Christmas Eve | Page 5

that I spoke thus.
When,--have mercy, Lord,
on us!

The whole face turned upon me 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 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