Christmas Eve | Page 2

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.
[Footnote: See Rev. i. 20.]
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 exclusiveness,
"And, taking God's word under wise
protection,
"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,

--To wit, in Zion Chapel Meeting,
On the Christmas-Eve of
'Forty-nine,
Which, calling its flock to their special clover,
Found
all assembled and one sheep over,
Whose lot, as the weather pleased,
was mine.

III
I very soon had enough of it.
The hot smell and the human noises,

And my neighbour'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 'twas 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 fain see equipt yours,-- So tossed you again your Holy
Scriptures.
And you picked them up, in a sense, no doubt:
Nay, had
but a single face of my neighbours
Appeared to suspect that the
preacher's labours
Were help which the world could be saved without,

'Tis odds but I might have borne in quiet
A qualm or two at my
spiritual diet,
Or (who can tell?) perchance even mustered

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 faster,
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 doing.

The shoemaker's lad, discreetly choking,
Kept down his cough. 'Twas
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.

IV
There 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-colour, 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;
'Tis ever dry walking there, on the moss--
Besides, you go
gently all the way uphill.
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 coloured the whole distinctly;
But
alas for the excellent earnestness,
And