Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, A VISION OF SAINTS: SS. PERPETUA AND FELICITAS, by LEWIS MORRIS (1833-1907)


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

A VISION OF SAINTS: SS. PERPETUA AND FELICITAS, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: And then I saw
Last Line: "of the unfolding mystery of faith!"
Subject(s): Saints


And then I saw
Two girlish mothers, bearing each a child
Clasped to her breast, one with the conscious pride
Of noble birth, and one a lowlier form,
Who to the other looked with loving eyes
In which the old respect was mingled now
With a new sense of equal sisterhood;
And both with rapt gaze went, as keeping still
Some memory of surprise, since first they rose
From earth to heaven; and my guide named their names
Discoursing thus:
"By the Tyrrhenian Sea
In Africa, when night two hundred years
Passed since Christ died, there lived a youthful wife,
Bearing her first-born infant at her breast,
Perpetua, of noble lineage, nursed
Safe in the shelter of her happy home
From maidenhood to gracious motherhood;
Nor broke there on her tranquil hours a sound
Of the great suffering of the painful world,
But evermore in gracious liturgies
Of homely life she spent her careless days,
Shielded from every breath of ruder air
Which might assault her, fenced about secure
By walls of love; sire, mother, brother, spouse,
Linking close arms around her, and her birth
And name, and rank and wealth, and honour of men
Made this rude path of life and rugged steep
Show, like the fields of June, a maze of flowers.

Now on those calm and slumbering days there burst
The New Faith like a flame, and the quick soul
Of the young wife was fired, and she became
A catechumen and embraced the truth,
Scorning the Pagan gods; and her young brother,
Like her, believed, and so in piety
They lived, till came an overwhelming wave
Of bloodshed once again, and they denounced
The faithful pair, and first Perpetua.
But when this great blow fell on him, her sire,
A noble, holding fast the faith of old
And loving with a father's love his girl
And her young child, ere yet the shadow of doom
Fell on them, went to her, and of his love
Would seek to bend her, using all the strength
Which venerable age and filial awe
Might give him; bade her pause awhile and seek
Counsel of wiser heads than hers, who knew
The riddles of the Faith, and what deep truths,
Though hid by myth, maybe, and parable,
The Pagan forms concealed. But she, with clear
Undoubting faith: 'My father, canst thou change
The fashion of a vessel, giving it
Another name?' And he: 'Nay, 'twere the same
Howe'er men called it.' Then she answered straight,
With fearless voice, 'Nor canst thou change my soul,
Which bears the name of Christ.' Then with deep grief
The old man raised his hand as if to strike,
But could not, seeing her undaunted soul,
And went his way, nor troubled her; and she,
In that short time of rest, cleansing her soul
With the baptismal waters, rose refreshed,
A Christian, strong to suffer and give praise.

Then in a few brief days began the tale
Of Martyrdom. 'Tis her own voice that speaks
The story of her suffering. 'In the gloom
Of a dark prison cell, where stifling heat
And the rude insults of the brutal guard
Tortured each sense, I lay in misery.
There my young bondswoman Felicitas,
Wanting a month to labour, took with me
The sacred lustral waters, and we sate
Pining amid the squalor of the jail,
Until at last, their hard hearts moved by Heaven,
They brought my darling to me, and I gave him
Milk from my breast, and thenceforth day and night
I lived content, my child within my arms;
And those dull prison walls seemed more to me
Than my sire's palace, since I held my love
And kept my faith unchanged, and grew to be
Happier, than ever in that careless life
Within my palace home.
And then one day
My brother, who was partner in my bonds,
Seeing my cheerful and undaunted soul,
Spake thus to me: "Sister, I do perceive
Thou art Heaven's favourite; therefore to thy prayer
Doubtless the Lord will grant a blessed dream,
Sent through the watches of the night, if thou
Wilt kneel to ask it, and we too shall know
Whether the martyr's crown is ours to wear
Or shameful freedom." Then I prayed, and, lo!
In the still watches of the night, a dream
Which showed a golden stairway to the skies.
Around it swords and hooks and all the array
Of martyrdom were ranged, and at its foot
A loathly monster, crouching, coil on coil,
To take the souls of those who fain would rise.
And when, with fear and trembling, I had passed,
Naming the sacred Name, to some blest place,
A garden, I ascended; there I saw
A shepherd with his flock around him ranged
By myriads on the grass, who welcomed me
And gave me of some mystic food, which I
Received with folded hands and took and ate.
And all the throng of saints, with one accord,
Pealed forth "Amen;" and sudden I awoke,
Hearing their voices, and upon my lips
Lingered the sweetness of that heavenly food.
And when I told my brother of my dream,
We knew our hour was come, our fate assured,
And we with nothing more of fear nor hope.

Then after many days my father came,
Borne down with grief. "Daughter," he cried, "I pray thee,
Pity these scant gray hairs. If e'er thy sire
Loved thee beyond thy brethren, cherished thee
Through all thy childhood, watched thee till thou camest
To honourable wedlock, now, I pray thee,
Have pity on him; make him not the shame
Of all mankind. Or if indeed I fail,
With all my love, to bend thee, pity her,
Thy mother, who has borne thee, and who yearns
To clasp her child again. If none of these
Move thee, have pity on thy child, who pines
Without thee, nor can live without thy breast.
Nay, daughter, have compassion! See, thy father
Kneels to thee, lady, and in tears, and is
Thy suppliant for thyself!" But I, who knew
How wise he was and tender, felt my soul
Pierced through with sorrow. Yet the Faith! the Faith!
Should I betray it? "Nay," I said, "my father;
We all are in God's hand, who rules all things
Even as He will."
Then sorrowful he went.

Now, when the day was come when we should stand
For trial of the Judge Hilarion,
Even as we stood before him, set on high
For all to see, when my turn came to plead,
Confessing Christ, I heard a cry, and lo!
My father with my infant in his arms,
Conjuring me with tender words of love
To spare him and my child, whom I had given
Life, and now doomed to death, recounting all
The misery I should bring. And my sweet turned
His darling eyes on me, and smiled and stretched
His little hands to me, and seemed to seek
His mother's breast. And the stern judge himself
Besought me to have mercy and to spare
My father and my child, and bade me burn
A little incense to the gods. But I,
Some new strength firing me, which swept away
The love of sire or child, made answer straight,
"I will not," and confessed I was of Christ.
And when my father strove to force me down
And hush my voice, the stern Hilarion
Gave word that they should scourge him; and I heard
The sound of blows, and felt my father's pain
Quiver through every nerve, and grew so faint
That he should suffer thus, and all for me,
Amid his honoured age, that scarce I marked
That cold voice dealing doom, the dreadful death
Of those the fierce brutes' tooth or claw or horn
Rends limb from limb.
And then they scourged with thongs
Our brother martyrs, while ourselves indeed,
Me and my bondswoman Felicitas
They buffeted with blows upon the face.

But many visions, through the grace of Heaven,
Came to me ere the end, and on the eve
Of the great shows, when all day long my limbs,
Racked in the cruel stocks, scarce ceased to pain,
Amid the troubled thoughts of coming doom,
The hushed arena framed with cruel faces
Ready to gloat on death, the sudden roar
As from the darkling dens the famished beast
Leapt forth in fury, and the echoing cries
From the base coward throng reclining safe
To see their fellows bleed, there came a dream
Heaven-sent. For, lo! without the dungeon door
One seemed to knock; and when I opened to him,
The martyred saint, Pomponius, stood without,
Clad in white shining garments, all besprent
With pomegranates of gold. These words he spake:
"Perpetua, we await thee." And I followed,
And through dark ways he led me, till we came
Forth 'mid the still arena's sudden blaze.
And then he left me, and they bade me fight
No tiger, but some loathly shape of man,
Who held a bough laden with golden fruit
For prize of victory. Then we strove long
Together; but I conquered, and I gained
The precious fruit, and suddenly I knew
That not with ravening tooth or rending claw
Alone 'twas mine to fight, but with the force
Of Evil, human-shaped, Evil without.
Evil within, if one would keep the Faith.'

Dear soul, so far she speaks, the rest for her
Is silence, but a witness speaks who saw
What things were done. When their last day was come,
On that accursed Pagan holiday,
The people heard, thrilled with a shameful joy,
The roarings of the famished brutes beneath.
And they, too, heard it, and the gathering roar
Of the more brutal crowd; sitting alone
In silence and in darkness, till the hour
When they, weak nursing mothers, faithful youths,
Noble and slave, alike went forth to face
The oft imagined dread, the tooth, the claw,
The piercing horn, the spring, the devilish strength,
The same Hand fashioned which could frame the lamb.
Sure, 'twere no wonder if those delicate li es,
Forlorn of help, scorned, tortured, of their God
Forsaken, as their Master, had shrunk back
From that intolerable fear; but they
Shrank not at all, strong souls, but dauntless went,
Leaving their new-born joys, and the young lips
Of children at the breast, home, love, young life,
And all for Christ, fronting the horrible dread
Unmoved, unfearing -- went without a word
Through hollow stifling dungeons, lost in gloom,
To where, on a sudden, blazed the noonday glare
Above the arena, and the solitude
Horrid with pitiless eyes, and the loud roar
Of the imprisoned beasts behind the bars,
That presently the cruel spite of men
Should loose on them.
And there they stood and sang
A hymn 'midst jeering thousands. On the youth
Who suffered first, a leopard, springing, bathed
His poor frame in a baptism of blood;
And when, oh, shame! they stripped those wifely limbs
Before the ribald gaze of countless eyes --
They had not looked for that -- a deadly chill
Took them, and what the terror of the beasts,
The lions' dreadful roaring, the fierce growl
Of the impatient tigers, the red jaws
Of the tall bears who shook their bars, the low
Fierce muttering of the bulls, whose lurid eyes
Glared on them, could not, wifely modesty
Had well-nigh done, when some new Heaven-sent shame
Touched the vile throug, who bade the jailers hide
Their nakedness; and there, in robes of white,
Naming the holy Name, they stood and took
The mad brutes' horrible rage, and, pierced and tost
By the sharp horn, and hurled in air, and trod
By the fierce rushing feet, they lay alone,
Bleeding upon the sand, swooning away,
Or by some heavenly ecstasy possessed
Which dulled their pain.
But when Perpetua
Knew life return, she her dishevelled hair
Tied in a knot, and round her wounded limbs
Gathered her robe, and seeing on the ground
The young Felicitas, assuaged her pain
And lifted her, waiting again the rush
Of the fierce beast; but when he came no more,
The sordid crowd, still hungering for blood,
Demanded they should die before their eyes.

Then, in their midst, the dauntless martyr band
Stepped forth and gave the sacred kiss of peace,
And met swift death; but she, Perpetua,
From some unskilful hand or timorous, took
Repeated blows, and languished long, and bore
Wound upon cruel wound ere her pure spirit
Was freed and rose, and rested with the blest."

And straight my heart, hearing this piteous tale,
Was melted in me, and I seemed to cry,
'These are Thy saints, O Lord, like those whose bones
Lie scattered in Thy Alpine valleys cold,
Or who to-day by Thy idolatrous East,
Or Thy old Nile, or on the desert sands,
Or gemlike islets of the tropic sea,
Have died without a murmur for Thy sake.
Thou askest of Thy creatures sacrifice,
And it is given, nor yet with readier soul
In the first ages of the Faith than now.
Haply with blinder courage 'twas they went,
These protomartyrs, to their doom, than those
Who die to-day. With what high flame of faith
These souls were set on fire, who met unmoved --
Delicate lives lapt round with luxury --
The scorn of men, the jeering careless crowd,
The tortures of the fiends, rather than pay
False homage to false gods! And yet, indeed,
I know not if there be not sacrifice
As willing now; the Indian well to-day
Is choked with women's corpses, who had bought
Ease, wealth, and life, nay, more -- the dearer lives
Of children -- had they borne to bend the knee
To the false Prophet. Nay, Thy hand, O Lord,
Is strong as it was then, Thy seeming face
Averted as 'twas then, till the last breath
Sobs from the painful lips, and Thou dost bid them
Enter into Thy joy. Thou seest all
And speakest not, but these Thy servants hear
Some still small whisper which the duller sense
Of the world may not take. But whoso hears
Thy voice, for him the aspect of things seen
And felt -- the world without, the world within --
The old familiar landmarks of his life,
The heavens, the earth, the sea, no longer show
As undetermined fantasies; but all
The smiling summer plains, the stormwrapt hills,
The clear cold dawn, the angry furious night,
Lives bright as Heaven, lives dark as nether Hell,
Joy, grief, pain, pleasure, mingle and are part
Of the unfolding mystery of Faith!"





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