Albert Bierstadt, “Forest Sunrise”
Spiritual Sunday
Today, in observance of Pentecost, I offer up a William Longfellow poem (here it is in its entirety) that finds the poet reenacting the Pentecost story as he wanders through nature. Pentecost is the celebration of the moment when the Holy Spirit, the “advocate with the Father” promised by Jesus, enters the disciples after Jesus’ ascension to heaven. The disciples were of course distraught at the prospect of Jesus leaving them, but he reassured them that they would always be with him/
Echoing a number of Wordsworth poems, Longfellow sees the innocence he had as a child also having departed. Like Wordsworth in “Intimations of Immortality,” the poet enters nature with the hope that he will reconnect with that spirit but finds only its absence:
Therefore, at Pentecost, which brings
The Spring, clothed like a bride,
When nestling buds unfold their wings,
And bishop’s-caps have golden rings,
Musing upon many things,
I sought the woodlands wide.
The green trees whispered low and mild;
It was a sound of joy!
They were my playmates when a child,
And rocked me in their arms so wild!
Still they looked at me and smiled,
As if I were a boy;
And ever whispered, mild and low,
“Come, be a child once more!”
And waved their long arms to and fro,
And beckoned solemnly and slow;
O, I could not choose but go
Into the woodlands hoar,–
Into the blithe and breathing air,
Into the solemn wood,
Solemn and silent everywhere
Nature with folded hands seemed there
Kneeling at her evening prayer!
Like one in prayer I stood.
Like the disciples who can’t imagine life without Jesus, Longfellow is depressed over having lost his childhood connection with nature. And just as Jesus reassures the disciples that he will leave behind “an advocate with the father”—the Holy Spirit that will enter them—so the poet is reassured that “the land of Song within thee lies,/Watered by living springs”:
Visions of childhood! Stay, O stay!
Ye were so sweet and wild!
And distant voices seemed to say,
“It cannot be! They pass away!
Other themes demand thy lay;
Thou art no more a child!
“The land of Song within thee lies,
Watered by living springs;
The lids of Fancy’s sleepless eyes
Are gates unto that Paradise,
Holy thoughts, like stars, arise,
Its clouds are angels’ wings.”
The song within is vital because nature, which is entangled with the world, invariably lets us down:
“Learn, that henceforth thy song shall be,
Not mountains capped with snow,
Nor forests sounding like the sea,
Nor rivers flowing ceaselessly,
Where the woodlands bend to see
The bending heavens below.
“There is a forest where the din
Of iron branches sounds!
A mighty river roars between,
And whosoever looks therein
Sees the heavens all black with sin,
Sees not its depths, nor bounds.
“Athwart the swinging branches cast,
Soft rays of sunshine pour;
Then comes the fearful wintry blast
Our hopes, like withered leaves, fail fast;
Pallid lips say, ‘It is past!
We can return no more!”
Therefore, look within as you write about nature:
“Look, then, into thine heart, and write!
Yes, into Life’s deep stream!
All forms of sorrow and delight,
All solemn Voices of the Night,
That can soothe thee, or affright,–
Be these henceforth thy theme.”
