In grace with God and man: the pilgrim old
Sought it from far; the gifts of kings enlarged:--
It came at last, that day. There are who vouch
The splendour of that countenance never waned:
Thus much is sure; it waxed to angels' eyes:--
Welcomed it came, that day desired, not feared.
By humbleness like hers those two fair deeds
Were long forgotten: each day had its task:
Not hardest that of dying. Why should sobs
Trouble the quiet of a holy house
Because its holiest passes? Others wept;
The sufferer smiled: 'Ah, little novices,
How little of the everlasting lore
Your foolish mother taught you if ye shrink
From trial light as this!' She spake; then sank
In what to those around her seemed but sleep,
The midnoon August sunshine on her hair
In ampler radiance lying than that hour
When, danger near her yet to her unknown,
Beneath that forest tree her eyelids closed--
Her book upon her bosom.
Near her bed
Not danger now but heralds ever young,
Saint Catherine, Saint Cecilia, stood once more,
Linked hand in hand, with aureoles interwreathed:
One gazing stood as though on radiance far
With widening eyes: a listener's look intent
The other's, soft with pathos more profound.
The Roman sister spake: 'Rejoice, my child,
Rejoice, thus near the immeasurable embrace
And breast expectant of the unnumbered Blest
That swells to meet thee! Yea, and on the earth
For thee reward remaineth. Happy thou
Through prayer his sight restoring to thy foe,
Sole foe that e'er thou knew'st though more his own!
Child! darkness is there worse than blindness far,
Wherein erroneous wanders human Pride;
That prayer of thine from age to age shall guard
A realm against such darkness. Where yon kine
Stand in mid ford, quenching their noontide thirst,
Thy footsteps crossed of old the waters. God
In the unerasing current sees them still!
Close by, a nation from a purer flood
Shall quench a thirst more holy, quaffing streams
Of Knowledge loved as Truth. Majestic piles
Shall rise by yonder Isis, honouring, each,
My clear-eyed sister of the sacred East
That won to Christ the Alexandrian seers,
Winning, herself, from chastity her lore:
Upon their fronts, aloft in glory ranged
With face to East, and cincture never loosed,
All Sciences shall stand, daughters divine
Of Him that Truth eterne and boon to man,
Holding in spotless hand, not lamp alone,
But lamp and censer both, and both alike
From God's great Altar lighted.'
Spake in turn
That Alexandrian with the sunlike eyes:
'Beside those Sciences shall stand a choir
As fair as they; as tall; those sister Arts,
High daughters of celestial Harmony,
Diverse yet one, that bind the hearts of men
To steadfast Truth by Beauty's sinuous cords;
She that to marble changes mortal thought;
She that with rainbow girds the cloud of life;
She that above the streaming mist exalts
Rock-rooted domes of prayer; and she that rears
With words auguster temples. Happy thou
Healing that leper with thy virgin kiss!
A leprosy there is more direful, child!--
Therein the nations rot when flesh is lord
And spirit dies. Such ruin Arts debased
Gender, or, gendered long, exasperate more.
But thou, rejoice! From this pure centre Arts
Unfallen shall breathe their freshness through the land,
With kiss like thine healing a nation's wound
Year after year successive; listening, each,
My sister's organ music in the skies,
Prime Art that, challenging not eye but ear,
To Faith is nearest, and of Arts on earth
For that cause, living soul.'
That prophecy
Found its accomplishment. In later years,
There where of old the Oxen had their Ford,
The goodliest city England boasts arose,
Mirrored in sacred Isis; like that flood
Its youth for aye renewing. Convents first
Through stately groves levelled their placid gleam,
With cloisters opening dim on garden gay
Or moonlit lawn dappled by shadowing deer:
Above them soared the chapel's reverent bulk
With storied window whence, in hues of heaven,
Martyrs looked down, or Confessor, or Saint
On tomb of Founder with its legend meek
'Pro anima orate.' Night and day
Mounted the Church's ever-varying song
Sustained on organ harmonies that well
Might draw once more to earth, with wings outspread
And heavenly face made heavenlier by that strain,
Cecilia's Angel. Of those convents first
Was Frideswida's, ruled in later years
By Canons Regular, later yet rebuilt
By him of York, that dying wept, alas,
'Had I but served my Maker as my king!'
To colleges those convents turned; yet still
The earlier inspiration knew not change:
The great tradition died not: near the bridge
From Magdalen's tower still rang the lark-like hymn
On May-day morn: high ranged in airy cells,
Facing the East, all Sciences, all Arts,
Yea, and with these all Virtues, imaged stood,
Best imaged stood in no ideal forms,
Craft unhistoric of some dreamer's brain,
But life-like shapes of plain heroic men
Who in their day had fought the fight of Faith,
Warriors and sages, poets, saints, and kings,
And earned their rest: the long procession paced,
Up winding slow the college-girded street
To where in high cathedral slept the Saint,
Singing its 'Alma Redemptoris Mater,'
On August noons, what time the Assumption Feast
From purple zenith of the Christian heaven
Brightened the earth. That hour not bells alone
Chiming from countless steeples made reply:
Laughed out that hour high-gabled roof and spire;
Kindling shone out those Sciences, those Arts
Pagan one time, now confessors white-robed;
And all the holy City gave response,
'Deus illuminatio mea est.'[24]
_THE BANQUET HALL OF WESSEX, OR THE KING WHO COULD SEE._
Kenwalk, King of Wessex, is a Pagan, but refuses to persecute
Christians. He is dethroned by the Mercian King, and lives an exile
in a Christian land. There he boasts that he never accords faith to
what he hears, and believes only what he sees; yet, his eye being
single, he sees daily more of the Truth. Wessex is delivered, and a
great feast held at which the Pagan nobles, priests, and bards all
conspire for the destruction of the Faith. Birinus, the bishop,
having withstood them valiantly, Kenwalk declares himself a
Christian. Birinus prophesies of England's greatest King.
King Cynegils lay dead, who long and well
Had judged the realm of Essex. By his bier
The Christians standing smote their breasts, and said,
'Ill day for us:' but all about the house
Clustering in smiling knots of twos and threes,
The sons of Odin whispered, or with nods
Gave glad assent. Christ's bishop sent from Rome,
Birinus, to the king had preached for years
The Joyous Tidings. Cynegils believed,
And with him many; but the most refrained:
With these was Kenwalk; and, his father dead,
Kenwalk was king.
A valiant man was he,
A man of stubborn will, but yet at heart
Magnanimous and just. To one who said,
'Strike, for thine hour is come!' the king new-crowned
Made answer, 'Never! Each man choose his path!
My father chose the Christian--Odin's I.
I crossed my father oft a living man;
I war not on him dead.'
That giant hand
Which spared Religion ruled in all beside:
He harried forth the robbers from the woods,
And wrecked the pirates' ships. He burned with fire
A judge unjust, and thrice o'er Severn drave
The invading Briton. Lastly, when he found
That woman in his house intolerable,
From bed and realm he hurled her forth, though crowned,
Ensuing thence great peace.
Not long that peace:
The Mercian king, her brother, heard her tale
With blackening brow. The shrill voice stayed at last,
Doubly incensed the monarch made reply:
'Sister, I never loved you;--who could love?
But him who spurned you from his realm I hate:
Fear nought! your feast of vengeance shall be full!'
He spake; then cried, 'To arms!'
In either land,
Like thunders low and far, or windless plunge
Of waves on coasts long silent that proclaim,
Though calm the sea for leagues, tempest far off
That shoreward swells, thus day by day was heard
The direful preparation for a war
Destined no gladsome tournament to prove,
But battle meet for ancient foes resolved
To clear old debts; make needless wars to come.
Not long that strife endured; on either side
Valour was equal; but on one, conjoined,
The skill most practised, and the heavier bones:
The many fought the few. On that last field
'Twas but the fury of a fell despair,
Not hope, that held the balance straight so long:
Ere sunset all was over. From the field
A wounded remnant dragged their king, half dead:
The Mercian host pursued not.
Many a week
Low lay the broken giant nigh to death:
At last, like creeping plant down-dragged, not crushed,
That, washed by rains, and sunshine-warmed, once more
Its length uplifting, feels along the air,
And gradual finds its 'customed prop, so he,
Strengthening each day, with dubious eyes at first
Around him peered, but raised at length his head,
And, later, question made. His health restored,
He sought East Anglia, where King Anna reigned,
His chief of friends in boyhood. Day by day
A spirit more buoyant to the exile came
And winged him on his way: his country's bound
Once passed, his darker memories with it sank:
Through Essex hastening, stronger grew his step;
East Anglian breezes from the morning sea
Fanned him to livelier pulse: wild April growths
Gladdened his spirit with glittering green. More fresh
He walked because the sun outfaced him not,
Veiled, though not far. That shrouded sun had ta'en
Its passion from the wild-bird's song, but left
Quiet felicities of notes low-toned
That kept in tune with streams too amply brimmed
To chatter o'er their pebbles. Kenwalk's soul
Partook not with the poet's. Loveliest sights,
Like music brightening those it fails to charm,
Roused but his mirthful mood. To each that passed
He tossed his jest: he scanned the labourer's task;
Reviled the luckless boor that ploughed awry,
And beat the smith that marred the horse's hoof:
At times his fortunes thus he moralised:
'Here walk I, crownless king, and exiled man:
My Mercian brother lists his sister's tongue:
Say, lark! which lot is happiest?'
Festive streets,
Tapestries from windows waving, banners borne
By white-clad children chanting anthems blithe;
With these East Anglia's king received his friend
Entering the city gate. In joyous sports
That day was passed. At banquet Christian priests
Sat with his thanes commingled. Anna's court
Was Christian, and, for many a league around,
His kingdom likewise. As the earth in May
Glistens with vernal flowers, or as the face
Of one whose love at last has found return
Irradiate shines, so shone King Anna's house,
A home of Christian peace. Fair sight it was--
Justice and Love, the only rivals there,
O'er-ruled it, and attuned. Majestic strength
Looked forth in every glance of Anna's eye,
Too great for pride to dwell there. Tender-souled
As that first streak, the harbinger of dawn
Revealed through cloudless ether, such the queen,
All charity, all humbleness, all grace,
All womanhood. Harmonious was her voice,
Dulcet her movements, undisguised her thoughts,
As though they trod an Eden land unfallen,
And needed raiment none. Some heavenly birth
Their children seemed, blameless in word and act,
The sisters as their brothers frank, and they,
Though bolder, not less modest. Kenwalk marked,
And marking, mused in silence, 'Contrast strange
These Christians with the pagan races round!
Something those pagans see not these have seen:
Something those pagans hear not these have heard:
Doubtless there's much in common. What of that?
'Tis thus 'twixt man and dog; yet knows the dog
His master walks in worlds by him not shared--
Perchance for me too there are worlds unknown!'
Thus God to Kenwalk shewed the things that bear
Of God true witness, seeing in his soul
Justice and Judgment, and, with these conjoined,
Valour and Truth: for as the architect
On tower four-square and solid plants his spire,
And not on meads below, though gay with flowers,
On those four virtues God the fabric rears
Of virtues loftier yet--those three, heaven-born,
And pointing heavenward.
To those worlds unknown
Kenwalk ere long stood nigh. In three short months
The loveliest of those children, and last born,
Lay cold in death. Old nurses round her wailed:
The mighty heart of Kenwalk shook for dread
Entering the dim death-chamber. On a bier
The maiden lay, the cross upon her breast:
Beside her sat her mother, pale as she,
Yet calm as pale. When Kenwalk near her drew
She lifted from that bier a slender book
And read that record of the three days' dead
Raised by the Saviour from that death-cave sealed,
A living man. Once more she read those words,
'I am the Resurrection and the Life,'
Then added, low, with eyes up cast to heaven,
'With Him my child awaits me.' Kenwalk saw;
And, what he saw, believing, half believed--
Not more--the things he heard.
Yes, half believed;
Yet, call it obduracy, call it pride,
Call it self-fear, or fear of priestly craft,
He closed his ear against the Word Divine:
The thing he saw he trusted; nought beyond.
Three years went by. Once, when his friend had named
The Name all-blessed, Kenwalk frowned. Since then
That Name was named no more. O'er hill and dale
They chased the wild deer; on the billow breathed
Inspiring airs; in hall of joyance trod
The mazes of the dance. Then war broke out:
Reluctant long King Anna sought the field;
Hurled back aggression. Kenwalk, near him still,
Watched him with insight keener than his wont,
And, wondering, marked him least to pagans like
Inly, when like perforce in outward deed.
The battle frenzy took on him no hold:
Severe his countenance grew; austere and sad;
Fatal, not wrathful. Vicar stern he seemed
Of some dread, judgment-executing Power,
Against his yearnings; not despite his will.
Once, when above the faithless town far off
The retributive smoke leaped up to heaven,
He closed with iron hand on Kenwalk's arm
And slowly spake--a whisper heard afar--
'See you that town? Its judgment is upon it!
I gave it respite twice. This day its doom
Is irreversible.'
The invader quelled,
Anna and Kenwalk on their homeward way
Rode by the grave of saintly Sigebert,
King Anna's predecessor. Kenwalk spake:
'Some say the people keep but memory scant
Of benefits: I trust the things I see:
I never passed that tomb but round it knelt
A throng of supplicants! King Sigebert
Conversed, men say, with prophet and with seer:
I never loved that sort:--who wills can dream--
Yet what I see I see.'
'They pray for him,'
Anna replied, 'who perished for their sake:
Long years he lived recluse at Edmondsbury,
A tonsured monk: around its walls one day
Arose that cry, "The Mercian, and his host!
Forth, holy King, and lead, as thou wert wont,
Thy people to the battle, lest they die!"
Again I see him riding at their head,
Lifting a cross, not sword. The battle lost,
Again I see him fall.' With rein drawn tight
King Kenwalk mused; then smote his hands, and cried
'My father would have died like Sigebert!
He lacked but the occasion!' After pause,
Sad-faced, with bitter voice he spake once more:
'Such things as these I might have learned at home!
I shunned my father's house lest fools might say,
'He thinks not his own thoughts.'
Thus month by month,
Though Faith which 'comes by hearing' had not come
To Kenwalk yet, not less since sight he used
In honest sort, and resolute to learn,
God shewed him memorable things and great
Which sight unblest discerns not, tutoring thus
A kingly spirit to a kingly part:
Before him near it lay.
The morrow morn
Great tidings came: in Wessex war was raised:
Kenwalk, departing thus to Anna spake,
To Anna, and his consort: 'Well I know
What thanks are those the sole your hearts could prize:'
With voice that shook he added: 'Man am I
That make not pledge: yet, if my father's God
Sets free my father's realm----' again he paused;
Then westward rode alone.
Well planned, fought well
(For Kenwalk, of the few reverse makes wise,
From him had put his youth's precipitance)
That virtuous warfare triumphed. Swift as fire
The news from Sherburne and from Winbourne flashed
To Sarum, Chertsey, Malmsbury. That delight
On earth the nearest to religious joy,
The rapture of a trampled land set free,
Swelled every breast: the wounded in their wounds
Rejoiced, not grieved: the sick forgat their pains:
The mourner dashed away her tear and cried,
'Wessex is free!' Remained a single doubt:
Christians crept forth from cave and hollow tree:
Once more the exiled monk was seen; and one
Who long in minstrel's garb, with harp in hand,
Old, poor, half blind, had sat beside a bridge,
And, charming first the wayfarer with song,
Had won him next with legends of the Cross,
Stood up before his altar. Rumour ran
'Once more Birinus lifts his crosier-staff!'
Then muttered priests of Odin, 'Cynegils
We know was Christian. Kenwalk holds--or held,
Ancestral Faith, yet warred not on the new:
Tolerance means still connivance.'
Peace restored,
Within King Kenwalk's echoing palace hall,
The hall alike of council and of feast,
The Great Ones of the Wessex realm were met:
Birinus sat among them, eyed from far
With anger and with hatred. Council o'er,
Banquet succeeded, and to banquet song,
The Saxon's after-banquet. Many a harp
That day by flying hand entreated well
Divulged its secret, amorous, or of war;
And many a warrior sang his own great deeds
Or dirge of ancient friend Valhalla's guest;
Nor stinted foeman's praise. Silent meanwhile
Far down the board a son of Norway sat,
Ungenial guest with clouded brows and stern,
And eyes that flashed beneath them: bard was he,
Warrior and bard. Not his the song for gold!
He sang but of the war-fields and the gods;
He lays of love despised. 'Thy turn is come,
Son of the ice-bound North,' thus spake a thane:
'Sing thou! The man who sees that face, already
Half hears the tempest singing through the pines
That shade thy gulfs hill-girt.' The stranger guest
Answered, not rising: 'Yea, from lands of storm
And seas cut through by fiery lava floods
I come, a wanderer. Ye, meantime, in climes
Balm-breathing, gorge the fat, and smell the sweet:
Ye wed the maid whose sire ye never slew,
And bask in unearned triumph. Feeble spirits!
Endless ye deem the splendours of this hour,
And call defeat opprobrious! Sirs, our life
Is trial. Victory and Defeat are Gods
That toss man's heart, their plaything, each to each:
Great Mercia knows that truth--of all your realms
Faithfullest to Odin far!'
'Nay, minstrel, sing,'
Once more, not wroth, they clamoured. He replied:
'Hear then my song; but not those songs ye sing:
I have against you somewhat, Wessex men!
Ye are not as your fathers, when, in youth,
I trod your coasts. That time ye sang of Gods,
Sole theme for manlike song. On Iceland's shores
We keep our music's virtue undefiled:
While summer lasts we fight; by winter hearths,
Or ranged in sunny coves by winter seas,
Betwixt the snow-plains and the hills of fire,
Singing we feed on legends of the Gods:
Ye sing but triumphs of the hour that fleets;
Ye build you kingdoms: next ye dash them down:
Ye bow to idols! O that song of mine
Might heal this people's wound!'
Then rose the bard
And took his harp, and smote it like a man;
And sang full-blooded songs of Gods who spurn
Their heaven to war against that giant race
Throned 'mid the mountains of old Joetunheim
That girdle still the unmeasured seas of ice
With horror and strange dread. Innumerable,
In ever-winding labyrinths, glacier-thronged,
Those mountains raise their heads among the stars,
That palsied glimmer 'twixt their sunless bulks,
O'er-shadowing seas and lands. O'er Joetunheim
The glittering car of day hath never shone:
There endless twilight broods. Beneath it sit
The huge Frost-Giants, sons of Oergelmir,
Themselves like mountains, solitary now,
Now grouped, with knees drawn up, and heads low bent
Plotting new wars. Those wars the Northman sang;
And thunder-like rang out the vast applause.
That hour Birinus whispered one close by:
'Not casual this! Ill spirits, be sure, this day,
And impious men will launch their fiercest bolts
To crush Christ's Faith for ever!'
Jocund songs
The bard sang next: how Thor had roamed disguised
Through Joetunheim, and found the giant-brood
Feasting; and how their king gave challenge thus:
'Sir, since you deign us visit, show us feats!
Behold yon drinking horn! with us a child
Drains it at draught.' The God inclined his head
And swelled his lips; and three times drank: yet lo!
Nigh full that horn remained, the dusky mead
In mockery winking! Spake once more the king:
'Behold my youngest daughter's chief delight,
Yon wild-cat grey! She lifts it: lift it thou!'
The God beneath it slipped his arm and tugged,
And tugging, ever higher rose and higher;
The wild cat arched her back and with him rose;--
But one foot left the ground! Last, forward stept
A haggard, lame, decrepid, toothless crone,
And cried, 'Canst wrestle, friend?' He closed upon her:
Firm stood she as a mountain: she in turn
Closed upon Thor, and brought him to one knee:
Lower she could not bend him. Thor for rage
Clenched both his fists until his finger-joints
Grew white as snow late fallen!
Loud and long
The laughter rose: the minstrel frowned dislike:
'I have against you somewhat, Wessex men!
In laughter spasms ye reel, or shout applause,
Music surceased. Like rocks your fathers sat;
In every song they knew some mystery lay,
Mystery of man or nature. Greater God
Is none than Thor, whom, witless, thus ye flout.
That giant knew his greatness, and, at morn,
While vexed at failure through the gates he passed,
Addressed him reverent: 'Lift thy head, great Thor!
Disguised thou cam'st; not less we knew thee well:
Brave battle fought'st thou, seeming still to fail:
Thy foes were phantoms! Phantasies I wove
To snare thine eyes because I feared thy hand,
And pledged thy strength to tasks impossible.
That horn thou could'st not empty was the sea!
At that third draught such ebb-tide stripp'd the shore
As left whole navies stranded! What to thee
Wild-cat appeared was Midgard's endless snake
Whose infinite circle clasps the ocean round:
Then when her foot thou liftedst, tremour went
From iron vale to vale of Joetunheim:
Hadst thou but higher raised it one short span,
The sea had drowned the land! That toothless crone
Was Age, that drags the loftiest head to earth:
She bent thy knee alone. Come here no more!
On equal ground thou fight'st us in the light:
In this, our native land, the stronger we,
And mock thee by Illusions!'
After pause,
With haughty eye cast round, the minstrel spake:
'Now hear ye mysteries of the antique song,
Though few shall guess their import!' Then he sang
Legends primeval of that Northern race,
And dread beginnings of the heavens and earth,
When, save the shapeless chaos, nothing was:
Of Ymer first, by some named Oergelmir,
The giant sire of all the giant brood:--
Him for his sins the sons of Boer destroyed;
Then fashioned of his blood the seas and streams,
And of his bones the mountains; of his teeth
The cliffs firm set against the aggressive waves;
Last, of his skull the vast, o'er-hanging heaven;
And of his brain the clouds.
'Sing on,' they cried:
Next sang he of that mystic shape, earth-born,
The wondrous cow, Auhumla. Herb that hour
Was none, nor forest growth; yet on and on
She wandered by the vapour-belted seas,
And, wandering, from the stones and icebergs cold
That creaked forlorn against the grey sea-crags,
She licked salt spray, and hoary frost, and lived;
And ever where she licked sprang up, full-armed,
Men fair and strong!
Once more they cried, 'Sing on!'
Last sang the minstrel of the Night and Day:
Car-borne they sweep successive through the heaven:
First rides the dusky maid by men called Night;
Sleep-bringing, pain-assuaging, kind to man;
With dream-like speed cleaving the starry sphere:
Hrimfaxi is her horse: his round complete
Foam from his silver bit bespangles earth,
And mortals call it 'Morn.' Day follows fast,
Her brother white: Skinfaxi is his horse:
When forth he flings the splendours from his mane
Both Gods and men rejoice.
Thus legends old
The Northman sang, till, fleeting from men's eyes,
The present lived no longer. In its place
He fixed that vision of the world new formed,
Which on the childhood of the Northern mind
Like endless twilight lay;--spaces immense;
Unmeasured energies of fire and flood;
Great Nature's forces, terrible yet blind,
In ceaseless strife alternately supreme,
Or breast to breast with dreadful equipoise
In conflict pressed. Once more o'er those that heard
He hung that old world's low, funereal sky:
Before their eyes he caused its cloud to stream
Shadowing infinitude. He spake no word
Like Heida of that war 'twixt Good and Ill;
That peace which crowns the just; that God unknown:
Enough to him his Faith without its soul!
With glorying eye he marked that panting throng;
Then, sudden, changed his note. Again of war
He sang, but war no more of Gods on Gods;
He sang the honest wars of man on man;
Of Odin, king of men, ere yet, death past,
He flamed abroad in godhead. Field on field
He sang his battles; traced from realm to realm
His conquering pilgrimage: then ended, fierce:
'What God was this--that God ye honoured once?
What man was this--your half-forgotten king?
Your law-giver he was! he framed your laws!
Your poet he: he shaped your earliest song!
Your teacher he: he taught you first your runes!
Your warrior--yours! His warfare consummate,
For you he died! Old age at last, sole foe
Unvanquished, found him throned in Gylfi's land:
Summoning his race around him thus he spake:
"My sons, I scorn that age should cumber youth!
Ye have your lesson--see ye keep it well!
I taught you how to conquer; how to live;
Now learn to die!" His dagger high he raised;
Nine times he plunged it through his bleeding breast,
Then sheathed it in his heart. Ere from his lips
The kingly smile had vanished, he was dead!'