Chapter 12

But the worst of _me_ is, that when I bow my head, I perceive a thought wriggling away in the dust, And I follow its tracks, quite forgetful, instead Of humble acceptance: for, question I must! Here’s a creature made carefully—carefully made! Put together with craft, and then stamped on, and why? The answer seems nowhere: it’s discord that’s played. The sky’s a blue dish!—an implacable sky!

X

Stop a moment. I seize an idea from the pit. They tell us that discord, though discord, alone, Can be harmony when the notes properly fit: Am I judging all things from a single false tone? Is the Universe one immense Organ, that rolls From devils to angels? I’m blind with the sight. It pours such a splendour on heaps of poor souls! I might try at kneeling with Molly to-night.

FOOTNOTES

{1} First contributed to a MS. magazine, ‘The Monthly Observer,’ in the year 1849; first printed in _Chambers’ Edinburgh Journal_, July 7, 1849.

{163} Originally printed in ‘Poems,’ 1851.

{164} ‘The Leader,’ December 20, 1851.