Today's poem features the ultimate parade

Thinking of the parade, I have chosen for our Poem of the Week the penultimate section of the poem we call Pearl, for sheer technical intricacy and virtuosity the most brilliant narrative poem in English. Let me talk a little about the poem, and then set the scene for the passage.

Pearl, and three other poems, possibly four, including the well-known Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, was written by a master of poetry in the fourteenth century, contemporary with Geoffrey Chaucer. We do not know his name. While Chaucer took his lead, in poetic form, from the rhyming verse common to French and Italian poetry, and by now well established in English folk songs, our Master, no less learned than Chaucer, turned to the old-fashioned ways, then experiencing a revival outside of London. He wrote in what we call “alliterative long lines,” using a vigorous and muscular alliteration to hold the long line together. But he was also a master of rhyme, and in Pearl he pulls off something incredible. He uses both techniques, and chooses a rhyme scheme for his 12-line stanzas that is wonderfully musical but extremely difficult. There’s much more. He binds each stanza to the next by repeating in the first line some key word in the last line of the stanza before it. And more. The stanzas are grouped in sections of 5 — with one notable and deliberate exception, having 6, and each section has its own key word linking the stanzas. And more. There are 20 sections, giving us 101 stanzas. And more. Each stanza has 12 lines, so there are 1212 lines. That’s on purpose: the poem is about the 12 x 12 thousand blessed souls in the Apocalypse of Saint John. And more. The last line of the poem echoes the first line, so that the whole poem is what we call a “corona,” and that’s also on purpose; the poem is round and perfect, like a pearl of great price.

I could get into the theology of the poem, and its plentiful and illuminating retelling of passages from Scripture, but that would take us far too long. Let me then tell you the basic story. A man — I’ll call him the Dreamer — has lost his “pearl,” which has entered the ground; and we don’t know what that means, till we learn, with some astonishment and deep human feeling, that the treasure box he is referring to is the casket in which lies his beloved daughter, his Pearl, who died before she was two years old. He goes to the flowery garden where he lost her: we don’t need to be told that it’s the graveyard. It’s a beautiful place. He falls asleep there, and he has a dream.

The Dreamer and the Pearl maiden: an illumination in the sole surviving manuscript containing the Gawain-poet’s masterpieces

He’s in a place of extraordinary beauty, with a clear crystal river separating him from a land beyond that is more beautiful still. His heart is overflowing with comfort, when suddenly a little maiden approaches him from across the river. She is dressed all in white, and her gown is embroidered with pearls, with one pearl of great price at her chest. “I knew her well, I had seen her before,” says the Dreamer, with dramatic understatement. It is his daughter. And she has come to console him, but also to teach him, because he hasn’t submitted to the will of God, and as it turns out, he has quite a lot to learn about grace, and God’s love, and what it means to dwell in heaven. In the course of his questions and confusions and very natural human sorrow, she explains to him about the parable of the pearl of great price, and the parable of the vineyard owner, and the time when Jesus welcomed the little children, all while the Dreamer questions and demurs and finally submits — and learns. In the “extra” stanza, the one that gives us the “flaw” to make 1O1 stanzas, which is exactly what the poet wants, the Dreamer finally agrees to all, and only then is he granted the vision that — almost — ends the poem.

Jonah, being spat out by the whale; illumination of the poem “Patience,” by our author, in the same manuscript

The vision is of the great parade of pure souls that John describes in triumph, in the book of Revelation. In the Dreamer’s vision, they are all maidens, just like his little Pearl, and he sees her far off now, and he is wholly caught up in delight. So wholly, in fact, that he forgets what that river is, and tries to cross it on his own; then the vision disappears. But our section comes right before that.

I really do not have the words to describe in brief what a magnificent accomplishment this poem is. Set aside the technical brilliance. It is theologically profound, and at the same time deeply human; it is learned, but the language the poet uses is accessible to everybody. The translation I’m using here is by Marie Borroff, whose work I have admired, and I recommend to you her translations of all of this unknown genius’s works: The Gawain Poet: Complete Works.

As the great moon begins to shine
While lingers still the light of day,
So in those ramparts crystalline
I saw a procession wend its way.
Without a summons, without a sign,
The city was full in vast array
Of maidens in such raiment fine
As my blissful one had worn that day.
As she was crowned, so crowned were they;
Adorned with pearls, in garments white;
And in like fashion, gleaming gay,
Each bore the pearl of great delight.

With great delight, serene and slow,
They moved through every golden street;
Thousands and thousands, row on row,
All in one raiment shining sweet.
Who gladdest seemed, was hard to know;
The Lamb led on at station meet,
Seven horns of gold upon His brow,
His robe like pearls with rays replete.
Soon they approach God's mighty seat;
Though thick in throng, unhurried quite;
As maidens at communion meet
They moved along in great delight.

Delight that at His coming grew
Was greater than my tongue can tell;
The elders when he came in view
Prostrate as one before him fell;
Hosts of angels in retinue
Cast incense forth of sweetest smell;
Then all in concert praised anew
That jewel with whom in joy they dwell.
The sound could pierce through the earth to hell
When the powers of heaven in song unite;
To share his praises in citadel
My heart indeed had great delight.

Delight and wonder filled me in flood
To hear all heaven the Lamb acclaim;
Gladdest he was, most kind and good
Of any that ever was known to fame.
His dress so white, so mild his mood,
His looks so gracious, Himself the same;
But a wound there was, and wide it stood,
Thrust near his heart with deadly aim.
Down His white side the red blood came;
"O God," thought I, "who had such spite?
A breast should consume with sorrow and shame
Ere in such deeds it took delight."

The Lamb's delight was clearly seen,
Though a bitter wound He had to bear;
So glorious was His gaze serene,
It gladdened all who beheld him there.
I looked where that bright host had been,
How charged with life, how changed they were.
And then I saw my little queen
That I thought but now I had stood so near;
Lord! how she laughed and made good cheer
Among her friends, who were so white!
To rush in the river then and there
I longed with love and great delight.

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