Christmas Eve | Page 9

he stays inside??Is the vesture left me to commune with??Could 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?(Though 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,?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 honour!?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 anapasts in comic-trimeter;?Or curing the halt and maimed 'Iketides,'?[Footnote: "The Suppliants," a fragment of a play by Aeschylus.] While we lounged on at our indebted ease:?Instead of which, a tricksy demon?Sets her at Titus or Philemon!?When ignorance wags his ears of leather?And hates God's word, 'tis 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.
XIX
So 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 neighbour's faith with fretfulness,?"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 colour!?"Better pursue a pilgrimage?"Through ancient and through modern times?"To many peoples, various climes,?"Where I may see saint, savage, sage?"Fuse their respective creeds in one?"Before the general Father's throne!"
XX
--'Twas 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?But not a brute with brutes; no gain?That I experience, must remain?Unshared: but should my best endeavour?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:?There 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