George Santayana

New York

Charles Scribner's Sons

1901

CONTENTS A HERMIT OF CARMEL THE KNIGHT'S RETURN. A Sequel to A Hermit of Carmel ELEGIAC AND LYRIC POEMS Premonition Solipsism Sybaris Avila King's College Chapel On an Unfinished Statue Midnight In Grantchester Meadows Futility Before a Statue of Achilles Odi et Amo Cathedrals by the Sea Mont Brévent The Rustic at the Play Resurrection TRANSLATIONS From Michael Angelo From Alfred de Musset: Souvenir From Théophile Gautier: l'Art CONVIVIAL AND OCCASIONAL VERSES Prosit Neujahr Fair Harvard College Drinking Song Six Wise Fools Athletic Ode The Bottles and the Wine The Poetic Medium Young Sammy's first Wild Oats Spain in America Youth's Immortality

A HERMIT OF CARMEL

SCENE.—A ravine amid the slopes of Mount Carmel. On one side a hermitage, on the other a rustic cross. The sun is about to set in the sea, which fills the background.

HERMIT. Thou who wast tempted in the wilderness, Guard me this night, for there are snares in sleep That baffle watching. O poisoned, bitter life Of doubt and longing! Were death possible, Who would not choose it? But that dim estate Might plunge my witless ghost in grosser matter And in still closer meshes choke my life. Yet thus to live is grievous agony, When sleep and thirst, hunger and weariness, And the sharp goads of thought-awakened lust Torture the flesh, and inward doubt of all Embitters with its lurking mockery Virtue's sad victories. This wilderness Whither I fly from the approach of men Keeps not the devil out. The treacherous glens Are full of imps, and ghosts in moonlit vesture Startle the watches of the lidless night. The giant forest, in my youth so fair, Is now a den of demons; the hoarse sea Is foul with monsters hungry for my soul; The dark and pregnant soil, once innocent Mother of flowers, reeks with venomous worms, And sore temptation is in all the world. But hist! A sound, as if of clanking hoofs. Saint Anthony protect me from the fiend,

Whether he come in guise of horned beast Or of pernicious man! If I must die Be it upon this hallowed ground, O Lord!

[Hides in the hut.

Enter a young KNIGHT.

KNIGHT [reining in his horse]. Rest, Albus, rest.—Doth the sun sink in glory Because he sinks to rise?— Breathe here a space; here bends the promontory, There Acra's haven lies. Those specks are galleys waiting for the gale To make for Christian shores. To-morrow they will fly with bellying sail And plash of swinging oars, Bearing us both to where the freeman tills The plot where he was born, And belfry answers belfry from the hills Above the fields of corn. Thence one less sea to traverse ere we come Where all our hopes abide, One truant journey less to end in home, Thy mistress, and my bride. [He dismounts. Good Albus, 't is enough for one day's riding. Here shall our bivouac be. Surely by that green sward some brook is hiding To welcome thee and me. Yes, hark! Its laugh betrays it. Graze thou there, Nor fear the camp's alarms.

[Lets the horse go and turns, perceiving the cross on the hillside.

See where a cross, inviting me to prayer, Outspreads its sacred arms. O first of many that mine eyes shall see On altar, tomb, and tower, Art thou the last of crosses come to me Before my guerdon's hour? Or first or last, and by whatever hands Here planted in the wild, Hail to thee, cross, that blessest in far lands Thy champion and thy child.

[Goes up to the cross and kneels before it. The angel of the Lord appeared to Mary And she conceived of the Holy Ghost. [Continues silently.

HERMIT [from within]. All's quiet. God hath made the danger pass.

[Comes out.

Nay, hold! A horse without a rider here? Perchance a devil, come, if I should mount him, To gallop with me into yawning hell. Yet he looks gentle, munching the young grass, The tempting bridle looped about his neck. I will go catch him. When the traders pass— And they pass after Christmas—I will barter The beast for a good cloak. The winter's blasts Are on us. KNIGHT. Behold the handmaid of the Lord. Be't done to me according to thy word—

[Confutes silently.

HERMIT. A voice! A Christian voice! Some winged angel Floats through the ether, magnifying God. Merciful heaven! There, ay, there he kneels Before the cross I planted. 'T is the cross That to earth brings down heaven. Yes, Saint Michael, For he is clad in arms, and his casque fringed With the bright nimbus of his golden hair. Yet he seems wingless; if he stirs a limb The heavy armour clangs. No angel, surely; Rather Saint George, with steed and magic lance Returned to fight against the infidel. KNIGHT. And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us.[Continues silently. HERMIT. Listen! they speak my native tongue in heaven. Those are the words my sainted mother spake— Nightly she crooned them, teaching Palmerin His orisons.

[The KNIGHT rises.

Come, shall I challenge him? No: I am foul. I will hide crouching here And spy him as he goes. KNIGHT. What stirreth there?

[Pushes a branch aside.

HERMIT [falling on his knees]. Have mercy, glorious Saint! a sinful man Lives in this hovel; no man's enemy Except his own. Sir, spare an anchorite. KNIGHT. Fear nothing, holy man. I am a Christian Although no saint, but sinful more than thou Who in the desert livest near to God. My sword is stained with blood, my heart is rash, And if my youth is free from foul dishonour 'T is God's good mercies hedge my wayward days And marvellously guide me through the world. But thou art surely wise. In solitude The mind of the Most High possesseth men, And they whom sorrow chaseth from the world Learn in their grief the purposes of heaven. God's hand appears in this, that here I find thee To shrive me, father. Many months I roam Through heathen wilds in sorry need of shrift. Who knows if in some luckless fray to-morrow I bite the dust, or in that golden sea Perish unknelled and far from Christendom? A soldier's soul should be like his bright blade Ready to unsheathe. HERMIT. O music of high thoughts! O harmony of long-forgotten words! Fair visitation! In her youth the soul,

Gathering, the heavy heritage of Adam, Looks with strange horror on her own abyss And on the stars, and her increasing knowledge Ever increaseth sorrow; yet with years, Touching the depths and wholly mortified, She sees her desert bloom with mystic flowers And sweeter smiles of God. O mortal bosom Both in foreboding and in hope beguiled! Not where I fancied in my night of trouble Dawns comfort on mine eyes, but wondrously. Whence earnest thou? Tell me what princely house And fruitful country bred and nurtured thee. KNIGHT. 'T is not a fruitful land. On heathered hills My father fed his flocks. We gazed not down On vineyard slopes and waters blue as these But there a sea of swaying tree-tops spread Boundless beneath us, without path or tower, Save where beside the river's bend the monks Had built their cells and cleared the wood away. We called it milking time when we could hear The distant music of their matin chimes. HERMIT. Be your monks rich? KNIGHT. Their fields are ploughed and brown But the poor upland shepherd has no corn; His flock must feed him with its milk and flesh,

Unless he snare a partridge in the wood As I did oft, or standing in the brook Where the green water eddies in the pool Enmesh the foolish fishes. HERMIT. Never shepherd Could bear these arms or show this courtesy. Where wast thou bred, if thou wast born a hind, That thou art gentle? Who hath knighted thee? KNIGHT. The Baron of the Marches is my liege; To him I owe my nurture and my sword, And the sweet hope that leads me. HERMIT. Ah, the faith? KNIGHT. Nay, that my mother gave me with her prayers, Saintliest of women. HERMIT. Thy mother and my own Were then alike. Hast thou another hope Sweeter than faith to thank thy master for? KNIGHT. He hath a daughter for whose hand I serve, Having her love; and on the happy night When I kept vigil o'er the virgin arms In which I should be knighted at the dawn He promised me her hand, if I proved worthy In five years' service. At the morrow's mass When we had both partaken of the Lord, I knelt before him, and while all his vassals Stood in a ring about us, up he rose And with his flat sword struck my shoulder thus,

Speaking these words, now graven on my heart: "Arise, Sir Knight, to battle with the world For God and honour. If in youth thou fall, May thy bright soul take instant wing to heaven, But if thou blazon on this argent shield Valorous deeds, and come in safety back, Thy worth shall stand in lieu of ancient blood, For valour was the first nobility, And with the blessing of a hapless man Whom three brave sons, reversing nature's sentence, Condemned to mourn them, I will then deliver My daughter to thy hands. She and her honour, My lands, my castle, and my name be thine.? Love is the hope, sweeter than faith in heaven, For which I toil in arms. Enough of that. Methinks thou art a priest, and ere I leave thee I fain would make confession of what sins Lie on my soul." HERMIT. God knoweth what they are, And hath, methinks, forgiven them already, For by the candour of thy looks I know Thou livest in his grace. But tell them o'er, For by the speaking of a word the heart Is lightened of its burden: and the Lord Commissioned us to listen in his name To all men's woes, and counsel and forgive.

Therefore say on. KNIGHT. Alas, where all is frail I know not with what sorrow to begin. If I could keep the thought of God alive I might live better; but my wit is loose And wanders into silly dreams awake, All to no purpose. Everything that stirs Sets me athinking of its life and ways And I forget my own. If a frog jump, Or busy squirrel run across my path, Or three sad crows fly cawing through the wood, Or if I spy a fox's trail, or print Of deer's foot in the mould—off go my thoughts And I am many leagues in fairy land Before I shake away the lethargy And say to my weak soul, Thou art a knight, What hast thou done to-day? HERMIT. Be these thy sins? KNIGHT. Nay, not the chief. For in all exercise, Or when in any test or feat of arms I meet another, not the worthy cause, The thought of God, my liege, or beauteous mistress Strengthens my arm, but the mere rage and pride Of the encounter sweeps my soul along, And win I must, whatever goal it be, When I am once engaged. That's in the blood. So were our heathen fathers wont to fight Merciless battles. But glory is the Lord's

Who metes with measure. Still I stumble there. And envy, too, I often sin in that, For from my childhood up I never brooked A swifter runner, or a quicker eye To hit the mark, and what another does Better than I, that still I strive to do Till he be worsted. Else I cannot sleep. HERMIT. Thou knowest, child, that victory is God's To give and to deny. He gives it thee: 'T is proof of thy deserving. Use it well, Which if thou do, to crave the victory In thee, a soldier, is no grievous sin. But hast thou not more special sins than these, No wrong, no murder? KNIGHT. Murder have I none, If murder be to kill a man by stealth Or in a private quarrel, but in war I oft have slain my man. I wear a sword Though nature gave me not a butcher's hand That loves to use it.—Oh, 't is marvellous How men will slaughter for the sake of blood, And Christians too. Before I crossed the sea, The Margrave fought a battle in the north Against the heathen. I then followed him, And when the fight was over and the foe, Routed, had fled into a deep morass Black 'neath the splendours of a fiery sky,

The bugle called us back: and back I rode, My shield slung on my back, my visor up, Saying the Angelus, such peace there was Beneath the twilight heavens, when a groan That seemed the ending of a soul in pain Made me look down; there lay a heathen knight, And on his wounded breast a Christian crouched, Stabbing him still; I snatched the villain's sword, But just in time, and seized him by the throat Amazed, and loud with oaths; "Thou slave," quoth I, "Why wilt thou send a valiant soul to hell, That might be saved for heaven? The man is mine. Take thou his armour, if some happy chance Have made thee victor. But outrage not the cause Which thou wouldst well defend." We stripped the man, Whose gaping wounds were deep and hard to staunch With the few strips remaining of my tunic Torn in the fight; and as he could not sit, We needs must lift and bear him in our arms Back to the camp. He was a knight indeed, And when, his fever passing, I explained Our holy faith—(our chaplains spoke not well His northern tongue)—he listened open-eyed As a child might, and when I stopped and asked,

"Dost thou believe?" he gazed and said: "I do. As thou believest, so in life and death Will I believe."—So humble was his soul And open to the sudden grace of heaven. Yet him my Christian ruffian would have slain To see the red blood ooze. 'T is pitiful! And yet I do him wrong. The fellow came The morning after, shy, with heavy looks, And said he begged to bring the armour back. It was not his, he had not felled the knight But found him on the ground; and when I bade him Retain the proffered sword, to use it better, He sobbed aloud, and bathed my hands in tears, So hearty was his grief.—But I confess Another's sins, good father, and forget My own, which I should tell of. HERMIT. Trouble not To tell them over, for I know them now. They are the same which seen in other men The world calls virtues. But one vice there is Which noblest natures in their youth are prone to. Hast thou offended against chastity? KNIGHT. Ah, father, I am guilty too in that, If whosoever looketh on a woman Unholily, already hath committed Adultery in his heart. 'T is in my thoughts,

Perhaps, that I have sinned; but I am young, And have from childhood loved one noble maid. All other faces are but mirrors to me Of what she is in truth. When others smile And seem to say that haply they could love me, My heart yearns to them, yet its yearning goes Like incense past a picture, to her spirit. They are memorials of her I review To make me constant. Nay, but that's not all. A heavy season comes,—I know not whether At waxing or at waning of the moon,— When but the babble of a girlish voice Heard from a window, or a hand stretched forth, Or a chance motion, stops the beating heart Here in my breast, and melts my very soul, And I stand there bewitched, my brain benumbed, And nothing in me but the fell desire To do I know not what.—'T is dreams, dreams, dreams, And they are evil, treacherous, and base When they come so. One day on every side They girt me round. I cried to them "For shame!" They would not go nor quit tormenting me Till I put spurs into my steed, and rode, Rode with clenched teeth, hacking all branches off Within my axe's compass. When I stopped

My soul was free: "We have outridden them, Albus," I cried, "the demons of that place Of foul enchantment! Here's the blue again Smiling upon us, God, and all his saints." Father, methinks the agony of death May happen so. A stifling darkness comes Upon the feeble soul, and doubtfully She keeps her strength alive on far-off hopes In that great stress of anguish. But it passes And slowly we awake in paradise. HERMIT. In paradise, my son, when thou awakest If I still suffer in the lake of fire Make me some prayerful alms, who in the name Of God, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost Absolve thee now. KNIGHT. And for my penance, father, What lay you on? HERMIT. Three Aves for three days Say for the soul of one unlike thyself Though of thy country. Robbers bore him thence Into their kingdoms. Hast thou never heard Tell of the hordes that ravaged Christendom Ere thou wast born, belike. KNIGHT. Nay, I remember. 'T was then my mother brought me from the hills To dwell beside the castle, for the Huns Had slain my father and my elder brother And driven the sheep away. HERMIT. The Huns? The Huns?

KNIGHT. Ay, when they ravaged all the land about Upon their western march. HERMIT. They slew thy brother? Thou sawest his body? KNIGHT. Nay, we saw it not. We fled, and many fearful weeks were past Ere we returned to search. HERMIT. The Lord is great. Thy brother's name was— KNIGHT. Damian. HERMIT. God of mercies, What shall become of us! KNIGHT. Thy gaze is fixed. What ails thee? Rest thee there. HERMIT. I cannot speak. I faint. Since dawn I have not tasted food. A draught! A morsel! Ah, my end is near. KNIGHT. I have a panier by my saddle-bow With food.—Albus has wandered down the glade.— I shall be here anon. [Exit. HERMIT. What bodes this portent? My practised soul well knows the things of earth, And there is none like this. Impossible. This is some essence metaphysical, And not the thing it seems. So much is sure; But whether fiend or minister of grace How shall I know? Is he a subtle demon And wins my ear? I am the devil's pawn. Is he an angel and I put him by? Then I am damned for that. All other sins Shall be forgiven, save such blasphemy

Against the Holy Ghost. And being dead Might not my brother's spirit come from heaven? And though I be unworthy in my sins Of saintly visitation, I believe This vision is from God. 'T is beautiful And clothed in Christian speech and charity. Was not Mount Carmel, Lord, thy haunt of old Where men went up to meet thee? Show thy face. The Apostles at Emmaus knew the Lord When he broke bread. Blind heart, an angel comes To sup with thee to-night. Misknow him not. The ravens of Elijah, who were black, Came from the Lord, and Raphael himself Who led the lost Tobias by the hand Was black beside this vision's loveliness. Yea, by its glory pale the three bright strangers That from the desert came to Abraham's tent In figure of the blessed Trinity.— What am I raving? Am I Abraham, Tobias, or Elijah, that the gods Should visit me? Did not the artful devil Come to Saint Anthony in beauteous form? When first this ghost approached I dreaded him,— A certain sign. Yet by his subtle wiles, Flattering my earthly hopes, he vanquished me And quieted my doubts—as if Beelzebub

Could not feign piety to murder souls! What, my young brother, whom I counted dead, Found in this shape, a knight, a Paladin, A vision such as minstrels sing about? Palpable lie, abominable snare The demon mocks me with! Let me but cry, "I am thy brother, I am Damian," Let me but clasp his knees and with a flood Of joyful penitential childish tears Water his feet, and then look up again To drink the grace of his benignant eyes And by his kiss be healed in soul and body, And I shall see the grinning demon's self And feel that icy manacle, his claw, Clasping my wrist for ever. "Thou art damned, Damned," shrieks the fiend, "damned in believing lies, Damned in renouncing for a dreamful joy Thy solitude and penance. Thou art damned." Yes, 't is a hellish plot confronts me here. A knight, my brother, come to comfort me! 'T is madness and wild dreams.—Again he comes. His gesture says, Here's food. Pitiful heaven, Assist me now. Let me not now be lost. Suffer my vigils and perpetual fasts To strengthen my resolve. To be so happy Were rash, and ah, how vain! To drown their sorrow

Fools barter heaven for a drunkard's joy.

Re-enter KNIGHT.