Part 4 (1/2)

CHAPTER VIII

The Poet's love of the Cross: how he saw it in a double aspect. The dream of the Holy Rood. The Ruthwell Cross.

Now let us read what our poet says about the Festival of the Finding of the Cross.[F]

[Footnote F: The phrase ”Invention of the Cross” means the finding of it; the word invention in English does not now translate the Latin ”inventio.”]

To each of these men Be h.e.l.l's door shut, heaven's unclosed, Eternally opened the kingdom of angels, Joy without end, and their portion appointed Along with Mary, who takes into mind The one most dear of festal days Of that rood under heaven.

The poet wrote about the Holy Cross, not just because it was a picturesque subject, capable of picturesque treatment, one that would make a fine poem; but because, as he tells us, Holy Wisdom had revealed to him ”wider knowledge through her glorious power over the thoughts of the mind.” He tells us how the fetters of sin had bound him in their bitter bondage, and how, stained and sorrowful, light came to him, and the Mighty King bestowed on him His bountiful grace, and gave him light and liberty, opening his heart and setting free for him the gift of song, that gift which, he says, he has used in the world joyfully and with a good will.

Not once alone, he says, did he meditate upon the Tree of Glory, but over and over again. He thought upon it until all his soul was saturated with it, and hallowed and consecrated for ever.

He may have venerated the Cross in public on the anniversary of the Lord's Crucifixion. Certainly, many a time he had venerated it in private. Perhaps, like Alcuin, his habit was to bow toward the Cross whenever he saw it, and whisper the prayer ”Tuam crucem adoramus, Domine, et Tuam gloriosam recolimus pa.s.sionem.”[G]

[Footnote G: The Veneration of the Cross, or Creeping to the Cross, was known in Anglo-Saxon times, but whether as early as Cynewulf's day, seems uncertain.]

He was old, he tells us, when he ”wove word-craft, made his poem, framing it wondrously, pondering and sifting his thoughts in the night-time.”

The Cross had brought him light and healing, and at the foot of the Cross he laid his gift of song.

It is a moot point whether the ”Elene” or the ”Dream of the Holy Rood”

came first. The poetry of the ”Dream” is as fine as the conception is grand, and, at whatever time it was written, it must be cla.s.sed as being at the high-water mark of the poet's work.

Wonderful things have been given to us ”under the similitude of a dream”; things beautiful and terrible, things wise and strange. There have been Dreamers of Dreams into whose souls have sunk the sight and the hearing of deep things, high things and precious, of comfort and of warning, of sweetest help and of gravest and most earnest exhortation.

The speech of these Dreamers has sounded in our ears, and has left the vibrations to go on and on for our lifetime: this we call remembering.

In English literature we have some great tellings ”under the similitude of a dream.” We have the nineteenth-century ”Dream of Gerontius,” our great Cardinal's drama of the soul in its parting and after. We have the seventeenth-century dream from the darkness of Bedford Gaol, whence John Bunyan saw the pilgrims on their way, through dangers and trials, on to the river that must be crossed before they could come to the Celestial City. We have the fourteenth-century dream of the gaunt, sad-souled William Langley, the dreamer of the Malvern Hills. And, earlier by many a century, we have the dream of the dreamer at the depth of midnight, the midnight whose heart was bright with the splendour of the glorious vesting and gem-adorning of the Cross of Jesus Christ, and dark with the moisture of the Sacred Blood that oozed therefrom.

We have first the simple, quiet prelude.

Lo, I will tell of the best of dreams, I dreamed at the deep midnight, When all men lay at rest.

Then comes the description of the Cross in its glory. It is uplift and girt with light, flooded with gold and set with precious gems. This is followed by the seeing through the glory, the seeing of the anguish. The hues are s.h.i.+fted from dark to bright; the light of gold lights it, and yet anon it is wet, defiled with Blood. Here are the two sides of the Pa.s.sion: the veiled glory, and the illumined anguish: the supreme might, and the absolute weakness: the darkness of the grave, and the light of the Resurrection.

While time shall be, the Cross is to us all the Book where we may read all we choose to read, all G.o.d sends us grace to read. Cynewulf chose to read, and with Cynewulf was the grace of G.o.d.

The poet lies beholding the wondrous sight: the sight that all G.o.d's fair angels beheld, and all the universe, and men of mortal breath.

The Rood speaks to Cynewulf. To us, with every look upon the Cross, should come, would come, were we alive all through with keen, sweet, spiritual life, the voice telling of the Pa.s.sion, of the victory, of the glory. Cynewulf heard the Rood tell how long ago it was hewn down, ordained to lift up the evil-doers, to bear the law-breakers.

They bore me on their shoulders then, on hill they set me high, And made me fast, a many foes. Then mankind's Lord drew nigh, With Mighty courage hasting Him to mount on me and die.

Though all earth shook, I durst not bend or break without His word; Firm I must stand, nor fall and crush the gazing foes abhorred.

Then the young Hero dighted Him: Almighty G.o.d was He: Steadfast and very stout of heart mounted the shameful tree, Brave in the sight of many there, when man He fain would free.

I trembled when He clasped me round, yet groundward durst not bend, I must not fall to lap of earth, but stand fast to the end.

We notice the obedience of the Cross. In its absolute sympathy with its Creator's agony, its indignation at the horrible crime of His enemies, it would fain have fallen and crushed the gazing foes abhorred. But this was not to be, any more than fire was to come down from heaven at the Boanerges' call when they were fain to avenge the insult put upon their Master, whom the people of the Samaritan city would not receive (Luke ix, 52, etc.).