Authors: William Alexander Percy
Was ever such a sermon?
I, no text; no morals, you!
Let’s call it then no sermon, but instead
I’ll sit within the shadow of this tree
With you companionably close,
And while the hoyden breeze on emerald wings
Lets through the shimmering lances of the sun,
And hums aloud for wantonness — we’ll gossip!
Oh, not of sin or other grave concern,
But right familiarly of what we know — His life.
Saints! what a fluttering
And sparkle of expectancy!
Upon my lap at last, robin of mine?
‘Twas thus about His knees that day
The children came and begged for tales,
Vexing poor Matthew, and bequeathing us
His dearest page.
Let me see … ah …
The book is not so full of tales for birds;
’Twas writ for men, you see.
I doubt not men had far the greater need —
’Twas not because he loved you less!
But now I do recall a story; one you’ll love —
That day by Jordan!
They had been urchin comrades years before,
That lonely Jordan prophet and our Lord,
But him the wilderness and stars and solitude
Had swallowed up this many a day.
So now his eyes were full of tears
To see, across the grass where all the people sat,
The little boy he loved run to him, call his name,
And in the cool, clear water kneel
To beg his blessing.
The desert had not dried his heart away;
And so he wept, and clasped Him close, and prayed.…
But I’d forgot the Holy Ghost!
He could have been
A scarlet cloud of seraphim, a lightning bolt,
Fire or darkness, what He willed!
But what chose He? what creature honored there?
From out of Heaven He flew — a lovely dove!
That was a day for birds!
Sure, you must love the Holy Ghost — and keep
Your hearts and plumage clean and bright for Him,
And make your mourning baths baptismal in a way!
Another story I recall, dear children.
But whether it be writ or only dreamed
I cannot say.… Gethsemane …
My heart is there so much, I do remember more,
Perhaps, than they that set it down.…
It is not spring talk for a golden dawn,
But even you, gleamers of God, should know.
Before the end He longed to come once more
To that familiar garden that He loved.
Its olive trees and sandy barrenness
That drank the moon were home to Him,
For other home He had not, save
Such waste and lonely places off the way
As men forgot. And so that night, the last, He knew,
That He might pray together with the twelve,
He came unto the garden where it lay
All full of moonlight and of silence,
And with Him brought for comfort them He loved.
Indeed, He loved us all — too well, too well —
But ah, the mortal of His heart had need to choose
For special tenderness, those few.
How tired He was! Oh, weary unto death;
And needed most mere human love!
But they whom He had chosen, whom He loved,
His own, His very own — they slept!
God! God!
Had Lancelot or Tristran been His knights,
They had not slept.…
When those we love have failed us in our need
There is no bitterness undrunk for death.…
That night, as thus He lay,
After the prayer, too tired for tears,
And even God forgot Him with the rest,
I think that one of you, beholding from
The shadows where you hid, that agony,
Trembled and paused and bent your head,
Then, for you knew no other, quavered forth
Your silver serenade for healing to His heart.…
The torches and the sudden faces broke
Your song.… Likely He never heard …
But only you bethought to comfort Him that night.…
They slept … God! Let me back into the world!
Lest coming suddenly again
He finds them sleeping still.
Good-bye, good-bye!
Remember to give thanks each day to Him
Who made your feathers clean and fair and warm,
Who set within your hearts clear springs of happiness,
Who shares with you His home, the sacred sky.
And I beseech you, little brothers, think
On us, who, soaring, never leave the earth.
O swallows, should you see, when evening comes,
One leaning from his darkened window, dark,
His eyes unlighted, bitter with the day’s defeat,
Toss where your vagrant flight may catch his gaze;
For, as you scatter up the golden sky,
Haply he may remember Jacob’s dream,
The ladder and the wings, and, holpen, send his heart
In God’s light careless way to climb with you.
And you, sweet singers of the dark,
That tune your serenades but by the stars,
Love gardens most;
For garden casements do unlock themselves
With magic silentness unto your spell,
And music unto sleepless eyes doth bring
The lonely solace of unloosened tears.
But most, you morning choristers, that haunt the eaves,
Whose little voices like a hundred stars
Shine just before the sun, tapping with dreams
The lazy sleep that lingers on our lids,
Fail not to keep your matins clear for us;
And should you know, by some bird craft of yours,
The room wherein an almost mother lies,
Choir your sweetest there, as tho’ the babe to come
Were son of God — for so he is!
Again, farewell!
I cannot leave ye thus!
O Father, I have failed!
What truth can they recall
That I have given them?
None, none! And now the hour is past!
Birds, birds, stay yet and harken this last word,
Too simple to be long remembered; but, forgot,
Taking the shining and the wings
And all seraphic meaning from the life we know —
And you that glisten through the lovely blue,
Not singly, but in shoals and multitudes,
Bear witness to the truth that I would tell:
That child of God, man-child or bird-child
Or silver-wingèd star-child of the night,
That lives apart, unto himself,
Unsharing, unsolicitous, and free,
Hath vainly lived; for life, this present life,
Is but the throe to brotherhood!
Behold our hearts, which we forget to hide,
Are fashioned so in likeness to His own,
That only joy of all can bring them bliss,
And every special woe must bring them pain.
So long as one,
But one of all His children knoweth grief,
So long we sorrow too. Nor can there be a heaven
Till hell be tenantless.…
The love we bear hath neither gates nor walls
To keep men out, but tendereth itself
A refuge city to the shelterless,
Calling across the tempest-shadowed plain
Unceasingly, “Come in, come in!”
And, for they will not come, but scatter far,
Grieving and hurt and blind into the storm,
There is no peace for us, and all our days
Are hungered for the sight of them that stray,
Are empty to the cry that sounds in vain,
“Come in, come in!” …
So must it be — now.
But I perceive another day not too far off;
And in that day there shall not one remain
Uncleansed of tears and sin and every stain;
And in that day, behold, the golden droves
Of His light creatures shall invade the dawn,
Shall stream across the hush beyond all stars,
And people those celestial places He hath planned.
Some day.… But now …
I go to them that have the greater need.
God’s blessing steep your hearts in peace,
And all your deeds in patient tenderness.
My name! … They call me through the woods!
Quick, quick! away! … Here, Egidio! I come!
Up, up into the leaves lest seeing you
They say there was a miracle!
Go! But birds, my birds, come back to me!
The cherry bloom and robin time of year
Again is come; and we that shepherd still
Among less heavenly pastures feel the fear
Of spring again, and all the tears that thrill
But never fall. Last night, across the shine
Of iris-tinted skies, I heard the dim
Enraptured song we knew, the dire divine
Music, that once, beyond the violet rim
Of pain, could waft us clear to where, our own,
Th’ unstable faery shores of ecstasy
Burn in the twilight of an April sea.
Our music came last night to me alone.
No more may song nor petalled fluttering
Upbreathe frail, frail delight as in the days
We clung together here. Instead, they bring
The pain of hearts that, glamourous still with spring,
Break, and the dread of star-lit, lonely ways
Where once, O comrade mine, we heard them sing.
O almond trees, beneath whose fruited shade
I lay these summer days and saw the sea,
The hills of Mola, and Calabria’s jade,
Good-bye! Perhaps the god that yielded me
Such luxury of happiness, these clear
And brimming hours with you, will, in his grace,
Yield none again; and, summer, finding here
Your branches green, will find again the place
I love, not me. Thro’ all the leafy years,
Others will come and love your loveliness;
Love with a heart as gay and free of fears
As mine, and, leaving, leave their souls no less.
But, ah, for me, when spring stands in the door,
Take on, I pray, one shade of pink the more.
Serene, he mounts the minaret of day;
Where purple spreads the world his footsteps pause.
Splendors from whence he rose still flame his grey
And amethystine robes to golden gauze.
Priestly and pure, he stands within the curve
Precipitous that fronts the chasmed west.
The blowing birds that wove his hem in swerve
And arabesque of jet, flicker to rest.
And now his voice, a tide of silence, pours
Across the desert’s pallor and the palms:
“Come forth to God from all your darkened doors.”
Who pause for prayer? Partake the sacred calms?
Pass and repass the women with their jars;
But faithful come those worshipers, the stars.
Like some still angel who, in toilless might,
The empyrean cleaves with unstirred wings,
Heedless of his proud speed save where it springs
About his feet like blown, quick-curling light —
So passed our ship in soft, gloom-charmèd flight,
Midmost a huge, drear shade of sea and air,
Voiceless, indissoluble, saving where
Prowwards awoke two folds of fiery white.
The wash of dim infinity, the swoon
Of vasty quiet hushed us. Then the least
Dawn quivered — nay, the east dreamed of the moon.
Breathless, we watched. Again! Ah, elfin east!
The white day leaped upon the world. The miles
Of sea flamed loose — and then we saw those isles.
They came from fierce, burnt Spain to seek for gold
Upon thy shores, and with superb, strange prows
Dazzled the wilderness. Their proud, swarth brows
With gorgeous lust of gems and trove made bold
The river folk feared as the gods of old.
But, lo! thy gods awaking, the deep drowse
Of death their chief assuaged of quests and vows,
And him, not disillusioned, thou didst fold.
No dreams of gold or jeweled glebe now force
Thy stream with ships adventuring; and tho’
Thy flood in yellowed opulence doth flow,
’Tis not from stain of deep, corroded treasure.
Imperial indolence is thine and pleasure
Of hot, long listlessness and moody course.
A brotherhood of bleached, air-scourgèd peaks
In desolation watch the Illyrian sea.
Them twice the lidless day brings ecstasy;
Their leperous fronts but twice a splendor freaks.
Once, when the anguish-heedful dawn unspeaks
Their woe with rich, deep-blushed divinity;
Again, when ’neath eve’s balm they tower free
Like Tyrian tents of purple-amorous sheiks.
As they with light, so man with vision twice
Scorns pain. First, when the bowl of life in bliss
Youth holds, sees all — grape, dregs, and sleepy spice —
Then stoops his head to drink as tho’ to kiss.
And last, when to the verge of death he strives,
Pauses to gaze adown, and, smiling, dives.