Christmas Eve | Page 5

the cleansing sun, his wool,--?Steeps in the flood of noontide whiteness?Some denied, discoloured 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?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?"For ever, 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!"
X
And 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;?It stands there and it does not seem;?For ever, 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 layers 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,?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; [Footnote: Canopy over the High Altar.] 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 pain,?Dying the death whose signs remain?Up yonder on the accursed tree,--?Shall come again, no more to be?Of captivity the thrall,?But the one God, All in all,?King of kings, Lord of lords,?As His servant John received the words,?"I died, and live for evermore!"
XI
Yet 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?From propping mine. Though Rome's gross yoke?Drops off, no more to be endured,?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.?--'Twas 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