Purgatory: Doctrinal, Historical, and Poetical Part 36

THE TWO STUDENTS.

The Abbe de Saint Pierre, says Collin de Plancy, has given a long account, in his works, of a singular occurrence which took place in 1697, and which we are inclined to relate here:

In 1695, a student named Bezuel, then about fifteen years old, contracted a friends.h.i.+p with two other youths, students like himself, and sons of an attorney of Caen, named D'Abaquene. The elder was, like Bezuel, fifteen; his brother, eighteen months younger. The latter was named Desfontaines. The paternal name was then given only to the eldest; the names of those who came after were formed by means of some vague properties....

As the young Desfontaines' character was more in unison with Bezuel's than that of his elder brother, these two students became strongly attached to each other.

One day during the following year, 1696, they were reading together a certain history of two friends like themselves, who had promised each other, with some solemnity, that he of the two who died first would come back to give the survivor some account of his state. The historian added that the dead one really did come back, and that he told his friend many wonderful things. Young Desfontaines, struck by this narrative, which he did not doubt, proposed to Bezuel that they should make such a promise one to the other. Bezuel was at first afraid of such an engagement. But several months after, in the first days of June, 1697, as his friend was going to set out for Caen, he agreed to his proposal.

Desfontaines then drew from his pocket two papers in which he had written the double agreement. Each of these papers expressed the formal promise on the part of him who should die first to come and make his fate known to the surviving friend. He had signed with his blood the one that Bezuel was to keep. Bezuel, hesitating no longer, p.r.i.c.ked his hand, and likewise signed with his blood the other doc.u.ment, which he gave to Desfontaines.

The latter, delighted to have the promise, set out with his brother.

Bezuel received some days after a letter, in which his friend informed him that he had reached his home in safety, and was very well. The correspondence between them was to continue. But it stopped very soon, and Bezuel was uneasy.

It happened that on the 31st of July, 1697, being about 2 o'clock in the afternoon, in a meadow where his companions were amusing themselves with various games, he felt himself suddenly stunned and taken with a sort of faintness, which lasted for some minutes. Next day, at the same hour, he felt the same symptoms, and again on the day after. But then-- it was Friday, the 2d of August--he saw advancing towards him his friend Desfontaines, who made a sign for him to come to him. Being in a sitting posture and under the influence of his swoon, he made another sign to the apparition, moving on his seat to make place for him.

The comrades of Bezuel moving around saw this motion, and were surprised.

As Desfontaines did not advance, Bezuel arose to go to him. The apparition then took him by the left arm, drew him aside some thirty paces, and said:

"I promised you that, if I died before you, I would come to tell you. I was drowned yesterday in the river at Caen, about this hour. I was out walking; it was so warm that we took a notion to bathe. A weakness came over me in the river, and I sank to the bottom. The Abbe de Menil-Jean, my companion, plunged in to draw me out; I seized his foot; but whether he thought it was a salmon that had caught hold of him, or that he felt it actually necessary to go up to the surface of the water to breathe, he shook me off so roughly that his foot gave me a great blow in the chest, and threw me to the bottom of the river, which is there very deep."

Desfontaines then told his friend many other things, which he would not divulge, whether the dead boy had prayed him not to do so, or for other reasons.

Bezuel wanted to embrace the apparition, but he found only a shadow.

Nevertheless, the shadow had squeezed his arm so tightly, that it pained him after.

He saw the spirit several times, yet always a little taller than when they parted, and always in the half-clothing of a bather. He wore in his fair hair a scroll on which Bezuel could only read the word _In_. His voice had the same sound as when he was living, he appeared neither gay nor sad, but perfectly tranquil. He charged his friend with several commissions for his parents, and begged him to say for him the Seven Penitential Psalms, which had been given him as a penance by his confessor, three days before his death, and which he had not yet recited.

The apparition always ended by a farewell expressed in words which signified: "Till we meet again! (_Au revoir!_)" At last, it ceased at the end of some weeks; and the surviving friend, who had constantly prayed for the dead, concluded from this that his Purgatory was over.

This Monsieur Bezuel finished his studies, embraced the ecclesiastical state, became _cure_ of Valogne, and lived long, esteemed by his paris.h.i.+oners and the whole city, for his good sense, his virtuous life, and his love of truth.

THE PENANCE OF DON DIEGO RIEZ.

_A Legend of Lough Derg._ [1]

[Footnote 1: Lough Derg, in Donegal, was a place famous for pilgrimage from a very early period, and was much resorted to out of France, Italy, and the Peninsula, during the Middle Ages, and even in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In Mathew Paris, and Froissart, as well as in our native annals, and in O'Sullivan Beare, there are many facts of its extraordinary history.]

T. D. MCGEE.

There was a knight of Spain--Diego Riaz, n.o.ble by four descents, vain, rich and young, Much woe he wrought, or the tradition lie is, Which lived of old the Castilians among; His horses bore the palm the kingdom over, His plume was tall, costliest his sword, The proudest maidens wished him as a lover, The _caballeros_ all revered his word

But ere his day's meridian came, his spirit Fell sick, grew palsied in his breast, and pined-- He fear'd Christ's kingdom he could ne'er inherit, The causes wherefore too well he divined.

Where'er he turns, his sins are always near him, Conscience still holds her mirror to his eyes, Till those who long had envied came to fear him, To mock his clouded brow and wintry sighs.

Alas! the sins of youth are as a chain Of iron, swiftly let down to the deep, How far we feel not--till when, we'd raise't again We pause amid the weary work and weep.

Ah, it is sad a-down Life's stream to see.

So many aged toilers so distress'd, And near the source--a thousand forms of glee Fitting the shackle to Youth's glowing breast.

He sought peace in the city where she dwells not, He wooed her amid woodlands all in vain, He searches through the valleys, but he tells not The secret of his quest to priest or swain, Until, despairing evermore of pleasure, He leaves his land, and sails to far Peru; There, stands uncharm'd in caverns of treasure, And weeps on mountains heavenly high and blue.

Incessant in his ears rang this plain warning-- "Diego, as thy soul, thy sorrow lives"; He hears the untired voice, night, noon, and morning, Yet understanding not, unresting grieves.

One eve, a purer vision seized him, then he Vow'd to Lough Derg, an humble pilgrimage-- The virtues of that shrine were known to many, And saving held even in that skeptic age.

With one sole follower, an Esquire trustful, He pa.s.s'd the southern cape which sailors fear, And eastward held: meanwhile his vain and l.u.s.tful Past works more loathsome to his soul appear.

Through the night-watches, at all hours o' day, He still was wakeful as the pilot, and For grace, his vow to keep, doth always pray, And for his death to lie in the saints' land.

But ere his eyes beheld the Irish sh.o.r.e, Diego died.

Much gold he did ordain To G.o.d and Santiago--furthermore, His Esquire plighted, ere he went to Spain, To journey to the Refuge of the Lake; Before St. Patrick's solitary shrine, A nine days' vigil for his rest to make, Living on bitter bread and penitential wine. [1]

[Footnote 1: The brackish water of the lake, boiled, is called wine by the pilgrims.]

The va.s.sal vow'd; but, ah! how seldom pledges Given to the dying, to the dead, are held!

The Esquire reach'd the sh.o.r.e, where sand and sedge is O'er melancholy hills, by paths of eld; Treeless and houseless was the prospect round, Rock-strewn and boisterous the lake before; A Charon-shape in a skiff a-ground-- The pilgrim turned, and left the sacred sh.o.r.e.

That night he lay a-bed hard by the Erne-- The island-spangled lake--but could not sleep-- When lo! beside him, pale, and sad, and stern, Stood his dead master, risen from the deep.

"Arise," he said, "and come." From the hostelrie And over the bleak hills he led the sleeper, And when they reach'd Derg's sh.o.r.e, "Get in with me,"

He cried; "nor sink my soul in torments deeper."

The dead man row'd the boat, the living steer'd, Each in his pallor sinister, until The Isle of Pilgrimage they duly near'd-- "Now hie thee forth, and work thy master's will!"

So spoke the dead, and vanish'd o'er the lake, The Squire pursued his course, and gain'd the shrine, There, nine days' vigil duly he did make, Living on bitter bread and penitential wine.

The tenth eve shone in solemn, starry beauty, As he, rejoicing, o'er the old paths came, Light was his heart from its accomplished duty, All was forgotten, even the latest shame-- When these brief words some disembodied voice Spoke near him: "Oh, keep sacred, evermore, Word, pledge, and vow, so may you still rejoice, And live among the Just when Time is o'er!"

THE DAY OF ALL SOULS.

ELIZA ALLEN STARR.

FROM the far past there comes a thought of sweetness, From the far past a thought of love and pain; A voice, how dear! a look of melting kindness, A voice, a look, we ne'er shall know again.

A fresh, young face, perchance of boyish gladness, An aged face, perchance of patient love; My heart-strings fail, I sob in utter anguish, As past my eyes these lovely spectres move.

The chill morn breaks, the matin star still flaming; The hushed cathedral's ma.s.sive door stands wide; Through the dim aisles I pa.s.s, in silent weeping, From mortal eyes my sorrowing tears to hide.

Already morn has touched the painted windows; The yellow dawn creeps down the storied panes; Already, in the early solemn twilight, The sanctuary's taper softly wanes.

My faltering step before the altar pauses; My treasur'd dead I see remembered here; All climes, all nations, lost on land or ocean, They on whose grave none ever drop a tear.

The Church, their single mourner, drapes in sorrow The festal shrines she loves with flowers to dress; And "Kyrie! Kyrie!" sighs, while lowly bending To Thee, O G.o.d! to shorten their distress.

"_Dies irae, dies illa,_" sobs the choir; "_In pace, pace,_" from the altar rises higher; "_Lux aeterna;_" daylight floods the altar, Priest and choir take up the holy psalter.

"_Requiescant in pace!"

Amen, amen, in pace!_

THE MESSAGE OF THE NOVEMBER WIND.