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Lecture II. - LiliesPart II. - Lilies: Of Queens` Gardens
Part II. - Lilies: Of Queens` Gardens
71. This for the means: now note the end. Take from the same poet, in two
lines, a perfect description of womanly beauty -
"A countenance in which did meet
Sweet records, promises as sweet."
The perfect loveliness of a woman`s countenance can only consist in that
majestic peace, which is founded in the memory of happy and useful years, -
full of sweet records; and from the joining of this with that yet more
majestic childishness, which is still full of change and promise; - opening
always - modest at once, and bright, with hope of better things to be won, and
to be bestowed. There is no old age where there is still that promise.
72. Thus, then, you have first to mould her physical frame, and then, as
the strength she gains will permit you, to fill and temper her mind with all
knowledge and thoughts which tend to confirm its natural instincts of justice,
and refine its natural tact of love.
All such knowledge should be given her as may enable her to understand,
and even to aid, the work of men: and yet it should be given, not as
knowledge, - not as if it were, or could be, for her an object to know; but
only to feel, and to judge, It is of no moment, as a matter of pride or
perfectness in herself, whether she knows many languages or one; but it is of
the utmost, that she should be able to show kindness to a stranger, and to
understand the sweetness of a stranger`s tongue. It is of no moment to her own
worth or dignity that she should be acquainted with this science or that; but
it is of the highest that she should be trained in habits of accurate thought;
that she should understand the meaning, the inevitableness, and the loveliness
of natural laws; and follow at least some one path of scientific attainment,
as far as to the threshold of that bitter Valley of Humiliation, into which
only the wisest and bravest of men can descend, owning themselves forever
children, gathering pebbles on a boundless shore, It is of little consequence
how many positions of cities she knows, or how many dates of events, or names
of celebrated persons - it is not the object of education to turn a woman into
a dictionary; but it is deeply necessary that she should be taught to enter
with her whole personality into the history she reads; to picture the passages
of it vitally in her own bright imagination; to apprehend, with her fine
instincts, the pathetic circumstances and dramatic relations, which the
historian too often only eclipses by his reasoning, and disconnects by his
arrangement: it is for her to trace the hidden equities of divine reward, and
catch sight, through the darkness, of the fatal threads of woven fire that
connect error with its retribution. But, chiefly of all, she is to be taught
to extend the limits of her sympathy with respect to that history which is
being for her determined as the moments pass in which she draws her peaceful
breath: and to the contemporary calamity, which, were it but rightly mourned
by her, would recur no more hereafter. She is to exercise herself in imagining
what would be the effects upon her mind and conduct, if she were daily brought
into the presence of the suffering which is not the less real because shut
from her sight. She is to be taught somewhat to understand the nothingness of
the proportion which that little world in which she lives and loves, bears to
the world in which God lives and loves; - and solemnly she is to be taught to
strive that her thoughts of piety may not be feeble in proportion to the
number they embrace, nor her prayer more languid than it is for the momentary
relief from pain of her husband or her child, when it is uttered for the
multitudes of those who have none to love them, - and is "for all who are
desolate and oppressed."
73. Thus far, I think, I have had your concurrence; perhaps you will not
be with me in what I believe is most needful for me to say. There is one
dangerous science for women - one which they must indeed beware how they
profanely touch - that of theology. Strange, and miserably strange, that while
they are modest enough to doubt their powers, and pause at the threshold of
sciences where every step is demonstrable and sure, they will plunge headlong,
and without one thought of incompetency, into that science in which the
greatest men have trembled, and the wisest erred. Strange, that they will
complacently and pridefully bind up whatever vice or folly there is in them,
whatever arrogance, petulance, or blind incomprehensiveness, into one bitter
bundle of consecrated myrrh. Strange, in creatures born to be Love visible,
that where they can know least, they will condemn first, and think to
recommend themselves to their Master, by scrambling up the steps of His
judgment throne, to divide it with Him. Strangest of all, that they should
think they were led by the Spirit of the Comforter into habits of mind which
have become in them the unmixed elements of home discomfort; and that they
dare to turn the Household Gods of Christianity into ugly idols of their own;
- spiritual dolls, for them to dress according to their caprice; and from
which their husbands must turn away in grieved contempt, lest they should be
shrieked at for breaking them.
74. I believe, then, with this exception, that a girl`s education should
be nearly, in its course and material of study, the same as a boy`s; but quite
differently directed. A woman, in any rank of life, ought to know whatever her
husband is likely to know, but to know it in a different way. His command of
it should be foundational and progressive; hers, general and accomplished for
daily and helpful use. Not but that it would often be wiser in men to learn
things in a womanly sort of way, for present use, and to seek for the
discipline and training of their mental powers in such branches of study as
will be afterwards fittest for social service; but, speaking broadly, a man
ought to know any language or science he learns, thoroughly - while a woman
ought to know the same language, or science, only so far as may enable her to
sympathize in her husband`s pleasures, and in those of his best friends.
75. Yet, observe, with exquisite accuracy as far as she reaches. There is
a wide difference between elementary knowledge and superficial knowledge -
between a firm beginning, and an infirm attempt at compassing. A woman may
always help her husband by what she knows, however little; by what she
half-knows, or misknows, she will only tease him.
And indeed, if there were to be any difference between a girl`s education
and a boy`s, I should say that of the two the girl should be earlier led, as
her intellect ripens faster, into deep and serious subjects: and that her
range of literature should be, not more, but less frivolous; calculated to add
the qualities of patience and seriousness to her natural poignancy of thought
and quickness of wit; and also to keep her in a lofty and pure element of
thought. I enter not now into any question of choice of books; only let us be
sure that her books are not heaped up in her lap as they fall out of the
package of the circulating library, wet with the last and lightest spray of
the fountain of folly.
76. Or even of the fountain of wit; for with respect to that sore
temptation of novel-reading, it is not the badness of a novel that we should
dread, so much as its overwrought interest. The weakest romance is not so
stupefying as the lower forms of religious exciting literature, and the worst
romance is not so corrupting as false history, false philosophy, or false
political essays. But the best romance becomes dangerous, if, by its
excitement, it renders the ordinary course of life uninteresting, and
increases the morbid thirst for useless acquaintance with scenes in which we
shall never be called upon to act.
77. I speak therefore of good novels only; and our modern literature is
particularly rich in types of such. Well read, indeed, these books have
serious use, being nothing less than treatises on moral anatomy and chemistry;
studies of human nature in the elements of it. But I attach little weight to
this function: they are hardly ever read with earnestness enough to permit
them to fulfill it. The utmost they usually do is to enlarge somewhat the
charity of a kind reader, or the bitterness of a malicious one; for each will
gather, from the novel, food for her own disposition. Those who are naturally
proud and envious will learn from Thackeray to despise humanity; those who are
naturally gentle, to pity it; those who are naturally shallow, to laugh at it.
So also, there might be a serviceable power in novels to bring before us, in
vividness, a human truth which we had before dimly conceived; but the
temptation to picturesqueness of statement is so great, that often the best
writers of fiction cannot resist it; and our views are rendered so violent and
one-sided, that their vitality is rather a harm than good.
78. Without, however, venturing here on any attempt at decision of how
much novel-reading should be allowed, let me at least clearly assert this,
that whether novels, or poetry, or history be read, they should be chosen, not
for their freedom from evil, but for their possession of good. The chance and
scattered evil that may here and there haunt, or hide itself in, a powerful
book, never does any harm to a noble girl; but the emptiness of an author
oppresses her, and his amiable folly degrades her. And if she can have access
to a good library of old and classical books, there need be no choosing at
all. Keep the modern magazine and novel out of your girl`s way; turn her loose
into the old library every wet day, and let her alone. She will find what is
good for her; you cannot; for there is just this difference between the making
of a girl`s character and a boy`s - you may chisel a boy into shape, as you
would a rock, or hammer him into it, if he be of a better kind, as you would a
piece of bronze. But you cannot hammer a girl into anything. She grows as a
flower does, - she will wither without sun; she will decay in her sheath, as
the narcissus will, if you do not give her air enough; she may fall, and
defile her head in dust, if you leave her without help at some moments of her
life; but you cannot fetter her; she must take her own fair form and way, if
she take any, and in mind as in body, must have always -
"Her household motions light and free
And steps of virgin liberty."
Let her loose in the library, I say, as you do a fawn in a field. It
knows the bad weeds twenty times better than you; and the good ones, too, and
will eat some bitter and prickly ones, good for it, which you had not the
slightest thought would have been so.
79. Then, in art, keep the finest models before her, and let her practice
in all accomplishments to be accurate and thorough, so as to enable her to
understand more than she accomplishes. I say the finest models - that is to
say, the truest, simplest, usefullest. Note those epithets: they will range
through all the arts. Try them in music, where you might think them the least
applicable. I say the truest, that in which the notes most closely and
faithfully express the meaning of the words, or the character of intended
emotion; again, the simplest, that in which the meaning and melody are
attained with the fewest and most significant notes possible; and, finally,
the usefullest, that music which makes the best words most beautiful, which
enchants them in our memories each with its own glory of sound, and which
applies them closest to the heart at the moment we need them.
80. And not only in the material and in the course, but yet more
earnestly in the spirit of it, let a girl`s education be as serious as a
boy`s. You bring up your girls as if they were meant for sideboard ornament,
and then complain of their frivolity. Give them the same advantages that you
give their brothers - appeal to the same grand instincts of virtue in them;
teach them, also,that courage and truth are the pillars of their being; - do
you think that they would not answer that appeal, brave and true as they are
even now, when you know that there is hardly a girl`s school in this Christian
kingdom where the children`s courage or sincerity would be thought of half so
much importance as their way of coming in at a door; and when the whole system
of society, as respects the mode of establishing them in life, is one rotten
plague of cowardice and imposture - cowardice, in not daring to let them live,
or love, except as their neighbors choose; and imposture, in bringing, for the
purpose of our own pride, the full glow of the world`s worst vanity upon a
girl`s eyes, at the very period when the whole happiness of her future
existence depends upon her remaining undazzled?
81. And give them, lastly, not only noble teachings but noble teachers.
You consider somewhat, before you send your boy to school, what kind of a man
the master is; - whatsoever kind of a man he is, you at least give him full
authority over your son, and show some respect for him yourself; - if he comes
to dine with you, you do not put him at a side table; you know, also, that at
his college, your child`s immediate tutor will be under the direction of some
still higher tutor, for whom you have absolute reverence. You do not treat the
Dean of Christ Church or the Master of Trinity as you inferiors.
But what teachers do you give your girls, and what reverence do you show
to the teachers you have chosen? Is a girl likely to think her own conduct, or
her own intellect, of much importance, when you trust the entire formation of
her character, moral and intellectual, to a person whom you let your servants
treat with less respect than they do your housekeeper (as if the soul of your
child were a less charge than jams and groceries), and whom you yourself think
you confer an honor upon by letting her sometimes sit in the drawing-room in
the evening?
82. Thus, then, of literature as her help, and thus of art. There is one
more help which we cannot do without - one which, alone, has sometimes done
more than all other influences besides, - the help of wild and fair nature.
Hear this of the education of Joan of Arc: -
"The education of this poor girl was mean, according to the present
standard; was ineffably grand, according to a purer philosophic standard; and
only not good for our age, because for us it would be unattainable - . . .
"Next after her spiritual advantages, she owed most to the advantages of
her situation. The fountain of Domremy was on the brink of a boundless forest;
and it was haunted to that degree by fairies, that the parish priest (cure)
was obliged to read mass there once a year, in order to keep them in any
decent bound. . . .
"But the forests of Domremy - those were the glories of the land; for in
them abode mysterious powers and ancient secrets that towered into tragic
strength. Abbeys there were, and abbey windows, - `like Moorish temples of the
Hindoos,` that exercised even princely power both in Touraine and in the
German Diets These had their sweet bells that pierced the forests for many a
league at matins or vespers, and each its own dreamy legend. Few enough, and
scattered enough, were these abbeys, so as in no degree to disturb the deep
solitude of the region; yet many enough to spread a network or awning of
Christian sanctity over what else might have seemed a heathen wilderness." ^5
[Footnote 5: "Joan of Arc: in reference to M. Michelet`s `History of France.`"
De Quincey`s Works, Vol. III., page 217.]
Now you cannot, indeed, have here in England, woods eighteen miles deep
to the center; but you can, perhaps, keep a fairy or two for your children
yet, if you wish to keep them. But do you wish it? Suppose you had each, at
the back of your houses, a garden large enough for your children to play in,
with just as much lawn as would give them room to run, - no more - and that
you could not change your abode; but that, if you chose, you could double your
income, or quadruple it, by digging a coal-shaft in the middle of the lawn,
and turning the flower-beds into heaps of coke. Would you do it? I hope not. I
can tell you, you would be wrong if you did, though it gave you income
sixty-fold instead of four-fold.
83. Yet this is what you are doing with all England. The whole country is
but a little garden, not more than enough for your children to run on the
lawns of, if you would let them all run there. And this little garden you will
turn into furnace-ground, and fill with heaps of cinders, if you can; and
those children of yours, not you, will suffer for it. For the fairies will not
be all banished; there are fairies of the furnace as of the wood, and their
first gifts seem to be "sharp arrows of the mighty"; but their last gifts are
"coals of juniper."
84. And yet I cannot - though there is no part of my subject that I feel
more - press this upon you; for we made so little use of the power of nature
while we had it, that we shall hardly feel what we have lost. Just on the
other side of the Mersey you have your Snowdon, and your Menai Straits, and
that mighty granite rock beyond the moors of Anglesea, splendid in its
heathery crest, and foot planted in the deep sea, once thought of as sacred -
a divine promontory, looking westward; the Holy Head or Headland, still not
without awe when its red light glares first through storm. These are the
hills, and these the bays and blue inlets, which, among the Greeks, would have
been always loved, always fateful in influence on the national mind. That
Snowdon is your Parnassus; but where are its Muses? That Holyhead mountain is
your Island of Aegina, but where is its Temple to Minerva?
85. Shall I read you what the Christian Minerva had achieved under the
shadow of our Parnassus, up to the year 1848? - Here is a little account of a
Welsh school, from page 261 of the report on Wales, published by the Committee
of Council on Education. This is a school close to a town containing 5,000
persons: -
"I then called up a larger class, most of whom had recently come to the
school. Three girls repeatedly declared that they had never heard of Christ,
and two that they had never heard of God. Two out of six thought Christ was on
earth now" (they might have had a worse thought, perhaps); "three knew nothing
about the crucifixion. Four out of seven did not know the names of the months,
nor the number of days in a year. They had no notion of addition beyond two
and two, or three and three; their minds were perfect blanks."
Oh, ye women of England! from the Princess of that Wales to the simplest
of you, do not think your own children can be brought into their true fold of
rest while these are scattered on the hills, as sheep having no shepherd. And
do not think your daughters can be trained to the truth of their own human
beauty, while the pleasant places, which God made at once for their schoolroom
and their playground, lie desolate and defiled. You cannot baptize them
rightly in those inch-deep fonts of yours, unless you baptize them also in
the sweet waters which the great Lawgiver strikes forth forever from the rocks
of your native land-waters which a Pagan would have worshiped in their
purity, and you only worship with pollution. You cannot lead your children
faithfully to those narrow axe-hewn church altars of yours, while the dark
azure altars in heaven - the mountains that sustain your island throne, -
mountains on which a Pagan would have seen the powers of heaven rest in every
wreathed cloud - remain for you without inscription; altars built, not to, but
by, an Unknown God.
86. III. - Thus far, then, of the nature, thus far of the teaching, of
woman, and thus of her household office, and queenliness. We come now to our
last, our widest question, - What is her queenly office with respect to the
state?
Generally we are under an impression that a man`s duties are public, and
a woman`s private. But this is not altogether so. A man has a personal work or
duty, relating to his own home, and a public work or duty, which is the
expansion of the other, relating to the state. So a woman has a personal work
or duty, relating to her own home, and a public work or duty, which is also
the expansion of that.
Now the man`s work for his own home is, as has been said, to secure its
maintenance, progress, and defense; the woman`s to secure its order, comfort,
and loveliness.
Expand both these functions. The man`s duty, as a member of a
commonwealth, is to assist in the maintenance, in the advance, in the defense
of the state. The woman`s duty, as a member of the commonwealth, is to assist
in the ordering, in the comforting, and in the beautiful adornment of the
state.
What the man is at his own gate, defending it, if need be, against insult
and spoil, that also, not in a less, but in a more devoted measure, he is to
be at the gate of his country, leaving his home, if need be, even to the
spoiler, to do his more incumbent work there.
And, in like manner, what the woman is to be within her gates, as the
center of order, the balm of distress, and the mirror of beauty; that she is
also to be without her gates, where order is more difficult, distress more
imminent, loveliness more rare.
And as within the human heart there is always set an instinct for all its
real duties, - an instinct which you cannot quench, but only warp and corrupt
if you withdraw it from its true purpose; - as there is the intense instinct
of love, which, rightly disciplined, maintains all the sanctities of life,
and, misdirected, undermines them; and must do either the one or the other; -
so there is in the human heart an inextinguishable instinct, the love of
power, which, rightly directed, maintains all the majesty of law and life,
and, misdirected, wrecks them.
87. Deep-rooted in the innermost life of the heart of man, and of the
heart of woman, God set it there, and God keeps it there. Vainly, as falsely,
you blame or rebuke the desire of power! - For Heaven`s sake, and for Man`s
sake, desire it all you can. But what power? That is all the question. Power
to destroy? the lion`s limb, and the dragon`s breath? Not so. Power to heal,
to redeem, to guide, and to guard. Power of the scepter and shield; the power
of the royal hand that heals in touching, - that binds the fiend and looses
the captive; the throne that is founded on the rock of Justice, and descended
from only by steps of mercy. Will you not covet such power as this, and seek
such throne as this, and be no more housewives, but queens?
88. It is now long since the women of England arrogated, universally, a
title which once belonged to nobility only, and, having once been in the habit
of accepting the simple title of gentlewoman, as correspondent to that of
gentleman, insisted on the privilege of assuming the title of "Lady," ^6 which
properly corresponds only to the title of "Lord."
[Footnote 6: I wish there were a true order of chivalry instituted for our
English youth of certain ranks, in which both boy and girl should receive, at
a given age, their knighthood and ladyhood by true title; attainable only by
certain probation and trial both of character and accomplishment; and to be
forfeited, on conviction, by their peers, of any dishonorable act. Such as
institution would be entirely, and with all noble results, possible, in a
nation which loved honor. That it would not be possible among us is not to the
discredit of the scheme.]
I do not blame them for this; but only for their narrow motive in this. I
would have them desire and claim the title of Lady, provided they claim, not
merely the title, but the office and duty signified by it. Lady means "bread -
giver" or "loaf-giver," and Lord means "maintainer of laws," and both titles
have reference, not to the law which is maintained in the house, nor to the
bread which is given to the household, but to law maintained for the
multitude, and to bread broken among the multitude. So that a Lord has legal
claim only to his title in so far as he is the maintainer of the justice of
the Lord of Lords; and a Lady has legal claim to her title only so far as she
communicates that help to the poor representatives of her Master, which women
once, ministering to Him of their substance, were permitted to extend to that
Master Himself; and when she is known, as He Himself once was, in breaking of
bread.
89. And this beneficent and legal dominion, this power of the Dominus, or
House-Lord, and of the Domina, or House-Lady, is great and venerable, not
in the number of those through whom it has lineally descended, but in the
number of those whom it grasps within its sway; it is always regarded with
reverent worship wherever its dynasty is founded on its duty, and its ambition
co-relative with its beneficence. Your fancy is pleased with the thought of
being noble ladies, with a train of vassals. Be it so: you cannot be too
noble, and your train cannot be too great; but see to it that your train is of
vassals whom you serve and feed, not merely of slaves who serve and feed you;
and that the multitude which obeys you is of those whom you have comforted,
not oppressed, - whom you have redeemed, not led into captivity.
90. And this, which is true of the lower or household dominion, is
equally true of the queenly dominion; - that highest dignity is open to you,
if you will also accept that highest duty. Rex et Regina - Roi et Reine -
"Right-doers"; they differ but from the Lady and Lord, in that their power
is supreme over the mind as over the person - that they not only feed and
clothe, but direct and teach. And whether consciously or not, you must be, in
many a heart, enthroned: there is no putting by that crown; queens you must
always be; queens to your lovers; queens to your husbands and your sons;
queens of higher mystery to the world beyond, which bows itself, and will
forever bow, before the myrtle crown, and the stainless scepter, of womanhood.
But, alas! you are too often idle and careless queens, grasping at majesty in
the least things, while you abdicate it in the greatest; and leaving misrule
and violence to work their will among men, in defiance of the power which,
holding straight in gift from the Prince of all Peace, the wicked among you
betray, and the good forget.
91. "Prince of Peace." Note that name. When kings rule in that name, and
nobles, and the judges of the earth, they also, in their narrow place, and
mortal measure, receive the power of it. There are no other rulers than they:
other rule than theirs is but misrule; they who govern verily "Dei gratia" are
all princes, yes, or princesses, of peace. There is not a war in the world,
no, nor an injustice, but you women are answerable for it; not in that you
have provoked, but in that you have not hindered. Men, by their nature, are
prone to fight; they will fight for any cause, or for none. It is for you to
choose their cause for them, and to forbid them when there is no cause. There
is no suffering, no injustice, no misery in the earth, but the guilt of it
lies with you. Men can bear the sight of it, but you should not be able to
bear it. Men may tread it down without sympathy in their own struggle; but men
are feeble in sympathy, and contracted in hope; it is you only who can feel
the depths of pain; and conceive the way of its healing. Instead of trying to
do this, you turn away from it; you shut yourselves within your park walls and
garden gates; and you are content to know that there is beyond them a whole
world in wilderness - a world of secrets which you dare not penetrate; and of
suffering which you dare not conceive.
92. I tell you that this is to me quite the most amazing among the
phenomena of humanity. I am surprised at no depths to which, when once warped
from its honor, that humanity can be degraded. I do not wonder at the miser`s
death, with his hands, as they relax, dropping gold. I do not wonder at the
sensualist`s life, with the shroud wrapped about his feet. I do not wonder at
the single-handed murder of a single victim, done by the assassin in the
darkness of the railway, or reed-shadow of the marsh. I do not even wonder
at the myriad-handed murder of multitudes, done boastfully in the daylight,
by the frenzy of nations, and the immeasurable, unimaginable guilt, heaped up
from hell to heaven, of their priests and kings. But this is wonderful to me -
oh, how wonderful! - to see the tender and delicate woman among you, with her
child at her breast, and a power, if she would wield it, over it, and over its
father, purer than the air of heaven, and stronger than the seas of earth -
nay, a magnitude of blessing which her husband would not part with for all
that earth itself, though it were made of one entire and perfect chrysolite: -
to see her abdicate this majesty to play at precedence with her next-door
neighbor! This is wonderful - oh, wonderful! - to see her, with every innocent
feeling fresh within her, go out in the morning into her garden to play with
the fringes of its guarded flowers, and lift their heads when they are
drooping, with her happy smile upon her face, and no cloud upon her brow,
because there is a little wall around her place of peace: and yet she knows,
in her heart, if she would only look for its knowledge, that, outside of that
little rose-covered wall, the wild grass, to the horizon, is torn up by the
agony of men, and beat level by the drift of their lifeblood.
93. Have you ever considered what a deep under meaning there lies, or at
least may be read, if we choose, in our custom of strewing flowers before
those whom we think most happy? Do you suppose it is merely to deceive them
into the hope that happiness is always to fall thus in showers at their feet?
- that wherever they pass they will tread on the herbs of sweet scent, and
that the rough ground will be made smooth for them by depth of roses? So
surely as they believe that, they will have, instead, to walk on bitter herbs
and thorns; and the only softness to their feet will be of snow. But it is not
thus intended they should believe; there is a better meaning in that old
custom. The path of a good woman is indeed strewn with flowers: but they rise
behind her steps, not before them. "Her feet have touched the meadows, and
left the daisies rosy."
94. You think that only a lover`s fancy; - false and vain! How if it
could be true? You think this also, perhaps, only a poet`s fancy -
"Even the light harebell raised its head
Elastic from her airy tread."
But it is little to say of a woman, that she only does not destroy where she
passes. She should revive; the harebells should bloom, not stoop, as she
passes. You think I am rushing into wild hyperbole? Pardon me, not a whit - I
mean what I say in calm English, spoken in resolute truth. You have heard it
said - (and I believe there is more than fancy even in that saying, but let it
pass for a fanciful one) - that flowers only flourish rightly in the garden of
some one who loves them. I know you would like that to be true; you would
think it a pleasant magic if you could flush your flowers into brighter bloom
by a kind look upon them: nay, more, if your look had the power, not only to
cheer, but to guard; - if you could bid the black blight turn away and the
knotted caterpillar spare - if you could bid the dew fall upon them in the
drought, and say to the south wind, in frost - "Come, thou south, and breathe
upon my garden, that the spices of it may flow out." This you would think a
great thing? And do you think it not a greater thing, that all this (and how
much more than this!) you can do for fairer flowers than these - flowers that
could bless you for having blessed them, and will love you for having loved
them; - flowers that have thoughts like yours, and lives like yours; which,
once saved, you save forever? Is this only a little power? Far among the
moorlands and the rocks, - far in the darkness of the terrible streets, -
these feeble florets are lying, with all their fresh leaves torn, and their
stems broken - will you never go down to them, nor set them in order in their
little fragrant beds, nor fence them in their trembling, from the fierce wind?
Shall morning follow morning, for you, but not for them; and the dawn rise to
watch, far away, those frantic Dances of Death, ^7 but no dawn rise to breathe
upon these living banks of wild violet, and woodbine, and rose; nor call to
you, through your casement, - call (not giving you the name of the English
poet`s lady, but the name of Dante`s great Matilda, who, on the edge of happy
Lethe, stood wreathing flowers with flowers), saying
[Footnote 7: See note, p. 120.]
"Come into the garden, Maud,
For the black bat, night, has flown,
And the woodbine spices are wafted abroad
And the musk of the roses blown"?
Will you not go down among them? - among those sweet living things, whose
new courage, sprung from the earth with the deep color of heaven upon it, is
starting up in strength of goodly spire; and whose purity, washed from the
dust, is opening, bud by bud, into the flower of promise; - and still they
turn to you, and for you, "The Larkspur listens - I hear, I hear! And the Lily
whispers - I wait."
95. Did you notice that I missed two lines when I read you that first
stanza; and think that I had forgotten them? Hear them now: -
"Come into the garden, Maud,
For the black bat, night, has flown.
Come into the garden, Maud,
I am here at the gate, alone."
Who is it, think you, who stands at the gate of this sweeter garden,
alone, waiting for you? Did you ever hear, not of a Maud, but a Madeleine, who
went down to her garden in the dawn and found One waiting at the gate, whom
she supposed to be the gardener? Have you not sought Him often; - sought Him
in vain, all through the night; - sought Him in vain at the gate of that old
garden where the fiery sword is set? He is never there; but at the gate of
this garden He is waiting always-waiting to take your hand - ready to go
down to see the fruits of the valley, to see whether the vine has flourished,
and the pomegranate budded. There you shall see with Him the little tendrils
of the vines that His hand is guiding - there you shall see the pomegranate
springing where His hand cast the sanguine seed; - more: you shall see the
troops of the angel keepers that, with their wings, wave away the hungry birds
from the pathsides where He has sown, and call to each other between the
vineyard rows, "Take us the foxes, the little foxes, that spoil the vines, for
our vines have tender grapes." Oh - you queens - you queens; among the hills
and happy greenwood of this land of yours, shall the foxes have holes, and the
birds of the air have nests; and in your cities, shall the stones cry out
against you, that they are the only pillows where the Son of Man can lay His
head?
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