'Not the end: but there's nothing more.'

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Edward Thomas

Not the end: but there's nothing more.
Sweet Summer and Winter rude
I have loved, and friendship and love,
The crowd and solitude:

But I know them: I weary not;
But all that they mean I know.
I would go back again home
Now.  Yet how should I go?

This is my grief.  That land,
My home, I have never seen;
No traveller tells of it,
However far he has been.

And could I discover it,
I fear my happiness there,
Or my pain, might be dreams of return
Here, to these things that were.

Remembering ills, though slight
Yet irremediable,
Brings a worse, an impurer pang
Than remembering what was well.

No: I cannot go back,
And would not if I could.
Until blindness come, I must wait
And blink at what is not good.

'Now Holy Ghost, our true Comforter'

A medieval English translation of the hymn to the Holy Spirit Nunc sancte nobis spiritus, attributed to St Ambrose:

Now holy gost, owr verry counfortowre,
Oon to the fadyr and with sone also;
In tyll owr soule distyll the suet licowre
Of grace, þat wer euer we byde or goo,
Owr soules, lord, þi grace depart not froo,
lest we fall tyll erroure or disirynte
Wyth þi karisme profownde vs and enoynte.

Owr mouth of lavde mak confession;
Owr tvnge also mote speke to þi plesance;
Owr mynd be perfyt meditacione,
Owr wyttes echon with þer sufficance;
Owr strengthes all aftyr þer hole puissance;
Owr charite more flame and in fyre
Owr neghburs all þat bene of gud desyre.

Text from Frank Allen Patterson, ‘Hymnal from MS. Additional 34193 British Museum’, in Medieval Studies in Memory of Gertrude Schoepperle Loomis (New York, 1927), pp.443-488 (476).

This dates to the fifteenth century, and comes from the manuscript of hymn translations from which I've previously posted versions of 'Vox clara ecce intonat' and this morning hymn.  These translations are very much in the style of most fifteenth-century English poetry, with a tendency to the verbose, and delighting in ornate Latinate diction (sometimes made up on the spot for the purposes of translation - if you can properly call that 'translation'!). It's not my own favourite strain of medieval verse, but I can appreciate the inventiveness of it; the second verse here, with all those parallel clauses beginning 'our', is all the translator's ingenuity, and sometimes he hits on a felicitous phrase, such as 'the sweet licour of grace' (licour = liquid, dew; compare the third line of the Prologue to the Canterbury Tales). For something simpler, you might like to look at the Middle English translation of 'Veni creator spiritus' ('Com, Shuppere, Holy Gost') which I posted a little while ago.

A modern version (the second verse will make more sense if you read an implied 'may' before every clause):

Now Holy Ghost, our true Comforter,
One with the Father and with the Son also;
Into our souls distil the sweet licour
Of grace, that wherever we may bide or go,
Our souls, Lord, thy grace may depart not fro; [from]
Lest we fall to error or disjoint [distress, difficulty]
With thy grace fill us and anoint.

Our mouths with praise make confession,
Our tongues also speak to thy content;
Our minds be perfect meditation,
Our wits each [used] to their full extent,
Our strengths all with their whole power;
Our charity more flame out and enfire
Our neighbours all who are of good desire.

The Latin is:

Nunc, Sancte, nobis, Spiritus,
Unum Patri cum Filio,
Dignare promptus ingeri
Nostro refusus pectori.

Os, lingua, mens, sensus, vigor
Confessionem personent.
Flammescat igne caritas,
Accéndat ardor proximos.

And the translation I know best is John Henry Newman's:

Come, Holy Ghost, Who ever One
Art with the Father and the Son;
Come, Holy Ghost, our souls possess
With Thy full flood of holiness.

In will and deed, by heart and tongue,
With all our powers, Thy praise be sung;
And love light up our mortal frame,
Till others catch the living flame.

'Full flood of holiness' is such a great phrase.  I like how, poetically speaking, Pentecost is a feast of mixed metaphors - it's really against all the laws of imagery to describe something as wind and fire and a flood of water, because they cancel each other out (like a holy game of 'Rock, Paper, Scissors')!  Such are the dangers in speaking of the unspeakable!

'O God, the king of glory'

Before the end of Ascensiontide, there's just time to enjoy this, one of my favourite anthems - Henry Purcell's 'O God, the king of glory' (at 1:10 into the video):



O God, the King of Glory, who hast exalted thine only Son, Jesus Christ, with great triumph into heaven: we beseech thee, leave us not comfortless, but send to us thine Holy Ghost to comfort us, and exalt us into the same place where our Saviour Christ is gone before us.

Fields by Waterfalls

Over the years I've posted a number of poems here by the Dorset dialect poet William Barnes (1801-1886) - 'The Castle Ruins', about a happy family outing at Whitsuntide; 'Evening in the Village'; and his best-known poem, 'Linden Lea'.  Today's poem, 'Vields by Watervalls', repeats 'Linden Lea's' flowery-gladed/timber-shaded rhyme, so I think we can assume that was a particular favourite...

I enjoy Barnes' rural idylls, for all their sentimentality, and I'm posting this today because yesterday afternoon, when the world was sparkling after a sudden gush of rain, I caught sight of a patch of buttercups and daisies in long wet grass (as Barnes puts it, 'daisy-whitened, gildcup-brightened'). It was one of those moments when you look at a familiar scene and feel like you've never really seen it before.  Consolation indeed for 'others' wrongs an' slightens'!

For those of you unfamiliar with the Dorset dialect (or Barnes' rendering of it, at least) it will help to know that v = f, z = s, and initial d (in the second line of verse 2) = th.

Vields by Watervalls

When our downcast looks be smileless,
Under others' wrongs an' slightens,
When our daily deeds be guileless,
An' do meet unkind requitens,
You can meake us zome amends
Vor wrongs o' foes, an' slights o' friends;-
O flow'ry-gleaded, timber-sheaded
Vields by flowen watervalls!

Here be softest airs a'blowen
Drough the boughs, wi'zingen drushes,
Up above the streams, a-flowen
Under willows, on by rushes.
Here below the bright-zunned sky
The dew-bespangled flow'rs do dry,
In woody-zided, stream-divided
Vields by flowen watervalls.

Waters, wi' their giddy rollens;
Breezes wi' their playsome wooens;
Here do heal, in soft consolens,
Hearts-a-wrung wi' man's wrong doens.
Day do come to us as gay
As to king ov widest sway,
In deaisy-whiten'd, gil'cup-brightened
Vields by flowen watervalls.

Zome feair buds mid outlive blightens,
Zome sweet hopes mid outlive sorrow,
A'ter days of wrongs an' slightens
There mid break a happy morrow.
We mid have noo ea'thly love;
But God's love-tokens vrom above
Here mid meet us, here mid greet us,
In the vields by watervalls.

A Glow of Colour in a Country Church

Two miles south of Canterbury is a tiny hamlet with the somewhat unappealing (though unimpeachably Anglo-Saxon) name of Nackington. It consists of little more than a church and a few houses, and the church is very small - but it contains a treasure.

Nackington appears in Domesday Book, and early in the twelfth century its church, St Mary's, came into the possession of St Gregory's Priory in Canterbury, Archbishop Lanfranc's new foundation which so annoyed the monks of St Augustine's.  This connection to the city is important, as we will see in a moment.  But first, enjoy the odd shape of this funny up-and-down church, which has nearly fallen down and been rebuilt several times in its history:

Here's the best welcome a church can offer - an unlocked door and a quotation from Julian of Norwich:

'Our courteous Lord willeth that we should be as homely with Him as heart may think or soul may desire. But let us beware that we take not so recklessly this homeliness that we leave courtesy.'

The church is simple on the inside, and I didn't manage to photograph it particularly well, so let's move swiftly on to the church's treasure.  For this we have to go to the north wall of the chancel, beside the altar.  And there we find this:

And this:

These two windows date to the thirteenth century, and are very similar in style to the medieval glass of Canterbury Cathedral; look at these examples for comparison. They've moved around within the church, and were restored in 1935, but otherwise are substantially what they were eight hundred years ago.  I couldn't ascertain whether it's known how and why these windows came here - if they were originally made for the cathedral, or have always been here (different sources suggested various possibilities).  Either way, this is the man who was thirteenth-century Canterbury's saint of the moment, Thomas Becket:

I've posted about other early Kentish depictions of Thomas Becket at Godmersham and Brookland, and this is the cathedral's famous Becket window (which is, incidentally, about three times bigger than Nackington's).

This is just breathtaking in every way - the colours especially, but also the faces and hands.

At Becket's right hand is the penitent Henry II (labelled as such - 'Henricus Rex'):

And an unidentified figure, perhaps another king:

The Becket panel was my favourite, but above it is something hardly less remarkable - the wedding at Cana:

It's interesting to compare this to the same scene at Canterbury Cathedral; only this one has a patterned tablecloth!

The colours are, again, extraordinary; look at the red and blue here:

Above the golden arch which marks out this scene is another unidentified figure, with a book:

The other window has three figures, which seem like the remnant of a more developed composition (a Jesse tree, perhaps?). At the top is a crowned female figure, presumably the Virgin Mary:

Below her the unmistakeable King David, with his harp:

Again you might like to compare the David from Canterbury Cathedral's Jesse tree.  Opposite is Solomon:

Finally, there's this, which is very pretty, but I don't know how old it is:

The colours of these windows are like jewels, and in Canterbury Cathedral, where there are hundreds of them, they dazzle like a king's treasure-house, or like the passage from Isaiah which the cathedral's Stained Glass Studio quotes on their website: 'I will lay thy stones with fair colours, and lay their foundations with sapphires; and I will make thy windows of agates, and thy gates of carbuncles, and all thy borders of pleasant stones.'  You might think that by comparison with that glory, two much smaller windows in a far less impressive setting might lose something of their power.  Somehow the effect was the opposite.  If the riches of the cathedral foreshadow Isaiah's city of God, stumbling across the rubies and sapphires of these windows in a deserted country church, far from the bustling crowds of the ever-busy cathedral, felt like a private and personal discovery - like finding the 'treasure hid in a field'.

One or two more pictures of the little church; here's the bell-tower:

The main altar, and beside it a chapel mostly filled with (stacking chairs and) monuments to the Milles family:

The other windows in the church can't match their medieval companions, though the west window's baby Christ - in a 1920s nightgown! - is endearing:

As is the baby angel above:

There's something 'homely' about all this, not quite in the sense Julian uses that word, but in a way that speaks of the love and care which has gone into preserving this church - even when it was half falling down! - over all the centuries of its life.  The wooden chancel screen is inscribed with the names of the local men who carved it in the early part of last century, and in this book, published in 1800, Nackington church is described as 'kept very neat and in good repair'; and so it is still.  'Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also', and this place has much of both.

Ælfric on the sun

This is an extract from Ælfric's sermon for Wednesday in Rogationtide, which I meant to post last Wednesday, and didn't. The whole sermon can be found here (I've tweaked the translation a little).

Christ on a sunbeam, British Library, Egerton 2781

The sun which shines above us is a physical creation, but nevertheless has three properties: one is its physical substance, that is the orb of the sun; the second is the light or brightness which is ever shining from it, which enlightens the whole world; the third is the heat, which comes to us with its beams.  The light is ever shining from the sun, and is ever with it; and the Son of the Almighty God is ever begotten of the Father, and ever dwelling with him.  The apostle said of him that he was 'the brightness of his Father's glory' [Hebrews 1:3]. The sun's heat proceeds from it and from its beams, and the Holy Ghost is ever proceeding from the Father and the Sun equally.  About this it is written, 'There is nothing hidden from its heat' [Psalm 19]...

Consider the sun wisely, in which there is, as we said before, heat and brightness.  The heat dries, and the brightness enlightens.  The heat does one thing, and the brightness another, and although they cannot be separated, nonetheless, the heating belongs to the heat, and the lighting belongs to the brightness.  So, too, Christ alone assumed human nature, and the Father did not, nor the Holy Ghost; nonetheless, they were always with him in his works and in everything he did.

We speak about God - the mortal about the immortal, the weak about the almighty, wretches about the merciful.  But who may worthily speak about that which is beyond speech?  He is without measure, because he is everywhere.  He is without number, because he is eternal.  He is without weight, because he upholds all creation without labour; and he ordained it all with three things, that is, measure, number and weight.  But know that no man can speak fully about God, when we cannot even search out or reckon up the creation which he made.  Who may speak in words of the ornaments of the heavens, or the fruits of the earth? or who may sufficiently praise the course of all the seasons, or all other things, when we cannot even fully comprehend with our sight the physical things which we can see?  Just so, when you see the man in front of you, at the time when you see his face, you cannot see his back. And if you look at a piece of cloth, you cannot see the whole thing all together; you turn it around so you can see it all.  What wonder is it then if Almighty God is beyond words and beyond comprehension, who is everywhere all and nowhere divided?

Now some man of shallow thoughts may ask how God can be everywhere in one, and nowhere divided.  Consider the sun, how high it climbs, and how it sends its light throughout the whole earth, and how it enlightens all the earth which is inhabited by mankind.  As soon as it rises up at dawn, it shines on Jerusalem, and on the city of Rome, and on this land, and on all lands together; yet it is a created thing, and moves at God's command. Now, think how much greater is God's presence, and his power, and his visitation everywhere. Nothing withstands him, neither stone wall nor broad barriers, even though they withstand the sun. To him nothing is hidden or unknown. You behold a man's face, but God beholds his heart. God's spirit tests the hearts of all men, and those who believe in him and love him, he purifies and gladdens with his visitation, and the hearts of unbelieving men he passes over and shuns.


In Old English:

Seo sunne ðe ofer us scinð is lichamlic gesceaft, and hæfð swa-ðeah ðreo agennyssa on hire: an is seo lichamlice edwist, þæt is ðære sunnan trendel; oðer is se leoma oððe beorhtnys æfre of ðære sunnan, seoðe onliht ealne middangeard; þridde is seo hætu, þe mid þam leoman cymð to ús. Se leoma is æfre of ðære sunnan, and æfre mid hire; and ðæs Ælmihtigan Godes Sunu is æfre of ðam Fæder acenned, and æfre mid him wunigende; be ðam cwæð se apostol, þæt he wære his Fæder wuldres beorhtnys. Ðære sunnan hætu gæð of hire and of hire leoman; and se Halga Gast gæð æfre of ðam Fæder and of þam Suna gelice; be ðam is þus awriten, "Nis nán þe hine behydan mæge fram his hætan."...

Beheald þas sunnan mid gleawnysse, on ðære is, swa we ær cwædon, hætu and beorhtnys; ac seo hætu drygð, and seo beorhtnys onlyht. Oðer ðing deð seo hætu, and oðer seo beorhtnys; and ðeah ðe hí ne magon beon totwæmde: belimpð, hwæðere ðeah, seo hæðung to ðære hætan, and seo onlihting belimpð to ðære beorhtnysse. Swa eac Crist ana underfeng ða menniscnysse, and na se Fæder, ne se Halga Gast: þeah-hwæðere hí wæron æfre mid him on eallum his weorcum and on ealre his fare.

We sprecað ymbe God, deaðlice be Undeaðlicum, tyddre be Ælmihtigum, earmingas be Mildheortum; ac hwá mæg weorðfullice sprecan be ðam ðe is únasecgendlic? He is butan gemete, forðy ðe he is æghwær. He is butan getele, forðon ðe he is æfre. He is butan héfe, forðon þe he hylt ealle gesceafta butan geswince; and he hí ealle gelogode on þam ðrim ðingum, þæt is on gemete, and on getele, and on héfe. Ac wite ge þæt nán man ne mæg fullice embe God sprecan, þonne we furðon þa gesceafta þe he gesceop ne magon asmeagan, ne areccan. Hwá mæg mid wordum ðære heofenan freatewunge asecgan? Oððe hwá ðære eorðan wæstmbærnysse? Oððe hwá herað genihtsumlice ealra tida ymbhwyrft? Oððe hwá ealle oðre ðing, þonne we furðon þa lichomlican ðing, þe we onlociað, ne magon fullice befón mid ure gesihðe? Efne ðu gesihst ðone mannan beforan ðe, ac on ðære tide þe ðu his neb gesihst, þu ne gesihst na his hricg. Ealswa, gif ðu sumne clað sceawast, ne miht ðu hine ealne togædere geseon, ac wenst abutan, þæt ðu ealne hine geseo. Hwylc wundor is, gif se Ælmihtiga God is unasecgendlic and unbefangenlic, seðe æghwær is eall, and nahwar todæled?

Nu smeað sum undeopðancol man, hu God mæge beón æghwær ætgædere, and nahwar todæled. Beheald þas sunnan, hu heage heo astihð, and hu heo asent hyre leoman geond ealne middangeard, and hu heo onliht ealle ðas eorðan þe mancynn on-eardað. Swa hraðe swa heo up-asprincð on ærne merigen, heo scinð on Hierusalem, and on Romebyrig, and on ðisum earde, and on eallum eardum ætgædere; and hwæðere heo is gesceaft, and gæð be Godes dihte. Hwæt wenst ðu hu miccle swiðor is Godes andweardnys, and his miht, and his neosung æghwær. Him ne wiðstent nan ðing, naðer ne stænen weall ne bryden wáh, swa swa hi wiðstandað þære sunnan. Him is nan ðing digle ne uncuð. Þu gesceawast ðæs mannes neb, and God sceawað his heortan. Godes gast afandað ealra manna heortan; and ða ðe on hine gelyfað and hine lufiað, þa he clænsað and gegladað mid his neosunge, and ðæra ungeleaffulra manna heortan he forbyhð and onscunað.

'O summer sun'

O summer sun, O moving trees!
O cheerful human noise, O busy glittering street!
What hour shall Fate in all the future find,
Or what delights, ever to equal these:
Only to taste the warmth, the light, the wind,
Only to be alive, and feel that life is sweet?

- Laurence Binyon