SAINT BERNARD’S VISION OF HELL : a 17th Century English Broadside Ballad

Saint Bernard’s Vision

OR,

A brief Discourse (Dialogue-wise) between the Soul and the Body of a damned man newly deceased, laying open the faults of each other: With a speech of the Devils in Hell. To the Tune of, Fortune my Foe.

Printed at London for J. Wright, dwelling in Gilt-spur street. 1640
Newly Transcribed by E.T.H. III for ease of the modern Reader. 2013

The Writer speaketh.
AS I lay slumbring in my Bed one Night,
A fearful Vision did me sore affright:
Me thought I saw a Soul departed late,
By it the Body, in a poor estate.

Wailing with sighs, the Soul aloud did cry
Upon the Body, in the Coffin by:
And thus the Soul to it did make her moan,
With grievous sobs, and many a bitter groan.

The Soul speaketh.
O sinful Flesh, which now so low doth lie,
Whom yesterday the World esteemd so high;
It was but yesterday the World was thine,
Thy Sun is set, which yesterday did shine.

Where is that Train that did attend on thee?
Where is thy Mirth? where is thy Jollity?
Where are thy sumptuous Buildings, and thy Treasure?
Thy pleasant Walks, in which thou tookst such pleasure?

Gone is thy Train, thy Mirth to mourning turn’d,
Thou in a Coffin in thy Shrine art Urn’d:
For thy rich Clothes, thou hast a Winding-sheet,
Thy high-built Roof now with thy Nose doth meet.

But I (poor Soul) was fram’d a noble creature,
In likeness to my God, of heavenly feature:
But by thy sin, whilst we on Earth abode,
I am made fouler than a loathsome Toad.

O wretched Flesh, with me that art forlorn,
That well mayst wish thou never hadst been borne;
Thou never wouldst to any good agree,
For which we evermore shall damned be.

I am and must forever be in pain,
No tongue can tell the torments I sustain;
Both thou and I, we must descend to Hell,
Where we in frying flames for aye must dwell.

It was thy Pride, Deceit, and Luxury,
Hath brought these torments both on me and thee;
Thy Wife, thy Children, Friends, which thou didst trust,
Doth loath thy Carcass, lying in the Dust.

The Book of God, which is both true and sure,
Witness at large what sinners shall endure:
Thou that within thy Bed of Earth art laid,
Arise, and answer to these things I said.

The Body answereth.
I know thee well, my Soul, which from me fled,
Which left my Body senseless, cold, and dead:
Cease then to say, the fault was all in me,
When I will prove the fault was most in thee.

Thou sayst, that I have led thee oft astray,
And from well-doing drawn thee quite away,
But if the Flesh the Spirits power can move,
The fault is thine, as I will plainly prove.

God you do know, created thee most fair,
And of Celestial knowledge gave you share:
I was your servant, form’d of Dirt and Clay;
You to command, and I for to obey.

Twas in your power for to restrain my will,
And not to let me do those things were ill.
The Bodies works be from the Soul derided,
And by the Soul the Body should be guided.

The Body of it self none ill hath known:
If I did what thou bidst, the guilts thine own:
For without thee, the Body resteth dead;
The Soul commands it rests upon thy head.

So to conclude, thy guilt exceedeth mine;
Oh, how the worms do tear me in my Shrine!
And therefore fare thou well, poor sinful Soul,
Whose trespasses pass mine, though they are foul.

The second part. To the same tune.

The Soul answereth.
Most wretched Flesh, which in thy time of life
Wast foolish, idle, vain, and full of strife;
Though of my substance thou didst speak to me,
I do confess I should have bridled thee.

But thou through love of pleasure foul and ill,
Still me resisted and would have thy will:
When I would thee (O Body) have control’d,
Straight the worlds vanities did thee with-hold.

So thou of me didst get the upper hand,
Enthralling me in worldly pleasures band,
That thou and I eternal shall be drown’d
In Hell, when glorious Saints in Heaven are crown’d.

But flatt’ring fancies did thy mind so please,
Thou never thought to die, till death did seize:
This was thy fault, and cursed is our fate,
Which we repent, but now alas too late.

The Body speaketh.
Oh now I weep being scourg’d with mine own rod,
We both stand guilty ’fore the face of God:
Both are in fault, and yet not equally,
The greatest burthen (Soul) on thee doth lie.

No wit so mean, but this for truth it knows,
That where most gifts of virtue God bestows.
There most is due, and ought repaid be;
And unto this there’s none but will agree.

But foolishly thou yieldedst unto me,
And to my vain desires didst soon agree;
But (oh) I know that at the latter hour,
Both thou and I shall find a death most sour.

I greatly fear an everlasting fire,
Yet one thing more of thee I do desire:
Hast thou been yet amongst the fiends of Hell?
Is no hope left, that we with Christ may dwell?

The Soul answereth.
Fond flesh, remember Dives was denay’d,
When for one drop of water so he pray’d:
Thy question (senseless Body) wanteth reason,
Redemption now is hopeless, out of season.

Vile Body go, and rot in bed of Clay,
Until the great and general Judgement day:
Then shalt thou rise and be with me condemn’d,
To Hells hot lake, for ever without end.

So fare thou well, I must no longer stay,
Hark how the fiends of Hell call me away:
The loss of Heavenly joys tormenteth me
More than all tortures that in Hell can be.

The Devils speak.
Ho, are you come, whom we expected long?
Now we will make you sing another song:
Howling and yelling still shall be your note,
And molten lead be poured down your throat.

Such horror we do on our servants load,
Now thou art worse than is the crawling Toad:
Ten thousand thousand torments thou shalt bide,
When thou in flaming Sulphur shalt be fried.

Thou art a soldier of our camp enroll’d,
Never henceforth shalt thou the light behold:
The pains prepar’d for thee no tongue can tell,
Welcome, O welcome to the pit of Hell.

The Writer speaketh.
At this the groaning Soul did weep most sore,
And then the fiends with joy did laugh and roar:
These Devils seem’d more black than pitch or night,
Whose horrid shapes did sorely me affright.

Sharp steely forks each in his hand did bear,
Tusked their teeth, like crooked mattocks were,
Fire and Brimstone then they breathed out,
And from their nostrils Snakes crawl’d round about.

Foul filthy horns on their black brows they wore,
Their nails were like the tushes of a Boar:
Those fiends in chains fast bound this wretched Soul,
And drag’d him in, who grievously did howl.

Then straight me thought appeared to my sight
A beauteous young man, clothed all in white,
His face did shine, most glorious to behold,
Wings like the Rainbow, and his hair like Gold.

With a sweet voice, All hail, all hail (quoth he)
Arise and write what thou didst hear and see:
Most heavenly music seemed then to play,
And in a cloud he vanished quite away.

Awaking straight, I took my pen in hand,
To write these lines the young man did command,
And so into the world abroad it sent,
That each good Christian may in time repent.

Then let us fear the Lord both night and day,
Preserve our Souls and Bodies we thee pray,
Grant that we may so run this mortal race,
That we in Heaven may have a resting place.

Preserve the King, the Queen and Progeny,
The Clergy, Council, and Nobility,
Preserve our souls, O Lord, we do thee pray,
Amen, with me let all good Christians say.

FINIS.

THE BELOVED CITY by Father Henry E.G. Rope

Transcribed from The City of the Grail & Other Verses by Henry E.G. Rope, M.A., London, 1923. Poet and Priest, friend and “chaplain” to Hilaire Belloc, Fr. Henry E.G. Rope has left behind him a rich little catalog of evocative stories, essays, and poems just waiting to be rediscovered. We have heard “he lived into his nineties, dying in about 1974 (???) rejecting the Novus Ordo theological and liturgical revolution. Sadly, his books are of the last rarity.” We are posting this particular poem of Father Rope’s in conjunction with our prayers at the start of this Lenten season in the hope that a True Catholic Pope will be acclaimed in the coming weeks.

THE BELOVED CITY

SHOULD I forget thee, O Pontific Rome,
O chosen city of the King of Kings,
City of refuge, Peter’s royal home.

Should I forget thee, O Pontific Rome,
Fair city that the living flood enrings,
Fast rock whereon the billows spend their foam

For ever vainly, evermore frustrate ;
O city, whose high places stand engirt
With angel armies that untiring wait

Each sign from heaven, headlong from the gate
To drive thy foe or suffer him exert
His malice for an hour infatuate.

O City of our God, O Citadel
Of life, amid a death-devoted age
Encompass’d by the banner’d host of hell,

Whose rout God’s chosen hour shall soon dispel,
Should I forget thee, suffrage none assuage
The penal years my thankless soul must tell.

Right soon the moment which the King hath set
For judgment shall thy royalty renew;
That royalty the world would fain forget

From long eclipse shall issue brighter yet.
O Holy City, who to thee is true
Unto the end, him will not God forget.

THE RUIN THAT BEFELL THE GREAT FAMILIES OF IRELAND (c. 1720) by Aodhágan Ó Rathaille / Translated by Michael Hartnett

for Luke Kelly

My pity, that Carthy’s heirs are weaklings,
this poor land’s people without a leader;
no man to free her, locked up and keyless,
and shieldless now in this land of chieftains.
Land with no prince of her ancient people,
land made helpless from foreigner’s beatings;
land stretched out beneath the feet of treason,
land chained down—it is the death of reason.
Land lonely, tortured , broken and beaten,
land sonless, manless, wifeless, and weeping;
land lifeless, soulless, and without hearing,
land where the poor are only ill-treated.
Land without churches, massless, and priestless,
land that the wolves have spitefully eaten;
land of misery and obedience
to tyrant robbers, greedy and thieving.
Land that produces nothing of sweetness,
land so sunless, so starless and so streamless;
land stripped naked, left leafless and treeless,
land stripped naked by the English bleaters.
Land in anguish—and drained of its heroes,
land for its children forever weeping;
a widow wounded, crying and keening,
humbled, degraded, and torn to pieces.
The white of her cheeks is never tearless,
and her hair falls down in rainshowers gleaming;
blood from her eyes in torrents comes streaming
and black as coal is her appearance.
Her limbs are shrunken, bound and bleeding;
around her waist is no satin weaving,
but iron from Hades blackly gleaming
forged by henchmen who are Vulcan’s demons.
Red pools are filled by her poor heart’s bleeding
and dogs from Bristol lap it up greedily—
her body is being pulled to pieces
by Saxon curs with their bloody teeth full.
Her branches rotten, her forests leafless,
the frosts of Heaven have killed her streams now;
the sunlight shines on her lands but weakly,
the fog of the forge is on her peaks now.
Her quarries, her mines, are exploited freely,
the rape of her trees is pointless, greedy;
her growing plants are all scattered seawards
to foreign countries to seek for freedom.
Griffin and Hedges, the upstart keepers
of the Earl’s holdings—it is painful speaking—
Blarney, where only bold wolves are sleeping,
Ráth Luirc is plundered, naked and fearful.
The Laune is taken, has lost its fierceness,
Shannon and Maine and Liffey are bleeding;
Kingly Tara lacks the seed of Niall Dubh,
No Raighleann hero is alive and breathing.
O’Doherty is gone—and his people,
and the Moores are gone, that once were heroes;
O’Flaherty is gone—and his people,
and O’Brien has joined the English cheaters.
Of the brave O’Rourke there is none speaking,
O’Donnell’s fame has none to repeat it,
and all the Geraldines, they lie speechless,
and Walsh of the slender ships is needy.

Hear, oh Trinity, my poor beseeching:
take this sorrow from my broken people,
from the seed of Conn and Ír and Eibhear—
restore their lands to my broken people.

They are my tormenting sorrow,
brave men broken by this rain,
and fat pirates in bed
in the place of older tribes of fame,
and the tribes that have fled
and who cared for poets’ lives, defame.
This great crime has me led
shoeless, bare,
through cold towns crying today.

O Rathaille by Michael Hartnett, Oldcastle: Gallery Press, 1999.

CHRISTMAS AND IRELAND : a Poem by Lionel Johnson (1896)

THE golden stars give warmthless fire,
As weary Mary goes through night:
Her feet are torn by stone and briar;
She hath no rest, no strength, no light:
___O Mary, weary in the snow,
___Remember Ireland’s woe!

O Joseph, sad for Mary’s sake!
Look on our earthly Mother too :
Let not the heart of Ireland break
With agony, the ages through :
___For Mary’s love, love also thou
___Ireland, and save her now!

Harsh were the folk, and bitter stern,
At Bethlehem, that night of nights.
For you no cheering hearth shall burn :
We have no room here, you no rights.
___O Mary and Joseph! hath not she,
___Ireland, been even as ye?

The ancient David’s royal house
Was thine, Saint Joseph ! wherefore she,
Mary, thine Ever Virgin Spouse,
To thine own city went with thee.
___Behold! thy citizens disown
___The heir of David’s throne !

Nay, more! The Very King of kings
Was with you, coming to his own :
They thrust Him forth to lowliest things;
The poor meek beasts of toil alone
___Stood by, when came to piteous birth
___The God of all the earth.

And she, our Mother Ireland, knows
Insult, and infamies of wrong:
Her innocent children clad with woes,
Her weakness trampled by the strong:
___And still upon her Holy Land
___Her pitiless foemen stand.

From Manger unto Cross and Crown
Went Christ: and Mother Mary passed
Through Seven Sorrows, and sat down
Upon the Angel Throne at last.
___Thence, Mary! to thine own Child pray,
___For Ireland’s hope this day!

She wanders amid winter still,
The dew of tears is on her face :
Her wounded heart takes yet its fill
Of desolation and disgrace.
___God still is God! And through God she
___Foreknows her joy to be.

The snows shall perish at the spring,
The flowers pour fragrance round her feet:
Ah, Jesus! Mary! Joseph! bring
This mercy from the Mercy Seat!
___Send it, sweet King of Glory, born
___Humbly on Christmas Morn!

On Lionel Johnson (1867-1902), Louise Imogen Guiney, writing in the Catholic Encylopedia, states : “He was a small, frail, young-looking man, with a fine head and brow, quick of foot, gentle of voice, and with manners of grave courtesy. He greatly loved his friends in a markedly spiritual way, always praying for them, absent or present. His sound Catholic principles, his profound scholarship, his artistic sensitiveness, his play of wisdom and humor, his absolute literary honour, with its “passion for perfection” from the first, show nobly in his prose work. His lyrics are full of beauty and poignancy…

An Old Religious Song of Connacht : MARY AND SAINT JOSEPH AND THE CHERRY TREE

“Here is another religious poem which is also to be still found in the County Mayo. I wrote down the first part of it from the mouth of Michael MacRury, or Rogers, from that county, and I afterwards got the last five verses of it, which he had not got, from Martin O’Callally, in Erris, in the same county.” – The Religious Songs of Connacht : A Collection of Poems, Stories, Prayers, Satires, Ranns, Charms, etc. (Translated from the Gaelic by) Douglas Hyde. 1906

Holy was good St. Joseph
___When marrying Mary Mother,
Surely his lot was happy,
___Happy beyond all other.

Refusing red gold laid down,
___And the crown by David worn,
With Mary to be abiding
___And guiding her steps forlorn.

One day when the twain were talking,
___And walking through gardens early,
Where cherries were redly growing,
___And blossoms were blowing rarely,

Mary the fruit desired,
___For faint and tired she panted,
At the scent on the breezes’ wing,
___Of the fruit that the King had planted.

Then spake to Joseph, the Virgin,
___All weary and faint and low,
“O pull me yon smiling cherries
___That fair on the tree do grow.

“For feeble I am, and weary,
___And my steps are but faint and slow,
And the works of the King of the graces
___I feel within me grow.”

Then out spake the good St. Joseph,
___And stoutly indeed spake he,
“I shall not pluck thee one cherry,
___Who art unfaithful to me.

“Let him come fetch you the cherries,
___Who is dearer than I to thee,”
Then Jesus hearing St. Joseph,
___Thus spake to the stately tree :

“Bend low in her gracious presence,
___Stoop down to herself, tree,
That my mother herself may pluck thee,
___And take thy burden from thee.”

Then the great tree lowered her branches
___At hearing the high command,
And she plucked the fruit that it offered,
___Herself with her gentle hand.

Loud shouted the good St. Joseph,
___He cast himself on the ground,
“Go home and forgive me, Mary,
___To Jerusalem I am bound ;
I must go to the holy city,
___And confess my sin profound.”

Then out spake the gentle Mary,
___She spake with a gentle voice,
“I shall not go home, O Joseph,
___But I bid thee at heart rejoice,
For the King of Heaven shall pardon
___The sin that was not of choice.”

* * * * *

Three months from that self-same morning,
___The blessed child was born,
Three kings did journey to worship
___That babe from the lands of the morn.

Three months from that very evening,
___He was born there in a manger,
With asses, and kine and bullocks,
___In the strange cold place of a stranger.

To her child said the Virgin softly,
___Softly she spake and wisely,
“Dear Son of the King of Heaven,
___Say what may in life betide Thee.”

[THE BABE.]

“I shall be upon Thursday, Mother,
___Betrayed and sold to the foeman,
And pierced like a sieve on Friday,
___With nails by the Jew and Roman.

On the streets shall my heart’s blood flow,
___And my head on a spike be planted,
And a spear through my side shall go,
___Till death at the last be granted.

Then thunders shall roar with lightnings,
___And a storm over earth come sweeping,
The lights shall be quenched in the heavens
___And the sun and the moon be weeping.

While angels shall stand around me,
___With music and joy and gladness,
As I open the road into heaven,
___That was lost by the first man’s madness.”

* * * * *

Christ built that road into heaven,
___In spite of the Death and Devil,
Let us when we leave the world
___Be ready by it to travel.

O SLEEPING FALLS THE MAIDEN SNOW and WHITE LIONS ARE ROARING ON THE WATER by Kenneth Patchen

O SLEEPING FALLS THE MAIDEN SNOW

O sleeping falls the maiden snow
Upon the cold branches of the city
And oh! my love is warm and safe in my arms

Nearer, nearer comes the hell-breath of these times
O God! what can I do to guard her then

O sleeping falls the maiden snow
Upon the bitter place of our shelterlessness
But oh! for this moment, she whom I love
Lies safely in my arms

WHITE LIONS ARE ROARING ON THE WATER

White lions are roaring on the water
And cold are the winds along the shore ;
And I think of men and of their wonder
That now they’ve asked to square the whore.

Who’ve prinked and ; gacked and ; goggled in the slop
Of every ordered fraud and cheat,
Now’d have the bloody swindle stop—
And march against the drums they beat.

So I think of men and of this winter,
And of the spring that comes no more ; 
Death’s lions are raging on the water,
And black are the winds upon the shore.

BEDE, THE BLIND PREACHER by J.S. Phillimore (1907)

Upon a lonely road at shut of day
Bede, the blind preacher, leaning on a lad
To stay his steps, barefoot (what clothes he had
Fluttering loose in the breeze) took his rough way.

More grisly grew the inhuman wild, and blank :
Nothing but here a pine-trunk, ages old,
There a gray boulder jutting from the mould,
Bearded with shaggy moss and lichens dank.

The lad was tired. Perhaps a bush in reach
Showed tempting berries ; or, for the mere jest,
To fool the blind–“I’ll go,” says he, “to rest,
And now’s your time if you’ve a mind to preach.

“Shepherds have seen us from the high hillside ;
Women are here expecting, children hem
The path, gray elders–speak of God to them,
And of His Son for our sins crucified.

A sudden glamour lit the age worn face.
As springs rock-bound upbursting crack their shell,
So from his wan lips broke the living well
Of inspiration, like a torrent race.

He spoke as faith can speak. The blind man seemed
To read the Apocalypse behind the skies :
Heavenward his frail hand beckoned prophet-wise ;
Tears in his disillumined sockets gleamed.
. . . . . . . . .
Look! now the pale moon drops behind the hill ;
The red gold in the East begins to kindle ;
Night vapours deep in valley bottoms dwindle….
But when the Saint in rapture, preaching still,

Felt his arm nudged, and heard the laughing boy’s
“Enough! There’s no one left–let’s on again,”
And ceased, bowing his head in silence,–then
All round with vast and congregated noise
The stones of the wilderness returned “Amen.”

«Transcribed from Things New and Old, MCMXVIII»

SOME BEAUTIFUL BARDIC POETRY from the book Irish Scholars of the Penal Days written by the Rev. William P. Treacy (1889)

OH, THUS THE BARDS.

Enthroned among the dark-green pines
By no one seen, the linnet sings;
Enthroned among the lone, dark pines
The linnet’s voice now clearly rings;
He recks not who may hear his songs;
He recks not though they be not heard.
He sings of loves, and joys, and wrongs,
He sings for self, the happy bird.

The shepherd on the lonely hills,
At eventide pours forth his strains;
He pipes of meads, and flocks, and rills
And hamlets on the flowery plains;
He dreams not, that deep in the vale,
The toilers pause to hear his voice,
He dreams not that his sweet notes sail
Far off, to make sad hearts rejoice.

Oh, thus the bards in their charmed cells,
Think of their lyres and not of men;
Oh, thus the bards in their hidden cells
Forget the workers in life’s glen;
They sing their songs to please themselves.
And not to please the world’s dull ear;
They sing their songs to soothe their souls,
Not dreaming of the listeners near.

A HYMN TO FAITH.

O! holy Faith; O! Sacred Light,
Forever beam on me;
O like a star, shine on my night,
And light me o’er life’s sea.

The deep I sail is fierce and dark,
A wide, unbounded way,
I cannot steer my wandering bark
Without thy saving ray.

The shore is far away, I know,
And rocks and shoals are nigh,
Among a thousand wrecks I go,
O! star, my starless sky.

I sail, and sail, but know not where—
Before me, death and night;
O! holy Faith, now hear my prayer,
And show thy blessed light.

Shine on the waves that ’round me roar,
Shine on the far-off strand,
Be thou my light-house by the shore,
My sunshine on the land.

THE WORLD.

‘Tis vain to seek for bliss below—
The ancient curse will ever burn;
Our earth is but the nurse of woe—
Who seeks true joys, to God must turn.

Our gardens bear each hateful weed,
While all around the briers bloom;
From Paradise no blissful seed
Was blown afar to Adam’s tomb.

There is no stone on earth to build
A house where drossless joys abide;
There is no gold with power to gild
A peaceful home for human pride.

The world is but a stagnant lake,
Reflecting lovely shores and skies;
Its dazzling stillness dare to break,
And lo! what foulness in it lies.

ROME, THE MOTHER OF ALL CHURCHES.
TO PROTESTANT ENGLAND.

Come back to me, my Fallen child,
Thou art the fruit of Heavenly Love;
I grieve to see thee thus denied:
Come back, come back, my Fallen dove.

A mother’s heart in me thou’lt find,
I’ll think not of thy sinfnl days;
My Daughter, come, —speak not unkind
To her who weeps thy dark, sad ways.

The holy font is near at hand,
I’ve laved in tears a robe for thee;
Thou art a dear though fallen land:
Come back, come back, my child to me.

MY SOUL IS LIKE YON GLOWING FIRE.

My soul is like yon glowing fire,
Burning with a fond desire.
To ascend on high.

My life is like yon taper bright.
Wasting fast its measured light,
Soon, oh, bliss, to die.

My steps are like the dew at morn,
Passing from the rose and thorn,
Passing from earth’s joys and woes.

My heart is like the tiny bark
That flies the waves, when they grow dark,
And seeks in port a sweet repose.

LINES ON FINDING A SINGING BIRD DEAD IN THE SNOW.

What a fount of joy, of rapture,
Was this wood-born child of song! 

Like a smile or ray of sunshine,
Through the air he passed along;

All the Summer he was making
Verses wild, yet sweet of flow; 

Ah! how sad to see his plumage
Flying with the flakes of snow.

Priest and bard would come to listen
To his thrilling matin lay,

And the bard would sit all dreamy,
And the priest kneel down to pray; 

Hear the winds above him sighing!
Do they whisper of his woe?

Like a bunch of bleeding roses
Now he lies upon the snow.

Ah! no more we’ll see him building
Happy homes of down and moss; 

Ah! no more we’ll hear him chanting
On the chapel’s golden cross;

In the earth rich seeds are hidden,
Flowers will come in Summer’s glow; 

But our garden will be lonely,
For its bard sleeps in the snow.

SWEET LYRE, ADIEU

Sweet lyre, adieu, adieu forever!
I lay thee by the lone, green sea,
Its troubled heart shall never, never,
Grow weary of thy melody.

Its winds and waves shall touch thy strings,
And saddest harmonies awake,
Its storms shall sweep thy music-springs,
While ships go down, and brave hearts break.

Sweet lyre, adieu, adieu forever!
The World cares not for songs from me,
I’ll sing no more; but Earth shall never
Be left without sweet sounds from thee!

A SINFUL SOUL TO CHRIST – Blessed John Ingram’s Sonnet from the Tower (1594)

“In the early edition of Father Southwell’s poems, printed in Edinburgh, a sonnet signed I.I. is inserted in the middle of the volume, at the end of St. Peters Complaint…the initials (might) belong to Father John Ingram, a Scotch secular priest and martyr, who in 1594 was brought from the north and confined in the Tower. He is well known to have written verses during his imprisonment, and it does not seem extravagant to conjecture that a copy of Father Southwell’s poems having been passed to him, he may have composed this sonnet on a blank half page, whence it has passed into the Edinburgh edition. The poem seems to have been composed under stress of extreme mental if not physical suffering.” – The Month : A Catholic Magazine. 1896.

___A Sinful Soul to Christ
I lurk, I lour in dungeon deep of mind,
In mourning mood, I run a restless race.
With wounding pangs my soul is pined,
My grief it grows, and death draws on apace.
What life can last except there come release?
Fear threats despair, my sin’s infernal wage ;
I faint, I fall, most woeful is my case ;
Who can help me, who may this storm assuage?
O Lord of life, our peace, our only pledge,
O blessful light, who life of death hast wrought,
Of heavenly love the brightsome beam and badge,
Who by thy death, from death and hell us brought
___Revive my soul, my sins, my sores redress
___That live I may with thee in lasting bless.

SAINT BERNARD, by way of dialogue, to the Gentle Reader.

Transcribed by E.T.H. III from the introduction to A Hive of Sacred Honey-Combs Containing Most Sweet and Heavenly Counsel Taken Out of the Works of the Mellifluous Doctor S. Bernard, Abbot of Clareval. Faithfully translated into English by the R. Fa. Antonie Batt Monk, of the holy Order of S. Bennet, of the Congregation of England. Printed at Doway by Peter Avroy, for John Heigham. Anno 1631.

The Author, by way of dialogue, to the gentle Reader.

I speak of wonders : worthy yet belief.
Bernard what’s this? Is it of joy or grief?
Dost thou yet live? I live. Therefore not dead?
Yes. What dost thou? I sleep within this bed.
Speak’st thou, or art thou silent? Both. Then why
Hold’st thou thy peace? Dull sleep hath clos’d mine eye.
Why dost thou speak? Because I am alive.
What are thy words? Those accents which derive
From sacred mysteries their language. Then
To whom? To such as read and mark my pen.
What not to all? No. Then once more to whom?
To those, who sweet things love, and love alone.
Hast thou a name? I have. Tell what it is.
Bernard. Not without cause, unless I miss.
Thou dost not. Why? What means it? prithee say.
Bernardus, Bona nardus, a sweet way.
Why nardus? From my smell. What odour? sweet,
Where sweet perfumes, and sweetest flowers meet.
To whom and where? To him which doth incline
To read, and to observe this book divine.
What surname hast thou? Clarivall. Dost here
Abide? I did, but do not. Then say where.
Upon the top of yonder glorious hill,
Where perfect joy doth true contentment fill.
What wert thou then, when here thou didst abide,
Within this valley? Humble, free from pride.
Art thou now great? Yes. Great by so much more,
As I was truly humble heretofore.
But doth this valley nought of thine contain?
Nought but my bones. How long shall they remain
Within their urn? Until this carcass be
Changed from earth, unto eternity.
When will this be? Even then, and not until
All flesh shall rise again, to good or ill.

Finis.

THOMAS POUNDE’S POEM FROM PRISON written upon the occasion of St. Edmund Campion’s Martyrdom.

“Thomas Pounde was evidently a man of great ability and of considerable poetical talent . The late Mr. Simpson in p. 325 of his Life of Father Campion ascribes to Pounde the following lines, written upon the occasion of the martyrdom of Father Edmund Campian and his companions, when among other prodigies mentioned by Father Persons in his Epistle of Comfort to the Priests, which he wrote early in 1582, he gives an account of “the wonderful stay and standing of the Thames the same day that Campian and his company were martyred, to the great marvel of the citizens and mariners, and the like stay of the river Trent about the same time. Which accidents, though some will impute to other causes, yet happening at such special times, when so open and unnatural injustice was done they cannot but be interpreted as tokens of God’s indignation.”

Taken from Records of the English province of the Society of Jesus : Historic Facts Illustrative of the Labours and Sufferings of its Members in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries. Vol. III. by Henry Foley, S.J. London : Burns and Oates. 1878.

What iron heart that would not melt in grief?
what steel or stone could keep him dry from tears?
to see a Campion hailed like a Thief,
to end his life, with both his glorious peers.
in whose three deaths unto the standers by :
even all the world almost might seem to die.

England must lose a sovereign salve for sin
a sweet receipt for subtle Heresy :
India a Saint her silly souls to win,
Turkey a bane for her idolatry.
the Church a soldier against Babylon :
to batter hell and her confusion.

The scowling skies did storm and puff apace,
they could not bear the wrong that malice wrought,
the sun drew in his shining purple face,
the moistened clouds shed brinish tears for thought,
the river Thames awhile astonished stood
to count the drops of Campion’s sacred blood.

Nature with tears bewailed her heavy loss,
honesty feared herself should shortly die,
religion saw her champion on the cross,
angels and saints desired leave to cry,
even heresy the eldest child of hell,
began to blush, and thought she did not well.

And yet behold when Campion made his end,
his Humble heart was so bedewed with grace,
that no reproach could once his mind offend,
mildness possessed his sweet and cheerful face,
a patient spectacle was presented then,
in sight of God, of angels, saints, and men.

The heavens did clear, the sun like gold did shine,
the clouds were dry, the fearful river ran,
nature and virtue wept their watered eyen,
religion joyed to see so mild a man,
men, angels, saints, and all that saw him die,
forgot their grief, his joys appeared so nigh.

They saw his patience did expect a crown,
his scornful cart a glorious heavenly place.
his lowly mind a happy high reknown,
his humble cheer a shining angel’s face,
his fear, his grief, his death & agony,
a joy, a peace, a life in majesty.

From thence he prays and sings in melody
for our recure, and calleth us to him,
he stands before the throne with harmony,
and is a glorious suture for our sin.
with wings of love he jumped up so high,
to help the cause for which he sought to die.

Rejoice, be glad, triumph, sing hymns of joy,
Campion, Sherwin, Brian, live in bliss,
they sue, they seek the ease of our annoy,
they pray, they speak, and all effectual is,
not like to men on earth as heretofore,
but like to saints in heaven, and that is more.

Finis.

Transcribed by E.T.H. III from A true reporte on the death & martyrdome of M. Campion, iesuite and preiste, & M. Sherwin, and M. Bryan preistes, at Tiborne the first of December 1581, observid and written by a Catholique preist, wich was present thereat.

THE HYMNE from The Office of our Blessed Lady at Matins. (1658)

Transcribed by E.T.H. III from The Primer, or Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary. According to the Reformed Latin ; with like graces Priviledged. At Antwerpe, Printed by Balthasar Moret. 1658.

Whom earth, and sea, and eke the skies,
Adore, and worship, and declare,
As ruler of the triple frame,
The closure of Maria bare.
Whom both the Sun and all,
Do serve in their due time and space,
A maidens inward parts doth bear,
Bedewed with celestial grace.
Blest is the mother by this gift,
Whose womb as in a coffer held,
The maker that surmounteth all,
Who in his hand the world doth weld.
She blessed is by heavenly news,
And fruitful by the Holy Ghost,
From out whose womb was yielded forth,
Whom nations had desired most.
Glory be unto thee O Lord,
That born was of a Virgin pure,
With the Father and Holy Ghost,
All ages ever to endure. Amen.

A Dittie from W. BLUNDELL, 1600.

THE time hath been we had one faith,
And strode aright one ancient path ;
The time is now that each man may
See new Religions coin’d each day.

___Sweet Jesu, with thy mother mild.
___Sweet Virgin mother, with thy child,
___Angels and Saints of each degree,
___Redress our country’s misery.

The time hath been priests did accord
In exposition of God’s word ;
The time is now, like shipman’s hose,
It’s turn’d by each fond preacher’s glose.

The time hath been that sheep obeyed
Their pastors, doing as they said ;
The time is now that sheep will preach,
And th’ ancient pastors seem to teach.

The time hath been the prelate’s door
Was seldom shut against the poor ;
The time is now, so wives go fine,
They take not thought the beggar kine.

The time hath been men did believe
God’s sacraments his grace did give ;
The time is now men say they are
Uncertain signs and tokens bare.

THE time hath been men would live chaste,
And so could maid that vows had past ;
The time is now that gift has gone,
New gospellers such gifts have none.

___Sweet Jesu, with thy mother mild,
___Sweet Virgin mother, with thy child ;
___Angels and Saints of each degree
___Redress our country’s misery.

The time hath been that Saints could see,
Could hear and help our misery ;
The time is now that fiends alone
Have leave to range saints must be gone.

The time hath been fear made us quake
To sin, lest God should us forsake ;
The time is now the vilest knave
Is sure (he’ll say) God will him save.

The time hath been to fast and pray,
And do alms deeds was thought the way ;
The time is now, men say indeed,
Such stuff with God hath little meed.

The time hath been, within this land,
One’s word as good as was his bond ;
The time is now, all men may see,
New faiths have killed old honesty.

Taken from Mementoes of the English Martyrs and Confessors : For Every Day In The Year by Henry Sebastian Bowden of the Oratory, Burns and Oates, London, 1910.

John, Marquess of Bute’s Prose Paraphrase of the ALTUS OF SAINT COLUMBA

From the Celtic Magazine, Vol. VII, 1882 :

¶ Every Scottish Celt who takes an interest in the antiquities, history, & literature of his country knows that the Marquess of Bute is a profound and sympathetic student of all that pertains to the ancient life of the Highlands. Then the noble Marquess is anxious to do what he can to awaken in the mind of others the interest in the olden days with which his own is possessed. In proof of this we need only mention his Lordship’s munificence in bearing the cost of publishing, in a style unusually splendid, Dr Clerk’s Edition of Ossian. But the Marquess of Bute is not merely on indolent patron of literature, who merely spends money and woos applause in this easy fashion, he is himself a painstaking investigator in the field of Scottish history. We need not refer more particularly to the various proofs which the different publications of his lordship gives of his patient industry and literary power. We must limit our observations to the beautiful work before us—the Altus of Columba. The noble editor has done his part in a way which is deserving of all praise, for he really elucidates his author, so that the reader, if he is at all in earnest, can easily hold fellowship with him. At the same time, let us say that Columba, or his transcribers, have tied one or two poetic knots, which not even the skill of the noble editor has been able to untie.

¶ But some of our readers may be asking what is this Altus of Columba? We answer that it is a very striking and able religious poem, composed in Latin, by the famous Abbot of Iona—the Apostle and Spiritual father of the North Highlands. There is no mystery about the word Altus. It is the first word in the poem, and so, just as we say “Scots wha hae” as a title for the song in which it occurs, so Altus became the title for the whole poem of which it is the first word. The poem is peculiar in form. It consists of a series of short poems, arranged under each letter of the alphabet, each poem beginning with its own letter. Under A we have fourteen lines, under each of the other letters twelve lines. It may be mentioned that the old classic prosody is rejected for the easier remembered accent and rhyme.

¶ This remarkable poem is really a Confession of Faith. It might have been drawn up for the instruction of King Brude, the royal Invernessian won to Christ by the saintly poet and missionary, if we could suppose the Pictish King capable of understanding Latin. This poem shows us the true miracles by which Columba overcame Celtic heathenism—the true sign of the cross which rolled back on their hinges the closed gates of the Castle of King Brude. Here we see that Columba could think clearly, and express his thinking in words that drop like manna. Then the articles of his creed were very simple and concrete, far removed from reasoned propositions ever becoming more abstract as they are drawn further away from their concrete basis. Columba sang to his Celtic converts, first, of the ineffable glory of the Most High as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in precise but poetic terms. Then follows a description of His creative energy in relation to the Angelic world. The noble editor feels that the Angelology of Columba “was not of that fixed and precise character” which it afterwards became—was different, in short, from the portentous and fantastic fabric which it grew into under the plastic subtlety of the Schoolmen… The profoundest thought in his lines on this subject is that in which he ascribes a second fall to the “devil and his satellites,” as a further punishment for seducing man from his innocence. Next in order comes Columba’s conception of the material world in which we live. To him the world was a flat disc, with the ocean for its rim or boundary. The firmament was daily replenished by water spouts from this ocean to provide rain. The ascension of these jets of water explained to his mind the tides ! Let us give here a specimen of Columba’s poetry descriptive of rain :—

“Ligatas aquas nubibus
frequenter cribrat Dominus,
ut ne erumpant protinus
simul ruptis obicibus;
quarum uberioribus
venis, velut uberibus,
pedetentim natautibus
telli per tractus istius,
gelidis ac ferventibus
diversis in temporibus,
usquam influunt flumina
nunquam delicientia.”

¶ These terse and beautiful lines have full justice done to their merits in the translation which the noble editor gives to them, and which we subjoin as a fair sample of the translation of the Altus as a whole :—

“The waters which are bound up in the clouds the Lord doth oftentimes make to to fall, as through a sieve, lest they should suddenly break through their bounds and burst out together ; and from the richer streams thereof, as from breasts, slowly Mowing through the expanses of this earth, cold and warm with the changing seasons, the rivers ever run, never failing.”

¶ Whatever we may think of the science of these lines, we can have no doubt that they discover a mind keenly alive to the beauties and wonders of the world in which it was placed.

¶ The poet goes on to describe the “nether-world in the innermost parts of the earth,” where there is heard the terrible wail of Gehenna; and the place under the earth where dwell souls, who, though not in heaven, bend the knee to the Lord in prayer… Next in order comes an account of the world of the good—the Paradise which the Lord planted with the tree of life as its centre. The Paradise of Adam and Eve is part of heaven, and according to the poet still exists somewhere in this world. Clearly Columba wished to raise the earth as near heaven as possible, and to bring down heaven as far as may be to meet it, so that both should exist, not separate, but in happy fellowship. The poem concludes with a solemn account of what shall happen in the last days. Dugald Buchanan in his Day of Judgment has given fuller expression to the ideas that were in the mind of Columba. The Saint is here vivid and rapid as the lightning, and we need not be surprised that such power was followed by the spiritual transformation of a kingdom. The reader, however, is vexed and irritated by the intrusion of an obscure and mythological symbolism, which grates upon him like sand in bread; an explanation of which, notwithstanding the brave efforts of the noble editor, seems impossible. Was Columba for a moment led aside from his simplicity in deference to the maxim, still not without its malign influence among us Celts, Omne ignotum pro magnifico?

¶ We cordially sympathise with the desire of the Marquess to draw men’s attention to this poem for its own sake, and not for its historical interest merely. Though it will scarcely bear comparison with the Dies Irae, it is nevertheless a very marvellous and impressive poem. Columba … is the heritage of all who believe that Jesus came in the flesh. He is for mankind… We read of the Highland minister who lay all night on the grave of Rutherford that he might catch his fire. We have a nobler grave nearer home, the spirit of whose inhabitant would help us to transform misery into joy, ignorance to knowledge, to cause light to arise in the darkness—the true signs and wonders of the great in all ages. Then in the closing words of the Altus, we shall not only have fellowship with Columba and his fellows, but—

” . . . Sic cum Ipso erimus

in diversis ordinibus
dignitatum pro meritis
praemiorum perpetuis,
permansuri in gloria
a saeculis in gloria.”

¶ We would most earnestly draw the attention of our studious readers to this ancient poem. It is beautifully printed, and altogether worthy of the publishers, and its noble editor.

The Altus of Saint Columba

The Most High, the Father of all, the Ancient of days, and Unbegotten, without origin, without beginning, and without limit, was, is, and will be for ever and ever ; with Whom is co-eternal in everlasting glory of Godhead the Only-Begotten Son, Who also is the Christ, and the Holy Spirit. We set not forth three gods, but say that God is One, still holding ever the faith in Three most glorious Persons.

He created the Angels in original goodness ; the Orders, and Archangels of every Principality and Throne, Might and Power ; that the goodness and Majesty of the Trinity might not be inactive in any gift of bounty, but might have heavenly creatures wherein to show graces as great as any utterance can express.

From the highest place in the kingdom of heaven, from the glorious brightness of the Angelic state, from the loveliness of his form, fell by pride the morning-star whom God had made, and in the same woeful fall of the author of vain-glory and obstinate envy went to ruin the Apostate Angels, while the others abode still in their princely dignities.

The great unclean dragon, dread and old, who also was that slippery serpent which was more subtle than any wild beast or living thing of the earth, drew with him into the pit of infernal abodes and divers prisons the third part of the stars, who had forsaken the True Light and were cast down headlong from Paradise.

The Most High having foreseen the structure and harmony of every part of the world before any of it yet existed, created heaven and earth. He made the sea and the waters, the herb also yielding seed, and the tree forming thickets, the sun, the moon, and the stars, the fire and all things needful for us, the birds, the fishes and the cattle, beasts and all living things, and at the last He made the first man to rule over them all, according to His Own fore-ordinance.

As soon as were made the constellations, the lights of the firmament, the Angels, with praiseworthy song, due and unalterable, with one consent praised for His marvellous handywork, the Lord of the vast mass, the Framer of the heavenly worlds, and in love and free-will, under no compulsion of nature, gave thanks in exquisite harmony to the Lord.

When our two first parents had been assailed and beguiled, the devil and his crew fell a second time. These ate they who by the dreadfulness of their faces and the noise of their wings would scare frail fear-stricken men, unable to gaze with fleshly eyes upon such beings. These are they who are bound in bundles in the bonds of their prison-house.

The Lord took the evil one out of the midst and cast him down. The stormy flock of his rebel followers crowdeth the air, yet still unseen, lest men should be so polluted by their evil pattern and foul acts as to defile themselves before the eyes of all, unhidden by screen or wall.

From the three deeper fountains of ocean, the three quarters of the sea, the clouds driven by the winds as they come forth from their treasure-houses, bear up sea-mists through dark-blue water-spouts into the regions of the sky, to benefit anon the crops, the vineyards, and the budding herbage, and thus each fountain emptieth those shallows of the sea whereto it correspondeth.

When the fleeting and despotic present glory of kings, which endureth but a moment in the world, hath been abrogated by the will of God, behold, the giants are proved to groan in much suffering under the waters, to burn in fire and torments, choked by the angry whirlpools of Cocytus. Hollow rocks rest on them, and the waves dash them against the stones.

The waters which are bound up in the clouds the Lord doth oftentimes make to fall, as through a sieve, lest they should suddenly break through their bounds and bust out together ; and from the richer streams thereof, as from breasts, slowly flowing through the expanses of this earth, cold and warm with the changing seasons, the rivers ever run, never failing.

The Divine power of the Great God hangeth upon nothing the round earth and the appointed girth of the great deep, borne up by the strong hand of God Almighty upon pillars which uphold it like bars, headlands and cliffs immovably established upon stout foundations as it were upon bases.

No man seemeth to doubt but that there is a netherworld in the innermost parts of the earth. There, there are darkness, worms, and grievous beasts. There, there is fire of brimstone, glowing with devouring flames. There, there is roaring of men, weeping and gnashing of teeth. There, there is from of old the terrible wail of gehenna. There, there is the dreadful burning heat of thirst and hunger.

Under the earth, as we read, we know that there are dwellers, whose knee ofttimes bendeth prayerfully at [the name of] the Lord [Jesus], and among whom, albeit challenged, none was found able to unroll the book written [within and without,] sealed with seven seals, that book whereof the Same Lord alone loosed the seals, that book which He alone prevailed to open, and so fulfilled the decrees announced beforehand by the Prophets concerning His coming.

In the sublime opening of the [book of] Genesis we read that the Lord had planted a garden from the beginning, a garden from whose well-spring four rivers are flowing, a garden in whose flowery midst is set the tree of life, the leaves whereof fall not, and the leaves of that tree are for the healing of the nations, a garden whose pleasures are unspeakable and abounding.

Who hath gone up into Sinai, the appointed mountain of the Lord ? Who hath heard the thunders pealing beyond measure ? Who hath heard the voice of the trumpet sounding exceeding loud ? Who also hath seen the lightnings flash like a crown round the peak? Who hath seen the meteors and the thunder-bolts, and the rocks striking together ? Who save Moses, the judge of the people of Israel ?

The day of the King of kings most righteous, the day of the Lord is near, a day of wrath and vengeance, a day of darkness and clouds, and a day of wondrous mighty thunderings, a day also of distress, lamentation and sorrow, a day wherein shall fail the love and desire of women, and the striving of men, and the lust of this world.

We shall all stand trembling before the judgment-seat of the Lord, and shall give an account of all that we have done, beholding our iniquities set before our eyes, and the books of conscience laid open before our faces. And then shall we break forth into right bitter weeping and sobbing, having no longer the wherewith to work.

When the wondrous trumpet of the first Archangel shall sound, every sepulchre, be it never so sealed, and every grave-yard shall suddenly open, the chill cold [of death which had stiffened the bodies] of the men of this world shall thaw, from every quarter the bones shall come together to their sockets, and the etherial spirits shall come to meet these same bones and enter in again, each into his own dwelling.

Orion leaveth the Pleiades, the brightest of constellations, and wandereth away from the turning-point, the hinge of heaven, through the bounds of the Ocean of the unknown Eastern circuit, and, anon, wheeling by certain roundabout ways he returneth where he was before, and riseth after two years, as an evening star in place of Hesperus — spiritual meanings being taken for material images used metaphorically.

When the Most High Lord Christ shall come down from the heavens, the glorious sign and banner of the Cross shall shine before Him. Then shall the two great lights be covered and the stars shall fall unto the earth, even as a fig-tree casteth her untimely figs, and the surface of the world shall be as a fiery furnace. Then shall hosts hide themselves in the dens of the mountains.

By songs of praise ringing unceasingly, by thousands of Angels, shining in holy dances, and by the four living creatures all full of eyes, with the four-and-twenty happy elders who cast down their crowns under the feet of the Lamb of God, — the Trinity is praised in eternal repetitions of the hymn Thrice-Holy.

The raging fury of fire shall devour the adversaries, who will not to believe that Christ is come from God the Father : but we shall forthwith be caught up to meet the Lord in the air, and so shall we ever be with the Lord, placed in everlasting ranks of exaltation and reward differing according to our deserts, and so to abide in glory, for ever and ever in glory.

Taken from THE ALTUS OF ST COLUMBA. Edited with a Prose Paraphrase and Notes by John, Marquess Of Bute, K.T. Blackwood & Sons: Edinburgh and London. 1882.

CORRUPTIO PESSIMI OPTIMA by John Swinnerton Phillimore

Despair not if the inward-seeking eye
______of penitent meditation thou canst trace
___Within thee nothing but the meeting-place
For all corruption ; if within thee lie
The slaughterhouse, the common-fosse, the sty ;
___And still, the more the suns and rains of grace
______Are busy about it, so much more the case
Grows helpless, letting filthier venoms fly.

For sweetest things in nature have their growth
___From putrefaction. Whence do roses brew
______Their delicate breath and coil their silken shape?
From rottenness. And the vine-root, nothing loth,
___Drinks of the shamble-stuff (though purest dew
______Christen the vine) and breeds the holier grape.

THE KINGS by Louise Imogen Guiney

A man said unto his Angel :
“My spirits are fallen low,
And I cannot carry this battle :
O brother! where might I go ?

“The terrible Kings are on me
With spears that are deadly bright;
Against me so from the cradle
Do fate and my fathers fight.”

Then said to the man his Angel :
“Thou wavering witless soul,
Back to the ranks! What matter
To win or to lose the whole,

“As judged by the little judges
Who hearken not well, nor see ?
Not thus, by the outer issue,
The Wise shall interpret thee.

“Thy will is the sovereign measure
And only event of things :
The puniest heart, defying,
Were stronger than all these Kings.

“Though out of the past they gather,
Mind’s Doubt, and Bodily Pain,
And pallid Thirst of the Spirit
That is kin to the other twain,

“And Grief, in a cloud of banners,
And ringletted Vain Desires,
And Vice, with the spoils upon him
Of thee and thy beaten sires, –

“While Kings of eternal evil
Yet darken the hills about,
Thy part is with broken sabre
To rise on the last redoubt ;

“To fear not sensible failure,
Nor covet the game at all,
But fighting, fighting, fighting,
Die, driven against the wall.”

Transcribed from Happy Endings : The Collected Lyrics of Louise Imogen Guiney, Boston, Ma. 1909.

The SAINTS of the END of the WORLD (Irish ; author unknown ; 11th Century)

More bitter to me than Death coming between my teeth are the folk that will come after me, who will be all of one kind.

Wicked is the time which will come then ; envy, murder, oppression of the weak, every harm coming swiftly, and neither layman righteous nor righteous priest.

No king who gives fair play or justice, no virgin bishop over the altar, no landowner who will pay tithes from his herds and his fine cattle.

The saints who did God’s will at the beginning of time were uneasy and naked, scurvy, muddy ; they were not stout and fat.

The men of keen learning, who served the King of the Sun, did not molest boys or women ; their natures were pure.

Scanty shirts, clumsy cloaks, hearts sad and piteous, short rough shocks of hair—and very rough monastic rules.

There will come after that the saints of the latter day world, with plunder, with cattle, with mitres, with rings, with chessboards,

With silk and sarsenet and satin, with soft quilts after drinking, with contempt for the wisdom of dear God—they shall be in the safe-keeping of the Devil.

I tell the seed of Adam, the hypocrites will come, they will assume the shapes of God—the slippery ones, the robbers.

They shall fade away with the same speed as grass and young corn in the green earth ; they shall pass away together like the flower of the fields.

The liars of the latter-day world shall go on one path, into the grasp of the Devil, by God’s will, into dark bitter torments.

Transcribed from A Celtic Miscellany : Translations from the Celtic Literature by Kenneth Hurlstone Jackson. London. 1951.

LLYFR TALIESIN, Chief of the Bards of the West, Son of Saint Henwg of Caerlleon upon Usk

Transcribed from the Book of Taliesin which is found in William Skene’s anthology of dark-age Welsh Bardic poetry – The Four Ancient Books of Wales. “Often cited, but difficult to obtain, this book contains every remaining piece of Bardic poetry known. The poems are translated from four manuscripts – the Black Book of Caermarthen, the Red Book of Hergest (which is also the source of the Mabinogion), the Book of Taliessin and the Book of Aneurin, all of which date from the twelfth to the fifteenth centuries A.D. The poems themselves date from much earlier, probably from the sixth century by internal evidence. This corpus is one of the treasures of world literature. It is also the only true source material for the study of Bardic lore, which reputedly preserved the esoteric (and long-lost) beliefs of the Druids. Largely written to satisfy wealthy patrons, much of the subject matter is related to mead-inspired battles, particularly the renowned Gododin cycle. However, the poetry rises above the gory combat and toadying to achieve an artistic height that would not be reached for many centuries. Some of the later works, which use Christian themes as a jumping-off point, have an almost haiku-like quality. The poems are infused throughout with mystic clarity, strange flashes of wisdom, and insight into humanity and nature.”

SONG OF THE LITTLE WORLD

The beautiful I sing of, I will sing.
The world one day more.
Much I reason,
And I meditate.
I will address the bards of the world,
Since it is not told me
What supports the world,
That it falls not into vacancy.
Or if the world should fall,
On what would it fall?
Who would uphold it?
The world, how it comes again,
When it falls in decay,
Again in the enclosing circle.
The world, how wonderful it is,
That it falls not at once.
The world, how peculiar it is,
So great was it trampled on.
Johannes, Mattheus,
Lucas, and Marcus,
They sustain the world
Through the grace of the Spirit.

SONG TO MEAD

I WILL adore the Ruler, chief of every place,
Him, that supports the heaven: Lord of everything.
Him, that made the water for every one good,
Him, that made every gift, and prospers it.
May Maelgwn of Mona be affected with mead, and affect us,
From the foaming mead-horns, with the choicest pure liquor,
Which the bees collect, and do not enjoy.
Mead distilled sparkling, its praise is everywhere.
The multitude of creatures which the earth nourishes,
God made for man to enrich him.
Some fierce, some mute, he enjoys them.
Some wild, some tame, the Lord makes them.
Their coverings become clothing.
For food, for drink, till doom they will continue.
I will implore the Ruler, sovereign of the country of peace,
To liberate Elphin from banishment.
The man who gave me wine and ale and mead.
And the great princely steeds, beautiful their appearance,
May he yet give me bounty to the end.
By the will of God, he will give in honour,
Five five-hundred festivals in the way of peace.
Elphinian knight of mead, late be thy time of rest.

AR CLAWR ELUYD

On the face of the earth his equal was not born,
Three persons of God, one Son gentle, strong Trinity.
Son of the Godhead, Son of the Manhood, one son wonderful.
Son of God, a fortress, Son of the blessed Mary, a good son to see.
Great his destiny, great God supreme, a glorious portion.
Of the race of Adam, and Abraham he was born.
Of the race of the Lord, a portion of the eloquent host,
was he born.
He brought by a word the blind and deaf from every ailment.
A people gluttonous, vain, iniquitous, vile, perverse,
We have risen against the Trinity, after redemption.
The Cross of Christ clearly, a breastplate gleaming
against every ailment.
Against every hardship may it be certainly a city of protection.

THE FOLD OF THE BARDS

MEDITATING were my thoughts
On the vain poetry of the bards of Brython.
Making the best of themselves in the chief convention.
Enough, the care of the smith’s sledge-hammer.
I am in want of a stick, straitened in song,
The fold of the bards, who knows it not?
Fifteen thousand over it
Adjusting it
I am a harmonious one; I am a clear singer.
I am steel; I am a druid.
I am an artificer; I am a scientific one.
I am a serpent; I am love; I will indulge in feasting.
I am not a confused bard drivelling,
When songsters sing a song by memory,
They will not make wonderful cries;
May I be receiving them.
Like receiving clothes without a hand,
Like sinking in a lake without swimming
The stream boldly rises tumultuously in degree.
High in the blood of sea-board towns.
The rock wave-surrounded, by great arrangement,
Will convey for us a defence, a protection from the enemy.
The rock of the chief proprietor, the head of tranquillity.
The intoxication of meads will cause us to speak.
I am a cell, I am a cleft, I am a restoration,
I am the depository of song; I am a literary man;
I love the high trees, that afford a protection above,
And a bard that composes, without earning anger;
I love not him that causes contention;
He that speaks ill of the skilful shall not possess mead.
It is a fit time to go to the drinking,
With the skilful men, about art,
And a hundred knots, the custom of the country,
The shepherd of the districts, support of gates,
Like going without a foot to battle.
He would not journey without a foot.
He would not breed nuts without trees,
Like seeking for ants in the heath.
Like an instrument of foolish spoil,
Like the retinue of an army without a head,
Like feeding the unsheltered on lichen.
Like ridging furrows from the country
Like reaching the sky with a hook,
Like deprecating with the blood of thistles,
Like making light for the blind,
Like sharing clothes to the naked,
Like spreading buttermilk on the sands,
Like feeding fish upon milk,
Like roofing a hail with leaves,
Like killing a tortoise with rods.
Like dissolving riches before a word.
I am a bard of the hail, I am a chick of the chair.
I will cause to loquacious bards a hindrance.
Before I am dragged to my harsh reward,
May we buy thee, that wilt protect us, thou son of Mary.

TO THE ENGLISH MARTYRS Francis Thompson

RAIN, rain on Tyburn tree,
Red rain a-falling;
Dew, dew on Tyburn tree,
Red dew on Tyburn tree,
And the swart bird a-calling.
Thence it roots so fast and free,
Yet it is a gaunt tree,
Black as be
The swart birds alone that seek,
With red-bedabbled breast and beak,
Its lank black shadow falling.

___The shadow lies on England now
Of the deathly-fruited bough,
Cold and black with malison
Lies between the land and sun;
Putting out the sun, the bough
Shades England now!

___The troubled heavens do wan with care,
And burthened with the earth’s despair
Shiver a-cold ; the starved heaven
Has want with wanting man bereaven.
Blest fruit of the unblest bough!
Aid the land that smote you, now!
Which feels the sentence and the curse
Ye died if so ye might reverse.
When God was stolen from out man’s mouth,
Stolen was the bread; then hunger and drouth
Went to and fro ; began the wail,
Struck root the poor-house and the jail.
Ere cut the dykes, let through that flood,
Ye writ the protest with your blood ;
Against this night wherein our breath
Withers, the toiled heart perisheth,
Entered the caveat of your death.
Christ, in the form of His true Bride,
Again hung pierced and crucified,
And groaned, “I thirst!” Not still ye stood,—
Ye had your hearts, ye had your blood ;
And pouring out the eager cup,
“The wine is weak, yet, Lord Christ, sup !
“Ah, blest ! who bathed the parched Vine
With richer than His Cana-wine,
And heard, your most sharp supper past,
“Ye kept the best wine to the last !”

___Ah, happy who
That sequestered secret knew,
How sweeter than bee-haunted dells
The blosmy blood of martyrs smells!
Who did upon the scaffold’s bed,
The ceremonial steel between you, wed
With God’s grave proxy, high and reverend Death ;
Or felt about your neck, sweetly,
(While the dull horde
Saw but the unrelenting cord)
The Bridegroom’s arm, and that long kiss
That kissed away your breath, and claimed you His.
You did, with thrift of holy gain,
Unvenoming the sting of pain,
Hive its sharp heather-honey. Ye
Had sentience of the mystery
To make Abaddon’s hooked wings
Buoy you up to starry things ;
Pain of heart, and pain of sense,
Pain the scourge, ye taught to cleanse ;
Pain the loss became possessing ;
Pain the curse was pain the blessing.
Chains, rack, hunger, solitude these,
Which did your soul from earth release,
Left it free to rush upon
And merge in its compulsive sun.
Desolated, bruised, forsaken,
Nothing taking, all things taken,
Lacerated and tormented,
The stifled soul, in naught contented,
On all hands straitened, cribbed, denied,
Can but fetch breath o’ the Godward side.
Oh to me, give but to me
That flower of felicity,
Which on your topmost spirit ware
The difficult and snowy air
Of high refusal ! and the heat
Of central love which fed with, sweet
And holy fire i’ the frozen sod
Roots that had ta’en hold on God.

___Unwithering youth in you renewed
Those rosy waters of your blood,—
The true Fons Juventutis—ye
Pass with conquest that Red Sea,
And stretch out your victorious hand
Over the Fair and Holy Land;
Compasses about
With a ninefold-battled shout,
Trumpet, and wind and clang of wings,
And a thousand fiery things,
And Heaven’s triumphing spears: while far
Beneath go down the Egyptian war—
A loosed hillside—with brazen jar
Underneath your dreadful blood,
Into steep night. Celestial feud
Not long forbears the Tudor’s brood,
Rule, unsoldered from his line,
See unto the Scot decline ;
And the kin Scots’ weird shall be
Axe, exile and infamy ;
Till the German fill the room
Of him who gave the bloody doom.
Oh by the Church’s pondering art
Late set and named upon the chart
Of her divine astronomy,
Though your influence from on high
Long ye shed unnoted! Bright
New cluster in our Northern night!
Cleanse from its pain and undelight
An impotent and tarnished hymn,
Whose marish exhalations dim
Splendours they would transfuse! And thou
Kindle the words which blot thee now,
Over whose sacred corse unhearsed
Europe veiled her face, and cursed
The regal mantle grained in gore
Of Genius, Freedom, Faith and More!

___Ah, happy Fool of Christ ! unawed
By familiar sanctities,
You served your Lord at holy ease.
Dear Jester in the Courts of God !
In whose spirit, enchanting yet,
Wisdom and love, together met,
Laughed on each other for content !
That an inward merriment,
An inviolate soul of pleasure
To your motions taught a measure
All your days ; which tyrant king,
Nor bonds, nor any bitter thing
Could embitter or perturb ;
No daughter’s tears, nor more acerb,
A daughter’s frail declension from
Thy serene example, come
Between thee and thy much content.
Nor could the last sharp argument
Turn thee from thy sweetest folly ;
To the keen accolade and holy
Thou didst bend low a sprightly knee,
And jest Death out of gravity
As a too sad-visaged friend ;
So, jocund, passing to the end
Of thy laughing martyrdom,
And now from travel art gone home
Where, since gain of thee was given,
Surely there is more mirth in heaven !

___Thus, in Fisher and in thee,
Arose the purple dynasty,
The anointed Kings of Tyburn tree ;
High in act and word each one.
He that spake and to the sun
Pointed—”I shall shortly be
Above yon fellow.” He too, he
No less high of speech and brave,
Whose word was : “Though I shall have
Sharp dinner, yet I trust in Christ
To have a most sweet supper.” Priced
Much by men that utterance was
Of the doomed Leonidas,
Not more exalt than these, which note
Men who thought as Shakespeare wrote.

___But more lofty eloquence
Than is writ by poets’ pens
Lives in your great deaths : O these
Have more fire than poesies !
And more ardent than all ode
The pomps and raptures of your blood !
By that blood ye hold in fee
This earth of England ; Kings are ye,
And ye have armies Want, and Cold,
And heavy judgements manifold
Hung in the unhappy air, and Sins
That the sick gorge to heave begins,
Agonies, and Martyrdoms,
Love, Hope, Desire, and all that comes
From the unwatered soul of man
Gaping on God. These are the van
Of conquest, these obey you ; these,
And all the strengths of weaknesses,
That brazen walls disbed. Your hand,
Princes, put forth to the command,
And levy upon the guilty land
Your saving wars ; on it go down,
Black beneath God’s and heaven’s frown ;
Your prevalent approaches make
With unsustainable Grace, and take
Captive the land that captived you ;
To Christ enslave ye and subdue
Her so bragged freedom : for the crime
She wrought on you in antique time,
Parcel the land among you : reign,
Viceroys to your sweet Suzerain 1
Till she shall know
This lesson in her overthrow :
Hardest servitude has he
That’s gaoled in arrogant liberty ;
And freedom, spacious and unflawed,
Who is walled about with God.

ECCLESIASTICAL BALLADS Francis Thompson

Late in life Francis Thompson planned out a series of Ecclesiastical Ballads, of which, however, only two were completed: The Veteran of Heaven, Whose wounds were His victories, and The Lily of the King, the patient Church, to whom the poet foretells the miseries of the world and her own final peace. Transcribed from the Dublin Review (1910).

THE VETERAN OF HEAVEN

O Captain of the wars, whence won Ye so great scars?
       In what fight did Ye smite, and what manner was the foe?
Was it on a day of rout they compassed Thee about,
       Or gat Ye these adornings when Ye wrought their overthrow?

“Twas on a day of rout they girded Me about,
       They wounded all My brow, and they smote Me through the
___side :
My hand held no sword when I met their armèd horde,
       And the conqueror fell down, and the Conquered bruised his
___pride.”

What is this, unheard before, that the Unarmed makes war,
       And the slain hath the gain, and the Victor hath the rout?
What wars, then, are these, and what the enemies,
       Strange Chief, with the scars of Thy conquest trenched about?

“The Prince I drave forth held the Mount of the North,
       Girt with the guards of flame that roll round the pole.
I drave him with My wars from all his fortress-stars,
       And the sea of death divided that My march might strike its
___goal.

“In the keep of Northern Guard, many a great dæmonian sword
       Burns as it turns round the Mount occult, apart :
There is given him power and place still for some certain days,
       And his name would turn the Sun’s blood back upon its heart.”

What is Thy Name? Oh, show!— “My Name ye may not know ;
       Tis a going forth with banners, and a baring of much swords :
But my titles that are high, are they not upon my thigh?
       ‘King of Kings!’ are the words, ‘Lord of Lords!’;
       It is written ‘King of Kings, Lord of Lords.'”

LILIUM REGIS

O Lily of the King ! low lies thy silver wing,
___And long has been the hour of thine unqueening;
And thy scent of Paradise on the night-wind spills its sighs,
___Nor any take the secrets of its meaning.
O Lily of the King ! I speak a heavy thing,
___O patience, most sorrowful of daughters !
Lo, the hour is at hand for the troubling of the land,
___And red shall be the breaking of the waters.

Sit fast upon thy stalk, when the blast shall with thee talk,
___With the mercies of the king for thine awning;
And the just understand that thine hour is at hand,
___Thine hour at hand with power in the dawning.
When the nations lie in blood, and their kings a broken brood,
___Look up, O most sorrowful of daughters !
Lift up thy head and hark what sounds are in the dark,
___For His feet are coming to thee on the waters !

O Lily of the King ! I shall not see, that sing,
___I shall not see the hour of thy queening !
But my song shall see, and wake like a flower that dawnwinds ___shake,
___And sigh with joy the odours of its meaning.
O Lily of the king, remember then the thing
___That this dead mouth sang; and thy daughters,
As they dance before His way, sing there on the Day,
___What I sang when the Night was on the waters !

THE HERMIT’S SONG (Ireland 9th C.)

See Eriu, vol. i, p. 39, where the Irish text will be found. Transcribed from A Celtic Psaltery by Alfred Perceval Graves (1917)

I long, O Son of the living God,
       Ancient, eternal King,
For a hidden hut on the wilds untrod,
       Where Thy praises I might sing;
A little, lithe lark of plumage grey
       To be singing still beside it,
Pure waters to wash my sin away,
       When Thy Spirit has sanctified it.
Hard by it a beautiful, whispering wood
       Should stretch, upon either hand,
To nurse the many-voiced fluttering brood
       In its shelter green and bland.
Southward, for warmth, should my hermitage face,
       With a runnel across its floor,
In a choice land gifted with every grace,
       And good for all manner of store.
A few true comrades I next would seek
       To mingle with me in prayer,
Men of wisdom, submissive, meek;
       Their number I now declare,
Four times three and three times four,
       For every want expedient,
Sixes two within God’s Church door,
       To north and south obedient;
Twelve to mingle their voices with mine
       At prayer, whate’er the weather,
To Him Who bids His dear sun shine
       On the good and ill together.
Pleasant the Church with fair Mass cloth,
       No dwelling for Christ’s declining
To its crystal candles, of bees-wax both,
       On the pure, white Scriptures shining.
Beside it a hostel for all to frequent,
       Warm with a welcome for each,
Where mouths, free of boasting and ribaldry, vent
       But modest and innocent speech.
These aids to support us my husbandry seeks,
       I name them now without hiding
Salmon and trout and hens and leeks,
       And the honey-bees’ sweet providing.
Raiment and food enow will be mine
       From the King of all gifts and all graces;
And I to be kneeling, in rain or shine,
       Praying to God in all places.

CANON for the REPOSE of THE MOTHER OF GOD by Saint John Damascene

Taken from an Anthologia Graeca Carminum Christianorum, edited by W. Christ and M. Paranikas. (Teubner, Leipzig, MDCCCLXXI, pp. 229-232.) Done into English verse by G. R. Woodward, M.A., sometime Scholar of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. Transcribed from Dublin Review (1913).

ODE I

I will ope this mouth of mine,
To be fraught with breath divine,
Anthem loud that I may raise
To the Royal Mother’s praise,
Whom, and that in glorious wise,
Openly I eulogize,
And the wonders of the same
Readily herewith proclaim.

Virgin damsels, more and less,
With the Songster-prophetess,
Miriam, exalt with us
Greater Mary’s Exodus:
For the Maiden, whom alone
Mother unto God we own,
Meriteth to journey o’er
Jordan to the heavenly shore.

Sooth, ’twas very meet that thou,
Seen as “Heaven on earth” till now,
Shouldest be, most holy Maid,
Into heavenly courts convey’d;
That thou shouldest, on this day,
Glorious and in bright array,
Take thy stand, a spotless Bride,
By thy God and Sovran’s side.

[This Canon has no Second Ode.]

ODE III

Goddes Mother, Fountain rife
With abundant streams of life,
Stablish us who hymn thy worth,
In concent of holy mirth;
Think on us; and, more than this,
Win us crowns of heavenly bliss.

Born of mortal womb, fair Maid,
Debt to Nature thou hast paid,
Hast accomplish’d thy decease,
And hast pass’d, by glad release
(Not till thou hadst given birth
To the Life of all the earth)
To that Life which is divine,
Real, true, and hath no fine.

From the North, South, East and West,
Sped the Twelve Apostles, prest :
Thither drew there, from on high,
Flocks of winged Angels, nigh;
Urged by God’s Almighty will,
Bound were all for Syon’s hill ;
Lady, straining every nerve,
At thy grave-side thee to serve.

ODE IV

This unfathomed godly plan
Of the Word in Flesh of Man,
Offspring of a Virgin-womb,
Was foreseen by Ambakoum,
When he cried in olden days,
“Mighty Lord, be thine the praise.”

‘Twas a wonder-sight to see
Soaring over lake and lea
Her that was the lively Shrine,
Palace of the King-Divine.
Marvellous are thy works and ways ;
Mighty Lord, be thine the praise.

Mother of thy God, to-day
Upward as thou went’st away,
Angel-hosts, in joy and dread,
Snow-white wings around thee spread,
O’er that body, which could fold
Him, whom heaven can no-way hold.

If the Infinite, her Child,
(Whereby “Heaven” she is styled),
If the Fruit of Mary’s womb
Fain endured a mortal tomb,
Why should be the Mother spared
Sepulture, whereof He shared?

ODE V

All Creation with amaze
Eyed thy glorious heavenly rays ;
When, unwedded Maiden clear,
Thou didst quit this earthly sphere
For abodes, that last for ever,
And the life that endeth never,
Granting life with ceaseless days
To the hymners of thy praise.

Let th’ Apostles wake the morn
With the winding of the horn;
Let the anthem now be sung
By the men of many a tongue;
With unbounded light ablaze
Let the welkin ring her praise,
While the Angels, all of them,
Chaunt our Lady’s Requiem.

In thy praises, Maiden blest,
One by far out-ran the rest :
‘Twas that “chosen vessel,” Paul,
Wrapt in ecstasy withal,
One that had himself been caught
Into bliss exceeding thought,
‘Fore his fellows, truth to own,
Consecrate to God alone.
He to-day, beyond all other,
Magnified thee, Goddes Mother.

ODE VI

Come, good Christens, West and East,
Keep to-day a solemn feast :
Clap the hand, with one accord,
For the Mother of our Lord,
Praising God, who did indeed
From her blissful womb proceed.

From thee sprung the Life-Divine,
Nor unbarr’d thy Virgin-shrine :
How, then, did that stainless Tent
Which to Life once shelter lent,
Share the death, that doth befall
Eva’s sons and daughters all?

Life’s own Temple heretofore,
Life thou gainest evermore :
Through the gate of death thou hast
Unto Life eternal past
Thou who erst didst clothe and wind
Life itself in human kind.

ODE VII

Sooner far than disobey
Their Creator’s law, and pay
Worship to the Image, see
How the Holy Children Three
Trod the fire, and play’d the man
Gladly, while their anthem ran;
“Thou, our fathers’ God and Lord,
Alway art to be adored.”

Come, young men, with maiden-kind,
Bear this Maiden well in mind,
Goddes Mother, mild and meek.
Come, old men, and rulers eke,
With the judges of the earth:
Come, ye kings, make solemn mirth:
“Thou, our fathers’ God and Lord,
Alway art to be adored.”

With the Spirit’s trump around
Let the heavenly heights resound;
Let the mountains merry be,
And th’ Apostles leap for glee.
Mary’s feast it is to-day:
Raise we then the mystick lay.

Lord, thy Mother’s pure decease,
Her departure in thy peace,
Gath’red beatifick legions
From aloft to earthly regions,
To rejoice with men who cry, ”
God, thou art extoll’d on high.”

ODE VIII

Holy Childer Three were freed
In mid-fire by Mary’s Seed:
There the shadow, dimly shown,
By the substance here is known;
And it setteth all and some
Carolling through Christendome:
“All thy works, above, below,
Bless thee, Lord, for evermo.”

Maiden clean, thy fame is sung
By Angelick trumpet-tongue:
Theme of Archangelick zones,
Virtues, Princedoms, Powers, and Thrones,
Dominations, Cherubim,
Yea, of awe-full Seraphim:
And with these we men below
Magnify thee evermo.

Maiden, in unheard-of way,
God in thy clear cloister lay,
Borrowing pure flesh and breath,
Born as mortal, prone to death;
Wherefore, Mother, we below
Magnify thee evermo.

Oh, the wonder passing thought
Of that humble Maid that brought,
From her ever-Virgin shrine,
Unto birth the Son Divine:
See, her grave is, in our eyes,
Turned into Paradise;
Whereby standing, we, to-day,
Full of joyaunce, sing and say,
“All thy works, above, below,
Bless thee, Lord, for evermo.”

ODE IX

Let us, every child of clay,
In the Spirit leap to-day,
Holding each his lighted lamp :
Next, let yon supernal camp
Of unbodied beings bright
Celebrate this heavenly flight,
By a path, as yet untrod
By the Bearer of our God;
Hailing Mary, blest o’er other,
Holy, ever-Virgin Mother.

Come, on Syon’s Olive-hill,
Of the living God the Rill,
Make we joy; as in a glass,
Viewing what is come to pass.
Christ, to far more worthy station,
And more sacred habitation
Doth convoy his Mother lowly
To the Holiest of the Holy.

Come, ye faithful, haste away
To the tomb where Mary lay :
It salute we, e’er we part,
With true homage of the heart,
Of the forehead, lip and eye,
Drawing thence full free supply
Of the healing balms, that mount
From this everlasting Fount.

Take of us, thou blest Abode
Of the Living God, this Ode
On thine Exodus from hence;
And, of thy beneficence,
By the bright and heavenly grace
Streaming from thy blissful face,
Neath the shadow of thy wing,
Give the victory to the King;
To good Christen people, peace;
To thy Quiristers, release
From their sins, that they may thrive,
Yea, and save their souls alive.

NOTE :

Dr. John Mason Neale, one of the earliest and most accomplished of the translators of the sacred verse of the Orthodox Communion, in his “Hymns of the Eastern Church ” (1863, 2nd edition), gives some account of the poetical Canons which are used in the Office for Lauds, and explains the omission of a Second Ode in the present version of the Canon on our Lady’s Assumption. In a passage which is here somewhat shortened, Dr Neale says that a Canon consists (in theory) of nine Odes, each one of which contains any number of Troparia, or Stanzas, from three to beyond twenty. The reason for the number nine is this: that there are nine Scriptural Canticles employed at Lauds, on the model of which the Odes in every Canon are formed. The first is that of Moses, after the passage of the Red Sea; the second is that in which Moses blessed the Children of Israel before his death; and third and following ones are those of Hannah, of Habakkuk, of Isaiah, of Jonah, of the Three Children, of the Benedicite, and lastly, of the Magnificat and Benedictus. From this arrangement, Dr. Neale adds, it follows that, as the Second Canticle is never recited except in Lent, the Canons (in actual fact) never have any Second Ode. Dr Neale’s valuable estimate of the composition and contents of the Odes, as well as of their style and manner, is too long to be quoted. But one sentence, in regard to the Author’s history, whom he considers to be the greatest of the poets of the Eastern Church, may perhaps be permitted. It is surprising, he tells us, how little is known of the life of St. John Damascene: that he was born of a good family in Damascus; that he made great progress in philosophy; that he administered some charge under the Caliph; that he retired to the monastery of St Sabas in Palestine; that he was the most learned and eloquent with whom the Iconoclasts had to contend; that at a comparatively late period of life he was ordained a Priest of the Church of Jerusalem; and that he died after A.D. 754, and before A.D. 787 these facts seem to comprise all that has reached us of his biography. [Introduction, p. xxxij : and Text, p. 33.]

INVOCATIONS by Coventry Patmore

These strangely characteristic Invocations by the great mystic poet were found among his papers by Mr. Everard Meynell. Transcribed from the Dublin Review, Jan. 1921

FATHER, Son, Holy Ghost, Holy Trinity, Mary, Jesus.
Heart of Jesus, Blood of Jesus.
Rod of Moses, Rod of Aaron, Rod which God hath redeemed.
Fullness of the Godhead manifested bodily.
God manifest in the reality of our flesh.
God manifest out of Sion, the perfection of beauty.
God self-evident.
Substance of things hoped for, evidence of things unseen.
Tree of Life planted in the midst of the paradise of the Lord.
Our hope, our sweetness, our life.
Remission of sins.
Satisfaction of all our desires.
Joy and food of Angels.
Purity of virgins.
Pharaoh become Christ.
Christ out of Egypt.
The All which they find who forsake all.
Wonderful, God with us, Prince of Peace.
Key of Jacob.
Sceptre of Israel.
Paran and Seir (They knew not that God was there).
The Unknown God.
Praise of Infants and Sucklings.
Rock of Scandal to the foolish.
Stone which the builders refused.
Keystone of the corner.
Man compassed by a woman.
My Lord and my God.
The sum of the seven sacraments.
He Who has fruition in Himself.
God made Man of a Woman.
Infinite Honour and Humility.
Crowning Glory of the Valley of Vision.
The Last reconciled to the First.
Alpha and Omega.
Body round which the Eagles gather together.
Flesh and Blood of which he who eats shall live for ever.
Holy of Holies.
Beatitude of the poor in heart.
Object of the single eye which makes the body full of light.
Serpent by which we are healed.
The Resurrection and the Life.
The Second Coming.
The fulfilment of all things.
The Beatific Vision.
Nectar and Ambrosia.
Leviathan.
Strong Man of God.
The Lion and the Lamb.
The Incommunicable Name.
The Infinite circumscribed by the Finite.
Feast to which the agonies of crucifixion are the necessary
condiments and mitigations.
The Word made Flesh.
Central Sun and Magnet that holds together and gives
life to the Universe.
Very God of very God.
Very Man of very Man.
Very Woman of Very Woman.
Corner stone in which of two are made one.
The Grace of God.
Infinite wealth, felicity and honour.
Mystery which the Angels desire to look into.
Absolute Beauty, absolute Sweetness, absolute Power,
absolute Life.
United Voice of the Three Witnesses.
The Crown of the Chosen.
The exceeding great reward.
The Light which lighteth every man.
He Who has exalted my horn like the horn of a unicorn.
Priest for ever after the order of Melchisedech.
Wisdom of the Ancients.
Name which none can speak but by the Holy Ghost.
The great Mystery of Righteousness.
The Good Word which mine heart hath uttered.
Manna which has the taste of all in it.
God’s hill in which it pleased Him to dwell.
The most Holy. The external which contains all the
interior in their order, form and connection.
The Oracle of God.
The Golden Key.
Fulfilment of all prophecy.
Flesh of Christ that art the Head of Man.
Face of God which none can see and live.
Secret of the King.
The Hidden Life.
Glory for which we wait in the midst of the Temple.
Power of God made perfect in weakness.
Rock of Ages.
God manifest to the Gentiles.
Thou Whom to contemplate is the perfection of wisdom,
the best of good works, and the eternal good and
growth of Love.