sw00638sem-3.manuol

Seminary           3                                                           


     Written in 1961, this is the third of three elegies on spiritual life.



 Manuol


(A fetid congeries of dung,
 Of rotted flesh and ashèd bones;
 A desert waste of shifting sand,
 Of unrelenting storms and poison pools--
 This was the final lot of Manuol
 When loneliness and devil-deep despair
 Invaded full upon my pavid state.)

O Manuol, O Manuol,
Thou unified totality of man,
Unparalleled descent your person saw.

                                 What grief have I.
Who can allay a turbulent Aenean sea
Or turn aside a hurricane of hate?
No man can lift himself from endless depths.
In fiery hells I ponder reasons why;
From conflagrations uncontrolled I wail:
Release me from this adamantine pit.
Extend to me the ladder of Thy light;
The darkness of confusion roams about
And blist'ring whips of eerie hues accost
My dying heart with punishments supreme.

O Saviour humble crucified,
With tear-filled eyes I gaze
Upon the image of Thy wondrous death:--
I gaze upon the crucifix
And ponder reasons why
No man can lift himself.
But He Who is Himself the Light,
The Life of every man;
Who calls Himself the Son of Man,
Alone can lift Himself, and has.
All reason fails to grasp the meaning of Your way--
It fails to gather fruit,
For what of good is found upon a dying Vine;
In vain it comes to reap,
For what of value stays in blighted Wheat;
In fear it nears the holy tree,
For what of worth remains in bloodied wood?
Unaided reason mystery evades
For fathomless are truths of Love Divine,
And yet, a greater part may mankind see;
May mankind now believe what wisdom hides:
In all illumined verities of Thee,
Where reason falters, faith undaunted strides.
My faith:--in gratitude I cherish it.
Unchallenged spheres of mystic light
This ever-present gift can penetrate.
But oh this wonder men do marvel at
And saints in union unified employ,
What qualities of peace engenders this
When dark reality deprives a man of joy?
(My faith is yet within me.
 Allow it always to remain,
 In blessed peace or purging pain.)
In purging pain?
Excruciating whips of pain,
Volcanic gurgitations borne in solitude,
Disgusting dregs of nauseating person-love.
(So senseless is this martyring of self.)
My eyes reveal Thy purity of love.
Why idle then am I?
Why do I harbor sordid ships
Along the waterways of thought
And seek in shame within their holds to hide?
Return to me the life Redemption bought;
Reteach Thy laws, O Saviour humble crucified.

That evil pedagogue of thrice
Deceiving, caustic fefellations!
Begone, Satan!  Begone!
Do not so torment one desirous to be free.
Incarcerate your wretched wrath
In crimson ebullitions roiling wild.
I shall not plead with thee.

O misery, begotten friend,
Yet ever churlish foe,
Beget yourself another reed to bend.

                                       A lonely waste
Where wicked bowls of desert sand
Engaged by cataclysmic airs
Attack the dunes and masticate themselves.
As dismal night in silence wanders by,
Its presence strengthening the realms of gloom,
It spreads a morbid, purple shadow-shade
Upon the pools of deadly consequence.
To this degree of decadence, O Manuol,
To this extent you plummeted the doom.
Alone I must accept the blame
For causing you such disrespect.

O Manuol, O Manuol,
If ever I might mold thee new.

Impurity upon impurity,
And all is self-abusing pride.
A million months of melancholy morns
Could never equal this degrading fault.
In measurements unmeasurable to men
This active God-escaping escapade
In utter senselessness deprives
The total man of that totality itself,
Without which oneness, life no meaning has.

No longer do I poetize,
But speak with straight and forward fact;
The poetry existence is relieves
The need of weak, artistic act.

Yet still the dreary truth prevails:
The fort is but a desert dune,
The fountain but a venomed pool,
And she, the happy maid, in sorrow fled.

O silent Virgin, Mary pure,
On humbled knee I pray to thee:
With malice I have turned my face from God,
From God, the spring of all my happiness.
In gladness full I drank the waters new
That course in endless rivers from the throne,
Rejoicing like the harbingers of growth
Or bounding as the spritely antelopes;
In innocence I lived and loved my King.
But now my thirst is quenched on filth and slime,
on acrid draughts of worm-infested self.
Within this state I kneel before your feet,
Revealing here my dastard murderings.
Accept my plea for simple chastity;
My prayer for grief-expelling grace,
Betaking them to Christ, my one desire,
That hell may never torture me with fire.
Do thou thus intercede for me, your son,
Your lonely, wayward prodigal,
O silent Virgin, Mary pure.

The setting sun a bloody picture paints,
A beauty-bound creation, speaking well:
In me, the end of day, is Jesus crucified.

How then on night, a canvass made for death,
Are stroked the horrid nimbus clouds of fear,
Concealing all the splatterings of stars.

These treasures have I hung upon a crumbled wall,
Artistic labours wrought by God and man--
The one, by sorrow deep, is framed;
The other, emptiness has claimed.
Yet, neither is devoid of timeless worth,
Though both disclose the blackest void on earth.

                                             And thus, from death
And desolation's depths I cry:
Where can I go?  What can I do?--
So great despairs my path belie.

But life from One shall rise anew. 



Seminary book intro / links to poems
-------------------------
Humanity


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Brian A. J. Salchert