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diff --git a/6670-h/6670-h.htm b/6670-h/6670-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ff45a40 --- /dev/null +++ b/6670-h/6670-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,2103 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.1//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml11/DTD/xhtml11.dtd"> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en"> + +<head> + +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1" /> + +<title> +The Project Gutenberg E-text of Christmas Eve, by Robert Browning +</title> + +<style type="text/css"> +body { color: black; + background: white; + margin-right: 10%; + margin-left: 10%; + font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; + text-align: justify } + +p {text-indent: 4% } + +p.noindent {text-indent: 0% } + +p.t1 {text-indent: 0% ; + font-size: 200%; + text-align: center } + +p.t2 {text-indent: 0% ; + font-size: 150%; + text-align: center } + +p.t3 {text-indent: 0% ; + font-size: 100%; + text-align: center } + +p.t3b {text-indent: 0% ; + font-size: 100%; + font-weight: bold; + text-align: center } + +p.t4 {text-indent: 0% ; + font-size: 80%; + text-align: center } + +p.t4b {text-indent: 0% ; + font-size: 80%; + font-weight: bold; + text-align: center } + +p.t5 {text-indent: 0% ; + font-size: 60%; + text-align: center } + +h1 { text-align: center } +h2 { text-align: center } +h3 { text-align: center } +h4 { text-align: center } +h5 { text-align: center } + +p.poem {text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; } + +p.contents {text-indent: -3%; + margin-left: 5% } + +p.thought {text-indent: 0% ; + letter-spacing: 4em ; + text-align: center } + +p.letter {text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10% ; + margin-right: 10% } + +p.footnote {text-indent: 0% ; + font-size: 80%; + margin-left: 10% ; + margin-right: 10% } + +p.transnote {text-indent: 0% ; + margin-left: 0% ; + margin-right: 0% } + +p.intro {font-size: 90% ; + text-indent: -5% ; + margin-left: 5% ; + margin-right: 0% } + +p.quote {text-indent: 4% ; + margin-left: 0% ; + margin-right: 0% } + +p.finis { font-size: larger ; + text-align: center ; + text-indent: 0% ; + margin-left: 0% ; + margin-right: 0% } + +</style> + +</head> + +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Christmas Eve, by Robert Browning + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Christmas Eve + +Author: Robert Browning + +Posting Date: March 16, 2014 [EBook #6670] +Release Date: October, 2004 +First Posted: January 12, 2003 +Last Updated: February 4, 2008 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHRISTMAS EVE *** + + + + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Charles Franks and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team. HTML version by Al +Haines. + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<h1> +<br /><br /> + CHRISTMAS EVE<br /> +</h1> + +<p class="t2"> + ROBERT BROWNING<br /> +</p> + +<p><br /><br /><br /></p> + +<p class="poem"> + I<br /> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Out of the little chapel I burst<br /> + Into the fresh night-air again.<br /> + Five minutes full, I waited first<br /> + In the doorway, to escape the rain<br /> + That drove in gusts down the common's centre<br /> + At the edge of which the chapel stands,<br /> + Before I plucked up heart to enter.<br /> + Heaven knows how many sorts of hands<br /> + Reached past me, groping for the latch<br /> + Of the inner door that hung on catch<br /> + More obstinate the more they fumbled,<br /> + Till, giving way at last with a scold<br /> + Of the crazy hinge, in squeezed or tumbled<br /> + One sheep more to the rest in fold,<br /> + And left me irresolute, standing sentry<br /> + In the sheepfold's lath-and-plaster entry,<br /> + Six feet long by three feet wide,<br /> + Partitioned off from the vast inside—<br /> + I blocked up half of it at least.<br /> + No remedy; the rain kept driving.<br /> + They eyed me much as some wild beast,<br /> + That congregation, still arriving,<br /> + Some of them by the main road, white<br /> + A long way past me into the night,<br /> + Skirting the common, then diverging;<br /> + Not a few suddenly emerging<br /> + From the common's self thro' the paling-gaps<br /> + —They house in the gravel-pits perhaps,<br /> + Where the road stops short with its safeguard border<br /> + Of lamps, as tired of such disorder;—<br /> + But the most turned in yet more abruptly<br /> + From a certain squalid knot of alleys,<br /> + Where the town's bad blood once slept corruptly,<br /> + Which now the little chapel rallies<br /> + And leads into day again,—its priestliness<br /> + Lending itself to hide their beastliness<br /> + So cleverly (thanks in part to the mason),<br /> + And putting so cheery a whitewashed face on<br /> + Those neophytes too much in lack of it,<br /> + That, where you cross the common as I did,<br /> + And meet the party thus presided,<br /> + "Mount Zion" with Love-lane at the back of it,<br /> + They front you as little disconcerted<br /> + As, bound for the hills, her fate averted,<br /> + And her wicked people made to mind him,<br /> + Lot might have marched with Gomorrah<br /> + behind him.<br /> +</p> + +<p><br /><br /></p> + +<p class="poem"> + II<br /> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Well, from the road, the lanes or the common,<br /> + In came the flock: the fat weary woman,<br /> + Panting and bewildered, down-clapping<br /> + Her umbrella with a mighty report,<br /> + Grounded it by me, wry and flapping,<br /> + A wreck of whalebones; then, with snort,<br /> + Like a startled horse, at the interloper<br /> + (Who humbly knew himself improper,<br /> + But could not shrink up small enough)<br /> + —Round to the door, and in,—the gruff<br /> + Hinge's invariable scold<br /> + Making my very blood run cold.<br /> + Prompt in the wake of her, up-pattered<br /> + On broken clogs, the many-tattered<br /> + Little old-faced peaking sister-turned-mother<br /> + Of the sickly babe she tried to smother<br /> + Somehow up, with its spotted face,<br /> + From the cold, on her breast, the one warm place;<br /> + She too must stop, wring the poor ends dry<br /> + Of a draggled shawl, and add thereby<br /> + Her tribute to the door-mat, sopping<br /> + Already from my own clothes' dropping,<br /> + Which yet she seemed to grudge I should stand on:<br /> + Then, stooping down to take off her pattens,<br /> + She bore them defiantly, in each hand one,<br /> + Planted together before her breast<br /> + And its babe, as good as a lance in rest.<br /> + Close on her heels, the dingy satins<br /> + Of a female something, past me flitted,<br /> + With lips as much too white, as a streak<br /> + Lay far too red on each hollow cheek;<br /> + And it seemed the very door-hinge pitied<br /> + All that was left of a woman once,<br /> + Holding at least its tongue for the nonce.<br /> + Then a tall yellow man, like the Penitent Thief,<br /> + With his jaw bound up in a handkerchief,<br /> + And eyelids screwed together tight,<br /> + Led himself in by some inner light.<br /> + And, except from him, from each that entered,<br /> + I got the same interrogation—<br /> + "What, you the alien, you have ventured<br /> + "To take with us, the elect, your station?<br /> + "A carer for none of it, a Gallio!"—<br /> + Thus, plain as print, I read the glance<br /> + At a common prey, in each countenance<br /> + As of huntsman giving his hounds the tallyho.<br /> + And, when the door's cry drowned their wonder,<br /> + The draught, it always sent in shutting,<br /> + Made the flame of the single tallow candle<br /> + In the cracked square lantern I stood under,<br /> + Shoot its blue lip at me, rebutting<br /> + As it were, the luckless cause of scandal:<br /> + I verily fancied the zealous light<br /> + (In the chapel's secret, too!) for spite<br /> + Would shudder itself clean off the wick,<br /> + With the airs of a Saint John's Candlestick.<br /> + [Footnote: See Rev. i. 20.]<br /> + There was no standing it much longer.<br /> + "Good folks," thought I, as resolve grew stronger,<br /> + "This way you perform the Grand-Inquisitor<br /> + "When the weather sends you a chance visitor?<br /> + "You are the men, and wisdom shall die with you,<br /> + "And none of the old Seven Churches vie with you!<br /> + "But still, despite the pretty perfection<br /> + "To which you carry your trick of exclusiveness,<br /> + "And, taking God's word under wise protection,<br /> + "Correct its tendency to diffusiveness,<br /> + "And bid one reach it over hot ploughshares,—<br /> + "Still, as I say, though you've found salvation,<br /> + "If I should choose to cry, as now, 'Shares!'—<br /> + "See if the best of you bars me my ration!<br /> + "I prefer, if you please, for my expounder<br /> + "Of the laws of the feast, the feast's own Founder;<br /> + "Mine's the same right with your poorest and sickliest<br /> + "Supposing I don the marriage vestiment:<br /> + "So shut your mouth and open your Testament,<br /> + "And carve me my portion at your quickliest!"<br /> + Accordingly, as a shoemaker's lad<br /> + With wizened face in want of soap,<br /> + And wet apron wound round his waist like a rope,<br /> + (After stopping outside, for his cough was bad,<br /> + To get the fit over, poor gentle creature,<br /> + And so avoid disturbing the preacher)<br /> + —Passed in, I sent my elbow spikewise<br /> + At the shutting door, and entered likewise,<br /> + Received the hinge's accustomed greeting,<br /> + And crossed the threshold's magic pentacle,<br /> + And found myself in full conventicle,<br /> + —To wit, in Zion Chapel Meeting,<br /> + On the Christmas-Eve of 'Forty-nine,<br /> + Which, calling its flock to their special clover,<br /> + Found all assembled and one sheep over,<br /> + Whose lot, as the weather pleased, was mine.<br /> +</p> + +<p><br /><br /></p> + +<p class="poem"> + III<br /> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + I very soon had enough of it.<br /> + The hot smell and the human noises,<br /> + And my neighbour's coat, the greasy cuff of it,<br /> + Were a pebble-stone that a child's hand poises,<br /> + Compared with the pig-of-lead-like pressure<br /> + Of the preaching man's immense stupidity,<br /> + As he poured his doctrine forth, full measure,<br /> + To meet his audience's avidity.<br /> + You needed not the wit of the Sibyl<br /> + To guess the cause of it all, in a twinkling:<br /> + No sooner our friend had got an inkling<br /> + Of treasure hid in the Holy Bible,<br /> + (Whene'er 'twas the thought first struck him,<br /> + How death, at unawares, might duck him<br /> + Deeper than the grave, and quench<br /> + The gin-shop's light in hell's grim drench)<br /> + Than he handled it so, in fine irreverence,<br /> + As to hug the book of books to pieces:<br /> + And, a patchwork of chapters and texts in severance,<br /> + Not improved by the private dog's-ears and creases,<br /> + Having clothed his own soul with, he'd fain see equipt yours,—<br /> + So tossed you again your Holy Scriptures.<br /> + And you picked them up, in a sense, no doubt:<br /> + Nay, had but a single face of my neighbours<br /> + Appeared to suspect that the preacher's labours<br /> + Were help which the world could be saved without,<br /> + 'Tis odds but I might have borne in quiet<br /> + A qualm or two at my spiritual diet,<br /> + Or (who can tell?) perchance even mustered<br /> + Somewhat to urge in behalf of the sermon:<br /> + But the flock sat on, divinely flustered,<br /> + Sniffing, methought, its dew of Hermon<br /> + With such content in every snuffle,<br /> + As the devil inside us loves to ruffle.<br /> + My old fat woman purred with pleasure,<br /> + And thumb round thumb went twirling faster,<br /> + While she, to his periods keeping measure,<br /> + Maternally devoured the pastor.<br /> + The man with the handkerchief untied it,<br /> + Showed us a horrible wen inside it,<br /> + Gave his eyelids yet another screwing,<br /> + And rocked himself as the woman was doing.<br /> + The shoemaker's lad, discreetly choking,<br /> + Kept down his cough. 'Twas too provoking!<br /> + My gorge rose at the nonsense and stuff of it;<br /> + So, saying like Eve when she plucked the apple,<br /> + "I wanted a taste, and now there's enough of it,"<br /> + I flung out of the little chapel.<br /> +</p> + +<p><br /><br /></p> + +<p class="poem"> + IV<br /> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + There was a lull in the rain, a lull<br /> + In the wind too; the moon was risen,<br /> + And would have shone out pure and full,<br /> + But for the ramparted cloud-prison,<br /> + Block on block built up in the West,<br /> + For what purpose the wind knows best,<br /> + Who changes his mind continually.<br /> + And the empty other half of the sky<br /> + Seemed in its silence as if it knew<br /> + What, any moment, might look through<br /> + A chance gap in that fortress massy:—<br /> + Through its fissures you got hints<br /> + Of the flying moon, by the shifting tints,<br /> + Now, a dull lion-colour, now, brassy<br /> + Burning to yellow, and whitest yellow,<br /> + Like furnace-smoke just ere flames bellow,<br /> + All a-simmer with intense strain<br /> + To let her through,—then blank again,<br /> + At the hope of her appearance failing.<br /> + Just by the chapel, a break in the railing<br /> + Shows a narrow path directly across;<br /> + 'Tis ever dry walking there, on the moss—<br /> + Besides, you go gently all the way uphill.<br /> + I stooped under and soon felt better;<br /> + My head grew lighter, my limbs more supple,<br /> + As I walked on, glad to have slipt the fetter.<br /> + My mind was full of the scene I had left,<br /> + That placid flock, that pastor vociferant,<br /> + —How this outside was pure and different!<br /> + The sermon, now—what a mingled weft<br /> + Of good and ill! Were either less,<br /> + Its fellow had coloured the whole distinctly;<br /> + But alas for the excellent earnestness,<br /> + And the truths, quite true if stated succinctly,<br /> + But as surely false, in their quaint presentment,<br /> + However to pastor and flock's contentment!<br /> + Say rather, such truths looked false to your eyes,<br /> + With his provings and parallels twisted and twined,<br /> + Till how could you know them, grown double their size<br /> + In the natural fog of the good man's mind,<br /> + Like yonder spots of our roadside lamps,<br /> + Haloed about with the common's damps?<br /> + Truth remains true, the fault's in the prover;<br /> + The zeal was good, and the aspiration;<br /> + And yet, and yet, yet, fifty times over,<br /> + Pharaoh received no demonstration,<br /> + By his Baker's dream of Basket Three,<br /> + Of the doctrine of the Trinity,—<br /> + Although, as our preacher thus embellished it,<br /> + Apparently his hearers relished it<br /> + With so unfeigned a gust—who knows if<br /> + They did not prefer our friend to Joseph?<br /> + But so it is everywhere, one way with all of them!<br /> + These people have really felt, no doubt,<br /> + A something, the motion they style the Call of them;<br /> + And this is their method of bringing about,<br /> + By a mechanism of words and tones,<br /> + (So many texts in so many groans)<br /> + A sort of reviving and reproducing,<br /> + More or less perfectly, (who can tell?)<br /> + The mood itself, which strengthens by using;<br /> + And how that happens, I understand well.<br /> + A tune was born in my head last week,<br /> + Out of the thump-thump and shriek-shriek<br /> + Of the train, as I came by it, up from Manchester;<br /> + And when, next week, I take it back again,<br /> + My head will sing to the engine's clack again,<br /> + While it only makes my neighbour's haunches stir,<br /> + —Finding no dormant musical sprout<br /> + In him, as in me, to be jolted out.<br /> + 'Tis the taught already that profits by teaching;<br /> + He gets no more from the railway's preaching<br /> + Than, from this preacher who does the rail's office, I:<br /> + Whom therefore the flock cast a jealous eye on.<br /> + Still, why paint over their door "Mount Zion,"<br /> + To which all flesh shall come, saith the prophecy?<br /> +</p> + +<p><br /><br /></p> + +<p class="poem"> + V<br /> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + But wherefore be harsh on a single case?<br /> + After how many modes, this Christmas Eve,<br /> + Does the self-same weary thing take place?<br /> + The same endeavour to make you believe,<br /> + And with much the same effect, no more:<br /> + Each method abundantly convincing,<br /> + As I say, to those convinced before,<br /> + But scarce to be swallowed without wincing<br /> + By the not-as-yet-convinced. For me,<br /> + I have my own church equally:<br /> + And in this church my faith sprang first!<br /> + (I said, as I reached the rising ground,<br /> + And the wind began again, with a burst<br /> + Of rain in my face, and a glad rebound<br /> + From the heart beneath, as if, God speeding me,<br /> + I entered his church-door, nature leading me)<br /> + —In youth I look to these very skies,<br /> + And probing their immensities,<br /> + I found God there, his visible power;<br /> + Yet felt in my heart, amid all its sense<br /> + Of the power, an equal evidence<br /> + That his love, there too, was the nobler dower.<br /> + For the loving worm within its clod,<br /> + Were diviner than a loveless god<br /> + Amid his worlds, I will dare to say.<br /> + You know what I mean: God's all, man's nought:<br /> + But also, God, whose pleasure brought<br /> + Man into being, stands away<br /> + As it were a handbreadth off, to give<br /> + Room for the newly-made to live,<br /> + And look at him from a place apart,<br /> + And use his gifts of brain and heart,<br /> + Given, indeed, but to keep for ever.<br /> + Who speaks of man, then, must not sever<br /> + Man's very elements from man,<br /> + Saying, "But all is God's"—whose plan<br /> + Was to create man and then leave him<br /> + Able, his own word saith, to grieve him<br /> + But able to glorify him too,<br /> + As a mere machine could never do,<br /> + That prayed or praised, all unaware<br /> + Of its fitness for aught but praise and prayer,<br /> + Made perfect as a thing of course.<br /> + Man, therefore, stands on his own stock<br /> + Of love and power as a pin-point rock:<br /> + And, looking to God who ordained divorce<br /> + Of the rock from his boundless continent,<br /> + Sees, in his power made evident,<br /> + Only excess by a million-fold<br /> + O'er the power God gave man in the mould.<br /> + For, note: man's hand, first formed to carry<br /> + A few pounds' weight, when taught to marry<br /> + Its strength with an engine's, lifts a mountain,<br /> + —Advancing in power by one degree;<br /> + And why count steps through eternity?<br /> + But love is the ever-springing fountain:<br /> + Man may enlarge or narrow his bed<br /> + For the water's play, but the water-head—<br /> + How can he multiply or reduce it?<br /> + As easy create it, as cause it to cease;<br /> + He may profit by it, or abuse it,<br /> + But 'tis not a thing to bear increase<br /> + As power does: be love less or more<br /> + In the heart of man, he keeps it shut<br /> + Or opes it wide, as he pleases, but<br /> + Love's sum remains what it was before.<br /> + So, gazing up, in my youth, at love<br /> + As seen through power, ever above<br /> + All modes which make it manifest,<br /> + My soul brought all to a single test—<br /> + That he, the Eternal First and Last,<br /> + Who, in his power, had so surpassed<br /> + All man conceives of what is might,—<br /> + Whose wisdom, too, showed infinite,<br /> + —Would prove as infinitely good;<br /> + Would never, (my soul understood,)<br /> + With power to work all love desires,<br /> + Bestow e'en less than man requires;<br /> + That he who endlessly was teaching,<br /> + Above my spirit's utmost reaching,<br /> + What love can do in the leaf or stone,<br /> + (So that to master this alone,<br /> + This done in the stone or leaf for me,<br /> + I must go on learning endlessly)<br /> + Would never need that I, in turn,<br /> + Should point him out defect unheeded,<br /> + And show that God had yet to learn<br /> + What the meanest human creature needed,<br /> + —Not life, to wit, for a few short years,<br /> + Tracking his way through doubts and fears,<br /> + While the stupid earth on which I stay<br /> + Suffers no change, but passive adds<br /> + Its myriad years to myriads,<br /> + Though I, he gave it to, decay,<br /> + Seeing death come and choose about me,<br /> + And my dearest ones depart without me.<br /> + No: love which, on earth, amid all the shows of it,<br /> + Has ever been seen the sole good of life in it,<br /> + The love, ever growing there, spite of the strife in it.<br /> + Shall arise, made perfect, from death's repose of it,<br /> + And I shall behold thee, face to face,<br /> + O God, and in thy light retrace<br /> + How in all I loved here, still wast thou!<br /> + Whom pressing to, then, as I fain would now,<br /> + I shall find as able to satiate<br /> + The love, thy gift, as my spirit's wonder<br /> + Thou art able to quicken and sublimate,<br /> + With this sky of thine, that I now walk under,<br /> + And glory in thee for, as I gaze<br /> + Thus, thus! Oh, let men keep their ways<br /> + Of seeking thee in a narrow shrine—<br /> + Be this my way! And this is mine!<br /> +</p> + +<p><br /><br /></p> + +<p class="poem"> + VI<br /> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + For lo, what think you? suddenly<br /> + The rain and the wind ceased, and the sky<br /> + Received at once the full fruition<br /> + Of the moon's consummate apparition.<br /> + The black cloud-barricade was riven,<br /> + Ruined beneath her feet, and driven<br /> + Deep in the West; while, bare and breathless,<br /> + North and South and East lay ready<br /> + For a glorious thing that, dauntless, deathless,<br /> + Sprang across them and stood steady.<br /> + 'Twas a moon-rainbow, vast and perfect,<br /> + From heaven to heaven extending, perfect<br /> + As the mother-moon's self, full in face.<br /> + It rose, distinctly at the base<br /> + With its seven proper colours chorded,<br /> + Which still, in the rising, were compressed,<br /> + Until at last they coalesced,<br /> + And supreme the spectral creature lorded<br /> + In a triumph of whitest white,—<br /> + Above which intervened the night.<br /> + But above night too, like only the next,<br /> + The second of a wondrous sequence,<br /> + Reaching in rare and rarer frequence,<br /> + Till the heaven of heavens were circumflexed,<br /> + Another rainbow rose, a mightier,<br /> + Fainter, flushier and flightier,—<br /> + Rapture dying along its verge.<br /> + Oh, whose foot shall I see emerge,<br /> + Whose, from the straining topmost dark,<br /> + On to the keystone of that arc?<br /> +</p> + +<p><br /><br /></p> + +<p class="poem"> + VII<br /> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + This sight was shown me, there and then,—<br /> + Me, out of a world of men,<br /> + Singled forth, as the chance might hap<br /> + To another if, in a thunderclap<br /> + Where I heard noise and you saw flame,<br /> + Some one man knew God called his name.<br /> + For me, I think I said, "Appear!<br /> + "Good were it to be ever here.<br /> + "If thou wilt, let me build to thee<br /> + "Service-tabernacles three,<br /> + "Where, forever in thy presence,<br /> + "In ecstatic acquiescence,<br /> + "Far alike from thriftless learning<br /> + "And ignorance's undiscerning,<br /> + "I may worship and remain!"<br /> + Thus at the show above me, gazing<br /> + With upturned eyes, I felt my brain<br /> + Glutted with the glory, blazing<br /> + Throughout its whole mass, over and under<br /> + Until at length it burst asunder<br /> + And out of it bodily there streamed,<br /> + The too-much glory, as it seemed,<br /> + Passing from out me to the ground,<br /> + Then palely serpentining round<br /> + Into the dark with mazy error.<br /> +</p> + +<p><br /><br /></p> + +<p class="poem"> + VIII<br /> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + All at once I looked up with terror.<br /> + He was there.<br /> + He himself with his human air.<br /> + On the narrow pathway, just before.<br /> + I saw the back of him, no more—<br /> + He had left the chapel, then, as I.<br /> + I forgot all about the sky.<br /> + No face: only the sight<br /> + Of a sweepy garment, vast and white,<br /> + With a hem that I could recognize.<br /> + I felt terror, no surprise;<br /> + My mind filled with the cataract,<br /> + At one bound of the mighty fact.<br /> + "I remember, he did say<br /> + "Doubtless that, to this world's end,<br /> + "Where two or three should meet and pray,<br /> + "He would be in their midst, their friend;<br /> + "Certainly he was there with them!"<br /> + And my pulses leaped for joy<br /> + Of the golden thought without alloy,<br /> + Then I saw his very vesture's hem.<br /> + Then rushed the blood back, cold and clear,<br /> + With a fresh enhancing shiver of fear;<br /> + And I hastened, cried out while I pressed<br /> + To the salvation of the vest,<br /> + "But not so, Lord! It cannot be<br /> + "That thou, indeed, art leaving me—<br /> + "Me, that have despised thy friends!<br /> + "Did my heart make no amends?<br /> + "Thou art the love of God—above<br /> + "His power, didst hear me place his love,<br /> + "And that was leaving the world for thee.<br /> + "Therefore thou must not turn from me<br /> + "As I had chosen the other part!<br /> + "Folly and pride o'ercame my heart.<br /> + "Our best is bad, nor bears thy test;<br /> + "Still, it should be our very best.<br /> + "I thought it best that thou, the spirit,<br /> + "Be worshipped in spirit and in truth,<br /> + "And in beauty, as even we require it—<br /> + "Not in the forms burlesque, uncouth,<br /> + "I left but now, as scarcely fitted<br /> + "For thee: I knew not what I pitied.<br /> + "But, all I felt there, right or wrong,<br /> + "What is it to thee, who curest sinning?<br /> + "Am I not weak as thou art strong?<br /> + "I have looked to thee from the beginning,<br /> + "Straight up to thee through all the world<br /> + "Which, like an idle scroll, lay furled<br /> + "To nothingness on either side:<br /> + "And since the time thou wast descried,<br /> + "Spite of the weak heart, so have I<br /> + "Lived ever, and so fain would die,<br /> + "Living and dying, thee before!<br /> + "But if thou leavest me——"<br /> +</p> + +<p><br /><br /></p> + +<p class="poem"> + IX<br /> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Less or more,<br /> + I suppose that I spoke thus.<br /> + When,—have mercy, Lord, on us!<br /> + The whole face turned upon me full.<br /> + And I spread myself beneath it,<br /> + As when the bleacher spreads, to seethe it<br /> + In the cleansing sun, his wool,—<br /> + Steeps in the flood of noontide whiteness<br /> + Some denied, discoloured web—<br /> + So lay I, saturate with brightness.<br /> + And when the flood appeared to ebb,<br /> + Lo, I was walking, light and swift,<br /> + With my senses settling fast and steadying,<br /> + But my body caught up in the whirl and drift<br /> + Of the vesture's amplitude, still eddying<br /> + On, just before me, still to be followed,<br /> + As it carried me after with its motion:<br /> + What shall I say?—as a path were hollowed<br /> + And a man went weltering through the ocean,<br /> + Sucked along in the flying wake<br /> + Of the luminous water-snake.<br /> + Darkness and cold were cloven, as through<br /> + I passed, upborne yet walking too.<br /> + And I turned to myself at intervals,—<br /> + "So he said, so it befalls.<br /> + "God who registers the cup<br /> + "Of mere cold water, for his sake<br /> + "To a disciple rendered up,<br /> + "Disdains not his own thirst to slake<br /> + "At the poorest love was ever offered:<br /> + "And because my heart I proffered,<br /> + "With true love trembling at the brim,<br /> + "He suffers me to follow him<br /> + "For ever, my own way,—dispensed<br /> + "From seeking to be influenced<br /> + "By all the less immediate ways<br /> + "That earth, in worships manifold,<br /> + "Adopts to reach, by prayer and praise,<br /> + "The garment's hem, which, lo, I hold!"<br /> +</p> + +<p><br /><br /></p> + +<p class="poem"> + X<br /> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + And so we crossed the world and stopped.<br /> + For where am I, in city or plain,<br /> + Since I am 'ware of the world again?<br /> + And what is this that rises propped<br /> + With pillars of prodigious girth?<br /> + Is it really on the earth,<br /> + This miraculous Dome of God?<br /> + Has the angel's measuring-rod<br /> + Which numbered cubits, gem from gem,<br /> + 'Twixt the gates of the New Jerusalem,<br /> + Meted it out,—and what he meted,<br /> + Have the sons of men completed?<br /> + —Binding, ever as he bade,<br /> + Columns in the colonnade<br /> + With arms wide open to embrace<br /> + The entry of the human race<br /> + To the breast of... what is it, yon building,<br /> + Ablaze in front, all paint and gilding,<br /> + With marble for brick, and stones of price<br /> + For garniture of the edifice?<br /> + Now I see; it is no dream;<br /> + It stands there and it does not seem;<br /> + For ever, in pictures, thus it looks,<br /> + And thus I have read of it in books<br /> + Often in England, leagues away,<br /> + And wondered how these fountains play,<br /> + Growing up eternally<br /> + Each to a musical water-tree,<br /> + Whose blossoms drop, a glittering boon,<br /> + Before my eyes, in the light of the moon,<br /> + To the granite layers underneath.<br /> + Liar and dreamer in your teeth!<br /> + I, the sinner that speak to you,<br /> + Was in Rome this night, and stood, and knew<br /> + Both this and more. For see, for see,<br /> + The dark is rent, mine eye is free<br /> + To pierce the crust of the outer wall,<br /> + And I view inside, and all there, all,<br /> + As the swarming hollow of a hive,<br /> + The whole Basilica alive!<br /> + Men in the chancel, body and nave,<br /> + Men on the pillars' architrave,<br /> + Men on the statues, men on the tombs<br /> + With popes and kings in their porphyry wombs,<br /> + All famishing in expectation<br /> + Of the main-altar's consummation.<br /> + For see, for see, the rapturous moment<br /> + Approaches, and earth's best endowment<br /> + Blends with heaven's; the taper-fires<br /> + Pant up, the winding brazen spires<br /> + Heave loftier yet the baldachin; [Footnote: Canopy over the High Altar.]<br /> + The incense-gaspings, long kept in,<br /> + Suspire in clouds; the organ blatant<br /> + Holds his breath and grovels latent,<br /> + As if God's hushing finger grazed him,<br /> + (Like Behemoth when he praised him)<br /> + At the silver bell's shrill tinkling,<br /> + Quick cold drops of terror sprinkling<br /> + On the sudden pavement strewed<br /> + With faces of the multitude.<br /> + Earth breaks up, time drops away,<br /> + In flows heaven, with its new day<br /> + Of endless life, when He who trod,<br /> + Very man and very God,<br /> + This earth in weakness, shame and pain,<br /> + Dying the death whose signs remain<br /> + Up yonder on the accursed tree,—<br /> + Shall come again, no more to be<br /> + Of captivity the thrall,<br /> + But the one God, All in all,<br /> + King of kings, Lord of lords,<br /> + As His servant John received the words,<br /> + "I died, and live for evermore!"<br /> +</p> + +<p><br /><br /></p> + +<p class="poem"> + XI<br /> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Yet I was left outside the door.<br /> + "Why sit I here on the threshold-stone<br /> + "Left till He return, alone<br /> + "Save for the garment's extreme fold<br /> + "Abandoned still to bless my hold?"<br /> + My reason, to my doubt, replied,<br /> + As if a book were opened wide,<br /> + And at a certain page I traced<br /> + Every record undefaced,<br /> + Added by successive years,—<br /> + The harvestings of truth's stray ears<br /> + Singly gleaned, and in one sheaf<br /> + Bound together for belief.<br /> + Yes, I said—that he will go<br /> + And sit with these in turn, I know.<br /> + Their faith's heart beats, though her head swims<br /> + Too giddily to guide her limbs,<br /> + Disabled by their palsy-stroke<br /> + From propping mine. Though Rome's gross yoke<br /> + Drops off, no more to be endured,<br /> + Her teaching is not so obscured<br /> + By errors and perversities,<br /> + That no truth shines athwart the lies:<br /> + And he, whose eye detects a spark<br /> + Even where, to man's, the whole seems dark,<br /> + May well see flame where each beholder<br /> + Acknowledges the embers smoulder.<br /> + But I, a mere man, fear to quit<br /> + The clue God gave me as most fit<br /> + To guide my footsteps through life's maze,<br /> + Because himself discerns all ways<br /> + Open to reach him: I, a man<br /> + Able to mark where faith began<br /> + To swerve aside, till from its summit<br /> + Judgment drops her damning plummet,<br /> + Pronouncing such a fatal space<br /> + Departed from the founder's base:<br /> + He will not bid me enter too,<br /> + But rather sit, as now I do,<br /> + Awaiting his return outside.<br /> + —'Twas thus my reason straight replied<br /> + And joyously I turned, and pressed<br /> + The garment's skirt upon my breast,<br /> + Until, afresh its light suffusing me,<br /> + My heart cried—What has been abusing me<br /> + That I should wait here lonely and coldly,<br /> + Instead of rising, entering boldly,<br /> + Baring truth's face, and letting drift<br /> + Her veils of lies as they choose to shift?<br /> + Do these men praise him? I will raise<br /> + My voice up to their point of praise!<br /> + I see the error; but above<br /> + The scope of error, see the love.—<br /> + Oh, love of those first Christian days!<br /> + —Fanned so soon into a blaze,<br /> + From the spark preserved by the trampled sect,<br /> + That the antique sovereign Intellect<br /> + Which then sat ruling in the world,<br /> + Like a change in dreams, was hurled<br /> + From the throne he reigned upon:<br /> + You looked up and he was gone.<br /> + Gone, his glory of the pen!<br /> + —Love, with Greece and Rome in ken,<br /> + Bade her scribes abhor the trick<br /> + Of poetry and rhetoric,<br /> + And exult with hearts set free,<br /> + In blessed imbecility<br /> + Scrawled, perchance, on some torn sheet<br /> + Leaving Sallust incomplete<br /> + Gone, his pride of sculptor, painter!<br /> + —Love, while able to acquaint her<br /> + While the thousand statues yet<br /> + Fresh from chisel, pictures wet<br /> + From brush, she saw on every side,<br /> + Chose rather with an infant's pride<br /> + To frame those portents which impart<br /> + Such unction to true Christian Art.<br /> + Gone, music too! The air was stirred<br /> + By happy wings: Terpander's* bird<br /> + *[Footnote: Terpander, a famous Lesbian musician and lyric poet, 670 B.C.]<br /> + (That, when the cold came, fled away)<br /> + Would tarry not the wintry day,—<br /> + As more-enduring sculpture must,<br /> + Till filthy saints rebuked the gust<br /> + With which they chanced to get a sight<br /> + Of some dear naked Aphrodite<br /> + They glanced a thought above the toes of,<br /> + By breaking zealously her nose off.<br /> + Love, surely, from that music's lingering,<br /> + Might have filched her organ-fingering,<br /> + Nor chosen rather to set prayings<br /> + To hog-grunts, praises to horse-neighings.<br /> + Love was the startling thing, the new:<br /> + Love was the all-sufficient too;<br /> + And seeing that, you see the rest:<br /> + As a babe can find its mother's breast<br /> + As well in darkness as in light,<br /> + Love shut our eyes, and all seemed right.<br /> + True, the world's eyes are open now:<br /> + —Less need for me to disallow<br /> + Some few that keep Love's zone unbuckled,<br /> + Peevish as ever to be suckled,<br /> + Lulled by the same old baby-prattle<br /> + With intermixture of the rattle,<br /> + When she would have them creep, stand steady<br /> + Upon their feet, or walk already,<br /> + Not to speak of trying to climb.<br /> + I will be wise another time,<br /> + And not desire a wall between us,<br /> + When next I see a church-roof cover<br /> + So many species of one genus,<br /> + All with foreheads bearing <i>lover</i><br /> + Written above the earnest eyes of them;<br /> + All with breasts that beat for beauty,<br /> + Whether sublimed, to the surprise of them,<br /> + In noble daring, steadfast duty,<br /> + The heroic in passion, or in action,—<br /> + Or, lowered for sense's satisfaction,<br /> + To the mere outside of human creatures,<br /> + Mere perfect form and faultless features.<br /> + What? with all Rome here, whence to levy<br /> + Such contributions to their appetite,<br /> + With women and men in a gorgeous bevy,<br /> + They take, as it were, a padlock, clap it tight<br /> + On their southern eyes, restrained from<br /> + feeding<br /> + On the glories of their ancient reading,<br /> + On the beauties of their modern singing,<br /> + On the wonders of the builder's bringing,<br /> + On the majesties of Art around them,—<br /> + And, all these loves, late struggling incessant,<br /> + When faith has at last united and bound them,<br /> + They offer up to God for a present?<br /> + Why, I will, on the whole, be rather proud of it,—<br /> + And, only taking the act in reference<br /> + To the other recipients who might have allowed it,<br /> + I will rejoice that God had the preference.<br /> +</p> + +<p><br /><br /></p> + +<p class="poem"> + XII<br /> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + So I summed up my new resolves:<br /> + Too much love there can never be.<br /> + And where the intellect devolves<br /> + Its function on love exclusively,<br /> + I, a man who possesses both,<br /> + Will accept the provision, nothing loth,<br /> + —Will feast my love, then depart elsewhere,<br /> + That my intellect may find its share.<br /> + And ponder, O soul, the while thou departest,<br /> + And see them applaud the great heart of the artist,<br /> + Who, examining the capabilities<br /> + Of the block of marble he has to fashion<br /> + Into a type of thought or passion,—<br /> + Not always, using obvious facilities,<br /> + Shapes it, as any artist can,<br /> + Into a perfect symmetrical man,<br /> + Complete from head to foot of the life-size,<br /> + Such as old Adam stood in his wife's eyes,—<br /> + But, now and then, bravely aspires to consummate<br /> + A Colossus by no means so easy to come at,<br /> + And uses the whole of his block for the bust,<br /> + Leaving the mind of the public to finish it,<br /> + Since cut it ruefully short he must:<br /> + On the face alone he expends his devotion,<br /> + He rather would mar than resolve to diminish it,<br /> + —Saying, "Applaud me for this grand notion<br /> + "Of what a face may be! As for completing it<br /> + "In breast and body and limbs, do that, you!"<br /> + All hail! I fancy how, happily meeting it,<br /> + A trunk and legs would perfect the statue,<br /> + Could man carve so as to answer volition.<br /> + And how much nobler than petty cavils,<br /> + Were a hope to find, in my spirit-travels,<br /> + Some artist of another ambition,<br /> + Who, having a block to carve, no bigger,<br /> + Has spent his power on the opposite quest,<br /> + And believed to begin at the feet was best—<br /> + For so may I see, ere I die, the whole figure!<br /> +</p> + +<p><br /><br /></p> + +<p class="poem"> + XIII<br /> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + No sooner said than out in the night!<br /> + My heart lighter and more light:<br /> + And still, as before, I was walking swift,<br /> + With my senses settling fast and steadying,<br /> + But my body caught up in the whirl and drift<br /> + Of the vesture's amplitude, still eddying<br /> + On just before me, still to be followed,<br /> + As it carried me after with its motion,<br /> + —What shall I say?—as a path, were hollowed,<br /> + And a man went weltering through the ocean,<br /> + Sucked along in the flying wake<br /> + Of the luminous water-snake.<br /> +</p> + +<p><br /><br /></p> + +<p class="poem"> + XIV<br /> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Alone! I am left alone once more—<br /> + (Save for the garment's extreme fold<br /> + Abandoned still to bless my hold)<br /> + Alone, beside the entrance-door<br /> + Of a sort of temple,-perhaps a college,<br /> + —Like nothing I ever saw before<br /> + At home in England, to my knowledge.<br /> + The tall old quaint irregular town!<br /> + It may be... though which, I can't affirm... any<br /> + Of the famous middle-age towns of Germany:<br /> + And this flight of stairs where I sit down,<br /> + Is it Halle, Weimar, Cassel, Frankfort<br /> + Or Gottingen, I have to thank for't?<br /> + It may be Gottingen,—most likely.<br /> + Through the open door I catch obliquely<br /> + Glimpses of a lecture-hall;<br /> + And not a bad assembly neither,<br /> + Ranged decent and symmetrical<br /> + On benches, waiting what's to see there:<br /> + Which, holding still by the vesture's hem,<br /> + I also resolve to see with them,<br /> + Cautious this time how I suffer to slip<br /> + The chance of joining in fellowship<br /> + With any that call themselves his friends;<br /> + As these folk do, I have a notion.<br /> + But hist—a buzzing and emotion!<br /> + All settle themselves, the while ascends<br /> + By the creaking rail to the lecture-desk,<br /> + Step by step, deliberate<br /> + Because of his cranium's over-freight,<br /> + Three parts sublime to one grotesque,<br /> + If I have proved an accurate guesser,<br /> + The hawk-nosed high-cheek-boned Professor.<br /> + I felt at once as if there ran<br /> + A shoot of love from my heart to the man—<br /> + That sallow virgin-minded studious<br /> + Martyr to mild enthusiasm,<br /> + As he uttered a kind of cough-preludious<br /> + That woke my sympathetic spasm,<br /> + (Beside some spitting that made me sorry)<br /> + And stood, surveying his auditory<br /> + With a wan pure look, well-nigh celestial,—<br /> + Those blue eyes had survived so much!<br /> + While, under the foot they could not smutch,<br /> + Lay all the fleshly and the bestial.<br /> + Over he bowed, and arranged his notes,<br /> + Till the auditory's clearing of throats<br /> + Was done with, died into a silence;<br /> + And, when each glance was upward sent,<br /> + Each bearded mouth composed intent,<br /> + And a pin might be heard drop half a mile hence,—<br /> + He pushed back higher his spectacles,<br /> + Let the eyes stream out like lamps from cells,<br /> + And giving his head of hair—a hake<br /> + Of undressed tow, for colour and quantity—<br /> + One rapid and impatient shake,<br /> + (As our own Young England adjusts a jaunty tie<br /> + When about to impart, on mature digestion,<br /> + Some thrilling view of the surplice-question)<br /> + —The Professor's grave voice, sweet though hoarse,<br /> + Broke into his Christmas-Eve discourse.<br /> +</p> + +<p><br /><br /></p> + +<p class="poem"> + XV<br /> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + And he began it by observing<br /> + How reason dictated that men<br /> + Should rectify the natural swerving,<br /> + By a reversion, now and then,<br /> + To the well-heads of knowledge, few<br /> + And far away, whence rolling grew<br /> + The life-stream wide whereat we drink,<br /> + Commingled, as we needs must think,<br /> + With waters alien to the source;<br /> + To do which, aimed this eve's discourse;<br /> + Since, where could be a fitter time<br /> + For tracing backward to its prime<br /> + This Christianity, this lake,<br /> + This reservoir, whereat we slake,<br /> + From one or other bank, our thirst?<br /> + So, he proposed inquiring first<br /> + Into the various sources whence<br /> + This Myth of Christ is derivable;<br /> + Demanding from the evidence,<br /> + (Since plainly no such life was livable)<br /> + How these phenomena should class?<br /> + Whether 'twere best opine Christ was,<br /> + Or never was at all, or whether<br /> + He was and was not, both together—<br /> + It matters little for the name,<br /> + So the idea be left the same.<br /> + Only, for practical purpose' sake,<br /> + 'Twas obviously as well to take<br /> + The popular story,—understanding<br /> + How the ineptitude of the time,<br /> + And the penman's prejudice, expanding<br /> + Fact into fable fit for the clime,<br /> + Had, by slow and sure degrees, translated it<br /> + Into this myth, this Individuum,—<br /> + Which, when reason had strained and abated it<br /> + Of foreign matter, left, for residuum,<br /> + A Man!—a right true man, however,<br /> + Whose work was worthy a man's endeavour:<br /> + Work, that gave warrant almost sufficient<br /> + To his disciples, for rather believing<br /> + He was just omnipotent and omniscient,<br /> + As it gives to us, for as frankly receiving<br /> + His word, their tradition,—which, though it meant<br /> + Something entirely different<br /> + From all that those who only heard it,<br /> + In their simplicity thought and averred it,<br /> + Had yet a meaning quite as respectable:<br /> + For, among other doctrines delectable,<br /> + Was he not surely the first to insist on<br /> + The natural sovereignty of our race?—<br /> + Here the lecturer came to a pausing-place.<br /> + And while his cough, like a drouthy piston,<br /> + Tried to dislodge the husk that grew to him,<br /> + I seized the occasion of bidding adieu to him,<br /> + The vesture still within my hand.<br /> +</p> + +<p><br /><br /></p> + +<p class="poem"> + XVI<br /> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + I could interpret its command.<br /> + This time he would not bid me enter<br /> + The exhausted air-bell of the Critic.<br /> + Truth's atmosphere may grow mephitic<br /> + When Papist struggles with Dissenter,<br /> + Impregnating its pristine clarity,<br /> + —One, by his daily fare's vulgarity,<br /> + Its gust of broken meat and garlic;<br /> + —One, by his soul's too-much presuming<br /> + To turn the frankincense's fuming<br /> + And vapours of the candle starlike<br /> + Into the cloud her wings she buoys on.<br /> + Each, that thus sets the pure air seething,<br /> + May poison it for healthy breathing—<br /> + But the Critic leaves no air to poison;<br /> + Pumps out with ruthless ingenuity<br /> + Atom by atom, and leaves you—vacuity.<br /> + Thus much of Christ does he reject?<br /> + And what retain? His intellect?<br /> + What is it I must reverence duly?<br /> + Poor intellect for worship, truly,<br /> + Which tells me simply what was told<br /> + (If mere morality, bereft<br /> + Of the God in Christ, be all that's left)<br /> + Elsewhere by voices manifold;<br /> + With this advantage, that the stater<br /> + Made nowise the important stumble<br /> + Of adding, he, the sage and humble,<br /> + Was also one with the Creator.<br /> + You urge Christ's followers' simplicity:<br /> + But how does shifting blame, evade it?<br /> + Have wisdom's words no more felicity?<br /> + The stumbling-block, his speech—who laid it?<br /> + How comes it that for one found able<br /> + To sift the truth of it from fable,<br /> + Millions believe it to the letter?<br /> + Christ's goodness, then—does that fare better?<br /> + Strange goodness, which upon the score<br /> + Of being goodness, the mere due<br /> + Of man to fellow-man, much more<br /> + To God,—should take another view<br /> + Of its possessor's privilege,<br /> + And bid him rule his race! You pledge<br /> + Your fealty to such rule? What, all—<br /> + From heavenly John and Attic Paul,<br /> + And that brave weather-battered Peter,<br /> + Whose stout faith only stood completer<br /> + For buffets, sinning to be pardoned,<br /> + As, more his hands hauled nets, they hardened,—<br /> + All, down to you, the man of men,<br /> + Professing here at Gottingen,<br /> + Compose Christ's flock! They, you and I,<br /> + Are sheep of a good man! And why?<br /> + The goodness,—how did he acquire it?<br /> + Was it self-gained, did God inspire it?<br /> + Choose which; then tell me, on what ground<br /> + Should its possessor dare propound<br /> + His claim to rise o'er us an inch?<br /> + Were goodness all some man's invention,<br /> + Who arbitrarily made mention<br /> + What we should follow, and whence flinch,—<br /> + What qualities might take the style<br /> + Of right and wrong,—and had such guessing<br /> + Met with as general acquiescing<br /> + As graced the alphabet erewhile,<br /> + When A got leave an Ox to be,<br /> + No Camel (quoth the Jews) like G*,—<br /> + *[Footnote: Gimel, the Hebrew G, means camel.]<br /> + For thus inventing thing and title<br /> + Worship were that man's fit requital.<br /> + But if the common conscience must<br /> + Be ultimately judge, adjust<br /> + Its apt name to each quality<br /> + Already known,—I would decree<br /> + Worship for such mere demonstration<br /> + And simple work of nomenclature,<br /> + Only the day I praised, not nature,<br /> + But Harvey, for the circulation.<br /> + I would praise such a Christ, with pride<br /> + And joy, that he, as none beside,<br /> + Had taught us how to keep the mind<br /> + God gave him, as God gave his kind,<br /> + Freer than they from fleshly taint:<br /> + I would call such a Christ our Saint,<br /> + As I declare our Poet, him<br /> + Whose insight makes all others dim:<br /> + A thousand poets pried at life,<br /> + And only one amid the strife<br /> + Rose to be Shakespeare: each shall take<br /> + His crown, I'd say, for the world's sake—<br /> + Though some objected—"Had we seen<br /> + "The heart and head of each, what screen<br /> + "Was broken there to give them light,<br /> + "While in ourselves it shuts the sight,<br /> + "We should no more admire, perchance,<br /> + "That these found truth out at a glance,<br /> + "Than marvel how the bat discerns<br /> + "Some pitch-dark cavern's fifty turns,<br /> + "Led by a finer tact, a gift<br /> + "He boasts, which other birds must shift<br /> + "Without, and grope as best they can."<br /> + No, freely I would praise the man,—<br /> + Nor one whit more, if he contended<br /> + That gift of his, from God descended.<br /> + Ah friend, what gift of man's does not?<br /> + No nearer something, by a jot,<br /> + Rise an infinity of nothings<br /> + Than one: take Euclid for your teacher:<br /> + Distinguish kinds: do crownings, clothings,<br /> + Make that creator which was creature?<br /> + Multiply gifts upon man's head,<br /> + And what, when all's done, shall be said<br /> + But—the more gifted he, I ween!<br /> + That one's made Christ, this other, Pilate,<br /> + And this might be all that has been,—<br /> + So what is there to frown or smile at?<br /> + What is left for us, save, in growth<br /> + Of soul, to rise up, far past both,<br /> + From the gift looking to the giver,<br /> + And from the cistern to the river,<br /> + And from the finite to infinity,<br /> + And from man's dust to God's divinity?<br /> +</p> + +<p><br /><br /></p> + +<p class="poem"> + XVII<br /> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Take all in a word: the truth in God's breast<br /> + Lies trace for trace upon curs impressed:<br /> + Though he is so bright and we so dim,<br /> + We are made in his image to witness him:<br /> + And were no eye in us to tell,<br /> + Instructed by no inner sense,<br /> + The light of heaven from the dark of hell,<br /> + That light would want its evidence,—<br /> + Though justice, good and truth were still<br /> + Divine, if, by some demon's will,<br /> + Hatred and wrong had been proclaimed<br /> + Law through the worlds, and right misnamed.<br /> + No mere exposition of morality<br /> + Made or in part or in totality,<br /> + Should win you to give it worship, therefore:<br /> + And, if no better proof you will care for,<br /> + —Whom do you count the worst man upon earth?<br /> + Be sure, he knows, in his conscience, more<br /> + Of what right is, than arrives at birth<br /> + In the best man's acts that we bow before:<br /> + This last knows better—true, but my fact is,<br /> + 'Tis one thing to know, and another to practise.<br /> + And thence I conclude that the real God-function<br /> + Is to furnish a motive and injunction<br /> + For practising what we know already.<br /> + And such an injunction and such a motive<br /> + As the God in Christ, do you waive, and "heady,<br /> + "High-minded," hang your tablet-votive<br /> + Outside the fane on a finger-post?<br /> + Morality to the uttermost,<br /> + Supreme in Christ as we all confess,<br /> + Why need we prove would avail no jot<br /> + To make him God, if God he were not?<br /> + What is the point where himself lays stress?<br /> + Does the precept run "Believe in good,<br /> + "In justice, truth, now understood<br /> + "For the first time?"—or, "Believe in me,<br /> + "Who lived and died, yet essentially<br /> + "Am Lord of Life?" Whoever can take<br /> + The same to his heart and for mere love's sake<br /> + Conceive of the love,—that man obtains<br /> + A new truth; no conviction gains<br /> + Of an old one only, made intense<br /> + By a fresh appeal to his faded sense.<br /> +</p> + +<p><br /><br /></p> + +<p class="poem"> + XVIII<br /> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Can it be that he stays inside?<br /> + Is the vesture left me to commune with?<br /> + Could my soul find aught to sing in tune with<br /> + Even at this lecture, if she tried?<br /> + Oh, let me at lowest sympathize<br /> + With the lurking drop of blood that lies<br /> + In the desiccated brain's white roots<br /> + Without throb for Christ's attributes,<br /> + As the lecturer makes his special boast!<br /> + If love's dead there, it has left a ghost.<br /> + Admire we, how from heart to brain<br /> + (Though to say so strike the doctors dumb)<br /> + One instinct rises and falls again,<br /> + Restoring the equilibrium.<br /> + And how when the Critic had done his best,<br /> + And the pearl of price, at reason's test,<br /> + Lay dust and ashes levigable<br /> + On the Professor's lecture-table,—<br /> + When we looked for the inference and monition<br /> + That our faith, reduced to such condition,<br /> + Be swept forthwith to its natural dust-hole,—<br /> + He bids us, when we least expect it,<br /> + Take back our faith,—if it be not just whole,<br /> + Yet a pearl indeed, as his tests affect it,<br /> + Which fact pays damage done rewardingly,<br /> + So, prize we our dust and ashes accordingly!<br /> + "Go home and venerate the myth<br /> + "I thus have experimented with—<br /> + "This man, continue to adore him<br /> + "Rather than all who went before him,<br /> + "And all who ever followed after!"—<br /> + Surely for this I may praise you, my brother!<br /> + Will you take the praise in tears or laughter?<br /> + That's one point gained: can I compass another?<br /> + Unlearned love was safe from spurning—<br /> + Can't we respect your loveless learning?<br /> + Let us at least give learning honour!<br /> + What laurels had we showered upon her,<br /> + Girding her loins up to perturb<br /> + Our theory of the Middle Verb;<br /> + Or Turk-like brandishing a scimitar<br /> + O'er anapasts in comic-trimeter;<br /> + Or curing the halt and maimed 'Iketides,'<br /> + [Footnote: "The Suppliants," a fragment of a play by Aeschylus.]<br /> + While we lounged on at our indebted ease:<br /> + Instead of which, a tricksy demon<br /> + Sets her at Titus or Philemon!<br /> + When ignorance wags his ears of leather<br /> + And hates God's word, 'tis altogether;<br /> + Nor leaves he his congenial thistles<br /> + To go and browse on Paul's Epistles.<br /> + —And you, the audience, who might ravage<br /> + The world wide, enviably savage,<br /> + Nor heed the cry of the retriever,<br /> + More than Herr Heine (before his fever),—<br /> + I do not tell a lie so arrant<br /> + As say my passion's wings are furled up,<br /> + And, without plainest heavenly warrant,<br /> + I were ready and glad to give the world up—<br /> + But still, when you rub brow meticulous,<br /> + And ponder the profit of turning holy<br /> + If not for God's, for your own sake solely,<br /> + —God forbid I should find you ridiculous!<br /> + Deduce from this lecture all that eases you,<br /> + Nay, call yourselves, if the calling pleases you,<br /> + "Christians,"—abhor the deist's pravity,—<br /> + Go on, you shall no more move my gravity<br /> + Than, when I see boys ride a-cockhorse,<br /> + I find it in my heart to embarrass them<br /> + By hinting that their stick's a mock horse,<br /> + And they really carry what they say carries them.<br /> +</p> + +<p><br /><br /></p> + +<p class="poem"> + XIX<br /> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + So sat I talking with my mind.<br /> + I did not long to leave the door<br /> + And find a new church, as before,<br /> + But rather was quiet and inclined<br /> + To prolong and enjoy the gentle resting<br /> + From further tracking and trying and testing.<br /> + "This tolerance is a genial mood!"<br /> + (Said I, and a little pause ensued).<br /> + "One trims the bark 'twixt shoal and shelf,<br /> + "And sees, each side, the good effects of it,<br /> + "A value for religion's self,<br /> + "A carelessness about the sects of it.<br /> + "Let me enjoy my own conviction,<br /> + "Not watch my neighbour's faith with fretfulness,<br /> + "Still spying there some dereliction<br /> + "Of truth, perversity, forgetfulness!"<br /> + Better a mild indifferentism,<br /> + "Teaching that both our faiths (though duller<br /> + "His shine through a dull spirit's prism)<br /> + "Originally had one colour!<br /> + "Better pursue a pilgrimage<br /> + "Through ancient and through modern times<br /> + "To many peoples, various climes,<br /> + "Where I may see saint, savage, sage<br /> + "Fuse their respective creeds in one<br /> + "Before the general Father's throne!"<br /> +</p> + +<p><br /><br /></p> + +<p class="poem"> + XX<br /> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + —'Twas the horrible storm began afresh!<br /> + The black night caught me in his mesh,<br /> + Whirled me up, and flung me prone.<br /> + I was left on the college-step alone.<br /> + I looked, and far there, ever fleeting<br /> + Far, far away, the receding gesture,<br /> + And looming of the lessening vesture!—<br /> + Swept forward from my stupid hand,<br /> + While I watched my foolish heart expand<br /> + In the lazy glow of benevolence,<br /> + O'er the various modes of man's belief.<br /> + I sprang up with fear's vehemence.<br /> + Needs must there be one way, our chief<br /> + Best way of worship: let me strive<br /> + To find it, and when found, contrive<br /> + My fellows also take their share!<br /> + This constitutes my earthly care:<br /> + God's is above it and distinct.<br /> + For I, a man, with men am linked<br /> + But not a brute with brutes; no gain<br /> + That I experience, must remain<br /> + Unshared: but should my best endeavour<br /> + To share it, fail—subsisteth ever<br /> + God's care above, and I exult<br /> + That God, by God's own ways occult,<br /> + May—doth, I will believe—bring back<br /> + All wanderers to a single track.<br /> + Meantime, I can but testify<br /> + God's care for me—no more, can I—<br /> + It is but for myself I know;<br /> + The world rolls witnessing around me<br /> + Only to leave me as it found me;<br /> + Men cry there, but my ear is slow:<br /> + There races flourish or decay<br /> + —What boots it, while yon lucid way<br /> + Loaded with stars divides the vault?<br /> + But soon my soul repairs its fault<br /> + When, sharpening sense's hebetude,<br /> + She turns on my own life! So viewed,<br /> + No mere mote's-breadth but teems immense<br /> + With witnessings of providence:<br /> + And woe to me if when I look<br /> + Upon that record, the sole book<br /> + Unsealed to me, I take no heed<br /> + Of any warning that I read!<br /> + Have I been sure, this Christmas-Eve,<br /> + God's own hand did the rainbow weave,<br /> + Whereby the truth from heaven slid<br /> + Into my soul?—I cannot bid<br /> + The world admit he stooped to heal<br /> + My soul, as if in a thunder-peal<br /> + Where one heard noise, and one saw flame,<br /> + I only knew he named my name:<br /> + But what is the world to me, for sorrow<br /> + Or joy in its censure, when to-morrow<br /> + It drops the remark, with just-turned head<br /> + Then, on again, 'That man is dead'?<br /> + Yes, but for me—my name called,—drawn<br /> + As a conscript's lot from the lap's black yawn,<br /> + He has dipt into on a battle-dawn:<br /> + Bid out of life by a nod, a glance,—<br /> + Stumbling, mute-mazed, at nature's chance,<br /> + With a rapid finger circled round,<br /> + Fixed to the first poor inch of ground<br /> + To fight from, where his foot was found;<br /> + Whose ear but a minute since lay free<br /> + To the wide camp's buzz and gossipry—<br /> + Summoned, a solitary man<br /> + To end his life where his life began,<br /> + From the safe glad rear, to the dreadful van!<br /> + Soul of mine, hadst thou caught and held<br /> + By the hem of the vesture!—<br /> +</p> + +<p><br /><br /></p> + +<p class="poem"> + XXI<br /> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + And I caught<br /> + At the flying robe, and unrepelled<br /> + Was lapped again in its folds full-fraught<br /> + With warmth and wonder and delight,<br /> + God's mercy being infinite.<br /> + For scarce had the words escaped my tongue,<br /> + When, at a passionate bound, I sprung,<br /> + Out of the wandering world of rain,<br /> + Into the little chapel again.<br /> +</p> + +<p><br /><br /></p> + +<p class="poem"> + XXII<br /> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + How else was I found there, bolt upright<br /> + On my bench, as if I had never left it?<br /> + —Never flung out on the common at night,<br /> + Nor met the storm and wedge-like cleft it,<br /> + Seen the raree-show of Peter's successor,<br /> + Or the laboratory of the Professor!<br /> + For the Vision, that was true, I wist,<br /> + True as that heaven and earth exist.<br /> + There sat my friend, the yellow and tall,<br /> + With his neck and its wen in the selfsame place;<br /> + Yet my nearest neighbour's cheek showed gall.<br /> + She had slid away a contemptuous space:<br /> + And the old fat woman, late so placable,<br /> + Eyed me with symptoms hardly mistakable,<br /> + Of her milk of kindness turning rancid.<br /> + In short, a spectator might have fancied<br /> + That I had nodded, betrayed by slumber.<br /> + Yet kept my scat, a warning ghastly,<br /> + Through the heads of the sermon, nine in number,<br /> + And woke up now at the tenth and lastly.<br /> + But again, could such disgrace have happened?<br /> + Each friend at my elbow had surely nudged it;<br /> + And, as for the sermon, where did my nap end?<br /> + Unless I heard it, could I have judged it?<br /> + Could I report as I do at the close,<br /> + First, the preacher speaks through his nose:<br /> + Second, his gesture is too emphatic:<br /> + Thirdly, to waive what's pedagogic,<br /> + The subject-matter itself lacks logic:<br /> + Fourthly, the English is ungrammatic.<br /> + Great news! the preacher is found no Pascal,<br /> + Whom, if I pleased, I might to the task call<br /> + Of making square to a finite eye<br /> + The circle of infinity,<br /> + And find so all-but-just-succeeding!<br /> + Great news! the sermon proves no reading<br /> + Where bee-like in the flowers I bury me,<br /> + Like Taylor's the immortal Jeremy!<br /> + And now that I know the very worst of him,<br /> + What was it I thought to obtain at first of him?<br /> + Ha! Is God mocked, as he asks,<br /> + Shall I take on me to change his tasks,<br /> + And dare, despatched to a river-head<br /> + For a simple draught of the element,<br /> + Neglect the thing for which he sent,<br /> + And return with another thing instead?—<br /> + Saying, "Because the water found<br /> + "Welling up from the underground,<br /> + "Is mingled with the taints of earth,<br /> + "While thou, I know, dost laugh at dearth,<br /> + "And couldst, at wink or word, convulse<br /> + "The world with the leap of a river-pulse,—<br /> + "Therefore I turned from the oozings muddy,<br /> + "And bring thee a chalice I found, instead;<br /> + "See the brave veins in the breccia ruddy!<br /> + "One would suppose that the marble bled.<br /> + "What matters the water? A hope I have nursed:<br /> + "The waterless cup will quench my thirst."<br /> + —Better have knelt at the poorest stream<br /> + That trickles in pain from the straitest rift!<br /> + For the less or the more is all God's gift,<br /> + Who blocks up or breaks wide the granite-seam.<br /> + And here, is there water or not, to drink?<br /> + I then, in ignorance and weakness,<br /> + Taking God's help, have attained to think<br /> + My heart does best to receive in meekness<br /> + That mode of worship, as most to his mind,<br /> + Where earthly aids being cast behind,<br /> + His All in All appears serene<br /> + With the thinnest human veil between,<br /> + Letting the mystic lamps, the seven,<br /> + The many motions of his spirit,<br /> + Pass, as they list, to earth from heaven.<br /> + For the preacher's merit or demerit,<br /> + It were to be wished the flaws were fewer<br /> + In the earthen vessel, holding treasure<br /> + Which lies as safe in a golden ewer;<br /> + But the main thing is, does it hold good measure?<br /> + Heaven soon sets right all other matters!—<br /> + Ask, else, these ruins of humanity,<br /> + This flesh worn out to rags and tatters,<br /> + This soul at struggle with insanity,<br /> + Who thence take comfort—can I doubt?—<br /> + Which an empire gained were a loss without.<br /> + May it be mine! And let us hope<br /> + That no worse blessing befall the Pope,<br /> + Turned sick at last of to-day's buffoonery,<br /> + Of posturings and petticoatings,<br /> + Beside his Bourbon bully's gloatings<br /> + In the bloody orgies of drunk poltroonery!<br /> + Nor may the Professor forego its peace<br /> + At Gottingen presently, when, in the dusk<br /> + Of his life, if his cough, as I fear, should increase,<br /> + Prophesied of by that horrible husk—<br /> + When thicker and thicker the darkness fills<br /> + The world through his misty spectacles,<br /> + And he gropes for something more substantial<br /> + Than a fable, myth or personification,—<br /> + May Christ do for him what no mere man shall,<br /> + And stand confessed as the God of salvation!<br /> + Meantime, in the still recurring fear<br /> + Lest myself, at unawares, be found,<br /> + While attacking the choice of my neighbours round,<br /> + With none of my own made—I choose here!<br /> + The giving out of the hymn reclaims me;<br /> + I have done: and if any blames me,<br /> + Thinking that merely to touch in brevity<br /> + The topics I dwell on, were unlawful,—<br /> + Or worse, that I trench, with undue levity,<br /> + On the bounds of the holy and the awful,—<br /> + I praise the heart, and pity the head of him,<br /> + And refer myself to THEE, instead of him,<br /> + Who head and heart alike discernest<br /> + Looking below light speech we utter,<br /> + When frothy spume and frequent sputter<br /> + Prove that the soul's depths boil in earnest!<br /> + May truth shine out, stand ever before us!<br /> + I put up pencil and join chorus<br /> + To Hepzibah Tune, without further apology,<br /> + The last five verses of the third section<br /> + Of the seventeenth hymn of Whitfield's Collection,<br /> + To conclude with the doxology.<br /> +</p> + +<p><br /><br /><br /><br /></p> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Christmas Eve, by Robert Browning + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHRISTMAS EVE *** + +***** This file should be named 6670-h.htm or 6670-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/6/6/7/6670/ + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Charles Franks and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team. 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