Festus

Eternity hath snowed its years upon them;
And the white winter of their age is come,
The World and all its worlds; and all shall end.

God! God! God!
As flames in skies
We burn and rise
And lose ourselves in Thee!
Years on years!
And nought appears
Save God to be.
God! God! God!
To us no thought
Hath Being brought
Toward Thee that doth not move!
Years on years!
And what appears
Save God to love?
God! God! God!
All Thou dost make
Lies like a lake
Below Thine infinite eye:
Years on years!
And all appears
Save God to die.

As sun and star,
How high or far,
Show but a boundless sky;
So creature mind
Is all confined
To show Thee, God, most High!
The sun still burns,
The sun still turns
Bound, round himself and round;
So creature mind
To self’s confined,
But Thou God hast no bound!
Systems arise.
Or a world dies,
Each constant hour in air;
But creature mind,
In Heaven confined,
Lives on like Thee, God! there.

Ye thrones of Heaven, how bright, how pure ye are!
How have ye brightened since I saw ye first!
How have I darkened since ye saw me last!
What is the dark abyss of fire, and what
The ravenous heights of air, o’er which I reign,
In agony of glory, to these seats?
The loathsome cavern of the oracle,
O’er which ye rise in templed majesty,
Filled with the incense of all worshippers,
And echoing with the eloquence of God,
Which rolls in sunny clouds around the heavens.
Yet must I work through world and life my fate;
And winding through the wards of human hearts,
Steal their incarnate strength. Death does his work
In secret and in joy intense, untold,
As though an earthquake smacked its mumbling lips
O’er some thick peopled city. But for me,
Exists nor peace nor pleasure, even here,
Where all beside, the very faintest thought,
Is rapture. I will speak to God as erst.
Father of spirit, as the sun of air!
Beginning of all ends, and end of all
Beginnings, throughout whole Eternity;
From whom Eternity and every power
Perfect, and pure cause, is and emanates!
Originator without origin!
End without end! Creator of all ages,
And sabbath of all Being; who hast made
All numbers sacred, who art all and one!
At whose right hand the wisdom of all worlds
Combined, is only fearful foolishness
Or inarticulate madness⁠—and Thou, Lord!
Maker and Perfecter of all, the one!
Being above all Being, God the Life!
Who art the way whereon the world proceeds
From God, all-making, and whereby returns
The ever generated universe!⁠—
Who rulest all worlds in the law of light,
Thy nature and their own; who art before
All ages, angels, blessed, times and worlds!
Word that in every world art safe to save
All souls, impregned with spirit, God-begot!
And Thou eternal spirit-Deity!
The sanctifier of the universe!
Being, and Life, and spirit, who dost make,
Destroyest, recreatest, makest God!
God one and Trine! Thou seest me here again;
Still, sunlike, though eclipsed, of blinding power
And fiery cause, and everness of ill;
Behold I bow before Thee; hear Thou me!

What wouldst thou, Lucifer?

There is a youth
Among the sons of men I fain would have
Given up wholly to me.

He is thine,
To tempt

I thank Thee, Lord!

Upon his soul
Thou hast no power. All souls are mine for aye.
And I do give thee leave to this that he
May know my love is more than all his sin,
And prove unto himself that nought but God
Can satisfy the soul He maketh great.

Thou God art all in one! Thy infinite
Bounds Being. Thou hast said the world shall end.
The world is perfect, as concerns itself,
And all its parts and ends; not as towards Thee.
So man is Likest and unlikest God,
Of all existence; therefore doth as much
Resemble Thee as any act a mind.
In him of whom I ask, I seek once more
To tempt the living world, and then depart.

And I will hallow him to the ends of Heaven,
That though he plunge his soul in sin like a sword
In water, it shall nowise ding to him.
He is of Heaven. All things are known in Heaven,
Ere aimed at upon earth. The child is chosen.

Another soul
The Holy one
Hath chosen out of earth;
And there is none
Throughout the whole
Like worthy of his birth.

Oh! who hath joy like mine? was I not here
When from Thy boundless bosom, as a star
Out of the air, that soul was kindled, Lord!
And given to me to guard and guide⁠—while both,
Mid starry strains out of the depths of Heaven,
Fell at Thy feet in worship?⁠—joy of joys!
To you, ye saints and angels, let me speak;
For ye I see rejoice with me. Ye know
What ’tis to triumph o’er temptation, what
To fall before it; how the young spirit faints⁠—
The virgin tremor, the heart’s ebb and flow,
When first some vast temptation calmly comes
And states itself before it, like the sun
Low looming in the west, above the wave
Of wimpling streamlet, ere its waters grow
To size aortal. Than the Fiend himself
There is no greater evil. Less the shame
Of yielding, more the glory of conquering,
In him, to whom he goes, this soul elect.
From infancy through childhood, up to youth,
Have I this soul attended; marked him blest
With all the sweet and sacred ties of life;⁠—
The prayerful love of parents, pride of friends,
Prosperity, and health and ease, the aids
Of learning, social converse with the good
And gifted, and his heart all-lit with love,
Like to the rolling sea with living light;⁠—
Hopeful and generous and earnest; rich
In commune with high spirits, loving truth
And wisdom for their own divinest selves:
Tracking the deeds of the world’s glory, or
Conning the words of wisdom, Heaven-inspired,
As on the soul, in pure effectual ray,
The bright, transparent atoms, thought by thought,
Fall fixed for evermore. And thus his days,
Through sunny noon, or mooned eve, or night
Star-armied, shining through the deathless air,
All radiantly elapsed, in good or joy.
All this, for long, I marked. There grew, at length,
A change within his spirit; and I feared
A fatal and a final fall from good.
God’s love seemed lost upon him. He became
Heart-deadened. Watching, warning, vain, I fled
Hither to intercede with God our Lord,
To bless him with salvation. We may plead
Alway for those we love, by leave divine.
Nor knew I till this moment, with all Heaven,
That, in the righteous providence of God,
That soul was saved. Thou knowest, Lord! the mould
Of mortals, and the infinite end whereto
The souls Thou savest are predestinate;
Oh! be Thy mercy mighty to this soul,
Fiend-threatened; nor permit him who presides
O’er Hell’s eternal holocaust, too far
To tempt or tamper with the heart of man!⁠—

My mercy doth outstretch the universe;
Shall it not be sufficient for one soul?

I am the wrath of God unto myself,
And made by Him to do my part Do thou
Thine! they are far enough apart I ween.

The heaven-strung chords of man’s immortal soul
Are not for thee to wither at thy will.
Bear witness, all ye blessed, to the word;⁠—
Angels, intelligences, sons of God!
Ye who know nought but truth, feel nought but love,
Will nought but bliss, do nought but righteousness!
Whose life was ere the Heavens were conceived,
The stars begotten, or the ages born;
Ye many ordered hierarchies, which are
The love, truth, justice, majesty and might,
Dominion, glory, wisdom, bliss of God;
Ye through whose ministry of mercy⁠—His
Immediate, ever instant, active, all
Spirits and worlds are governed⁠—age by age
Gazing and gaining glory; ye who stand,
Stirless, before the throne, entranced in joy;
Or ye, whose life is to present all souls
Reborn to their Creator; or to search
The golden globed skies for deeds of grace;
And ye who move all Heavens, in whose names
The name of God is, as in angels’ all;
The crown, the wisdom, the intelligence,
Kindness, and strength and beauty, splendour, worth,
Original and rule; and ye who move
Restless around the throne, the burning seven,
The virtue, power, salvation, fire and rest,
Blessing and praise of God; and ye who rule
Regions or kingdoms, states, tribes, families,
Ages and times, and seasons, and events;
Systems and elements, material powers,
Mental and spiritual; or ye who bear
Souls from the heaven to earth, from earth to heaven;
Ye tenants of the archetypal worlds
And spiritual spheres; and you, ye saints!
Freed once on earth into the liberty
Of the necessity which is of God;
Yours are the many multitudes of stars,
And bliss and power for ever, ye are gods!
And live an endless life, bespoken here;
Bear witness, all, that happiness succeeds
To godliness; and that, despite of sin,
The world may recognise in all time’s scenes,
Though belts of clouds bar half its burning disk,
The overruling, overthrowing power,
Which by our creature purposes works out
Its deeds, and by our deeds its purposes.

God! for thy glory only can I act,
And for thy creatures’ good. When creatures stray
Farthest from Thee, then warmest towards them burns
Thy love, even as yon sun beams hotliest on
The earth when distant most.

The earth whereon
He dwells, this grain selected from the sands
Of life, dies with him.

God! I go to do
Thy will.

Thou, too, who watchest o’er the world
Whose end I fix, prepare to have it judged.

Let me not then have watched o’er it in vain.
From age to age, from hour to hour I still
Have hoped it would grow better⁠—hope so now;
’Tis better than it once was, and hath more
Of mind and freedom than it ever had.
I love it more than ever. Thou didst give
It to me as a child. To me earth is
Even as the boundless universe to Thee;
Nay, more! for Thou couldst make another. It is
My world. Take it not from me Lord! Thou, Christ!
Mad’st it the altar where thou offeredst up
Thyself for the creation. Let it be
Immortal as Thy love. And altars are
Holy; and sister angels, sister orbs
Hail it afar as such. Oh! I have heard
World question world and answer; seen them weep
Each other if eclipsed for one red hour,
And of all worlds most generous was mine,
The tenderest and the fairest.

Knowest thou not
God’s son to be the brother and the friend
Of spirit everywhere? Or hath thy soul
Been bound for ever to thy foolish world?

Star unto star speaks light, and world to world
Repeats the password of the universe
To God; the name of Chrifet⁠—the one great word
Well worth all languages in earth or Heaven.

Think not I lived and died for thine alone,
And that no other sphere hath hailed me Christ.
My life is ever suffering for love.
In judging and redeeming worlds is spent
Mine everlasting being.

Earth he next
Will judge; for so saith God.

Be it not, Lord!
Thou art a God of goodness and of love;
He is the evil of the universe,
And loveth not the earth, Thy Son, nor Thee.
Thou knowest best.

Behold now all yon worlds!
The space each fills shall be its successor.
Accept the consolation!

Earth! oh, Earth!

’Tis earth shall lead destruction; she shall end.
The stars shall wonder why she comes no more
On her accustomed orbit, and the sun
Miss one of his eleven of light; the moon,
An orphan orb, shall seek for earth for aye,
Through time’s untrodden depths and find her not;
No more shall morn, out of the holy east,
Stream o’er the amber air her level light;
Nor evening, with the spectral fingers, draw
Her tar-sprent curtain round the head of earth;
Her footsteps never thence again shall grace
The blue sublime of heaven. Her grave is dug.
I see the stars, night-clad, all gathering
In long and dark procession. Death’s at work.
And, one by one, shall all yon wandering worlds,
Whether in orbed path they roll, or trail,
In an inestimable length of light,
Their golden train of tresses after them,
Cease; and the sun, centre and sire of light,
The keystone of the world-built arch of heaven
Be left in burning solitude. The stars,
Which stand as thick as dewdrops on the fields
Of heaven, and all they comprehend, shall pass.
The spirits of all worlds shall all depart
To their great destinies; and thou and I,
Greater in grief than worlds, shall live as now.
In hell’s dark annals there is something writ,
Which shall amaze man yet There! to thy earth!

There is a blind world, yet unlit by God,
Rolling around the extremest edge of light;
Where all things are disaster and decay,
The outcast of all being; no one thing
Fitting another: that is fit for thee.
Be that thy world I but not the living earth.
Stretch forth Thy shining shield, oh God! the heavens,
Over the prostrate earth, an armed friend,
And save her from the swift and violent hell
Her beauty hath enchanted! from the wrath
Of love like his, oh save her, though by death!

Destruction and salvation are the hands
Upon the face of time. When both unite,
The day of death dawns. Every orb exists
Unto its preappointed end: and earth,
My creature, the elect of worlds, ere all
Is saved. The world shall perish as a worm
Upon destruction’s path; the universe
Evanish like a ghost before the sun,
Yea like a doubt before the truth of God,
Yet nothing more than death shall perish. Then,
Rejoice ye souls of God, regenerate,
Ye indwellers divine of Deity;
In Him ye are immortal as Himself!

O’er all things are eternity and change,
And special predilection of our God.
Thou who createst souls, as the sun clouds,
Out of the sea of spirit, sire of both
The first and second natures of Thy Son,
In whom the maker and the made make one,
Deific spirit! who in every world
Payeth creation’s penalties; in all,
Is heir of God and nature, and in Thee,
And in self-worship, Deifies himself!
And you blest spirits for whom I died, for whom,
Forefated, fore-atoned for from the first,
All heaven reserves the fullness of its bliss;
Creator and created! witness, both,
How I have loved ye, as God-natured life
Alone can love and suffer! Let the earth
And every orb, the offspring of all air,
Perish; but all I die for, live for me.

The earth shall not be when her sabbath ends,
In the high close of order.

Heaven, farewell!
Hell is more bearable than nothingness.

Thou, God, art Lord of mercy! and Thy thoughts
Are high above the star-dust of the world!

Yet o’er the meanest atom reignest Thou
Omnipotent, as o’er the universe!

Thy might is self-creative, and Thy works,
Immortal, temporal, destructible,
Are ever in Thy sight and blessed there!
The heavens are Thy bosom, and Thine eye
Is high o’er all existence; yea the worlds
Are but Thy shining foot-prints upon space!

Eternal Lord! Thy strength compels the worlds,
And bows the heads of ages; at Thy voice
Their unsubstantial essence wears away.

All-favouring God! we glory but in Thee.
Ye Heavens exalt, expand yourselves! they come,
The infinite generations, all Divine,
Of Deity, our brethren and our friends!

Thou who hast thousand names, as night hath stars,
Which light Thee up to eye create, yet not
One thousandth part illumine Thy boundlessness,
Nor that abyss of Being ’midst of which
Thy countless wonders constellate themselves;
Thy light, the light we dwell in shall at last
Fulfil the universe, and all be bliss;
The consummation of all ages come.
We praise Thee for Thy mercies, and for this,
The first, and last, and greatest of all boons.

Thee God! we praise
Through our ne’er sunsetting days,
And Thy just ways,
Divine:
In Thy hand is every spirit,
And the meed the same may merit;
All which all the worlds inherit
Are Thine!
It is not unto creatures given
To scale the purposes of Heaven,
Alway just and kind;
But before Thy mighty breath,
Life and spirit, dust and death,
The boundless All is driven,
Like clouds by wind.

Woe! woe at last in Heaven!
Earth to death is given;
The ends of things hang still
Over them as a sky;
Do what we will,
All’s for eternity!

This is to be a mortal and immortal!
To live within a circle⁠—and to be
That dark point where the shades of all things around
Meet, mix and deepen. All things unto me
Show their dark sides! somewhere there must be light.
Oh! I feel like a seed in the cold earth;
Quickening at heart, and pining for the air!
Passion is destiny. The heart is its own
Fate. It is well youth’s gold rubs off so soon.
The heart gets dizzy with its drunken dance,
And the voluptuous vanities of life
Enchain, enchant, and cheat my soul no more.
My spirit is on edge. I can enjoy
Nought which has not the honied sting of sin;
That soothing fret which makes the young untried,
Longing to be beforehand with their nature,
In dreams and loneness cry, they die to live;
That wanton whetting of the soul, which while
It gives a finer, keener edge for pleasure,
Wastes more and dulls the sooner. Rouse thee, heart;
Bow of my life thou yet art full of spring!
My quiver still hath many purposes.
Yet what is worth a thought of all things here?
How mean, how miserable every care!
How doubtful, too, the system of the mind!
And then the ceaseless, changeless, hopeless round
Of weariness and heartlessness and woe
And vice and vanity! Yet these make life;
The life at least I witness if not feel.
No matter! we are immortal. How I wish
I could love men! for amid all life’s quests
There seems but worthy one⁠—to do men good.
It matters not how long we live but how.
For as the parts of one manhood while here
We live in every age: we think and feel
And feed upon the coming and the gone
As much as on the now time. Man is one:
And he hath one great heart. It is thus we feel,
With a gigantic throb athwart the sea,
Each others’ rights and wrongs; thus are we men.
Let us think less of men and more of God!
Sometimes the thought comes swiftening over us,
Like a small bird winging the still blue air;
And then again, at other times, it rises
Slow, like a cloud which scales the skies all breathless,
And just over head lets itself down on us.
Sometimes we feel the wish across the mind
Rush, like a rocket tearing up the sky,
That we should join with God and give the world
The slip: but while we wish, the world turns round,
And peeps us in the face⁠—the wanton world;
We feel it gently pressing down our arm⁠—
The arm we had raised to do for truth such wonders;
We feel it softly bearing on our side⁠—
We feel it touch and thrill us through the body⁠—
And we are fools and there’s an end of us.
’Tis a fine thought that sometime end we must.
There sets the sun of suns! dies in all fire,
Like Asher’s death-great monarch. God of might!
We love and live on power. It is spirit’s end.
Mind must subdue. To conquer is its life.
Why mad’st Thou not one spirit, like the sun,
To king the world? And oh! might I have been
That sun-mind, how I would have warmed the world
To love and worship and bright life!

Suddenly appearing.

Who art thou, pray? I saw thee not before.
It seems as thou hadst grown out of the air.

Thou knowest me well. Though stranger to thine eye,
I am not to thy heart.

I know thee not.

Come nearer! Look on me! I am above thee;
Beneath thee, and around thee, and before thee.

Why, art thou all things, or dost go through all?
A spirit, or embodied blast of air?
I feel thou art a spirit.

Yea I am.

I knew it! I am glad, yet tremble so.
What hours upon hours have I longed for this,
And hoped that thought or prayer might produce!
I have besought the stars, with tears, to send
A power unto me; and have set the clouds
Until I thought I saw one coming: but
The shadowy giant alway thinned away,
And I was fated unimmortalized.
What shall I do? Oh! let me kneel to thee!

Nay, rise! and I’ll not say, for thine own sake,
That thou dost pray in private to the Devil.

Father of lies thou liest!

I am he!
It is enough to make the Devil merry,
To think that men call on me momently,
Deeming me ever dungeoned fast in Hell;
Swearers and swaggerers jeer at my name;
And oft indeed it is a special jest
With witling gallants. Let me once appear!
Woe’s me! they faint and shudder⁠—pale and pray;
The burning oath which quivered on the lip,
Starts back and sears and blisters up the tongue;
Confusion ransacks the abandoned heart,
Quells the bold blood, and o’er the vaulted brow
Slips the white woman-hand. To judgment, ho!
The very pivot of the earth seems snapped;
And down they drop like ruins to repent.
Such be the bravery of mighty man!

I must be mad; or mine eye cheats my brain;
And this strange phantom comes from overthought,
Like the white lightning from a day too hot.
It must be so. But I will pass it.

Stay!

Oh save me God! He is reality!

And now thou kneel’st to Heaven. Fie, graceless boy!
Mocking thy Maker with a cast-off prayer;
For had not I the first fruits of thy faith?

Tempter, away! From all the crowds of life
Why single me? Why score the young green bole
For fellage? Go! Am I the youngest, worst?
No! Light the fires of hell with other souls;
Mine shall not burn with thee.

Thou judgest harshly.
Can I not touch thee without slaying thee?

Why art thou here? What wouldst thou have with me?

’Fore all I would have gentle words and looks.

I pray thee, go!

I cannot quit thee yet.
But why so sad? Wilt kneel to me again?
This leafy closet is most apt for prayer.

Yes; I will pray for thee and for myself.

Waste not thy prayers! I scatter them: they reach
No further than thy breath⁠—a yard or so.
And as for me, I heed them, need them not.
My nature God knows and hath fixed; and He
Recks little of the manners of the world;
Wicked He holdeth it and unrepentant.

Therefore the more some ought to pray.

To blow
A kiss, a bubble and a prayer hath like
Effect and satisfaction.

Let me hence!
Go tell thy blasphemies and lies elsewhere.
Thou scatter prayer! Make me Thy minister
One moment God! that I may rid the world
For ever of its evil. Oh! Thine arm!

Canst rid thyself?

Alas no. Get thee gone!
Can nought insult thee nor provoke thy flight?

I laugh alike at ruin and redemption.
I am the one which knows nor hope nor fear;
Which ne’er knew good nor e’er can know the worst.
What thinkest thou can anger me, or harm?

Wherefore didst thou quit Hell? To drag me there?

Thou wilt not guess mine errand. Deem’st thou aught
Which God hath made all evil? Me He made.
Oft I do good; and thee to serve I come.

Did I not hear thee boast with thy last breath
Not to have known what good was?

From myself
I know it not; yet God’s will I must work.
I come I say to serve thee.

Well! I would
Thou never hadst: but speak thy purpose straight.

I heard thy prayer at sunset. I was here.
I saw, thy secret longings, unsaid thoughts,
Which prey upon the breast like night-fires on
A heath. I know thy heart by heart. I read
The tongue when still as well as when it moves.
And thou didst pray to God. Did He attend?
Or turn His eye from the great glass of things,
Wherein He worshippeth eternally
Himself, to thee one moment? He did not.
I tell thee nought He cares for men. I came
And come to proffer thee the earth; to set
Thee on a throne⁠—the throne of will unbound⁠—
To crown thy life with liberty and joy,
And make thee free and mighty even as I am!

I would not be as thou art for Hell’s throne;
Add Earth’s⁠—add Heaven’s!

I knew thy proud high heart.
To test its worth and mark I held it brave,
In shape and being thus myself I came;
Not in disguise of opportunity⁠—
Not as some silly toy which serves for most⁠—
Not in the mask of lucre, lust nor power⁠—
Not in a goblin size nor cherub form⁠—
But as the soul of Hell and evil came I
With leave to give the kingdom of the world⁠—
Hie freedom of thyself.

Good; prove thy powers.

Do I not prove them? Who but I, that have
Immortal might o’er mine own mind, and o’er
All hearts and spirits of the living world,
Would share it with another, or forgo,
One hour, the great enjoyment of the whole?
And who but I give men what each loves best?

Open the Heavens and let me look on God!
Open my heart and let me see myself!
Then I’ll believe thee.

Thou shalt not believe
For that I give thee, hut for that I am.
Believe me first; then I will prove myself.
Though sick I know thee of the joys of sense,
Yet those thou lovest most I will make pure,
And render worthy of thy love; unfilm them,
That so thou mayst not dally with the blind.
Thou shalt possess them to their very souls.
Pleasure and love and unimagined beauty;
All, all that be delicious, brilliant, great,
Of worldly things are mine, and mine to give.

What can be counted pleasure after love?
Like the young lion which hath once lapped blood,
The heart can ne’er be coaxed back to aught else.

I will sublime it for thee all to bliss:
As yet it hath but made thee wretched.

Spirit,
It is not bliss I seek; I care not for it.
I am above the low delights of life.
The life I live is in a dark cold cavern,
Where I wander up and down, feeling for something
Which is to be⁠—and must be⁠—what, I know not;
But the incarnation of my destiny
Is nigh.

It is thy fate which weighs upon thee
Necessity sits on humanity,
Like to the world on Atlas neck. ’Tis this,
And the sultry sense of overdrawn life.

True;
The worm of the world hath eaten out my heart.

I will renew it in thee. It shall be
The bosom favourite of every beauty,
Even like a rosebud. Thou shalt render happy,
By naming who may love thee. Come with me.

I have a love on earth, and one in Heaven.

Thou shalt love ten as others love but one!

Oh! I was glad when something in me said
Come, let us worship beauty! and I bowed;
And went about to find a shrine; but found
None that my soul, when seeing, said enough, to.
Many I met with where I put up prayers,
And had them more than answered; and at such
I worshipped, partly because others did;
Partly because I could not help myself.
But none of these were for me; and away
I went champing and choking in proud pain;
In a burning wrath that not a sea could slake.
So I betook me to the sounding sea;
And overheard its slumberous mutterings
Of a revenge on man; whereat almost
I gladdened, for I felt savage as the sea.
I had only one thing to behold, the sea;
I had only one thing to believe, I loved;
Until that lonesome sameness grew sublime
And darkly beautiful as death, when some
Bright soul regains its star-home, or as Heaven
Just when the stars falter forth, one by one,
Like the first words of love from a maiden’s lips.
There are points from which we can command our life;
When the soul sweeps the future like a glass;
And coming things, full freighted with our fate,
Jut out, dark, on the offing of the mind.
Let them come! Many will go down in sight;
In the billow’s joyous dash of death go down.
At last came love; not whence I sought nor thought it;
As on a ruined and bewildered wight
Rises the roof he meant to have lost for ever.
On came the living vessel of all love;
Terrible in its beauty as a serpent,
Rode down upon me like a ship full sail
And bearing me before it, kept me up
Spite of the drowning speed at which we drave
On, on, until we sank both. Was not this love?

Why, how can I tell? I am not in love;
But I have oft times heard mine angels call
Most piteously on their lost loves in Heaven;
And, as I suffer, I have seen them come;
Seen starlike faces peep between the clouds,
And Hell become a tolerable torment.
Some souls lose all things but the love of beauty;
And by that love they are redeemable;
For in love and beauty they acknowledge good;
And good is God⁠—the great Necessity.
I have not told thee half I will do for thee.
All secrets thou shalt ken⁠—all mysteries construe;
At nothing marvel. All the veins which stretch,
Unsearchable by human eyes, of lore
Most precious, most profound, to thine shall bare
And vulgar lie like dust. The world within,
The world above thee, and the dark domain,
Mine own thou shalt o’er rule; and he alone
Who rightly can esteem such high delights,
He only merits⁠—he alone shall have.

And if I have shall I be happier?
What is pleasure? What, happiness?

It is that
I vouchsafe to thee.

Am I tempted thus
Unto my fall?

God wills or lets it be.
How thinkest thou?

That I will go with thee.

From God I come.

I do believe thee, spirit.
He will not let thee harm me. Him I love,
And thee I fear not. I Obey Him.

Good.
Both time and case are urgent. Come away!

Give me a breathing-time to fortify,
Within myself, the promise I have made.

Expect me, then, at midnight, here. Remember,
That thou canst any time repent.

Ay, true. Goes.

Repentance never yet did aught on earth;
It undoes many good things. Of all men,
Heaven shield me from the wretch who can repent!

All things are calm, and fair, and passive. Earth
Looks as if lulled upon an angel’s lap
Into a breathless dewy sleep: so still,
That we can only say of things, they be!
The lakelet now, no longer vexed with gusts,
Replaces on her breast the pictured moon
Pearled round with stars. Sweet imaged scene of time
To come, perchance, when this vain life o’erspent,
Earth may some purer beings’ presence bear;
Mayhap even God may walk among His saints,
In eminence and brightness like yon moon,
Mildly outbeaming all the beads of light
Strung o’er night’s proud dark brow. How strangely fair
Yon round still star, which looks half suffering from,
And half rejoicing in its own strong fire;
Making itself a lonelihood of light,
Like Deity, where’er in Heaven it dwells.
How can the beauty of material things
So win the heart and work upon the mind,
Unless like-natured with them? Are great things
And thoughts of the same blood? They have like effect.

Why doubt on mind? What matter how we call
That which all feel to be their noblest part?
Even spirits have a better and a worse:
For every thing created must have form.
Passions they have, somewhat like thine; but less
Of grossness and that downwardness of soul
Which men have. It is true they have no earth;
For what they live on is above themselves.

There seems a sameness among things; for mind
And matter speak, in causes, of one God.
The inward and the outward worlds are like;
The pure and gross but differ in degree.
Tears, feeling’s bright embodied form, are not
More pure than dewdrops, Nature’s tears, which she
Sheds in her own breast for the fair which die.
The sun insists on gladness; but at night,
When he is gone, poor Nature loves to weep.

There is less real difference among things
Than men imagine. They overlook the mass,
But fasten each on so.me particular crumb,
Because they feel that they can equal that,
Of doctrine, or belief, or party cause.

That is the madness of the world⁠—and that
Would I remove.

It is imbecility,
Not madness.

Oh! the brave and good who serve
A worthy cause can only one way fail;
By perishing therein. Is it to fail?
No; every great or good man’s death is a step
Firm set towards their end⁠—the end of being;
Which is the good of all and love of God.
The world must have great minds, even as great spheres
Or suns, to govern lesser restless minds,
While they stand still and burn with life; to keep
Them in their places, and to light and heat them.
If I desire immortal life for aught,
It is to learn the mystery of mind
And somewhat more of God. Let others rule
Systems or succour saints, if such things please;
To live like light or die in light like dew,
Either! I should be blest.

It may not be.
For as we do not see the sun himself,
It is but the light about him, like a ring
Of glory round the forehead of a saint, so
God thou wilt never see. His unveiled love
Were terrible, too mud for man to meet.

Men have a claim on God; and none who hath
A heart of kindness, reverence and love,
But dare look God in the face and ask His smile.
He dwells in no fierce light⁠—no cloud of flame;
And if it were, Faith’s eye can look through Hell,
And through the solid world. We must all think
On God. Yon water must reflect the sky.
Midnight! Day hath too much light for us,
To see things spiritually. Mind and Night
Will meet, though in silence, like forbidden lovers,
With whom to see each other’s sacred form
Must satisfy. The stillness of deep bliss,
Sound as the silence of the high hill-top
Where thunder finds no echo⁠—like God’s voice
Upon the worldling’s proud, cold, rocky heart⁠—
Fills full the sky; and the eye shares with Heaven
That look, so like to feeling, which the bright
And glorious things of Nature ever wear.
There is much to think and feel of things beyond
This earth; which lie, as we deem, upwards⁠—far
From the day’s glare and riot⁠—they are Night’s!
Oh! could we lift the future’s sable shroud!

Behind a shroud what shouldst thou see but death?

Spirit is like the thread whereon are strung
The beads or worlds of life. It may be here,
It may be there that I shall live again;
In yon strange world whose long nights know no star,
But seven fair maidlike moons attending him
Perfect his sky⁠—perchance in one of those⁠—
But live again I shall wherever it be.
We long to learn the future⁠—love to guess.

The science of the future is to man,
But what the shadow of the wind might be.
Such thoughts are vain and useless.

Forced oh us.

All things are of necessity.

Then best.
But the good are never fatalists. The bad
Alone act by necessity, they say.

It matters not what men assume to be;
Or good, or bad, they are but what they are.

What is necessity? Are we, and thou,
And all the worlds, and the whole infinite
We cannot see, but working out God’s thoughts?
And have we no self-action? Are all God?

Then hath He sin and all absurdity.

Yet, if created Being have free-will,
Is it not wrong to judge it may traverse
God’s own high will, and yet impossible
To think on’t otherwise?

It may be so.
All creature wills, and all their ends and powers
Must come within the boundless scope of God’s.

And all our powers are but weaknesses
To what we shall have, and to that God hath.
Doth not the wish, too, point the likelihood
Of life to come?

Boys wish that they were kings.
And so with thee. A deathless spirit’s state,
Freed from gross form and bodily weightiness,
Seems kingly by the side of souk like thine.
And boys and men will likely both be balked.
What if it be, that spirit, after death,
Is loosed like flesh into its elements?
The worlds which man hath constellated, hold
No fellowship in nature; nor perchance
As he hath systematised life, mind and soul.
But sooth to say, I know not aught of this.
I have no kind. No nature like to me
Exists. And human spirits must at least
Sleep till the day of doom, if it ever be.

Hast never known one free from body?

None.

Why seek then to destroy them?

It is my part.
Let ruin bury ruin. Let it be
Woe here, woe there, woe, woe, be everywhere!
It is not for me to know, nor thee, the end
Of evil. I inflict and thou must bear.
The arrow knoweth not its end and aim.
And I keep rushing, ruining along
Like a great river rich with dead men’s souls.
For if I knew, I might rejoice; and that
To me by Nature is forbidden. I know
Nor joy nor sorrow; but a changeless tone
Of sadness like the nightwind’s is the strain
Of what I have of feeling. I am not
As other spirits⁠—but a solitude
Even to myself; I the sole spirit sole.

Can none of thine immortals answer me?

None, mortal!

Where then is thy vaunted power?

It is better seen as thus I stand apart
From all. Mortality is mine⁠—the green
Unripened universe. But as the fruit
Matures, and world by world drops mellowed off
The wrinkling stalk of Time, as thine own race
Hath seen of stars now vanished⁠—all is hid
From me. My part is done. What after comes
I know not more than thou.

Raise me a spirit!
Awake ye dead! out with the secret, death!
The grave hath no pride nor the rise-again.
Let each one bring the bane whereof he died.
Bring the man his, the maiden hers! Oh! half
Mankind are murderers of themselves or souls.
Yea, what is life but lingering suicide?
Wake, dead! Ye know the truth; yet there ye lie
All mingling, mouldering, perishing together
Like, run sand in the hour-glass of old Time.
Death is the mad world’s asylum. There is peace;
Destruction’s quiet and equality.
Night brings out stars as sorrow shows as truths:
Though many, yet they help not; bright, they light not.
They are too late to serve us: and sad things
Are aye too true. We never see the stars
Till we can see nought but them. So with truth.
And yet if one would look down a deep well,
Even at noon, we might see those same stars
Far fairer than the blinding blue⁠—the truth;
Probe the profound of thine own nature, man!
And thou may’st see reflected, e’en in life,
The worlds, the Heavens, the ages; by and by,
The coming come. Then welcome, world-eyed Truth!
But there are other eyes men better love
Than Truth’s: for when we have her she is so cold,
And proud, we know not what to do with her.
We cannot understand her, cannot teach;
She makes us love her, but she loves not us;
And quits us as she came and looks back never.
Wherefore we fly to Fiction’s warm embrace,
With her to relax and bask ourselves at ease;
And, in her loving and unhindering lap
Voluptuously lulled, we dream at most
On death and truth: she knows them, loves them not;
Therefore we hate them and deny them both.
Call up the dead!

Let rest while rest they may!
For free from pain and from this world’s wear and tear
It may be a relief to them to rot;
And it must be that at the day of doom,
If mortals should take up immortal life,
They will curse me with a thunder which shall shake
The sun from out the socket of his sphere.
The curse of all created. Think on it!

Those souls thou mean’st whom thou hast ruined, damned.

Nor only those; when once the virgin bloom
Of soul is soiled⁠—and rudely hath my hand
Swept o’er the swelling clusters of all life⁠—
Little it matters whether crushed or touched
Scarcely: each speaks the spoiler hath been there.
The saved, the lost, shall curse me both alike:
God too shall curse me, and I, I, myself.
That curse is ever greatening⁠—quick with hell;
The coming consummation of all woe.

O man, be happy! Die and cease for ever!
Why wear we not the shroud alway, that robe
Which speaks our rank on earth, our privilege?
To know I have a deathless soul I would lose it

Believest thou all I tell thee?

All, I do.
Stringing the stars at random round her head,
Like a pearl network, there she sits⁠—bright night!
I love night more than day⁠—she is so lovely.
But I love night the most because she brings
My love to me in dreams which scarcely lie;
Oh! all but truth and lovelier oft than truth!
Let me have dreams like these, sweet Night, for ever,
When I shall wake no more; an endless dream
Of love and holy beauty ’mid the stars.

I see thy heart and I will grant thy wish.
I have lied to thee. I have command over spirits.
Whom wilt thou that I call?

Mine Angela!

There is an Angel ever by thine hand.
What seest thou?

It is my love! It is she!
My glory! spirit! beauty, let me touch thee.
Nay, do not shrink back: well then I am wrong:
Thou didst not use to shrink from me, my love.
Angela! dost thou hear me? Speak to me.
And thou art there⁠—looking alive and dead.
Thy beauty is then incorruptible.
I thought so, oft as I have looked on thee.
Thou art too much even now for me as once.
I cannot gather what I raved to say;
Nor why I had thee hither. Stay, sweet sprite!
Dear art thou to me now, as in that hour
When first Love’s wave of feeling, spray-like broke
Into bright utterance, and we said we loved.
Yea, but I must come to thee. Move no more!
Art thou in death or Heaven or from the stars?
Have I done wrong in calling for thee thus?
What art thou? Speak, love; whisper me as wont
In the dear times gone bye; or durst thou not
Unfold the mystery of thine and mine
Own being? Was it Death who hushed thy lips?
Is his cold finger there still? Let me come!
She is not!

And thou canst not bring her back.

I will not, cannot be without her. Call her!

I call on spirits and I make them come:
But they depart according to their own will.
Another time and she shall speak with thee⁠—
Ere long⁠—and she shall show thee where she dwells,
And how doth pass her immortality;⁠—
If lengthening decay can so be called.
Can lines finite one way be infinite
Another? And yet such is deathlessness.

It is hard to deem that spirits cease, that thought
And feeling flesh-like perish in the dust.
Shall we know those again in a future state
Whom we have known and loved on earth? Say yes!

The mind hath features as the body hath.

But is it mind which shall rerise?

Man were
Not man without the mind be had in life.

Shall all defects of mind and fallacies
Of feeling be immortalized? all needs,
All joys, all sorrows, be again gone through,
Before the final crisis be imposed?
Shall Heaven but be old earth created new?
Or earth, treelike, transplanted into Heaven,
To flourish by the waters of all life,
And we within its shade, as heretofore,
Cropping its fruit, with life-seeds cored at heart?

Man’s nature, physical and psychical,
Will be together raised, changed, glorified;
And all shall be alike, like God; and all
Unlike each other, and themselves. The earth
Shall vanish from the thoughts of those she bore,
As have the idols of the olden time
From men’s hearts of the present. All delight
And all desire, shall be with Heavenly things,
And the new nature God bestowed on man.

Then man shall be no more man but an Angel.

When he is dead and buried. What remains⁠—
That such an obscure, contradictory, thing
Should be perpetuated anywhere?

Oh! if God hates the flesh, why made He it
So beautiful that e’en its semblance maddens?
Am I to credit what I think I have seen?
Or am I suffering some deceit of thine?

I am explaining, not deluding.

True.
Defining night by darkness, death by dust.
I run the gauntlet of a file of doubts,
Each one of which down hurls me to the ground.
I ask a hundred reasons what they mean,
And every one points gravely to the ground,
With one hand, and to Heaven with the other.
In vain I shut mine eyes. Truth’s burning beam
Forces them open, and when open, blinds them.

Doubly unhappy!

I am too unhappy
To die; as some too way-worn cannot sleep.
Planets and suns, that set themselves on fire
By their own rapid self-revolvements, are
But like some hearts. Existence I despise.
The shape of man is wearisome; a bird’s,
A worm’s⁠—a whirlwind’s, I would change with aught.
Time! dash thine hour-glass down. Have done with this!
The course of Nature seems a course of Death,
And nothingness the sole substantial thing.

Corruption springs from Light: ’tis the same power
Creates, preserves, destroys: the matter which
It works on, being one ever-changing form⁠—
The living and the dying and the dead.

I’ll not believe a thing which I have known.
Hell was made hell for me, and I am mad.

True venom churns the froth out of the lips;
It works, and works like any waterwheel.
And she then was the maiden of thy heart.
Well, I have promised. Ye shall meet again.

I loved her for that she was beautiful;
And that to me she seemed to be all nature
And all varieties of things in one:
Would set at night in clouds of tears, and rise
All light and laughter in the morning: yea,
And that she never schooled within her breast
One thought or feeling, but gave holiday
To all; and that she made all even mine
In the communion of love: and we
Grew like each other for we loved each other⁠—
She, mild and generous as the sun in spring;
And I, like earth all budding out with love.

And then, love’s old end, falsehood: nothing worse
I hope?

What’s worse than falsehood? to deny
The god which is within us, and in all
Is love? Love hath as many vanities
As charms; and this, perchance, the chief of both:
To make our young heart’s track upon the first,
And snowlike fall of feeling which overspreads
The bosom of the youthful maiden’s mind,
More pure and fair than even its outward type.
If one did thus, was it from vanity?
Or thoughtlessness, or worse? Nay, let it pass.
The beautiful are never desolate;
But some one alway loves them⁠—God or man.
If man abandons, God himself takes them.
And thus it was. She whom I once loved died.
The lightning loathes its cloud⁠—the soul its clay.
Can I forget that hand I took in mine,
Pale as pale violets; that eye, where mind
And matter met alike divine? ah, no!
May God that moment judge me when I do!
Oh! she was fair: her nature once all spring,
And deadly beauty like a maiden sword;
Startlingly beautiful. I see her now!
Whatever thou art thy soul is in my mind;
Thy shadow hourly lengthens o’er my brain,
And peoples all its pictures with thyself.
Gone, not forgot⁠—passed, not lost⁠—thou shalt shine
In Heaven like a bright spot in the sun!
She said she wished to die, and so she died;
For, cloudlike, she poured out her love, which was
Her life, to freshen this parched heart. It was thus:
I said we were to part, but she said nothing.
There was no discord⁠—it was music ceased⁠—
Life’s thrilling, bounding, bursting joy. She sat
Like a house-god, her hands fixed on her knee;
And her dark hair lay loose and long around her,
Through which her wild bright eye flashed like flint.
She spake not, moved not, but she looked the more,
As if her eye were action, speech and feeling.
I felt it all; and came and knelt beside her.
The electric touch solved both our souls together.
Then comes the feeling which unmakes, undoes;
Which tears the sealike soul up by the roots
And lashes it in scorn against the skies.
Twice did I madly swear to God, hand clenched,
That not even He nor death should tear her from me.
It is the saddest and the sorest sight
One’s own love weeping;⁠—but why call on God,
But that the feeling of the boundless bounds
All feeling, as the welkin doth the world?
It is this which ones us with the whole and God.
Then first we wept; then closed and clung together;
And my heart shook this building of my breast,
Like a live engine booming up and down.
She fell upon me like a snow-wreath thawing.
Never were bliss and beauty, love and woe,
Ravelled and twined together into madness,
As in that one wild hour; to which all else,
The past, is but a picture⁠—that alone
Is real, and for ever there in front;
Making a black blank on one side of life
Like a blind eye. But after that I left her:
And only saw her once ogain alive.

Well, shall we go?

This moment. I am ready.
Farewell ye dear old walks and trees! farewell
Ye waters! I have loved ye well. In youth
And childhood it hath been my life to drift
Across ye lightly as a leaf; or skim
Your waves in yon skiff, swallowlike; or lie
Like a loved locket on your sunny bosom.
Could I, like you, by looking in myself
Find mine own Heaven⁠—farewell! Immortal, come!
The morning peeps her blue eye on the east.

Think not so fondly as thy foolish race,
Imagining a Heaven from things without;
The picture on the passing wave call Heaven⁠—
The wavelet, life⁠—the sands beneath it, death;
Daily more seen till, lo! the bed is bare.
This fancy fools the world.

Let us away!

Hail beauteous Earth! Gazing o’er thee, I all
Forget the bounds of beings; and I long
To fill thee, as a lover pines to blend
Soul, passion, yea existence, with the fair
Creature he calls his own. I ask for nought
Before or after death but this⁠—to lie,
And look, and live, and bask, and bless myself
Upon thy broad bright bosom. From thee I
Sprang, and to thee I turn, heart, arm and brain.
Yes, I am all thine own. Thou art the sole
Parent. To rock and river, plain and wood
I cry, ye are my kin. While I, O Earth!
Am but an atom of thee, and a breath,
Passing unseen and unrecorded like
The tiny throb here in my temple’s pulse.
Thou art for ever and the sacred bride
Of heaven⁠—worthy the passion of our God.
O! full of lights love, grace!⁠—the grace of all
Who owe to thee their life; thy Maker’s love;
His face’s light. All thine rejoice in thee;
Thou in thyself for aye; rolling through air
As seraphs’ song out of their trumpet lips
Rolls round the skies of Heaven. See the sun!
God’s crest upon His azure shield the Heavens.
Canst thou, a spirit, look upon him?

Ay.
I led him from the void, where he was wrought,
By this right hand, up to the glorious seat
His brightness overshadows; built his throne
On piles of gold; and laid his chambers on
Beams of gold: wrapped a veil of fire around
His face; and bade him reign and burn like me.
There, ever since, sat warming into life
These worlds as in a nest, he has and is.
But fall he must. I have done, do, nought else
From my first thought to this and to my last.
No matter; it is beneath this mind of mine
To reck of aught. I bear, have borne the ill
Of ages, of eternities⁠—and must.
I care not. I shall sway the world as now,
Which worse and worse sinks with me as I sink,
Till finite souls evanish as a vapour;
Till immortality, the proud thing, perish;
And God alone be and eternity.
Then will I clap my hands and cry to Him,
I have done! Have Thy will now! There is none but Thee.
I am the first created being. I
Will be the last to perish and to die.

Thou art a fit monitor, methinks, of pleasure.

To the high air sunshine and cloud are one;
Pleasure and pain to me. Thou and the earth
Alone feel these as different⁠—for Ye
Are under them⁠—the Heavens and I above.

But tell me, have ye scenes like this in Hell?

Nay, not in Heaven.

What is Heaven? not the toys
Of singing, love and music? such a place
Were fit for women only.

Heaven is no place;
Unless it be a place with God, allwhere.
It is the being good⁠—the knowing God⁠—
The consciousness of happiness and power;
With knowledge which no spirit e’er can lose
But doth increase in every state; and aught
It most delights in the full leave to do.
But why consume me with such questions? Why
Add earth to Hell, in the great chain of worlds
Which God in wrath hath bound about me?

Why!
’Twas therefore that I closed with thee, great Fiend!
That thou mightst answer all things I proposed,
Or bring me those who would do.

All these things
Thou wilt know sometime, when to see and know
Are one; to see a thing and comprehend
The nature of it essentially; perceive
The reason and the science of its being,
And the relations with the universe
Of all things actual or possible,
Mortal, immortal, spiritual, gross.
This, when the spirit is made free of Heaven,
Is the divine result; proportioned still
To the intelligence as human; for
There are degrees in Heaven as everything,
By God’s will. Unimaginable space
As full of suns as is earth’s sun of atoms,
Faileth to match His boundless variousness;
And ever must do, though a thousand worlds,
As diverse from each other as is thine
From any of thy system’s, were elanced
Each minute into life unendingly.
All of yon worlds, and all who dwell in them,
Stand in diverse degrees of bliss and being.
Through the ten thousand times ten thousandth grade
Of blessedness, above this world’s and man’s
Ability to feel or to conceive,
The soul may pass and yet know nought of Heaven,
More than a dim and miniature reflection
Of its most bright infinity;⁠—for God
Makes to each spirit its peculiar Heaven;⁠—
And yet is Heaven a bright reality,
As this or any of yon worlds; a state
Where all is loveliness and power and love;
Where all sublimest qualities of mind,
Not infinite, are limited alone
By the surrounding Godhood, and where nought
But what produceth glory and delight,
To creature and Creator is; where all
Enjoy entire dominion o’er themselves,
Acts, feelings, thoughts, conditions, qualities,
Spirit and soul and mind; all under God,
For spirit is soul Deified;⁠—while earth,
To the immortal vast, God-natured Spirit,
Is but a spell, which having served to light,
A lamp, is cast into consuming fire.

And Hell? Is it nought but pits and chains and flames?

An ever greatening sense of ill and woe,
Aye crushing down the soul, but filling never
Its infinite capacity of pain.

But human nature is not infinite,
And therefore cannot suffer endlessly.

God may create in time what shall endure
Unto Eternity. With Him is no
Distinction, nor in that which is of Him.

Then is not soul of God, but man and earth.
Soul when made spirit is of earth no more,
Nor time, but of Eternity and Heaven.
’Tis but when in the body, and bent down
To worldly ends, that human souls become
Objects of time, as most are, till the hour
Comes when the soul of man shall be made one
With God’s spirit; and where shall woe be then?
Where, sin? where, suffering? when the mortal soul
Shall be Divinised and eternised by
God’s very spirit put upon it?

How
Can souls begotten to predestined doom,
From and before all worlds, be deemed of earth;

Things spiritual, as belonging God,
Are known unto Him, and predestined from
Eternity, nor these alone; but Flesh
Forms not nor does it need the care of Fate.

The object of eternal knowledge must
Have like existence.

Then it cannot be
Bound unto torment; that would be to bring
Torture on godlike essence.

Hast not heard,
How thine existence here, on earth, is but
The dark and narrow section of a life
Which was with God, long ere the sun was lit,
And shall be yet, when all the bold bright stars
Are dark as death-dust⁠—Immortality
And Wisdom tending thee on either hand,
Thy divine sisters? But do thou believe
E’en what thou wilt. It matters not to me.

Is it the nature or the deed of God
To render finite follies infinite,
Or to eternise sin and death in fire?
For so long as the punishment endures,
The crime lasts. Were it not for thy presence,
Spirit! I would not deem Hell were.

Let not
My presence pass for more than it is worth,
I pray, nor yet my absence. Trust me, I
Could wish, with thee, that Hell were blotted out
Of utmost space. ’Tis man himself aye makes
His own God and his hell. But this is truth.

The truth is perilous never to the true,
Nor knowledge to the wise; and to the fool,
And to the false, error and truth alike.
Error is worse than ignorance. But say:⁠—
How can eternal punishment be due
To temporal offences, to a pulse
Of momentary madness?

Pardon me.
Sin is not temporary. Nothing is,
Of spiritual nature, but hath cause
Immortal and immortal end in all,
As spirits. Therefore till the soul shall be
By grace redeified, as is the soul,
So is the sin, for ever before God.

Sin is not of the spirit, but of that
Which blindeth spirit, heart and brain.

Believe so.
The law of all the worlds is retribution.

But is it so of God?

The laws of Heaven
Are not of earth; there law is liberty.

Thou thundercloud of spirits, darkning
The skies and wrecking earth! Could I hate men
How I should joy with thee, even as an eagle,
Nigh famished, in the fellowship of storms;
But I still love them. What will come of men?

Whatever may, perdition is their meed.
Were Heaven dispeopled for a ministry
To warn them of their ways; were thou and I
To monish them; were Heaven, and Earth, and Hell
To preach at once, they still would mock and jeer
As now; but never repent until too late;
Until the everlasting hour had struck.

Men might be better if we better deemed
Of them. The worst way to improve the world
Is to condemn it. Men may overget
Delusion⁠—not despair.

Why love mankind?
The affections are thy systems weaknesses;
The wasteful outlets of self-maintenance.

The wild flower’s tendril, proof of feebleness,
Proves strength; and so we fling our feelings out,
The tendrils of the heart, to bear us up.
O Earth! how drear to think to tear oneself,
Even for an hour, from looks like this of thine;
From features, oh! so fair; to quit for aye
The luxury of thy side. Why, why art thou
Thus glorious, and ’twere not to sate the soul,
And chide us for the senseless dream of Heaven?
The still strong stream sweeps onward to its end,
Like one of the great purposes of God;
Or like, may be, a soul like mine to Him.
Along yon deep blue vein upon thy bosom,
Earth? I could float for ever. See it there⁠—
Winding among its green and smiling isles,
Like Charity amidst her children dear;
Or Peace, rejoicing in her olive wreaths,
And gladdening as she glides along the lands.

And yet all this must end⁠—must pass; drop down
Oblivion like a pebble in a pit:
For God shall lay His hand upon the earth,
And crush it up like a red leaf.

Not be?
I cannot root the thought, nor hold it firm.

This same sweet world which thou wouldst fondly deem
Eternal, may be; which I soon shall see
Destruction suck back as the tide a shell.

It will not be yet. I’ll woo thee, world, again,
And revel in thy loveliness and love.
I have a heart with room for every joy:
And since we must part sometime, while I may,
I’ll quaff the nectar in thy flowers, and press
The richest clusters of thy luscious fruit
Into the cup of my desires. I know
My years are numbered not in units yet.
But I cannot live unless I love and am loved;
Unless I have the young and beautiful
Bound up like pictures in my book of life.
It is the intensest vanity alone
Which makes us bear with life. Some seem to live,
Whose hearts are like those unenlightened stars
Of the first darkness⁠—lifeless, timeless, useless⁠—
With nothing but a cold night air about them;
Not suns⁠—not planets⁠—darkness organized:
Orbs of a desert darkness: with no soul
To light its watchfire in the wilderness,
And civilize the solitude one moment.
There are such seemingly; but how or why
They live I know not. This to me is life;
That if life be a burden, I will join
To make it but the burden of a song:
I hate the world’s coarse thought. And this is life;
To watch young beauty’s budlike feelings burst
And load the soul with love;⁠—as that pale flower,
Which opes at eve, spreads sudden on the dark
Its yellow bloom, and sinks the air down with sweets.
Let Heaven take all that’s good⁠—Hell all that’s foul;
Leave us the lovely! and we will ask no more.

To me it seems time all should end. The sky
Grows gray. It is not so bright nor blue as once.
Well I remember, as it were yesterday,
When earth and Heaven went happy, hand in hand,
With all the morning dew of youth about them;
With the bright unworldly hearts of youth and truth
And the maiden bosoms of the beautiful:⁠—
Ere earth sinned, or the pure indignant Heavens
Retreated high, nigh God; when earth was all
A creeping mass alive with shapeless things:
And when there were but three things in the world⁠—
Monsters, mountains and water: before age
Had thickened the eyes of stars; and while the sea,
Rejoicing like a ring of saints round God,
Or Heaven on Heaven about some newborn sun,
In its sublime samesoundingness, laughed out
And cried not I! Like God I never rest.

God hath his rest; earth hers. Let me have mine.
Yet must I look on thee, fair scene, again,
Ere I depart. The glory of the world
Is on all hands. In one encircling ken,
I gaze on river, sea, isle, continent,
Mountain, and wood, and wild, and fire-lipped hill,
And lake, and golden plain, and sun, and Heaven,
Where the stars brightly die, whose death is day;
City and port and palace, ships and tents,
Lie massed and mapped before me. All is here.
The elements of the world are at my feet,
Above me and about me. Now would I
Be and do somewhat beside that I am.
Canst thou not give me some ethereal slave,
Of the pure essence of an element⁠—
Such as my bondless brain hath oft times drawn
In the divine insanity of dreams⁠—
To stand before me and obey me, spirit?

Call out, and see if aught arise to thee.

Green dewy Earth, who standest at my feet,
Singing and pouring sunshine on thy head,
As näiad native water, speak to me!
I am thy son. Canst thou not now, as once,
Bring forth some being dearer, liker to thee
Than is my race⁠—Titan or tiny fay,
Stream-nymph or wood-nymph? She hath ceased to speak,
Like God, except in thunder, or to look
Unless in lightning. Miracles, with earth,
Are out of fashion as with Heaven.

More’s
The pity. Call elsewhere! Old Earth is hard
Of hearing, maybe.

I beseech thee, Sea!
Tossing thy wavy locks in sparkling play,
Like to a child awakening with the light
To laughter. Canst not thou disgulph for me,
From thy deep bosom, deep as Heaven is high,
Of all thy sea-gods one, or sea-maids?

None!

I half despair. Fire! that art slumbering there,
Like some stern warrior in his rocky fort,
After the vast invasion of the world,
Hast not some flaming imp, or messenger
Of empyrean element, to whom,
In virtue of his nature, are both known
The secrets of the burning, central, void below,
And yon bright Heaven, out of whose aëry fire
Are wrought the forms of angels and the thrones?
Hast none at hand to do my bidding? Come!
Breathe out a spirit for me! One I ask
That shall be with me always, as a friend,
And not like thee, who despotisest o’er
The heart thou seek’st to serve. I must be free.

All finite souls must serve; their widest sway
Is but the rule of service. This fair earth
Which thou dost boast so much of, why, thou see’st
’Tis but the parti-coloured, scummy dross
Of the original element wherefrom
The fiery worlds were framed.

Air! and thou, Wind!
Which art the unseen similitude of God
The Spirit, His most meet and mightiest sign;
The earth with all her steadfastness and strength,
Sustaining all, and bound about with chains
Of mountains, as is life with mercies, ranging round
With all her sister orbs the whole of Heaven,
Is not so like the unlikenable One
As thou. Ocean is less divine than thee;
For although all but limitless, it is yet
Visible, many a land not visiting.
But thou art, Lovelike, everywhere; o’er earth,
O’er ocean triumphing, and aye with clouds,
That like the ghost of ocean’s billows roll,
Decking or darkening Heaven. The sun’s light
Floweth and ebbeth daily like the tides;
The moon’s doth grow or lessen, night by night;
The stirless stars shine forth by fits and hide,
And our companion planets come and go;⁠—
And all are known, their laws and liberties.
But no man can foreset thy coming, none
Reason against thy going; thou art free,
The type impalpable of Spirit, thou.
Thunder is but a momentary thing,
Like a world’s deathrattle, and is like death;
And lightning, like the blaze of sin, can blind
Only and slay. But what are these to thee,
In thine all-present variousness? Now,
So light as not to wake the snowiest down
Upon the dove’s breast, winning her bright way
Calm and sublime as Grace unto the soul,
Towards her far native grove; now, stern and strong
As ordnance, overturning tree and tower;
Cooling the white brows of the peaks of fire⁠—
Turning the sea’s broad furrows like a plough⁠—
Fanning the fruitening plains, breathing the sweets
Of meadows, wandering o’er blinding snows,
And sands like sea-beds and the streets of cities,
Where men as garnered grain lie heaped together;
Freshening the cheeks, and mingling oft the locks
Of youth and beauty ’neath star-speaking eve;
Swelling the pride of canvas, or, in wrath,
Scattering the fleets of nations like dead leaves:
In all, the same o’ermastering sightless force,
Bowing the highest things of earth to earth,
And lifting up the dust unto the stars;
Fatelike, confounding reason, and like God’s
Spirit, conferring life upon the world⁠—
Midst all corruption incorruptible;
Monarch of all the elements! hast thou
No soft Eolian sylph, with sightless wing,
To spare a mortal for an hour?

Peace, peace!
All nature knows that I am with thee here,
And that thou need’st no minor minister.
To thee I personate the world⁠—its powers,
Beliefs, and doubts and practices.

Are all
Mine invocations fruitless, then?

They are.
Let us enjoy the world!

If ’twas God’s will
That thou shouldst visit me He shall not send
Temptation to my heart in vain. Sweet world!
We all still cling to thee. Though thou thyself
Passest away, yet men will hanker about thee,
Like mad ones by their moping haunts. Men pass,
Cleaving to things themselves which pass away,
Like leaves on waves. Thus all things pass for ever,
Save mind and the mind’s meed.

Let us too pass!

What happy things are youth and love and sunshine!
How sweet to feel the sun upon the heart!
To know it is lighting up the rosy blood,
And with all joyous feelings, prism-hued,
Making the dark breast shine like a spar grot.
We walk among the sunbeams as with angels.

Yes, there are feelings so serene and sweet,
Coming and going with a musical lightness,
That they can make amends for their passingness,
And balance God’s condition to decay;
As yon light fleecy cloudlet floating along,
Like golden down from some high angel’s wing,
Breaks but relieves and beautifies the blue.
I wonder if ever I could love another.
How I should start to see upon the sward
A shadow not thine own armlinked with mine!
See, here is a garland I have bound for thee.

Nay, crown thyself; it will suit thee better, love.
Place wreaths of everlasting flowers on tombs,
And deck with fading beauties forms that fade.
Put it away⁠—I will no crown save this:
And could the line of dust which here I trace
Upon my brow but warrant dust beneath⁠—
And nothing more⁠—or could this bubble frame,
Informed with soul, lashed from the stream of life
By its own impetus, but burst at once,
And vanish part on high and part below,
I would be happy, nor would envy death.
Could I, like Heaven’s bolt, earthing quench myself,
This moment would I burn me out a grave.
Might I but be as many years in dying
As I have lived⁠—that might be some relief.

What canst thou mean?

Mean? Is there not a future?
The past, the present and the coming, curse each!
The future, curse it!

Shall we not ever live
And love as now?

Ay, live I fear we must.

And love: because we then are happiest.
We shall lack nothing having love: and we,
We must be happy everywhere⁠—we two!
For spiritual life is great and clear,
And self-continuous as the changeless sea,
Rolling the same in every age as now;
Whether o’er mountain tops, where only snow
Dwells, and the sunbeam hurries coldly by;
Or o’er the vales, as now, of some old world
Older than ancient man’s. As is the sea’s,
So is the life of spirit, and the kind.
And then with natures raised, refined and freed
From these poor forms, our days shall pass in peace
And love; no thought of human littleness
Shall cross our high calm souls, shining and pure
As the gold gates of Heaven. Like some deep lake
Upon a mountain summit they shall rest,
High above cloud and storm of life like this,
All peace and power, and passionless purity;
Or if a thought of other troubled times
Ruffle it for a moment, it shall pass
Like a chance raindrop on its heavenward face.
I love to meditate on bliss to come.
Not that I am unhappy here; but that
The hope of higher bliss may rectify
The lower feeling which we now enjoy.
This life, this world is not enough for us;
They are nothing to the measure of our mind.
For place we must have space; for time we must have
Eternity; and for a spirit godhood.

Mind means not happiness: power is not good.

True bliss is to be found in holy life;
In charity to man⁠—in love to God:
Why should such duties cease, such powers decay?
Are they not worthy of a deathless state⁠—
A boundless scope⁠—a high uplifted life?
Man, like the air-born eagle who remains
On earth only to feed and sleep and die;
But whose delight is on his lonely wing,
Wide sweeping as a mind, to force the skies
High as the lightfall ere, begirt with clouds,
It dash this, nether world⁠—immortal man
Rushes aloft, right upwards, into Heaven.
O faith of Christ, sole honour of the world!

What know men of religion, save its forms?

True faith nor biddeth nor abideth form.
The bended knee, the eye uplift is all
Which man need render; all which God can bear.
What to the faith are forms? A passing speck,
A crow upon the sky. God’s worship is
That only He inspires; and His bright words,
Writ in the red-leaved volume of the heart,
Return to him in prayer, as dew to Heaven.
Our proper good we rarely seek or make;
Mindless of our immortal powers and their
Immortal end, as is the pearl of its worth,
The rose its scent, the wave its purity.

Come, we will quit these saddening themes. Wilt sing
To me? for I am gloomy; and I love
Thy singing, sacred as the sound of hymns,
On some bright Sabbath morning, on the moor,
Where all is still save praise; and where hard by
The ripe grain shakes its bright beard in the sun;
The wild bee hums more solemnly; the deep sky,
The fresh green grass, the sun, and sunny brook,
All look as if they knew the day, the hour;
And felt with man the need and joy of thanks.

I cannot sing the lightsome lays of love.
Many thou know’st who can; but none that can
Love thee as I do⁠—for I love thy soul;
And I would save it, Festus! Listen then:

Is Heaven a place where pearly streams
Glide over silver sand?
Like childhood’s rosy dazzling dreams
Of some far faery land?
Is Heaven a clime where diamond dews
Glitter on fadeless flowers?
And mirth and music ring aloud
From amaranthine bowers?

Ah no; not such, not such is Heaven!
Surpassing far all these;
Such cannot be the guerdon given
Man’s wearied soul to please.
For saint and sinner here below
Such vain to be have proved:
And the pure spirit will despise
Whate’er the sense hath loved.

There we shall dwell with Sire and Son,
And with the mother-maid,
And with the Holy Spirit, one:
In glory like arrayed:
And not to one created thing
Shall our embrace be given;
But all our joy shall be in God;
For only God is Heaven.

I know that thou dost love me. I in vain
Strive to love aught of earth or Heaven but thee.
Thou art my first, last, only love; nor shall
Another even tempt my heart. Like stars,
A thousand sweet and bright and wondrous fair,
A thousand deathless miracles of beauty,
They shall ever pass at all but eyeless distance,
And never mix with thy love; but be lost
All, meanly in its moonlike lustrousness.

How still the air is! the tree tops stir not:
But stand and peer on Heaven’s bright face as though
It slept and they were loving it: they would not
Have the skies see them move for summers; would they?
See that sweet cloud! It is watching us, I am certain.
What have we here to make thee stay one second?
Away! thy sisters wait thee in the west,
The blushing bridemaids of the sun and sea.
I would I were like thee, thou little cloud,
Ever to live in Heaven: or seeking earth
To let my spirit down in drops of love:
To sleep with night upon her dewy lap;
And, the next dawn, back with the sun to Heaven;
And so on through eternity, sweet cloud!
I cannot but think that some senseless things
Are happy. Often and often have I watched
A gossamer line sighing itself along
The air, as it seemed; and so thin, thin and bright,
Looking as woven in a loom of light,
That I have envied it, I have, and followed;⁠—
Oft watched the sea-bird’s down blown o’er the wave,
Now touching it, now spirited aloft,
Now out of sight, now seen⁠—till in some bright fringe
Of streamy foam, as in a cage, at last
A playful death it dies, and mourned its death.

But thinkest thou the future is a state
More positive than this; or that it can be
Aught but another present, full of cares,
And toils, perhaps, and duties; that the soul
Will ever be more nigh to God than now,
Save as may seem from mind’s debility:
Just as the sun, from weakness of the eye,
And the illusions made by matter’s forms,
Seems hot and wearied resting on the hill?
It would be well, I think, to live as though
No more were to be looked for; to be good
Because it is best, here; and leave hope and fear
For lives below ourselves. If earth persuades not
That I owe prayer and praise and love to God,
While all I have He gives, will Heaven? will Hell?
No; neither, never!

I think not all with thee.
Have I not heard thee hint of spirit-friends?
Where are they now?

Ah! close at hand, mayhap.
I have a might immortal; and can ken
With angels. Neither sky nor night nor earth
Hinder me. Through the forms of things I see
Their essences; and thus, even now, behold⁠—
But where I cannot show to thee⁠—far round,
Nature herself⁠—the whole effect of God.
Mind, matter, motion, heat, time, love, and life,
And death and immortality; those chief
And first-born giants all are there; all parts,
All limbs of her their mother; she is all.

And what does she?

Produce: it is her life.
The three named last, life, death, deathlessness,
Glide in elliptic path round all things made⁠—
For none save God can fill the perfect whole:
And are but to eternity as is
The horizon to the world. At certain points
Each seems the other; now, the three are one;
Now, all invisible; and now, as first,
Moving in measured round.

How look these beings?

Ah! Life looks gaily and gloomily in turns;
With a brow chequered like the sward, by leaves
Between which the light glints; and she, careless, wears
A wreath of flowers⁠—part faded and part fresh.
And Death is beautiful and sad and still:
She seems too happy; happier far than life⁠—
In but one feeling, apathy: and on
Her chill white brow frosts bright, a braid of snow.

And Immortality?

She looks alone;
As though she would not know her sisterhood.
And on her brow a diadem of fire,
Matched by the conflagration of her eye,
Outflaming even that eye which in my sleep
Beams close upon me till it bursts from sheer
O’erstrainedness of sight, burns.

What do they?

Each strives to win me to herself.

How?

Death
Opens her sweet white arms and whispers, peace!
Come say thy sorrows in this bosom! This
Will never close against thee; and my heart,
Though cold, cannot be colder much than man’s.
Come! All this soon must end; and soon the world
Shall perish leaf by leaf, and land by land;
Flower by flower⁠—flood by flood⁠—and hill
By hill, away; Oh! come, come! Let us die.

Say that thou wilt not die!

Nay, I love Death.
But Immortality, with finger spired,
Points to a distant, giant world⁠—and says
There, there is my home! Live along with me!

Canst see that world?

Just⁠—a huge shadowy shape;
It looks a disembodied orb⁠—the ghost
Of some great sphere which God hath stricken dead:
Or like a world which God hath thought⁠—not made.

Follow her Festus! Does she speak again?

She never speaks but once; and now, in scorn,
Points to this dim, dwarfed, misbegotten sphere.

Why let her pass?

That is the great world-question.
Life would not part with me; and from her brow
Tearing her wreath of passion-flowers, she flung
It round my neck and dared me struggle then.
I never could destroy a flower: and none
But fairest hands like thine can grace with me
The plucking of a rose. And Life, sweet Life!
Vowed she would crop the world for me and lay it
Herself before my feet even as a flower.
And when I felt that flower contained thyself⁠—
One drop within its nectary kept for me,
I lost all count of those strange sisters three;
And where they be I know not. But I see
One who is more to me.

I know not how
Thou hast this power and knowledge. I but hope
It comes from good hands; if it be not thine
Own force of mind. It is much less what we do
Than what we think, which fits us for the future.
I wish we had a little world to ourselves;
With none but we two on it.

And if God
Gave us a star, what could we do with it
But that we could without it? Wish it not!

I’ll not wish then for stars; but I could love
Some peaceful spot where we might dwell unknown,
Where home-born joys might nestle round our hearts
As swallows round our roofs⁠—and blend their sweets
Like dewy-tangled flowerets in one bed.

The sweetest joy, the widest woe is love;
The taint of earth, the odour of the skies,
Is in it. Would that I were aught but man!
The death of brutes, the immortality
Of fiend or angel, better seems than all
The doubtful prospects of our painted dust.
And all Morality can teach is⁠—Bear!
And all Religion can inspire is⁠—Hope!

It is enough. Fruition of the fruit
Of the great Tree of Life, is not for earth.
Stars are its fruit, its lightest leaf is life.
The heart hath many sorrows beside love,
Yea many as the veins which visit it.
The love of aught on earth is not its chief
Nor ought to be. Inclusive of them all
There is the one main sorrow, life;⁠—for what
Can spirit, severed from the great one, God,
Feel but a grievous longing to rejoin
Its infinite⁠—its author⁠—and its end?
And yet is life a thing to be beloved,
And honored holily, and bravely borne.
A man’s life may be all ease, and his death
By some dark chance, unthought of agony:⁠—
Or life may be all suffering, and decease
A flower-like sleep;⁠—or both be full of woe,
Or each comparatively painless. Blame
Not God for inequalities like these!
They may be justified. How canst thou know?
They may be only seeming. Canst thou judge?
They may be done away with utterly
By loving, fearing, knowing God the Truth.
In all distress of spirit, grief of heart,
Bodily agony, or mental woe,
Rebuffs and vain assumptions of the world,
Or the poor spite of weak and wicked souls,
Think thou on God! Think what he underwent
And did for us as man. Weigh thou thy cross
With Christs, and judge which were the heavier.
Joy even in thine anguish!⁠—such was His,
But measurelessly more. Thy suffering
Assimilateth thee to Him. Rejoice!
Think upon what thou shalt be! Think on God!
Then ask thyself, what is the world, and all
Its mountainous inequalities? Ah, what!
Are not all equal as dust-atomies?

My soul’s orb darkens as a sudden star,
Which having for a time exhausted earth
And half the Heavens of wonder, mortally
Passes for ever, not eclipsed, consumed;⁠—
All but a cloudy vapour darkening there,
The very spot in space it once illumed.
Once to myself I seemed a mount of light;
But now, a pit of night.⁠—No more of this!
Here have I lain all day in this green nook,
Shaded by larch and hornbeam, ash and yew;
A living well and runnel at my feet,
And wild flowers, dancing to some delicate air;
An urn-topped column and its ivy wreath
Skirting my sight as thus I lie and look
Upon the blue, unchanging, sacred skies:
And thou, too, gentle Clara by my side,
With lightsome brow and beaming eye, and bright
Long glorious locks, which drop upon thy cheek
Like goldhued cloudflakes on the rosy morn.
Oh! when the heart is full of sweets to o’erflowing,
And ringing to the music of its love,
Who but an angel or an hyprocrite
Could speak or think of happier states?

Farewell!
Remember what thou saidst about the stars. Goes.

Oh! why was woman made so fair? or man
So weak as to see that more than one had beaaty?
It is impossible to love but one.
And yet I dare not love thee as I could;
For all that the heart most longs for and deserves,
Passes the soonest and most utterly.
The moral of the world’s great fable, life.
All we enjoy seems given to deceive,
Or may be, undeceive us; who cares which?
And when the sum is done, and we have proved it,
Why work it over and over still again?
I am not what I would be. Hear me, God!
And speak to me in thine invisible likeness
The wind, as once of yore. Let me be pure!
Oh! I wish I was a pure child again,
As ere the clear could trouble me: when life
Was sweet and calm as is a sister’s kiss;
And not the wild and whirlwind touch of passion,
Which though it hardly light upon the lip,
With breathless swiftness sucks the soul out of sight
So that we lose it, and all thought of it.
What is this life wherein Thou hast founded me,
But a bright wheel which burns itself away,
Benighting even night with its grim limbs,
When it hath done and fainted into darkness?
Flesh is but fiction, and it flies away;
The gaunt and ghastly thing we bear about us
And which we hate and fear to look upon
Is truth; in death’s dark likeness limned⁠—no more.

God hath refused me: wilt thou do it for me?
Or shall I end with both? remake myself?

Now that is the one thing which I cannot do.
Am I not open with thee? why choose that?

Because I will it. Thou art bound to obey.

The world bears marks of my obedience.

Off! I am torn to pieces. Let me try
And gather up myself into a man,
As once I was. I have done with thee! Dost hear?

Thou canst not mean this.

Once for all⁠—I do.

It is men who are deceivers⁠—not the Devil.
The first and worst of all frauds is to cheat
Oneself. All sin is easy after that.

I feel that we must part: part now or never;
And I had rather of the two it were now.

This is my last walk through my favourite world:
And I had hoped to have enjoyed it with thee.
For thee I quitted Hell; for thee I warped
And shrivelled up my soul into a man:
For thee I shed my shining wings; for thee
Put on this mask of flesh, this mockery
Of motion, and this seeming shape like thine.
And by my woe, I swear that were I now,
For thy false heart, to give my spirit spring,
I would scatter soul and body both to Hell,
And let one burn the other.

If thou darest!
Lift but the finger of a thought of ill
Against me, and⁠—thou durst not. Mark, we part.

Well; as thou wilt. Remember that thy heart
Will shed its pleasures as thine eye its tears;
And both leave loathsome furrows.

Thinkest thou
That I will have no pleasures without thee,
Who marrest all thou makest and even more?

Thou canst not; save indeed some poor trite thing
Called moderation, every one can have;
And modesty, God knows, is suffering.

Now will I prove thee liar for that word,
And that the very vastest out of Hell.
With perfect condemnation I abjure
My soul; my nature doth abhor itself;
I have a soul to spare! Goes.

A hundred, I.
I have him yet: for he is mine to tempt.
Gold hath the hue of hell flames: but for him
I will lay some brilliant and delicious lure
Which shall be worth perdition to a seraph.
Most men glide quietly and deeply down:
Some seek the bottom like a cataract.
Now he shall find it, seek it how he will.
None ever went without once taking breath.
It is passion plunges men into mine arms;
But it matters not; Hell burns before them all.
It is by Hell-light they do their chiefest deeds;
And by Hell-light they shine unto each other;
And Hell through life’s thick fog ares red and round;
And but for Hell they would grope in utter dark.

These be the toils and cares of mighty men!
Earth’s vermin are as fit to fill her thrones
As these high Heaven’s bright seats.

Men’s callings all
Are mean and vain; their wishes more so: oft
The man is bettered by his part or place.
How slight a chance may raise or sink a soul!

What men call accident is God’s own part.
He lets ye work your will⁠—it is His own:
But that ye mean not, know not, do not, He doth.

What is life worth without a heart to feel
The great and lovely, and the poetry
And sacredness of things? for all things are
Sacred⁠—the eye of God is on them all.
And hallows all unto it. It is fine
To stand upon some lofty mountain-thought
And feel the spirit stretch into a view;
To joy in what might be if will and power
For good would work together but one hour.
Yet millions never think a noble thought:
But with brute hate of brightness bay a mind
Which drives the darkness out of them, like hounds.
Throw but a false glare round them, and in shoals
They rush upon perdition: that’s the race.
What charm is in this world-scene to such minds
Blinded by dust? What can they do in Heaven,
A state of spiritual means and ends?
Thus must I doubt⁠—perpetually doubt.

Who never doubted never half believed.
Where doubt there truth is⁠—’tis her shadow. I
Declare unto thee that the past is not.
I have looked over all life, yet never seen
The age that had been. Why then fear or dream
About the future? Nothing but what is, is;
Else God were not the Maker that He seems,
As constant in creating as in being.
Embrace the present! Let the future pass.
Plague not thyself about a future. That
Only which comes direct from God, His spirit,
Is deathless. Nature gravitates without
Effort; and so all mortal natures fall
Deathwards. All aspiration is a toil;
But inspiration cometh from above,
And is no labour. The earth’s inborn strength
Could never lift her up to yon stars, whence
She fell; nor human soul, by native worth,
Claim Heaven as birthright, more than man may call
Cloudland his home. The soul’s inheritance,
Its birth-place, and its death-place, is of earth,
Until God maketh earth and soul anew;
The one like Heaven, the other like Himself.
So shall the new Creation come at once;
Sin, the dead branch upon the tree of Life,
Shall be cut off for ever; and all souls
Concluded in God’s boundless amnesty.

Thou windest and unwindest faith at will.
What am I to believe?

Thou mayst believe
But that which thou art forced to.

Then I feel
That instinct of immortal life in me,
Which prompts me to provide for it.

Perhaps.

Man hath a knowledge of a time to come⁠—
His most important knowledge: the weight lies
Nearest the short end; and the world depends
Upon what is to be. I would deny
The present, if the future. Oh! there is
A life to come, or all’s a dream.

And all
May be a dream. Thou seest in thine, men, deeds,
Clear, moving, full of speech and order; then
Why may not all this world be but a dream
Of God’s? Fear not! Some morning God may waken.

I would it were. This life’s a mystery.
The value of a thought cannot be told;
But it is clearly worth a thousand lives
Like many men’s. And yet men love to live
As if mere life were worth their living for.
What but perdition will it be to most?
Life’s more than breath and the quick round of blood
It is a great spirit and a busy heart.
The coward and the small in soul scarce do live.
One generous feeling⁠—one great thought⁠—one deed
Of good, ere night, would make life longer seem
Than if each year might number a thousand days⁠—
Spent as is this by nations of mankind.
We live in deeds, not years; in thoughts, not breaths;
In feelings, not in figures on a dial.
We should count time by heart-throbs. He most lives
Who thinks most⁠—feels the noblest⁠—acts the best
Life’s but a means unto an end⁠—that end,
Beginning, mean and end to all things⁠—God.
The dead have all the glory of the world.
Why will we live and not be glorious?
We never can be deathless till we die.
It is the dead win battles. And the breath
Of those who through the world drive like a wedge,
Tearing earth’s empires up, nears death so close
It dims his well-worn scythe. But no? the brave
Die never. Being deathless, they but change
Their country’s arms for more⁠—their country’s heart.
Give then the dead their due; it is they who saved us.
The rapid and the deep⁠—the fall, the gulf
Have likenesses in feeling and in life.
And life, so varied, hath more loveliness
In one day than a creeping century
Of sameness. But youth loves and lives on change
Till the soul sighs for sameness; which at last
Becomes variety, and takes its place.
Yet some will last to die out thought by thought,
And power by power, and limb of mind by limb,
Like lambs upon a gay device of glass,
Till all of soul that’s left be dry and dark;
Till even the burden of some ninety years
Hath crashed into them like a rock; shattered
Their system as if ninety suns had rushed
To ruin earth⁠—or Heaven had rained its stars;
Till they become, like scrolls, unreadable
Throught dust and mould. Can they be cleaned and read?
Do human spirits wax and wane like moons!

The eye dims and the heart gets old and slow;
The lithe limb stiffens, and the sun-hued locks
Thin themselves off, or whitely wither;⁠—still
Ages not spirit, even in one point,
Immeasurably small; from orb to orb,
In ever rising radiance, shining like
The sun upon the thousand lands of earth.
Look at the medley, motley throng we meet!
Some smiling⁠—frowing some; their cares and joys
Alike not worth a thought⁠—some sauntering slowly
As if destruction never could o’ertake them;
Some hurrying on as fearing judgment swift
Should trip the heels of Death and seize them living.

Grief hallows hearts even while it ages
And much hot grief, in youth, forces up life
With power which too soon ripens and which drops. A funeral passes.
Whose funeral is this ye follow, friends?

Would ye have grief, let me come! I am woe.

We want no grief: Festus! she died of grief.

Did ye say she died? oh! I knew her then.
Set down the body; let toe look upon her!
Now, Son of God! what dost Thou now in heaven
While one so beautiful lies earthening here?
I will give up the future for the past;
The winged spirit and the starry home
If Thou wilt let her live, and make me love.

She was a lock of Heaven which Heaven gave earth,
And took again, because unworthy of her.

Her air was an immortal’s; I have seen
Stars look on it with feeling; and her eye,
Wherever she went, it won her way like wine.
Men bowed to it as to the lifted Host.
How could I be so cruel? Who but I?
And now, corruption, come; sit; feast thyself!
This is the choicest banquet thou hast been at.
Thou art my happier, only rival: thou
Who takest love from the living⁠—life from beauty⁠—
Beauty from death⁠—whole robber of the world!

The moment after thou desertedst her
A cloud came over the prospect of her life;
And I foresaw how evening would set in,
Early and dark and deadly. She was true.

Did I not love thee too? pure! perfect thing!
This is a soul I see and not a body.
Go, beauty, Test for aye; go, starry eyes,
And lips like rosebuds peeping out of snow;
Go, breast love-filled as a boat’s sail with wind,
Leaping from wave to wave as leaps a child
Thoughtless o’er grassy graves; go, locks, which have
The golden embrownment of a lion’s eye!
Yet one more look; farewell, thou well and fair!
All who but loved thee shall be deathless. Nought
Named but with thee can perish. Thou and Death
Have made each other purer, lovelier, seem,
Like snow and moonlight. Never more for thee
Let eyes be swollen like streams with latter rains!
To die were rapture having lived with thee.
Thy soul hath passed out of a bodily Heaven
Into a spiritual. Rest for aye!⁠—
Pure as the dead, in life; the dead are holy.
I would I were among them. Let us pass!
Living is but a habit; and I mean
To break myself of it soon.

Too soon thou canst not.
Men heed not of the day, how nigh none knows,
Which brings the consummation of the world.
But in my ear the old machine already
Begins to grate. They would not credit warning,
Or I would up and cry, Repent! I will.
Here is a fair gathering and I feel moved.
Mortals, Repent! the world is nigh to its end;
On its last legs and desperately sick.
See ye not how it reels round all day long?

Oh! here’s a ranter. Come, here’s fun. Amen!
I know the church service by heart.

Be off!
You’ll serve the church by keeping out of it.

I am a preacher come to tell ye truth.
I tell ye too there is no time to be lost;
So fold your souls up neatly, while ye may;
Direct to God in Heaven; or some one else
May seize them, seal them, send them⁠—you know where.
The world must end. I weep to think of it.
But you, you laugh! I knew ye would. I know
Men never will be wise till they are fools
For ever. Laugh away! The time will come,
When tears of fire are trickling from your eyes,
Ye will blame yourselves for having laughed at me.
I warn ye, men: prepare! repent! be saved!
I warn ye, not because I love, but know ye.
God will dissolve the world, as she of old
Her pearl, within His cup and swallow ye
In wrath: although to taste ye would be poison,
And death and suicide to aught but God.
Again I warn ye. Save himself who can!
Do ye not oft begin to seek salvation?
You? you? and fail, as oft, to find? Sink? Cease?
And shall I tell ye, brethren, why ye fail
Once and for ever? why, there is no past;
And the future is the fiction of a fiction;
The present moment is eternity;
It is that ye have sucked corruption from the world
Like milk from your own mothers: it is in
Your soul-blood and your soul-bones. Earth does not
Wean one out of a thousand sons to Heaven.
Beginnings are alike: it is ends which differ.
One drop falls, lasts, and dries up⁠—but a drop;
Another begins a river: and one thought
Settles a life, an immortality:
And that one thought ye will not take to good.
Now I will tell ye just one other truth:
Ye hate the truth as snails salt⁠—it dissolves ye,
Body and soul⁠—but I don’t mind. So, now:
Up to this moment ye are all, each, damned.
What are ye now? still damned! It will be the same
To-morrow⁠—and the next day⁠—and the next:
Till some fine morning ye will wake in fire.
Ye see I do not mince the truth for ye.
Belike ye think your lives will dribble out
As brooks in summer dry up. Let us see!
Try: dike them up: they stagnate⁠—thicken⁠—scum.
That would make life worse than death. Well, let go!
Where are ye then? for life, like water, will
Find its last level: what level? The grave.
It is but a fall of five feet after all;
That cannot hurt ye; it is but just enough
To work the wheel of life; so work away!
Ye may think that I do not know the terms
And treasures whereupon ye live so high.
But I know more than most men, modestly
Speaking. I know I am lost, and ye too. God
Could only save me by destroying me;
So that I have no advantage over you.
And therefore think ye will the rather bear
One of your own state to advise for ye
Now don’t you envy me, good folks, I pray⁠—
Envy’s a coal comes hissing hot from hell.
’Twill be such coals will burn ye by the way.
Your other preachers first think they are safe.
Now I say, broadly, I am the worst among ye;
And God knows I have no need to wrong myself,
Nor you. I boast not of it, but as truth:
It is little to be proud of, credit me.
What is salvation? What is safety? Think!
Who wants to know? Does any?

All of us.

Then I will not tell ye. You shall wait until
Some angel come and stir your stagnant souls:
Then plunge into yourselves and rise redeemed.
Come, I’ll unroll your hearts and read them to ye.
To say ye live is but to say ye have souls,
That ye have paid for them and mean to play them,
Till some brave pleasure wins the golden stake,
And rakes it up to death as to a bank.
Ye live and die on what your souls will fetch;
And all are of different prices: therefore Hell
Cannot well bargain for mankind in gross;
But each soul must be purchased, one by one.
This it is makes men rate themselves so high:
While truly ye are worth little: but to God
Ye are worth more than to yourselves. By sin
Ye wreak your spite against God⁠—that ye know:
And knowing, will it. But I pray, I beg,
Act with some smack of justice to your Maker,
If not unto yourselves. Do! It is enough
To make the very Devil chide mankind⁠—
Such baseness, such unthankfulness! Why he
Thanks God he is no worse. You don’t do that.
I say be just to God. Leave off these airs
Know your place⁠—speak to God⁠—and say, for once,
Go first, Lord! Take your finger off your eye!
It blocks the universe and God from sight.
Think ye your souls are worth nothing to God?
Are they so small? What can be great with God?
What will ye weigh against the Lord? Yourselves?
Bring out your balance: get in, man by man:
Add earth, heaven, hell, the universe; that’s all.
God puts his finger in the other scale,
And up we bounce, a bubble. Nought is great
Nor small with God⁠—for none but He can make
The atom indivisible, and none
But He can make a world: He counts the orbs,
He counts the atoms of the universe,
And makes both equal⁠—both are infinite.
Giving God honor, never underrate
Yourselves: after Him ye are everything
But mind! God’s more than everything; He is God.
And what of me? No, us? no! I mean the Devil?
Why see ye not he goes before both you
And God? Men say⁠—as proud as Lucifer⁠—
Pray who would not be proud with such a train?
Hath he not all the honor of the earth?
Why Mammon sits before a million hearths
Where God is bolted out from every house.
Well might He say He cometh as a thief;
For He will break your bars and burst your doors
Which slammed against Him once, and turn ye out
Roofless and shivering, ’neath the doom-storm; Heaven
Shall crack above ye like a bell in fire,
And bury all beneath its shining shards.
He calls: ye hear not. Lo! he comes⁠—ye see not.
No; ye are deaf as a dead adder’s ear:
No; ye are blind as never bat was blind,
With a burning bloodshot blindness of the heart;
A swimming, swollen senselessness of soul.
Listen! Whom love ye most? Why him to whom
Ye in your turn are dearest. Need I name?
Oh no! But all are devils to themselves;
And every man his own great foe. Hell gets
Only the gleanings; earth hath the full wain;
And hell is merry at its harvest home.
But ye are generous to sin and grudge
The gleaners nothing; ask them, push them in.
Let not an ear, a grain of sin be lost;
Gather it, grind it up; it is our bread:
We should be ashamed to waste the gifts of God.
Why is the world so mad? Why runs it thus
Having and howling round the universe?
Because the Devil bit it from the birth!
The fault is all with him. Fear nothing, friends!
It is fear which beds the far to-come with fire
As the sun does the west: but the sun sets;
Well; still ye tremble⁠—tremble, first at light,
Then darkness. Tremble! ye dare not believe.
No, cowards! sooner than believe ye would die;
Die with the black lie flapping on your lips
Like the soot-flake upon a burning bar.
Be merry, happy if ye can: think never
Of him who slays your souls, nor Him who saves.
There is, time enough for that when ye are a-dying.
Keep your old ways! It matters not this once.
Be brave! Ye are not men whom meat and wine
Serve to remind but of the sacrament;
To whom sweet shapes, and tantalizing smiles
Bring up the Devil and the ten commandments⁠—
And so on⁠—but I said the world must end.
I am sorry; it is such a pleasant world:
With all it faults it is perfect⁠—to a fault:
And you, of course, end with it. Now how long
Will the world take to die? I know ye place
Great faith upon death-bed repentances;
The saddener the better. I know ye often
Begin to think of praying and repenting;
But second thoughts come and ye are worse than ever;
As over new white snow a filthy thaw.
Ye do amaze me verily. How long
Will ye take heart on your own wickedness,
And God’s forbearance? Have ye cast it up?
Come now; the year and month, day, hour and minute,
Sin’s golden cycle. Do ye know how long
Exactly Heaven will grant ye? how long God⁠—
Who when he had slain the world and wasted it,
Hung up His bow in Heaven, as in his hall
A warrior after battle⁠—will yet bear
Tour contumely and scorn of His best gifts⁠—
Man’s mockery of man? But never mind!
Some of us are magnificently good,
And hold the head up high like a giraffe;
You, in particular, and you⁠—and you.
Good men are here and there, I know; but then⁠—
You must excuse me if I mention this⁠—
My duty is to tell it you⁠—the world,
Like a black block of marble, jagged with white,
As with a vein of lightning petrified,
Looks blacker than without such; looks in truth,
So gross the heathen, gross the Christian too⁠—
Like the original darkness of void space,
Hardened. Instead of justice, love and grace,
Each worth to man the mission of a God,
Injustice, hate, uncharitableness,
Triequal reign round earth, a Trinity of Hell.
Ye think ye never can be bad enough:
And as ye sink in sin, ye rise in hope.
And let the worst come to the worst, you say,
There always will be time to turn ourselves,
And cry for half an hour or so to God:
Salvation, sure, is not so very hard⁠—
It need not take one long; and half an hour
Is quite as much as we can spare for it.
We have no time for pleasures. Business! business!
No! ye she perish sudden and unsaved.
The priest shall, dipping, die. Can man save man?
Is water God? The counsellor, wise fool!
Drop down amid his quirks and sacred lies⁠—
The judge, while dooming unto death some wretch,
Shall meet at once his own death, doom, and judge.
The doctor, watch in hand, and patient’s pulse,
Shall feel his own heart cease its beats⁠—and fall:
Professors shall spin out, and students strain
Their brains no more; art, science, toil shall cease.
The world shall stand still with a rending jar,
As though it struck at sea. The halls where sit
The heads of nations shall be dumb with death.
The ship shall after her own plummet sink,
And sound the sea herself and depths, of death.
At the first turn Death shall cut off the thief,
And dash the gold bag in his yellow brain.
The gambler, reckoning gains, shall drop a piece;
Stoop down and there see death;⁠—look up, there God.
The wanton, temporizing with decay,
And qualifying every line which vice
Writes bluntly on the brow, inviting scorn,
Shall pale through plastered red: and the loose, low sot
See clear, for once, through his misty, o’erbrimmed eye.
The just, if there be any, die in prayer.
Death shall be every where among your marts,
And giving bills which no man may decline⁠—
Drafts upon Hell one moment after date.
Then shall your outcries tremble amid the stars:
Terrors shall be about ye like a wind:
And fears come down upon ye like a house.

Yon man looks frightened.

Then it is time to stop.
I hope I have done no good. He will soon forget
His soul. Flesh soaks it up as sponge does water.
Now wait! I will rub them backwards like a cat;
And you shall see them spit and sparkle up.
Let us suppose a case, friends! You are men;
And there is God! and I will be the Devil.
Very well. I am the Devil.

Says.

Nay, be not wroth. Ye would crucify the Devil,
I do believe, if he a moment vexed you.
I know well which ye choose: but choose again!
Time or eternity? Speak, Hell or Heaven?

He’s a mad ranter: down with him!⁠—

Let him be!

Stand by me, Festus, and I will by thee.
Why, God and man! this is the second time
That I have run for my life.

Nay, nay, come back!
They will not harm thee: they would chair thee round
The market-place, knew they but whom thou art.
Peace, there my friends! one minute; let us pray!
Grant us, oh God! that in thy holy love
The universal people of the world
May grow more great and happy every day;
Mightier, wiser, humbler, too, towards Thee.
And that all ranks, all classes, callings, states
Of life, so far as such seem right to Thee,
May mingle into one, like sister trees,
And so in one stem flourish:⁠—that all laws
And powers of government be based and used
In good and for the people’s sake;⁠—that each
May feel himself of consequence to all,
And act as though all saw him;⁠—that the whole,
The mass of every nation may so do
As is most worthy of the next to God;
For a whole people’s souls, each one worth more
Than a mere world of matter, make combined,
A something godlike⁠—something like to Thee.
We pray thee for the welfare of all men.
Let monarchs who love truth and freedom feel
The happiness of safety and respect
From those they rule, and guardianship from Thee.
Let them remember they are set on thrones
As representatives, not substitutes
Of nations, to implead with God and man.
Let tyrants who hate truth, or fear the free,
Know that to rule in slavery and error,
For the mere ends of personal pomp and power,
Is such a sin as doth deserve a hell
To itself sole. Let both remember, Lord!
They are but things like-natured with all nations;
That mountains issue out of plains, and not
Plains out of mountains, and so likewise kings
Are of the people, not the people of kings.
And let all feel, the rulers and the ruled,
All classes and all countries, that the world
Is Thy great halidom; that Thou art King,
Lord! only owner and possessor. Grant
That nations may now see, it is not kings,
Nor priests they need fear so much as themselves;
That if they keep but true to themselves, and free,
Sober, enlightened, godly⁠—mortal men
Become impassible as air, one great
And indestructible substance as the sea.
Let all on thrones and judgment-seats reflect
How dreadful Thy revenge through nations is
On those who wrong them; but do Thou grant, Lord!
That when wrongs are to be redressed, such may
Be done with mildness, speed, and firmness, not
With violence or hate, whereby one wrong
Translates another⁠—both to Thee abhorrent.
The bells of time are ringing changes fast.
Grant, Lord! that each fresh peal may usher in
An era of advancement, that each change
Prove an effectual, lasting, happy gain.
And we beseech Thee, overrule, oh God!
All civil contests to the good of all;
All party and religious difference
To honourable ends, whether secured
Or lost; and let all strife, political
Or social, spring from conscientious aims,
And have a generous self-ennobling end,
Man’s good and Thine own glory in view always!
The best may then fail and the worst succeed
Alike with honour. We beseech Thee, Lord!
For bodily strength, but more especially
For the soul’s health and safety. We entreat Thee
In thy great mercy to decrease our wants,
And add autumnal increase to the comforts
Which tend to keep men innocent, and load
Their hearts with thanks to Thee as trees in bearing:⁠—
The blessings of friends, families, and homes,
And kindnesses of kindred. And we pray
That men may rule themselves in faith in God,
In charity to each other, and in hope
Of their own souls’ salvation:⁠—that the mass,
The millions in all nations may be trained,
From their youth upwards, in a nobler mode,
To loftier and more liberal ends. We pray
Above all things, Lord! that all men be free
From bondage, whether of the mind or body;⁠—
The bondage of religious bigotry,
And bald antiquity, servility
Of thought or speech to rank and power; be all
Free as they ought to be in mind and soul
As well as by state-birthright;⁠—and that Mind,
Time’s giant pupil, may right soon attain
Majority, and speak and act for himself!
Incline Thou to our prayers, and grant, oh Lord!
That all may have enough, and some safe mean
Of worldly goods and honours, by degrees,
Take place, if practicable, in the fitness
And fullness of Thy time. And we beseech Thee,
That Truth no more be gagged, nor conscience dungeoned,
Nor science be impeached of godlessness,
Nor faith be circumscribed, which as to Thee,
And the soul’s self affairs is infinite;
But that all men may have due liberty
To speak an honest mind, in every land,
Encouragement to study, leave to act
As conscience orders. We entreat Thee, Lord!
For Thy Son’s sake to take away reproach
Of all kinds from Thy church, and all temptation
Of pomp or power political, that none
May err in the end for which they were appointed
To any of its orders, low or high;
And no ambition, of a worldly cast,
Leaven the love of souls unto whose care
They feel propelled by Thy most holy spirit.
Be every church established, Lord! in truth.
Let all who preach the word, live by the word,
In moderate estate; and in Thy church⁠—
One, universal, and invisible
World-wards, yet manifest unto itself,
May it seem good, dear Saviour, in Thy sight,
That orders be distinguished, not by wealth,
But piety and power of teaching souls.
Equalise labour, Lord! and recompence.
Let not a hundred humble pastors starve,
In this or any land of Christendom,
While one or two, impalaced, mitred, throned
And banqueted, burlesque if not blaspheme
The holy penury of the Son of God;
The fastings, the footwanderings, and the preachings
Of Christ and His first followers. Oh that the Son
Might come again! There should be no more war,
No more want, no more sickness; with a touch,
He should cure all disease, and with a word,
All sin; and with a look to Heaven, a prayer,
Provide bread for a million at a time.
But till that perfect advent grant us, Lord!
That all good institutions, orders, claims,
Charitably proposed, or in the aid
Of Thy divine foundation, may much prosper,
And more of them be raised and nobly filled;⁠—
That Thy word may be taught throughout all lands,
And save souls daily to the thrones of Heaven!⁠—
And we entreat Thee, that all men whom Thou
Hast gifted with great minds may love Thee well,
And praise Thee for their powers, and use them most
Humbly and holily, and, lever-like,
Act but in lifting up the mass of mind
About them; knowing well that they shall be
Questioned by Thee of deeds the pen hath done,
Or caused, or glozed; inspire them with delight
And power to treat of noble themes and things,
Worthily, and to leave the low and mean⁠—
Things born of vice or day-lived fashion, in
Their naked native folly:⁠—make them know
Fine thoughts are wealth, for the right use of which
Men are and ought to be accountable⁠—
If not to Thee, to those they influence:
Grant this we pray Thee, and that all who read,
Or utter noble thoughts, may make them theirs,
And thank God for them, to the betterment
Of their succeeding life;⁠—that all who lead
The general sense and taste, too apt, perchance,
To be led, keep in mind the mighty good
They may achieve, and are in conscience, bound,
And duty, to attempt unceasingly
To compass. Grant us, All-maintaining Sire!
That all the great mechanic aids to toil
Man’s skill hath formed, found, rendered⁠—whether used
In multiplying works of mind, or aught
To obviate the thousand wants of life,
May much avail to human welfare now
And in all ages, henceforth and for ever!
Let their effect be, Lord! to lighten labour,
And give more room to mind, and leave the poor
Some time for self-improvement. Let them not
Be forced to grind the bones out of their arms
For bread, but have some space to think and feel
Like moral and immortal creatures. God!
Have mercy on them till such time shall come;
Look Thou with pity on all lesser crimes,
Thrust on men almost when devoured by want,
Wretchedness, ignorance and outcast life!
Have mercy on the rich, too, who pass by
The means they have at hand to fill their minds
With serviceable knowledge for themselves,
And fellows, and support not the good cause
Of the world’s better future! Oh, reward
All such who do, with peace of heart and power
For greater good. Have mercy, Lord! on each
And all, for all men need it equally.
May peace and industry and commerce weld
Into one land all nations of the world,
Rewedding those the Deluge once divorced.
Oh! may all help each other in good things,
Mentally, morally, and bodily!
Vouchsafe, kind God! Thy blessing to this isle,
Specially! May our country ever lead
The world, for she is worthiest; and may all
Profit by her example, and adopt
Her course, wherever great, or free, or just.
May all her subject colonies and powers
Have of her freedom freely, as a child
Receiveth of its parents. Let not rights
Be wrested from us to our own reproach,
But granted. We may make the whole world free,
And be as free ourselves as ever, more!
If policy or self-defence call forth
Our forces to the field, let us in Thee
Place, first, our trust, and in Thy name we shall
O’ercome, for we will only wage the right.
Let us not conquer nations for ourselves,
But for Thee, Lord! who hast predestined us
To fight the battles of the future now,
And so have done with war before Thou comest.
Till then, Lord God of armies, let our foes
Have their swords broken and their cannon burst,
And their strong cities levelled; and while we
War faithfully and righteously, improve,
Civilize, christianize the lands we win
From savage or from nature, Thou, oh God!
Wilt aid and hallow conquest, as of old,
Thine own immediate nation’s. But we pray
That all mankind may make one brotherhood,
And love and serve each other; that all wars
And feuds die out of nations, whether those
Whom the sun’s hot light darkens, or ourselves
Whom he treats fairly, or the northern tribes
Whom ceaseless snows and starry winters blench,
Savage or civilized⁠—let every race,
Bed, black or white, olive, or tawny-skinned,
Settle in peace and swell the gathering hosts
Of the great Prince of Peace! Oh! may the hour
Soon come when all false gods, false creeds, false prophets⁠—
Allowed in Thy good purpose for a time⁠—
Demolished, the great world shall be at last,
The mercy-seat of God, the heritage
Of Christ, and the possession of the Spirit,
The comforter, the wisdom! shall all be
One land, one home, one friend, one faith, one law,
Its ruler God, its practice righteousness,
Its life peace! For the one true faith we pray
There is but one in Heaven and there shall be
But one on earth, the same which is in Heaven.
Prophecy is more true than history.
Grant us our prayers, we pray, Lord! in the name
And for the sake of Thy Son Jesus Christ,
Our Saviour and Redeemer, who with Thee,
And with the Holy Spirit, reigneth God
Over all worlds, one blessed Trinity!⁠⸺⁠

Amen!

Well, friends, we’ll sing a hymn; then part.
I give it out, and you sing⁠—all of you.

Oh! Earth is cheating Earth
From age to age for ever;
She laughs at faith and worth,
And dreams she shall die never;
Never, never, never!
And dreams she shall die never.

And Hell is cursing Hell
From age to age for ever;
Its groans ring out the knell
Of souls that may die never;
Never, never, never!
Of souls that may die never.

But Heaven is blessing Heaven
From age to age for ever;
And its thanks to Qod are given
For bliss that can die never;
Never, never, never!
For bliss that can die never.

My blessing be upon ye all; now go!

I wonder what these people make of thee.

Ay, manner’s a great matter.

They deserve
All the rebuke thou gavest them and more.
What mountains of delusion men have reared!
How every age hath bustled on to build
Its shadowy mole⁠—its monumental dream!
How faith and faney, in the mind of man,
Have spuriously mingled, and how much
Shall pass away for aye, as pass before
Yon son, the Lord of steadfastness and change,
The visionary landscapes of the skies;⁠—
The golden capes far stretching into Heaven,
The snow-piled cloud-crags, the bright winged isles
Which dot the deep, impassive, ocean air
Like a disbanded rainbow, of all hues,
Fit for translated fairy’s Paradise;⁠—
Or as before the eye of musing child,
The faces Fancy forms in clouds and fire
Of glowing angel or of darkening fiend.
Arts, superstition, arms, philosophy,
Have each in turn possessed, betrayed, and mocked us,
Yes, vain philosophy, thine hour is come!
Thy lips were lined with the immortal lie,
And dyed with all the look of truth. Men saw,
Believed, embraced, detested, cast thee off.
Those lights, the morn of Truth’s immortal day,
As thou didst falsely swear them, have they not
Vanished, the mere auroras of the mind?
And thou didst vow to gather clear again
The fallen waters of humanity;
To smooth the flaw from out an eye; to piece
A pounded pearl. Thank God! I am a man;
Not a philosopher! Rivers may rot,
Never revive the root of oak firebolted.
Come, let us to the hills! where none but God
Can overlook us; for I hate to breathe
The breaths and think the thoughts of other men,
In close and clouded cities, where the sky
Frowns like an angry Father mournfully.
I love the hills and I love loneliness.
And oh! I love the woods, those natural fanes
Whose very air is holy; and we breathe
Of God; for He doth come in special place,
And, while we worship, He is there for us!

It is time that something should be done for the poor.
The sole equality on earth is death;
Now, rich and poor are both dissatisfied.
I am for judgment: that will settle both.
Nothing is to be done without destruction.
Death is the universal salt of states;
Blood is tbe base of all things⁠—law and war,
I could tame this lion age to follow me.
I should like to macadamize the world;
The road to Hell wants mending.

Come away!

Wilt ride?

I’ll have an hour’s ride.

Be mine the steeds! be me the guide!
Come hither, come hither,
My brave black steed!
And thou, too, his fellow,
Hither with speed!
Though not so fleet
As the steeds of Death,
Your feet are as sure,
Ye have longer breath.
Ye have drawn the world
Without wind or bait,
Six thousand years,
And it waxeth late;
So take me this once,
And again to my home,
And rest ye and feast ye.
They come, they come.

Tossing their manes like
Pitchy surge; and lashing
Their tails into a
Tempest; their eyes flashing,
Like shooting thunderbolts.

Come, know your masters, colts!
Up, and away!

Hurrah! hurrah!
The noblest pace the world e’er saw.
I swear by Heaven we’ll beat the sun,
In the longest heat that ever was run;
If we keep it up as we have begun.

I told thee my steeds
Were a gallant pair.

And they were not thine,
They might be divine.

Thine is named Ruin;
And Darkness mine.

Like all of thy deeds
Now that’s unfair.

A civiller and gentler beast
Thou hast never crossed at least.
Now, look around!

Why, this is France.
Nature is here like a living romance.
Look at its vines and streams and skies,
Its glancing feet and dancing eye!

’Tis a strange nation, light yet strong;
Fierce of heart and blithe of tongue;
Prone to change; so fond of blood
She wounds herself to quaff her own.

Oh! it’s a brave and lovely land;
And well deserving every good
Which others wish themselves alone,
Could she but herself command.

On! on! no more delay!
Or we’ll not ride round
The world all day.

Good horse, get off the ground!

Sit firm! and if our horses please,
We will take at once the Pyrenees.
’Twas bravely leapt!

Ay, this is Spain:
Europe’s last land
’Twill e’er remain;
Last in the progress of the earth;
The last in liberty;
The last in wealth and worth;
The last in bigotry.

Turn thy steed, and slacken rein;
Quick! we must be back again:
O’er the vale hid in the mountain,
O’er the merry forest fountain;
Ruin and Darkness! we must fly
O’er crag and rift,
Swift⁠—swift⁠—swift
As the glance of an eye.

That is Italy⁠—the grave
And resurrection of the slave.

And there lies Greece, whose soul
Men say hath fled.

Perhaps some God may come,
And raise the dead.

Norward now we’ll hold our course.
Thine I think is the bolder horse;
But bear him up with a harder hand!
Bough riding this o’er Swisserland.

So all have found it who have tried;
High as their Alps the people’s pride,
Never to have bowed before
The tyrant or the conqueror.

Away, away! before thee lie
The fields and floods of Germany.

Well I love thee, Father-land!
Sire of Europe, as thou art!
Be free! and crouch no more, but stand!
Thy noblest son will take thy part.
Oh! sooner let the mountains bend
Beneath the clouds, when tempests lour,
Than nations stoop their sky compeering heads
In homage to some petty despot’s power!
The worm which suffers mincing into parts,
May sprout forth heads and tails, but grows no hearts.

There lies Austria! Famous land
For fiddlesticks and sword-in-hand.

And Poland, whom truly unhappy we call.
Unworthy to rise⁠—unwilling to fall.
Forge into swords thy feudal chain!
Smite e’en the souls of foes in twain!
The fetters have been bound in vain
Round England’s arms: and we are free
As the souls of our sires in Heaven which be.
That earth should have so few
Men, Fathers, like to you!

What matter who be free or slaves;
For all there is one tyranny, the grave’s;
Or freedom, may be. On! on! haste!

What land is yonder wide, white waste?

Ha! ’tis Russia’s gentle realm:
Whose sceptre is the sword⁠—whose crown, the helm.

I swear by every atom which exists,
I better love this reckless ride
O’er hill and forest, lake and river wide;
O’er sunlit plain and through the mountain mists,
Than aught which thou hast given beside.

See what a long long track
Of dust and fire behind,
For miles and mile aback!
And shrill and strong,
As we shoot along,
Whistles and whirrs,
Like a forest of firs
Falling, the cold north wind.

Look! my way I can only read
By the sparks from the hoof of my giant steed.

Where art thou now?

In Tartar land;
I know by the deserts of salt and sand.
Nor aim nor end hath a wandering life:
Rest reaps but rest, and strife but strife.
With the nations round
They ne’er have mixed;
For good or ill
They stand all still;
Their bodies but rove,
Their minds are fixed.
And yonder lies old China’s wall,
Where gods of gold do men enthral;
Gods whose gold’s their only worth.

Well, is not gold the god of earth?
Now southward, hey! for Hindostan!
The sun beats down both beast and man.
Insect and herb for life do gasp;
The river reeks and faints the asp.

But blithe are we,
And our steeds, I trow;
And the mane of mine
Yet bears the snow
Which fell on us
By Caucasus.
By the four beasts! but this is warm.

Away! away!
Nor stint nor stay;
We’ll reach the sea before yon storm.

Wilt take the sea?

Ay, that will we!
And swim as we ride,
Our steeds astride;
Come leap, leap off with me!

What? shall we leap
Sheer off this steep,
A mile the sea above?

Leap as to save
From worse than a grave
The maid thou most dost love!

There is a rapture in the headlong leap,
The wedgelike cleaving of the closing deep!
A feeling full of hardihood and power
With which we court the waters that devour.
Oh! ’tis a feeling great, sublime, supreme,
Like the extatic influence of a dream,
To speed one’s way thus o’er the sliding plain;
And make a kindred being with the main.

By Chaos! this is gallant sport;
A league at every breath;
Methinks if I ever have to die,
I’ll ride this rate to death.

Away, away upon the whitening tide,
Like lover hastening to embrace his bride,
We hurry faster than the foam we ride.
Dashing aside the waves which round us cling,
With strength like that which lifts an eagle’s wing
Where the stars dazzle and the angels sing.

We scatter the spray,
And break through the billows,
As the wind makes way
Through the leaves of willows!

In vain they urge their armies to the fight:
Their surge-crests crumble ’neath our stroke of might.
We meet and fear not; mount⁠—now rise, now fall⁠—
And dare, with full-nerved arm, the rage of all.
Through anger-swollen wave or sparkling spray,
Nothing it recks; we hold our perilous way
Right onward! till we feel the whirling brain
Ring with the maddening music of the main;
Till the fixed eyeball strives and strains to ken,
Yet loathes to see the shore and haunts of men;
And the blood, half starting through each ridgy vein,
In the unwieldy hand sets black with pain.
Then let the tempest cloud on cloud come spread,
And tear the stormy terrors of his head;
Let the wild sea-bird wheel around my brow,
And shriek⁠—and swoop⁠—and flap her wing as now!
It gladdens! on! ye boisterous billows, roll!
And keep my body; ye have ta’en my soul.
Thou element! the type which God hath given,
For eyes and hearts too earthy, of His Heaven!
Were Heaven a mockery, I would never mourn
While o’er thy bosom I might still be borne;
While yet to me the power and joy was given
To fling my breast on thine, and mingle earth with Heaven.

See yonder! now we quit the main;
For here’s the Cape, here’s land again⁠—
And scour we must o’er Afric’s plain.

Away, away! on either hand
Nor town nor tower,
Nor shade nor shower⁠—
Nothing but sun and sand.

See, there they are! I knew, right soon,
We would light on the mountains of the moon.
Over them! over, nought forbids!

Yonder the Nile and the Pyramids?
Hurrah! by my soul!
At every bound
I see, I feel
The earth rash round.
I see the mountains slide away⁠—
That side night and this side day.