Christ's Triumph over Death

So down the silver streams of Eridan,
On either side banked with a lily wall,
Whiter than both rides the triumphant swan,
And sings his dirge, and prophesies his fall,
Diving into his watery funeral:
But Eridan to Cedron must submit
His flowery shore; nor can he envy it,
If when Apollo sings, his swans do silent sit.

That heavenly voice I more delight to hear,
Than gentle airs to breathe, or swelling waves
Against the sounding rocks their bosoms tear,
Or whistling reeds, that rutty Jordan laves,
And with their verdure his white head embraves.
To chide the winds or hiving bees, that fly
About the laughing blooms of sallowy,
Rocking asleep the idle grooms that lazy lie.

And yet how can I hear Thee singing go,
When men, incensed with hate, Thy death foreset?
Or else why do I hear Thee sighing so,
When Thou, inflamed with love, their life dost get,
That love and hate, and sighs and songs are met:
But thus, and only thus Thy love did crave,
To send Thee singing for us to Thy grave,
While we sought Thee to kill, and Thou soughtst us to save.

When I remember Christ our burden bears,
I look for glory, but find misery;
I look for joy, but find a sea of tears;
I look that we should live, and find Him die;
I look for angels' songs, and hear Him cry:
Thus what I look, I cannot find so well;
Or rather, what I find I cannot tell,
These banks so narrow are, those streams so highly swell.

Christ suffers, and in this His tears begin;
Suffers for us — and our joy springs in this;
Suffers to death — here is His Manhood seen;
Suffers to rise — and here His Godhead is, —
For man, that could not by himself have ris',
Out of the grave doth by the Godhead rise,
And God, that could not die, in Manhood dies,
That we in both might live by that sweet sacrifice.

Go, giddy brains, whose wits are thought so fresh,
Pluck all the flowers that nature forth doth throw;
Go stick them on the cheeks of wanton flesh;
Poor idol (forced at once to fall and grow)
Of fading roses, and of melting snow!
Your songs exceed your matter; this of mine
The matter which it sings shall make divine —
As stars dull puddles gild, in which their beauties shine.

Who doth not see, drowned in Deucalion's name
(When earth, his men, and sea had lost his shore)
Old Noah? and in Nisus' lock, the fame
Of Samson yet alive; and long before
In Phaethon's mine own fall I deplore:
But He that conquered hell, to fetch again
His virgin widow, by a serpent slain,
Another Orpheus was than dreaming poets feign.

That taught the stones to melt for passion
And dormant sea, to hear him, silent lie;
And at his voice, the watery nation
To flock, as if they deemed it cheap, to buy
With their own deaths his sacred harmony:
The while the waves stood still to hear his song,
And steady shore waved with the reeling throng
Of thirsty souls, that hung upon his fluent tongue.

What better friendship, than to cover shame?
What greater love, than for a friend to die?
Yet this is better, to asself the blame:
And this is greater, for an enemy:
But more than this, to die, not suddenly,
Not with some common death, or easy pain,
But slowly, and with torments to be slain:
O depth without a depth, far better seen than say'n!

And yet the Son is humbled for the slave,
And yet the slave is proud before the Son:
Yet the Creator for His creature gave
Himself, and yet the creature hastes to run
From his Creator, and self-good doth shun;
And yet the Prince, and God Himself doth cry
To man, His traitor, pardon not to fly:
Yet man, his God, and traitor doth his Prince defy.

But let the thorny schools their punctuals
Of wills all good, or bad, or neuter diss:
Such joy we gained by our parentals,
That good or bad whether I cannot wis
To call it a mishap or happy miss,
That fell from Eden, and to heaven did rise,
Albe the mitred cardinal more did prize
His part in Paris than in Paradise.

Who is it sees not that he nothing is,
But he that nothing sees? What weaker breast,
Since Adam's armour fail'd, dares warrant his,
That, made by God of all His creatures best,
Straight made himself the worst of all the rest?
If any strength we have, it is to ill;
But all the good is God's, both power and will:
The dead man cannot rise, though he himself may kill.

A tree was first the instrument of strife,
Where Eve to sin her soul did prostitute;
A tree is now the instrument of life,
Though ill that trunk, and this fair body suit:
Ah cursed tree, and yet, O blessed fruit!
That death to Him, this life to us doth give:
Strange is the cure, when things past cure revive,
And the Physician dies to make the patient live.

Sweet Eden was the harbour of delight,
Yet in his honey flowers our poison blew;
Sad Gethseman, the bower of baleful night,
Where Christ a health of poison for us drew,
Yet all our honey in that poison grew:
So we from sweetest flowers could suck our bane,
And Christ from bitter venom could again
Extract life out of death, and pleasure out of pain.

A man was first the author of our fall,
A Man is now the Author of our rise;
A garden was the place we perished all,
A garden is the place He pays our price;
And the old serpent, with a new device,
Hath found a way himself for to beguile:
So he that all men tangled in his wile,
Is now by one Man caught, beguiled with his own guile.

The dewy night had with her frosty shade
Immantled all the world, and the stiff ground
Sparkled in ice; only the Lord, that made
All for Himself, Himself dissolved found
Sweat without heat, and blood without a wound:
Of heaven, and earth, and God, and man forlore,
Thrice begging help of those whose sins He bore,
And thrice denied of those, not to deny had swore.

Yet had He been alone of God forsaken,
Or had His body been embroiled alone
In fierce assault, He might, perhaps, have taken
Some joy in soul, when all joy else was gone;
But that with God — and God to heaven is flown;
And hell itself out from her grave doth rise,
Black as the starless night — and with them flies,
Yet blacker than they both, the son of blasphemies.

As when the planets, with unkind aspect,
Call from her caves the meagre pestilence;
The poisonous vapour, eager to infect,
Obeys the voice of the sad influence,
And vomits up a thousand noisome scents, —
The well of life, flaming his golden flood
With the sick air, fevers the boiling blood,
And poisons all the body with contagious food.

The bold physician, too incautilous,
By those he cures himself is murdered;
Kindness infects, pity is dangerous;
And the poor infant, yet not fully bred,
There, where he should be born, lies buried:
So the dark prince, from his infernal cell,
Casts up his grisly torturers of hell,
And whets them to revenge with this insulting spell: —

"See how the world smiles in eternal peace;
While we, the harmless brats, and rusty throng
Of night, our snakes in curls do prank and dress.
Why sleep our drowsy scorpions so long?
Where is our wonted virtue to do wrong?
Are we ourselves, or are we graces grown?
The sons of hell, or heaven? was never known
Our whips so over-mossed, and brands so deadly blown.

"O long-desired, never-hoped-for hour,
When our Tormentor shall our torments feel!
Arm, arm yourselves, sad dires of my power,
And make our Judge for pardon to us kneel;
Slice, launch, dig, tear Him with your whips of steel:
Myself in honour of so noble prize,
Will pour you reeking blood, shed with the cries
Of hasty heirs, who their own fathers sacrifice."

With that a flood of poison, black as hell,
Out from his filthy gorge, the beast did spew,
That all about His blessed body fell,
And thousand flaming serpents hissing flew
About His soul, from hellish sulphur threw,
And every one brandished his fiery tongue,
And worming all about His soul they clung;
But He their stings tore out, and to the ground them flung.

So have I seen a rock's heroic breast,
Against proud Neptune, that his ruin threats,
When all his waves he hath to battle pressed,
And with a thousand swelling billows beats
The stubborn stone, and foams, and chafes, and frets.
To heave him from his root, unmoved stand;
And more in heaps the barking surges band,
The more in pieces beat, fly weeping to the strand.

So may we oft a venturous father see,
To please his wanton son, his only joy,
Coast all about, to catch the roving bee,
And, stung himself, his busy hands employ
To save the honey for the gamesome boy;
Or from the snake her rancorous teeth erase,
Making his child the toothless serpent chase,
Or, with his little hands, her tumorous gorge embrace.

Thus Christ Himself to watch and sorrow gives,
While, dewed in easy sleep, dead Peter lies;
Thus man in his own grave securely lives,
While Christ alive, with thousand horrors dies,
Yet more for theirs, than His own pardon cries:
No sins He had, yet all our sins He bare;
So much doth God for others' evils care,
And yet so careless men for their own evils are.

See, drowsy Peter, see where Judas wakes,
Where Judas kisses Him whom Peter flies:
O kiss more deadly than the sting of snakes!
False love more hurtful than true injuries!
Ah me! how dearly God His servant buys!
For God His man at His own blood doth hold,
And man his God for thirty pence hath sold:
So tin for silver goes, and dunghill dross for gold.

Yet was it not enough for Sin to choose
A servant, to betray his Lord to them;
But that a subject must his King accuse;
But that a pagan must his God condemn;
But that a Father must His Son contemn;
But that the Son must His own death desire;
That prince, and people, servant, and the Sire,
Gentile and Jew, and He against Himself conspire?

Was this the oil to make Thy saints adore Thee,
The frothy spittle of the rascal throng?
Are these the virges that are borne before Thee,
Base whips of cord, and knotted all along?
Is this Thy golden sceptre against wrong,
A reedy cane? is that the crown adorns
Thy shining locks — a crown of spiny thorns?
Are these the angels' hymns, the priests' blasphemous scorns?

Who ever saw honour before asham'd;
Afflicted majesty; debased height;
Innocence guilty; honesty defamed;
Liberty bound; health sick; the sun in night?
But since such wrong was offered unto right,
Our night is day, our sickness health is grown,
Our shame is veiled, this now remains alone
For us — since He was ours, that we be not our own.

Night was ordained for rest, and not for pain,
But they, to pain their Lord, their rest contemn;
Good laws to save what bad men would have slain,
And not bad judges, with one breath, by them
The innocent to pardon, and condemn:
Death for revenge of murderers, not decay
Of guiltless blood — but now, all headlong sway
Man's murderer to save, man's Saviour to slay.

Frail multitude! whose giddy law is list,
And best applause is windy flattering,
Most like the breath of which it doth consist,
No sooner blown but as soon vanishing;
As much desired as little profiting;
That makes the men that have it oft as light
As those that give it; which the proud invite,
And fear; — the bad man's friend, the good man's hypocrite.

It was but now their sounding clamours sung,
"Blessed is He that comes from the most High!"
And all the mountains with "Hosanna!" rung;
And now, "Away with Him — away!" they cry,
And nothing can be heard, but "Crucify!"
It was but now, the crown itself they save,
And golden name of King unto Him gave;
And now, no king but only Caesar they will have.

It was but now they gathered blooming may,
And of his arms disrobed the branching tree,
To strew with boughs and blossoms all Thy way;
And now the branchless trunk a cross for Thee,
And may, dismayed, the coronet must be:
It was but now they were so kind, to throw
Their own best garments where Thy feet should go,
And now Thyself they strip, and bleeding wounds they show.

See, where the Author of all life is dying:
O fearful day! He dead, what hope of living?
See where the hopes of all our lives are buying:
O cheerful day! they bought, what fear of grieving?
Love, love for hate, and death for life, is giving:
Lo, how his arms are stretched abroad to grace thee,
And, as they open stand, call to embrace thee!
Why stayest thou then, my soul? O fly, fly, thither haste thee!

His radious head with shameful thorns they tear,
His tender back with bloody whips they rent,
His side and heart they furrow with a spear,
His hands and feet with riving nails they tent
And, as to disenthral His soul they meant,
They jolly at His grief, and make their game,
His naked body to expose to shame,
That all might come to see, and all might see that came.

Whereat the heaven put out his guilty eye,
That durst behold so execrable sight;
And sabled all in black the shady sky;
And the pale stars, struck with unwonted fright,
Quenched their everlasting lamps in night;
And at His birth, as all the stars heaven had
Were not enough, but a new star was made,
So now both new and old, and all away did fade.

The mazed angels shook their fiery wings,
Ready to lighten vengeance from God's throne,
One down his eyes upon the Manhood flings,
Another gazes on the Godhead — none
But surely thought his wits were not his own;
Some flew to look if it were very He:
But when God's arm unarmed they did see,
Albeit they saw it was, they vowed it could not be.

The sadded air hung all in cheerless black,
Through which the gentle winds soft sighing flew,
And Jordan into such huge sorrow brake,
(As if his holy stream no measure knew,)
That all his narrow banks he overthrew;
The trembling earth with horror inly shook,
And stubborn stones, such grief unused to brook,
Did burst, and ghosts awaking from their graves gan look.

The wise philosopher cried, all aghast,
"The God of nature surely languished!"
The sad centurion cried out as fast,
"The Son of God, the Son of God was dead;"
The headlong Jew hung down his pensive head,
And homewards fared; and ever, as he went,
He smote his breast, half desperately bent;
The very woods and beasts did seem His death lament.

The graceless traitor round about did look
(He looked not long, the devil quickly met him)
To find a halter, which he found, and took,
Only a gibbet now he needs must get him;
So on a withered tree he fairly set him,
And helped him fit the rope, and in his thought
A thousand furies, with their whips, he brought;
So there he stands, ready to hell to make his vault.

For him a waking bloodhound, yelling loud,
That in his bosom long had sleeping laid;
A guilty conscience, barking after blood,
Pursued eagerly, nor ever stayed
Till the betrayer's self it had betrayed.
Oft changed he place, in hope away to wind;
But change of place could never change his mind:
Himself he flies to lose, and follows for to find.

There are but two ways for this soul to have,
When parting from the body, forth it purges;
To fly to heaven, or fall into the grave,
Where whips of scorpions, with the stinging scourges,
Feed on the howling ghosts, and fiery surges
Of brimstone roll about the cave of night,
Where flames do burn, and yet no spark of light,
And fire both fries and freezes the blaspheming sprite.

There lies the captive soul, aye-sighing sore,
Reckoning a thousand years since her first bands;
Yet stays not there, but adds a thousand more,
And at another thousand never stands,
But tells to them the stars, and heaps the sands:
And now the stars are told, and sands are run,
And all those thousand thousand myriads done,
And yet but now, alas! but now all is begun.

With that a flaming brand a fury catched,
And shook, and tossed it round in his wild thought.
So from his heart all joy, all comfort snatched,
With every star of hope; and as he sought
(With present fear, and future grief distraught)
To fly from his own heart, and aid implore
Of Him, the more He gives, that hath the more,
Whose storehouse is the heavens, too little for His store:

"Stay, wretch, on earth (cried Satan) — restless rest;
Knowest thou not Justice lives in heaven; or can
The worst of creatures live among the best:
Among the blessed angels cursed man?
Will Judas now become a Christian?
Whither will Hope's long wings transport thy mind?
Or canst thou not thyself a sinner find?
Or, cruel to thyself, wouldst thou have Mercy kind?

"He gave thee life; why shouldst thou seek to slay Him?
He lent thee wealth to feed thy avarice:
He called thee friend — what, that thou shouldst betray Him?
He kissed thee, though He knew His life the price:
He washed thy feet — shouldst thou His sacrifice?
He gave thee bread, and wine, His Body, Blood,
And at thy heart to enter in He stood;
But then I entered in, and all my snaky brood."

As when wild Pentheus, grown mad with fear,
Whole troops of hellish hags about him spies,
Two bloody suns stalking the dusky sphere
And twofold Thebes runs rolling in his eyes;
Or through the scene staring Orestes flies,
With eyes flung back upon his mother's ghost,
That, with infernal serpents all embossed,
And torches quenched in blood, doth her stern son accost;

Such horrid Gorgons, and misformed forms
Of damned fiends, flew dancing in his heart,
That, now unable to endure their storms,
"Fly, fly (he cries) thyself, whate'er thou art,
Hell, hell, already burns in every part."
So down into his torturer's arms he fell,
That ready stood his funeral to yell,
And in a cloud of night to waft him quick to hell.

Yet oft he snatched, and started as he hung:
So when the senses half enslumbered lie,
The headlong body, ready to be flung
By the deluding fancy from some high
And craggy rock, recovers greedily,
And clasps the yielding pillow, half asleep,
And, as from heaven it tumbled to the deep,
Feels a cold sweat through every trembling member creep.

There let him hang, embowelled in blood,
There never any gentle shepherd feed
His blessed flocks, nor ever heavenly food
Fall on the cursed ground, nor wholesome seed,
That may the least delight or pleasure breed:
Let never spring visit his habitation,
But nettles, kix, and all the weedy nation,
With empty elders grow — sad signs of desolation!

There let the dragon keep his habitance,
And stinking carcasses be thrown avaunt,
Fauns, sylvans, and deformed satyrs dance,
Wild-cats, wolves, toads, and screech-owls direly chant;
There ever let some restless spirit haunt,
With hollow sound, and clashing chains, to scare
The passengers, and eyes like to the star
That sparkles in the crest of angry Mars afar.

But let the blessed dews for ever shower
Upon that ground, in whose fair fields I spy
The bloody ensign of our Saviour:
Strange conquest, where the Conqueror must die,
And He is slain that wins the victory!
But He that, living, had no house to owe it,
Now had no grave, but Joseph must bestow it:
O run, ye saints, apace, and with sweet flowers bestrow it!

And ye glad spirits, that now sainted sit
On your celestial thrones, in beauty drest,
Though I your tears recount, O let not it
With after-sorrow wound your tender breast,
Or with new grief unquiet your soft rest:
Enough is me your plaints to sound again,
That never could enough myself complain.
Sing, then, O sing aloud, thou Arimathean swain!

But long he stood, in his faint arms upholding,
The fairest spoil heaven ever forfeited,
With such a silent passion grief unfolding,
That, had the sheet but on himself been spread,
He for the corse might have been buried;
And with him stood the happy thief, that stole
By night his own salvation, and a shoal
Of Maries, drowned, round about him sat in dole.

At length (kissing His lips before he spake,
As if from thence he fetched again his ghost)
To Mary thus, with tears, his silence brake:
"Ah, woful soul! what joy in all our coast,
When Him we hold, we have already lost?
Once didst thou lose thy Son, but foundest again;
Now findest thy Son, but findest Him lost and slain.
Ah me! though He could death, how canst thou life sustain?

"Where'er, dear Lord, Thy shadow hovereth,
Blessing the place wherein it deigns abide,
Look how the earth dark horror covereth,
Clothing in mournful black her naked side,
Willing her shadow up to heaven to glide,
To see and if it meet Thee wandering there;
That so, and if herself must miss Thee here,
At least her shadow may her duty to Thee bear.

"See, how the sun in day-time clouds his face,
And lagging Vesper, loosing his late team,
Forgets in heaven to run his nightly race;
But, sleeping on bright Oeta's top, doth dream
The world a chaos is; no joyful beam
Looks from his starry bower, the heavens do moan,
And trees drop tears, lest we should grieve alone;
The winds have learnt to sigh, and waters hoarsely groan.

"And you, sweet flowers, that in this garden grow,
Whose happy states a thousand souls envy,
Did you your own felicities but know,
Yourselves, unpluck'd, would to His funerals hie—
You never could in better season die:
O that I might into your places slide!
The gate of heaven stands gaping in His side;
Therein my soul should steal, and all her faults should hide.

"Are these the eyes that made all others blind?
Ah! why are they themselves now blemished?
Is this the face in which all beauty shined?
What blast hath thus His flowers debellished?
Are these the feet that on the watery head
Of the unfaithful ocean passage found?
Why go they now so lowly under ground,
Washed with our worthless tears, and their own precious wound?

"One hem but of the garments that He wore
Could medicine whole countries of their pain;
One touch of this pale hand could life restore,
One word of these cold lips revive the slain:
Well the blind man Thy Godhead might maintain;
What, though the sullen Pharisees repin'd?
He that should both compare, at length would find
The blind man only saw, the seers all were blind.

"Why should they think Thee worthy to be slain?
Was it because Thou gavest their blind men eyes?
Or that Thou madest their lame to walk again?
Or for Thou healedst their sick men's maladies?
Or madest their dumb to speak, and dead to rise?
O could all these but any grace have won,
What would they not to save Thy life have done?
The dumb man would have spoke, and lame man would have run.

"Let me, O let me near some fountain lie,
That through the rock heaves up his sandy head,
Or let me dwell upon some mountain high,
Whose hollow root and baser parts are spread
On fleeting waters, in his bowels bred,
That I their streams, and they my tears may feed:
Or, clothed in some hermit's ragged weed,
Spend all my days in weeping for this cursed deed.

"The life, the which I once did love, I leave;
The love, in which I once did live, I loathe;
I hate the light, that did my Light bereave:
Both love and life, I do despise you both.
O, that one grave might both our ashes clothe!
A Love, a Life, a Light I now obtain,
Able to make my age grow young again —
Able to save the sick, and to revive the slain.

"Thus spend we tears — that never can be spent —
On Him, that sorrow now no more shall see;
Thus send we sighs — that never can be sent —
To Him that died to live, and would not be
To be there where He would. — Here bury we
This heavenly earth; here let it softly sleep,
The fairest Shepherd of the fairest sheep."
So all the body kiss'd, and homeward went to weep.

So home their bodies went to seek repose,
But at the grave they left their souls behind:
O who the force of love celestial knows?
That can the chains of nature's self unbind,
Sending the body home without the mind.
Ah, Blessed Virgin! what high angel's art
Can ever count thy tears, or sing thy smart,
When every nail that pierced His hand, did pierce tin- heart?

So Philomel, perched on an aspen sprig,
Weeps all the night her lost virginity,
And sings her sad tale to the merry twig,
That dances at such joyful misery,
Ne ever lets sweet rest invade her eye;
But leaning on a thorn her dainty chest,
For fear soft sleep should steal into her breast,
Expresses in her song grief not to be expressed.

So when the lark (poor bird!) afar espieth
Her yet unfeathered children (whom to save
She strives in vain) slain by the fatal scythe,
Which from the meadow her green locks doth shave,
That their warm nest is now become their grave;
The woful mother up to heaven springs,
And all about her plaintive notes she flings,
And their untimely fate most pitifully sings.