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Poets' Corner Scripting © 2009, 2020 S.L. Spanoudis and
theotherpages.org.
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CHRIST AT CARNIVAL
And Other Poems
by Muriel Stuart
HERBERT JENKINS LIMITED
ARUNDEL PLACE HAYMARKET
LONDON S.W. MCMXVI
TO
MY MOTHER
Thou who hast loved and striven
So much, so many times,
Given me and forgiven,
Take this poor wreath of rhymes.
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Christ at Carnival
- THE hand of carnival was at my door,
- I listened to its knocking, and sped down:
- Faith was forgotten, Duty led no more:
- I heard a wonton revelry in the town;
- The Carnival ran in my veins like fire!
- And some unfrustrable desire
- Goaded me on to catch the roses thrown
- From breast to breast, and with my own
- Fugitive kiss to snatch the fugitive kiss;
- I broke all faith for this
- One wild and worthless hour,
- To dance, to run, to beckon, as a flower
- Maddens the bee with half-surrendering,
- Then flies back in the air with petals shut.
- Fainting with laughter and pursuit
- I heard shrill winds leap out and sink again,
- Tracking the green bed where the Spring hath lain,
- And vanished from, whose feet made audible
- Music among the tall trees on the hill.
- Above me leaned a nightingale
- Burdened and big with song, whose throat let fall
- Long notes, so poignant and so musical,
- I deemed his young mate, listening,
- Heard him less passionately sing
- Than I a-foot at Carnival!
- Above the town, swart Night came rolling in
- Upon her couch of heliotrope:
- A new Moon, young and thin,
- Lay like a Columbine
- Teasing the spent hill, her old Harlequin,
- She, who of late waned on the bitter sky,
- Furtive and old, a woman without hope,
- Begging in long-familiar streets, where Sin
- Once seeking her, now shuddered and went by.
- Caught in the meshes of a merry throng,
- I stumbled through the lighted Market Place;
- The lanterns swung an undetermined rose
- In Night's convulsive face
- As we were swept along
- In crazy dance and song,--
- On through the mirth-mad alleys of the town,
- With shrill loud laughter tumbled roughly down,
- Whirled up in swift embrace.
- All, all went swinging, swaying in the revel,
- Laughing and reeling, kissing each and all--
- A crowd that wildest jesting did dishevel--
- O mad night of Carnival!
- Racing along the last mean street that goes
- From house to house to find the mountain track,
- I loosed their hands to catch a rose
- Flung from some casement; swiftly they turned back
- With gusty laughter their wild mates to greet,
- Swift as the footless wind along the wheat!
- Fainter and fainter grew their revelling,
- Deserted of a sudden, lay the street,
- Silence fell on me like a famished thing,
- Making my soul aware of one who stood
- Beside me--one who wore a monkish hood.
- I stared, as one who sees
- Beneath the thin and settled sheet
- Over still mysteries
- Faint outline of belovèd hands and feet,
- Too little loved and now too dead to care,
- And suddenly becomes aware
- That more than Death lies there,
- That from this piteous and submissive change
- Something has risen, terrible and strange.
- Why fell my roses? What fear drove me, then,
- To question him: "Who art thou, citizen?
- Fainter and fainter grows the Carnival.
- Wilt thou lock hands and turn with me again?"
- He answered not, but let the hood half-fall,
- Showing a thorn-plait on a forehead marred;
- Trembling I cried: "Who art thou, Lord?"
- "As thou sayest, I am He!
- How long upn my cross am I to bleed
- For thee still to deny me utterly?
- Is not the hour yet come that I be freed,
- How long am I to listen at thy door?"
- Stricken in soul, I fell against his feet,
- In rose-disorderd street,
- Weeping: "I have not heard Thy foot before."
- He answered: "He who hears
- Loud noise of Carnival about his ears,
- How shall he heed the foot with silence shod,
- Or listen for the small still voice of God?
- What is thy life?
- Is thy sword stained in any splended strife?
- Hast thou, in all thy safe, unshaken years,
- Once thrown thyself upon Night's ambushed spears,
- Or broken with thy tears
- Thy heart against the Dawn's feet any day?
- Hast thou spurned
- Any earthly perishable sweet thing
- To bear another's burden? Hast thou learned
- At any knee but Folly's, trafficing
- With every sweet delight that said thee 'yea'?
- Oft hast thy goaded men to kiss thy mouth,
- The flower of thy youth
- Thou hast rendered up to any wind that's fleet,
- But hast thou ever hastened to the Cross
- To kiss My saving feet?"
- "Thou knowest, Lord, thou knowest, I have not striven,
- I made life easy, profitable, sweet,
- I have not loved much or been much forgiven;
- Of all a woman's vows the holiest--
- To children that were posies at my breast--
- I have forsworn, to-night, forsaking all
- The ways of God to dance at Carnival.
- What have I now to offer Thee Who deignest
- To seek for grape on such unfruitful vine;
- Who with such sinful head Thy bosom stainest!"
- He said: "The last allegiance will be Mine,
- Leave all and follow Me."
- "Nay but my little children sleep at home
- Beside their father, I would say good-bye."
- He answered: "Was there any time for Me
- To make My farewells in Gethsemane,
- Or any lips to take last kisses from?
- Knowest thou not that I can satisfy
- All creatures I make Mine, shall I not be
- Thy priest, blessing for thee the common bread,
- Till the white flesh divine
- Quicken against thy lip, and hallowèd,
- The blood beat through the wine?
- I would have all thou hast,
- Be all thou art,
- I would claim all thy present, future, past,
- For My dispisèd heart;
- For Me thou shalt all other creatures hate,
- My seven wounds thou shalt assuage
- With mouth inviolate."
- "O pardoning love," I wept, "O love divine,
- That such as thou shouldst ask of such!--
- I am Thine, all Thine,
- Casting here at Thy feet, despisèd Thou,
- All other loves that used to mean so much,
- All other hopes that mean so little now."
- From a side-alley dumb to revelry,
- Came the low sound of weeping, then my name:
- A beggar came
- Out of the heaving dark and spake to me:
- "How knowest thou Christ?" I answered: "By the thorn";
- "Nay, but the thorn tree grows in every wood
- For any brow forsworn!"
- The other whispered: "Thou art tempted here
- For my sake," but the beggar's voice came fleet
- As pain: "Three crosses did that hillside bear,
- Not Christ alone hath wounded hands and feet;
- Dost thou believe
- That every pierced hand stretched to thee is Christ?
- Shall not some thief inpenitent deceive,
- At some strange shrine wilt thou be sacrificed?"
- The other whispered: "Shall thy faith be led
- So soon a traitor, child? For such as he
- Trample me every day." The beggar said:
- "Nay, wast thou spit upon in Galilee?"
- Wildly I cried: "Oh, from this hallowed street
- Go thy way, beggar, take thine apostate feet
- From this poor temple on whose pinnacle
- Christ in His Love doth not disdain to dwell,
- Who doth confer
- Glory on things inglorious, nor doth shun,
- But bids an angel to Him minister,
- Albeit a fallen one;
- And if thou canst not pray,
- Leave me my prayer at least and go thy way!"
- Swift were Christ's feet the mountain road along;
- A swift as they my soul beside them fled,
- Keeping fleet measure to the strong
- Unshatterable music of His words,
- That in my hard heart made
- Exquisite wounds that sang the while they bled,
- Like little tamèd birds;
- "O Holy One, I break here at Thy feet
- The perfume of my soul like Magdalen's sweet
- Spilled ointment; knewest Thou who gatherèd
- Those holy spices? What dishevelled night,
- What lust, profaning every temple-rite
- To toss the gold of her sweet shameless head,
- Had eased from priestly hands the spikenard
- That made her soiled garments smell of God?
- Thou did accept that sweetness when she kneeled,--
- That holy myrrh, spilled from the soul and shard!
- Nor didst disdain by her to be unshod,
- Nay, Thy world-wounded feet her tresses healed.
- "So here I gather sweets of all my life,
- Treasure for which sin waged unworthy strife,
- Holding as one who guilty pleasure wins--
- Yea, even all my sins, my little sins--
- My loves and penitences, foes no more
- At strife with Thee for me. Oh, bid me pour
- My spirit's perfume! I have wept and kissed
- Those feet grown weary following what men
- Caught up so easily; upon this brow
- Be shed the glory of Love's pardon now,
- As once the tresses of a Magdalen
- became an aureole at the feet of Christ!"
- Only the silence shook as we went on;
- Soon the last watching window-light was gone;
- No least star gleamed,
- And trembling-still it seemed,
- As if the mountain held its breath
- For fear that it should weep;
- A stopped stream smelled of Death;
- The moon was out, blown by God's breath asleep;
- The heavens turned
- Plunging and livid, choked with thunder-spume,
- Black driven clouds beneath whose eyelids burned
- A dreadful light, rushed forward in the gloom;
- There was no wind, but something seemed to stir
- In the thin grass, as if unquiet head
- On sleepless pillow moved--a listener
- To hideous word unsaid; until at last
- The narrow track was passed.
- Below us empty and wide
- The world was flung; the hill-top shivered bare,
- While fretful lightning dug a viscious spear
- Into her sweating side
- As she flinched, blind and stark . . .
- A thin hail ravened against the door of dark.
- Against His feet I trembled, but no word
- Of peace or pity heard;
- The darkness shook as a dry leaf about,
- The world seemed to go out
- With a great groan along the sea . . .
- Silence . . . then words to me . . .
- "Child, what is it thou fearest?"
- I stared up: Oh, strange words did that implore! . . .
- His brow was no more wounded, and no more
- Were the hands, still outstretched to me, pierced.
- "Lord, with this vision art thou tempting me,
- To show how poor a thing my worship is?
- Yet oh, be Christ, be Christ! I have for Thee
- Forsaken all my loved, my lovely ones,
- As a wild stream breaks from maternal hill,
- Escaping the sweet fingers of the sedge
- Whose stinging hair doth all his bosom fill,
- Listens to some great voice far off, and runs
- To find the sea, the calling, crying sea . . .
- I ran to Thee!"
- Then I heard human accents answering:
- "I am a god, made god by all thy prayers;
- Wach stone becomes a god by worshipping;
- I am a man who loves thee: in thy town
- Many have loved thee, I am one of these."
- At those few words of horror Faith fell down,
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