Classic Poem

'Twas Easter morn. The sanctuary long
Had ope'd its doors to the fast ent'ring throng,
Which soon had filled each space where seat was found,
And e'en stood ranged, deep-row'd, expectant round.
Magnificent assembly! Varied, tho',
Its aspect was, as it was grand in show.
For congregated there were gathered all
Who in that day saw Freedom's broken thrall;
And many more beside, of every heart,
Some to take earnest and some trivial part;
For as each one the season's gifts did price,
Each came with hearts attuned to sacrifice:
Gay Pleasure's priestesses and Fashion's fawn,
Who only blessed the day because withdrawn
Then was dull Lent's drear mask of penitence,
Which forty fretful days the radiance
Of their loved deities had hid from view;
Enchanting, haughty, sweeping to their pew,
Came Beauty, Pride and Wealth, to whom the time
Seemed one for joy because spring's gentler clime,
Succeeding sombre winter, ope'd fresh ways,
By decking out in all soft, rich arrays,
To wake new rapture, envyings and awe;
While back in shadows, scarce within the door,
Stood those who this dark life's worst burdens bear, —
Sorrow and want, — the poor. What did they there?
Surely to them the day brought no great joy!
It freed them not from poverty's annoy,
Nor lifted sorrow's burden from their breasts,
Save, 'chance, that while the hour they stood as guests
In that high house, some gentler spirit of peace —
Instilled with music and perfumes that cease
Not to rise from the trembling organ reed
And the lilies and sweet blooms rich banked and spread
Round chancel and round fane — with subtle charm,
Shed o'er their troubled souls a transient calm.
There men and youths, from pleasure brief unbound,
Passed whispered jests or light-smiled greetings round;
There, too, was sneer-lipped Infidelity,
Gazing upon the scene with faithless eye
And smile of scorn, forgetful that his own
High-patterned life is possible alone
Because the light of God's benignant law
Through ages past hath drawn, and still doth draw,
This moth-eyed and weak world into its rays,
Lighting the paths to heaven-leading ways;
Forgetting that his wisdom hath upgrown
From seed that in dim historied time was sown,
In patience planted, by lives for God lived firm.
These seeds' rare fruits, of century-ripened term,
He plucks, and on their health imbibed grown strong,
Employs health's restless strength to find whence sprung
Wide virtue's tree whose bough doth nourish him.
With human memory weak and reason dim —
Which are themselves faulty reflections faint
From that One Source of Light with which acquaint
He strives with crooked vanity to be —
He, with eye distance-dimmed, essays to see,
And seeing, mark and trace with sure descry,
Amid the foliage thick-webbed on high,
The proper stem and twig and bough and branch,
Back to the Root of All from which all launch.
So some do seek; but while the tangled twine
Aloft, with 'magined sight and judgment fine,
They thread, — following false lines seeming true,
And curving courses, which, while they pursue,
Seem straight, — their unwatched feet, with faulty stride,
And many a 'wildered slip and stumble wide,
Lead them through sloughs, 'gainst thorn and bruising rock,
Bringing them toil and cruel stab and shock,
Till, line all gone, weary, despairing, sick,
Lost in the forest of their fancies thick,
They hopeless die; and some of hardier mind,
But wiser none, when they at last do find
Their search, keen led with all the trusted light
Of learning's lamp, with logic'd step aright
Fruitless to follow virtue through time's shroud,
Turn in presumptuousness of spirit, proud
In man's paltry knowledge of five thousand years,
And God and Heaven, and all the healthy fears
And blessed hopes thereto connect, abjure;
Declaring that what good doth now inure
To child of man, spontaneous did spring,
Was fostered, and now fruits in that base ring
Of soil, — which of itself ne'er bore but weeds
Of folly, or the rank and poison beads
Of evil's choking vine, — the human heart.
Ah! ye vain fools who take such haughty part
For majesty of man! Why do ye rend
From him his attribute of noblest bend;
And turn on him your ignorant, vandal shears,
Clipping his bough of the best bloom it bears,
Pure Faith? — faith, whose essence, whose fairest flower.
Is sweet belief past human sight's poor power:
When Reason faints, Trust bright-eyed still on tower.
But oh, my Muse, return to gentler themes!
Sure some beneath those rainbow-tinctured beams
That crept, and blazed through yon bright sculptured glass,
Sure some within those holy doors did pass
With proper mind? — sweet maids of simple way,
And boys free, fresh and fair as morn in May;
The new made widow seeking in her grief
For some dim understood, far off relief;
Gray men, still toiled-tossed, longing still for rest;
These, like the poor, came with half ready breast;
And last — but oh, how sadly few were they!
Were those who came to worship and to pray;
Whose gentle mien and humble, reverent care,
Seemed to ray out a peace upon the air,
A tranquil breath, within whose circle small
A quiet hush dropped softly upon all.
But list! that hush is spreading, and still spreads!
The rustling multitude, like barley heads
Kissed by day's dying breath, did shift and bow,
Trembled, and then hung motionless; for now,
Commencing faint in distant alcoves dim,
Rose the first notes of the procession hymn.
Soft, sweet, yet clear they came; soft as a bell
Sounding on summer eve from some far dell
Where peaceful hamlet lies; clear as a horn
Heard wound o'er Alpine vale at wake of morn;
Sweet as the bird of sorrow's tend'rest note,
When, pressing to the thorn her gentle throat,
She to the stars warbles her song of woe.
So woke the strains; but they did ever grow
And swell, falling but louder yet to prove,
As with slow march th' advancing choir did move
Through recess'd room and secret cell, until
The cloister opened, and straightway did fill
The whole grand lofty square such flood of song
As our dull souls imagine that bright throng
Struck forth, which hov'ring o'er Judea's plain,
The night-bound shepherds charmed. On trod the train,
Their robes of sabled snow brushing the crowd
Which rearward pressed upon the aisles, while loud
And louder, full of every grand and rich
Involvement of sweet sound, with every pitch
Of harmony's infinite subtleties
Which Orpheus-taught musician, from the keys
And pipes of organ, from loud tubes of brass,
From bow-swept strings, the silver flute's soft pass,
And the vocal reed of man, could skillful weld, —
With such rich range of music's wealth upswelled
The mighty anthem, a wave of melody,
A rolling torrent of tune, a grand, a free,
A glorious peal of praise. Of praise? That form
And fine array of pomp, that finer storm
Of harmony, — was all that praise? Ah no,
'Twas all a mockery! 'Twas all a show,
Not for God's glory, but for man's delight!
How could that hymn ascend to heaven's height
If no hearts bore it there? And oh, alas!
How many hearts, in all that human mass,
Turned heavenward that anthem to upraise?
(And if the heart doth not no lip can praise).
For those who sat with silent breathed lungs,
But made a mock of praise through other's tongues;
And those who sang, — ah! listless seemed their eyes,
Steps dull, and all their manner otherwise
Than spirit held! And why not so? They did
A duty well; and if at their trained bid,
Music bestowed her every precious gift,
'Twas task enough. Then to assume and lift
Those strains with soulful service to heaven's gate,
Were meet for those who soft in cushions sate.
But they, poor victims of a hungry pride,
A flattered ear, a love of ease allied
To laziness, or aught that hobbles man,
Teth'ring his powers in an oft' cropped span,
Each to his little clayey idol clung,
Nor sought to rise to free those notes that rung
In lingering echoes round the gilded roof,
Waiting with heaven-bound hearts to wing aloof —
Waiting the chariots that never came.
But stay, my hasty mind! thine is the blame
Of those who, stubborn bent on censure, do,
In blaming many, o'er look the noble few.
How knowest thou but that thy travelling sight,
In that great throng did miss the secret flight
Of some good hearts? — for ever noblest good
Doth hide her head 'neath secrecy's large hood.
Perchance that very robed, melodius line
Of singers did contain some natures fine
With hearts too noble from their tongues to part; —
For turn of manners points not every heart.
Yea, e'en among the foremost of the fore,
Where no just eye could ever have passed o'er
And failed to notice him, there stepped a youth,
A boy of rosy years, who, if forsooth
Eye ever spake or poised head did hint,
Was spirited above the common tint.
His brow and reverent eyes were raised to heaven,
His useless, well con'd print was never given
A glance, but hung loose-clasped by his side;
His soul gave motion to his lips, their tide
Of sweetness having that full, tender reach
Of sympathy which only souls can teach.
Ah, 'twas a sight no stern censorious frown
Dare wrinkle on! 'Twould draw joy's bright tears down
From smiling angels' eyes! But oh! the sound,
When Silence laid her deadening finger round
On voice and instrument, till, company
By company and chord by chord, did die
To dumbness all their notes, save his alone!
Ah, then, and only then, was full made known
Their single loveliness: e'en as the lark,
Singing to coax the bright sun from his dark
House of clouds when the June shower is past,
But yet while still upon the sinking blast
The remnant thunders roll, cannot be heard
In all the music her sweet voice hath stirred,
Till heaven's tremendous symphony is hushed.
Thus, when to silence that great song was crushed,
The lad's voice rose, exquisite in relief
Upon the stillness. Ah! if ever grief
Could enter heaven, then would it have come in,
Led by that strongest, smallest of all sin —
That bland and smooth lieutenant Satan sends
When other deputies, to gain his ends
Of evil, all have failed — the subtle, sly,
Insidious envy; for the hosts on high,
That faultless, tireless celestial choir,
Might well have grieved, envying earth such fire
And spirit of true song as that young voice
Poured richly forth; — not that it was more choice
In tone, sweeter in accent, or more clear
Than song that many a mortal tongue could rear;
Yet in each note such tenderness did dwell,
As forced the ear to hark with honeyed spell,
While every word such freight of feeling bore,
As thrilled the heart and left it yearning sore
Within itself for loftier nobleness.
Such magic it did hold that it could dress
With beauteous images the dullest brain
That heard; could ease of half its guilty pain
The blackest heart: and in the arctic soul
Could cause love's sun to rise again and roll
The icy fogs of selfishness away,
Thaw mercy's spring and make its waters play
In generous surfeit o'er its melting cup,
And at each other virtue's roots warm up
The sap of life once more, making them all,
From charity's great oak, towering tall,
To the sweet violet of pity, bloom
Into full loveliness and sweet perfume,
Filling a soul, once waste, with verdure rare;
Turning Sahara into Eden fair.
Sure these were wonders, wondrous wonders! Yet,
Like many a seeming marvel that doth set
Earth's wise to vainly beat high heaven o'er
To find its cause, a cause which at the door
Of their own vision plain in view doth lie —
Too plain, alas, for note of learned eye! —
They were not wrought by the mysterions touch
Of any mighty power divine; not such
Their origin; but their creation came
From cause which no divinity could claim,
Unless divineness lies in rarity,
And whose best might was in simplicity:
This was the cause of all, and this alone —
A human heart and human soul at one;
For such a heart that young child's breast did bear,
And such a soul was dwelling also there.
Sweet child! Sign of promise, emblem of hope
For future man, of all his strife the scope
And final goal! God's steward upon earth!
Would that thy song's great stream had had a girth
Wide as this whirling globe's; a life and motion
Deathless and ceaseless as the beat of ocean!
So might the lips of every human ear
Be ever plunged deep within its clear,
Life-giving waters, drinking in their strength,
Till every heart should feel along the length
Of all its arteries and veins the thrill
Of purging power; feel the fresh blood fill
Each scummed and reeking marsh and stagnant pool,
Before its flushing torrent, sweet and cool,
Sweeping their filth and heating poisons out,
Making each alley, duct and channel spout
With sanguine streams full, healthy, rich and bright
As the swift rills, that, 'neath the dazzling light
Of June's unclouded sun and blue heaven's steeps,
Dart from their parent springs' green, moss-lined deeps;
Making the heart itself all undefiled,
And pulsing pure as heart of little child.
Then might at last man, finished, perfect, creep
From his outgrown cocoon, his weary sleep
In wisdom blind and blinder love complete,
And in the perfect love, whose two-fold seat
Would be within the heart and in the soul,
Making concordant peace in both, a whole
From what were former warring parts, commence
His happy life; his fears and griefs fled hence;
His long, self-waged rebellion at an end;
Himself in peace unto himself surrend,
His own arch foe no more, but his own friend.