THE HAPPY LIFE OF A PARISH PRIEST IN

I

SWEDEN.

BY JEAN PAUL.

WILL begin with winter, and I will suppose it to be Christmas. The priest, whom we shall imagine to be a German, and summoned from the southern climate of Germany upon presentation to the church of a Swedish hamlet lying in a high polar latitude, rises in cheerfulness about seven o'clock in the morning; and till half past nine he burns his lamp. At nine o'clock the stars are still shining, and the unclouded moon even yet longer. This prolongation of starlight into the forenoon is to him delightful; for he is a German, and has a sense of something marvellous in a starry forenoon. Methinks I behold the priest and his flock moving towards the church with lanterns: the lights dispersed amongst the crowd connect the congregation into the appearance of some domestic group or larger household, and carry the priest back to his childish years during the winter season and Christmas matins, when every hand bore its candle. Arrived at the pulpit, he declares to his audience the plain truth, word for word, as it stands in the Gospel in the presence of God, all intellectual pretensions are called upon to be silent; the very reason ceases to be reasonable; nor is anything reasonable in the sight of God but a sincere and upright heart.

Just as he and his flock are issuing from the church, the

The sun was gone now.

The curled moon

Was like a little feather

Fluttering far down the gulf. And now
She spoke through the still weather.
Her voice was like the voice the stars
Had when they sung together.

Are not two prayers a perfect strength?

And shall I feel afraid?

"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,

And we will step down as to a stream,
And bathe there in God's sight.

"We two will stand beside that shrine,
Occult, withheld, untrod,
Whose lamps are stirred continually
With prayers sent up to God;
And see our old prayers, granted, melt
Each like a little cloud.

"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.

"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."

(Ah sweet! Just now, in that bird's song,

Strove not her accents there

Fain to be hearkened?

When those bells

Possessed the midday air,

Was she not stepping to my side
Down all the trembling stair?)

"We two," she said, "will seek the groves Where the Lady Mary is,

With her five handmaidens, whose names
Are five sweet symphonies,
Cecily, Gertrude, Magdalen,
Margaret, and Rosalys.

"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.

"He shall fear, haply, and be dumb; Then I will lay my cheek

To his, and tell about our love,

Not once abashed or weak;
And the dear Mother will approve
My pride, and let me speak.