'The Coming of Christ'

I've recently been thinking a bit about medieval drama, and in doing so came across a 'modern mystery play' which was new to me. The Coming of Christ, with words by John Masefield and music by Gustav Holst, was performed in Canterbury Cathedral in 1928. It was commissioned as part of the newly-instituted Canterbury Festival, and is said to have been the first attempt at reviving medieval mystery drama since the Middle Ages.

Apparently it was controversial at the time, attracting criticism both for representing sacred subjects on stage and for being performed inside the cathedral. It seems harmless enough now, and it's an interesting 1920s take on the medieval genre. The subject is the Nativity (though it was actually performed at Whitsun, on 28 May 1928), chiefly the adoration of the three kings and the shepherds. The kings are a capitalist, a tyrant and a mystical enthusiast, while the shepherds are cynical war veterans, who compare keeping watch over their sheep to their memories of night-watches in what sounds a lot like the trenches of the First World War. This was particularly controversial; for more on the context of the performance and its challenges, see this book.

Both Masefield and Holst worked with medieval texts and subjects on a number of occasions. I've written briefly about Masefield's poems on Anglo-Saxon saints before, as well as his Arthurian poetry. He was particularly fond of Chaucer, on whom he lectured and wrote frequently, so the Canterbury link here is apt; and I think there's a very faint whiff of the Pardoner's Tale in Masefield's shepherds. (On a tangent: do read Tolkien's brilliantly polite letter to Masefield, taking him to task for excessive praise of Chaucer as 'the first English poet'!) I don't know how much medieval drama Masefield might have read, but it seems relevant that he knew Piers Plowman; he drew a connection between the figure of Piers and the climactic scene in his most successful early poem, The Everlasting Mercy. (Both poems are set in the landscape of the Malvern Hills, near Masefield's native Ledbury).

For his part, Holst set a range of Middle English texts to music - most notable is probably 'Lullay my liking' (1916), but I also like this setting of four Middle English lyrics and his 'Four Old English Carols' (1907). I've so far only heard as much of the play's music as is available on Youtube, but there's a description of it from a contemporary review here and a fascinating account of the first performance here.

The play takes place in the Nave of Canterbury Cathedral, which has a ready-made stage in the form of steps up to the Quire. What particularly interests me is the scene at the beginning of the play, which is set before the Incarnation. This is a discussion between the figure of 'Anima Christi' and four spirits: The Power, The Sword, The Mercy and The Light. Anima Christi has not yet entered into the world, but 'stands here at the brink / Of life's red sea which stains and overwhelms'. The spirits try to dissuade him from choosing to be born into the world as a man, warning him of the suffering he and his followers will undergo, and arguing that the dark and violent world is already past saving:

Man will not change for one voice crying truth,
And dying, beautiful as fire, for wisdom.
Like a stone falling in a stagnant pond,
You will but make a ripple swiftly stilled
By the green weed...
Men are but animals, and you will fail.
This is the harvest you will reap on earth:
Your mother, broken-hearted at the cross;
Your brother put to death; your comrades scattered.

But Anima Christi, though momentarily hesitant, is not swayed:

O spirits, I am resolute.
I lay aside my glory and my power
To take up Manhood.

This debate is reminiscent of the 'Parliament of Heaven' type of scene found in medieval drama and other kinds of medieval texts, including Piers Plowman. In this scene, four allegorical figures debate whether Christ's coming into the world to redeem mankind can be reconciled with the demands of justice, which requires punishment for sin. Here's one version of the idea from a medieval mystery play, and below is a rare representation of a Parliament of Heaven scene on a 15th-century English alabaster panel:

(See the V&A's website for a full description of the scene.) Christ is descending head-first to Mary, and the surrounding figures are the Four Daughters of God - Mercy, Truth, Righteousness and Peace. The personification of these female figures as the four principles to be reconciled is an idea based on the verse from Psalm 85: 'Mercy and truth are met together, righteousness and peace have kissed each other'. These women are usually the figures who debate the apparently unresolvable question, and each can be roughly equated with one of Masefield's four (male) spirits. Apparently this scene was one of the most controversial aspects of the play, because of Christ's hesitation. I wonder what those who objected to the modern dialogue of Masefield's shepherds would have made of Langland's even more vigorous debate, in which Truth tells Mercy 'That thow tellest is but a tale of waltrot!', and Righteousness asks Peace 'What, ravestow? or thow art righty dronke?'!

In Piers Plowman the women appear from the four corners of the world: Righteousness 'out of the nyppe of the north', Mercy 'out of the west coste... walkynge in the wey', and so on. In a similar way, the figures in this play enter from the North and South Transepts of the cathedral, and through the Quire door from the east. When Anima Christi resolves to become incarnate in the world, he passes eastwards into the Quire as the four spirits strengthen him with their respective attributes.

As he does so the Host of Heaven sing:

O sing, as thrushes in the winter lift
Their ecstasy aloft among black boughs,
So that the doormouse stirs him in his drowse,
And by the melting drift
The newborn lamb bleats answer: sing, for swift
April the bride will enter this old house.

Awake, for in the darkness of the byre
Above the manger, clapping with his wings,
The cock of glory lifts his crest of fire:
Far, among slumbering men his trumpet rings:
Awake, the night is quick with coming things,
And hiding things that hurry into brake
Before the sun's arising: O awake.

Awake and sing: for in the stable-cave,
Man's heart, the sun has risen, Spring is here,
The withered bones are laughing in the grave,
Darkness and winter perish, Death and Fear;
A new Life enters Earth, who will make clear
The Beauty, within touch, of God the King;
O mortals, praise Him! O awake and sing!

Then the kings appear, discussing their quest, and the shepherds watching their sheep. Cold, tired, and resentful about their unappreciated service in the war, the shepherds are talking of revolution: 'let us have a turn at the fire, the rich have a turn at the fold... It's time the workers should command and have the wealth they make'. One of them speaks of his faith in God, though the others scoff ('I'm only a poor shepherd, but I've known Him', he says, Piers Plowman-like: Piers' very first line in the poem is 'I know him as kyndely as clerke doth his bokes'.)

Next 'the Angels appear at the Quire Door, on the Upper Stage and in the Gallery and Clerestory' of the cathedral, and sing:

Glory to God in the highest,
Peace on earth among men in whom God is well pleased.

Praise Him who brings into the dark
Of human life, this shining spark
Which will burn clear and be a mark
For wandering souls on earth and sea.
By his companionship and sign
The unlit souls of men will shine
And be a comfort and be divine,
And bring a glory to men to be.

Through Him who is born in stable here
Our heavenly host will come more near;
The presence of God, which drives out fear,
The glory of God, that makes all glow,
The comfort of God, that sings and swells
In the human heart like a peal of bells,
And the peace of God, that no tongue tells,
Are given to man to know.

Praise Him who shines in the bright sea,
In golden fruit, in the green tree,
In valleys clapping hands with glee,
In mountains that His witness are,
In heavens open like His hand,
In stars as many as the sand,
In planets doing His command,
And in His Son this star.

The child and his mother appear, framed by the door of the Quire. The angels sing:

You who have known the darkness slowly yield,
And in the twilight the first blackbird's cry
Come, with the dripping of the dew new-shaken
From twigs where yellowing leaves and reddening berries lie,
And seen the colour come upon the field,
And heard the cocks crow as the thorps awaken,

You know with what a holiness of light
The peace of morning comes, and how night goes -
Not goes, but, on a sudden, is not, even.
Now God Himself is Man and all the banded Night
Will perish and the Kingdom will unclose.
O man, praise God, praise Him, you host of heaven.

The kings and shepherds present their gifts to the child, and the shepherds carry him and his mother out on a litter as they sing:

By weary stages
The old world ages;
By blood, by rages,
By pain-sown seeds.
By fools and sages,
With death for wages,
Souls leave their cages
And Man does deeds.

In mire he trudges,
In grime he drudges,
In blindness judges,
In darkness gropes.
His bitter measure
Yields little pleasure;
For only treasure
He has his hopes.

The hope that sailing
When winds are failing
Above the railing
A coast may rise;
The thought that glory
Is not a story,
But Heaven o'er ye
And watching eyes.

Behold us bringing
With love and singing
And great joy ringing
And hearts new-made,
The prince, forespoken,
By seer and token,
By whom Sin's broken
And Death is stayed.

Now by his power
The world will flower,
And hour by hour
His realm increase;
Now men benighted
Will feel them righted
And love be lighted
To spirit's peace.

Our God is wearing
Man's flesh, and bearing
Man's cares, through caring
What men may be;
Our God is sharing
His light and daring
To help men's faring
And set men free.

All you in hearing
Assist our cheering
This soul unfearing
Who enters earth;
On God relying
And Death defying,
He puts on dying
That Life have birth.

This final hymn, 'By weary stages', was published in the 1931 edition of the hymnal Songs of Praise, with Holst's tune titled 'Hill Crest' (the name of Masefield's house near Oxford).

The four spirits reappear, and speak again:

The Mercy: By mercy, and by martyrdom,
And many ways, God leads us home:
And many darknesses there are.

The Light: By darkness and by light He leads,
He gives according to our needs,
And in His darkest is a star.

The Sword: The angry blood was once the guide,
But perisht boughs are thrust aside
In the green fever of the Spring.

The Power: Friends, Christ is come within this hall,
Bow down and worship one and all,
Our Father for this thing.

One by one the four spirits pass into the Quire (where two Anglo-Saxon monks once heard angels singing.)

Looking into Canterbury Cathedral from the door of the Quire

Thanne pipede Pees of poesie a note:
'Clarior est solito post maxima nebula phebus;
Post inimicicias clarior est et amor.
After sharpest shoures,' quod Pees, 'moost shene is the sonne;
Is no weder warmer than after watry cloudes;
Ne no love levere; ne lever frendes
Than after werre and wo, whan love and pees ben maistres.
Was nevere werre in this world, ne wikkednesse so kene,
That Love, and hym liste, to laughyng ne broughte,
And Pees, thorugh pacience, alle perils stoppede.'
'Trewes!' quod Truthe; 'thow tellest us sooth, by Jesus!
Clippe we in covenaunt, and ech of us kisse oother.'
'And lete no peple,' quod Pees, 'parceyve that we chidde;
For inpossible is no thyng to Hym that is almyghty.'
'Thow seist sooth,' seide Rightwisnesse, and reverentliche hire kiste,
Pees, and Pees hire, per secula seculorum.
Misericordia et Veritas obviaverunt sibi, justicia et Pax osculate sunt.

'Restless longing, heavenly avarice, that never could be satisfied': Roads and Pilgrims

Since it's the feast of St James, by medieval tradition the patron of pilgrims, here's a miscellany of texts touching on pilgrimages, roads, and seeking.

St James, attired as a pilgrim (1320s, Norwich; BL Stowe 12, f.279v)

The gode pilegrim halt eaver his rihte wei forth-ward. Thah he seo other here idele gomenes ant wundres bi the weie, he ne edstont nawt as foles doth, ah halt forth his rute ant hiheth toward his giste. He ne bereth na gersum bute his speonse gnedeliche, ne clathes bute ane theo thet him to neodeth. This beoth hali men the, thah ha beon i the world, ha beoth th'rin as pilegrimes ant gath with god lif-lade toward te riche of heovene, ant seggeth with the Apostle, Non habemus hic manentem civitatem, set futuram inquirimus - thet is, "nabbe we na wununge her, ah we secheth other." Beoth bi the leaste thet ha mahen, ne ne haldeth na tale of na worltlich frovre, thah ha beon i worltlich wei - as ich seide - of pilegrim, ah habbeth hare heorte eaver toward heovene, ant ahen wel to habben. For other pilegrimes gath [i] muche swinc to sechen ane sontes banes, as Sein James other Sein Giles, ah theo pilegrimes the gath toward heovene, ha gath to beon i-sontet, ant to finden Godd seolf ant alle his hali halhen, liviende i blisse, ant schulen livien with him i wunne buten ende. Ha i-findeth i-wis Sein Julienes in, the wei-fearinde men yeornliche bisecheth.

[The good pilgrim always keeps on his direct road forward. Although he may see or hear idle games and marvels beside the way, he does not stop, as fools do, but keeps on his road and hastens towards his lodging. He does not carry any treasure except his frugal expenses, and no clothes except only those which are necessary to him. These are holy men who, though they live in the world, live in it as pilgrims, and travel in a good way of living towards the kingdom of heaven, and say with the Apostle, Non habemus hic manentem civitatem, set futuram inquirimus; that is, we do not have a dwelling here, but we seek another. They make do with the least they can, and do not set any store by earthly comfort, though they are on the earthly road, as I said, as pilgrims; but their hearts are always directed towards heaven, and well they ought to be. For other pilgrims travel with great labour to seek the bones of a single saint, such as St James or St Giles, but these pilgrims, who travel towards heaven, go to be made saints and to find God himself and all his holy saints living in glory, and will live with him in joy without end. They truly find St Julian’s house, which wayfaring men earnestly seek.]

- from Ancrene Wisse

Canterbury Cathedral

I wol ful fayn, at Cristes reverence,
Do yow plesaunce leefful, as I kan.
But trusteth wel, I am a southren man,
I kan nat geeste 'rum, ram, ruf,' by lettre,
Ne, God woot, rym holde I but litel bettre;
And therfore, if yow list - I wol nat glose -
I wol yow telle a myrie tale in prose
To knytte up al this feeste, and make an ende.
And Jhesu, for his grace, wit me sende
To shewe yow the wey, in this viage,
Of thilke parfit glorious pilgrymage
That highte Jerusalem celestial...

Oure sweete lord God of hevene, that no man wole perisse, but wole that we comen alle to the knoweleche of hym, and to the blisful lif that is perdurable, amonesteth us by the prophete Jeremie, that seith in thys wyse: "stondeth upon the weyes, and seeth and axeth of olde pathes (that is to seyn, of olde sentences) which is the goode wey. And walketh in that wey, and ye shal fynde refresshynge for youre soules, etc." Manye been the weyes espirituels that leden folk to oure lord Jhesu Crist, and to the regne of glorie. Of whiche weyes, ther is a ful noble wey and ful covenable, which may nat fayle to man ne to womman that thurgh synne hath mysgoon fro the righte wey of Jerusalem celestial; and this wey is cleped penitence.

- Chaucer's Parson, telling the last tale of the Canterbury Pilgrimage (full text here)

The Parson in the Ellesmere Chaucer (from wikipedia)

Thanne hente Hope an horn of Deus tu conversus vivificabis nos
And blew it with Beati quorum remisse sunt iniquitate
That alle Seintes in hevene songen at ones,
Homines et iumenta salvabis, quemadmodum multiplicasti misericordiam tuam.
A thousand of men tho thrungen togideres,
Cride upward to Crist and to his clene moder
To have grace to go seke Truthe - God leve that they moten!
Ac there was wight noon so wys, the wey thider kouthe,
But blustreden forth as beestes over baches and hilles,
Til late was and longe, that thei a leode mette
Apparailled as a paynym in pilgrymes wise.
He bar a burdoun ybounde with a brood liste
In a withwynde wise ywounden aboute.
A bolle and a bagge he bar by his syde.
An hundred of ampulles on his hat seten,
Signes of Synay and shelles of Galice,
And many a crouch on his cloke, and keyes of Rome,
And the vernicle bifore, for men sholde knowe
And se bi hise signes whom he sought hadde.
This folk frayned hym first fro whennes he come.
"Fram Synay," he seide, "and fram the Sepulcre.
In Bethlem and in Babiloyne, I have ben in bothe,
In Armonye, in Alisaundre, in manye othere places.
Ye may se by my signes that sitten on myn hatte
That I have walked ful wide in weet and in drye
And sought goode seintes for my soule helthe."
"Knowestow aught a corsaint," quod thei, "that men calle Truthe?
Koudestow wissen us the wey wher that wye dwelleth?"
"Nay, so me God helpe!" seide the gome thanne.
"I seigh nevere palmere with pyk ne with scrippe
Asken after hym er now in this place."

"Peter!" quod a Plowman, and putte forth his hed,
"I knowe hym as kyndely as clerk doth hise bokes.
Conscience and Kynde Wit kenned me to his place
And diden me suren hym siththen to serven hym for evere,
Bothe to sowe and to sette the while I swynke myghte.
I have ben his folwere al this fourty wynter--
Bothe ysowen his seed and suwed hise beestes,
Withinne and withouten waited his profit,
Idyked and idolve, ido that he hoteth.
Som tyme I sowe and som tyme I thresshe,
In taillours craft and tynkeris craft, what Truthe kan devyse,
I weve and I wynde and do what Truthe hoteth.
For though I seye it myself, I serve hym to paye;
I have myn hire of hym wel and outherwhiles moore.
He is the presteste paiere that povere men knoweth:
He withhalt noon hewe his hire that he ne hath it at even.
He is as lowe as a lomb and lovelich of speche.
And if ye wilneth to wite where that he dwelleth,
I wol wisse yow wel right to his place."
"Ye, leve Piers!" quod thise pilgrimes, and profred hym huyre.
"Nay, by the peril of my soule!" quod Piers and gan to swere,
"I nolde fange a ferthyng, for Seint Thomas shryne!
Truthe wolde love me the lasse a long tyme after."

- Piers Plowman, Passus V

St James (c.1500, from Westhall)

I travell'd on, seeing the hill, where lay
My expectation.
A long it was and weary way.
The gloomy cave of Desperation
I left on th'one, and on the other side
The rock of Pride.

And so I came to Phansies medow strow'd
With many a flower:
Fair would I here have made abode,
But I was quicken'd by my houre.
So to Cares cops I came, and there got through
With much ado.

That led me to the wilde of Passion, which
Some call the wold;
A wasted place, but sometimes rich.
Here I was robb'd of all my gold,
Save one good Angell, which a friend had ti'd
Close to my side.

At length I got unto the gladsome hill,
Where lay my hope,
Where lay my heart; and climbing still,
When I had gain'd the brow and top,
A lake of brackish waters on the ground
Was all I found.

With that abash'd and struck with many a sting
Of swarming fears,
I fell, and cry'd, Alas my King;
Can both the way and end be tears?
Yet taking heart I rose, and then perceiv'd
I was deceiv'd:

My hill was further: so I flung away,
Yet heard a crie
Just as I went, None goes that way
And lives: If that be all, said I,
After so foul a journey death is fair,
And but a chair.

- George Herbert, 'The Pilgrimage'

Pilgrims' crosses, Stodmarsh

Friends and loves we have none, nor wealth nor blessed abode,
But the hope of the City of God at the other end of the road.

Not for us are content, and quiet, and peace of mind,
For we go seeking a city that we shall never find.

There is no solace on earth for us - for such as we -
Who search for a hidden city that we shall never see.

Only the road and the dawn, the sun, the wind, and the rain,
And the watch fire under stars, and sleep, and the road again.

We seek the City of God, and the haunt where beauty dwells,
And we find the noisy mart and the sound of burial bells.

Never the golden city, where radiant people meet,
But the dolorous town where mourners are going about the street.

We travel the dusty road till the light of the day is dim,
And sunset shows us spires away on the world's rim.

We travel from dawn to dusk, till the day is past and by,
Seeking the Holy City beyond the rim of the sky.

Friends and loves we have none, nor wealth nor blest abode,
But the hope of the City of God at the other end of the road.

- John Masefield, 'The Seekers'

South Elmham St James, Suffolk

Bearwas blostmum nimað, byrig fægriað,
wongas wlitigað, woruld onetteð;
ealle þa gemoniað modes fusne
sefan to siþe, þam þe swa þenceð
on flodwegas feor gewitan.
Swylce geac monað geomran reorde,
singeð sumeres weard, sorge beodeð
bitter in breosthord. þæt se beorn ne wat,
esteadig secg, hwæt þa sume dreogað
þe þa wræclastas widost lecgað.
Forþon nu min hyge hweorfeð ofer hreþerlocan,
min modsefa mid mereflode
ofer hwæles eþel hweorfeð wide,
eorþan sceatas, cymeð eft to me
gifre ond grædig, gielleð anfloga,
hweteð on hwælweg hreþer unwearnum
ofer holma gelagu. Forþon me hatran sind
dryhtnes dreamas þonne þis deade lif,
læne on londe.

The woods take on blossoms, towns become fair,
fields grow beautiful, the world hastens on;
all these things urge on the eager mind,
the spirit to the journey, in one who thinks to travel
far on the paths of the sea.
The cuckoo too gives warning with mournful voice,
summer's watchman sings, foretells sorrow,
bitter in the heart. Of this that man knows nothing,
the warrior blessed with wealth, what some endure
who furthest tread the paths of exile.
And so now my spirit roams beyond the confines of the heart,
my spirit over the sea-flood;
it wanders wide over the whale's home,
the expanse of the earth, and comes back to me
eager and greedy; the lone flier cries,
incites the heart to the whale's way, irresistible,
across the ocean's floods. And so to me
the joys of the Lord are warmer than this dead life,
lent on land.

- 'The Seafarer'

Stowting, Kent

(Halted around the fire by night, after moon-set, they sing this beneath the trees)

What light of unremembered skies
Hast thou relumed within our eyes,
Thou whom we seek, whom we shall find? . . .
A certain odour on the wind,
Thy hidden face beyond the west,
These things have called us; on a quest
Older than any road we trod,
More endless than desire. . . .

Far God,
Sigh with thy cruel voice, that fills
The soul with longing for dim hills
And faint horizons! For there come
Grey moments of the antient dumb
Sickness of travel, when no song
Can cheer us; but the way seems long;
And one remembers. . . .

Ah! the beat
Of weary unreturning feet,
And songs of pilgrims unreturning! . . .
The fires we left are always burning
On the old shrines of home. Our kin
Have built them temples, and therein
Pray to the Gods we know; and dwell
In little houses lovable,
Being happy (we remember how!)
And peaceful even to death. . . .

O Thou,
God of all long desirous roaming,
Our hearts are sick of fruitless homing,
And crying after lost desire.
Hearten us onward! as with fire
Consuming dreams of other bliss.
The best Thou givest, giving this
Sufficient thing - to travel still
Over the plain, beyond the hill,
Unhesitating through the shade,
Amid the silence unafraid,
Till, at some sudden turn, one sees
Against the black and muttering trees
Thine altar, wonderfully white,
Among the Forests of the Night.

- Rupert Brooke, 'The Song of the Pilgrims'

'Christ and the pilgrims' on the road to Emmaus (BL Yates Thompson 13, f.127v)

There are primal things which move us. Fire has the character of a free companion that has traveled with us from the first exile; only to see a fire, whether he need it or no, comforts every man. Again, to hear two voices outside at night after a silence, even in crowded cities, transforms the mind. A Roof also, large and mothering, satisfies us here in the north much more than modern necessity can explain; so we built in the beginning: the only way to carry off our rains and to bear the weight of our winter snows. A Tower far off arrests a man’s eye always: it is more than a break in the sky-line; it is an enemy’s watch or the rallying of a defence to whose aid we are summoned. Nor are these emotions a memory or a reversion only as one crude theory might pretend; we craved these things - the camp, the refuge, the sentinels in the dark, the hearth - before we made them; they are part of our human manner, and when this civilisation has perished they will reappear.

Of these primal things the least obvious but the most important is The Road. It does not strike the sense as do those others I have mentioned; we are slow to feel its influence. We take it so much for granted that its original meaning escapes us. Men, indeed, whose pleasure it is perpetually to explore even their own country on foot, and to whom its every phase of climate is delightful, receive, somewhat tardily, the spirit of The Road. They feel a meaning in it; it grows to suggest the towns upon it, it explains its own vagaries, and it gives a unity to all that has arisen along its way. But for the mass The Road is silent; it is the humblest and the most subtle, but, as I have said, the greatest and the most original of the spells which we inherit from the earliest pioneers of our race. It was the most imperative and the first of our necessities. It is older than building and than wells; before we were quite men we knew it, for the animals still have it to-day; they seek their food and their drinking-places, and, as I believe, their assemblies, by known tracks which they have made.

It is easy to re-create in oneself to-day a sense of what the Road means to living things on land: it is easy to do it even in this crowded country. Walk, for instance, on the neglected Pennines along the watershed of England, from Malham Tarn, say, to Ribblehead, or from Kirkby Stephen up along the crest to Crossfell and so to Alston, and you will learn at once what follows on an untouched soil from the absence of a track of a guide. One ravine out of the many radiating from a summit will lead to the one valley you seek; take another stream and you are condemned at last to traverse mountains to repair the error. In a fog or at night, if one has not such a path, there is nothing to help one but the lay of the snow or the trend of the vegetation under the last gale. In climbing, the summit is nearly always hidden, and nothing but a track will save you from false journeys. In descent it alone will save you a precipice or an unfordable stream. It knows upon which side an obstacle can be passed, where there is firm land in a morass, and where there is the best going; sand or rock - dry soil. It will find what nothing but long experiment can find for an individual traveller, the precise point in a saddle or neck where approach is easiest from either side, and everywhere the Road, especially the very early Road, is wiser than it seems to be...

To study something of great age until one grows familiar with it and almost to live in its time, is not merely to satisfy a curiosity or to establish aimless truths: it is rather to fulfil a function whose appetite has always rendered History a necessity. By the recovery of the Past, stuff and being are added to us; our lives which, lived in the present only, are a film or surface, take on body - are lifted into one dimension more. The soul is fed. Reverence and knowledge and security and the love of a good land - all these are increased or given by the pursuit of this kind of learning. Visions or intimations are confirmed. It is excellent to see perpetual agony and failure perpetually breeding the only enduring things; it is excellent to see the crimes we know ground under the slow wheels whose ponderous advance we can hardly note during the flash of one human life. One may say that historical learning grants men glimpses of life completed and a whole; and such a vision should be the chief solace of whatever is mortal and cut off imperfectly from fulfilment...

For my part I desired to step exactly in the footprints of such ancestors. I believed that, as I followed their hesitations at the river crossings, as I climbed where they had climbed to a shrine whence they also had seen a wide plain, as I suffered the fatigue they suffered, and laboriously chose, as they had chosen, the proper soils for going, something of their much keener life would wake again in the blood I drew from them, and that in a sort I should forget the vileness of my own time, and renew for some few days the better freedom of that vigorous morning when men were already erect, articulate, and worshipping God, but not yet broken by complexity and the long accumulation of evil. It was perhaps a year ago that I determined to follow and piously to recover the whole of that doubtful trail whereby they painfully made their way from one centre of their common life to the sea, which was at once their chief mystery and their only passage to the rest of their race - from Hampshire to the Straits of Dover.

- Hilaire Belloc, following the Pilgrims' Way from Winchester to Canterbury in 'The Old Road'

From my current favourite pilgrims, A Walk Around Britain

There are more ways than one of getting close to your ancestors. Follow the old road, and as you walk, think of them and of the old England. They climbed Chillingbourne Hill just as you did. They sweated and paused for breath just as you did today. And when you see the bluebells in the spring and the wild thyme and the broom and the heather, you're only seeing what their eyes saw. You ford the same rivers. The same birds are singing. When you lie flat on your back and rest, and watch the clouds sailing, as I often do, you're so close to those other people that you can hear the thrumming of the hoofs of their horses, and the sound of the wheels on the road, and their laughter and talk, and the music of the instruments they carried. And when I turn the bend in the road, where they too saw the towers of Canterbury, I feel I've only to turn my head to see them on the road behind me.

- A Canterbury Tale (1944)

For giving me desire,
An eager thirst, a burning ardent fire,
A virgin infant flame,
A love with which into the world I came,
An inward hidden heavenly love,
Which in my soul did work and move,
And ever, ever me inflame
With restless longing, heavenly avarice,
That never could be satisfied,
That did incessantly a paradise
Unknown suggest, and something undescribed
Discern, and bear me to it; be
Thy name forever praised by me.

My parched and withered bones
Burnt up did seem; my soul was full of groans;
My thoughts extensions were:
Like paces, reaches, steps they did appear;
They somewhat hotly did pursue,
Knew that they had not all their due,
Nor ever quiet were.
But made my flesh like hungry, thirsty ground,
My heart a deep profound abyss,
And every joy and pleasure a wound,
So long as I my blessedness did miss.
Oh happiness! A famine burns,
And all my life to anguish turns!

Where are the silent streams,
The living waters and the glorious beams,
The sweet reviving bowers,
The shady groves, the sweet and curious flowers,
The springs and trees, the heavenly days,
The flow'ry meads, and glorious rays,
The gold and silver towers?
Alas! all these are poor and empty things!
Trees, waters, days, and shining beams,
Fruits, flowers, bowers, shady groves, and springs,
No joy will yield, no more than silent streams;
Those are but dead material toys,
And cannot make my heavenly joys.

O love! Ye amities,
And friendships that appear above the skies!
Ye feasts and living pleasures!
Ye senses, honors, and imperial treasures!
That satisfy all appetites!
Ye sweet affections, and
Ye high respects! Whatever joys there be
In triumphs, whatsoever stand
In amicable sweet society,
Whatever pleasures are at His right hand,
Ye must before I am divine
In full propriety be mine.

This soaring, sacred thirst,
Ambassador of bliss, approached first,
Making a place in me
That made me apt to prize, and taste, and see.
For not the objects but the sense
Of things doth bliss to our souls dispense,
And make it, Lord, like Thee.
Sense, feeling, taste, complacency, and sight,
These are the true and real joys,
The living, flowing, inward, melting, bright,
And heavenly pleasures; all the rest are toys;
All which are founded in desire,
As light in flame and heat in fire.

- Thomas Traherne

'In a green May unutterably blue'

This is 'The Bluebells', by John Masefield, who died on 12 May 1967.

We stood upon the grass beside the road,
At a wood's fence, to look among the trees.
In windless noon the burning May-time glowed.
Gray, in young green, the beeches stood at ease.
Light speckled in the wood or left it dim:
There lay a blue in which no ship could swim,
Within whose peace no water ever flowed.

Within that pool no shadow ever showed;
Tideless was all that mystery of blue.
Out of eternities man never knew
A living growth man never reaped nor sowed
Snatched in the dim its fitness from the hour
A miracle unspeakable of flower
That tears in the heart's anguish answered to.

How paint it; how describe? None has the power.
It only had the power upon the soul
To consecrate the spirit and the hour,
To light to sudden rapture and console,
Its beauty called a truce: forgave: forgot
All the long horror of man's earthly lot,
A miracle unspeakable of flower
In a green May unutterably blue.

For what, for whom, was all the beauty spread,
This colour, that had power to dissolve
Man's fugitive dismays into resolve
And be a balsam upon hearts that bled?
In all the mile of marvel, what immense
Current of life had power so intense
To wrest such bounty out of sun and soil?
What starved imagination ached to feed?
What harassed heart implored for an assoil?

Who can behold it on this lonely hill,
Here in the one week when the wonder shows,
Here, where old silence waits on the wind's will,
Where, on the track, none but the postman goes,
Where upon mouse or bird the kestrel drops,
Or spotted 'pecker burrowing his bill
Furrows the bark, or the red squirrel hops
Or hunting vixen lifts a questing nose,
What other seer can the beauty thrill?

None, in the day; and, when the beauty dims,
When moonlight makes the still un-leafy tree,
A spell-bound ghost that cannot move his limbs,
What other passer can be here to see?
The new-come night-jar chirring on the branch?
The nightingale exulting in his hymns?
The wood-mice flitting where the moon-beams blanch?
The wind, in the few fir-trees, like a sea
On which the pale owl like a feather swims?

For none of these can such a marvel be.

Has it a source in a forgotten scene?
Is it a mark of vital methods taken,
Of choices made, at turning-points of Fate
Whether to know the Earth or seek the Queen?
Is it but yearly gladness of bonds shaken?
After a prison, an apparent gate?
Or is this miracle of blue and green
A symbolling of what it all may mean,
When the Queen comes and all we dead awaken?

The pictures are of Kentish bluebells - the best kind, of course. I found the poem in The Bluebells and Other Verse, a collection published in 1961; to my surprise (and puzzlement), I found that this book also contains poems by Masefield about Edward the Confessor and, of all things, the medieval legend surrounding the murder of St Ethelbert of Hereford and Ælfthryth of Crowland. Perhaps I shouldn't be so surprised: Masefield was interested in a variety of medieval topics, from Arthurian legend (this is my favourite of his Arthurian poems) to the work of Chaucer, to whom he attributed his 'conversion' to poetry as a teenager; he later wrote "Chaucer was the poet, and the Parliament of Fowls the poem of my conversion. I read the Parliament all through one Sunday afternoon, with the feeling that I had been kept out of my inheritance and had suddenly entered upon it, and had found it a new world of wonder and delight. I had never realized, until then, what poetry could be." And as for the Anglo-Saxons, well, Masefield's 'Sea Fever' is entirely in the spirit of the Old English 'Seafarer' (and even shares one of its kennings: hwælweg, 'whale's way').

But to return to Ethelbert and Ælfthryth: the story centres on King Offa's desire to gain the relics of St Guthlac from Crowland, and given the usual interests of this blog, I can't resist posting a few of Masefield's lines about Guthlac (not, let me say, particularly accurate as regards the saint!):

...the great King's kin, Guthlac, of old,
Roved over seas for women, wine and gold,
Grew great and rich, and as his power failed,
Altered his ways, repented and bewailed;
Gave all he had to build what still abide,
The monkish cells at Croyland where he died;
Where his great bones, under the altar, heal
The sick and sore who call him as they kneel.
All-healing, is Saint Guthlac lying dead.
But Croyland was a fief of Ethelred,
Not in the Great King's realm; and the Great King
Counted those bones a spirit-saving thing.
He was of Guthlac's stock, his kinship claimed
Possession of such dust so greatly famed;
Total possession, for he planned to raise
Over that dust, a church that should amaze,
Stone-wrought and carven, painted, bright with gold,
Unparalleled where man inhabits mould,
Above which sweet-chimed bells should call and tell
Angels and men to join to conquer hell . . .
This, in his capital, unbuilt, but planned
To crown his life and glorify his land,
To bring from far and near the countless host
Who seek St Guthlac's help for flesh or ghost,
And make his capital, St Guthlac's Home,
The greatest Christian seat in Christendom.

But Ethelred, the Eastern King denied.
St Guthlac dead should stay where he had died.
No King in Christendom would lightly yield
So great a glory, so supreme a shield.

Q. Ethelred owned no thing of greater worth:
What King in Christendom held holier earth?

A. It seemed the keystone and the cornerstone
Of all the structure Offa sought to own.
Offa throughout his life had had the dream
Of making this land One, himself supreme,
With Guthlac, King and Saint, glory and guard.

Read the rest here.

'Arthur, like summer, waits'

On this sunny day, the first of June, here's John Masefield's 'On the Coming of Arthur', from his book of Arthurian poems, Midsummer Night (1928). Masefield was born on 1 June, 1878.

By ways unknown, unseen,
The summer makes things green,
The pastures and the boughs
Wherein birds house.

Summer will come again,
For sick things become sane,
And dead things fat the root
That brings forth fruit.

Arthur, like summer, waits,
For Wit and Will are gates,
Like those the summers pass
To green earth's grass.

Arthur will come like June,
Full meadow and full moon,
With roses up above
As red as love,

And may-bloom down below,
As white as fallen snow,
And no least linnet dumb,
O Arthur, come.

The third line of the second verse of this mesmerising poem puzzled me, so I looked up 'fat' (v) in the OED, and it means 'fertilize, enrich (soil)' - which is appropriate, for what does the Arthurian legend, or any legend like it, teach us but the richness of our soil, 'not any common earth / Water, wood or air...':



(This is the wonderful Sam Lee singing Peter Bellamy's setting of Kipling's poem, 'Puck's Song', from Puck of Pook's Hill. The book, and the song, refer to different points in the history of England but specifically to the area where East Sussex borders Kent - so it mentions the Weald, the ruins of Bayham, the town of Rye, and the site of the Battle of Hastings, of course.)

On Eastnor Knoll

Silent are the woods, and the dim green boughs are
Hushed in the twilight: yonder, in the path through
The apple orchard, is a tired plough-boy
Calling the cows home.

A bright white star blinks, the pale moon rounds, but
Still the red, lurid wreckage of the sunset
Smoulders in smoky fire, and burns on
The misty hill-tops.

Ghostly it grows, and darker, the burning
Fades into smoke, and now the gusty oaks are
A silent army of phantoms thronging
A land of shadows.

John Masefield

A tune for the blood to jig to, and joy past power of words

Tewkesbury Road
It is good to be out on the road, and going one knows not where,
Going through meadow and village, one knows not whither or why;
Through the grey light drift of the dust, in the keen cool rush of the air,
Under the flying white clouds, and the broad blue lift of the sky.

And to halt at the chattering brook, in a tall green fern at the brink
Where the harebell grows, and the gorse, and the foxgloves purple and white;
Where the shifty-eyed delicate deer troop down to the brook to drink
When the stars are mellow and large at the coming on of the night.

O, to feel the beat of the rain, and the homely smell of the earth,
Is a tune for the blood to jig to, and joy past power of words;
And the blessed green comely meadows are all a-ripple with mirth
At the noise of the lambs at play and the dear wild cry of the birds.



I can attest to the truth of this joy-filled John Masefield poem from personal experience over the past few days (my own road led to Evesham, not Tewkesbury, but it's the same general area!). Masefield, who spent his teenage years as a sailor, was a poet of voyages in all forms - a lover of the sea, but also of travellers and wanderers and roads (this poem of his seems to hint at a motivation behind his interest).

Robert Louis Stevenson's 'The Vagabond' makes a fitting accompaniment to 'Tewkesbury Road':

Only the road and the dawn, the sun, the wind, and the rain

Today, 1 June, is the anniversary of the birth of John Masefield in 1878. I haven't read much of Masefield's work (to be fair, there is a lot to read), though 'The West Wind' is my favourite of his mellifluous poems. And here's something else in honour of his birthday - a wanderers' poem.

For something on a similar theme, compare The Song of the Pilgrims.


The Seekers

Friends and loves we have none, nor wealth nor blessed abode,
But the hope of the City of God at the other end of the road.

Not for us are content, and quiet, and peace of mind,
For we go seeking a city that we shall never find.

There is no solace on earth for us - for such as we -
Who search for a hidden city that we shall never see.

Only the road and the dawn, the sun, the wind, and the rain,
And the watch fire under stars, and sleep, and the road again.

We seek the City of God, and the haunt where beauty dwells,
And we find the noisy mart and the sound of burial bells.

Never the golden city, where radiant people meet,
But the dolorous town where mourners are going about the street.

We travel the dusty road till the light of the day is dim,
And sunset shows us spires away on the world's rim.

We travel from dawn to dusk, till the day is past and by,
Seeking the Holy City beyond the rim of the sky.

Friends and loves we have none, nor wealth nor blest abode,
But the hope of the City of God at the other end of the road.

Spires at sunset (Oxford, June 2011)

An April Poem: The West Wind

by John Masefield (1878-1967), Poet Laureate and West Country boy. It's best read aloud.


The West Wind

It's a warm wind, the west wind, full of birds' cries;
I never hear the west wind but tears are in my eyes.
For it comes from the west lands, the old brown hills.
And April's in the west wind, and daffodils.

It's a fine land, the west land, for hearts as tired as mine,
Apple orchards blossom there, and the air's like wine.
There is cool green grass there, where men may lie at rest,
And the thrushes are in song there, fluting from the nest.

"Will ye not come home brother? ye have been long away,
It's April, and blossom time, and white is the may;
And bright is the sun brother, and warm is the rain -
Will ye not come home, brother, home to us again?

"The young corn is green, brother, where the rabbits run.
It's blue sky, and white clouds, and warm rain and sun.
It's song to a man's soul, brother, fire to a man's brain,
To hear the wild bees and see the merry spring again.

"Larks are singing in the west, brother, above the green wheat,
So will ye not come home, brother, and rest your tired feet?
I've a balm for bruised hearts, brother, sleep for aching eyes,"
Says the warm wind, the west wind, full of birds' cries.

It's the white road westwards is the road I must tread
To the green grass, the cool grass, and rest for heart and head,
To the violets, and the warm hearts, and the thrushes' song,
In the fine land, the west land, the land where I belong.