CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 Estate of 
 Preserved Smith 
 
PR 422.C5'l899"""'"""' '""'"^ 
 rimimite's Christmas 
 
The original of tiiis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924013443423 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 |E find Robert Browning deeply relig- 
 ious, though he is never sancti- 
 monious. Cant and ceremony, form 
 without substance, anything that 
 savors of falsity, is to his mind the 
 unpardonable and death-dealing sin. 
 1^ At least, pure humor and true re- 
 ligiousness go hand in hand on this 
 happy Christmas Eve, and neither 
 is injured. The joyousness which bejewels everything 
 a): Christmas time sparkles all through the poem, as 
 though the very angels had come from heaven to sing 
 again with men. It is a very human song, and therefore 
 a true one, handling with deepest insight the ludicrous, 
 the unreal and the dishonest. It discovers the false as 
 well as the true, first in the simple chapel service of 
 the ignorant, next in the rainbow religion of the poet, 
 and last in the emptiness of the rationalistic worship of 
 a myth. It seeks and discovers the real, as the bee 
 finds the honey. 
 
 The native intuitions of the human soul, the " primal 
 elements " in man, are what Mr. Browning is always 
 interested in and taking account of, whether found in 
 the learned or the unlearned, in the rich or the poor. 
 W^batever is real, Adham, Adam, Man, hu-man, this is 
 what always contains depths and heights of interest 
 for him. What he deplores and ridicules most of all is 
 
 i 
 
the nullified man or woman, the inconsistent, the un- 
 natural, the untrue. 
 
 "The soul, little else, is worth study," is a favorite 
 quotation among Browning readers, taken from his in- 
 troductory note to •• Sordello." In whatsoever condi- 
 tion the soul is, it is still his immortal theme. " The 
 Soul's Tragedy," to his mind, occurs, when all primal 
 elements are filmed over by conventionalities, or by 
 human wisdom, or by utilitarian considerations, until 
 they have oozed away and no real personality is left. 
 The fixedness of the soulless soul is what the author 
 of " Christmas Eve " considers the most fearful and 
 solemn death. 
 
 This poem is a narrative, and the narrator finds him- 
 self dodging a storm. He seeks to enter a little dissent- 
 ing chapel, situated 
 
 Where the town's bad blood once slept corruptly. 
 
 He snuggles himself up as closely as he can in the lit- 
 tle four-by-six porch which serves as a doorway. He 
 becomes interested in the different specimens of human 
 nature that hurriedly and drippingly crowd past him to 
 enter the door, the inner door, whose latch " grew 
 more obstinate the more they fumbled." 
 " From the road, the lanes, or the common " they 
 come ; the stout, weary woman panting for breath, as 
 she claps her umbrella, "a mere wreck of whale- 
 bones," down beside him; then the patient little sister- 
 turned-mother, carrying the sickly babe on her breast 
 ii 
 
(its one warm place), who stops to wring dry the drag-, 
 gled ends of her shawl before she enters ; then the 
 dingy satins of a female something— all that is left of 
 a woman ; the coughing boy, etc., all of which goes to 
 make up one of Browning's wonderful life-pictures d|h 
 " Very realistic," I suppose it might be called ; vulgar 
 perhaps ; but one thing we may know : only the closest 
 observer of the workings of the human soul could ever 
 see all that our hero saw in this chapel door. 
 He finally enters with the rest. He is eyed as an inter- 
 loper, indeed, yet there is no alternative. " The rain 
 keeps driving," and at last Zion's chapel is filled and 
 finds its flock all assembled, with "one sheep over." 
 Very rich is the study of this class of Christmas wor- 
 shippers, which takes up the first three sections of the 
 poem. Devout and very needy, we may notice, very 
 humble, yet very sure of their ground, are they all. So 
 safely housed do they seem that ..." they front you 
 as little disconcerted," as Lot might have marched, 
 bound for the hills, with all wicked people behind 
 him in Gomorrah i^ They sniff the very dews of 
 Hermon 
 
 With such content in every snuffle, 
 
 As the devil inside us loves to ruffle. 
 
 The old fat woman, as she listens to the sermon, purrs 
 with pleasure ; her thumbs twirl round and round each 
 other as she maternally devours the pastor. 
 The "hot smell and the human noise," however, are 
 soon too much for our intruder & he " flings out again." 
 
 iii 
 
A lull in the storm, & he takes a little by-path up to an 
 eminence, where nature prepares for his more exquisite 
 sensibilities a panorama of beauty. The " flying moon," 
 with its shifting tints, touches with silver the rifts in the 
 clouds. His head and limbs feel better, and he is glad 
 that he has slipt the fetter, but, he says : 
 
 My mind was full of the scene I had left. 
 That sermon ! Such logic I The zeal and aspiration good,' 
 
 . . . Yet, fifty times over, 
 Pharaoh received no demonstration, 
 By his Baker's dream of Baskets Three, 
 Of the doctrine of the Trinity. 
 
 Yet these people, no doubt, feel "a something," and] 
 this is the method of reproducing the mood, and it is al 
 mood which strengthens by using. He sees that it is 
 as the train was to him last iveek. 
 These lines were not lightly written by Mr. Browning, 
 for here he touches upon his favorite theme, the con-i 
 tagion, transmission and power of personality. 
 However, this narrator will not be harsh, so he allows 
 himself to meditate upon 
 
 After how many modes, this Christmas Eve, 
 Does the self-same weary thing take place ? 
 
 how each form of worship goes on. 
 
 Convincing to those convinced before. 
 Here is this ghastly truth again, this unchanging se- 
 quence of a chosen line or mode of life and thought. 
 Always awful to Mr. Browning are the " streams of 
 tendency." He never, like Matthew Arnold, would sub- 
 iv 
 
stitute them for the Creator, although they sometimes 
 do " make for righteousness," since streams of tenden- 
 cy too often make for evil also. 
 
 Our genial hero, after indulging in good-natured med- 
 itation during his exquisite delight in nature, imagining 
 he has found through nature, nature's God, has a sud- 
 den arrest of thought, and more than thought, arrest 
 of life. He says at the moment when gazing 
 
 With upturned eyes, I felt my brain 
 Glutted with the glory 
 
 and it was during his most "ecstatic aquiescence," 
 he " saw with terror " the Savior of men emerging from 
 that chapel with that same herd, and with His " face 
 averted," from him. 
 
 This whole poem reminds one of John G, Whittier's 
 " The Meeting." The theme is identical, but the method 
 of handling it is exactly characteristic of each poet. 
 One whose gentleness, as well as other qualities, has 
 made him great, treats of it in his gently powerful way ; 
 while the other with dramatic vigor, and with the very 
 fierceness of the judgment to come, makes one feel 
 like a sinner impelled for himself to cry out : " What 
 must I do to be saved?" yet with sparkling glints of 
 humor, which makes the follower of Christ feel the 
 serenest safety, does he make one to know 
 
 God 's in his heaven, 
 All 's well with the world. 
 
 djk With Mr. Browning's " Christmas Eve," there are 
 
 T 
 
great Sinai-peaks ready to peal forth with awful thun- 
 der ; in the very wide view of this great theme, there 
 are whole ranges of mountain scenery, with valleys 
 also lying in between them, all warm with the peace 
 of their green pastures. Nothing is left out that the eye 
 can take in. This is what makes Browning hard to read. 
 It is as if one must travel, keeping one eye on the main 
 points & peaks of thought while the other eye must 
 traverse up and down hill and valley. The only way to 
 get along at all, is to make a sort of mental leap, first 
 from one main point to another, and then hold these, { 
 while, if there is any mental capacity left, one roams 
 in and out, up and down, until the whole be taken in.; 
 If one trip will not suffice, it pays well to return and 
 make the journey several times over, for new beauties 
 always emerge. 
 
 A suggestion of the difference between Browning's 
 " Christmas Eve," & Whittier's "The Meeting," may 
 not be out of place then. Each poem has its loving and 
 admiring readers, nor is it surprising if the same read- 
 er may greatly love to read both of these poems. 
 Browning's hero, on the verge of desolation, sees the 
 error of his way, & repentantly remembers, "He did 
 say, where two or three are met in My name, I will be in 
 their midst." He sees he has despised Christ's friends, 
 and begs to make amends. He makes confession that 
 while he thought it best to worship in spirit and in 
 truth and " in beauty," also, and not in " uncouth bur- 
 lesque," he finds he must yet learn how dangeirous it 
 vi 
 
is to worship this Lord of All, in any other way than 
 that of perfect humility. Whittier's same thought is 
 thus expressed : 
 
 God should be most where man is least ; 
 
 ■ •••••■• 
 I lay the critic's glass aside, 
 
 I tread upon my lettered pride. 
 And, lowest-seated, testify 
 To the oneness of humanity ; 
 
 ■ •■••••• 
 He findeth not who seeks his own, 
 
 The soul is lost that 's saved alone. 
 
 Our hero finally wins a full look from his Savior. Hold- 
 ing by the hem of His vesture, he visits other places 
 of worship in a far different state of mind. He is suf- 
 fused by a life and love that enlarges his vision. In los- 
 ing his life he finds it. It is that 
 
 Stoop of the soul which in bending upraises it too. 
 His new view of human need, and of Christ's love and 
 pity, His saving love and pity, is a greater view than 
 the one he had enjoyed alone upon his isolated mount 
 of poetic vision, though the very heavens do declare to 
 the sincere worshipper the glory of God. But all this 
 glory of tint and of awful wonder had not revealed to 
 him the glory of the Love incarnate in Christ ; yet none 
 of it was lost upon him as it would have been upon a 
 dumb and benumbed soul. So he carries it all in his 
 heart, holding firm the hem of the garment, and with 
 his Master visits other places of worship. 
 
 Vll 
 
We crossed the world — 
 And what is this that rises 
 This miraculous dome of God ? 
 
 They are at Rome, at St. Peter's great cathedral, 
 where, it would seem that 
 
 The angel's measuring-rod had meted 
 What the sons of men completed. 
 
 It all seemed to be 
 
 With arms wide open to embrace 
 The entry of the human race. 
 
 Pomp of mass and trumpery of form did not keep the 
 Savior, however, from finding what sincere love there 
 was here. 
 
 His eye detects a spark 
 and 
 
 Discerns all ways open to reach him. 
 
 The narrator next finds himself making swift headway 
 with 
 
 Senses settling and steady with 
 
 My body caught up in the whirl and drift 
 Of the vesture's amplitude. 
 
 Carried to a sort of temple, perhaps a college, he is 
 left alone again, but for the garment's extreme edge, 
 while the Master enters. 
 
 He finds that he is in Germany, in the quaint old town 
 of Gottingen. The " high-cheek-boned " professor steps 
 deliberately to his desk, because of his "cranium's 
 viii 
 
overfreight," and with hoarse voice, and wan, weary 
 look, with spectacles and notes adjusted, he begins his 
 Christmas Eve discourse. 
 
 So rich and humorous, in smoothest diction, is this 
 description of the professor and his audience, that it 
 forms another of Mr. Browning's most wonderful 
 life-like pictures. 
 
 His discourse is now to be weighed in the balance of 
 our hearer's enlightened heart and mind. He came 
 ' ^vell-nigh losing hold on his hem in this place, how- 
 ever, so enchantingly liberal and realistic was it all. 
 But he grasps firmly again the loving, living vesture, 
 and is safe. 
 
 At last he finds himself sitting bolt upright again in 
 the chapel, as if he had never left it, and as if he had 
 never seen the "raree-show of Peter's successor" or 
 " the laboratory of the professor ; " but he had seen the 
 Vision ; " That was true." 
 
 True as that heaven and earth exist. 
 There was the man with the wen on his neck, and the 
 old fat woman evidently disgusted with this nodding 
 guest. He also has a "ghostly warning" that the ser- 
 mon is' approaching its tenth head ; so, after making 
 notes of his dream, (though he does not tell us this, 
 but what else could he have been doing with his pen- 
 cil ? ) he says : 
 < I put up my pencil and join chorus 
 
 To Hepzibab tune without further apology, 
 and sings 
 
 ix 
 
The seventeenth hymn in Whitfield's collection, 
 To conclude with the Doxology. 
 
 The companion poem to " Christmas Eve " is •• Easter 
 Day." They were written at Florence in 1850, when 
 the author was thirty-eight years old, and were origi- 
 nally published under one title, — " Christmas Eve and 
 Easter Day, — A Poem," in a volume by Chapman & 
 Hall of London. Although ' allied in form and sub- 
 stance, each is a distinct poem. Each lays hold of the 
 day which its name indicates, and is lived in the pro- , 
 foundest experience through the vision of the Christ. 
 Mr. Browning sat for some years under the ministry 
 of a Congregationalist, one Rev. Thomas Jones, an 
 able and eloquent Welshman. It is not unlikely that 
 his sincere mind and heart here witnessed things that 
 neither the " raree-show " of Papacy, nor the ration- 
 alism of the day, nor the form of the Established 
 Church itself, knew much about, v^rhile, no doubt, he 
 found much to satisfy his own emotional rationalistic 
 thirst for true life. 
 
 It is not rash to conclude that in this poem the author's 
 own " soul-depths boil in earnest," for its teachings 
 are in accord with his well-known views of Christian- 
 ity. It is most significant when we remember his 
 mother, Sarianna Wiedeman, was " in religion a Chris- 
 tian, a devout Congregationalist." 
 
 MARY H. HULL. 
 
Christmas Eve 
 
 Florence — 1850 
 
 |UT of the little chapel I burst 
 Into the fresh night-air again. 
 Five minutes full, I waited first 
 In the doorway, to escape the 
 
 rain 
 That drove in gusts down the 
 comnnon's center 
 At the edge of which the chapel stands, 
 Before I plucked up heart to enter. 
 Heaven knows how many sorts of hands 
 Reached past me, groping for the latch 
 Of the inner door that hung on catch 
 More obstinate the more they fumbled, 
 !rill, giving way at last with a scold 
 Of the crazy hinge, in squeezed or tumbled 
 One sheep more to the rest in fold. 
 And left me irresolute, standing sentry 
 In the sheepfold's lath-and-pla'ster entry, 
 Six feet long by three feet wide, 
 
 II 
 
Partitioned off from the vast inside — 
 
 I blocked up half of it at least. 
 
 No remedy ; the rain kept driving. 
 
 They eyed me much as some wild beast, 
 
 That congregation, still arriving. 
 
 Some of them by the main road, white 
 
 A long way past me into the night, 
 
 Skirting the common, then diverging; 
 
 Not a few suddenly emerging 
 
 From the common's self through the palingj 
 
 gaps, 
 — They house in the gravel-pits perhaps, 
 Where the road stops short with its safeguard 
 
 border 
 Of lamps, as tired of such disorder ; — 
 But the most turned in yet more abruptly 
 Prom a certain squalid knot of alleys. 
 Where the town's bad blood once slept cor- 
 ruptly, 
 Which now the little chapel rallies 
 And leads into day again, — its priestliness 
 Lending itself to hide their beastliness 
 So cleverly (thanks in part to the mason). 
 And putting so cheery a whitewashed face on 
 Those neophytes too much in lack of it, 
 
 12 
 
That, where you cross the common as I did, 
 
 And meet the party thus presided, 
 
 " Mount Zion " with Love-lane at the back 
 
 of it. 
 They front you as little disconcerted 
 As, bound for the hills, her fate averted, 
 And her wicked people made to mind him, 
 Lot might have marched with Gomorrah 
 
 behind him. 
 
 X3 
 
|£LL, from the road, the lanes oi 
 
 the common, 
 In came the flock : the fat wearjj 
 
 woman, 
 Panting and bewildered, down^ 
 
 clapping 
 
 Her umbrella with a mighty report, 
 Grounded it by me, wry and flapping, 
 A wreck of whalebones ; then, with a snort. 
 Like a startled horse, at the interloper 
 (Who humbly knew himself improper, 
 But could not shrink up small enough) 
 — Round to the door, and in, — ^the gruff^ 
 Hinge's invariable scold 
 Making my very blood run cold. 
 Prompt in the wake of her, up-pattered 
 On broken clogs, the many-tattered i 
 
 Little old-faced peaking sister-turned-mothei 
 Of the sickly babe she tried to smother 
 Somehow up, with its spotted face. 
 From the cold, on her breast, the one warm 
 
 place ; 
 She too must stop, wring the poor ends dry 
 Of a draggled shawl, and add thereby 
 14 
 
Her tribute to the door-mat, sopping 
 Already from my own clothes' dropping. 
 Which yet she seemed to grudge I should 
 
 stand on : 
 Then, stooping down to take off her pattens, 
 She bore them defiantly, in each hand one, 
 Planted together before her breast 
 And its babe, as good as a lance in rest. 
 Close on her heels, the dingy satins 
 Of a female something, past me flitted. 
 With lips as much too white, as a streak 
 Lay far too red on each hollow cheek 
 And it seemed the very door-hinge pitied 
 All that was left of a woman once, 
 Holding at least its tongue for the nonce. 
 Then a tall yellow man, like the Penitent Thief, 
 With his jaw bound up in a handkerchief, 
 And eyelids screwed together tight. 
 Led himself in by some inner light. 
 And, except from him, from each that entered, 
 I got the same interrogation — 
 " What, you the alien, you have ventured 
 To take with us, the elect, your station ? 
 A carer for none of it, a Gallio ! " — 
 Thus, plain as print, I read the glance 
 
 X5 
 
At a common prey, in each countenance 
 
 As of huntsman giving his hounds the tallyho. 
 
 And when the door's cry drowned their 
 
 wonder, 
 The draught, it always sent in shutting. 
 Made the flame of the single tallow candle 
 In the cracked square lantern I stood under, 
 Shoot its blue lip at me, rebutting 
 As it were, the luckless cause of scandal : 
 I verily fancied the zealous light 
 (In the chapel's secret, too !) for spite 
 Would shudder itself clean off the wick, 
 With the airs of a Saint John's Candlestick. 
 There was no standing it much longer. 
 " Good folks," thought I, as resolve grew 
 
 stronger, 
 " This way you perform the Grand-Inquisitor 
 When the weather sends you a chance visitor ? 
 You are the men, and wisdom shall die with 
 
 you, 
 And none of the old Seven Churches vie with 
 
 you! 
 But still, despite the pretty perfection 
 To which you carry your trick of ezclusiveness, 
 And taking God's word under wise protectioQ, 
 
 i6 
 
Correct its tendency to diffusiveness, 
 And bid one reach it over hot ploughshares, — 
 Still, as I say, though you 've found salvation, 
 If I should choose to cry, as now, « Shares ! '^ 
 See if the best of you bars me my ration ! 
 I prefer, if you please, for my expounder 
 Of the laws of the feast, the feast's own 
 
 Founder ; 
 Mine 's the same right with your poorest and 
 
 sickliest. 
 Supposing I don the 'marriage vestiment : 
 So, shut your mouth and open your Testament, 
 And carve me my portion at your quickliest ! " 
 Accordingly, as a shoemaker's lad 
 With wizened face in want of soap. 
 And wet apron wound round his waist like a 
 
 rope, 
 (After stopping outside, for his cough was bad, 
 To get the fit over, poor gentle creature. 
 And so avoid disturbing the preacher) 
 — Passed in, I sent my elbow spikewise 
 At the shutting door, and entered likewise. 
 Received the hinge's accustomed greeting. 
 And crossed the threshold's magic pentacle. 
 And found myself in full conventicle, 
 
 17 
 
— To wit, in Zion Chapel Meeting, 
 On the Christmas Eve of 'Forty-nine, 
 Which, calling its flock to their special clover, 
 Pound all assembled and one sheep over. 
 Whose lot, as the weather pleased, was mine;! 
 
 i8 
 

 III 
 
 VERY soon had enough of it. 
 ! The hot smell & the human noises, 
 And my neighbor's coat, the 
 
 greasy cuff of it, 
 Were a pebble-stone that a child's 
 hand poises. 
 Compared with the pig-of-lead-like pressure 
 Of the preaching man's immense stupidity, 
 As he poured his doctrine forth, full measure. 
 To meet his audience's avidity. 
 You needed not the wit of the Sibyl 
 To guess the cause of it all, in a twinkling : 
 No sooner our friend had got an inkling 
 Of treasure hid in the Holy Bible, 
 (Whene'er 't was the thought first struck him, 
 How death, at unawares, might duck him 
 Deeper than the grave, and quench 
 The gin-shop's light in hell's grim drench) 
 Than he handled it so, in fine irreverence. 
 As to hug the book of books to pieces : 
 And, a patchwork of chapters and texts in 
 
 severance, 
 Not improved by the private dog's-ears and 
 creases, 
 
Having clothed his own soul with, he 'd fail 
 
 see equipt yours, — 
 So tossed you again your Holy Scriptures. 
 And you picked them up, in a sense, no doubti 
 Nay, had but a single face of my neighbors i 
 Appeared to suspect that the preacher's laborf 
 Were help which the world could be saved 
 
 without, 
 'T is odds but I might have borne in quiet 
 A qualm or two at my spiritual diet, 
 Or (who can tell ?) perchance even musterefli 
 Somewhat to urge in behalf of the sermon : 
 But the flock sat on, divinely flustered, 
 Sniffing, methought, its dew of Hermon 
 With such content in every snuffle, 
 As the devil inside us loves to ruffle. 
 My old fat woman purred with pleasure, 
 And thumb round thumb went twirling fasted 
 While she, to his periods keeping measure, 
 Maternally devoured the pastor. 
 The man with the handkerchief untied it. 
 Showed us a horrible wen inside it. 
 Gave his eyelids yet another screwing, 
 And rocked himself as the woman was doings 
 The shoemaker's lad, discreetly choking, 
 
 ao 
 
Kept down his cough. 'T was too provoking ! 
 My gorge rose at the nonsense and stuff of it ; 
 So, saying like Eve when she plucked the 
 
 apple, 
 " I wanted a taste, and now there 's enough 
 
 of it," 
 I flung out of the little chapel. 
 
 ax 
 

 IV 
 IHERE was a lull in the rain, a 
 
 lull 
 In the wind too ; the moon was 
 
 risen, 
 And would have shone out pure! 
 
 and full, 
 
 But for the ramparted cloud-prison. 
 Block on block built up in the West, 
 For what purpose the wind knows best, 
 Who changes his mind continually. 
 And the empty other half of the sky 
 Seemed in its silence as if it knew 
 What, any moment, might look through 
 A chance gap in that fortress massy : — 
 Through its fissures you got hints 
 Of the flying moon, by the shifting tints, 
 Now, a dull lion-color, now, brassy 
 Burning to yellow, and whitest yellow, 
 Like furnace-smoke just ere flames bellow, 
 All a-simmer with intense strain 
 To let her through, — ^then blank again, 
 At the hope of her appearance failing*. 
 Just by the chapel, a break in the railing 
 Shows a narrow path directly across ; 
 
 23 
 
'T is ever dry walking there, on the moss — 
 Besides, you go gently all the way up-hill. 
 I stooped under and soon felt better ; 
 My head grew lighter, my limbs more supple, 
 As I walked on, glad to have slipt the fetter. 
 My mind was full of the scene I had left. 
 That placid flock, that pastor vociferant, 
 — How this outside was pure and different ! 
 The sermon, now — what a mingled weft 
 Of good and ill ! Were either less, 
 Its fellow had colored the whole distinctly ; 
 But alas for the excellent earnestness. 
 And the truths, quite true if stated succinctly; 
 But as surely false, in their quaint present- 
 ment, 
 However to pastor and flock's contentment ! 
 Say rather, such truths looked false to your 
 
 eyes. 
 With his provings and parallels twisted and 
 
 twined, 
 Till how could you know them, grown double 
 
 their size 
 In the natural fog of the good man's mind. 
 Like yonder spots of our roadside lamps, 
 Haloed about with the common's damps ? 
 
 23 
 
Truth remains true, thfe fault 's in the prover; 
 
 The zeal was good, and the aspiration ; 
 
 And yet, and yet, yet, fifty times over, 
 
 Pharaoh received no demonstration. 
 
 By his Baker's dream of Baskets Three, 
 
 Of the doctrine of the Trinity, — 
 
 Although, as our preacher thus embellished it, 
 
 Apparently his hearers relished it 
 
 With so unfeigned a gust — who knows if 
 
 They did not prefer our friend to Joseph ? 
 
 But so it is everywhere, one way with all of 
 
 them ! 
 These people have really felt, no doubt, 
 A something, the motion they style the Call 
 
 of them; 
 And this is their method of bringing about, 
 By a mechanism of words and tones, 
 (So many texts in so many groans) 
 A sort of reviving and reproducing, 
 More or less perfectly, (who can tell ?) 
 The mood itself, which strengthens by using ; 
 And how that happens, I understand well. 
 A tune was born in my head last week. 
 Out of the thump-thump and shriek-shriek 
 
 24 
 
Of the train, as I came by it, up from 
 
 Manchester ; 
 And when, next week, I take it back again, 
 My head will sing to the engine's clack again. 
 While it only makes my neighbor's haunches 
 
 stir, 
 — Finding no dormant musical sprout 
 In him, as in me, to be jolted out. 
 'T is the taught already that profits by 
 
 teaching ; 
 He gets no more from the railway's preaching 
 Than, from this preacher who does the rail's 
 
 office, I : 
 Whom therefore the flock casta jealous eye on. 
 Still, why paint over their door "Mount Zion," 
 To which all flesh shall come, saith the 
 
 prophecy ? 
 
 25 
 
|UT wherefore be harsh on a 
 
 single case ? 
 After how many modes, this 
 
 Christmas Eve, 
 Does the self-same weary thing 
 
 take place ? 
 The same endeavor to make you believe. 
 And with much the same effect, no more : 
 Each method abundantly convincing. 
 As I say, to those convinced before. 
 But scarce to be swallowed without wincing 
 By the not-as-yet-convinced. For me, 
 I have my own church equally : 
 And in this church my faith sprang first ! 
 (I said, as I reached the rising ground, 
 And the wind began again, with a burst 
 Of rain in my face, and a glad rebound 
 From the heart beneath, as if, God speeding me, 
 I entered his church-door, nature leading me) 
 — In youth I looked to these very skies. 
 And probing their immensities, 
 I found God there, his visible power ; 
 Yet felt in my heart, amid all its sense 
 Of the power, an equal evidence 
 26 
 
That his love, there too, was the nobler dower. 
 
 For the loving worm within its clod 
 
 Were diviner than a loveless god 
 
 Amid his worlds, I will dare to say. 
 
 You know what I mean : God 's all, man 's 
 
 nought : 
 But also, God, whose pleasure brought 
 Man into being, stands away 
 As it were a handbreadth off, to give 
 Room for the newly-made to live. 
 And look at him from a place apart. 
 And use his gifts of brain and heart, 
 Given, indeed, but to keep forever. 
 Who speaks of man, then, must not sever 
 Man's very elements from man. 
 Saying, «' But all is God's " — whose plan 
 Was to create man and then leave him 
 Able, his own word saith, to grieve him. 
 But able to glorify him too. 
 As a mere machine could never do. 
 That prayed or praised, all unaware 
 Of its fitness for aught but praise and prayer, 
 Made perfect as a thing of course. 
 Man, therefore, stands on his own stock 
 Of love and power as a pin-point rock : 
 
 27 
 
And, looking to God who ordained divorce 
 Of the rock from his boundless continent, 
 Sees, in his power made evident. 
 Only excess by a million-fold 
 O'er the power God gave man in the mould. 
 For, note : man's hand, first formed to carry 
 A few pounds' weight, when taught to marry 
 Its strength with an engine's, lifts a mountain^ 
 — Advancing in power by one degree ; 
 And why count steps through eternity ? 
 But love is the ever-springing fountain : 
 Man may enlarge or narrow his bed 
 For the water's play, but the water-head — 
 How can he multiply or reduce it ? 
 As easy create it, as cause it to cease ; 
 He may profit by it, or abuse it, 
 But 't is not a thing to bear increase 
 As power does : be love less or more 
 In the heart of man, he keeps it shut 
 Or opes it wide, as he pleases, but 
 Love's sum remains what it was before. 
 So, gazing up, in my youth, at love 
 As seen through power, ever above 
 All modes which make it manifest. 
 My soul brought all to a single test — 
 28 
 
That he, the Eternal First and Last, 
 Who, in his power, had so surpassed 
 All man conceives of what is might, — 
 Whose wisdom, too, showed infinite, 
 — Would prove as infinitely good ; 
 Would never, (my soul understood,) 
 With power to work all love desires, 
 Bestow e'en less than man requires ; 
 That he who endlessly was teaching, 
 Above my spirit's utmost reaching, 
 What love can do in the leaf or stone, 
 (So that to master this alone, 
 This done in the stone or leaf for me, 
 I must go on learning endlessly) 
 Would never need that I, in turn, 
 Should point him out defect unheeded, 
 And show that God had yet to learn 
 What the meanest human creature needed, 
 —Not life, to wit, for a few short years. 
 Tracking his way through doubts and fears, 
 While the stupid earth on which I stay 
 Suffers no change, but passive adds 
 Its myriad years to myriads. 
 Though I, he gave it to, decay. 
 Seeing death come and choose about me, 
 
 29 
 
And my dearest ones depart without me. 
 
 No : love which, on earth, amid all the showd 
 
 of it. 
 Has ever been seen the sole good of life in it 
 The love, ever growing there, spite of the 
 
 strife in it, 
 Shall arise, made perfect, from death's reposfl 
 
 of it. 
 And I shall behold thee, face to face, 
 
 God, and in thy light retrace 
 
 How in all I loved here, still wast thou ! 
 Whom pressing to, then, as I fain would now, 
 
 1 shall find as able to satiate 
 
 The love, thy gift, as my spirit's wonder 
 
 Thou art able to quicken and sublimate, 
 
 With this sky of thine, that I now walk under, 
 
 And glory in thee for, as I gaze 
 
 Thus, thus ! Oh, let men keep their ways 
 
 Of seeking thee in a narrow shrine — 
 
 Be this my way ! And this is mine ! 
 
 30 
 
VI 
 lOR lo, what think you ? suddenly 
 The rain and the wind ceased, 
 
 and the sky 
 Received at once the full fruition 
 I Of the moon's consummate 
 apparition. 
 The black cloud-barricade was riven, 
 Ruined beneath her feet, and driven 
 Deep in the West ; while, bare and breathless. 
 North and South and East lay ready 
 For a glorious thing that, dauntless, deathless, 
 Sprang across them and stood steady. 
 'T was a moon-rainbow, vast and perfect, 
 From heaven to heaven extending, perfect 
 As the mother-moon's self, full in face. 
 It rose, distinctly at the base 
 With its seven proper colors chorded, 
 Which still, in the rising, were compressed. 
 Until at last they coalesced, 
 And supreme the spectral creature lorded 
 In a triumph of whitest white, — 
 Above which intervened the night. 
 But above night too, like only the next. 
 The second of a wqndrous sequence, 
 
 31 
 
Reaching in rare and rarer frequence, 
 Till the heaven of heavens were circumflexed 
 Another rainbow rose, a mightier, 
 Fainter, flushier and flightier, — 
 Rapture dying along its verge. 
 Oh, whose foot shall I see emerge, 
 Whose, from the straining topmost dark. 
 On to the keystone of that arc ? 
 
 32 
 
VII 
 |HIS sight was shown me, there 
 and then, — 
 Me, one out of a world of men. 
 Singled forth, as the chance 
 
 might hap 
 To another if, in a thunderclap 
 Where I heard noise and you saw flame. 
 Some one man knew God called his 
 
 name. 
 For me, 1 think I said, " Appear ! 
 Good were it to be ever here. 
 If thou wilt, let me build to thee 
 Service-tabernacles three. 
 Where, forever in thy presence. 
 In ecstatic acquiescence, 
 Far alike from thriftless learning 
 And ignorance's undiscerning, 
 I may worship and remain ! " 
 Thus at the show above me, gazing 
 With upturned eyes, I felt my brain 
 Glutted with the glory, blazing 
 Throughout its whole mass, over and 
 
 under. 
 Until at length it burst asunder 
 
 33 
 
The too-much glory, as it seemed, 
 Passing from out me to the ground, 
 Then palely serpentining round 
 Into the dark with mazy error. 
 
 34 
 

 VIII 
 |LL at once I looked up with 
 terror. 
 He was there. 
 
 He himself with his human air. 
 On the narrow pathway, just 
 before. 
 
 I saw the back of him, no more — 
 He had left the chapel, then, as I. 
 I forgot all about the sky. 
 No face : only the sight 
 Of a sweepy garment, vast and white, 
 With a hem that I could recognize. 
 I felt terror, no surprise ; 
 My mind filled with the cataract 
 At one bound of the linighty fact. 
 " I remember, he did say 
 Doubtless that, to this world's end. 
 Where two or three should meet and pray. 
 He would be in the midst, their friend ; 
 Certainly he was there with them ! " 
 And my pulses leaped for joy 
 Of the golden thought without alloy, 
 That I saw his very vesture's hem^. 
 Then rushed the blood back, cold and clears 
 
With a fresh enhancing shiver of fear ; 
 And I hastened, cried out while I pressed 
 To the salvation of the vest, 
 " But not so, Lord ! It cannot be 
 That thou, indeed, art leaving me — 
 Me, that have despised thy friends 1 
 Did my heart make no amends ? 
 Thou art the love of God — above 
 His power, didst hear me place his love, 
 And that was leaving the world for thee. 
 Therefore thou must not turn from me 
 As I had chosen the other part I 
 Folly and pride o'ercame my heart. 
 Our best is bad, nor bears thy test ; 
 Still, it should be our very best. 
 I thought it best that thou, the spirit. 
 Be worshipped in spirit and in truth, 
 And in beauty, as even we require it — 
 Not in the forms burlesque, uncouth, 
 X left but now, as scarcely fitted 
 For thee : I knew not what I pitied. 
 But, all I felt there, right or wrong. 
 What is it to thee, who curest sinning ? 
 Am I not weak as thou art strong 7 
 I have looked to thee from the be^nning, 
 36 
 
Straight up to thee through all the world 
 Which, like an idle scroll, lay furled 
 To nothingness on either side : 
 And since the time thou wast descried. 
 Spite of the weak heart, so have I 
 Lived ever, and so fain would die. 
 Living and dying, thee before i 
 But if thou leavest me " — 
 
 37 
 
IX 
 
 |ESS or more, 
 
 I suppose that I spoke thus. 
 
 When, — have mercy, Lordj on 
 us I 
 
 The whole face turned upon m,$ 
 full. 
 
 And I spread myself beneath it, 
 As when the bleacher spreads, to seethe it 
 In the cleansing sun, his wool, — 
 Steeps in the flood of noontide whiteness 
 Some defiled, discolored web — 
 So lay I, saturate with brightness. 
 And when the flood appeared to ebb, 
 Lo, I was walking, light and swift. 
 With my senses settling fast and steadying, 
 But my body caught up in the whirl and drift 
 Of the vesture's amplitude, still eddying 
 On, just before me, still to be followed. 
 As it carried me after with its motion : 
 What shall I say ? — as a path were hollowed 
 And a man went weltering through the ocean, 
 Sucked along in the flying wake 
 Of the luminous water-snake. 
 Darkness and cold were cloven, as through 
 38 
 
I passed, upborne yet walking too. 
 And I turned to myself at intervals, — 
 " So he said, so it befalls. 
 God who registers the cup 
 Of mere cold water, for his sake 
 To a disciple rendered up, 
 Disdains not his own thirst to slake 
 At the poorest love was ever offered : 
 And because my heart I proffered. 
 With true love trembling at the brim. 
 He suffers me to follow him 
 Forever, my own way, — dispensed 
 From seeking to be influenced 
 By all the less immediate ways 
 That earth, in worships manifold. 
 Adopts to reach, by prayer and praise, 
 The garment's hem, which, lo, I hold ! " 
 
 39 
 
IND so we crossed the world and 
 stopped. 
 For where am I, in city or plain, 
 Since I am 'ware of the world 
 
 again ? 
 And what is this that rises 
 propped 
 With pillars of prodigious girth ? 
 Is it really on the earth. 
 This miraculous Dome of God ? 
 Has the angel's measuring-rod 
 Which numbered cubits, gem from gem, 
 'Twixt the gates of the New Jerusalem, 
 Meted it out, — and what he meted, 
 Have the sons of men completed ? 
 — Binding, ever as he bade, 
 Columns in the colonnade 
 With arms wide open to embrace 
 The entry of the human race 
 To the breast of . . . what is it, yon building^ 
 Ablaze in front, all paint and gilding, 
 With marble for brick, and stones of price 
 For garniture of the edifice ? 
 Now I see ; it is no dream ; 
 40 
 
It stands there and it does not seem : 
 
 Forever, in pictures, thus it looks, 
 
 And thus I have read of it in books 
 
 Often in England, leagues away, 
 
 And wondered how these fountains play. 
 
 Growing up eternally 
 
 Each to a musical water-tree. 
 
 Whose blossoms drop, a glittering boon. 
 
 Before my eyes, in the light of the moon, 
 
 To the granite lavers underneath. 
 
 Liar and dreamer in your teeth ! 
 
 I, the sinner that speak to you. 
 
 Was in Rome this night, and stood, and 
 
 knew 
 Both this and more. For see, for see, 
 The dark is rent, mine eye is free 
 To pierce the crust of the outer wall, 
 And I view inside, and all there, all, 
 As the swarming hollow of a hive. 
 The whole Basilica alive ! 
 Men in the chancel, body and nave. 
 Men on the pillars' architrave. 
 Men on the statues, men on the tombs 
 With popes and kings in their porphyry 
 
 wombs, 
 
 41 
 
All famishing in expectation 
 Of the main-altar's consummation. 
 For see, for see, the rapturous moment 
 Approaches, and earth's best endowment 
 Blends with heaven's ; the taper-fires 
 Pant up, the winding brazen spires 
 Heave loftier yet the baldachin ; 
 The incense- gaspings, long kept in, 
 Suspire in clouds ; the organ blatant 
 Holds his breath and grovels latent, 
 As if God's hushing finger grazed him, 
 (Like Behemoth when he praised him) 
 At the silver bell's shrill tinkling. 
 Quick cold drops of terror sprinkling 
 On the sudden pavement strewed 
 With faces of the multitude. 
 Earth breaks up, time drops away, 
 In flows heaven, with its new day 
 Of endless life, when He who trod, 
 Very man and very God, 
 This earth in weakness, shame and paiti. 
 Dying the death whose signs remain 
 Up yonder on the accursed tree, — 
 Shall come again, no more to be 
 Of captivity the thrall, 
 4a 
 
But the one God, All in all, 
 
 King of kings, Lord of lords. 
 
 As His servant John received the words, 
 
 " I died, and live forevermore ! " 
 
 43 
 

 XI 
 
 |ET I was left outside the door. 
 "Why sit I here on the threshold- 
 stone, 
 Left till He return, alone 
 Save for the garment's extreme 
 fold 
 
 Abandoned still to bless my hold ? " 
 My reason, to my doubt, replied, 
 As if a book were opened wide, 
 And at a certain page I traced 
 Every record undefaced. 
 Added by successive years, — 
 The harvestings of truth's stray ears 
 Singly gleaned, and in one sheaf 
 Bound together for belief. 
 Yes, I said — that he will go 
 And sit with these in turn, I know. 
 Their faith's heart beats, though her head 
 
 swims 
 Too giddily to guide her limbs, 
 Disabled by their palsy- stroke 
 Prom propping mine. Though Rome's gross 
 
 yoke 
 Drops ofiT, no more to be endured, 
 44 
 
Her teaching is not so obscured 
 By errors and perversities, 
 That no truth shines athwart the lies : 
 And he, whose eye detects a spark 
 Even where, to man's, the whole seems dark. 
 May well see flame where each beholder 
 Acknowledges the embers smoulder. 
 But I, a mere man, fear to quit 
 The clue God gave me as most fit 
 To guide my footsteps through life's maze, 
 Because himself discerns all ways 
 Open to reach him : I, a man 
 Able to mark where faith began 
 To swerve aside, till from its summit 
 Judgment drops her damning plummet, 
 Pronouncing such a fatal space 
 Departed from the founder's base : 
 He will not bid me enter too. 
 But rather sit, as now I do, 
 Awaiting his return outside. 
 — 'T was thus my reason straight replied 
 And joyously I turned, and pressed 
 The garment's skirt upon my breast. 
 Until, afresh its light suffusing me. 
 My heart cried — " What has been abusing me 
 
 45 
 
That I should wait here lonely and coldly, 
 Instead of rising, entering boldly, 
 Baring truth's face, and letting drift 
 Her veils of lies as they choose to shift ? 
 Do these men praise him ? I will raise 
 My voice up to their point of praise ! 
 I see the error ; but above 
 The scope of error, see the love. — 
 Oh, love of those first Christian days ! 
 — Panned so soon into a blaze, 
 From the spark preserved by the trampled sect, 
 That the antique sovereign Intellect 
 Which then sat ruling in the world. 
 Like a change in dreams, was hurled 
 From the throne he reigned upon : 
 You looked up and he was gone. 
 Gone, his glory of the pen ! 
 — Love, with Greece and Rome in ken. 
 Bade her scribes abhor the trick 
 Of poetry and rhetoric. 
 And exult with hearts set free, 
 In blessed imbecility 
 Scrawled, perchance, on some torn sheet 
 Leaving Sallust incomplete. 
 Gone, his pride of sculptor, painter f 
 46 
 
— Love, while able to acquaint her 
 While the thousand statues yet 
 Fresh from chisel, pictures wet 
 From brush, she saw on every side, 
 Chose rather with an infant's pride 
 To frame those portents which impart 
 Such unction to true Christian Art. 
 Gone, music too ! The air was stirred 
 By happy wings : Terpander's bird 
 (That, when the cold came, fled away) 
 Would tarry not the wintry day, — 
 As more-enduring sculpture must. 
 Till filthy saints rebuked the gust 
 With which they chanced to get a sight 
 Of some dear naked Aphrodite 
 They glanced a thought above the toes of. 
 By breaking zealously her nose off. 
 Love, surely, from that music's lingering, 
 Might have filched her organ-fingering, 
 Nor chosen rather to set prayings 
 To hog-grunts, praises to horse-neighings. 
 Love was the startling thing, the new : 
 Love was the all-sufficient too ; 
 And seeing that, you see the rest : 
 As a babe can find its mother's breast 
 
 47 
 
As well in darkness as in light, 
 Love shut our eyes, and all seemed right. 
 True, the world's eyes are open now : 
 — Less need for me to disallow 
 Some few that keep Love's zone unhuckled, 
 Peevish as ever to be suckled, 
 Lulled by the same old baby-prattle 
 With intermixture of the rattle. 
 When she would have them creep. Stand steady 
 Upon their feet, or walk already, 
 Not to speak of trying to climb. 
 I will be wise another time, 
 And not desire a wall between us. 
 When next I see a church- roof cover 
 So many species of one genus. 
 All with foreheads bearing lover 
 Written above the earnest eyes of them ; 
 All with breasts that beat for beauty. 
 Whether sublimed, to the surprise of them, 
 In noble daring, steadfast duty. 
 The heroic in passion, or in action, — 
 Or, lowered for sense's satisfaction. 
 To the mere outside of human creatures, 
 Mere perfect form and faultless features. 
 What ? with all Rome here, whence to levy 
 48 
 
Such contributions to their appetite, 
 With women and men in a gorgeous bevy, 
 They take, as it were, a padlock, clap it tight 
 On their southern eyes, restrained from feeding 
 On the glories of their ancient reading, 
 On the beauties of their modern singing, 
 On the wonders of the builder's bringing, 
 On the majesties of Art around them, — 
 And all these loves, late struggling incessant, 
 When faith has at last united and bound them, 
 They offer up to God for a present ? 
 Why, I will, on the whole, be rather proud 
 
 of it,— 
 And only taking the act in reference 
 To the other recipients who might have 
 
 allowed it, 
 I will rejoice that God had the preference." 
 
 49 
 
XII 
 
 |0 I summed up my new resolves : 
 Too much love there can never be. 
 And where the intellect devolves 
 Its function on love exclusively, 
 1 1, a man who possesses both, 
 Will accept the provision, noth- 
 ing loth, 
 — Will feast my love, then depart elsewhere. 
 That my intellect may find its share. 
 And ponder, O soul, the while thou departest, 
 And see thou applaud the great heart of the 
 
 artist, 
 Who, examining the capabilities 
 Of the block of marble he has to fashion 
 Into a type of thought or passion, — 
 Not always, using obvious facilities. 
 Shapes it, as any artist can. 
 Into a perfect symmetrical man. 
 Complete from head to foot of the life-size, 
 Such as old Adam stood in his wife's eyes, — 
 But, now and then, bravely aspires to con- 
 summate 
 A Colossus by no means so easy to come at, 
 And uses the whole o^ his block for the bust, 
 50 
 
Leaving the mind of the public to finish it, 
 Since cut it ruefully short he must : 
 On the face alone he expends his devotion, 
 He rather would mar than resolve to diminish it. 
 — Saying, " Applaud me for this grand notion 
 Of what a face may be ! As for completing it 
 In breast and body and limbs, do that, you i " 
 All hail ! I fancy how, happily meeting it, 
 A trunk and legs would perfect the statue, 
 Could man carve so as to answer volition. 
 And how much nobler than petty cavils. 
 Were a hope to find, in my spirit-travels. 
 Some artist of another ambition, 
 Who having a block to carve, no bigger. 
 Has spent his power on the opposite quest, 
 And believed to begin at the feet was best — 
 For so may I see, ere I die, the whole figure ! 
 
 51 
 
/\ V 'f / A 
 
 XIII 
 10 sooner said than out in the 
 night ! 
 My heart beat lighter and mori 
 
 light : 
 And still, as before, I was walkf 
 ing swift, 
 
 With my senses settling fast and steadying, 
 But my body caught up in the whirl and drift 
 Of the vesture's amplitude, still eddying 
 On just before me, still to be followed, 
 As it carried me after with its motion, 
 — What shall I say ? — as a path were hollowed, 
 And a man went weltering through the ocean, 
 Sucked along in the Hying wake 
 Of the luminous water-snake. 
 
 Sa 
 

 XIV 
 ILONB ! I am left alone once 
 
 more — 
 (Save for the garment's extreme 
 
 fold 
 Abandoned still to bless my hold) 
 1 Alone, beside the entrance-door 
 Of a sort of temple, — perhaps a college, 
 — Like nothing I ever saw before 
 At home in England, to my knowledge. 
 The tall old quaint irregular town ! 
 It may be . . . though which, I can't affirm 
 
 . . . any 
 Of the famous middle-age towns of Germany ; 
 And this flight of stairs where I sit down, 
 Is it Halle, Weimar, Cassel, Frankfort, 
 Or Gottingen, I have to thank for 't ? 
 It may be Gottingen, — most likely. 
 Through the open door I catch obliquely 
 Glimpses of a lecture-hall ; 
 And not a bad assembly neither. 
 Ranged decent and symmetrical 
 On benches, waiting what 's to see there ; 
 Which, holding still by the vesture's hem, 
 I also resolve to see with them, 
 
 53 
 
Cautious this time how I suffer to slip 
 The chance of joining in fellowship 
 With any that call themselves his friends ; 
 As these folks do, I have a notion. 
 But hist — a buzzing and emotion ! 
 All settle themselves, the while ascends 
 By the creaking rail to the lecture-desk. 
 Step by step, deliberate 
 Because of his cranium's over-freight, 
 Three parts sublime to one grotesque, 
 If I have proved an accurate guesser, 
 The hawk-nosed, high-cheekboned Professor. 
 I felt at once as if there ran 
 A shoot of love from my heart to the man^— 
 That sallow virgin-minded studious 
 Martyr to mild enthusiasm, 
 As he uttered a kind of cough-preludious 
 That woke my sympathetic spasm, 
 (Beside some spitting that made me sorry) 
 And stood, surveying his auditory 
 With a wan pure look, wellnigh celestial, — 
 Those blue eyes had survived so much ! 
 While, under the foot they could not smutch, 
 Lay all the fleshly and the bestial. 
 Over he bowed, and arranged his notes, 
 54 
 
Till the auditory's clearing of throats 
 Was done with, died into a silence ; 
 And when each glance was upward sent, 
 Each bearded mouth composed intent, 
 And a pin might be heard drop half a mile 
 
 hence, — 
 He pushed back higher his spectacles. 
 Let the eyes stream out like lamps from cells, 
 And giving his head of hair — a hake 
 Of undressed tow, for color and quantity — 
 One rapid and impatient shake, 
 (As our own young England adjusts a jaunty 
 
 tie 
 When about to impart, on mature digestion, 
 Some thrilling view of the surplice-question) 
 — The Professor's grave voice, sweet though 
 
 hoarse. 
 Broke into his Christmas Eve discourse. 
 
 55 
 
XV 
 
 |ND he began it by observing 
 How reason dictated that men 
 Should rectify the natural swerv- 
 ing, 
 By a reversion, now and then, 
 To the well-heads of knowledge, 
 few 
 And far away, whence rolling grew 
 The life-stream wide whereat we drink, 
 Commingled, as we needs must think, 
 With waters alien to the source ; 
 To do which, aimed this eve's discourse ; 
 Since, where could be a fitter time 
 For tracing backward to its prime, 
 This Christianity, this lake. 
 This reservoir, whereat we slake. 
 From one or other bank, our thirst? 
 So, he proposed inquiring first 
 Into the various sources whence 
 This Myth of Christ is derivable ; 
 Demanding from the evidence, 
 (Since plainly no such life was livable) 
 How these phenomena should class ? 
 Whether 't were best opine Christ was, 
 56 
 
Or never was at all, or whether 
 
 He was and was not, both together — 
 
 It matters little for the name. 
 
 So the idea be left the same. 
 
 Only, for practical purpose' sake, 
 
 'T was obviously as well to take 
 
 The popular story, — understanding 
 
 How the ineptitude of the time, 
 
 And the penman's prejudice, expanding 
 
 Fact into fable fit for the clime. 
 
 Had, by slow and sure degrees, translated it 
 
 Into this myth, this Individuum, — 
 
 Which, when reason had strained and abated 
 
 it 
 Of foreign matter, left, for residuum, 
 A Man ! — a right true man, however. 
 Whose work was worthy a man's endeavor : 
 Work, that gave warrant almost sufficient 
 To his disciples, for rather believing 
 He was just omnipotent and omniscient. 
 As it gives to us, for as frankly receiving 
 His word, their tradition, — which, though it 
 
 meant 
 Something entirely different 
 From all that those who only heard it, 
 
 57 
 
In their simplicity thought and averred it, 
 Had yet a meaning quite as respectable : 
 For, among other doctrines delectable, 
 Was he not surely the first to insist on 
 The natural sovereignty of our race ? — 
 Here the lecturer came to a pausing-place. 
 And while his cough, like a droughty piston, 
 Tried to dislodge the husk that grew to him, 
 I seized the -occasion of bidding adieu to him. 
 The vesture still within my hand. 
 
 58 
 
XVI 
 
 COULD interpret its command. 
 
 This time he would not bid me 
 enter 
 
 The exhausted air-bell of the 
 Critic. 
 
 Truth's atmosphere may grow 
 mephitic 
 When Papist struggles with Dissenter, 
 Impregnating its pristine clarity, 
 — One, by his daily fare's vulgarity, 
 Its gust of broken meat and garlic ; 
 — One, by his soul's too-much presuming 
 To turn the frankincense's fuming 
 And vapors of the candle starlike 
 Into the cloud her wings she buoys on. 
 Each, that thus sets the pure air seething, 
 May poison it for healthy breathing — 
 But the Critic leaves no air to poison ; 
 Pumps out with ruthless ingenuity 
 Atom by atom, and leaves you — vacuity. 
 Thus much of Christ does he reject ? 
 And what retain ? His intellect ? 
 What is it I must reverence duly ? 
 Poor intellect for worship, truly, 
 
 59 
 
Which tells me simply what was told 
 (If mere morality, bereft 
 Of the God in Christ, be all that 's left) 
 Elsewhere by voices manifold ; 
 With this advantage, that the stater 
 Made nowise the important stumble 
 Of adding, he, the sage and humble, 
 Was also one with the Creator. 
 You urge Christ's followers' simplicity : 
 But how does shifting blame evade it ? 
 Have wisdom's words no more felicity ? 
 The stumbling-block, his speech — who laid it? 
 How comes it that for one found able 
 To sift the truth of it from fable, 
 Millions believe it to the letter ? 
 Christ's goodness, then — does that fare better? 
 Strange goodness, which upon the score 
 Of being goodness, the mere due 
 Of man to fellow-man, much more 
 To God — should take another view 
 Of its possessor's privilege. 
 And bid him rule his race ! You pledge 
 Your fealty to such rule ? What, all — 
 From heavenly John and Attic Paul, 
 And that brave weather-battered Peter, 
 60 
 
Whose stout faith only stood completer 
 
 For buffets, sinning to be pardoned, 
 
 As, more his hands hauled nets, they hardened, 
 
 All, down to you, the man of men. 
 
 Professing here at Gottingen, 
 
 Compose Christ's flock ! They, you and I, 
 
 Are sheep of a good man ! And why ? 
 
 The goodness, — how did he acquire it ? 
 
 Was it self-gained, did God inspire it? 
 
 Choose which ; then tell me, on what ground 
 
 Should its possessor dare propound 
 
 His claim to rise o'er us an inch? 
 
 Were goodness all some man's invention, 
 
 Who arbitrarily made mention 
 
 What we should follow, and whence flinch, — 
 
 What qualities might take the style 
 
 Of right and wrong, — and had such guessing 
 
 Met with as general acquiescing 
 
 As graced the alphabet erewhile, 
 
 When A got leave an Ox to be. 
 
 No Camel (quoth the Jews) like G, — 
 
 For thus inventing thing and title 
 
 Worship were that man's fit requital. 
 
 But if the common conscience must 
 
 Be ultimately judge, adjust 
 
 6i 
 
Its apt name to each quality 
 Already known, — I would decree 
 Worship for such mere demonstration 
 And simple work of nomenclature 
 Only the day I praised, not nature. 
 But Harvey, for the circulation. 
 I would praise such a Christ, with pride 
 And joy, that he, as none beside. 
 Had taught us how to keep the mind 
 God gave him, as God gave his kind, 
 Freer than they from fleshly taint : 
 I would call such a Christ our Saint, 
 As I declare our Poet, him 
 Whose insight makes all others dim : 
 A thousand poets pried at life, 
 And only one amid the strife 
 Rose to be Shakespeare : each shall take 
 His crown, I 'd say, for the world's sake — 
 Though some objected — " Had we seen 
 The heart and head of each, what screen 
 Was broken there to give them light, 
 While in ourselves it shuts the sight, 
 We should no more admire, perchance, 
 That these found truth out at a glance. 
 Than marvel how the bat discerns 
 62 
 
Some pitch-dark cavern's fifty turns, 
 Led by a finer tact, a gift 
 He boasts, which other birds must shift 
 Without, and grope as best they can." 
 No, freely I would praise the man, — 
 Nor one whit more, if he contended 
 That gift of his from God descended. 
 Ah friend, what gift of man's does not ? 
 No nearer something, by a jot. 
 Rise an infinity of nothings 
 Than one : take Euclid for your teacher : 
 Distinguish kinds : do crownings, clothings, 
 Make that creator which was creature ? 
 Multiply gifts upon man's head. 
 And what, when all 's done, shall be said 
 But — the more gifted he, I ween ! 
 That one 's made Christ, this other, Pilate, 
 And this might be all that has been, — 
 So what is there to frown or smile at ? 
 What is left for us, save, in growth 
 Of soul, to rise up, far past both. 
 From the gift looking to the giver, 
 And from the cistern to the river. 
 And from the finite to infinity. 
 And from man's dust to God's divinity ? 
 
 63 
 
XVII 
 I^KE all in a word : the truth in 
 God's breast 
 Lies trace for trace upon ours 
 
 impressed : > 
 
 Though he is so bright and we 
 so dim, 
 
 We are made in his image to witness him : 
 And were no eye in us to tell, 
 Instructed by no inner sense, 
 The light of heaven from the dark of hell, 
 That light would want its evidence, — 
 Though justice, good and truth were still 
 Divine, if, by some demon's will. 
 Hatred and wrong had been proclaimed 
 Law through the worlds, and right misnamed. 
 No mere exposition of morality 
 Made or in part or in totality. 
 Should win you to give it worship, therefore : 
 And, if no better proof you will care for, 
 — Whom do you count the worst man upon 
 
 earth ? 
 Be sure, he knows, in his conscience, more 
 Of what right is, than arrives at birth 
 In the best man's acts that we bow before : 
 64 
 
This last knows better — true, but my fact is, 
 *T is one thing to know, and another to practise. 
 And thence I conclude that the real God- 
 function 
 Is to furnish a motive and injunction 
 For practising what we know already. 
 And such an injunction and such a motive 
 As the God in Christ, do you waive, and "heady, 
 High-minded," hang your tablet- votive . 
 Outside the fane on a finger-post ? 
 Morality to the uttermost, 
 Supreme in Christ as we all confess. 
 Why need we prove would avail no jot 
 To make him God, if God he were not ? 
 What is the point where himself lays stress ? 
 Does the precept run " Believe in good, 
 In justice, truth, now understood 
 For the first time " ?— or, " Believe in me. 
 Who lived and died, yet essentially 
 Am Lord bf Life " ? Whoever can take 
 The same to his heart and for mere love's sake 
 Conceive of the love,— that man obtains 
 A new truth ; no conviction gains 
 Of an old one only, made intense 
 By a fresh appeal to his faded sense. 
 
 65 
 
— ^r\V! 
 
 XVIII 
 |AN it be that he stays inside ? 
 
 Is the vesture left me to com- 
 mune with ? 
 
 Coul^ my soul find aught to sing 
 in tune with 
 
 Even at this lecture, if she tried ? 
 Oh, let me at lowest sympathize 
 With the lurking drop of blood that lies 
 In the desiccated brain's white roots 
 Without throb for Christ's attributes. 
 As the lecturer makes his special boast ! 
 If love 's dead there, it has left a ghost. 
 Admire we, how from heart to brain 
 (Thoxigh to say so strike the doctors dumb) 
 One instinct rises and falls again, 
 Restoring the equilibrium. 
 And how when the Critic had done his best, 
 And the pearl of price, at reason's test, 
 Lay dust and ashes levigable 
 On the Professor's lecture-table, — 
 When we looked for the inference and monition 
 That our faith, reduced to such condition, 
 Be swept forthwith to its natural dust-hole, — 
 He bids us, when we least expect it, 
 66 
 
Take back our faith, — if it be not just whole, 
 Yet a pearl indeed, as his tests affect it. 
 Which fact pays damage done rewardingly, 
 So, prize we our dust and ashes accordingly ! 
 " Go home and venerate the myth 
 I thus have experimented with — 
 This man, continue to adore him 
 Rather than all who went before him, 
 And all who ever followed after ! " — 
 Surely for this I may praise you, my brother ! 
 Will you take the praise in tears or laughter ? 
 That 's one point gained : can I compass 
 
 another ? 
 Unlearned love was safe from spurning — 
 Can 't we respect your loveless learning ? 
 Let us at least give learning honor ! 
 What laurels had we showered upon her, 
 Girding her loins up to perturb 
 Our theory of the Middle Verb ; 
 Or Turk-like brandishing a scimitar 
 O'er anapaests in comic-trimeter ; 
 Or curing the halt and maimed " Iketides," 
 While we lounged on at our indebted ease : 
 Instead of which, a tricksy demon 
 Sets her at Titus or Philemon ! 
 
 67 
 
When ignorance wags his ears of leather 
 
 And hates God's word, 't is altogether ; 
 
 Nor leaves he his congenial thistles 
 
 To go and browse on Paul's Epistles. 
 
 — And you, the audience, who might ravage 
 
 The world wide, enviably savage. 
 
 Nor heed the cry of the retriever, 
 
 More than Herr Heine (before his fever), — 
 
 I do not tell a lie so arrant 
 
 As say my passion's wings are furled up, 
 
 And, without plainest heavenly warrant, 
 
 I were ready and glad to give the world up — 
 
 But still, when you rub brow meticulous. 
 
 And ponder the profit of turning holy 
 
 If not for God's, for your own sake solely, 
 
 — God forbid I should find you ridiculous ! 
 
 Deduce from this lecture all that eases you. 
 
 Nay, call yourselves, if the calling pleases you, 
 
 Christians, — abhor the deist's pravity, — 
 
 Go on, you shall no more move my gravity 
 
 Than, when I see boys ride a-cockhorse, 
 
 I find it in my heart to embarrass them 
 
 By hinting that their stick 's a mock horse, 
 
 And they really carry what they say carries 
 
 them. 
 
 68 
 
XIX 
 
 |0 SAT I talking with my mind. 
 I did not long to leave the door 
 And find a new church, as before, 
 But rather was quiet and inclined 
 To prolong and enjoy the gentle 
 resting 
 
 From further tracking and trying and testing. 
 
 " This tolerance is a genial mood ! " 
 
 (Said I, and a little pause ensued.) 
 
 "One trims the bark 'twixt shoal and shelf, 
 
 And sees, each side, the good effects of it, 
 
 A value for religion's self, 
 
 A carelessness about the sects of it. 
 
 Let me enjoy my own conviction, 
 
 Not watch my neighbor's faith with fretful- 
 ness. 
 
 Still spying there some dereliction 
 
 Of truth, perversity, forgetfulness ! 
 
 Better a mild indifferentism. 
 
 Teaching that both our faiths (though duller 
 
 His shine through a dull spirit's prism) 
 
 Originally had one color ! 
 
 Better pursue a pilgrimage 
 
 Through ancient and through modern times 
 
 69 
 
To many peoples, various climes, 
 Where I may see saint, savage, sage 
 Fuse their respective creeds in one 
 Before the general Father's throne ! " 
 
 70 
 

 XX 
 
 [WAS the horrible storm began 
 
 afresh ! 
 The black night caught me in 
 
 his mesh, 
 Whirled me up, and flung me 
 
 prone. 
 
 I was left on the college-step alone. 
 I looked, and far there, ever fleeting 
 Far, far away, the receding gesture, 
 And looming of the lessening vesture ! — 
 Swept forward from my stupid hand. 
 While I watched my foolish heart expand 
 In the lazy glow of benevolence. 
 O'er the various modes of man's belief. 
 I sprang up with fear's vehemence. 
 Needs must there be one way, our chief 
 Best way of worship : let me strive 
 To find it, and when found, contrive 
 My fellows also take their share ! 
 This constitutes my earthly care : 
 God's is above it and distinct. 
 For I, a man, with men am linked 
 And not a brute with brutes ; no gain 
 That I experience, must remain 
 
 71 
 
Unshared : but should my best endeavor 
 To share it, fail — subsisteth ever 
 God's care above, and I exult 
 That God, by God's own ways occult, 
 May — doth, I will believe — bring back 
 All wanderers to a single track. 
 Meantime, I can but testify 
 God's care for me — no more, can I — 
 It is but for myself I know ; 
 The world rolls witnessing around me 
 Only to leave me as it found me ; 
 Men cry there, but my ear is slow : 
 Their races flourish or decay 
 — What boots it, while yon lucid way 
 Loaded with stars divides the vault ? 
 But soon my soul repairs its fault 
 When, sharpening sense's hebetude, 
 She turns on my own life ! So viewed, 
 No mere mote's-breadth but teems immense 
 With witnessings of providence : 
 And woe to me if when I look 
 Upon that record, the sole book 
 Unsealed to me, I take no heed 
 Of any warning that I read ! 
 Have I been sure, this Christmas Eve, 
 73 
 
God's own hand did the rainbow weave, 
 Whereby the truth from heaven slid 
 Into my soul ? — I cannot bid 
 The world admit he stooped to heal 
 My soul, as if in a thunder-peal 
 Where one heard noise, and one saw 
 
 flame, 
 I only knew he named my name : 
 But what is the world to me, for sorrow 
 Or joy in its censure, when to-morrow 
 It drops the remark, with just-turned head, 
 Then, on again, " That man is dead " ? 
 Yes, but for me — my name called, — drawn 
 As a conscript's lot from the lap's black 
 
 yawn, 
 He has dipt into on a battle-dawn : 
 Bid out of life by a nod, a glance, — 
 Stumbling, mute-mazed, at nature's 
 
 chance, — 
 With a rapid finger circled round. 
 Fixed to the first poor inch of ground 
 To fight from, where his foot was found ; 
 Whose ear but a minute since lay free 
 To the wide camp's buzz and gossipry — 
 Summoned, a solitary man, 
 
 73 
 
To end his life where his life began. 
 From the safe glad rear, to the dreadful vanl 
 Soul of mine, hadst thou caught and held 
 By the hem of the vesture ! — 
 
 74 
 

 XXI 
 
 |ND I caught 
 At the flying robe, and unrepelled 
 Was lapped again in its folds 
 
 full-fraught 
 With warmth and wonder and 
 delight, 
 God's mercy being infinite. 
 For scarce had the words escaped my tongue, 
 When, at a passionate bound, I sprung 
 Out of the wandering world of rain, 
 Into the little chapel again. 
 
 75 
 
Mil 
 
 )W else v/MS I fdiind therfe, hSU 
 
 Oti my benchi ^s If I had never 
 
 left it ? 
 — Never fltihg but bri the cotti- 
 mon at flight, 
 Nor met the storm ahd wedge-likfe bleft it, 
 Seeh the raree-show of Peter's Siibcles^bf; 
 Or the laboi-dtory bf the Pi-bfe^Sbr ! 
 For the ViSidri, that ^As tfufe; I ^ist^ 
 True as that heaveri kM eslHh exist. 
 There sat my friend, the yellow and tall, 
 With his neck and its wen in the selfsame 
 
 place ; 
 Yet my nearest neighbor's cheek showed gall. 
 She had slid away a contemptuous space : 
 And the old fat woman, late so placable, 
 Eyed me with symptoms, hardly mistakable. 
 Of her milk of kindness turning rancid. 
 In short, a spectator might have fancied 
 That I had nodded, betrayed by slumber, 
 Yet kept my seat, a warning ghastly, 
 Through the heads of the sermon, nine in 
 
 number, 
 
And woke up now qit the tenth and lastly. 
 
 But again.could such disgrace have liappened ? 
 
 Each friend at my elbow had surely nudged it; 
 
 And as for the sermon, where did my nap end ? 
 
 Unless I heard it, could I have judged it ? 
 
 Could I report as I do at the close. 
 
 First, the preacher speaks through his pose : 
 
 Secondi his gesture is too emphatic : 
 
 Thifdly, to \yaiye what 's pedagogic. 
 
 The subject-matter itself lacks log^c : 
 
 Fourjthly, the English is ungrammatic. 
 
 Great news ! the preacher is found no Paspal, 
 
 Whom, if I pleased, I might to the task c^ll 
 
 Of making square to a finite eye 
 
 The circle of infinity, 
 
 And find so ail-but -just-succeeding ! 
 
 Great news ! the sermon proves no reading 
 
 Where bee-like in the flowers I bury me. 
 
 Like Ts^ylpr's, the immortal Jeremy ! 
 
 And now that I know the very worst of hiip, 
 
 What was it I thought to obtain at first of him ? 
 
 Ha ! Is Gpd mocked, as he asks ? 
 
 Shall I take on me to changp his tasks. 
 
 And dare, dispatche4 to ^ river-head 
 
 For a simple draught of the element, 
 
 77 
 
Neglect the thing for which he sent, 
 And return with another thing instead ? — 
 Saying, " Because the water found 
 Welling up from underground. 
 Is mingled with the taints of earth. 
 While thou, I know, dost laugh at dearth, 
 And couldst, at wink or word, convulse 
 The world with the leap of a river-pulse, — 
 Therefore I turned from the oozings muddy. 
 And bring thee a chalice I found, instead : 
 See the brave veins in the breccia ruddy ! 
 One would suppose that the marble bled. 
 What matters the water ? A hope I have 
 
 nursed 
 The waterless cup will quench my thirst." 
 — Better have knelt at the poorest stream 
 That trickles in pain from the straitest rift ! 
 For the less or the more is all God's gift. 
 Who blocksuporbreaks wide the granite seam. 
 And here, is there water or not, to drink ? 
 I then, in ignorance and weakness. 
 Taking God's help, have attained to think 
 My heart does best to receive in meekness 
 That mode of worship, as most to his mind, 
 Where earthly aids being cast behind, 
 
 78 
 
His All in All appears serene 
 
 With the thinnest human veil between, 
 
 Letting the mystic lamps, the seven, 
 
 The many motions of his spirit, 
 
 Pass, as they list, to earth from heaven. 
 
 For the preacher's merit or demerit. 
 
 It were to be wished the flaws were fewer 
 
 In the earthen vessel, holding treasure 
 
 Which lies as safe in a golden ewer ; 
 
 But the main thing is, does it hold good 
 
 measure ? 
 Heaven soon sets right all other matters ! — 
 Ask, else, these ruins of humanity. 
 This flesh worn out to rags and tatters. 
 This soul at struggle with insanity. 
 Who thence take comfort — can I doubt ? — 
 Which an empire gained, were a loss without. 
 May it be mine ! And let us hope 
 That no worse blessing befall the Pope, 
 Turn'd sick at last of to-day's buffoonery, 
 Of posturings and petticoatings. 
 Beside his Bourbon bully's gloatings 
 In the bloody orgies of drunk poltroonery ! 
 Nor may the Professor forego its peace 
 At Gottingen presently, when, in the dusk 
 
 79 
 
Of his life, if his cpiig^i, as % fe^c, shqul4 
 
 Prophesie4 of lay that hprrible husk — 
 When thicker and thicker the darkness ^11§ 
 The world thrpugl^ hjis misty $p^ct^c|es, 
 And he grqpes for sqin{et):^|pg morp subsff^njtiaji 
 Thap a fablp. my^lj pr perspnifipation, — 
 May Chris^ do for ^ini what np merp man sl^all, 
 And stand cpnfes^ed as the God of salya^ppit 
 Meantinie, in the ^till recurring feajr 
 Lest myself, at unawares, be found. 
 While attacking thp phoice of my neigh|;Q|:f 
 
 round. 
 With none of iny owfn made — J. choose Ij^fp ! 
 The giving out of t^e ^ymn rpcl^ims me ; 
 I have done : apd |f ^i^y blames me. 
 Thinking thaj merply tp touch ip brevity 
 The topics I dvv;ell on, wefe unlawful, — 
 Or worse, that I trench, with undue levity, 
 On the bounds of the holy and thp awful,— 
 I praise the heart, ^pd pity the he^d of him, 
 And refer myself to Thee, instead of him, 
 Who head and hpart alike discerpest, 
 Looking below light speech we utter, 
 When frothy spume and frequent sputter 
 
 So 
 
Prove that the soul's depths boil in earnest ! 
 May truth shine out, stand ever before us ! 
 I put up pencil and join chorus 
 To Hepzibah Tune, without further apology, 
 The last five verses of the third section 
 Of the seventeenth hymn of Whitfield's Col- 
 lection, 
 To conclude with the doxology. 
 
 8i