Our Catholic Heritage in English Literature of Pre-Conquest Days Part 4

CHAPTER VIII

The Poet's love of the Cross: how he saw it in a double aspect. The dream of the Holy Rood. The Ruthwell Cross.

Now let us read what our poet says about the Festival of the Finding of the Cross.[F]

[Footnote F: The phrase "Invention of the Cross" means the finding of it; the word invention in English does not now translate the Latin "inventio."]

To each of these men Be h.e.l.l's door shut, heaven's unclosed, Eternally opened the kingdom of angels, Joy without end, and their portion appointed Along with Mary, who takes into mind The one most dear of festal days Of that rood under heaven.

The poet wrote about the Holy Cross, not just because it was a picturesque subject, capable of picturesque treatment, one that would make a fine poem; but because, as he tells us, Holy Wisdom had revealed to him "wider knowledge through her glorious power over the thoughts of the mind." He tells us how the fetters of sin had bound him in their bitter bondage, and how, stained and sorrowful, light came to him, and the Mighty King bestowed on him His bountiful grace, and gave him light and liberty, opening his heart and setting free for him the gift of song, that gift which, he says, he has used in the world joyfully and with a good will.

Not once alone, he says, did he meditate upon the Tree of Glory, but over and over again. He thought upon it until all his soul was saturated with it, and hallowed and consecrated for ever.

He may have venerated the Cross in public on the anniversary of the Lord's Crucifixion. Certainly, many a time he had venerated it in private. Perhaps, like Alcuin, his habit was to bow toward the Cross whenever he saw it, and whisper the prayer "Tuam crucem adoramus, Domine, et Tuam gloriosam recolimus pa.s.sionem."[G]

[Footnote G: The Veneration of the Cross, or Creeping to the Cross, was known in Anglo-Saxon times, but whether as early as Cynewulf's day, seems uncertain.]

He was old, he tells us, when he "wove word-craft, made his poem, framing it wondrously, pondering and sifting his thoughts in the night-time."

The Cross had brought him light and healing, and at the foot of the Cross he laid his gift of song.

It is a moot point whether the "Elene" or the "Dream of the Holy Rood"

came first. The poetry of the "Dream" is as fine as the conception is grand, and, at whatever time it was written, it must be cla.s.sed as being at the high-water mark of the poet's work.

Wonderful things have been given to us "under the similitude of a dream"; things beautiful and terrible, things wise and strange. There have been Dreamers of Dreams into whose souls have sunk the sight and the hearing of deep things, high things and precious, of comfort and of warning, of sweetest help and of gravest and most earnest exhortation.

The speech of these Dreamers has sounded in our ears, and has left the vibrations to go on and on for our lifetime: this we call remembering.

In English literature we have some great tellings "under the similitude of a dream." We have the nineteenth-century "Dream of Gerontius," our great Cardinal's drama of the soul in its parting and after. We have the seventeenth-century dream from the darkness of Bedford Gaol, whence John Bunyan saw the pilgrims on their way, through dangers and trials, on to the river that must be crossed before they could come to the Celestial City. We have the fourteenth-century dream of the gaunt, sad-souled William Langley, the dreamer of the Malvern Hills. And, earlier by many a century, we have the dream of the dreamer at the depth of midnight, the midnight whose heart was bright with the splendour of the glorious vesting and gem-adorning of the Cross of Jesus Christ, and dark with the moisture of the Sacred Blood that oozed therefrom.

We have first the simple, quiet prelude.

Lo, I will tell of the best of dreams, I dreamed at the deep midnight, When all men lay at rest.

Then comes the description of the Cross in its glory. It is uplift and girt with light, flooded with gold and set with precious gems. This is followed by the seeing through the glory, the seeing of the anguish. The hues are shifted from dark to bright; the light of gold lights it, and yet anon it is wet, defiled with Blood. Here are the two sides of the Pa.s.sion: the veiled glory, and the illumined anguish: the supreme might, and the absolute weakness: the darkness of the grave, and the light of the Resurrection.

While time shall be, the Cross is to us all the Book where we may read all we choose to read, all G.o.d sends us grace to read. Cynewulf chose to read, and with Cynewulf was the grace of G.o.d.

The poet lies beholding the wondrous sight: the sight that all G.o.d's fair angels beheld, and all the universe, and men of mortal breath.

The Rood speaks to Cynewulf. To us, with every look upon the Cross, should come, would come, were we alive all through with keen, sweet, spiritual life, the voice telling of the Pa.s.sion, of the victory, of the glory. Cynewulf heard the Rood tell how long ago it was hewn down, ordained to lift up the evil-doers, to bear the law-breakers.

They bore me on their shoulders then, on hill they set me high, And made me fast, a many foes. Then mankind's Lord drew nigh, With Mighty courage hasting Him to mount on me and die.

Though all earth shook, I durst not bend or break without His word; Firm I must stand, nor fall and crush the gazing foes abhorred.

Then the young Hero dighted Him: Almighty G.o.d was He: Steadfast and very stout of heart mounted the shameful tree, Brave in the sight of many there, when man He fain would free.

I trembled when He clasped me round, yet groundward durst not bend, I must not fall to lap of earth, but stand fast to the end.

We notice the obedience of the Cross. In its absolute sympathy with its Creator's agony, its indignation at the horrible crime of His enemies, it would fain have fallen and crushed the gazing foes abhorred. But this was not to be, any more than fire was to come down from heaven at the Boanerges' call when they were fain to avenge the insult put upon their Master, whom the people of the Samaritan city would not receive (Luke ix, 52, etc.).

The Great King is lifted up, and the Rood dare not even stoop: the dark nails pierce the Cross, and it stands, companion of its Maker's agony and shame.

Oh, many were the grievous things upon that hill I bare: I saw the G.o.d of Hosts Himself stretched in His anguish there: The darkness veiled its Maker's corpse with clouds; the shades did weigh The bright light down with evil weight, wan under sky that day.

Then did the whole creation weep and the King's death bemoan; Christ was upon the Rood.

How great is the poet's insight! How deeply must he have entered into the fellowship of that supreme suffering! He knows that throughout creation that cup is being drunk from, as even yet it is in the groaning and travailing of every creature, waiting for the adoption of the sons of G.o.d, to wit, the redemption of the body (Romans viii, 22, 3).

The Descent from the Cross and the Burial come next. Tenderly, after the telling of the anguish, comes the telling of the rest.

They lifted down Almighty G.o.d, after that torment dread, They left me standing, drenched with blood, with arrows sore wounded; They laid Him down, limb-weary One, and stood about His head; Gazed on Heaven's Lord, who, weary now, after that mighty fight, Rested Him there a little while. Then in the murderer's sight, The brave ones made a tomb for Him, of white stone carved it fair, And laid the Lord of Victory within the sepulchre.

The bitter weeping goes up. The fair Body waxes chill. Then, in a very few words the story told in "Elene" is condensed.

Then did they fell us to the ground....

In the deep pit they sank us down; yet the Lord's servants, they, His friends did hear of me and seek, and find me on a day, And decked with silver and with gold, in beautiful array.

The glory comes after the shame, and we hear of the healing power of the Cross, and the honour given to it. Even as Almighty G.o.d honoured His Mother above all womankind, the poet says, so this tree is set high above all trees of the forest.

The command is laid upon the poet to make known his vision. There is a compulsion whereby a poet as it were has to send abroad the fair thought and knowledge wherewith he has been graced. To this poet is the task a.s.signed to tell of the Crucifixion, of the Resurrection, and the Ascension, and of the Second Coming to judge the world.

Where is the man, the Lord will ask before that mult.i.tude, Would for His name taste bitter death, as He upon the Rood?

By the love of His name, by the love that means martyrdom in will if not in deed also, shall men be judged.

The comfort of his life has come to the poet. The greatest of all great things is his.

The Rood my trust shall be.

I cannot close this chapter without saying something about the great stone rood known as the Ruthwell Cross, because it bears upon it part of this poem engraved in runes. The cross is at Ruthwell, in Dumfriesshire.

It is very old, probably dating from the tenth or eleventh century.

There are carvings upon it of various events in the life of Our Lord, on the north and south sides. On the top-stone, north, is a representation of St John with the eagle, and on the top-stone, south, is St John with the Agnus Dei. On the east and west is carved a vine in fruit, with animals feeding, and at each side of the vine-tracery the runes are carved, which give the words taken from the poem, in the Northumbrian dialect.

[Ill.u.s.tration: RUTHWELL CROSS [_Page 80_]

This cross used to stand in the church at Ruthwell; it escaped injury at the time of general destruction in the sixteenth century, but the General a.s.sembly of the Church of Scotland ordered the "many idolatrous monuments erected and made for religious worship" to be "taken down, demolished, and destroyed." It was not till two years later, however, that the cross was taken down when an Act was pa.s.sed "anent the Idolatrous Monuments in Ruthwell." It was shattered, and some of the carved emblems were nearly obliterated, and in this state the rood was left where it had fallen, in the altarless church, and was used, it appears, as a bench to sit upon. Later on it was removed from the church and left out in the churchyard. But after many years, a good old minister (G.o.d rest his soul!) collected all the pieces he could find, and put them together, adding two new crossbeams (the original ones were lost), and having gaps filled in with little pieces of stone.

By-and-by there was a waking up to the importance of preserving ancient monuments (idolatrous! or not), and so the dear, beautiful old rood that had been so near to destruction, and been indeed so greatly injured, was brought into the church again, and set up near its old place. But, alas!

for its old surroundings!

It is a sad story, is it not?

Shall we not pray that, one day, our old crosses may be, to all, more than "ancient monuments"?

"This stone which I have set up ... shall be called the house of G.o.d"

(Gen. xxviii, 22).