A hostelry, a peasant’s farm,
That lodged me for a night or day,
In which I care not to remain,
Nor having left, to see again.
Thus, in the hollow of God’s hand 35
I dwelt on sacred Tabor’s height,
When as a simple acolyte
I journeyed to the Holy Land,
A pilgrim for my master’s sake,
And saw the Galilean Lake, 40
And walked through many a village street
That once had echoed to his feet.
There first I heard the great command,
The voice behind me saying: Write!
And suddenly my soul became 45
Illumined by a flash of flame,
That left imprinted on my thought
The image I in vain had sought,
And which forever shall remain;
As sometimes from these windows high, 50
Gazing at midnight on the sky
Black with a storm of wind and rain,
I have beheld a sudden glare
Of lightning lay the landscape bare,
With tower and town and hill and plain 55
Distinct, and burnt into my brain,
Never to be effaced again!
And I have written. These volumes three,
The Apocalypse, the Harmony
Of the Sacred Scriptures, new and old, 60
And the Psalter with Ten Strings, enfold
Within their pages, all and each,
The Eternal Gospel that I teach.
Well I remember the Kingdom of Heaven
Hath been likened to a little leaven 65
Hidden in two measures of meal,
Until it leavened the whole mass;
So likewise will it come to pass
With the doctrines that I here conceal.
Open and manifest to me 70
The truth appears, and must be told;
All sacred mysteries are threefold;
Three Persons in the Trinity,
Three ages of Humanity,
And Holy Scriptures likewise three, 75
Of Fear, of Wisdom, and of Love;
For Wisdom that begins in Fear
Endeth in Love; the atmosphere
In which the soul delights to be,
And finds that perfect liberty 80
Which cometh only from above.
In the first Age, the early prime
And dawn of all historic time,
The Father reigned; and face to face
He spake with the primeval race. 85
Bright Angels, on his errands sent,
Sat with the patriarch in his tent;
His prophets thundered in the street;
His lightnings flashed, his hailstorms beat;
In earthquake and in flood and flame, 90
In tempest and in cloud He came!
The fear of God is in his Book;
The pages of the Pentateuch
Are full of the terror of his name.
Then reigned the Son; his Covenant 95
Was peace on earth, good-will to man;
With Him the reign of Law began.
He was the Wisdom and the Word,
And sent his Angels Ministrant,
Unterrified and undeterred, 100
To rescue souls forlorn and lost,
The troubled, tempted, tempest-tost
To heal, to comfort, and to teach.
The fiery tongues of Pentecost
His symbols were, that they should preach 105
In every from of human speech,
From continent to continent.
He is the Light Divine, whose rays
Across the thousand years unspent
Shine through the darkness of our days, 110
And touch with their celestial fires
Our churches and our convent spires.
His Book is the New Testament.
These Ages now are of the Past;
And the Third Age begins at last. 115
The coming of the Holy Ghost,
The reign of Grace, the reign of Love
Brightens the mountain-tops above,
And the dark outline of the coast.
Already the whole land is white 120
With convent walls, as if by night
A snow had fallen on hill and height!
Already from the streets and marts
Of town and traffic, and low cares,
Men climb the consecrated stairs 125
With weary feet, and bleeding hearts;
And leave the world, and its delights,
Its passions, struggles, and despairs,
For contemplation and for prayers
In cloister-cells of cœnobites. 130
Eternal benedictions rest
Upon thy name, Saint Benedict!
Founder of convents in the West,
Who built on Mount Cassino’s crest
In the Land of Labor, thine eagle’s nest! 135
May I be found not derelict
In aught of faith or godly fear,
If I have written, in many a page,
The Gospel of the coming age,
The Eternal Gospel men shall hear. 140
Oh may I live resembling thee,
And die at last as thou hast died;
So that hereafter men may see,
Within the choir, a form of air,
Standing with arms outstretched in prayer, 145
As one that hath been crucified!
My work is finished; I am strong
In faith and hope and charity;
For I have written the things I see,
The things that have been and shall be, 150
Conscious of right, nor fearing wrong;
Because I am in love with Love,
And the sole thing I hate is Hate;
For Hate is death; and Love is life,
A peace, a splendor from above; 155
And Hate, a never-ending strife,
A smoke, a blackness from the abyss
Where unclean serpents coil and hiss!
Love is the Holy Ghost within;
Hate the unpardonable sin! 160
Who preaches otherwise than this,
Betrays his Master with a kiss!
Christus: Part II. The Golden Legend
Prologue
The Spire of Strasburg Cathedral
Night and storm. LUCIFER, with the Powers of the Air, trying to tear down the Cross.
LUCIFER.
HASTEN! hasten!
O ye spirits!
From its station drag the ponderous
Cross of iron, that to mock us
Is uplifted high in air! 5
VOICES.
Oh, we cannot!
For around it
All the Saints and Guardian Angels
Throng in legions to protect it;
They defeat us everywhere! 10
THE BELLS.
Laudo Deum verum!
Plebem voco!
Congrego clerum!
LUCIFER.
Lower! lower!
Hover downward! 15
Seize the loud, vociferous bells, and
Clashing, clanging, to the pavement
Hurl them from their windy tower!
VOICES.
All thy thunders
Here are harmless! 20
For these bells have been anointed,
And baptized with holy water!
They defy our utmost power.
THE BELLS.
Defunctos ploro!
Pestem fugo! 25
Festa decoro!
LUCIFER.
Shake the casements!
Break the painted
Panes, that flame with gold and crimson;
Scatter them like leaves of Autumn, 30
Swept away before the blast!
VOICES.
Oh, we cannot!
The Archangel
Mi
chael flames from every window,
With the sword of fire that drove us 35
Headlong, out of heaven, aghast!
THE BELLS.
Funera plango!
Fulgura frango!
Sabbata pango!
LUCIFER.
Aim your lightnings 40
At the oaken,
Massive, iron-studded portals!
Sack the house of God, and scatter
Wide the ashes of the dead!
VOICES.
Oh, we cannot! 45
The Apostles
And the Martyrs, wrapped in mantles,
Stand as warders at the entrance,
Stand as sentinels o’erhead!
THE BELLS.
Excito lentos! 50
Dissipo ventos!
Paco cruentos!
LUCIFER.
Baffled! baffled!
Inefficient,
Craven spirits! leave this labor 55
Unto Time, the great Destroyer!
Come away, ere night is gone!
VOICES.
Onward! onward!
With the night-wind,
Over field and farm and forest, 60
Lonely homestead, darksome hamlet,
Blighting all we breathe upon!
They sweep away. Organ and Gregorian Chant.
CHOIR.
Nocte surgentes
Vigilemus omnes!
I.
The Castle of Vautsberg on the Rhine
A chamber in a tower. PRINCE HENRY, sitting alone, ill and restless. Midnight.
PRINCE HENRY.
I CANNOT sleep! my fervid brain
Calls up the vanished Past again,
And throws its misty splendors deep
Into the pallid realms of sleep!
A breath from that far-distant shore 5
Comes freshening ever more and more,
And wafts o’er intervening seas
Sweet odors from the Hesperides!
A wind, that through the corridor
Just stirs the curtain, and no more, 10
And, touching the æolian strings,
Faints with the burden that it brings!
Come back! ye friendships long departed!
That like o’erflowing streamlets started,
And now are dwindled, one by one, 15
To stony channels in the sun!
Come back! ye friends, whose lives are ended,
Come back, with all that light attended,
Which seemed to darken and decay
When ye arose and went away! 20
They come, the shapes of joy and woe,
The airy crowds of long ago,
The dreams and fancies known of yore,
That have been, and shall be no more.
They change the cloisters of the night 25
Into a garden of delight;
They make the dark and dreary hours
Open and blossom into flowers!
I would not sleep! I love to be
Again in their fair company; 30
But ere my lips can bid them stay,
They pass and vanish quite away!
Alas! our memories may retrace
Each circumstance of time and place,
Season and scene come back again, 35
And outward things unchanged remain;
The rest we cannot reinstate;
Ourselves we cannot re-create,
Nor set our souls to the same key
Of the remembered harmony! 40
Rest! rest! Oh, give me rest and peace!
The thought of life that ne’er shall cease
Has something in it like despair,
A weight I am too weak to bear!
Sweeter to this afflicted breast 45
The thought of never-ending rest!
Sweeter the undisturbed and deep
Tranquillity of endless sleep!
A flash of lightning, out of which LUCIFER appears, in the garb of a travelling Physician.
LUCIFER.
All hail, Prince Henry!
PRINCE HENRY, starting.
Who is it speaks?
Who and what are you?
LUCIFER.
One who seeks 50
A moment’s audience with the Prince.
PRINCE HENRY.
When came you in?
LUCIFER.
A moment since.
I found your study door unlocked,
And thought you answered when I knocked.
PRINCE HENRY.
I did not hear you.
LUCIFER.
You heard the thunder; 55
It was loud enough to waken the dead.
And it is not a matter of special wonder
That, when God is walking overhead,
You should not hear my feeble tread.
PRINCE HENRY.
What may your wish or purpose be? 60
LUCIFER.
Nothing or everything, as it pleases
Your Highness. You behold in me
Only a travelling Physician;
One of the few who have a mission
To cure incurable diseases, 65
Or those that are called so.
PRINCE HENRY.
Can you bring
The dead to life?
LUCIFER.
Yes; very nearly.
And, what is a wiser and better thing,
Can keep the living from ever needing
Such an unnatural, strange proceeding, 70
By showing conclusively and clearly
That death is a stupid blunder merely,
And not a necessity of our lives.
My being here is accidental;
The storm, that against your casement drives, 75
In the little village below waylaid me.
And there I heard with a secret delight,
Of your maladies physical and mental,
Which neither astonished nor dismayed me.
And I hastened hither, though late in the night, 80
To proffer my aid!
PRINCE HENRY, ironically.
For this you came!
Ah, how can I ever hope to requite
This honor from one so erudite?
LUCIFER.
The honor is mine, or will be when
I have cured your disease.
PRINCE HENRY.
But not till then. 85
LUCIFER.
What is your illness?
PRINCE HENRY.
It has no name.
A smouldering, dull, perpetual flame,
As in a kiln, burns in my veins,
Sending up vapors to the head;
My heart has become a dull lagoon, 90
Which a kind of leprosy drinks and drains;
I am accounted as one who is dead,
And, indeed, I think that I shall be soon.
LUCIFER.
And has Gordonius the Divine,
In his famous Lily of Medicine, — 95
I see the book lies open before you, —
No remedy potent enough to restore you?
PRINCE HENRY.
None whatever!
LUCIFER.
The dead are dead,
And their oracles dumb, when questionèd
Of the new diseases that human life 100
Evolves in its progress, rank and rife.
Consult the dead upon things that were,
But the living only on things that are.
Have you done this, by the appliance
And aid of doctors?
PRINCE HENRY.
Ay, whole schools 105
Of doctors, with their learned rules;
But the case is quite beyond their science.
Even the doctors of Salern
Send me back word they can discern
No cure for a malady like this, 110
Save one which in its nature is
Impossible and cannot be!
LUCIFER.
That sounds oracular!
PRINCE HENRY.
Unendurable!
LUCIFER.
What is their remedy?
PRINCE HENRY.
You shall see;
Writ in this scroll is the mystery. 115
LUCIFER, reading.
“Not to be cured, yet not incurable!
The only remedy that remains
Is the blood that flows from a maiden’s veins,
Who of her own free will shall die,
And give her life as the price of yours!” 120
That is the strangest of all cures,
And one, I think, you will never try;
The prescription you may well put by,
As something impossible to find
Before the world itself shall end! 125
And yet who knows? One cannot say
That into some maiden’s brain that kind
Of madness will not find its way.
Meanwhile permit me to recommend,
As the matter admits of no delay, 130
My wonderful Catholicon,
Of very subtile and magical powers!
PRINCE HENRY.
Purge with your nostrums and drugs infernal
The spouts and gargoyles of these towers,
Not me! My faith is utterly gone 135
In every power but the Power Supernal!
Pray tell me, of what school are you?
LUCIFER.
Both of the Old and of the New!
The school of Hermes Trismegistus,
Who uttered his oracles sublime 140
Before the Olympiads, in the dew
Of the early dusk and dawn of time,
The reign of dateless old Hephæstus!
As northward, from its Nubian springs,
The Nile, forever new and old, 145
Among the living and the dead,
Its mighty, mystic stream has rolled;
So, starting from its fountain-head
Under the lotus-leaves of Isis,
From the dead demigods of eld, 150
Through long, unbroken lines of kings
Its course the sacred art has held,
Unchecked, unchanged by man’s devices.
This art the Arabian Geber taught,
And in alembics, finely wrought, 155
Delphi Complete Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (Delphi Poets Series Book 13) Page 97
