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A Room in the Convent of Flora in Calabria. Night.
JOACHIM. THE WIND is rising; it seizes and shakes | |
| The doors and window-blinds and makes | |
| Mysterious moanings in the halls; | |
| The convent-chimneys seem almost | |
| The trumpets of some heavenly host, | 5 |
| Setting its watch upon our walls! | |
| Where it listeth, there it bloweth; | |
| We hear the sound, but no man knoweth | |
| Whence it cometh or whither it goeth, | |
| And thus it is with the Holy Ghost. | 10 |
| O breath of God! O my delight | |
| In many a vigil of the night, | |
| Like the great voice in Patmos heard | |
| By John, the Evangelist of the Word, | |
| I hear thee behind me saying: Write | 15 |
| In a book the things that thou hast seen, | |
| The things that are, and that have been, | |
| And the things that shall hereafter be! | |
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| This convent, on the rocky crest | |
| Of the Calabrian hills, to me | 20 |
| A Patmos is wherein I rest; | |
| While round about me like a sea | |
| The white mists roll, and overflow | |
| The world that lies unseen below | |
| In darkness and in mystery. | 25 |
| Here in the Spirit, in the vast | |
| Embrace of God’s encircling arm, | |
| Am I uplifted from all harm; | |
| The world seems something far away, | |
| Something belonging to the Past, | 30 |
| A hostelry, a peasant’s farm, | |
| That lodged me for a night or day, | |
| In which I care not to remain, | |
| Nor having left, to see again. | |
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| Thus, in the hollow of God’s hand | 35 |
| I dwelt on sacred Tabor’s height, | |
| When as a simple acolyte | |
| I journeyed to the Holy Land, | |
| A pilgrim for my master’s sake, | |
| And saw the Galilean Lake, | 40 |
| And walked through many a village street | |
| That once had echoed to his feet. | |
| There first I heard the great command, | |
| The voice behind me saying: Write! | |
| And suddenly my soul became | 45 |
| Illumined by a flash of flame, | |
| That left imprinted on my thought | |
| The image I in vain had sought, | |
| And which forever shall remain; | |
| As sometimes from these windows high, | 50 |
| Gazing at midnight on the sky | |
| Black with a storm of wind and rain, | |
| I have beheld a sudden glare | |
| Of lightning lay the landscape bare, | |
| With tower and town and hill and plain | 55 |
| Distinct, and burnt into my brain, | |
| Never to be effaced again! | |
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| And I have written. These volumes three, | |
| The Apocalypse, the Harmony | |
| Of the Sacred Scriptures, new and old, | 60 |
| And the Psalter with Ten Strings, enfold | |
| Within their pages, all and each, | |
| The Eternal Gospel that I teach. | |
| Well I remember the Kingdom of Heaven | |
| Hath been likened to a little leaven | 65 |
| Hidden in two measures of meal, | |
| Until it leavened the whole mass; | |
| So likewise will it come to pass | |
| With the doctrines that I here conceal. | |
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| Open and manifest to me | 70 |
| The truth appears, and must be told; | |
| All sacred mysteries are threefold; | |
| Three Persons in the Trinity, | |
| Three ages of Humanity, | |
| And Holy Scriptures likewise three, | 75 |
| Of Fear, of Wisdom, and of Love; | |
| For Wisdom that begins in Fear | |
| Endeth in Love; the atmosphere | |
| In which the soul delights to be, | |
| And finds that perfect liberty | 80 |
| Which cometh only from above. | |
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| In the first Age, the early prime | |
| And dawn of all historic time, | |
| The Father reigned; and face to face | |
| He spake with the primeval race. | 85 |
| Bright Angels, on his errands sent, | |
| Sat with the patriarch in his tent; | |
| His prophets thundered in the street; | |
| His lightnings flashed, his hailstorms beat; | |
| In earthquake and in flood and flame, | 90 |
| In tempest and in cloud He came! | |
| The fear of God is in his Book; | |
| The pages of the Pentateuch | |
| Are full of the terror of his name. | |
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| Then reigned the Son; his Covenant | 95 |
| Was peace on earth, good-will to man; | |
| With Him the reign of Law began. | |
| He was the Wisdom and the Word, | |
| And sent his Angels Ministrant, | |
| Unterrified and undeterred, | 100 |
| To rescue souls forlorn and lost, | |
| The troubled, tempted, tempest-tost | |
| To heal, to comfort, and to teach. | |
| The fiery tongues of Pentecost | |
| His symbols were, that they should preach | 105 |
| In every from of human speech, | |
| From continent to continent. | |
| He is the Light Divine, whose rays | |
| Across the thousand years unspent | |
| Shine through the darkness of our days, | 110 |
| And touch with their celestial fires | |
| Our churches and our convent spires. | |
| His Book is the New Testament. | |
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| These Ages now are of the Past; | |
| And the Third Age begins at last. | 115 |
| The coming of the Holy Ghost, | |
| The reign of Grace, the reign of Love | |
| Brightens the mountain-tops above, | |
| And the dark outline of the coast. | |
| Already the whole land is white | 120 |
| With convent walls, as if by night | |
| A snow had fallen on hill and height! | |
| Already from the streets and marts | |
| Of town and traffic, and low cares, | |
| Men climb the consecrated stairs | 125 |
| With weary feet, and bleeding hearts; | |
| And leave the world, and its delights, | |
| Its passions, struggles, and despairs, | |
| For contemplation and for prayers | |
| In cloister-cells of cœnobites. | 130 |
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| Eternal benedictions rest | |
| Upon thy name, Saint Benedict! | |
| Founder of convents in the West, | |
| Who built on Mount Cassino’s crest | |
| In the Land of Labor, thine eagle’s nest! | 135 |
| May I be found not derelict | |
| In aught of faith or godly fear, | |
| If I have written, in many a page, | |
| The Gospel of the coming age, | |
| The Eternal Gospel men shall hear. | 140 |
| Oh may I live resembling thee, | |
| And die at last as thou hast died; | |
| So that hereafter men may see, | |
| Within the choir, a form of air, | |
| Standing with arms outstretched in prayer, | 145 |
| As one that hath been crucified! | |
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| My work is finished; I am strong | |
| In faith and hope and charity; | |
| For I have written the things I see, | |
| The things that have been and shall be, | 150 |
| Conscious of right, nor fearing wrong; | |
| Because I am in love with Love, | |
| And the sole thing I hate is Hate; | |
| For Hate is death; and Love is life, | |
| A peace, a splendor from above; | 155 |
| And Hate, a never-ending strife, | |
| A smoke, a blackness from the abyss | |
| Where unclean serpents coil and hiss! | |
| Love is the Holy Ghost within; | |
| Hate the unpardonable sin! | 160 |
| Who preaches otherwise than this, | |
| Betrays his Master with a kiss! | |
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