Part 6

’Tis but a case of mania: subinduced By epilepsy, at the turning-point Of trance prolonged unduly some three days When, by the exhibition of some drug Or spell, exorcisation, stroke of art Unknown to me and which ’twere well to know, The evil thing, out-breaking, all at once, Left the man whole and sound of body indeed,— But, flinging (so to speak) life’s gates too wide, Making a clear house of it too suddenly, The first conceit that entered might inscribe Whatever it was minded on the wall So plainly at that vantage, as it were, (First come, first served) that nothing subsequent Attaineth to erase those fancy-scrawls The just-returned and new-established soul Hath gotten now so thoroughly by heart That henceforth she will read or these or none. And first—the man’s own firm conviction rests That he was dead (in fact they buried him) —That he was dead and then restored to life By a Nazarene physician of his tribe: —’Sayeth, the same bade “Rise,” and he did rise. “Such cases are diurnal,” thou wilt cry. Not so this figment!—not, that such a fume, Instead of giving way to time and health, Should eat itself into the life of life, As saffron tingeth flesh, blood, bones, and all! For see, how he takes up the after-life. The man—it is one Lazarus a Jew, Sanguine, proportioned, fifty years of age, The body’s habit wholly laudable, As much, indeed, beyond the common health As he were made and put aside to show. Think, could we penetrate by any drug And bathe the wearied soul and worried flesh, And bring it clear and fair, by three days’ sleep! Whence has the man the balm that brightens all? This grown man eyes the world now like a child. Some elders of his tribe, I should premise, Led in their friend, obedient as a sheep, To bear my inquisition. While they spoke, Now sharply, now with sorrow,—told the case,— He listened not except I spoke to him, But folded his two hands and let them talk, Watching the flies that buzzed: and yet no fool. And that’s a sample how his years must go. Look if a beggar, in fixed middle-life, Should find a treasure,—can he use the same With straitened habitude and tastes starved small, And take at once to his impoverished brain The sudden element that changes things, That sets the undreamed-of rapture at his hand, And puts the cheap old joy in the scorned dust? Is he not such an one as moves to mirth— Warily parsimonious, when no need, Wasteful as drunkenness at undue times? All prudent counsel as to what befits The golden mean, is lost on such an one: The man’s fantastic will is the man’s law. So here—we call the treasure knowledge, say, Increased beyond the fleshly faculty— Heaven opened to a soul while yet on earth, Earth forced on a soul’s use while seeing heaven: The man is witless of the size, the sum, The value in proportion of all things, Or whether it be little or be much. Discourse to him of prodigious armaments Assembled to besiege his city now, And of the passing of a mule with gourds— ’Tis one! Then take it on the other side, Speak of some trifling fact,—he will gaze rapt With stupor at its very littleness, (Far as I see) as if in that indeed He caught prodigious import, whole results; And so will turn to us the bystanders In ever the same stupor (note this point) That we too see not with his opened eyes. Wonder and doubt come wrongly into play, Preposterously, at cross purposes. Should his child sicken unto death,—why, look For scarce abatement of his cheerfulness, Or pretermission of the daily craft! While a word, gesture, glance from that same child At play or in the school or laid asleep, Will startle him to an agony of fear, Exasperation, just as like. Demand The reason why—“’tis but a word,” object— “A gesture”—he regards thee as our lord Who lived there in the pyramid alone, Looked at us (dost thou mind?) when, being young, We both would unadvisedly recite Some charm’s beginning, from that book of his, Able to bid the sun throb wide and burst All into stars, as suns grown old are wont. Thou and the child have each a veil alike Thrown o’er your heads, from under which ye both Stretch your blind hands and trifle with a match Over a mine of Greek fire, did ye know! He holds on firmly to some thread of life— (It is the life to lead perforcedly) Which runs across some vast distracting orb Of glory on either side that meagre thread, Which, conscious of, he must not enter yet— The spiritual life around the earthly life: The law of that is known to him as this, His heart and brain move there, his feet stay here. So is the man perplext with impulses Sudden to start off crosswise, not straight on, Proclaiming what is right and wrong across, And not along, this black thread through the blaze— “It should be” baulked by “here it cannot be.” And oft the man’s soul springs into his face As if he saw again and heard again His sage that bade him “Rise,” and he did rise. Something, a word, a tick o’ the blood within Admonishes: then back he sinks at once To ashes, who was very fire before, In sedulous recurrence to his trade Whereby he earneth him the daily bread; And studiously the humbler for that pride, Professedly the faultier that he knows God’s secret, while he holds the thread of life. Indeed the especial marking of the man Is prone submission to the heavenly will— Seeing it, what it is, and why it is. ’Sayeth, he will wait patient to the last For that same death which must restore his being To equilibrium, body loosening soul Divorced even now by premature full growth: He will live, nay, it pleaseth him to live So long as God please, and just how God please. He even seeketh not to please God more (Which meaneth, otherwise) than as God please. Hence, I perceive not he affects to preach The doctrine of his sect whate’er it be, Make proselytes as madmen thirst to do: How can he give his neighbour the real ground, His own conviction? Ardent as he is— Call his great truth a lie, why, still the old “Be it as God please” reassureth him. I probed the sore as thy disciple should: “How, beast,” said I, “this stolid carelessness “Sufficeth thee, when Rome is on her march “To stamp out like a little spark thy town, “Thy tribe, thy crazy tale and thee at once?” He merely looked with his large eyes on me. The man is apathetic, you deduce? Contrariwise, he loves both old and young, Able and weak, affects the very brutes And birds—how say I? flowers of the field— As a wise workman recognises tools In a master’s workshop, loving what they make. Thus is the man as harmless as a lamb: Only impatient, let him do his best, At ignorance and carelessness and sin— An indignation which is promptly curbed: As when in certain travel I have feigned To be an ignoramus in our art According to some preconceived design And happed to hear the land’s practitioners Steeped in conceit sublimed by ignorance, Prattle fantastically on disease, Its cause and cure—and I must hold my peace!

Thou wilt object—Why have I not ere this Sought out the sage himself, the Nazarene Who wrought this cure, inquiring at the source, Conferring with the frankness that befits? Alas! it grieveth me, the learned leech Perished in a tumult many years ago, Accused,—our learning’s fate,—of wizardry, Rebellion, to the setting up a rule And creed prodigious as described to me. His death, which happened when the earthquake fell (Prefiguring, as soon appeared, the loss To occult learning in our lord the sage Who lived there in the pyramid alone) Was wrought by the mad people—that’s their wont! On vain recourse, as I conjecture it, To his tried virtue, for miraculous help— How could he stop the earthquake? That’s their way! The other imputations must be lies: But take one, though I loathe to give it thee, In mere respect for any good man’s fame. (And after all, our patient Lazarus Is stark mad; should we count on what he says? Perhaps not: though in writing to a leech ’Tis well to keep back nothing of a case.) This man so cured regards the curer, then, As—God forgive me! who but God himself, Creator and sustainer of the world, That came and dwelt in flesh on it awhile. —’Sayeth that such an one was born and lived, Taught, healed the sick, broke bread at his own house, Then died, with Lazarus by, for aught I know, And yet was ... what I said nor choose repeat, And must have so avouched himself, in fact, In hearing of this very Lazarus Who saith—but why all this of what he saith? Why write of trivial matters, things of price Calling at every moment for remark? I noticed on the margin of a pool Blue-flowering borage, the Aleppo sort, Aboundeth, very nitrous. It is strange!

Thy pardon for this long and tedious case, Which, now that I review it, needs must seem Unduly dwelt on, prolixly set forth! Nor I myself discern in what is writ Good cause for the peculiar interest And awe indeed this man has touched me with. Perhaps the journey’s end, the weariness Had wrought upon me first. I met him thus: I crossed a ridge of short sharp broken hills Like an old lion’s cheek teeth. Out there came A moon made like a face with certain spots Multiform, manifold and menacing: Then a wind rose behind me. So we met In this old sleepy town at unawares, The man and I. I send thee what is writ. Regard it as a chance, a matter risked To this ambiguous Syrian: he may lose, Or steal, or give it thee with equal good. Jerusalem’s repose shall make amends For time this letter wastes, thy time and mine; Till when, once more thy pardon and farewell!

The very God! think, Abib; dost thou think? So, the All-Great were the All-Loving too— So, through the thunder comes a human voice Saying, “O heart I made, a heart beats here! “Face, my hands fashioned, see it in myself! “Thou hast no power nor may’st conceive of mine: “But love I gave thee, with myself to love, “And thou must love me who have died for thee!” The madman saith He said so: it is strange.

This most interesting and beautiful poem will afford a good illustration of one of the cases of difficulty referred to in the Introduction. The reader is placed in the position of one who has just found this Arabian epistle, and must decipher and interpret it without any extraneous aid.

First comes, according to Eastern custom, the name (line 1), then the address (7), with the greeting (15), and mention of articles sent with the letter—all in true Eastern style—with such adjuncts as give a general idea of the school of physiology and medicine to which the writer belongs.

The twenty-first letter had ended at Jericho, and here, accordingly, the twenty-second begins. The date appears as we read on, marked by the expedition of Vespasian and his son Titus against Jerusalem. When Bethany is mentioned, our interest is awakened, and we wonder what is coming; but to the writer Bethany has no such associations, as is indicated by the light and jocular way in which he marks its distance from Jerusalem, and carelessly proceeds to record the observations it is his main business to make wherever he goes.

Further on, however, we discover that there is something of importance weighing on his mind, which makes him hesitate and debate as to the trustworthiness of the messenger he intends to employ; while, at the same time, he is evidently ashamed to tell his master what is troubling him. This accounts for his abruptly ending his letter (determining, for the moment, to say nothing about it); then, unable to refrain, beginning again, yet still trying to conceal the depth of his feeling, and to apologize for what appears in spite of himself.

A long account of the case follows. By this time the reader has begun to have a pretty good idea who “the man” is that “had something in the look of him,” and knows that it is a veritable case of one raised from the dead. But Karshish cannot, of course, except under strong compulsion, be expected to take this view; and, accordingly, he begins by looking at it in a strictly professional light—“’Tis but a case of mania,” &c. He naturally supposes that his master will set it down as an ordinary instance of hallucination: “Such cases are diurnal, thou wilt cry.” Then he mentions points which strike him as altogether peculiar, certain features of the “after life” which are quite inconsistent with the idea of mania. Instead of being the worse for his mania, this man is immeasurably the better. Could Karshish and his master but penetrate the secret, what physicians they would be! The scene when Lazarus is brought in by the Elders of his tribe—who regard him as a madman, because he is living a life so far above anything they can understand—is inimitable.

In the illustration of the beggar suddenly become rich, Karshish lets out at last that he suspects there must be some truth in the man’s story. His patient, he observes, now measures things with no earthly measure, seeing often the small in the great and the great in the small; looking at everything “with larger, other eyes than ours”; accepting with perfect equanimity the very greatest _sorrow_, yet filled with alarm at the least gesture or look which gives token of _sin_, because to him it was like trifling with a match over a mine of Greek fire!

In the next illustration, of the thread of life across an orb of glory, the writer seems to get still fuller insight into the reality of the case—the little thread being, of course, the poor life in Bethany, and the vast orb of glory, the great eternity of God, in which Lazarus was consciously living. And here, again, we have the same lesson as in “The Boy and the Angel.” Though conscious of the glory of the great orb, Lazarus does not despise the little duties belonging to the thread of his earthly life. He sedulously follows his trade whereby he earns his daily bread; indeed, the special characteristic of the man is “prone submission to the Heavenly will.” Mark the profound suggestiveness of the lines—

“He even seeketh not to please God more (Which meaneth, otherwise) than as God please.”

He is so calm as to be provoking. At his inquisitor’s burst of indignation, he shows no sign of anger or impatience—“He merely looked with his large eyes on me.” And yet no apathy about him; a man full of loving interest in all things. (Compare Coleridge’s well-known lines: “He prayeth best who loveth best,” &c.)

The paragraph which follows introduces us to a region familiar and sacred to us, but foreign and inexplicable to our physician, who refers to it from his own point of view, stigmatizing the claim of “the Nazarene who wrought this cure” as not only false, but monstrous; and yet—and yet—and yet—he cannot get over it; it haunts him. But still he is ashamed to acknowledge it, and so turns abruptly from what he affects to call “trivial matters” to “things of price,” like “blue-flowering borage”!

Then he gives another elaborate apology, and tries to account for the hold the phenomenon has taken of him by a reference to his state of body and surroundings when first he met this Lazarus; and, accordingly, professing to care little whether the letter reaches or not, again he closes.

Yet still he cannot rest. The great thought haunts him. “The very God! _think_, Abib.” Then follows that consummate passage with which this magnificent poem closes.

After this “Epistle” should by all means be read “A Death in the Desert,” too long and too difficult to be inserted here. The surprise awaiting the reader of the parchment “supposed of Pamphylax the Antiochene” will add to the interest of a poem so full of beauty and power.

CHRISTMAS-EVE & EASTER-DAY.

CHRISTMAS-EVE.

Between Christmas-Eve and Easter-Morn lies the earth history of the Incarnate Son of God. Into the shadows of our world He came; and, after a brief night amid its darkness, rose again into the light of heaven. These titles then may well include the whole substance of Christianity. Christmas suggests the thought of heaven come down to earth; Easter, of earth raised up to heaven. “Christmas-Eve” leads naturally to the contemplation of the Christian Faith; “Easter-Day,” to the contemplation of the Christian Life.

Each poem turns on an impressive natural phenomenon which suggests the blending of heaven and earth—the one, of the night, a lunar rainbow; the other, of the dawn, the aurora borealis.

The speaker (who is the same throughout the former poem) begins his Christmas-Eve experiences with the flock assembling in “Zion Chapel,” a congregation of rude, unlettered people, worshipping with heart and soul indeed, but with little mind and less taste. It is not from choice that he is there. It is a stormy night of wind and rain, from which he has taken shelter in the “lath and plaster entry” of the little meeting house.

I.

* * * * *

Five minutes full, I waited first! In the doorway, to escape the rain That drove in gusts down the common’s centre, At the edge of which the chapel stands, Before I plucked up heart to enter. Heaven knows how many sorts of hands Reached past me, groping for the latch Of the inner door that hung on catch More obstinate the more they fumbled, Till, giving way at last with a scold Of the crazy hinge, in squeezed or tumbled One sheep more to the rest in fold, And left me irresolute, standing sentry In the sheepfold’s lath-and-plaster entry, Four feet long by two feet wide, Partitioned off from the vast inside— I blocked up half of it at least. No remedy; the rain kept driving. They eyed me much as some wild beast, That congregation, still arriving, Some of them by the main road, white A long way past me into the night, Skirting the common, then diverging; Not a few suddenly emerging From the common’s self through the paling-gaps, —They house in the gravel-pits perhaps, Where the road stops short with its safeguard border Of lamps, as tired of such disorder;— But the most turned in yet more abruptly From a certain squalid knot of alleys, Where the town’s bad blood once slept corruptly, Which now the little chapel rallies And leads into day again,—its priestliness Lending itself to hide their beastliness So cleverly (thanks in part to the mason), And putting so cheery a whitewashed face on Those neophytes too much in lack of it, That, where you cross the common as I did, And meet the party thus presided, “Mount Zion” with Love-lane at the back of it, They front you as little disconcerted As, bound for the hills, her fate averted, And her wicked people made to mind him, Lot might have marched with Gomorrah behind him.

In the same light and humorous, half irreverent style, he proceeds to a somewhat detailed description of the people and their uncouth worship—not altogether a caricature, but evidently wanting in that sympathy with the good at the heart of it, the thought of which was afterwards so strongly borne in upon his soul. So, he “very soon had enough of it,” and gladly “flung out of the little chapel” “into the fresh night air again.”

IV.

There was a lull in the rain, a lull In the wind too; the moon was risen, And would have shone out pure and full, But for the ramparted cloud-prison, Block on block built up in the West, For what purpose the wind knows best, Who changes his mind continually. And the empty other half of the sky Seemed in its silence as if it knew What, any moment, might look through A chance gap in that fortress massy:— Through its fissures you got hints Of the flying moon, by the shifting tints, Now, a dull lion-colour, now, brassy Burning to yellow, and whitest yellow, Like furnace-smoke just ere the flames bellow, All a-simmer with intense strain To let her through,—then blank again, At the hope of her appearance failing. Just by the chapel, a break in the railing Shows a narrow path directly across; ’Tis ever dry walking there, on the moss— Besides, you go gently all the way uphill I stooped under and soon felt better; My head grew lighter, my limbs more supple, As I walked on, glad to have slipt the fetter. My mind was full of the scene I had left, That placid flock, that pastor vociferant, —How this outside was pure and different! The sermon, now—what a mingled weft Of good and ill! Were either less, Its fellow had coloured the whole distinctly; But alas for the excellent earnestness, And the truths, quite true if stated succinctly, But as surely false, in their quaint presentment, However to pastor and flock’s contentment! Say rather, such truths looked false to your eyes, With his provings and parallels twisted and twined, Till how could you know them, grown double their size In the natural fog of the good man’s mind, Like yonder spots of our roadside lamps, Haloed about with the common’s damps? Truth remains true, the fault’s in the prover; The zeal was good, and the aspiration; And yet, and yet, yet, fifty times over, Pharaoh received no demonstration, By his Baker’s dream of Baskets Three, Of the doctrine of the Trinity,— Although, as our preacher thus embellished it, Apparently his hearers relished it With so unfeigned a gust—who knows if They did not prefer our friend to Joseph?

* * * * *

V.

But wherefore be harsh on a single case? After how many modes, this Christmas-Eve, Does the selfsame weary thing take place? The same endeavour to make you believe, And with much the same effect, no more: Each method abundantly convincing, As I say, to those convinced before, But scarce to be swallowed without wincing By the not-as-yet-convinced. For me, I have my own church equally: And in this church my faith sprang first! (I said, as I reached the rising ground, And the wind began again, with a burst Of rain in my face, and a glad rebound From the heart beneath, as if, God speeding me, I entered his church-door, nature leading me) —In youth I looked to these very skies, And probing their immensities, I found God there, his visible power; Yet felt in my heart, amid all its sense Of the power, an equal evidence That his love, there too, was the nobler dower.

Then follows a long and rather abstruse passage, leading up to the following lofty and inspiring conclusion:—