BRYAN WALLER PROCTER. (Barry Cornwall.)
* * * * *
"Urit me Patriae decor."
It kindles all my soul,My country's loveliness! Those starry choirsThat watch around the pole,And the moon's tender light, and heavenly firesThrough golden halls that roll.O chorus of the night! O planets, swornThe music of the spheresTo follow! Lovely watchers, that think scornTo rest till day appears!Me, for celestial homes of glory born,Why here, O, why so long,Do ye behold an exile from on high?Here, O ye shining throng,With lilies spread the mound where I shall lie:Here let me drop my chain,And dust to dust returning, cast awayThe trammels that remain;The rest of me shall spring to endless day!
From the Latin of CASIMIR OF POLAND.
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At the midnight in the silence of the sleep-time.When you set your fancies free,Will they pass to where—by death, fools think, imprisoned—Low he lies who once so loved you, whom you loved so,—Pity me?
Oh to love so, be so loved, yet so mistaken!What had I on earth to doWith the slothful, with the mawkish, the unmanly?Like the aimless, helpless, hopeless did I drivel—Being—who?
One who never turned his back but marched breast forward,Never doubted clouds would break,Never dreamed, though right were worsted, wrong would triumph,Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better,Sleep to wake.
No, at noonday in the bustle of man's work-timeGreet the unseen with a cheer!Bid him forward, breast and back as either should be,"Strive and thrive!" cry "Speed,—fight on, fare everThere as here!"
* * * * *
Sunset and evening star,And one clear call for me!And may there be no moaning of the bar,When I put out to sea,
But such a tide as moving seems asleep,Too full for sound and foam,When that which drew from out the boundless deepTurns again home.
Twilight and evening bell,And after that the dark!And may there be no sadness of farewell,When I embark;
For tho' from out our bourne of Time and PlaceThe flood may bear me far,I hope to see my Pilot face to faceWhen I have crossed the bar.
* * * * *
Vital spark of heavenly flame!Quit, O quit this mortal frame!Trembling, hoping, lingering, flying,O, the pain, the bliss of dying!Cease, fond nature, cease thy strife,And let me languish into life!
Hark! they whisper; angels say,Sister spirit, come away!What is this absorbs me quite?Steals my senses, shuts my sight,Drowns my spirits, draws my breath?Tell me, my soul, can this be death?
The world recedes; it disappears!Heaven opens on my eyes! my earsWith sounds seraphic ring:Lend, lend your wings! I mount! I fly!O Grave! where is thy victory?O Death! where is thy sting?
* * * * *
There was a time when meadow, grove and stream,The earth, and every common sight,To me did seemApparelled in celestial light,—The glory and the freshness of the 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 delightLook round her when the heavens are bare;Waters on a starry nightAre beautiful and fair;The sunshine is a glorious birth;But yet I know, where'er I go,That there hath passed away a glory from the earth.
Now, while the birds thus sing a joyous song,And while the young lambs boundAs 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 seaGive themselves up to jollity;And with the heart of MayDoth every beast keep holiday;—Thou child of joy,Shout round me, let me hear thy shouts, thou happy shepherd boy!
Ye blessed creatures! I have heard the callYe to each other make; I seeThe 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.O evil day! if I were sullenWhile Earth herself is adorning,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 feetDoth 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 comeFrom God, who is our home:Heaven lies about us in our infancy!Shades of the prison-house begin to closeUpon 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 eastMust travel, still is nature's priestAnd by the vision splendidIs on his way attended:At length the Man perceives it die away,And fade into the light of common day.
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 canTo 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 pygmy 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 learned 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 tongueTo dialogues of business, love, or strife;But it will not be longEre this be thrown aside,And with new joy and prideThe 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 vocationWere endless imitation.
Thou, whose exterior semblance doth belieThy soul's immensity!Thou best philosopher, who yet dost keepThy heritage! thou eye among the blind,That, deaf and silent, read'st the eternal deep,Haunted forever by the eternal mind!—Mighty prophet! Seer blest!On whom those truths do restWhich we are toiling all our lives to find,In darkness lost, the darkness of the grave;Thou over whom thy immortalityBroods 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 mightOf heaven-born freedom on thy being's height,Why with such earnest pains dost thou provokeThe 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 weightHeavy as frost, and deep almost as life!
O joy! that in our embersIs something that doth live;That Nature yet remembersWhat was so fugitive!
The thought of our past years in me doth breedPerpetual benediction: not, indeed,For that which is most worthy to be blest,—Delight and liberty, the simple creedOf childhood, whether busy or at rest,With new-fledged hope still fluttering in his breast:—Not for these I raiseThe song of thanks and praise;But for those obstinate questioningsOf sense and outward things,Fallings from us, vanishings;Blank misgivings of a creatureMoving about in worlds not realized,High instincts, before which our mortal natureDid tremble like a guilty thing surprised:But for those first affections,Those shadowy recollections,Which, be they what they may,Are yet the fountain-light of all our day,Are yet a master light of all our seeing;Uphold us, cherish, and have power to makeOur noisy years seem moments in the beingOf the eternal silence: truths that wake,To perish never;Which neither listlessness, nor mad endeavor,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 seaWhich 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 boundAs 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-dayFeel the gladness of the May!What though the radiance which was once sobrightBe now forever taken from my sight,Though nothing can bring back the hourOf splendor in the grass, of glory in the flower;We will grieve not, rather findStrength in what remains behind;In the primal sympathyWhich, having been, must ever be;In the soothing thoughts that springOut 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 delightTo 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 dayIs lovely yet;The clouds that gather round the setting sunDo take a sober coloring from an eyeThat 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 giveThoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.
* * * * *
It must be so—Plato, thou reasonest well!—Else whence this pleasing hope, this fond desire.This longing after immortality?Or whence this secret dread, and inward horror,Of falling into naught? Why shrinks the soulBack on herself, and startles at destruction?'Tis the divinity that stirs within us;'Tis Heaven itself, that points out a hereafter,And intimates eternity to man.Eternity!—thou pleasing, dreadful thought!Through what variety of untried being,Through what new scenes and changes, must we pass!The wide, the unbounded prospect lies before me;But shadows, clouds, and darkness rest upon it.Here will I hold. If there's a Power above us(And that there is, all Nature cries aloudThrough all her works), he must delight in virtue;And that which he delights in must be happy.But when? or where? This world was made for Cæsar.I'm weary of conjectures,—this must end 'em.
(Laying his hand on his sword.)
Thus am I doubly armed: my death and life,My bane and antidote, are both before me:This in a moment brings me to an end;But this informs me I shall never die.The soul, secured in her existence, smilesAt the drawn dagger, and defies its point.The stars shall fade away, the sun himselfGrow dim with age, and Nature sink in years;But thou shalt flourish in immortal youth,Unhurt amid the war of elements,The wrecks of matter, and the crush of worlds!
* * * * *
The black-haired gaunt PaulinusBy ruddy Edwin stood:—"Bow down, O king of Deira,Before the blessed Rood!Cast out thy heathen idols.And worship Christ our Lord."—But Edwin looked and pondered,And answered not a word.
Again the gaunt PaulinusTo ruddy Edwin spake:"God offers life immortalFor his dear Son's own sake!Wilt thou not hear his message,Who bears the keys and sword?"—But Edwin looked and pondered,And answered not a word.
Rose then a sage old warriorWas fivescore winters old;Whose beard from chin to girdleLike one long snow-wreath rolled:"At Yule-time in our chamberWe sit in warmth and light,While cold and howling round usLies the black land of Night.
"Athwart the room a sparrowDarts from the open door:Within the happy hearth-lightOne red flash,—and no more!We see it come from darkness,And into darkness go:—So is our life. King Edwin!Alas, that it is so!
"But if this pale PaulinusHave somewhat more to tell;Some news of Whence and Whither,And where the soul will dwell;—If on that outer darknessThe sun of hope may shine;—He makes life worth the living!I take his God for mine!"
So spake the wise old warrior;And all about him cried,"Paulinus' God hath conquered!And he shall be our guide:—For he makes life worth livingWho brings this message plain,When our brief days are over,That we shall live again."
* * * * *
Could we but knowThe land that ends our dark, uncertain travel,Where lie those happier hills and meadows low;Ah! if beyond the spirit's inmost cavilAught of that country could we surely know,Who would not go?
Might we but hearThe hovering angels' high imagined chorus,Or catch, betimes, with wakeful eyes and clearOne radiant vista of the realm before us,—With one rapt moment given to see and hear,Ah, who would fear?
Were we quite sureTo find the peerless friend who left us lonely,Or there, by some celestial stream as pure,To gaze in eyes that here were lovelit only,—This weary mortal coil, were we quite sure,Who would endure?
* * * * *
"Das stille Land."
Into the Silent Land!Ah, who shall lead us thither?Clouds in the evening sky more darkly gather,And shattered wrecks lie thicker on the strand.Who leads us with a gentle handThither, oh, thither,Into the Silent Land?
Into the Silent Land!To you, ye boundless regionsOf all perfection! Tender morning-visionsOf beauteous souls! The future's pledge and band!Who in life's battle firm doth standShall bear hope's tender blossomsInto the Silent Land!
O Land! O Land!For all the broken-heartedThe mildest herald by our fate allottedBeckons, and with inverted torch doth standTo lead us with a gentle handInto the land of the great departed,Into the Silent Land!
Translation of H.W. LONGFELLOW.
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It lies around us like a cloud,—A world we do not see;Yet the sweet closing of an eyeMay bring us there to be.
Its gentle breezes fan our cheek;Amid our worldly caresIts gentle voices whisper love,And mingle with our prayers.
Sweet hearts around us throb and beat,Sweet helping hands are stirred,And palpitates the veil betweenWith breathings almost heard.
The silence—awful, sweet, and calm—They have no power to break;For mortal words are not for themTo utter or partake.
So thin, so soft, so sweet they glide,So near to press they seem,—They seem to lull us to our rest,And melt into our dream.
And in the bush of rest they bring'Tis easy now to seeHow lovely and how sweet a passThe hour of death may be.
To close the eye, and close the ear,Rapt in a trance of bliss,And gently dream in loving armsTo swoon to that—from this.
Scarce knowing if we wake or sleep,Scarce asking where we are,To feel all evil sink away,All sorrow and all care.
Sweet souls around us! watch us still,Press nearer to our side,Into our thoughts, into our prayers,With gentle helpings glide.
Let death between us be as naught,A dried and vanished stream;Your joy be the reality.Our suffering life the dream.
* * * * *
I never saw a moor,I never saw the sea;Yet know I how the heather looks,And what a wave must be.
I never spake with God,Nor visited in heaven;Yet certain am I of the spotAs if the chart were given.
* * * * *
High thoughts!They come and go,Like the soft breathings of a listening maiden,While round me flowThe winds, from woods and fields with gladness laden:When the corn's rustle on the ear doth come—When the eve's beetle sounds its drowsy hum—When the stars, dew-drops of the summer sky,Watch over all with soft and loving eye—While the leaves quiverBy the lone river,And the quiet heartFrom depths doth callAnd garners all—Earth grows a shadowForgotten whole,And heaven livesIn the blessed soul!
High thoughtsThey are with meWhen, deep within the bosom of the forest,Thy mourning melodyAbroad into the sky, thou, throstle! pourest.When the young sunbeams glance among the trees—When on the ear comes the soft song of bees—When every branch has its own favorite birdAnd songs of summer from each thicket heard!—Where the owl flitteth,Where the roe sitteth,And holinessSeems sleeping there;While nature's prayerGoes up to heavenIn purity,Till all is gloryAnd joy to me!
High thoughts!They are my ownWhen I am resting on a mountain's bosom,And see below me strownThe huts and homes where humble virtues blossom;When I can trace each streamlet through the meadow,When I can follow every fitful shadow—When I can watch the winds among the corn,And see the waves along the forest borne;Where blue-bell and heatherAre blooming together,And far doth comeThe Sabbath bell,O'er wood and fell;I hear the beatingOf nature's heart:Heaven is before me—God! thou art.
High thoughts!They visit usIn moments when the soul is dim and darkened;They come to bless,After the vanities to which we hearkened:When weariness hath come upon the spirit—(Those hours of darkness which we all inherit)—Bursts there not through a glint of warm sunshine,A wingèd thought which bids us not repine?In joy and gladness,In mirth and sadness,Come signs and tokens;Life's angel brings,Upon its wings,Those bright communingsThe soul doth keep—Those thoughts of heavenSo pure and deep!
* * * * *
One sweetly solemn thoughtComes to me o'er and o'er;I am nearer home to-dayThat I ever have been before;
Nearer my Father's house,Where the many mansions be;Nearer the great white throne,Nearer the crystal sea;
Nearer the bound of life,Where we lay our burdens down;Nearer leaving the cross,Nearer gaining the crown!
But lying darkly between,Winding down through the night,Is the silent, unknown stream.That leads at last to the light.
Closer and closer my stepsCome to the dread abysm:Closer Death to my lipsPresses the awful chrism.
Oh, if my mortal feetHave almost gained the brink;If it be I am nearer homeEven to-day than I think;
Father, perfect my trust;Let my spirit feel in death,That her feet are firmly setOn the rock of a living faith!
* * * * *
If yon bright stars which gem the nightBe each a blissful dwelling-sphereWhere kindred spirits reuniteWhom death hath torn asunder here,—How sweet it were at once to die,To leave this blighted orb afar!Mixt soul and soul to cleave the sky,And soar away from star to star.
But oh, how dark, how drear, how lone,Would seem the brightest world of bliss,If, wandering through each radiant one,We failed to meet the loved of this!If there no more the ties shall twineWhich death's cold hand alone could sever,Ah, would those stars in mockery shine,More joyless, as they shine forever!
It cannot be,—each hope, each fearThat lights the eye or clouds the brow,Proclaims there is a happier sphereThan this bleak world that holds us now.There, Lord, thy wayworn saints shall findThe bliss for which they longed before;And holiest sympathies shall bindThine own to thee forevermore.
O Jesus, bring us to that rest,Where all the ransomed shall be found,In thine eternal fulness blest,While ages roll their cycles round.
* * * * *
My days among the dead are passed;Around me I behold,Where'er these casual eyes are cast,The mighty minds of old;My never-failing friends are they,With whom I converse day by day.
With them I take delight in weal,And seek relief in woe;And while I understand and feelHow much to them I owe,My cheeks have often been bedewedWith tears of thoughtful gratitude.
My thoughts are with the dead; with themI live in long-past years;Their virtues love, their faults condemn,Partake their hopes and fears,And from their lessons seek and findInstruction with an humble mind.
My hopes are with the dead; anonMy place with them will be.And I with them shall travel onThrough all futurity:Yet leaving here a name, I trust,That will not perish in the dust.
* * * * *
How shall I know thee in the sphere which keepsThe disembodied spirits of the dead,When all of thee that time could wither sleepsAnd perishes among the dust we tread?
For I shall feel the sting of ceaseless painIf there I meet thy gentle presence not;Nor hear the voice I love, nor read againIn thy serenest eyes the tender thought.
Will not thy own meek heart demand me there?That heart whose fondest throbs to me were given;My name on earth was ever in thy prayer,And wilt thou never utter it in heaven?
In meadows fanned by heaven's life-breathing wind,In the resplendence of that glorious sphere,And larger movements of the unfettered mind,Wilt thou forget the love that joined us here?
The love that lived through all the stormy past,And meekly with my harsher nature bore,And deeper grew, and tenderer to the last.Shall it expire with life, and be no more?
A happier lot than mine, and larger light,Await thee there; for thou hast bowed thy willIn cheerful homage to the rule of right,And lovest all, and renderest good for ill.
For me, the sordid cares in which I dwell,Shrink and consume my heart, as heat the scroll;And wrath has left its scar—that fire of hellHas left its frightful scar upon my soul.
Yet though thou wear'st the glory of the sky,Wilt thou not keep the same belovèd name,The same fair thoughtful brow, and gentle eye,Lovelier in heaven's sweet climate, yet the same?
Shalt thou not teach me, in that calmer home,The wisdom that I learned so ill in this—The wisdom which is love—till I becomeThy fit companion in that land of bliss?
* * * * *
That clime is not like this dull clime of ours;All, all is brightness there;A sweeter influence breathes around its flowers,And a benigner air.No calm below is like that calm above,No region here is like that realm of love;Earth's softest spring ne'er shed so soft a light,Earth's brightest summer never shone so bright.
That sky is not like this sad sky of ours,Tinged with earth's change and care;No shadow dims it, and no rain-cloud lowers;No broken sunshine there:One everlasting stretch of azure poursIts stainless splendor o'er those sinless shores;For there Jehovah shines with heavenly ray,And Jesus reigns, dispensing endless day.
The dwellers there are not like those of earth,—No mortal stain they bear,—And yet they seem of kindred blood and birth;Whence and how came they there?Earth was their native soil; from sin and shame,Through tribulation, they to glory came;Bond-slaves delivered from sin's crushing load,Brands plucked from burning by the hand of God.
Yon robes of theirs are not like those below;No angel's half so bright;Whence came that beauty, whence that living glow,And whence that radiant white?Washed in the blood of the atoning Lamb,Fair as the light these robes of theirs became;And now, all tears wiped off from every eye,They wander where the freshest pastures lie,Through all the nightless day of that unfading sky!
* * * * *
Two worlds there are. To one our eyes we strain,Whose magic joys we shall not see again;Bright haze of morning veils its glimmering shore.Ah, truly breathed we thereIntoxicating air—Glad were our hearts in that sweet realm ofNevermore.
The lover there drank her delicious breathWhose love has yielded since to change or death;The mother kissed her child, whose days are o'er.Alas! too soon have fledThe irreclaimable dead:We see them—visions strange—amid theNevermore.
The merrysome maiden used to sing—The brown, brown hair that once was wont to clingTo temples long clay-cold: to the very coreThey strike our weary hearts,As some vexed memory startsFrom that long faded land—the realm ofNevermore.
It is perpetual summer there. But hereSadly may we remember rivers clear,And harebells quivering on the meadow-floor.For brighter bells and bluer,For tenderer hearts and truerPeople that happy land—the realm ofNevermore.
Upon the frontier of this shadowy landWe pilgrims of eternal sorrow stand:What realm lies forward, with its happier storeOf forests green and deep,Of valleys hushed in sleep,And lakes most peaceful? 'Tis the land ofEvermore.
Very far off its marble cities seem—Very far off—beyond our sensual dream—Its woods, unruffled by the wild wind's roar;Yet does the turbulent surgeHowl on its very verge.One moment—and we breathe within theEvermore.
They whom we loved and lost so long agoDwell in those cities, far from mortal woe—Haunt those fresh woodlands, whence sweet carollings soar.Eternal peace have they;God wipes their tears away:They drink that river of life which flows fromEvermore.
Thither we hasten through these regions dim,But, lo, the wide wings of the SeraphimShine in the sunset! On that joyous shoreOur lightened hearts shall knowThe life of long ago:The sorrow-burdened past shall fade forEvermore.
* * * * *
"Who would not go"With buoyant steps, to gain that blessed portal,Which opens to the land we long to know?Where shall be satisfied the soul's immortal,Where we shall drop the wearying and the woeIn resting so?
"Ah, who would fear?"Since, sometimes through the distant pearly portal,Unclosing to some happy soul a-near,We catch a gleam of glorious light immortal,And strains of heavenly music faintly hear,Breathing good cheer!
"Who would endure"To walk in doubt and darkness with misgiving,When he whose tender promises are sure—The Crucified, the Lord, the Ever-living—Keeps us those "mansions" evermore secureBy waters pure?
Oh, wondrous land!Fairer than all our spirit's fairest dreaming:"Eye hath not seen," no heart can understandThe things prepared, the cloudless radiance streaming.How longingly we wait our Lord's command—His opening hand!
O dear ones there!Whose voices, hushed, have left our pathway lonely,We come, erelong, your blessèd home to share;We take the guiding hand, we trust it only—Seeing, by faith, beyond this clouded air,That land so fair!
* * * * *
Forever with the Lord!Amen! so let it be!Life from the dead is in that word,And immortality.
Here in the body pent,Absent from him I roam,Yet nightly pitch my moving tentA day's march nearer home.
My Father's house on high,Home of my soul! how near,At times, to faith's foreseeing eyeThy golden gates appear!
Ah! then my spirit faintsTo reach the land I love,The bright inheritance of saints,Jerusalem above!
Yet clouds will intervene,And all my prospect flies;Like Noah's dove, I flit betweenRough seas and stormy skies.
Anon the clouds depart,The winds and waters cease;While sweetly o'er my gladdened heartExpands the bow of peace!
Beneath its glowing arch,Along the hallowed ground,I see cherubic armies march,A camp of fire around.
I hear at morn and even,At noon and midnight hour,The choral harmonies of heavenEarth's Babel tongues o'erpower.
Then, then I feel that he,Remembered or forgot,The Lord, is never far from me,Though I perceive him not.
In darkness as in light,Hidden alike from view,I sleep, I wake, as in his sightWho looks all nature through.
All that I am, have been,All that I yet may be,He sees at once, as he hath seen,And shall forever see.
"Forever with the Lord;"Father, if 'tis thy will,The promise of that faithful wordUnto thy child fulfil!
So, when my latest breathShall rend the veil in twain,By death I shall escape from death,And life eternal gain.
* * * * *
To heaven approached a Sufi Saint,From groping in the darkness late,And, tapping timidly and faint,Besought admission at God's gate.
Said God, "Who seeks to enter here?""'Tis I, dear Friend," the Saint replied,And trembling much with hope and fear."If it bethou, without abide."
Sadly to earth the poor Saint turned,To bear the scourging of life's rods;But aye his heart within him yearnedTo mix and lose its love in God's.
He roamed alone through weary years,By cruel men still scorned and mocked,Until from faith's pure fires and tearsAgain he rose, and modest knocked.
Asked God, "Who now is at the door?""It is thyself, belovèd Lord,"Answered the Saint, in doubt no more,But clasped and rapt in his reward.
From the Persian of JALLAL-AD-DIN RUMI.
Translation of WILLIAM R. ALGER.
* * * * *
As in a wheel, all sinks, to reascend:Emblems of man, who passes, not expires.With this minute distinction, emblems just,Nature revolves, but man advances; bothEternal, that a circle, this a line.That gravitates, this soars. Th' aspiring soul,Ardent, and tremulous, like flame, ascends,Zeal and humility her wings, to Heaven.The world of matter, with its various forms,All dies into new life. Life born from deathRolls the vast mass, and shall for ever roll.No single atom, once in being, lost,With change of counsel charges the Most High.What hence infers Lorenzo? Can it be?Matter immortal? And shall spirit die?Above the nobler, shall less noble rise?Shall man alone, for whom all else revives,No resurrection know? Shall man alone,Imperial man! be sown in barren ground,Less privileged than grain, on which he feeds?
* * * * *
Look Nature through, 'tis neat gradation all.By what minute degrees her scale ascends!Each middle nature joined at each extreme,To that above is joined, to that beneath;Parts, into parts reciprocally shot,Abhor divorce: what love of union reigns!Here, dormant matter waits a call to life;Half-life, half-death, joined there; here life and sense;There, sense from reason steals a glimmering ray;Reason shines out in man. But how preservedThe chain unbroken upward, to the realmsOf incorporeal life? those realms of blissWhere death hath no dominion? Grant a makeHalf-mortal, half-immortal; earthy, part,And part ethereal; grant the soul of manEternal; or in man the series ends.Wide yawns the gap; connection is no more;Checked Reason halts; her next step wants support;Striving to climb, she tumbles from her scheme.
* * * * *
FESTUS.— Oh! there isA life to come, or all's a dream.
LUCIFER.— And allMay be a dream. Thou seest in thine, men, deeds,Clear, moving, full of speech and order; thenWhy may not all this world be but a dreamOf God's? Fear not! Some morning God may waken.
FESTUS.—I would it were. This life's a mystery.The value of a thought cannot be told;But it is clearly worth a thousand livesLike many men's. And yet men love to liveAs if mere life were worth their living for.What but perdition will it be to most?Life's more than breath and the quick round of blood;It is a great spirit and a busy heart.The coward and the small in soul scarce do live.One generous feeling—one great thought—one deedOf good, ere night, would make life longer seemThan if each year might number a thousand days,Spent as is this by nations of mankind.We live in deeds, not years; in thoughts, not breaths;In feelings, not in figures on a dial.We should count time by heart-throbs. He most livesWho thinks most—feels the noblest—acts the best.Life's but a means unto an end—that endBeginning, mean, and end to all things—God.
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O beauteous God! uncircumscribèd treasureOf an eternal pleasure!Thy throne is seated farAbove the highest star,Where thou preparest a glorious place,Within the brightness of thy face,For every spiritTo inheritThat builds his hopes upon thy merit,And loves thee with a holy charity.What ravished heart, seraphic tongue, or eyesClear as the morning rise,Can speak, or think, or seeThat bright eternity,Where the great King's transparent throneIs of an entire jasper stone?There the eyeO' the chrysolite,And a skyOf diamonds, rubies, chrysoprase,—And above all thy holy face,—Makes an eternal charity.When thou thy jewels up dost bind, that dayRemember us, we pray,—That where the beryl lies,And the crystal 'bove the skies,There thou mayest appoint us placeWithin the brightness of thy face,—And our soulIn the scrollOf life and blissfulness enroll,That we may praise thee to eternity. Allelujah!
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Father! thy wonders do not singly stand,Nor far removed where feet have seldom strayed;Around us ever lies the enchanted land,In marvels rich to thine own sons displayed.In finding thee are all things round us found;In losing thee are all things lost beside;Ears have we, but in vain strange voices sound;And to our eyes the vision is denied.We wander in the country far remote,Mid tombs and ruined piles in death to dwell;Or on the records of past greatness dote,And for a buried soul the living sell;While on our path bewildered falls the nightThat ne'er returns us to the fields of light.
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Beyond these chilling winds and gloomy skies,Beyond death's cloudy portal,There is a land where beauty never dies,Where love becomes immortal;
A land whose life is never dimmed by shade,Whose fields are ever vernal;Where nothing beautiful can ever fade,But blooms for aye eternal.
We may know how sweet its balmy air,How bright and fair its flowers;We may not hear the songs that echo there,Through those enchanted bowers.
The city's shining towers we may not seeWith our dim earthly vision,For Death, the silent warder, keeps the keyThat opes the gates elysian.
But sometimes, when adown the western skyA fiery sunset lingers,Its golden gates swing inward noiselessly,Unlocked by unseen fingers.
And while they stand a moment half ajar,Gleams from the inner gloryStream brightly through the azure vault afar,And half reveal the story.
O land unknown! O land of love divine!Father, all-wise, eternal!O, guide these wandering, wayworn feet of mineInto those pastures vernal!
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Tell me, ye wingèd winds,That round my pathway roar,Do ye not know some spotWhere mortals weep no more?Some lone and pleasant dell,Some valley in the west,Where, free from toil and pain,The weary soul may rest?The loud wind dwindled to a whisper low,And sighed for pity as it answered,—"No."
Tell me, thou mighty deep.Whose billows round me play,Know'st thou some favored spot,Some island far away,Where weary man may findThe bliss for which he sighs,—Where sorrow never lives,And friendship never dies?The loud waves, rolling in perpetual flow,Stopped for awhile, and sighed to answer,—"No."
And thou, serenest moon,That, with such lovely face,Dost look upon the earth,Asleep in night's embrace;Tell me, in all thy roundHast thou not seen some spotWhere miserable manMay find a happier lot?Behind a cloud the moon withdrew in woe,And a voice, sweet but sad, responded,—"No."
Tell me, my secret soul,O, tell me, Hope and Faith,Is there no resting-placeFrom sorrow, sin, and death?Is there no happy spotWhere mortals may be blest,Where grief may find a balm,And weariness a rest?Faith, Hope, and Love, best boons to mortals given,Waved their bright wings, and whispered,—"Yes, in heaven!"
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There is a land of pure delight,Where saints immortal reign;Infinite day excludes the night,And pleasures banish pain.
There everlasting spring abides,And never-withering flowers;Death, like a narrow sea, dividesThis heavenly land from ours.
Sweet fields beyond the swelling floodStand dressed in living green;So to the Jews old Canaan stood,While Jordan rolled between.
But timorous mortals start and shrinkTo cross this narrow sea,And linger shivering on the brink,And fear to launch away.
Oh! could we make our doubts remove,Those gloomy doubts that rise,And see the Canaan that we loveWith unbeclouded eyes—
Could we but climb where Moses stood,And view the landscape o'er,Not Jordan's stream, nor death's cold floodShould fright us from the shore.
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My soul, there is a countryAfar beyond the stars,Where stands a wingèd sentry,All skilful in the wars.
There, above noise and danger,Sweet peace sits crowned with smiles,And One born in a mangerCommands the beauteous files.
He is thy gracious friend,And (O my soul awake!)Did in pure love descend,To die here for thy sake.
If thou canst get but thither,There grows the flower of peace—The rose that cannot wither—Thy fortress, and thy ease.
Leave, then, thy foolish ranges;For none can thee secure,But one who never changes—Thy God, thy life, thy cure.
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More and more stars! behold yon hazy archSpanning the vault on high,By planets traversed in majestic march,Seeming to earth's dull eyeA breath of gleaming air: but take thou wingOf Faith and upward spring:—Into a thousand stars the misty lightWill part; each star a world with its own day and night.
Not otherwise of yonder Saintly hostUpon the glorious shoreDeem thou. He marks them all, not one is lost;By name He counts them o'er.Full many a soul, to man's dim praise unknown,May on its glory throneAs brightly shine, and prove as strong in prayerAs theirs, whose separate beams shoot keenest thro' this air.
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And is there care in heaven? And is there loveIn heavenly spirits to these creatures base,That may compassion of their evils move?There is:—else much more wretched were the caseOf men than beasts: but O the exceeding graceOf Highest God! that loves his creatures so,And all his workes with mercy doth embrace,That blessèd angels he sends to and fro,To serve to wicked man, to serve his wicked foe!
How oft do they their silver bowers leave,To come to succour us that succour want!How oft do they with golden pinions cleaveThe flitting skyes, like flying pursuivant,Against fowle feendes to ayd us militant!They for us fight, they watch, and dewly ward,And their bright squadrons round about us plant;And all for love, and nothing for reward;O, why should heavenly God to men have such regard!
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Deep on the convent-roof the snowsAre sparkling to the moon:My breath to heaven like vapor goes:May my soul follow soon!The shadows of the convent-towersSlant down the snowy sward,Still creeping with the creeping hoursThat lead me to my Lord:Make Thou my spirit pure and clearAs are the frosty skies,Or this first snow-drop of the yearThat in my bosom lies.
As these white robes are soiled 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,Through all yon starlight keen,Draw me, thy bride, a glittering star,In raiment white and clean.
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 gatesRoll backhand far withinFor me the Heavenly Bridegroom waits,To make me pure of sin.The sabbath of Eternity,One sabbath deep and wide—A light upon the shining sea—The Bridegroom with his bride!
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[The poemDe Contemptu Mundiwas written by Bernard deMorlaix, Monk of Cluni. The translation following is of aportion of the poem distinguished by the sub-title "LausPatriae Coelestis."]
The world is very evil,The times are waxing late;Be sober and keep vigil,The Judge is at the gate,—The Judge that comes in mercy,The Judge that comes with might,To terminate the evil,To diadem the right.When the just and gentle MonarchShall summon from the tomb,Let man, the guilty, tremble,For Man, the God, shall doom!
Arise, arise, good Christian,Let right to wrong succeed;Let penitential sorrowTo heavenly gladness lead,—To the light that hath no evening,That knows nor moon nor sun,The light so new and golden,The light that is but one.
And when the Sole-BegottenShall render up once moreThe kingdom to the Father,Whose own it was before,Then glory yet unheard ofShall shed abroad its ray,Resolving all enigmas,An endless Sabbath-day.
For thee, O dear, dear Country!Mine eyes their vigils keep;For very love, beholdingThy happy name, they weep.The mention of thy gloryIs unction to the breast,And medicine in sickness,And love, and life, and rest.
O one, O only Mansion!O Paradise of Joy,Where tears are ever banished,And smiles have no alloy!Beside thy living watersAll plants are, great and small,The cedar of the forest,The hyssop of the wall;With jaspers glow thy bulwarks,Thy streets with emeralds blaze,The sardius and the topazUnite in thee their rays;Thine ageless walls are bondedWith amethyst unpriced;Thy Saints build up its fabric,And the corner-stone is Christ.
The Cross is all thy splendor,The Crucified thy praise;His laud and benedictionThy ransomed people raise:"Jesus, the gem of Beauty,True God and Man," they sing,"The never-failing Garden,The ever-golden Ring;The Door, the Pledge, the Husband,The Guardian of his Court;The Day-star of Salvation,The Porter and the Port!"
Thou hast no shore, fair ocean!Thou hast no time, bright day!Dear fountain of refreshmentTo pilgrims far away!Upon the Rock of AgesThey raise thy holy tower;Thine is the victor's laurel,And thine the golden dower!
Thou feel'st in mystic rapture,O Bride that know'st no guile,The Prince's sweetest kisses,The Prince's loveliest smile;Unfading lilies, braceletsOf living pearl thine own;The Lamb is ever near thee,The Bridegroom thine alone.The Crown is he to guerdon,The Buckler to protect,And he himself the Mansion,And he the Architect.
The only art thou needest—Thanksgiving for thy lot;The only joy thou seekest—The Life where Death is not.And all thine endless leisure,In sweetest accents, singsThe ill that was thy merit,The wealth that is thy King's!
Jerusalem the golden,With milk and honey blest,Beneath thy contemplationSink heart and voice oppressed.I know not, O I know not,What social joys are there!What radiancy of glory,What light beyond compare!
And when I fain would sing them,My spirit fails and faints;And vainly would it imageThe assembly of the Saints.
They stand, those halls of Zion,Conjubilant with song,And bright with many an angel,And all the martyr throng;The Prince is ever in them,The daylight is serene;The pastures of the BlessèdAre decked in glorious sheen.
There is the Throne of David,And there, from care released,The song of them that triumph,The shout of them that feast;And they who, with their Leader,Have conquered in the fight,Forever and foreverAre clad in robes of white!
O holy, placid harp-notesOf that eternal hymn!O sacred, sweet reflection,And peace of Seraphim!O thirst, forever ardent,Yet evermore content!O true peculiar visionOf God cunctipotent!Ye know the many mansionsFor many a glorious name,And divers retributionsThat divers merits claim;For midst the constellationsThat deck our earthly sky,This star than that is brighter—And so it is on high.
Jerusalem the glorious!The glory of the Elect!O dear and future visionThat eager hearts expect!Even now by faith I see thee,Even here thy walls discern;To thee my thoughts are kindled,And strive, and pant, and yearn.
Jerusalem the only,That look'st from heaven below,In thee is all my glory,In me is all my woe;And though my body may not,My spirit seeks thee fain,Till flesh and earth return meTo earth and flesh again.