The Abbot Joachim

JOACHIM.The wind is rising; it seizes and shakesThe doors and window-blinds and makesMysterious moanings in the halls;The convent-chimneys seem almostThe trumpets of some heavenly host,Setting its watch upon our walls!Where it listeth, there it bloweth;We hear the sound, but no man knowethWhence it cometh or whither it goeth,And thus it is with the Holy Ghost.O breath of God! O my delightIn many a vigil of the night,Like the great voice in Patmos heardBy John, the Evangelist of the Word,I hear thee behind me saying: WriteIn a book the things that thou hast seen,The things that are, and that have been,And the things that shall hereafter be!

This convent, on the rocky crestOf the Calabrian hills, to meA Patmos is wherein I rest;While round about me like a seaThe white mists roll, and overflowThe world that lies unseen belowIn darkness and in mystery.Here in the Spirit, in the vastEmbrace of God's encircling arm,Am I uplifted from all harmThe world seems something far away,Something belonging to the Past,A hostelry, a peasant's farm,That lodged me for a night or day,In which I care not to remain,Nor, having left, to see again.

Thus, in the hollow of Gods handI dwelt on sacred Tabor's height,When as a simple acolyteI journeyed to the Holy Land,A pilgrim for my master's sake,And saw the Galilean Lake,And walked through many a village streetThat once had echoed to his feet.There first I heard the great command,The voice behind me saying: Write!And suddenly my soul becameIllumined by a flash of flame,That left imprinted on my thoughtThe image I in vain had sought,And which forever shall remain;As sometimes from these windows high,Gazing at midnight on the skyBlack with a storm of wind and rain,I have beheld a sudden glareOf lightning lay the landscape bare,With tower and town and hill and plainDistinct and burnt into my brain,Never to be effaced again!

And I have written. These volumes three,The Apocalypse, the HarmonyOf the Sacred Scriptures, new and old,And the Psalter with Ten Strings, enfoldWithin their pages, all and each,The Eternal Gospel that I teach.Well I remember the Kingdom of HeavenHath been likened to a little leavenHidden in two measures of meal,Until it leavened the whole mass;So likewise will it come to passWith the doctrines that I here conceal.

Open and manifest to meThe truth appears, and must be told;All sacred mysteries are threefold;Three Persons in the Trinity,Three ages of Humanity,And holy Scriptures likewise three,Of Fear, of Wisdom, and of Love;For Wisdom that begins in FearEndeth in Love; the atmosphereIn which the soul delights to beAnd finds that perfect libertyWhich cometh only from above.

In the first Age, the early primeAnd dawn of all historic time,The Father reigned; and face to faceHe spake with the primeval race.Bright Angels, on his errands sent,Sat with the patriarch in his tent;His prophets thundered in the street;His lightnings flashed, his hailstorms beat;In earthquake and in flood and flame,In tempest and in cloud He came!The fear of God is in his Book;The pages of the PentateuchAre full of the terror of his name.

Then reigned the Son; his CovenantWas peace on earth, good-will to man;With Him the reign of Law began.He was the Wisdom and the Word,And sent his Angels Ministrant,Unterrified and undeterred,To rescue souls forlorn and lost,The troubled, tempted, tempest-tostTo heal, to comfort, and to teach.The fiery tongues of PentecostHis symbols were, that they should preachIn every form of human speechFrom continent to continent.He is the Light Divine, whose raysAcross the thousand years unspentShine through the darkness of our days,And touch with their celestial firesOur churches and our convent spires.His Book is the New Testament.

These Ages now are of the Past;And the Third Age begins at last.The coming of the Holy Ghost,The reign of Grace, the reign of LoveBrightens the mountain-tops above,And the dark outline of the coast.Already the whole land is whiteWith Convent walls, as if by nightA snow had fallen on hill and height!Already from the streets and martsOf town and traffic, and low cares,Men climb the consecrated stairsWith weary feet, and bleeding hearts;And leave the world and its delights,Its passions, struggles, and despairs,For contemplation and for prayersIn cloister-cells of coenobites.

Eternal benedictions restUpon thy name, Saint Benedict!Founder of convents in the West,Who built on Mount Cassino's crestIn the Land of Labor, thine eagle's nest!May I be found not derelictIn aught of faith or godly fear,If I have written, in many a page,The Gospel of the coming age,The Eternal Gospel men shall hear.Oh may I live resembling thee,And die at last as thou hast died;So that hereafter men may see,Within the choir, a form of air,Standing with arms outstretched in prayer,As one that hath been crucified!My work is finished; I am strongIn faith and hope and charity;For I have written the things I see,The things that have been and shall be,Conscious of right, nor fearing wrong;Because I am in love with Love,And the sole thing I hate is Hate;For Hate is death; and Love is life,A peace, a splendor from above;And Hate, a never-ending strife,A smoke, a blackness from the abyssWhere unclean serpents coil and hiss!Love is the Holy Ghost withinHate the unpardonable sin!Who preaches otherwise than thisBetrays his Master with a kiss!