Richard Chenevix Trench

“ In each ‘Come, Lord,’ an ‘Here am I.’
Thy love, thy longing, are not thine—
Reflections of a love divine: 86
Thy very prayer to thee was given,
Itself a messenger from heaven.
Whom God rejects, they are not so;
Strong bands are round them in their woe;
Their hearts are bound with bands of brass,
That sigh or crying cannot pass.
All treasures did the Lord impart
To Pharaoh, save a contrite heart:
All other gifts unto his foes
He freely gives, nor grudging knows;
But Love’s sweet smart, and costly pain,
A treasure for his friends remain.”
87
THE PANTHEIST ”

“ As such he revives the youth of men, and beasts, and plants, gives back lost beauty, and in spring arrays the dead earth with its fresh garments of green. His fountain bestows on whosoever drinks it eternal beauty, youth, and wisdom. What wonder then that all mortals with burning desire seek it, though as yet not one, not even Alexander, the conqueror of the world, who, in quest of it, undertook an expedition into the land of darkness, has found it! ”

“ Forth filing from that vault, a weeping train
Who had beheld him now, and should not see again. XXIII.
Now seemed they desolate—for he, although
Helpless his dearest to defend with power
From the least insult of the meanest foe,
Had seemed to them a shelter and a tower
Of refuge in affliction’s fiercest hour,
From his lone dungeon spreading broad above
Their heads the buckler of his faith and love. ”

“ The floods are armed with silver shields,
Through which the Sun’s sword cannot fare; IV.
For he who trod heaven’s middle road
In golden arms, on golden chair,
44
V.
Now through small corner of the sky
Creeps low, nor warms the foggy air. VI.
To mutter ’twixt their teeth the streams,
In icy fetters, scarcely dare. VII.
Hushed is the busy hum of life;
’Tis silence in the earth and air. VIII.
From mountains issues the gaunt wolf,
And from its forest depths the bear. IX.
Where is the garden’s beauty now? ”

“ Cotemporary with Moses lived the Prophet Chiser, of whom some hold that he is the same with Elias, while others altogether distinguish them. He is one of the chief personages of Eastern Mythology, the ever-ready helper of the oppressed, the Genius of spring, the deliverer in peril, the admonisher of princes, the avenger of unrighteousness, the guide through the wilderness of the world, and, finally, the ever-youthful guardian of the fountain of life. ”

“ Its mother-instinct drew the fledgling still
To the wide ocean floods to roam at will;
Its timid nurse, upon the other hand,
Sought evermore to lead it back to land.
O Man! thy mother, Heaven, thy nurse is Earth,
And thou of both wert nurtured from thy birth;
From thy true mother comes thine impulse free
To launch forth boldly upon being’s sea;
While aye thy nurse fears for thee, and would fain
Thee to a narrow slip of dry restrain.
110
III.
SCIENCE AND LOVE.
Who that might watch the moon in heaven, would look
At its weak image in the water-brook? ”

“ Each cloud, that stained it once, away is driven:
Come, mother, come, and with thee many bring;
Cry, ‘Here is spread the banquet of the King;’
Come, all ye faithful—come, and dare to prove
The bitter-sweet, the pain and bliss of love.”
So cried the child unto that crowd of men ”

“ Shoot sparkling from their living fountain-head,
Oh! there to quench my spirit’s inmost thirst.
“Sure, if we followed where these waters led,
We should at last some fairer region gain
Than yet has quaked beneath our iron tread,—
5“Some land that should in very truth contain
Whate’er we dream of beautiful and bright,
And idly dreaming of, pursue in vain;
“That land must stoop beneath our conquering might. ”

“ One exclaiming, “I declare
That he poisons quite the air:” 105
But the next, “He is not worth
Pains of putting under earth;”
And against the poor dead thing
Each in turn his stone must fling:
Till one wiser passing by,
Just exclaimed, while eagerly
They were venting each his spite,—
“See his teeth, how pearly white!”
Straight the others, with self-blame,
Shrunk away in silent shame. ”

“ Lay on the ground, as blinded by their sight.
And as in spring relents the frozen ground,
Even so it seemed as though his heart unbound,
Streamed from his eyes like loosened floods the tears:
“Woe’s me,” he cried; “for thirty guilty years—
My life’s best treasure have I spent in vain,
And death and hell are now my only gain. ”

“ But to his gifts alone,
Not Love, but covetous desire,
Has brought thee to his throne.
23
XI.
While such thy prayer, it climbs above
In vain—the golden key
Of God’s rich treasure-house of love,
Thine own will never be. ”

“ The throne of God, and till he there arrives
Allows himself no rest, he truly strives.” II.
Honour each thing for that it once may be,
In bud the rose, in egg the chicken see:
Bright butterfly behold in hideous worm,
And trust that man enfolds an angel form. ”

“ There waits thee golden store
For this—but, oh! resume the spell,
I fain would listen more.” IX.
—“Drink thou life’s sweetest goblet up,
O King, and may its wine,
For others’ lips a mingled cup,
Be all unmixed for thine. X.
“Live long—the shadow of no grief
Come ever near to thee:
As thou in height of place art chief,
So chief in gladness be.” XI.
Haroun Al Raschid cried again—
“I thank thee—but proceed,
And now take up an higher strain,
And win an higher mead.”
38
XII.
Around that high magnific hall,
One glance the poet threw
On courtiers, king, and festival,
And did the strain renew. ”

“ Whose feet profane those holy precincts trod.
7The Son of Philip without dread replied,
“Is Alexander’s fame unknown to thee,
Which the world knows—mine, who have victory tied
“To my sword’s hilt, and who, while stoop to me
All other lands, would win what rich or fair
This land contains, and have it mine in fee?”
—“Thou dost thyself proclaim that part or share
Thou hast not here.—O man of blood and sin,
Go back—with those blood-stainèd hands despair
“This place of love and holy peace to win:
This is the gate of righteousness, and they,
The righteous, only here may enter in.” ”

“ I asked the bickering fire when it would climb no more:
When with the fire above in Love’s communion blent.
68
VI.
Night asked I why she hung the world with darkness round:
To consecrate the world for Love a bridal tent. VII.
I asked the Westwind why it breathed so soft and warm:
All roses to unfold for Love the Westwind meant. VIII.
I sought for some escape from the labyrinth of Love;
And found my bliss was there to be for ever pent. IX.
O soul, that until now hast sullenly refused
Thy portion in Love’s joy, O sullen heart, relent; X.
Oh! ”

“ Build up their booths, and buy and sell in play;
But homeward hungering must at eve repair,
And standing leave their booths with all their ware:
So the world’s children, when their night is come,
With empty satchels turn them sadly home. ”

“ First those others in vexed numbers
Mourned the rebel giant brood,
Whom the earth’s huge mass encumbers,
Or who writhe, the vulture’s food; 232
Mourned for earth-born power, which faileth
Heaven to win by might and main ”

“ Every fear and pang assuagèd,
And by faith allayed to meekness,
Every wish and thought impatient,
Like a child resign himself
Unto sweet sleep, calm and painless.
192
THE TREE OF LIFE.
FROM THE GERMAN OF RÜCKERT. I.
When Adam’s latest breath was nearly gone,
To Paradise the Patriarch sent his son, II.
A branch to fetch him from the tree of life,
Hoping to taste of it ere life was done. III.
Seth brought the branch, but ere he had arrived,
His father’s spirit was already flown. ”

“ Of those true-hearted that beside him stand
Some fall in death—the noble Ferdinand,
(Skill courage and despair alike in vain,)
In the foe’s hands a captive must remain. XVII.
—“Not in ignoble bondage, nor for long,
If Christian hearts can worth or valour prize,
O gallant Prince, shalt thou endure this wrong,
This unbeseeming yoke, which on thee lies;” ”

“ There can be no doubt that the poet has a deeper meaning than lies on the surface: the furnace is that of self-denial, which the natural man thinks will be death, but which, if he dares to prove, he finds to be life. ”

“ The traditions concerning the relations between the Tree of life which was set in Paradise, and the Cross on which hung the Saviour of the world, are almost infinite; or, rather, the one deep idea of their identity has clothed itself in innumerable forms. They constitute indeed one of the richest portions of what may without offence be termed the Mythology of the Christian Church. ”

“ In the attempt made by the Neo-Platonists to put a new life into the old Grecian Mythology, Narcissus falling in love with his own image in the water-brook was made the symbol of man casting himself forth into the world of shows and appearances, and expecting to find the good that would answer to his nature there, but indeed finding nothing but disappointment and death.—The fable is Feridoddin Attar’s, who, born in 1216, perished in the invasion of Dschengischan at the beginning of the next century. ”

“ Our pity?—no; accept your righteous doom,
O fools! that in your own land had not room
To dwell—that had not strength to conquer ours;
Fools, whose desires so far outstrip your powers! XIII.
“Where are they now, that with the fire and sword
Our land to harry were so free of old?
Can they no pity to your Prince afford?
Where is your King, and where your captains bold?
Or has it not in Portugal been told
What here is done, and what by him is borne
Of shame and outrage, and of extreme scorn?”
159
XIV.
It seemed that for those votaries of Mahound
All love, all mercy quite had fled away ”

“ The ministering angels then will answer and will say,
The while they veil for awe their faces—“These are they
Who did not know thy law while living, and for this
They lie in hell remote from glory and from bliss ”

“ In their dank vault, and shared the black bread set,
With water from the pools drawn, them before!
Then made they of that coarse and scanty store
A glorious meal, while love makes all things sweet,
And it is always joy, when brethren meet. XLIII.
Yet oft the wantonness of fell despite
Would grudge them this poor respite of their woes ”

“ Very notable is this making of Alexander, and no other—the man from whom the confession comes, that the world has not that which can truly satisfy man’s spirit, but that he still yearns for something beyond. ”

“ What, thou askest, is the heaven, and the round earth and the sea,
And their dwellers, men and angels,—if with God compared they be? II.
Heaven and earth, and men and angels, all that anywhere is named,
Matched with him, lose name and being, and to nothing shrink ashamed.
82
III.
So ’tis seen when this world’s Sultan in his glory forth doth ride,
Highest, lowest, beggars, Emirs, all alike their faces hide. IV.
Its unnumbered billows rolling, great to thee the Ocean seems ”

“ Rouses not a furious sea,
Rather the sea-monsters bringing
Servants to its melody;—
An Amphion, not with passion
To set wild the builders’ mind,
But the mystic walls to fashion,
And the stones in one to bind.
235
NOTES. THE STEADFAST PRINCE.
Page 128, stanzas 7, 8. ”

“ In his treating of the subject, however, that indifference to all positive religion, and all fixed forms and outlines of truth, which is the very essence of the Mystic, comes so strongly out, that I have been obliged to write the story anew, seeking to bring out that which is really its valuable part—that truth which a great Christian writer expressed when he said, “Sæpe amor intrat, ubi scientia foris stat.” ”

“ Hear what then the gentle glow-worm answered from its mouth of fire,—
“In the gloomy forest shine I, but before the sun expire.”
84
THE SUPPLIANT.
All night the lonely suppliant prayed,
All night his earnest crying made,
Till standing by his side at morn,
The Tempter said in bitter scorn,
“Oh! peace:—what profit do you gain
From empty words and babblings vain?
‘Come, Lord—oh, come!’ you cry alway;
You pour your heart out night and day ”

“ Through the land of darkness went
In its quest with fruitless pain, XII.
While through wealth of conquered worlds
Did his thirst unslaked remain.
13
XIII.
Many more with parchèd lip
Must lie down, and dizzy brain, XIV.
And of that, a fountain sealed
Unto them, in death complain. XV.
If its springs to thee are known,
Weary wanderer, tell me plain. XVI.
From beneath the throne of God
It must well, a lucid vein. XVII.
To its sources lead me, Lord,
That I do not thirst again, XVIII.
And my lips not any more
Shall the earth’s dark waters stain.
[A] Alexander. ”

“ While others pine aloof, a parchèd band.
And in the mystic garden of the soul
A fountain, nourished from the upper springs,
Sends ever its clear waters up on high,
Which, while a dewy freshness round it flings,
All plants which there acknowledge its control
Show fair and green, else drooping, pale, and dry.
217
THE ETRURIAN KING.
[See Mrs. Hamilton Gray’s “Visit to the Sepulchres of Etruria.”] I.
One only eye beheld him in his pride,
The old Etrurian monarch, as he, died ”

“ Being willing to lose his life, he finds it.
In relation to v. 12, it may be needful to observe, that the Mahomedans believe it was in the breath of Christ that the healing virtue lay, by which his miraculous cures were effected. It is a tradition alike Jewish and Mahomedan, that Abraham was flung into the furnace by Nimrod, for refusing to worship his false gods; whereupon the flames, instead of scorching and consuming, were turned for him into a bed of jasmine and roses. ”

“ THE WORLD.
See Von Hammer’s “Gesch. d. schönen Redekunst Persiens,” p. 236.
P. 78.
THE MONK AND SINNER.
It is difficult not to be struck with the deep moral resemblance which this story of Saadi’s bears to that related by St. Luke, ch. vii. 36–50. We have here reproduced to us the Pharisee and the woman that was a sinner, and all the deep relations of law and grace; and a reference to the original, or at least my original, in Tholuck’s “Blüthensammlung &c.,” p. 251, will prove that I have not sought to throw upon it any colouring which it did not in itself already possess. ”

“ It reappears, slightly modified, in the Persian tradition, according to which Alexander, having conquered the world, determined to seek out the fountain of life. See the following note. In like manner, in the Christian poems of the middle ages, Alexander is made to recognise at last the vanity and emptiness of all the glory which he has won, and is hardly turned from his purpose of going forth at last in search of the lost Paradise. ”