Part 4

He bore an agony whereof the name Hath turned his fellows pale: But what if God should call us to the same, Should call, and we should fail?

Nor earth nor sea could swallow up our shame, Nor darkness draw a veil: For he endured that agony whose name Hath made his fellows quail.

ST. MICHAEL AND ALL ANGELS.

“He that excel in strength.”

Service and strength, God’s Angels and Archangels; His Seraphs fires, and lamps His Cherubim: Glory to God from highest and from lowest, Glory to God in everlasting hymn From all His creatures.

Princes that serve, and Powers that work His pleasure, Heights that soar to’ard Him, Depths that sink to’ard Him; Flames fire out-flaming, chill beside His Essence; Insight all-probing, save where scant and dim To’ard its Creator.

Sacred and free exultant in God’s pleasure, His Will their solace, thus they wait on Him; And shout their shout of ecstasy eternal, And trim their splendours that they burn not dim To’ard their Creator.

Wherefore with Angels, wherefore with Archangels, With lofty Cherubs, loftier Seraphim, We laud and magnify our God Almighty, And veil our faces rendering love to Him With all His creatures.

VIGIL OF ALL SAINTS.

Up, my drowsing eyes! Up, my sinking heart! Up to Jesus Christ arise! Claim your part In all raptures of the skies.

Yet a little while, Yet a little way, Saints shall reap and rest and smile All the day. Up! let’s trudge another mile.

ALL SAINTS.

As grains of sand, as stars, as drops of dew, Numbered and treasured by the Almighty Hand, The Saints triumphant throng that holy land Where all things and Jerusalem are new. We know not half they sing or half they do, But this we know, they rest and understand; While like a conflagration freshly fanned Their love glows upward, outward, thro’ and thro’. Lo! like a stream of incense launched on flame Fresh Saints stream up from death to life above, To shine among those others and rejoice: What matters tribulation whence they came? All love and only love can find a voice Where God makes glad His Saints, for God is Love.

ALL SAINTS: MARTYRS.

Once slain for Him who first was slain for them, Now made alive in Him for evermore, All luminous and lovely in their gore With no more buffeting winds or tides to stem The Martyrs look for New Jerusalem; And cry “How long?” remembering all they bore, “How long?” with heart and eyes sent on before Toward consummated throne and diadem. “How long?” White robes are given to their desire; “How long?” deep rest that is and is to be; With a great promise of the oncoming host, Loves to their love and fires to flank their fire: So rest they, worshipping incessantly One God, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

“I gave a sweet smell.”

Saints are like roses when they flush rarest, Saints are like lilies when they bloom fairest, Saints are like violets sweetest of their kind Bear in mind This to-day. Then to-morrow: All like roses rarer than the rarest, All like lilies fairer than the fairest, All like violets sweeter than we know. Be it so. To-morrow blots out sorrow.

Hark! the Alleluias of the great salvation Still beginning, never ending, still begin, The thunder of an endless adoration: Open ye the gates, that the righteous nation Which have kept the truth may enter in.

Roll ye back, ye pearls, on your twelvefold station: No more deaths to die, no more fights to win! Lift your heads, ye gates, that the righteous nation Led by the Great Captain of their sole salvation, Having kept the truth, may enter in.

A SONG FOR THE LEAST OF ALL SAINTS.

Love is the key of life and death, Of hidden heavenly mystery: Of all Christ is, of all He saith, Love is the key.

As three times to His Saint He saith, He saith to me, He saith to thee, Breathing His Grace-conferring Breath: “Lovest thou Me?”

Ah, Lord, I have such feeble faith, Such feeble hope to comfort me: But love it is, is strong as death, And I love Thee.

SUNDAY BEFORE ADVENT.

The end of all things is at hand. We all Stand in the balance trembling as we stand; Or if not trembling, tottering to a fall. The end of all things is at hand.

O hearts of men, covet the unending land! O hearts of men, covet the musical, Sweet, never-ending waters of that strand! While Earth shows poor, a slippery rolling ball, And Hell looms vast, a gulf unplumbed, unspanned, And Heaven flings wide its gates to great and small, The end of all things is at hand.

GIFT AND GRACES

Love loveth Thee, and wisdom loveth Thee: The love that loveth Thee sits satisfied; Wisdom that loveth Thee grows million-eyed, Learning what was, and is, and is to be. Wisdom and love are glad of all they see; Their heart is deep, their hope is not denied; They rock at rest on time’s unresting tide, And wait to rest thro’ long eternity. Wisdom and love and rest, each holy soul Hath these to-day while day is only night: What shall souls have when morning brings to light Love, wisdom, rest, God’s treasure stored above? Palm shall they have, and harp and aureole, Wisdom, rest, love—and lo! the whole is love.

Lord, give me love that I may love Thee much, Yea, give me love that I may love Thee more, And all for love may worship and adore And touch Thee with love’s consecrated touch. I halt to-day; be love ray cheerful crutch, My feet to plod, some day my wings to soar Some day; but, Lord, not any day before Thou call me perfect, having made me such. This is a day of love, a day of sorrow, Love tempering sorrow to a sort of bliss; A day that shortens while we call it long: A longer day of love will dawn to-morrow, A longer, brighter, lovelier day than this, Endless, all love, no sorrow, but a song.

“As a king,...unto the King.”

Love doth so grace and dignify That beggars treat as king with king Before the Throne of God most High: Love recognises love’s own cry, And stoops to take love’s offering.

A loving heart, tho’ soiled and bruised; A kindling heart, tho’ cold before; Who ever came and was refused By Love? Do, Lord, as Thou art used To do, and make me love Thee more.

O ye who love to-day, Turn away From Patience with her silver ray: For Patience shows a twilight face, Like a half-lighted moon When daylight dies apace.

But ye who love to-morrow Beg or borrow To-day some bitterness of sorrow: For Patience shows a lustrous face, In depth of night her noon; Then to her sun gives place.

Life that was born to-day Must make no stay, But tend to end As blossom-bloom of May. O Lord, confirm my root, Train up my shoot, To live and give Harvest of wholesome fruit.

Life that was born to die Sets heart on high, And counts and mounts Steep stages of the sky. Two things, Lord, I desire And I require; Love’s name, and flame To wrap my soul in fire.

Life that was born to love Sends heart above Both cloud and shroud, And broods a peaceful dove. Two things I ask of Thee; Deny not me; Eyesight and light Thy Blessed Face to see.

“Perfect Love casteth out Fear.”

Lord, give me blessed fear, And much more blessed love That fearing I may love Thee here And be Thy harmless dove:

Until Thou cast out fear, Until Thou perfect love, Until Thou end mine exile here And fetch Thee home Thy dove.

Hope is the counterpoise of fear While night enthralls us here.

Fear hath a startled eye that holds a tear: Hope hath an upward glance, for dawn draws near With sunshine and with cheer. Fear gazing earthwards spies a bier; And sets herself to rear A lamentable tomb where leaves drop sere, Bleaching to congruous skeletons austere: Hope chants a funeral hymn most sweet and clear, And seems true chanticleer Of resurrection and of all things dear In the oncoming endless year.

Fear ballasts hope, hope buoys up fear, And both befit us here.

“Subject to like passions as we are.”

Whoso hath anguish is not dead in sin, Whoso hath pangs of utterless desire. Like as in smouldering flax which harbours fire,— Red heat of conflagration may begin, Melt that hard heart, burn out the dross within, Permeate with glory the new man entire, Crown him with fire, mould for his hands a lyre Of fiery strings to sound with those who win. Anguish is anguish, yet potential bliss, Pangs of desire are birth-throes of delight; Those citizens felt such who walk in white, And meet, but no more sunder, with a kiss; Who fathom still unfathomed mysteries, And love, adore, rejoice, with all their might.

Experience bows a sweet contented face, Still setting to her seal that God is true: Beneath the sun, she knows, is nothing new; All things that go return with measured pace, Winds, rivers, man’s still recommencing race:— While Hope beyond earth’s circle strains her view, Past sun and moon, and rain and rainbow too, Enamoured of unseen eternal grace.

Experience saith, “My God doth all things well:” And for the morrow taketh little care, Such peace and patience garrison her soul:— While Hope, who never yet hath eyed the goal, With arms flung forth, and backward floating hair, Touches, embraces, hugs the invisible.

“Charity never faileth.”

Such is Love, it comforts in extremity, Tho’ a tempest rage around and rage above, Tempest beyond tempest, far as eye can see: Such is Love,

That it simply heeds its mourning inward Dove; Dove which craves contented for a home to be Set amid the myrtles or an olive grove.

Dove-eyed Love contemplates the Twelve-fruited Tree, Marks the bowing palms which worship as they move; Simply sayeth, simply prayeth, “All for me!” Such is Love.

“The Greatest of these is charity.”

A moon impoverished amid stars curtailed, A sun of its exuberant lustre shorn, A transient morning that is scarcely morn, A lingering night in double dimness veiled.— Our hands are slackened and our strength has failed: We born to darkness, wherefore were we born? No ripening more for olive, grape, or corn: Faith faints, hope faints, even love himself has paled. Nay! love lifts up a face like any rose Flushing and sweet above a thorny stem, Softly protesting that the way he knows; And as for faith and hope, will carry them Safe to the gate of New Jerusalem, Where light shines full and where the palm-tree blows.

All beneath the sun hasteth, All that hath begun wasteth; Earth-notes change in tune With the changeful moon, Which waneth While earth’s chant complaineth.

Plumbs the deep, Fear descending; Scales the steep, Hope ascending; Faith betwixt the twain Plies both goad and rein, Half fearing, All hopeful, day is nearing.

If thou be dead, forgive and thou shalt live; If thou hast sinned, forgive and be forgiven; God waiteth to be gracious and forgive, And open heaven. Set not thy will to die and not to live; Set not thy face as flint refusing heaven; Thou fool, set not thy heart on hell: forgive And be forgiven.

“Let patience have bet perfect work.”

Can man rejoice who lives in hourly fear? Can man make haste who toils beneath a load? Can man feel rest who has no fixed abode? All he lays hold of, or can see or hear, Is passing by, is prompt to disappear, Is doomed, foredoomed, continueth in no stay: This day he breathes in is his latter day, This year of time is this world’s latter year. Thus in himself is he most miserable: Out of himself, Lord, lift him up to Thee, Out of himself and all these worlds that flee; Hold him in patience underneath the rod, Anchor his hope beyond life’s ebb and swell, Perfect his patience in the love of God.

Patience must dwell with Love, for Love and Sorrow Have pitched their tent together here: Love all alone will build a house to-morrow, And sorrow not be near. To-day for Love’s sake hope, still hope, in sorrow, Rest in her shade and hold her dear: To-day she nurses thee; and lo! to-morrow Love only will be near.

“Let everything that hath breath praise the Lord.”

All that we see rejoices in the sunshine, All that we hear makes merry in the Spring: God grant us such a mind to be glad after our kind, And to sing His praises evermore for everything.

Much that we see must vanish with the sunshine, Sweet Spring must fail, and fail the choir of Spring: But Wisdom shall burn on when the lesser lights are gone, And shall sing God’s praises evermore for everything.

What is the beginning? Love. What the course? Love still. What the goal? The goal is Love on the happy hill. Is there nothing then but Love, search we sky or earth? There is nothing out of Love hath perpetual worth: All things flag but only Love, all things fail or flee; There is nothing left but Love worthy you and me.

Lord, make me pure: Only the pure shall see Thee as Thou art And shall endure. Lord, bring me low; For Thou wert lowly in Thy blessed heart: Lord, keep me so.

Love, to be love, must walk Thy way And work Thy Will; Or if Thou say, “Lie still,” Lie still and pray.

Love, Thine own Bride, with all her might Will follow Thee, And till the shadows flee Keep Thee in sight.

Love will not mar her peaceful face With cares undue, Faithless and hopeless too And out of place.

Love, knowing Thou much more art Love. Will sun her grief, And pluck her myrtle-leaf, And be Thy dove.

Love here hath vast beatitude: What shall be hers Where there is no more curse, But all is good?

Lord, I am feeble and of mean account: Thou Who dost condescend as well as mount, Stoop Thou Thyself to me And grant me grace to hear and grace to see.

Lord, if Thou grant me grace to hear and see Thy very Self Who stoopest thus to me, I make but slight account Of aught beside wherein to sink or mount.

Tune me, O Lord, into one harmony With Thee, one full responsive vibrant chord; Unto Thy praise all love and melody, Tune me, O Lord.

Thus need I flee nor death, nor fire, nor sword: A little while these be, then cease to be, And sent by Thee not these should be abhorred.

Devil and world, gird me with strength to flee, To flee the flesh, and arm me with Thy word: As Thy Heart is to my heart, unto Thee Tune me, O Lord.

“They shall be as white as snow.”

Whiteness most white. Ah, to be clean again In mine own sight and God’s most holy sight! To reach thro’ any flood or fire of pain Whiteness most white:

To learn to hate the wrong and love the right Even while I walk thro’ shadows that are vain, Descending thro’ vain shadows into night.

Lord, not to-day: yet some day bliss for bane Give me, for mortal frailty give me might, Give innocence for guilt, and for my stain Whiteness most white.

Thy lilies drink the dew, Thy lambs the rill, and I will drink them too; For those in purity And innocence are types, dear Lord, of Thee. The fragrant lily flower Bows and fulfils Thy Will its lifelong hour; The lamb at rest and play Fulfils Thy Will in gladness all the day; They leave to-morrow’s cares Until the morrow, what it brings it bears. And I, Lord, would be such; Not high or great or anxious overmuch But pure and temperate, Earnest to do Thy Will betimes and late, Fragrant with love and praise And innocence thro’ all my appointed days; Thy lily I would be, Spotless and sweet, Thy lamb to follow Thee.

“When I was in trouble I called upon the Lord.”

A burdened heart that bleeds and bears And hopes and waits in pain, And faints beneath its fears and cares, Yet hopes again:

Wilt Thou accept the heart I bring, O gracious Lord and kind, To ease it of a torturing sting, And staunch and bind?

Alas, if Thou wilt none of this, None else have I to give: Look Thou upon it as it is, Accept, relieve.

Or if Thou wilt not yet relieve, Be not extreme to sift: Accept a faltering will to give, Itself Thy gift.

Grant us such grace that we may work Thy Will And speak Thy words and walk before Thy Face, Profound and calm, like waters deep and still: Grant us such grace.

Not hastening and not loitering in our pace For gloomiest valley or for sultriest hill, Content and fearless on our downward race.

As rivers seek a sea they cannot fill But are themselves filled full in its embrace, Absorbed, at rest, each river and each rill: Grant us such grace.

“Who hath despised the day of small things?”

As violets so be I recluse and sweet, b Cheerful as daisies unaccounted rare, Still sunward-gazing from a lowly seat, Still sweetening wintry air.

While half-awakened Spring lags incomplete, While lofty forest trees tower bleak and bare, Daisies and violets own remotest heat And bloom and make them fair.

“Do this, and he doeth it.”

Content to come, content to go, Content to wrestle or to race, Content to know or not to know, Each in his place;

Lord, grant us grace to love Thee so That glad of heart and glad of face At last we may sit, high or low, Each in his place;

Where pleasures flow as rivers flow, And loss has left no barren trace, And all that are, are perfect so, Each in his place.

“That no man take thy Crown.”

Be faithful unto death. Christ proffers thee Crown of a life that draws immortal breath: To thee He saith, yea, and He saith to me, “Be faithful unto death.”

To every living soul that same He saith, “Be faithful”:—whatsoever else we be, Let us be faithful, challenging His faith.

Tho’ trouble storm around us like the sea, Tho’ hell surge up to scare us and to scathe, Tho’ heaven and earth betake themselves to flee, “Be faithful unto death.”

“We are come unto mount Zion.”

Fear, Faith, and Hope have sent their hearts above: Prudence, Obedience, and Humility Climb at their call, all scaling heaven toward Love. Fear hath least grace but great expediency; Faith and Humility show grave and strong; Prudence and Hope mount balanced equally. Obedience marches marshalling their throng, Goes first, goes last, to left hand or to right; And all the six uplift a pilgrim’s song. By day they rest not, nor they rest by night: While Love within them, with them, over them. Weans them and woos them from the dark to light. Each plies for staff not reed with broken stem, But olive branch in pledge of patient peace; Till Love being theirs in New Jerusalem, Transfigure them to Love, and so they cease. Love is the sole beatitude above: All other graces, to their vast increase Of glory, look on Love and mirror Love.

“Sit down in the lowest room.”

Lord, give me grace To take the lowest place; Nor even desire, Unless it be Thy Will, to go up higher. Except by grace, I fail of lowest place; Except desire Sit low, it aims awry to go up higher.

“Lord, it is good for us to be here.”

Grant us, O Lord, that patience and that faith: Faith’s patience imperturbable in Thee, Hope’s patience till the long-drawn shadows flee, Love’s patience unresentful of all scathe. Verily we need patience breath by breath; Patience while faith holds up her glass to see, While hope toils yoked in fear’s copartnery, And love goes softly on the way to death. How gracious and how perfecting a grace Must patience be on which those others wait: Faith with suspended rapture in her face, Hope pale and careful hand in hand with fear, Love—ah, good love who would not antedate God’s Will, but saith, Good is it to be here.

Lord, grant us grace to rest upon Thy word, To rest in hope until we see Thy Face; To rest thro’ toil unruffled and unstirred, Lord, grant us grace.

This burden and this heat wear on apace: Night comes, when sweeter than night’s singing bird Will swell the silence of our ended race.

Ah, songs which flesh and blood have never heard And cannot hear, songs of the silent place Where rest remains! Lord, slake our hope deferred, Lord, grant us grace.

THE WORLD. SELF-DESTRUCTION.

“A vain Shadow.”

The world,—what a world, ah me! Mouldy, worm-eaten, grey: Vain as a leaf from a tree, As a fading day, As veriest vanity, As the froth and the spray Of the hollow-billowed sea, As what was and shall not be, As what is and passes away.

“Lord, save us, we perish.”

O Lord, seek us, O Lord, find us In Thy patient care; Be Thy Love before, behind us, Round us, everywhere: Lest the god of this world blind us, Lest he speak us fair, Lest he forge a chain to bind us, Lest he bait a snare. Turn not from us, call to mind us, Find, embrace us, bear; Be Thy Love before, behind us, Round us, everywhere.

What is this above thy head, O Man?— The World, all overspread With pearls and golden rays And gems ablaze; A sight which day and night Fills an eye’s span.

What is this beneath thy feet, O Saint?— The World, a nauseous sweet Puffed up and perishing; A hollow thing, A lie, a vanity, Tinsel and paint.

What is she while time is time, O Man?— In a perpetual prime Beauty and youth she hath; And her footpath Breeds flowers thro’ dancing hours Since time began.

While time lengthens what is she, O Saint?— Nought: yea, all men shall see How she is nought at all, When her death-pall Of fire ends their desire And brands her taint.

Ah, poor Man, befooled and slow And faint! Ah, poorest Man, if so Thou turn thy back on bliss And choose amiss! For thou art choosing now: Sinner,—or Saint.

Babylon the Great.

Foul is she and ill-favoured, set askew: Gaze not upon her till thou dream her fair, Lest she should mesh thee in her wanton hair, Adept in arts grown old yet ever new. Her heart lusts not for love, but thro and thro’ For blood, as spotted panther lusts in lair; No wine is in her cup, but filth is there Unutterable, with plagues hid out of view. Gaze not upon her, for her dancing whirl Turns giddy the fixed gazer presently: Gaze not upon her, lest thou be as she When, at the far end of her long desire, Her scarlet vest and gold and gem and pearl And she amid her pomp are set on fire.

“Standing afar off for the fear of her torment.”

Is this the end? is there no end but this? Yea, none beside: No other end for pride And foulness and besottedness.

Hath she no friend? hath she no clinging friend? Nay, none at all; Who stare upon her fall Quake for themselves with hair on end.

Will she be done away? vanish away? Yea, like a dream; Yea, like the shades that seem Somewhat, and lo! are nought by day.

Alas for her amid man’s helpless moan, Alas for her! She hath no comforter: In solitude of fire she sits alone.

“O Lucifer, Son of the Morning!”

Oh fallen star! a darkened light, A glory hurtled from its car, Self-blasted from the holy height: Oh fallen star!

Fallen beyond earth’s utmost bar, Beyond return, beyond far sight Of outmost glimmering nebular.

Now blackness, which once walked in white; Now death, whose life once glowed afar; Oh son of dawn that loved the night, Oh fallen star!

Alas, alas! for the self-destroyed Vanish as images from a glass, Sink down and die down by hope unbuoyed:— Alas, alas!

Who shall stay their ruinous mass? Besotted, reckless, possessed, decoyed, They hurry to the dolorous pass.

Saints fall a-weeping who would have joyed, Sore they weep for a glory that was, For a fulness emptied into the void, Alas, alas!

As froth on the face of the deep, As foam on the crest of the sea, As dreams at the waking of sleep, As gourd of a day and a night, As harvest that no man shall reap, As vintage that never shall be, Is hope if it cling not aright, O my God, unto Thee.

“Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.”

In tempest and storm blackness of darkness for ever, A fire unextinguished, a worm’s indestructible swarm; Where no hope shall ever be more, and love shall be never, In tempest and storm; Where the form of all things is fashionless, void of all form; Where from death that severeth all, the soul cannot sever In tempest and storm.

Toll, bell, toll. For hope is flying Sighing from the earthbound soul: Life is sighing, life is dying: Toll, bell, toll.

Gropes in its own grave the mole Wedding darkness, undeserving, Tending to no different goal.

Self-slain soul, in vain thy sighing: Self-slain, who should make thee whole? Vain the clamour of thy crying: Toll, bell, toll.

DIVERS WORLDS. TIME AND ETERNITY.

Earth has clear call of daily bells, A chancel-vault of gloom and star, A rapture where the anthems are, A thunder when the organ swells: Alas, man’s daily life—what else?— Is out of tune with daily bells.