BOOK I
WHEN Gentiles study their vain themes to raise
In sounding words, and pomp of purple phrase,
Assume the tragic mask, or comic mood,
Or what of varied verse may seem them good,
And search the soiléd scrolls of traitor Time
For murk memorials of storied crime,
Shall I—though standing in the sacred choir
Where song celestial mates with David’s lyre—
Shall I be mute ? nor striking Judah’s string
The wond’rous work of Christ the Saviour sing ?
Whom all things vouch on earth, who thunders
Lord
On every sense, by all the heart adored,
Who heart and sense themselves bestowed, and
Whom
All Nature serves !
He, by eternal doom
Supreme, and with His Father One, by right,
Apex of All, Creation’s Crown, the Same. in
Light,
In Splendour, Virtue, Power, and Timeless Sway,
Consort of Glory, Kingship, and all Might,
In Majesty Alike! Behold the Way
Which leads to safety and the Paschal Day !
This theme shall be my song : Turn every mind
And heal, at last, the wounded hearts and blind
Which mortal ill, which Attic thralldom keeps
in fond delusions whilst the venom creeps,
THE EASTER SONG 83
-Forsake Cecropian mire at length, and draw The odorous air of health from Living ‘Law.
It would appear from this that, in the days of Sedulius, Athens still had great influence over the southern world of thought. It may also be inferred that the poet composed his Epic whilst in Greece. Continuing his protest and appeal to the Athenians he proceeds :
Why, Sons of Theseus ! wander in the maze
Of blind Daedalean caverns, void of rays ?
Why choose the barren, where the good vine
grows,
And for grey lavender neglect the rose,—
Give stone and brass in fanes profanely faith
And bond your minds to mute metallic death ?
No more abide in squalid dust of fields
And sterile strands, where arid earth now yields
No fruit ; nor longer tear from gory ground
The bitter herbs that feed ye not but wound
For feast Tartarean fit.
Far rather steer
O’er welcome waters that will float you here
To.meads delightful mid the forest’s flower,
Where home is blessed by God’s supernal power ;
Where sparkling streamlets animate the path
And lave the soil, that never prickle hath,
So that to barns an hundredfold it yields
When brimming harvest fills the happy fields.
This is the first indication of that love of natural scenery of which we shall meet many and more striking instances. To me it seems the produce of another civilisation than the Graeco-Roman, but this question may be deferred. Here,
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the great distinction lies between the Christian and the Pagan, in the matter of the invocation. Sedulius breaks boldly with classic tradition, from which even Milton could not free himself in Paradise Lost, and puts aside all appeal to the Muses, even as poetic fiction. His appeal is to God himself, ‘eternal, omnipotent, infinite; and the great and solemn Invocation speaks the absolute and intense sincerity of the poet :
Eternal God omnipotent! The One
Sole Hope of worlds, Author and Guard alone
Of heaven and earth Thou art, whose high behest
Forbids the tempest’s billow-bearing breast
The land to whelm—which fires the orb of noon,
And fills the crescent of the milder moon ;
Who’st meted forth alternate day and night
And numbered all the stars—their places bright,
Their signs, times, courses only known to Thee—
Who hast to many forms, most wondrously,
The new earth shaped, and given to dead dust life :
Who hast lost Man restored, for fruit of strife
Forbid, bestown on him a higher food,
And healed the Serpent’s sting by sacred blood:
Who hast, when men (save those borne in the
Ark)
Were tombed in floods of whelming waters dark
From one sole stock again the race renewed
(A sign that sin-slain man, through noble wood
Once more should be redeemed), and sent to save
One Fount baptismal all the world to lave !
Ope me the way that to the City bright
Leads forth ; let thy Word’s lamp be light
To guide my footsteps through the narrow gate,
THE EASTER SONG 8s
Where the Good Shepherd feeds His sheep elate:
There first the Virgin’s white Lamb enteréd
And all His fair flock followed where He led !
With Thee how smooth the way : for Nature all
Thine empire owns! ‘Thou speak’st, her fetters
fall
And all her wonted shows new forms assume :
The frozen fields will into verdure bloom
And winter gild with grain: if Thou but will
"Mid budding Spring the swelling grape shall fill,
And sudden labour tread the bursting vine.
All seasons answer to the call Divine !
So ancient Faith attests, so tell the hours—
No time can change, no age abate Thy powers !
Whereof to sing, in little part, afraid
I seek, as entering a great forest-glade
One strives an over-arching bough to reach.
What were an hundred tongues, an iron speech,
Or what were man an hundredfold to show
Things more than all the lucid stars that glow,
And all the sands where all the oceans flow !?
-1 This is an allusion to the passage in the Aeneid (Bk. vi.) where Aeneas describing the punishment of the wicked, says :
Had I a hundred mouths, a hundred tongues
And throat of brass inspired with iron lungs,
I could not half those horrid crimes repeat
Nor half the punishment those crimes have met.
DRYDEN.
Almost the last and worst of criminals, mentioned just before this passage, are thus described :
To tyrants others have their country sold
_ Imposing foreign lords, for foreign gold : Some have old laws repealed, new statutes made Not as the people pleased, but as they paid.
86 THE EASTER SONG
It is impossible to remain unmoved by such passages, and this effect—the triumph of poetry—is produced not so much by the art as by the deep feeling of the author. Pope’s Messiah does not so withdraw our attention from admira- tion of the form to sympathy with the substance. It is exquisitely wrought, but we note too soon the excellence of the workmanship. ‘This possibly was a result inevitable from his adoption of Virgil’s Polio as a model—a pagan poet could scarcely efface his art in worship. With Sedulius it is otherwise : we do not notice the carven stones but the altar built of them. His invocation is a prayer, from the impressive opening, with its rapid reference to the illimitable powers of God, its deliberate enumeration of his acts of beneficence towards mankind, to the pathetic personal appeal which humanises all. It is instinct with enthusiasm and all reverence,
Then the poet enters immediately upon the subject matter of the Easter Song. He has put aside all the figments which served as scaffolding for the elder edifices of imagination: his faith is too fresh and pure to admit of that superstructure which even Milton adopts. He dares impute nothing to the Divine Being and His angels for which there is no authority in Holy Writ. However, his genius forbade that his poem should be a simple versification of sacred history. Hence, he adopts a new and different plan.
In language of sustained dignity he recalls the chief miracles contained in the Old Testament, not infrequently assigning a mystic symbolism. Here is a summary :
Enoch, he cites first, the beloved of God, whose years outlasted centuries : Earth was entitled to his birth, but Death was deprived of its heir. Barren age, in the person of Sara, was endowed with offspring—the Hope of the Chosen People was nourished at her breast. Over this, his only son, the faithful father at the altar raised the sword of Death, when the ram was accepted as victim in his stead. This is a symbol of the future free-will offering of Christ, the gentle Lamb, whose blood flowed for the deliverance of Man. Lot fled the chaos of Sodom, but his wife looking back bore the penalty,
~ a
THE EASTER SONG 84
for none should revert to evil things, nor turn away from the plough. The marvellous Bush glowed unharmed, burning yet unburnt, not yielding fuel to the ascending fire, but all its foliage fed by the friendly furnace of caressing flames. The harmless rod changed into a harmful serpent, writhing in clustered coils, which, with swollen scaly throat and darting trifid tongue, swallowed the hostile snakes and then, resuming its form, stiffened once more into a rod. The Sea separated, and through its divided waters the pilgrim-people passed dry- shod. To them, suffering in the wilderness, hosts of angels ministered, with nectar in the dew, manna in the air, food in every shower, and banquets in the rain. When after long drought the dry earth sickened, and life lost hope, the parched soil drank sudden waters, streams flooded the stones, the barren Rock became a flowing fount. ‘These celestial gifts are types of Christ, the Bread, the Rock, and the Fountain of Life.
Again, beholding an angel in the path, the stolid ass stopped, trembling, and admonished the prophet. At Gabaon, in the midst of the heavens, the sun stood still, and kept the panting light with a longer eve, nor did the resting moon run her course till the sword had consumed the foe. ‘The servitor stars saw in the herald name! the Jesus who was to come. Elias, a fugitive, was fed by the ministering raven, which daily brought him food, untasted, in its beak. True to Elias, though faithless to Noah, the raven expiated on land its delinquency on the waters. After many miracles, Elias was borne away to the golden stars in a flaming chariot. Right it was that he should outshine the lights of heaven, who was radiant by works and by name, for by a slight change of accent and letter Elias in Greek is the Sun.? Jonah, fallen from the ship, did not touch the water, but was borne safe through the sea in a Living Sepulchre. Cast into the seven times heated furnace by a Babylonian tyrant, the Three Youths conquered the penal flame by the mightier fire of the
1 Joshua, the Hebrew form of Jesus. 2 The Greek form of Elias is ’HX/as, whilst the sun is ”HXxos.
88 THE EASTER SONG
spirit. Great was the glory of the Believers, but prompt the doom of the ruthless king who ran raving from the resorts of man to herd with beasts in the field, and wander in the woods and hills. So, too, by the despot Darius was Daniel, the honour of Israel, confined in the lions’ den: forthwith the wild beasts grew meek, and rather than injure the just one they accepted hunger, put away wrath, and kept fury in their fearful jaws. Then first fierce lions learned to spare their prey.
These miracles Sedulius first recites, with ample sweep of phrase, next, with terse recapitulation, he kneads them into a close and complete argument. Given his premisses, his conclusion is irresistible. The problem dealt with is one which apparently every generation re-discovers and thinks out anew. ‘To-day those who claim for “‘ Nature ” or “ natural law ” a coercive domination imagine this to be a novel view, the outcome of progressive centuries. Yet, fifteen hundred years ago, Sedulius confronted it.
There is great originality and power in the poet’s apostrophe to Nature wherein he blends and condenses his reasons and these illustrative examples :
Say, Nature ! these beholding, where thy laws ?
Who took these many rights from thee? What
cause
Bade Death ignore its prey ? What potent breath
Blessed barrenness with fruit, and moved to death
The willing ram? What changed to statued salt
The peccant spouse? What told the flames to
halt
At leaves unharmed, the rod to writhe a snake,
The parting sea a pathway dry to make,
Dews manna yield, and arid rocks a stream,
The lowly ass to speak ? What stayed the beam >
Of rapid-running hours, made birds delight
THE EASTER SONG 89
A man to feed, and who, in chariot bright
Conveyed him o’er the starry heaven’s height ?
Who made the dying King live lustres three,—
Leviathan—a Refuge in the sea,
A Monarch mate with beasts? Who could assuage
Th’ indomitable lions’ furious rage ?
Who, but The Maker !—Whose are all things
seen,
All unseen things, whose Word is the machine,
His works obey him, and His empire still
Delights to follow at its Sovereign’s will.
Thus he reasons to vindicate the attributes of a Free
Creator not subject to His works, but they to Him.
Having established his position and demonstrated the claims to respect of the Faith he champions, he makes a rapid survey of the views opposed to it. Here, he displays not only subtle analysis but a strength of keen yet genial satire,
more effective than any denunciation. Nothing could well
be seen more modern than his wit, or more recent than his humour. It is worth noting that he deals most earnestly with Sun-worship, and this perhaps because of a backward glance at Erinn, where this as well as some other superstitions mentioned then prevailed. Of course, many were also found in the vicinity of the Mediterranean. ‘That the vision of the Author reached not only to Greece and Rome and Egypt but beyond may be inferred from his words :
Ah, hapless hearts of men that evermore
Shape out some foolish figment to adore,
Your Maker flee and what you make implore !
What witless folly takes the senses now
That full-grown Man before a bird, a cow,
90 THE EASTER SONG
Half-human hound, or twisted snake shall bow ?}
Some venerate the sun, because ’tis seen
To shed clear rays upon the earth serene
And light the farther pole—itself would show
By change and scattered fires its place to know—
A servant, not a God—that, ordered right
Must rise and set, and then give way to night,
And is not everywhere, in every clime,
Nor has it always been, throughout all time.
So some the moon adore, whose changing horn
Now fills, now fails ; and some the stars, that
morn
Will put to paling flight :—these worship fire
Those founts, but dare not with joined rite con-
spire,
The Fount might dry before the Fire-God’s
frown,
Or else, if stronger, might the Fire-God drown !
Some, too, build altars at the roots of trees
Bring food, and then beseech the boughs to
please,
Rule o’er their homes beloved, their fertile farms,
Keep offspring, wives, and fortunes free from
harms.
O Wooden ! praying wood, to deafness cry!
And seek from dumbness a benign reply !
What god shall govern, when to help the house,
Ye prop the sinking roof with broken boughs,
1 From Prior’s Solomon, Part II., we get a passage (imitated from the xv. Satire of Juvenal) which is a curiously close parallel to this portion of the Sedulian passage, but without its wit.
THE EASTER SONG gI
Or feed the fire with chips for your carouse ? Some worship herbs and, planting them, like pease, Go water well their dry divinities—
Sure, servers of transplanted Gods be these !
I shame to mention more, in sacred song,
Ev’n in rebuke, lest brambles so should wrong
The lilies fair, and thistles raise their heads
Amid the purple bloom of violet beds,
Enough we have of follies in the heap
To move a laugh, or rather make us weep.
This reveals the poet’s heart. Gifted with satiric power, he uses it with leniency and grows compassionate, not bitter, over human errors. He kept thorn and thistle from the white lilies and the violet fields of his spirit as well as from the fold. There is no kinship with wrath or warfare in all he wrote, rather with ideal beauty, luminous with love.
This will be felt in the picture which he next presents of the Celestial City, the end and object of his pilgrimage on earth.
And now it joys to journey forth—to climb
The shining steps that mount the Hill Sublime,—
We haste unto the City of our love
For Freedom : bright, its royal halls above
The gold domes gleam afar ; the gates apart
Do welcome those who come, nor need depart—
All portals ope to knocking of a heart !
Behold the corner stone once spurned with slight,
Now set on high, most wondrous to the sight—
How sweet Thy yoke, Thy burthen, Lord, how
light ! :
EE ——L————————<“<——— ee
92 THE EASTER SONG
The seventh line gives the quintessence of the Sedulius spirit and of Christian doctrine. In the original Latin it rolls in good Irish rime.}
This glimpse of the Desirable City of which Christ is the corner-stone moves the poet to explain and define his course. He has shown, by the concordant miracles of the Old Law what was accomplished by the Father, in conjunction with the Holy Spirit, and by the associate power of the Son. Now he will relate what was accomplished by the Son in conjunction with the Holy Spirit, and by the associate power of the Father— —ever remaining One God, wherein the simple is tripled and the triple simpled. This is the true Faith. With lucid and subtle eloquence he next explains the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, and dispels erroneous views.
Having shown the true path of Faith, and warned away misleading guides, the poet resumes his account of the ascent of the Hill Sublime, and the vision of the Celestial City. Before him Virgil had described the entrance to the Elysian fields, Pluto’s palace, the description is brief :
The walls of Pluto’s palace are in view
The gate and iron arch above it, stands
On anvils labor’d by the Cyclops’ hands.
Before entering Aeneas, having made ablution, had to fix the golden bough above the gate.
How different is Sedulius’s vision of the Celestial City, to which he is led, not by a Sibyl, but by Hope and Faith his
fair companions :
Whilst we, discoursing, make our path more light, | With comrade Hope and Faith we climb the
height :— 1 Pervia pulsanti reserantur limina cordi. There is perfect alliteration of initial consonants (ppc), and dis-
syllabic vowel rime, or assonance (in “anti” and “cordi’’). See Appendix, Irish Metrical Characteristics in Sedulian Verse.
ae
THE EASTER SONG 93
The topmost Citadel is reached, and there,
See all the sacred Banners, high in air;
That sparkle with the Cross! Lo, glittering
How shine the lovely Towers of The King !
The Master-trumpet sounds ; the Gates invite
The soldiers to march in—they pass who fight.
On you the Eternal Gate doth call, whose voice
Is Christ’s, with golden guerdon to rejoice
In life perpetual, who fought his fight,
His weapons used, and bore His Symbol bright.
Thy Symbol and Thine arms, dear King, I’ve
borne,
The least of all Thy hosts I wait, war-worn.
Here, in Thine own abode, within Thy wall,
Grant me a little Home amongst them all ;
That, in Thy holy places I, Thy guest,
May dwell and be on the white roll confest,
Last ranked of all the City of the Blest.
Great things I ask, but Thou dost greatly grant
Whom little hope offends and not large want.
None will fail to be moved by the exceeding tenderness infused into this appeal and by the beauty of the vision of the City of his hopes. What Milton has accomplished in a similar description has the great advantage of appearing in the author’s chosen words; but, if the question of diction be waived the passages may be compared.1 The Celestial
1 . . . far distant he descries
Ascending by degrees magnificent
Up to the wall of Heaven a structure high,
At top whereof, but far more rich, appeared
The work as of a kingly palace-gate,
With frontispiece of diamond and gold
Embellished : thick with sparkling orient gems
94 THE EASTER SONG
(closed) Gate is presented by Milton as that of a kingly palace, but “more rich ” crudely embellished with diamonds, gold, and gems. As the only kingly palace known to most of his readers was that of St. James’ or Whitehall, their ideal of Heaven’s gate was somewhat humble. His description is essentially that of Virgil’s, being based on material structures, though transposed and adapted from an infernal to a celestial castle-gate. He does not give the gleam of the gold domes seen afar, nor the welcoming portals that open to the knocking of a heart, he does not see, as Sedulius sees, the flutter of the sacred banners above shining towers, nor hear the master- trumpet sound, and the cry of the Gate, whose voice is Christ’s, nor touch the soul with the note of personal appeal.
In sight of the Celestial City, Sedulius implores the favour of its King for the work undertaken, calls his witnesses and introduces some of that mystic symbolism in which he delights:
Incline, O Christ ! ‘Thou who, to make, through love, A dead world live, descending from above—
The portal shone, inimitable on earth
By model or by shading pencil drawn.
The stairs were such as whereon Jacob saw
Angels ascending and descending . . .
Each stair mysteriously was meant nor stood
There always, but drawn up to Heaven sometimes
Viewless ; and underneath a bright sea flowed
Of jasper or of liquid pearl, whereon
Who after came from earth, sailing arriv’d,
Wafted by angels, or flew o’er the lake
Rapt in a chariot drawn by fiery steeds,
The stairs were then let down, whether to dare
The Fiend by easy ascent, or to aggravate
His sad exclusion from the doors of bliss.
There are jewelled words, no doubt, in profusion, but what an appalling ideal of a Celestial City, where stairs were let down, and snatched away, “ to dare or aggravate ’’ Satan—like the mean trick of a malicious schoolboy.
THE EASTER SONG 95
To things terrene and human form hast deigned—
This nature bearing, yet Thine own retained.
So Matthew, first of men, declares to all :
So Mark, whose voice thrills like the lion’s call :
So Luke, a young ox which the ark doth bear :
So John, whose eagle-cry ascends the air ; }
Four chiefs who sing Thy glory with one voice,
As the four seasons bid the world rejoice.
So shine the Twelve, the apex numeral,
As months, as hours, that make the year in all
For Thee, an Army Apostolical.
Recalling now the birth of Ancient Death
I haste with eyes serene, to Life’s new breath,
Long joys to reap: who sowed in Adam tears
Shall at Christ’s coming put aside our fears,
And walk, exulting, with our harvest-ears.?
Thus Sedulius nobly concludes his first Book of the Paschal Song, by showing the glorious conquest of New Life over Ancient Death—the reversal of the Fall—the real Paradise Regained.
1 The Symbols of the four Evangelists are: a man’s head, a lion, an ox, and an eagle. 2 Sedulius finishes this Book of his Latin Poem (as he does every Book) by two Latin lines cast in the Irish Metric, to wit: semina mittentes, mox Exultabimus Omnes, Portantes nostros, Christo veniente, maniplos.
In the first line, there are two one-syllable slender vowel end-rimes, es,” ‘‘es,” and two internal two-syllable slender rimes “‘ semin,” and ** mitten”’ which interlace with “ ente’’ in the second, and ‘‘ omnes” interlaces with “‘ tantes”’ (broad-slender rime). There is vowel allitera- tion, eand 0, for all vowels alliterate, though they rime only in their class —slender with slender, broad with broad. In the last line p c give con- sonant alliteration, whilst broad vowel rime is obtained in “‘ os,” “‘ os.” It is remarkable that, according to an ancient Irish custom this ending of the First Book is echoed or repeated in that of the Last Book.
BOOK II
Tue Second Book tells first, the expulsion of the Primal Parents from Eden, because of their disobedience, and relates the advent of Death, and the decadence of the human race. There was no hope for it, had not the Lord, prompt to forgive, intervened to redeem that fallen race, so that what He had» - made in His own image should not be rendered unlike it by decay and death. He gave it the means of a new birth, and from the race of Eve, as a gentle rose from a thorny stem came Mary the Virgin. Having told of the Annunciation and of the birth of Christ, the poet narrates the incidents of the Holy Child, the Massacre of the Innocents, the baptism in the Jordan, His Fast and Temptation in the desert, and concludes the Book by a description of Christ’s choice of the disciples and His teaching and explanation of the Lord’s Prayer.
There are many passages of beauty and feeling throughout the Book conveyed in stately Latin verse: it gave Milton his frontal verse for Paradise Lost and the germ of Paradise Regained.
Tue first of Man, by ruthless serpent cast
From Eden’s flowerful seat, woeful, at last
In lures of pleasant taste drank bitter death ;
Nor he alone, presumptuous cause of wrath,
Fell ’neath the mortal law, but all of Man
The sequent race, who all in him began.
1 Milton thus renders the original more freely, but with fidelity :
Of man’s first disobedience, and the fruit
Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste
THE EASTER SONG 97
Ah, guilty spouse—who wrought the greater
ill,
Thou, or the loathly snake’s perfidious will ?
Guilty the serpent, but not guiltless thou,
Alas, the double crime—eternal now !
The growing Race begins, and soon decays
With seed of ruin sown—where now the days
Of numerous life >—where now on earth behold
The happy sires of centuries manifold
Whom sons in ten succeeding lines enfold ?
The Race doth know itself no more: by Fate
Irreparable conquered, its estate
Brought low, and through long lapsing times of
strife
Nought may endure, enclosed in short’ning life :—
Nor Hope bring turning help, for nought could
save
The future nations from the primal grave
Had not the loving Lord, forgiving all—
(Lest that His handiwork a ruin fall,
And what was made His image by His breath,
Should be unlikened by the taint of Death)—
Redeemed the world and caused the fruit, which
SO
Set their sons’ teeth on edge, its pain forgo,
Where Guilt gave Death now Love would Life
bestow !
Brought death into the world and all our woe
With loss of Eden.
See Appendix I. for the original text and a full account of Milton’s debt to Sedulius,
H
98 THE EASTER SONG
As from sharp thorns there springs, all soft and pure The Rose, which doth its mother’s self obscure With honour fair, so sacred Mary came : From stock of Eve and cleansed away her shame. Man’s sullied nature in Death’s empire lay Till, through Christ’s birth, new birth all Mankind may Secure, and ancient taint put quite away.
Though Sedulius may follow Virgil in showing the rose blossoming from the briar, yet the greater poetry is in the fine conception of the flower cancelling and concealing the hurtfulness of its parent by its own beauty—literally, the faultless rose ‘‘ obscures its mother with honour.” 4
Next Sedulius tells of the Annunciation, of the Incarnation and of the birth of the Redeemer, when the Word was made flesh and dwelt amongst us. Inspired the poet sings:
What new Light to the World—to Heaven what
Grace !
What Splendour, when, through Mary, to our race
Came Christ with glory new, as comes again
The Bridegroom, fairer than the sons of men,
His lips more sweet and graced than ever spoke !
O easy love, for Him who, lest the yoke
Of mastering sin should hold the soul a slave,
Assumed a servant’s form—even He, who gave
1 et velut e spinis mollis rosa surgit acutis nil quod laedet habens matremque obscurat honore.
These lines are clearly constructed according to the laws of Irish metric. ‘There is consonantal alliteration (s, s and h, h), and there are vowel rimes, in this case of two syllables, inlaid “ mollis ’’ with “ habens,” and three syllable end-rimes, “‘ acutis ”’ with ‘‘ honore.”’
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THE EASTER SONG 99
Their every garb to all things that have birth,
Conceals His Majesty in garb of earth :—
Whom not the greatness of the mighty deep,
Nor all the land of all the Earth could keep,
Nor spacious vault above, our God confest—
Lo, in a manger lies, a child at rest !
Hail, holy Mother, thou who’st borne the King
Who Heav’n and Earth upholds and everything
Embracing, is Eternal, Infinite !
Thou, with a Virgin’s honour, the delight
Of Motherhood hast owned: there hath not been
Thy like on earth, nor ever shall be seen,
Sole pleasing Christ, incomparable queen !
These last seven lines in the original have had special favour and vitality. The salutation beginning “ Salve, sancta parens ”—‘‘ Hail, holy Mother ” has been used, and is at the present time chanted, in Catholic churches over the world, as an Introit, on six festivals of the Virgin Mother.
Again, St. Bernard, in his sermon on the Assumption quotes the three verses beginning “Thou, with a virgin’s honour ” varying the order but not the sense.
The appearing of the Angels to the shepherds, keeping night-watch in Palestine, and the coming of the Magi, are thus told :
Then to the simple Shepherds in the night
The Angel Choir sang first the wonder bright—
For Lamb He was and Shepherd true, of right,
The while o’er Bethlehem such signs appear
The eager Magi came and, with strange fear
Alarmed the Tyrant, ever questioning
Where in Judea was its new-born King ?
100 THE EASTER SONG
For in the East a Planet shone, and far
Had led where now would shine His radiant Star.
Then Herod, having taken counsel with the high priests
and scribes, sent the Magi to Bethlehem that they might
discover the child-king, and return with the information, so
that he too might adore—the while he purposed to slay the
infant. Sedulius vehemently brands such treachery. His
narrative of the mission of the Magi displays his love of symbolism :
Then sped the Magi, following the light,
In heav’n set, that royal Star and bright,
And kept their chosen way, where future law,
To that blest home, adoring hosts should draw.
Their Treasure, open in their hands, they bring
In fealty :—this Gold for offering
Is made as gift unto the new-born King,
To God that Incense, for the Tomb that Myrrh.
Why triple gifts ? Because Hope’s harbinger,
Our Faith, the triple number doth enfold,
As God doth Future, Present, Past, behold—
Is always, ever hath been, will endure,
Triune for aye.
Admonished by a pure
Celestial dream, the faithful Magi spurn
The ord’ring Tyrant ; and forthwith return
To Fatherland. So too if we would know
Our Holy Fatherland, to Christ when so
We come, we must no more to evil go.
The massacre of the Innocents evokes the most passionate
indignation of the poet. He questions whether a man, who
lacks justice and cannot govern his rage, can be called a king of right. This gives us a trace of how the spirit of Christianity
tite Nene 5° aan 2 -
THE EASTER SONG IOI
fostered Freedom. Sedulius tells thus of the slaughter of the Babes of Bethlehem, by order of Herod :
His hope undone, now raves the impious king
In raging wrath—if king we call that thing
Who justice lacks nor rules his passions right.
So raves a lion, fierce from hunger’s spite,
When from his jaws the tender lamb takes flight.
He rushes on the harmless flock amain
To rend, to mangle :—O’er the bloody plain
The air is filled with bleating cries in vain.
Thus ruthless Herod, when his prey he lost,
Let loose red Murder on the harmless host
Of Bethlem’s babes.
Why die this multitude ?
Their lips, scarce oped to breathe, are choked in
blood !
Not reason, Fury rules the king, who slays
The first weak wail of Life—nor slaughter stays
Till guiltless thousands fall. One fearful cry—
A thousand Mothers’ shriek !—assails the sky.
One tears the tresses from her head—one rends
Her cheeks—one smites her naked chest, one
bends,—
Ah, hapless Mother ! ’tis no mother’s breast
Upon the cold lips of thy child thou’st prest !
What tragic power in the contrast between the tyrant’s violence and the tender helplessness of opening life, whose first faint cry is stifled in blood! We see also the distraught mothers rushing to save their babes and agonising over their mangled bodies. Then in the last two lines, what sudden poignant pathos !
102 THE EASTER SONG
The passage is the more noticeable as there is no special emphasis given to a display of grief in the Gospels. St. Matthew is the only Evangelist who mentions the massacre, and his reference to the bereavement is only implied in a quotation from Jeremiah, whose prophecy was then fulfilled : *“‘In Rama there was a voice heard, lamentation and weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children and would not be comforted because they are not.”
It is probable that Sedulius had in his memory the custom of his own nation. Lamentation for the dead, no doubt, existed among the Greeks, as amongst the Israelites and other peoples: but nowhere does the expression of passionate emotion, by voice and gesture, appear to have been so intense, so general, and so persistent as amongst the Celts. Even to-day their wail is uplifted in ‘‘caeine” and “ coronach”’ over the dead, and strangers are startled at ‘“‘ the Irish cry.” Some have been derisive in their ignorance, not knowing that it recalls the ancient rites of Rome, of Athens, of Troy; and that it echoes, through thousands of years, the Lamentation of Rama.
The supposition that Sedulius was moved by the Celtic spirit, here, receives distinct and remarkable support from the fact that other Gaelic poets chose the same theme. In the “ Lebor Breac ”’ for instance, there is a most striking poem where one Mother after another comes forth to utter wild laments over her babe slain at Bethlehem. No people were so profoundly pious and none so little servile in their piety, so free, and even so bold. The Three Mothers have told their deep desperate anguish—the fourth is made to speak in fierce raving frenzy, calling on Christ to take her soul as well as her son—calling on “‘ Mary of might,” Mother of God’s Son: ‘‘ See sonless am I1—for thy Son are slaughtered my mind and my sense, I am made a mad woman for want of my son. My heart is a death froth.”
It is remarkable that Sedulius anticipates this cry by declar-
1 See “‘ The Mothers of Bethlehem,” in Bards of the Gael and Gall, London. TT. Fisher Unwin. 1897.
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THE EASTER SONG 103
ing that Christ was present and suffered himself the wounds the victims felt. Apostrophising Herod, no monarch but a butcher, the poet exclainis :
What were thy feelings, butcher, gazing down
From lofty tower upon the slaughtered town ?
What thrilled thee when, throughall the shudd’ring
sky : Despairing sounds and shrieks arose on high ?
Though absent from the slain, yet Christ was
there Who all the dangers of His saints doth share And feels, Himself, each blow that others bear.
We are next shown Christ, at the age of twelve, expounding the law in the Temple ; and then, at more length, the baptism in the Jordan, when John, who as an unborn babe had borne testimony of Him, now salutes Him: “ Behold the Lamb of God who cometh to take away the sins of the world.”
With the Fast in the desert, the Temptation is described in animated language :—when the Adversary is conquered, Shining Hosts of Angels are seen ministering to Christ.
Now, when twelve years of human life had
passed
He came within the Temple, and was seen
In wisdom older than the Elders ; He
Mid Masters of the Law a Master stood.
Nor did the close of Youth delay. What does
A world, flying through time, know of delay ?
Six lustres nearly, when to peaceful Jordan
He comes to get what He had come to give.
1 This is unquestionably the original of Mililton’s Paradise Regained, its brevity expanded by long disputatious discourses.
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Bt 3
104 THE EASTER SONG
Him when the Baptist from the stream beheld,
Whom he, within His mother’s womb, unborn,
Had recognised, though closed as yet the prophet’s
Lips, which now bore witness crying aloud :
““ Behold the Lamb of God, Who taketh away
The sins of the World.”
That which I, not He
Had, that He takes—the ill He has not done
But has undone! As when a brilliant light
Shines through the clouds, and with its ray serene
Undimmed, drives shadows from the unharmed
face, The Saviour thus, expelling all our faults, Cleanses and makes each stain to disappear.
Then in the flowing stream He entered, pure,
So washed our lives’ contagions all away—
He naught having of that He lost—the torrent
Itself was cleanséd by His sacred form,
Its wave made by His presence consecrate.
The elements discerned their God—the Sea
Retired—back toward its source the River rolled.
So sang the Prophet: ‘‘ Wherefore fly, O Sea !
And Jordan thou, why draw thy waters back ?”’
Emerging from the water’s mystic gift
He trod the strand, when lo! the Heav’ns oped—
To glorify Him came the Holy Ghost
Descending as a dove (which has no gall,
Thus teaching sweetness), and from Heav’n came
A Voice, saying: ‘‘ This is My belovéd Son
In whom I am well pleased.”’ ‘Thus is declared
The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit there
THE EASTER SONG 05
One only God by threefold reason proved.
Then having borne for forty days and nights
The Fast, still with the Holy Spirit filled,
The Tempter came to Him, with art insidious
Armed, and falsely off’ring a phantom feast :—
“‘ If thou’dst appear the Son of God,”’ he said,
‘Then bid this stone to bread be sudden changed.”
As though such marvel He did not, all days,
Perform, who to Earth’s stony breast gives power
In wheaten grain to fructify, and bread
From rock creates. Then the Redeemer’s voice
Repelling said : “‘ Man doth not live by bread
Alone, but by every word of God.”
Stricken, the Foe new arms in venom sought
And from a mountain showed Him all the world’s
Rich Kingdoms thence outspread. “ All these,”
he said, “IT give, if thou’lt bow down and worship me.”
Perverse the speaker, and perverse the speech,
That He seek honours of frail kingdoms here
Who wins for man Eternity !—that He
Bow down to wretch unspeakable, Whose throne
O’ertops the Ether, Earth His footstool is,
Whom none perceives, Whose praise high
Heaven sings !
Christ answered to the Tempter, “‘ It is written :
Thou shalt adore the Lord thy God. Him only
Shalt thou serve.”
Defeated still, still he dares
With will superb, to wage the futile fray,
Thrice rising proud to be thrice thrown to earth.
106 THE EASTER SONG
For, next, above the Holy City, he
Placed Christ upon the Temple’s highest peak
And said : “‘ If thou wouldst seem the Son of God
Cast thyself down, for Scripture has declared
Thou shalt go safe on angels’ arms upborne
Lest thou shouldst strike thy foot against a stone.”
How blind a mind within how black a heart—
By its own clouds obscured, to think the height
Of Temple or its lofty pinnacle
Should Him dismay, Who bow’d the mighty
members
Of highest Heaven ; and, borne thro’ all the skies
To Earth’s extreme of lowliness, descends—
Who sought the low, nor did the lofty leave.
But Satan, by the true Word’s glaive trans-
pierced,
“Tis writ, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God,”
Fled, moaning, from the Victor’s face. Then
came All Heaven’s Princes, and the Shining Hosts Of Angels came and ministered to Christ.
Then we are made present at the choosing of the Disciples :
He chose them first from Fishers, apt to fish
For human souls, which slippery joys enmesh,
As buoyant billows that uplift the head
Then bear it down, precipitate, and dead ;
These His Disciples were, these He did teach
Of life eterne, whom windy pride of speech
Filled not, nor vanity of birth: they came
THE EASTER SONG 107
In lowly minds refulgent, and mute fame—
Kindred of Heaven! for He the Weak would choose
To break the Mighty and the Wise confuse.
His teaching is summarised in the Lord’s Prayer, which he explains with high authority and sweetness, defining God’s sole Will and Man’s good Liberty. This is a subject which seems difficult for a poet to mould into verse, yet the exposition which Sedulius gives has a peculiar interest and charm, both because of its subtle strength and of the light it reflects upon his pure and loving nature :
Now, therefore, showing swift Salvation’s way,
The Judge benign His people taught to pray,
To briefly ask that they might quick obtain :
“‘ Our Father ”’ saying—ours, by baptism’s gain,
His own by right: His honour thus He gave,
What He alone possessed this all might have,
Rememb’ring God our Father is, in Him
We all should brothers be—not through the dim
Sad bond of Flesh original, but flame
Of spiritual Fire, to end our shame—
And don the new man lest we, who have been,
Through Christ, adopted sons of that serene
High Father, fall, degenerate, terrene.
Where hallowed should He be, Who every
part
Has hallowed ? Where, unless in the pure heart !
That we might hallowed by our worship grow
He first Himself permits, and orders so
That we bless Him who blesses all below.
108 THE EASTER SONG
His Kingdom come: that Kingdom all so fair !
Where end is none, nor Death is anywhere,
Nor changing times deplorable, nor Night
O’ermasters Day; where reigns our Prince of
Light,
And Victor Victims throng rejoicing round,
Their noble brows with crowns eternal crowned !
With constant vows, by noon, we pray, and night,
His Will be done on Earth as in the light
Of Heaven—who nor sin would have, nor fell
Assault of foe, malign, implacable :
Lest bodies now tow’rd Heaven drawn, anew
Revoked on Earth, might in the thraldom rue :—
Who, all things fostering with love, would even
Preserve the body with the soul ’twas given— -
One part of earth we are, and one of Heaven !
We hope the Food of Faith—our daily bread—
Lest that of ‘Truth our minds be hungeréd,
And fast from Christ, Who feeds us with His Word
And Body: He, the Food, the Word—our Lord !
How cleaves His speech delectable, which comes
More sweet than honey in the honeycombs !
We ask Forgiveness as we do not fail
Ourselves to pardon debts ; He holds us bail,
Our word, His ward—more strictly bound if we
(Released ourselves) another will not free.
Should He—a thousand pounds forgiving—find
THE EASTER SONG 109
We nothing bate, but for a crown will grind
Some wretch ; forthwith the Judgment falls, and cast
In dungeon dire we bide in bondage fast
Till all be paid, the uttermost and last.
Our Lord—the Way of Light, of Peace the
Path—
No tempter’s snare will spread, but when He
hath
Our evil left, He leaves us go—who loves
The world’s soft lures, its pomp and pride,
approves
Perdition’s path: the Lover of all Good
Leaves him to go the downward way he would.
Let us step back, and seek ere it be late,
In heart, that rougher path which leads, though
strait,
To climes celestial through the Narrow Gate |!
If man would Evil shun, advancing, we
Must follow Good—that fetters, this makes free,
This nourishes, that kills ; remoter far
Than fire from water, light from darkness, star
From Earth, from discords peace, and all
Abounding Life from the sepulchral pall,
Is Good from Evil. Lo, before the eye
Two paths, to right and left diverging, lie:
One calls the Just unto the joys above— _
Thy welcome, Abram! and thy breast of love—
One takes the guilty to their punishment.
God’s Sole Will and good Liberty are meant
Ripe Heya eb gil boars 110 HE EASTER SONG
That ‘all -HisFlock should, wolfescapel, kent _ tryst +a as: Shee And live in joy amid the meads of Christ.
So closes the Second Book.
1 ergo agnis ouibusque Dei est haec sola voluntas et bona libertas, euadere torua cruenti ora lupi, vitaque frui per pascua Christ. The last two lines are in Irish metric: they have two syllable end- rimes (slender vowels) to wit, enti and isti, preceded by three-syllabled inlaid rimes (broad vowels) torua and pascua. There are two con- sonants alliterations in each, tc and pc. See Appendix II.
BOOK III
Tue Third Book opens with that beginning of Miracles wrought at the Wedding-feast of Cana. Sedulius relates how Christ deigned to be present, not to receive but to bestow food. Having come, He wondrously changed the outpoured waters into wine. The liquid rejoiced to dismiss its pallid hue, the happy fluid to assume a flavour not its own. Generously on all the tables the sweet cups blushed ! with the best pure wine, though not vine-born.
From this until its close the Book is chiefly concerned with the miracles of the New Testament, which are related with so much poetic skill as fidelity to the Scriptural text allows. These need be only briefly enumerated here.
A certain nobleman besought the Lord for his dying son and Christ, denying nothing to the Believer, not delaying his boon, said: ‘‘ Go, thy son liveth.” He then passed, with healing in His hands, through cities, towns, and countries, hamlets, houses, and forts, curing all who were sick. One white with leprosy, cried to Him from the crowd and was made whole. Peter’s mother-in-law at the gate of death from fever was saved, and many another was delivered from sufferings, whilst devils were cast out from those they tormented.
Then we come to the scene where, the poet having more
a mensasque per omnes dulcia non nato rubuerunt pocula musto.
This does not quite anticipate but it may have suggested Crashaw’s verse : vidit et erubuit nympha pudica Deum. The modest water saw its God and blushed. Iil
112 THE EASTER SONG
freedom, can display more poetic power. This relates to the sea, which Sedulius knew and loved, as we are shown not only by this passage but also by other allusions in prose and in verse. Referring to our Lord he writes :
He sought the sea; His footsteps press the dry
Shore-weed, and where an oaken skiff lay nigh,
He entered—His disciples followed fast
And raised the shiv’ring sail upon the mast ;
The ship ploughed onward and with fav’ring breeze
Soon lost the land and crossed the middle seas,
But then a sudden storm the waters smote
Which surged in fury and o’erleaped the boat.
Fear seized His people, deeming all was lost
They stretched their shipwrecked arms towards the coast.
He peaceful mid the tempest slept, Who keeps
Eternal watch—{because He never sleeps
Who Israel guards), so when, tumultuous,
Their terrors cry: “ Be merciful to us,
Lord, help, we perish ”—naught delayed His will.
The Lord arising bade the Winds be still,
The swelling Waves subsided at His word—
Not even Ocean when its deeps are stirred
With fellest rage resists ; nor yet the course
Of storms careering all in furious force.
The happy Sea to Christ in homage brings
Its lofty billows down, the Tempest springs
In joy away on softly wafting wings.
This is in the spirit of one who delighted in waves and winds. The purpose of the Book, however, commands his
THE EASTER SONG 113
attention. When Christ and His disciples had landed, there were brought to Him in the country of the Gergesenes, two insane men exceeding fierce (maniacs) whose violence had caused them to be bound in chains. They were healed. The unhappy spirit banished from them did not dare to enter a man—as Christ had assumed man’s form—and so he took refuge in a wild swine, “ niger, hispidus, horrens,” black, bristly, and horrid.
It is of interest to see that Sedulius, in depicting their approach, deplores the need of restraint by fetters; for this is, perhaps, the first time that any deprecation of manacles was made. Rigid restraint of the kind remained in force for over a thousand four hundred years after his time.
It is a happy thing for humanity that the poet’s vision sees things in fresh lights and is not controlled by the commonplace and customary.
Another example of that perceptive power follows. It relates to one who, the Gospel simply says, was “ sick of a palsy, lying on a bed.”
Then sought the Lord, sea-borne, another strand,
His body’s birthplace, where His own command
To Him, its Father, made a Father-land,
Behold there come, a living corpse who bear,
Four men: and, on the litter lying there,
One, hardiy man, alive, but void of use,
Death’s Image he—his prostrate limbs lie loose,
Their every service gone, and flaccid all
His joints inert and strengthless sinews fall.
1 In England, patients were still bound in fetters in Bedlam in Newton’s day, and later, Lord Shaftesbury gave an appalling picture ofthem. St. Dympna, an Irish saint, was the first to arrange home life for harmless lunatics, and still her good work survives at Gheel, in Belgium. Provision was made in the Ancient Brehon Laws, in the fifth century, in Ireland, for the care of lunatics, for medicinal plant gardens, physicians, and for hospitals, which should have a stream flowing through and a door opening to each point of the compass.
I
114 THE EASTER SONG
_ Within such brief compass no better description of complete paralysis could be given, nor is there any more vivid extant. One might deduce from this passage that Sedulius was a physician as from others that he was a mariner, if we were to apply to him some of the methods applied to Shakespeare— with whom, by the way, there are points of contact in that play on ideas and words in which they both at times take pleasure. But the fidelity of a poet’s description may only prove his possession of exceptional powers of intensive observation. He can see not only with the bodily eye, but with what Shakespeare named the “‘ mind’s eye,” and what Sedulius long before him called the sight, the vision, the ‘light of the heart.”
The prayer of the ruler of the Synagogue for the restoration of his only daughter is given in moving terms, and we have the incident of the healing of a woman who touched the hem of Christ’s garment. On the arrival of the Redeemer at the house of Jairus, the sound of lamentation was heard. St. Mark mentions that Christ saw “ the tumult and them that wept and wailed greatly”’; St. Matthew, that He saw “the people and the minstrels making a noise.” Sedulius, recalling possibly similar lamentations in his native land, depicts the scene in language which would apply even to the Celtic Ireland of to-day :
He reached the wailing walls, the House of Sighs, Where smote by doom the death-pale maiden lies : | A trembling tumult ululates, of groans And bitter cries, the flute funereal moans, In weeping dirge, and frequent sound on sound Of lamentable blows 1 the place confound. 1 In lamentation, the Irish Gael often smite the palms of the hands
together: this would give the ‘‘ plangorque frequens.” Their minstrels also played the airs of lamentation.
THE EASTER SONG ~~
This is a marvellously exact description of the Irish *‘ caoine ” the wailing dirge, with beating together of hands and mournful music.
The maiden was recalled to life. Two blind men were enabled again to see the light of day, and a deaf-mute made to hear and speak.
Then the Redeemer having compassion on the multitude sent His disciples into the harvest, first empowering them to teach and to work miracles. Sedulius lays very noble emphasis on the pure and selfless nature of the service that should be given by Christ’s followers :
Then that His own disciples might achieve
Like deeds, it pleased Him all full power to give :
‘Go forth,” He said, “‘ and to my people tell
(Enlarged not yet the House of Israel)
The Reign of Heav’n ; their cruel pests expel,
Cast demons out ; and heal the leprosied ;
Call life unto the chill limbs of the dead ;
Freely receiving, give to all men free.”’
As though He said: “ I now confide to ye
My flock to guard. I am their Shepherd good,
And largely open all My fields for food ;
Let no man sell my sheep these pastures—Mine.”’
Thus taught th’ Omnipotent the law divine
In apostolic ears, that thence the lore
Through after times should flow for evermore.
As from one crystal fount of Paradise
Four mighty ways of water take their rise,
And spread, diverging, all the world to bless,
Whatever be God’s work—not selfishness
Of man, but God-confided—comes, be sure,
A pure gift, one that shall be given pure,
116 THE EASTER SONG
As though by Stewards not by Traders held.
So David sang in canticles of eld :
“I yet shall enter, where my hopes aspire,
My Lord’s repose because I know not hire.”
Then the poet relates the healing of the withered hand in the Synagogue, that of the blind and stammering man, and of the woman bowed down with infirmities. Moses in the desert, feeding his people with manna, is taken as a true prophetic type of Christ, who, in the wilderness, multiplies the loaves and fishes for the multitude on whom He has compassion.
We come to the time when Christ at eve, having sent His disciples across the sea, retires apart to pray. Here the poet gives a beautiful description—vivid as a picture—of the approach of night and of the appearance of our Lord upon the waters :
The dying Day beyond the warm blue wave
Of ocean sinks, that forth may come the grave
Pale Night, and Hesper lead her starry shades.
Leaving their Lord amongst the mountain
glades
The Twelve put out upon the lake, where now
‘The threat’ning waters rock the labouring prow
And winds adverse.
As darker grows the air
The Lord walked forth upon the waters there
And trod their fluid fields ; with ripples fleet
The sea, subsiding, kissed His sacred feet.
Th’ amazed disciples saw the pathway o’er
Ship-bearing seas: then Peter, evermore
The first to know his Lord, essayed the wave,
But, sinking in the waters, called, and clave
Unto his Master’s hand, outstretched to save.
THE EASTER SONG 117
That hand his haven !—forth he moved and free
O’er crystal meads, a Walker of the Sea.
Here, the raging billows change to happy ripples which kiss His feet, in the other sea-scene the tempest did homage by fleeing on softly wafting wings. The vessel reached the farther shore, and the sick at Gennesaret are healed. They depart to the coasts of Tyre and Sidon, and the beneficence of the Redeemer is shown in healing the woman of Canaan, then so abhorred by the Hebrews. The return to Galilee is followed by the multiplication of the loaves and fishes to feed the famished multitude.
Then Sedulius relates how, taking with Him three disciples, Peter, James, and John, the Messiah retires to a high mountain where they witness the great miracle of
THE TRANSFIGURATION
The mortal vesture, of His mother ta’en
With human form, was seen to veil in vain
The Lord divine. No city on a hill
Is ever hid, none neath a bushel will
A lamp enclose, but raising let it light
With spreading beams the darkness of the night.
‘Upon the mount He stood, made manifest,
His Form in all ethereal Splendour drest :
Sun-bright His Glory was ; His Face excelled
The glowing Day ; His robe such Radiance held,
Its fairness far the whitest snow dispelled !
Sublimely favoured Three, who thus received
On Earth to see what Earth has not believed :
With Moses and Elias to take part—
Unknown, they knew them by the seeing heart-—*
1 Ignotos oculis viderunt lumine cordis.
oi THE EASTER SONG :
That we, with larger faith, might henceforth learn
The first and last of all things to discern,
Alpha and Omega.
At either side
Th’ adoring Prophets there have testified
One entering Life, and one who never died.
All heard the Voice descending from above
Proclaim the Son and speak the Father’s love.
By the prophet who never died Elias, of course, is meant. In describing Moses as at the threshold of life, Sedulius refers to the transference of his Soul from Limbo and the resurrection of his body when Christ arose from the dead, taking captivity captive.
Next we are told of the healing of one afflicted with (epi- leptic) convulsions, who fell, during his paroxysms, into fire and water ; of the tribute, and of the take of fish when Peter, at the Master’s command, cast his hook into the water.1
Finally comes the great lesson taught to mankind, through the disciples who came disputing as to who should be greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven :
Soon came disciples asking with debate
Who should in Heaven’s kingdom be most great ?
Then He, as God and Doctor Wonderful,
1 Sedulius describes this with the zeal of an angler. He tells in verse how the hook was thrown, and the fish bit the hanging line. In his prose work he goes further: ‘‘ Then,” he writes, ‘‘ the more active swift inhabitant of the waves devoured the tremulous lures of the deceiving hook and was lifted from his nocturnal element by the whipping rod.” This is a clear indication that fly-fishing was known to Sedulius. ‘The “‘ tremulous lures of the deceiving hook ”’ (tremulas hami decipientis insidias) can mean nothing else when taken in con- junction with the epithet given to the rod—from calamo flagellante we must infer the action of whipping the water, as in fly-fishing. This form of angling is therefore of high antiquity, and still older writers show that the use of artificial flies was known.
THE EASTER SONG 119
Replied: “‘ The Humble highest is: he all shall
rule
Who unto all is subject, modest, mild,
Who thinks himself the least ”—ev’n as the child,
Whom in their midst He placed that men, made
Wise,
The child-like character might recognise,
Nor years but mind regard :
The youthful heart
No pomp nor honours seeks in worldly mart,
Nor swells superb. A pure life’s path though
driven
Most close to earth is yet most nigh to heaven.
For minds aspiring sink from what they seek,
The heart that would descend ascends the peak !
Behold, the Lord exalts the lowly things,
And gives them place among the mighty kings,
But casts the arrogant and haughty Great
To deeps Tartaric down, disconsolate.
Little I say His special acts to trace
Whilst meditating on His general grace.}
1 The last two lines are not essential nor even required, and are the more interesting because they appear to me added, in order that Sedulius might conclude this, like each of his Books, with a distich fashioned in Irish metric. These are his words :
Parua loquor, si facta dei per singula Curram, et speciale bonum, quum sit generale reuoluam.
The last words in the lines, ‘‘ curram ”’ and ““reuoluam ” give perfect double-syllable vowel-rimes, and there is consonantal allitera- tion—p candss.
There are also four inlaid two-syllable rimes, ‘‘ parua,” “‘ loquor,”’ “facta,” “ bonum,” which rime also, by their vowels, with the end- rimes, whilst ‘‘ generale’ and “‘ speciale”’ rime in each of the four syllables. See Appendix II.
BOOK IV
THROUGHOUT the Fourth Book, the poet continues his narration of the miracles, partly toldinthe Third. It contains a wonder- ful passage, wherein Christ is shown weeping over the grave of Lazarus His friend. The Book begins with a scene beside the Jordan and concludes with the entrance of our Lord into Jerusalem, amid the acclamations of the people. It opens thus :
Beyond the placid Jordan’s sands, He stood
Where, followed by a nameless multitude
Of human Ills, He, still compassionate,
The stricken healed and sent them home, elate.
For never to those hoping in His ruth
He finds it hard to give, who renders smooth
The rough, and straight the crooked ways.
In sooth
He does, Himself, what Nature does deny.
For, as the Camel through the Needle’s Eye
Can never pass, even such would be the fate
Of rich men venturing the Narrow Gate
Had not the Lord of all (the Primal Cause
Who rules by law, yet uncontrolled by laws,
With whom to will is to accomplish, He
All things beholding, whom no eye may see),
Declared His power upon all things that are
I20
- := “7 a
THE EASTER SONG I2I
Impossible to men, and lowered the bar
That stops the burthened Rich. For even they
Do well with riches who their riches lay
In Heaven’s store, where rust shall not corrode
Nor busy moth destroy, nor their abode
Shall robbers break. Who feeds the hungeréd
Gives thirst to drink, receives th’ unshelter’d head,
The naked clothes, comforts the sick, and these
In prison bound—who all necessities
Helps well, will for himself his substance sure
In Heaven place :—in giving to the poor,
Beneath that semblance he to Christ shall give,
So, losing, gain : and make the dead thing live.
On the way from Jericho, two blind men calling on Christ, with loud appeal, are restored to sight ; and so giving Light to the blind and strength to the lame He returned to Bethany. The unfruited fig-tree is judged and condemned in precept, not smit by malediction, as Sedulius admirably explains in his Paschal Work, adding that the incident is not accepted literally, for the insensible wood could not sin, but as a parable. Whosoever is unfruitful towards God, like the barren tree is likened to the wood for burning, whilst the Just shall flourish like the fair Palm-tree, ever bearing leaves, and shall, like the Cedar of Lebanon, be multiplied and reach to the stars on high.
When He has healed one afflicted by insanity and dumbness, our Lord accepting the invitation of the Pharisee sits down to eat with him. ‘Then happened that incident of the woman who was a sinner and repentant, which Sedulius gives in a passage of pathetic beauty :
Then one, a woman came, all blemishéd,
Who bowed unto the ground her humble head
122 THE EASTER SONG
And suppliant clasped His feet ; she washed them fair With tears incessant, and, with loosened hair She wiped them dry ; nor ceased the while to kiss And them with fragrant oils anoint—till this Her happy doom He spoke, whose hand still went To heal the bruised and raise the penitent :— “Thy faith hath saved thee, Woman, go in peace.” Thus says the Lord. Confess and thou shalt cease The carking ill ; the great cure this, indeed : Who hides, augments, the wounds that inward bleed. He fosters hurts who will not bare for cure. Yet see how one, long sullied, is made pure, Cleansed by the tresses, when washed clean by tears. One moment’s grief effaces many years.
From the Synagogue of Capharnaum, where the evil Spirit acknowledges the Lord, the poet follows to the shores of Tyre and Sidon, tracing the benefits conferred on suffering humanity. We are shown the Saviour, seated in Simon Peter’s boat, teaching the people who are in a crowd upon the shore, and the marvellous draught of fishes when, after a night’s vain labour, the nets are again cast into the water at his Lord’s command. Entering Nain, they are made aware of the death of the only son of a widow—a woman twice bereaved. There is no long delay, Love—Grief’s enemy—bade the youth arise, and the funeral gloom is changed to white rejoicing. Then also the woman tormented by a demon is restored to health.
In order that naught of the abounding harvest, from the seed sown, should be lost, Christ called other disciples,
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seventy-two in number, upright men. He sent them forth as lambs amongst sanguinary wolves, giving them power, and charging them to fear nothing for they should tread over vipers, scorpions, and all power of the Enemy, and naught should hurt them. They should not rejoice that spirits were made subject to them, but that their names were written in the Book of Life.
It is the law of God which gives life to the dead: for on the cessation of pure service there is no miracle. Many have wrought in evil ways, to whom the Almighty shall say: “I know you not, go from me, ye workers of iniquity.” So, in the time of Moses, some in Egypt, with the vain rites of Memphis, gave signs not of God but false illusions to the sight. |
Sedulius resumes the narration of the miracles. His reference to those suffering through different ailments are not confined to generalities but are specifically described. And this is done with such vivid exactness and detail, in many instances, that the portraiture identifies the disease, and might be cited in works of medicine. ‘To give such faithful pictures he must have been skilled in discerning symptoms, and have had experience amongst the sick, sure medical teaching, and an imagination quick to perceive how the ailment affected the individual. A poet might say of a dropsical patient, he was “ big with unborn death,” an ordinary observer might depict his increase in bulk, but it required expert knowledge to detect the hidden atrophy, and to say that “ turgid emaciation wastes the inflated sick.” 4 So also when he relates the healing of the lepers, he gives a forcible picture of leprosy.
Blind Bartimaeus 2 by the wayside, who refuses to cease his cries at the bidding of the crowd, until they reach the ears of our Lord and bring him relief, is compared to one who through the opaque silence of the night calls a friend in
1 It is evident, I think, that Sedulius had read the works of Hippo- crates and of Galen, and that he probably attended a Medical School. ? Sedulius has ‘‘ Son of Timaeus,”’a translation of the Bar-Timaeus.
124 THE EASTER SONG
his closed house, for bread, and ceases not until he obtains it, by insistent pleading. The incident of the Samaritan woman who, drawing water from the well, gave Christ to drink, suggests that He is the true Fountain of the Waters of Life. The case of the woman taken in adultery is told in the simple language of the evangelist.
The sightless eyes of one who was born blind, his Redeemer anointed with native clay and bade him wash in the pool of Siloam, and he beholds the day. Know that this miracle is mystical, for we were all born blind ; the offspring of Eve, and bore through long error our natal shadows; but God, deigning to assume human form and substance, is made through the Virgin our Clay of Healing, which, when we are laved in the sacred fount, sets free the cleared openings of renascent light.
The coming to Bethany follows, and that most pathetic passage, where the Divine Redeemer is seen weeping over the grave of Lazarus His friend. In these lines we have the great words, ‘‘ Flebat et Omnipotens,’’! ‘‘He wept, the Om- nipotent,” and the extremely fine and subtle explanation that as Man He mourned through all that flesh—which was itself about to die—with instinctive or innate shrinking from its own disruption and disintegration.
He came once more to Bethany, and there Found Lazarus, cold within the sepulchre : Four days had closed since first the stone was laid O’er him, now one of the decaying Dead. His sisters wept, and all the people moan, He wept, th’ Omnipotent !—as man alone, 1 flebant germanae, fiebat populatio praesens, flebat et Omnipotens, sed corpore non Deitate exanimesque artus illa pro parte dolebat
qua moriturus erat, lachrimisque implevit amicum maiestate Deum.
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Not God,—through all that flesh which was to die,
He showed as friend His grief with tear and sigh,
As God his majesty.
Why, Mary, weep ?
Why, Martha, stay thy faith? From caverned deep
Ye doubt that one may rise through Him, by whom
Unnumbered hosts of Earth shall leave the tomb ?
So when the loud Voice of the Lord was heard :
““O Lazarus, come forth,” all broken, bared,
In mighty fear fell Tartarus ; the sound
Oped all of Erebus the dark profound,
And lethal Chaos cowed.
Death’s rigid law
Was broke. The Soul resumed its Home again,
The Corpse rose Living to the eyes of men—
As though New-born, from out the sepulchre,
Himself His Offspring posthumous, and Heir !
This passage is characteristically Sedulian in subtle and antithetic thought, the daring paradox in the last lines would have delighted Shakespeare.
Immediately following this miracle we have the descrip- tion of our Lord’s entry into Jerusalem :
Contemning all the passing pomp of Time
To show His power He came, not borne sublime
With mortal pomp, on chariot’s flashing speed
Through rolling dust, nor set on lofty steed
With clinking collar bright, and purple fold,
And tossing head that champs the blood-wet gold.
The Ruler’s pomp a lowly ass sufficed
With service slow, but nobler, bearing Christ—
The burthen marvellous—and not unfit
126 THE EASTER SONG
Companion of that ox which stood with it 4
In Bethlem worshipping. ;
Behold the crowd
Strew garments in the path : Hosannas loud
Arise. Ye Gentiles! say, had ever king
On earth such glory ?—palms for welcoming
With leafy boughs, and eager crowds who sing
Celestial hymns ?—save Christ, our Lord alone,
Who with His Father rules from Heaven’s high
throne ! 3
There are two points in these verses, which may need explanation. It seems an error to speak of collars on horses used for riding, but the collar in question was an ornament formed by hollow balls of silver or gold worn sometimes by victors and their steeds, as tokens of honour. The reference to the worshipping animals alludes to an ancient opinion. The words of Isaiah: ‘‘ The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master’s crib; but Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider,” were taken by some early writers as having a mystical meaning. Hence the view that in the stable, at Bethlehem, the ox and the ass adored the Infant Saviour. Arevalus gives a print, taken from an old glass anaglyph in the Museo Borgiano, which represents the stable. St. Joseph is seated a little apart, near the feet of the half recumbent figure of the Virgin, above whom is the infant Jesus touched
1 Sedulius, as usual, concludes this Book by two Latin lines moulded in Irish metric, 2.e. :
obuia Turba dedit ? Domino nisi cum Patre Christo, qui regit aetherewm Princeps in Principe regnum.
In the first line are two double-vowel rimes, “‘ino”’ and “‘ isto,” and three consonantal alliterations, tp c. Inthe second line, besides the obvious alliterations, r r and p p, there are three two-syllable slender rimes, ‘‘regit,” “‘ princeps,” “‘ princip,” and two other slender-broad, “‘ eum,” “‘regnum,” which interlace with two in the first line, “ino” and A ** Christo.”
THE EASTER SONG 127
by her raised right hand. Over His head the star of the Magi sends down a ray upon it, whilst over the head of St. Joseph is the crescent of the chaste moon. Just above the crib on which the infant is laid is a frame divided in two (the rack) through which appear the quaint heads of the ox and the ass watching over the infant Saviour, the former at His feet, the latter at His head as destined to more noble service. This beautiful belief, taken in connection with what is told of the ravens and the doves in Holy Writ must have deeply impressed the lesson of kindness to animals on the faithful followers of the Lamb of God.
BOOK V
Havinc told in the preceding Books, how Christ came amongst men for their deliverance, how He went about comforting the afflicted, giving health to the sick, sight to the blind, strength to the weak, and even life to the dead—endowing all the world with tidings of great joy—the poet now proceeds to relate the betrayal, desertion, false trial, and cruel death of the Redeemer, His agony intensified by his foreknowledge of Man’s ingratitude. ‘This, the last of the Books of the Easter Song (which closes with a marvellous description of His Resurrection and Ascension into Heaven), opens now at the eve of the Last Passover by recalling the beneficent works of Christ, and His preparation for the sacrifice :
Amid these gifts munificent, the eve
Of that great Day drew nigh, when He would
leave
The mortal and th’ undying flesh assume—
Not other but the same—which should illume
The plenitude of Light, and, raised on high
From the great Deeps, outshine the starry sky !
Then He: “ O Father! save me in this hour
Who in this hour for this have come.” In pow’r
He spake: “O Father! glorify Thy name.”
A Voice descending from the Heavens came,
“J glorified it and will yet again
It glorify.”
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How manifest was then
Th’ excelling evidence of Heaven to men !—
But no acceptance met, for some there said :
* An angel spoke”; and some “ It thunderéd.”
O blind of eyes! O hardest hearts of earth !
No thunder nor no angel e’er gave birth
Unto its Maker, Christ, that thus it spoke
When He His Father’s name did there invoke.
The Voice divine, which all the people heard
The Word acknowledging, reveals the Word !
The last lines express a very subtle thought. Christ being the Word of God, when He is answered by a Voice from Heaven this act reveals the Father in the Son and the Son in the Father—distinct in persons, one in Godhood.
The Passover, it may be recalled, dates from the deliverance out of Egypt of the oppressed Nation of Israel. For four hundred and thirty years they had sojourned amongst strangers and their sufferings appealed to Heaven. Deaf to the demands of Moses, enforced by many plagues, Pharaoh refused them freedom. At last the prophet was told of God to make ready for the day of their deliverance. The month in which this was announced was to be the beginning of the months, the first of the year. On the tenth day, each household should choose out a lamb without blemish ; on the fourteenth day, it should be killed in the evening by the assembled Israelites, hyssop should be dipped in its blood and smitted against the doorposts and lintels, through which none might go forth that evening. On this night, its flesh should be roast with fire, and eaten with bitter herbs and unleavened bread, and the remnants consumed with fire. They ‘should eat it in haste, prepared for a journey, standing, their loins girded, shoes on feet, and staff in hand; for, upon this night the Lord would pass over the households of the oppressed People, signed with the blood of the lamb, and smite all the first-
K
130 THE EASTER SONG
born of Egypt with death. Seven days thereafter the Israelites should eat unleavened bread, and that day was to be kept as a memorial through all their generations, so that when their children should say, “What mean you by this service? ” they should reply, “ It is the sacrifice of the Lord’s passover, who passed over the houses of the children of Israel in Egypt, when He smote the Egyptians and delivered our houses.”
This, the most wonderful Commemoration of a Nation’s Deliverance—and of its Gratitude—was that memorial day now to be kept for the last time by the disciples in Jerusalem with the Messiah, of Whom the unblemished lamb was a symbol, and Whose blood was to be shed for the deliverance of all mankind.
On the first day of the Feast of unleavened bread the disciples, as directed by their Master, made ready the Passover in the Holy City, and when evening was come, Jesus sate down with the Twelve :
Then, in remembered ways, He kept the Feast,
The Passover, and, making Him the least,
He ministered to them, their gracious Guide—
Our true Exemplar—Who, arising, tied
The girded linen ; so that, loving, He
Might first His servants serve, with office free.
Nor yet, when washing His disciples feet,
Passed Judas by,—though plotting fell deceit.
But nothing, Traitor! serves thy washing there
Of feet, whose heart is as a sepulchre,—
Without, all fair and newly washed in white,
Within, a fetid corpse and blackest night.
His Lord knows his treason and yet gives bread to him who is to betray the Bread of Life. At the Last Supper, Christ ordained the two boons of His Body and His Blood, that the faultless faithful might never know hunger nor thirst of
THE EASTER SONG 131
the soul. Then Judas, moved by an evil spirit, goes out that he may betray his beneficent Master, the very’ author of his being, Whom he had sold for thirty pieces of silver. Christ and His disciples withdrew from Jerusalem, crossing the brook Cedron to the Garden of Gethsemane where He was wont to go: there He prays apart, keeping the vigil of His agony, and comforts His disciples. Then comes the Great Betrayal. Judas appears with the chief priests and an armed multitude, and identifies his Lord, giving poison for honey, betraying Him by a kiss.
Sedulius, vehement against treachery, delivers a passionate denunciation of Judas. His verse which conveys the spirit so characteristic of the Gael in reference to betrayers, repro- duces in Latin a metric style characteristically Celtic.
The narrative is resumed. We are told how Peter, who smote off the ear of the High Priest’s servant with his sword, is admonished to put it up. The servant is healed. Christ, whom legions of Angels would surround at a wish, did not come to take the life of any but to lay down His own life for all. And Peter, who declares his readiness to die for Him, is told that, ere the cock should crow, he would thrice deny his Master.
The disciples having deserted Him, though Peter follows at a distance, the Messiah is taken to the Palace of the High Priest, where the Scribes and Elders are assembled :
They led Him, quite forsaken, to the hall,
Repellent, wherein Caiaphas, chief of all
The priests sat throned, and chief of all in
crime.
For he and they, devising, sought that time
To slay the Just, by witnesses forsworn :
A myriad lies fly out, a moment born,
And die inept—as when the withered straw
Takes flame and flares aloft, the very law
? See Appendix II., Irish Metrical Characteristics in Sedulian Verse.
132 THE EASTER SONG
That of its frailty makes a glare outflash
As sudden quenches it in sordid ash.—
But when they found no way, through guile, to
pass,
Their fury rose against Him then. Alas!
What tears do hinder when I must recall
The mob’s tumultuous rage, the blows, and all
Th’ affronts that sacrilegous hands have laid
With cruel wrongs upon that Sacred Head !
But He, all patient, did His Body make
Subject to scorn and suff’ring for our sake :
For of those wounds shall come our healing’s fee,
And by those shameful slights we cleansed shall be,
And by those bonds are made for ever free !
As foretold, Peter, when challenged, has thrice denied knowledge of the captive Christ when the cock crows: then recovering his senses and recalling his fault, he goes out and weeps bitterly ; his fault, says the poet, flees in his groans, his offence passes away in his many tears. Bitter sighs bring forth sweet succour.
Day comes, gloomier than the night, opening on new crimes. But Judas, when he sees his Master condemned and delivered bound to Pilate, casts down the price of treachery and hangs himself. Once an Apostle, now an apostate.
To Pontius Pilate the Governor (representing the sovereign power of Pagan Rome over the once free people of Israel) the chief priests and elders deliver Christ, so that they may procure His death ; in order to convict One, Whom at least they considered their own countryman, before their alien ruler, they servilely framed the charge that their victim had claimed to be King of Israel.
As lamb unto the slaughter, when they brought
The patient Lord to Pilate’s hall, they naught
THE EASTER SONG 133
Of evil could accuse Him, innocent :
“‘ He saith He is a King ” was their complaint—
True King indeed, and Falsehood judges Truth
Condemned as Crime. Nor wonder if the ruth
And rule of God the people should refuse—
Barabbas now, as Baal, of old they choose,
Reject the Righteous and the Wretch excuse :
Inverting thus the beam of just award—
Who death had given they to life restored—
To death they doomed Life’s Author and their
Lord !
In vain did Pilate wash his hands before the multitude declaring himself innocent of the blood of the Just, when, by his judgment, eternal Justice was outraged and the innocent condemned to scourging and crucifixion.
When now the Holy One was given, bound,
To suffer doom, rude soldiery around
Arrayed Him in a scarlet robe, the sign
And hue of gory Death ; a Crown they twine
Of thorns and press upon His bleeding Head
Which all our sins hath borne and sufferéd.
In His right hand with mock they set a reed—
A Sceptre, trembling, feeble, frail, indeed,
Then take the alien robe that He His own
Apparel may do on—by this be known
His garb of human flesh laid down, He will
Resume once more, and bear immutable,
Undying after death—when He shall rise
In fulness of His glory o’er the skies.
Nor deem disparate to the Life Divine _ That He, when offered mingled gall and wine,
134 THE EASTER SONG
Should taste it, but refuse : this symbol saith
That now, about to taste a time of Death,
The flesh shall shrink before its bitter breath.
The mystic symbolism of Sedulius is not anywhere better or more beautifully shown than in the following passage descriptive of the signification of the Crucifixion and of the Cross :
Tue PEACE OF THE CROSS
Upraised upon the spreading wood, He hath
By sacred Love displaced the rule of Wrath :
Peace of the Cross is He,1 whose burthen there
Illumed its bond, and clothed with honour fair
The penalty of Hate—its every line
By torture sanctified and blessed benign,—
The Sign of Shame is made Salvation’s Sign !
For who but knows the Cross we should revere
Which joyful bore the Lord: He gathered here
The symbolled Quarters of the World’s great
Sphere :
The Orient shineth from His Head supreme—
Beneath His feet the Vesper planets beam,
And either Pole at either hand shall seem.
All nature lives of its Creator’s face
And Christ doth on the Cross the world embrace !
Beside the question of the mystic symbolism, another of much interest arises in connection with this mode of placing the cardinal points. Usually, as in English, men speak of north and south, east and west ; children at school are taught that by facing the sun at noon-day they look south, with back
1 Pax crucis ipse fuit. For original Latin verses see Lrish Metrical Characteristics in Sedulian Verse, Appendix IT.
THE EASTER SONG 135
to the north, and left and right hands to the east and west respectively. .
But, the terms of the Irish language indicate quite a different position. In Irish, the same word designates both the right hand and the south ; the left and the north are named alike ; whilst “‘ behind ” and “‘ west ” are identical. Hence, the Irish faced the east: the orient was the chief or capital point, and the northern and southern poles were indicated by either hand. ‘Thus the symbolism of the Cross, as given by St. Sedulius in the fifth century, which seems strange to modern readers, would appear quite natural and familiar to the Irish-speaking peasant of to-day.
The poet, continuing, notes that the threefold inscription on the Cross declares one King, and that the undivided garment for which lots were cast, is an emblem that forbade schism. ‘Then he proceeds:
Now, when the Innocent they crucified,
They hung a Murderer at either side,
Thus striving by one sentence and one shame
To make the cause seem as the fate the same,
A common doom, but how unlike the cause !—
These, many crimes make forfeit to the laws,
These to the world are guilty, Robbers grim,
To Him the World is guilty, saved by Him !
Nor lost He there, amidst such sufferings,
His right supreme of judgment o’er all things,
Impartial, with inerrant balance weighed :
For both beholding, one is chosen made,
And one reproved. Him not ev’n in death
Ferocious life forsakes, his latest breath
Assails with savage mock his loving Lord,
As when by boar a tender vine is gored.
The other, suppliant, lowers his painéd eyes
136 THE EASTER SONG
Adoring Christ whom Christ did recognise,
As Shepherd gathers, in a desert wide,
His wandering sheep, and leads him by His side
Into thy vales, O Paradise, serene,
Where flowers perennial charm the grasses green,
Where pleasant fruits abound, and flowing floods
With spray of waters feed the Joy of Woods !
There is a world of poetry in the words, “‘ nemorumque voluptas ”’—the joy or delight of woods; here speaks a heart that loved and understood them, as did the ancient bards of the author’s native land, once known as the Isle of Woods. ‘The Roman poets, on the other hand, seem to have taken no pleasure in them; at best they describe woods as verdant and leafy, but usually as dense, dark, opaque, terrible, full of horrors, the resort of wild beasts.
The beautiful picture of Paradise glances like a sudden sunbeam across the gloom; next, incensified by contrast, come the phenomena which follow the Crucifixion. 'These are described in verse that demonstrate a powerful and poetic imagination :
Then cloud on dreadful cloud was sudden
hurled,
And Darkness terrible o’erspread the World,
Funereal black the day. ‘The sun’s great light
Lay hid in shrouding gloom of mournful Night,
Obscuring all with wailing and affright.
Such aspect, God the Father’s aid did give
The orphaned Elements (so they might grieve
This death)—which gladdened at their Master’s
birth,
For as, at birth, Light radiant shone o’er earth,
It vanished when Hr died, nor vanished long—
THE EASTER SONG 137
A mystic sign, through space, that as the throng
Of heav’nly stars lay hid three hours in gloom,
So should their Lord three days abide the tomb.
Nor did the Witness, Earth, escape unharmed,
But trembled through its depth, and, all alarmed,
Nature beheld its Author and took dread
Lest He descending—Nature’s stay and head—
Its sequent mass should move, to Chaos led,
But Love unmeasured sought th’ infernal realm
To save the Lost, and not to overwhelm.
Even these signs did not convert those who had accused Christ, for they had become as sweet wine changed to sharp vinegar. A noble passage follows closing with the great Apostrophe to Death.
When now the end of Agony was come,
Himself His holy Spirit from its home
Corporeal sent, to be assumed again
And live for ever which had died for Men.
The body dying, God undying rives
Returning ways from Death and Hell, whose
gyves
Lie broken :—rent the rocks, and of the Just
The Souls re-animate the buried dust,—
And they arose, and from their graves came forth!
This Temple marvellous new-built on Earth
When th’elder Temple witnessed, sudden, prone
Its summit falls with noise as ’twere a groan.
Its Veil is rent in twain: its riven breast
Reveals the inner secrets, long represt,
To future man: so Moses’ Veil shall fall
138 THE EASTER SONG
From off the Law, by Christ made free to all !
Where now, O Grave, thy Victory? Where,
Death,
Thy dread sting irresistible, wherewith
Thy penal reign, insatiate of woe,
Was laid on suff’ring man? ‘Thou didst not ge
To Christ, but Christ to thee—thine Overthrow !
For He alone might deathless die, Whose grasp
Upholds the world. He made not thee—of Asp
And Disobedience born : lo, now at length
Thy reign is o’er, and stricken all thy strength !
For when upon the Cross the Saviour died,
Wrath came and with a spear did pierce His side,
The Blood and Water from His Body flowed
Behold, three Gifts of Life on us bestowed :
That fount of water laves us with new birth,
These make us ‘Temples of our God on earth,
Which rendered meet for that most high estate
He orders that we keep immaculate.
The Chief Priests and Pharisees seal the sepulchre and set a watch, suspiciously fearing lest the disciples may deceive the people by a false rumour of the Resurrection, which had been predicted. ;
The sacred Treasure of His Body dead
Within the rock-hewn sepulchre was laid,
Ennobled then, but still more glorious made
When He arose.
Now craft a vigil kept
With sharp suspicion, lest, whilst others slept
His followers remove it, and might say
THE EASTER SONG 139
“‘ He hath arisen on the destined day :”
Wherefore the stone they sealed and did enclose
His resting-place with guard of watchful foes.
If after all the Cross’s martyrdom,—
And wounding spear—and burial in the tomb—
Ye, Men of Slaughter, think unfinished still
Your gory deed, and deem that He, Whose will
Brought many Souls enfranchised from the grave
Cannot His own recall—then Counsel crave
For arms of guile, seal down the sepulchre,
Roll on the stone, and keep your watch a-stir.
Who shall imprison God ?—before Whose
might
All matter opes—Who rules the Under-night
And thunders, Sovereign, from the starry Light !
Why waste your vigils, Foes ! why strive t’achieve
That proof of Faith which, proved, ye dis-
believe ?
Sedulius, in treating of the Resurrection, incidentally points out the abandonment of the Jewish Sabbath, and describes the institution of the Lord’s Day.
This mournful Sabbath past, the dawning came
Of that glad Day which draws its lofty name
From Him, the Lord who gave it, in this wise,
To see the Earth have birth, and Christ arise.
For, as the Sabbath seventh is, this Morn
Is Head of orbéd Time, which now adorn
The glories of the King, Whose triumphs bright
Confirm anew its great primatial right.
At dawn, the Virgin Mother came, with her
140 THE EASTER SONG
Came other women to the Sepulchre
With fragrant spice and lamentable sighs,
When lo! the tomb lay void before their eyes
But full of glory : on the stone rolled nigh
There sate an Angel, missioned from on high,—
His Countenance shone like to light’ning, bright,
And like the spotless snow his raiment white,
Whose aspect did both joy and fear inspire—
For to the hostile guard it flashed as Fire,
As Light to those who wept, who learned with faith
Their Lord had triumphed o’er defeated Death!
The guards, fleeing into the City, bear the witness of Terror to the Truth; but, afterwards, bribed by the elders become forsworn, pretending that the body was removed whilst they slept. False guards! exclaims Sedulius, criminal custodians, if the body were taken, whose were the grave- cloths by which the Angel sat? Which were more swiftly done, as theft would do—to unbind all the cerements, or to bear away the body bound? Iniquity has lied to itself, but here also is a symbol, for that has been removed from Israel, which we cherish in our hearts.
Lament thy priests about to perish ; wail Thy people for this deed, O Israel ! Thy trump shall please no more, thine oil, nor fane. How could thy trumpet sound, whose King is slain ? : Who thine Anointed be, who’st cast the True Anointed forth? And with what victim sue Whose hands the martyred Shepherd’s veins imbue ?
THE EASTER SONG 141
The Synagogue shall pass, in self-made gloom, Christ takes His Church in happy love to bloom.
Sedulius says that after the Resurrection, our Lord appeared first to the Virgin-Mother, that she by whom He came on earth might first announce His re-appearance. The recognition by the disciples is told, and the evidence of His material presence given, with the incident of Thomas, whose doubt they dissolve ; for Christ, says the Paschal Work, encourages with gentle lenity the soul taken with doubt. He desired to be known of him the more, being the friend of the doubter.1_ Whosoever forges fraud does not wish to be known, nor his proofs to be called for. ‘The simulator abhors investigating friends.
On the sea of ‘Tiberias, Simon Peter and the other disciples were fishing all the night, but caught nothing ; in the morning, One is seen standing upon the shore :
To Peter, fishing vainly through the night,
He bade to cast his net upon the right
Into the waters ; forthwith, scarcely they
Could hawl the straining net’s wave-wand’ring
prey.
Behold a type: for thus the casting line
Shall take, in precepts of our Lord divine,
And these the Apostolic hands shall’ bring
From the right side to be Christ’s following.
Coming to the land, Peter leaps into the water that he may more speedily reach his Lord whom he has recognised. There, on the shore, the disciples behold, already prepared for them, a fire on which is laid a fish, and bread. Christ having invited them, gives them to eat, and speaks His last recorded words :
1 Agnitus hinc potius, quod sit amicus dubitantis, L, v. 1. 386.
142 THE EASTER SONG
Nor lacked they glowing fire upon the strand
With fish thereon, and bread ;—thence understand:
The fish for water, fire the Holy Ghost
And Christ Himself the bread: in that are lost
Our primal stain, these sanctify and feed.
Then He, their Teacher and their Host indeed,
Bade His disciples to the welcome board,
And all enjoyed the good gifts of the Lord, And knew their Christ. Their hunger o’er, they rose.
Then Peter questioned He, if more than those
He loved Him : answered Peter, ‘‘ Yea,” then He,
The Shepherd, loving His fair flock to see
Increase, did sheep and lambs to him confide
As to a workman, good in all and tried ;
And thrice He asked, so Peter cleansed might be
Of all the fault of his denials three.
Then taught He, saying: ‘‘ Peace be with you
here,
Receive My Peace: through all the Peoples bear
My quiet Peace with holy counsels spread.
Empty the Earth of ills ; one Fountain-head
Shall lave all men, and therefore shall ye call
From Earth’s extremes My scattered Nations all.”
Then, and lastly, with the intense reserve of extreme reverence, Sedulius describes THE ASCENSION
Thus having spoke His sacred will, the crest —
Of Bethany He sought (with those most blest
ss. &
THE EASTER SONG 143
Who might such triumph see with mortal eyes),
And thence sublimely passed into the skies
Ethereal—where, at the Father’s right,
He sits and rules Who, governing the height
Of Heav’n, descended to the Deep profound,
And from the Deep arose.
All, standing round
Adoring, saw Him rise beyond the bars
Of cloud and tread the luminous path of stars.
His heav’nly course in joyful hearts they bear
So all might learn: True Witnesses they were
By strength divine ; though much had met their
sight
They few of acts innumerable write :—
For not the world could all the books confine
Were it ordained in Holy Writ to shrine
All things accomplished by our Lord divine.
Thus with the impressive words of St. John the Beloved closes the Fifth and last Book of the Easter Song of Sedulius, the First Epic of Christendom.
Compare with its serene spiritual beauty of peace and love, Milton’s scene of wrath and revenge. Plagiarising Homer’s
1 Faithful to his remarkable rule, Sedulius concludes this Book and, as it were, signs his great Epic by a couplet in Irish metric, thus :
Facta redemptoris nec Totus Cingere Mundus sufficeret densos per Tanta volumina libros.
In the first line are three dissyllables with perfect double broad vowel rimes, re-echoed by an interlaced riming word, “‘ tanta,” in the second line. There are also three consonant alliterations tt c. In the second line there are two dissyllables, with delicately varied vowel rimes, now slender-broad—densos, libros. Be it observed that the final riming syllable is in ‘‘ os,” which also is found to be the final of the First Book (and not elsewhere), a most marked Irish char- acteristic link between first and last.
siomunt OE Achill? bevtal deed ws Melaee
round the walls of Troy, Milton thinks to glorify the di Redeemer by imputing a similar deed to Him :
Then to the Heaven of Heavens he shall ascend
With victory, triumphing through the air
Over his foes and thine ; there shall surprise
The Serpent, Prince of Air, and drag i in chains
‘Through all his realm, and there confounded leave.
a