SCENE XIV.
_Adam’s Vision._
_Adam._ O Cain, the words of Adam shall be said; Come near and hear your father’s words, my son. I have been in the spirit, as they call it, Dreaming, which is, as others say, the same. I sat, and you, Cain, with me, and Eve (We sat as in a picture people sit, Great figures, silent, with their place content); And Abel came and took your hand, my son, And wept and kissed you, saying, ‘Forgive me, Cain Ah me! my brother, sad has been thy life For my sake, all thro’ me; how foolishly, Because we knew not both of us were right;’ And you embraced and wept, and we too wept.
Then I beheld through eyes with tears suffused, And deemed at first ’twas blindness thence ensuing; Abel was gone, and you were gone, my son— Gone, and yet not gone; yea, I seemed to see The decomposing of those coloured lines Which we called you, their fusion into one, And therewithal their vanishing and end. And Eve said to me, ‘Adam, in the day When in the inexistent void I heard God’s voice, An awful whisper, bidding me to be, How slow was I to come, how loth to obey; As slow, as sad, as lingeringly loth, I fade, I vanish, sink, and cease to be, By the same sovereign strong compulsion borne: Ah, if I vanish, take me into thee!’ She spoke, nor, speaking, ceased I listening; but I was alone, yet not alone, with her And she with me, and you with us, my sons, As at the first;—and yet not wholly—yea, And that which I had witnessed thus in you, This fusion, and mutation, and return, Seemed in my substance working too. I slept, I did not dream, my sleep was sweet to me. Yes, in despite of all disquietudes, For Eve, for you, for Abel, which indeed Impelled in me that gaiety of soul— Without your fears I had listened to my own— In spite of doubt, despondency, and death, Though lacking knowledge alway, lacking faith Sometimes, and hope; with no sure trust in ought Except a kind of impetus within, Whose sole credentials were that trust itself; Yet, in despite of much, in lack of more, Life has been beautiful to me, my son, And I, if I am called, will come again. As he hath lived he dies.—My comforter, Whom I believed not, only trusted in, What had I been without thee? how survived? Would I were with thee wheresoe’er thou art! Would I might follow thee still! But sleep is sweet, and I would sleep, my son. Oh Cain! behold your father’s words are said!
_THE SONG OF LAMECH._
Hearken to me, ye mothers of my tent: Ye wives of Lamech, hearken to my speech: Adah, let Jubal hither lead his goats: And Tubal Cain, O Zillah, hush the forge; Naamah her wheel shall ply beside, and thou, My Jubal, touch, before I speak, the string. Yea, Jubal, touch, before I speak, the string. Hear ye my voice, beloved of my tent, Dear ones of Lamech, listen to my speech.
For Eve made answer, Cain, my son, my own, O, if I cursed thee, O my child, I sinned, And He that heard me, heard, and said me nay: My first, my only one, thou shalt not go;— And Adam answered also, Cain, my son, He that is gone forgiveth, we forgive: Rob not thy mother of two sons at once; My child, abide with us and comfort us.
Hear ye my voice; Adah and Zillah, near; Ye wives of Lamech, listen to my speech. For Cain replied not. But, an hour more, sat Where the night through he sat; his knit brows seen, Scarce seen, amid the foldings of his limbs. But when the sun was bright upon the field, To Adam still, and Eve still waiting by, And weeping, lift he up his voice and spake Cain said, The sun is risen upon the earth; The day demands my going, and I go.— As you from Paradise, so I from you: As you to exile, into exile I: My father and my mother, I depart. As betwixt you and Paradise of old, So betwixt me, my parents, now, and you, Cherubim I discern, and in their hand A flaming sword that turneth every way, To keep the way of my one tree of life, The way my spirit yearns to, of my love. Yet not, O Adam and O Eve, fear not. For He that asked me, Where is Abel? He Who called me cursed from the earth, and said A fugitive and vagabond thou art, He also said, when fear had slain my soul, There shall not touch thee man nor beast. Fear not. Lo, I have spoke with God, and He hath said. Fear not;—and let me go as He hath said. Cain also said (O Jubal, touch thy string),— Moreover, in the darkness of my mind, When the night’s night of misery was most black, A little star came twinkling up within, And in myself I had a guide that led, And in myself had knowledge of a soul. Fear not, O Adam and O Eve: I go.
Children of Lamech, listen to my speech.
For when the years were multiplied, and Cain Eastward of Eden, in this land of Nod, Had sons, and sons of sons, and sons of them, Enoch and Irad and Mehujael (My father, and my children’s grandsire he), It came to pass, that Cain, who dwelt alone, Met Adam, at the nightfall, in the field: Who fell upon his neck, and wept, and said, My son, has not God spoken to thee, Cain? And Cain replied, when weeping loosed his voice, My dreams are double, O my father, good And evil. Terror to my soul by night, And agony by day, when Abel stands A dead, black shade, and speaks not, neither looks, Nor makes me any answer when I cry— Curse me, but let me know thou art alive. But comfort also, like a whisper, comes, In visions of a deeper sleep, when he, Abel, as him we knew, yours once and mine, Comes with a free forgiveness in his face, Seeming to speak, solicitous for words, And wearing ere he go the old, first look Of unsuspecting, unforeboding love. Three nights are gone I saw him thus, my Sire.
Dear ones of Lamech, listen to my speech.
For Adam said, Three nights ago to me Came Abel, in my sleep, as thou hast said, And spake, and bade,—Arise my father, go Where in the land of exile dwells thy son; Say to my brother, Abel bids thee come, Abel would have thee; and lay thou thy hand, My father, on his head, that he may come; Am I not weary, father, for this hour? Hear ye my voice, Adah and Zillah, hear; Children of Lamech, listen to my speech: And, son of Zillah, sound thy solemn string.
For Adam laid upon the head of Cain His hand, and Cain bowed down, and slept, and died. And a deep sleep on Adam also fell, And, in his slumber’s deepest, he beheld, Standing before the gate of Paradise, With Abel, hand in hand, our father Cain. Hear ye my voice, Adah and Zillah, hear; Ye wives of Lamech, listen to my speech.
Though to his wounding he did slay a man, Yea, and a young man to his hurt he slew, Fear not, ye wives, nor sons of Lamech fear: If unto Cain was safety given and rest, Shall Lamech surely and his people die?
_GENESIS XXIV._
Who is this man that walketh in the field, O Eleazar, steward to my lord?
And Eleazar answered her and said, Daughter of Bethuel, it is other none But my lord Isaac, son unto my lord, Who, as his wont is, walketh in the field, In the hour of evening, meditating there.
Therefore Rebekah hasted where she sat, And from her camel ’lighting to the earth, Sought for a veil and put it on her face,
But Isaac also, walking in the field, Saw from afar a company that came, Camels, and a seat as where a woman sat; Wherefore he came and met them on the way.
Whom, when Rebekah saw, she came before, Saying, Behold the handmaid of my lord, Who, for my lord’s sake, travel from my land.
But he said, O thou blessed of our God, Come, for the tent is eager for thy face. Shall not thy husband be unto thee more than Hundreds of kinsmen living in thy land?
And Eleazar answered, Thus and thus, Even according as thy father bade, Did we; and thus and thus it came to pass: Lo! is not this Rebekah, Bethuel’s child?
And, as he ended, Isaac spoke and said, Surely my heart went with you on the way, When with the beasts ye came unto the place.
Truly, O child of Nahor, I was there, When to thy mother and thy mother’s son Thou madest answer, saying, I will go. And Isaac brought her to his mother’s tent.
_JACOB._
My sons, and ye the children of my sons, Jacob your father goes upon his way, His pilgrimage is being accomplished. Come near and hear him ere his words are o’er. Not as my father’s or his father’s days, As Isaac’s days or Abraham’s, have been mine; Not as the days of those that in the field Walked at the eventide to meditate, And haply, to the tent returning, found Angels at nightfall waiting at their door. They communed, Israel wrestled with the Lord. No, not as Abraham’s or as Isaac’s days, My sons, have been Jacob your father’s days, Evil and few, attaining not to theirs In number, and in worth inferior much. As a man with his friend, walked they with God, In His abiding presence they abode, And all their acts were open to His face. But I have had to force mine eyes away, To lose, almost to shun, the thoughts I loved, To bend down to the work, to bare the breast, And struggle, feet and hands, with enemies; To buffet and to battle with hard men, With men of selfishness and violence; To watch by day, and calculate by night, To plot and think of plots, and through a land Ambushed with guile, and with strong foes beset, To win with art safe wisdom’s peaceful way. Alas! I know, and from the onset knew, The first-born faith, the singleness of soul, The antique pure simplicity with which God and good angels communed undispleased, Is not; it shall not any more be said, That of a blameless and a holy kind, The chosen race, the seed of promise, comes. The royal, high prerogatives, the dower Of innocence and perfectness of life, Pass not unto my children from their sire, As unto me they came of mine; they fit Neither to Jacob nor to Jacob’s race. Think ye, my sons, in this extreme old age And in this failing breath, that I forget How on the day when from my father’s door, In bitterness and ruefulness of heart, I from my parents set my face, and felt I never more again should look on theirs, How on that day I seemed unto myself Another Adam from his home cast out, And driven abroad unto a barren land, Cursed for his sake, and mocking still with thorns And briers that labour and that sweat of brow He still must spend to live? Sick of my days, I wished not life, but cried out, Let me die; But at Luz God came to me; in my heart He put a better mind, and showed me how, While we discern it not, and least believe, On stairs invisible betwixt His heaven And our unholy, sinful, toilsome earth Celestial messengers of loftiest good Upward and downward pass continually. Many, since I upon the field of Luz Set up the stone I slept on, unto God, Many have been the troubles of my life; Sins in the field and sorrows in the tent, In mine own household anguish and despair, And gall and wormwood mingled with my love. The time would fail me should I seek to tell Of a child wronged and cruelly revenged (Accursed was that anger, it was fierce, That wrath, for it was cruel); or of strife And jealousy and cowardice, with lies Mocking a father’s misery; deeds of blood, Pollutions, sicknesses, and sudden deaths. These many things against me many times, The ploughers have ploughed deep upon my back, And made deep furrows; blessed be His name Who hath delivered Jacob out of all, And left within his spirit hope of good.
Come near to me, my sons: your father goes, The hour of his departure draweth nigh. Ah me! this eager rivalry of life, This cruel conflict for pre-eminence, This keen supplanting of the dearest kin, Quick seizure and fast unrelaxing hold Of vantage-place; the stony hard resolve, The chase, the competition, and the craft Which seems to be the poison of our life, And yet is the condition of our life! To have done things on which the eye with shame Looks back, the closed hand clutching still the prize!— Alas! what of all these things shall I say? Take me away unto Thy sleep, O God! I thank Thee it is over, yet I think It was a work appointed me of Thee. How is it? I have striven all my days To do my duty to my house and hearth, And to the purpose of my father’s race, Yet is my heart therewith not satisfied.
_JACOB’S WIVES._
These are the words of Jacob’s wives, the words Which Leah spake and Rachel to his ears, When, in the shade at eventide, he sat By the tent door, a palm-tree overhead, A spring beside him, and the sheep around.
And Rachel spake and said, The nightfall comes— Night, which all day I wait for, and for thee.
And Leah also spake, The day is done; My lord with toil is weary and would rest.
And Rachel said, Come, O my Jacob, come; And we will think we sit beside the well, As in that day, the long long years agone, When first I met thee with my father’s flock.
And Leah said, Come, Israel, unto me; And thou shalt reap an harvest of fair sons, E’en as before I bare thee goodly babes; For when was Leah fruitless to my lord?
And Rachel said, Ah come! as then thou cam’st, Come once again to set thy seal of love; As then, down bending, when the sheep had drunk, Then settedst it, my shepherd—O sweet seal!— Upon the unwitting, half-foretasting lips, Which, shy and trembling, thirsted yet for thine As cattle thirsted never for the spring.
And Leah answered, Are not these their names— As Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah—four? Like four young saplings by the water’s brim, Where straining rivers through the great plain wind— Four saplings soon to rise to goodly trees— Four trees whose growth shall cast an huger shade Than ever yet on river-side was seen.
And Rachel said, And shall it be again As, when dissevered far, unheard, alone, Consumed in bitter anger all night long, I moaned and wept, while, silent and discreet, One reaped the fruit of love that Rachel’s was Upon the breast of him that knew her not?
And Leah said, And was it then a wrong That, in submission to a father’s word, Trembling yet hopeful, to that bond I crept, Which God hath greatly prospered, and my lord, Content, in after-wisdom not disowned, Joyful, in after-thankfulness approved?
And Rachel said, But we will not complain, Though all life long, an alien, unsought third, She trouble our companionship of love.
And Leah answered, No, complain we not, Though years on years she loiter in the tent, A fretful, vain, unprofitable wife.
And Rachel answered, Ah! she little knows What in old days to Jacob Rachel was.
And Leah said, And wilt thou dare to say, Because my lord was gracious to thee then, No deeper thought his riper cares hath claimed, No stronger purpose passed into his life? That, youth and maid once fondly, softly touched, Time’s years must still the casual dream repeat, And all the river far, from source to sea, One flitting moment’s chance reflection bear? Also she added, Who is she to judge Of thoughts maternal, and a father’s heart?
And Rachel said, But what to supersede The rights which choice bestowed hath Leah done? What which my handmaid or which hers hath not? Is Simeon more than Naphtali? is Dan Less than his brother Levi in the house? That part that Billah and that Zilpah have, That, and no more, hath Leah in her lord; And let her with the same be satisfied.
Leah asked then, And shall these things compare (Fond wishes, and the pastime, and the play) With serious aims and forward-working hopes— Aims as far-reaching as to earth’s last age, And hopes far-travelling as from east to west?
Rachel replied, That love which in his youth, Through trial proved, consoles his perfect age; Shall this with project and with plan compare? Is not for-ever shorter than all time, And love more straitened than from east to west?
Leah spake further, Hath my lord not told How, in the visions of the night, his God, The God of Abraham and of Isaac, spake And said, Increase, and multiply, and fill With sons to serve Me this thy land and mine; And I will surely do thee good, and make Thy seed as is the sand beside the sea, Which is not numbered for its multitude? Shall Rachel bear this progeny to God?
But Rachel wept and answered, And if God Hath closed the womb of Rachel until now, Shall He not at His pleasure open it? Hath Leah read the counsels of the Lord? Was it not told her, in the ancient days, How Sarah, mother of great Israel’s sire, Lived to long years, insulted of her slave, Or e’er to light the Child of Promise came, Whom Rachel too to Jacob yet may bear?
Moreover, Rachel said, Shall Leah mock, Who stole the prime embraces of my love, My first long-destined, long-withheld caress? But not, she said, methought, but not for this, In the old days, did Jacob seek his bride;— Where art thou now, O thou that sought’st me then? Where is thy loving tenderness of old? And where that fervency of faith to which Seven weary years were even as a few days?
And Rachel wept and ended, Ah, my life! Though Leah bare thee sons on sons, methought The child of love, late-born, were worth them all.
And Leah groaned and answered, It is well: She that hath kept from me my husband’s heart Will set their father’s soul against my sons. Yet, also, not, she said, I thought, for this, Not for the feverish nor the doating love, Doth Israel, father of a nation, seek; Nor to light dalliance, as of boy and girl, Incline the thoughts of matron and of man, Or lapse the wisdom of maturer mind.
And Leah ended, Father of my sons, Come, thou shalt dream of Rachel if thou wilt, So Leah fold thee in a wife’s embrace.
These are the words of Jacob’s wives, who sat In the tent door, and listened to their speech, The spring beside him, and above the palm, While all the sheep were gathered for the night.
_THE NEW SINAI._
Lo, here is God, and there is God! Believe it not, O Man; In such vain sort to this and that The ancient heathen ran: Though old Religion shake her head, And say in bitter grief, The day behold, at first foretold, Of atheist unbelief: Take better part, with manly heart, Thine adult spirit can; Receive it not, believe it not, Believe it not, O Man!
As men at dead of night awaked With cries, ‘The king is here,’ Rush forth and greet whome’er they meet, Whoe’er shall first appear; And still repeat, to all the street, ‘’Tis he,—the king is here;’ The long procession moveth on, Each nobler form they see, With changeful suit they still salute And cry, ‘’Tis he, ’tis he!’
So, even so, when men were young, And earth and heaven were new, And His immediate presence He From human hearts withdrew, The soul perplexed and daily vexed With sensuous False and True, Amazed, bereaved, no less believed, And fain would see Him too: ‘He is!’ the prophet-tongues proclaimed; In joy and hasty fear, ‘He is!’ aloud replied the crowd, ‘Is here, and here, and here.’
‘He is! They are!’ in distance seen On yon Olympus high, In those Avernian woods abide, And walk this azure sky: ‘They are! They are!’—to every show Its eyes the baby turned, And blazes sacrificial, tall, On thousand altars burned: ‘They are! They are!’—On Sinai’s top Far seen the lightnings shone, The thunder broke, a trumpet spoke, And God said, ‘I am One.’
God spake it out, ‘I, God, am One;’ The unheeding ages ran, And baby-thoughts again, again, Have dogged the growing man: And as of old from Sinai’s top God said that God is One, By Science strict so speaks He now To tell us, There is None! Earth goes by chemic forces; Heaven’s A Mécanique Céleste! And heart and mind of human kind A watch-work as the rest!
Is this a Voice, as was the Voice, Whose speaking told abroad, When thunder pealed, and mountain reeled, The ancient truth of God? Ah, not the Voice; ’tis but the cloud, The outer darkness dense, Where image none, nor e’er was seen Similitude of sense. ’Tis but the cloudy darkness dense That wrapt the Mount around; While in amaze the people stays, To hear the Coming Sound.
Is there no prophet-soul the while To dare, sublimely meek, Within the shroud of blackest cloud The Deity to seek? ’Midst atheistic systems dark, And darker hearts’ despair, That soul has heard perchance His word, And on the dusky air His skirts, as passed He by, to see Hath strained on their behalf, Who on the plain, with dance amain, Adore the Golden Calf.
’Tis but the cloudy darkness dense; Though blank the tale it tells, No God, no Truth! yet He, in sooth, Is there—within it dwells; Within the sceptic darkness deep He dwells that none may see, Till idol forms and idol thoughts Have passed and ceased to be: No God, no Truth! ah though, in sooth So stand the doctrine’s half: On Egypt’s track return not back, Nor own the Golden Calf.
Take better part, with manlier heart, Thine adult spirit can; No God, no Truth, receive it ne’er— Believe it ne’er—O Man! But turn not then to seek again What first the ill began; No God, it saith; ah, wait in faith God’s self-completing plan; Receive it not, but leave it not, And wait it out, O Man!
‘The Man that went the cloud within Is gone and vanished quite; He cometh not,’ the people cries, ‘Nor bringeth God to sight: Lo these thy gods, that safety give, Adore and keep the feast!’ Deluding and deluded cries The Prophet’s brother-Priest: And Israel all bows down to fall Before the gilded beast.
Devout, indeed! that priestly creed, O Man, reject as sin; The clouded hill attend thou still, And him that went within. He yet shall bring some worthy thing For waiting souls to see: Some sacred word that he hath heard Their light and life shall be; Some lofty part, than which the heart Adopt no nobler can, Thou shalt receive, thou shalt believe And thou shalt do, O Man!
1845
_QUI LABORAT, ORAT._
O only Source of all our light and life, Whom as our truth, our strength, we see and feel, But whom the hours of mortal moral strife Alone aright reveal!
Mine inmost soul, before Thee inly brought, Thy presence owns ineffable, divine; Chastised each rebel self-encentered thought, My will adoreth Thine.
With eye down-dropt, if then this earthly mind Speechless remain, or speechless e’en depart; Nor seek to see—for what of earthly kind Can see Thee as Thou art?—
If well-assured ’tis but profanely bold In thought’s abstractest forms to seem to see, It dare not dare the dread communion hold In ways unworthy Thee,
O not unowned, thou shalt unnamed forgive, In worldly walks the prayerless heart prepare; And if in work its life it seem to live, Shalt make that work be prayer.
Nor times shall lack, when while the work it plies, Unsummoned powers the blinding film shall part, And scarce by happy tears made dim, the eyes In recognition start.
But, as thou willest, give or e’en forbear The beatific supersensual sight, So, with Thy blessing blest, that humbler prayer Approach Thee morn and night.
_ὕμνος ἄυμνος._
O Thou whose image in the shrine Of human spirits dwells divine; Which from that precinct once conveyed, To be to outer day displayed, Doth vanish, part, and leave behind Mere blank and void of empty mind, Which wilful fancy seeks in vain With casual shapes to fill again!
O Thou that in our bosom’s shrine Dost dwell, unknown because divine! I thought to speak, I thought to say, ‘The light is here,’ ‘behold the way,’ ‘The voice was thus,’ and ‘thus the word,’ And ‘thus I saw,’ and ‘that I heard,’— But from the lips that half essayed The imperfect utterance fell unmade.
O Thou, in that mysterious shrine Enthroned, as I must say, divine! I will not frame one thought of what Thou mayest either be or not. I will not prate of ‘thus’ and ‘so,’ And be profane with ‘yes’ and ‘no,’ Enough that in our soul and heart Thou, whatsoe’er Thou may’st be, art.
Unseen, secure in that high shrine Acknowledged present and divine, I will not ask some upper air, Some future day to place Thee there; Nor say, nor yet deny, such men And women saw Thee thus and then: Thy name was such, and there or here To him or her Thou didst appear.
Do only Thou in that dim shrine, Unknown or known, remain, divine; There, or if not, at least in eyes That scan the fact that round them lies, The hand to sway, the judgment guide, In sight and sense Thyself divide: Be Thou but there,—in soul and heart, I will not ask to feel Thou art.
_THE HIDDEN LOVE._
O let me love my love unto myself alone, And know my knowledge to the world unknown; No witness to my vision call, Beholding, unbeheld of all; And worship Thee, with Thee withdrawn apart, Whoe’er, Whate’er Thou art, Within the closest veil of mine own inmost heart.
What is it then to me If others are inquisitive to see? Why should I quit my place to go and ask If other men are working at their task? Leave my own buried roots to go And see that brother plants shall grow; And turn away from Thee, O Thou most Holy Light, To look if other orbs their orbits keep aright, Around their proper sun, Deserting Thee, and being undone.
O let me love my love unto myself alone, And know my knowledge to the world unknown; And worship Thee, O hid One, O much sought, As but man can or ought, Within the abstracted’st shrine of my least breathed on thought.
Better it were, thou sayest, to consent; Feast while we may, and live ere life be spent; Close up clear eyes, and call the unstable sure, The unlovely lovely, and the filthy pure; In self-belyings, self-deceivings roll, And lose in Action, Passion, Talk, the soul.
Nay, better far to mark off thus much air, And call it Heaven: place bliss and glory there; Fix perfect homes in the unsubstantial sky, And say, what is not, will be by-and-bye.
_SHADOW AND LIGHT._
Cease, empty Faith, the Spectrum saith, I was, and lo, have been; I, God, am nought: a shade of thought, Which, but by darkness seen, Upon the unknown yourselves have thrown, Placed it and light between.
At morning’s birth on darkened earth, And as the evening sinks, Awfully vast abroad is cast The lengthened form that shrinks And shuns the sight in midday light, And underneath you slinks.
From barren strands of wintry lands Across the seas of time, Borne onward fast ye touch at last An equatorial clime;
In equatorial noon sublime At zenith stands the sun, And lo, around, far, near, are found Yourselves, and Shadow none.
A moment! yea! but when the day At length was perfect day! A moment! so! and light we know With dark exchanges aye,
Nor morn nor eve shall shadow leave Your sunny paths secure, And in your sight that orb of light Shall humbler orbs obscure.
And yet withal, ’tis shadow all Whate’er your fancies dream, And I (misdeemed) that was, that seemed, Am not, whate’er I seem.
_‘WITH WHOM IS NO VARIABLENESS, NEITHER SHADOW OF TURNING.’_
It fortifies my soul to know That, though I perish, Truth is so: That, howsoe’er I stray and range, Whate’er I do, Thou dost not change. I steadier step when I recall That, if I slip, Thou dost not fall.
_IN STRATIS VIARUM._
Blessed are those who have not seen, And who have yet believed The witness, here that has not been, From heaven they have received.
Blessed are those who have not known The things that stand before them, And for a vision of their own Can piously ignore them.
So let me think whate’er befall, That in the city duly Some men there are who love at all, Some women who love truly;
And that upon two millions odd Transgressors in sad plenty, Mercy will of a gracious God Be shown—because of twenty.
‘_PERCHÈ PENSA? PENSANDO S’INVECCHIA._’
To spend uncounted years of pain, Again, again, and yet again, In working out in heart and brain The problem of our being here; To gather facts from far and near, Upon the mind to hold them clear, And, knowing more may yet appear, Unto one’s latest breath to fear, The premature result to draw— Is this the object, end and law, And purpose of our being here?
‘_O THOU OF LITTLE FAITH._’
It may be true That while we walk the troublous tossing sea, That when we see the o’ertopping waves advance, And when we feel our feet beneath us sink, There are who walk beside us; and the cry That rises so spontaneous to the lips, The ‘Help us or we perish,’ is not nought, An evanescent spectrum of disease. It may be that indeed and not in fancy, A hand that is not ours upstays our steps, A voice that is not ours commands the waves; Commands the waves, and whispers in our ear, O thou of little faith, why didst thou doubt? At any rate, That there are beings above us, I believe, And when we lift up holy hands of prayer, I will not say they will not give us aid.
‘_THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY._’
What we, when face to face we see The Father of our souls, shall be, John tells us, doth not yet appear; Ah! did he tell what we are here!
A mind for thoughts to pass into, A heart for loves to travel through, Five senses to detect things near, Is this the whole that we are here?
Rules baffle instincts—instincts rules, Wise men are bad—and good are fools, Facts evil—wishes vain appear, We cannot go, why are we here?
O may we for assurance’ sake, Some arbitrary judgment take, And wilfully pronounce it clear, For this or that ’tis we are here?
Or is it right, and will it do, To pace the sad confusion through, And say:—It doth not yet appear, What we shall be, what we are here?
Ah yet, when all is thought and said, The heart still overrules the head; Still what we hope we must believe, And what is given us receive;
Must still believe, for still we hope That in a world of larger scope, What here is faithfully begun Will be completed, not undone.
My child, we still must think, when we That ampler life together see, Some true result will yet appear Of what we are, together, here.
_AH! YET CONSIDER IT AGAIN!_
‘Old things need not be therefore true,’ O brother men, nor yet the new; Ah! still awhile the old thought retain, And yet consider it again!
The souls of now two thousand years Have laid up here their toils and fears, And all the earnings of their pain,— Ah, yet consider it again!
We! what do we see? each a space Of some few yards before his face; Does that the whole wide plan explain? Ah, yet consider it again!
Alas! the great world goes its way, And takes its truth from each new day; They do not quit, nor can retain, Far less consider it again.
1851
_NOLI ÆMULARI._
In controversial foul impureness The peace that is thy light to thee Quench not: in faith and inner sureness Possess thy soul and let it be.
No violence—perverse, persistent— What cannot be can bring to be; No zeal what is make more existent, And strife but blinds the eyes that see.
What though in blood their souls embruing, The great, the good, and wise they curse, Still sinning, what they know not doing; Stand still, forbear, nor make it worse.
By curses, by denunciation, The coming fate they cannot stay; Nor thou, by fiery indignation, Though just, accelerate the day.
‘_WHAT WENT YE OUT FOR TO SEE?_’
Across the sea, along the shore, In numbers more and ever more, From lonely hut and busy town, The valley through, the mountain down, What was it ye went out to see, Ye silly folk of Galilee? The reed that in the wind doth shake? The weed that washes in the lake? The reeds that waver, the weeds that float?— A young man preaching in a boat.
What was it ye went out to hear By sea and land, from far and near? A teacher? Rather seek the feet Of those who sit in Moses’ seat. Go humbly seek, and bow to them, Far off in great Jerusalem. From them that in her courts ye saw, Her perfect doctors of the law, What is it came ye here to note?— A young man preaching in a boat.
A prophet! Boys and women weak! Declare, or cease to rave; Whence is it he hath learned to speak? Say, who his doctrine gave? A prophet? Prophet wherefore he Of all in Israel tribes?— _He teacheth with authority,_ _And not as do the Scribes._
1851
_EPI-STRAUSS-IUM._
Matthew and Mark and Luke and holy John Evanished all and gone! Yea, he that erst his dusky curtains quitting, Thro’ Eastern pictured panes his level beams transmitting, With gorgeous portraits blent, On them his glories intercepted spent: Southwestering now, thro’ windows plainly glassed, On the inside face his radiance keen hath cast, And in the lustre lost, invisible and gone, Are, say you, Matthew, Mark and Luke and holy John? Lost, is it, lost, to be recovered never? However, The place of worship the meantime with light Is, if less richly, more sincerely bright, And in blue skies the Orb is manifest to sight.
_THE SHADOW._[5]
I dreamed a dream: I dreamt that I espied, Upon a stone that was not rolled aside, A Shadow sit upon a grave—a Shade, As thin, as unsubstantial, as of old Came, the Greek poet told, To lick the life-blood in the trench Ulysses made— As pale, as thin, and said: ‘I am the Resurrection of the Dead. The night is past, the morning is at hand, And I must in my proper semblance stand, Appear brief space and vanish,—listen, this is true, I am that Jesus whom they slew.’
And shadows dim, I dreamed, the dead apostles came, And bent their heads for sorrow and for shame— Sorrow for their great loss, and shame For what they did in that vain name.
And in long ranges far behind there seemed Pale vapoury angel forms; or was it cloud? that kept Strange watch; the women also stood beside and wept. And Peter spoke the word: ‘O my own Lord, What is it we must do? Is it then all untrue? Did we not see, and hear, and handle Thee, Yea, for whole hours Upon the Mount in Galilee, On the lake shore, and here at Bethany, When Thou ascendedst to Thy God and ours?’ And paler still became the distant cloud, And at the word the women wept aloud.
And the Shade answered, ‘What ye say I know not; But it is true I am that Jesus whom they slew, Whom ye have preached, but in what way I know not.
* * * * *
And the great World, it chanced, came by that way, And stopped, and looked, and spoke to the police, And said the thing, for order’s sake and peace, Most certainly must be suppressed, the nuisance cease His wife and daughter must have where to pray, And whom to pray to, at the least one day In seven, and something sensible to say.
Whether the fact so many years ago Had, or not, happened, how was he to know? Yet he had always heard that it was so. As for himself, perhaps it was all one; And yet he found it not unpleasant, too, On Sunday morning in the roomy pew, To see the thing with such decorum done. As for himself, perhaps it was all one; Yet on one’s death-bed all men always said It was a comfortable thing to think upon The atonement and the resurrection of the dead. So the great World as having said his say, Unto his country-house pursued his way. And on the grave the Shadow sat all day.
* * * * *
And the poor Pope was sure it must be so, Else wherefore did the people kiss his toe? The subtle Jesuit cardinal shook his head, And mildly looked and said, It mattered not a jot Whether the thing, indeed, were so or not; Religion must be kept up, and the Church preserved, And for the people this best served, And then he turned, and added most demurely, ‘Whatever may befal, We Catholics need no evidence at all, The holy father is infallible, surely!’
And English canons heard, And quietly demurred. Religion rests on evidence, of course, And on inquiry we must put no force. Difficulties still, upon whatever ground, Are likely, almost certain, to be found. The Theist scheme, the Pantheist, one and all, Must with, or e’en before, the Christian fall. And till the thing were plainer to our eyes, To disturb faith was surely most unwise. As for the Shade, who trusted such narration? Except, of course, in ancient revelation.
And dignitaries of the Church came by. It had been worth to some of them, they said, Some hundred thousand pounds a year a head. If it fetched so much in the market, truly, ’Twas not a thing to be given up unduly. It had been proved by Butler in one way, By Paley better in a later day; It had been proved in twenty ways at once, By many a doctor plain to many a dunce; There was no question but it must be so. And the Shade answered, that He did not know; He had no reading, and might be deceived, But still He was the Christ, as He believed.
And women, mild and pure, Forth from still homes and village schools did pass, And asked, if this indeed were thus, alas, What should they teach their children and the poor? The Shade replied, He could not know, But it was truth, the fact was so.
* * * * *
* * * * *
Who had kept all commandments from his youth Yet still found one thing lacking—even Truth: And the Shade only answered, ‘Go, make haste, Enjoy thy great possessions as thou may’st.’
_EASTER DAY._
NAPLES, 1849.
Through the great sinful streets of Naples as I past, With fiercer heat than flamed above my head My heart was hot within me; till at last My brain was lightened when my tongue had said— Christ is not risen!
Christ is not risen, no— He lies and moulders low; Christ is not risen!
What though the stone were rolled away, and though The grave found empty there?— If not there, then elsewhere; If not where Joseph laid Him first, why then Where other men Translaid Him after, in some humbler clay. Long ere to-day Corruption that sad perfect work hath done, Which here she scarcely, lightly had begun: The foul engendered worm Feeds on the flesh of the life-giving form Of our most Holy and Anointed One. He is not risen, no— He lies and moulders low; Christ is not risen!
What if the women, ere the dawn was grey, Saw one or more great angels, as they say (Angels, or Him himself)? Yet neither there, nor then, Nor afterwards, nor elsewhere, nor at all, Hath He appeared to Peter or the Ten; Nor, save in thunderous terror, to blind Saul; Save in an after Gospel and late Creed, He is not risen, indeed,— Christ is not risen!
Or, what if e’en, as runs a tale, the Ten Saw, heard, and touched, again and yet again? What if at Emmaüs’ inn, and by Capernaum’s Lake, Came One, the bread that brake— Came One that spake as never mortal spake, And with them ate, and drank, and stood, and walked about? Ah? ‘some’ did well to ‘doubt!’ Ah! the true Christ, while these things came to pass, Nor heard, nor spake, nor walked, nor lived, alas! He was not risen, no— He lay and mouldered low, Christ was not risen!
As circulates in some great city crowd A rumour changeful, vague, importunate, and loud, From no determined centre, or of fact Or authorship exact, Which no man can deny Nor verify; So spread the wondrous fame; He all the same Lay senseless, mouldering, low: He was not risen, no— Christ was not risen!
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust; As of the unjust, also of the just— Yea, of that Just One, too! This is the one sad Gospel that is true— Christ is not risen!
Is He not risen, and shall we not rise? Oh, we unwise! What did we dream, what wake we to discover? Ye hills, fall on us, and ye mountains, cover! In darkness and great gloom Come ere we thought it is _our_ day of doom; From the cursed world, which is one tomb, Christ is not risen!
Eat, drink, and play, and think that this is bliss: There is no heaven but this; There is no hell, Save earth, which serves the purpose doubly well, Seeing it visits still With equalest apportionment of ill Both good and bad alike, and brings to one same dust The unjust and the just With Christ, who is not risen.
Eat, drink, and die, for we are souls bereaved: Of all the creatures under heaven’s wide cope We are most hopeless, who had once most hope, And most beliefless, that had most believed. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust; As of the unjust, also of the just— Yea, of that Just One too! It is the one sad Gospel that is true— Christ is not risen!
Weep not beside the tomb, Ye women, unto whom He was great solace while ye tended Him; Ye who with napkin o’er the head And folds of linen round each wounded limb Laid out the Sacred Dead; And thou that bar’st Him in thy wondering womb; Yea, Daughters of Jerusalem, depart, Bind up as best ye may your own sad bleeding heart; Go to your homes, your living children tend, Your earthly spouses love; Set your affections _not_ on things above, Which moth and rust corrupt, which quickliest come to end: Or pray, if pray ye must, and pray, if pray ye can, For death; since dead is He whom ye deemed more than man, Who is not risen: no— But lies and moulders low— Who is not risen!
Ye men of Galilee! Why stand ye looking up to heaven, where Him ye ne’er may see, Neither ascending hence, nor returning hither again? Ye ignorant and idle fishermen! Hence to your huts, and boats, and inland native shore, And catch not men, but fish; Whate’er things ye might wish, Him neither here nor there ye e’er shall meet with more. Ye poor deluded youths, go home, Mend the old nets ye left to roam, Tie the split oar, patch the torn sail: It was indeed an ‘idle tale’— He was not risen!
And, oh, good men of ages yet to be, Who shall believe _because_ ye did not see— Oh, be ye warned, be wise! No more with pleading eyes, And sobs of strong desire, Unto the empty vacant void aspire, Seeking another and impossible birth That is not of your own, and only mother earth. But if there is no other life for you, Sit down and be content, since this must even do: He is not risen!
One look, and then depart, Ye humble and ye holy men of heart; And ye! ye ministers and stewards of a Word Which ye would preach, because another heard— Ye worshippers of that ye do not know, Take these things hence and go:— He is not risen!
Here, on our Easter Day We rise, we come, and lo! we find Him not, Gardener nor other, on the sacred spot: Where they have laid Him there is none to say; No sound, nor in, nor out—no word Of where to seek the dead or meet the living Lord. There is no glistering of an angel’s wings, There is no voice of heavenly clear behest: Let us go hence, and think upon these things In silence, which is best. Is He not risen? No— But lies and moulders low? Christ is not risen?
_EASTER DAY._
II
So in the sinful streets, abstracted and alone, I with my secret self held communing of mine own. So in the southern city spake the tongue Of one that somewhat overwildly sung, But in a later hour I sat and heard Another voice that spake—another graver word. Weep not, it bade, whatever hath been said, Though He be dead, He is not dead. In the true creed He is yet risen indeed; Christ is yet risen.
Weep not beside His tomb, Ye women unto whom He was great comfort and yet greater grief; Nor ye, ye faithful few that wont with Him to roam, Seek sadly what for Him ye left, go hopeless to your home; Nor ye despair, ye sharers yet to be of their belief; Though He be dead, He is not dead, Nor gone, though fled, Not lost, though vanished; Though He return not, though He lies and moulders low; In the true creed He is yet risen indeed; Christ is yet risen.
Sit if ye will, sit down upon the ground, Yet not to weep and wail, but calmly look around. Whate’er befell, Earth is not hell; Now, too, as when it first began, Life is yet life, and man is man. For all that breathe beneath the heaven’s high cope, Joy with grief mixes, with despondence hope. Hope conquers cowardice, joy grief: Or at least, faith unbelief. Though dead, not dead; Not gone, though fled; Not lost, though vanished. In the great gospel and true creed, He is yet risen indeed; Christ is yet risen.
DIPSYCHUS.
PROLOGUE TO DIPSYCHUS.
‘I hope it is in good plain verse,’ said my uncle,—‘none of your hurry-scurry anapæsts, as you call them, in lines which sober people read for plain heroics. Nothing is more disagreeable than to say a line over two, or, it may be, three or four times, and at last not be sure that there are not three or four ways of reading, each as good and as much intended as another. _Simplex duntaxat et unum._ But you young people think Horace and your uncles old fools.’
‘Certainly, my dear sir,’ said I; ‘that is, I mean, Horace and my uncle are perfectly right. Still, there is an instructed ear and an uninstructed. A rude taste for identical recurrences would exact sing-song from “Paradise Lost,” and grumble because “Il Penseroso” doesn’t run like a nursery rhyme.’ ‘Well, well,’ said my uncle, ‘_sunt certi denique fines_, no doubt. So commence, my young Piso, while Aristarchus is tolerably wakeful, and do not waste by your logic the fund you will want for your poetry.’
_DIPSYCHUS._[6]