A VILLAGE CHURCH by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: Summary, Meaning & Analysis

A woman kneeling at the confessional. THE PARISH PRIEST, from within. Go, sin no more! Thy penance o'er, A new and better life begin! God maketh thee forever free From the dominion of thy sin! Go, sin no more! He will restore The peace that filled thy heart before, And pardon thine iniquity! The woman goes out. The Priest comes forth, and walks slowly up and down the church. O blessed Lord! how much I need Thy light to guide me on my way! So many hands, that, without heed, Still touch thy wounds and make them bleed! So many feet, that, day by day, Still wander from thy fold astray! Unless thou fill me with thy light, I cannot lead thy flock aright; Nor without thy support can bear The burden of so great a care, But am myself a castaway! A pause. The day is drawing to its close; And what good deeds, since first it rose, Have I presented, Lord, to thee, As offsprings of my ministry? What wrong repressed, what right maintained, What struggle passed, what victory gained, What good attempted and attained? Feeble, at best, is my endeavor! I see, but cannot reach, the height That lies forever in the light; And yet forever and forever, When seeming just within my grasp, I feel my feeble hands unclasp, And sink discouraged into night! For thine own purpose, thou hast sent The strife and the discouragement! A pause. Why stayest thou, Prince of Hoheneck? Why keep me pacing to and fro Amid these aisles of sacred gloom, Counting my footsteps as I go, And marking with each step a tomb? Why should the world for thee make room, And wait thy leisure and thy beck? Thou comest in the hope to hear Some word of comfort and of cheer. What can I say? I cannot give The counsel to do this and live; But rather, firmly to deny The tempter, though his power be strong, And, inaccessible to wrong, Still like a martyr live and die! A pause. The evening air grows dusk and brown; I must go forth into the town, To visit beds of pain and death, Of restless limbs, and quivering breath, And sorrowing hearts, and patient eyes That see, through tears, the sun go down, But never more shall see it rise. The poor in body and estate, The sick and the disconsolate, Must not on man's convenience wait. Goes out. Enter LUCIFER, as a Priest. LUCIFER, with a genuflexion, mocking. This is the Black Pater-noster. God was my foster, He fostered me Under the book of the Palm-tree! St. Michael was my dame. He was born at Bethlehem, He was made of flesh and blood. God send me my right food, My right food, and shelter too, That I may to yon kirk go, To read upon yon sweet book Which the mighty God of heaven shook Open, open, hell's gates! Shut, shut, heaven's gates! All the devils in the air The stronger be, that hear the Black Prayer! Looking round the church. What a darksome and dismal place! I wonder that any man has the face To call such a hole the House of the Lord, And the gate of Heaven,--yet such is the word. Ceiling, and walls, and windows old, Covered with cobwebs, blackened with mould; Dust on the pulpit, dust on the stairs, Dust on the benches, and stalls, and chairs! The pulpit, from which such ponderous sermons Have fallen down on the brains of the Germans, With about as much real edification As if a great Bible, bound in lead, Had fallen, and struck them on the head; And I ought to remember that sensation! Here stands the holy-water stoup! Holy-water it may be to many, But to me, the veriest Liquor Gehennae! It smells like a filthy fast-day soup! Near it stands the box for the poor, With its iron padlock, safe and sure. I and the priest of the parish know Whither all these charities go; Therefore, to keep up the institution, I will add my little contribution! He puts in money. Underneath this mouldering tomb, With statue of stone, and scutcheon of brass, Slumbers a great lord of the village. All his life was riot and pillage, But at length, to escape the threatened doom Of the everlasting penal fire, He died in the dress of a mendicant friar, And bartered his wealth for a daily mass. But all that afterwards came to pass, And whether he finds it dull or pleasant, Is kept a secret for the present, At his own particular desire. And here, in a corner of the wall, Shadowy, silent, apart from all, With its awful portal open wide, And its latticed windows on either side, And its step well worn by the beaded knees Of one or two pious centuries, Stands the village confessional! Within it, as an honored guest, I will sit down awhile and rest! Seats himself in the confessional. Here sits the priest; and faint and low, Like the sighing of an evening breeze, Comes through these painted lattices The ceaseless sound of human woe; Here, while her bosom aches and throbs With deep and agonizing sobs, That half are passion, half contrition, The luckless daughter of perdition Slowly confesses her secret shame! The time, the place, the lover's name! Here the grim murderer, with a groan, From his bruised conscience rolls the stone, Thinking that thus he can atone For ravages of sword and flame! Indeed, I marvel, and marvel greatly, How a priest can sit here so sedately, Reading, the whole year out and in, Naught but the catalogue of sin, And still keep any faith whatever In human virtue! Never! never! I cannot repeat a thousandth part Of the horrors and crimes and sins and woes That arise, when with palpitating throes The graveyard in the human heart Gives up its dead, at the voice of the priest, As if he were an archangel, at least. It makes a peculiar atmosphere, This odor of earthly passions and crimes, Such as I like to breathe, at times, And such as often brings me here In the hottest and most pestilential season. To-day, I come for another reason; To foster and ripen an evil thought In a heart that is almost to madness wrought, And to make a murderer out of a prince, A sleight of hand I learned long since! He comes. In the twilight he will not see The difference between his priest and me! In the same net was the mother caught! PRINCE HENRY, entering and kneeling at the confessional. Remorseful, penitent, and lowly, I come to crave, O Father holy, Thy benediction on my head.

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