Unhallowed threads of revelry are spun;
There Venus sits disguisèd like a Nun,—
While Bacchus, clothed in semblance of a Friar,
Pours out his choicest beverage high and higher 5
Sparkling, until it cannot choose but run
Over the bowl, whose silver lip hath won
An instant kiss of masterful desire—
To stay the precious waste. Through every brain
The domination of the sprightly juice 10
Spreads high conceits to madding Fancy dear,[164]
Till the arched roof, with resolute abuse
Of its grave echoes, swells a choral strain,
Whose votive burthen is—"Our kingdom 's here!"[165]
FOOTNOTES:
[164] 1832.
Spreads the dominion of the sprightly juice,
Through the wide world to madding Fancy dear, 1822.
[165] See Wordsworth's note to the next Sonnet.—Ed.
XXI
DISSOLUTION OF THE MONASTERIES
No sacrifice avert, no power dispute;
The tapers shall be quenched, the belfries mute,
And,'mid their choirs unroofed by selfish rage,
The warbling wren shall find a leafy cage; 5
The gadding bramble hang her purple fruit;
And the green lizard and the gilded newt
Lead unmolested lives, and die of age.[166]
The owl of evening and the woodland fox
For their abode the shrines of Waltham choose:[167] 10
Proud Glastonbury can no more refuse
To stoop her head before these desperate shocks—
She whose high pomp displaced, as story tells,
Arimathean Joseph's wattled cells.[168]
FOOTNOTES:
[166] These two lines are adopted from a MS., written about the year 1770, which accidentally fell into my possession. The close of the preceding Sonnet on monastic voluptuousness is taken from the same source, as is the verse, "Where Venus sits," etc. [W. W. 1822], and the line, "Once ye were holy, ye are holy still," in a subsequent Sonnet.—W. W. 1837.
[167] Waltham Abbey is in Essex, on the Lea.—Ed.
XXII
THE SAME SUBJECT
Through saintly habit than from effort due
To unrelenting mandates that pursue
With equal wrath the steps of strong and weak)
Goes forth—unveiling timidly a cheek[169] 5
Suffused with blushes of celestial hue,
While through the Convent's[170] gate to open view
Softly she glides, another home to seek.
Not Iris, issuing from her cloudy shrine,
An Apparition more divinely bright! 10
Not more attractive to the dazzled sight
Those watery glories, on the stormy brine
Poured forth, while summer suns at distance shine,
And the green vales lie hushed in sober light!
XXIII
CONTINUED
And many chained by vows, with eager glee[171]
The warrant hail, exulting to be free;
Like ships before whose keels, full long embayed
In polar ice, propitious winds have made 5
Unlooked-for outlet to an open sea,
Their liquid world, for bold discovery,
In all her quarters temptingly displayed!
Hope guides the young; but when the old must pass
The threshold, whither shall they turn to find 10
The hospitality—the alms (alas!
Alms may be needed) which that House bestowed?
Can they, in faith and worship, train the mind
To keep this new and questionable road?
FOOTNOTES:
[171] 1840.
Or chained by vows, with undissembled glee 1822.
XXIV
SAINTS
Angels and Saints, in every hamlet mourned!
Ah! if the old idolatry be spurned,
Let not your radiant Shapes desert the Land:
Her adoration was not your demand, 5
The fond heart proffered it—the servile heart;
And therefore are ye summoned to depart,
Michael, and thou, St. George, whose flaming brand[172]
The Dragon quelled; and valiant Margaret[173]
Whose rival sword a like Opponent slew: 10
And rapt Cecilia, seraph-haunted Queen[174]
Of harmony; and weeping Magdalene,
Who in the penitential desert met
Gales sweet as those that over Eden blew!
FOOTNOTES:
[172] St. George, patron Saint of England, supposed to have suffered A.D. 284. The Greek Church honours him as "the great martyr."—Ed.
[173] St. Margaret, supposed to have suffered martyrdom at Antioch, A.D. 275.—Ed.
[174] St. Cecilia, patron Saint of Music, has been enrolled as a martyr by the Latin Church from the fifth century.—Ed.
XXV
THE VIRGIN[175]
With the least shade of thought to sin allied;
Woman! above all women glorified,
Our tainted nature's solitary boast;
Purer than foam on central ocean tost; 5
Brighter than eastern skies at daybreak strewn
With fancied roses, than the unblemished moon
Before her wane begins on heaven's blue coast;
Thy Image falls to earth. Yet some, I ween,
Not unforgiven the suppliant knee might bend, 10
As to a visible Power, in which did blend
All that was mixed and reconciled in Thee
Of mother's love with maiden purity,
Of high with low, celestial with terrene![176]
FOOTNOTES:
[175] Compare the Stanzas suggested in a Steam-boat off Saint Bees' Head, (l. 114); also the following sonnet by the late John Nichol, Professor of English Literature in the University of Glasgow. (See The Death of Themistocles, and other Poems, p. 189.)
AVE MARIA
Raised by the weary hearts that beat to thee,
As 'neath the softer light the throbbing sea,
Thy name a spell of peace, in lingering tones
Is whispered through the world: thy truth condones
The feebler faith of worshippers that flee,
Lost in the sovereign awe, to bend the knee
By pictured holiness or breathing stones.
Mother of Christ! whom ages old adorn,
And hundred climes, by gentle thought and deed,
Forgive the sacrilege, the brandished scorn
Of the grim guardians of a narrow creed,
Who fence their folds from Love's serener law,
And "grate on scrannel pipes of wretched straw."—Ed.
[176] This sonnet was published in Time's Telescope, July 2, 1823, p. 136.—Ed.
XXVI
APOLOGY
Was the supremacy of crafty Rome;[177]
Age after age to the arch of Christendom
Aërial keystone haughtily secure;
Supremacy from Heaven transmitted pure, 5
As many hold; and, therefore, to the tomb
Pass, some through fire—and by the scaffold some—
Like saintly Fisher,[178] and unbending More.[179]
"Lightly for both the bosom's lord did sit
Upon his throne;"[180] unsoftened, undismayed 10
By aught that mingled with the tragic scene
Of pity or fear; and More's gay genius played
With the inoffensive sword of native wit,
Than the bare axe more luminous and keen.
FOOTNOTES:
[177] "To the second part of the same series" (the "Ecclesiastical Sonnets") "I have added two, in order to do more justice to the Papal Church for the services which she did actually render to Christianity and Humanity in the Middle Ages."—W. W. (in a letter to Professor Reed, Sept. 4, 1842).—Ed.
[178] John Fisher, born in 1469, became Bishop of Rochester in 1504, was one of the first in England to write against Luther, opposed the divorce of Henry VIII., was sent to the Tower in 1534, and his see declared void, was made a Cardinal by the Pope while in prison, and beheaded on Tower Hill, 1535.—Ed.
[179] Sir Thomas More, the author of Utopia, born in 1478, was Speaker of the House of Commons in 1523, and succeeded Wolsey as Lord Chancellor in 1529. Disapproving of the king's divorce, he resigned office, was committed to the Tower for refusing to take the oath of supremacy, found guilty of treason, and beheaded in 1535.—Ed.
[180] See Romeo and Juliet, act V. scene i. l. 3—
XXVII
IMAGINATIVE REGRETS
From Sages justly honoured by mankind;
But from the ghostly tenants of the wind,
Demons and Spirits, many a dolorous groan
Issues for that dominion overthrown: 5
Proud Tiber grieves, and far-off Ganges, blind
As his own worshippers: and Nile, reclined
Upon his monstrous urn, the farewell moan
Renews.[181] Through every forest, cave, and den,
Where frauds were hatched of old, hath sorrow past—
Hangs o'er the Arabian Prophet's native Waste,[182] 11
Where once his airy helpers[183] schemed and planned
'Mid spectral[184] lakes bemocking thirsty men,[185]
And stalking pillars built of fiery sand.[186]
FOOTNOTES:
[181] Compare the echo of the Lady's voice in the lines To Joanna, in the "Poems on the Naming of Places" (vol. ii. p. 157).—Ed.
[182] The desert around Mecca.—Ed.
[183] Mahomet affirmed that he had constant visits from angels; and that the angel Gabriel dictated to him the Koran.—Ed.
[184] 1837.
[185] The mirage.—Ed.
[186] Pillars of sand raised by whirlwinds in the desert, which correspond to waterspouts at sea.—Ed.
XXVIII
REFLECTIONS
Green leaves with yellow mixed are torn away,
And goodly fruitage with the mother spray;
'Twere madness—wished we, therefore, to detain,
With hands stretched forth in[187] mollified disdain, 5
The "trumpery" that ascends in bare display—
Bulls, pardons, relics, cowls black, white, and grey—[188]
Upwhirled, and flying o'er the ethereal plain
Fast bound for Limbo Lake.[189] And yet not choice
But habit rules the unreflecting herd, 10
And airy bonds are hardest to disown;
Hence, with the spiritual sovereignty transferred
Unto itself, the Crown assumes a voice
Of reckless mastery, hitherto unknown.
FOOTNOTES:
[187] 1827.
[188] See Paradise Lost, book iii. ll. 474, 475—
White, black, and grey, with all their trumperie.—Ed.
[189] Hades.—Ed.
XXIX
TRANSLATION OF THE BIBLE
In dusty sequestration wrapt too long,
Assumes the accents of our native tongue;
And he who guides the plough, or wields the crook,
With understanding spirit now may look 5
Upon her records, listen to her song,
And sift her laws—much wondering that the wrong,
Which Faith has suffered, Heaven could calmly brook
Transcendent Boon! noblest that earthly King
Ever bestowed to equalize and bless 10
Under the weight of mortal wretchedness!
But passions spread like plagues, and thousands wild
With bigotry shall tread the Offering
Beneath their feet, detested and defiled.[190]
FOOTNOTES:
[190] As was the case during the French Revolution.—Ed.
XXX
THE POINT AT ISSUE
Published 1827
Than that the Soul, freed from the bonds of Sense,
And to her God restored by evidence[191]
Of things not seen, drawn forth from their recess,
Root there, and not in forms, her holiness;— 5
For[192] Faith, which to the Patriarchs did dispense
Sure guidance, ere a ceremonial fence
Was needful round men thirsting to transgress;—
For[193] Faith, more perfect still, with which the Lord
Of all, himself a Spirit, in the youth 10
Of Christian aspiration, deigned to fill
The temples of their hearts who, with his word
Informed, were resolute to do his will,
And worship him in spirit and in truth.
FOOTNOTES:
[191] 1832.
The Soul restored to God by evidence 1827.
[192] 1832.
[193] 1832.
XXXI
EDWARD VI
Time-honoured Chaucer speaking through that Lay[194]
By which the Prioress beguiled the way,[195]
And many a Pilgrim's rugged heart did melt.
Hadst thou, loved Bard! whose spirit often dwelt 5
In the clear land of vision, but foreseen
King, child, and seraph,[196] blended in the mien
Of pious Edward kneeling as he knelt
In meek and simple infancy, what joy
For universal Christendom had thrilled 10
Thy heart! what hopes inspired thy genius, skilled
(O great Precursor, genuine morning Star)
The lucid shafts of reason to employ,
Piercing the Papal darkness from afar!
FOOTNOTES:
[194] 1845.
... Chaucer when he framed that Lay 1837.
[195] The quotation is not from The Prioress's Tale of Chaucer, but from Wordsworth's own Selections from Chaucer modernized, stanza ix. Wordsworth adds an idea, not found in the original, and to make room for it, he extends the stanza from seven to eight lines.—Ed.
[196] King Edward VI. ascended the throne in 1547, at the age of ten, and reigned for six years.—Ed.
XXXII
EDWARD SIGNING THE WARRANT FOR
THE EXECUTION OF JOAN OF KENT
From various sources; gently overflow
From blissful transport some—from clefts of woe
Some with ungovernable impulse rush;
And some, coëval with the earliest blush 5
Of infant passion, scarcely dare to show
Their pearly lustre—coming but to go;
And some break forth when others' sorrows crush
The sympathising heart. Nor these, nor yet
The noblest drops to admiration known, 10
To gratitude, to injuries forgiven—
Claim Heaven's regard like waters that have wet
The innocent eyes of youthful Monarchs driven
To pen the mandates, nature doth disown.[197]
FOOTNOTES:
[197] Joan Bocher, of Kent, a woman of good birth, friend of Ann Askew at Court, was accused, and condemned to die for maintaining that Christ was human only in appearance. Cranmer, by order of the Council, obtained from Edward a warrant for her execution. Edward, who was then in his thirteenth year, signed it, telling Cranmer that he must be answerable for the deed.—Ed.
XXXIII
REVIVAL OF POPERY
Published 1827
By unrelenting Death.[199] O People keen
For change, to whom the new looks always green!
Rejoicing did they cast upon the ground[200]
Their Gods of wood and stone; and, at the sound 5
Of counter-proclamation, now are seen,
(Proud triumph is it for a sullen Queen!)
Lifting them up, the worship to confound
Of the Most High. Again do they invoke
The Creature, to the Creature glory give; 10
Again with frankincense the altars smoke
Like those the Heathen served; and mass is sung;
And prayer, man's rational prerogative,
Runs through blind channels of an unknown tongue.[201]
FOOTNOTES:
[198] 1832.
[199] Edward died in 1553, aged sixteen.—Ed.
[200] 1832.
[201] On the death of Edward and the accession of Mary Tudor, the Roman Catholic worship was restored, all the statutes of Edward VI. with regard to religion being repealed by Parliament.—Ed.
XXXIV
LATIMER AND RIDLEY
Published 1827
See Latimer and Ridley in the might
Of Faith stand coupled for a common flight![202]
One (like those prophets whom God sent of old)
Transfigured,[203] from this kindling hath foretold 5
A torch of inextinguishable light;
The Other gains a confidence as bold;
And thus they foil their enemy's despite.
The penal instruments, the shows of crime,
Are glorified while this once-mitred pair 10
Of saintly Friends the "murtherer's chain partake,
Corded, and burning at the social stake:"
Earth never witnessed object more sublime
In constancy, in fellowship more fair!
FOOTNOTES:
[202] Hugh Latimer, Bishop of Worcester, and Nicholas Ridley, Bishop of Winchester, were sent to the Tower, and subsequently burnt together at Oxford in the front of Balliol College, October 16, 1555.—Ed.
[203] M. Latimer suffered his keeper very quietly to pull off his hose, and his other array, which to looke unto was very simple: and being stripped into his shrowd, he seemed as comely a person to them that were present, as one should lightly see: and whereas in his clothes hee appeared a withered and crooked sillie (weak) olde man, he now stood bolt upright, as comely a father as one might lightly behold.... Then they brought a faggotte, kindled with fire, and laid the same downe at doctor Ridley's feete. To whome M. Latimer spake in this manner, "Bee of good comfort, master Ridley, and play the man: wee shall this day light such a candle by God's grace in England, as I trust shall never bee put out." (Fox's Acts, etc.)
Similar alterations in the outward figure and deportment of persons brought to like trial were not uncommon. See note to the above passage in Dr. Wordsworth's Ecclesiastical Biography, for an example in an humble Welsh fisherman.—W. W. 1827. (Ecclesiastical Biography, vol. iii. pp. 287, 288.)—Ed.
XXXV
CRANMER[204]
(O God of mercy, may no earthly Seat
Of judgment such presumptuous doom repeat!)
Amid the shuddering throng doth Cranmer stand;
Firm as the stake to which with iron band 5
His frame is tied; firm from the naked feet
To the bare head. The victory is complete;[206]
The shrouded Body to the Soul's command
Answers[207] with more than Indian fortitude,
Through all her nerves with finer sense endued, 10
Till breath departs in blissful aspiration:
Then, 'mid the ghastly ruins of the fire,
Behold the unalterable heart entire,
Emblem of faith untouched, miraculous attestation![208][209]
FOOTNOTES:
[204] Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, and leader in the ecclesiastical affairs of England during the latter part of Henry VIII. and Edward VI.'s reign, was, on the accession of Mary Tudor, committed to the Tower, tried on charges of heresy, and condemned. He recanted his opinions, but was nevertheless condemned to die. He then recanted his recantation. "They brought him to the spot where Latimer and Ridley had suffered. After a short prayer, he put off his clothes with a cheerful countenance and a willing mind. His feet were bare; his head appeared perfectly bald. Called to abide by his recantation, he stretched forth his right arm, and replied, 'This is the hand that wrote it, and therefore it shall suffer punishment first.' Firm to his purpose, as soon as the flame rose, he held his hand out to meet it, and retained it there steadfastly, so that all the people saw it sensibly burning before the fire reached any other part of his body; and after he repeated with a loud and firm voice, 'This hand hath offended, this unworthy right hand.' Never did martyr endure the fire with more invincible resolution; no cry was heard from him, save the exclamation of the protomartyr Stephen, 'Lord Jesus, receive my spirit!' The fire did its work soon—and his heart was found unconsumed amid the ashes." (Southey's Book of the Church, vol. ii. pp. 240, 241.)—Ed.
[205] 1827.
[206] 1837.
[207] 1837.
[208] 1827.
'Till self-reproach and panting aspirations
Are, with the heart that held them, all devoured;
The Spirit set free, and crown'd with joyful acclamations! 1822.
[209] For the belief in this fact, see the contemporary Historians.—W. W. 1827.