Turning by steps which winding be,
Winning a sparry chamber brave
Unsearched by that prose critic keen,
The daylight. Archimago’s cave
Was here? or that more sorcerous scene
The Persian Sibyl kept within
For turbaned musings? Bowing o’er,
Crossing himself, and on the knee,
Straight did the guide that grot adore;
Then, rising, and as one set free:
“The place of the Nativity.”
Dim pendent lamps, in cluster small
Were Pleiads of the mystic hall;
Fair lamps of silver, lamps of gold—
Rich gifts devout of monarchs old,
Kings catholic. Rare objects beamed
All round, recalling things but dreamed:
Solomon’s talismans garnered up,
His sword, his signet-ring and cup.
In further caverns, part revealed,
What silent shapes like statues kneeled;
What brown monks moved by twinkling shrines
Like Aztecs down in silver mines.
This, this the Stable mean and poor?
Noting their looks, to ward surprise,
The Italian: “’Tis incrusted o’er
With marbles, so that now one’s eyes
Meet not the natural wall. This floor——”
“But how? within a cave we stand!”
“Yes, caves of old to use were put
For cattle, and with gates were shut.
One meets them still—with arms at hand,
The keepers nigh. Sure it need be
That if in Gihon ye have been,
Or hereabouts, yourselves have seen
The grots in question.”
They agree;
And silent in their hearts confess
The strangeness, but the truth no less.
Anew the guide: “Ere now we get
Further herein, indulge me yet;”
But paused awhile: “Though o’er this cave,
Where Christ” (and crossed himself) “had birth,
Constantine’s mother reared the Nave
Whose Greek mosaics fade in bloom,
No older church in Christendom;
And generations, with the girth
Of domes and walls, have still enlarged
And built about; yet convents, shrines,
Cloisters and towers, take not for signs,
Entreat ye, of meek faith submerged
Under proud masses. Be it urged
As all began from these small bounds,
So, by all avenues and gates,
All here returns, hereto redounds:
In this one Cave all terminates:
In honor of the Manger sole
Saints, kings, knights, prelates reared the whole.”
He warmed. Ah, fervor bought too dear:
The fingers clutching rope and cross;
Life too intense; the cheek austere
Deepening in hollow, waste and loss.
They marked him; and at heart some knew
Inklings they loved not to pursue.
But Rolfe recalled in fleeting gleam
The first Franciscan, richly born—
The youthful one who, night and morn,
In Umbria ranged the hills in dream,
And first devised the girdling cord
In type that rebel senses so
Should led be—led like beast abroad
By halter. Tuscan! in the glow
And white light of thy faith’s illumings,
In vigils, fervent prayers and trances,
Agonies and self-consumings—
Renewest thou the young Saint Francis?
So inly Rolfe; when, in low tone
Considerate Derwent whispered near:
“’Tis doubtless the poor boy’s first year
In Bethlehem; time will abate
This novice-ardor; yes, sedate
He’ll grow, adapt him to the sphere.”
Close to the Sanctum now they drew,
A semicircular recess;
And there, in marble floor, they view
A silver sun which (friars profess)
Is set in plummet-line exact
Beneath the star in pavement-tract
Above; and raying from this sun
Shoot jasper-spikes, which so point out
Argent inscription roundabout
In Latin text; which thus may run:
THE VIRGIN HERE BROUGHT FORTH THE SON.
The Tuscan bowed him; then with air
Friendly he turned; but something there
In Derwent’s look—no matter what—
An open levity ’twas not—
Disturbed him; and in accents clear,
As challenged in his faith sincere:
“I trust tradition! Here He lay
Who shed on Mary’s breasts the ray:
Salvator Mundi!”
Turning now,
He noted, and he bade them see
Where, with a timid piety
A band of rustics bent them low
In worship mute: “Shepherds these are,
And come from pastoral hills not far
Whereon they keep the night-watch wild:
These, like their sires, adore the CHILD,
And in same spot. But, mixed with these,
Mark ye yon poor swart images
In other garb? But late they fled
From over Jordan hither; yes,
Escaping so the heinousness
Of one with price upon his head.
But look, and yet seem not to peer,
Lest pain ye give: an eye, an ear,
A hand, is mutilate or gone:
The mangler marked them for his own;
But Christ redeems them.” Derwent here
His eyes withdrew, but Ungar not,
While visibly the red blood shot
Into his thin-skinned scar, and sent,
As seemed, a pulse of argument
Confirming so some angry sense
Of evil, and malevolence
In man toward man.
Now, lower down
The cave, the Manger they descry,
With marble lined; and, o’er it thrown,
A lustrous saint-cloth meets the eye.
And suits of saint-cloths here they have
Wherewith to deck the Manger brave:
Gifts of the Latin princes, these—
Fair Christmas gifts, these draperies.
A damask one of gold and white
Rich flowered with pinks embroidered bright,
Was for the present week in turn
The adornment of the sacred Urn.
Impressive was it here to note
Those herdsmen in the shaggy coat:
Impressive, yet partook of dream;
It touched the pilgrims, as might seem;
Which pleased the monk; but in disguise
Modest he dropped his damsel-eyes.
Thought Derwent then: Demure in sooth!
’Tis like a maid in lily of youth
Who grieves not in her core of glee,
By spells of grave virginity
To cozen men to foolish looks;
While she—who reads such hearts’ hid nooks?—
What now? “Signori, here, believe,
Where night and day, while ages run,
Faith in these lamps burns on and on,
’Tis good to spend one’s Christmas Eve;
Yea, better rather than in land
Which may your holly tree command,
And greens profuse which ye inweave.”
14. SOLDIER AND MONK
Fervid he spake. And Ungar there
Appeared (if looks allow surmise)
In latent way to sympathize,
Yet wonder at the votary’s air;
And frequent too he turned his face
To note the grotto, and compare
These haunted precincts with the guide,
As so to realize the place,
Or fact from fable to divide;
At times his changeful aspect wore
Touch of the look the simple shepherds bore.
The Tuscan marked; he pierced him through,
Yet gently, gifted with the clew—
Ascetic insight; and he caught
The lapse within the soldier’s thought,
The favorable frame, nor missed
Appealing to it, to enlist
Or influence, or drop a seed
Which might some latter harvest breed.
Gently approaching him, he said:
“True sign you bear: your sword’s a cross.”
Ungar but started, as at loss
To take the meaning, and yet led
To marvel how that mannered word
Did somehow slip into accord
With visitings that scarce might cleave—
Shadows, but shadows fugitive.
He lifted up the steel: the blade
Was straight; the hilt, a bar: “’Tis true;
A cross, it is a cross,” he said;
And touched seemed, though ’twas hardly new.
Then glowed the other; and, again:
“Ignatius was a soldier too,
And Martin. ’Tis the pure disdain
Of life, or, holding life the real,
Still subject to a brave ideal—
’Tis this that makes the tent a porch
Whereby the warrior wins the church:
The habit of renouncing, yes,
’Tis good, a good preparedness.—
Our founder”—here he raised his eyes
As unto all the sanctities—
“Footing it near Rieti town
Met a young knight on horseback, one
Named Angelo Tancredi: ‘Lo,’
He said, ‘Thy belt thou’lt change for cord,
Thy spurs for mire, good Angelo,
And be a true knight of the Lord.’
And he, the cavalier——” Aside
A brother of the cowl here drew
This ardent proselyting guide,
Detaining him in interview
About some matter. Ungar stood
Lost in his thoughts.
In neighborhood
Derwent by Rolfe here chanced to bide;
And said: “It just occurs to me
As interesting in its way,
That these Franciscans steadily
Have been custodians of the Tomb
And Manger, ever since the day
Of rescue under Godfrey’s plume
Long centuries ago.” Rolfe said:
“Ay; and appropriate seems it too
For the Franciscan retinue
To keep these places, since their head,
St. Francis, spite his scouted hood,
May claim more of similitude
To Christ, than any man we know.
Through clouds of myth investing him—
Obscuring, yet attesting him,
He burns with the seraphic glow
And perfume of a holy flower.
Sweetness, simplicity, with power!
By love’s true miracle of charm
He instituted a reform
(Not insurrection) which restored
For time the spirit of his Lord
On earth. If sad perversion came
Unto his order—what of that?
All Christianity shares the same:
Pure things men need adulterate
And so adapt them to the kind.”
“Oh, oh! But I have grown resigned
To these vagaries.—And for him,
Assisi’s saint—a good young man,
No doubt, and beautiful to limn;
Yes, something soft, Elysian;
Nay, rather, the transparent hue
Unearthly of a maiden tranced
In sleep somnambulic; no true
Color of health; beauty enhanced
To enervation. In a word,
For all his charity divine,
Love, self-devotion, ardor fine—
Unmanly seems he!”
“Of our Lord
The same was said by Machiavel,
Or hinted, rather. Prithee, tell,
What is it to be manly?”
“Why,
To be man-like”—and here the chest
Bold out he threw—“man at his best!”
“But even at best, one might reply,
Man is that thing of sad renown
Which moved a deity to come down
And save him. Lay not too much stress
Upon the carnal manliness:
The Christliness is better—higher;
And Francis owned it, the first friar.
Too orthodox is that?”
“See, see,”
Said Derwent, with kind air of one
Who would a brother’s weak spot shun:
“Mark this most delicate drapery;
If woven by some royal dame—
God bless her and her tambour frame!”
15. SYMPHONIES
Meanwhile with Vine there, Clarel stood
Aside in friendly neighborhood,
And felt a flattering pleasure stir
At words—nor in equivocal tone
Freakish, or leaving to infer,
Breathed now by that exceptional one
In unconstraint:
“’Tis very much
The cold fastidious heart to touch
This way; nor is it mere address
That so could move one’s silver chord.
How he transfigured Ungar’s sword!
Delusive is this earnestness
Which holds him in its passion pale—
Tenant of melancholy’s dale
Of mirage? To interpret him,
Perhaps it needs a swallow-skim
Over distant time. Migrate with me
Across the years, across the sea.—
How like a Poor Clare in her cheer
(Grave Sister of his order sad)
Showed nature to that Cordelier
Who, roving in the Mexic glade,
Saw in a bud of happy dower
Whose stalk entwined the tropic tree,
Emblems of Christ’s last agony:
In anthers, style, and fibers torn,
The five wounds, nails, and crown of thorn;
And named it so the passion-flower.
What beauty in that sad conceit!
Such charm, the title still we meet.
Our guide, methinks, where’er he turns
For him this passion-flower burns;
And all the world is elegy.
A green knoll is to you and me
But pastoral, and little more:
To him ’tis even Calvary
Where feeds the Lamb. This passion-flower—
But list!”
Hid organ-pipes unclose
A timid rill of slender sound,
Which gains in volume—grows, and flows
Gladsome in amplitude of bound.
Low murmurs creep. From either side
Tenor and treble interpose,
And talk across the expanding tide:
Debate, which in confusion merges—
Din and clamor, discord’s hight:
Countering surges—pæans—dirges—
Mocks, and laughter light.
But rolled in long ground-swell persistent,
A tone, an under-tone assails
And overpowers all near and distant;
Earnest and sternest, it prevails.
Then terror, horror—wind and rain—
Accents of undetermined fear,
And voices as in shipwreck drear:
A sea, a sea of spirits in pain!
The suppliant cries decrease—
The voices in their ferment cease:
One wave rolls over all and whelms to peace.
But hark—oh, hark!
Whence, whence this stir, this whirr of wings?
Numbers numberless convening—
Harps and child-like carolings
In happy holiday of meaning:
To God be glory in the hight,
For tidings glad we bring;
Good will to men, and peace on earth
We children-cherubs sing!
To God be glory in the depth,
As in the hight be praise;
He who shall break the gates of death
A babe in manger rays.
Ye people all in every land,
Embrace, embrace, be kin:
Immanuel’s born in Bethlehem,
And gracious years begin!
It dies; and, half around the heavenly sphere,
Like silvery lances lightly touched aloft—
Like Northern Lights appealing to the ear,
An elfin melody chimes low and soft.
That also dies, that last strange fairy-thrill:
Slowly it dies away, and all is sweetly still.
16. THE CONVENT ROOF
To branching grottoes next they fare,
Old caves of penitence and prayer,
Where Paula kneeled—her urn is there—
Paula the Widow, Scipio’s heir
But Christ’s adopted. Well her tomb
Adjoins her friend’s, renowned Jerome.
Never the attending Druze resigned
His temperate poise, his moderate mind;
While Belex, in punctilious guard,
Relinquished not the martial ward:
“If by His tomb hot strife may be,