Читать книгу The Priestly Poems of G.M. Hopkins - Peter Milward - Страница 7

“Look at the stars!” Surely there is no such thing as evil. All is good, and evil can only subsist as a parasite to good. The fruit of the forbidden tree itself isn’t evil, but the combined knowledge of good and evil. “This our life,” exclaims the elder duke in As You Like It, “exempt from public haunt, finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything.” There is evil in the city and at court, where the sins of envy and greed reign supreme. But here in the Forest of Arden there is no room for envy or greed. All are equal, all are free, all are brothers in the state of Nature, as decreed by Nature’s God from the beginning.

“Look at the stars!”Nor, likewise, is there any such thing as darkness. All is light, and darkness can only exist in contrast to the light that precedes in the daytime and supersedes in the starry heavens above. During the day the light of the sun is too strong for human labourers. During the night the reflected light of the moon is too weak for human travellers. But it is at night, in contrast to the surrounding darkness of earth, that the stars draw our wondering eyes up to the height and lead us to “look before and after”. Then we are able to discern both past and future in the present in accordance with the rational nature of man

“Look at the stars!” exclaims the childlike poet. And again, “Look, look up at the skies!” All he can say, again and again, is “Look!” Or in Biblical terms, “Behold and see”, if there be any glory like unto this glory! This is indeed the glory of God, as proclaimed from the beginning by the stars and the angels. The stars are what we see with our eyes in the gradual unfolding of created light from the first day when God said, “Let there be light!” The angels are what we perceive with our mind as present within all that glorious light, praising God in their celestial hierarchy.

“Look at the stars!” Such was the starry night when Christ was born in the city of Bethlehem. And such was the song of the angels heard by the shepherds when they were summoned to Bethlehem by “the good tidings of great joy”. Just as the stars are innumerable, no less innumerable are the thousands upon thousands of angels, all praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest, and peace to His people on earth!”

“Look, look up at the skies!” Do but look up at them! Do but look up at the stars, up at the skies, up, up, up!” It even becomes a strain on the neck muscles to keep on looking up. One would like to lie down before looking up. There stretched out supine on the earth we might without straining look up at the heavens and take in all the stars, while perceiving the presence of the angels behind the stars.

“Look at the stars! Look, look up at the skies!” It was no doubt on such a night as this that Abraham stood or sat at the entrance to his tent in Chaldea. Then we may imagine him looking up at the stars and listening to their “fair, speechless messages”. And then he heard the divine voice calling him, “Abraham, Abraham!” And then he replied, “Here I am!” And so it is from generation to generation, from Abraham to Moses, from Moses to Samuel. So the divine voice is heard in the silence of the stars, calling on men to come and follow, as Jesus says to Simon and Andrew, James and John, by the lakeside, “Come, follow me!”