A Village Church

THE PARISH PRIEST, from within.Go, sin no more! Thy penance o'er,A new and better life begin!God maketh thee forever freeFrom the dominion of thy sin!Go, sin no more! He will restoreThe peace that filled thy heart before,And pardon thine iniquity!

O blessed Lord! how much I needThy light to guide me on my way!So many hands, that, without heed,Still touch thy wounds and make them bleed!So many feet, that, day by day,Still wander from thy fold astray!Unless thou fill me with thy light,I cannot lead thy flock aright;Nor without thy support can bearThe burden of so great a care,But am myself a castaway!

The day is drawing to its close;And what good deeds, since first it rose,Have I presented, Lord, to thee,As offsprings of my ministry?What wrong repressed, what right maintained,What struggle passed, what victory gained,What good attempted and attained?Feeble, at best, is my endeavor!I see, but cannot reach, the heightThat lies forever in the light;And yet forever and forever,When seeming just within my grasp,I feel my feeble hands unclasp,And sink discouraged into night!For thine own purpose, thou hast sentThe strife and the discouragement!

Why stayest thou, Prince of Hoheneck?Why keep me pacing to and froAmid these aisles of sacred gloom,Counting my footsteps as I go,And marking with each step a tomb?Why should the world for thee make room,And wait thy leisure and thy beck?Thou comest in the hope to hearSome word of comfort and of cheer.What can I say? I cannot giveThe counsel to do this and live;But rather, firmly to denyThe tempter, though his power be strong,And, inaccessible to wrong,Still like a martyr live and die!

The evening air grows dusk and brown;I must go forth into the town,To visit beds of pain and death,Of restless limbs, and quivering breath,And sorrowing hearts, and patient eyesThat see, through tears, the sun go down,But never more shall see it rise.The poor in body and estate,The sick and the disconsolate,Must not on man's convenience wait.

LUCIFER, with a genuflexion, mocking.This is the Black Pater-noster.God was my foster,He fostered meUnder the book of the Palm-tree!St. Michael was my dame.He was born at Bethlehem,He was made of flesh and blood.God send me my right food,My right food, and shelter too,That I may to yon kirk go,To read upon yon sweet bookWhich the mighty God of heaven shookOpen, open, hell's gates!Shut, shut, heaven's gates!All the devils in the airThe stronger be, that hear the Black Prayer!

What a darksome and dismal place!I wonder that any man has the faceTo call such a hole the House of the Lord,And the gate of Heaven,--yet such is the word.Ceiling, and walls, and windows old,Covered with cobwebs, blackened with mould;Dust on the pulpit, dust on the stairs,Dust on the benches, and stalls, and chairs!The pulpit, from which such ponderous sermonsHave fallen down on the brains of the Germans,With about as much real edificationAs if a great Bible, bound in lead,Had fallen, and struck them on the head;And I ought to remember that sensation!Here stands the holy-water stoup!Holy-water it may be to many,But to me, the veriest Liquor Gehennae!It smells like a filthy fast-day soup!Near it stands the box for the poor,With its iron padlock, safe and sure.I and the priest of the parish knowWhither all these charities go;Therefore, to keep up the institution,I will add my little contribution!

Underneath this mouldering tomb,With statue of stone, and scutcheon of brass,Slumbers a great lord of the village.All his life was riot and pillage,But at length, to escape the threatened doomOf the everlasting penal fire,He died in the dress of a mendicant friar,And bartered his wealth for a daily mass.But all that afterwards came to pass,And whether he finds it dull or pleasant,Is kept a secret for the present,At his own particular desire.

And here, in a corner of the wall,Shadowy, silent, apart from all,With its awful portal open wide,And its latticed windows on either side,And its step well worn by the beaded kneesOf one or two pious centuries,Stands the village confessional!Within it, as an honored guest,I will sit down awhile and rest!

Here sits the priest; and faint and low,Like the sighing of an evening breeze,Comes through these painted latticesThe ceaseless sound of human woe;Here, while her bosom aches and throbsWith deep and agonizing sobs,That half are passion, half contrition,The luckless daughter of perditionSlowly confesses her secret shame!The time, the place, the lover's name!Here the grim murderer, with a groan,From his bruised conscience rolls the stone,Thinking that thus he can atoneFor ravages of sword and flame!

Indeed, I marvel, and marvel greatly,How a priest can sit here so sedately,Reading, the whole year out and in,Naught but the catalogue of sin,And still keep any faith whateverIn human virtue! Never! never!

I cannot repeat a thousandth partOf the horrors and crimes and sins and woesThat arise, when with palpitating throesThe graveyard in the human heartGives up its dead, at the voice of the priest,As if he were an archangel, at least.It makes a peculiar atmosphere,This odor of earthly passions and crimes,Such as I like to breathe, at times,And such as often brings me hereIn the hottest and most pestilential season.To-day, I come for another reason;To foster and ripen an evil thoughtIn a heart that is almost to madness wrought,And to make a murderer out of a prince,A sleight of hand I learned long since!He comes. In the twilight he will not seeThe difference between his priest and me!In the same net was the mother caught!

PRINCE HENRY, entering and kneeling at the confessional.Remorseful, penitent, and lowly,I come to crave, O Father holy,Thy benediction on my head.

LUCIFER.The benediction shall be saidAfter confession, not before!'T is a God-speed to the parting guest,Who stands already at the door,Sandalled with holiness, and dressedIn garments pure from earthly stain.Meanwhile, hast thou searched well thy breast?Does the same madness fill thy brain?Or have thy passion and unrestVanished forever from thy mind?

By the same madness still made blind,By the same passion still possessed,I come again to the house of prayer,A man afflicted and distressed!As in a cloudy atmosphere,Through unseen sluices of the air,A sudden and impetuous windStrikes the great forest white with fear,And every branch, and bough, and spray,Points all its quivering leaves one way,And meadows of grass, and fields of rain,And the clouds above, and the slanting rain,And smoke from chimneys of the town,Yield themselves to it, and bow down,So does this dreadful purpose pressOnward, with irresistible stress,And all my thoughts and faculties,Struck level by the strength of this,From their true inclination turnAnd all stream forward to Salem!

LUCIFER.Alas! we are but eddies of dust,Uplifted by the blast, and whirledAlong the highway of the worldA moment only, then to fallBack to a common level all,At the subsiding of the gust!

O holy Father! pardon in meThe oscillation of a mindUnsteadfast, and that cannot findIts centre of rest and harmony!For evermore before mine eyesThis ghastly phantom flits and flies,And as a madman through a crowd,With frantic gestures and wild cries,It hurries onward, and aloudRepeats its awful prophecies!Weakness is wretchedness! To be strongIs to be happy! I am weak,And cannot find the good I seek,Because I feel and fear the wrong!

LUCIFER.Be not alarmed! The church is kind,And in her mercy and her meeknessShe meets half-way her children's weakness,Writes their transgressions in the dust!Though in the Decalogue we findThe mandate written, "Thou shalt not kill!"Yet there are cases when we must.In war, for instance, or from scatheTo guard and keep the one true faithWe must look at the Decalogue in the lightOf an ancient statute, that was meantFor a mild and general application,To be understood with the reservationThat in certain instances the RightMust yield to the Expedient!Thou art a Prince. If thou shouldst dieWhat hearts and hopes would prostrate lie!What noble deeds, what fair renown,Into the grave with thee go down!What acts of valor and courtesyRemain undone, and die with thee!Thou art the last of all thy race!With thee a noble name expires,And vanishes from the earth's faceThe glorious memory of thy sires!She is a peasant. In her veinsFlows common and plebeian blood;It is such as daily and hourly stainsThe dust and the turf of battle plains,By vassals shed, in a crimson flood,Without reserve and without reward,At the slightest summons of their lord!But thine is precious; the fore-appointedBlood of kings, of God's anointed!Moreover, what has the world in storeFor one like her, but tears and toil?Daughter of sorrow, serf of the soil,A peasant's child and a peasant's wife,And her soul within her sick and soreWith the roughness and barrenness of life!I marvel not at the heart's recoilFrom a fate like this, in one so tender,Nor at its eagerness to surrenderAll the wretchedness, want, and woeThat await it in this world below,For the unutterable splendorOf the world of rest beyond the skies.So the Church sanctions the sacrifice:Therefore inhale this healing balm,And breathe this fresh life into thine;Accept the comfort and the calmShe offers, as a gift divine;Let her fall down and anoint thy feetWith the ointment costly and most sweetOf her young blood, and thou shalt live.

And will the righteous Heaven forgive?No action, whether foal or fair,Is ever done, but it leaves somewhereA record, written by fingers ghostly,As a blessing or a curse, and mostlyIn the greater weakness or greater strengthOf the acts which follow it, till at lengthThe wrongs of ages are redressed,And the justice of God made manifest!

LUCIFER.In ancient records it is statedThat, whenever an evil deed is done,Another devil is createdTo scourge and torment the offending one!But evil is only good perverted,And Lucifer, the bearer of Light,But an angel fallen and deserted,Thrust from his Father's house with a curseInto the black and endless night.

If justice rules the universe,From the good actions of good menAngels of light should be begotten.And thus the balance restored again.

LUCIFER.Yes; if the world were not so rotten,And so given over to the Devil!

But this deed, is it good or evil?Have I thine absolution freeTo do it, and without restriction?

LUCIFER.Ay; and from whatsoever sinLieth around it and within,From all crimes in which it may involve thee,I now release thee and absolve thee!

Give me thy holy benediction.

LUCIFER, stretching forth his hand and muttering.Maledictione perpetuaMaledicat vosPater eternus!

THE ANGEL, with the æolian harp.Take heed! take heed!Noble art thou in thy birth,By the good and the great of earthHast thou been taught!Be noble in every thoughtAnd in every deed!Let not the illusion of thy sensesBetray thee to deadly offences,Be strong! be good! be pure!The right only shall endure,All things else are but false pretences.I entreat thee, I implore,Listen no moreTo the suggestions of an evil spirit,That even now is there,Making the foul seem fair,And selfishness itself a virtue and a merit!