Pearl: Part 11

Book: www.lulu.com/shop/giles-watson/pearl/paperback/product-20...

 

Reading: www.youtube.com/watch?v=2yM79t60SeA

 

The story so far: The Dreamer loses his Pearl in a grassy mound - evidently her grave. He swoons with grief, and awakens in an earthly paradise, through which there runs a beautiful stream. The land on the opposite bank seems even more beautiful. He wanders further down the stream, hoping to find a bridge or a ford. Just when he starts to become afraid of the dangers that may be in store for him, he sees a young woman sitting at the foot of a crystal cliff on the opposite bank, and instantly recognises her as his lost Pearl. He hails his Pearl and expresses his relief that she still exists, but she begins to reprove him for his lack of faith. She criticises him for only believing that her soul is immortal now that he can see her, and is shocked by his suggestion that he - a mortal man - has a hope of joining her in Paradise without first experiencing death. He tells her that for him to walk away from her now that he has found her again would be to suffer a fresh bereavement. She replies that it is divinely decreed that he cannot cross over to her. The Dreamer pleads with his Pearl to accept that his rash questions were borne out of his great grief, and asks her to describe her life in Paradise. She relents, and tells him that she is crowned Queen of Heaven, and is married to the Lamb. The Dreamer is shocked by this assertion. He says that he thought only the Virgin Mary was Queen of Heaven. Pearl replies with a description of a-semi egalitarian heaven in which all inhabitants are kings and queens, and asserts that although Mary has pre-eminence, none of those in heaven would ever question it, because she is so “courteous”. She cites the Pauline notion that the church is the body of Christ in support of her claim. The Dreamer is even less convinced than before. He wonders how she can have been instantly crowned a Queen of Heaven when she was on the earth for less than two years. She replies at length, citing the parable of the labourers in the vineyard as justification for her rapid advancement in the kingdom of Heaven. She continues to retell the parable, and concludes by insisting that like the workers who worked less than two hours in the vineyard, she was first in line for God’s reward when she reached Heaven. The Dreamer cannot understand. Surely, he argues, those who have endured a lifetime’s pain and temptation must have precedence. She responds:

 

Pearl: Part 11

 

That ghostly one says, “God is rich:

We have no fear of more, or less.

An equal wage is paid to each

Whether he works most, or least.

Our noble Chieftain is no cheat;

His blessings scorn both wealth and loss –

They pour like water through a ditch

To wet the vale of all that lives.

His bargain – though we cringe like larks

In a hobby’s shadow – is never tough.

He trades so sinners cannot lose:

The grace of God is great enough.

 

Enough objections! You bring me shame

To say my penny can’t be paid –

A mere babe the day I came

And not deserving such reward.

You know a man, then, whose fame

Depends upon how well he prayed –

Who never forfeited any claim,

And of heaven’s lustre stands assured?

Strange. I’ve known men. The more they aged,

The more their deeds grew grim and rough!

I say by mercy saints are made –

The grace of God is great enough!

 

But the innocent have enough grace

At the very moment they are born

And baptised. They are grabbed

From the water, grafted into the vine.

And when the Day comes, engraved

With Death, and Night hangs, wan

And waiting – they, who never wronged

God – are the ones who gain –

Paid by the vineyard they were in.

He rewards their labour out of love;

Pays them first, and all is done.

For the grace of God is great enough.

 

It’s well enough known that man was made

For perfect bliss – this, Adam,

Our forefather, forfeited in a mad

Moment – ate the apple for our doom,

And out of that meal, all were damned

To die deprived. We could only dream

Of Heaven, bound for Hell’s murderous

Heat – there to dwell, slowly drown –

But soon enough, the deal was done:

Rich blood clotted on the Cross so rough,

And gushing water began to drain

When the grace of God grew great enough.

 

Enough grace gushed from that well –

Blood and water from a gaping wound –

To buy us all from the bilge of Hell

And wrench us out of death. We groaned,

Half drowned from that wound, truth to tell –

The blade that made it: grimly ground –

It washed away guilt, and the disgusting smell

Of Adam, who left us drowned

In Death. Nothing in the round

World reeks more of bliss and love!

Wilfully lost, we wound up found:

And the grace of God is good enough.

 

 

Late fourteenth century poem, written in a north-west midland dialect of Middle English, paraphrased by Giles Watson. The lines about the hobby (a small species of falcon) threatening the larks are derived from a reading of the Middle English word “dare” – to cringe or hide. The image is – as the preacher Jonathan Edwards would rediscover several centuries later – that of sinners cringing in the face of an angry God, but the nearest linguistic parallel is Skelton, who writes “I haue a hoby can make larkys to dare” (“I have a hobby that can make larks cringe”). Pearl draws on John 19:14 for the image of the blood and water gushing from Christ’s side after it was speared by a Roman soldier, and relates it in characteristically graphic terms to the sacrament of baptism. She also combines it with a still more venerable image: that of the fountain of grace which gushes forth irrespective of the eccentricities of human conduct.

 

 

Done