234 MATTHEW ARNOLD
Over the unallied unopening earth,
Over the unrecognizing sea; while air
Will blow us fiercely back to sea and earth,
And fire repel us from its living waves
And then we shall unwillingly return
Back to this meadow of calamity,
This uncongenial place, this human life ;
And in our individual human state
Go through the sad probation all again,
To see if we will poise our life at last,
To see if we will now at last be true
To our own only true, deep-buried selves, Being one with which we are one with the whole world ; Or whether we will once more fall away
Into some bondage of the flesh or mind,
Some slough of sense, or some fantastic maze Forg’d by the imperious lonely thinking-power. And each succeeding age in which we are born Will have more peril for us than the last ;
Will goad our senses with a sharper spur,
Will fret our minds to an intenser play,
Will make ourselves harder to be discern’d. And we shall struggle awhile, gasp and rebel ; And we shall fly for refuge to past times,
Their soul of unworn youth, their breath of greatness ; And the reality will pluck us back,
Knead us in its hot hand, and change our nature. And we shall feel our powers of effort flag,
And rally them for one last fight, and fail ;
And we shall sink in the impossible strife,
And be astray for ever,
Slave of sense I have in no wise been ; but slave of thought ?—
MATTHEW ARNOLD 235
And who can say: I have been always free, Lived ever in the light of my own soul ?>—
I cannot! I have lived in wrath and gloom, Fierce, disputatious, ever at war with man, Far from my own soul, far from warmth and light, But I have not grown easy in these bonds— But I have not denied what bonds these were ! Yea, I take myself to witness,
That I have loved no darkness,
Sophisticated no truth,
Nursed no delusion,
Allow’d no fear!
And therefore, O ye elements, I know—
Ye know it too—it hath been granted me Not to die wholly, not to be all enslav’d.
I feel it in this hour! The numbing cloud Mounts off my soul; I feel it, I breathe free !
Is it but for a moment ? Ah, boil up, ye vapours ! Leap and roar, thou sea of fire! My soul glows to meet you. Ere it flag, ere the mists Of despondency and gloom Rush over it again, Receive me! Save me! (He plunges into the crater.)
236 COVENTRY KERSEY DIGHTON PATMORE
1823-1896 Life of Life HAT’S that, which, ere I spake, was gone! So joyful and intense a spark That, whilst o’erhead the wonder shone, The day, before but dull, grew dark? I do not know; but this I know, That, had the splendour lived a year, The truth that I some heavenly show Did see, could not be now more clear. This know I too: might mortal breath Express the passion then inspired, Evil would die a natural death, And nothing transient be desired ; And error from the soul would pass, And leave the senses pure and strong As sunbeams. But the best, alas, Has neither memory nor tongue!
Fesica Pisczs
N strenuous hope I wrought,
And hope seem’d still betray’d ; Lastly I said, ‘I have labour’d through the Night, nor yet Have taken aught ; But at Thy word I will again cast forth the net!’ And, lo, I caught (Oh, quite unlike and quite beyond my thought,) Not the quick, shining harvest of the Sea, For food, my wish, But Thee!
COVENTRY KERSEY DIGHTON PATMORE 237
Then, hiding even in me,
As hid was Simon’s coin within the fish,
Thou sigh’d’st, with joy, ‘ Be dumb,
Or speak but of forgotten things to far-off times to come.’
Sponsa Dei
HAT is this maiden fair, The laughing of whose eye Is in man’s heart renew’d virginity ; Who jet sick longing breeds For marriage which exceeds The inventive guess of Love to satisfy With hope of utter binding, and of loosing endless dear despair ? What gleams about her shine, More transient than delight and more divine! If she does something but a little sweet, As gaze towards the glass to set her hair, See how his soul falls humbled at her feet! Her gentle step, to go or come, Gains her more merit than a martyrdom ; And, if she dance, it doth such grace confer As opes the heaven of heavens to more than her, And makes a rival of her worshipper. To die unknown for her were little cost ! So is she without guile, Her mere refused smile Makes up the sum of that which may be lost! Who is this Fair Whom each hath seen, The darkest once in this bewailed dell, Be he not destin’d for the glooms of hell ? Whom each hath seen
238 COVENTRY KERSEY DIGHTON PATMORE
And known, with sharp remorse and sweet, as Queen And tear-glad Mistress of his hopes of bliss,
Too fair for man to kiss ?
Who is this only happy She,
Whon, by a frantic flight of courtesy,
Born of despair
Of better lodging for his Spirit fair,
He adores as Margaret, Maude, or Cecily ?
And what this sigh,
That each one heaves for Earth’s last lowlihead And the Heaven high
Ineffably lock’d in dateless bridal-bed ?
Are all, then, mad, or is it prophecy ?
‘ Sons now we are of God,’ as we have heard, ‘But what we shall be hath not yet appear’d.’
O, Heart, remember thee,
That Man is none,
Save One.
What if this Lady be thy Soul, and He
Who claims to enjoy her sacred beauty be,
Not thou, but God ; and thy sick fire
A female vanity,
Such as a Bride, viewing her mirror’d charms, Feels when she sighs, ‘ All these are for his arms! ” A reflex heat
Flash’d on thy cheek from His immense desire, Which waits to crown, beyond thy brain’s conceit, Thy nameless, secret, hopeless longing sweet,
Not by and by, but now,
Unless deny Him thou !
COVENTRY KERSEY DIGHTON PATMORE 239
To the Body
REATION’S and Creator’s crowning good ; Wall of infinitude ; Foundation of the sky, In Heaven forecast And long’d for from eternity, Though laid the last ; Reverberating dome, Of music cunningly built home Against the void and indolent disgrace Of unresponsive space ; Little, sequester’d pleasure-house For God and for His Spouse ; Elaborately, yea, past conceiving, fair, Since, from the graced decorum of the hair, Ev’n to the tingling, sweet Soles of the simple, earth-confiding feet, And from the inmost heart Outwards unto the thin Silk curtains of the skin, Every least part Astonish’d hears And sweet replies to some like region of the spheres ; Form’d for a dignity prophets but darkly name, Lest shameless men cry ‘ Shame!’ So rich with wealth conceal’d That Heaven and Hell fight chiefly for this field ; Clinging to everything that pleases thee With indefectible fidelity ; Alas, so true To all thy friendships that no grace Thee from thy sin can wholly disembrace ; Which thus ’bides with thee as the Jebusite,
240 COVENTRY KERSEY DIGHTON PATMORE
That, maugre all God’s promises could do, The chosen People never conquer’d quite ; Who therefore lived with them,
And that by formal truce and as of right, In metropolitan Jerusalem.
For which false fealty
Thou needs must, for a season, lie
In the grave’s arms, foul and unshriven, Albeit, in Heaven,
Thy crimson-throbbing Glow
Into its old abode aye pants to go,
And does with envy see
Enoch, Elijah, and the Lady, she
Who left the lilies in her body’s lieu.
O, if the pleasures I have known in thee But my poor faith’s poor first-fruits be, What quintessential, keen, ethereal bliss Then shall be his
Who has thy birth-time’s consecrating dew For death’s sweet chrism retain’d,
Quick, tender, virginal, and unprofaned !
AUGUSTA THEODOSIA DRANE ee: 1823-1894 Forgotten among the Lilies I fainted away abandoned ; And amid the lilies forgotten Threw all my cares away (St. John of the Cross. The Onan Night, Stanza viii) HROUGH the dark night I wander on alone, And, as one blinded, grope my weary way, Without a lamp to shed its guiding ray ; I wander on unseen, and seeing none, And caring to behold but only One.
AUGUSTA THEODOSIA DRANE 241
I see not, yet my heart will give me light,
And safer than the noonday sun will guide
To where the Bridegroom waiteth for the Bride; So walking on in faith and not by sight,
I cannot fear but He will guide me right... .
Forgotten ’mid the lilies ; for I feel
Their gentle blossoms wave above my head ;
I breathe the magic perfume which they shed,
As though my bleeding wounds they fain would heal, And from my heart its aching sorrow steal.
A sad, sweet lot—I needs must call it sweet ; My cares, like withered buds, I cast aside, And reck but little what may next betide ; The days and years fly past on pinions fleet, Amid these lilies crushed beneath His feet.
Forgotten and abandoned ;—yet withal Leaning my heart upon my only Love: Nay, raise me not, I do not care to move; Soon I shall hear His gentle footstep fall, And lift my eyes, and answer to His call.
Till then among the lilies let me lie ;
See, I have cast my idle cares away : Howe’er it be, I am content to stay
Until once more the Bridegroom passes by, And hither turns His gracious, pitying eye.
Blame not my folly, for I know full well
My words can nought but idle babbling seem, The madness of a fond and foolish dream : Bear with my folly, for the thoughts that swell This burning heart, I cannot, dare not tell.
242 AUGUSTA THEODOSIA DRANE
Know only this—I suffer, yet I rest ;
For all my cares and fears are cast away, And more than this I know not how to say; Forgotten though I be, I own it best
And ’mid the lilies lie in perfect rest.
What the Soul Destres
There Thou wilt show me what my soul desired ; There Thou wilt give at once, O my Life, what Thou gavest me the other day ! (St. John of the Cross. Spiritual Canticle, Stanza xxxviii) HERE is a rapture that my soul desires, There is a something that I cannot name; I know not after what my soul aspires, Nor guess from whence the restless longing came ; But ever from my childhood have I felt it, In all things beautiful and all things gay, And ever has its gentle, unseen presence Fallen, like a shadow-cloud, across my way
It is the melody of all sweet music,
In all fair forms it is the hidden grace ;
In all I love, a something that escapes me, Flies my pursuit, and ever veils its face.
I see it in the woodland’s summer beauty,
I hear it in the breathing of the air ;
I stretch my hands to feel for it, and grasp it, But ah! too well I know, it is not there.
In sunset-hours, when all the earth is golden, And rosy clouds are hastening to the west,
I catch a waving gleam, and then ’tis vanished, And the old longing once more fills my breast.
AUGUSTA THEODOSIA DRANE 243
It is not pain, although the fire consumes me, Bound up with memories of my happiest years ; It steals into my deepest joys—O mystery !
It mingles, too, with all my saddest tears,
Once, only once, there rose the heavy curtain,
The clouds rolled back, and for too brief a space
I drank in joy as from a living fountain,
And seemed to gaze upon it, face to face:
But of that day and hour who shall venture
With lips untouched by seraph’s fire to tell ?
I saw Thee, O my Life! I heard, I touched Thee,-— Then o’er my soul once more the darkness fell.
The darkness fell, and all the glory vanished ;
I strove to call it back, but all in vain:
O rapture! to have seen it for a moment !
O anguish ! that it never came again !
That lightning-flash of joy that seemed eternal, Was it indeed but wandering fancy’s dream ? Ah, surely no! that day the heavens opened, And on my soul there fell a golden gleam,
O Thou, my Life, give me what then Thou gavest ! No angel vision do I ask to see,
I seek no ecstasy of mystic rapture,
Naught, naught, my Lord, my Life, but only Thee! That golden gleam hath purged my sight, revealing, In the fair ray reflected from above,
Thyself, beyond all sight, beyond all feeling,
The hidden Beauty, and the hidden Love.
As the hart panteth for the water-brooks,
And seeks the shades whence cooling fountains burst; Even so for Thee, O Lord, my spirit fainteth, Thyself alone hath power to quench its thirst.
244 AUGUSTA THEODOSIA DRANE
Give me what then Thou gavest, for I seek it No longer in Thy creatures, as of old ;
I strive no more to grasp the empty shadow, The secret of my life is found and told!
GEORGE MAC DONALD {824-1905
4 Prayer for the Past
LL sights and sounds of day and year, All groups and forms, each leaf and gem, Are thine, O God, nor will I fear To talk to Thee of them.
Too great Thy heart is to despise, Whose day girds centuries about ; From things which we name small, Thine eyes See great things looking out.
Therefore the prayerful song I sing May come to Thee in ordered words : Though lowly born, it needs not cling In terror to its chords,
I think that nothing made is lost ; That not a moon has ever shone, That not a cloud my eyes hath crossed But to my soul is gone.
That all the lost years garnered lie In this Thy casket, my dim soul ; And Thou wilt, once, the key apply, And show the shining whole.
GEORGE MAC DONALD
But were they dead in me, they live In Thee, Whose Parable is—Time, And Worlds, and Forms—all things that give Me thoughts, and this my rime.
Father, in joy our knees we bow: This earth is not a place of tombs : We are but in the nursery now; They in the upper rooms.
For are we not at home in Thee, And all this world a visioned show; That, knowing what Abroad is, we What Home is too may know ?
Approaches
HEN thou turn’st away from ill, Christ is this side of thy hill.
When thou turnest toward good, Christ is walking in thy wood.
When thy heart says, ‘ Father, pardon !? Then the Lord is in thy garden.
When stern Duty wakes to watch, Then His hand is on the latch.
But when Hope thy song doth rouse, Then the Lord is in the house.
245
240 GEORGE MAC DONALD
When to love is all thy wit, Christ doth at thy table sit.
When God’s will is thy heart’s pole, Then is Christ thy very soul.
De Profundis
a HEN I am dead unto myself, and let, O Father, Thee live on in me, Contented to do naught but pay my debt, And leave the house to Thee,
Then shall I be Thy ransomed—from the cark Of living, from the strain for breath,
From tossing in my coffin strait and dark, At hourly strife with death !
Have mercy! in my coffin! and awake! A buried temple of the Lord !
Grow, Temple, grow! Heart, from thy cerements break ! Stream out, O living Sword !
When I am with Thee as thou art with me, Life will be self-forgetting power ;
Love, ever conscious, buoyant, clear, and free, Will flame in darkest hour.
GEORGE MAC DONALD 247
Where now I sit alone, unmoving, calm, With windows open to Thy wind,
Shall I not know Thee in the radiant psalm Soaring from heart and mind ?
The body of this death will melt away, And I shall know as I am known ;
Know Thee my Father, every hour and day, As Thou know’st me Thine Own !
Lost and Found
MISSED him when the sun began to bend ;
I found him not when I had lost his rim ; With many tears I went in search of him, Climbing high mountains which did still ascend, And gave me echoes when I called my friend ; Through cities vast and charnel-houses grim, And high cathedrals where the light was dim, Through books and arts and works without an end, But found him not—the friend whom I had lost. And yet I found him—as I found the lark,
A sound in fields I heard but could not mark ; I found him nearest when I missed him most ; I found him in my heart, a life in frost,
A light I knew not till my soul was dark,
248
WILLIAM ALEXANDER
ARCHBISHOP OF ARMAGH 1824-1912 Sonnets
Suggested by St. Augustine
I
HAT love I when I love Thee, O my God? Not corporal beauty, nor the limb of snow, Nor of loved light the white and pleasant flow, Nor manna showers, nor streams that flow abroad, Nor flowers of Heaven, nor small stars of the sod: Not these, my God, I love, who love Thee so ; Yet love I something better than I know :— A certain light on a more golden road ; A sweetness, not of honey or the hive ; A beauty, not of summer or the spring ; A scent, a music, and a blossoming Eternal, timeless, placeless, without gyve, Fair, fadeless, undiminish’d, ever dim,— This, this is what I love in loving Him.
II This, this is what I love, and what is this? I ask’d the beautiful earth, who said—‘ not 1’. I ask’d the depths, and the immaculate sky And all the spaces said—‘ not He but His.’ And so, like one who scales a precipice, Height after height, I scaled the flaming ball Of the great universe, yea, pass’d o’er all The world of thought, which so much higher is.
WILLIAM ALEXANDER 249
Then I exclaimed, ‘To whom is mute all murmur Of phantasy, of nature, and of art, He, than articulate language hears a firmer And grander meaning in his own deep heart. No sound from cloud or angel.? Oh, to win That voiceless voice—‘ My servant, enter in’ !
FRANCIS TURNER PALGRAVE The City of God
"Idov yap, ) Bactré:a Tod Ocod évrds byuady éori.
THOU not made with hands, Not throned above the skies, Nor wall’d with shining walls, Nor framed with stones of price, More bright than gold or gem, God’s own Jerusalem !
1825-1897
Where’er the gentle heart
Finds courage from above ;
Where’er the heart forsook
Warms with the breath of love; Where faith bids fear depart, City of God! thou art.
Thou art where’er the proud
In humbleness melts down ;
Where self itself yields up ;
Where martyrs win their crown ; Where faithful souls possess Themselves in perfect peace.
250
FRANCIS TURNER PALGRAVE
Where in life’s common ways With cheerful feet we go ; When in His steps we tread Who trod the way of woe ; Where He is in the heart, City of God! thon art.
Not throned above the skies, Nor golden-wall’d afar, But where Christ’s two or three In His name gather’d are, Be in the midst of them, God’s own Jerusalem !
DINAH MARIA (MULOCK) CRAIK 1826-188}
The Human Temple
*Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the spirit
of God dwelleth in you ?’
The Temple in Darkness ARKNESS broods upon the temple, Glooms along the lonely aisles, Fills up all the orient window, Whence, like little children’s wiles, Shadows—purple, azure, golden— Broke upon the floor in smiles.
From the great heart of the organ Bursts no voice of chant or psalm ; All the air, by music-pulses Stirred no more, is deathly calm ; And no precious incense rising, Falls, like good men’s prayer, in balm,
DINAH MARIA (MULOCK) CRAIK 251
Not a sound of living footstep
Echoes on the marble floor ; Not a sigh of stranger passing
Pierces through the closéd door ; Quenched the light upon the altar:
Where the priest stood, none stands more.
Lord, why hast Thou left Thy temple Scorned of man, disowned by Thee?
Rather let Thy right hand crush it, None its desolation see !
List—‘ He who the temple builded Doth His will there. Let it be!’
A Light in the Temple Lo, a light within the temple ! Whence it cometh no man knows; Barred the doors: the night-black windows Stand apart in solemn rows, All without seems gloom eternal, Yet the glimmer comes and goes—
As if silent-footed angels
Through the dim aisles wandered fair, Only traced amid the darkness,
By the glory in their hair, Till at the forsaken altar
They all met, and praised God there,
Now the light grows—fuller, clearer ; Hark, the organ ’gins to sound, Faint, like broken spirit crying Unto Heaven from the ground ; While the chorus of the angels Mingles everywhere around.
252
DINAH MARIA (MULOCK) CRAIK
See, the altar shines all radiant,
Though no mortal priest there stands, And no earthly congregation
Worships with uplifted hands: Yet they gather, slow and saintly,
In innumerable bands.
And the chant celestial rises
Where the human prayers have ceased 3 No tear-sacrifice is offered,
For all anguish is appeased, Through its night of desolation,
To His temple comes the Priest.
DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI
The Sea-Limits
ONSIDER the sea’s listless chime : Time’s self it is, made audible,— The murmur of the earth’s own shell. Secret continuance sublime Is the sea’s end: our sight may pass No furlong farther. Since time was, This sound hath told the lapse of time.
1828-1882
No quiet, which is death’s,—it hath The mournfulness of ancient life, Enduring always at dull strife.
As the world’s heart of rest and wrath, Its painful pulse is in the sands. Last utterly, the whole sky stands,
Grey and not known, along its path.
DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI 253
Listen alone beside the sea, Listen alone among the woods ; Those voices of twin solitudes Shall have one sound alike to thee : Hark where the murmurs of thronged men Surge and sink back and surge again,— Still the one voice of wave and tree.
Gather a shell from the strown beach And listen at its lips: they sigh The same desire and mystery,
The echo of the whole sea’s speech And all mankind is thus at heart Not anything but what thou art:
And Earth, Sea, Man, are all in each,
The Monochord
S it the moved air or the moving sound That is Life’s self and draws my life from me,
And by instinct ineffable decree Holds my breath quailing on the bitter bound ? Nay, is it Life or Death, thus thunder-crowned,
That ’mid the tide of all emergency
Now notes my separate wave, and to what sea Its difficult eddies labour in the ground ?
Oh! what is this that knows the road I came, The flame turned cloud, the cloud returned to flame, The lifted shifted steeps and all the way ?— That draws round me at last this wind-warm space, And in regenerate rapture turns my face Upon the devious coverts of dismay?
254
GEORGE MEREDITH 1828-1909 Outer and Inner
ROM twig to twig the spider weaves At noon his webbing fine.
So near to mute the zephyrs flute
That only leaflets dance. The sun draws out of hazel leaves
A smell of woodland wine. I wake a swarm to sudden storm
At any step’s advance.
Along my path is bugloss blue, The star with fruit in moss ;
The foxgloves drop from throat to top A daily lesser bell.
The blackest shadow, nurse of dew, Has orange skeins across ;
And keenly red is one thin thread That flashing seems to swell.
My world I note ere fancy comes, Minutest hushed observe :
What busy bits of motioned wits Through antlered mosswork strive,
But now so low the stillness hums, My springs of seeing swerve,
For half a wink to thrill and think The woods with nymphs alive.
I neighbour the invisible So close that my consent
Is only asked for spirits masked To leap from trees and flowers.
GEORGE MEREDITH 255
And this because with them I dwell In thuught, while calmly bent To read the lines dear Earth designs
Shall speak her life on ours.
Accept, she says; it is not hard In woods ; but she in towns Repeats, accept; and have we wept, And have we quailed with fears, Or shrunk with horrors, sure reward We have whom knowledge crowns ; Who see in mould the rose unfold, The soul through blood and tears.
HENRY NUTCOMBE OXENHAM 1829-1888 The Child-Christ on the Cross
* Dolor meus in conspectu meo semper.’
ICTIM of love, in manhood’s prime Thou wilt ascend the Cross to die: Why hangs the Child before His time Stretched on that bed of agony ?
‘No thorn-wreath crowns My boyish brow, No scourge has dealt its cruel smart,
In hands and feet no nail-prints show, No spear is planted in My heart.
* They have not set Me for a sign, Hung bare beneath the sunless sky ; Nor mixed the draught of gall and wine
To mock My dying agony.
256 HENRY NUTCOMBE OXENHAM
‘ The livelong night, the livelong day, My child, I travail for thy good,
And for thy sake I hang alway Self-crucified upon the Rood.
* To witness to the living Truth, To keep thee pure from sin’s alloy,
I cloud the sunshine of My youth ; The Man must suffer in the Boy.
‘ Visions of unrepented sin, The forfeit crown, the eternal loss, Lie deep my sorrowing soul within, And nail My Body to the Cross.
‘ The livelong night, the livelong day, A Child upon that Cross I rest ;
All night I for My children pray, All day I woo them to My breast.
‘ Long years of toil and pain are Mine, Ere I be lifted up to die,
Where cold the Paschal moonbeams shine At noon on darkened Calvary.
‘ Then will the thorn-wreath pierce My brow, The nails will fix Me to the tree ;
But I shall hang as I do now, Self-crucified for love of thee !?
257 CHRISTINA GEORGINA ROSSETTI
1830-1894
Hymn, after Gabriele Rossetti
Y Lord, my Love! in pleasant pain How often have I said,
‘ Blesséd that John who on Thy breast Laid down his head.’
It was that contact all divine Transformed him from above,
And made him amongst men the man To show forth holy love.
Yet shall I envy blesséd John ? Nay not so verily,
Now that Thou, Lord, both Man and God, Dost dwell in me:
Upbuilding with Thy Manhood’s might My frail humanity ;
Yea, Thy Divinehood pouring forth, In fullness filling me.
Me, Lord, Thy temple consecrate, Even me to Thee alone ;
Lord, reign upon my willing heart Which is Thy throne :
To Thee the Seraphim fall down Adoring round Thy house ;
For which of them hath tasted Thee My Manna and my Spouse ?
Now that Thy life lives in my soul And sways and warms it through,
I scarce seem lesser than the world, Thy temple too.
MYST. K
258 CHRISTINA GEORGINA ROSSETTI
O God, who dwellest in my heart, My God who fillest me,
The broad immensity itself Hath not encompassed Thee.
After Communion
VY HY should I call Thee Lord, Who art my God ? Why should I call Thee Friend,Who art my Love? Or King, Who art my very Spouse above ? Or call Thy Sceptre on my heart Thy rod ? Lo now Thy banner over me is love, All heaven flies open to me at Thy nod: For Thou hast lit Thy flame in me a clod, Made me a nest for dwelling of Thy Dove. What wilt Thou call me in our home above, Who now hast called me friend ? how will it be When Thou for good wine settest forth the best ? Now Thou dost bid me come and sup with Thee, Now Thou dost make me lean upon Thy breast : How will it be with me in time of love ?
THOMAS EDWARD BROWN : 1830-1897 Pain HE man that hath great griefs I pity not; Tis something to be great In any wise, and hint the larger state, Though but in shadow of a shade, God wot!
Moreover, while we wait the possible,
This man has touched the fact,
And probed till he has felt the core, where, packed In pulpy folds, resides the ironic ill.
THOMAS EDWARD BROWN 259
And while we others sip the obvious sweet— Lip-licking after-taste Of glutinous rind, lo! this man hath made haste, And pressed the sting that holds the central seat.
For thus it is God stings us into life, Provoking actual souls From bodily systems, giving us the poles That are His own, not merely balanced strife,
Nay, the great passions are His veriest thought, Which whoso can absorb, Nor, querulous halting, violate their orb, In him the mind of God is fullest wrought.
Thrice happy such an one! Far other he Who dallies on the edge Of the great vortex, clinging to a sedge Of patent good, a timorous Manichee ;
Who takes the impact of a long-breathed force, And fritters it away In eddies of disgust, that else might stay His nerveless heart, and fix it to the course.
For there is threefold oneness with the One ; And he is one, who keeps The homely laws of life ; who, if he sleeps, Or wakes, in his true flesh God’s will is done.
And he is one, who takes the deathless forms, Who schools himself to think With the All-thinking, holding fast the link, God-riveted, that bridges casual storms,
260 THOMAS EDWARD BROWN
But tenfold one is he, who feels all pains
Not partial, knowing them
As ripples parted from the gold-beaked stem, Wherewith God’s galley onward ever strains.
To him the sorrows are the tension-thrills
Of that serene endeavour,
Which yields to God for ever and for ever The joy that is more ancient than the hills.
My Garden
GARDEN is a lovesome thing, God wot ! Rose plot,
Fringed pool,
Ferned grot—
The veriest school
Of peace ; and yet the fool
Contends that God is not—
Not God! in gardens! when the eve is cool ?
Nay, but I have a sign ;
*Tis very sure God walks in mine.
Disguises
IGH stretched upon the swinging yard, I gather in the sheet ; But it is hard And stiff, and one cries haste. Then He that is most dear in my regard Of all the crew gives aidance meet ; But from His hands, and from His feet, A glory spreads wherewith the night is starred :
THOMAS EDWARD BROWN 261
Moreover of a cup most bitter-sweet
With fragrance as of nard,
And myrrh, and cassia spiced,
He proffers me to taste.
Then I to Him :—‘ Art Thou the Christ ?’ He saith—‘ Thou say’st.’
Like to an ox
That staggers ’neath the mortal blow,
She grinds upon the rocks :—
Then straight and low
Leaps forth the levelled line, and in our quarter locks The cradle’s rigged ; with swerving of the blast We go,
Our Captain last—
Demands
‘Who fired that shot ?” Each silent stands— Ah, sweet perplexity !
This too was He.
I have an arbour wherein came a toad
Most hideous to see—
Immediate, seizing staff or goad,
I smote it cruelly.
Then all the place with subtle radiance glowed— I looked, and it was He!
Land, Ho! KNOW ’tis but a loom of land,
Yet is it land, and so I will rejoice, I know I cannot hear His voice Upon the shore, nor see Him stand ; Yet is it land, ho! land.
262
THOMAS EDWARD BROWN
The land! the land! the lovely land! ‘ Far off,’ dost say ? Far off—ah, blesséd home ! Farewell! farewell! thou salt sea-foam !
Ah, keel upon the silver sand—
Land, ho! land.
You cannot see the land, my land, You cannot see, and yet the land is there— My land, my land, through murky air— I did not say ’twas close at hand— But—land, ho! land.
Dost hear the bells of my sweet land, Dost hear the kine, dost hear the merry birds? No voice, ’tis true, no spoken words, No tongue that thou may’st understand— Yet is it land, ho! land.
It’s clad in purple mist, my land, In regal robe it is apparelléd, A crown is set upon its head, And on its breast a golden band— Land, ho! land.
Dost wonder that I long for land ? My land is not a land as others are— Upon its crest there beams a star,
And lilies grow upon the strand—
Land, ho! land.
Give me the helm! there is the land! Ha! lusty mariners, she takes the breeze ! And what my spirit sees it sees—
Leap, bark, as leaps the thunderbrand—
Land, ho! land.
THOMAS EDWARD BROWN 263
Specula
HEN He appoints to meet thee, go thou forth— It matters not If south or north, Bleak waste or sunny plot. Nor think, if haply He thou seek’st be late, He does thee wrong. To stile or gate Lean thou thy head, and long! It may be that to spy thee He is mounting Upon a tower, Or in thy counting Thou hast mista’en the hour. But, if He comes not, neither do thou go Till Vesper chime. Belike thou then shalt know He hath been with thee all the time.
JEAN INGELOW 1830-1897
From ‘ Scholar and Carpenter’
: RAND is the leisure of the earth ; She gives her happy myriads birth, And after harvest fears not dearth, But goes to sleep in snow-wreaths dim, Dread is the leisure up above The while He sits whose name is Love, And waits, as Noah did, for the dove, To wit if she would fly to him,
264 JEAN INGELOW
‘He waits for us, while, houseless things, We beat about with bruiséd wings On the dark floods and water-springs, The ruined world, the desolate sea ; With open windows from the prime All night, all day, He waits sublime, Until the fullness of the time Decreed from His eternity.
‘Where is our leisure ?—Give us rest.
Where is the quiet we possessed ?
We must have had it once—were blest With peace whose phantoms yet entice,
Sorely the mother of mankind
Longed for the garden left behind ;
For we still prove some yearnings blind Inherited from Paradise.’
‘Hold, heart!’ I cried; ‘ for trouble sleeps , I hear no sound of aught that weeps ; I will not look into thy deeps—
I am afraid, I am afraid!’ ‘ Afraid!’ she saith; ‘and yet ’tis true That what man dreads he still should view— Should do the thing he fears to do,
And storm the ghosts in ambuscade !’
‘What good!’ I sigh. ‘ Was reason meant
To straighten branches that are bent,
Or soothe an ancient discontent, The instinct of a race dethroned ?
Ah! doubly should that instinct go,
Must the four rivers cease to flow,
Nor yield those rumours sweet and low Wherewith man’s life is undertoned.’
JEAN INGELOW
‘ Yet had I but the past,’ she cries, ‘ And it was lost, I would arise And comfort me some other wise. But more than loss about me clings. I am but restless with my race ; The whispers from a heavenly place, Once dropped among us, seem to chase Rest with their prophet-visitings.
‘ The race is like a child, as yet Too young for all things to be set Plainly before him, with no let
Or hindrance meet for his degree ; But ne’ertheless by much too old Not to perceive that men withhold More of the story than is told,
And so infer a mystery.
* If the Celestials daily fly
With messages on missions high,
And float, our nests and turrets nigh, Conversing on Heaven’s great intents;
What wonder hints of coming things,
Whereto men’s hope and yearning clings,
Should drop like feathers from their wings And give us vague presentiments.
‘ And as the waxing moon can take
The tidal waters in her wake,
And lead them round and round, to break Obedient to her drawings dim ;
So may the movements of His mind,
The first Great Father of mankind,
Affect with answering movements blind,
And draw the souls that breathe by Him.
K 3
265
266 JEAN INGELOW
‘We had a message long ago
That like a river peace should flow,
And Eden bloom again below. We heard, and we began to wait:
Full soon that message men forgot ;
Yet waiting is their destined lot,
And, waiting for they know not what, They strive with yearnings passionate.’
SIR EDWIN ARNOLD From ‘The Light of Asia’
M, amitaya! measure not with words Th’ Immeasurable ; nor sink the string of thought Into the Fathomless. Who asks doth err, Who answers, errs. Say nought!
1832-1904
The Books teach Darkness was, at first of all, And Brahm, sole meditating in that Night:
Look not for Brahm and the Beginning there ! Nor him, nor any light
Shall any gazer see with mortal eyes, Or any searcher know by mortal mind ; Veil after veil will lift—but there must be Veil upon veil behind.
Stars sweep and question not. This is enough That life and death and joy and woe abide ;
And cause and sequence, and the course of time, And Being’s ceaseless tide,
SIR EDWIN ARNOLD 267
Which, ever changing, runs, linked like a river By ripples following ripples, fast or slow— The same yet not the same—from far-off fountain To where its waters flow
Into the seas. These, steaming to the Sun, Give the lost wavelets back in cloudy fleece
To trickle down the hills, and glide again ; Having no pause or peace.
This is enough to know, the phantasms are ; The Heavens, Earths, Worlds, and changes changing them, A mighty whirling wheel of strife and stress Which none can stay or stem....
If ye lay bound upon the wheel of change,
And no way were of breaking from the chain, The Heart of boundless Being is a curse,
The Soul of Things fell Pain.
Ye are not bound! the Soul of Things is sweet, The Heart of Being is celestial rest ;
Stronger than woe is will: that which was Good Doth pass to Better—Best.
I, Buddh, who wept with all my brothers’ tears, Whose heart was broken by a whole world’s woe, Laugh and am glad, for there is Liberty ! Ho! ye who suffer! know
Ye suffer from yourselves, None else compels, None other holds you that ye live and die,
And whirl upon the wheel, and hug and kiss Its spokes of agony,
268 SIR EDWIN ARNOLD
Its tire of tears, its nave of nothingness. Behold, I show you Truth! Lower than hell, Higher than Heaven, outside the utmost stars, Farther than Brahm doth dwell,
Before beginning, and without an end, As space eternal and as surety sure,
Is fixed a Power divine which moves to good, Only its laws endure....
That which ye sow ye reap. See yonder fields ! The sesamum was sesamum, the corn Was corn. The Silence and the Darkness knew !
So is a man’s fate born... .
If he shall day by day dwell merciful, Holy and just and kind and true; and rend Desire from where it clings with bleeding roots, Till love of life have end :
He—dying—leaveth as the sum of him
A life-count closed, whose ills are dead and quit Whose good is quick and mighty, far and near,
So that fruits follow it.
No need hath such to live as ye name life ; That which began in him when he began
Is finished ; he hath wrought the purpose through Of what did make him Map.
Never shall yearnings torture him, nor sins
Stain him, nor ache of earthly joys and woes Invade his safe eternal peace ; nor deaths
And lives recur. He goes
SIR EDWIN ARNOLD 269
Unto nirvana. He is one with Life, Yet lives not. He is blest, ceasing to be. Om, Mani Pape, om! the Dewdrop slips Into the shining sea! ...
Au! Burzssep Lorp! On, Hicw Dexiversr ! ForGIVE THIS FEEBLE SCRIPT, WHICH DOTH THEE WRONG, MEasuRING WITH LITTLE WIT THY LOFTY Love.
Au! Lover! Brotuer! Guipe! Lamp or THE Law! I TAKE MY REFUGE IN THY NAME AND THEE !
I TAKE MY REFUGE IN THY Law oF Goon!
I TAKE MY REFUGE IN THY ORDER! OM!
Tue Dew 1s on THE Lotus !—Risz, Great Sun !
AND LIFT MY LEAF AND MIX ME WITH THE WAVE.
Om MANI PADME HUM, THE SUNRISE CoMEs !
Tue DewpRoP SLIPS INTO THE SHINING SEA!
SIR LEWIS MORRIS 1833-1907
44 Fleathen Flymn
LORD, the Giver of my days,
My heart is ready, my heart is ready ; I dare not hold my peace, nor pause, For I am fain to sing Thy praise.
I praise Thee not, with impious pride, For that Thy partial hand has given Bounties of wealth or form or brain, Good gifts to other men denied.
Nor weary Thee with blind request,
For fancied goods Thy hand withhoids ; I know not what to fear or hope,
Nor aught but that Thy will is best.
270
SIR LEWIS MORRIS
Not whence I come, nor whither I go, Nor wherefore I am here, I know ; Nor if my life’s tale ends on earth, Or mounts to bliss, or sinks to woe.
Nor know I aught of Thee, O Lord ; Behind the veil Thy face is hidden : We faint, and yet Thy face is hidden; We cry,—Thou answerest not a word,
But this I know, O Lord, Thou art, And by Thee I too live and am ;
We stand together, face to face, Thou the great whole, and I the part.
We stand together, soul to soul, Alone amidst Thy waste of worlds ; Unchanged, though all creation fade, And Thy swift suns forget to roll.
Wherefore, because my life is Thine, Because, without Thee I were not; Because, as doth the sea, the sun, My nature gives back the Divine.
Because my being with ceaseless flow Sets to Thee as the brook to the sea ; Turns to Thee, as the flower to the sun, And seeks what it may never know.
Because, without me Thou hadst been For ever, seated midst Thy suns ; Marking the soulless cycles turn,
Yet wert Thyself unknown, unseen.
SIR LEWIS MORRIS 273
I praise Thee, everlasting Lord,
In life and death, in heaven and hell: What care I, since indeed Thou art, And I the creature of Thy word. Only if such a thing may be:
When all Thy infinite will is done,
Take back the soul Thy breath has given, And let me lose myself in Thee.
A New Orphic Hymn es peaks, and the starlit skies, the deeps of the f
athomless seas, Immanent is He in all, yet higher and deeper than these. The heart, and the mind, and the soul, the thoughts and the yearnings of Man, Of His essence are one and all, and yet define it who can? The love of the Right, tho’ cast down, the hate of vic-
torious II], All are sparks from the central fire of a boundless bene-
ficent Will.
Oh, mystical secrets of Nature, great Universe undefined, Ye are part of the infinite work of a mighty ineffable Mind.
Beyond your limitless Space, before your measureless Time,
Ere Life or Death began was this changeless Essence sublime.
In the core of eternal calm He dwelleth unmoved and
alone *Mid the Universe He has made, as a monarch upon his
throne.
272 SIR LEWIS MORRIS
And the self-same inscrutable Power which fashioned the sun and the star
Is Lord of the feeble strength of the humblest creatures that are.
The weak things that float or creep for their little life of a day,
The weak souls that falter and faint, as feeble and futile as they ;
The malefic invisible atoms unmarked by man’s purblind eye
That beleaguer our House of Life, and compass us till we die ;
All these are parts of Him, the indivisible One, Who supports and illumines the many, Creation’s Pillar and Sun!
Yea, and far in the depths of Being, too dark for a mortal brain,
Lurk His secrets of Evil and Wrong, His creatures of Death and of Pain.
A viewless Necessity binds, a determinate Impetus drives Toa hidden invisible goal the freightage of numberlesslives.
The waste, and the pain, and the wrong, the abysmal mysteries dim, Come not of themselves alone, but are seed and issueof Him.
And Man’s spirit that spends and is spent in mystical questionings,
Oh, the depths of the fathomless deep, oh, the riddle and secret of things,
And the voice through the darkness heard, and the rush of winnowing wings !
273
RICHARD WATSON DIXON 1833-1900
Rapture: An Ode
I
HAT is this ?
The white and crumbling clouds leave bare the blue; Shines out the central sun with golden hue ; And all the fruit-trees, rolling blossom-boughed, Are white and billowy as the rolling cloud.
The warm beam bedded sleeps upon the trees, The springing thickets and the gorse-bound leas ; Sleeps where I lie at ease,
Pulling the ruby orchis and the pale Half-withered cowslip from the hill-side grass, Midway the brow that overhangs the vale, Where the sleepy shadows pass,
And the sunbeam sleeps till all is grown
Into one burning sapphire stone,
All air, all earth, each violet-deepened zone,
Il It sleeps and broods upon the moss-mapped stone, The thready mosses and the plumy weeds ; Numbers the veined flowers one after one, Their colours and their leaves and ripening seeds : Above, around, its influence proceeds ; It tracks in gleams the stream through crowding bush, And beds of sworded flags and bearded rush, Where slow it creeps along the lower ground ; The ridges far above are all embrowned, The golden heavens over all are ploughed In furrows of fine tissue that abound, And melting fragments of the whitest cloud.
274 RICHARD WATSON DIXON
ul Ah, what is this, that now with sated eyes And humming ears the soul no more descries ? Drawn back upon the spirit all the sense Becomes intelligence ; And to be doubly now unfolded feels That which itself reveals ; Double the world of all that may appear To eye or hand or ear ; Double the soul of that which apprehends By that which sense transcends.
Iv
For deep the cave of human consciousness ; The thoughts, like light, upon its depths may press, Seeking and finding wonders numberless ; But never may they altogether pierce
The hollow gloom so sensitive and fierce
Of the deep bosom : far the light may reach, There is a depth unreached ; in clearest speech There is an echo from an unknown place : And in the dim, unknown, untrodden space Our life is hidden ; were we all self-known, No longer should we live ; a wonder shown Is wonderful no more; and being flies
For ever from its own self-scrutinies,
Here is the very effort of the soul
To keep itself unmingled, safe, and whole
In changes and the flitting feints of sense : Here essence holds a calm and sure defence ; It is a guarded shrine and sacred grove,
A fountain hidden where no foot may rove, A further depth within a sounded sea ;
A mirror ’tis from hour to hour left free
RICHARD WATSON DIXON 275
By things reflected : and because ’tis so, Therefore the outer world and all its show
Is as the music of the upper wave
To the deep Ocean in his sunken cave ;
A part of its own self, yet but its play,
Which doth the sunbeam and the cloud convey To central deeps, where in awful shade
The stormless heart receives the things conveyed, Knowing the cloud by darkness, and the light
By splendours dying through the infinite.
v
And being such the soul doth recognize The doubleness of nature, that there lies
A soul occult in Nature, hidden deep
As lies the soul of man in moveless sleep. And like a dream
Broken in circumstance and foolish made, Through which howe’er the future world doth gleam, And floats a warning to the gathered thought, Like to a dream,
Through sense and all by sense conveyed, Into our soul the shadow of that soul Doth float.
Then are we lifted up erect and whole
In vast confession to that universe Perceived by us: our soul itself transfers Thither by instinct sure ; it swiftly hails The mighty spirit similar ; it sails
In the divine expansion ; it perceives Tendencies glorious, distant ; it enweaves Itself with excitations more than thought Unto that soul unveiled and yet unsought,
276 RICHARD WATSON DIXON
vi
Ye winds and clouds of light, Ye lead the soul to God ; The new-born soul that height With rapturous foot hath trod, And is received of God : God doth the soul receive Which mounts toward Him, and alone would dwell With Him ; though finite with the Infinite, Though finite, rising with a might Like to infinitude. Gently receiving such He doth dispel All solitary horror with delight, Honouring the higher mood.
vir
For though the soul pants with fierce ecstasy The unattainable to grasp, to be
For ever mingled with infinity ;
And this in vain, since God Himself withdraws From human knowledge, e’en as its own laws Seclude the sou! from sense ;
Yet not from love He hies ;
From love God never flies.
Love is the soul’s best sense, which God descries, Which bares the covert of intelligence :
And, honouring in love the higher mood,
With lovely joys He fills the solitude
Of His own presence, whither trusting Him The soul hath mounted : lo, it might have found Utter destruction on this higher ground, Tenuity of air and swooning dim
RICHARD WATSON DIXON
For lack of breath ; but now it finds hereby A lovely vesture of infinity,
And ecstasies that nourish ecstasy.
God giveth love to love, and ministers Substance to substance ; life to life He bears.
VIII
Therefore, ye winds and ye High moving clouds of light, Ye rivers running free, Thou glory of the sea, Thou glory of the height, The gleam beside the bush, The tremble of the rush, To me made manifest, The beauty of the flower In summer’s sunny power, Portions of entity supreme ye be, And motions massed upon eternal rest.
Ix
Broad breezes, clouds of light, Thither ye lead the soul, To this most sacred height Above the sacred whole : The azure world is not so fair, The azure world and all the circling air, As that true spiritual kingdom known Unto the spirit only and alone ; Thither the soul ye bear, Oh winds and clouds of light.
278 RICHARD WATSON DIXON
x
Ye winds and clouds of light, That bear the soul to God ;
The new-born soul that height By ecstasy hath trod,
RODEN BERKELEY WRIOTHESLEY NOEL 1834-1894
From ‘ Pan’
H! Nature, would that I before I pass Might thrill with joy of thy communion
One childlife only knowing thee from far ! Love we may well, for surely one were nought Without the other, intermarrying breath ; Nature the systole, thought the diastole Of one Divine forever-beating Heart. Feeding from her maternal breast we grow Full to our height of stately dominance, And yet create, yea dower as we grow Her with all colour, form and comeliness, Nature the heaving of a tender breast Revealing inspiration from within, Sweet rending of a calyx, telling clear Expansion of the spirit’s folded flower, Nature the lake where looking long we fall With our own likeness tremulous in love.
And shall we climb, ascension infinite, From star to star ? explore from world to world— Gods reigning yonder in the tranquil stars ? Death ! what is Death ? a turning-point of Life
RODEN BERKELEY WRIOTHESLEY NOEL
Winding so sharp the way dips out of sight, Seeming to end, yet winding on for ever Through teeming glories of the Infinite. Look with bold eyes unquailing in the face Of that foul haunting phantom, it will fade, Melt to the face of some familiar friend... .
One selfsame Spirit breathing evermore Rouses in each the momentary wave, One water and one motion and one wind, Now feeble undulation myriadfold,
279
Now headlong mountain thunder-clothed and crowned
With foamy lightning ; such we name Zerduscht, Dante, Spinoza, or Napoleon— The motion travels, and the wave subsides. . . .
May cold ascetic hard, ill-favoured, crude, Ever persuade me vision and fond play Of sense about fair fleshly loveliness Of youth in man or woman is accurst— Since God hath made the spirit, but a fiend Hath mocked it with a syren phantom-flesh }— Nay, to mine ear ’tis rankest blasphemy ! For is not flesh the shadow of the soul, Her younger sister, both alike Divine ? Yea verily ! for when I love a friend How may I sunder body from the soul ? Few win my love, but they who win it seem Ever well-favoured to me, and I greet All comeliness of colour and of form, Mere side reverse of spiritual grace. Yea, limbs well turned and bodies almond-smooth Full fair and white in maiden or in youth, With what sense-thrillings may attend on these ;
3 These dots are the author’s, and do not mark omissions.
280 RODEN BERKELEY WRIOTHESLEY NOEL
All lusty might of supple athletic men ; Are surely worthy reverence like flowers, Or like the culminating heart and soul. Only to each one yield his very own : Yield to young sense his toy of fantasy, And never frown until he glides to steal The royal sceptre from Intelligence,
Or crown of light from spiritual Love. Nor dare to maim lives infinite Divine Seeking to graft one pale monotonous flower ; For is not Being thirsting to exhaust
His all exhaustless capability ?
Evil mere vantage-ground for an advance, If not for thee, yet for the universe,
And so for thee as member of the whole.
From ‘ De Profundis’
HE spirit grows the form for self-expression, And for a hall where she may hold high session With sister souls, who, allied with her, create Her fair companion, her espouséd mate. Ever the hidden Person will remould For all our lives fresh organs manifold, Gross for the earthly, for the heavenly fine, Ethereal woof, wherein their graces shine. And there be secret avenues, with doors Yielding access to inmost chamber floors Of the soul’s privacy ; all varying frames, Responsive to the several spirit-flames. The vital form our lost now animate Is one with what in their low mortal state They made their own ; the corse mere ashes, waste,
RODEN BERKELEY WRIOTHESLEY NOEL
For all grand uses of the world replaced. A larva needs no more the unliving husk, When soaring winged he rends the dwelling dusk.
A rabble rout of Sense light-headed pours Into the holy Spirit-temple doors, Where many a grave and stately minister His place and function doth on each confer. These Forms inhabiting the sacred gloom, Whose name is legion, Present, Past, To Come, One, Many, Same, or Different, evolve Sweet concord from confusion ; they resolve The Babel dissonance to a choral song, Till in divine societies a throng Sets with one will toward the inmost shrine, To feed there upon mystic Bread and Wine. The Bacchanals are sobered, and grow grave, In solemn silence treading the dim nave: On their light hearts bloom-pinioned angels lay Calm, hushful hands of married night and day,
It is a changing scene within the pile: New shows arrive, and tarry for a while: But if one living Spirit-fane could fall,
His ruin were the knell of doom for all. Their being blended each with every one, If any failed, the universe were gone, These conscious forms inhabit every mind ; All selves in one organic self they bind ; The bloomy beams, and all the shadowy blooms Are pure white Light eternal that illumes A universal conscious Spirit-whole,
Fair modulated in each several soul
To many-functioned organs of one Will, Whose sovran Being who prevails to kill ?
281
282 RODEN BERKELEY WRIOTHESLEY NOEL
We may expand our being to embrace,
And mirror all therein of every race ;
Each is himself by universal grace.
Dying is self-fulfilment ; and we cherish
His life, who, wanting ours, would wholly perish. The Father may not be without the Son ;
No love, will, knowledge, were for Him alone. And change is naught
Save at the bar of a sole personal thought, Enthroned for judgement, summoning past time With present, hearing now concordant rhyme, Now variance among voices vanishing,
That so win semblance of substantial thing.
But how conceive that there may ever be
Change in the nerve of change, our known identity ?
If we, poor worms, involved in our own cloud, Deem the wide world lies darkling in a shroud, Raving the earth holds no felicity,
One child’s clear laughter may rebuke the lie, A lark’s light rapture soaring in the blue, Or rainbow radiant from a drop of dew!
Nor let a low-born Sense usurp the rule, Who is but handmaid in a loftier school, Where Love and Conscience a lore not of earth Impart to Wisdom, child of heavenly birth.
O Thou unknown, inscrutable Divine !
I deem that I am Thine, and Thou art mine; And though I may not gaze into Thy face,
I feel that all are clasped in Thine embrace. The Christ is with us, and He points to Thee: When we have grown into Him we shall see ; Behold the Father in the perfect Son,
And feel, with Him, Thy holy will be done !
RODEN BERKELEY WRIOTHESLEY NOEL 283
Love may not compass her full harmony,
Wanting the deep dread note of those who die.
And as with master-hand He sweeps the grand awakening chords,
Our wailing sighs leap winged, live talismanic words,
Dull woes and errors tempered to seraphic swords,
Love’s colour-chorus flames with glorious morning-red,
His alchemy transmuting the poured heart’s blood of our dead,
And lurid bale from murderous eyes of souls who inly bled !
Whose mortal mind may sail around the ocean of Thy
might,
Billowing away in awful gloom to issues infinite ?
Bind Thee with his poor girdle? Surveying all thy shore]!
His daring sinks confounded, foundering evermore,
In his dazed ear reverberating a tempestuous roar !
... Who sounds the abyss of Thine immense design ? We rest,
Aware that Thou art better than our best.
SIR ALFRED COMYN LYALL
: 1835-1911 From ‘ Siva ‘Mors Janua Vitae.’
AM the God of the sensuous fire
That moulds all Nature in forms divine ; The symbols of death and of man’s desire,
The springs of change in the world, are mine ; The organs of birth and the circlet of bones, And the light loves carved on the temple stones,
284 SIR ALFRED COMYN LYALL
I am the lord of delights and pain,
Of the pest that killeth, of fruitful joys ; I rule the currents of heart and vein ;
A touch gives passion, a look destroys ; In the heat and cold of my lightest breath Is the might incarnate of Lust and Death.
If a thousand altars stream with blood
Of the victims slain by the chanting priest, Is a great God lured by the savoury food ?
I reck not of worship, or song, or feast ; But that millions perish, each hour that flies, Is the mystic sign of my sacrifice.
Ye may plead and pray for the millions born ; They come like dew on the morning grass ; Your vows and vigils I hold in scorn, The soul stays never, the stages pass ; All life is the play of the power that stirs In the dance of my wanton worshippers,
And the strong swift river my shrine below It runs, like man, its unending course To the boundless sea from eternal snow ; Mine is the Fountain—and mine the Force That spurs all nature to ceaseless strife ; And my image is Death at the gates of Life.
In many a legend and many a shape, In the solemn grove and the crowded street, I am the Slayer, whom none escape ; I am Death trod under a fair girl’s feet ; I govern the tides of the sentient sea That ebbs and flows to eternity.
SIR ALFRED COMYN LYALL 285
And the sum of the thought and the knowledge of man Is the secret tale that my emblems tell ;
Do ye seek God’s purpose, or trace his plan ? Ye may read your doom in my parable:
For the circle of life in its flower and its fall
Is the writing that runs on my temple wall....
Let my temples fall, they are dark with age,
Let my idols break, they have stood their day ; On their deep hewn stones the primeval sage
Has figured the spells that endure alway ; My presence may vanish from river and grove, But I rule for ever in Death and Love.
FRANCES RIDLEY HAVERGAL 1836-1879
From ‘The Thoughts of God’
HEY say there is a hollow, safe and still, A point of coolness and repose Within the centre of a flame, where life might dwell Unharmed and unconsumed, as in a luminous shell, Which the bright walls of fire enclose In breachless splendour, barrier that no foes Could pass at will.
There is a point of rest At the great centre of the cyclone’s force, A silence at its secret source ;— A little child might slumber undistressed, Without the ruffle of one fairy curl, In that strange central calm amid the mighty whirl.
286 FRANCES RIDLEY HAVERGAL
So in the centre of these thoughts of God, Cyclones of power, consuming glory-fire,—
As we fall o’erawed Upon our faces, and are lifted higher By His great gentleness, and carried nigher Than unredeeméd angels, till we stand
Even in the hollow of His hand,—
Nay more! we lean upon His breast— There, there we find a point of perfect rest
And glorious safety. There we see
His thoughts to us-ward, thoughts of peace That stoop to tenderest love ; that still increase With increase of our need; that never change, That never fail, or falter, or forget.
O pity infinite ! O royal mercy free !
O gentle climax of the depth and height
Of God’s most precious thoughts, most wonderful, most strange !
‘For I am poor and needy, yet
The Lord Himself, Jehovah, thinketh upon me! :
ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE
837-1909
Hertha
AM that which began ; Out of me the years roll ; Out of me God and man; I am equal and whole ; God changes, and man, and the form of them bodily ; I am the soul.
ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE 287
Before ever land was, Before ever the sea, Or soft hair of the grass, Or fair limbs of the tree, Or the flesh-coloured fruit of my branches, I was, and thy soul was in me.
First life on my sources First drifted and swam; Out of me are the forces That save it or damn ; Out of me man and woman, and wild-beast and bird; before God was, I am.
Beside or above me Naught is there to go; Love or unlove me, Unknow me or know, I am that which unloves me and loves; I am stricken, and I am the blow.
I the mark that is missed And the arrows that miss, I the mouth that is kissed And the breath in the kiss, The search, and the sought, and the seeker, the soul and the body that is.
I am that thing which blesses My spirit elate ; That which caresses With hands uncreate My limbs unbegotten that measure the length of the measure of fate,
288 ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE
But what thing dost thou now, Looking Godward, to cry ‘JT am I, thou art thou, I am low, thou art high’? I am thou, whom thou seekest to find him ; find thou but thyself, thou art I.
I the grain and the furrow, The plough-cloven clod And the ploughshare drawn thorough, The germ and the sod, The deed and the doer, the seed and the sower, the dust which is God.
Hast thou known how I fashioned thee, Child, underground ? Fire that impassioned thee, Iron that bound, Dim changes of water, what thing of all these hast thou known of or found ?
Canst thou say in thine heart Thou hast seen with thine eyes With what cunning of art Thou wast wrought in what wise, By what force of what stuff thou wast shapen, and shown on my breast to the skies?
Who hath given, who hath sold it thee, Knowledge of me? Hath the wilderness told it thee ? Hast thou learnt of the sea? Hast thou communed in spirit with night? have the winds taken counsel with thee ?
ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE 289
Have I set such a star To show light on thy brow That thou sawest from afar What I show to thee now ? Have ye spoken as brethren together, the sun and the mountains and thou?
What is here, dost thou know it? What was, hast thou known ? Prophet nor poet Nor tripod nor throne Nor spirit nor flesh can make answer, but only thy mother alone.
Mother, not maker, Born, and not made ; Though her children forsake her, Allured or afraid, Praying prayers to the God of their fashion, she stirs not for all that have prayed.
A creed is a rod, And a crown is of night ; But this thing is God, To be man with thy might, To grow straight in the strength of thy spirit, and live out thy life as the light.
I am in thee to save thee, As my soul in thee saith, Give thou as I gave thee, Thy life-blood and breath, Green leaves of thy labour, white flowers of thy thought, and red fruit of thy death.
MYST. L
290 ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE
Be the ways of thy giving As mine were to thee ; The free life of thy living, Be the gift of it free ; Not as servant to lord, nor as master to slave, shalt thou give thee to me.
O children of banishment, Souls overcast, Were the lights ye see vanish meant Alway to last, Ye would know not the sun overshining the shadows and stars Overpast.
I that saw where ye trod The dim paths of the night Set the shadow called God In your skies to give light ; But the morning of manhood is risen, and the shadowless soul is in sight.
The tree many-rooted That swells to the sky With frondage red-fruited, The life-tree am I; In the buds of your lives is the sap of my leaves: ye shall live and not die.
But the Gods of your fashion That take and that give, In their pity and passion That scourge and forgive, They are worms that are bred in the bark that falls off ; they shall die and not live.
ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE 291
My own blood is what stanches The wounds in my bark; Stars caught in my branches Make day of the dark, And are worshipped as suns till the sunrise shall tread out their fires as a spark.
Where dead ages hide under The live roots of the tree, In my darkness the thunder Makes utterance of me; In the clash of my boughs with each other ye hear the waves sound of the sea.
That noise is of Time, As his feathers are spread And his feet set to climb Through the boughs overhead, And my foliage rings round him and rustles, and branches are bent with his tread.
The storm-winds of ages Blow through me and cease, The war-wind that rages, The spring-wind of peace, Ere the breath of them roughen my tresses, ere one of my blossoms increase.
All sounds of all changes, All shadows and lights On the world’s mountain-ranges And stream-riven heights, Whose tongue is the wind’s tongue and language of storm-clouds on earth-shaking nights ;
z92 ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE
All forms of all faces, All works of all hands In unsearchable places Of time-stricken lands, All death and all life, and all reigns and all ruins, drop through me as sands.
Though sore be my burden And more than ye know, And my growth have no guerdon But only to grow, Yet I fail not of growing for lightnings above me or deathworms below.
These too have their part in me, As I too in these : Such fire is at heart in me, Such sap is this tree’s, Which hath in it all sounds and all secrets of infinite lands and of seas.
In the spring-coloured hours When my mind was as May’s, There brake forth of me flowers By centuries of days, Strong blossoms with perfume of manhood, shot out from my spirit as rays.
And the sound of them springing And smell of their shoots Were as warmth and sweet singing And strength to my roots ; And the lives of my children made perfect with freedom of soul were my fruits.
ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE 293
I bid you but be; I have need not of prayer ; I have need of you free As your mouths of mine air ; That my heart may be greater within me, beholding the fruits of me fair.
More fair than strange fruit is Of faiths ye espouse ; In me only the root is That blooms in your boughs ; Behold now your God that ye made you, to feed him with faith of your vows.
In the darkening and whitening Abysses adored, With dayspring and lightning For lamp and for sword, God thunders in heaven, and his angels are red with the wrath of the Lord.
O my sons, O too dutiful Toward Gods not of me, Was not I enough beautiful ? Was it hard to be free? For behold, I am with you, am in you and of you; look forth now and see.
Lo, winged with world’s wonders, With miracles shod, With the fires of his thunders For raiment and rod, God trembles in heaven, and his angels are white with the terror of God.
294 ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE
For his twilight is come on him, His anguish is here ; And his spirits gaze dumb on him, Grown grey from his fear ; And his hour taketh hold on him stricken, the last of his infinite year.
Thought made him and breaks him, Truth slays and forgives ; But to you, as time takes him, This new thing it gives, Even love, the beloved Republic, that feeds upon freedom and lives.
For truth only is living, Truth only is whole, And the love of his giving Man’s polestar and pole ; Man, pulse of my centre, and fruit of my body, and seed of my soul,
One birth of my bosom ; One beam of mine eye; One topmost blossom That scales the sky; Man, equal and one with me, man that is made of me, man that is I,
ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE = 295
A Nympholept
UMMER, and noon, and a splendour of silence, felt, Seen, and heard of the spirit within the sense. Soft through the frondage the shades of the sunbeams
melt,
Sharp through the foliage the shafts of them, keen and dense,
Cleave, as discharged from the string of the God’s bow, tense
As a war-steed’s girth, and bright as a warrior’s belt. Ah, why should an hour that is heaven for an hour pass hence ?
I dare not sleep for delight of the perfect hour, Lest God be wroth that his gift should be scorned of man. The face of the warm bright world is the face of a flower, The word of the wind and the leaves that the light winds fan As the word that quickened at first into flame, and ran, Creative and subtle and fierce with invasive power, Through darkness and cloud, from the breath of the one God, Pan.
The perfume of earth possessed by the sun pervades The chaster air that he soothes but with sense of sleep.
Soft, imminent, strong as desire that prevails and fades, The passing noon that beholds not a cloudlet weep Imbues and impregnates life with delight more deep
Than dawn or sunset or moonrise on lawns or glades Can shed from the skies that receive it and may not keep.
296 ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE
The skies may hold not the splendour of sundown fast ; It wanes into twilight as dawn dies down into day.
And the moon, triumphant when twilight is overpast, Takes pride but awhile in the hours of her stately sway. But the might of the noon, though the light of it pass
away,
Leaves earth fulfilled of desires and of dreams that last ;
But if any there be that hath sense of them none can say.
For if any there be that hath sight of them, sense, or trust Made strong by the might of a vision, the strength of a dream, His lips shall straiten and close as a dead man’s must, His heart shall be sealed as the voice of a frost-bound stream. For the deep mid mystery of light and of heat that seem To clasp and pierce dark earth, and enkindle dust, Shall a man’s faith say whatitis? ora man’s guess deem ?
Sleep lies not heavier on eyes that have watched all night Than hangs the heat of the noon on the hills and trees. Why now should the haze not open, and yield to sight A fairer secret than hope or than slumber sees ? I seek not heaven with submission of lips and knees, With worship and prayer for a sign till it leap to light: I gaze on the gods about me, and call on these,
I call on the gods hard by, the divine dim powers Whose likeness is here at hand, in the breathless air,
In the pulseless peace of the fervid and silent flowers, In the faint sweet speech of the waters that whisper there. Ah, what should darkness do in a world so fair ?
The bent-grass heaves not, the couch-grass quails not or
cowers ;
The wind’s kiss frets not the towan’s or aspen’s hair.
ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE 297
But the silence trembles with passion of sound suppressed, And the twilight quivers and yearns to the sunward, wrung With love as with pain; and the wide wood’s motionless breast Is thrilled with a dumb desire that would fain find tongue And palpitates, tongueless as she whom a man-snake stung, Whose heart now heaves in the nightingale, never at rest Nor satiated ever with song till her last be sung.
Is it rapture or terror that circles me round, and invades Each vein of my life with hope—if it be not fear? Each pulse that awakens my blood into rapture fades, Each pulse that subsides into dread of a strange thing near Requickens with sense of a terror less dread than dear. Is peace not one with light in the deep green glades Where summer at noonday slumbers? Is peace not here?
The tall thin stems of the firs, and the roof sublime That screens from the sun the floor of the steep still
wood,
Deep, silent, splendid, and perfect and calm as time, Stand fast as ever in sight of the night they stood, When night gave all that moonlight and dewfall
could.
The dense ferns deepen, the moss glows warm as the
thyme : The wild heath quivers about me: the world is good. L3
298 ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE
Is it Pan’s breath, fierce in the tremulous maidenhair, That bids fear creep as a snake through the woodlands, felt In the leaves that it stirs not yet, in the mute bright air, In the stress of the sun? For here has the great God dwelt : For hence were the shafts of his love or his anger dealt. For here has his wrath been fierce as his love was fair, When each wasas fire to the darkness its breath bade melt.
Is it love, is it dread, that enkindles the trembling noon, That yearns, reluctant in rapture that fear has fed, As man for woman, as woman for man? Full soon, If I live, and the life that may look on him drop not dead, Shall the ear that hears not a leaf quake hear his tread, The sense that knows not the sound of the deep day’s tune Receive the God, be it love that he brings or dread.
The naked noon is upon me: the fierce dumb spell, The fearful charm of the strong sun’s imminent might, Unmerciful, steadfast, deeper than seas that swell, Pervades, invades, appals me with loveless light, With harsher awe than breathes in the breath of night. Have mercy, God who art all! For I know thee well, How sharp is thine eye to lighten, thine hand to smite.
The whole wood feels thee, the whole air fearsthee: but fear So deep, so dim, so sacred, is wellnigh sweet.
For the light that hangs and broods on the woodlands here, Intense, invasive, intolerant, imperious, and meet To lighten the works of thine hands and the ways of
thy feet,
Is hot with the fire of the breath of thy life, and dear
As hope that shrivels or shrinks not for frost or heat.
ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE 299
Thee, thee the supreme dim godhead, approved afar, Perceived of the soul and conceived of the sense of man We scarce dare love, and we dare not fear: the star We call the sun, that lit us when life began To brood on the world that is thine by his grace for a span, Conceals and reveals in the semblance of things that are Thine immanent presence, the pulse of thy heart’s life, Pan.
The fierce mid noon that wakens and warms the snake Conceals thy mercy, reveals thy wrath: and again The dew-bright hour that assuages the twilight brake Conceals thy wrath and reveals thy mercy: then
Thou art fearful only for evil souls of men That feel with nightfall the serpent within them wake, And hate the holy darkness on glade and glen.
Yea, then we know not and dream not if ill things be, Or if aught of the work of the wrong of the world be thine. We hear not the footfall of terror that treads the sea, We hear not the moan of winds that assail the pine : We see not if shipwreck reign in the storm’s dim shrine ; If death do service and doom bear witness to thee We see not,—know nat if blood for thy lips be wine.
But in all things evil and fearful that fear may scan, As in all things good, as in all things fair that fall, We know thee present and latent, the lord of man ; In the murmuring of doves, in the clamouring of winds that call And wolves that howl for their prey; in the mid- night’s pall, In the naked and nymph-like feet of the dawn, O Pan, And in each life living, O thou the God who art all.
300 ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE
Smiling and singing, wailing and wringing of hands, Laughing and weeping, watching and sleeping, still Proclaim but and prove but thee, as the shifted sands Speak forth and show but the strength of the sea’s wild will That sifts and grinds them as grain in the storm- wind’s mill. In thee is the doom that falls and the doom that stands : The tempests utter thy word, and the stars fulfil.
Where Etna shudders with passion and pain volcanic That rend her heart as with anguish that rends a man’s,
Where Typho labours, and finds not his thews Titanic, In breathless torment that ever the flame’s breath fans, Men felt and feared thee of old, whose pastoral clans
Were given tothechargeof thykeeping; andsoundless panic Held fast the woodland whose depths and whose
heights were Pan’s.
And here, though fear be less than delight, and awe
Be one with desire and with worship of earth and thee, So mild seems now thy secret and speechless law,
So fair and fearless and faithful and godlike she,
So soft the spell of thy whisper on stream and sea, Yet man should fear lest he see what of old men saw
And withered : yet shall I quail if thy breath smite me,
Lord God of life and of light and of all things fair, Lord God of ravin and ruin and all things dim, Death seals up life, and darkness the sunbright air, And the stars that watch blind earth in the deep night swim Laugh, saying, ‘ What God is your God, that ye call on him? What is man, that the God who is guide of our way should care If day for a man be golden, or night be grim ?’
ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE 301
But thou, dost thou hear? Stars too but abide for a span, Gods too but endure for a season ; but thou, if thou be God, more than shadows conceived and adored of man, Kind Gods and fierce, that bound him or made him free, The skies that scorn us are less in thy sight than we, Whose souls have strength to conceive and perceive thee, Pan, Witk sense more subtle than senses that hear and see.
Yet may it not say, though it seek thee and think to find One soul of sense in the fire and the frost-bound clod, What heart is this, what spirit alive or blind,
That moves thee: only we know that the ways we trod We tread, with hands unguided, with feet unshod, With eyes unlightened ; and yet, if with steadfast mind,
Perchance may we find thee and know thee at last for
God.
Yet then should God be dark as the dawn is bright, And bright as the night is dark on the world—no more.
Light slays not darkness, and darkness absorbs not light ; And the labour of evil and good from the years of yore Is even as the labour of waves on a sunless shore.
And he who is first and last, who is depth and height, Keeps silence now, as the sun when the woods wax hoar.,
The dark dumb godhead innate in the fair world’s life Imbues the rapture of dawn and of noon with dread,
Infects the peace of the star-shod night with strife, Informs with terror the sorrow that guards the dead. No service of bended knee or of humbled head
May soothe or subdue the God who has change to wife : And life with death is as morning with evening weds.
302 ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE
And yet, if the light and the life in the light that here Seem soft and splendid and fervid as sleep may seem Be more than the shine of a smile or the flash of a tear, Sleep, change, and death are less than a spell-struck dream, And fear than the fall of a leaf on a starlit stream. And yet, if the hope that hath said it absorb not fear, What helps it man that the stars and the waters gleam ?
What helps it man, that the noon be indeed intense, The night be indeed worth worship? Fear and pain Were lords and masters yet of the secret sense,
Which now dares deem not that light is as darkness, fain Though dark dreams be to declare it, crying in vain. For whence, thou God of the light and the darkness,
whence Dawns now this vision that bids not the sunbeams wane?
What light, what shadow, diviner than dawn or night, Draws near, makes pause, and again—or I] dream— draws near ? More soft than shadow, more strong than the strong sun’s light, More pure than moonbeams—yea, but the rays run sheer As fire from the sun through the dusk cf the pinewood, clear And constant; yea, but the shadow itself is bright That the light clothes round with love that is one with fear.
Above and behind it the noon and the woodland lie, Terrible, radiant with mystery, superb and subdued,
ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE 303
Triumphant in silence ; and hardly the sacred sky Seems free from the tyrannous weight of the dumb fierce mood Which rules as with fire and invasion of beams that brood The breathless rapture of earth till its hour pass by And leave her spirit released and her peace renewed.
I sleep not; never in sleep has a man beholden This. From the shadow that trembles and yearns with light Suppressed and elate and reluctant—obscure and golden As water kindled with presage of dawn or night— A form, a face, a wonder to sense and sight, Grows great as the moon through the month; and her eyes embolden Fear, till it change to desire, and desire to delight.
I sleep not: sleep would die of a dream so strange ; A dream so sweet would die as a rainbow dies,
As a sunbow laughs and is lost on the waves that range And reck not of light that flickers or spray that flies. But the sun withdraws not, the woodland shrinks not
or sighs,
No sweet thing sickens with sense or with fear of change ; Light wounds not, darkness blinds not, my steadfast
eyes.
Only the soul in my sense that receives the soul
Whence now my spirit is kindled with breathless bliss Knows well if the light that wounds it with love makes
whole,
If hopes that carol be louder than fears that hiss,
If truth be spoken of flowers and of waves that kiss, Of clouds and stars that contend for a sunbright goal.
And yet may I dream that I dream not indeed of this?
304. ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE
An earth-born dreamer, constrained by the bonds of birth, Held fast by the flesh, compelled by his veins that beat And kindle to rapture or wrath, to desire or to mirth, May hear not surely the fall of immortal feet, May feel not surely if heaven upon earth be sweet ; And here is my sense fulfilled of the joys of earth, Light, silence, bloom, shade, murmur of leaves that meet.
Bloom, fervour, and perfume of grasses and flowers aglow, Breathe and brighten about me: the darkness gleams, The sweet light shivers and laughs on the slopes below, Made soft by leaves that lighten and change like dreams; The silence thrills with the whisper of secret streams That well from the heart of the woodland: these I know: Earth bore them, heaven sustained them with showers
and beams. I lean my face to the heather, and drink the sun Whose flame-lit odour satiates the flowers: mine eyes Close, and the goal of delight and of life is one:
No more I crave of earth or her kindred skies.
No more? But the joy that springs from them smiles and flies :
The sweet work wrought of them surely, the good work
done, If the mind and the face of the season be loveless, dies. Thee, therefore, thee would I come to, cleave to, cling, If haply thy heart be kind and thy gifts be good, Unknown sweet spirit, whose vesture is soft in spring, In summer splendid, in autumn pale as the wood That shudders and wanes and shrinks as a shamed thing should, In winter bright as the mail of a war-worn king Who stands where foes fled far from the face of him stood.
ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE = 305
My spirit or thine is it, breath of thy life or of mine, Which fills my sense with a rapture that casts out fear ?
Pan’s dim frown wanes, and his wild eyes brighten as thine, Transformed as night or as day by the kindling year. Earth-born, ormineeye were withered that sees, mine ear
That hears were stricken to death by the sense divine, Earth-born I know thee: but heaven is about me here,
The terror that whispers in darkness and flames in light, The doubt that speaks in the silence of earth and sea, The sense, more fearful at noon than in midmost night, Of wrath scarce hushed and of imminent ill to be, Where are they? Heavenisas earth, and as heaven to me Earth: for the shadows that sundered them here take flight ; And naught is all, as am I, but a dream of thee,
JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS d é ; 1840-1893 The Vanishing Point
HERE are who, when the bat on wing transverse Skims the swart surface of some neighbouring mere, Catch that thin cry too fine for common ear : Thus the last joy-note of the universe
Is borne to those few listeners who immerse Their intellectual hearing in no clear Paean, but pierce it with the thin-edged spear Of utmost beauty which contains a curse.
Dead on their sense fall marches hymeneal, Triumphal odes, hymns, symphonies sonorous ; They crave one shrill vibration, tense, ideal,
‘Transcending and surpassing the world’s chorus ; Keen, fine, ethereal, exquisitely real,
Intangible as star’s light quivering o’er us.
306 JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS
The Prism of Life
LL that began with God, in God must end : All lives are garnered in His final bliss: All wills hereafter shall be one with His: When in the sea we sought, our spirits blend. Rays of pure light, which one frail prism may rend Into conflicting colours, meet and kiss With manifold attraction, yet still miss Contentment, while their kindred hues contend. Break but that three-edged glass :—inviolate The sundered beams resume their primal state, Weaving pure light in flawless harmony. Thus decomposed, subject to love and strife, God’s thought, made conscious through man’s mortal life, Resumes through death the eternal unity,
Adventante Deo
IFT up your heads, gates of my heart, unfold Your portals to salute the King of kings! Behold Him come, borne on cherubic wings Engrained with crimson eyes and grail of gold! Before His path the thunder-clouds withhold Their stormy pinions, and the desert sings : He from His lips divine and forehead flings Sunlight of peace unfathomed, bliss untold. O soul, faint soul, disquieted how long ! Lift up thine eyes, for lo, thy Lord is near, Lord of all loveliness and strength and song, The Lord who brings heart-sadness better cheer, Scattering those midnight dreams that dote on wrong, Purging with heaven’s pure rays love’s atmosphere !
JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS 307
An Invocation
O God, the everlasting, who abides,
One Life within things infinite that die: To Him whose unity no thought divides : Whose breath is breathéd through immensity.
Him neither eye hath seen, nor ear hath heard ; Nor reason, seated in the souls of men, Though pondering oft on the mysterious word, Hath e’er revealed His Being to mortal ken.
Earth changes, and the starry wheels roll round ; The seasons come and go, moons wax and wane; The nations rise and fall, and fill the ground, Storing the sure results of joy and pain:
Slow knowledge widens toward a perfect whole, From that first man who named the name of heaven, To him who weighs the planets as they roll,
And knows what laws to every life are given.
Yet He appears not. Round the extreme sphere Of science still thin ether floats unseen :
Darkness still wraps Him round ; and ignorant fear Remains of what we are, and what have been.
Only we feel Him ; and in aching dreams, Swift intuitions, pangs of keen delight, The sudden vision of His glory seems
To sear our souls, dividing the dull night:
308 JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS
And we yearn toward Him. Beauty, Goodness, Truth ; These three are one; one life, one thought, one being ; One source of still rejuvenescent youth ;
One light for endless and unclouded seeing.
Mere symbols we perceive—the dying beauty, The partial truth that few can comprehend, The vacillating faith, the painful duty,
The virtue labouring to a dubious end.
O God, unknown, invisible, secure,
Whose being by dim resemblances we guess, Who in man’s fear and love abidest sure, Whose power we feel in darkness and confess !
Without Thee nothing is, and Thou art nought When on Thy substance we gaze curiously :
By Thee impalpable, named Force and Thought, The solid world still ceases not to be.
Lead Thou me God, Law, Reason, Duty, Life ! All names for Thee alike are vain and hollow— Lead me, for I will follow without strife ; Or, if I strive, still must I blindly follow.
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ELLEN MARY CLERKE 1840-1906
The Building and Pinnacle of the Temple
OT made with hands, its walls began to climb From roots in Life’s foundations deeply set, Far down amid primaeval forms, where yet
Creation’s Finger seemed to grope in slime.
Yet not in vain passed those first-born of Time, Since each some presage gave of structure met In higher types, lest these the bond forget
That links Earth’s latest to the fore-world’s prime And living stone on living stone was laid,
In scale ascending ever, grade on grade,
To that which in its Maker’s eyes seemed good— The Human Form: and in that shrine of thought, By the long travail of the ages wrought,
The Temple of the Incarnation stood.
Through all the ages since the primal ray, Herald of life, first smote the abysmal night Of elemental Chaos, and the might
Of the Creative Spark informed the clay,
From worm to brute, from brute to man—its way The Shaping Thought took upward, flight on flight, By stages which Earth’s loftiest unite
Unto her least, made kin to such as they.
As living link, or prophecy, or type Of purpose for fulfilment yet unripe,
Each has its niche in the supreme design ; Converging to one Pinnacle, whereat Sole stands Creation’s Masterpiece—and that
Which was through her—the Human made Divine.
310
HENRY BERNARD CARPENTER
F 2 ‘ -—" 1840-1900 vom * Liber Amoris
I
H, there are moments in man’s mortal years
When for an instant that which long has lain Beyond our reach is on a sudden found In things of smallest compass, and we hold The unbounded shut in one small minute’s space, And worlds within the hollow of our hand,— A world of music in one word of love, A world of love in one quick wordless look, A world of thought in one translucent phrase, A world of memory in one mournful chord, A world of sorrow in one little song. Such moments are man’s holiest,—the divine And first-sown seeds of Love’s eternity. And such were those last moments when I sat Beside my long-lost friend, soft-laid again In what no longer was his lair of death, But now his bed of glory. Life, all life, Its terrors and its tumults and its tears, Its hopes, its agonies and its ecstasies, Its nights of sorrow and its dawns of joy, Its visionary raptures and its dull Death-darkened hours, its longings, losses, gains, Curses and cries and lamentations loud, Sins, frenzies, and despairs, the monstrous births Of thought and action groping for the light, The false, the true, the night’s red underworld Of nadir darkness, and the zenith stars Lost in their spheral music beating time To every heart that hates or loves or mourns,—
HENRY BERNARD CARPENTER 311
These now were one, and I was one with these,
And these with me through Love’s transfusing power That passed upon me then. There as we sat,—
My brother and I, my brother made anew,
My brother thrice made mine, for ever mine,
Made one and equal with me through Love’s might,— We felt all space was ours, all time was ours ;
We were as those that reign above the worlds ;
And in our souls we saw the light round which
All multiformal things grow uniform,
The many sing as one. And we were one, Calm-seated in the heaven that overflows
With the world’s music of perpetual peace.
II
And then I thought that He whom we name God Was not perhaps some unit of cold thought Such as Greek sages gave to Christian saints,
A primal number, lone, creationless ;
But now He came to me, as oft before,
The everlasting Twofold, ever one,
The man and woman still inseparable.
And as the absolute can never live
Without its relative; as silent space
Knows nothing, never sees or hears itself Without time’s measuring music; as cold form Lies blind and blank till colour comes with kiss And warmth outpoured upon it, such as once Elisha poured upon the lifeless child,—
So God was now no longer unto me
A lonely masculine might above the worlds, But as the man and woman, twofold life,
Its married Law and Love, and these were one.
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HENRY BERNARD CARPENTER
And from their wedded love sprang forth a child, Their first-begotten-son, whose name was Love,— Love their great heir, the lord of life and death, The holder of the keys to all we know
And all the secrets of the unsearchable,
The chalice-bearer of the world’s life-wine, Bringer of light and steersman of the stars.
HARRIET ELEANOR HAMILTON-KING
The Bride Reluctant
§ T EAVE the romance before the end ; Leave the late roses to their fall ; Dismiss the nurselings thou dost tend ; I hear another, closer call. Tis I, thy Guardian, give thee word, Thy Bridegroom seeketh thee, O sweet ! Thy Bridegroom comes,—His step I heard— Within thy chamber thee to meet.’
‘ Another day, another time ! Tis pleasant in the outer room ; I love the airy summer clime, And not the inner chamber’s gloom, And this year’s roses will not come Again ; but betwixt us the bond Is fixed, and fast, and wearisome ; For one is fickle, one is fond.’
‘Come to thy chamber, for He stands Tearful, and seeking only thee ;
With ravished eyes, and outstretched hands, And He commands resistlessly.
b. 1840
HARRIET ELEANOR HAMILTON-KING
Come to thy chamber, though it be Narrow, and dark, and full of pain ; He paid a heavy price for thee, And can He let thee go again ?’
‘My Bridegroom’s bed is cold and hard, My Bridegroom’s kiss is ice and fire,
My Bridegroom’s clasp is iron-barred, I am consumed in His desire :
My Bridegroom’s touch is as a sword That pierces every nerve and limb ;
“ Depart from me,” I moan, “ O Lord!” All the night long I spend with Him.’
‘Oh! heart of woman holdeth not The passion of His love for thee ;
He sees thee perfect, without spot, Crowned with celestial jewelry.
The doors of Heaven could not hold His feet from hasting to thy side ;
The ardours of the Suns are cold To His for thee, His hard-won bride,’
‘Rather am I His bondmaiden, Compelled by law and not by love.
Oh, would I were enfranchised ; then With wings of silver, like a dove—
Then would I flee, past heaven’s far bound, The unendurable embrace ;
Then would I hide in earth’s profound From the strange terror of His Face!’
‘Enter, to keep thy Bridegroom’s tryst ! Liking or loth I thee have led:
He is thine own, albeit He wist That thy half-hearted love was dead.
313
314 HARRIET ELEANOR HAMILTON-KING
What though His Bride with Him must share A couch of thorns without repose ?
Thousands this moment death would dare To know one word of all she knows.’
*T pine, on haunted hills to muse, To face the open sunrise skies ; I pine for friends that I might choose ; I pine for little children’s eyes ; For free and fearless limbs—to move Breasting the wave, breasting the breeze: But jealous love is cruel love,
And He denies me all of these.’
‘Child, take thy roses, take thy toys, Take back thy life and liberty ; Thy days shall flow in simple joys, And undisturbed thy nights shall be. Thy Bridegroom does thee no more wrong, Poor child, the victim of His Heart : Look but on Him once more,—one long Last look, and then from Him depart.
* Farewell—one look. But oh! this lone Bare desert, where I might be free! Thy Face I see—Thy Face, my own, And naught in heaven or earth but Thee! But O my Lord, my Life, my Love, Thou knowest all my weakness best ; Take back into the ark Thy dove, And comfort me upon Thy breast !?
HARRIET ELEANOR HAMILTON-KING 315
From ‘The Disciples’
E suffer. Why we suffer,—that is hid With God’s foreknowledge in the clouds of Heaven, The first book written sends that human cry Out of the clear Chaldean pasture-lands Down forty centuries; and no answer yet Is found, nor will be found, while yet we live In limitations of Humanity. But yet one thought has often stayed by me In the night-watches, which has brought at least The patience for the hour, and made the pain No more a burden which I groaned to leave, But something precious which I feared to lose. —How shall I show it, but by parables ?
The sculptor, with his Psyche’s wings half-hewn May close his eyes in weariness, and wake To meet the white cold clay of his ideal Flushed into beating life, and singing down The ways of Paradise. The husbandman May leave the golden fruitage of his groves Ungarnered, and upon the Tree of Life Will find a richer harvest waiting him. The soldier dying thinks upon his bride, And knows his arms shall never clasp her more, Until he first the face of his unborn child Behold in heaven : for each and all of life, In every phase of action, love, and joy, There is fulfilment only otherwhere.—
But if, impatient, thou let slip thy cross, Thou wilt not find it in this world again, Nor in another ; here, and here alone Is given thee to suffer for God’s sake.
316 HARRIET ELEANOR HAMILTON-KING
In other worlds we shall more perfectly
Serve Him and love Him, praise Him, work for Him, Grow near and nearer Him with all delight ; But then we shall not any more be called
To suffer, which is our appointment here.
Canst thou not suffer then one hour,—or two? If He should call thee from thy cross to-day, Saying, It is finished !—that hard cross of thine From which thou prayest for deliverance, Thinkest thou not some passion of regret
Would overcome thee ? Thou wouldst say, ‘ So soon ? Let me go back, and suffer yet awhile
More patiently ;—I have not yet praised God.’ And He might answer to thee,—‘ Never more. All pain is done with.? Whensoe’er it comes, That summons that we look for, it will seem Soon, yea too soon. Let us take heed in time That God may now be glorified in us ;
And while we suffer, let us set our souls
To suffer perfectly: since this alone,
The suffering, which is this world’s special grace, May here be perfected and left behind.
—But in obedience and humility ;— Waiting on God’s hand, not forestalling it, Seek not to snatch presumptuously the palm By self-election ; poison not thy wine With bitter herbs if He has made it sweet ; Nor rob God’s treasuries because the key Is easy to be turned by mortal hands.
The gifts of birth, death, genius, suffering, Are all for His hand only to bestow. Receive thy portion, and be satisfied. Who crowns himself a king is not the more
HARRIET ELEANOR HAMILTON-KING
Royal ; nor he who mars himself with stripes The more partaker of the Cross of Christ.
But if Himself He come to thee, and stand Beside thee, gazing down on thee with eyes That smile, and suffer; that will smite thy heart, With their own pity, to a passionate peace ; And reach to thee Himself the Holy Cup (With all its wreathen stems of passion-flowers And quivering sparkles of the ruby stars), Pallid and royal, saying ‘ Drink with Me’; Wilt thou refuse ? Nay, not for Paradise ! The pale brow will compel thee, the pure hands Will minister unto thee; thou shalt take Of that communion through the solemn depths Of the dark waters of thine agony, With heart that praises Him, that yearns to Him The closer through that hour. Hold fast His hand, Though the nails pierce thine too! take only care Lest one drop of the sacramental wine Be spilled, of that which ever shall unite Thee, soul and body to thy living Lord !
Therefore gird up thyself, and come, to stand Unflinching under the unfaltering hand, That waits to prove thee to the uttermost. It were not hard to suffer by His hand, If thou couldst see His face ;—but in the dark ! That is the one last trial :—be it so. Christ was forsaken, so must thou be too: How couldst thou suffer but in seeming, else ? Thou wilt not see the face nor feel the hand, Only the cruel crushing of the feet,
317
When through the bitter night the Lord comes down
To tread the winepress.—Not by sight, but faith, Endure, endure,—be faithful to the end !
318
SARAH WILLIAMS 1841-1868
Deep-sea Soundings
ARINER, what of the deep ? M This of the deep: Twilight is there, and solemn, changeless calm ; Beauty is there, and tender healing balm—
Balm with no root in earth, or air, or sea,
Poised by the finger of God, it floateth free,
And, as it threads the waves, the sound doth rise,— Hither shall come no further sacrifice ;
Never again the anguished clutch at life,
Never again great Love and Death in strife ;
He who hath suffered all, need fear no more, Quiet his portion now, for evermore.
Mariner, what of the deep?
This of the deep : Solitude dwells not there, though silence reign ; Mighty the brotherhood of loss and pain ; There is communion past the need of speech, There is a love no words of love can reach ; Heavy the waves that superincumbent press, But as we labour here with constant stress, Hand doth hold out to hand not help alone, But the deep bliss of being fully known. There are no kindred like the kin of sorrow, There is no hope like theirs who fear no morrow,
Mariner, what of the deep ?
This of the deep : Though we have travelled past the line of day, Glory of night doth light us on our way,
SARAH WILLIAMS 319
Radiance that comes we know not how nor whence, Rainbows without the rain, past duller sense,
Music of hidden reefs and waves long past,
Thunderous organ tones from far-off blast,
Harmony, victrix, throned in state sublime,
Couched on the wrecks be-gemmed with pearls of time; Never a wreck but brings some beauty here ;
Down where the waves are stilled the sea shines clear ; Deeper than life the plan of life doth lie,
He who knows all, fears naught. Great Death shall die.
ROBERT BUCHANAN
The Tree of Life
HE Master said : ‘I have planted the Seed of a Tree, It shall be strangely fed With white dew and with red, And the Gardeners shall be three— Regret, Hope, Memory !’
The Master smiled :
For the Seed that He had set Broke presently thro’ the mould, With a glimmer of green and gold,
And the Angels’ eyes were wet—
Hope, Memory, Regret.
The Master cried : ‘It liveth—breatheth—see |
Its soft lips open wide—
It looks from side to side— How strange they gleam on me, The little dim eyes of the Tree !”
1841-1901
320 ROBERT BUCHANAN
The Master said : ‘ After a million years,
The Seed I set and fed
To itself hath gatheréd All the world’s smiles and tears— How mighty it appears |’
The Master said : ‘ At last, at last, I see A Blossom, a Blossom o’ red From the heart of the Tree is shed. ’Tis fairer certainly Than the Tree, or the leaves of the Tree.’
The Master cried :
‘O Angels, that guard the Tree, A Blossom, a Blossom divine Grows on this greenwood of mine:
What may this Blossom be ?
Name this Blossom to me!’
The Master smiled ;
For the Angels answered thus : ‘Our tears have nourish’d the same, We have given it a name
That seemeth fit to us—
We have called it Spiritus.’
The Master said :
‘ This Flower no Seed shall bear ; But hither on a day My beautiful Son shall stray,
And shall snatch it unaware,
And wreath it in his hair.
ROBERT BUCHANAN 321
The Master smiled : ‘The Tree shall never bear—
Seedless shall perish the Tree,
But the Flower my Son’s shall be ; He will pluck the Flower and wear, Till it withers in his hair !’
From ‘The City of Dream’
HE Woof that I weave not Thou wearest and weavest, The Thought I conceive not Thou darkly conceivest ; The wind and the rain, The night and the morrow, The rapture of pain Fading slowly to sorrow, The dream and the deed, The calm and the storm, The flower and the seed, Are thy Thought and thy Form, I die, yet depart not, I am bound, yet soar free, Thou art and thou art not, And ever shalt be!
From ‘The City of Dream”
The Man
ONDER the veil’d Musician sits, His feet Upon the pedals of dark formless suns, His fingers on the radiant spheric keys, His face, that it is death to look upon,
MYST. M
322 ROBERT BUCHANAN
Misted with incense rising nebulous
Out of abysmal chaos and cohering
Into the golden flames of Life and Being!
And underneath his touch Music itself
Grows living, heard as far as thought can creep Or dream can soar; or that Creation stirs,
And drinks the sound, and sings !—So far away He sits, the Mystery, wrapt for ever round
With brightness and with awe and melody ;
Yet even here, on these low-lying shores,
Lower than is the footstool of His throne,
We hear Him and adore Him, nay, can feel
His breath as vapour round our mouths, inhaling That soul within the soul whereby we live
From that divine for-ever-beating Heart
Which thrills the universe with Light and Love!
The Pilgrim So far away He dwells, my soul indeed Scarcely discerns Him, and in sooth I seek A gentler presence and a nearer Friend.
The Man So far? O blind, He broods beside thee now Here in this silence, with His eyes on thine ! O deaf, His voice is whispering in thine ears Soft as the breathing of the slumberous seas !
The Pilgrim I see not and I hear not; but I see Thine eyes burn dimly, like a corpse-light seen Flickering amidst the tempest ; and I hear Only the elemental grief and pain Out of whose shadow I would creep for ever.
ROBERT BUCHANAN 323
The Man Thou canst not, brother; for these, too, are God !
The Pilgrim How? Is my God, then, as a homeless ghost Blown this way, that way, with the elements ?
The Man He is without thee, and within thee too ; Thy living breath, and that which drinks thy breath : Thy being, and the bliss beyond thy being.
The Pilgrim So near, so far? He shapes the farthest sun New-glimmering on the farthest fringe of space, Yet stoops and with a leaf-light finger-touch Reaches my heart and makes it come and go!
The Man Yea; and He is thy heart within thy heart, And thou a portion of His Heart Divine !
JAMES RHOADES
O Soul of Mine!
GAIN that Voice, which on my listening ears Falls like star-music filtering through the spheres : ‘ Know this, O Man, sole root of sin in thee Is not to know thine own divinity !’
And the Voice said : * Awake, thou drunken and yet not with wine | Arise and shine ! Uplift thee from the dead !
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324 JAMES RHOADES
Cast off the clinging cerements of sin Fool-sense hath swathed thee in! Though drugged and dulled With every evil anodyne From the rank soil of the world’s waste-heap culled, Thou crown and pattern of the eternal Plan, Awake, O Soul of Man! O Soul of Mine, Awake, I say, and know thyself divine !
‘ Behold, behold ! Thou art not that thou deemest, Or to thy fellows seemest In death-bound body hearsed : But, like a silver summit Enshrouded And o’er-clouded With earth-born vapour vainest, So gross no eye may plumb it, E’en as of old From out My Heart all-seeing— Ere yet in body dressed, Best of the best, And of most holy holiest— Thou soared’st into being, So, godlike as at first I made thee, thou remainest.
* What look of wonder dawns within thine eyes, O soul of Mine? Hast utterly forgot from whence art risen ? That essence rare can walls of space imprison, Or time with dull decrepitude surprise ?
JAMES RHOADES 325
Nay now From every chain thy self hath forged for thee Thy Self can set thee free: Let the sea burn, Let fire to water turn, But thou Cleave to thy birthright and thy Royal Line!
*For lo! thou hast within thee to dispel This haunting hell Of error-teeméd night That hides thy height, And the dread rumour and malefic breath Of thy doomed enemy, Death, Whose birth-lair, ignorance, like a stagnant pool, Of its accurséd kind Breeds ague of unfaith, and terrors blind Hatched in the darkened hollows of the mind ; Whence too arise Hallucinations, lurid phantasies, And gross desires, with every vice that springs From false imaginings, And vain reliance upon visible things— The mad misrule Of creeds and deeds idolatrous, whereof Love were sworn hater, an she were not Love.
‘ These in their hidden dens Behoves thee with pure thoughts to cleave or cleanse, Aye, and unmask those counterfeits of bliss, Which to believe thy deep undoing is— Joys which but lure to leave thee, And leave to grieve thee,
326 JAMES RHOADES
Not of the fine-spun stuff That from the eternal spool My Hands would weave thee ! Enough, enough ! How long shall they deceive thee, And thou still dote Importuning high Heaven That more be given With cries monotonous as the wry-neck’s note ?
‘Such pleasures and such pain ike are vain. Not while the chords of thought are keyed to these Shalt thou find rest or ease, Seeing that thyself art tuned eternally To That which only is without alloy Pure Life and Joy. Ah! would thy throbbing shell Awake the Spirit’s whispered harmonies, Bethink thee well That every trembling hidden string must be Vibrant of Me Who am the Truth, and at thy centre dwell— The very Breath of God made visible ! For know the myriad miseries of mankind, And the long reign of sin, Came but of questing outward, for to find That which abides within.
‘ But what hast thou to do with sinning, O Soul of Mine, Or what with dying, Sorrow and sighing, Who hast nor ending nor beginning,
JAMES RHOADES
Nor power from thy perfection to decline ?— Who canst not guess From the gaunt shadow cast On folly’s fog-belt, but shalt learn at last, Thine own inalienable loveliness ; Whom sinless, deathless, I created Of elements so fine, That with my Being sated, In glorious garments dight Of Life and Light, Lowly, yet unafraid, With an eternity of joy sufficed, The Spirit’s Self might love thee And brood above thee, Pure Maid And Mother of the indwelling Christ !
* Hereby thou comest at last unto thine own, The Heaven of Heaven! Self-wittingly at one
With Him who hath the Universe for throne,
Who wieldeth the stars seven ; Who only is
The Mystery of Mysteries Ineffable, My Son,
My sole-begotten ere the worlds began, Made manifest as Man.
‘ And the grim Nothingness thou namest Death, —
With all his shadowy peers— Angers, and lusts, and fears— The which so long against thy peace did plot, Shall be remembered not, Or, shrivelling at a breath,
sn
328 JAMES RHOADES
Be known as naught ; Yea, that they never were Save in the realm of things that but appear, Creations of thine unillumined thought.
‘Then deem not Heaven a place, As though ’twere measurable in terms of sense— Length, breadth, circumference, Or spread throughout illimitable space. It is the enthronization of the soul Upon the heights of Being ; it is to know; It is the rapture that I AM is so, Whatever clouds of ignorance up-roll. It is the joy of joys, To thrill co-operant with the primal cause Of the unswerving laws Which hold in everlasting equipoise Those balances of God, The visible and invisible Universe ; Wherein, couldst thou but measure with His rod— With undistorted sight Couldst read aright— Nor better is, nor worse, But only best ; *Tis from thy centre to thine utmost bound To feel that thou hast found— That thou too art From all to all eternity a part Of that which never was in speech expressed, The unresting Order which is more than rest.
‘Who is he prateth of Original Sin ? I am thine Origin, And I thy Kingdom waiting thee within!
JAMES RHOADES 329
Seek Me, and thou hast found it, My seas of Life surround it, My Love’s o’er-arching splendour For canopy hath crowned it. All that nor eye nor ear Can hear or see Lies stored within its boundless empery. Not there, O Soul of Mine, Shalt thou surrender, Torn from thy tortured breast, Those whom thou heldest here In bonds so tender. Death cannot quell Their residue divine. Seek, then, within, but spurn the unhallowed spell : In light unutterable alive they shine, Leave thou to Me the rest ! Have I not said? And shall not they that mourn be comforted ?
‘ Yet these for whom thou pinest, Thy dearest and divinest, Are but rills from out the river Of the all-and-only Giver : Why tarry, then, thy thirst in Him to slake Who flowed through earthen channels for thy sake, From death-drought to deliver ? Hadst thou but eyes for seeing The wells of thine own being, What draughts of living water wouldst thon take !
‘ Ever, then, singly, and all aims above,— For That I AM is thine,— Think Oneness, and think Worship, and think Love; M 3
330 JAMES RHOADES
The which, translated to thine outward need (Sith every thought must still creative prove), Shall limn their likeness with invisible hand— As the sea-ripples write them on the sand— In bodily form and deed. So shalt thou make for thine eternal Meed ; So shalt thou fashion thee, O Soul of Mine, A glorious shrine Wherein to house thee, and wherethrough to shine-- Or here, or in My Mansions crystalline— Serenely changeless, dazzlingly divine !’”
From ‘Out of the Silence’
O! in the vigils of the night, ere sped The first bright arrows from the Orient shed, The heart of Silence trembled into sound, And out of Vastness came a Voice, which said :
I AM alone; thou only art in Me:
I am the stream of Life that flows through thee: I comprehend all substance, fill all space :
I am pure Being, by whom all things be.
I am thy Dawn, from darkness to release :
I am the Deep, wherein thy sorrows cease : Be still! be still! and know that I am God: Acquaint thyself with Me, and be at peace !
I am the Silence that is more than sound :
If therewithin thou lose thee, thou art found :
The stormless, shoreless Ocean, which is I—
Thou canst not breathe, but in its bosom drowned.
JAMES RHOADES
T am all Love: there is naught else but I: I am all Power: the rest is phantasy :
Evil, and anguish, sorrow, death, and hell— These are the fear-flung shadows of a lie.
Arraign not Mine Omnipotence, to say
That aught beside in earth or heaven hath sway! The powers of darkness are not: that which is Abideth ; these but vaunt them for a day.
Know thou thyself: as thou hast learned of Me, I made thee three in one, and one in three— Spirit and Mind and Form, immortal] Whole, Divine and undivided Trinity.
Seek not to break the triple bond assigned ¢ Mind sees by Spirit: Body moves by Mind: Divorced from Spirit, both way-wildered fall— Leader and led, the blindfold and the blind.
Look not without thee: thou hast that within, Makes whole thy sickness, impotent thy sin : Survey thy forces, rally to thyself :
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That which thou would’st not hath no power to win.
I, God, enfold thee like an atmosphere : Thou to thyself wert never yet more near:
Think not to shun Me: whither would’st thou fly ?
Nor go not hence to seek Me: I am here.
332
FREDERICK WILLIAM HENRY MYERS
1843-1908 Sunrise
OOK, O blinded eyes and burning, lence O heart amazed with yearning, Is it yet beyond thine earning,
That delight that was thine all ?— Wilful eyes and undiscerning,
Heart ashamed of bitter learning, It is flown beyond returning, It is lost beyond recall.
Who with prayers has overtaken Those glad hours when he would wakep To the sound of branches shaken
By an early song and wild,— When the golden leaves would flicker, And the loving thoughts come thicker, And the thrill of life beat quicker
In the sweet heart of the child ?
Yet my soul, tho’ thou forsake her, Shall adore thee, till thou take her, In the morning, O my Maker,
For thine oriflamme unfurled : For the lambs beneath their mothers For the bliss that is another’s,
For the beauty of my brothers,
For the wonder of the world.
FREDERICK WILLIAM HENRY MYERS 333
From above us and from under, In the ocean and the thunder, Thou preludest to the wonder Of the Paradise to be: For a moment we may guess thee From thy creatures that confess thee When the morn and even bless thee, And thy smile is on the sea.
Then from something seen or heard,
Whether forests softly stirred,
Or the speaking of a word,
Or the singing of a bird, Cares and sorrows cease:
For a moment on the soul
Falls the rest that maketh whole, Falls the endless peace.
O the hush from earth’s annoys!
O the heaven, O the joys
Such as priest and singing-boys Cannot sing or say !
There is no more pain and crying,
There is no more death and dying,
As for sorrow and for sighing,—
These shall flee away.
334. FREDERICK WILLIAM HENRY MYERS
A Cosmic Outlook
ACKWARD !—beyond this momentary woe !— Thine was the world’s dim dawn, the prime emprize ; Eternal aeons gaze thro’ these sad eyes, And all the empyreal sphere hath shaped thee so. Nay | all is living, all is plain to know! This rock has drunk the ray from ancient skies ; Strike ! and the sheen of that remote sunrise Gleams in the marble’s unforgetiul glow. Thus hath the cosmic light endured the same Ere first that ray from Sun to Sirius flew ; Aye, and in heaven I heard the mystic Name Sound, and a breathing of the Spirit blew ; Lit the long Past, bade shine the slumbering flame And all the Cosmorama blaze anew.
Onward! thro’ baffled hope, thro’ bootless prayer, With strength that sinks, with high task half begun, Things great desired, things lamentable done,
Vows writ in water, blows that beat the air.
On! I have guessed the end ; the end is fair,
Not with these weak limbs is thy last race run; Not all thy vision sets with this low sun ;
Not all thy spirit swoons in this despair.
Look how thine own soul, throned where all is well, Smiles to regard thy days disconsviate ;
Yea; since herself she wove the worldly spell, Doomed thee for lofty gain to low estate ;—
Sown with thy fall a seed of glory fell ; Thy heaven is in thee, and thy will thy fate.
FREDERICK WILLIAM HENRY MYERS 335
Iaward ! aye, deeper far than love or scorn, Deeper than bloom of virtue, stain of sin, Rend thou the veil and pass alone within, Stand naked there and feel thyself forlorn ! Nay ! in what world, then, Spirit, wast thou born ? Or to what World-Soul art thou entered in? Feel the Self fade, feel the great life begin, With Love re-rising in the cosmic morn. The inward ardour yearns to the inmost goal ; The endless goal is one with the endless way ; From every gulf the tides of Being roll, From every zenith burns the indwelling day; And life in Life has drowned thee and soul in Soul; And these are God, and thou thyself art they.
From ‘ Saint Paul’
O as some bard on isles of the Aegean
Lovely and eager when the earth was young, Burning to hurl his heart into a paean, Praise of the hero from whose loins he sprung ;—
He, I suppose, with such a care to carry, Wandered disconsolate and waited long, Smiting his breast, wherein the notes would tarry, Chiding the slumber of the seed of song :
Then in the sudden glory of a minute
Airy and excellent the proém came, Rending his bosom, for a god was in it, Waking the seed, for it had burst in flame.
336 FREDERICK WILLIAM HENRY MYERS
So even I athirst for his inspiring, I who have talked with Him forget again, Yes, many days with sobs and with desiring Offer to God a patience and a pain ;
Then thro’ the mid complaint of my confession, Then thro’ the pang and passion of my prayer,
Leaps with a start the shock of his possession, Thrills me and touches, and the Lord is there.
Lo if some pen should write upon your rafter Mene and mene in the folds of flame,
Think you could any memories thereafter Wholly retrace the couplet as it came ?
Lo if some strange intelligible thunder Sang to the earth the secret of a star,
Scarce could ye catch, for terror and for wonder, Shreds of the story that was pealed so far :—
Scarcely I catch the words of his revealing, Hardly I hear Him, dimly understand,
Only the Power that is within me pealing Lives on my lips and beckons to my hand,
Whoso has felt the Spirit of the Highest Cannot confound nor doubt Him nor deny: Yea with one voice, O world, tho’ thou deniest, Stand thou on that side, for on this am I.
Rather the earth shall doubt when her retrieving Pours in the rain and rushes from the sod,
Rather than he for whom the great conceiving Stirs in his soul to quicken into God.
FREDERICK WILLIAM HENRY MYERS 337
Aye, tho’ thou then shouldst strike him from his glory Blind and tormented, maddened and alone,
Even on the cross would he maintain his story, Yes and in hell would whisper, I have known.
A Last Appeal
SOMEWHERE, somewhere, God unknown, Exist and be! Iam dying; I am all alone; I must have Thee !
God! God! my sense, my soul, my all, Dies in the cry :—
Saw’st thou the faint star flame and fall ? Ah ! it was I.
EDWARD DOWDEN
By the Window
TILL deep into the West I gazed ; the light Clear, spiritual, tranquil as a bird Wide-winged that soars on the smooth gale and sleeps, Was it from sun far-set or moon unrisen ? Whether from moon, or sun, or angel’s face It held my heart from motion, stayed my blood, Betrayed each rising thought to quiet death Along the blind charm’d way to nothingness, Lull’d the last nerve that ached. It was a sky Made for a man to waste his will upon,
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338 EDWARD DOWDEN
To be received as wiser than all toil, And much more tair. And what was strife of men ? And what was time?
Then came a certain thing. Are intimations for the elected soul Dubious, obscure, of unauthentic power Since ghostly to the intellectual eye, Shapeless to thinking ? Nay, but are not we Servile to words and an usurping brain, Infidels of our own high mysteries, Until the senses thicken and lose the world, Until the imprisoned soul forgets to see, And spreads blind fingers forth to reach the day, Which once drank light, and fed on angels’ food ?
It happened swiftly, came and straight was gone.
One standing on some aery balcony
And looking down upon a swarming crowd
Sees one man beckon to him with finger-tip
While eyes meet eyes; he turns and looks again— The man is lost, and the crowd sways and swarms. Shall such an one say, ‘ Thus ’tis proved a dream, And no hand beckoned, no eyes met my own ?’ Neither can I say this. There was a hint,
A thrill, a summons faint yet absolute,
Which ran across the West; the sky was touch’d, And failed not to respond. Does a hand pass Lightly across your hair ? you feel it pass
Not half so heavy as a cobweb’s weight,
Although you never stir; so felt the sky
Not unaware of the Presence, so my soul
Scarce less aware. And if I cannot say
EDWARD DOWDEN 339
The meaning and monition, words are weak Which will not paint the small wing of a moth, Nor bear a subtile odour to the brain,
And much less serve the soul in her large needs,
I cannot tell the meaning, but a change
Was wrought in me; it was not the one man Who came to the luminous window to gaze forth, And who moved back into the darkened room With awe upon his heart and tender hope ;
From some deep well of life tears rose; the throng Of dusty cares, hopes, pleasures, prides fell off, And from a sacred solitude I gazed
Deep, deep into the liquid eyes of Life.
Awakening
ITH brain o’erworn, with heart a summer clod, With eye so practised in each form around,— And all forms mean,—to glance above the ground Irks it, each day of many days we plod, Tongue-tied and deaf, along life’s common road, But suddenly, we know not how, a sound Of living streams, an odour, a flower crowned With dew, a lark upspringing from the sod, And we awake. O joy and deep amaze! Beneath the everlasting hills we stand, We hear the voices of the morning seas, And earnest prophesyings in the land, While from the open heaven leans forth at gaze The encompassing great cloud of witnesses.
340 EDWARD DOWDEN
Communion
ORD, I have knelt and tried to pray to-night, But Thy love came upon me like a sleep,
And all desire died out ; upon the deep Of Thy mere love I lay, each thought in light Dissolving like the sunset clouds, at rest Each tremulous wish, and my strength weakness, sweet As a sick boy with soon o’erwearied feet Finds, yielding him unto his mother’s breast To weep for weakness there. I could not pray, But with closed eyes I felt Thy bosom’s love Beating toward mine, and then I would not move Till of itself the joy should pass away ; At last my heart found voice,—‘ Take me, O Lord, And do with me according to Thy word.’
A New Hymn for Solitude
FOUND Thee in my heart, O Lord, As in some secret shrine ;
I knelt, I waited for Thy word, I joyed to name Thee mine.
I feared to give myself away To that or this; beside
Thy altar on my face I lay, And in strong need I cried.
Those hours are past. Thou art not mine, And therefore I rejoice,
I wait within no holy shrine, I faint not for the voice.
EDWARD DOWDEN 341
In Thee we live; and every wind Of heaven is Thine ; blown free To west, to east, the God unshrined
Is still discovering me.
The Secret of the Universe AN ODE (By a Western Spinning Dervish)
SPIN, I spin, around, around, And close my eyes, And let the bile arise From the sacred region of the soul’s Profound ; Then gaze upon the world; how strange! how new! The earth and heaven are one, The horizon-line is gone, The sky how green! the land how fair and blue! Perplexing items fade from my large view, And thought which vexed me with its false and true Is swallowed up in Intuition ; this, This is the sole true mode Of reaching God, And gaining the universal synthesis Which makes All—One ; while fools with peering eyes Dissect, divide, and vainly analyse. So round, and round, and round again! How the whole globe swells within my brain, The stars inside my lids appear, The murmur of the spheres I hear Throbbing and beating in each ear ; Right in my navel I can feel The centre of the world’s great wheel.
342 EDWARD DOWDEN
Ah peace divine, bliss dear and deep, No stay, no stop, Like any top Whirling with swiftest speed, I sleep. O ye devout ones round me coming, Listen! I think that I am humming ; No utterance of the servile mind With poor chop-logic rules agreeing Here shall ye find, But inarticulate burr of man’s unsundered being. Ah, could we but devise some plan, Some patent jack by which a man Might hold himself ever in harmony With the great whole, and spin perpetually, As all things spin Without, within, As Time spins off into Eternity, And Space into the inane Immensity, And the Finite into God’s Infinity, Spin, spin, spin, spin.
The Initiation
NDER the flaming wings of cherubim I moved toward that high altar. O, the hour! And the light waxed intenser, and the dim Low edges of the hills and the grey sea Were caught and captur’d by the present Power, My sureties and my witnesses to be.
Then the light drew mein. Ah, perfect pain! Ah, infinite moment of accomplishment !
Thou terror of pure joy, with neither wane Nor waxing, but long silence and sharp air
EDWARD DOWDEN 343
As womb-forsaking babes breathe. Hush! the event Let him who wrought Love’s marvellous things declare.
Shall I who fear’d not joy, fear grief at all?
I on whose mouth Life laid his sudden lips Tremble at Death’s weak kiss, and not recall
That sundering from the flesh, the flight from time, The judgements stern, the clear apocalypse,
The lightnings, and the Presences sublime.
How came I back to earth? I know not how,
Nor what hands led me, nor what words were said. Now all things are made mine,—joy, sorrow; now
I know my purpose deep, and can refrain ; I walk among the living, not the dead ;
My sight is purged ; I love and pity men.
Love's Lord
HEN weight of all the garner’d years Bows me, and praise must find relief In harvest-song, and smiles and tears Twist in the band that binds my sheaf ;
Thou known Unknown, dark, radiant sez In whom we live, in whom we move,
My spirit must lose itself in Thee, Crying a name—Life, Light, or Love,
344 FREDERICK WILLIAM ORDE WARD
is * 1843-1922 The Beatific Vision
ETWIXT the dawning and the day it came Upon me like a spell, While tolled a distant bell, A wondrous vision but without a name In pomp of shining mist and shadowed flame, Exceeding terrible ; Before me seemed to open awful Space, And sheeted tower and spire With forms of shrouded ’tire Arose and beckoned with unearthly grace, I felt a Presence though I saw no face But the dark rolling fire.
And then a Voice as sweet and soft as tears
But yet of gladness part,
Thrilled through my inmost heart, Which told the secret of the solemn years And swept away the clouds of gloomy fears,
The riddles raised by art ;
Till all my soul was bathed with trembling joy
And lost in dreadful bliss,
As at God’s very kiss,
While the earth shrivelled up its broken toy, And like a rose the heavens no longer coy Laid bare their blue abyss.
The giant wheels and all the hidden springs Of this most beauteous globe, Which man may never probe,
Burst on me with a blaze of angel wings
And each bright orb that like a diamond clings To the veiled Father’s robe;
FREDERICK WILLIAM ORDE WARD 345
I saw with vision that was more than sight, The levers and the laws That fashion stars as straws And link with perfect loveliness of right, In the pure duty that is pure delight And to one Centre draws.
I knew with sudden insight all was best, The passion and the pain, The searchings that seem vain But lead if by dim blood-stained steps to Rest, And only are the beatings of God’s Breast Beneath the iron chain ; I knew each work was blesséd in its place, The eagle and the dove, While Nature was the glove Of that dear Hand which everywhere we trace, I felt a Presence though I saw no face, And it was boundless Love.
Redemption
LL living creatures’ pain, The sufferings of the lowliest thing that creeps
Or flies a moment ere it sinks and sleeps, Are too Redemption’s tears and not in vain— For nothing idly weeps. Earth is through these fulfilling that it must As in Christ’s own eternal Passion chain, And flowering from the dust.
The driven and drudging ass
Crushed by the bondage of its bitter round, Repeats the Gospel in that narrow bound; God is reflected in the blade of grass,
346 FREDERICK WILLIAM ORDE WARD
And there is Calvary’s ground. O not an insect or on leaf or sod But in its measure is a looking-glass,
And shows Salvation’s God.
All thus are carrying on,
And do work out, the one Redemption’s tale ; Each is a little Christ on hill or dale,
The hell where Mercy’s light has never shone Is with that Mercy pale,
And though flesh turns from agony they dread, Even as they groan and travail it is gone— Love riseth from the dead.
ARTHUR WILLIAM EDGAR O’SHAUGHNESSY
1844-1881 The Lover
WAS not with the rest at play ;
My brothers laughed in joyous mood : But I—I wandered far away
Into the fair and silent wood ;
And with the trees and flowers I stood, As dumb and full of dreams as they : —For One it seemed my whole heart knew,
Or One my heart had known long since, Was peeping at me through the dew; And with bright laughter seemed to woo
My beauty, like a Fairy prince.
Oh, what a soft enchantment filled The lonely paths and places dim!
It was as though the whole wood thrilled, And a dumb joy, because of him, Weighed down the lilies tall and slim,
And made the roses blush, and stilled
ARTHUR W. E. O'SHAUGHNESSY 347
The great wild voices in half fear : It was as though his smile did hold All things in trances manifold ; And in each place as he drew near The leaves were touched and turned to gold...
But more and more he seemed to seek My heart: till, dreaming of all this, I thought one day to hear him speak, Or feel, indeed, his sudden kiss Bind me to some great unknown bliss : Then there would stay upon my cheek Full many a light and honied stain, That told indeed how I had lain Deep in the flowery banks all day ; And round me too there would remain Some strange wood-blossom’s scent alway... .
—O, the incomparable love Of him, my Lover !—O, to tell Its way and measure were above The throbbing chords of speech that swell Within me !—Doth it not excel All other, sung or written of ? Yea now, O all ye fair mankind— Consider well the gracious line Of those your lovers; call to mind Their love of you, and ye shall find Not one among them all like mine.
It seems as though, from calm to calm, A whole fair age had passed me by, Since first this Lover, through a charm
Of flowers, wooed so tenderly, I had no fear of drawing nigh, Nor knew, indeed, that—with an arm
348
ARTHUR W. E. O’SHAUGHNESSY
Closed round and holding me—he led My eager way from sight to sight Of all the summer magic—right
To where himself had surely spread Some pleasant snare for my delight.
And now, in an eternal sphere, Beneath one flooding look of his— Wherein, all beautiful and dear, That endless melting gold that is His love, with flawless memories Grows ever richer and more clear— My life seems held, as some faint star Beneath its sun: and through the far Celestial distances for miles, To where vast mirage futures are, I trace the gilding of his smiles... .
For, one by one, e’en as I rise, And feel the pure Ethereal Refining all before my eyes : Whole beauteous worlds material Are seen to enter gradual The great transparent paradise Of this my dream ; and, all revealed, To break upon me more and more Their inward singing souls, and yield A wondrous secret half concealed In all their loveliness before.
And so, when, through unmeasured days, The far effulgence of the sea
Is holding me in long amaze, And stealing with strange ecstasy My heart all opened silently ;—
There reach me, from among the sprays,
ARTHUR W. E. O’SHAUGHNESSY
Ineffable faint words that sing Within me,—how, for me alone,
One who is lover—who is King, Hath dropt, as ’twere a precious stone, That sea—a symbol of his throne. .
And, through the long charmed solitude
Of throbbing moments, whose strong link
Is one delicious hope pursued From trance to trance, the while I think And know myself upon the brink Of His eternal kiss,—endued With part of him, the very wind Hath power to ravish me in sips Or long mad wooings that unbind My hair,—wherein I truly find The magic of his unseen lips, And, so almighty is the thrill I feel at many a faintest breath Or stir of sound—as ’twere a rill Of joy traversing me, or death Dissolving all that hindereth My thought from power to fulfil Some new embodiment of bliss,— I do consume with the immense Delight as of some secret kiss, And am become like one whose sense Is used with raptures too intense! ...
Yea, mystic consummation! yea,
O wondrous suitor,—whosoe’er Thou art; that in such mighty way,
In distant realms, athwart the air
And lands and seas, with all things fair Hast wooed me even till this day ;—
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350 ARTHUR W. E. O’SHAUGHNESSY
It seems thou drawest near to me; Or I, indeed, so nigh to thee, I catch rare breaths of a delight From thy most glorious country, see Its distant glow upon some height. ...
O thou my Destiny! O thou My own—my very Love—my Lord! Whom from the first day until now My heart, divining, hath adored So perfectly it hath abhorred The tie of each frail haman vow— O I would whisper in thine ear— Yea, may I not, once, in the clear Pure night, when, only, silver shod The angels walk ?—thy name, I fear And love, and tremble saying—GOD !
En Soph Prayer of the Soul on entering Human Life N SOPH, uncomprehended in the thought
Of man or angel, having all that is
In one eternity of Being brought Into a moment: yet with purposes,
Whence emanate those lower worlds of Time,
And Force, and Form, where man, with one wing caught
In clogging earth, angels in freer clime,
From partial blindness into partial sight,
Strive, yearn, and, with an inward hope sublime, Rise ever; or, mastered by down-dragging might, And groping weakly with an ill-trimmed light,
Sink, quenched ;
ARTHUR W. E. O’SHAUGHNESSY 351
En Soph was manifest, as dim And awful as upon Egyptian throne Osiris sits ; but splendour covered Him; And circles of the Sephiroth tenfold, Vast and mysterious, intervening rolled.
And lo! from all the outward turning zones, Before Him came the endless stream of souls Unborn, whose destiny is to descend And enter by the lowest gate of being. And each one coming, saw, on written scrolls And semblances that he might comprehend, The things of Life and Death and Fate—which seeing, Each little soul, as quivering like a flame It paled before that splendour, stood and prayed A piteous, fervent prayer against the shame And ill of living, and would so have stayed A flame-like emanation as before, Unsullied and untried. Then, as he ceased The tremulous supplication, full of sore Foreboding agony to be released From going on the doubtful pilgrimage Of earthly hope and sorrow, for reply A mighty angel touched his sight, to close, Or nearly close, his spiritual eye, So he should look on luminous things like those No more till he had learned to live and die.
And when the pure bright flame, my soul, at last Passed there in turn, it flickered like them all ; But oh! with some surpassing sad forecast Of more than common pains that should befall The man whose all too human heart has bled With so much love and anguish until now,
352 ARTHUR W. E. O’SHAUGHNESSY
And has not broken yet, and is not dead, And shaken as a leaf in autumn late, Tormented by the wind, my soul somehow Found speech and prayed like this against my Fate:
The pure flame pent within the fragile form Will writhe with inward torments; blind desires, Seizing, will whirl me in their frenzied storm, Clutching at shreds of heaven and phantom fires, A voice, in broken ecstasies of song, Awakening mortal ears with its high pain, Will leave an echoing agony along The stony ways and o’er the sunless plain, While men stand listening in a silent throng,
And all the silences of life and death, Like doors closed on the thing my spirit seeks, Importuning each in turn, will freeze the breath Upon my lips, appal the voice that speaks ; Until the silence of a human heart At length, when I have wept there all my tears, Poured out my passion, given my stainless part Of heaven to hear what maybe no man hears, Will work a woe that never can depart.
Oh, let me not be parted from the light,
Oh, send me not to where the outer stars Tread their uncertain orbits, growing less bright,
Cycle by cycle; where, through narrowing bars, The soul looks up and scarcely sees the throne
It fell from ; where the stretched-out Hand that guides On to the end, in that dull slackening zone
Reaches but feebly ; and where man abides, And finds out heaven with his heart alone,
ARTHUR W. E. O’SHAUGHNESSY 353
I fear to live the life that shall be mine Down in the half lights of that wandering world, Mid ruined angels’ souls that cease to shine, Where fragments of the broken stars are hurled, Quenched to the ultimate dark. Shall I believe, Remembering, as of some exalted dream, The life of flame, the splendour that I leave ? For, between life and death, shall it not seem The fond false hope my shuddering soul would weave?...
So prayed I, feeling even as I prayed
Torments and fever of a strange unrest Take hold upon my spirit, fain to have stayed
In the eternal calm, and ne’er essayed The perilous strife, the all too bitter test
Of earthly sorrows, fearing—and ah! too well— To be quite ruined in some grief below,
And ne’er regain the heaven from which I fell. But then the angel smote my sight—’twas so
I woke into this world of love and woe.
GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS 1844-1889
The Habit of Perfection
LECTED Silence, sing to me And beat upon my whorleéd ear, Pipe me to pastures still and be The music that I care to hear. MYST, N
354 GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS
Shape nothing, lips; be lovely-dumb : It is the shut, the curfew sent From there where all surrenders come
Which only makes you eloquent.
Be shelléd, eyes, with double dark And find the uncreated light :
This ruck and reel which you remark Coils, keeps, and teases simple sight.
Palate, the hutch of tasty lust, Desire not to be rinsed with wine: The can must be so sweet, the crust So fresh that come in fasts divine !
Nostrils, your careless breath that spend Upon the stir and keep of pride,
What relish shall the censers send
Along the sanctuary side !
O feel-of-primrose hands, O feet
That want the yield of plushy sward, But you shall walk the golden street, And you unhouse and house the Lord,
And, Poverty, be thou the bride
And now the marriage feast begun, And lily-coloured clothes provide Your spouse not laboured-at, nor spun.
GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS 355
God’s Grandeur
HE world is charged with the grandeur of God. It will flame out, like shining from shook foil, It gathers to a greatness like the ooze of oil Crushed. Why do men then now not reck His rod ? Generations have trod, have trod, have trod ; And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil ; And bears man’s smudge, and shares man’s smell; the soil Is bare now, nor can foot feel being shod, And for ail this, nature is never spent ; There lives the dearest freshness deep down things ; And though the last lights from the black west went, Oh, morning at the brown brink eastwards springs— Because the Holy Ghost over the bent World broods with warm breast, and with, ah, bright
wings.
Mary Mother of Divine Grace, compared to the Air we breathe
ILD air, world-mothering air, Nestling me everywhere, That each eyelash or hair Girdles ; goes home betwixt The fleeciest, frailest-flixed Snow-flake ; that’s fairly mixed With riddles, and is rife In every least thing’s life ; This needful, never spent And nursing element ;
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GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS
My more than meat and drink, My meal at every wink ;
This air which by life’s law My lung must draw and draw Now, but to breathe its praise,— Minds me in many ways
Of her who not only
Gave God’s infinity, Dwindled to infancy, Welcome in womb and breast, Birth, milk, and all the rest, But mothers each new grace That does now reach our race, Mary Immaculate,
Merely a woman, yet
Whose presence, power is Great as no goddess’s
Was deeméd, dreaméd ; who This one work has to do— Let all God’s glory through, God’s glory, which would go Thro’ her and from her flow Off, and no way but so.
I say that we are wound With mercy round and round As if with air: the same Is Mary, more by name,
She, wild web, wondrous robe, Mantles the guilty globe. Since God has let dispense Her prayers His providence. Nay, more than almoner,
The sweet alms’ self is her And men are meant to share Her life as life does air.
GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS
If I have understood, She holds high motherhood Towards all our ghostly good, And plays in grace her part About man’s beating heart, Laying like air’s fine flood The death-dance in his blood ; Yet no part but what will Be Christ our Saviour still. Of her flesh He took flesh : He does take, fresh and fresh, Though much the mystery how, Not flesh but spirit now, And wakes, O marvellous ! New Nazareths in us, Where she shal] yet conceive Him, morning, noon, and eve; New Bethlems, and He born There, evening, noon and morn Bethlem or Nazareth, Men here may draw like breath More Christ, and baffle death ; Who, born so, comes to be New self, and nobler me In each one, and each one More makes, when all is done, Both God’s and Mary’s son, Again look overhead How air is azuréd. O how! Nay do but stand Where you can lift your hand Skywards : rich, rich it laps Round the four finger-gaps, Yet such a sapphire-shot
357
358 GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS
Charged, steepéd sky will not Stain light. Yea, mark you this: It does no prejudice. The glass-blue days are those When every colour glows, Each shape and shadow shows. Blue be it: this blue heaven The seven or seven times seven Hued sunbeam will transmit Perfect, nor alter it. Or if there does some soft On things aloof, aloft, Bloom breathe, that one breath more Earth is the fairer for. Whereas did air not make This bath of blue and slake This fire, the sun would shake A blear and blinding ball With blackness bound, and all The thick stars round him roll, Flashing like flecks of coal, Quartz-fret, or sparks of salt In grimy vasty vault.
So God was God of old ; A mother came to mould Those limbs like ours which are, What must make our daystar Much dearer to mankind : Whose glory bare would blind Or less would win man’s mind. Through her we may see Him Made sweeter, not made dim, And her hand leaves His light Sifted to suit our sight.
GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS 359
Be thou, then, O thou dear Mother, my atmosphere ; My happier world wherein To wend and meet no sin; Above me, round me lie Fronting my froward eye With sweet and scarless sky ; Stir in my ears, speak there Of God’s love, O live air, Of patience, penance, prayer ; World-mothering air, air wild, Wound with thee, in thee isled, Fold home, fast fold thy child.
EDWARD CARPENTER
By the Shore
LL night by the shore. The obscure water, the long white lines of advancing foam, the rustle and thud, the panting sea-breaths, the pungent sea-smell,
The great slow air moving from the distant horizon, the immense mystery of space, and the soft canopy of the clouds !
1844-1929
The swooning thuds go on—the drowse of ocean goes on:
The long inbreaths—the short sharp outbreaths—the silence between.
I am a bit of the shore: the waves feed upon me, they come pasturing over me ; I am glad, O waves, that you come pasturing over me.
360 EDWARD CARPENTER
I am a little arm of the sea: the same tumbling swooning dream goes on—I feel the waves all around me, I spread myself through them.
How delicious! I spread and spread. The waves tumble through and over me—they dash through my face and hair.
The night is dark overhead: I do not see them, but I touch them and hear their gurgling laughter.
The play goes on!
The strange expanding indraughts go on!
Suddenly I am the Ocean itself: the great soft wind creeps over my face.
I am in love with the wind—I reach my lips to its kisses.
How delicious! all night and ages and ages long to spread myself to the gliding wind !
But now (and ever) it maddens me with its touch, I arise and whirl in my bed, and sweep my arms madly along the shores.
I am not sure any more which my own particular bit of shore is;
All the bays and inlets know me: I glide along in and out under the sun by the beautiful coast-line ;
My hair floats leagues behind me; millions together my children dash against my face ;
I hear what they say and am marvellously content.
All night by the shore ; And the sea is a sea of faces.
The long white lines come up—face after face comes and falls past me—
Thud after thud. Is it pain or joy ?
Face after face—endless !
EDWARD CARPENTER 361
I do not know; my sense numbs; a trance is on me— I am becoming detached !
I am a bit of the shore:
The waves feed upon me, they pasture all over me, my feeling is strangely concentrated at every point where they touch me;
I am glad O waves that you come pasturing over me.
I am detached, I disentangle myself from the shore; I have become free—I float out and mingle with the rest.
The pain, the acute clinging desire, is over—I feel beings like myself all around me, I spread myself through and through them, I am merged in a sea of contact. :
Freedom and equality are a fact. Life and joy seem to have begun for me.
The play goes on! Suddenly I am the great living Ocean itself—the awful Spirit of Immensity creeps over my face.
I am in love with it. All night and ages and ages long and for ever I pour my soul out to it in love.
I spread myself out broader and broader for ever, that I may touch it and be with it everywhere.
There is no end. But ever and anon it maddens me with its touch. I arise and sweep away my bounds.
I know but I do not care any longer which my own particular body is—all conditions and fortunes are mine.
By the ever-beautiful coast-line of human life, by aii shores, in all climates and countries, by every secluded nook and inlet,
N3
362 EDWARD CARPENTER
Under the eye of my beloved Spirit I glide :
O joy! for ever, ever, joy!
I am not hurried—the whole of eternity is mine ;
With each one I delay, with each one I dwell—with you I dwell.
The warm breath of each life ascends past me ;
I take the thread from the fingers that are weary, and go on with the work ;
The secretest thoughts of all are mine, and mine are the secretest thoughts of all.
All night by the shore ;
And the fresh air comes blowing with the dawn.
The mystic night fades—but my joy fades not.
I arise and cast a stone into the water (O sea of faces I cast this poem among you)—and turn landward over the rustling beach.
Love's V1st0i1
T night in each other’s arms,
Content, overjoyed, resting deep deep down in the darkness,
Lo! the heavens opened and He appeared—
Whom no mortal eye may see,
Whom no eye clouded with Care,
Whom none who seeks after this or that, whom none who has not escaped from self.
There—in the region of Equality, in the world of Freedom no longer limited,
Standing as a lofty peak in heaven above the clouds,
From below hidden, yet to all who pass into that region most clearly visible—
He the Eternal appeared,
EDWARD CARPENTER 363
Over the Great City
VER the great city, Where the wind rustles through the parks and gardens, In the air, the high clouds brooding, In the lines of street perspective, the lamps, the traffic, The pavements and the innumerable feet upon them, I Am: make no mistake—do not be deluded.
Think not because I do not appear at the first glance— because the centuries have gone by and there is no assured tidings of me—that therefore I am not there.
Think not because all goes its own way that therefore I do not go my own way through all.
The fixed bent of hurrying faces in the street—each turned towards its own light, seeing no other— yet I am the Light towards which they all look.
The toil of so many hands to such multifarious ends, yet my hand knows the touch and twining of them all.
All come to me at last.
There is no love like mine ;
For all other love takes one and not another ; And other love is pain, but this is joy eternal,
364 EDWARD CARPENTER
So Thin a Veil
O thin a veil divides Us from such joy, past words, Walking in daily life—the business of the hour, each detail seen to ; Yet carried, rapt away, on what sweet floods of other Being : Swift streams of music flowing, light far back through all Creation shining, Loved faces looking— Ah! from the true, the mortal self So thin a veil divides !
The World-Spirit
IKE soundless summer lightning seen afar, A halo o’er the grave of all mankind, O undcfinéd dream-embosomed star, O charm of human love and sorrow twined :
Far, far away beyond the world’s bright streams, Over the ruined spaces of the lands,
Thy beauty, floating slowly, ever seems To shine most glorious; then from out our hands
To fade and vanish, evermore to be Our sorrow, our sweet longing sadly borne, Our incommunicable mystery Shrined in the soul’s long night before the morn,
Ah ! in the far fled days, how fair the sun Fell sloping o’er the green flax by the Nile, Kissed the slow water’s breast, and glancing shone Where laboured men and maidens, with a smile
EDWARD CARPENTER
Cheating the laggard hours; o’er them the doves Sailed high in evening blue; the river-wheel
Sang, and was still; and lamps of many loves Were lit in hearts, long dead to woe or weal.
And, where a shady headland cleaves the light That like a silver swan floats o’er the deep
Dark purple-stained Aegean, oft the height Felt from of old some poet-soul upleap,
As in the womb a child before its birth, Foreboding higher life. Of old, as now,
Smiling the calm sea slept, and woke with mirth To kiss the strand, and slept again below.
So, from of old, o’er Athens’ god-crowned steep Or round the shattered bases of great Rome, Fleeting and passing, as in dreamful sleep, The shadow-peopled ages go and come:
Sounds of a far-awakened multitude, With cry of countless voices intertwined, Harsh strife and stormy roar of battle rude, Labour and peaceful arts and growth of mind.
And yet, o’er all, the One through many seen, The phantom Presence moving without fail,
Sweet sense of closelinked life and passion keen As of the grass waving before the gale.
What art Thou, O that wast and art to be?
Ye forms that once through shady forest-glade Or golden light-flood wandered lovingly,
What are ye? Nay, though all the past do fade
365
366 EDWARD CARPENTER
Ye are not therefore perished, ye whom erst The eternal Spirit struck with quick desire,
And led and beckoned onward till the first Slow spark of life became a flaming fire.
Ye are not therefore perished : for behold To-day ye move about us, and the same Dark murmur of the past is forward rolled Another age, and grows with louder fame
Unto the morrow: newer ways are ours,
New thoughts, new fancies, and we deem our lives New-fashioned in a mould of vaster powers ;
But as of old with flesh the spirit strives,
And we but head the strife. Soon shall the song That rolls all down the ages blend its voice
With our weak utterance and make us strong; That we, borne forward still, may still rejoice,
Fronting the wave of change. Thou who alone Changeless remainest, O most mighty Soul,
Hear us before we vanish! O make known Thyself in us, us in Thy living whole.
367 SAMUEL WADDINGTON
1844-1923
4 Persian Apologue
Ee came to crave sweet love, if love might be;
To the Belovéd’s door he came, and knocked :—
‘ And who art thou ?” she asked,—‘ we know not thee!”
Then shyly listened, nor the door unlocked.
Love answered, ‘It is 1!’ ‘ Nay, thee and me
This house will never hold.”—’Twas thus she mocked
His piteous quest ; and, weeping, home went he,
While thro’ the night the moaning plane-tree rocked. Three seasons sped, and lo, again Love came;
Again he knocked ; again in simple wise,
‘ Pray, who is there ?” she asked,—‘ What is thy name?’
But Love had learnt the magic of replies,—
‘It is Thyself!’ he whispered, and behold,
The door was opened, and love’s mystery told.
JOHN BANNISTER TABB The Life-tide
ACH wave that breaks upon the strand, How swift soe’er to spurn the sand And seek again the sea, Christ-like, within its lifted hand Must bear the stigma of the land For all eternity.
1845-1909
Communion
NCE when my heart was passion-free To learn of things divine, The soul of nature suddenly Outpoured itself in mine.
368
JOHN BANNISTER TABB
I held the secrets of the deep, And of the heavens above ;
I knew the harmonies of sleep, The mysteries of love.
And for a moment’s interval The earth, the sky, the sea—
My soul encompassed, each and all, As now they compass me.
To one in all, to all in one— Since Love the work began—
Life’s ever widening circles run, Revealing God and man.
An Interpreter
HAT, O Eternity,
Is Time to thee ?>— What to the boundless All My portion small ?
Lift up thine eyes, my soul! Against the tidal roll
Stands many a stone,
Whereon the breakers thrown Are dashed to spray—
Else were the Ocean dumb,
So, in the way Of tides eternal, thou Abidest now ; And God Himself doth come A suppliant to thee, Love’s prisoned thought to free,
JOHN BANNISTER TABB
Christ and the Pagan
HAD no God but these, The sacerdotal Trees, And they uplifted me. “I bung upon a Tree.’
The sun and moon I saw, And reverential awe Subdued me day and night. ‘I am the perfect Light.’
Within a lifeless Stone— All other gods unknown— I sought Divinity.
©The Corner-Stone am I,
For sacrificial feast,
I slaughtered man and beast, Red recompense to gain.
‘So I, a Lamb, was slain.
‘Yea; such My hungering Grace That wheresoe’er My face
Is hidden, none may grope
Beyond eternal Hope.’
All in All
E know Thee, each in part— A portion small ; But love Thee, as Thou art— The All in all : For Reason and the rays thereof Are starlight to the noon of Love.
369
37°
EMILY HENRIETTA HICKEY 1845-1924
“The Greatest of these 1s Charity’
I
HERE came one day a leper to my door:
I shrank from him in loathing and in dread, But yet, remembering how old legends said That Jesus Christ so often heretofore Came in such guise to try His saints of yore, I brought him in, and clothed, and warmed, and fed; Yea, brake my box of precious nard, to pour Its costly fragrancy upon his feet. And when the house was filled with odour sweet, T looked to see the loveliest face,—but o’er The leper came no change divine to greet My eager soul, which did such change entreat. And then I bowed my head, and wept full sore— Ah! the times change; such visions come no more !
II
With tear-dimmed eyes I went upon my way, Passed from the city to the April wood,
Where the young trees in trembling gladness stood ; And once again my grievéd heart grew gay.
Then did I see a little child at play ;
All the sweet April fountain of his blood
Tossed out in joy, that brake in laughter-spray ; And all my heart it loved him; so I bent
To kiss his sunny mouth. Then through me went That which I may not tell, nor can, to-day.
When was such healing with such wounding blent ? Such pain supreme with such supreme content ? The fires of God comfort as well as slay,
Else had I surely died, who am but clay.
371
GEORGE BARLOW
1847-1913
The Immortal and the Mortal
H where the immortal and the mortal meet In union than of wind and wave more sweet, Meet me, O God— Where Thou hast trod I follow, along the blood-print of Thy feet.
Oh, though the austere ensanguined road be hard And all the blue skies shine through casemates barred, I follow Thee— Show Thou to me Thy face, the speechless face divinely marred.
Lo! who will love and follow to the end, Shall he not also to hell’s depths descend ? Shall he not find The whole world blind, Searching among the lone stars for a friend ?
Lo! who will follow love throughout the way, From crimson morning flush till twilight grey ? Who fears not chains, Anguish and pains, If love wait at the ending of the day ?
If at the ending of the day life’s bride Be near our hearts in vision glorified : If at the end God’s hand extend That far triumphant boon for which we sighed.
372 GEORGE BARLOW
Oh, where the immortal to our mortal flows, Flushing our grey clay heart to its own rose, Spirit supreme Upon me gleam ; Make me Thine own ; I reckon not the throes.
I would pour out my heart in one long sigh
Of speechless yearning towards Thine home on high : I would be pure, Suffer, endure,
Pervade with ceaseless wings the unfathomed sky.
Oh, at the point where God and man are one, Meet me, Thou God ; flame on me like the sun ; I would be part Of Thine own heart, That by my hands Thy love-deeds may be done:
That by my hands Thy love-truths may be shown And far lands know me for Thy very own ;
That I may bring
The dead world spring :— The flowers awake, Lord, at Thy word alone.
Oh, to the point where man and God unite,
Raise me, Thou God; transfuse me with Thy light; Where I would go Thou, God, dost know ;
For Thy sake I will face the starless night.
The night is barren, black, devoid of bloom, Scentless and waste, a wide appalling tomb ; Dark foes surround The soul discrowned And strange shapes lower and threaten through the gloom.
GEORGE BARLOW 373
But where Thou art with me Thy mortal, one, God, mine immortal, my death-conquering sun, Meet me and show What path to go Till the last work of deathless love be done.
DIGBY MACKWORTH DOLBEN 1848-1867 ‘ Strange, all-absorbing Love’
TRANGE, all-absorbing Love, who gatherest Unto Thy glowing all my pleasant dew, Then delicately my garden waterest, Drawing the old, to pour it back anew:
In the dim glitter of the dawning hours
‘ Not so,’ I said, ‘ but still those drops of light, Heart-shrined among the petals of my flowers, Shall hold the memory of the starry night
‘So fresh, no need of showers shall there be.’— Ah, senseless gardener! must it come to pass That ’neath the glaring noon thou shouldest see Thine earth become as iron, His heavens as brass ?
Nay rather, O my Sun, I will be wise,
Believe in Love which may not yet be seen,
Yield Thee my earth-drops, call Thee from the skies, In soft return, to keep my bedding green.
So when the bells at Vesper-tide shall sound, And the dead ocean o’er my garden flows, Upon the Golden Altar may be found
Some scarlet berries and a Christmas rose,
374
DIGBY MACKWORTH DOLBEN
Flowers for the Altar
I ELL us, tell us, holy shepherds, What at Bethlehem you saw.— ‘Very God of Very God Asleep amid the straw.’
Tell us, tell us, all ye faithful, What this morning came to pass At the awful elevation In the Canon of the Mass.— ‘Very God of Very God, By whom the worlds were made, In silence and in helplessness Upon the altar laid.’
Tell us, tell us, wondrous Jesu, What has drawn Thee from above To the manger and the altar.— All the silence answers—Love.
Il
Through the roaring streets of London Thou art passing, hidden Lord, Uncreated, Consubstantial, In the seventh heaven adored,
As of old the ever-Virgin Through unconscious Bethlehem Bore Thee, not in glad procession, Jewelled robe and diadem ;
DIGBY MACKWORTH DOLBEN 375
Not in pomp and not in power, Onward to Nativity,
Shrined but in the tabernacle Of her sweet Virginity.
Still Thou goest by in silence, Still the world cannot receive, Still the poor and weak and weary
Only, worship and believe.
CHRISTINA CATHERINE FRASER-TYTLER (MRS. EDWARD LIDDELL) : b. 1848
In Summer Fields
OMETIMES, as in the summer fields I walk abroad, there comes to me So strange a sense of mystery, My heart stands still, my feet must stay, I am in such strange company.
I look on high—the vasty deep
Of blue outreaches all my mind ; And yet I think beyond to find Something more vast—and at my feet The little bryony is twined.
Clouds sailing as to God go by,
Earth, sun, and stars are rushing on; And faster than swift time, more strong Than rushing of the worlds, I feel
A something Is, of name unknown.
376 CHRISTINA CATHERINE FRASER-TYTLER
And turning suddenly away,
Grown sick and dizzy with the sense Of power, and mine own impotence, I see the gentle cattle feed
In dumb unthinking innocence.
The great Unknown above; below, The cawing rooks, the milking-shed ; God’s awful silence overhead ; Below, the muddy pool, the path The thirsty herds of cattle tread.
Sometimes, as in the summer fields I walk abroad, there comes to me So wild a sense of mystery,
My senses reel, my reason fails,
I am in such strange company.
Yet somewhere, dimly, I can feel
The wild confusion dwells in me,
And I, in no strange company,
Am the lost link ’twixt Him and these, And touch Him through the mystery.
WILLIAM ERNEST HENLEY 1849 -1903 I am the Reaper
AM the Reaper.
All things with heedful hook Silent I gather. Pale roses touched with the spring, Tall corn in summer,
WILLIAM ERNEST HENLEY 377
Fruits rich with autumn, and frail winter blossoms— Reaping, still reaping—
All things with heedful hook
Timely I gather.
I am the Sower.
All the unbodied life
Runs through my seed-sheet.
Atom with atom wed,
Each quickening the other,
Fall through my hands, ever changing, still changeless. Ceaselessly sowing,
Life, incorruptible life,
Flows from my seed-sheet,
Maker and breaker,
I am the ebb and the flood,
Here and Hereafter,
Sped through the tangle and coil
Of infinite nature,
Viewless and soundless I fashion all being, Taker and giver,
I am the womb and the grave,
The Now and the Ever.
EDMUND GOSSE
The Tide of Love
OVE, flooding all the creeks of my dry soul, From which the warm tide ebbed when I was born, Following the moon of destiny, doth roll His slow rich wave along the shore forlorn, To make the ocean—God—and me, one whole.
184g-1928
378 EDMUND GOSSE
So, shuddering in its ecstasy, it lies,
And, freed from mire and tangle of the ebb, Reflects the waxing and the waning skies,
And bears upon its panting breast the web Of night and her innumerable eyes.
Nor can conceive at all that it was blind,
But trembling with the sharp approach of love, That, strenuous, moves without one breath of wind, Gasps, as the wakening maid, on whom the Dove
With folded wings of deity declined.
She in the virgin sweetness of her dream
Thought nothing strange to find her vision true ; And I thus bathed in living rapture deem
No moveless drought my channel ever knew, But rustled always with the murmuring stream.
Old and New
Bon) B.C.
OME, Hesper, and ye Gods of mountain waters, Come, nymphs and Dryades,
Come, silken choir of soft Pierian daughters,
And girls of lakes and seas, Evoé! and evoé Io! crying,
Fill all the earth and air; Evoé! till the quivering words, replying,
Shout back the echo there !
All day in soundless swoon or heavy slumber, We lay among the flowers,
But now the stars break forth in countless number To watch the dewy hours ;
EDMUND GOSSE 379
And now Iacchus, beautiful and glowing, Adown the hill-side comes,
Mid tabrets shaken high, and trumpets blowing, And resonance of drums.
The leopard-skin is round his smooth white shoulders, The vine-branch round his hair,
Those eyes that rouse desire in maid-beholders Are glittering, glowworm-fair ;
Crowned king of all the provinces of pleasure, Lord of a wide domain,
He comes, and brings delight that knows no measure, A full Saturnian reign.
Take me, too, Maenads, to your fox-skin chorus, Rose-lipped like volute-shells,
For I would follow where your host canorous Roars down the forest-dells ;
The sacred frenzy rends my throat and bosom! I shout, and whirl where He,
Our Vine-God, tosses like some pale blood-blossom Swept on a stormy sea.
Around his car, with streaming hair, and frantic, The Maenads and wild gods
And shaggy fauns and wood-girls corybantic Toss high the ivy-rods ;
Brown limbs with white limbs madly intertwining Whirl in a fiery dance,
Till, when at length Orion is declining, We glide into a trance.
The satyr’s heart is faintly, faintly beating, The choir of nymphs is mute ;
Tacchus up the western slope is fleeting, Uncheered by horn or flute ;
380 EDMUND GOSSE
Hushed, hushed are all the shouting and the singing, The frenzy, the delight,
Since out into the cold grey air upspringing, The morning-star shines bright.
ifa¢.4.D.
Not with a choir of angels without number, And noise of lutes and lyres, But gently, with the woven veil of slumber Across Thine awful fires, We yearn to watch Thy face, serene and tender, Melt, smiling, calm and sweet, Where round the print of thorns, in thornlike splendour, Transcendent glories meet.
We have no hopes if Thou art close beside us, And no profane despairs,
Since all we need is Thy great hand to guide us, Thy heart to take our cares ;
For us is no to-day, to-night, to-morrow, No past time nor to be,
We have no joy but Thee, there is no sorrow, No life to live but Thee.
The cross, like pilgrim-warriors, we follow, Led by our eastern star ;
The wild crane greets us, and the wandering swallow Bound southward for Shinar ;
All night that single star shines bright above us ; We go with weary feet,
But in the end we know are they who love us, Whose pure embrace is sweet.
EDMUND GOSSE 381
Most sweet of all, when dark the way and moonless, To feel a touch, a breath,
And know our weary spirits are not tuneless, Our unseen goal not Death ;
To know that Thou, in all Thy old sweet fashion, Art near us to sustain !
We praise Thee, Lord, by all Thy tears and passion, By all Thy cross and pain!
For when this night of toil and tears is over, Across the hills of spice, Thyself wilt meet us, glowing like a lover Before Love’s Paradise ; There are the saints, with palms and hymns and roses, And better still than all, The long, long day of bliss that never closes, Thy marriage festival !
EDMOND GORE ALEXANDER HOLMES
1850-1906 The Creed of My Heart ape
FLAME in my heart is kindled by the might of the morn’s pure breath ;
A passion beyond all passion ; a faith that eclipses faith ;
A joy that is more than gladness; a hope that outsoars desire ;
A love that consumes and quickens; asoul-transfiguring fire.
My life is possessed and mastered: my heart is inspired and filled.
All other visions have faded: all other voices are stilled.
My doubts are vainer than shadows: my fears are idler than dreams :
They vanish like breaking bubbles, those old soul- torturing themes,
382 EDMOND GORE ALEXANDER HOLMES
The riddles of life are cancelled, the problems that bred despair :
I cannot guess them or solve them, but I know that they are not there.
They are past, they are all forgotten, the breeze has blown them away ;
For life’s inscrutable meaning is clear as the dawn of day.
It is there—the secret of Nature—there in the morning’s glow ;
There in the speaking stillness ; there in the rose-flushed snow.
It is here in the joy andrapture; herein my pulsing breast:
I feel what has ne’er been spoken: |] know what has ne’er been guessed.
The rose-lit clouds of morning; the sun-kissed mountain heights ;
The orient streaks and flushes ; the mingling shadows and lights ;
The flow of the lonely river; the voice of its distant stream ;
The mists that rise from the meadows, lit up by the sun’s first beam ;—
They mingle and melt as I watch them ; melt and mingle and die.
The land is one with the water: the earth is one with the sky.
The parts are as parts no longer: Nature is All and One:
Her life is achieved, completed: her days of waiting are done
I breathe the breath of the morning. I am one with the one World-Soul.
I live my own life no longer, but the life of the living Whole.
EDMOND GORE ALEXANDER HOLMES 383
Iam more than self: I am selfless: Iam more than self: Tam L.
I have found the springs of my being in the flush of the eastern sky.
I—the true self, the spirit, the self that is born of death—
I have found the flame of my being in the morn’s ambrosial breath.
I lose my life for a season: I lose it beyond recall :
But I find it renewed, rekindled, in the life of the One, the All.
I look not forward or backward: the abysses of time are nought.
From pole to pole of the heavens I pass in a flash of thought.
I clasp the world to my bosom: I feel its pulse in my breast,—
The pulse of measureless motion, the pulse of fathomless rest.
Is it motion or rest that thrills me? Is it lightning or moonlit peace ?
Am I freer than waves of ether, or prisoned beyond release ?
I know not; but through my spirit, within me, around, above,
The world-wide river is streaming, the river of life and love.
Silent, serene, eternal, passionless, perfect, pure ;—
I may not measure its windings, but I know that its aim is sure.
In its purity seethes all passion: in its silence resounds all song :
Its strength is builded of weakness: its right is woven of wrong.
384. EDMOND GORE ALEXANDER HOLMES
I am borne afar on its bosom ; yet its source and its goal are mine,
From the sacred springs of Creation to the ocean of love Divine.
I have ceased to think or to reason: there is nothing to ponder or prove:
I hope, I believe no longer: I am lost in a dream of love.
Nirvana
OULD ny heart but see Creation as God sees it,— from within ; See His grace behind its beauty, see His will behind its force ; See the flame of life shoot upward when the April days begin ; See the wave of life rush outward from its pure eternal source ;
Could I see the summer sunrise glow with God’s tran- scendent hope ; See His peace upon the waters in the moonlit summer night ; See Him nearer still when, blinded, in the depths of gloom I grope,— See the darkness flash and quiver with the gladness of His light ;
Could I see the red-hot passion of His love resistless burn Through the dumb despair of winter, through the frozen lifeless clod ;— Could I see what lies around meas God sees it, I should learn That its outward life is nothing, that its inward life is God.
EDMOND GORE ALEXANDER HOLMES 385
Vain the dream! To spirit only is the spirit-life revealed :
God alone can see God’s glory: God alone can feel God’s love.
By myself the soul of Nature from myself is still concealed ;
And the earth is still around me, and the skies are still
above.
Vain the dream! I cannot mingle with the all-sustaining soul : I am prisoned in my senses; I am pinioned by my pride ; I am severed by my selfhood from the world-life of the Whole ; And my world is near and narrow, and God’s world is waste and wide. ;
Vain the dream! Yet in the morning, when the eastern skies are red, When the dew is on the meadows, when the lark soars up and sings,— Leaps a sudden flame within me from its ashes pale and dead, And I see God’s beauty burning through the veil of outward things.
Brighter grows the veil and clearer, till, beyond all fear and doubt, I am ravished by God’s splendour into oneness with His rest ; And I draw the world within me, and I send my soul without ; And God’s pulse is in my bosom, and I lie upon God’s breast. MYST. °
386 EDMOND GORE ALEXANDER HOLMES
Dies the beatific vision in the moment of its birth ; Dies, but in its death transfigures all the sequence of my days ; Dies, but dying crowns with triumph all the travail of the earth, Till its harsh discordant murmurs swell into a psalm of praise.
Then a yearning comes upon me to be drawn at last by death, Drawn into the mystic circle in which all things live and move, Drawn into the mystic circle of the love which is God’s breath,— Love creative, love receptive, love of loving, love of love.
God! the One, the All of Being! let me lose my life in
Thine ; Let me be what Thou hast made me, be a quiver of Thy flame. Purge my self from self’s pollution; burn it into life divine ;
Burn it till it dies triumphant in the firespring whence it came.
EDMOND GORE ALEXANDER HOLMES 387
La Fie Profonde
EMMED in by petty thoughts and petty things, Intent on toys and trifles all my years, Pleased by life’s gauds, pained by its pricks and stings, Swayed by ignoble hopes, ignoble fears ; Threading life’s tangled maze without life’s clue, Busy with means, yet heedless of their ends, Lost to all sense of what is real and true, Blind to the goal to which all Nature tends :— Such is my surface self: but deep beneath, A mighty actor on a world-wide stage, Crowned with all knowledge, lord of life and death, Sure of my aim, sure of my heritage,— I—the true self—live on, in self’s despite, That ‘ life profound’ whose darkness is God’s light.
The God Within
IFE of my life! soul of my inmost soul ! Pure central point of everlasting light ! Creative splendour! Fountain-head and goal Of all the rays that make the darkness bright— And pierce the gloom of nothing more and more And win new realms from the abyss of night ! O God, I veil my eyes and kneel before Thy shrine of love and tremble and adore.
The unfathomable past is but the dawn Of thee triumphant rising from the tomb ; And could we deem thy lamp of light withdrawn, Back in an instant into primal gloom
388 EDMOND GORE ALEXANDER HOLMES
All things that are, all things that time has wrought, All that shall ever yet unseal the womb
Of elemental Chaos, swift as thought
Would melt away and leave a world of nought.
We gaze in wonder on the starry face Of midnight skies, and worship and aspire, Yet all the kingdoms of abysmal space Are less than thy one point of inmost fire : We dare not think of time’s unending way, Yet present, past, and future would expire, And all eternity would pass away In thy one moment of intensest day.
Of old our fathers heard thee when the roll Of midnight thunder crashed across the sky : I hear thee in the silence of the soul— Its very stillness is the majesty Of thy mysterious voice, that moves me more Than wrath of tempest as it rushes by, Or booming thunder, or the surging roar Of seas that storm a never-trodden shore.
And they beheld thee when the lightning shone, And tore the leaden slumber of the storm With vivid flame that was and then was gone, Whose blaze made blind, whose very breath was warm :— But I, if I would see thee, pray for grace To veil my eyes to every outward form, And in the darkness for a moment’s space I see the splendour of thy cloudless face.
In thought I climb to Being’s utmost brink And pass beyond the last imagined star, And tremble and grow dizzy while I think—
But thou art yet more infinitely far,
EDMOND GORE ALEXANDER HOLMES 389
O God, from me who breathe the air of sin, And I am doomed to traverse worlds that are
More fathomless to fancy ere I win
The central altar of the soul within.
How shall I worship thee ? With speechless awe Of guilt that shrinks when innocence is near And veils its face: with faith, that ever saw Most when its eyes were clouded with a tear: With hope, the breath of spirits that aspire : Lastly, with love—the grave of every fear, The fount of faith, the triumph of desire, The burning brightness of thine own white fire....
O God that dwellest in transcendent light Beyond our dreams, who grope in darkness here, Beyond imagination’s utmost flight,— I bless thee most that sometimes when a tear Of tender yearning rises unrepressed, Lo! for an instant thou art strangely near— Nearer to my own heart than I who rest In speechless adoration on thy breast.
FRANCIS WILLIAM BOURDILLON 1852-1921
The Chantry of the Cherubim CHANTRY of the Cherubim,
Down-looking on the stream ! Beneath thy boughs the day grows dim ; Through windows comes the gleam ; A thousand raptures fill the air, Beyond delight, beyond despair.
390 FRANCIS WILLIAM BOURDILLON
I will not name one flower that clings In cluster at my feet ! I will not hail one bird that sings Its anthem loud or sweet ! This is the floor of Heaven, and these The angels that God’s ear do please.
I walk as one unclothed of flesh, I wash my spirit clean ; I see old miracles afresh, And wonders yet unseen. I will not leave Thee till Thou give Some word whereby my soul may live!
I listened—but no voice I heard ; I looked—no likeness saw ;
Slowly the joy of flower and bird Did like a tide withdraw ;
And in the heaven a silent star
Smiled on me, infinitely far.
I buoyed me on the wings of dream, Above the world of sense ;
I set my thought to sound the scheme, And fathom the Immense ;
I tuned my spirit as a lute
To catch wind-music wandering mute.
Yet came there never voice nor sign ; But through my being stole
Sense of a Universe divine, And knowledge of a soul
Perfected in the joy of things,
The star, the flower, the bird that sings.
FRANCIS WILLIAM BOURDILLON $391
Nor I am more, nor less, than these ; All are one brotherhood ;
I and all creatures, plants, and trees, The living limbs of God ;
And in an hour, as this, divine,
I feel the vast pulse throb in mine,
WILLIAM JAMES DAWSON : , 1854-1928 Lnspirations
OMETIMES, I know not why, nor how, nor whence, A change comes over me, and then the task Of common life slips from me. Would you ask What power is this which bids the world go hence ? Who knows ? I only feel a faint perfume Steal through the rooms of life; a saddened sense Oi something lost ; a music as of brooks That babble to the sea ; pathetic looks Of closing eyes that in a darkened room Once dwelt on mine: I feel the general doom Creep nearer, and with God I stand alone. O mystic sense of sudden quickening ! Hope’s lark-song rings, or life’s deep undertone Wails through my heart—and then I needs must sing,
= 8 EDITH MATILDA THOMAS
Patmos
LL around him Patmos lies, Who hath spirit-gifted eyes,
Who his happy sight can suit To the great and the minute. Doubt not but he holds in view A new earth and heaven new; Doubt not but his ear doth catch Strain nor voice nor reed can match: Many a silver, sphery note Shall within his hearing float.
All around him Patmos lies,
Who unto God’s priestess flies Thou, O Nature, bid him see, Through all guises worn by thee, A divine apocalypse.
Manifold his fellowships :
Now the rocks their archives ope ; Voiceless creatures tell their hope In a language symbol-wrought ; Groves to him sigh out their thought ; Musings of the flower and grass Through his quiet spirit pass. *Twixt new earth and heaven new He hath traced and holds the clue, Number his delights ye may not ; Fleets the year but these decay not. Now the freshets of the rain, Bounding on from hill to plain, Show him earthly streams have rise In the bosom of the skies.
EDITH MATILDA THOMAS
Now he feels the morning thrill, As upmounts, unseen and still, Dew the wing of evening drops. Now the frost, that meets and stops Summer’s feet in tender sward, Greets him, breathing heavenward. Hieroglyphics writes the snow, Through the silence falling slow ; Types of star and petaled bloom
A white missal-page illume.
By these floating symbols fine, Heaven-truth shall be divine.
All around him Patmos lies, Who hath spirit-gifted eyes ; He need not afar remove,
He need not the times reprove, Who would hold perpetual lease Of an isle in seas of peace.
Spirit to Spirit
393
EAD ? Not to thee, thou keen watcher,—not silent,
not viewless, to thee,
set free,
entering morn ; leaf and the thorn,
of corn. 03
Immortal still wrapped in the mortal! I, from the mortal
Greet thee by many clear tokens thou smilest to hear and to see.
For I, when thou wakest at dawn, to thee am the And I, when thou walkest abroad, am the dew on the
The tremulous glow of the noon, the twilight on harvests
304 EDITH MATILDA THOMAS
I am the flower by the wood-path,—thou bendest to look in my eyes ;
The bird in its nest in the thicket,—thou heedest my love-laden cries ;
The planet that leads the night legions,—thou liftest thy gaze to the skies.
And I am the soft-dropping rain, the snow with its flutter- ing swarms ;
The summer-day cloud on the hilltops, that showeth thee manifold forms ;
The wind from the south and the west, the voice that sings courage in storms!
Sweet was the earth to thee ever, but sweeter by far to thee now :
How hast thou room for tears, when all times marvelest thou,
Beholding who dwells with God in the blossoming sward and the bough !
Once as a wall were the mountains, once darkened between us the sea ;
No longer these thwart and baffle, forbidding my passage to thee :
Immortal still wrapped in the mortal, I linger till thou art set free |
395 OSCAR WILDE
E Tenebris OME down, O Christ, and help me! reach thy hand,
For I am drowning in a stormier sea Thar. Simon on thy lake of Galilee :
The wine of life is spilt upon the sand,
My heart is as some famine-murdered land Whence all good things have perished utterly, And well I know my soul in Hell must lie
If I this night before God’s throne should stand.
‘ He sleeps perchance, or rideth to the chase,
Like Baal, when his prophets howled that name From morn to noon on Carmel’s smitten height.’
Nay, peace, I shall behold, before the night,
The feet of brass, the robe more white than flame, The wounded hands, the weary human face.
1856-1908
From ‘ Panthea’
E are resolved into the supreme air, We are made one with what we touch and see, With our heart’s blood each crimson sun is fair, With our young lives each spring-impassioned tree Flames into green, the wildest beasts that range The moor our kinsmen are, all life is one, and all is change.
With beat of systole and of diastole One grand great life throbs through earth’s giant heart, And mighty waves of single Being roll From nerveless germ to man, for we are part Of every rock and bird and beast and hill, One with the things that prey on us, and one with what we kill. ...
396 OSCAR WILDE
And we two lovers shall not sit afar, Critics of nature, but the joyous sea Shall be our raiment, and the bearded star Shoot arrows at our pleasure! We shall be Parts of the mighty universal whole, Andthroughallaeons mixand mingle with the Kosmic Soul!
We shall be notes in that great Symphony
Whose cadence circles through the rhythmic spheres, And all the live World’s throbbing heart shall be
One with our heart; the stealthy creeping years Have lost their terrors now, we shall not die, The Universe itself shall be our Immortality !
From ‘ Humanitad’
O make the Body and the Spirit one With all right things, till no thing live in vain From morn to noon, but in sweet unison With every pulse of flesh and throb of brain The Soul in flawless essence high enthroned, Against all outer vain attack invincibly bastioned,
Mark with serene impartiality The strife of things, and yet be comforted, Knowing that by the chain causality All separate existences are wed Into one supreme whole, whose utterance Is joy, or holier praise! ah! surely this were governance
Of Life in most august omnipresence, Through which the rational intellect would find In passion its expression, and mere sense, Ignoble else, lend fire to the mind, And being joined with it in harmony More mystical than that which binds the stars planetary,
OSCAR WILDE 397
Strike from their several tones one octave chord Whose cadence being measureless would fly
Through all the circling spheres, then to its Lord Return refreshed with its new empery
And more exultant power,—this indeed
Could we en reach it were to find the last, the Beuert creed.
O smitten ery !O borchiot a with barn | ! O chalice of all common miseries ! Thou for our sakes that loved thee not hast borne An agony of endless centuries, And we were vain and ignorant nor knew That when we stabbed thy heart it was our own real hearts we slew.
Being ourselves the sowers and the seeds, The night that covers and the lights that fade, The spear that pierces and the side that bleeds, The lips betraying and the life betrayed ; The deep hath calm: the moon hath rest: but we the natural world are yet our own dread enemy.
Is this the end of all that primal force Which, in its changes being still the same, From eyeless Chaos cleft its upward course, Through ravenous seas and whirling rocks and flame, Till the suns met in heaven and began Their cycles, and the morning stars sang, and the Word was Man!
Nay, nay, we are but crucified, and though The bloody sweat falls from our brows like rain, Loosen the nails—we shall come down I know, Stanch the red wounds—we shall be whole again, No need have we of hyssop-laden rod, That which is purely human, that is Godlike, that is God.
398 WILLIAM SHARP
The Valley of Silence
N the secret Valley of Silence No breath doth fall ; No wind stirs in the branches ; No bird doth call: As on a white wall A breathless lizard is still, So silence lies on the valley Breathlessly still.
1856-1902
In the dusk-grown heart of the valley An altar rises white : No rapt priest bends in awe Before its silent light : But sometimes a flight Of breathless words of prayer White-wing’d enclose the altar, Eddies of prayer.
Desire
HE desire of love, Joy: The desire of life, Peace : The desire of the soul, Heaven : The desire of God . . . a flame-white secret for ever
The White Peace
T lies not on the sunlit hill Nor on the sunlit plain : Nor ever on any running stream Nor on the unclouded main—
WILLIAM SHARP 399
But sometimes, through the Soul of Man, Slow moving o’er his pain,
The moonlight of a perfect peace Floods heart and brain.
The Rose of Flame
H, fair immaculate rose of the world, rose of my dream, my Rose!
Beyond the ultimate gates of dream I have heard thy mystical call :
It is where the rainbow of hope suspends and the river of rapture flows—
And the cool sweet dews from the wells of peace for ever fall.
And all my heart is aflame because of the rapture and
peace, And I dream, in my waking dreams and deep in the dreams
of sleep,
Till the high sweet wonderful call that shall be the call of release
Shall ring in my ears as I sink from gulf to gulf and from deep to deep—
Sink deep, sink deep beyond the ultimate dreams of all
desire— Beyond the uttermost limit of all that the craving spirit
knows : Then, then, oh then I shall be as the inner flame of thy
fire, O fair immaculate rose of the world, Rose of my dream, my Rose !
400 WILLIAM SHARP
The Mystics Prayer
le me to sleep in sheltering flame,
O Master of the Hidden Fire!
Wash pure my heart, and cleanse for me My soul’s desire.
In flame of sunrise bathe my mind, O Master of the Hidden Fire, That, when I wake, clear-eyed may be My soul’s desire.
Triad
ROM the Silence of Time, Time’s Silence borrow. In the heart of To-day is the word of To-morrow. The Builders of Joy are the Children of Sorrow.
MARGARET DELAND
Life Y one great Heart the Universe is stirred : By Its strong pulse, stars climb the darkening blue; It throbs in each fresh sunset’s changing hue, And thrills through low sweet song of every bird :
b. 1857
By It, the plunging blood reds all men’s veins ; Joy feels that heart against his rapturous own, And on It, Sorrow breathes her sharpest groan ;
It bounds through gladnesses and deepest pains,
MARGARET DELAND 401
Passionless beating through all Time and Space, Relentless, calm, majestic in Its march, Alike, though Nature shake heaven’s endless arch, Or man’s heart break, because of some dead face !
*Tis felt in sunshine greening the soft sod,
In children’s smiling, as in mother’s tears ;
And, for strange comfort, through the aching years, Men’s hungry souls have named that great Heart, God !
AGNES MARY FRANCES DUCLAUX (ROBINSON-DARMESTETER)
Rhythm
BEAT and pause that count the life of man, Throb of the pulsing heart ! Ripple of tides and stars beyond our scan ! Rhythm o’ the ray o’ the sun and the red o’ the rose ! Thrill of the lightning’s dart ! All, all are one beyond this world of shows.
b. 1857
Neither with eyes that see nor ears that hear May we discern thee here,
Nor comprehend, O Life of life, thy laws,
But all our idols praise the perfect whole ;
And I have worshipped thee, O rhythmic soul, Chiefly in beat and pause.
O beat and pause that count the life of man, Throb of the pulsing heart !
Ripple of tides and stars beyond our scan !
Rhythm o’ the ray o’ the sun and the red o’ the rose! Thrill of the lightning’s dart !
Yea, all are one behind our world of shows.
402
AGNES MARY FRANCES DUCLAUX
The Idea
ENEATH this world of stars and flowers That rolls in visible deity, I dream another world is ours
And is the soul of all we see.
It hath no form, it hath no spirit ; It is perchance the Eternal Mind ; Deyond the sense that we inherit I feel it dim and undefined.
How far below the depth of being, How wide beyond the starry bound It rolls unconscious and unseeing,
And is as Number or as Sound.
And through the vast fantastic visions Of all this actual universe,
It moves unswerved by our decisions, And is the play that we rehearse.
Antiphon to the Holy Spirit Men and Women sing.
Men.
THOU that movest all, O Power That bringest life where’er Thou art,
O Breath of God in star and flower,
Mysterious aim of soul and heart ; Within the thought that cannot grasp Thee
In its unfathomable hold, We worship Thee who may not clasp Thee,
O God, unreckoned and untold |
AGNES MARY FRANCES DUCLAUX
W omen. O Source and Sea of Love, O Spirit That makest every soul akin, O Comforter whom we inherit, We turn and worship Thee within ! To give beyond all dreams of giving, To lose ourselves as Thou in us, We long; for Thou, O Fount of living, Art lost in Thy creation thus !
Men. The mass of unborn matter knew Thee, And lo! the splendid silent sun Sprang out to be a witness to Thee Who art the All, who art the One; The airy plants unseen that flourish Their floating strands of filmy rose, Too small for sight, are Thine to nourish ; For Thou art all that breathes and grows,
Women. Thou art the ripening of the fallows, The swelling of the buds in rain ; Thou art the joy of birth that hallows The rending of the flesh in twain ; O Life, O Love, how undivided Thou broodest o’er this world of Thine, Obscure and strange, yet surely guided To reach a distant end divine !
Men. We know Thee in the doubt and terror That reels before the world we see ; We know Thee in the faiths of error ; We know Thee most who most are free,
403
404 AGNES MARY FRANCES DUCLAUX
This phantom of the world around Thee Is vast, divine, but not the whole:
We worship Thee, and we have found Thee In all that satisfies the soul !
Men and Women. How shall we serve, how shall we own Thee, O breath of Love and Life and Thought ? How shall we praise, who are not shown Thee ? How shall we serve, who are as nought ? Yet, though Thy worlds maintain unbroken The silence of their awful round, A voice within our souls hath spoken, And we who seek have more than found.
MAY PROBYN
The Beloved
HEN the storm was in the sky, And the west was black with showers,
My Beloved came by
With His Hands full of flowers—
Red burning flowers, Like flame that pulsed and throbbed—
And beyond in the rain-smitten bowers The turtle-dove sobbed.
(Sweet in the rough weather The voice of the turtle-dove— ‘Beautiful altogether Is my Love. His Hands are open spread for love And full of jacinth stones— As the apple-tree among trees of the grove Is He among the sons,’
MAY PROBYN 405
The voice of the turtle-dove Sweet in the wild weather— ‘Until the daybreak dwells my Love Among the hills of Bether. Among the lilied lawns of Bether, As a young hart untired— Chosen out of thousands,—altogether To be desired.’)
When the night was in the sky, And heavily went the hours, My Beloved drew nigh With His Hands full of flowers— Burning red flowers Like cups of scented wine— And He said, ‘ They are all ours, Thine and Mine.
‘I gathered them from the bitter Tree—
Why dost thou start? I gathered the Five of them for thee,
Child of My Heart.
These are they that have wrung my Heart, And with fiercest pangs have moved Me—
I gathered them—why dost thou shrink apart? In the house of them that loved Me.’
(Sweet through the rain-swept blast The moan of the turtle-dove— * You, that see Him go past, Tell Him I languish with love. Thou hast wounded my heart, O my Love! With but one look of Thine eyes, While yet the boughs are naked above And winter is in the skies.”)
406 MAY PROBYN
‘ Honey-laden flowers For the children nursed on the knee, Who sow not bramble among their bowers— But what’ He said ‘ for thee ? Not joys of June for thee, Not lily, no, nor rose— For thee the blossom of the bitter Tree, More sweet than ought that blows.’
(The voice of the turtle-dove— ‘ How shall my heart be fed With pleasant apples of love, When the winter time has fled. The rain and the winter fled, How all His gifts shall grace me, When His Left Hand is under my head, And His Right Hand doth embrace me.’)
SIR JAMES RENNELL RODD
From ‘In Excelsis’
Y those heights we dare to dare, By the greatness of our prayer, Ever growing, loftier reaching To a royaller beseeching, By the olden woes washed painless, white and stainless in the tears of bitter price, By the strength of our assurance to endurance of the need of sacrifice, Not by dreaming but by using, Not by claiming but refusing, Then shall dawn on eyes unsealing the revealing of a self that knows and grows, And the stream of thy devotion find the ocean when its meaning overflows.
1858-1942
SIR JAMES RENNELL RODD 407
So take the thread that seemed so frail, Have faith to hope and never quail, For all the weary woes of earth
And all the hollowness of mirth, Accept but this divine in man
Believe I ought to means I can,
And comprehend the perfect plan.
Lift thee o’er thy ‘ here’ and ‘ now’, Look beyond thine ‘I’ and ‘ thou’, Every effort points the next, And the way grows unperplexed To wider ranges, larger scope, All things possible to hope ! Till thou feel the breath of morning shadow scorning and on spirit wings unfurled Win the way to realms of wonder, Rolling starward with the thunder, Flashing earthwards with the lightning to the brightening the dark edges of the world, Till the vastness shall absorb thee, And the light of lights enorb thee, And the wings on which thou soarest Thou wilt need to shade thine eyes, For the radiance thou adorest, For the nearness of sunrise ; Then thy strongest strength shall be In thine own humility, Wrapt into the holiest holy In thy worship vastly aisled, Bend the knee and whisper lowly ‘Our Father’ with the child!
408
VICTOR JAMES DALEY The Yotce of the Soul
N Youth, when through our veins runs fast The bright red stream of life, The Soul’s Voice is a trumpet-blast That calls us to the strife.
1858-1905
The Spirit spurns its prison-bars, And feels with force endued To scale the ramparts of the stars
And storm Infinitude.
Youth passes; like a dungeon grows The Spirit’s house of clay :
The voice that once in music rose In murmurs dies away.
But in the day when sickness sore Smites on the body’s walls,
The Soul’s Voice through the breach once more Like to a trumpet calls.
Well shall it be with him who heeds The mystic summons then!
His after-life with loving deeds Shall blossom amongst men.
He shall have gifts—the gift that feels The germ within the clod,
And hears the whirring of the wheels That turn the mills of God !
VICTOR JAMES DALEY 409
The gift that sees with glance profound The secret soul of things,
And in the silence hears the sound Of vast and viewless wings !
The veil of Isis sevenfold To him as gauze shall be, Wherethrough, clear-eyed, he shall behold The Ancient Mystery.
He shall do battle for the True, Defend till death the Right,
With Shoes of Swiftness Wrong pursue, With Sword of Sharpness smite.
And, dying, he shall haply hear, Like golden trumpets blown
For joy, far voices sweet and clear— Soul-voices like his own.
FRANCIS THOMPSON
The Flound of Heaven
FLED Him, down the nights and down the days ; I fled Him, down the arches of the years ; I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways Of my own mind ; and in the mist of tears I hid from Him, and under running laughter. Up vistaed hopes I sped ; And shot, precipitated, Adown Titanic glooms of chasméd fears, From those strong Feet that followed, followed after.
1859-1907
410 FRANCIS THOMPSON
But with unhurrying chase, And unperturbéd pace, Deliberate speed, majestic instancy, They beat—and a Voice beat More instant than the Feet— ‘ All things betray thee, who betrayest Me.’
I pleaded, outlaw-wise, By many a hearted casement, curtained red, Trellised with intertwining charities ; (For, though I knew His love Who followéd, Yet was I sore adread Lest, having Him, I must have naught beside). But, if one little casement parted wide, The gust of His approach would clash it to. Fear wist not to evade, as Love wist to pursue. Across the margent of the world I fied, And troubled the gold gateways of the stars, Smiting for shelter on their clangéd bars ; Fretted to dulcet jars And silvern chatter the pale ports o’ the moon. I said to Dawn: Be sudden—to Eve: Be soon; With thy young skiey blossoms heap me over From this tremendous Lover— Float thy vague veil about me, lest He see ! I tempted all His servitors, but to find My own betrayal in their constancy, In faith to Him their fickleness to me, Their traitorous trueness, and their loyal deceit. To all swift things for swiftness did I sue ; Clung to the whistling mane of every wind. But whether they swept, smoothly fleet, The long savannahs of the blue ; Or whether, Thunder-driven, They clanged his chariot ’thwart a heaven,
FRANCIS THOMPSON 411
Plashy with flying lightnings round the spurn o’ their feet :— Fear wist not to evade as Love wist to pursue,
Still with unhurrying chase, And unperturbéd pace,
Deliberate speed, majestic instancy, Came on the following Feet, And a Voice above their beat—
‘ Naught shelters thee, who wilt not shelter Me.’
I sought no more that after which I strayed In face of man or maid; But still within the little children’s eyes Seems something, something that replies, They at least are for me, surely for me ! I turned me to them very wistfully ; But just as their young eyes grew sudden fair With dawning answers there, Their angel plucked them from me by the hair, ‘Come then, ye other children, Nature’s—share With me’ (said I) ‘ your delicate fellowship ; Let me greet you lip to lip, Let me twine with you caresses, Wantoning With our Lady-Mother’s vagrant tresses, Banqueting With her in her wind-walled palace, Underneath her azured dais, Quaffing, as your taintless way is, From a chalice Lucent-weeping out of the dayspring.’ So it was done: I in their delicate fellowship was one— Drew the bolt of Nature’s secrecies. I knew all the swift importings
412 FRANCIS THOMPSON
On the wilful face of skies ; I knew how the clouds arise Spuméd of the wild sea-snortings ; All that ’s born or dies Rose and drooped with ; made them shapers Of mine own moods, or wailful or divine ; With them joyed and was bereaven. I was heavy with the even, When she lit her glimmering tapers Round the day’s dead sanctities. I laughed in the morning’s eyes. I triumphed and I saddened with all weather, Heaven and I wept together, And its sweet tears were salt with mortal mine ; Against the red throb of its sunset-heart I laid my own to beat, And share commingling heat ; But not by that, by that, was eased my human smart. In vain my tears were wet on Heaven’s grey cheek. For ah! we know not what each other says, These things and I; in sound J speak— Their sound is but their stir, they speak by silences. Nature, poor stepdame, cannot slake my drouth ; Let her, if she would owe me, Drop yon blue bosom-veil of sky, and show me The breasts o’ her tenderness : Never did any milk of hers once bless My thirsting mouth. Nigh and nigh draws the chase, With unperturbéd pace, Deliberate speed, majestic instancy ; And past those noiséd Feet A voice comes yet more fleet—
‘Lo! naught contents thee, who content’st not Me!’
FRANCIS THOMPSON 413
Naked I wait Thy love’s uplifted stroke ! My harness piece by piece Thou hast hewn from me, And smitten me to my knee; I am defenceless utterly. I slept, methinks, and woke, And, slowly gazing, find me stripped in sleep. In the rash lustihead of my young powers, I shook the pillaring hours And pulled my life upon me; grimed with smears, I stand amid the dust 0’ the mounded years— My mangled youth lies dead beneath the heap. My days have crackled and gone up in smoke, Have puffed and burst as sun-starts on a stream, Yea, faileth now even dream The dreamer, and the lute the lutanist ; Even the linked fantasies, in whose blossomy twist I swung the earth a trinket at my wrist, Are yielding ; cords of all too weak account For earth with heavy griefs so overplussed. Ah! is Thy love indeed A weed, albeit an amaranthine weed, Suffering no flowers except its own to mount ? Ah! must— Designer infinite !— Ah! must Thou char the wood ere Thou canst limn with it ? My freshness spent its wavering shower i’ the dust ; And now my heart is as a broken fount, Wherein tear-drippings stagnate, spilt down ever From the dank thoughts that shiver Upon the sighful branches of my mind. Such is; what is to be? The pulp so bitter, how shall taste the rind ? I dimly guess what Time in mists confounds ;
414 FRANCIS THOMPSON
Yet ever and anon a trumpet sounds From the hid battlements of Eternity ; Those shaken mists a space unsettle, then Round the half-glimpséd turrets slowly wash again. But not ere him who summoneth I first have seen, enwound With glooming robes purpureal, cypress-crowned ; His name I know, and what his trumpet saith. Whether man’s heart or life it be which yields Thee harvest, must Thy harvest-fields Be dunged with rotten death ?
Now of that long pursuit Comes on at hand the bruit ; That Voice is round me like a bursting sea : ‘ And is thy earth so marred, Shattered in shard on shard ? Lo, all things fly thee, for thou fliest Me! Strange, piteous, futile thing ! Wherefore should any set thee love apart ? Seeing none but I makes much of naught’ (He said), ‘And human love needs human meriting : How hast thou merited— Of all man’s clotted clay the dingiest clot ? Alack, thou knowest not How little worthy of any love thou art! Who wilt thou find to love ignoble thee, Save Me, save only Me? All which I took from thee I did but take, Not for thy harms, But just that thou might’st seek it in My arms. All which thy child’s mistake Fancies as lost, I have stored for thee at home: Rise, clasp My hand, and come !’”
FRANCIS THOMPSON 415
Halts by me that footfall : Is my gloom, after all, Shade of His hand, outstretched caressingly ? ‘ Ah, fondest, blindest, weakest, I am He Whom thou seekest ! Thou dravest love from thee, who dravest Me.’
From ‘The Mistress of Vision’
HERE is the land of Luthany, Where is the tract of Elenore ? I am bound therefor.
‘ Pierce thy heart to find the key; With thee take Only what none else would keep ; Learn to dream when thou dost wake, Learn to wake when thou dost sleep. Learn to water joy with tears, Learn from fears to vanquish fears ; To hope, for thou dar’st not despair, Exult, for that thou dar’st not grieve ; Plough thou the rock until it bear ; Know, for thou else couldst not believe ; Lose, that the lost thou may’st receive ; Die, for none other way canst live. When earth and heaven lay down their veil, And that apocalypse turns thee pale ; When thy seeing blindeth thee To what thy fellow-mortals see ; When their sight to thee is sightless ; Their living, death; their light, most lightless ; Search no more— Pass the gates of Luthany, tread the region Elenore.’
416 FRANCIS THOMPSON
Where is the land of Luthany, And where the region Elenore ? I do faint therefor.
‘When to the new eyes of thee All things by immortal power, Near or far, Hiddenly To each other linkéd are, That thou canst not stir a flower Without troubling of a star ; When thy song is shield and mirror To the fair snake-curléd Pain, Where thou dar’st affront her terror That on her thou may’st attain Perséan conquest ; seek no more, O seek no more!
Pass the gates of Luthany, tread the region Elenore,’
Orient Ode
O, in the sanctuaried East, Day, a dedicated priest
In all his robes pontifical exprest, Lifteth slowly, lifteth sweetly, From out its Orient tabernacle drawn, Yon orbéd sacrament confest Which sprinkles benediction through the dawn; And when the grave procession’s ceased, The earth with due illustrious rite Blessed,—ere the frail fingers featly Of twilight, violet-cassocked acolyte, His sacerdotal stoles unvest—
FRANCIS THOMPSON 417
Sets, for high close of the mysterious feast, The sun in august exposition meetly Within the flaming monstrance of the West... .
To thine own shape
Thou round’st the chrysolite of the grape,
Bind’st thy gold lightnings in his veins ;
Thou storest the white garners of the rains.
Destroyer and preserver, thou
Who medicinest sickness, and to health
Art the unthankéd marrow of its wealth ;
To those apparent sovereignties we bow
And bright appurtenances of thy brow!
Thy proper blood dost thou not give,
That Earth, the gusty Maenad, drink and dance?
Art thou not life of them that live ?
Yea, in glad twinkling advent, thou dost dwell
Within our body as a tabernacle !
Thou bittest with thine ordinance
The jaws of Time, and thou dost mete
The unsustainable treading of his feet.
Thou to thy spousal universe
Art Husband, she thy Wife and Church ;
Who in most dusk and vidual curch,
Her Lord being hence,
Keeps her cold sorrows by thy hearse.
The heavens renew their innocence
And morning state
But by thy sacrament communicate ;
Their weeping night the symbol of our prayers,
Our darkened search,
And sinful vigil desolate.
Yea, biune in imploring dumb,
Essential Heavens and corporal Earth await : MYST. P
418 FRANCIS THOMPSON
The Spirit and the Bride say: Come!
Lo, of thy Magians I the least
Haste with my gold, my incenses and myrrhs, To thy desired epiphany, from the spiced Regions and odorous of Song’s traded East. Thou, for the life of all that live
The victim daily born and sacrificed ;
To whom the pinion of this longing verse Beats but with fire which first thyself did give, To thee, O Sun—or is’t perchance, to Christ ?
Ay, if men say that on all high heaven’s face
The saintly signs I trace
Which round my stoléd altars hold their solemn place, Amen, amen! For oh, how could it be,—
When I with wingéd feet had run
Through all the windy earth about,
Quested its secret of the sun,
And heard what thing the stars together shout,—
I should not heed thereout
Consenting counsel won :—
‘ By this, O Singer, know we if thou see.
When men shall say to thee: Lo! Christ is here, When men shall say to thee: Lo! Christ is there, Believe them: yea, and this—then art thou seer, When all thy crying clear
{s but: Lo here! lo there !—ah me, lo everywhere !?
FRANCIS THOMPSON
Assumpta Maria
. ORTALS, that behold a Woman Rising ’twixt the Moon and Sun 3 Who am I the heavens assume? an All am I, and I am one.
‘Multitudinous ascend I, Dreadful as a battle arrayed, For I bear you whither tend I; Ye are 1: be undismayed ! I, the Ark that for the graven Tables of the Law was made ; Man’s own heart was one; one, Heaven; Both within my womb were laid. For there Anteros with Eros, Heaven with man, conjoinéd was,— Twin-stone of the Law, Ischyros, Agios Athanatos.
‘I, the flesh-girt Paradises Gardenered by the Adam new, Daintied o’er with dear devices Which He loveth, for He grew. I, the boundless strict savannah Which God’s leaping feet go through ; I, the heaven whence the Manna, Weary Israel, slid on you ! He the Anteros and Eros, I the body, He the Cross ; He upbeareth me, Ischyros, Agios Athanatos !
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420 FRANCIS THOMPSON
‘I am Daniel’s mystic Mountain, Whence the mighty stone was rolled ; I am the four Rivers’ Fountain, Watering Paradise of old ; Cloud down-raining the Just One am, Danae of the Shower of Gold ; I the Hostel of the Sun am ; He the Lamb, and I the Fold. He the Anteros and Eros, I the body, He the Cross ; He is fast to me, Jschyros, Agios Athanatos /
‘J, the presence-hall where Angels Do enwheel their placéd King— Even my thoughts which, without change else, Cyclic burn and cyclic sing. To the hollow of Heaven transplanted, I a breathing Eden spring, Where with venom all outpanted Lies the slimed Curse shrivelling. For the brazen Serpent clear on That old fangéd knowledge shone ; I to Wisdom rise, Ischyron, Agion Athanaton !
* Then commanded and spake to me He who framed all things that be;
And my Maker entered through me, In my tent His rest took He.
Lo! He standeth, Spouse and Brother, I to Him, and He to me,
Who upraised me where my mother Fell, beneath the apple-tree.
FRANCIS THOMPSON 421
Risen *twixt Anteros and Eros, Blood and Water, Moon and Sun, He upbears me, He Ischyros, I bear Him, the Athanaton /’
Where is laid the Lord arisen ? In the light we walk in gloom; Though the Sun has burst his prison, We know not his biding-room. Tell us where the Lord sojourneth, For we find an empty tomb. ‘Whence He sprung, there He returneth, Mystic Sun,—the Virgin’s Womb.’ Hidden Sun, His beams so near us, Cloud enpillared as He was From of old, there He, [schyros, Waits our search, Athanatos.
* Who will give Him me for brother, Counted of my family, Sucking the sweet breasts of my Mother }— I His flesh, and mine is He ; To my Bread myself the bread is, And my Wine doth drink me: see, His left hand beneath my head is. His right hand embraceth me!’ Sweetest Anteros and Eros,’ Lo, her arms He learns across ; Dead that we die not, stooped to rear us, Thanatos Athanatos.
422 FRANCIS THOMPSON
Who is She, in candid vesture, Rushing up from out the brine ? Treading with resilient gesture Air, and with that Cup divine? She in us and we in her are, Beating Godward ; all that pine, Lo, a wonder and a terror— The Sun hath blushed the Sea to Wine! He the Anteros and Eros, She the Bride and Spirit ; for Now the days of promise near us, And the Sea shall be no more.
Open wide thy gates, O Virgin, That the King may enter thee! At all gates the clangours gurge in, God’s paludament lightens, see ! Camp of Angels! Well we even Of this thing may doubtful be,— If thou art assumed to Heaven, Or is Heaven assumed to thee ! Consummatum. Christ the promised, Thy maiden realm, is won, O Strong! Since to such sweet Kingdom comest, Remember me, poor Thief of Song !
Cadent fails the stars along :— Mortals, that behold a Woman Rising ’twixt the Moon and Sun ; Who am I the heavens assume? an All am I, and I am one.
FRANCIS THOMPSON 423
The Veteran of Heaven
CAPTAIN of the wars, whence won Ye so great scars ? In what fight did Ye smite, and what manner was the foe? Was it on a day of rout they compassed Thee about, Or gat Ye these adornings when Ye wrought their overthrow ?
* Twas on a day of rout they girded Me about, They wounded all My brow, and they smote Me through the side: My hand held no sword when I met their arméd horde, And the conqueror fell down, and the Conquered bruised his pride.’
What is this, unheard before, that the Unarmed make war, And the Slain hath the gain, and the Victor hath the Tout ? What wars, then, are these, and what the enemies, Strange Chief, with the scars of Thy conquest trenched about ?
*The Prince I drave forth held the Mount of the North, Girt with the guards of flame that roll round the pole. I drave him with My wars from all his fortress-stars, And the sea of death divided that My march might strike its goal.
424 FRANCIS THOMPSON
‘In the keep of Northern Guard, many a great daemonian sword Burns as it turns round the Mount occult, apart : There is given him power and place still for some certain days, And his name would turn the Sun’s blood back upon its heart.’
What is Thy Name? Oh, show!—‘ My Name ye may not know ; Tis a going forth with banners, and a baring of much swords : But My titles that are high, are they not upon My thigh ? “ King of Kings!” are the words, “ Lord of Lords!” It is written “ King of Kings, Lord of Lords”,
Desiderium Indesideratum
GAIN that lurk’st ungainéd in all gain !
O love we just fall short of in all love ! O height that in all heights art still above ! O beauty that dost leave all beauty pain ! Thou unpossessed that mak’st possession vain, See these strained arms which fright the simple air, And say what ultimate fairness holds thee, Fair ! They girdle Heaven, and girdle Heaven in vain ; They shut, and lo! but shut in their unrest. Thereat a voice in me that voiceless was :— ‘ Whom seekest thou through the unmarged arcane, And not discern’st to thine own bosom prest ?’ T looked. My claspéd arms athwart my breast Framed the august embraces of the Cross.
FRANCIS THOMPSON
The Kingdom of God
WORLD invisible, we view thee,
O world intangible, we touch thee, O world unknowable, we know thee, Inapprehensible, we clutch thee!
Does the fish soar to find the ocean, The eagle plunge to find the air— That we ask of the stars in motion If they have rumour of thee there ?
Not where the wheeling systems darken, And our benumbed conceiving soars !— The drift of pinions, would we hearken, Beats at our own clay-shuttered doors.
The angels keep their ancient places ;— Turn but a stone, and start a wing ! Tis ye, ’tis your estrangéd faces,
That miss the many-splendoured thing.
But (when so sad thou canst not sadder) Cry ;—and upon thy so sore loss
Shall shine the traffic of Jacob’s ladder Pitched betwixt Heaven and Charing Cross,
Yea, in the night, my Soul, my daughter, Cry,—clinging Heaven by the hems ; And lo, Christ walking on the water Not of Gennesareth, but Thames!
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HENRY CHARLES BEECHING The Tree of Life
Recognition in four Seasons ARGUMENT
A prophet, desiring to recover for men the fruit of the Tree of Life, seems to find Paradise by certain traditional signs of beauty in nature. He is further persuaded by observing the beauty and innocence of children. By and by he comes upon the Tree of Knowledge, whose fruit, now old, he discerns to be evil ; but from which, to his desire, new is brought forth, which is good. At each recognition one of the Guardian Angels of the Tree of Life is withdrawn, until there is left only the Angel of Death, in the light of whose sword he perceives it. The Angels’ songs are not heard by the prophet.
1859-1919