Henry Alford

The School Of The Heart. Lesson The Second.

My sweet companion, who hast ever been Beside me in all toils, refreshing oft My weary spirit with low whisperings Of hope that spoke not falsely; in whose sight My young life floweth pleasantly along; Sit thou beside me once again, and take Thy magic pencils--they will serve thee well To help thy patience; for my heart is full, And I perchance may wander waywardly; Besides, this bank is known to us of old; For yonder is the ivy--girded trunk, Bright mouldering timber, clothed with darkest green; And yonder those two ashes on the steep And grassy slope; and underneath, the moor Stretches its pastured level far away To the gray mountains and the Severn sea: And from that very brake, the nightingale, In the sweet silence of the summer--eve, Poured forth a wavy stream of melody,-- Signal to one who waited with thick breath And throbbing bosom, all afraid to speak One low--breathed word;--that evening thou wert mine. Sit thou beside me--we will talk no more Of dim and cloudy childhood, ere the spring Burst on us, when with searchings wearisome We sought some centre for our errant hopes; But underneath this sky of clearest June, We will discourse, as we are wont, of things Most gentle, of most gentle causes sprung, That make no wave upon the stream of life, That are not written in the memory's book, That come not with observance; but from which, As from a myriad stones, costly though small, Is built upon the mansion of the blessed soul. Look out upon the earth, or meditate Upon the varying glories of the sky, As we have looked on them from windy hills, Or from the moonlit window; fullest joy Flows on thy heart, and silent thankfulness Drowns all thy struggling thoughts; doth not this bliss Wax ever deeper with the years of life? And when past pleasures come upon the soul Like long--forgotten landscapes of our youth, Are not these spots clad with peculiar light, The brightest blossoms in the paradise Of recollections of a soul forgiven? There is no joy that is not built on peace; Peace is our birthright, and our legacy, Signed with a hand that never promised false. And we have fed on peace; and the green earth, With all that therein is, the mighty sea, The breath of the spring--winds, and all the host Of clustered stars, give fittest nourishment To the peace--loving soul. ``Not as the world Giveth, give I to you;'' for what have souls Whose vision labours with the film of sin, Who struggle in the twilight of eclipse, To do with beauty and the joy of thought? Our very joys have been redeemed with blood; Our very liberty is bought anew: The unforgiven pleasures of the world Are but a dance in chains; freedom of thought Owes fealty to sin; and Fancy's self, That airiest and most unfettered thing, Is but the prisoned maniac's dream of bliss. Oft have I listened to a voice that spake Of cold and dull realities of life. Deem we not thus of life: for we may fetch Light from a hidden glory, which shall clothe The meanest thing that is with hues of heaven. If thence we draw not glory, all our light Is but a taper in a chambered cave, That giveth presence to new gulfs of dark. Our light should be the broad and open day; And as we love its shining, we shall look Still on the bright and daylight face of things. Is it for nothing that the mighty sun Rises each morning from the Eastern plain Over the meadows, fresh with hoary dew? Is it for nothing that the shadowy trees On yonder hill--top in the summer night Stand darkly out before the golden moon? Is it for nothing that the autumn boughs Hang thick with mellow fruit, what time the swain Presses the luscious juice, and joyful shouts Rise in the purple twilight, gladdening him Who laboured late, and homeward wends his way Over the ridgy grounds, and through the mead, Where the mist broods along the fringed stream? Far in the Western sea dim islands float, And lines of mountain--coast receive the sun As he sinks downward to his resting--place, Ministered to by bright and crimson clouds: Is it for nothing that some artist--hand Hath wrought together things so beautiful? Noon follows morn--the quiet breezeless noon, And pleasant even, season of sweet sounds And peaceful sights; and then the wondrous bird That warbles like an angel, full of love, From copse and hedgerow side pouring abroad Her tide of song into the listening night. Beautiful is the last gleam of the sun Slanted through twining branches; beautiful The birth of the faint stars--first, clear and pale, The steady--lustred Hesper, like a gem On the flushed bosom of the West; and then Some princely fountain of unborrowed light, Arcturus, or the Dogstar, or the seven That circle without setting round the pole. Is it for nothing that the midnight hour That solemn silence sways the hemisphere, And ye must listen long before ye hear The cry of beasts, or fall of distant stream, Or breeze among the tree--tops--while the stars, Like guardian spirits, watch the slumbering earth? Can human energies be scattered all In a long life--a slumber deep and chill Settle upon the soul--a palsy bind The spiritual limbs--and all the strings Of that sweet instrument, the mind of man, Remain untuned, untouched? --What if in dreams The struggling fancy from her prison break And wander undirected, gathering up Unnatural combinations of strange things, Of sights, it may be, beautiful and wild,-- Long gleaming reaches of some slow--paced stream, And boats of gold and pearl, with coral masts, Floating unguided in a faint green light Of twisted boughs, and heavy--plumaged birds Of many colours, roosting all the night On rambling branches of a giant wood? -- And what if voices in the middle night Full on thine ear in chimy murmurs rush, That warble of deep skies and silver sheen,-- And bright eyes twinkle, far away but clear, Receding as they twinkle, and with charm Unknown the ravished spirit drawing on? These are not wholesome nurture for the soul, Nor sounds and sights like these the daily bread It asks from Heaven: these are the errant paths Of those great flaming brushes in the sky, Now dangerously near the maddening fire, Now chill and darkling in the gulfs of space, Unlike the steady moderated course Of habitable worlds. There lie around Thy daily walk great store of beauteous things, Each in its separate place most fair, and all Of many parts disposed most skilfully, Making in combination wonderful An individual of a higher kind; And that again in order ranging well With its own fellows, till thou rise at length Up to the majesty of this grand world;-- Hard task; and seldom reached by mortal souls, For frequent intermission, and neglect Of close communion with the humblest things; But in rare moments, whether Memory Hold compact with Invention, or the door Of Heaven hath been a little pushed aside, Methinks I can remember, after hours Of unpremeditated thought in woods On western steeps, that hung a pervious screen Before blue mountains in the distant sea, A sense of a clear brightness in my soul, A day--spring of mild radiance, like the light First--born of the great Fiat, that ministered Unto the earth before the sun was made. Evening and morning--those two ancient names So linked with childish wonder, when with arm Fast wound about the neck of one we loved, Oft questioning, we heard Creation's tale-- Evening and morning ever brought to me Strange joy; the birth and funeral of light,-- Whether in clear unclouded majesty The large Sun poured his effluence abroad, Or the gray clouds rolled silently along, Dropping their doubtful tokens as they passed; Whether above the hills intensely glowed Bright lines of parting glory in the west, Or from the veil of faintly--reddened mist The darkness slow descended on the earth; The passage to a state of things all new, New fears and new enjoyments,--this was all Food for my seeking spirit: I would stand Upon the jutting hills that overlook Our level moor, and watch the daylight fade Along the prospect: now behind the leaves The golden twinkles of the westering sun Deepened to richest crimson: now from out The solemn beech--grove, through the natural aisles Of pillared trunks, the glory in the west Showed like Jehovah's presence--fire, beheld In olden times above the Mercy--seat Between the folded wings of Cherubim;-- I loved to wander, with the evening star Heading my way, till from the palest speck Of virgin silver, evermore lit up With radiance as by spirits ministered, She seemed a living pool of golden light; I loved to learn the strange array of shapes That pass along the circle of the year; Some, for the love of ancient lore, I kept, And they would call into my fancy's eye Chaldaean beacons, over the drear sand Seen faintly from thick--towered Babylon Against the sunset, shepherds in the field, Watching their flocks by night,--or shapes of men And high--necked camels, passing leisurely Along the starred horizon, where the spice Swims in the air, in Araby the Blest; And some, as Fancy led, I figured forth, Misliking their old names; one circlet bright Gladdens me often, near the Northern Wain, Which, with a childish playfulness of choice That hath not passed away, I loved to call The crown of glory, by the righteous Judge Against the day of His appearing, laid In store for him who fought the fight of faith. I ever loved the Ocean, as't had been My childhood's playfellow: in sooth it was; For I had built me forts upon its sands, And launched my little navies in the creeks, Careless of certain loss; so it would play Even as it listed with them, I were pleased. I loved to follow with the backward tide Over rough rocks and quaintly delving pools, Till that the land--cliffs lessened, and I trod With cautious step on slippery crags and moist, With sea--weed clothed, like the green hair of Nymphs, The Nereids' votive hair, that on the rocks They hang when storms are past, to the kind power, That saved their sparry grottoes. And at night I wandered often, when the winds were up, Over the pathless hills, till I could hear, Borne fitly upon the hurrying blast, The curfew--bell, with lingering strokes and deep, From underlying town; then all was still But the low murmuring of the distant sea; And then again the new--awakened wind Howled in the dells, and through the bended heath Swept whistling by my firmly--planted feet. Eternal rocks --that lift your heads on high, Gray with the tracks of ages that have passed Over your serried brows, with many a scar Of thunder--stroke deep--riven: from out whose clefts The gnarlèd oak, and yew, and tender ash, Poured forth like waters, trail adown the steep,-- Ye stand to figure to our human view The calm and never--altering character Of great Eternity; like some vast pier Fixed, while the fleeting tide of mortal things Flows onward from its sight. The mighty men Of ages gone have past beneath your crest And cast an upward look, and ye have grown Into their being, and been created part Of the great Mind; and of your influence some Hath past into the thoughts that live and burn Through all the ages of the peopled world. Your presence hath been fruitful to my soul Of mighty lessons; whether inland far Ye lift your jutting brows from grassy hills, Or on the butt of some great promontory Keep guard against the sleepless siege of waves. Once I remember when most visible light Shone from you on my spirit--'twas an eve In fall of summer, when the weaker births Of the great forest change their robes of green; On such an eve, I climbed into a nook Bowered with leaves and canopied with crags On the loved border of the western shore. Over the topmost cliff the horned moon, Not eight days old, shone mildly; under foot The mighty ocean rolled its multitude Of onward--crowding ridges, that with crash Of thunder broke upon the jutting rocks; And in the northern sky, where not an hour The day had sunk, a pomp of tempest--clouds Passed wildly onward over the calm lines Of the hue of faded sunset. Wearily Sighed the thick oaks upon the seaward steep, And the melancholy sea--bird wailed aloft, Now poised in the mid--air, now with swift sweep Descending; and again on balanced wings Hovering, or wheeling dismally about, With short importunate cry. But ye the chief, Trees, that along our pleasant native slope Pendant with clustering foliage, in the light Of parting evening sleep most peacefully, Gathering to the eye your separate heads Into a dark and misty mass of green; Ye can bear witness how with constant care I mourned your tribute to the autumn winds, And hailed with you the sweet return of spring, And watched with fondest care the tender green; Ye sleep the winter through, and burst abroad In the morning of the year; and sweetest songs Sound through your arbours all the happy May, Till callow broods take wing, and summer's sun Darkens the tender green upon the leaf; And then ye stand majestic, glorying In strength of knotted trunk and branches vast, Daring the noonday heat, that withers up The orchis--flower and foxglove at your feet, Save where your mighty shadows gloomily Recline upon the underlying sward. I looked upon you when the April moon Sprinkled your forms with light, and the dewball lay All night upon the branch: listening each year When the first breeze might stir your boughs new--clothed, Or when the rain all through the summer--day Fell steadily upon the leaves, mine ear Soothing, with the faint music's even chime. These, and a thousand things that men pass by, Served for my spiritual nourishment: Nor wanted high example, to my heart Laid often, and in secret cherished up With oft--recurring sweet encouragement; Nor words of import deep, that fall on us In solemn places, when we note them not; But most one sacred thought, linked in my breast To a thousand memories that can never die-- Sounding upon me in the hallowed hour Of Sabbath--service from the wondrous book;-- It was that He, the only Son of Heaven That took His joys and woes from things below, When He would pour His holy soul in prayer, Went forth beneath the moonlight;--through the lines Of trembling olive--leaves, to where the path Came sudden out upon the open hill;-- There He stood waiting till the flame from heaven Lighted upon the inward sacrifice Of thoughts most pure: and then the holy words Came musically forth upon the night, More sweet than tinkling Kedron, or the pipe Of distant nightingale: or on the cliff Above the tossing lake He prayed and stood, And through the flight of jarring elements Came unimpeded swiftly gliding down From the Father's hand a healing drop of peace Upon His wounded soul. On mountain heights All the mid--hours of night, with serried crags Towering in the moonlight overhead, And through a channelled dell stretching away The plains of Galilee seen from afar, Till morn alone He prayed: whether the cup Of self--determined suffering passed athwart His forward vision, and the Father's wrath Upon His human soul pressed heavily, Or for the welfare of His chosen flock He wrestled in an agony of prayer That their faith fail not. Even the love of Him Now mingled in my bosom with all sounds And sights that I rejoiced in: and in hours Of self--arraigning thought, when the dull world With all its saws of heartlessness and pride Came close upon me, I approved my joys And simple fondnesses, on trust that He Who taught the lesson of unwavering faith From the meek lilies of green Palestine, Would fit the earthly things that most I loved To the high teaching of my patient soul. And the sweet hope that sprung within me now Seemed all--capacious, and from every source Apt to draw comfort; I perceived within A fresh and holy light rise mildly up; Not morning, nor the planet beautiful That heads the bright procession, when the sun Hath sunk into the west, is half so fair. This was that Light which lighteth every man That comes into the world; from the first gleam Of momentary joy, that twinkles forth Brightly and often from the infant's eye, To that which seldom comes on common days,-- The steady overflow of calm delight In the well--ripened soul; all thoughts which spring From daily sights and sounds, all active hopes Brought from the workings of the outer world Upon the life within, here have their fixed And proper dwelling--place. As on the front Of some cathedral pile, ranged orderly, Rich tabernacles throng, of sainted men Each in his highday robes magnificent, Some topped with crowns, the Church's nursing sires, And some, the hallowed temple's serving--men, With crosiers deep--embossed, and comely staves Resting aslant upon their reverend form, Guarding the entrance well; while round the walls, And in the corbels of the massy nave, All circumstance of living child and man And heavenly influence, in parables Of daily--passing forms is pictured forth:-- So all the beautiful and seemly things That crowd the earth, within the humble soul Have place and order due; because there dwells In the inner temple of the holy heart The presence of the Spirit from above: There are His tabernacles; there His rites Want not their due performance, nor sweet strains Of heavenly music, nor a daily throng Of worshippers, both those who minister In service fixed--the mighty principles And leading governors of thought; and those Who come and go, the troop of fleeting joys-- All hopes, all sorrows, all that enter in Through every broad receptacle of sense.