THE MONK AND BIRD.

As he who finds one flower sharp thorns among, Plucks it, and highly prizes, though before Careless regard on thousands he has flung, As fair as this or more;

Not otherwise perhaps this argument Won from me, where I found it, such regard, That I esteemed no labour thereon spent As wearisome or hard.

In huge and antique volume did it lie, That by two solemn clasps was duly bound, As neither to be opened or laid by But with due thought profound.

There fixèd thought to questions did I lend, Which hover on the bounds of mortal ken, And have perplexed, and will unto the end Perplex the brains of men;

Of what is time, and what eternity, Of all that seems and is not—forms of things— Till my tired spirit followed painfully On flagging weary wings.

So that I welcomed this one resting-place, Pleased as a bird, that when its forces fail, Lights panting in the ocean’s middle space Upon a sunny sail.

And now the grace of fiction, which has power To render things impossible believed, And win them with the credence of an hour To be for truths received—

That grace must help me, as it only can, Winning such transient credence, while I tell What to a cloistered solitary man In ancient times befel.

Him little might our earthly grandeur feed, Who to the uttermost was vowed to be A follower of his Master’s barest need, In holy poverty.

Nor might he know the gentle mutual strife Of home affections, which can more or less Temper with sweet the bitter of our life, And lighten its distress.

Yet we should err to deem that he was left To bear alone our being’s lonely weight, Or that his soul was vacant and bereft Of pomp and inward state:

Morn, when before the sun his orb unshrouds, Swift as a beacon torch the light has sped, Kindling the dusky summits of the clouds Each to a fiery red—

The slanted columns of the noonday light, Let down into the bosom of the hills, Or sunset, that with golden vapour bright The purple mountains fills—

These made him say,—if God has so arrayed A fading world that quickly passes by, Such rich provision of delight was made For every human eye,

What shall the eyes that wait for him survey, Where his own presence gloriously appears In worlds that were not founded for a day, But for eternal years?

And if at seasons this world’s undelight Oppressed him, or the hollow at its heart, One glance at those enduring mansions bright Made gloomier thoughts depart;

Till many times the sweetness of the thought Of an eternal country—where it lies Removed from care and mortal anguish, brought Sweet tears into his eyes.

Thus, not unsolaced, he longwhile abode, Filling all dreary melancholy time, And empty spaces of the heart with God, And with this hope sublime:

Even thus he lived, with little joy or pain, Drawn thro’ the channels by which men receive— Most men receive the things which for the main Make them rejoice or grieve.

But for delight—on spiritual gladness fed, And obvious to temptations of like kind; One such, from out his very gladness bred, It was his lot to find.

When first it came, he lightly put it by, But it returned again to him ere long, And ever having got some new ally, And every time more strong—

A little worm that gnawed the life away Of a tall plant, the canker of its root, Or like as when, from some small speck, decay Spreads o’er a beauteous fruit.

For still the doubt came back—can God provide For the large heart of man what shall not pall, Nor thro’ eternal ages’ endless tide On tired spirits fall.

Here but one look tow’rd heavèn will repress The crushing weight of undelightful care; But what were there beyond, if weariness Should ever enter there?

Yet do not sweetest things here soonest cloy? Satiety the life of joy would kill, If sweet with bitter, pleasure with annoy Were not attempered still.

This mood endured, till every act of love, Vigils of praise and prayer, and midnight choir, All shadows of the service done above, And which, while his desire,

And while his hope was heav’nward, he had loved, As helps to disengage him from the chain That fastens unto earth—all these now proved Most burdensome and vain.

What must have been the issue of that mood It were a thing to fear—but that one day, Upon the limits of an ancient wood, His thoughts him led astray.

Darkling he went, nor once applied his ear, On a loud sea of agitations thrown, Nature’s low tones and harmonies to hear, Heard by the calm alone.

The merry chirrup of the grasshopper, Sporting among the roots of withered grass, The dry leaf rustling to the wind’s light stir Did each unnoted pass:

He, walking in a trance of selfish care, Not once observed the beauty shed around, The blue above, the music in the air, The flowers upon the ground;

Till from the centre of that forest dim Came to him such sweet singing of a bird, As sweet in very truth, then seemed to him The sweetest ever heard.

That lodestar drew him onward inward still, Deeper than where the village children stray, Deeper than where the woodman’s glittering bill Lops the large boughs away—

Into a central space of glimmering shade, Where hardly might the struggling sunbeams pass, Which a faint lattice-work of light had made Upon the long lank grass.

He did not sit, but stood and listened there, And to him listening the time seemed not long, While that sweet bird above him filled the air With its melodious song.

He heard not, saw not, felt not aught beside, Through the wide worlds of pleasure and of pain, Save the full flowing and the ample tide Of that celestial strain.

As tho’ a bird of Paradise should light A moment on a twig of this bleak earth, And singing songs of Paradise invite All hearts to holy mirth,

And then take wing to Paradise again, Leaving all listening spirits raised above The toil of earth the trouble and the pain, And melted all in love:

Such spiritual might, such power was in the sound, But when it ceased sweet music to unlock, The spell that held him sense and spirit-bound Dissolved with a slight shock.

All things around were as they were before— The trees and the blue sky, and sunshine bright, Painting the pale and leafstrewn forest-floor With patches of faint light.

But as when music doth no longer thrill, Light shudderings yet along the chords will run, Or the heart vibrates tremulously still, After its prayer be done,

So his heart fluttered all the way he went, Listening each moment for the vesper bell; For a long hour he deemed he must have spent In that untrodden dell.

And once it seemed that something new or strange Had passed upon the flowers the trees the ground, Some slight but unintelligible change On every thing around:

Such change, where all things undisturbed remain, As only to the eye of him appears, Who absent long, at length returns again— The silent work of years.

And ever grew upon him more and more Fresh marvel—for, unrecognised of all, He stood a stranger at the convent door— New faces filled the hall.

Yet was it long ere he received the whole Of that strange wonder—how, while he had stood Lost in deep gladness of his inmost soul, Far hidden in that wood,

A generation had gone down unseen Under the thin partition which is spread— The thin partition of thin earth—between The living and the dead.

Nor did he many days to earth belong, For like a pent-up stream, released again, The years arrested by the strength of song, Came down on him amain;

Sudden as a dissolving thaw in spring; Gentle as when upon the first warm day, Which sunny April in its train may bring, The snow melts all away.

They placed him in his former cell, and there Watched him departing; what few words he said Were of calm peace and gladness, with one care Mingled—one only dread—

Lest an eternity should not suffice To take the measure and the breadth and height Of what there is reserved in Paradise— Its ever-new delight.