Poems (Proctor)/Helena's Beacons
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HELENA'S BEACONS.3(The Finding of the Cross, A. D. 326.)
Helena, Empress-mother,
Weary with years and woes,
Was fain to see the holy place
Of the Saviour's last repose.
"The rock? the tomb?" cried Constantine,
Nay, could His Cross be found,
What glory for my life, my reign,
To time's remotest bound!
For since the day its splendor blazed
By the sun in the blinding sky,
And the whole silent, awe-struck host
Knew more than Jove was nigh,
And the night the Lord himself came down
The mystic symbol showing,
And I saw His face as the seraphs see,
With love and pity glowing,—
I have stamped it on the Empire
As God on heaven's dome;
By this sign I have conquered
In camp and court and home,
And my own statue bears it up,
The bronze I reared in Rome!
It beams in jewels from my crown;
My standard takes its form,
And the noblest knights about it press
Nor fear the battle's storm;
In every banner's fold it waves,
On every shield it shines,
And the helmets lift it proud and high
Along their gleaming lines.
O saintly mother, hasten hence
With an imperial train!
And towers shall rise for watching eyes
On cliff and crag against the skies
By stream and mount and main,
That fire may flash the bliss to me
If you should find the wondrous Tree!"
Weary with years and woes,
Was fain to see the holy place
Of the Saviour's last repose.
"The rock? the tomb?" cried Constantine,
Nay, could His Cross be found,
What glory for my life, my reign,
To time's remotest bound!
For since the day its splendor blazed
By the sun in the blinding sky,
And the whole silent, awe-struck host
Knew more than Jove was nigh,
And the night the Lord himself came down
The mystic symbol showing,
And I saw His face as the seraphs see,
With love and pity glowing,—
I have stamped it on the Empire
As God on heaven's dome;
By this sign I have conquered
In camp and court and home,
And my own statue bears it up,
The bronze I reared in Rome!
It beams in jewels from my crown;
My standard takes its form,
And the noblest knights about it press
Nor fear the battle's storm;
In every banner's fold it waves,
On every shield it shines,
And the helmets lift it proud and high
Along their gleaming lines.
O saintly mother, hasten hence
With an imperial train!
And towers shall rise for watching eyes
On cliff and crag against the skies
By stream and mount and main,
That fire may flash the bliss to me
If you should find the wondrous Tree!"
So, when the favoring west-wind blew
And the stars of summer rose,
Went Helena, in vesture gray,—
With a princely band to guard her way
To the place of the Lord's repose;
Nor pride, nor pomp, nor purple state,
Meek she knocked at the sacred gate
And prayed the bars unclose.
And entering in with reverent feet
And murmured vow and prayer,
She called the faithful ones to tell
The secret guarded long and well
Of the Holy Places there.
Alas, alas! on Calvary
Was a shameless pagan shrine;
And there where dropped the bitter myrrh
Flowed fast the festal wine,
And wanton songs disturbed the air
That throbbed with sighs divine!
"God pardon us!" cried Helena;
And at her word they go
With eager hands and raptured hearts
To lay the temple low.
Column and altar, porch and roof,
And the statues false and fair,
To the hateful waste of Hinnom's vale
With swift accord they bear;
And the earth the lustrous marbles hid,
The heaped and heavy mould,
Abroad they fling; till, far beneath,
The Tomb their eyes behold—
The Sepulchre, and the rifted Rock,
And the Stone the angel rolled!
"God is our help!" quoth Helena,
"The Cross we yet shall see;"—
And searching all the eastern ledge,
Deep in a pit below its edge,
Just as the young moon's tender beam
Touched Zion's height and Kedron's stream,
They found the blessed Tree!
And O the shouts that rent the air,
And O the joy divine,
As they flew to light the beacon-fire
And flash the bliss of his soul's desire
To saintly Constantine! . . .
A flame, a flame on David's tower!
A flame on Ramah's height!
Samaria's hill has caught the gleam;
Lone Tabor's oaks are bright!
On Hermon, crown of Lebanon,
Blaze the sweet cedar boughs;
Berytus reddens grove and bay
The northern strand to rouse;
And the cliffs of queenly Antioch
Send rosier light to heaven
Than lit her stately colonnades
Or blushed in Daphne's myrtle shades
When feast and song and dance of maids
To her loved god were given!
And now it leaps the Issus gulf;
Cilicia's plain it thrills;
Cold Cydnus glows, and Tarsus throws
The splendor to the hills;
And the peaks of cloudy Taurus lean
Through purple-tinted air,
And catch the fire on wall and spire
And snow-fields dazzling fair,
Till far northwest, by gorge and steep,
The joyful beacons flare.
For the winds are out, and the cressets stream
To the stars and the young moon's tender beam
From heights where the eagle springs,—
Past many a city gray and old,
Past fount and fane and the sculptured hold
Where sleep the Phrygian kings!
They beam above Maander's tide;
Wake Sardis with its shrines;
And lo! again leap shore and main
Where Lesbos fronts the Mysian plain
And lights her answering pines!
From isle to isle, from wave to lea,
The torches never falter,
Till high they burn, like the flush of dawn,
On Ilion's mountain altar!
So clear and high on Ida's crest
And the crags that climb where the north winds rest,
That great Olympus sees—
Asian Olympus crowned with snows,
A peak of heaven at daylight's close
Dark-set in towering trees.
And higher still his beacon soars,
A hundred flames in one,
And glows adown the dusky vales
And gilds the far Propontis-sails,
Red as the rising sun.
It flashes to the palace walls!
The waiting Emperor greets!
And the shouts that shook Jerusalem
Ring through the royal streets!
And torches blaze and banners gleam,
While loud the heralds call:
"To the church of the Holy Apostles,
That the Lord be praised for all!"
And wild the people throng the way
To the stately courts more bright than day,
At their head exultant Constantine
With a waxen taper tall!
And the roof resounds with chant and psalm
And many a holy hymn—
"Glory to God!" the angels sung,
And the song of the cherubim—
Till the sorrowing Christ from the altar-screen
With a smile of love looks down,
And the shadowy cross beside him borne
Glows like a victor's crown;
Till sweet, in the pauses of the praise,
Float echoes from the sky,
And they know the joy of the faithful here
Is the joy of the blest on high!
And the stars of summer rose,
Went Helena, in vesture gray,—
With a princely band to guard her way
To the place of the Lord's repose;
Nor pride, nor pomp, nor purple state,
Meek she knocked at the sacred gate
And prayed the bars unclose.
And entering in with reverent feet
And murmured vow and prayer,
She called the faithful ones to tell
The secret guarded long and well
Of the Holy Places there.
Alas, alas! on Calvary
Was a shameless pagan shrine;
And there where dropped the bitter myrrh
Flowed fast the festal wine,
And wanton songs disturbed the air
That throbbed with sighs divine!
"God pardon us!" cried Helena;
And at her word they go
With eager hands and raptured hearts
To lay the temple low.
Column and altar, porch and roof,
And the statues false and fair,
To the hateful waste of Hinnom's vale
With swift accord they bear;
And the earth the lustrous marbles hid,
The heaped and heavy mould,
Abroad they fling; till, far beneath,
The Tomb their eyes behold—
The Sepulchre, and the rifted Rock,
And the Stone the angel rolled!
"God is our help!" quoth Helena,
"The Cross we yet shall see;"—
And searching all the eastern ledge,
Deep in a pit below its edge,
Just as the young moon's tender beam
Touched Zion's height and Kedron's stream,
They found the blessed Tree!
And O the shouts that rent the air,
And O the joy divine,
As they flew to light the beacon-fire
And flash the bliss of his soul's desire
To saintly Constantine! . . .
A flame, a flame on David's tower!
A flame on Ramah's height!
Samaria's hill has caught the gleam;
Lone Tabor's oaks are bright!
On Hermon, crown of Lebanon,
Blaze the sweet cedar boughs;
Berytus reddens grove and bay
The northern strand to rouse;
And the cliffs of queenly Antioch
Send rosier light to heaven
Than lit her stately colonnades
Or blushed in Daphne's myrtle shades
When feast and song and dance of maids
To her loved god were given!
And now it leaps the Issus gulf;
Cilicia's plain it thrills;
Cold Cydnus glows, and Tarsus throws
The splendor to the hills;
And the peaks of cloudy Taurus lean
Through purple-tinted air,
And catch the fire on wall and spire
And snow-fields dazzling fair,
Till far northwest, by gorge and steep,
The joyful beacons flare.
For the winds are out, and the cressets stream
To the stars and the young moon's tender beam
From heights where the eagle springs,—
Past many a city gray and old,
Past fount and fane and the sculptured hold
Where sleep the Phrygian kings!
They beam above Maander's tide;
Wake Sardis with its shrines;
And lo! again leap shore and main
Where Lesbos fronts the Mysian plain
And lights her answering pines!
From isle to isle, from wave to lea,
The torches never falter,
Till high they burn, like the flush of dawn,
On Ilion's mountain altar!
So clear and high on Ida's crest
And the crags that climb where the north winds rest,
That great Olympus sees—
Asian Olympus crowned with snows,
A peak of heaven at daylight's close
Dark-set in towering trees.
And higher still his beacon soars,
A hundred flames in one,
And glows adown the dusky vales
And gilds the far Propontis-sails,
Red as the rising sun.
It flashes to the palace walls!
The waiting Emperor greets!
And the shouts that shook Jerusalem
Ring through the royal streets!
And torches blaze and banners gleam,
While loud the heralds call:
"To the church of the Holy Apostles,
That the Lord be praised for all!"
And wild the people throng the way
To the stately courts more bright than day,
At their head exultant Constantine
With a waxen taper tall!
And the roof resounds with chant and psalm
And many a holy hymn—
"Glory to God!" the angels sung,
And the song of the cherubim—
Till the sorrowing Christ from the altar-screen
With a smile of love looks down,
And the shadowy cross beside him borne
Glows like a victor's crown;
Till sweet, in the pauses of the praise,
Float echoes from the sky,
And they know the joy of the faithful here
Is the joy of the blest on high!