Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, A VISION OF SAINTS: S. CATHERINE OF SIENA, by LEWIS MORRIS (1833-1907)


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

A VISION OF SAINTS: S. CATHERINE OF SIENA, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Next 'twas a woman, bearing in her hand
Last Line: "tis not for happiness we are, but god."
Subject(s): Catherine Of Siena, Saint (1347-1380); Saints; Benincasa, Caterina


Next 'twas a woman, bearing in her hand
A lily. Round her maiden limbs she drew
The habit of S. Dominic. Her worn face
Bore anxious traces still, as that of one
Whom, loving best the cloister, the sad world
Calls to its service and denies to Heaven;
And I bethought me of a cloudless noon
By Fonte Branda, 'mid the merry talk
Of thirsty peasants, while the churches towered
High on the rocky spurs, and her low home
Showed like a sacred shrine, where the saint once
Doubted herself, not God. And thus the voice:

"In fair Siena, on the Tuscan hills,
Giacomo Benincasa lived and died
Five centuries ago. To him were born,
And his wife Lapa, many stalwart sons
And fair-grown daughters. One, their dearest child,
Was Catharine, latest born and best beloved,
So fair, so blithe, so sweet in infancy,
The neighbours named her name Euphrosyne.

But as she grew, no longer the young maid
Showed as her comrades, but the world unseen
Made grave her gaze and checked the innocent flow
Of girlish laughter, and the pictured tales
Of saintly lives within the incensed gloom
Of the great churches drew her childish feet
With a strange charm. For one day, as she came,
Being but seven summers in the world,
She and her brother, from some natal feast,
They sate at sunset on the rocky hill
By Fonte Branda, and as Catharine gazed
On the tall campanile of the church
Above her, lo! beyond the slender shaft,
The heavens stood open, and her wondering gaze
Saw our dear Lord in glory, and the saints
Around Him. As she looked upon the sight
In ecstasy, her eyes grew fixed, and she
Gazed on, unconscious that her brother's voice
Called to unheeding ears; and when he turned
And drew her from her place, she saw no more
The opened heavens, and, sobbing from her heart,
Sank on the ground with bitter childish tears.

Nor ever from her thought the wondrous dream
Of that blest evening faded. More and more
Silent she grew, and grave, and wandered forth
In solitude, if haply once again
That glorious vision took her longing eyes;
But never more it came. But she, who read
The tale of Catharine and the sponsal ring
Which bound her to the Lord, prayed if perchance
She also might be His; and when she came
To her full age, being sweet and beautiful,
Her parents, loving not her penances,
Her fasts, her vigils, her ascetic dreams,
Would give their girl in marriage; but her soul,
Fixed on that heavenly bridal, took no thought
For earthly love, and still her days were spent
In solitary prayer. Then, that hard toil
Might check her wandering dreams, her parents laid
Hard household tasks upon her, loading her
With mean and weary toils, and all the house
Mocked her and jeered; but in her heart she kept
This comfort -- 'Were not, then, the blessed saints
Mocked even as I, and shall I be ashamed
To bear as they did?' To her humble tasks
She bent her unrepining; food and rest
Almost she took not, yielding place to prayer;
And, lest her fairness might allure the eyes
Of youthful lovers, from her shapely head
Sheared the luxuriant treasure of her hair,
To lay before the altar, offering all
Her youth, her life to Heaven. Thus she lived
A recluse self-ordained; but still her sire
Urged her to wed, till one day, to her cell
Chancing to come, it seemed a snow-white dove
Hovered above her as she knelt, and then
The good man, fearing lest his will withstood
The Spirit which thus visibly guided her,
Entreated her no more, leaving her free
To do Heaven's will. And to the holy house
Of Dominic she went, and there she sought
To serve, a penitent, but never yet
Made full profession, though she found no less
A penance for herself. On a bare board
She lay, a log her pillow, and no word
For three long years she spake; but from her cell
High in her father's roof, with earliest dawn,
And when the darkening ways grew dim with night,
Daily she climbed the steep where the high Church
Of San Domenico towered, by whose tall shaft
She saw Heaven opened once, and there she knelt
Before the altar rapt in ecstasy.

But not yet found she peace or rest, for still
The Enemy of Man spread for her snares
To take her fast. Thoughts sent he to her soul
Like fiery darts, thoughts which she deemed of sin,
Such as assailed the blessed Anthony.
Or was it, surely, that to this white life
The dreams of blameless love, and hearth and home,
And the soft hands of children at the breast,
Seemed perilous for ill? But when they came,
She prayed anew for help, she took not food,
She scourged herself before the altar-place
Till her blood flowed. And when she called for aid
At midnight in the lonely church, she seemed
To see a visible Presence walk with her,
Speak to her words of sweetness, comfort her
As One alone might comfort, flood her soul
With faith, till, as she walked, the darkling aisles
Glowed with warm light, and the chill pavement smiled
Decked with sweet summer flowers; and evermore
The gracious accents of a voice Divine,
Filling her ears, made precious melody,
Waking the ghostly solitude with sound,
And blessed faces bent, and blest hands swept
Celestial lyres unseen. And then sometimes
They came not, nor the Presence, and her soul
Fainted within her, lest those heavenly dreams
Were naught but snares, unreal fantasies
Sent of the enemy to take her soul --
The dreams which bind the saintly dreamer fast
(Like siren voices sounding o'er the sea,
Which whoso heard, nor fled nor stopped his ears,
Lay bound for ever and lost); nor ever again
The healthful daily load of duty done
Allures, nor honest toil, who pines in chains
Self-forged, a prisoner to his brooding thought.

And so she turned from penance and from fast
And blessed contemplation to the tasks
Of Christian duty. To the poor and weak
She lived a servant. One poor wretch there was,
Sick of a hopeless ill. For her she bore
Through wintry nights, on her bent back, the load
Of fuel for her fire. Another, white
With leprosy, she succoured where she lay
Houseless without the walls. In her own bed
She laid and tendered her, till on her hands
The hopeless evil showed. Yet naught she earned
Of gratitude, and when the leper died,
She only, and none other, durst prepare
Her corpse for burial; and, behold, her hurt
Was cleansed from that same hour! And on a day
When from the town she went on some soft task
Of mercy, through the city gates there came
A sad procession; for a robber went
Forth to his shameful doom, rending the air
With blasphemies and wild despairing cries,
While in his wake the angry people surged
With curses; and her tender saintly heart
O'erflowed with pity, and she took her place
Beside him, speaking with such gracious words
That his hard heart was melted, and confessed
His heinous sin and its just punishment.
And while she knelt in prayer, forgetting all,
Lo! the poor penitent, 'like a gentle lamb,'
Went tranquil to his death, and she who saw,
Calling him 'her sweet brother,' laid his head
Upon the block; and when the keen axe fell,
She sate, his severed head within her hands,
All bathed in precious blood, while her rapt eyes
Saw the saved soul borne upward into Heaven.

In such fair works of love the virgin saint
Spent her pure days, till through the land her fame
Spread far and wide; and when the Florentines
Grew rebels to the Church, the Pontiff named her
Arbitress of the strife, confiding to her
The terms of peace. But when she made her way
To Florence, straight a tumult, and she hid,
Learning too soon how base the ingrate throng,
Within the cloister. 'Twas her voice which called
The Holy Father home, her woman's voice --
None other. Weighty matters of the State
Were hers to adjudge, untrammelled, as she would;
So that the visionary girl of yore
Rose to the stately woman, ruling well,
As might a Queen, in honour and fame of men.

But in the midst of all the pomp, the glare
Of rank and power, still would her yearning gaze
Steal backward to the days, now long ago,
When painfully at midnight up the steep
Her feet would climb, and in the towering church
Pour out her innocent soul, and feel the breath
Of Love Divine upon her cheek, and walk
Encompassed round with Heaven and the fair dreams
Which could defy the morning and waxed strong
Even in the blaze of noon; and she would prize
The contemplative life, the silent thought,
Which there she knew, above the clamorous din
And turmoil of the world, the hopes, the fears,
The slanderous tooth of secret enmity,
The envy of false friends. And so deep care,
Wearing away the chains which held her life,
Laid her at last upon her bed, and broke,
Before her footsteps trod life's middle way,
The silver cord, and loosed her soul to Heaven.

But as she lay in act to die and knew
Her end drew near, one word she spoke alone --
'Nay, Lord, 'twas not vainglory, as they say,
That drew me, but Thine honour, and Thine alone;
And thou, Lord, knowest this it was, not pride.'
And so she passed away."

But when his voice
Was silent, all my soul broke forth in words
Of Love which conquered Doubt.
"Dear spotless soul,
Still through thy house men go, and wondering mark
Thy place of prayer, thy chamber, and thy cell.
Here 'twas the Lord appeared, and gave to thee
His sacred heart. Here, in this very spot,
Thou clothedst Him as He sate in rags and seemed
A beggar. All the house is filled with thee
And the white simple story of thy life;
Still, far above, the high church on the hill
Towers where, in prayer, thou seemedst to walk wrapt round
By an ineffable Presence; thy low roof
Is grown as 'twere a shrine, where priest and nun
And visionary girls from age to age
Throng and repeat the self-same prayers, thyself
Didst offer year by year.
Comes there no end
Of yearning for our race on earth, nor stay
Of penance, nor unmingled happiness
Till Heaven is gained? or in high Heaven itself
Can fancy image, or can faith sustain,
No shadow, nor satiety of joy?
I cannot tell, I know not, but I know
'Tis not for happiness we are, but God."





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