The Hindered Guest

Friar Hilary, of Barbizon,(Rest to his soul where his soul has gone!)Was a man whose life was long perplexedBy pious juggles with the text.The logic of St. Thomas’ booksWas fastened to his mind with hooks.He knew Tertullian’s work complete—That treatise on the Paraclete.He knew the words Chrysostom hurledIn golden thunder on the world;And he could commentate and quoteThe thirteen books Saint Cyril wrote.The controversies of Jerome,He could recite them, tome by tome.

The friar was tall and spare and spent,Like a cedar of Lebanon bare and bent.His eyes were sunken and burned too bright,Like restless stars in the pit of night.

The friar had built a tower of stone,And dwelt far up in a cell alone;And from the turret, gray in air,He called to God with psalm and prayer,To come as he did to the wise of old—To come as the ancient voice foretold.All day the hawk swung overhead;All day the holy page was read.

One bleak December he fasted sore,That Christ might knock at his low door—Lord Jesus shine across the floor.For he was hungry to be fedWith the holy love, with the mystic bread.Yet Christ came not to sup with him,And Christmas Eve fell chilly and dim.“Where art Thou?” he would cry and hark,While echoes answered in the dark....Where was the Lord—was he afar,Throned calmly on the central star?

Now suddenly there came a cryAs of a mortal like to die.Up sprang the friar, the doors of oakHe flung asunder at a stroke.Down stair by stair his quick feet flew,Startling the owls that the rafters knew,Breaking the webs that barred the way,Crushing the mosses that fear the day.Into the pitiless street he ranTo find a stricken fellow-man,And carry him in upon his breast,With many a halt on the stairs for rest.

He washed the feet and stroked the hair,And for the once forgot his prayer.He gave him wine that the Pope had sentFor some great day of the Sacrament;And looking up, behold, at his sideWas bending also the Crucified!He had come at last to the lonesome place,And standing there with a courteous grace,Threw sainted light on the friar’s face.

And then the Master said: “My son,My children on my errands run;And when you flung the psalter byAnd hurried to a brother’s cry,You turned at last your rusty key,And left the door ajar for Me.”