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Title: Westminster Abbey
Author: Matthew Arnold [
More Titles by Arnold]
JULY 25, 1881.
(_The Day of Burial, in the Abbey, of_ ARTHUR PENRHYN
STANLEY, _Dean of Westminster._)
What! for a term so scant
Our shining visitant
Cheer'd us, and now is pass'd into the night?
Couldst thou no better keep, O Abbey old,
The boon thy dedication-sign foretold,[a]
The presence of that gracious inmate, light?--
A child of light appear'd;
Hither he came, late-born and long-desired,
And to men's hearts this ancient place endear'd;
What, is the happy glow so soon expired?
--Rough was the winter eve;
Their craft the fishers leave,
And down over the Thames the darkness drew.
One still lags last, and turns, and eyes the Pile
Huge in the gloom, across in Thorney Isle,
King Sebert's work, the wondrous Minster new.
--'Tis Lambeth now, where then
They moor'd their boats among the bulrush stems;
And that new Minster in the matted fen
The world-famed Abbey by the westering Thames.
His mates are gone, and he
For mist can scarcely see
A strange wayfarer coming to his side--
Who bade him loose his boat, and fix his oar,
And row him straightway to the further shore,
And wait while he did there a space abide.
The fisher awed obeys,
That voice had note so clear of sweet command;
Through pouring tide he pulls, and drizzling haze,
And sets his freight ashore on Thorney strand.
The Minster's outlined mass
Rose dim from the morass,
And thitherward the stranger took his way.
Lo, on a sudden all the Pile is bright!
Nave, choir and transept glorified with light,
While tongues of fire on coign and carving play!
And heavenly odours fair
Come streaming with the floods of glory in,
And carols float along the happy air,
As if the reign of joy did now begin.
Then all again is dark;
And by the fisher's bark
The unknown passenger returning stands.
_O Saxon fisher! thou hast had with thee_
_The fisher from the Lake of Galilee--_
So saith he, blessing him with outspread hands;
Then fades, but speaks the while:
_At dawn thou to King Sebert shalt relate_
_How his St. Peter's Church in Thorney Isle_
_Peter, his friend, with light did consecrate._
Twelve hundred years and more
Along the holy floor
Pageants have pass'd, and tombs of mighty kings
Efface the humbler graves of Sebert's line,
And, as years sped, the minster-aisles divine
Grew used to the approach of Glory's wings.
Arts came, and arms, and law,
And majesty, and sacred form and fear;
Only that primal guest the fisher saw,
Light, only light, was slow to reappear.
The Saviour's happy light,
Wherein at first was dight
His boon of life and immortality,
In desert ice of subtleties was spent
Or drown'd in mists of childish wonderment,
Fond fancies here, there false philosophy!
And harsh the temper grew
Of men with mind thus darken'd and astray;
And scarce the boon of life could struggle through,
For want of light which should the boon convey.
Yet in this latter time
The promise of the prime
Seem'd to come true at last, O Abbey old!
It seem'd, a child of light did bring the dower
Foreshown thee in thy consecration-hour,
And in thy courts his shining freight unroll'd:
Bright wits, and instincts sure,
And goodness warm, and truth without alloy,
And temper sweet, and love of all things pure,
And joy in light, and power to spread the joy.
And on that countenance bright
Shone oft so high a light,
That to my mind there came how, long ago,
Lay on the hearth, amid a fiery ring,
The charm'd babe of the Eleusinian king--[1]
His nurse, the Mighty Mother, will'd it so.
Warm in her breast, by day,
He slumber'd, and ambrosia balm'd the child;
But all night long amid the flames he lay,
Upon the hearth, and play'd with them, and smiled.
But once, at midnight deep,
His mother woke from sleep,
And saw her babe amidst the fire, and scream'd.
A sigh the Goddess gave, and with a frown
Pluck'd from the fire the child, and laid him down;
Then raised her face, and glory round her stream'd.
The mourning-stole no more
Mantled her form, no more her head was bow'd;
But raiment of celestial sheen she wore,
And beauty fill'd her, and she spake aloud:--
"O ignorant race of man!
Achieve your good who can,
If your own hands the good begun undo?
Had human cry not marr'd the work divine,
Immortal had I made this boy of mine;
But now his head to death again is due
And I have now no power
Unto this pious household to repay
Their kindness shown me in my wandering hour."
--She spake, and from the portal pass'd away.
The Boy his nurse forgot,
And bore a mortal lot.
Long since, his name is heard on earth no more.
In some chance battle on Cithaeron-side
The nursling of the Mighty Mother died,
And went where all his fathers went before.
--On thee too, in thy day
Of childhood, Arthur! did some check have power,
That, radiant though thou wert, thou couldst but stay,
Bringer of heavenly light, a human hour?
Therefore our happy guest
Knew care, and knew unrest,
And weakness warn'd him, and he fear'd decline.
And in the grave he laid a cherish'd wife,
And men ignoble harass'd him with strife,
And deadly airs his strength did undermine.
Then from his Abbey fades
The sound beloved of his victorious breath;
And light's fair nursling stupor first invades,
And next the crowning impotence of death.
But hush! This mournful strain,
Which would of death complain,
The oracle forbade, not ill-inspired.--
That Pair, whose head did plan, whose hands did forge
The Temple in the pure Parnassian gorge,[2]
Finish'd their work, and then a meed required.
"Seven days," the God replied,
"Live happy, then expect your perfect meed!"
Quiet in sleep, the seventh night, they died.
Death, death was judged the boon supreme indeed.
And truly he who here
Hath run his bright career,
And served men nobly, and acceptance found,
And borne to light and right his witness high,
What could he better wish than then to die,
And wait the issue, sleeping underground?
Why should he pray to range
Down the long age of truth that ripens slow;
And break his heart with all the baffling change,
And all the tedious tossing to and fro?
For this and that way swings
The flux of mortal things,
Though moving inly to one far-set goal.--
What had our Arthur gain'd, to stop and see,
After light's term, a term of cecity,
A Church once large and then grown strait in soul?
To live, and see arise,
Alternating with wisdom's too short reign,
Folly revived, re-furbish'd sophistries,
And pullulating rites externe and vain?
Ay me! 'Tis deaf, that ear
Which joy'd my voice to hear;
Yet would I not disturb thee from thy tomb,
Thus sleeping in thine Abbey's friendly shade,
And the rough waves of life for ever laid!
I would not break thy rest, nor change thy doom.
Even as my father, thou--
Even as that loved, that well-recorded friend--
Hast thy commission done; ye both may now
Wait for the leaven to work, the let to end.
And thou, O Abbey grey!
Predestined to the ray
By this dear guest over thy precinct shed--
Fear not but that thy light once more shall burn,
Once more thine immemorial gleam return,
Though sunk be now this bright, this gracious head!
Let but the light appear
And thy transfigured walls be touch'd with flame--
Our Arthur will again be present here,
Again from lip to lip will pass his name.
[Footnote a:
_Couldst thou no better keep, O Abbey old, The boon thy dedication-sign foretold._
"Ailred of Rievaulx, and several other writers, assert that Sebert, king of the East Saxons and nephew of Ethelbert, founded the Abbey of Westminster very early in the seventh century.
"Sulcardus, who lived in the time of William the Conqueror, gives a minute account of the miracle supposed to have been worked at the consecration of the Abbey.
"The church had been prepared against the next day for dedication. On the night preceding, St. Peter appeared on the opposite side of the water to a fisherman, desiring to be conveyed to the farther shore. Having left the boat, St. Peter ordered the fisherman to wait, promising him a reward on his return. An innumerable host from heaven accompanied the apostle, singing choral hymns, while everything was illuminated with a supernatural light. The dedication having been completed, St. Peter returned to the fisherman, quieted his alarm at what had passed, and announced himself as the apostle. He directed the fisherman to go as soon as it was day to the authorities, to state what he had seen and heard, and to inform them that, in corroboration of his testimony, they would find the marks of consecration on the walls of the church. In obedience to the apostle's direction, the fisherman waited on Mellitus, Bishop of London, who, going to the church, found not only marks of the chrism, but of the tapers with which the church had been illuminated. Mellitus, therefore, desisted from proceeding to a new consecration, and contented himself with the celebration of the mass."--DUGDALE, _Monasticon Anglicanum_ (edition of 1817), vol. i. pp. 265, 266. See also MONTALEMBERT, _Les 'Moines d'Occident_, vol. iii. pp. 428-432.]
[Footnote 1:
_The charm'd babe of the Eleusinian king._
Demophooen, son of Celeus, king of Eleusis. See, in the _Homeric Hymns_, the _Hymn to Demeter_, 184-298.]
[Footnote 2:
_That Pair, whose head did plan, whom hands did forge
The Temple in the pure Parnassian gorge._
Agamedes and Trophonius, the builders of the temple of Apollo at Delphi. See Plutarch, _Consolatio ad Apollonium_, c. 14.]
[The end]
Matthew Arnold's poem: Westminster Abbey
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