Among Famous Books Part 13

Thou dost image, thou dost follow That king-maker of Creation Who ere h.e.l.las hailed Apollo Gave thee, angel-G.o.d, thy station;

Thou art of Him a type memorial.

Like Him thou hangst in dreadful pomp of blood Upon thy Western rood; And His stained brow did veil like thine to night.

Now, with wan ray that other sun of Song Sets in the bleakening waters of my soul.

One step, and lo! the Cross stands gaunt and long 'Twixt me and yet bright skies, a presaged dole.

Even so, O Cross! thine is the victory, Thy roots are fast within our fairest fields; Brightness may emanate in Heaven from Thee: Here Thy dread symbol only shadow yields."

This is ever the first appearance of the Highest when men see it. And, to the far-seeing eyes of the poet, nature must also wear the same aspect. Apollo, when his last word is said, must speak the same language as Christ. Paganism is an elaborate device to do without the Cross. Yet it is ever a futile device, for the Cross is in the very grain and essence of all life; it is absolutely necessary to all permanent and satisfying gladness. Francis Thompson is not the first who has shrunk back from the bitter truth. Many others have found the bitterness of the Cross a lesson too dreadful for their joyous or broken hearts to learn.

Who are we that we should judge them? Have we not all rebelled at this bitter aspect of the Highest, and said, in our own language--

"Ah! is Thy love indeed A weed, albeit an amaranthine weed Suffering no flowers except its own to mount?"

Finally we have the answer of Christ to the soul He has chased down after so long a following--

"Strange, piteous, futile thing!

Wherefore should any set thee love apart?

Seeing none but I makes much of nought (He said), And human love needs human meriting: How hast thou merited-- Of all man's clotted clay the dingiest clot?

Alack, thou knowest not How little worthy of any love thou art!

Whom wilt thou find to love ign.o.ble thee, Save Me, save only Me?

All which I took from thee I did but take, Not for thy harms, But just that thou mightst seek it in My arms.

All which thy child's mistake Fancies as lost, I have stored for thee at home: Rise, clasp my hand, and come."

And the poem ends upon the patter of the little feet--

"Halts by me that footfall: Is my gloom, after all, Shade of His hand, outstretched caressingly?

Ah, fondest, blindest, weakest, I am He Whom thou seekest!

Thou drovest love from thee, who drovest Me."

It is a perfect ending for this very wonderful song of life, and it tells the old and constantly repeated story of the victory of the Cross over the pagan G.o.ds. It is through pain and not through indulgence that the ideals gain for themselves eternal life. Until the soul has been transformed and strengthened by pain, its attempt to fulfil itself and be at peace in a pagan settlement on the green earth must ever be in vain. And in our hearts we all know this quite well. We really desire the Highest, and yet we flee in terror from it always, until the day of the wise surrender. This is perhaps the greatest of all our paradoxes and contradictions.

As has been already pointed out, the new feature which is introduced to the aspect of the age-long conflict by _The Hound of Heaven_ is that the parts are here reversed, and instead of the soul seeking the Highest, the Highest is out in full cry after the soul. In this the whole quest crosses over into the supernatural, and can no longer be regarded simply as a study of human nature. Beyond the human region, out among those Eternities and Immensities where Carlyle loved to roam, there is that which loves and seeks. This is the very essence of Christian faith. The Good Shepherd seeketh the lost sheep until He find it. He is found of those that sought Him not. Until the search is ended the silly sheep may flee before His footsteps in terror, even in hatred, for the bewildered hour. Yet it is He who gives all reality and beauty even to those things which we would fain choose instead of Him--He alone. The deep wisdom of the Cross knows that it is pain which gives its grand reality to love, so making it fit for Eternity, and that sacrifice is the ultimate secret of fulfilment. Truly those who lose their life for His sake shall find it. Not to have Him is to renounce the possibility of having anything: to have Him is to have all things added unto us.

So far we have considered this poem as a record of personal experience, but it may be taken also as a message for the age in which we live.

Regarded so, it is an appeal to pagan England to come back from all its idols, from its attempt to force upon the earth a wors.h.i.+p which she repudiates:

"Wors.h.i.+p not me but G.o.d, the angels urge."

The angels of earth say that, as well as those of heaven--the angels of nature and the open field, of homes and the love of women and of men, of little children and of grave science and all learning. The desire of the soul is very near it, nay, is pursuing it with patient and remorseless footsteps down every quiet and familiar street. The land of heart's desire is no strange land, nor has heaven been lifted from about our heads.

"Not where the whirling systems darken, And our benumbed conceiving soars!-- The drift of pinions, would we hearken, Beats at our own clay-shuttered doors.

The angels keep their ancient places;-- Turn but a stone, and start a wing!

'Tis ye, 'tis your estranged faces, That miss the many-splendoured thing.

But (when so sad thou canst not sadder) Cry;--and upon thy so sore loss Shall s.h.i.+ne the traffic of Jacob's ladder Pitched between Heaven and Charing Cross.

Yea, in the night, my Soul, my daughter, Cry;--clinging Heaven by the hems; And lo, Christ walking on the water, Not of Genesareth, but Thames."[7]

_Printed by_ MORRISON & GIBB LIMITED, _Edinburgh_

FOOTNOTES:

[1] _King Lear_, Act III. scene vi.

[2] Compare the song of Mr. Valiant-for-Truth beginning,

"Who would true valour see"

with Shakespeare's

"Who doth ambition shun."

_As You Like It_, II. v.

[3] For these and other points of resemblance, cf. Professor Firth's Leaflet on Bunyan (_English a.s.sociation Papers_, No. 19).

[4] _On Compromise_, published 1874.

[5] In his latest volume (_Marriage_), Mr. Wells has spoken in a different tone from that of his other recent works. It is a welcome change, and it may be the herald of something more positive still, and of a wholesome and inspiring treatment of the human problems. But behind it lie _First and Last Things_, _Tono Bungay_, _Ann Veronica_, and _The New Macchiavelli_.

[6] Mr. Chesterton perceives this, though he does not always express it unmistakably. He tells us that he does not mean to attack the authority of reason, but that his ultimate purpose is rather to defend it.

[7] These verses, probably unfinished and certainly left rough for future perfecting, were found among Francis Thompson's papers when he died.