Her cheek was white; but, trembling round her lips,
And dimly o'er her countenance spread, there lay
Something that, held in check by feebleness,
Yet tended to a smile. A cloak tight-drawn
From the cold March wind screened her, save one hand
Stretched on her knee, that reached to where a beam,
Thin slip of watery sunshine, sunset's last,
Slid through the branches. On that beam, methought,
Rested her eyes half-closed. It was not so:
For when I knelt, and kissed that hand ill-warmed,
Smiling she said: "The small, unwedded maid
Has missed her mark! You should have kissed the ring!
Full forty years upon a widowed hand
It holds its own. It takes its latest sunshine."
She lived through all that night, and died while dawned
Through snows Saint Joseph's morn.'
The Queen, with hand
Sudden and swift, brushed from her cheek a tear;
And many a sob from that thick-crowding host
Confessed what tenderest love can live in hearts
Defamed by fools as barbarous. Cuthbert sat
In silence long. Before his eyes she passed,
The maid, the wife, the widow, all in one;
With these,--through these--he saw once more the child,
Yea, saw the child's smile on the lips of death,
That magic, mystic, smile! O heart of man,
What strange capacities of grief and joy
Are thine! How vain, how ruthless such, if given
For transient things alone! O life of man!
What wert thou but some laughing demon's scoff,
If prelude only to the eternal grave!
'Deep cries to deep'--ay, but the deepest deep
Crying to summits of the mount of God
Drags forth for echo, 'Immortality.'
It was the Death Divine that vanquished death!
Shorn of that Death Divine the Life Divine,
Albeit its feeblest tear had cleansed all worlds,
Cancelled all guilt, had failed to reach and sound
The deepest in man's nature, Love and Grief,
Profoundest each when joined in penitent woe;
Failed thence to wake man's hope. The loftiest light
Flashed from God's Face on Reason's orient verge
Answers that bird-cry from the _Heart_ of man--
Poor Heart that, darkling, kept so long its watch--
The auspice of the dawn.
Like one inspired
The Saint arose, and raised his hands to God;
Then to his people turned with such discourse
As mocks the hand of scribe. No more he spake
In parables; adumbrated no more
'Dimly as in a glass' his doctrine high,
But placed it face to face before men's eyes,
Essential Truth, God's image, meet for man,
Himself God's image. Worlds he showed them new,
Worlds countless as the stars that roof our night,
Fair fruitage of illimitable boughs,
Pushed from that Tree of Life from Calvary sprung
That over-tops and crowns the earth and man;
Preached the Resurgent, the Ascended God
Dispensing 'gifts to men.' The tongue he spake
Seemed Pentecostal--grace of that high Feast--
For all who heard, the simple and the sage,
Heard still a single language sounding forth
To all one Promise. From that careworn Queen,
Who doffed her crown, and placed it on the rock,
Murmuring, 'Farewell forever, foolish gaud,'
To him the humblest hearer, all made vow
To live thenceforth for God. The form itself
Of each was changed to saintly and to sweet;
Each countenance beamed as though with rays cast down
From fiery tongues, or angel choirs unseen.
Thus like high gods on mountain-tops of joy
Those happy listeners sat. The body quelled--
With all that body's might usurped to cramp
Through ceaseless, yet unconscious, weight of sense
Conceptions spiritual, might more subtly skilled
Than lusts avowed, to sap the spirit's life--
In every soul its nobler Powers released
Stood up, no more a jarring crowd confused
Each trampling each and oft the worst supreme,
Not thus, but grade o'er grade, in order due,
And pomp hierarchical. Yet hand in hand,
Not severed, stood those Powers. To every Mind
That truth new learned was palpable and dear,
Not abstract nor remote, with cordial strength
Enclasped as by a heart; through every Heart
Serene affections swam 'mid seas of light,
Reason's translucent empire without bound,
Fountained from God. Silent those listeners sat
Parleying in wordless thought. For them the world
Was lost--and won; its sensuous aspects quenched;
Its heavenly import grasped. The erroneous Past
Lay like a shrivelled scroll before their feet;
And sweet as some immeasurable rose,
Expanding leaf on leaf, varying yet one,
The Everlasting Present round them glowed.
Dead was desire, and dead not less was fear--
The fear of change--of death.
An hour went by;
The sun declined: then rising from his seat,
Herbert, the anchoret of the lonely lake,
Made humble way to Cuthbert's feet with suit:
'O Father, and O friend, thou saw'st me not;
Yet day by day thus far I tracked thy steps
At distance, for my betters leaving place,
The great and wise that round thee thronged; the young
Who ne'er till then had seen thy face; the old
Who saw it then, yet scarce again may see.
Father, a happier lot was mine, thou know'st,
Or had been save for sin of mine: each year
I sought thy cell, thy words of wisdom heard;
Yet still, alas! lived on like sensual men
Who yield their hearts to creatures--fixing long
A foolish eye on gold-touched leaf, or flower--
Not Him, the great Creator. Father and Friend,
The years run past. I crave one latest boon:
Grant that we two may die the self-same day!'
Then Cuthbert knelt, and prayed. At last he spake:
'Thy prayer is heard; the self-same day and hour
We two shall die.'
That promise was fulfilled;
For two years only on exterior tasks
God set His servant's hands--the man who 'sought
In all things rest,' nor e'er had ceased from rest
Then when his task was heaviest. Two brief years
He roamed on foot his spiritual realm:
The simple still he taught: the sad he cheered:
Where'er he went he founded churches still,
And convents; yea, and, effort costlier far,
Spared not to scan defect with vigilant eye:
That eye the boldest called not 'vision-dazed';
That Saint he found no 'dreamer:' sloth or greed
'Scaped not his vengeance: scandals hid he not,
But dragged them into day, and smote them down:
Before his face he drave the hireling priest,
The bandit thane: unceasing cried, 'Ye kings,
Cease from your wars! Ye masters, loose your slaves!'
Two years sufficed; for all that earlier life
Had trained the Ascetic for those works of might
Beyond the attempt of all but boundless love,
And in him kept unspent the fire divine.
Never such Bishop walked till then the North,
Nor ever since, nor ever, centuries fled,
So lived in hearts of men. Two years gone by,
His strength decayed. He sought once more his cell
Sea-lulled; and lived alone with God; and saw
Once more, like lights that sweep the unmoving hills,
God's providences girdling all the world,
With glory following glory. Tenderer-souled
Herbert meantime within his isle abode,
At midnight listening Derwent's gladsome voice
Mingling with deep-toned Greta's, 'Mourner' named;
Pacing, each day, the shore; now gazing glad
On gold-touched leaf, or bird that cut the mere,
Now grieved at wandering thoughts. For men he prayed;
And ever strove to raise his soul to God;
And God, Who venerates still the pure intent,
Forgat not his; and since his spirit and heart
Holy albeit, were in the Eyes Divine
Less ripe than Cuthbert's for the Vision Blest,
Least faults perforce swelling where gifts are vast,
That God vouchsafed His servant sickness-pains
Virtue to perfect in a little space,
That both might pass to heaven the self-same hour.
It came: that sun which flushed the spray up-hurled
In cloud round Cuthbert's eastern rock, while he
Within it dying chanted psalm on psalm,
Ere long enkindled Herbert's western lake:
The splendour waxed; mountain to mountain laughed,
And, brightening, nearer drew, and, nearing, clasped
That heaven-dropp'd beauty in more strict embrace:
The cliffs successive caught their crowns of fire;
Blencathara last. Slowly that splendour waned;
And from the glooming gorge of Borrodale,
Her purple cowl shadowing her holy head
O'er the dim lake twilight with silent foot
Stepped like a spirit. Herbert from his bed
Of shingles watched that sunset till it died;
And at one moment from their distant isles
Those friends, by death united, passed to God.
_SAINT FRIDESWIDA, OR THE FOUNDATIONS OF OXFORD_.
Frideswida flies from the pursuit of a wicked king, invoking the
Divine aid and the prayers of St. Catherine and St. Cecilia. She
escapes; and at the hour of her death those Saints reveal to her
that in that place, near the Isis, where she has successively
opened a blind man's eyes and healed a leper, God will one day
raise up a seat of Learning, the light and the health of the realm.
'One love I; One: within His bridal bower
My feet shall tread: One love I, One alone:
His Mother is a Virgin, and His Sire
The unfathomed fount of pureness undefiled:
Him love I Whom to love is to be chaste:
Him love I touched by Whom my forehead shines:
Whom she that clasps grows spotless more and more:
Behold, to mine His spirit He hath joined:
And His the blood that mantles in my cheek:
His ring is on my finger.'
Thus she sang;
Then walked and plucked a flower: she sang again:
'That which I longed for, lo, the same I see:
That which I hoped for, lo, my hand doth hold:
At last in heaven I walk with Him conjoined
Whom, yet on earth, I loved with heart entire.'
Thus carolled Frideswida all alone,
Treading the opens of a wood far spread
Around the upper waters of the Thames.
Christian almost by instinct, earth to her
Was shaped but to sustain the Cross of Christ.
Her mother lived a saint: she taught her child,
From reason's dawn, to note in all things fair
Their sacred undermeanings. 'Mark, my child,
In lamb and dove, not fleshly shapes,' she said,
'But heavenly types: upon the robin's breast
Revere that red which bathed her from the Cross
With slender bill striving to loose those Nails!'
Dying, that mother placed within her hand
A book of saintly legends. Thus the maid
Grew up with mysteries clothed, with marvels fed,
A fearless creature swift as wind or fire:
But fires of hers were spirit-fires alone,
All else like winter moon. The Wessex King
Had gazed upon the glory of her face,
And deemed that face a spirit's. He had heard
Her voice; it sounded like an angel's song;
But wonder by degrees declined to love,
Such love as Pagans know. The unworthy suit,
She scorned, from childhood spoused in heart to Christ:
She fled: upon the river lay a boat:
She rowed it on through forests many a mile;
A month had passed since then.
Midsummer blazed
On all things round: the vast, unmoving groves
Stretched silent forth their immemorial arms
Arching a sultry gloom. Within it buzzed
Feebly the insect swarm: the dragon-fly
Stayed soon his flight: the streamlet scarce made way:
In shrunken pools, panting, the cattle stood,
Languidly browsing on the dried-up sprays:
No bird-song shook the bower. Alone that maid
Glided light-limbed, as though some Eden breeze,
Hers only, charioted the songstress on,
Like those that serve the May. Beneath a tree
Low-roofed at last she sank, with eyes up-raised
On boughs that, ivy-twined and creeper-trailed,
Darkened the shining splendour of the sky:--
Between their interspaces, here and there,
It flashed in purple stars.
Enraptured long,
For admiration was to her as love,
The maiden raised at last her mother's book,
And lit upon her childhood's favourite tale,
Catherine in vision wed to Bethlehem's Babe
Who from His Virgin-Mother leaning, dropped
His ring adown her finger. Princely pride,
And pride not less of soaring intellect,
At once in her were changed to pride of love:
In vain her country's princes sued her grace;
Kingdoms of earth she spurned. Around her seat
The far-famed Alexandrian Sages thronged,
Branding her Faith as novel. Slight and tall,
'Mid them, keen-eyed the wingless creature stood
Like daughter of the sun on earth new-lit:--
That Faith she shewed of all things first and last;
All lesser truths its prophets. Swift as beams
Forth flashed such shafts of high intelligence
That straight their lore sophistic shrivelled up,
And Christians they arose. The martyr's wheel
Was pictured in the margin, dyed with red,
And likewise, azure-tinct on golden ground,
Her queenly throne in heaven. 'Ah shining Saint!'
Half weeping, smiling half, the virgin cried;
'Yet dear not less thy sister of the West;
For never gaze I on that lifted face,
Or mark that sailing angel near her stayed,
But straight her solemn organs round me swell;
All discords cease.' Then with low voice she read
Of Rome's Cecilia, her who won to Christ,
(That earlier troth inviolably preserved)
Her Roman bridegroom, wondering at that crown
Invisible itself, that round her breathed
Rose-breath celestial; her that to the Church
Gave her ancestral house; and, happier gift,
Devotion's heavenliest instrument of praise;
Her that, unfearing, dared that Roman sword;
And when its work was done, for centuries lay
Like marble, 'mid the catacombs, unchanged,
In sleep-resembling death.
From earliest dawn
That maiden's eyes had watched: wearied at noon
Their silver curtains closed. Huge mossy roots
Pillowed her head, that slender book wide-leaved
In stillness, like some brooding, white-winged dove,
Spread on her bosom: 'gainst its golden edge
Rested, gold-tinged, the dimpled ivory chin--
Loud thunders broke that sleep; the tempest blast
Came up against the woods, while bolt on bolt
Ran through them sheer. She started up: she saw
That Pagan prince and many a sworded serf
Rushing towards her. Fleeter still she fled;
But, as some mountain beast tender and slight,
That, pasturing spring-fed lilies of Cashmere,
Or slumbering where its rock-nursed torrents fall,
Sudden not distant hears the hunter's cry
And mocks pursuit at first, but slackens soon
Breathless and spent, so failed her limbs ere long;
A horror of great faintness o'er her crept;
More near she heard their shout. She staggered on:
To threat'ning phantoms all things round were changed;
About her towered in ruin hollow trunks
Of spiked and branchless trees, survivors sole
Of woods that, summer-scorched, then lightning-struck
A century past, for one short week had blazed
And blackened ever since. She knelt: she raised
Her hands to God: she sued for holier prayer
Saint Catherine, Saint Cecilia. At that word
Behind her close a cry of anguish rang:
Silence succeeded. As by angels' help
She reached a river's bank: sun-hardened clay
Retained the hoof-prints of the drinking herd;
And, shallower for long heats, the oxen's ford
Challenged her bleeding feet. She crossed unharmed,
And soon in green-gold pastures girt by woods
Stood up secure. Then forth she stretched her hands,
Like Agnes praising God amid the flame:
'Omnipotent, Eternal, Worshipful,
One God, Immense, and All-compassionate,
Thou from the sinner's snare hast snatched the feet
Of her that loved Thee. Glory to Thy name.'
Thenceforth secure she roamed those woods and meads;
The dwellers in that region brought her bread,
Upon that countenance gazing, some with awe
But all with love. To her the maidens came:
'Tell us,' they said, 'what mystery hast thou learned
So sweet and good;--thy Teacher, who was he;
Grey-haired, or warrior young?' To them in turn
Ceaseless she sang the praises of her Christ,
His Virgin Mother and His heavenly court,
Warriors on earth for justice. They for her
Renounced all else, the banquet and the dance,
And nuptial rites revered. A low-roofed house
Inwoven of branches 'mid the woods they raised;
There dwelt, and sang her hymn, and prayed her prayer,
And loved her Saviour-Sovereign. Year by year
More high her bright feet scaled the heavenly mount
Of lore divine and knowledge of her God,
And with sublimer chant she hymned His praise;
While oft some bishop, tracking those great woods
In progress to his charge, beneath their roof
Baptizing or confirming made abode,
And all which lacked supplied, nor discipline
Withheld, nor doctrine high. The outward world
To them a nothing, made of them its boast:
A Saint, it said, within that forest dwelt,
A Saint that helped their people. Saint she was,
And therefore wrought for heaven her holy deeds;
Immortal stand they on the heavenly roll;
Yet fewest acts suffice for heavenly crown;
And two of hers had consequence on earth,
Like water circles widening limitless,
For man still helpful. Hourly acts of hers,
Interior acts invisible to men,
Perchance were worthier. Humblest faith and prayer
Are oft than miracle miraculous more:--
To us the exterior marks the interior might:
These two alone record we.
Years had passed:
One day when all the streams were dried by heat
And rainless fields had changed from green to brown,
T'wards her there drew, by others led, a man
Old, worn, and blind. He knelt, and wept his prayer:
'Help, Saint of God! That impious King am I,
That King abhorred, his people's curse and bane,
Who chased thee through these woods with fell resolve,
Worst vengeance seeking for insulted pride:--
Rememberest thou that, near thee as I closed,
Kneeling thou mad'st thy prayer? Instant from God
Blindness fell on me. Forward still I rushed,
Ere long amid those spiked and branded trunks
To lie as lie the dead. If hope remains,
For me if any hope survives on earth,
It rests with thee; thee only!' On her knees
She sank in prayer; her fingers in the fount
She dipped; then o'er him signed the Saviour's cross,
And thrice invoked that Saviour. At her word
Behold, that sightless King arose, and saw,
And rendered thanks to God.
The legend saith
Saint Catherine by her stood that night, and spake:
'Once more I greet thee on thy dying day.'
Again the years went by. That sylvan lodge
Had changed to convent. Beautiful it stood
Not far from Isis, though on loftier ground:
Sad outcasts knew it well: whate'er their need
There found they solace. One day toward it moved,
Dread apparition and till then unknown,
Like one constrained, with self-abhorrent steps,
A leper, long in forest caverns hid.
Back to their cells the nuns had shrunk, o'erawed:
Remained but Frideswida. Thus that wretch
With scarce organic voice, and aiding sign,
Wailed out the supplication of despair:
'Fly not, O saintly virgin! Yet, ah me!
What help though thou remainest? Warned from heaven,
I know that not thy fountain's healing wave
Could heal my sorrow: not those spotless hands:
Not even thy prayer. To me the one sole aid
Were aid impossible--a kiss of thine.'
A moment stood she: not in doubt she stood:
First slowly, swiftly then to where he knelt
She moved: with steadfast hand she raised that cloth
Which veiled what once had been a human face:
O'er it she signed in faith the cross of Christ:
She wept aloud, 'My brother!' Folding then
Stainless to stained, with arms about him wound,
In sacred silence mouth to mouth she pressed,
A long, long sister's kiss. Like infant's flesh
The blighted and the blasted back returned:
That leper rose restored.
The legend saith
That Saint Cecilia by her stood that night:
'Once more I greet thee on thy dying day.'