Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, VENDREDI SAINT, by LEWIS MORRIS (1833-1907)


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

VENDREDI SAINT, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: This is paris, the beautiful city
Last Line: This, too, was our brother.
Subject(s): Paris, France


THIS is Paris, the beautiful city,
Heaven's gate to the rich, to the poor without pity.
The clear sun shines on the fair town's graces,
And on the cold green of the shrunken river,
And the chill East blows, as 'twould blow for ever,
On the holiday groups with their shining faces.
For this is the one solemn day of the season,
When all the swift march of her gay unreason
Pauses a while, and a thin veil of sadness
Half hides, from strange eyes, the old riot and madness,
And the churches are crowded with devotees holy,
Rich and poor, saint and sinner, the great and the lowly.

* * * *

Here is a roofless palace, where gape
Black casements in rows without form or shape:
A sordid ruin, whose swift decay
Speaks of that terrible morning in May
When the whole fair city was blood and fire,
And the black smoke of ruin rose higher and higher,
And through the still streets, 'neath the broad Spring sun,
Everywhere murder and rapine were done;
Women lurking, with torch in hand,
Evil eyed, sullen, who soon should stand
Before the sharp bayonets, dripping with blood,
And be stabbed through and through, or shot dead where they stood.

* * * *

This is the brand-new Hotel de Ville,
Where six hundred wretches met death in the fire;
Ringed round with a pitiless cordon of steel,
Not one might escape that swift vengeance. To-day
The ruin, the carnage, are clean swept away;
And the sumptuous facades, and the high roofs aspire,

And, upon the broad square, the white palace face
Looks down with a placid and meaningless grace,
Ignoring the bloodshed, the struggle, the sorrow,
The doom that has been, and that may be to-morrow,
The hidden hatred, the mad endeavour,
The strife that still is and shall be for ever.

* * * *

Here rise the twin-towers of Notre Dame,
Through siege, and revolt, and ruin the same.
See the people in crowds pressing onward, slowly,
Along the dark aisles to the altar holy --
The altar, to-day, wrapt in mourning and gloom,
Since He whom they worship lies dead in the tomb.

There, by a tiny acolyte tended,
A round-cheeked child in his cassock white,
Lies the tortured figure to which are bended
The knees of the passers who gaze on the sight,
And the people fall prostrate, and kiss and mourn
The fair dead limbs which the nails have torn.

And the passionate music comes from the quire,
Full of soft chords of a yearning pity
The mournful voices accordant aspire
To the far-off gates of the Heavenly City;
And the clear, keen alto, soaring high and higher,
Mounts now a surging fountain, now a heavenward fire.

Ay, eighteen centuries after the day,
A world-worn populace kneel and pray,
As they pass by and gaze on the limbs unbroken.
What symbol is this? of what yearnings the token?
What spell this that leads men a part to be
Of this old Judaean death-agony?

And I asked, Was it naught but a Nature Divine,
That for lower natures consented to die?
Could a greater than human sacrifice,
Still make the tears spring to the world-dimmed eye?
One thought only it was that replied, and no other:
This man was our brother.

* * * *

As I pass from the church, in the cold East wind,
Leaving its solemn teachings behind:
Once again, on the verge of the chill blue river,
The blighted buds on the branches shiver;
Here, again, stream the holiday groups, with delight
Gaping in wonder at some new sight.
'Tis an open doorway, squalid and low,
And crowds which ceaselessly come and go,
Careless enough ere they see the sight
Which leaves the gay faces pallid and white:
Something is there which can change their mood,
And check the holiday flow of the blood.

For the face which they see is the face of Death.
Strange, such a thing as the ceasing of breath
Should work such miraculous change as here:
Turn the thing that we love, to a thing of fear;
Transform the sordid, the low, the mean,
To a phantasm, pointing to Depths unseen.

There they lie, the dead, unclaimed and unknown,
Each on his narrow and sloping stone.
The chill water drips from each to the ground;
No other movement is there, nor sound.
With the look which they wore when they came to die,
They gaze from blind eyes on the pitiless sky.

No woman to-day, thank Heaven, is here;
But men, old for the most part, and broken quite,
Who, finding this sad world a place of fear,
Have leapt forth hopelessly into the night,
Bankrupt of faith, without love, unfriended,
Dead-tired of life's comedy ere 'twas ended.

But here is one younger, whose ashy face
Bears some faint shadow of former grace.
What brought him here? was it love's sharp fever?
Was she worse than dead that he bore to leave her?
Or was his young life, ere its summer came,
Burnt by Passion's whirlwinds as by a flame.

Was it Drink or Desire, or the die's sure shame,
Which led this poor truant to deep disgrace?
Was it hopeless misfortune, unmixed with blame,
That laid him here dead, in this dreadful place?
Ah Heaven, of these nineteen long centuries,
Is the sole fruit this thing with the sightless eyes!

Yesterday, passion and struggle and strife,
Hatreds, it may be, and anger-choked breath;
Yesterday, fear and the burden of life;
To-day, the cold ease and the calmness of death:
And that which strove and sinned and yielded there,
To-day in what hidden place of God's mysterious air?

Whatever he has been, here now he lies,
Facing the stare of unpitying eyes.
I turn from the dank and dishonoured face,
To the fair dead Christ by his altar place,
And the same thought replies to my soul, and no other --
This, too, was our brother.





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