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Matins

by Sherman Francis

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MATINS

Francis Sherman

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BOSTON
COPELAND AND DAY
MDCCCXCVI

TO
MY FATHER

CONTENTS

At the Gate
A Life
At Matins
Ave
The Foreigner
Cadences
Easter-Song
The Rain
A Memory
Among the Hills
To Summer
The Path
The Last Flower
After Harvest
Heat in September
On the Hillside
Summer Dying
A November Vigil
Nunc Dimittis
Between the Battles
The Quiet Valley
The Kingfisher
The Conqueror
The King's Hostel
Between the Winter and the Spring
The Mother
The Window of Dreams
The Relief of Wet Willows
The Builder
Te Deum Laudamus

AT THE GATE

Swing open wide, O Gate,

That I may enter in

And see what lies in wait

For me who have been born!

Her word I only scorn

Who spake of death and sin.

I know what is behind

Your heavy brazen bars;

I heard it of the wind

Where I dwelt yesterday:

The wind that blows alway

Among the ancient stars.

Life is the chiefest thing

The wind brought knowledge of,

As it passed, murmuring:

Life, with its infinite strength,

And undiminished length

Of years fulfilled with love.

The wind spake not of sin

That blows among the stars;

And so I enter in

(Swing open wide, O Gate!)

Fearless of what may wait

Behind your

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heavy bars.

A LIFE

Let us rise up and live! Behold, each thing

Is ready for the moulding of our hand.

Long have they all awaited our command;

None other will they ever own for king.

Until we come no bird dare try to sing,

Nor any sea its power may understand;

No buds are on the trees; in every land

Year asketh year some tidings of some Spring.

Yea, it is time,—high time we were awake!

Simple indeed shall life be unto us.

What part is ours?—To take what all things give;

To feel the whole world growing for our sake;

To have sure knowledge of the marvellous;

To laugh and love.—Let us rise up and live!

II.

Let us rule well and long. We will build here

Our city in the pathway of the sun.

On this side shall this mighty river run;

Along its course well-laden ships shall steer.

Beyond, great mountains shall their crests uprear,

That from their sides our jewels may be won.

Let all you toil! Behold, it is well done;

Under our sway all far things fall and near!

All time is ours! Let us rule long and well!

So we have reigned for many a long, long day.

No change can come.... What hath that slave to tell,

Who dares to stop us on our royal way?

"O King, last night within thy garden fell,

From thine own tree, a rose whose leaves were gray."

III.

Let us lie down and sleep! All things are still,

And everywhere doth rest alone seem sweet.

No more is heard the sound of hurrying feet

Athrough the land their echoes once did fill.

Even the wind knows not its ancient will,

For each ship floats with undisturbéd sheet:

Naught stirs except the Sun, who hastes to greet

His handmaiden, the utmost western hill.

Ah, there the glory is! O west of gold!

Once seemed our life to us as glad and fair;

We knew nor pain nor sorrow anywhere!

O crimson clouds! O mountains autumn-stoled!

Across even you long shadows soon must sweep.

We too have lived. Let us lie down and sleep!

IV.

Nay, let us kneel and pray! The fault was ours,

O Lord! No other ones have sinned as we.

The Spring was with us and we praised not thee;

We gave no thanks for Summer's strangest flowers.

We built us many ships, and mighty towers,

And held awhile the whole broad world in fee:

Yea, and it sometime writhed at our decree!

The stars, the winds,—all they were subject-powers.

All things we had for slave. We knew no God;

We saw no place on earth where His feet trod—

This earth, where now the Winter hath full sway,

Well shrouded under cold white snows and deep.

We rose and lived; we ruled; yet, ere we sleep,

O Unknown God,—Let us kneel down and pray!

AT MATINS

Because I ever have gone down Thy ways

With joyous heart and undivided praise,

I pray Thee, Lord, of Thy great loving-kindness,

Thou'lt make to-day even as my yesterdays!"

(At the edge of the yellow dawn I saw them stand,

Body and Soul; and they were hand-in-hand:

The Soul looked backward where the last night's blindness

Lay still upon the unawakened land;

But the Body, in the sun's light well arrayed,

Fronted the east, grandly and unafraid:

I knew that it was one might never falter

Although the Soul seemed shaken as it prayed.)

"O Lord" (the Soul said), "I would ask one thing:

Send out Thy rapid messengers to bring

Me to the shadows which about Thine altar

Are ever born and always gathering.

"For I am weary now, and would lie dead

Where I may not behold my old days shed

Like withered leaves around me and above me;

Hear me, O Lord, and I am comforted!"

"O Lord, because I ever deemed Thee kind"

(The Body's words were borne in on the wind);

"Because I knew that Thou wouldst

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ever love me

Although I sin, and lead me who am blind;

Because of all these things, hear me who pray!

Lord, grant me of Thy bounty one more day

To worship Thee, and thank Thee I am living.

Yet if Thou callest now, I will obey."

(The Body's hand tightly the Soul did hold;

And over them both was shed the sun's red gold;

And though I knew this day had in its giving

Unnumbered wrongs and sorrows manifold,

I counted it a sad and bitter thing

That this weak, drifting Soul must alway cling

Unto this Body—wrought in such a fashion

It must have set the gods, even, marvelling.

And, thinking so, I heard the Soul's loud cries,

As it turned round and saw the eastern skies)

"O Lord, destroy in me this new-born passion

For this that has grown perfect in mine eyes!

"O Lord, let me not see this thing is fair,

This Body Thou hast given me to wear,—

Lest I fall out of love with death and dying,

And deem the old, strange life not hard to bear!

"Yea, now, even now, I love this Body so—

O Lord, on me Thy longest days bestow!

O Lord, forget the words I have been crying,

And lead me where Thou thinkest I should go!"

(At the edge of the open dawn I saw them stand,

Body and Soul, together, hand-in-hand,

Fulfilled, as I, with strong desire and wonder

As they beheld the glorious eastern land;

I saw them, in the strong light of the sun,

Go down into the day that had begun;

I knew, as they, that night might never sunder

This Body from the Soul that it had won.)

AVE!

To-morrow, and a year is born again!

(To-day the first bud wakened 'neath the snow.)

Will it bring joys the old year did not know,

Or will it burthen us with the old pain?

Shall we seek out the Spring—to see it slain?

Summer,—and learn all flowers have ceased to grow?

Autumn,—and find it overswift to go?

(The memories of the old year yet remain.)

To-morrow, and another year is born!

(Love liveth yet, O Love, we deemed was dead!)

Let us go forth and welcome in the morn,

Following bravely on where Hope hath led.

(O Time, how great a thing thou art to scorn!)

O Love, we shall not be uncomforted!

THE FOREIGNER

He walked by me with open eyes,

And wondered that I loved it so;

Above us stretched the gray, gray skies;

Behind us, foot-prints on the snow.

Before us slept a dark, dark wood.

Hemlocks were there, and little pines

Also; and solemn cedars stood

In even and uneven lines.

The branches of each silent tree

Bent downward, for the snow's hard weight

Was pressing on them heavily;

They had not known the sun of late.

(Except when it was afternoon,

And then a sickly sun peered in

A little while; it vanished soon

And then they were as they had been.)

There was no sound (I thought I heard

The axe of some man far away)

There was no sound of bee, or bird,

Or chattering squirrel at its play.

And so he wondered I was glad.

—There was one thing he could not see;

Beneath the look these dead things had

I saw Spring eyes agaze at me.

CADENCES

(Mid-Lent)

The low, gray sky curveth from hill to hill,

Silent and all untenanted;

From the trees also all glad sound hath fled,

Save for the little wind that moaneth still

Because it deemeth Earth is surely dead.

For many days no woman hath gone by,

Her gold hair knowing, as of old,

The wind's caresses and the sun's kind gold;

—Perchance even she hath thought it best to die

Because all things are sad things to behold.

(Easter Morning)

She cometh now, with the sun's splendid shine

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class="line">On face and limbs and hair!

Ye who are watching, have ye seen so fair

A Lady ever as this one is of mine?

Have ye beheld her likeness anywhere?

See, as she cometh unrestrained and fleet

Past the thrush-haunted trees,

How glad the lilies are that touch her knees!

How glad the grasses underneath her feet!

And how even I am yet more glad than these!

EASTER-SONG

Maiden, awake! For Christ is born again!

And let your feet disdain

The paths whereby of late they have been led.

Now Death itself is dead,

And Love hath birth,

And all things mournful find no place on earth.

This morn ye all must go another way

Than ye went yesterday.

Not with sad faces shall ye silent go

Where He hath suffered so;

But where there be

Full many flowers shall ye wend joyfully.

Moreover, too, ye must be clad in white,

As if the ended night

Were but your bridal-morn's foreshadowing.

And ye must also sing

In angel-wise:

So shall ye be most worthy in His eyes.

Maidens, arise! I know where many flowers

Have grown these many hours

To make more perfect this glad Easter-day;

Where tall white lilies sway

On slender stem,

Waiting for you to come and garner them;

Where banks of mayflowers are, all pink and white,

Which will Him well delight;

And yellow buttercups, and growing grass

Through which the Spring winds pass;

And mosses wet,

Well strown with many a new-born violet.

All these and every other flower are here.

Will ye not draw anear

And gather them for Him, and in His name,

Whom all men now proclaim

Their living King?

Behold how all these wait your harvesting!

Moreover, see the darkness of His house!

Think ye that He allows

Such glory of glad color and perfume,

But to destroy the gloom

That hath held fast

His altar-place these many days gone past?

For this alone these blossoms had their birth,—

To show His perfect worth!

Therefore, O Maidens, ye must go apace

To that strange garden-place

And gather all

These living flowers for His high festival.

For now hath come the long-desired day,

Wherein Love hath full sway!

Open the gates, O ye who guard His home,

His handmaidens are come!

Open them wide,

That all may enter in this Easter-tide!

Then, maidens, come, with song and lute-playing,

And all your wild flowers bring

And strew them on His altar; while the sun—

Seeing what hath been done—

Shines strong once more,

Knowing that Death hath Christ for conqueror.

THE RAIN

O ye who so unceasing praise the Sun;

Ye who find nothing worthy of your love

But the Sun's face and the strong light thereof;

Who, when the day is done,

Are all uncomforted

Unless the night be crowned with many a star,

Or mellow light be shed

From the ancient moon that gazeth from afar,

With pitiless calm, upon the old, tired Earth;

O ye to whom the skies

Must be forever fair to free your eyes

From mortal pain;—

Have ye not known the great exceeding worth

Of that soft peace which cometh with the Rain?

Behold! the wisest of you knows no thing

That hath such title to man's worshipping

As the first sudden day

The slumbrous Earth is wakened into Spring;

When heavy clouds and gray

Come up the southern way,

And their bold challenge throw

In the face of the frightened snow

That covereth the ground.

What need they now the armies of the Sun

Whose trumpets now do sound?

Alas, the powerless Sun!

Hath he not waged his wars for days gone past,

Each morning drawing up his cohorts vast

And leading them with slow and even paces

To assault once more the impenetrable places,

Where, crystal-bound,

The river moveth on with silent

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sound?

O puny, powerless Sun!

On the pure white snow where are the lightest traces

Of what thy forces' ordered ways have done?

On these large spaces

No footsteps are imprinted anywhere;

Still the white glare

Is perfect; yea, the snows are drifted still

On plain and hill;

And still the river knows the Winter's iron will.

Thou wert most wise, O Sun, to hide thy face

This day beneath the cloud's gray covering;

Thou wert most wise to know the deep disgrace

In which thy name is holden of the Spring.

She deems thee now an impotent, useless thing,

And hath dethroned thee from thy mighty place;

Knowing that with the clouds will come apace

The Rain, and that the rain will be a royal king.

A king?—Nay, queen!

For in soft girlish-wise she takes her throne

When first she cometh in the young Spring-season;

Gentle and mild,

Yet with no dread of any revolution,

And fearing not a land unreconciled,

And unafraid of treason.

In her dark hair

Lieth the snow's most certain dissolution;

And in her glance is known

The freeing of the rivers from their chainings;

And in her bosom's strainings

Earth's teeming breast is tokened and foreshown.

Behold her coming surely, calmly down,

Where late the clear skies were,

With gray clouds for a gown;

Her fragile draperies

Caught by the little breeze

Which loveth her!

She weareth yet no crown,

Nor is there any sceptre in her hands;

Yea, in all lands,

Whatever Spring she cometh, men know well

That it is right and good for her to come;

And that her least commands

Must be fulfilled, however wearisome;

And that they all must guard the citadel

Wherein she deigns to dwell!

And so, even now, her feet pass swiftly over

The impressionable snow

That vanisheth as woe

Doth vanish from the rapt face of a lover,

Who, after doubting nights, hath come to know

His lady loves him so!

(Yet not like him

Doth the snow bear the signs of her light touch!

It is all gray in places, and looks worn

With some most bitter pain;

As he shall look, perchance,

Some early morn

While yet the dawn is dim,

When he awakens from the enraptured trance

In which he, blind, hath lain,

And knows that also he hath loved in vain

The lady who, he deemed, had loved him much.

And though her utter worthlessness is plain

He hath no joy of his deliverance,

But only asketh God to let him die,—

And getteth no reply.)

Yea, the snows fade before the calm strength of the rain!

And while the rain is unabated,

Well-heads are born and streams created

On the hillsides, and set a-flowing

Across the fields. The river, knowing

That there hath surely come at last

Its freedom, and that frost is past,

Gathereth force to break its chains;

The river's faith is in the Spring's unceasing rains!

See where the shores even now were firmly bound

The slowly widening water showeth black,

As from the fields and meadows all around

Come rushing over the dark and snowless ground

The foaming streams!

Beneath the ice the shoulders of the tide

Lift, and from shore to shore a thin, blue crack

Starts, and the dark, long-hidden water gleams,

Glad to be free.

And now the uneven rift is growing wide;

The breaking ice is fast becoming gray;

It hears the loud beseeching of the sea,

And moveth on its way.

Surely at last the work of the rain is done!

Surely the Spring at last is well begun,

O unavailing Sun!

O ye who worship only at the noon,

When will ye learn the glory of the rain?

Have ye not seen the thirsty meadow-grass

Uplooking piteous at the burnished sky,

And all in vain?

Even in June

Have ye not seen the yellow flowers swoon

Along the roadside, where the dust, alas,

Is hard to pass?

Have ye not heard

The song cease in the throat of every bird

And know the thing all these were stricken by?

Ye have beheld these things, yet made no prayer,

O pitiless and uncompassionate!

Yet should the sweeping

Of Death's wide wings across your face unsleeping

Be felt of you to-night,

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class="line">And all your hair

Know the soft stirring of an alien breath

From out the mouth of Death,

Would ye not then have memory of these

And how their pain was great?

Would ye not wish to hear among the trees

The wind in his great might,

And on the roof the rain's unending harmonies?

For when could death be more desired by us

(Oh, follow, Death, I pray thee, with the Fall!)

Than when the night

Is heavy with the wet wind born of rain?

When flowers are yellow, and the growing grass

Is not yet tall,

Or when all living things are harvested

And with bright gold the hills are glorious,

Or when all colors have faded from our sight

And all is gray that late was gold and red?

Have ye not lain awake the long night through

And listened to the falling of the rain

On fallen leaves, withered and brown and dead?

Have none of you,

Hearing its ceaseless sound, been comforted

And made forgetful of the day's live pain?

Even Thou, who wept because the dark was great

Once, and didst pray that dawn might come again,

Has noon not seemed to be a dreaded thing

And night a thing not wholly desolate

And Death thy soul's supremest sun-rising?

Did not thy hearing strain

To catch the moaning of the wind-swept sea,

Where great tides be,

And swift, white rain?

Did not its far exulting teach thy soul

That of all things the sea alone is free

And under no control?

Its liberty,—

Was it not most desired by thy soul?

I say,

The Earth is alway glad, yea, and the sea

Is glad alway

When the rain cometh; either tranquilly

As at the first dawn of a summer day

Or in late autumn wildly passionate,

Or when all things are all disconsolate

Because that Winter has been long their king,

Or in the Spring.

—Therefore let now your joyful thanksgiving

Be heard on Earth because the Rain hath come!

While land and sea give praise, shall ye be dumb?

Shall ye alone await the sun-shining?

Your days, perchance, have many joys to bring;

Perchance with woes they shall be burthensome;

Yet when night cometh, and ye journey home,

Weary, and sore, and stained with travelling,

When ye seek out your homes because the night—

The last, dark night—falls swift across your path,

And on Life's altar your last day lies slain,

Will ye not cry aloud with that new might

One dying with great things unfinished hath,

"O God! if Thou wouldst only send Thy Rain!"

A MEMORY

You are not with me though the Spring is here!

And yet it seemed to-day as if the Spring

Were the same one that in an ancient year

Came suddenly upon our wandering.

You must remember all that chanced that day.

Can you forget the shy awaking call

Of the first robin?—And the foolish way

The squirrel ran along the low stone wall?

The half-retreating sound of water breaking,

Hushing, falling; while the pine-laden breeze

Told us the tumult many crows were making

Amid innumerable distant trees;

The certain presence of the birth of things

Around, above, beneath, us,—everywhere;

The soft return of immemorial Springs

Thrilling with life the fragrant forest air;

All these were with us then. Can you forget?

Or must you—even as I—remember well?

To-day, all these were with me, there,—and yet

They seemed to have some bitter thing to tell;

They looked with questioning eyes, and seemed to wait

One's doubtful coming whom of old they knew;

Till, seeing me alone and desolate,

They learned how vain was strong desire of you.