Classic Poem

Christ-Church Meadow

Ere Advent bells the Church are calling
Her Bridegroom to discover,
Or autumn's fast and silent falling
Of her sere leaves is over,
In joyous gloom and saddest mirth
We turn our thronging thoughts from earth,
And stay our pilgrim feet,
Two days by Shrine and Porch to wait
All Saints and Souls to celebrate
With calmest honors meet.
One day, the college chapel ended,
All pagan books I put away
In sign of Christian holy-day,
And through the sunny streets I wended.
I walked within a meadow, where
The willow tops were burnished fair
With cold November's windy gleams,
And watched two green and earthy streams
Along the white frost-beaded grass
With their leaf-laden waters pass.
And bright rose the towers
Through the half-stripped bowers,
And the sun on the windows danced:
The churches looked white
In the morning light,
And the gilded crosses glanced.
Methought as I gazed on yon holy pile,
Statue and moulding and buttress bold
Seemed pencilled with flame, and burning the while
Like the shapes in a furnace of molten gold.
As the fire sank down or glowed anew,
The fretted stones of the fabric grew
So thin that the eye might pierce them through,
Till statue and moulding and buttress bold,
And each well-known figure and carving old,
Peeled off from their place in the turret hoar,
Like the winter bark of a sycamore,
And dropped away as the misty vest
That morning strips from the mountain's breast:
And as the earthly building fell,
That was so old and strong,
Clear glowed the Church Invisible
Which had been veiled so long.
And in the midst there rose a Mount,
The greenest verdure showing;
And from the summit many a fount
In emerald streaks was flowing,
And each within its mossy bed,
Most like a soft and silver thread,
In wavy curves was glowing.
And gathered there about a Throne,
Raised high upon a Cloven Stone,
A crowd of worshippers there stood,
Like sea-side sands for multitude.
All were in snowy vests arrayed,
All bore a green and juicy blade
Fresh broken from the palm;
All looked as though some powerful thought
Had o'er a myriad features brought
One fixed and breathing calm;
As mountains in the starry blue,
Quiet and waiting for the dew,
With yielding line and softened hue
Acknowledge midnight's balm.
A light of sun and moonbeam blent
Was o'er those myriads thrown,
In steady radiance from the rent
Within the Cloven Stone.
From north and south, from land and sea,
Came that transfigured company,
And East and West together safe,
As though they did expectant wait
For some high ritual;
So noiseless were they far and near,
One might the emerald fountains hear
In their moss-stifled fall.

There rose a man from out the crowd,
Who chanted solemnly and loud
A recitation of all woes,
And agonies and mortal throes,
And tortures dire,
By sword and fire,
And bitter pains and monstrous things
For torment used by savage kings;
And still between each word there came
A trumpet's brazen cry,
And from the throng a loud acclaim
Rung through the hollow sky.
Then from the east an Angel flew,
In snowy garb with fringe of blue,
And in his arrowy flight he bore
A wondrous Signet-Ring.
And he charged other Angels four,
Who then the green earth hovered o'er,
And the dim ocean's shining shore,
To hurt no living thing.
And there, apart, he set a seal
On the twelve tribes of Israel;
But when he to the crowd advanced,
The sun so full and brightly glanced
Upon their glistening dress,
And then they waved their palms on high
With such a rending jubilant cry,
And in one mighty press
Around the man
Together ran,
While on the air upborne,
A thousand skirts of waving white
Gleamed like the flocks of cloudlets bright
Gleamed like the flocks of cloudlets bright
In sunny air at morn,—
So that to me
The sparkling pageant did but seem
All like a whitely-flashing dream
Of silver sea.

But now all hushed and silent grown
Within the mystic place,
Prostrate before the Cloven Stone
They lie upon their face.
And, like still waters, from the rent
A Voice, once heard on earth, was sent
Unto the mountain side;
Nine times It rose, nine times It fell,
Nine times in blessing did It swell,
And without echo died.
Now through the wavy rings of fire
Uprose the sweet transparent spire
A visionary thing;
Then mid the uncertain silvery flood
Half vision and half building stood
In the sunlight quivering;
Then on the turrets' fretted face
Each statue grew in its old place,
And through some leafless branches near,
I saw, with hand like burnished spear,
The dial of the clock appear,
And in a keen November gilding
St. Mary's stood, an earthly building.

Ah! thus at times on earth below
The Church Invisible will glow
Upon our mortal sight,
And mid the rude and jangling strife
The holy Altar's hidden life
Breathes out in heavenly light.
O doubting heart! if e'er in thee,
Temptations against faith should be,
Make thou this day a vow with me,—
Never in keen-witted strife
To ask or tell of Christian life;
Nor strive to read in wordy war
What should be seen in prayer from far,
Or on its viewless mission sent
Couched in some secret Sacrament.
For empty forms, opaque and still,
No mirthful light are giving,
They wait for us of backward will
The vessels of the Church to fill
With true ascetic living.English