CATHEDRAL HYMN.
“They dreamt not of a perishable home
Who thus could build. Be mine in hours of fear
Or grovelling thought, to seek a refuge here.”
Wordsworth.
A dim and mighty minster of old time!
A temple shadowy with remembrances
Of the majestic past! The very light
Streams with a colouring of heroic days
In every ray, which leads through arch and aisle
A path of dreamy lustre, wandering back
To other years!—and the rich fretted roof,
And the wrought coronals of summer leaves,
Ivy and vine, and many a sculptured rose—
The tenderest image of mortality—
Binding the slender columns, whose light shafts
Cluster like stems in corn-sheaves;—all these things
Tell of a race that nobly, fearlessly,
On their heart’s worship pour’d a wealth of love!
Honour be with the dead! The people kneel
Under the helms of antique chivalry,
And in the crimson gloom from banners thrown,
And midst the forms, in pale, proud slumber carved,
Of warriors on their tombs. The people kneel
Where mail-clad chiefs have knelt; where jewell’d crowns
On the flush’d brows of conquerors have been set;
Where the high anthems of old victories
Have made the dust give echoes. Hence, vain thoughts!
Memories of power and pride, which long ago,
Like dim processions of a dream, have sunk
In twilight-depths away. Return, my soul!
The Cross recalls thee. Lo! the blessed Cross!
High o’er the banners and the crests of earth,
Fix’d in its meek and still supremacy!
And lo! the throng of beating human hearts,
With all their secret scrolls of buried grief,
All their full treasures of immortal hope,
Gather’d before their God! Hark! how the flood
Of the rich organ-harmony bears up
Their voice on its high waves!—a mighty burst!
A forest-sounding music! Every tone
Which the blasts call forth with their harping wings
From gulfs of tossing foliage, there is blent:
And the old minster—forest-like itself—
With its long avenues of pillar’d shade,
Seems quivering all with spirit, as that strain
O’erflows its dim recesses, leaving not
One tomb unthrill’d by the strong sympathy
Answering the electric notes. Join, join, my soul!
In thine own lowly, trembling consciousness,
And thine own solitude, the glorious hymn.
Rise like an altar-fire!
In solemn joy aspire,
Deepening thy passion still, O choral strain!
On thy strong rushing wind
Bear up from humankind
Thanks and implorings—be they not in vain!
Father, which art on high!
Weak is the melody
Of harp or song to reach thine awful ear,
Unless the heart be there,
Winging the words of prayer
With its own fervent faith or suppliant fear.
Let, then, thy Spirit brood
Over the multitude—
Be thou amidst them, thro’ that heavenly Guest!
So shall their cry have power
To win from thee a shower
Of healing gifts for every wounded breast.
What griefs that make no sign,
That ask no aid but thine,
Father of mercies! here before thee swell!
As to the open sky,
All their dark waters lie
To thee reveal’d, in each close bosom-cell.
The sorrow for the dead,
Mantling its lonely head
From the world’s glare, is, in thy sight, set free;
And the fond, aching love,
Thy minister to move
All the wrung spirit, softening it for thee.
And doth not thy dread eye
Behold the agony
In that most hidden chamber of the heart,
Where darkly sits remorse,
Beside the secret source
Of fearful visions, keeping watch apart?
Yes! here before thy throne
Many—yet each alone—
To thee that terrible unveiling make:
And still, small whispers clear
Are startling many an ear,
As if a trumpet bade the dead awake.
How dreadful is this place!
The glory of thy face
Fills it too searchingly for mortal sight.
Where shall the guilty flee?
Over what far-off sea?
What hills, what woods, may shroud him from that light?
Not to the cedar-shade
Let his vain flight be made;
Nor the old mountains, nor the desert sea;
What, but the Cross, can yield
The hope—the stay—the shield?
Thence may the Atoner lead him up to thee!
Be thou, be thou his aid!
Oh, let thy love pervade
The haunted caves of self-accusing thought!
There let the living stone
Be cleft—the seed be sown—
The song of fountains from the silence brought!
So shall thy breath once more
Within the soul restore
Thine own first image—Holiest and Most High!
As a clear lake is fill’d
With hues of heaven, instill’d
Down to the depths of its calm purity.
And if, amidst the throng
Link’d by the ascending song,
There are whose thoughts in trembling rapture soar;
Thanks, Father! that the power
Of joy, man’s early dower,
Thus, e’en midst tears, can fervently adore!
Thanks for each gift divine!
Eternal praise be thine,
Blessing and love, O Thou that hearest prayer!
Let the hymn pierce the sky,
And let the tombs reply!
For seed, that waits the harvest-time, is there.
WOOD WALK AND HYMN.[421]
“Move along these shades
In gentleness of heart: with gentle hand
Touch—for there is a spirit in the woods.”—Wordsworth.
Father—Child.
Child. There are the aspens, with their silvery leaves
Trembling, for ever trembling; though the lime
And chestnut boughs, and those long arching sprays
Of eglantine, hang still, as if the wood
Were all one picture!
Father. Hast thou heard, my boy,
The peasant’s legend of that quivering tree?
Child. No, father: doth he say the fairies dance
Amidst the branches?
Father. Oh! a cause more deep,
More solemn far, the rustic doth assign
To the strange restlessness of those wan leaves!
The cross he deems, the blessed cross, whereon
The meek Redeemer bow’d his head to death,
Was framed of aspen wood; and since that hour,
Through all its race the pale tree hath sent down
A thrilling consciousness, a secret awe,
Making them tremulous, when not a breeze
Disturbs the airy thistle-down, or shakes
The light lines of the shining gossamer.
Child., (after a pause.) Dost thou believe it, father?
Father. Nay, my child,
We walk in clearer light. But yet, even now,
With something of a lingering love, I read
The characters, by that mysterious hour,
Stamp’d on the reverential soul of man
In visionary days; and thence thrown back
On the fair forms of nature. Many a sign
Of the great sacrifice which won us heaven,
The woodman and the mountaineer can trace
On rock, on herb, and flower. And be it so!
They do not wisely that, with hurried hand,
Would pluck these salutary fancies forth
From their strong soil within the peasant’s breast,
And scatter them—far, far too fast!—away
As worthless weeds. Oh! little do we know
When they have soothed, when saved!
But come, dear boy!
My words grow tinged with thought too deep for thee.
Come—let us search for violets.
Child. Know you not
More of the legends which the woodmen tell
Amidst the trees and flowers?
Father. Wilt thou know more?
Bring then the folding leaf, with dark-brown stains
There—by the mossy roots of yon old beech,
Midst the rich tuft of cowslips—see’st thou not?
There is a spray of woodbine from the tree
Just bending o’er it with a wild bee’s weight.
Child. The Arum leaf?
Father. Yes. These deep inwrought marks,
The villager will tell thee, (and with voice
Lower’d in his true heart’s reverent earnestness,)
Are the flower’s portion from th’ atoning blood
On Calvary shed. Beneath the cross it grew;
And, in the vase-like hollow of its leaf,
Catching from that dread shower of agony
A few mysterious drops, transmitted thus
Unto the groves and hills, their sealing stains,
A heritage, for storm or vernal wind
Never to waft away!
And hast thou seen
The passion-flower? It grows not in the woods,
But midst the bright things brought from other climes.
Child. What! the pale star-shaped flower, with purple streaks,
And light green tendrils?
Father. Thou hast mark’d it well.
Yes! a pale, starry, dreamy-looking flower,
As from a land of spirits! To mine eye
Those faint, wan petals—colourless, and yet
Not white, but shadowy—with the mystic lines
(As letters of some wizard language gone)
Into their vapour-like transparence wrought,
Bear something of a strange solemnity,
Awfully lovely!—and the Christian’s thought
Loves, in their cloudy penciling, to find
Dread symbols of his Lord’s last mortal pangs
Set by God’s hand—the coronal of thorns—
The cross, the wounds—with other meanings deep
Which I will teach thee when we meet again
That flower, the chosen for the martyr’s wreath,
The Saviour’s holy flower.
But let us pause:
Now have we reach’d the very inmost heart
Of the old wood. How the green shadows close
Into a rich, clear, summer darkness round,
A luxury of gloom! Scarce doth one ray,
Even when a soft wind parts the foliage, steal
O’er the bronzed pillars of these deep arcades;
Or if it doth, ’tis with a mellow’d hue
Of glow-worm colour’d light.
Here, in the days
Of pagan visions, would have been a place
For worship of the wood-nymphs! Through these oaks
A small, fair gleaming temple might have thrown
The quivering image of its Dorian shafts
On the stream’s bosom, or a sculptured form,
Dryad, or fountain-goddess of the gloom,
Have bow’d its head o’er that dark crystal down,
Drooping with beauty, as a lily droops
Under bright rain. But we, my child, are here
With God, our God, a Spirit, who requires
Heart-worship, given in spirit and in truth;
And this high knowledge—deep, rich, vast enough
To fill and hallow all the solitude—
Makes consecrated earth where’er we move,
Without the aid of shrines.
What! dost thou feel
The solemn whispering influence of the scene
Oppressing thy young heart, that thou dost draw
More closely to my side, and clasp my hand
Faster in thine? Nay, fear not, gentle child!
’Tis love, not fear, whose vernal breath pervades
The stillness round. Come, sit beside me here,
Where brooding violets mantle this green slope
With dark exuberance; and beneath these plumes
Of wavy fern, look where the cup-moss holds
In its pure, crimson goblets, fresh and bright,
The starry dews of morning. Rest awhile,
And let me hear once more the woodland verse
I taught thee late—’twas made for such a scene.
Child speaks.
[421] “It is not often we find the superstitions of dark and ignorant ages dealt with in so gentle and agreeable a manner as by Mrs Hemans. She seizes, in common with others, the poetic aspect these present, but diffuses over them, at the same time, a refinement of sentiment gathered entirely from her own feelings. A subject which, from another pencil, would have been disagreeable and offensive to us, is made by her graceful touches to win upon our imagination. Witness the poem called ‘The Wood Walk and Hymn;’ we will quote the commencement of it—
‘There are the aspens with their silvery leaves,’” etc.
Blackwood’s Magazine, Dec. 1848.
WOOD HYMN.
Broods there some spirit here?
The summer leaves hang silent as a cloud;
And o’er the pools, all still and darkly clear,
The wild wood-hyacinth with awe seems bow’d;
And something of a tender cloistral gloom
Deepens the violet’s bloom.
The very light that streams
Through the dim, dewy veil of foliage round
Comes tremulous with emerald-tinted gleams—
As if it knew the place were holy ground;
And would not startle, with too bright a burst,
Flowers, all divinely nursed.
Wakes there some spirit here?
A swift wind, fraught with change, comes rushing by;
And leaves and waters, in its wild career,
Shed forth sweet voices—each a mystery!
Surely some awful influence must pervade
These depths of trembling shade!
Yes! lightly, softly move!
There is a power, a presence in the woods;
A viewless being that, with life and love,
Informs the reverential solitudes:
The rich air knows it, and the mossy sod—
Thou—thou art here, my God!
And if with awe we tread
The minster-floor, beneath the storied pane,
And, midst the mouldering banners of the dead,
Shall the green, voiceful wild seem less thy fane,
Where thou alone hast built?—where arch and roof
Are of thy living woof?
The silence and the sound,
In the lone places, breathe alike of thee;
The temple-twilight of the gloom profound,
The dew-cup of the frail anemone,
The reed by every wandering whisper thrill’d—
All, all with thee are fill’d!
Oh! purify mine eyes,
More and yet more, by love and lowly thought,
Thy presence, holiest One! to recognise
In these majestic aisles which thou hast wrought
And, midst their sea-like murmurs, teach mine ear
Ever thy voice to hear!
And sanctify my heart
To meet the awful sweetness of that tone
With no faint thrill or self-accusing start,
But a deep joy the heavenly guest to own—
Joy, such as dwelt in Eden’s glorious bowers
Ere sin had dimm’d the flowers.
Let me not know the change
O’er nature thrown by guilt!—the boding sky,
The hollow leaf-sounds ominous and strange,
The weight wherewith the dark tree-shadows lie!
Father! oh! keep my footsteps pure and free,
To walk the woods with thee!