Читать книгу Spring Wild Flowers - Daniel Wilson - Страница 8

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O'er royal dust, through proud Westminster's shrines,

The echoes, waked by anthem's funeral peal,

Wail the death-stricken mockery of power,

The thing that was a king! God-winged designs

Wake not as ours, or error's haughty heel

Had trod the neck of England to this hour!

Infallible, in ghostly dogmas mailed,

In pious panoply most orthodox,

Steps the Eighth Henry to the vacant throne;

Foremost in arms when holy church assailed,

The thunder's of the Vatican provokes,

Daring to hold God's word above her own!

Strange clashing, thunders out the pious ire

Of holiness and kingship, jointly aiming

To stifle truth by apostolic nocks,

Yet futile 'gainst a solitary Friar,

Defying confutation, while proclaiming

Rome's treasury of grace a knavish hoax!

But time, that antiquates hoar age, and changes

Even truth to error, passes on to ope

Oblivion's tomb, while yet in regal halls

She boasts eternal empire; light impinges

Along her curtained way, and new-born hope

Beholds God's ichabod upon her walls!

Even England, curtained in security

Of her long slumber, dreams of storms afar,

And stirs to contemplate the breaking day,

Ere yet to rise, in her maturity,

Van-leading conqueror in the glorious war

That rolls Truth's car on her triumphant way!

Her Cardinal bids adieu to all his greatness,

Never to rise; and from the Tudor's lust,

Like lily forced by stercoraceous ferments,

Rises a holy, God-commissioned witness,

That, struggling heaven-ward, is yet to thrust

Hell's barriers aside, and rend her cerements,

And show the church again a mitre worn

Where apostolic grace and meekness centre;

Weaponed with love aye conquering, with the glory

Of bloodless laurels haloed; while, upborne

Through hell's strong legions, leaguing to prevent her,

God's consecrated ark rolls on to victory;

And shame for ever on the apostate brood

Of faithless sons, while at that altar serving

By him, sore travailing, on the bulwarks bound

Of God's own truth, And sealed there with his blood;

Yet dare disown the work as undeserving

Our reverence, God so signally has owned!

But lowlier far our tale, while yet depending

From lofty deeds; the victory of truth,

The desolate upborne all trustfully,

On the untrembling wings of faith ascending

In lightward flight, and the unhallowed ruth

Of bigotry, athirst all lustfully

To slake her burning passions in the blood

Of God's elect, pluming herself the while

She does Him service!--But a breathing space

Hath fallen to the church, and she hath stood,

For a brief hour, on vantage ground, to assail

Hell's leagured host of listed enemies!

For persecution now hath ta'en its flight,

Scared by the champion of soul-liberty

Struggling God's revelation to reveal

Anew to untutored minds, that with delight

Welcome truth's advent, on the darkling eye

To pour new light, the ear long stopped to unseal,

And, through the slumbering nations in her might

Wading resistless, till, at her appeal,

A glorious host wakes up in God's own cause,

To wage fierce war against usurping night,

And hurl her from light's throne.

The old father's cell

And Lowden's lordly hall, in the first pause,

Before the clash of the contending creeds

Renew the strife, alike experience

An all unwonted calm; and th' orphan maid

Banishing sorrow, while young hope succeeds

To its fit vantage ground, basks in the sense

Of the pure joys such sorrows supersede!

From brow of wooded slope to modest dale

Resounds afar the cheering peal of bells,

Borne on the fitful breezes' lull and rise

In gushing swell of sounds most musical,

Each lordly hill reechoing to the vales

That slumber round, its wakeful melodies!

'Tis the Annunciation, holiday

Ordained by Mother Church, and from the dales

That wake in answer to the melody

Gather a motley throng, that wend their way

To kneel, faith-blended, in yon gorgeous aisles:

Vassal, and knight of lordly pedigree,

Yeoman and noble dame, obey the call;

And 'mong them, deep in loving argument,

The cousins ride; she to his ardour heeding

With kindling sympathy; then 'gainst the thrall

Of ghostly domination eloquent,

Or gently for a bleeding Saviour pleading:

But now before the Abbey gate they light,

A gorgeous temple, consecrate to Him

Who dwelleth not in temples made with hands,

But there most surely fixeth His delight

Within the contrite heart. Yet wherefore deem

Such shrines a mockery? though he thus demands,

Before all gifts, the heart with love elate,

And, lacking that, rejects the impious measure

By pride or fear doled out to purchase Heaven;

Yet, he who owes God all, will dedicate--

And with no niggard hand--the God-lent treasure;

Meek piety, ere now, such shrines to God hath given.

Yet, seems the gorgeous porch's sculptured story

Strange commentary, there the Virgin Mother

Tending the immortal God-inveiling Child,

The marble manger with angelic glory

Is haloed round, and Sculpture's honours gather

To tell of Deity all self-despoiled!

A glorious vista bursts upon the view,

The marble avenue's far clustering aisle,

Now wrapped in solemn gloom, and now bedight

With the impassioned rays, that, struggling thro'

The saintly host, high o'er the sacred pile

Presiding, colour even Heaven's own light!

The Grecian Muse, enlisting in the service

Of her poetic creed, upheaved meet shrine,

When Phidias' chisel woke divinity;

But when to her sublimer mysteries

The Christian arts aspire, for meed divine

They soar, and mate with her sublimity!

And dull that soul, as withering funeral wreath,

Unthrilled beneath her heaven-symboling pile,

As now the light a joyous livery wears,

And now subdued, where marble records breathe

Mute eloquence o'er hallowed dust, its smile

Dwells on the tribute of a country's tears;

While pealing anthems through the lofty span,

Now as angelic whispers softly stealing,

Now on the organ's gathering swell are hurled;

And sculptured seraphs, from its empyrean,

Bending, survey the worshippers low kneeling,

Like lingering spirits from a brighter world;

Dim, through the fragrant curtaining clouds that rise

From golden censers, peers the awe-rapt eye,

Where Art's mute drama, on the pencilled canvas,

Enacts apocalyptic mysteries,

Time's doom, or that strange hour of agony

When a sin-burdened God to death must pass!

Merging conflicting thoughts, the lovers viewed

That shrine, that for the conscience severed twain

Alike a consecrated altar rears;--

Since then the owl hath found loved solitude,

And the foul bat a shelter, in that fane,

Where mingled then such differing worshippers!

And where has God pure worship? 'mid the swell

Of such cathedral rites? in sculptured stall?

Or on the lowly bench, beneath the shelter

Of modest village church? or where they kneel

Around the cottage altar?--Even in all

His eye discerns the contrite worshipper!

But now the service merges in the blaze

Of glittering adjuncts, strangely mingled ritual,

That now her God implores, and now to saint,

Or angel, or the Virgin Mother prays;

While souls, all hungering for spiritual

Communion, whose still agonising plaint

Is aye for aid against indwelling sin,

Starve on the visionary banquet, looming

Through mystery and deceit; and to this world

The closer bound, hire priests the next to win;

Blind guides, that, in the brightness of His coming,

Shall to Gehenna's horrid womb be hurled!

Slow wanes the church's night, the glimmering east

But streaked with promised dawn; to error wed,

The mass still celebrates; strange blasphemy,

Christ made her daily sacrifice, a feast

In sin-stained hands unblushingly displayed,

Foul mystery of Rome's iniquity.

But Truth hath now her vantage, from the pulpit

Resounds the burning eloquence of language

That wins from soul to soul; the hoary Father,

Ere while in Error's devious toils beset,

Now stands Truth's freedman, 'gainst her foes to wage

Uncompromising war. The list'ners gather,

Some in amazement, some in glad surprise

To catch the gospel tidings; wondrous voice

For that long silent shrine, reconsecrate

By new annunciation services,

Calling a mourning people to rejoice

And wake to light, that long in darkness sate!

How throbs the orphan maiden's breast while listening

By her heart's lord to the enchanting strains

That bid earth's wanderers rise, and point the road

On to the heavenly rest: her dark eye glistening

As Rome's deceiving errors he arraigns,

And tells the waking soul, Behold your God!

And now his cheering mission all fulfilled,

The Reformation's God-speed to the soul

Pining for ransom, free for every eye

The Covenant of Grace anew unsealed,

Its long lost Testaments of love unroll

Revealing life and immortality

For Henry--erst in conscience-thrall's defence--

Dubbed, with the guerdon of the Golden Rose,

Defender of the Faith, by papal bull,

Now the unconscious tool of Providence,

Leagued with triumphant truth against her foes,

Proclaims the Word of God the Church's rule,

And lights a lamp in England, yet to blaze

O'er distant isles, where'er her wealth explores

Benighted climes, or where her navies wing

Their conquering way, the Christian's banner raise,

Till earth's wide vales, and ocean's furthest shores,

With the glad Gospel's hallelujahs ring.

Scotland's far mountains catch the beacon flame,

And, consecrated erst to liberty,

Now in her noblest cause their arms combine;

Soldiers of peace, that in a Saviour's name

Lead on God's ransomed hosts to victory.--

But finished now the father's grand design,

With invocated blessings on their head

The assembled crowds disperse, some to arraign

His words, but more, enamoured of the theme,

To mingle where, to listening groups, one reads

Aloud the sacred page,--that by rude chain

Hangs to the fretted wall; the church's emblem,

Chained to the Eternal Rock, yet free to all!

Silent, the lovers wend their homeward way:

A frown is on his brow, and deep disgust

In the brief words he answers to each call

For his opinions; while she to the Stay

And Father of the orphan turns her trust.

Peace and good-will on earth, the angels sung,

Announcing God a dweller among men;

But Christ himself foretold the bitter sword

Borne with it,--agony from true hearts wrung

By household foes, and love's own weapons ta'en

To pierce the soul faith-fianced to her Lord,

And lure her to perdition with foul juggle

Of charity's glossed serpent subtlety,

Wriggling into the core to hatch hell's blight.

God help the lone one in the fearful struggle

Pending 'twixt faith and love's dear fealty;

They only conquer whom He buckles to the fight.