The Churchyard: Night The Second

A brooding silence fills the twilight churchyard; Not even the bat stirs from her cloistered rift, Nor from her tree the downy-muffled owl, To break the swooning and bewildered trance. A crowding stir begins; the uneasy Night Seems big with gleams of something, restless, yearning, As if to cast some birth of shape from out Her hutching loins upon the waiting earth. The smothered throes are o'er, the birth is out In glistering ghosts. Thinned and relieved, the air Lends modulation to their spiritual meanings:— FIRST GHOST Disembodied, we on high Dwell in still serenity. Name not faculty nor sense, Where the soul's one confluence Of light divine, and love, and praise, From the Lord's unsealèd ways. Yet we the waiting dust would don, With our dear bodies clothed upon; Loving (for He wears the same) Jesus through our earthly frame: Then should we sit at Jesus' feet, Then our Heaven should be complete. Therefore, for the body's sake, Oft its thin semblance do we take, Quick-fashioned from our Paradise, Thus to revisit where it lies. And flitting through the night we're fain To see our mother earth again. SECOND GHOST O'er the shadowy vales we go, O'er the eternal hills of snow, O'er the city, and its cries Heard from Belial's nightly sties, And deserts where no dwellers be, O'er the land and o'er the sea; Round the dark, and all away, Touching on the hem of day. THIRD GHOST I had a wife, what earnest-trembling pen Shall tell her love for me? what words of men? Spouse of my heart and life! how harsh the pain To go from thee, and from our children twain! Unborn unto his sorrowful entail, The unconscious third could not his loss bewail; Yet nature reached him when his father died: Fed on blind pangs within thy widowed side, And dry convulsive sorrow, bitter food, He took a deeper stamp of orphanhood, Than if, life-conscious, he had seen me die, And wept with many waters of the eye. This very eve I heard my wife, where she In saintly calm dwells with our children three; Their low sweet voices of my name were telling: Oh how I yearned around their little dwelling! I could not enter in, I could not make My presence known, one kiss I could not take! Yet I rejoice, the Heavenly Watch are keeping Their nightly vigil o'er the dear ones sleeping. FOURTH GHOST Guard the young lambs, ye Angels; Jesus bids, Who laid His hand on little children's heads! From Sin defend them, Thou, O Spirit Good!— None other can—from Sin still unsubdued, Plague still permitted! Here wide-glorying Crime Slays half the kingdoms of man's mortal time; There Pleasure's form belies the ancient pest, For whom in sackcloth must the worlds be dressed: She drugs the earth; then by fierce gleams of haste The false allurements of her eye displaced, By scorn, by cruel joy her prey to win, The hoary shape of disenchanted Sin, Above the nations bowed beneath her spell, Seals the pale covenant of Death and Hell. FIFTH GHOST From the dungeon, from the cave, From the battle, from the wave, From the scaffold and its shame, From the rack, and from the flame, From the lava's molten stone, Like a river coming on, From the Samiel hot and swift, From the earthquake's closing rift, From the snow-waste's faithless flaws, From the monster's rending jaws, From the famished town, possest By the blue and spotted pest, From the lazar-house of pain, From the mad-house and its chain,— Day and night, day and night (Could we hear its gathered might), What a cry, what a cry, Prayer, and shriek, and groan, and sigh (Even the dumb have burst to speech, In strong yearnings to beseech), Has gone up to Heaven from earth, Since that curse of Sin had birth! SEVENTH GHOST The glistening infant dies in its first laugh, Like flower whose fragrance is its epitaph. SECOND GHOST Let the sweet fable tell Of Aphroditè in her rose-lipped shell, Fresh from the white foam of the morning sea Into the birth of beauty; ne'er was she A lovelier emanation to the sight, Than earth's young virgin in her dewy light. But see her now!—a faded drooping thing (When gleam through sleet the violets of the Spring), Shuddering and shrinking o'er Death's misty jaws, They suck her down, the shade of what she was! THIRD GHOST Yon strenuous youth—a soul of thoughtful duty, Clothed with heroic beauty— Look how he scales, so high and clear aloof, The tops of purpose to the sons of proof. Death strikes the towering mark, And slings his name for ever down the dark. FIRST GHOST Would the body's death were all Might the sons of men befall! But where the spent assault of light In crystal tremblings dies away Into the spongy waste of night, Beyond it I had power to stray: Far beyond the voice of Thunder, Through the silent Lands of Wonder, As they wait the birth of Being, I was given the power of seeing; And I saw that baleful place, For the outcasts of our race. On the scathed shore, as of a flood Of fire, a naked creature stood, Forlorn; and stooping, with his hand He wrote along the barren sand Things of remembered earth: His frame Shook, as he wrote his mother's name. A noise like coming waves! and lo! Gleams of a fiery-crested flow! The molten flood with crowding sway, Near, nearer, licked those lines away; Then rising with a sudden roar (The levelled mist streamed on before), With horns of flame pushed out, it chased That being o'er the sandy waste; Till turning round, with blasphemies Glaring from out his hollow eyes, He dared the wrath which, ill defied, Went o'er him with its whelming tide. And sights and sounds I cannot name, Were in that sore possessing flame. And, ever down from worlds unseen, (Wrath, wrath beyond what yet hath been!) Thunderings, and hissings as of rain Wading through fire, were heard amain. O place of anguish! place of dread! Veil the eyes, and bow the head! SECOND GHOST A change comes o'er the night; how gracious soft This light of upper earth to that sad dwelling! The firmament is full of white meek clouds, And in them is the moon; slowly she sails, Edging each one with amber, as she slides Behind it, and comes out again in glory. Darkness falls like a breath, and silent brightness Touches the earth, alternately: how sweet! THIRD GHOST But who is this her vigil keeping O'er a grave? FOURTH GHOST The maid is sleeping. With her old widowed father she Dwells in her virgin purity, Young staff of reverence 'neath his weighed years, Eyes to his dimness, safety to his fears. And oft when he retires to rest, She, with her holy thoughts possest, Comes hither at the shut of day, To muse beside her mother's clay. Here once more to muse and weep, Wearied she hath fallen asleep. FIFTH GHOST Filial piety, how sweet! Kiss her head, and kiss her feet! SIXTH GHOST May these kisses, dove, infuse Power to bear the nightly dews! FOURTH GHOST She would fold her arms, and go To the dark of death below; Might but a space her mother be Let up the gladsome day to see. SIXTH GHOST But with eternal sanctity In that mother's soul and eye, What to her were all the mirth, Pomp, and glory of the earth? SEVENTH GHOST Glistening, solemn, sealed from sin, She to her spouse at eve comes in. O that meeting! Does she live? Milk and honey he would give. A holy joy, but no excess, Through her pure body passionless Thrillingly goes, to hear that voice Which made her wedded days rejoice. In silence gazing still on him, Till tears her spiritual eyes bedim, Sweet murmurs bless him; round she flings A glance on old remembered things; Another gaze on him; and then She's vanished from the world of men. FIRST GHOST Lo! on the maiden's knee the Book of Life! Kiss every leaf—kiss every wondrous leaf! The charter of the Paradise we've won, And Heaven we hope for—kiss each blessed leaf! SECOND GHOST Had we, some eighteen hundred years ago, Been passing through a certain Eastern village, We might have seen a fair-haired little boy Stand at his mother's door, in no rude play Joining His fellows; grave, but holy sweet Of countenance. Who's that little boy? The God Who made the worlds—the very God of Heaven! THIRD GHOST Love to man, and great salvation! Wondrous, wondrous Incarnation! FOURTH GHOST Ever going to His bed, At His little feet and head Looks His mother, laden she With her burdened mystery; Still with tears of wonder weeping O'er the mystic infant sleeping: He's her son, but He's her Lord! O the blessed, blessed Word! FIFTH GHOST This Book's His Word, and He Himself's the Word! This Book is the white horses of Salvation, The chariot this, and this the Conqueror! Go forth thou Lion-Lamb, far forward bending! Strike through dark lands with Thy all-piercing eyes! See, see the shadows break—tumultuous stir, Masses, abysses! But among them stand, Pillars of steadfastness, majestic shapes, Grisly, the Principalities and Powers Of outer night, wearing upon their brows Defiance, and the swarthy bloom of Hell. Go in among them, Thou, go down upon them, Queller of all dark things, great Head of Flame! Them with Thy lightnings and compelling thunders Smite, bow them backward, sweep them to their place! Burn with Thy wheels! Trample the darkness down To melting light, and make it Thy clear kingdom! SIXTH GHOST Worthy is the Lion-Lamb! Glory to the great I AM! SEVENTH GHOST Sin-spotted youth, world-wearied; difficult age, Cramped down with stiff-bowed torments; homeless outcasts, Lying in destitute benumbed caves; And wanderers reasonless, fantastical, Gibbering abroad, what time the Moon is hunting In thin white silence in the shadowy woods; And stricken creatures in the lazar-house, Who know no kin, in whom care more than pain Drinks up the eyes and blood in the night watches, Or the half draught of suicidal poison (Remorse and shuddering nature spilt the rest) Holds its pale quarrel at the heart's red gates; And they whose hearts are locked up by Despair, And the key flung into the pit of Hell,— Even these, all wasted and imperfect natures, Shall be renewed and finished, and shall walk Like angels in the white Millennial day, Day of dead war and of consummate peace: And that up-going pillared cry of sadness Shall rise an equal power of praise and gladness. FIRST GHOST This little Book the instrument shall be, Filled with the Spirit; kiss it reverently! SECOND GHOST And this virgin bless again, Free from sin and free from pain! THIRD GHOST Her no fabled cestus, wrought In the magic looms of thought, Of Gorgon hairs, and coldest gleams From Dian o'er the morning streams, And plumes which staid Minerva gave At midnight from her bird so grave, Tissued in mystic warp with rays Plucked from Apollo's head ablaze, And stings of Wit, whose arrow-tips In poignant wrath he keenly dips— A woven dream—encircles round. A better girdle she has found In her filial piety, And that good Book for ever nigh, In angels, and the Comforter Whom her dear Lord has sent to her. Be she where the tempests blow O'er the North the hail and snow, Be she where in Southern lands Hot winds lift the winnowed sands, Peace with her shall still abide, The peace that comes from Jesus' side. FOURTH GHOST Child of duty, child of honour, Thus we breathe our wish upon her: Bless her to Death's earnest gates, Leading to the separate states; Bless her to the Judgment-seat, Bless her to the Heavens complete! FIFTH GHOST But ha! I smell the breath of day; Come away, come away. And they vanish to the Blest In the Land of Waiting Rest.