O restless heart and fevered brain, Unquiet and unstable, That holy well of Loch Maree Is more than idle fable!
Life's changes vex, its discords stun, Its glaring sunshine blindeth, And blest is he who on his way That fount of healing findeth!
The shadows of a humbled will And contrite heart are o'er it; Go read its legend, "TRUST IN GOD,"
On Faith's white stones before it.
1850.
THE CHAPEL OF THE HERMITS.
The incident upon which this poem is based is related in a note to Bernardin Henri Saint Pierre's Etudes de la Nature. "We arrived at the habitation of the Hermits a little before they sat down to their table, and while they were still at church. J. J. Rousseau proposed to me to offer up our devotions. The hermits were reciting the Litanies of Providence, which are remarkably beautiful. After we had addressed our prayers to God, and the hermits were proceeding to the refectory, Rousseau said to me, with his heart overflowing, 'At this moment I experience what is said in the gospel: Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them. There is here a feeling of peace and happiness which penetrates the soul.' I said, 'If Finelon had lived, you would have been a Catholic.' He exclaimed, with tears in his eyes, 'Oh, if Finelon were alive, I would struggle to get into his service, even as a lackey!'" In my sketch of Saint Pierre, it will be seen that I have somewhat antedated the period of his old age.
At that time he was not probably more than fifty. In describing him, I have by no means exaggerated his own history of his mental condition at the period of the story. In the fragmentary Sequel to his Studies of Nature, he thus speaks of himself: "The ingratitude of those of whom I had deserved kindness, unexpected family misfortunes, the total loss of my small patrimony through enterprises solely undertaken for the benefit of my country, the debts under which I lay oppressed, the blasting of all my hopes,--these combined calamities made dreadful inroads upon my health and reason. . . . I found it impossible to continue in a room where there was company, especially if the doors were shut. I could not even cross an alley in a public garden, if several persons had got together in it. When alone, my malady subsided. I felt myself likewise at ease in places where I saw children only. At the sight of any one walking up to the place where I was, I felt my whole frame agitated, and retired. I often said to myself, 'My sole study has been to merit well of mankind; why do I fear them?'"
He attributes his improved health of mind and body to the counsels of his friend, J. J. Rousseau. "I renounced," says he, "my books. I threw my eyes upon the works of nature, which spake to all my senses a language which neither time nor nations have it in their power to alter.
Thenceforth my histories and my journals were the herbage of the fields and meadows. My thoughts did not go forth painfully after them, as in the case of human systems; but their thoughts, under a thousand engaging forms, quietly sought me. In these I studied, without effort, the laws of that Universal Wisdom which had surrounded me from the cradle, but on which heretofore I had bestowed little attention."
Speaking of Rousseau, he says: "I derived inexpressible satisfaction from his society. What I prized still more than his genius was his probity. He was one of the few literary characters, tried in the furnace of affliction, to whom you could, with perfect security, confide your most secret thoughts. . . . Even when he deviated, and became the victim of himself or of others, he could forget his own misery in devotion to the welfare of mankind. He was uniformly the advocate of the miserable.
There might be inscribed on his tomb these affecting words from that Book of which he carried always about him some select passages, during the last years of his life: 'His sins, which are many, are forgiven, for he loved much.'"
"I DO believe, and yet, in grief, I pray for help to unbelief; For needful strength aside to lay The daily cumberings of my way.
"I 'm sick at heart of craft and cant, Sick of the crazed enthusiast's rant, Profession's smooth hypocrisies, And creeds of iron, and lives of ease.
"I ponder o'er the sacred word, I read the record of our Lord; And, weak and troubled, envy them Who touched His seamless garment's hem;
"Who saw the tears of love He wept Above the grave where Lazarus slept; And heard, amidst the shadows dim Of Olivet, His evening hymn.
"How blessed the swineherd's low estate, The beggar crouching at the gate, The leper loathly and abhorred, Whose eyes of flesh beheld the Lord!
"O sacred soil His sandals pressed!
Sweet fountains of His noonday rest!
O light and air of Palestine, Impregnate with His life divine!
"Oh, bear me thither! Let me look On Siloa's pool, and Kedron's brook; Kneel at Gethsemane, and by Gennesaret walk, before I die!
"Methinks this cold and northern night Would melt before that Orient light; And, wet by Hermon's dew and rain, My childhood's faith revive again!"
So spake my friend, one autumn day, Where the still river slid away Beneath us, and above the brown Red curtains of the woods shut down.
Then said I,--for I could not brook The mute appealing of his look,-- "I, too, am weak, and faith is small, And blindness happeneth unto all.
"Yet, sometimes glimpses on my sight, Through present wrong, the eternal right; And, step by step, since time began, I see the steady gain of man;
"That all of good the past hath had Remains to make our own time glad, Our common daily life divine, And every land a Palestine.
"Thou weariest of thy present state; What gain to thee time's holiest date?
The doubter now perchance had been As High Priest or as Pilate then!
"What thought Chorazin's scribes? What faith In Him had Nain and Nazareth?
Of the few followers whom He led One sold Him,--all forsook and fled.
"O friend! we need nor rock nor sand, Nor storied stream of Morning-Land; The heavens are glassed in Merrimac,-- What more could Jordan render back?
"We lack but open eye and ear To find the Orient's marvels here; The still small voice in autumn's hush, Yon maple wood the burning bush.
"For still the new transcends the old, In signs and tokens manifold; Slaves rise up men; the olive waves, With roots deep set in battle graves!
"Through the harsh noises of our day A low, sweet prelude finds its way; Through clouds of doubt, and creeds of fear, A light is breaking, calm and clear.
"That song of Love, now low and far, Erelong shall swell from star to star!
That light, the breaking day, which tips The golden-spired Apocalypse!"
Then, when my good friend shook his head, And, sighing, sadly smiled, I said: "Thou mind'st me of a story told In rare Bernardin's leaves of gold."
And while the slanted sunbeams wove The shadows of the frost-stained grove, And, picturing all, the river ran O'er cloud and wood, I thus began:--
In Mount Valerien's chestnut wood The Chapel of the Hermits stood; And thither, at the close of day, Came two old pilgrims, worn and gray.
One, whose impetuous youth defied The storms of Baikal's wintry side, And mused and dreamed where tropic day Flamed o'er his lost Virginia's bay.
His simple tale of love and woe All hearts had melted, high or low;-- A blissful pain, a sweet distress, Immortal in its tenderness.
Yet, while above his charmed page Beat quick the young heart of his age, He walked amidst the crowd unknown, A sorrowing old man, strange and lone.
A homeless, troubled age,--the gray Pale setting of a weary day; Too dull his ear for voice of praise, Too sadly worn his brow for bays.
Pride, lust of power and glory, slept; Yet still his heart its young dream kept, And, wandering like the deluge-dove, Still sought the resting-place of love.
And, mateless, childless, envied more The peasant's welcome from his door By smiling eyes at eventide, Than kingly gifts or lettered pride.
Until, in place of wife and child, All-pitying Nature on him smiled, And gave to him the golden keys To all her inmost sanctities.
Mild Druid of her wood-paths dim!
She laid her great heart bare to him, Its loves and sweet accords;--he saw The beauty of her perfect law.
The language of her signs lie knew, What notes her cloudy clarion blew; The rhythm of autumn's forest dyes, The hymn of sunset's painted skies.
And thus he seemed to hear the song Which swept, of old, the stars along; And to his eyes the earth once more Its fresh and primal beauty wore.
Who sought with him, from summer air, And field and wood, a balm for care; And bathed in light of sunset skies His tortured nerves and weary eyes?
His fame on all the winds had flown; His words had shaken crypt and throne; Like fire, on camp and court and cell They dropped, and kindled as they fell.