We noted how, with lamp in hand, the night
Most like an anxious widow from us fled,
Risen betimes to turn her household bread
Within the oven. Ocean seemed as napping,
The languid waves the boatside barely tapping.
“Till a dull, bellowing noise assailed the ear.
Unknown before, it chilled our blood to hear.
And next we marked a strange, upheaving motion
Upon the utmost limit of the ocean,
And, stricken speechless by the gathering roar,
Helplessly gazed the troubled waters o’er.
“Then saw we all the deep with horror lower,
As the swift squall descended in its power;
The waves drop dead still—’twas a portent fell;
The bark hang motionless, as by a spell
Entranced; and far away, against the skies,
A mountain of black water seemed to rise,
“And all the heaped-up sea, with vapour crested,
To burst upon our vessel, thus arrested.
God, ’twas an awful hour! One monster wave
Seemed thrusting us into a watery grave,
Fainting to death. Or ever it closed o’er us,
The next upon a dizzy height upbore us.
“The lightning cleft the gloom with blades of fire;
Peal followed peal of thunder, deafening, dire.
It was as if all hell had been unchained
Upon our tiny craft, which groaned and strained
So hunted, and seemed rushing on her wreck,
And smote our foreheads with her heaving deck.
“Now rode we on the shoulders of the main;
Now sank into its inky gulfs again,
Where the seal dwelleth and the mighty shark,
And the sea-peacock; and we seemed to hark
To the sad cry, lifted unceasingly,
By the unresting victims of the sea.
“A great wave brake above us, and hope died.
Then Lazarus prayed: ‘O Lord, be thou our guide,
Who me ere now out of the tomb didst bring!
Succour the bark, for she is foundering!’
Like a wood-pigeon’s wing, this outcry clove
The tempest, and went up to realms above.
“And Jesus, looking from the palace fair
Where he sat throned, beheld his friend’s despair,
And the fierce deep yawning to swallow him.
Straightway the Master’s gentle eyes grew dim,
His heart yearned over us with pity warm,
And one long sun-ray leaped athwart the storm.
“Now God be praised! For, though we yet were tost
Right roughly up and down, and sank almost
With bitter sea-sickness, our fears were stayed:
The haughty waves began to be allayed;
Clouds brake afar, then vanished altogether,
And a green shore gleamed through the bright’ning weather.
“Long was it yet ere the shocks quite subsided
Of the tempestuous waves; and our boat glided
Our crazy boat, nearer that welcome shore
All tranquilly, a dying breeze before.
Smooth as a grebe our keel the breakers clomb,
Furrowing into great flakes the snowy foam.
“Until—once more all glory be to God!—
Upon a rockless beach we safely trod,
And knelt on the wet sand, and cried, ‘O Thou
Who saved from sword and tempest, hear our vow!
Each one of us is an evangelist
Thy law to preach. We swear it, O Lord Christ!’
“At that great name, that cry till then unheard,
Noble Provence, wert thou not deeply stirred?
Thy woods and fields, in all their fair extent,
Thrilled with the rapture of a sweet content;
As a dog scents his master’s coming feet,
And flies with bounding welcome him to meet.
“Thou, Heavenly Father, also didst provide
A feast of shell-fish, stranded by the tide,
To stay our hunger; and, to quench our thirst,
Madest among the salicornes outburst
The same clear, healing spring, which flows alway
Inside the church where sleeps our dust to-day.
“Glowing with zeal, we track the shingly Rhône
From moor to moor. In faith we travel on
Until right gladly we discern the traces
Of human husbandry in those wild places,
And soon, afar, the tall Arlesian towers,
Crowned by the standard of the emperors.
“To-day, fair Arles, a harvester thou seemest,
Who sleepest on thy threshing-floor, and dreamest
Of glories past; but a queen wert thou then,
And mother of so brave sea-faring men,
The noisy winds themselves aye lost their way
In the great harbour where thy shipping lay.
“Rome had arrayed thee in white marble newly,
As an imperial princess decked thee duly.
Thy brow a crown of stately columns wore;
The gates of thy arena were sixscore;
Thou hadst thy theatre and hippodrome,
So to make mirth in thy resplendent home!
“We pass within the gates. A crowd advances
Toward the theatre, with songs and dances.
We join them; and the eager thousands press
Through the cool colonnades of palaces;
As thou, mayhap, a mighty flood hast seen
Rush through a maple-shaded, deep ravine.
“Arrived—oh, shame and sorrow!—we saw there
On the proscenium, with bosoms bare,
Young maidens waltzing to a languid lyre,
And high refrain sung by a shrill-voiced choir.
They in the mazes of their dance surrounded
A marble shape, whose name like ‘Venus’ sounded.
“The frenzied populace its clamour adds
Unto the cries of lasses and of lads,
Who shout their idol’s praises o’er and o’er—
‘Hail to the Venus, of joy the bestower!
Hail to thee, Venus, goddess of all grace!
Mother of earth and of the Arlesian race!’
“The statue, myrtle-crowned, with nostrils wide
And head high-borne, appears to swell with pride
Amid the incense-clouds; when suddenly,
In horror of so great audacity,
Leaps Trophimus amid the maddened wretches,
And o’er the bewildered throng his arms outstretches.
“ ‘People of Arles!’ in mighty tones he cried,
‘Hear me, even for the sake of Christ who died
No more.’ But, smitten by his shaggy frown,
The idol groaned and staggered, and fell down,
Headlong, from off its marble pedestal.
Fell, too, the awe-struck dancers, one and all.
“Therewith went up, as ’twere, a single howl
Choked were the gateways with a rabble foul,
Who filled all Arles with terror and dismay,
So that patricians tore their crowns away;
And all the enragèd youth closed round us there,
While flashed a thousand poniards in the air.
“Yet they recoiled;—whether it were the sight
Of us, in our salt-crusted robes bedight;
Or Trophimus’ calm brow which beamed on them,
As wreathed with a celestial diadem;
Or tear-veiled Magdalene, who stood between us—
How tenfold fairer than their sculptured Venus!
“And the old saint resumed: ‘Arlesian men,
Hear ye my message first; and slay me then,
If need be. Ye have seen your goddess famed
Shiver like glass when my God was but named:
Deem not, Arlesians, that the thing was wrought
By my poor, feeble voice; for we are naught.
“ ‘The God who thus your idol smote, but now
No lofty temple hath on the hill’s brow;
But Day and Night see him alone up there!
And stern to sin, but generous to prayer,
Is he; and he hath made, with his own hand,
The
