The Vision Of Echard

The Benedictine Echard     Sat by the wayside well,     Where Marsberg sees the bridal     Of the Sarre and the Moselle.     Fair with its sloping vineyards     And tawny chestnut bloom,     The happy vale Ausonius sunk     For holy Treves made room.     On the shrine Helena builded     To keep the Christ coat well,     On minster tower and kloster cross,     The westering sunshine fell.     There, where the rock-hewn circles     Oerlooked the Romans game,     The veil of sleep fell on him,     And his thought a dream became.     He felt the heart of silence     Throb with a soundless word,     And by the inward ear alone     A spirits voice he heard.     And the spoken word seemed written     On air and wave and sod,     And the bending walls of sapphire     Blazed with the thought of God.     What lack I, O my children?     All things are in my band;     The vast earth and the awful stars     I hold as grains of sand.     Need I your alms? The silver     And gold are mine alone;     The gifts ye bring before me     Were evermore my own.     Heed I the noise of viols,     Your pomp of masque and show?     Have I not dawns and sunsets     Have I not winds that blow?     Do I smell your gums of incense?     Is my ear with chantings fed?     Taste I your wine of worship,     Or eat your holy bread?     Of rank and name and honors     Am I vain as ye are vain?     What can Eternal Fulness     From your lip-service gain?     Ye make me not your debtor     Who serve yourselves alone;     Ye boast to me of homage     Whose gain is all your own.     For you I gave the prophets,     For you the Psalmists lay     For you the laws stone tables,     And holy book and day.     Ye change to weary burdens     The helps that should uplift;     Ye lose in form the spirit,     The Giver in the gift.     Who called ye to self-torment,     To fast and penance vain?     Dream ye Eternal Goodness     Has joy in mortal pain?     For the death in life of Nitria,     For your Chartreuse ever dumb,     What better is the neighbor,     Or happier the home?     Who counts his brothers welfare     As sacred as his own,     And loves, forgives, and pities,     He serveth me alone.     I note each gracious purpose,     Each kindly word and deed;     Are ye not all my children?     Shall not the Father heed?     No prayer for light and guidance     Is lost upon mine ear     The childs cry in the darkness     Shall not the Father hear?     I loathe your wrangling councils,     I tread upon your creeds;     Who made ye mine avengers,     Or told ye of my needs;     I bless men and ye curse them,     I love them and ye hate;     Ye bite and tear each other,     I suffer long and wait.     Ye bow to ghastly symbols,     To cross and scourge and thorn;     Ye seek his Syrian manger     Who in the heart is born.     For the dead Christ, not the living,     Ye watch His empty grave,     Whose life alone within you     Has power to bless and save.     O blind ones, outward groping,     The idle quest forego;     Who listens to His inward voice     Alone of Him shall know.     His love all love exceeding     The heart must needs recall,     Its self-surrendering freedom,     Its loss that gaineth all.     Climb not the holy mountains,     Their eagles know not me;     Seek not the Blessed Islands,     I dwell not in the sea.     Gone is the mount of Meru,     The triple gods are gone,     And, deaf to all the lamas prayers,     The Buddha slumbers on.     No more from rocky Horeb     The smitten waters gush;     Fallen is Bethels ladder,     Quenched is the burning bush.     The jewels of the Urim     And Thurnmim all are dim;     The fire has left the altar,     The sign the teraphim.     No more in ark or hill grove     The Holiest abides;     Not in the scrolls dead letter     The eternal secret hides.     The eye shall fail that searches     For me the hollow sky;     The far is even as the near,     The low is as the high.     What if the earth is hiding     Her old faiths, long outworn?     What is it to the changeless truth     That yours shall fail in turn?     What if the oerturned altar     Lays bare the ancient lie?     What if the dreams and legends     Of the worlds childhood die?     Have ye not still my witness     Within yourselves alway,     My hand that on the keys of life     For bliss or bale I lay?     Still, in perpetual judgment,     I hold assize within,     With sure reward of holiness,     And dread rebuke of sin.     A light, a guide, a warning,     A presence ever near,     Through the deep silence of the flesh     I reach the inward ear.     My Gerizim and Ebal     Are in each human soul,     The still, small voice of blessing,     And Sinais thunder-roll.     The stern behest of duty,     The doom-book open thrown,     The heaven ye seek, the hell ye fear,     Are with yourselves alone.     -    -    -    -    -     A gold and purple sunset     Flowed down the broad Moselle;     On hills of vine and meadow lands     The peace of twilight fell.     A slow, cool wind of evening     Blew over leaf and bloom;     And, faint and far, the Angelus     Rang from Saint Matthews tomb.     Then up rose Master Echard,     And marvelled: Can it be     That here, in dream and vision,     The Lord hath talked with me?     He went his way; behind him     The shrines of saintly dead,     The holy coat and nail of cross,     He left unvisited.     He sought the vale of Eltzbach     His burdened soul to free,     Where the foot-hills of the Eifel     Are glassed in Laachersee.     And, in his Orders kloster,     He sat, in night-long parle,     With Tauler of the Friends of God,     And Nicolas of Basle.     And lo! the twain made answer     Yea, brother, even thus     The Voice above all voices     Hath spoken unto us.     The world will have its idols,     And flesh and sense their sign     But the blinded eyes shall open,     And the gross ear be fine.     What if the vision tarry?     Gods time is always best;     The true Light shall be witnessed,     The Christ within confessed.     In mercy or in judgment     He shall turn and overturn,     Till the heart shall be His temple     Where all of Him shall learn.