TO THE PROTECTOR, ANGEL, OF INTELLECTUAL DOUBT by CHARLES WILLIAMS

GODS many and lords many be
In houses of divinity,
But o'er those houses, in all lands
Builded with laying on of hands
And rites of high purgation, sent
From God, their full accomplishment,
Over all altars and all roods
What solitary spirit broods?

Protector, your due praise receive
From us who in your strength believe
And by your purity are clean!
For, O you doubt of all things seen,
How but by you shall men come in
To the delights of Faith your twin,
Your younger and fair sister? Who
Dares set division 'twixt you two,
Making intolerable trial
With harsh assertion, harsh denial,
Speech that was never meant to be,
Of your still breachless comity;
Planting a hedge of uncouth words
And angry slanders, till the birds
Of vision only can go free
From hers into your liberty.
Yet Truth knows naught to reconcile
In your exchanged prophetic smile,
For what glad games betwixt you please
Her ardours and your honesties!
And each hath rest-chamber assigned,
Guests of the hospitable mind
Which makes of questions and of vows
One household, as yourselves one house.

Through mortal cities where we go,
Spring of refreshment, clearly flow;
Beneath their firm foundations deep
Let your destroying waters creep,
And their stability unfix;
Or let your rains between the bricks
Wash out the mortar; try if there
Of all the walls the past held fair,
Fitting the stones with arduous pains,
Aught indestructible remains.
Or with a subtler toil surprise
Our slothful too-accustomed eyes:
Work, work beneath that show! till, while
We go about the streets, your guile
This apparition quite undoes
Of buildings multitudinous;
Till all the mighty towers that were
Settle, and sway, and disappear,
Softly dissolve and gently fall,
And your broad waters take them all!

Your ceremonial doth prepare
A place for Love's doctrinal chair;
Beyond your river, broad and bright,
His halls and colleges of light
Shine in each courteous heart; all fond
And happy moments lie beyond
This world's mistrusted fields of sense
Moated by your deep waters, whence
A bridge of arched amazement leads,
And large discovery succeeds.
Yours is that soil, yours is that air,
Of rich and antique foster where,
Incredulous but faithful, we
Enter into humanity.

On all the body's roads we tread
Be Love's the wine, but yours the bread!
Your wheaten loaves for ever be
Conjoinèd with each ecstasy
Of new delight, and wheresoe'er
Through meadows green and cities rare
We travel, daily let us make
Our meals of your provisioned cake.
Or if that highway plunges in
Jungles where monstrous beasts of sin,
With their fleshed cubs of brute desire,
Beneath the hot boughs do suspire,
And in the place of the good sun
Is light from fiery Phlegethon,
O skilled in hill and jungle craft,
Our true shikari, loose your shaft,
You from all dread malaria free
By healthful incredulity!
All vast Illusions' conquering shade,
Preserver from opinion, raid—
Maya, Chimaera, vapourings
Risen from the breath of men, whose wings,
Mightily spread, veil all his sky
But shred to mist when you are nigh,
And leave us to clear knowledge! Keep,
Shepherd, your flock of silly sheep
From panic rout; let no lust thrive
In us, nor ogreish shadow drive
With a huge bludgeon of black fear,
Nor frenzy dwelling in us here,
Our feet the ancient piggish way
Of steep Gadara; mild and gay,
Preserve us from all hurtful food,
Clover and else, in hungry mood
Eagerly swallowing, to find,
Too late, the pain of the blown mind.
When the whole world is full of gales,
Of rumours, flatteries, and tales,
When the mob's breath or Caesar's drives
Into one blast all minds and lives,
Close, close about us, while that storm
We seek to buffet, be your warm
Cloak of consideration drawn,
And lead us to a quiet dawn!
Be, where the slanting roads divide,
A peace, a shelter, and a guide!
Spur through our inner night and morn,
Another Palomides, sworn
To seek the Questing Beast; pursue
Down the old pathways and the new
Its hideous noise of barking hounds,
Till in the mind's unhallowed bounds
At last its wrath be slain or thralled:
You, to that high vocation called,
From Mecca of the idols come
To Islam, thence to Christendom,
And bound in turn to that last coast
And city of the Holy Ghost,
Who, as his well-belovèd say,
Hath driven opinion clean away.

For you too, in the Faith made fair,
Have put on angelhood, and there
Called your disciples, few but skilled,
To the devotion of your guild:
Not with your candid raiment marred,
As the hot grasp of Abelard,
Ere loosed to counter Bernard's blow,
Caught it and tore it, @3Yes or No@1,
But lightly wrought and worn at ease
In those expanding sanctities,—
Choosing now this, now that to be
Aim of your joyous irony,—
As when some happy lover lights
With sudden disbelief his rites
Of adoration, and at once
Retires, approaches, loves and shuns
The sweet face of his mistress, pleased
To be of mere devotion eased,
And graver for the vision seen
Of the lacked joy that might have been.

Ah, if such gaiety were all!
But Faith must everywhere need all
Your aid; foul enemies she knows,
And you must save her from her foes!
Not Superstition: her, 'tis true,
Faith took, when she was far from you,
To be her waiting-maid, and now,
Where'er she looks, that stupid brow
Must gaze beside her! but let be,
Think 'tis your sister's charity
To keep her, who would elsewise make
Marriage with man he could not break
Save, driven at last beyond his force,
By atheistical divorce.

Darker the ills that Faith endures,
Which naught but your swift brightness cures:
O learn'd in exorcisms, lay
Two ancient spectres of the way;
Her own void apparition she
Beholds,—carrion Hypocrisy,
Swelling and black, with noisome breath,
Laden with all its past of death,
Its mist of mockeries, its gloom
Wherein religion stifles, whom
Soon to destroy, O come, beloved
Salvation,—as of old you moved
And armed with many a dangerous gift
The fierce disdainful hand of Swift!
Nor, saving so the head of Faith,
Despair to meet that lighter wraith,
Which is your image and your grief,
Utter and intimate Unbelief;
Who chills your delicate sweet heart
With its frigidity,—your art
Of subtle exploration spoiled,
As those first darting barques were foiled
Who sought what Northern road might be
Into the well-known warmer sea,
By creek and channel, gulf and bay,—
Lo, naught but ice about them lay
And in that cold they perished. Keep,
To save us from that final sleep,
Some highway, narrow, twisting, deep,
Amid a silent frozen world!
O when the very heavens are curled
Frozen above us, when the earth
Is a bleak certainty of dearth,
When all our homing instincts freeze
Within us, to black crevasses
Are turned the ancient tender bays
Of love and friendship, when in stays
The soul's confinèd ship delays,
And never, never can get free
From loveless arctic prisonry,
Then, then, be with us, and redeem,
Let the ship feel your moving stream,
And by that flow, discovered new,
Open the bergs, and bring us through!
For this, be your high saints implored,
Whose images we have on board,—
He of the Twelve, wise infidel,
Who did all tales of Truth repel,
Till, proved to every questing sense,
It shone, Its own best evidence,
Then filled at once his faithful place;
She who, being wholly full of grace,
Was left not foolishly without
Fine tides of intellectual doubt,
Sceptic interrogations, she
Who, saying 'How shall this thing be?'
In that one asking did retrieve
The pale credulity of Eve;
Yea, and a mightier name than hers
Within this royal worship stirs,
For who but you began long since
To tend the anguish of your Prince?
When slipping, scourged, and nigh to fall,
Was't not your whisper: @3Is this all?@1
First lifted, stayed, and held him? When,
Bound on the massive cross of men,
In the full passion of His ill,—
When, ere the Sacred Heart was still,
The Sacred Brain endured the shoot
Of dereliction, wert thou mute?
Didst thou not then, ere Faith could turn
Through tears her comfort to discern,
In that great night, leap forth to clear
A space to breathe about Him there?
Did not your arrows of sharp doubt
Find all the priestly mockers out
And pierce the brag of Pilate when,
Showing Him Caesar's power of men,
He showed Him all the solemn thrones
That ever judged a prisoner's moans?
Faith succoured Him when struck to death,—
But who save you can succour Faith?

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!

Other Poems of Interest...