Wake

“ Fortunately for us, we wake in the early morning with the same feeling of refreshment,—our lungs full of the delicious air, and our faces wet with dew. On this first morning, I leaped up at sunrise, shouting: "This is the way Nature meant men to live and sleep and wake!" ”

“ Day was dawning when Psyche awoke, and high up in the bright air the larks were singing their morning hymn to the sun, and calling on bird and beast and flower to awake and rejoice in the glad daylight. ”

“ From the sky, the low, tired moon fades out; Through the poplars the night-wind blows; Pale, sleepy phantoms are tossed about As the wind asks whither the wan road goes. Away in the distance wakes a lamp. ”

“ As long as skies are blue, and fields are green,
Evening must usher night, night urge the morrow,
Month follow month with woe, and year wake year to sorrow. ”

“ The knell of dying Earth and of the Dawn;
The Dawn that will not break, that comes no more;
Never again; the beautiful, wild Dawn,
The young, the holy, radiant and wonderful,
First born of Heaven’s children, daughters of Light:
The Rose of God, the dream and youth of Day,
Whom Night hath slain and Darkness laid away,
Crying, “No more shall she awake the world! ”

“ However wide awake they may have been before they entered that sleepy region, they are sure, in a little time, to inhale the witching influence of the air, and begin to grow imaginative, to dream dreams, and see apparitions. ”

“ When I awake, the morning-star hangs low in the heavens like a great lamp, its light an infinitely pure and serene radiance with no suggestion of heat or combustion, made to appeal to some higher vision. ”

“ The question of the safe passage to the next world is perhaps even more specifically associated with the Four Nights’ Wake. The purpose of the wake is to enable the deceased to successfully overcome the four great obstacles on the road to the spirit home of his clan. ”

“ Similarly, rites observed in the morning to help the sun to rise, and in spring to wake the dreaming earth from her winter sleep, will invariably appear to be crowned with success, at least within the temperate zones ”

“ Dawn, at her rising, urges forth the living him who is dead she wakes not from his slumber. 9. As thou, Dawn, hast caused Agni to be kindled, and with the Sun's eye hast revealed creation. And hast awakened men to offer worship, thou hast performed, for Gods, a noble service. ”

“ And when the first blush of dawn doth color the Eastern sky
The watchman calleth the faithful to prayer,
With his solemn mysterious cry.
V.
And now hath the night departed,
With its silence and shadows deep,
And the weary, toiling worker hath waked from his dreamless sleep,
For the sun now reigns in the heavens, filling the world with light,
And with its first beams we say farewell,
Farewell to the dreams of night.
—————
I.
"What meaneth this black magic?" ”

“ To watch the moon rise out of the sea, to listen to the roaring of those ceaseless waves, the last thing before I slept at night and the first thing on awakening in the morning, had for me a charm unequalled by anything in Nature's wonders. ”

“ Which sing the whole night through.'
iv.
'Oh sing, and wake the dawning—
Oh whistle for the wind;
The night is long, the current strong,
My boat it lags behind.'
v.
'The current sweeps the old world,
The current sweeps the new ”

“ She, stirring up the world, hath shown us riches: Dawn hath awakened every living creature. 5. Rich Dawn, she sets afoot the coiled-up sleeper, one for enjoyment, one for wealth or worship, Those who saw little for extended vision. All living creatures hath the Dawn awakened. 6. One to high sway, one to exalted glory, one to pursue his gain, and one his labour: All to regard their different vocations, all moving creatures hath the Dawn awakened. ”

“ Waking in the early dawn he felt, ere yet his senses fully came, a happy sense of something, he knew not what, a rosy shadow of coming joy, such as will, only with more intensity, fall upon our quickened faculties when, death ended, our souls begin to stir as we awaken to Eternity. ”

“ Every morning, arising from the death of sleep, the happy plants and all our fellow animal creatures great and small, and even the rocks, seemed to be shouting, “Awake, awake, rejoice, rejoice, come love us and join in our song. ”

“ There are clouds—or rather, there is a uniform layer of cloud, very high, and just the slightest suggestion of curdiness in it; and the light is very white. These days seem to waken in me every wander instinct that lay asleep. There is nothing definite, nothing that seems to be emphasized—something seems to beckon to me and to invite me to take to my wings and just glide along—without beating of wings—as if I could glide without sinking, glide and still keep my height... ”

“ The same equable and constant motion urges the orb of our lives from morning to noon, and from noon to evening. The glory of the dawning day, with its golden clouds and its dewy freshness, its new awakened hopes and its unworn vigour, climbs by silent, inevitable stages to the hot noon. ”

“ Persistent thoughts on a path of life’s pilgrimage! Morning after morning one awakens and the thought awakens with one and goes through the day in company, in communion with one.
Each day Nature puts her magic mirror in our hands. ”

“ How beautiful, buoyant, and glad is morning! The first sunshine on the leaves; the first wind, laden with the first breath of the flowers—that deep sigh with which they seem to waken from sleep; the first dew, untouched even by the light foot of the early hare; the first chirping of the rousing birds, as if eager to begin song and flight: all is redolent of the strength given by rest, and the joy of conscious life. ”

“ Who can trace its reintegration as morning after morning we awaken, the flux and confluence of its countless factors interweaving, rebuilding, the dim first stirrings of the soul, the growth and synthesis of the unconscious to the subconscious, the sub-conscious to dawning consciousness, until at last we recognise ourselves again. ”

“ This cool morning light, this half-daylight that precedes the rising of the sun, is the aurora or morning twilight. In the meantime a lark, the joy of the fields, takes wing to the highest clouds, like a rocket, and is the first to salute the awakening day. It mounts and mounts, always singing, as if to get in front of the sun ”

“ I thought of you when I was wakened
By a wind that made me glad and afraid
Of the rushing, pouring sound of the sea
That the great trees made.
One thought in my mind went over and over
While the darkness shook and the leaves were thinned—
I thought it was you who had come to find me,
You were the wind. ”

“ The morning, which is the most memorable season of the day, is the awakening hour. Then there is least somnolence in us; and for an hour, at least, some part of us awakes which slumbers all the rest of the day and night. ”

“ All memorable events, I should say, transpire in morning time and in a morning atmosphere. The Vedas say, “All intelligences awake with the morning.” ”

“ Or whether, thro’ the tedious winter gloom,
You tempt the midnight or the morning damps. [Pg 87]
The body, fresh and vigorous from repose, 430
Defies the early fogs: but, by the toils
Of wakeful day, exhausted and unstrung,
Weakly resists the night’s unwholsome breath. ”

“ Still, still with thee, when purple morning breaketh,
When the bird waketh and the shadows flee;
Fairer than morning, lovelier than the daylight,
Dawns the sweet consciousness, I am with thee! ”

“ Measure your health by your sympathy with morning and spring. If there is no response in you to the awakening of nature, if the prospect of an early morning walk does not banish sleep, if the warble of the first bluebird does not thrill you, know that the morning and spring of your life are past. Thus may you feel your pulse. ”

“ O killing north wind, cease!
Come, south wind, that awakens love!
Blow through my garden,
And let its odors flow,
And the Beloved shall feed among the flowers. ”

“ At the same time I, being a man and a child of the day, felt some anxiety as to how I should fare among the elves and other children of the night who wake when mortals dream, and find their common life in those wondrous hours that flow noiselessly over the moveless death-like forms of men and women and children, lying strewn and parted beneath the weight of the heavy waves of night, which flow on and beat them down, and hold them drowned and senseless, until the ebbtide comes, and the waves sink away, back into the ocean of the dark. ”

“ The ghostly winter silence had given way to the great spring murmur of awakening life. ”

“ Then, under the influence of the glorious accompaniments of the break of day, the silence of the night is awakened, and we hear commencing everywhere the morning hymn of mute nature, whose gesticulation is so expressive and sublime. All that lives feels the necessity of pouring ”

“ And from the sand he took a silver shell,
[43] That had been wasted by the fall and swell
Of many a moon-borne tide into a ring—
A rude, rude ring; it was a snow-white thing,
Where a lone hermit limpet slept and died,
In ages far away. "Thou art a bride,
Sweet Agathè! Wake up; we must not linger." ”

“ A sympathetic reader of The Death-Wake would perhaps have expected the leprosies and lunacies to drop off, and the genius, purged of its accidents, to move into a pure transparency. The abnormal, the monstrous, the boyish elements should have been burned away in the fire of the genius of poetry. ”

“ Make
it thy endeavour to preserve unity,
than which nothing is better.
Bear with all men even as the
Lord with thee.
5 Support all in love, as also
thou dost. Pray without ceasing
ask more understanding than what
thou already hast. Be watchful,
having thy spirit always awake.
6 Speak to every one according
as God shall enable thee. Bear
the infirmities of all, as a
perfect combatant; where the
labour is great, the gain is
the more. ”

“ THE EPISTLE OF
POLYCARP TO THE PHILIPPIANS.
[The genuineness of this Epistle is controverted, but implicitly
believed by Archbishop Wake, whose translation is below. There is
also a translation by Dr. Cave attached to his life of Polycarp.]
CHAPTER I.
Polycarp commends the Philippians for their respect to
those who suffered for the Gospel; and for their own faith.
POLYCARP, and the presbyters
that are with him, to the
church of God which is at Philippi;
mercy unto you, and peace from
God Almighty, and the Lord Jesus
Christ our Saviour, be multiplied. ”

“ Stoddart passed in Hogg's company on Yarrow, and early in 1831 he published The Death-Wake. There is no trace of James Hogg in the poem, which, to my mind, is perfectly original. Wilson places it "between the weakest of Shelley and the strongest of Barry Cornwall." It is really nothing but a breath of the spirit of romance, touching an instrument not wholly out of tune, but never to be touched again.
It is unnecessary to follow Mr. Stoddart through a long and happy life of angling and of literary leisure. He only blossomed once. ”

“ Light that leaps and runs and revels through the springing flames of spray.
Dawn is wild upon the waters where we drink of dawn to-day:
Wide, from wave to wave rekindling in rebound through radiant air,
Flash the fires unwoven and woven again of wind that works in play,
Working wonders more than heart may note or sight may wellnigh dare,
Wefts of rarer light than colours rain from heaven, though this be rare. ”

“ The fresh, cold wind of dawn blows on my face
As in the sun's raw heart I swiftly fly,
And watch the seas glide by.
Scarce human seem I, moving through the skies,
And far removed from warlike enterprise—
Like some great gull on high
Whose white and gleaming wings beat on through space.
Then do I feel with God quite, quite alone,
High in the virgin morn, so white and still,
And free from human ill:
My prayers transcend my feeble earth-bound plaints— [8]
As though I sang among the happy Saints
With many a holy thrill—
As though the glowing sun were God's bright Throne. ”

“ A star shone in heaven beyond all the other stars, and its light was inexpressible, and its novelty struck terror into men's minds. All the rest of the stars, together with the sun and moon, were the chorus to this star ”

“ By what way is the light parted in the morning, when, in an instant, it shoots itself into all the parts of the air above the horizon, as if the morning light flew upon the wings of an east wind, so swiftly, so strongly, is it carried, scattering the darkness of the night, as the east wind does the clouds? ”

“ Who has measured the heaven with a span, and the earth with his hand? Is it not I? Thus with the Lord, Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool. What is the house that ye will build me? Or what is the place of my rest? Know therefore that all their hope is vain. ”

“ Like Scott, within the sound of Tweed.
A. L.
[3]
INTRODUCTION
The extreme rarity of The Death-Wake is a reason for its republication, which may or may not be approved of by collectors. Of the original edition the Author says that more than seventy copies were sold in the first week of publication, but thereafter the publisher failed in business. Mr. Stoddart recovered the sheets of his poem, and his cook gradually, and perhaps not injudiciously, expended them for domestic purposes.
Apart from its rarity, The Death-Wake has an interest of its own for curious amateurs of poetry. ”

“ And he said unto me, Seest thou these trees I answered, Sir, I see them; some are dry, and others full of leaves.
2 These trees, saith be, which are green, are the righteous, who shall possess the world to come. For the world to come, is the summer to the righteous; but to sinners it is the winter.
3 When, therefore, the mercy of the Lord shall shine forth, then they who serve God shall be made manifest, and plain unto all. For as in the summer the fruit of every tree is shown and made manifest. ”

“ In the blazing heat and dazzling light of noonday he can cover the heavens with the darkness of night. When the sky is one even blue, without assistance of wind or clouds, he can draw rain from a barren heaven. ”

“ But where is the opaque breath of the storm, where are the clouds? None seem to hang on the horizon, and the sky is as limpid and clear as the dawn of a new life. Glorious, this interval between night and dawn. ”