Page:Masque of the Edwards of England (1902).djvu/45

On which all chance and changes turn;
A tower founded in the mind
Against the unpenetrating shock
Of moving elements; a plant
Whose iron-fibred roots are twined
To the world's tie-ribs fast; a rock
Where hope rides anchored, adamant.

Then shall pass the Thirteenth Century, who, beckoning, shall lead in her meinie, to wit:

Abbot Samson of Bury, the stern strong man as we have known him in the pages of Thomas Carlyle.

St. Hugh of Lincoln, bearing in his hand a model of the minster, and

Two friars minor; brothers that is, of the order of St. Francis from the Minories by London.

After they have passed, or in continuing, the Chant of the Centuries is again heard as follows:

THE CHANT.

To us the Past is sacred yet,
Like some deep gem the old rocks fill
With a weird fire that never pales;
Like one whose constant soul is set
On starlight infinitely still;
A teller of symbolic tales
Whose wise experience never fails;
A prophet of some hidden will;
A guide through the untrodden ways
Of wide new lands, his intent gaze
Still peering on a pathless track,
And as he presses forward still,
Still forward hoping, harking back.

Then shall pass the Fourteenth Century, beckoning her meinie, to wit:

Edward the Black Prince, with the plumes of the blind King of Bohemia,

Wycliffe, with the Bible, and by his side

A group of lollards.

John Ball the dreamer.

Chaucer, with book and pen, and

Henry Eveleigh, with a group of his master builders, he bearing in his hands a model of Westminster Hall.

After which again, but now more triumphantly, is heard the Chant of the Centuries.

THE CHANT.

With us the Past in triumph comes
To call of horn and roll of drums,
A blast across the house-tops pealed;
A word expressed from lip to lip;
A sign half felt and half revealed;
Some far-discerning statesmanship
Writ in a book that's signed and sealed
And worn with many studious thumbs.
With us the Past to harp and lute
In a deep tuneful triumph comes
To the far-pealing of the flute,
To trumpets and the tread that hums
Accompaniment of hundred drums.
To us, forbidden to forget,
The Past to us is sacred yet.

Then shall enter the Fifteenth Century beckoning in with great state her meinie, to wit:

Henry V, the hero of Agincourt.

William of Wykeham, splendidly robed with a model of New College, Oxford, in his hands.

A quire of minstrels, who shall as they pass join in the music; and

Caxton the master printer.

Whereupon and during the chanting of the next part of the chant there shall follow in close triumph the Sixteenth Century beckoning her meinie, to wit:

Cardinal Wolsey: holding in his hand the lemon of spurious aristocracy.

King Henry VIII. with his two wives

Queen Catherine of Arragon and Queen Anne Boleyn, as expressing the cleavage of the Churches; and

Sir Thomas More with his sweet, wise daughter Margaret Roper,

And now shall the music rise to a great pitch of triumph as there enters

Queen Elizabeth arrayed as if from a picture of Zucchero, and with her

Shakespeare.
Sir Philip Sidney.
Sir Walter Raleigh, and
Ben Jonson.

THE CHANT.

To us the Past, supremely dear,
Stands for a truth revealed and clear.
What though the pageant disappear,
What though forgot the song we sing:
In all this perishable sphere
There is but one eternal thing,
The love-born beauty that we bring,
The radiant eloquence of eyes
Or voices full in thanksgiving.
'Tis this creates, 'tis this fulfills,
'Tis this survives, inspires, instills
The essential soul that never dies.
The greatest gift of God above,
Beauty, alone begot of Love,
Beauty, like some effulgence hurled
From beaten on an observant world.
'Tis ours the glorious gift to bring,
'Tis ours to guard and grace it here.
In all this perishable sphere
There is but one eternal thing.

Here there shall be some sort of lull or pause, as marking the moment when the great Middle Age has passed from the stage of history, and there shall step into his place again the Prolocutor. While he speaks as here follows there shall slowly pass the two next centuries, to wit, the Seventeenth Century with her meinie, & the Eighteenth Century with hers. In the meinie of the former shall appear

John Bunyan, The Puritan Fathers, John Knox and Oliver Cromwell.

in that of the latter

Walpole, Pope, Addison, George Washington, and Lord Nelson.