He went farther: he made the sun the type of a church service:—
Lo, in the sanctuaried East,
Day, a dedicated priest
In all his robes pontifical exprest,
Lifteth slowly, lifteth sweetly,
From out its Orient tabernacle drawn,
Yon orbed sacrament confest
Which sprinkles benediction through the dawn;
And when the grave procession's ceased,
The earth with due illustrious rite
Blessed,—ere the frail fingers featly
Of twilight, violet-cassocked acolyte
His sacerdotal stoles unvest—
Sets, for high close of the mysterious feast,
The sun in august exposition meetly
Within the flaming monstrance of the West.
O salutaris hostia,
Quae cæli pandis ostium!
The Cross spread its arms across his world. It was never heavier on his shoulder than when he copied out Donne's lines:—
Who can deny me power and liberty
To stretch mine arms and mine own cross to be?
Swim, and at every stroke thou art thy cross:
The mast and yard make one where seas do toss.
Look down, thou spiest our crosses in small things,
Look up, thou seest birds raised on crossed wings.
Donne had encouraged him in his own early search for its symbols. In a prayer to the Blessed Virgin Thompson speaks of the general crucifixion of man:—
O thou, who standest as thou hast ever stood
Beside the Cross, whenas it shall be said—
"It is consummated,"
Receive us, taken from the World's rough wood!
But Donne's image is the more immediate; and the "Veneration of Images," of a living poet, in which man is addressed as—
Thou Rood of every day—
confirms both their guesses.
In his sunset Thompson found a symbol of the Crucifixion; in Paganism his Calvary, and in Christianity an endless elaboration of Christ, so that he turns and wonders at himself for standing at all in the mirk of ordinary daylight:—