Classic and Contemporary Poetry
TO THE ENGLISH MARTYRS, by FRANCIS THOMPSON Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: Rain, rain on tyburn tree Last Line: Who is walled about with god. Subject(s): Martyrs | ||||||||
RAIN, rain on Tyburn tree, Red rain a-falling; Dew, dew on Tyburn tree, Red dew on Tyburn tree, And the swart bird a-calling. The shadow lies on England now Of the deathly-fruited bough: Cold and black with malison Lies between the land and sun; Putting out the sun, the bough Shades England now! The troubled heavens do wan with care, And burthened with the earth's despair Shiver a-cold; the starved heaven Has want, with wanting man bereaven. Blest fruit of the unblest bough, Aid the land that smote you, now! That feels the sentence and the curse Ye died if so ye might reverse. When God was stolen from out man's mouth, Stolen was the bread; then hunger and drouth Went to and fro; began the wail, Struck root the poor-house and the jail. Ere cut the dykes, let through that flood, Ye writ the protest with your blood; Against this night -- wherein our breath Withers, and the toiled heart perisheth, -- Entered the caveat of your death. Christ, in the form of His true Bride, Again hung pierced and crucified, And groaned, 'I thirst!' Not still ye stood, -- Ye had your hearts, ye had your blood; And pouring out the eager cup, -- 'The wine is weak, yet, Lord Christ, sup!' Ah, blest! who bathed the parched Vine With richer than His Cana-wine, And heard, your most sharp supper past: 'Ye kept the best wine to the last!' Ah, happy who That sequestered secret knew, How sweeter than bee-haunted dells The blosmy blood of martyrs smells! Who did upon the scaffold's bed, The ceremonial steel between you, wed With God's grave proxy, high and reverend Death; Or felt about your neck, sweetly, (While the dull horde Saw but the unrelenting cord) The Bridegroom's arm, and that long kiss That kissed away your breath, and claimed you His. You did, with thrift of holy gain, Unvenoming the sting of pain, Hive its sharp heather-honey. Ye Had sentience of the mystery To make Abaddon's hooked wings Buoy you up to starry things; Pain of heart, and pain of sense, Pain the scourge, ye taught to cleanse; Pain the loss became possessing; Pain the curse was pain the blessing. Chains, rack, hunger, solitude -- these, Which did your soul from earth release, Left it free to rush upon And merge in its compulsive Sun. Desolated, bruised, forsaken, Nothing taking, all things taken, Lacerated and tormented, The stifled soul, in naught contented, On all hands straitened, cribbed, denied, Can but fetch breath o' the Godward side. Oh to me, give but to me That flower of felicity, Which on your topmost spirit ware The difficult and snowy air Of high refusal! and the heat Of central love which fed with sweet And holy fire i' the frozen sod Roots that had ta'en hold on God. Unwithering youth in you renewed Those rosy waters of your blood, -- The true Fons Juventutis; ye Pass with conquest that Red Sea, And stretch out your victorious hand Over the Fair and Holy Land. O, by the Church's pondering art Late set and named upon the chart Of her divine astronomy, Though your influence from on high Long ye shed unnoted! Bright New cluster in our Northern night, Cleanse from its pain and undelight An impotent and tarnished hymn, Whose marish exhalations dim Splendours they would transfuse! And thou Kindle the words which blot thee now, Over whose sacred corse unhearsed Europe veiled her face, and cursed The regal mantle grained in gore Of genius, freedom, faith, and More! Ah, happy Fool of Christ, unawed By familiar sanctities, You served your Lord at holy ease! Dear Jester in the Courts of God -- In whose spirit, enchanting yet, Wisdom and love, together met, Laughed on each other for content! That an inward merriment, An inviolate soul of pleasure, To your motions taught a measure All your days; which tyrant king, Nor bonds, nor any bitter thing Could embitter or perturb; No daughter's tears, nor, more acerb, A daughter's frail declension from Thy serene example, come Between thee and thy much content. Nor could the last sharp argument Turn thee from thy sweetest folly; To the keen accolade and holy Thou didst bend low a sprightly knee, And jest Death out of gravity As a too sad-visaged friend; So, jocund, passing to the end Of thy laughing martyrdom; And now from travel art gone home Where, since gain of thee was given, Surely there is more mirth in heaven! Thus, in Fisher and in thee, Arose the purple dynasty, The anointed Kings of Tyburn tree; High in act and word each one: He that spake -- and to the sun Pointed -- 'I shall shortly be Above yon fellow.' He too, he No less high of speech and brave, Whose word was: 'Though I shall have Sharp dinner, yet I trust in Christ To have a most sweet supper.' Priced Much by men that utterance was Of the doomed Leonidas, -- Not more exalt than these, which note Men who thought as Shakespeare wrote. But more lofty eloquence Than is writ by poets' pens Lives in your great deaths: O these Have more fire than poesies! And more ardent than all ode, The pomps and raptures of your blood! By that blood ye hold in fee This earth of England; Kings are ye: And ye have armies -- Want, and Cold, And heavy Judgements manifold Hung in the unhappy air, and Sins That the sick gorge to heave begins, Agonies, and Martyrdoms, Love, Hope, Desire, and all that comes From the unwatered soul of man Gaping on God. These are the van Of conquest, these obey you; these, And all the strengths of weaknesses, That brazen walls disbed. Your hand, Princes, put forth to the command, And levy upon the guilty land Your saving wars; on it go down, Black beneath God's and heaven's frown; Your prevalent approaches make With unsustainable Grace, and take Captive the land that captived you; To Christ enslave ye and subdue Her so bragged freedom: for the crime She wrought on you in antique time, Parcel the land among you: reign, Viceroys to your sweet Suzerain! Till she shall know This lesson in her overthrow: Hardest servitude has he That's jailed in arrogant liberty; And freedom, spacious and unflawed, Who is walled about with God. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE READER OF THE SENTENCES by NORMAN DUBIE TO THE MARTYRED by GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON HE GOADS HIMSELF by LOUIS UNTERMEYER THE BOOK OF MARTYRS by EMILY DICKINSON THE LITANY: 10. THE MARTYRS by JOHN DONNE SONNET: 18. ON THE LATE MASSACRE IN PIEDMONT by JOHN MILTON THE HYMNARY: 403. MARTYRS by ADAM OF SAINT VICTOR EPISTLES ON THE CHARACTER AND CONDITION OF WOMEN: 3 by LUCY AIKEN IN EMULATION OF MR. COWLEYS POEM CALL'D THE MOTTO by MARY ASTELL ARAB LOVE SONG by FRANCIS THOMPSON |
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