Is risen that floods the worlds with joy. No pain
Is felt this day; earth's moan may cease, and night
Grow bright with stars of hope—'tis heaven we gain!
Grapes And Thorns. Chapter XI. A Harvest of Thorns.
By The Author Of “The House of Yorke.”
One of the greatest severities in the imprisonment of a criminal is, probably, that he can no longer see the wide earth nor the free skies, so that not only is his body cramped, but his mind is thrown back on itself, and forbidden to send out those long tendrils which can sometimes shoot through the eyes, and fasten on distant objects, when those near by are repelling. Moreover, the universe itself becomes to him like another prisoner, and he can scarcely believe that the large, smooth creation sails uninterruptedly on its way when he sees of it but one little spot for ever shut in by the bars of his cell.
Mr. Schöninger's window in the jail had been low, giving him a sight of the street not far away; but his cell in the prison was higher up, and separated from the window by a passage. Sitting or lying down, therefore, he saw only a small square of sky; and standing, the topmost line of a blue hill became visible. Only one other earthly object was in sight; and as time passed by that became still less and less of earth, and assumed a variable but always supernatural character: it was the stone Christ that stood on the church not far away. He could see all of it but the lowest hem of the robe; and as it stood there, surrounded by air alone, above the narrow line of the distant hill, it seemed an awful colossal being walking in over the edge of a submerged world. At morning, when the sky was bright behind it, it darkened, the lineaments of the face were lost in a shadow that was like a frown, and its garments and its hands were full of gloom. At one season there were a few days when the risen sun at a certain hour surrounded the head with an intolerable splendor, and then it was an image of wrath and judgment. It wore quite another character on bright evenings, when, the setting sun shining in its face, it came, white and glowing, down the hillside, with arms outstretched, full of irresistible love and invitation. To see this image, he had to stand at the grated door of his cell. When sitting or lying down, there was no view for the prisoner but a square of sky barred off by iron rods; and as the earth rolled, his view travelled with it, day after day going over the same track in the terrestrial sphere. At evening a few pale stars went by, afar off, and so unaware of him that they were like distant sails to the shipwrecked mariner, hovering on the horizon and disappearing, each failure a new shipwreck to him.
One morning, when he opened his eyes just as day was beginning to flicker in the east, he saw a large, full star, so brilliant that it trembled in the silvery sky, as if about to spill its brimming gold. It was so alive, so intelligent, so joyous, that he raised himself and looked at it [pg 248] as he would have looked at a fair and joyful face appearing at the door of his cell. Surely it was like good tidings, that glad star in the east! He got up, and, as he rose, there rose up whitely against the sky the Christ of the Immaculate Conception, seeming almost transparent in that pure light.
The prisoner knelt on the stone floor of his cell, and lifted his hands. “God of my fathers,” he said, “deliver me! for I am turned in my anguish whilst the thorn is fastened!”