The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862

All proof of that astounding bliss,
Which from the world of worlds to this,
Through lowliest mind, sends conscious glow.

Not clearer through the density
Of darkling woods, do I behold
The intervening flecks of gold
Reveal unseen intensity.

In this deep truth I hold the key
That locks me from a world of pain,
And opens unto boundless gain
Of sweet ideal mystery.

And though I may not hope to climb
Above the level commonplace,
Or touch that vital growth of grace
Which shapes the fruit of deathless rhyme,

Yet, will I bless the Gracious Power
Which giveth strength to walk the mead,
And catch the sometime wafted seed
That ripens to the quiet flower.

Or, when, foot-weary with the day,
My longing spirit only feels
The tremor of the distant wheels
That bear some poet on his way;

I'll deem it very kindly chance
That gives the apprehension clear
To feel the pageant, far or near,
That moves to other's utterance.

And if I can but feebly keep
With reverent grace my share of good,
And kneeling, gather daily food
By gleaning, where my betters reap,

Yet will I bless the Hand Divine
That with the appetite for least,
Transforms into perpetual feast
The homely bread, the household wine;

And place it foremost of my joys,—
Not ranking those that from above
Assume on earth the name of Love,—
That feast, which never ends or cloys.

THE ASH TREE

'The Ash for nothing ill.'

    —Spenser.

'The Ash asks not a depth of fruitful mould
But, like frugality, on little means
It thrives; and high o'er creviced ruins spreads
Its ample shade, or on the naked rock,
That nods in air, with graceful limbs depends.'

    —Bidlake's Year.

'Nature seems t' ordain
The rocky cliff for the wild Ash's reign.'

    —Dryden's Virgil.

Those who would seek the primitive signification of all objects in Nature, unroll their symbolism, and thereby attain the first historical groundwork of poetry, must bear in mind that this system was formed, and, indeed, ripely developed, in an age anterior to all written records of humanity. By ascertaining what words are common to the Indo-Germanic languages, we may easily find how far in civilization those had progressed who spoke the old Aryan, the common mother of the languages of Europe, India, and Persia, ere they parted to form new tribes, with new tongues. So, by comparing the mythologic legends of these later races, we may, with strictest accuracy, determine what was the parent stem. That the religion of the British Celts had striking points of resemblance with that of the Ph[oe]nicians and the Baal-worshipping Shemitic races, with India and Scandinavia and the Greek and Roman systems, is apparent enough to any one who will compare the names, customs, and legends common to all. It was something more than a mere coincidence which gave to Bal of the East and Bal-der of the West the same significant syllable.

Yet it must be remembered that the further back we go to the primæval age of one language and one religion, the more obscure becomes our medium of vision. We see that tribes intermingled, exchanging and distorting traditions of their gods; that migrations disturbed the local force of legends; that the time for celebrating the birth of Spring in the far South or East became sadly misplaced when transplanted to the North; and that, finally, the deep reverence and strange tales attached to trees, flowers, and minerals, being too deeply seated to perish, were fed by being transferred to other objects more or less similar. Thus Christmas, derived from the old heathen Yule or Wheel feast of the Seasons and of Time, and which, like all feasts, was founded in the celebration of the revival of Spring, was actually held at last in mid-winter. So the holly and ivy, expressive of the male and female principles of generation, and of the great mystery of reproduction and revival most in force during the Spring, were substitutes for other symbols—possibly the fig leaves, lettuce, and roses which in milder climes had at that season been employed to set forth the loves of Venus and Adonis—of reviving and of receptive nature.

The most striking illustration of this transfer of earnest religious devotion to such objects is furnished by the Ash Tree. In the far East, men had, during the course of ages, learned to attach extraordinary significance to trees, which, growing, decaying, and dying like man, yet outliving him by centuries, seemed, like animals, to be both far below and yet far above him in many of the conditions of life. In those glowing climes the Banyan was regarded as the tree of trees, and the mighty centre of vegetating life. Hence it was worshipped with such deep reverence that even in modern botany we find it named the ficus religiosa; and it was called by the earlier Christians the Devil's Tree, in accordance with their belief that all heathen rites were offered to Satan. For it was beneath the Banyan that Vishnu was born, and under it that Buddha taught his sacred lore; it is in it that Brahmins love to dwell; it is the living, green cathedral of God—the leafy cloister of sacred learning, ever holy, ever beautiful, never dying. Like God and Nature, it is ever re-born; it falls drooping to earth to take fresh root, and is, on that account, as well as from its immense size, a wonderfully apt symbol of God renewing himself—of revival and of eternity. It is named from some saint, whose soul is believed to flit through its solemn shades, nay, to animate the tree itself: no wonder that in the laws of Menu it was made the sacred, never-to-be-injured monument of a boundary.[1 - 'On an island of the river Nerbudda, twelve miles beyond Broach, in the presidency of Bombay, stands the Banyan-tree, long since mentioned by Milton, and more recently described by Heber. It is called Kureor Bur, after the Hindu saint who planted it.'Dierbach, Flora Mythologica, page 22.]

Time rolled on—for the world was old then, though thousands of years have since faded—and from the East there was a mighty emigration to lands far away. What were the causes of this mighty movement—what was it which transplanted the seeds of new nations and new races into the distant Norway and Sweden? As yet, only dim, very dim conjecture can be made. The Mahabharata tells us of a mighty battle which sent forth hero-sages with their armies into the wide world; others have traditions of divisions between the worshippers of the Lingam and Yoni, who alternately contended for the supremacy of the male or female principle in creation. Whatever the causes may have been—priest warring with soldier for power, or a newer and a milder code casting off the older and more aristocratic rulers into outer darkness—one thing is certain, that they went forth strong in faith, fearless of destiny; for the religion of primeval times was terrible and tremendous. It was such religion, such absolute, undoubting slavery to faith, which wore away millions on millions of lives in carrying out in dim, old, barbarous days the rock sculptures of the temples of Ellora—which dug Sibyls' grots, and piled together Cyclopean walls, and pierced Cimmerian caves of awful depth and solid gloom, in the fair isles of the Mediterranean; and which, it may have been at the same time, it may have been at a later day, massed together the miracles of Stonehenge, the enormous dragon rows of Brittany, and the almost indentically similar serpent mounds of our own West. They are all of one faith.

Westward went the Æsir—the children of Light—from the land of the Banyan—In die weite weite Welt hinaus—out into the wild, brave world! Some went Greekward. There is a curious book, by an English scholar, attempting to prove that the names of hill and valley, mountain and seas, in Greece, and of the countries which lead eastward to it, are all those of India but little changed. A problem awaiting the scientific accuracy of a Max Muller or a Grimm, and not to be handily tossed into shape by a poetic Faber, or guessed at by a wild-Irish O'Brien or Vallancey, or a lunatic Betham. It is, however, worth noting that over those South Slavonian provinces, via Greece, flowed for many centuries northward a strangely silent stream of Orientalism, but little disturbed by the outer or upper currents of history. He who has dabbled in Servian-Croat-Illyrian—twin sister to Bohemian—has doubtless been amazed at the wealth of Sanscrit words it contains, albeit he may not go so far as Pococke, who asserts that with Sanscrit alone one may travel in those countries and be understood. Over this path it was, however, even down to the middle ages, that a rich store of Oriental heresies and forbidden lore flowed into freemasonry, into Waldense and Albigense sects, into many a hidden doctrine and strange brotherhood now forgotten or veiled under some horrible outbreaking of stifling passion and terrible ante-Protestantism. Over this path, on which, in earlier ages, the mitre and rosary and violet robe and confessional, and doctrines of celibacy and monkery and nun-nism, and bell and consecrated taper, and still deeper dogmas or doctrines, wandered from the East into the Church, came also heresies, terrible as Knights Templars', which in due time warred against the Church, and cleft it in twain. The doctrines of wild sects, more or less Manichæan, which came forth strangely to upper life during the fever of the Crusades, all seem to tend obscurely from a Slavonic source. The vices with their adepti were reproached by the Church, gave to most of the languages of Europe a revolting word, modified from the name 'Bulgarian.' The origin of the earlier Bohemian Hussite sects, with their strange devil-worship and doctrine of transmigration, was manifestly Oriental. At a later date the very name of the mystic Jacob Böhme—Jacob the Bohemian—indicates some secret alliance with Slavonian associations; and if the connection of the name with strange Oriental speculations be obscure, that of the teachings of 'the inspired shoemaker' with those of the East is not—witness the often marvellous identity of tone of The Aurora with that of Hermes Trismegistus. It is worth while in this connection to trace the influence of Böhme-ism on 'the fierce sectaries of Lower Germany,' on Anabaptism, and on the illuminati of the ultra Puritans in England, bringing forth Independent Fifth Monarchy men, George Fox, Flood, Law, and Pordage. The seeds of this mystical heresy were obscurely transmitted to New England, which has always had some 'God-Smith,' or Mathias with his 'Impostures,' lurking among the vulgar. I have no doubt that, through traditional influence at least, a Joe Smith and the beginning of Mormonism might be found to have a direct descent from the doctrines of early times.

Let the reader pardon the digression. I am about to speak of the Ash tree—the successor of the Banyan—which has also its connection with English popular superstition. However it was, when the wave of Oriental emigration reached the utmost limits of Northern Europe, it changed its character with the climate. From a vast pantheism of fire, it became one of ice and of snow. In the grammar of its mythology, only a little of the vocabulary was retained, but the grand system of construction remained on the whole unchanged. There is the same stupendous ground-plan of a cosmogony founded on a sublime view of the powers of Nature, and the same exquisitely poetic elaboration of details in the Edda as in the Sacred Books of India, though the one is illumined by the burning sun of the tropics, and the other by the Northern Lights of a winter midnight.

So the children of Odin needed a tree signifying All Creation, All Time, All Nature, and they chose the Ash. Its picturesque beauty, its lightness and easy flowing lines, combined with great strength, and at times with enormous size; its elegant depending foliage and lithe vigor in its prime, and its gnarled, ancient expression when old, well fitted it to set forth the extremes of existence. The firm hold of these trees in the earth, 'their obstinate and deep rooting—tantus amor terræ,' as Evelyn expresses it, gives us a reason why the Ash of their mythology was fabled to reach down to hell; while its stern vitality, expressed by Horace, fitted it to be called the tree of life:

'Per damna, per cædes, ab ipso
Ducit opes animumque ferro.'

'By havoc, wounds, and blows
More lively and luxuriant grows.'

So the Ash became the Banyan of Northern faith, and the great meeting place of the gods—as the reader may see in the following extracts from the Edda:

Gangler demanded: 'Which is the capital of the Gods, or the sacred city?' Har answereth: 'It is under the Ash-tree Ydrasil, where the Gods assemble every day and administer justice.' 'But,' sayeth Gangler, 'What is there remarkable about that place?' 'That Ash,' answereth Jarnhar, 'is the greatest and best of all trees. Its branches extend themselves over the whole world, and reach above the heavens. It hath three roots, extremely different from each other; the one of them is among the Gods; the other among the Giants, in that very place where the abyss was formerly; the third covereth Neflheim, or Hell, and under this root is the fountain Vergelmer, whence flow the infernal rivers: this root is gnawed upon below by the monstrous serpent Nidhoger. Under that root which stretcheth out toward the land of the Giants, is also a celebrated spring, in which are concealed Wisdom and Prudence. He who hath possession of it is named Mimis: he is full of wisdom, because he drinketh thereof every morning. One day the Universal Father (Al-Fader) came and begged to drink a cup of this water; but he was obliged to leave in pledge for it one of his eyes, according as it is said in the Voluspa: 'Where hast thou concealed thine eye, Odin? Lo! I know where; even in the limpid fountain of Mimis. Every morning doth Mimis pour Hydromel upon the pledge he received from the Universal Father. Do you, or do you not understand this?' The third root of the Ash is in Heaven, and under it lieth the holy fountain of Time-Past (fons præteriti temporis—Urdar Brun). 'Tis here that the Gods sit in judgment. Every day they ride hither on horseback, passing over the Rainbow, which is the Bridge of the Gods. * * * * As for Thor, he goeth on foot to the tribunal of the Gods, and fordeth the rivers Kormt and Gormt. These he is obliged to cross every day on foot, on his way to the Ash Ydrasil, for the Bridge of the Gods is all on fire. * * * *

'Near the fountain which is under the Ash, stands a very beautiful city, wherein dwell three virgins, named Urda, or the Past; Verdandi, or the Present; and Sokulda, or the Future. These are they who dispense the ages of men; they are called Norn[=a]s, that is, Fates. But there are indeed very many others besides these, who assist at the birth of every child, to determine his fate. Some are of celestial origin; others descend from the Genii, and others from the dwarfs.' * * * *

'Gangler proceeds, desiring to know something more concerning the Ash. Har replied: 'What I have farther to add concerning it is, that there is an eagle perched upon its branches, who knows a multitude of things, but he hath between his eyes a sparrow-hawk (qui Vederloefner vocatur). A squirrel runs up and down the Ash, sowing misunderstanding between the eagle and the serpent, which lies concealed at its root. Pour stags run across the branches of the tree, and devour its rind. There are so many serpents in the fountain whence spring the rivers of hell, that no tongue can recount them, as is said in these verses:

'Fraxinus Ygdrasil plura patitur,
Quam ullus mortalium
Cogitatione assequi valeat.
Cervus depascitur inferius (rectius cacumen)