The Unknown Eros | Page 9

his share,?With easy humour, hard to bear,?May not impossibly have in him shrined,?As in a gossamer globe or thickly padded pod,?Some small seed dear to God.?Haply yon wretch, so famous for his falls,?Got them beneath the Devil-defended walls?Of some high Virtue he had vow'd to win;?And that which you and I?Call his besetting sin?Is but the fume of his peculiar fire?Of inmost contrary desire,?And means wild willingness for her to die,?Dash'd with despondence of her favour sweet;?He fiercer fighting, in his worst defeat,?Than I or you,?That only courteous greet?Where he does hotly woo,?Did ever fight, in our best victory.?Another is mistook?Through his deceitful likeness to his look!?Let be, let be:?Why should I clear myself, why answer thou for me??That shaft of slander shot?Miss'd only the right blot.?I see the shame?They cannot see:?'Tis very just they blame?The thing that's not.
XXI. 'FAINT YET PURSUING.'
Heroic Good, target for which the young?Dream in their dreams that every bow is strung,?And, missing, sigh?Unfruitful, or as disbelievers die,?Thee having miss'd, I will not so revolt,?But lowlier shoot my bolt,?And lowlier still, if still I may not reach,?And my proud stomach teach?That less than highest is good, and may be high.?An even walk in life's uneven way,?Though to have dreamt of flight and not to fly?Be strange and sad,?Is not a boon that's given to all who pray.?If this I had?I'd envy none!?Nay, trod I straight for one?Year, month or week,?Should Heaven withdraw, and Satan me amerce?Of power and joy, still would I seek?Another victory with a like reverse;?Because the good of victory does not die,?As dies the failure's curse,?And what we have to gain?Is, not one battle, but a weary life's campaign.?Yet meaner lot being sent?Should more than me content;?Yea, if I lie?Among vile shards, though born for silver wings,?In the strong flight and feathers gold?Of whatsoever heavenward mounts and sings?I must by admiration so comply?That there I should my own delight behold.?Yea, though I sin each day times seven,?And dare not lift the fearfullest eyes to Heaven,?Thanks must I give?Because that seven times are not eight or nine,?And that my darkness is all mine,?And that I live?Within this oak-shade one more minute even,?Hearing the winds their Maker magnify.
XXII. VICTORY IN DEFEAT.
Ah, God, alas,?How soon it came to pass?The sweetness melted from thy barbed hook?Which I so simply took;?And I lay bleeding on the bitter land,?Afraid to stir against thy least command,?But losing all my pleasant life-blood, whence?Force should have been heart's frailty to withstand.?Life is not life at all without delight,?Nor has it any might;?And better than the insentient heart and brain?Is sharpest pain;?And better for the moment seems it to rebel,?If the great Master, from his lifted seat,?Ne'er whispers to the wearied servant 'Well!'?Yet what returns of love did I endure,?When to be pardon'd seem'd almost more sweet?Than aye to have been pure!?But day still faded to disastrous night,?And thicker darkness changed to feebler light,?Until forgiveness, without stint renew'd,?Was now no more with loving tears imbued,?Vowing no more offence.?Not less to thine Unfaithful didst thou cry,?'Come back, poor Child; be all as 'twas before.'?But I,?'No, no; I will not promise any more!?Yet, when I feel my hour is come to die,?And so I am secured of continence,?Then may I say, though haply then in vain,?"My only, only Love, O, take me back again!"'
Thereafter didst thou smite?So hard that, for a space,?Uplifted seem'd Heav'n's everlasting door,?And I indeed the darling of thy grace.?But, in some dozen changes of the moon,?A bitter mockery seem'd thy bitter boon.?The broken pinion was no longer sore.?Again, indeed, I woke?Under so dread a stroke?That all the strength it left within my heart?Was just to ache and turn, and then to turn and ache,?And some weak sign of war unceasingly to make.?And here I lie,?With no one near to mark,?Thrusting Hell's phantoms feebly in the dark,?And still at point more utterly to die.?O God, how long!?Put forth indeed thy powerful right hand,?While time is yet,?Or never shall I see the blissful land!
Thus I: then God, in pleasant speech and strong,?(Which soon I shall forget):?'The man who, though his fights be all defeats,?Still fights,?Enters at last?The heavenly Jerusalem's rejoicing streets?With glory more, and more triumphant rites?Than always-conquering Joshua's, when his blast?The frighted walls of Jericho down cast;?And, lo, the glad surprise?Of peace beyond surmise,?More than in common Saints, for ever in his eyes.'
XXIII. REMEMBERED GRACE.
Since succour to the feeblest of the wise?Is charge of nobler weight?Than the security?Of many and many a foolish soul's estate,?This I affirm,?Though fools will fools more confidently be:?Whom God does once with heart to heart befriend,?He does so till the end:?And having planted life's miraculous germ,?One sweet pulsation of responsive love,?He sets him sheer above,?Not sin and bitter shame?And wreck of fame,?But Hell's insidious and more black attempt,?The envy, malice, and pride,?Which men who share so easily