Tell me, O Lord, And what shall this man do?
CHRISTUS.
And if I will He tarry till I come, what is it to thee?
Follow thou me!
PETER.
Yea, I will follow thee, dear Lord and Master!
Will follow thee through fasting and temptation, Through all thine agony and bloody sweat, Thy cross and passion, even unto death!
EPILOGUE
SYMBOLUM APOSTOLORUM
PETER.
I believe in God the Father Almighty;
JOHN.
Maker of heaven and Earth;
JAMES.
And in Jesus Christ his only Son, our Lord;ANDREW.
Who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary;PHILIP.
Suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried;THOMAS.
And the third day He rose again from the dead;BARTHOLOMEW.
He ascended into Heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of God, the Father Almighty;MATTHEW.
From thence He shall come to judge the quick and the dead.
JAMES, THE SON OF ALFHEUS.
I believe in the Holy Ghost; the holy Catholic Church;SIMON ZELOTES.
The communion of Saints; the forgiveness of sins;JUDE.
The resurrection of the body;
MATTHIAS.
And the Life Everlasting.
FIRST INTERLUDE
THE ABBOT JOACHIM
A ROOM IN THE CONVENT OF FLORA IN CALABRIA.NIGHT.
JOACHIM.
The wind is rising; it seizes and shakes The doors and window-blinds and makes Mysterious moanings in the halls;The convent-chimneys seem almost The trumpets of some heavenly host, Setting its watch upon our walls!
Where it listeth, there it bloweth;
We hear the sound, but no man knoweth Whence it cometh or whither it goeth, And thus it is with the Holy Ghost.
O breath of God! O my delight In many a vigil of the night, Like the great voice in Patmos heard By John, the Evangelist of the Word, I hear thee behind me saying: Write In a book the things that thou hast seen, The things that are, and that have been, And the things that shall hereafter be!
This convent, on the rocky crest Of the Calabrian hills, to me A Patmos is wherein I rest;While round about me like a sea The white mists roll, and overflow The world that lies unseen below In darkness and in mystery.
Here in the Spirit, in the vast Embrace of God's encircling arm, Am I uplifted from all harm The world seems something far away, Something belonging to the Past, A hostelry, a peasant's farm, That lodged me for a night or day, In which I care not to remain, Nor, having left, to see again.
Thus, in the hollow of Gods hand I dwelt on sacred Tabor's height, When as a simple acolyte I journeyed to the Holy Land, A pilgrim for my master's sake, And saw the Galilean Lake, And walked through many a village street That once had echoed to his feet.
There first I heard the great command, The voice behind me saying: Write!
And suddenly my soul became Illumined by a flash of flame, That left imprinted on my thought The image I in vain had sought, And which forever shall remain;As sometimes from these windows high, Gazing at midnight on the sky Black with a storm of wind and rain, I have beheld a sudden glare Of lightning lay the landscape bare, With tower and town and hill and plain Distinct and burnt into my brain, Never to be effaced again!
And I have written.These volumes three, The Apocalypse, the Harmony Of the Sacred Scriptures, new and old, And the Psalter with Ten Strings, enfold Within their pages, all and each, The Eternal Gospel that I teach.
Well I remember the Kingdom of Heaven Hath been likened to a little leaven Hidden in two measures of meal, Until it leavened the whole mass;So likewise will it come to pass With the doctrines that I here conceal.
Open and manifest to me The truth appears, and must be told;All sacred mysteries are threefold;
Three Persons in the Trinity, Three ages of Humanity, And holy Scriptures likewise three, Of Fear, of Wisdom, and of Love;For Wisdom that begins in Fear Endeth in Love; the atmosphere In which the soul delights to be And finds that perfect liberty Which cometh only from above.
In the first Age, the early prime And dawn of all historic time, The Father reigned; and face to face He spake with the primeval race.
Bright Angels, on his errands sent, Sat with the patriarch in his tent;His prophets thundered in the street;
His lightnings flashed, his hailstorms beat;In earthquake and in flood and flame, In tempest and in cloud He came!
The fear of God is in his Book;
The pages of the Pentateuch Are full of the terror of his name.
Then reigned the Son; his Covenant Was peace on earth, good-will to man;With Him the reign of Law began.
He was the Wisdom and the Word, And sent his Angels Ministrant, Unterrified and undeterred, To rescue souls forlorn and lost, The troubled, tempted, tempest-tost To heal, to comfort, and to teach.
The fiery tongues of Pentecost His symbols were, that they should preach In every form of human speech From continent to continent.
He is the Light Divine, whose rays Across the thousand years unspent Shine through the darkness of our days, And touch with their celestial fires Our churches and our convent spires.
His Book is the New Testament.
These Ages now are of the Past;
And the Third Age begins at last.
The coming of the Holy Ghost, The reign of Grace, the reign of Love Brightens the mountain-tops above, And the dark outline of the coast.
Already the whole land is white With Convent walls, as if by night A snow had fallen on hill and height!
Already from the streets and marts Of town and traffic, and low cares, Men climb the consecrated stairs With weary feet, and bleeding hearts;And leave the world and its delights, Its passions, struggles, and despairs, For contemplation and for prayers In cloister-cells of coenobites.
Eternal benedictions rest Upon thy name, Saint Benedict!
Founder of convents in the West, Who built on Mount Cassino's crest In the Land of Labor, thine eagle's nest!
May I be found not derelict In aught of faith or godly fear, If I have written, in many a page, The Gospel of the coming age, The Eternal Gospel men shall hear.