CHAPTER V. THE OLD CHURCH

 I followed him deep into the pine-forest. Neither of us said much while yet the sacred gloom of it closed us round. We came to larger and yet larger trees—older, and more individual, some of them grotesque¹ with age. Then the forest grew thinner.

 

“You see that hawthorn²?” said my guide at length, pointing with his beak³.

 

I looked where the wood melted away on the edge of an open heath.

 

“I see a gnarled old man, with a great white head,” I answered.

 

“Look again,” he rejoined: “it is a hawthorn.”

 

“It seems indeed an ancient hawthorn; but this is not the season for the hawthorn to blossom!” I objected.

 

“The season for the hawthorn to blossom,” he replied, “is when the hawthorn blossoms. That tree is in the ruins of the church on your home-farm. You were going to give some directions to the bailiff about its churchyard, were you not, the morning of the thunder?”

 

“I was going to tell him I wanted it turned into a wilderness⁴ of rose-trees, and that the plough must never come within three yards of it.”

 

“Listen!” said the raven⁵, seeming to hold his breath.

 

I listened, and heard—was it the sighing of a far-off musical wind—or the ghost of a music that had once been glad? Or did I indeed hear anything?

 

“They go there still,” said the raven.

 

“Who goes there? and where do they go?” I asked.

 

“Some of the people who used to pray there, go to the ruins still,” he replied. “But they will not go much longer, I think.”

 

“What makes them go now?”

 

“They need help from each other to get their thinking done, and their feelings hatched, so they talk and sing together; and then, they say, the big thought floats out of their hearts like a great ship out of the river at high water.”

 

“Do they pray as well as sing?”

 

“No; they have found that each can best pray in his own silent heart.—Some people are always at their prayers.—Look! look! There goes one!”

 

He pointed⁶ right up into the air. A snow-white pigeon was mounting, with quick and yet quicker wing-flap, the unseen spiral of an ethereal stair. The sunshine flashed quivering from its wings.

 

“I see a pigeon!” I said.

 

“Of course you see a pigeon,” rejoined the raven, “for there is the pigeon! I see a prayer on its way.—I wonder now what heart is that dove’s mother! Some one may have come awake in my cemetery⁷!”

 

“How can a pigeon be a prayer?” I said. “I understand, of course, how it should be a fit symbol or likeness⁸ for one; but a live pigeon to come out of a heart!”

 

“It MUST puzzle you! It cannot fail to do so!”

 

“A prayer is a thought, a thing spiritual!” I pursued.

 

“Very true! But if you understood any world besides your own, you would understand your own much better.—When a heart is really alive, then it is able to think live things. There is one heart all whose thoughts are strong, happy creatures, and whose very dreams are lives. When some pray, they lift heavy thoughts from the ground, only to drop them on it again; others send up their prayers in living shapes, this or that, the nearest likeness to each. All live things were thoughts to begin with, and are fit therefore to be used by those that think. When one says to the great Thinker:—‘Here is one of thy thoughts: I am thinking it now!’ that is a prayer—a word to the big heart from one of its own little hearts.—Look, there is another!”

 

This time the raven pointed his beak downward—to something at the foot of a block of granite⁹. I looked, and saw a little flower. I had never seen one like it before, and cannot utter the feeling it woke in me by its gracious, trusting form, its colour, and its odour as of a new world that was yet the old. I can only say that it suggested an anemone¹⁰, was of a pale rose-hue, and had a golden heart.

 

“That is a prayer-flower,” said the raven.

 

“I never saw such a flower before!” I rejoined.

 

“There is no other such. Not one prayer-flower is ever quite like another,” he returned.

 

“How do you know it a prayer-flower?” I asked.

 

“By the expression of it,” he answered. “More than that I cannot tell you. If you know it, you know it; if you do not, you do not.”

 

“Could you not teach me to know a prayer-flower when I see it?” I said.

 

“I could not. But if I could, what better would you be? you would not know it of YOURSELF and ITself! Why know the name of a thing when the thing itself you do not know? Whose work is it but your own to open your eyes? But indeed the business of the universe is to make such a fool of you that you will know yourself for one, and so begin to be wise!”

 

But I did see that the flower was different from any flower I had ever seen before; therefore I knew that I must be seeing a shadow of the prayer in it; and a great awe¹¹ came over me to think of the heart listening to the flower.

 

 

1 grotesque   

adj.怪诞的，丑陋的；n.怪诞的图案，怪人（物）

参考例句：

• His face has a grotesque appearance.他的面部表情十分怪。
• Her account of the incident was a grotesque distortion of the truth.她对这件事的陈述是荒诞地歪曲了事实。

2 hawthorn   

山楂

参考例句：

• A cuckoo began calling from a hawthorn tree.一只布谷鸟开始在一株山楂树里咕咕地呼叫。
• Much of the track had become overgrown with hawthorn.小路上很多地方都长满了山楂树。

3 beak   

n.鸟嘴，茶壶嘴，钩形鼻

参考例句：

• The bird had a worm in its beak.鸟儿嘴里叼着一条虫。
• This bird employs its beak as a weapon.这种鸟用嘴作武器。

4 wilderness   

n.杳无人烟的一片陆地、水等，荒漠

参考例句：

• She drove the herd of cattle through the wilderness.她赶着牛群穿过荒野。
• Education in the wilderness is not a matter of monetary means.荒凉地区的教育不是钱财问题。

5 raven   

n.渡鸟，乌鸦；adj.乌亮的

参考例句：

• We know the raven will never leave the man's room.我们知道了乌鸦再也不会离开那个男人的房间。
• Her charming face was framed with raven hair.她迷人的脸上垂落着乌亮的黑发。

6 pointed   

adj.尖的，直截了当的

参考例句：

• He gave me a very sharp pointed pencil.他给我一支削得非常尖的铅笔。
• She wished to show Mrs.John Dashwood by this pointed invitation to her brother.她想通过对达茨伍德夫人提出直截了当的邀请向她的哥哥表示出来。

7 cemetery   

n.坟墓，墓地，坟场

参考例句：

• He was buried in the cemetery.他被葬在公墓。
• His remains were interred in the cemetery.他的遗体葬在墓地。

8 likeness   

n.相像，相似（之处）

参考例句：

• I think the painter has produced a very true likeness.我认为这位画家画得非常逼真。
• She treasured the painted likeness of her son.她珍藏她儿子的画像。

9 granite   

adj.花岗岩，花岗石

参考例句：

• They squared a block of granite.他们把一块花岗岩加工成四方形。
• The granite overlies the older rocks.花岗岩躺在磨损的岩石上面。

10 anemone   

n.海葵

参考例句：

• Do you want this anemone to sting you?你想让这个海葵刺疼你吗？
• The bodies of the hydra and sea anemone can produce buds.水螅和海葵的身体能产生芽。

11 awe   

n.敬畏，惊惧；vt.使敬畏，使惊惧

参考例句：

• The sight filled us with awe.这景色使我们大为惊叹。
• The approaching tornado struck awe in our hearts.正在逼近的龙卷风使我们惊恐万分。