The Dream of Gerontius (part 5 of 7)
The Dream of Gerontius
(Excerpt from a newly published combined work available here)
Chapter 5
.... Hark to those sounds!
They come of tender beings angelical,
Least and most childlike of the Sons of God.
First Choir of Angelical Beings
Praise to the Holiest in the height,
And in the depth be praise:
In all His words most wonderful;
Most sure in all His ways!
To us His elder race He gave
To battle and to win,
Without the chastisement of pain,
Without the soil of sin.
The younger son He will'd to be
A marvel in His birth:
Spirit and flesh his parents were;
His home was heaven and earth.
The Eternal bless'd His child, and arm'd,
And sent him hence afar,
To serve as champion in the field
Of elemental war.
To be His Viceroy in the world
Of matter, and of sense;
Upon the frontier, towards the foe
A resolute defence.
Angel
We now have pass'd the gate, and are within
The House of Judgment; and whereas on earth
Temples and palaces are form'd of parts
Costly and rare, but all material,
So in the world of spirits nought is found,
To mould withal, and form into a whole,
But what is immaterial; and thus
The smallest portions of this edifice,
Cornice, or frieze, or balustrade, or stair,
The very pavement is made up of life—
Of holy, blessed, and immortal beings,
Who hymn their Maker's praise continually.
Second Choir of Angelical Beings
Praise to the Holiest in the height,
And in the depth be praise:
In all His words most wonderful;
Most sure in all His ways!
Woe to thee, man! for he was found
A recreant in the fight;
And lost his heritage of heaven,
And fellowship with light.
Above him now the angry sky,
Around the tempest's din;
Who once had Angels for his friends,
Had but the brutes for kin.
O man! a savage kindred they;
To flee that monster brood
He scaled the seaside cave, and clomb
The giants of the wood.
With now a fear, and now a hope,
With aids which chance supplied,
From youth to eld, from sire to son,
He lived, and toil'd, and died.
He dreed his penance age by age;
And step by step began
Slowly to doff his savage garb,
And be again a man.
And quicken'd by the Almighty's breath,
And chasten'd by His rod,
And taught by angel-visitings,
At length he sought his God;
And learn'd to call upon His Name,
And in His faith create
A household and a father-land,
A city and a state.
Glory to Him who from the mire,
In patient length of days,
Elaborated into life
A people to His praise!
Soul
The sound is like the rushing of the wind—
The summer wind—among the lofty pines;
Swelling and dying, echoing round about,
Now here, now distant, wild and beautiful;
While, scatter'd from the branches it has stirr'd,
Descend ecstatic odours.
Third Choir of Angelical Beings
Praise to the Holiest in the height,
And in the depth be praise:
In all His words most wonderful;
Most sure in all His ways!
The Angels, as beseemingly
To spirit-kind was given,
At once were tried and perfected,
And took their seats in heaven.
For them no twilight or eclipse;
No growth and no decay:
'Twas hopeless, all-ingulfing night,
Or beatific day.
But to the younger race there rose
A hope upon its fall;
And slowly, surely, gracefully,
The morning dawn'd on all.
And ages, opening out, divide
The precious, and the base,
And from the hard and sullen mass
Mature the heirs of grace.
O man! albeit the quickening ray,
Lit from his second birth,
Makes him at length what once he was,
And heaven grows out of earth;
Yet still between that earth and heaven—
His journey and his goal—
A double agony awaits
His body and his soul.
A double debt he has to pay—
The forfeit of his sins:
The chill of death is past, and now
The penance-fire begins.
Glory to Him, who evermore
By truth and justice reigns;
Who tears the soul from out its case,
And burns away its stains!
Angel
They sing of thy approaching agony,
Which thou so eagerly didst question of:
It is the face of the Incarnate God
Shall smite thee with that keen and subtle pain;
And yet the memory which it leaves will be
A sovereign febrifuge to heal the wound;
And yet withal it will the wound provoke,
And aggravate and widen it the more.
Soul
Thou speakest mysteries; still methinks I know
To disengage the tangle of thy words:
Yet rather would I hear thy angel voice,
Than for myself be thy interpreter.
Angel
When then—if such thy lot—thou seest thy Judge,
The sight of Him will kindle in thy heart
All tender, gracious, reverential thoughts.
Thou wilt be sick with love, and yearn for Him,
And feel as though thou couldst but pity Him,
That one so sweet should e'er have placed Himself
At disadvantage such, as to be used
So vilely by a being so vile as thee.
There is a pleading in His pensive eyes
Will pierce thee to the quick, and trouble thee.
And thou wilt hate and loathe thyself; for, though
Now sinless, thou wilt feel that thou hast sinn'd,
As never thou didst feel; and wilt desire
To slink away, and hide thee from His sight:
And yet wilt have a longing aye to dwell
Within the beauty of His countenance.
And these two pains, so counter and so keen,—
The longing for Him, when thou seest Him not;
The shame of self at thought of seeing Him,—
Will be thy veriest, sharpest purgatory.
Soul
My soul is in my hand: I have no fear,—
In His dear might prepared for weal or woe.
But hark! a grand, mysterious harmony:
It floods me like the deep and solemn sound
Of many waters.
Angel
We have gain'd the stairs
Which rise towards the Presence-chamber; there
A band of mighty Angels keep the way
On either side, and hymn the Incarnate God.
Angels of the Sacred Stair
Father, whose goodness none can know, but they
Who see Thee face to face,
By man hath come the infinite display
Of thy victorious grace;
But fallen man—the creature of a day—
Skills not that love to trace.
It needs, to tell the triumph Thou hast wrought,
An Angel's deathless fire, an Angel's reach of
thought.
It needs that very Angel, who with awe,
Amid the garden shade,
The great Creator in His sickness saw,
Soothed by a creature's aid,
And agonized, as victim of the Law
Which He Himself had made;
For who can praise Him in His depth and height,
But he who saw Him reel amid that solitary fight?
Soul
Hark! for the lintels of the presence-gate
Are vibrating and echoing back the strain.
Fourth Choir of Angelical Beings
Praise to the Holiest in the height,
And in the depth be praise:
In all His words most wonderful;
Most sure in all His ways!
The foe blasphemed the Holy Lord,
As if He reckon'd ill,
In that He placed His puppet man
The frontier place to fill.
For, even in his best estate,
With amplest gifts endued,
A sorry sentinel was he,
A being of flesh and blood.
As though a thing, who for his help
Must needs possess a wife,
Could cope with those proud rebel hosts
Who had angelic life.
And when, by blandishment of Eve,
That earth-born Adam fell,
He shriek'd in triumph, and he cried,
"A sorry sentinel;
"The Maker by His word is bound,
Escape or cure is none;
He must abandon to his doom,
And slay His darling son."
Angel
And now the threshold, as we traverse it,
Utters aloud its glad responsive chant.
Fifth Choir of Angelical Beings
Praise to the Holiest in the height
And in the depth be praise:
In all His words most wonderful;
Most sure in all His ways!
O loving wisdom of our God!
When all was sin and shame,
A second Adam to the fight
And to the rescue came.
O wisest love! that flesh and blood
Which did in Adam fail,
Should strive afresh against the foe,
Should strive and should prevail;
And that a higher gift than grace
Should flesh and blood refine,
God's Presence and His very Self,
And Essence all-divine.
O generous love! that He who smote
In man for man the foe,
The double agony in man
For man should undergo;
And in the garden secretly,
And on the cross on high,
Should teach His brethren and inspire
To suffer and to die.