style="font-size:15px;"> And shall I fell afraid?
An allusion to a verse in the New Testament—"if two of you shall agree on earth as touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for them." She is a little afraid that her lover may not get to heaven after all, but she suddenly remembers this verse, and it gives her encouragement. Perfect strength means strength of prayer, the power of the prayer to obtain what is prayed for. As she and he have both been praying for reunion in heaven, and as Christ has promised that whatever two people pray for, shall be granted, she feels consoled.
"When round his head the aureole clings,
And he is clothed in white,
I'll take his hand and go with him
To the deep wells of light;
As unto a stream we will step down,
And bathe there in God's sight.
The aureole is the circle or disk of golden light round the head of a saint. Sometimes it is called a "glory." In some respects the aureole of Christian art much resembles that of Buddhist art, with this exception, that some of the Oriental forms are much richer and more elaborate. Three forms in Christian art are especially common—the plain circle; the disk, like a moon or sun, usually made in art by a solid plate of gilded material behind the head; the full "glory," enshrining the whole figure. There is only one curious fact to which I need further refer here; it is that the Holy Ghost in Christian art has a glory of a special kind—the triangle. White. This is a reference to the description of heaven in the paradise of St. John's vision, where all the saints are represented in white garments. Deep wells of light. Another reference to St. John's vision, Rev. XXII, 1—"And he showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God." In the heaven of the Middle Ages, as in the Buddhist paradise, we find also lakes and fountains of light, or of liquid jewels.
"We two will stand beside that shrine,
Occult, withheld, untrod,
Whose lamps are stirred continually
With prayer sent up to God;
And see our old prayers, granted, melt
Each like a little cloud.
Shrine. The Holy of Holies, or innermost sanctuary of heaven, imagined by mediæval faith as a sort of reserved chapel. But the origin of the fancy will be explained in the next note. Lamps. See again St. John's vision, Rev. IV, 5—"And there were seven lamps of fire burning before the throne, which are the seven Spirits of God." These mystical flames, representing special virtues and powers, would be agitated according to the special virtues corresponding to them in the ascending prayers of men. But now we come to another and stranger thought. A little cloud. See again Rev. V, 8, in which reference is made to "golden vials, full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints." Here we see the evidence of a curious belief that prayers in heaven actually become transformed into the substance of incense. By the Talmudists it was said that they were turned into beautiful flowers. Again, in Rev. VIII, 3, we have an allusion to this incense, made of prayer, being burned in heaven—"And there was given unto him much incense, that he should offer it with the prayers of all saints." Now the poem can be better understood. The Blessed Damozel thinks that her old prayers, that is to say, the prayers that she made on earth, together with those of her lover, are in heaven in the shape of incense. As long as prayer is not granted, it remains incense; when granted it becomes perfume smoke and vanishes. Therefore she says, "We shall see our old prayers, granted, melt each like a little cloud"—that is, a cloud of smoke of incense.
"We two will lie i' the shadow of
That living mystic tree
Within whose secret growth the Dove
Is sometimes felt to be,
While every leaf that His plumes touch
Saith His Name audibly.
The heavenly tree of life is described in Rev. XXVII, 2, as bearing twelve different kinds of fruit, one for each of the twelve months of the year, while its leaves heal all diseases or troubles of any kind. The Dove is the Holy Ghost, who is commonly represented in Christian art by this bird, when he is not represented by a tongue or flame of fire. Every time that a leaf touches the body of the Dove, we are told that the leaf repeats the name of the Holy Ghost. In what language? Probably in Latin, and the sound of the Latin name would be like the sound of the motion of leaves, stirred by a wind: Sanctus Spiritus.
"And I myself will teach to him,
I myself, lying so,
The songs I sing here; which his voice
Shall pause in, hushed and slow,
And find some knowledge at each pause,
Or some new thing to know."
(Alas! we two, we two, thou say'st!
Yea, one wast thou with me
That once of old. But shall God lift
To endless unity
The soul whose likeness with thy soul
Was but its love for thee?)
It is the lover who now speaks, commenting upon the imagined words of the beloved in heaven. Endless unity here has a double meaning, signifying at once the mystical union of the soul with God, and the reunion forever of lovers separated by death. The lover doubts whether he can be found worthy to enter heaven, because his only likeness to the beloved was in his love for her; that is to say, his merit was not so much in being good as in loving good in another.
"We two," she said, "will seek the groves
Where the lady Mary is,
With her fine handmaidens, whose names
Are five sweet symphonies,
Cecily, Gertrude, Magdalen,
Margaret, and Rosalys.
Notice the mediæval method of speaking of the mother of God as "the lady Mary"; such would have been the form of address for a princess or queen in those times. So King Arthur's wife, in the old romance, is called the lady Guinevere. Symphonies here has only the simplest meaning of a sweet sound, not of a combination of sounds; but the use of the word nevertheless implies to a delicate ear that the five names make harmony with each other. They are names of saints, but also favourite names given to daughters of great families as Christian names. The picture is simply that of the lady of a great castle, surrounded by her waiting women, engaged in weaving and sewing.
"Circlewise sit they, with bound locks
And foreheads garlanded;
Into the fine cloth white like flame
Weaving the golden thread,
To fashion the birth-robes for them
Who are just born, being dead.
With bound locks means only with the hair tied up, not flowing loose, as was usual in figures of saints
