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015 - Of Queens' Gardens Part 5 · Sesame and Lilies

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  Speaker 1: Section fifteen of Sesame and Lilies Revised and enlarged edition
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  Speaker 1: by John Ruskin. This LibriVox recording is in the public
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  Speaker 1: domain recording by Oxen Handler of Queen's Gardens, Part five.
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  Speaker 1: And this beneficent and legal dominion, This power of the
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  Speaker 1: dominus or house lord, and of the domina or house lady,
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  Speaker 1: is great and venerable, not in the number of those
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  Speaker 1: through whom it has lineally descended, but in the number
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  Speaker 1: of those whom it grasps within its sway. It is
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  Speaker 1: always regarded with reverend worship wherever its dynasty is founded
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  Speaker 1: on its duty and its ambition co relative with its beneficence.
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  Speaker 1: Your fancy is pleased with the thought of being noble, ladies,
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  Speaker 1: with the train of vassals. Be it so you cannot
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  Speaker 1: be too noble, and your train cannot be too great.
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  Speaker 1: But see to it that your train is of vassals
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  Speaker 1: whom you serve and feed, not merely of slaves who
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  Speaker 1: serve and feed you. And that the multitude which obeys
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  Speaker 1: you is of those whom you have comforted, not oppressed,
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  Speaker 1: whom you have redeemed, not led into captivity. And this
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  Speaker 1: which is true of the lower or household dominion is
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  Speaker 1: equally true of the queenly dominion. That highest dignity is
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  Speaker 1: open to you, if you will also accept that highest
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  Speaker 1: duty rex et regina roy et rene right doers. They
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  Speaker 1: differ but from the Lady and Lord in that their
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  Speaker 1: power is supreme over the mind, as over the person,
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  Speaker 1: that they not only feed and clothe, but direct and teach.
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  Speaker 1: And whether consciously or not, you must be, in many
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  Speaker 1: a heart enthroned. There is no putting by that crown. Queens,
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  Speaker 1: you must always be queens to your lover, queens to
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  Speaker 1: your husband and your sons, Queens of higher mystery, to
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  Speaker 1: the world beyond which bows itself and will forever bow
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  Speaker 1: before the myrtle crown and the stainless scepter of womanhood.
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  Speaker 1: But alas you are too often idle and careless queens,
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  Speaker 1: grasping at majesty in the least things, while you abdicate
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  Speaker 1: it in the greatest and leaving misrule and violence to
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  Speaker 1: work their will among men, in defiance of the power
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  Speaker 1: which holding straight in gift from the Prince of all peace,
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  Speaker 1: the wicked among you betray, and the good forget quote
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  Speaker 1: Prince of Peace unquote. Note that name when kings rule
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  Speaker 1: in that name, and nobles and the judges of the earth,
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  Speaker 1: they also, in their narrow place and mortal measure, receive
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  Speaker 1: the power of it. There are no other rulers than they.
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  Speaker 1: Other rule than theirs is but misrule. They who govern
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  Speaker 1: verily quote dai gratia unquote are all princes, yes, or
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  Speaker 1: princesses of peace. There is not a war in the world,
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  Speaker 1: no nor an injustice. But you, women are answerable for it.
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  Speaker 1: Not in that you have provoked, but in that you
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  Speaker 1: have not hindered. Men by their nature are prone to fight.
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  Speaker 1: They will fight for any cause or for none. It
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  Speaker 1: is for you to choose their cause for them, and
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  Speaker 1: to forbid them when there is no cause. There is
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  Speaker 1: no suffering, no injustice, no misery in the earth. But
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  Speaker 1: the guilt of it lies lastly with you. Men can
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  Speaker 1: bear the sight of it, but you should not be
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  Speaker 1: able to bear it. Men may tread it down without
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  Speaker 1: sympathy in their own struggle. But men are feeble in
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  Speaker 1: sympathy and contracted in hope. It is you only who
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  Speaker 1: can feel the depths of pain and conceived the way
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  Speaker 1: of its healing. Instead of trying to do this, you
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  Speaker 1: turn away from it. You shut yourselves within your park
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  Speaker 1: walls and garden gates, and you are content to know
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  Speaker 1: that there is beyond them a whole world in wilderness,
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  Speaker 1: a world of secrets which you dare not penetrate, and
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  Speaker 1: of suffering which you dare not conceive. I tell you
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  Speaker 1: that this is to me quite the most amazing among
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  Speaker 1: the phenomena of humanity. I am surprised at no depths
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  Speaker 1: to which, when once warped from its honor, that humanity
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  Speaker 1: can be degraded. I do not wonder at the miser's
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  Speaker 1: death with his hands as they relaxed dropping gold. I
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  Speaker 1: do not wonder at the sensualists life with the shroud
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  Speaker 1: wrapped around his feet. I do not wonder at the
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  Speaker 1: single handed murder of a single victim, done by the
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  Speaker 1: assassin in the darkness of the railway or read shadows
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  Speaker 1: of the marsh. I do not even wonder at the
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  Speaker 1: myriad handed murder of multitudes, done boastfully in the daylight,
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  Speaker 1: by the frenzy of nations and the immeasurable, unimaginable guilt
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  Speaker 1: heaped up from hell to heaven of their priests and kings.
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  Speaker 1: But this is wonderful to me. Oh how wonderful to
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  Speaker 1: see the tender and delicate woman among you, with her
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  Speaker 1: child at her breast, and a power, if she would
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  Speaker 1: yield it, over it and over its father, purer than
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  Speaker 1: the air of heaven, and stronger than the seas of earth. Nay,
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  Speaker 1: a magnitude of blessing which her husband would not part with,
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  Speaker 1: for all that earth itself, though it were made of
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  Speaker 1: one entire and perfect chrysolite. To see her abdicate this
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  Speaker 1: majesty to play at precedence with her next door neighbor,
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  Speaker 1: this is wonderful, Oh, wonderful, to see her, with every
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  Speaker 1: innocent feeling fresh within her, go out in the morning
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  Speaker 1: into her garden to play with the fringes of its
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  Speaker 1: guarded flowers, and lift their heads when they are drooping,
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  Speaker 1: with her head happy smile upon her face and no
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  Speaker 1: cloud upon her brow. Because there is a little wall
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  Speaker 1: around her place of peace, and yet she knows in
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  Speaker 1: her heart, if she would only look for its knowledge,
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  Speaker 1: that outside of that little rose covered wall, the wild
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  Speaker 1: grass to the horizon is torn up by the agony
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  Speaker 1: of men, and beat level by the drift of their
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  Speaker 1: life blood. Have you ever considered what a deep undermeaning
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  Speaker 1: their lies or at least may be read if we
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  Speaker 1: choose in our custom of strewing flowers before those whom
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  Speaker 1: we think most happy. Do you suppose it is merely
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  Speaker 1: to deceive them into the hope that happiness is always
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  Speaker 1: to fall thus in showers at their feet, that wherever
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  Speaker 1: they pass, they will tread on herbs of sweet scent,
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  Speaker 1: and that the rough ground will be made smooth for
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  Speaker 1: them by depth of roses. So surely as they believe that,
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  Speaker 1: they will have instead to walk on bitter herbs and thorns,
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  Speaker 1: and the only softness of their feet will be of snow.
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  Speaker 1: But it is not thus intended. They should believe there
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  Speaker 1: is a better meaning in that old custom. The path
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  Speaker 1: of a good woman is indeed strewn with flowers, but
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  Speaker 1: they rise behind her steps, not before them. Her feet
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  Speaker 1: have touched the meadows and left the daisies rosy. You
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  Speaker 1: think that only a lover's fancy, false and vain. How
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  Speaker 1: if it could be true, you think this also, perhaps
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  Speaker 1: only a poet's fancy. Quote even the light harebell raised
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  Speaker 1: its head elastic from her airy tread unquote. But it
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  Speaker 1: is little to say of a woman that she only
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  Speaker 1: does not destroy where she passes she should revive, the
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  Speaker 1: hairbells should bloom, not stoop as she passes. You think
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  Speaker 1: I am going into wild hyperbole. Pardon me, not a whit.
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  Speaker 1: I mean what I say in calm English, spoken in
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  Speaker 1: resolute truth. You have heard it said, and I believe
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  Speaker 1: there is more than fancy even in that saying. But
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  Speaker 1: let it pass for a fanciful one. That flowers only
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  Speaker 1: flowish rightly in the garden of some one who loves them.
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  Speaker 1: I know you would like that to be true. You
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  Speaker 1: would think it a pleasant magic if you could flush
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  Speaker 1: your flowers with brighter bloom by a kind look upon them.
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  Speaker 1: Nay more, if your look had the power not only
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  Speaker 1: to cheer, but to guard them. If you could bid
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  Speaker 1: the black blight turn away, and the knotted caterpillar spare,
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  Speaker 1: If you could bid the dew fall upon them in
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  Speaker 1: the drought, and say to the south wind in frost,
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  Speaker 1: come thou south, and breathe upon my garden, that the
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  Speaker 1: spices of it may flow out. This you would think
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  Speaker 1: a great thing. And do you think it not a
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  Speaker 1: greater thing that all this? And how much more than
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  Speaker 1: this you can do for fairer flowers than these flowers,
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  Speaker 1: that could bless you for having blessed them, and will
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  Speaker 1: love you for having loved them. Flowers that have eyes
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  Speaker 1: like yours, and thoughts like yours, and lives like yours,
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  Speaker 1: which once saved you save forever. Is this only a
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  Speaker 1: little power? Far among the moorlands and the rocks, Far
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  Speaker 1: in the darkness of the terrible streets, these feeble floretss
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  Speaker 1: are lying with all their fresh sleeves torn in their
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  Speaker 1: stems broken. Will you never go down to them, nor
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  Speaker 1: set them in order in their little fragrant beds, nor
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  Speaker 1: fence them in their shuddering from the fierce wind. Shall
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  Speaker 1: morning follow mourning for you, but not for them, and
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  Speaker 1: the dawn rise to watch far away those frantic dances
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  Speaker 1: of death footnote see note page fifty seven and a footnote.
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  Speaker 1: But no dawn rise to breathe upon these living banks
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  Speaker 1: of wild violet and woodbine and rows. Nor call to
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  Speaker 1: you through your casement, call, not giving you the name
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  Speaker 1: of the English poet's lady, but the name of Dante's
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  Speaker 1: great Matilda, who, on the edge of happy leath stood
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  Speaker 1: wreathing flowers with flowers and saying, quote, come into the
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  Speaker 1: garden Maud for the black bat night has flown, and
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  Speaker 1: the woodbine spices are wafted abroad, and the musk of
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  Speaker 1: the roses blown unquote. Will you not go down among them,
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  Speaker 1: among those sweet living things, whose new courage sprung from
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  Speaker 1: the earth, with the deep color of heaven upon it,
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  Speaker 1: is starting up in strength of goodly spire, and whose purity,
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  Speaker 1: washed from the dust, is opening bud by bud into
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  Speaker 1: the flower of promise. And still they turned to you
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  Speaker 1: and for you. The larkspur listens, I hear, I hear,
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  Speaker 1: and the lily whispers, I wait. Did you notice that
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  Speaker 1: I missed two lines when I read you that first stanza?
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  Speaker 1: And think that I have forgotten them? Hear them now? Quote,
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  Speaker 1: Come into the garden, mod for the black bat night
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  Speaker 1: has flown, Come into the garden. Mod. I am here
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  Speaker 1: here at the gate alone. Who is it? Thank you,
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  Speaker 1: who stands at the gate of this sweeter garden alone
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  Speaker 1: waiting for you? Did you ever hear not of Maud,
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  Speaker 1: but of Madeleine, who went down to her garden in
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  Speaker 1: the dawn and found one waiting at the gate, whom
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  Speaker 1: she supposed to be the gardener? Have you not sought him?
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  Speaker 1: Often sought him? In vain all through the night sought
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  Speaker 1: him in vain at the gate of that old garden
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  Speaker 1: where the fiery sword is set. He is never there,
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  Speaker 1: But at the gate of this garden he is waiting,
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  Speaker 1: always waiting to take your hand, ready to go down
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  Speaker 1: to see the fruits of the valley, to see whether
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  Speaker 1: the vine has flourished and the pomegranate budded. There you
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  Speaker 1: shall see with him the little tendrils of the vines
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  Speaker 1: that his hand is guiding. There you shall see the
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  Speaker 1: pomegranate springing where his hand casts the sanguine seed. More,
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  Speaker 1: you shall see the troops of the angel keepers, that
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  Speaker 1: with their wings wave away the hungry birds from the
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  Speaker 1: pathsides where he has sown, and called to each other
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  Speaker 1: between the vineyard rows. Quote, take us the foxes, the
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  Speaker 1: little foxes that spoil the vines, for our vines have
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  Speaker 1: tender grapes. O you queens, you queens. Among the hills
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  Speaker 1: and happy greenwood of this land of yours, shall the
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  Speaker 1: foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests.
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  Speaker 1: And in your cities shall the stones cry out against you,
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  Speaker 1: that they are the only pillows where the son of
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  Speaker 1: man can lay his head. End of section fifteen end
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  Speaker 1: of of Queen's Gardens,