And when with joyous heart they 'gan prepare
Renewe their pilgrimage, then one by one,
This Clerk would have them to his garden fair:
So swete a pleasaunce in that land was none:
Secure it lay towards the setting sun;
And right from ende to ende a velvett way
Of verdaunt turfe did to a river run,
Whose crystall face shott back the dazzling day,
And 'neath the gliding streme you saw the green reeds
Ah! how the pleasures of that path to sing!
Whose close soft grass might hide no uglie weed;
But, on each side, through all the months of Spring
He bade the race of passing flowers succeed,
Most rare of scent or sight, from bulb or seed;
The crocus coming when the March winds call;
Jonquils that after hyacinths make speed;
Narcissus fair, snow-white and swete withal;
And tulips gay, and eke Saint Bruno's lilie tall.
Beneath the northern wall, in happie nook
Warmed with the sun and sheltered from the wind,
Where he might easie come from bed or book,
He had of mountayn plantes all manner kind;
Such as with paines the curious searchers find,
Remote, on beetling crag, in deep ravine,
In clifts of western Andes some enshryned,
And some on heights of Himalaya green,
Or Jura's pine-clad rockes, or valley Engadine.
There noble Edelweiss was seen to drink
From alien airs her hues of fadeless white;
With saxifrage, whose blossomes to the brink
Of parlous cliffs oft tempt botanic wight;
Sundew, to whom the sunlesse noon is night;
The bearded harebell, and the Alpine rose,
Adventurous climber of the rockie height;
And soldanella, hardie nymph, who shows
Her modest bosom first above the melting snows.
And there was seen the blue forget-me-not,
Flashing through all her flowers Lake Leman's blue;
Matched with her peer androsace, who shot
From many clustered blooms a rosie hue:
Fair alchemilla peeped her mantle through;
And dryas fair, with modest shining gem
In eight white petals sett, yet lowlie grew;
And gentian of the snow, whose single stem
Gleams through the circling grass with sapphire diadem.
To rear these plantes the Clerk with mickle craft
Congeniale soils would oft from distance bring,
And mix with buried sherd and broken shaft
Of antique niche, whereto their roots might cling
Rock-like, and watered from the coldest spring:
Alsoe, when winds blew soure or winter froze;
Boughs would he fetch to be their covering;
Well so he deemed his nurselings might suppose
Their heads were safe and warm beneath their mountain
Then, too, would he his tender children call,
And in their lot full many an emblem see
Of human life and types angelicale :
"For lo! as with a father's hand," sayde he,
"I guard these flowers from Mutabilitie,
And rear them in strange soil and foreign air,
Ev'n soe than grasse of field what more are we,
Who must through mortall world full briefly fare?
Yet is each planted Soul our Heavenlie Father's care.
Thrice happie they, yea happier they alone,1
Who in Religion's breast fair haven find!
To whom the rurall Deities are known,
And Nature's heart, and all the lawes of kynd!
They fear not Change nor greedie Death behind;
No lust of power or perishable reign
To mad Ambition moves their quiet mind:
Though customs die, tongues vanish, empires wane, For them the Throne of God, the changelesse Heav'ns remain.
1 Virgil, Georg. ii. 490-99.
A NIGHT IN THE MEDITERRANEAN
As he leans over the vessel's side,
Watching her track of sapphire and snow,
Does he muse and wonder what might betide,
If he sought for peace in the depths below?
After that plunge comes a Saviour's breast,
Or the depths of hell, or unconscious rest?
Holy man, who from ages past
Your heritage proud of faith have gained, Have you no spell to hold him fast,
To bid Christ reign where the devil has reigned?
Cannot the sign of the Cross control
And save the tortured and maddened soul?
Faith, above all things, spoke the priest,
Implicit faith in the Church is needed;
Without it no hope for the greatest or least,
Their most fervent prayers will pass unheeded.
Doubt of itself implies damnation,
And suicide is but an aggravation.
Thus far the Priest; now for the man
Who has left his teaching far behind:
No God and no future, his accents ran,
But a form of words is the soul and mind.
Only some fibre and tissue grey,
Which in seventy years will have had its day.
But seventy years is a mighty gift,
Not to be lightly flung away,
And of future hope for himself bereft,
A man may hope for his race alway,
And deem that each struggle of body and mind
Enhances the weal of all human kind.
The line of light in the West grew low,
The Priest and Philosopher went to dinner, Over them sounded to and fro
The weary tramp of the restless sinner,
And the sapphire waves to ink had turned,
And the foam-flakes white with sea-fire burned.
The ship drove on; through the bitter night
Whistled the wind in each creaking shroud;
Underneath her till morning light
The water kept up a grinding loud,
Like some monster with cruel teeth alway
Crunching and crushing the bones of its prey.
Morning at last on the weary din
The sun shed a wild white light ahead, And the vessel that stood Marseilles to win Was beating off Puerto Mahon instead;
While the steward who had counted the numbers failed, To make them the same as when he sailed.
Just by one had he counted higher;
He noticed one berth was, still and neat, Unslept in amid the confusion dire,
And drew his conclusion just and meet, Duly reporting a man overboard;
No wonder when waves so wildly roared.
|