Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume I. | Page 3

it was but small!
"Honors! O friend, I pray you bear with me:?The grass hath time to grow in meadow lands,?And leisurely the opal murmuring sea
Breaks on her yellow sands;
"And leisurely the ring-dove on her nest?Broods till her tender chick will peck the shell?And leisurely down fall from ferny crest
The dew-drops on the well;
"And leisurely your life and spirit grew,?With yet the time to grow and ripen free:?No judgment past withdraws that boon from you,
Nor granteth it to me.
"Still must I plod, and still in cities moil;?From precious leisure, learned leisure far,?Dull my best self with handling common soil;
Yet mine those honors are.
"Mine they are called; they are a name which means,?'This man had steady pulses, tranquil nerves:?Here, as in other fields, the most he gleans
Who works and never swerves.
"We measure not his mind; we cannot tell?What lieth under, over, or beside?The test we put him to; he doth excel,
We know, where he is tried;
"But, if he boast some farther excellence--?Mind to create as well as to attain;?To sway his peers by golden eloquence,
As wind doth shift a fane;
"'To sing among the poets--we are nought:?We cannot drop a line into that sea?And read its fathoms off, nor gauge a thought,
Nor map a simile.
"'It may be of all voices sublunar?The only one he echoes we did try;?We may have come upon the only star
That twinkles in his sky,'
"And so it was with me."
O false my friend!?False, false, a random charge, a blame undue;?Wrest not fair reasoning to a crooked end:
False, false, as you are true!
But I read on: "And so it was with me;?Your golden constellations lying apart?They neither hailed nor greeted heartily,
Nor noted on their chart.
"And yet to you and not to me belong?Those finer instincts that, like second sight?And hearing, catch creation's undersong,
And see by inner light.
"You are a well, whereon I, gazing, see?Reflections of the upper heavens--a well?From whence come deep, deep echoes up to me--
Some underwave's low swell.
"I cannot soar into the heights you show,?Nor dive among the deeps that you reveal;?But it is much that high things ARE to know,
That deep things ARE to feel.
"'Tis yours, not mine, to pluck out of your breast?Some human truth, whose workings recondite?Were unattired in words, and manifest
And hold it forth to light
"And cry, 'Behold this thing that I have found,'?And though they knew not of it till that day,?Nor should have done with no man to expound
Its meaning, yet they say,
"'We do accept it: lower than the shoals?We skim, this diver went, nor did create,?But find it for us deeper in our souls
Than we can penetrate.'
"You were to me the world's interpreter,?The man that taught me Nature's unknown tongue,?And to the notes of her wild dulcimer
First set sweet words, and sung.
"And what am I to you? A steady hand?To hold, a steadfast heart to trust withal;?Merely a man that loves you, and will stand
By you, whatever befall.
"But need we praise his tendance tutelar?Who feeds a flame that warms him? Yet 'tis true?I love you for the sake of what you are,
And not of what you do:--
"As heaven's high twins, whereof in Tyrian blue?The one revolveth: through his course immense?Might love his fellow of the damask hue,
For like, and difference.
"For different pathways evermore decreed?To intersect, but not to interfere;?For common goal, two aspects, and one speed,
One centre and one year;
"For deep affinities, for drawings strong,?That by their nature each must needs exert;?For loved alliance, and for union long,
That stands before desert.
"And yet desert makes brighter not the less,?For nearest his own star he shall not fail?To think those rays unmatched for nobleness,
That distance counts but pale.
"Be pale afar, since still to me you shine,?And must while Nature's eldest law shall hold;"--?Ah, there's the thought which makes his random line
Dear as refinèd gold!
Then shall I drink this draft of oxymel,?Part sweet, part sharp? Myself o'erprized to know?Is sharp; the cause is sweet, and truth to tell
Few would that cause forego,
Which is, that this of all the men on earth?Doth love me well enough to count me great--?To think my soul and his of equal girth--
O liberal estimate!
And yet it is so; he is bound to me,?For human love makes aliens near of kin;?By it I rise, there is equality:
I rise to thee, my twin.
"Take courage"--courage! ay, my purple peer?I will take courage; for thy Tyrian rays?Refresh me to the heart, and strangely dear
And healing is thy praise.
"Take courage," quoth he, "and respect the mind?Your Maker gave, for good your fate fulfil;?The fate round many hearts your own to wind."
Twin soul, I will! I will!
[Illustration]
HONORS.--PART II.
(The Answer.)
As one who, journeying, checks the rein in haste?Because a chasm doth yawn across his way?Too wide for leaping, and too steeply faced
For climber to essay--
As such an one, being brought to sudden stand,?Doubts all his foregone path if 'twere the true,?And turns to this and then