Part 10

“’Tis a merry I be. Lo, have I not fetched forth unto a day that holdeth little o’ the blood o’ me, that I might deal alike unto my brother and bring forth word that be ahungered for aye, and they speak them o’ her ahere and wag and hark not? Yea, and did the blood o’ them spake out unto their very ears I vow me ’twould set the earth ariot o’ fearing. Yea, man loveth blood that hath not flowed, but sicketh o’er spilled blood. Yea, then weave.”

There was some discussion following this, to the effect that whatever explanations might be given of this phenomenon, many would believe in Patience Worth as an independent personality, which brought from her the following discourse which may well conclude these conversations:

“Yea, the tooth o’ him who eateth up the flesh I did to cloak me athin, shall rot and he shalt wither. Aye, and the word o’ me shalt stand. Fires but bake awell.

“Sweet hath the sound of the word o’ Him asounded unto the ears o’ Earth that hark not.

“Yea, and He hath beat upon the busom of Earth and sounded out a loud noise, and Earth harkened not.

“And He hath sung thro’ the mother’s songs o’ Earth, and Earth harkened not.

“Yea, and He hath sent His own with word, and Earth harkened not.

“Then ’tis Earth’s own folly that batheth her.

“Yea, and Folly cometh astreaming ribbands, and showering color, and grinning ’pon his way.

“Yea, but Folly masketh and leadeth Earth and man assuredly unto Follies pit—self. And self is blind.

“Then whence doth Earth to turn for aid? For Folly followeth not the blind, and the voice of him who falleth unto the pit of Folly soundeth out a loud note. Yea, and it echoeth ’self.’

“And lo, the Earth filled up o’ self, hearketh not unto the words of Him, the King of Wisdom.

“Yea, and I say unto thee, though them o’ Him fall pierced and rent athin the flow o’ their own blood thro’ the self-song o’ his brother, he doeth this for Him.

“And the measuring rod shall weight out for him who packeth the least o’ self athin him, afull o’ measure, and light for him who packeth heavy o’ self.

“Ayea, and more. I speak me o’ lands wherein the high estate be self. Yea, yea, yea, o’ thy lands do I to speak. Woe unto him who feareth that might shall slay! Self may wield a mighty blow, but it slayeth never.

“’Tis as the dame who watcheth o’er her brood, and lo, this one hath sorry, and that one hath sorry. And she flitteth here and yon, and lo, afore she hath fetched out the herbs, they sleep them peaceful. So shall it be at this time. The herbs shall be fetched forth but lo, the lands shall sleep them peaceful.

“Yea, for Folly leadeth, and Wisdom warreth Folly.”

RELIGION

“Teach me that I be Ye.”

And now we well may ask: What is the purpose of all this? Here we appear to have an invisible intelligence, speaking an obsolete language, producing volumes of poetry containing many evidences of profound wisdom. So far as I have been able to find out, no such phenomenon has occurred before since the world began. Do not misunderstand that assertion. There is nothing extraordinary in the manner of its coming, as I have said before. The publications of the Society for Psychical Research are filled with examples of communications received in the same or a similar way. The fact that makes this phenomenon stand out, that altogether isolates it from everything else of an occult nature, is the character and quality of its literature. Literature is something tangible, something that one can lay hands on, so to speak. It is in a sense physical; it can be seen with the eyes. And this literature is the physical evidence which Patience Worth presents of herself as a separate and distinct personality.

But why is it contributed? Is there in it any intimation or assertion of a definite purpose?

If we may assume that Patience is what she seems to be—a voice from another world, then indeed we may discern a purpose. She has a message to deliver, and she gives the impression that she is a messenger.

“Do eat that which I offer thee,” she says. “’Tis o’ Him. I but bear the pack apacked for the carry o’ me by Him.”

Constantly she speaks of herself as bearing food or drink in her words. “I bid thee eat,” she said to one, “and rest ye, and eat amore, for ’tis the wish o’ me that ye be filled.” The seed, the loaf, the cup, are frequently used symbolically when referring to her communications.

“There be a man who buyeth grain and he telleth his neighbor and his neighbor’s neighbor, and lo, they come asacked and clamor for the grain. And what think ye? Some do make price, and yet others bring naught. But I be atelling ye, ’tis not a price I beg. Nay, ’tis that ye drink my cup.”

“’Tis truth o’ earth that ’tis the seed aplanted deep that doth cause the harvester for to watch. For lo, doth he to hold the seed athin (within) his hand, ’tis but a seed. And aplanted he doth watch him in wondering. Verily do I say, ’tis so with me. I be aplanted deep; do thee then to watch.”

And with greater significance she has exclaimed: “Morn hath broke, and ye be the first to see her light. Look ye wide-eyed at His workings. He hath offered ye a cup.”

It is thus she announces herself to be a herald of a new day, a bearer of tidings divinely commissioned.

What, then, is her message? For answer it may be said that it is at once a revelation, a religion and a promise. Whatever we may think of the nature of this phenomenon, Patience herself is a revelation, and there are many revelations in her words. The religion she presents is not a new one. It is as old as that given to the world nineteen centuries ago; for fundamentally it is the same. It is that religion, stripped of all the doctrines and creeds and ceremonials and observances that have grown up about it in all the ages since His coming, and paring it down to the point where it can be expressed by the one word—Love. Love, going out to fellow man, to all nature and overflowing toward God.

In the consideration of this religion let us begin at the beginning, at the ground, so to speak, with this expression of love for the loveless:

Ah, could I love thee, Thou, the loveless o’ the earth, And pry aneath the crannies Yet untouched by mortal hand To send therein this love o’ mine— Thou creeping mite, and winged speck, And whirled waters o’ the mid o’ sea Where no man seeth thee? And could I love thee, the days Unsunned and laden with hate o’ sorrying? Ah, could I love thee, Thou who beareth blight; And thou the fruit bescorched And shrivelling, to fall unheeded ’Neath thy mother-stalk?

Ah, could I love thee, love thee? Aye, for Him who loveth thee, And blightest but through loving; Like to him who bendeth low the forest’s king To fashion out a mast.

Love for everything is the essence of her thought and of her song. And as she thus sings for the loveless, so she sings for the wearied ones and the failures of the earth:

I’d sing. Wearied word adropped by weary ones, And broked mold afashioned out by wearied hands; A falter-song sung through tears o’ wearied one; A fancied put o’ earth’s fair scene Afallen at awry o’ weariness. Love’s task Unfinished, aye, o’ertaken by sore weariness— O’ thee I’d sing.

Aye, and put me such an songed-note That earth, aye, and heaven, should hear; And thou, aye all o’ ye, the soul-songs O’ my brothers, be afinished, At the closing o’ my song.

Aye, and wearied, aye and wearied, I’d sing. I’d sing for them, the loved o’ Him, And brothers o’ thee and me. Amen.

This is the prelude and now comes the song:

I choose o’ the spill O’ love and word and work, The waste o’ earth, to build.

Ye hark unto the sages, And oft a way-singer’s song Hath laden o’erfull o’ truth, And wasteth ’pon the air, And falleth not unto thine ear.

Think ye He scattereth whither E’en such an grain? Nay. And do ye seek o’ spill And put unto thy song, ’Twill fill its emptiness.

Ye seek to sing but o’ thy song, And ’tis an empty strain. ’Tis need O’ love’s spill for to fill.

The spill of earth, the love that goes unnoticed and unappreciated, the words that are unheard or unheeded, the work that seems to be for naught—none of these is waste. A song it is for the wearied ones, the heart-sick and discouraged, “the loved of Him and brothers of thee and me.”

And yet she calls them waste but to show that they are not. “The waste of earth,” she says, “doth build the Heaven,” and this is the theme of much of her song.

Earth hath filled it up o’ waste and waste. The sea’s fair breast, that heaveth as a mother’s, Beareth waste o’ wrecks and wind-blown waste. The day doth hold o’ waste. The smiles that die, that long to break, The woes that burden them already broke, ’Tis waste, ah yea, ’tis waste. And yet, and yet, at some fair day, E’en as the singing thou dost note Doth bound from yonder hill’s side green As echo, yea, the ghost o’ thy voice; So shall all o’ this to sound aback Unto the day. Of waste, of waste, is heaven builded up.

It is to the waste of earth that she speaks in this message of love and sympathy:

Ah, emptied heart! The weary o’ the path! How would I to fill ye up o’ love! I’d tear this lute, that it might whirr A song that soothed thy lone, awearied path. I’d steal the sun’s pale gold, And e’en the silvered even’s ray, To treasure them within this song That it be rich for thee. From out the wastes o’ earth I’d seek And catch the woe-tears shed, That I might drink them from the cup And fill it up with loving. From out the hearts afulled o’ love Would I to steal the o’er-drip And pack the emptied hearts of earth. The bread o’ love would I to cast Unto thy bywayed path, and pluck me From the thornèd bush that traileth o’er The stepping-place, the thorn, that brothers O’ the flesh o’ me might step ’pon path acleared. Yea, I’d coax the songsters o’ the earth To carol thee upon thy ways, And fill ye up o’ love and love and love.

And a message of cheer and encouragement she gives to those who sorrow, in this:

“The web o’ sorrow weaveth ’bout the days o’ earth, and ’tis but Folly who plyeth o’ the bobbin. I tell thee more, the bobbins stick and threads o’ day-weave go awry. But list ye; ’tis he who windeth o’ his web ’pon smiles and shuttleth ’twixt smiles and woe who weaveth o’ a day afull and pleantious. And sorrow then wilt rift and show a light athrough.”

Smiles amid sorrows. He who windeth of his web upon smiles not only rifts his own woes but those of others, as she expresses it in this verse:

The smile thou cast today that passed Unheeded by the world; the handclasp Of a friend, the touch of baby palms Upon its mother’s breast— Whither have they flown along the dreary way? Mayhap thy smile Hath fallen upon a daisy’s golden head, To shine upon some weary traveler Along the dusty road, and cause A softening of the hard, hard way. Perchance the handclasp strengthened wavering love And lodged thee in thy friend’s regard. And where the dimpled hands caress, Will not a well of love spring forth? Who knows, but who will tell The hiding of these fleeting gifts!

And she gives measure to the same thought in this:

Waft ye through the world sunlight; Throw ye to the sparrows grain That runneth o’er the heaping measure. Scatter flower petals, like the wings Of fluttering butterflies, to streak The dove-gray day with daisy gold, And turn the silver mist to fleece of gold. Hath the king a noble who is such An wonder-worker? Or hath his jester Such a pack of tricks as thine?

Both of these last have to do with the hands and with the use of the hands in the expression of love for others, but in the following poem Patience pays a tender and yet somewhat mystical tribute to the hands themselves, empty hands filled with the gifts of Him, the power to build and weave and soothe:

Hands. Hands. The hands o’ Earth; Abusied at fashioning, Aye, And put o’ this, aye, and that. Hands. Hands upturned at empty. Hands. Hands untooled, aye, but builders O’ the soothe o’ Earth.

Hands. Hands aspread, aye, and sending forth That which they do hold—the emptiness. Aye, at empty they be, afulled o’ the give o’ Him. At put at up, aye, and down, ’tis at weave O’ cloth o’ Him they be.

Hands. Hands afulled o’ work o’ Him; Aye, and ever at a spread o’ doing in His name. Aye, and at put o’ weave For naught but loving.

There are no doubt such hands on earth, many of them “ever at a spread of doing in His name,” but not often have their work and their mission been so beautifully and so fittingly expressed as in this strange verse which, to me at least, grows in wonder at every reading. And this not so much because of the quaintness of the words and the singularity of the construction, as for the thought. This, however, is characteristic of all of her work. There is always more in it than appears upon the surface. And yet when one analyzes it, one finds that whatever may be the nature or the subject of the composition, in nearly every instance love is the inspiration.

The love that she expresses is universal. It goes out to nature in all its forms, animate and inanimate, lovely and unlovely. It is manifested in all her references to humanity, from the infant to doddering age; and her compositions are filled with appeals for the application of love to the relations between man and man. But it is when she sings of God that she expresses love with the most tender and passionate fervency—His love for man, her love for Him. “For He knoweth no beginning, no ending to loving,” she says, “and loveth thee and me and me and thee ever and afore ever.” “Sighing but bringeth up heart’s weary; tears but wash the days acleansed; hands abusied for them not thine do work for Him; prayers that fall ’pon but the air and naught, ye deem, sing straight unto Him. Close, close doth He to cradle His own to Him.” She gives poetic expression to this divine love in the song which follows:

Brother, weary o’ the plod, Art sorried sore o’ waiting? Brother, bowed aneath the pack o’ Earth, Art seeking o’ the path That leadest thee unto new fields O’ green, and breeze-kissed airs? Art bowed and bent o’ weight o’ sorry? Art weary, weary, sore? Then come and hark unto this song o’ Him.

Hast thou atrodden ’pon the Earth, And worn the paths o’ folly Till thou art foot-sore? And hast the day grinned back to thee, A folly-mask adown thy path That layeth far behind thee? Thy heart, my brother, hast thou then Alost it ’pon the path? And filled thee up o’ word and tung O’ follysingers long the way?

Ah, weary me, ah, weary me! Come thou unto this breast. For though thou hast suffered o’ the Earth, And though thy robe be stained O’ travel o’er the stoney way, And though thy lips deny thy heart, Come thou unto this breast, The breast o’ Him. For He knoweth not the stain. Aye, and the land o’ Him doth know No stranger ’mid its hosts. Ayea, and though thou comest mute, This silence speaketh then to Him, And He doth hold Him ope His arms.

So come thou brother, weary one, To Him, for ’tis but Earth and men Who ask thee WHY.

She pours out her love for God in many verses of praise and prayer.

Bird skimming to the south, Bear thou my song, Sand slipping to the wave’s embrace, Do thou but bear it too! And, shifting tide, take thou Unto thy varied paths The voicing of my soul!

I’d build me such an endless Chant to sing of Him That days to follow days Would be but builded chord Of this my lay.

Still more ardently does she express her love in these lines:

Spring, thou art but His smile Of happiness in me, and sullen days Of weariness shall fall when Spring is born In winds of March and rains of April’s tears. Methinks ’tis weariness of His that I, His loved, should tarry o’er the task And leave life’s golden sheaves unbound. And, Night, thou too art mine, of Him. Thy dim and veiled stars are but the eyes Of Him that through the curtained mystery Watch on and sever dark from me. And, Love, thou too art His, His words of wooing to my soul. Should I, then, crush thee in embrace, And bruise thee with my kiss, And drink thy soul through mine? What, then! ’Tis He, ’tis He, my love, That gave me thee, and while my love is thine, What wonder is it causeth here This heart of mine to stifle so And seek expression in a prayer of thanks?

With equal fervency of devotion and gratitude she sings this tribute to the day:

Ah, what a day He hath made, He hath made! It flasheth abright and asweet, and asweet. It showeth His love and His smile, yea, His smile.

The hills stand abrown, aye astand brown, And peaked as a monk in his cowl, aye, his cowl! The grass it hath seared, aye, hath seared And scenteth asweet, yea, asweet. Ayonder a swallow doth whirl, aye, doth whirl, And skim mid the grey o’ the blue, Aye, the grey o’ the blue. The young wave doth lap ’pon the sands, Yea, lap soft and soft ’pon the sands. The field’s maid doth seek, yea, doth seek, And send out her song to the day, Yea, send out her song to the day.

My heart it is full, yea, ’tis full, For the love of Him batheth the day, Yea, the love of Him batheth the day.

Ah, what a day He hath made, Yea, He hath made it for me!

Her prayers are not appeals for aid; they are not begging petitions. They are outpourings of love and trust and gratitude.

To an old couple, friends of Mr. and Mrs. Curran, who passed a round-eyed evening with Patience, she said:

Keep ye within thy heart a song And murmur thou this prayer:

“My God, am I then afraid Of heights or depths? And doth this dark benumb my quaking limbs? And do I stop my song in fear Lest Thee do then forsake me? Nay, for I do love Thee so, I fain would choose a song Built from my chosen tung, And though it be but chattering Of a soul bereft of reasoning, I know Thou would’st love it as Thine own, For I do love Thee so!”

This was not given for another, but is her own cry:

I beseech Thee, Lord, for naught! But cry aloud unto the sunlight Who bathes the earth in gold And boldly breaketh into crannies Yet unseen by man: Flash thou in flaming sheen! Mine own song of love doth falter And my throat, it is afail!

And thou, the greening shrub along the way, And earth at bud-season, Do thou then spurt thy shoots And pierce the air with loving! And age-wabbled brother— I do love thee for thy spending, And I do gaze in loving at thy face, Whereon I find His peace, And trace the withered cheek For record of His love. Around thy lips doth hang The child-smile of a trusting heart; And world hath vanished From thine eyes, bedimmed To gard thee at awakening. Thou, too, art of my song of love.

I beseech Thee, Lord, for naught. These hands are Thine for loving, And this heart, already Thine, Why offer it? I beseech Thee, Lord, for naught.

This one does ask for something, but only to know Him:

Teach me, O God, To say, “’Tis not enough.” Aye, teach me, O Brother, To sing, and though the weight Be past this strength, Teach me, O God, to say, “’Tis not enough—to pay!”

Teach me, O God, for I be weak. Teach me to learn Of strength from Thee.

Teach me, O God, to trust, and do. Teach me, O God, no word to pray. Teach me, O God, the heart Thou gavest me. Teach me, O God, to read thereon. Teach me, O God, to waste not word. Teach me that I be Ye!

That last line presents the most impressive principle of the religion she expresses, and which, we might almost say, she embodies. “Who are you?” she was once asked abruptly.

“I be Him,” she replied; “alike to thee. Ye be o’ Him.”

At another time she said:

“I be all that hath been, and all that is, all that shalt be, for that be He.”

Taken alone this would seem to be a declaration that she herself was God, but when it is read in connection with the previous affirmation it is readily understood.

“Thou art of Him,” she said again, “aye, and I be of Him, and ye be of Him, and He be all and of all.”

In this prayer, where she says “Teach me, O God, no word to pray,” it is evident from her other prayers that she uses the word pray in the sense of “to beg.” Her prayers are merely expressions of love and gratitude.

She herself interprets the line, “Teach me, O God, to waste not word,” in this verse: