ANIMA CHRISTI ANIMA CHRISTI JCr'S.^ FLETCHER BRADFORD : ]. S. FLETCHER & CO. 9 NEW I^N BUILDINGS THORNTON ROAD 1884 O Soul of Christ Whom, seeing not, we know, O Mighty Influence working by strange ways Unto the destined end, be Thine the praise That any soul is brought from endless woe, From suffering and the life which is below Unto the searching presence of the blaze Of Thy High Heaven. Here in this ^i3orldly maze, Where few friends are and mighty is the foe, We wander, looking upward to Thy Heaven, Sinning and sinned against from day to day, Soul-sick, mind-tossed, and sometimes from Thee driven, Yet not by Thee permitted far to stray. Ah the blest joy when we, from all sin shriven, O Soul of Christ, shall be with Thee for aye ! PART THE FIRST. PART THE FIRST. I. i. I believe in nothing whatever, for life is a sham and a lie, Life with its wonderful shiftings and ceaseless changes of scene, Which has come to me unasked, and is passing me quickly by, So quickly that soon 'twill have gone altogether, and I shall have been. Anima Christi. ii. And I know not if 'tis worth living, but live it I will and must, Where it will lead to I know not, nor care, but one thing I know, There is no such thing as a God, be He cruel and faithless, or just ; Nor is there eternal gladness or never-ending woe. iii. A God? O mad, fond blindness, that men should be such fools As to dream of something better than what themselves they are ! Away with all their precepts and the learning of their schools, And their dogmatised theology imported from afar! Part the First. IV. Gods and religions and systems there must be a thousand or more. If each God-believing sect is, as it thinks it is, quite in the right : List to them now, just listen, how they bellow and wrangle and roar, And keep up their wordy mouthings through day and through eve and through night ! v. Which of them has it ? Why, none ; they are all of them liars and knaves, All preaching and praying for gold, and hugging themselves in fear Of their lucre slipping away, ah, yes, they are thorough slaves To their own base motives keep off them, and go not near. Aninia Christi. VI. For their fever is highly infectious and might seize one. But which of the lot Should one take as a prophet where each thinks the other is wrong ? For one says his is the true faith, and another bawls out it is not, And the noise is more than confusing, yet somehow they all jog along. vii. And Papist elbows Protestant, and shows him the stake and the fire, And grinds in his unwilling ears a babble of barbarous words, And moving his puppet-like flocks by some invisible wire He sets them to wipe out sin by means of armies and swords. Part the First. Vlll. And one, like a clown in a circus, tricks him out with dresses and gauds, And lights his candles before him and offers up the Host, While another preaches him down with blatant hurrying words : And two more wrangle yonder about the Holy Ghost. ix. And one says Christ was God, and another says Nay, 'tis not so. And a creature there says the Spirit came both from Father and Son, While his neighbour laughs him to scorn, as though he himself should know, And tells him with show of learning that It only proceeded from One. Anima Christi. x. And each is wrangling and wrangling, and struggling along in the fight Of sects and systems and churches, and tells you, with countenance bold, That he, as others are wrong, is surely in the right, And that there only is one Shepherd, and that He has but one fold ! Part the First. II. i. No, I will have no dealing with these : They may wear out their horny knees Ere ever I pray to their God to help me ! How can a God that is served in so many ways Be worthy of praise ? That I cannot see. io Anima Christ i. They would doubtless tell me a so-called truth Out of that strange old book Their Bible, in which I never look Except to read a simple story Which to me is possest of a wondrous glory, And which is contained in the Book of Ruth. ii. For I remember well, too well, How my mother was wont to tell, Long years since in the happy hours Of childhood, how amidst the flowers And golden stubble, beneath the bright Eastern skies with their burning light, Ruth went gleaning in Boaz' sight. I remember, as though 'twere yesterday, When my sister and I were tired of play, How she would call us to her knee Part the First. n And tell us of Ruth, and bid us be Like her, obedient, good, and kind. And now she is dead, and lies enshrined Down there in the aisle of the little church, Where she used to make such wondrous search After this God that they preach of and pray to. For she went and prayed there thrice a day. If any-one knows it, she knew the way to The heaven one hears of once in a way. iii. I :-V; ; - And when I was a child I used to go With her to the little church below In the valley, and listen to what was said By the surpliced and stoled one overhead, Who was High in his doctrine, and preached ex tempore, 12 Anima Chnsti. And said he could show us the way to glory, Though he ended by nearly going to jail. For he and his Bishop could never get on, And the Parson would have six candles upon His Holy Altar, and thurify it With Incense, perhaps to purify it ; And his reading ended with a wail Of intonation ; his singing choir, Who sang while he took time to respire, Were clothed in short bed-gowns white as snow, With a long,, black, high-necked garment below, While he himself was wrapped and covered In Albes and Copes. He scraped and bowed When he stood at the Altar, as though there hovered Some wonderful being in the Incense-cloud. Part the First. 13 And he wouldn't say some of the prayers aloud. And he preached Real Presence, and called Confession A Means of Grace, and said that when death Took away from the body its life and breath, The soul didn't go straight off to Heaven, But was helped to get there by Intercession. And news of this to the Bishop was given, Who, being Low Church, and prosy, and old, And thoroughly Protestant, very soon told This zealous priest, his Christian brother Most dearly beloved, to seek out another Sphere of work, or to drop such preaching, For he would have no Catholic teaching Nor Catholic service within his realm. But this didn't seem to overwhelm The parson, whose people defended him, 14 Anima Chris ti. Till at length the Bishop, in sorrow and tears, Gave him a holiday for three years, Or, in other words, suspended him. Yet it did no good his being away, For his curates did things the very same way, Maybe adding some details more In the matter of dresses and candles, and when The parson came back to his church again, All went on as it did before. iv. But, as an outsider, I never could see What sort of a system that might be Which gave one man, who, as I knew, Was a very worldly old being, the power To tell another who was as true And courteous a one, though spoiled by the blind Part the First. 15 Belief in a God which lived in his mind, That he only should preach when he, his Lord In spiritual power, should give him the word. But of course it was one of these Christians' laws Of brotherly love. I remember now How the Bishop and Parson once had a row Of wordy argument, all because The latter would preach in a coloured stole, Now, what could that have to do with the soul ? 1 6 Amnia Christi. III. Well, let them wrangle and fight, Their God and they can make it up at last. I will have none of them, for I know When they say there is God that it is not so. The days of God and Religion are past ! The world is waking all over to own the great being, Man ! Part the First. 17 Is Man a thing so weak and slight As to have to trust on a God which he cannot see ? I would sooner the whole race ran And pressed its native earth with bended knee To a god of wood, or copper, or stone, Than that it should trust on a God which it saw by faith alone. 1 8 Anima Christ L IV. i. Gods were well enough in the days of primeval earth, They fitted in with the customs and suited the savage times, For they sacrificed babes to them then, which had only just known birth, In the hope that the blood-loving being would smile on their murderous climes. Part the First. 19 Us We are nothing better now, for men trust what they do not see, And look to another world when they shall have lost their breath And taken their leave of this one ; so think they, but as for me, I know there is no Hereafter, and that Death is an endless Death. iii. Heaven and Hell ? There is neither, and there certainly is no God To will man away to either. Ah, well, let them rest in their faith In this wondrously mixed-up Something that could damn them with a nod, This God and his religion of phantom and of wraith ! 2O Anima Christ i. iv. I will have none of either, I believe in nothing at all, I look on all that is with a quite indifferent mind ; I hate all priestcraft and praying as though they were bitterest gall ; I am a law to myself in myself, and I throw all else to the wind. Part the First. 21 V. i. I dreamt last night my mother came and said That I should not be happy while I kept These dark dim notions in my head : And then she went, and, when again I slept, My sister, golden-haired and azure-eyed, Who died at ten, came to my side Dressed in pure white and crowned with stars 22 . / niina Christ i. Of perfect light, and bade me see What there was kept in store for me. She passed away : I woke. Between The oriel window's oaken bars, The moon looked in with calm, clear light, And lit the spot where they had been ; And lying sleepless through the night, I wondered what it all might mean. Part the First. 23 11. I cannot forget that dream, Why did my mother and sister come, and from where ? Can it be that there, Wherever they are, they can see What is happening to me ? Howe'er it is so it would seem. But then, fool that I am, it is matter for laughter, How can they know who are dead when there is no hereafter. V 24 Anima Christi. ' VI. i. Tis not a pleasant thing to live all alone With only a dog for one's mate, It turns a man to a sort of thinking stone, And makes him dull in his mood, And apt to think and to brood Over the special sorrows which are his own. I would that to be such a man it had not been my fate. Part the First. 25 n. I live all alone in the still old castle here, With lands about me pleasant to see, And yet not pleasant to me, Who have nothing whatever upon the earth To please me, and who from very birth Have been accustomed to mock and sneer At all creation and aught of worth. in. Why don't I live as my father before me did ? Shoot, and hunt, and gamble, and take a wife, And drink at night, and do, as brute instincts bid, And break my neck at last and get out of life 26 Anima L'/tristi. In a hurry. Nay, rather than be such a one I would follow my mother's plan, and be a saint, Go thrice a-day to church, and fast in Lent, And pray till my back were bent, And live like the poor mad fools that used to run Over hot plough-shares without complaint. Part the First. 27 VII. Yet rather than be as either, for each ran on to extremes, I would be as the little sister who died when she was ten, Who comes to me so often in my troubled midnight dreams, And makes me long to have her to live with me here again. 28 Aniina Christ i. VIII. I have no cause to be sad, I have all that can please the heart, Horses and hounds and money and land, And all that is good to see, And yet I am never glad, But feel as though the brand Of despair were stamped on the part Where I fancy my brain to be. Part the First. 29 . IX. i. I have just been down to the village in the dusk of the dying day, And heard a labourer talking of me at his cottage door, And without a thought of mischief I listened to what he might say, Hearing no good of myself, as a fool could have told me before. 30 Anima Christi. 11. " I be puzzled with Squoire, I be ; he be naught of a man, sure-ly ; Don't believe in a God or a Heaven, nor even a Hell ! And says there 'baint no more o' you arter you die, But he aint convinced me it's right, and I don't think he's convinced hissel. iii. " For he allus looks moody, does Squoire, a-poking and podging about, And reading big books all day, and watching the stars o' nights ; With his face an' hands as smooth and white as a new-washed clout, And his eyes as burning and bright as the Parson's altar lights. Part the First. 31 IV. "' Parson and Squoire don't mix, as it isn't likely they should When one on 'em says there's a God, and the other 'un says there baint. An' it allus comes out in th' nursin' what's been grafted i' th' blood, And we all on us knows that old Squoire were not by no means a saint ! v. " I don't 'old noways wi' Parson, wi' his dresses and candles and smells, Tho' I weant say he doesn't do good, for he's powerful kind to the poor. But I doont agree with his sarvice, and his singin' that's like dogs' yells, An' me and my missus is members at the Methodis' Chapel next door. 32 A ni ma Christi. vi. " And Pogson he preached last night 'bout 'ternal life and death, An' he spoke of the fearful torments that summun would undergo As didn't believe in a God ; and Sister Snigsby, she saith That Pogson meant the Squoire, as she 'appened pertikler to know ! " Part the First. 33 X. Nine years ago to-day I saw them lay her body in the earth My little sister, who from birth Was ever with me in work or play. Nine years ago, nine years to-day. How fair she looked, her face did seem As though she lay but in a dream, Yet she was dead and gone. Gone where ? D 34 Anima Christi. Can it be true that something is there In the hereafter whereof she Has solved the eternal mystery, And that a halo of heavenly grace Circles around her golden head ? I do not like to think her dead For ever, for her calm still face Wore a bright smile which seemed to say That life was not all taken away, That she was not of all bereft, But that an inner life was left And gone to some more perfect day. Part the First. 35 XI. I am half in doubt of my creed. Life is worth living indeed, If it but the prelude is To some state of rest and bliss, But if there is nothing to come after death, If there be no other life than this, I begin to think it were best to have done with breath. 36 Anima Cliristi. XII. I know not where I came across this doubt That haunts me, mocking at my Godless faith, And whispering that my creed is but a wraith Of miserable phantoms, devil-sown, Breeding, sad thought and endless misery, And likening it to one prolonged groan. But where or whatever it be I will somehow fathom it out. Part the First. 37 XIII. i. I am more and more opprest With doubts and wonders and fears, And I went last night to a chest Which I have not opened for years, And, not without some tears, Took from its dust-covered rest A little Testament bound in red, Which belonged to my sister who is dead. 38 Anima Christi. And all through the night in the gloom Of what was once her room, I sat with a single light, and read Of the Life of Him Who is called the Church's Head, And of His Death and Doom. ii. And, believing nothing, I still could see Something within this history That looked like Truth even unto me ; Till I began to wonder and wonder However so strange a mystery As a God who was One, and One in Three, And who was always and ever asunder, And yet One Person, could anyway be. Part tlie First. 39 XIV. I am thoroughly wretched and sad. Is the creed I have clung to wrong ? Is there a God, is there another world ? Is there a Heaven ? Is there a Hell, Where the damned will be suddenly hurled To live in fire for long Years of fierce torment ? Ah, well, If I do not somehow these doubts dispel I shall go mad ! 4O Anima Christi. XV. i. Ah, tell me, some one, tell me if it all be a sham and a lie, This thing that is borne upon me by some invisible power, Which steals on my heart and my brain when no other being is nigh, Watching for ever by me and whispering, 'every hour, Part the First. 41 11. With cruel insidious tongue, strange fancies which make me afraid, Fancies that tell me my life has been nothing but sorrow and sin, Spent in the dark, dread presence of a devil that casts a deep shade Over the life of all to whom he enters in. iii. I am in shadow enough, no doubt, but where is the light ? Where is the star of hope ? Where is the sun for my day ? Where is the one that shall guide me out of this awful night Where I roam with never a being to whom I can look or pray ? 42 Aniina Christi. IV. Is there nothing in life to live for, nothing to do or to be ? Must I always be steeped in these fancies, always tormented with fear ? Is there none in this vast world to come and be with me, Who would bear with my sin and my sorrow, and hold me a little dear ? Part the First. 43 XVI. O lost in the black abysses of this damned dark despair, Where shall my heart find rest, tell me, O tell me, where ? PART THE SECOND. PART THE SECOND. I. i. I have found my rest. The shapeless phantoms of my fevered brain Are gone, are past, are vanished into night. O heart, rejoice ; they will not come again ! The future lies before thee, clear and white, The future, filled with happy, happy light, The future, a bright island of the blest. 48 Anima Christi. 11. I have found my rest. The doubts that dwelt within my mind of yore Are fled far off to some black gulf of hell. mind, rejoice ; they will not haunt thee more ! The future lies before thee, promising well, Like some long stream whose course no man can tell. But which looks fair to him that takes the quest iii. 1 have found my rest. The night is gone, the clouds are passed away, And there is risen above my head the star Of Love, dear Love, who took me from the fray To battle for him in his own sweet war Of whispered words and glances that words are, Wise Love, who knows that Love for man is best. Part the Second. 49 iv. I have found my rest. The arms of Love are round me evermore, The voice of Love is in my ear alway. golden sun, that from the eastern shore Castest a path of light across the bay, Rise higher, higher ! Is not this the day When I shall take my love unto my breast ? v. 1 have found my rest. O sun-lit morning, look upon her now ! O breath of flower and foliage steal to her ! O sunlight, touch the blossoms on her brow, O Love, be with her wheresoe'er she stir ! For she is all thine own, thy minister, Whom thou with thine own loveliness hast blest. E 5O Anima Christi. VI. I have found my rest. O bridal day, be glad, be fair, be bright ! O time, fly on with love's untrammelled feet Through happy day to happier, happier night, And bring me to my own, my love, my sweet, That all our being in one long kiss may meet, And I may hear her maiden love confest. Part the Second, 5 1 II. i. As one that wanders cheerless and forlorn Through darkened paths ere yet the sun be risen : As one who lies within some loathsome prison Watching with hungry eyes for signs of morn : Even as either sees at length the dawn And cries aloud, clapping his hands in glee, So did I look for, so do I look on thee. 52 Aniina Christi. ii. As one that drifts across a harbour bar, Going out unhelmed beneath the hurrying breeze : As one who wanders amid unknown seas Uncompassed, where all manners of peril are : Even as either sees at last a star Shine from the heavens with friendly brilliancy, So did I look for, so do 1 look on thee. Part the Second. 53 III. i. O best of All, O mighty influence that canst never die, O strange sweet passion, as the summer sky Cloudless and pure ! Whatever men thee call Still art thou, Love, the same. What though we know not thee, nor even thy name, We feel thy might, thy mystery, and we Anima Christi. Turn from ourselves to thee, O Love, the power that shalt for ever be ! ii. We know not what thou art : And yet we know that thou art Lord and King Of all that dwells within the human heart. O pleasant time, O gladness of the spring, When thou, O Love, with quick, invisible wing, Lit on my brow and said to care, Depart, And be at peace : and thou, rest from the smart Of loveliness ; henceforward thou art mine, Mine ever, mine alone. O Love Divine, O springtime, O sweet madness of the earth, To wake to love is as a new, bright birth ! Is this the world that once I thought so dark ? Part the Second. 55 Is this the sky which once I found so drear ? Are these the woods I cared not for ? But hark, Bells, from the village belfry old and grey, Fling happy sound across the wooded park, Startling the deer that wander there away, Waking the echoes of the ruins here, And telling me it is my marriage day. White day of all the whitest days of spring ! O happy bells, ring on, for ever ring, It is my marriage day ! 56 Ant ma Christi. IV. White day of all the whitest days of spring, Best day of all that I have looked upon, Why should I wish that thou from me wert gone, But that the night is nigh ? Ah, day, take wing, And eve, draw near, and bring the stars with thee From watching o'er the ocean's murmuring, Part the Second. 57 And bid them shine upon my bride and me. Bid them watch o'er us whom Love hath ordained To Love's own service. Dost thou linger, Day ? Nay, linger not, we would not have thee stay, Fly thou and leave us to our own delight : Love, being blind, hath never need of light : Go now, but come when the moon's beams have waned, Come then, attended by the sweet spring dawn And call us back from Love's first ecstasy Into the blushing presence of the morn ; But now, O Day, go by, and let us be ! 58 Anima Christ:. V. Here is a song which I have made for you, Where the still sunlit garden reposes, Shut in from the rest of the land By woods and by streams and by closes, Which stretch to the wave-washed strand Of shingle and rock and brown-sand, In front of the white-breasted sea, There are thousands and thousands of roses, But never a rose like Thee ! Part the Second. 59 I have read in some old eastern story, Some legend of long, long ago, Of a flower that was clothed with all glory, A flower that had petals like snow : And the flower of the legend I know Was fair as a fair flower can be ; But no flower of legend or story Is like unto Thee ! 6o Anima Christi. VI. i. A light on the cliffs by the sea ? Nay, it is only a star that peeps over the hill, A star that came out from the heavens of its own sweet will, And is wandering slowly across the deserted shore To gaze for awhile on thee, And to see itself eclipsed and its brightness made poor By the light of the eyes which are brighter than stars to me. Part the Second. 61 ii. That are brighter than stars to me ! There is no light like the light of the eyes that I love ; Not all the stars that are there in the heaven above, Not all the myriad lights that glimmer and glance on the sea, Are bright as the eyes which will smile upon mine alway ; Not even the cloudless skies of a sunny day Are bright as the dear blue eyes which shall be My stars for ever and aye. iii. My stars for ever and aye. Love that is mighty and true hath said they shall be, Love that is Lord over all hath made his decree, 62 Anima Christi. And bade me to serve in his courts, not by year, nor by day, But for ever and ever, and I will obey his behest. Love, that is Lord over all, does he not know best What is best for us all ? So for ever and ever I will love thee and thou shalt love me, and we two shall part never ! Part the Second. 63 VII. i. What if the world should not go on for ever, What though there be no other life than this, What if the grave be our sole end and aim ? Even then our life of love will be the same. That shall not spoil our three-days-wedded bliss. Ah, little one, why will you thus endeavour To show me that I am indeed to blame In daring to deny your God, why wonder Anima Christ i. That I believe in nothing, and why ponder, O sweetest preacher, with those downcast eyes, On the stern fact that I, who am so wise In your opinion, should refuse to see That there is aught amiss or wrong in me, Because I do not choose the creed to say, Because I will not kneel down twice a day As you in your sweet innocent whiteness do ? Well, never mind. See, I will pray to you, And you shall grant me everything I ask, And bid me do whate'er you wish ; the task Will be sweet Love's, and He is now my God. Am I not ready to obey each nod, Each rule of His ? He is the God for me, You his High-Priest ! ii. You would not have me be Part the Second. 65 Like the old parson in our church at home ? Why, Pogson, at the chapel, says that he, With his fine dress and endless mummery, Is half, or more than half, a child of Rome ! Let's hope she's a good mother, and that she Will own this child that's half hers, and half whose ? What do you say ? You would not like to lose The dear old father ? Well, for aught I care, The reverend sir can stop for ever there ; And you can go and pray with him, you know, As many times as e'er you care to go, And see what Pogson calls his mummery All Sunday through, and I will wait outside Till Holy Church has finished with my bride, And she can come and give an hour to me, Who love her more for all this innocence, This pretty care, this sanctity intense, F 66 Anima Christi. And would not have her that which I must be. No, darling, keep your faith. What do you say ? That you will never cease to watch and pray For me as well, that I may come to see How good God is ? My sweet one, watch away ; If He is half as good as you, why then He is ten thousand times too good for men. I should not say such things ? Ah, but you know, I think you perfect, and I shall say so ! Part the Second. 67 VIIL i. Ah, let me never wake If this be but a dream, If this sweet hand which in my own I take Be not what it seem, If the clear lovelit gleam Of those dear eyes be but a fancy, brought From out a fevered brain, From out a mind o'erwrought, Let me not wake, let me not live again ! 68 Anima Christi. li. Let me sleep on for aye. Yes, let me dream that I have once been loved, Have known for once a perfect, cloudless day In the dark dulness of this life, and moved Once through bright paths o'er which no shadow lay. If this be but a sleep, O let me sleep for ever and for ever ! O let me dream that once mine eyes did weep Warm tears of love and gladness, let me know, If but in sleep, of love the passionate flow And sudden joy. O, if this should be so, Let me wake never ! Part the Second. 69 IX. Yes, and indeed this Love of mine shall be A very God, a very Lord to me. O Thou unknown and fabled Deity, Whom some, by superstitious fear made blind, Profess to find in every breath of wind, In every blade of grass, in every flower, If Thou indeed dost live, if there is Thee In aught about me, show it me this hour ! Show me, Thou God, if God Thou art, Thy power. 7