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


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

A VISION OF SAINTS: S. PHOCAS, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Twas an old man came next, who bore the palm
Last Line: "shed their pure lives upon the sullen sand."
Subject(s): Saints


'Twas an old man came next, who bore the palm,
Mild and of venerable mien, with hair
And beard of silver, yet his sunburnt cheek
Showed ruddy with the hue of health which still
Smiles like an Indian summer on the lives
Of those who, far from dust and toil of men,
Like the first Husbandman, breathe purer air,
And watch the opening flowers, the ripening fruits;
Changing their healthy toil for tranquil sleep,
And mingling works of mercy with pure thoughts
And meditations. Him indeed I knew not,
And yet half guessed his tale.
And this it was:

"In Pontus, by Sinope, dwelt of old,
Three centuries after Christ, an aged man,
Phocas by name. He to his lowly home
Retiring from the busy city, spent
His life in meditation on the Faith
Sweetening his honest toil. Day after day
Within his narrow garden-ground he found
Fit labour for his hands; eve after eve,
When the sweet toilsome day at last was done,
He strayed among the flowers and fruits his skill
Had reared -- the roses red and white which filled
The air with perfume, like the fragrant flower
Of sanctitude; white cups adust with gold
Of lilies, pure as blameless lives, which breathe
Their sweetness to the heavens; the flower which bears
The symbols of the Passion; the mild roots
And milky herbs which nourish those white lives
That scorn to batten on the blood and pain
Of innocent dumb brutes; such honeyed fruits
As our first parents ate in Paradise --
Bright apples, golden pears, pink pomegranates,
The pendent purple of the trellised grape,
And blushing peaches, and the perfumed globes
Of melons; all the flowers and fruits the isles
Of the enchanted dim Hesperides
Bore in the fabled eld. Of these he took
Sufficient for his hunger, praising God,
And of the rest he gave of charity
To all the poor and weak, free without price,
Following his Master's word. And all the poor
And needy blessed him and revered the skill
Which reared them, and the venerable years
Of that good gardener. None who came to him
His generous hand denied, but he would give them
Shelter and food, and, when the day was done,
Converse on things Divine, and many a word
Of Truth which swayed the 1 stener, if he were
A Pagan still, or heartened him indeed
If he already held and loved the Faith.

For while to some pure souls the thought, the dream,
The blessed vision are enough, the sounds
Heard by rapt ears, the opened heavens, the joy
Of contemplation only, when the sands
Of the desert or the cloistered vistas dim
Show ghostly 'neath the midnight stars; for some
Labour is best -- not sordid labour vile
And turned to earth, but that which working still
For Heaven doth therefore gain a purer height
Than any; and for him the varied page
Of Nature painted by a hand divine
Brought meditation, and he found a voice
In every bursting flower and mellowing fruit;
In every life which, governing its way
By heavenly rule, lived on without offence
And did fulfil its part; in every weed
Which cumbered earth, yet doubtless were of aid
If we might read its secret; every growth
Of poison, which from the same elements,
The bounteous earth, the wooing of the sun,
The same fair fanning breezes, as the grain
On which our lives are nourished, waxed and grew
To deal out death and torment. Long he mused
On all these things -- how one great Husbandman
Planted them all, and framed them as He framed
The tiger and the lamb; and so he gained
Mild wisdom from his daily task, and awe,
And wonder, which is kin to faith, and thence
True faith in God and man, and was content
To sow the seed of good within his soul,
As in the earth, and root the evil out,
And living only for the Faith, to work
And be at peace, leaving the rest to Him
Who sends in season, sun and rain and cloud
And frost, and in whose hand are flower and fruit
To give or to withhold, in earth and heaven.

Now, one fair summer eve, as Phocas sate
At supper, came a knock, and he in haste
Opening, three strangers waited at the door,
Whom he bade enter and take food and rest;
And when they were refreshed, he questioned them
What errand brought them. And they said in turn,
'We seek a certain Phocas -- know'st thou him? --
Who dares to call on Christ, and have command
To slay him found.' Then tranquilly the saint --
'Sleep now and rest. I know him. With the dawn
I will conduct you to him.' And they slept,
Not dreaming whom they saw, and were content.

But he, when all the house was dark and still,
Stole out into his garden. The faint stars,
Pale in the radiance of the summer night,
Trembled above him; at his feet the flowers
He loved so well declined their heavy heads
And slumbering petals. One loud nightingale,
Thrilling the tender passionate note of old,
Throbbed from a flower-cupped tree, and round him all
The thousand perfumes of the summer night
Steeped his pleased sense in fragrance sweeter far
Than frankincense the skill of men compounds
In Araby the Blest. Then on the grass
He sate him down, rapt deep in musing thought;
And o'er him, ghostly white or gleaming red,
The roses glimmered, and the lilies closed
Their pure white cups, and bowed their heads, and seemed
To overhear his thought. 'Should he then fly,
To live a little while, leaving his home
And all that made it dear, the flowers, the fruits
He loved, and preach the Faith a little yet
Before Fate called him? Surely life is sweet
To tranquil souls, which scorn delights and take
Something of Heaven on earth; ay, sweeter far
Than the old haste of flushed and breathless chase,
Strong pulses, vaulting projects, hot designs
To capture worthless ends. Haply 'twere well
For this, to leave the solitude he loved
As others wife or child.'
But as he mused,
The thought of full obedience filled his soul;
Submissive to the Heavenly Will which sent
Those fatal messengers, and destined for him
The martyr's crown, and swayed and took so fast
His doubtful mind, that presently he rose,
As one whose purpose halts not -- rose and went
As in a dream, and coming brought a spade
And softly, half in dreams, began to delve
The flower-lit turf, within a sheltered nook
O'ergrown with roses and the perfumed gloom
Of blossomed trees. And as he wrought, he laid
Turf upon turf, and hollowed out a space
In the fresh virgin mould which lay beneath,
Shaped deftly in the semblance of a cross,
Large as might take the stature of a man.
And still half dreaming, nor confessing yet
What thing he did, deeper and yet more deep
He dug and laboured, till with earliest dawn,
Just as the waking birds began their song,
He flung the last mould upwards, smoothing fair
The edges of the trench, and knew at length
That all night long he laboured at his grave.

And at its foot were lilies white and gold,
And at its head were roses white and red,
And all around a pitying quire of flowers
Bent down regarding it; and when he saw,
Still half as in a dream, he whispered, 'Lo!
The narrow bed is ready; ere 'tis day
The sleeper shall be laid in it, and prove
Unbroken slumbers blest, until the peal
Of the loud Angel wakes him from the skies.'

Then to his home returning grave and slow,
He sought his guests, on whom the new-born day
Was rising. They with half-awakened eyes
Greeted their coming host, and, bidding him
Good morrow, rose and took the frugal meal
His care provided. Then the question came,
'Hast brought him whom we seek?' And he: 'I have.'
And they: 'Where find we him?' And he: 'Behold,
I am the man -- none else.' Then deep distress
Took them, and great perplexity, who knew
The man whose life they sought the same who gave
Shelter and food. But he, revolving all,
The martyr's palm and that unchanged resolve
Of the still night, bade them take heart for all
Their duty bade them. And he led them forth,
Through maiden flowers fresh opened to the day,
Brushing the dewdrops from them as they went
To where, set round with blooms, they found his grave
Fresh delved in daisied turf, and there they bound
Their willing prisoner, and the headsman's axe,
Even as he knelt, a smile upon his lips,
By one swift, skilful blow and merciful,
Upon the grassy margin, painlessly
Severed his life. And there they laid him down,
Amid the joyous matins of the birds,
In the cool earth; and by his head there sprang
Sweet roses red and white, and by his feet
Deep-chaliced lilies mingled white with gold;
And there he waits the day the just shall rise
And bloom, as these on earth, beyond the skies."

But when I heard the gracious tale, which showed
Like some fair blossom with a fragrant heart,
Thus would I answer: "Blameless anchorite,
Meek martyr, self-betrayed, some saints there be
Whose youthful suffering draws a readier tear
Than thine; and yet, for me, that duteous life
Of honest toil for others, that great faith
Thou show'dst, that simple eagerness to bear
The martyr's palm, that night beneath the stars
Of summer, fashioning thy flower-decked grave,
That lonely suffering, mark thy life and death
With a more calm and gracious note than theirs
Who, 'mid the applauding saints around, the throng
Of heavenly faces stooping from the skies,
In the arena dauntless met their end;
A simpler nor less touching piety
Than theirs who, 'mid the dust of mortal strife,
Shed their pure lives upon the sullen sand."





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