To Whom shall we Go?

Prelude
To note while lingering nigh some ivied porch
A fond old couple tottering to church
Among the grassy graves, with snowy hair.
Holding soft hands of children fresh and fair.
And muse we once were confident as they.
Who sad forebode the statil" new chosen may
Break when we lean full in the perilous way !
To list float faintly through the open door
On summer airs the music that of yore
They loved and sung, father and mother dear,
On wings of humble hymns from care and fear
Rapt far into God's home of crystal clear —
To muse we pure and trustful children then
Soared by their side afar from mortal ken,
Such homely strains to chariots of fire
Changed by the breath of faith and strong desire
(Alas ! the glow has faded from them quite :
They than yon bee's drone in his flowery flight
Have now scarce more of meaning unto thee,
Save for a savour of sweet memory
And reverence for human hearts that cry!) —
To gaze by some worn father's shadowy bed
On boyhood's darling friend an hour dead.
To stand there with a mother blind for tears.
Nor breathe the hope that she when vision clears
Shall see so clear, yearning to tell her now
And help to melt from her some sorrow-snow,
Yetonly clasp her, for thou dost not know. . . .
. . . May this be nought ... or very hopeless woe ?

Dark was the night : the great cathedral square
Lay desert, wind and rain swept everywhere,
Vacant of men the ancient terrace trees
Gloomed sullen o'er where swollen the river flees
Far down : between some phantom piers at hand
That bound the portico wherein I stand
Rain ever drips and beats with bounding flash
In stony pools hollowed of myriad plash,
Gleams in sick gleam from huddling dwellings mean
That on the night in ghastly squalor lean
With gabled roofs that dusk projecting grow,
O'er each a lowering frowning beetlebrow.
While from the lanes and filthy courts there ring
Cries, yells anon that leave me shivering

Howe'er from distance dulled, for here the poor
Herd, litter, agonise and still endure.
Then unaware stalked awful facing me
The hoar World-Sorrow and blank mystery !

I hid my face and, turning to the door.
Pushed strong the ponderous quilting hung before,
And gained the sanctuary : how the light
Breathed bland and warm unconscious of the night !
A suave, a fragrant luminous blue air
Pervades and dims the solemn regions there :
From calm aspiring of majestic pier
That turns and mingles with its neighbour near
In flexile spandril lost in holy gloom
Of high clerestory and triforium,
To yon bowed sea of suppliants that flow
Expansive down long nave and aisle below
About grey arches fluent refluent,
Even to the jewelled high altar eminent
With golden chalice, triptych, crucifix.
With spangled image and flamy candlesticks.
Below stiff gold of vestment and brocade
On clustered priest, fair acolytes arrayed
In lace and linen thuribles are swinging,
Whence curl soft indolent blue odours winging.
And all their subtle breath doth permeate,
Fusing to one mild splendour all the state ;
A constellation rich unto the core,
Yet unobtruding all the radiant store,
Somnolent as of homage full secure.
Only when priests in murmuring bend low
The slumbrous glory wakes to flash and flow :
List from yon white throats of the boyish choir
Sails music, seraph plumed with hallowed fire,
Saileth and soareth, flooding all the soul,
Heralding the tempestuous organ-roll
Of sound insurgent whirling men aloft.
Hither and thither rapt, or cradled soft
In tender curling side-eddies like leaves
Some headlong torrent - flood no longer grieves I
Until behold the priest on marble stairs
Of the high altar in two hands upbears
The sacred elements, and prostrate all
As by one breath from God we bow and fall,
One multitude adoring ; since 'tis here
Yon outer Mystery of guilt and fear
And suffering, who treadeth year by year
The same slow wheel whose rungs are living fire,
Worm of a never-dying dumb desire,
From everlasting inextinguishable,
To everlasting a devouring hell,
"Tis here, 'tis here alone one may resolve —
Here only we the dark enigma solve,
That agelong secret of our destiny
Princes and wise men sought with bitter cry
From the beginning, unavailing quest,
To innocent babes bequeathing their unrest.
But now at length behold from eyes Divine
Response triumphant on the ages shine !
I kneeled and worshipped, feeding on the
Wonder
That ordinates the wild turmoil from under.

Yet as the stormful organ over us
Pealed surging through the fabric tremulous,
Betwixt unrolling banners of full sound
At intervals I seemed with awe profound
To know some mightier Tempest travelling round ;
It grides with rush of wheeling pinion
Caught struggling in the tower's fretted stone,
That quakes to front such visitant alone ;
Sniffs like some famished thing that prowls anigh
Wandering round and round with hungry eye ;
Anon with such a maniac fury-shock
Charging, the minster seems to reel and rock
For all its amplitude of stately calm —
Yet is it more than momentary qualm ?
For lo ! the wind aloft with desolate wail
Dies, as for aye the poured-out heart must fail!
Nay but the frenzy only smoulders, burns.
Flares forth anew ; for hark ! the foe returns,
Shrieking to some who follow, a mad guide
To thunder-legions trampling far and wide
Filling all heaven ; now precipitate
Flinging them crashing like some stroke of
Fate
Full on the hoary venerable church ;
Until methought the marble seemed to lurch
And swim beneath my feet ; the arches heaved
Even as limber trees by tempest grieved :
Blindingly flashed a pallid-purple light.
And smote each countenance to ghastly white,
Bleaching all gold and silver, while the flame
Of lamp and altar-candle dwindle tame.
As though by Day surprised they paled for shame !

Then swift a pang of insecurity
Shot through my frame sharp, uncontrollably,
Ilowbeit all grew firm again and still,
Nor any soul but mine foreboded ill.
Did they not feel the very basement quake
Under their feet, nor all the minster shake
And shudder as with ague, that so calm
They list the music and inhale the balm ?
I may not pause for all the ominous terror
Of outer night's inclemency, and error
That may be doom of mine unwitting whither
One seeking shelter may repair from hither :
Once more the ponderous portal-quilt I push,
And forth into the night-embroilment rush.

Blown by the whirlwind, lashed of driving rain.
Groping through solid darkness I sustain
Hardly my troubled and desponding heart
That feels her youth's full-trusted cable part,
With wildered swerving foot that hopes no goal . . .
Yet from her swound anon awakes my soul.
Craving some shelter.

Soon from forth the dark
Emerges to my vision gaunt and stark
A pale bleared structure with a cyclops eye
Pent dull-lit in its narrowing forehead nigh.
Then something urged that I should enter here :
Mean was the aspect of the place and drear;
Large glazed square windows, yawning chasms of black,
Slit either dismal wall, guarding the track
Of either rigid passage through the pews,
Tall varnished pens that swallow men and bruise.
At intervals lank poles of iron prop
Green painted shelved broad galleries that drop,
Teeming with sober-vestured folk and trim,
Smug, iron-grey, respectable and grim.
Flat whitewashed is the ceiling, and depend
Burners that flare with flame from end to end:
While from a pulpit roomy prominent,
Thereto the chapel's place of honour lent.
One in black raiment to a docile crowd
With accents blandly confident and loud
Expounds the riddle of the universe.
Complacent doth the seamless robe traverse
Woven in logic-looms, unwrinkling dress
Warrant to fit a Titan's nakedness ;
Shameless unwieldy Nature dons a vest,
Smirks primly decent in a Sunday-best.
No venerable superstition here.
But all inferred coherently and clear ;
And we admired our teacher dexterous,
Shuffling his words, expert, ingenious.

Yet unaware some door wide open flew.
And a wet wind unmannerly rushed through,
Sorely the staid folk discomposing, ruflling—
And lo ! within the yawning chasm a scuffling,
An uproar more unseemly, smote the ear.
As if one pushed and fought to enter here.
A grimed and ragged man with eyes to fear.
And wolfish lean lank famine-pinched face,
Obtrude his squalor on the holy place,
And holy washed respectable smug folk !
Such monstrous portent may in sooth provoke
Yon pompous beadle, visaged like an ox.
Clad in gold lace, full-feeding, orthodox —
Since the low creature insolently braved
His ban official, snatched the thing it craved —
Such wrath, in sooth, well-founded may we think,
If the mean wretch were choleric with drink !
List now some dead sound of a massy blow,
And dull thud of a body fallen below
Two stone steps on the street ! Oppression cold.
Some choking sense, of many a breath takes hold;
A feeble scream ; much smelling salts ; the door
Has slammed and closed securely as before.
Swallowing wrath, the preacher quietly
Resumes: "Beloved, we might have been as he ;
Is not grace special, sovereign, and free?"

Problem of life ! how theologic wit
Can feel all round, beneath, the roots of it,
Dig up the mystery so cleanly laid
In a glib formula as in a spade !
And while I listened erst with night shut out.
Rain, wind and storm, and all the rabble rout
Of human things to-night familiar,
I could believe life's gordian tangles are
A mere child's puzzle to the fingers deft
Of faith, and needing nowise to be cleft.
But what if that unmentionable look
Of vague grey horror which the Darkness took
By yon cathedral in a lull of storm.
Confronting me, a ghastly-visaged form,
Should follow even when one turns to fly.
Blighting the soul with search of deadly eye,
Not skulking baffled there beyond the porch.
But staring livid into very church !
What if the monster coiled immense and far,
Enwinding all yet spied by ne'er a star.
Torpid, piled o'er with gloom, voluminous.
All unaware slide noiseless up to us
Out of the slumbrous folds a hideous head,
Hooded, flat, slimy, eyed with baleful red !
Sand-forts inviolate hoar babes we pile —
While the tide lingers — for a little while !
Even before the shock of ghastly fight
'Twixt famished sin and sleek full-feeding right.
Here on the threshold of the pauper's Brother,
On His the self-exiled from heaven, no other !
Even before, while eloquent he spake.
Making all plain, the teacher, would awake
Peeping a moment in my soul the doubt
If such sure axioms court the laying-out
Beside yon truths of gold by Reason won
P'rom their dark stubborn matrix one by one ?
Now Conscience outraged round to Reason wheeled,
Struck palm in hers, and her full triumph sealed :
Once more I shuddering felt the pavement lurch,
Once more abrupt I hurried from the church . . .

Out into rain, and wind, and gloom again —
Behold ! a gaunt fierce woman did sustain
Upon her lap the head of him who fell
There on the lower step, in staunching well
The blood upon his forehead with her dress,
Muttering thick curses on the righteousness
Her graceless drunken paramour that smote.
And lo ! their spurned, skeleton child remote
Stood in its rags to jeer the parents old.
Scalding the hag more blasphemous to scold.
Look ! by yon bleared gaslamp nigh at hand
Night shameless disemboguing where I stand
Her reeking ducts of human misery.
Despair, and sin — beholding which I flee !

Unwitting whither, even as erewhile :
But the dream bore me over many a mile
This bout I trow — foundations must remain,
Though every superstructure ill sustain
Assaults of Time ; stable, sublime, arranged
Of eld by seers, but in change unchanged,
And therefore perishable, doomed to fall.
Though many a weakling cling to each for all !

Unto what goal arrived ? 'Tis evening now.
Not night — no storm — and surely I should know
The place ! Yon hills that rear themselves afar,
Only more solid ashen sky they are
In circumfused grey vapours that involve,
Yet cannot whole-absorbing them dissolve ;
Their lifted crests, dim heads of skeleton,
Over yon leaden lake, more pale that wan
Immerses their faint feet, filmy and dull.
Remote and sad, like Death impenetrable !
Wide leagues of stern brown barren region nigher
Mere cinders of an old world's dwindled fire;
Cinereous ragged crags, ravines that wind
Amid their umber shadow silent, blind,
Nor thereout ever to the open find
Their way again : but nearer than the brown
Tract with wan sulphur tinct around is grown
Thin rusty wheat in patches, a hot breeze
O'erwhispers fitfully ; some olive-trees
Stunted and cavernous shiver, wax pale
To feel it passing, breathing a low wail.
On either side the stony arid path.
Which on the left of one descending hath
A glen that widens till one may descry
Fruit trees full-foliaged, fig and mulberry,
All in the twilight massed ambiguous —
Skirting the hill-side steep and devious.

While twilight deepens I behold beneath
Far in the glen, nested as in a wreath
Of foliage, some village of rough stone
With level roofs ; one special house upgrown
On culminating ground into a tower.
And lo ! anear it now at gloaming hour
Forth gleams one light of mildly-bodied flame,
Alone, as lit to beacon one who came
Along the path habitually at close
Of day to seek in that sweet home repose.
Intense the solitary stillness here.
Hot and oppressive weighs the atmosphere,
And all my spirit prostrate sinks oppresl
With futile lifelong effort after rest.

Then I cried, Jesus, dost not Thou remain,
Even if all men's worship of Thee wane?
Thee, Thee, we need— O Jesus, come again !
And then the spot, the region where I stood,
A very reflex of my desolate mood.
Seemed half-familiar— surely I should know :
Did I not stand here not so long ago?
It dawns, it breaks, familiar verily !
For this should be the path to Bethany I
Why then, ah why ! tell, spirit of my dream,
Here lead me ? not in mockery I deem-
Here may I list what He the Master saith,
Here by the source primeval of our faith,
Sweet desert spring bubbling among the stones,
Purer than after girdling human thrones !

Nay but, I cried, we need thy presence now,
Thy kingly gaze, and thine imperial brow.
How many a long league onward have we travelled.
In what a labyrinth of thorns enravelled
With halting foot we wander — O that yet
Thou wert beside us ! do we not forget,
Through all yon hazy distance of the years,
A world new-found of alien hopes and fears,
Wellnigh forget the features of thy face,
Thy gait, thine accent, yearning to retrace
Vainly thine image fading in our soul,
That flickers, wavers, and evades control ?
We halt with knowledge all unboded then,
Fevered explorers, much-adventuring men,
Now on some hill foreseeing through a glass
Far flowering futures where we hope to pass.
Now floundering in deadliest morass,
Haunted with lurking flames of tiger-eyes,
Probing dusk hearts of loneliest mysteries.

Full oft we hesitate opprest with doubt,
Longing to fling our burdens, wearied out.
For ever from us, for the way is long,
About our feet confounding shadows throng,
Neither discern we plainly any more
To what far goal we tend, nor off what shore
Erewhile we drifted, or at whose command,
Or if before us lieth any land.
Lost, wildered, orphaned in this new-found world.
What relish in its glories morn-impearled
Of fruit and blade and flower about us tost.
To us who had a Father, and have lost !
We had a leader once, and he is gone.
Do we not stand in bitter need of one ?
Arise, be gracious unto this our day —
Once more desert Thy heavens and point the way !
Look all along dim regions overpast
Since that dear morn when Thou wert with us last,
Name them by name, assure us where we are,
Where lies our journey, to what goal afar.
Yea, tell us also, whisper in our ear
Of Him whom deep in silence we revere !
Ever He lives we know from age to age,
Mover and moved in mortal pilgrimage ;
Yet our wings fail us that would fain aspire
'Neath that blank face of our eternal Sire,
Ever more baffling wistful human eyes
With each new lore man's mortal life supplies :
Ever we learn He is not what He seemed ;
Need now one teach us what He may be deemed.
Thou didst reveal Him to the world of old ;
Are we not also hungering to be told
What Name would haunt thy burning lips if
Thou
Could come again to dwell among us now ?

Gentle and strong and faithful, just and wise ;
Such an one set among conhising cries
And aims of ours — who with our own flesh fight.
Each taking each for foeman in the night !
Return, O Saviour, garbed as men use to-day !
All guileless hearts must worship and obey ;
Though worldly men yet harden into stone
Reviling souls more human than their own !
Keep us the while, O keep us sensitive
To those who most reflect Thee while we live !
Who cower as one might in a prison flung
Stunned of harsh wrangling in a stranger tongue.
Yet roused to rapture if some casement swing
Opening a way to airs of odorous wing.
Airs, happy elfins wandering at will
O'er sunny meadows taking all their fill
Of flowery pleasance ; from far fields they come
Dewing dim eyes with memories of home —
—Though worldlings turn a dull impassive face
O'er such sweet glimpses of a heavenlier place.
. . . Might He come back, come only for an hour,
What were the wealth of all the worlds for dower
Weighed with it ? for the secret of some power
Over our baser nature should He give,
That slowly coffins men while yet they live,
Reason, affections, aspirations high
Tranced rigid, reft of strength to move or cry !
To Him the ghastliest boding one might bare,
Nor fear repression of some witless stare.
Or any harsh frown of intolerance ;
Yea one might court the lightning of His glance
In deep hidden chambers where no countenance
Of human foe nor human friend hath pried ;
Though He would know us, know us far and wide,
Scorning nor rose nor livid poison flowers
Nature prolific on her children showers !
And ah ! how oft when none are by we groan,
O for one person mingling with our own !
Ye named us friends ! are soul and body one ?
Or did ye name in cynical sarcasm ?
For have we bridged the ever -sundering chasm
'Twixt man and man. who leaning e'er so much
Never, howe'er they strain, with hearts may touch ?
Yet He were not unkind or alien-souled,
From shy warm wistful touches shrinking cold
Like common friends when heart yearns forth to heart.
Longing to tear all sundering swathes apart —
One warm hour wanton to men's longing lends
Semblance of pale life and as wanton ends ;
But He, methinks. He were the Friend of friends !

Might He not bless this ailing age with health
Languishing faint with surfeit of her wealth,
Toiling to hoard and of repletion dying,
Her vital juice unfunctioned for supplying
To every organ, member, of her frame
Due nourishment each one from food may claim ?
Yea, we are rich, and yet the people die
Of all their human nature's atrophy !
Starved hearts and brains and limbs but toil and moil
One pampered organ of the frame to spoil.
Might He not solve this problem of the poor
Who litter, agonise, and still endure ?

Vain ! ah, what multitudes through all the years
Have strewn and burdened with such hopes and fears
Meek little-heeding earth, with human tears
Made humid these dumb stones as I have done,
Since Thou, O Master, camest here alone
Weeping divinest woes were ever known !
Mary and Martha long their village sweet
Forgets, and where, ah ! where. Thy sacred feet ?
Would they come back, come only for an hour,
WTiat were the wealth of all the worlds for dower
Weighed with it ? . . .

. . . Then I slowly was aware
Of one approaching as I halted there.
Near and more near some calm firm footsteps came ;
And while I listened strangely all my frame
Grew tense with expectation, tingling through
With some blest awe of wonder, while in view
That pilgrim rose upon the winding path.
And paused five paces from me where it hath
An olive leaning over ; yet the night
Would suffer none to read the features right.

His raiment grave, so far as I might see.
The garb of common men appeared to be.
As natives of the land are wont to use —
I only fell my spirit could not choose
But know, and spring to meet Him, as the lark,
Of Dawn soft wakened, from the dewy dark
Inevitably springs into her breast !
I could but falter to His knees for rest,
Bury my face and lose all hold of thought,
With such absorbing bliss of wonder fraught
His presence ! feeling flooded all my soul,
And from mine eyes in sweet warm weeping stole.

In kneeling I could only feel, not see,
The calm of some eternal eyes on me,
Yea and I think some hands upon my head
Peace passing understanding o'er me shed —
Yet I remember as I knelt I heard
When far and faint upon the hill there stirred
A night air melancholy washing through
Tree after tree in travelling till it blew
Hot on my neck, and wrung the olive nigh
With shuddering, and wandered with a sigh
Of inarticulate want along the glen —
And as my glance fell on the raiment then,
A ghostly gleam of light lay on the brown
Stuff woven of goat's hair, upon tuft and stone
Of bank and path.

Then sudden to the face
I looked in ecstasy — some shades efiace,
In part from olive-foliage — yet why
So pallid, rigid, dim, that longing I
Can shape no image of the countenance ?
But while with some vague terror now my glance
I rivet, ever to more fading change
The face I hungered for appears to range :
Until once more I fancy I can feel
The ghastly shiver and the drunken reel
Of earth alas! I well must recognise !
At which to frenzy stung my spirit cries —
And though He seems to melt from out my grasp,
My death-dewed hands with fierce despairing clasp
And clutch his skirt — "Ah ! perish all save
Thee,"
Broke forth my soul, " but Jesus ! stay with me :
Thee, Thee to hold though all the worlds be gone ! "
And yet my forehead smote the senseless stone
As I fell forward, plucking empty air . . .
. . . Howbeit some kind accents found me there :
" Christ is arisen ; seek not the living here !
I will not leave you, I will come to you.
He that will do the will of God shall know ! "