SCENE XIV._Poems of Arthur Hugh Clough

_Adam’s Vision._

_Adam._ O Cain, the words of Adam shall be said;

Come near and hear your father’s words, my son.

I have been in the spirit, as they call it,

Dreaming, which is, as others say, the same.

I sat, and you, Cain, with me, and Eve

(We sat as in a picture people sit,

Great figures, silent, with their place content);

And Abel came and took your hand, my son,

And wept and kissed you, saying, ‘Forgive me, Cain

Ah me! my brother, sad has been thy life

For my sake, all thro’ me; how foolishly,

Because we knew not both of us were right;’

And you embraced and wept, and we too wept.

Then I beheld through eyes with tears suffused,

And deemed at first ’twas blindness thence ensuing;

Abel was gone, and you were gone, my son—

Gone, and yet not gone; yea, I seemed to see

The decomposing of those coloured lines

Which we called you, their fusion into one,

And therewithal their vanishing and end.

And Eve said to me, ‘Adam, in the day

When in the inexistent void I heard God’s voice,

An awful whisper, bidding me to be,

How slow was I to come, how loth to obey;

As slow, as sad, as lingeringly loth,

I fade, I vanish, sink, and cease to be,

By the same sovereign strong compulsion borne:

Ah, if I vanish, take me into thee!’

She spoke, nor, speaking, ceased I listening; but

I was alone, yet not alone, with her

And she with me, and you with us, my sons,

As at the first;—and yet not wholly—yea,

And that which I had witnessed thus in you,

This fusion, and mutation, and return,

Seemed in my substance working too. I slept,

I did not dream, my sleep was sweet to me.

Yes, in despite of all disquietudes,

For Eve, for you, for Abel, which indeed

Impelled in me that gaiety of soul—

Without your fears I had listened to my own—

In spite of doubt, despondency, and death,

Though lacking knowledge alway, lacking faith

Sometimes, and hope; with no sure trust in ought

Except a kind of impetus within,

Whose sole credentials were that trust itself;

Yet, in despite of much, in lack of more,

Life has been beautiful to me, my son,

And I, if I am called, will come again.

As he hath lived he dies.—My comforter,

Whom I believed not, only trusted in,

What had I been without thee? how survived?

Would I were with thee wheresoe’er thou art!

Would I might follow thee still!

But sleep is sweet, and I would sleep, my son.

Oh Cain! behold your father’s words are said!

_THE SONG OF LAMECH._

Hearken to me, ye mothers of my tent:

Ye wives of Lamech, hearken to my speech:

Adah, let Jubal hither lead his goats:

And Tubal Cain, O Zillah, hush the forge;

Naamah her wheel shall ply beside, and thou,

My Jubal, touch, before I speak, the string.

Yea, Jubal, touch, before I speak, the string.

Hear ye my voice, beloved of my tent,

Dear ones of Lamech, listen to my speech.

For Eve made answer, Cain, my son, my own,

O, if I cursed thee, O my child, I sinned,

And He that heard me, heard, and said me nay:

My first, my only one, thou shalt not go;—

And Adam answered also, Cain, my son,

He that is gone forgiveth, we forgive:

Rob not thy mother of two sons at once;

My child, abide with us and comfort us.

Hear ye my voice; Adah and Zillah, near;

Ye wives of Lamech, listen to my speech.

For Cain replied not. But, an hour more, sat

Where the night through he sat; his knit brows seen,

Scarce seen, amid the foldings of his limbs.

But when the sun was bright upon the field,

To Adam still, and Eve still waiting by,

And weeping, lift he up his voice and spake

Cain said, The sun is risen upon the earth;

The day demands my going, and I go.—

As you from Paradise, so I from you:

As you to exile, into exile I:

My father and my mother, I depart.

As betwixt you and Paradise of old,

So betwixt me, my parents, now, and you,

Cherubim I discern, and in their hand

A flaming sword that turneth every way,

To keep the way of my one tree of life,

The way my spirit yearns to, of my love.

Yet not, O Adam and O Eve, fear not.

For He that asked me, Where is Abel? He

Who called me cursed from the earth, and said

A fugitive and vagabond thou art,

He also said, when fear had slain my soul,

There shall not touch thee man nor beast. Fear not.

Lo, I have spoke with God, and He hath said.

Fear not;—and let me go as He hath said.

Cain also said (O Jubal, touch thy string),—

Moreover, in the darkness of my mind,

When the night’s night of misery was most black,

A little star came twinkling up within,

And in myself I had a guide that led,

And in myself had knowledge of a soul.

Fear not, O Adam and O Eve: I go.

Children of Lamech, listen to my speech.

For when the years were multiplied, and Cain

Eastward of Eden, in this land of Nod,

Had sons, and sons of sons, and sons of them,

Enoch and Irad and Mehujael

(My father, and my children’s grandsire he),

It came to pass, that Cain, who dwelt alone,

Met Adam, at the nightfall, in the field:

Who fell upon his neck, and wept, and said,

My son, has not God spoken to thee, Cain?

And Cain replied, when weeping loosed his voice,

My dreams are double, O my father, good

And evil. Terror to my soul by night,

And agony by day, when Abel stands

A dead, black shade, and speaks not, neither looks,

Nor makes me any answer when I cry—

Curse me, but let me know thou art alive.

But comfort also, like a whisper, comes,

In visions of a deeper sleep, when he,

Abel, as him we knew, yours once and mine,

Comes with a free forgiveness in his face,

Seeming to speak, solicitous for words,

And wearing ere he go the old, first look

Of unsuspecting, unforeboding love.

Three nights are gone I saw him thus, my Sire.

Dear ones of Lamech, listen to my speech.

For Adam said, Three nights ago to me

Came Abel, in my sleep, as thou hast said,

And spake, and bade,—Arise my father, go

Where in the land of exile dwells thy son;

Say to my brother, Abel bids thee come,

Abel would have thee; and lay thou thy hand,

My father, on his head, that he may come;

Am I not weary, father, for this hour?

Hear ye my voice, Adah and Zillah, hear;

Children of Lamech, listen to my speech:

And, son of Zillah, sound thy solemn string.

For Adam laid upon the head of Cain

His hand, and Cain bowed down, and slept, and died.

And a deep sleep on Adam also fell,

And, in his slumber’s deepest, he beheld,

Standing before the gate of Paradise,

With Abel, hand in hand, our father Cain.

Hear ye my voice, Adah and Zillah, hear;

Ye wives of Lamech, listen to my speech.

Though to his wounding he did slay a man,

Yea, and a young man to his hurt he slew,

Fear not, ye wives, nor sons of Lamech fear:

If unto Cain was safety given and rest,

Shall Lamech surely and his people die?

_GENESIS XXIV._

Who is this man

that walketh in the field,

O Eleazar,

steward to my lord?

And Eleazar

answered her and said,

Daughter of Bethuel,

it is other none

But my lord Isaac,

son unto my lord,

Who, as his wont is,

walketh in the field,

In the hour of evening,

meditating there.

Therefore Rebekah

hasted where she sat,

And from her camel

’lighting to the earth,

Sought for a veil

and put it on her face,

But Isaac also,

walking in the field,

Saw from afar

a company that came,

Camels, and a seat

as where a woman sat;

Wherefore he came

and met them on the way.

Whom, when Rebekah

saw, she came before,

Saying, Behold

the handmaid of my lord,

Who, for my lord’s sake,

travel from my land.

But he said, O

thou blessed of our God,

Come, for the tent

is eager for thy face.

Shall not thy husband

be unto thee more than

Hundreds of kinsmen

living in thy land?

And Eleazar answered,

Thus and thus,

Even according

as thy father bade,

Did we; and thus and

thus it came to pass:

Lo! is not this

Rebekah, Bethuel’s child?

And, as he ended,

Isaac spoke and said,

Surely my heart

went with you on the way,

When with the beasts

ye came unto the place.

Truly, O child

of Nahor, I was there,

When to thy mother

and thy mother’s son

Thou madest answer,

saying, I will go.

And Isaac brought her

to his mother’s tent.

_JACOB._

My sons, and ye the children of my sons,

Jacob your father goes upon his way,

His pilgrimage is being accomplished.

Come near and hear him ere his words are o’er.

Not as my father’s or his father’s days,

As Isaac’s days or Abraham’s, have been mine;

Not as the days of those that in the field

Walked at the eventide to meditate,

And haply, to the tent returning, found

Angels at nightfall waiting at their door.

They communed, Israel wrestled with the Lord.

No, not as Abraham’s or as Isaac’s days,

My sons, have been Jacob your father’s days,

Evil and few, attaining not to theirs

In number, and in worth inferior much.

As a man with his friend, walked they with God,

In His abiding presence they abode,

And all their acts were open to His face.

But I have had to force mine eyes away,

To lose, almost to shun, the thoughts I loved,

To bend down to the work, to bare the breast,

And struggle, feet and hands, with enemies;

To buffet and to battle with hard men,

With men of selfishness and violence;

To watch by day, and calculate by night,

To plot and think of plots, and through a land

Ambushed with guile, and with strong foes beset,

To win with art safe wisdom’s peaceful way.

Alas! I know, and from the onset knew,

The first-born faith, the singleness of soul,

The antique pure simplicity with which

God and good angels communed undispleased,

Is not; it shall not any more be said,

That of a blameless and a holy kind,

The chosen race, the seed of promise, comes.

The royal, high prerogatives, the dower

Of innocence and perfectness of life,

Pass not unto my children from their sire,

As unto me they came of mine; they fit

Neither to Jacob nor to Jacob’s race.

Think ye, my sons, in this extreme old age

And in this failing breath, that I forget

How on the day when from my father’s door,

In bitterness and ruefulness of heart,

I from my parents set my face, and felt

I never more again should look on theirs,

How on that day I seemed unto myself

Another Adam from his home cast out,

And driven abroad unto a barren land,

Cursed for his sake, and mocking still with thorns

And briers that labour and that sweat of brow

He still must spend to live? Sick of my days,

I wished not life, but cried out, Let me die;

But at Luz God came to me; in my heart

He put a better mind, and showed me how,

While we discern it not, and least believe,

On stairs invisible betwixt His heaven

And our unholy, sinful, toilsome earth

Celestial messengers of loftiest good

Upward and downward pass continually.

Many, since I upon the field of Luz

Set up the stone I slept on, unto God,

Many have been the troubles of my life;

Sins in the field and sorrows in the tent,

In mine own household anguish and despair,

And gall and wormwood mingled with my love.

The time would fail me should I seek to tell

Of a child wronged and cruelly revenged

(Accursed was that anger, it was fierce,

That wrath, for it was cruel); or of strife

And jealousy and cowardice, with lies

Mocking a father’s misery; deeds of blood,

Pollutions, sicknesses, and sudden deaths.

These many things against me many times,

The ploughers have ploughed deep upon my back,

And made deep furrows; blessed be His name

Who hath delivered Jacob out of all,

And left within his spirit hope of good.

Come near to me, my sons: your father goes,

The hour of his departure draweth nigh.

Ah me! this eager rivalry of life,

This cruel conflict for pre-eminence,

This keen supplanting of the dearest kin,

Quick seizure and fast unrelaxing hold

Of vantage-place; the stony hard resolve,

The chase, the competition, and the craft

Which seems to be the poison of our life,

And yet is the condition of our life!

To have done things on which the eye with shame

Looks back, the closed hand clutching still the prize!—

Alas! what of all these things shall I say?

Take me away unto Thy sleep, O God!

I thank Thee it is over, yet I think

It was a work appointed me of Thee.

How is it? I have striven all my days

To do my duty to my house and hearth,

And to the purpose of my father’s race,

Yet is my heart therewith not satisfied.

_JACOB’S WIVES._

These are the words of Jacob’s wives, the words

Which Leah spake and Rachel to his ears,

When, in the shade at eventide, he sat

By the tent door, a palm-tree overhead,

A spring beside him, and the sheep around.

And Rachel spake and said, The nightfall comes—

Night, which all day I wait for, and for thee.

And Leah also spake, The day is done;

My lord with toil is weary and would rest.

And Rachel said, Come, O my Jacob, come;

And we will think we sit beside the well,

As in that day, the long long years agone,

When first I met thee with my father’s flock.

And Leah said, Come, Israel, unto me;

And thou shalt reap an harvest of fair sons,

E’en as before I bare thee goodly babes;

For when was Leah fruitless to my lord?

And Rachel said, Ah come! as then thou cam’st,

Come once again to set thy seal of love;

As then, down bending, when the sheep had drunk,

Then settedst it, my shepherd—O sweet seal!—

Upon the unwitting, half-foretasting lips,

Which, shy and trembling, thirsted yet for thine

As cattle thirsted never for the spring.

And Leah answered, Are not these their names—

As Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah—four?

Like four young saplings by the water’s brim,

Where straining rivers through the great plain wind—

Four saplings soon to rise to goodly trees—

Four trees whose growth shall cast an huger shade

Than ever yet on river-side was seen.

And Rachel said, And shall it be again

As, when dissevered far, unheard, alone,

Consumed in bitter anger all night long,

I moaned and wept, while, silent and discreet,

One reaped the fruit of love that Rachel’s was

Upon the breast of him that knew her not?

And Leah said, And was it then a wrong

That, in submission to a father’s word,

Trembling yet hopeful, to that bond I crept,

Which God hath greatly prospered, and my lord,

Content, in after-wisdom not disowned,

Joyful, in after-thankfulness approved?

And Rachel said, But we will not complain,

Though all life long, an alien, unsought third,

She trouble our companionship of love.

And Leah answered, No, complain we not,

Though years on years she loiter in the tent,

A fretful, vain, unprofitable wife.

And Rachel answered, Ah! she little knows

What in old days to Jacob Rachel was.

And Leah said, And wilt thou dare to say,

Because my lord was gracious to thee then,

No deeper thought his riper cares hath claimed,

No stronger purpose passed into his life?

That, youth and maid once fondly, softly touched,

Time’s years must still the casual dream repeat,

And all the river far, from source to sea,

One flitting moment’s chance reflection bear?

Also she added, Who is she to judge

Of thoughts maternal, and a father’s heart?

And Rachel said, But what to supersede

The rights which choice bestowed hath Leah done?

What which my handmaid or which hers hath not?

Is Simeon more than Naphtali? is Dan

Less than his brother Levi in the house?

That part that Billah and that Zilpah have,

That, and no more, hath Leah in her lord;

And let her with the same be satisfied.

Leah asked then, And shall these things compare

(Fond wishes, and the pastime, and the play)

With serious aims and forward-working hopes—

Aims as far-reaching as to earth’s last age,

And hopes far-travelling as from east to west?

Rachel replied, That love which in his youth,

Through trial proved, consoles his perfect age;

Shall this with project and with plan compare?

Is not for-ever shorter than all time,

And love more straitened than from east to west?

Leah spake further, Hath my lord not told

How, in the visions of the night, his God,

The God of Abraham and of Isaac, spake

And said, Increase, and multiply, and fill

With sons to serve Me this thy land and mine;

And I will surely do thee good, and make

Thy seed as is the sand beside the sea,

Which is not numbered for its multitude?

Shall Rachel bear this progeny to God?

But Rachel wept and answered, And if God

Hath closed the womb of Rachel until now,

Shall He not at His pleasure open it?

Hath Leah read the counsels of the Lord?

Was it not told her, in the ancient days,

How Sarah, mother of great Israel’s sire,

Lived to long years, insulted of her slave,

Or e’er to light the Child of Promise came,

Whom Rachel too to Jacob yet may bear?

Moreover, Rachel said, Shall Leah mock,

Who stole the prime embraces of my love,

My first long-destined, long-withheld caress?

But not, she said, methought, but not for this,

In the old days, did Jacob seek his bride;—

Where art thou now, O thou that sought’st me then?

Where is thy loving tenderness of old?

And where that fervency of faith to which

Seven weary years were even as a few days?

And Rachel wept and ended, Ah, my life!

Though Leah bare thee sons on sons, methought

The child of love, late-born, were worth them all.

And Leah groaned and answered, It is well:

She that hath kept from me my husband’s heart

Will set their father’s soul against my sons.

Yet, also, not, she said, I thought, for this,

Not for the feverish nor the doating love,

Doth Israel, father of a nation, seek;

Nor to light dalliance, as of boy and girl,

Incline the thoughts of matron and of man,

Or lapse the wisdom of maturer mind.

And Leah ended, Father of my sons,

Come, thou shalt dream of Rachel if thou wilt,

So Leah fold thee in a wife’s embrace.

These are the words of Jacob’s wives, who sat

In the tent door, and listened to their speech,

The spring beside him, and above the palm,

While all the sheep were gathered for the night.

_THE NEW SINAI._

Lo, here is God, and there is God!

Believe it not, O Man;

In such vain sort to this and that

The ancient heathen ran:

Though old Religion shake her head,

And say in bitter grief,

The day behold, at first foretold,

Of atheist unbelief:

Take better part, with manly heart,

Thine adult spirit can;

Receive it not, believe it not,

Believe it not, O Man!

As men at dead of night awaked

With cries, ‘The king is here,’

Rush forth and greet whome’er they meet,

Whoe’er shall first appear;

And still repeat, to all the street,

‘’Tis he,—the king is here;’

The long procession moveth on,

Each nobler form they see,

With changeful suit they still salute

And cry, ‘’Tis he, ’tis he!’

So, even so, when men were young,

And earth and heaven were new,

And His immediate presence He

From human hearts withdrew,

The soul perplexed and daily vexed

With sensuous False and True,

Amazed, bereaved, no less believed,

And fain would see Him too:

‘He is!’ the prophet-tongues proclaimed;

In joy and hasty fear,

‘He is!’ aloud replied the crowd,

‘Is here, and here, and here.’

‘He is! They are!’ in distance seen

On yon Olympus high,

In those Avernian woods abide,

And walk this azure sky:

‘They are! They are!’—to every show

Its eyes the baby turned,

And blazes sacrificial, tall,

On thousand altars burned:

‘They are! They are!’—On Sinai’s top

Far seen the lightnings shone,

The thunder broke, a trumpet spoke,

And God said, ‘I am One.’

God spake it out, ‘I, God, am One;’

The unheeding ages ran,

And baby-thoughts again, again,

Have dogged the growing man:

And as of old from Sinai’s top

God said that God is One,

By Science strict so speaks He now

To tell us, There is None!

Earth goes by chemic forces; Heaven’s

A Mécanique Céleste!

And heart and mind of human kind

A watch-work as the rest!

Is this a Voice, as was the Voice,

Whose speaking told abroad,

When thunder pealed, and mountain reeled,

The ancient truth of God?

Ah, not the Voice; ’tis but the cloud,

The outer darkness dense,

Where image none, nor e’er was seen

Similitude of sense.

’Tis but the cloudy darkness dense

That wrapt the Mount around;

While in amaze the people stays,

To hear the Coming Sound.

Is there no prophet-soul the while

To dare, sublimely meek,

Within the shroud of blackest cloud

The Deity to seek?

’Midst atheistic systems dark,

And darker hearts’ despair,

That soul has heard perchance His word,

And on the dusky air

His skirts, as passed He by, to see

Hath strained on their behalf,

Who on the plain, with dance amain,

Adore the Golden Calf.

’Tis but the cloudy darkness dense;

Though blank the tale it tells,

No God, no Truth! yet He, in sooth,

Is there—within it dwells;

Within the sceptic darkness deep

He dwells that none may see,

Till idol forms and idol thoughts

Have passed and ceased to be:

No God, no Truth! ah though, in sooth

So stand the doctrine’s half:

On Egypt’s track return not back,

Nor own the Golden Calf.

Take better part, with manlier heart,

Thine adult spirit can;

No God, no Truth, receive it ne’er—

Believe it ne’er—O Man!

But turn not then to seek again

What first the ill began;

No God, it saith; ah, wait in faith

God’s self-completing plan;

Receive it not, but leave it not,

And wait it out, O Man!

‘The Man that went the cloud within

Is gone and vanished quite;

He cometh not,’ the people cries,

‘Nor bringeth God to sight:

Lo these thy gods, that safety give,

Adore and keep the feast!’

Deluding and deluded cries

The Prophet’s brother-Priest:

And Israel all bows down to fall

Before the gilded beast.

Devout, indeed! that priestly creed,

O Man, reject as sin;

The clouded hill attend thou still,

And him that went within.

He yet shall bring some worthy thing

For waiting souls to see:

Some sacred word that he hath heard

Their light and life shall be;

Some lofty part, than which the heart

Adopt no nobler can,

Thou shalt receive, thou shalt believe

And thou shalt do, O Man!

1845

_QUI LABORAT, ORAT._

O only Source of all our light and life,

Whom as our truth, our strength, we see and feel,

But whom the hours of mortal moral strife

Alone aright reveal!

Mine inmost soul, before Thee inly brought,

Thy presence owns ineffable, divine;

Chastised each rebel self-encentered thought,

My will adoreth Thine.

With eye down-dropt, if then this earthly mind

Speechless remain, or speechless e’en depart;

Nor seek to see—for what of earthly kind

Can see Thee as Thou art?—

If well-assured ’tis but profanely bold

In thought’s abstractest forms to seem to see,

It dare not dare the dread communion hold

In ways unworthy Thee,

O not unowned, thou shalt unnamed forgive,

In worldly walks the prayerless heart prepare;

And if in work its life it seem to live,

Shalt make that work be prayer.

Nor times shall lack, when while the work it plies,

Unsummoned powers the blinding film shall part,

And scarce by happy tears made dim, the eyes

In recognition start.

But, as thou willest, give or e’en forbear

The beatific supersensual sight,

So, with Thy blessing blest, that humbler prayer

Approach Thee morn and night.

_ὕμνος ἄυμνος._

O Thou whose image in the shrine

Of human spirits dwells divine;

Which from that precinct once conveyed,

To be to outer day displayed,

Doth vanish, part, and leave behind

Mere blank and void of empty mind,

Which wilful fancy seeks in vain

With casual shapes to fill again!

O Thou that in our bosom’s shrine

Dost dwell, unknown because divine!

I thought to speak, I thought to say,

‘The light is here,’ ‘behold the way,’

‘The voice was thus,’ and ‘thus the word,’

And ‘thus I saw,’ and ‘that I heard,’—

But from the lips that half essayed

The imperfect utterance fell unmade.

O Thou, in that mysterious shrine

Enthroned, as I must say, divine!

I will not frame one thought of what

Thou mayest either be or not.

I will not prate of ‘thus’ and ‘so,’

And be profane with ‘yes’ and ‘no,’

Enough that in our soul and heart

Thou, whatsoe’er Thou may’st be, art.

Unseen, secure in that high shrine

Acknowledged present and divine,

I will not ask some upper air,

Some future day to place Thee there;

Nor say, nor yet deny, such men

And women saw Thee thus and then:

Thy name was such, and there or here

To him or her Thou didst appear.

Do only Thou in that dim shrine,

Unknown or known, remain, divine;

There, or if not, at least in eyes

That scan the fact that round them lies,

The hand to sway, the judgment guide,

In sight and sense Thyself divide:

Be Thou but there,—in soul and heart,

I will not ask to feel Thou art.

_THE HIDDEN LOVE._

O let me love my love unto myself alone,

And know my knowledge to the world unknown;

No witness to my vision call,

Beholding, unbeheld of all;

And worship Thee, with Thee withdrawn apart,

Whoe’er, Whate’er Thou art,

Within the closest veil of mine own inmost heart.

What is it then to me

If others are inquisitive to see?

Why should I quit my place to go and ask

If other men are working at their task?

Leave my own buried roots to go

And see that brother plants shall grow;

And turn away from Thee, O Thou most Holy Light,

To look if other orbs their orbits keep aright,

Around their proper sun,

Deserting Thee, and being undone.

O let me love my love unto myself alone,

And know my knowledge to the world unknown;

And worship Thee, O hid One, O much sought,

As but man can or ought,

Within the abstracted’st shrine of my least breathed on thought.

Better it were, thou sayest, to consent;

Feast while we may, and live ere life be spent;

Close up clear eyes, and call the unstable sure,

The unlovely lovely, and the filthy pure;

In self-belyings, self-deceivings roll,

And lose in Action, Passion, Talk, the soul.

Nay, better far to mark off thus much air,

And call it Heaven: place bliss and glory there;

Fix perfect homes in the unsubstantial sky,

And say, what is not, will be by-and-bye.

_SHADOW AND LIGHT._

Cease, empty Faith, the Spectrum saith,

I was, and lo, have been;

I, God, am nought: a shade of thought,

Which, but by darkness seen,

Upon the unknown yourselves have thrown,

Placed it and light between.

At morning’s birth on darkened earth,

And as the evening sinks,

Awfully vast abroad is cast

The lengthened form that shrinks

And shuns the sight in midday light,

And underneath you slinks.

From barren strands of wintry lands

Across the seas of time,

Borne onward fast ye touch at last

An equatorial clime;

In equatorial noon sublime

At zenith stands the sun,

And lo, around, far, near, are found

Yourselves, and Shadow none.

A moment! yea! but when the day

At length was perfect day!

A moment! so! and light we know

With dark exchanges aye,

Nor morn nor eve shall shadow leave

Your sunny paths secure,

And in your sight that orb of light

Shall humbler orbs obscure.

And yet withal, ’tis shadow all

Whate’er your fancies dream,

And I (misdeemed) that was, that seemed,

Am not, whate’er I seem.

_‘WITH WHOM IS NO VARIABLENESS, NEITHER SHADOW OF TURNING.’_

It fortifies my soul to know

That, though I perish, Truth is so:

That, howsoe’er I stray and range,

Whate’er I do, Thou dost not change.

I steadier step when I recall

That, if I slip, Thou dost not fall.

_IN STRATIS VIARUM._

Blessed are those who have not seen,

And who have yet believed

The witness, here that has not been,

From heaven they have received.

Blessed are those who have not known

The things that stand before them,

And for a vision of their own

Can piously ignore them.

So let me think whate’er befall,

That in the city duly

Some men there are who love at all,

Some women who love truly;

And that upon two millions odd

Transgressors in sad plenty,

Mercy will of a gracious God

Be shown—because of twenty.

‘_PERCHÈ PENSA? PENSANDO S’INVECCHIA._’

To spend uncounted years of pain,

Again, again, and yet again,

In working out in heart and brain

The problem of our being here;

To gather facts from far and near,

Upon the mind to hold them clear,

And, knowing more may yet appear,

Unto one’s latest breath to fear,

The premature result to draw—

Is this the object, end and law,

And purpose of our being here?

‘_O THOU OF LITTLE FAITH._’

It may be true

That while we walk the troublous tossing sea,

That when we see the o’ertopping waves advance,

And when we feel our feet beneath us sink,

There are who walk beside us; and the cry

That rises so spontaneous to the lips,

The ‘Help us or we perish,’ is not nought,

An evanescent spectrum of disease.

It may be that indeed and not in fancy,

A hand that is not ours upstays our steps,

A voice that is not ours commands the waves;

Commands the waves, and whispers in our ear,

O thou of little faith, why didst thou doubt?

At any rate,

That there are beings above us, I believe,

And when we lift up holy hands of prayer,

I will not say they will not give us aid.

‘_THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY._’

What we, when face to face we see

The Father of our souls, shall be,

John tells us, doth not yet appear;

Ah! did he tell what we are here!

A mind for thoughts to pass into,

A heart for loves to travel through,

Five senses to detect things near,

Is this the whole that we are here?

Rules baffle instincts—instincts rules,

Wise men are bad—and good are fools,

Facts evil—wishes vain appear,

We cannot go, why are we here?

O may we for assurance’ sake,

Some arbitrary judgment take,

And wilfully pronounce it clear,

For this or that ’tis we are here?

Or is it right, and will it do,

To pace the sad confusion through,

And say:—It doth not yet appear,

What we shall be, what we are here?

Ah yet, when all is thought and said,

The heart still overrules the head;

Still what we hope we must believe,

And what is given us receive;

Must still believe, for still we hope

That in a world of larger scope,

What here is faithfully begun

Will be completed, not undone.

My child, we still must think, when we

That ampler life together see,

Some true result will yet appear

Of what we are, together, here.

_AH! YET CONSIDER IT AGAIN!_

‘Old things need not be therefore true,’

O brother men, nor yet the new;

Ah! still awhile the old thought retain,

And yet consider it again!

The souls of now two thousand years

Have laid up here their toils and fears,

And all the earnings of their pain,—

Ah, yet consider it again!

We! what do we see? each a space

Of some few yards before his face;

Does that the whole wide plan explain?

Ah, yet consider it again!

Alas! the great world goes its way,

And takes its truth from each new day;

They do not quit, nor can retain,

Far less consider it again.

1851

_NOLI ÆMULARI._

In controversial foul impureness

The peace that is thy light to thee

Quench not: in faith and inner sureness

Possess thy soul and let it be.

No violence—perverse, persistent—

What cannot be can bring to be;

No zeal what is make more existent,

And strife but blinds the eyes that see.

What though in blood their souls embruing,

The great, the good, and wise they curse,

Still sinning, what they know not doing;

Stand still, forbear, nor make it worse.

By curses, by denunciation,

The coming fate they cannot stay;

Nor thou, by fiery indignation,

Though just, accelerate the day.

‘_WHAT WENT YE OUT FOR TO SEE?_’

Across the sea, along the shore,

In numbers more and ever more,

From lonely hut and busy town,

The valley through, the mountain down,

What was it ye went out to see,

Ye silly folk of Galilee?

The reed that in the wind doth shake?

The weed that washes in the lake?

The reeds that waver, the weeds that float?—

A young man preaching in a boat.

What was it ye went out to hear

By sea and land, from far and near?

A teacher? Rather seek the feet

Of those who sit in Moses’ seat.

Go humbly seek, and bow to them,

Far off in great Jerusalem.

From them that in her courts ye saw,

Her perfect doctors of the law,

What is it came ye here to note?—

A young man preaching in a boat.

A prophet! Boys and women weak!

Declare, or cease to rave;

Whence is it he hath learned to speak?

Say, who his doctrine gave?

A prophet? Prophet wherefore he

Of all in Israel tribes?—

_He teacheth with authority,_

_And not as do the Scribes._

1851

_EPI-STRAUSS-IUM._

Matthew and Mark and Luke and holy John

Evanished all and gone!

Yea, he that erst his dusky curtains quitting,

Thro’ Eastern pictured panes his level beams transmitting,

With gorgeous portraits blent,

On them his glories intercepted spent:

Southwestering now, thro’ windows plainly glassed,

On the inside face his radiance keen hath cast,

And in the lustre lost, invisible and gone,

Are, say you, Matthew, Mark and Luke and holy John?

Lost, is it, lost, to be recovered never?

However,

The place of worship the meantime with light

Is, if less richly, more sincerely bright,

And in blue skies the Orb is manifest to sight.

_THE SHADOW._[5]

I dreamed a dream: I dreamt that I espied,

Upon a stone that was not rolled aside,

A Shadow sit upon a grave—a Shade,

As thin, as unsubstantial, as of old

Came, the Greek poet told,

To lick the life-blood in the trench Ulysses made—

As pale, as thin, and said:

‘I am the Resurrection of the Dead.

The night is past, the morning is at hand,

And I must in my proper semblance stand,

Appear brief space and vanish,—listen, this is true,

I am that Jesus whom they slew.’

And shadows dim, I dreamed, the dead apostles came,

And bent their heads for sorrow and for shame—

Sorrow for their great loss, and shame

For what they did in that vain name.

And in long ranges far behind there seemed

Pale vapoury angel forms; or was it cloud? that kept

Strange watch; the women also stood beside and wept.

And Peter spoke the word:

‘O my own Lord,

What is it we must do?

Is it then all untrue?

Did we not see, and hear, and handle Thee,

Yea, for whole hours

Upon the Mount in Galilee,

On the lake shore, and here at Bethany,

When Thou ascendedst to Thy God and ours?’

And paler still became the distant cloud,

And at the word the women wept aloud.

And the Shade answered, ‘What ye say I know not;

But it is true

I am that Jesus whom they slew,

Whom ye have preached, but in what way I know not.

* * * * *

And the great World, it chanced, came by that way,

And stopped, and looked, and spoke to the police,

And said the thing, for order’s sake and peace,

Most certainly must be suppressed, the nuisance cease

His wife and daughter must have where to pray,

And whom to pray to, at the least one day

In seven, and something sensible to say.

Whether the fact so many years ago

Had, or not, happened, how was he to know?

Yet he had always heard that it was so.

As for himself, perhaps it was all one;

And yet he found it not unpleasant, too,

On Sunday morning in the roomy pew,

To see the thing with such decorum done.

As for himself, perhaps it was all one;

Yet on one’s death-bed all men always said

It was a comfortable thing to think upon

The atonement and the resurrection of the dead.

So the great World as having said his say,

Unto his country-house pursued his way.

And on the grave the Shadow sat all day.

* * * * *

And the poor Pope was sure it must be so,

Else wherefore did the people kiss his toe?

The subtle Jesuit cardinal shook his head,

And mildly looked and said,

It mattered not a jot

Whether the thing, indeed, were so or not;

Religion must be kept up, and the Church preserved,

And for the people this best served,

And then he turned, and added most demurely,

‘Whatever may befal,

We Catholics need no evidence at all,

The holy father is infallible, surely!’

And English canons heard,

And quietly demurred.

Religion rests on evidence, of course,

And on inquiry we must put no force.

Difficulties still, upon whatever ground,

Are likely, almost certain, to be found.

The Theist scheme, the Pantheist, one and all,

Must with, or e’en before, the Christian fall.

And till the thing were plainer to our eyes,

To disturb faith was surely most unwise.

As for the Shade, who trusted such narration?

Except, of course, in ancient revelation.

And dignitaries of the Church came by.

It had been worth to some of them, they said,

Some hundred thousand pounds a year a head.

If it fetched so much in the market, truly,

’Twas not a thing to be given up unduly.

It had been proved by Butler in one way,

By Paley better in a later day;

It had been proved in twenty ways at once,

By many a doctor plain to many a dunce;

There was no question but it must be so.

And the Shade answered, that He did not know;

He had no reading, and might be deceived,

But still He was the Christ, as He believed.

And women, mild and pure,

Forth from still homes and village schools did pass,

And asked, if this indeed were thus, alas,

What should they teach their children and the poor?

The Shade replied, He could not know,

But it was truth, the fact was so.

* * * * *

Who had kept all commandments from his youth

Yet still found one thing lacking—even Truth:

And the Shade only answered, ‘Go, make haste,

Enjoy thy great possessions as thou may’st.’

_EASTER DAY._

NAPLES, 1849.

Through the great sinful streets of Naples as I past,

With fiercer heat than flamed above my head

My heart was hot within me; till at last

My brain was lightened when my tongue had said—

Christ is not risen!

Christ is not risen, no—

He lies and moulders low;

Christ is not risen!

What though the stone were rolled away, and though

The grave found empty there?—

If not there, then elsewhere;

If not where Joseph laid Him first, why then

Where other men

Translaid Him after, in some humbler clay.

Long ere to-day

Corruption that sad perfect work hath done,

Which here she scarcely, lightly had begun:

The foul engendered worm

Feeds on the flesh of the life-giving form

Of our most Holy and Anointed One.

He is not risen, no—

He lies and moulders low;

Christ is not risen!

What if the women, ere the dawn was grey,

Saw one or more great angels, as they say

(Angels, or Him himself)? Yet neither there, nor then,

Nor afterwards, nor elsewhere, nor at all,

Hath He appeared to Peter or the Ten;

Nor, save in thunderous terror, to blind Saul;

Save in an after Gospel and late Creed,

He is not risen, indeed,—

Christ is not risen!

Or, what if e’en, as runs a tale, the Ten

Saw, heard, and touched, again and yet again?

What if at Emmaüs’ inn, and by Capernaum’s Lake,

Came One, the bread that brake—

Came One that spake as never mortal spake,

And with them ate, and drank, and stood, and walked about?

Ah? ‘some’ did well to ‘doubt!’

Ah! the true Christ, while these things came to pass,

Nor heard, nor spake, nor walked, nor lived, alas!

He was not risen, no—

He lay and mouldered low,

Christ was not risen!

As circulates in some great city crowd

A rumour changeful, vague, importunate, and loud,

From no determined centre, or of fact

Or authorship exact,

Which no man can deny

Nor verify;

So spread the wondrous fame;

He all the same

Lay senseless, mouldering, low:

He was not risen, no—

Christ was not risen!

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust;

As of the unjust, also of the just—

Yea, of that Just One, too!

This is the one sad Gospel that is true—

Christ is not risen!

Is He not risen, and shall we not rise?

Oh, we unwise!

What did we dream, what wake we to discover?

Ye hills, fall on us, and ye mountains, cover!

In darkness and great gloom

Come ere we thought it is _our_ day of doom;

From the cursed world, which is one tomb,

Christ is not risen!

Eat, drink, and play, and think that this is bliss:

There is no heaven but this;

There is no hell,

Save earth, which serves the purpose doubly well,

Seeing it visits still

With equalest apportionment of ill

Both good and bad alike, and brings to one same dust

The unjust and the just

With Christ, who is not risen.

Eat, drink, and die, for we are souls bereaved:

Of all the creatures under heaven’s wide cope

We are most hopeless, who had once most hope,

And most beliefless, that had most believed.

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust;

As of the unjust, also of the just—

Yea, of that Just One too!

It is the one sad Gospel that is true—

Christ is not risen!

Weep not beside the tomb,

Ye women, unto whom

He was great solace while ye tended Him;

Ye who with napkin o’er the head

And folds of linen round each wounded limb

Laid out the Sacred Dead;

And thou that bar’st Him in thy wondering womb;

Yea, Daughters of Jerusalem, depart,

Bind up as best ye may your own sad bleeding heart;

Go to your homes, your living children tend,

Your earthly spouses love;

Set your affections _not_ on things above,

Which moth and rust corrupt, which quickliest come to end:

Or pray, if pray ye must, and pray, if pray ye can,

For death; since dead is He whom ye deemed more than man,

Who is not risen: no—

But lies and moulders low—

Who is not risen!

Ye men of Galilee!

Why stand ye looking up to heaven, where Him ye ne’er may see,

Neither ascending hence, nor returning hither again?

Ye ignorant and idle fishermen!

Hence to your huts, and boats, and inland native shore,

And catch not men, but fish;

Whate’er things ye might wish,

Him neither here nor there ye e’er shall meet with more.

Ye poor deluded youths, go home,

Mend the old nets ye left to roam,

Tie the split oar, patch the torn sail:

It was indeed an ‘idle tale’—

He was not risen!

And, oh, good men of ages yet to be,

Who shall believe _because_ ye did not see—

Oh, be ye warned, be wise!

No more with pleading eyes,

And sobs of strong desire,

Unto the empty vacant void aspire,

Seeking another and impossible birth

That is not of your own, and only mother earth.

But if there is no other life for you,

Sit down and be content, since this must even do:

He is not risen!

One look, and then depart,

Ye humble and ye holy men of heart;

And ye! ye ministers and stewards of a Word

Which ye would preach, because another heard—

Ye worshippers of that ye do not know,

Take these things hence and go:—

He is not risen!

Here, on our Easter Day

We rise, we come, and lo! we find Him not,

Gardener nor other, on the sacred spot:

Where they have laid Him there is none to say;

No sound, nor in, nor out—no word

Of where to seek the dead or meet the living Lord.

There is no glistering of an angel’s wings,

There is no voice of heavenly clear behest:

Let us go hence, and think upon these things

In silence, which is best.

Is He not risen? No—

But lies and moulders low?

Christ is not risen?

_EASTER DAY._

So in the sinful streets, abstracted and alone,

I with my secret self held communing of mine own.

So in the southern city spake the tongue

Of one that somewhat overwildly sung,

But in a later hour I sat and heard

Another voice that spake—another graver word.

Weep not, it bade, whatever hath been said,

Though He be dead, He is not dead.

In the true creed

He is yet risen indeed;

Christ is yet risen.

Weep not beside His tomb,

Ye women unto whom

He was great comfort and yet greater grief;

Nor ye, ye faithful few that wont with Him to roam,

Seek sadly what for Him ye left, go hopeless to your home;

Nor ye despair, ye sharers yet to be of their belief;

Though He be dead, He is not dead,

Nor gone, though fled,

Not lost, though vanished;

Though He return not, though

He lies and moulders low;

In the true creed

He is yet risen indeed;

Christ is yet risen.

Sit if ye will, sit down upon the ground,

Yet not to weep and wail, but calmly look around.

Whate’er befell,

Earth is not hell;

Now, too, as when it first began,

Life is yet life, and man is man.

For all that breathe beneath the heaven’s high cope,

Joy with grief mixes, with despondence hope.

Hope conquers cowardice, joy grief:

Or at least, faith unbelief.

Though dead, not dead;

Not gone, though fled;

Not lost, though vanished.

In the great gospel and true creed,

He is yet risen indeed;

Christ is yet risen.

DIPSYCHUS.

PROLOGUE TO DIPSYCHUS.

‘I hope it is in good plain verse,’ said my uncle,—‘none of your

hurry-scurry anapæsts, as you call them, in lines which sober people read

for plain heroics. Nothing is more disagreeable than to say a line over

two, or, it may be, three or four times, and at last not be sure that

there are not three or four ways of reading, each as good and as much

intended as another. _Simplex duntaxat et unum._ But you young people

think Horace and your uncles old fools.’

‘Certainly, my dear sir,’ said I; ‘that is, I mean, Horace and my

uncle are perfectly right. Still, there is an instructed ear and an

uninstructed. A rude taste for identical recurrences would exact

sing-song from “Paradise Lost,” and grumble because “Il Penseroso”

doesn’t run like a nursery rhyme.’ ‘Well, well,’ said my uncle, ‘_sunt

certi denique fines_, no doubt. So commence, my young Piso, while

Aristarchus is tolerably wakeful, and do not waste by your logic the fund

you will want for your poetry.’

_DIPSYCHUS._[6]

PART I.

SCENE I.—_The Piazza at Venice, 9 p.m. Dipsychus and the Spirit._

_Di._ The scene is different, and the place, the air

Tastes of the nearer north; the people

Not perfect southern lightness; wherefore, then,

Should those old verses come into my mind

I made last year at Naples? Oh, poor fool!

Still resting on thyself—a thing ill-worked—

A moment’s thought committed on the moment

To unripe words and rugged verse:—

‘Through the great sinful streets of Naples as I past,

With fiercer heat than flamed above my head

My heart was hot within me; till at last

My brain was lightened when my tongue had said—

Christ is not risen!’

_Sp._ Christ is not risen? Oh, indeed,

I didn’t know that was your creed.

_Di._ So it went on, too lengthy to repeat—

‘Christ is not risen.’

_Sp._ Dear, how odd!

He’ll tell us next there is no God.

I thought ’twas in the Bible plain,

On the third day He rose again.

_Di._ Ashes to ashes, dust to dust;

As of the unjust, also of the just—

Yea, of that Just One, too!

Is He not risen, and shall we not rise?

Oh, we unwise!’

_Sp._ H’m! and the tone, then, after all,

Something of the ironical?

Sarcastic, say; or were it fitter

To style it the religious bitter?

_Di._ Interpret it I cannot. I but wrote it—

At Naples, truly, as the preface tells,

Last year, in the Toledo; it came on me,

And did me good at once. At Naples then,

At Venice now. Ah! and I think at Venice

Christ is not risen either.

_Sp._ Nay,

Such things don’t fall out every day:

Having once happened, as we know,

In Palestine so long ago,

How should it now at Venice here

Where people, true enough, appear

To appreciate more and understand

Their ices, and their Austrian band

And dark-eyed girls.

_Di._ The whole great square they fill,

From the red flaunting streamers on the staffs,

And that barbaric portal of St. Mark’s,

To where, unnoticed, at the darker end,

I sit upon my step—one great gay crowd.

The Campanile to the silent stars

Goes up, above—its apex lost in air—

While these do what?

_Sp._ Enjoy the minute,

And the substantial blessings in it:

Ices, _par exemple_; evening air,

Company, and this handsome square;

And all the sweets in perfect plenty

Of the old _dolce far niente_.

Music! Up, up; it isn’t fit

With beggars here on steps to sit.

Up, to the caffé! take a chair,

And join the wiser idlers there.

And see that fellow singing yonder;

Singing, ye gods, and dancing too—

Tooraloo, tooraloo, tooraloo, loo—

Fiddledi diddledi, diddle di di;

_Figaro sù, Figaro giù—_

_Figaro quà, Figaro là_!

How he likes doing it—Ha, ha!

_Di._ While these do what? Ah, heaven! too true, at Venice

Christ is not risen either.

SCENE II.—_The Public Garden._

_Di._ Assuredly, a lively scene!

And, ah, how pleasant something green!

With circling heavens one perfect rose

Each smoother patch of water glows,

Hence to where, o’er the full tide’s face,

We see the Palace and the Place,

And the white dome; beauteous, but hot.

Where in the meantime is the spot—

My favourite—where by masses blue,

And white cloud-folds, I follow true

The great Alps, rounding grandly o’er,

Huge arc, to the Dalmatian shore?

_Sp._ This rather stupid place, to-day,

It’s true, is most extremely gay;

And rightly—the Assunzione

Was always a _gran’ funzione_.

_Di._ What is this persecuting voice that haunts me?

What? whence? of whom? How am I to detect?

Myself or not myself? My own bad thoughts,

Or some external agency at work,

To lead me who knows whither?

_Sp._ Eh?

We’re certainly in luck to-day:

What crowds of boats before us plying—

Gay parties, singing, shouting, crying—

Saluting others past them flying!

What numbers at the causeway lying!

What lots of pretty girls, too, hieing

Hither and thither—coming, going,

And with what satisfaction showing

Their dark exuberance of hair,

Black eyes, rich tints, and sundry graces

Of classic pure Italian faces!

_Di._ Ah me, me!

Clear stars above, thou roseate westward sky,

Take up my being into yours; assume

My sense to know you only; steep my brain

In your essential purity, or, great Alps,

That wrapping round your heads in solemn clouds

Seem sternly to sweep past our vanities,

Lead me with you—take me away, preserve me!

O moon and stars, forgive! and thou, clear heaven,

Look pureness back into me. Oh, great God!

Why, why, in wisdom and in grace’s name,

And in the name of saints and saintly thoughts,

Of mothers, and of sisters, and chaste wives,

And angel woman-faces we have seen,

And angel woman-spirits we have guessed,

And innocent sweet children, and pure love,

Why did I ever one brief moment’s space

But parley with this filthy Belial?

...Was it the fear

Of being behind the world, which is the wicked?

SCENE III.—_At the Hotel._

_Sp._ Come, then,

And with my aid go into good society.

Life little loves, ’tis true, this peevish piety;

E’en they with whom it thinks to be securest—

Your most religious, delicatest, purest—

Discern, and show as pious people can

Their feeling that you are not quite a man.

Still the thing has its place; and with sagacity,

Much might be done by one of your capacity.

A virtuous attachment formed judiciously

Would come, one sees, uncommonly propitiously:

Turn you but your affections the right way,

And what mayn’t happen none of us can say;

For in despite of devils and of mothers,

Your good young men make catches, too, like others.

_Di._ To herd with people that one owns no care for;

Friend it with strangers that one sees but once;

To drain the heart with endless complaisance;

To warp the unfinished diction on the lip,

And twist one’s mouth to counterfeit; enforce

Reluctant looks to falsehood; base-alloy

The ingenuous golden frankness of the past;

To calculate and plot; be rough and smooth,

Forward and silent, deferential, cool,

Not by one’s humour, which is the safe truth,

But on consideration.

_Sp._ That is, act

On a dispassionate judgment of the fact;

Look all the data fairly in the face,

And rule your judgment simply by the case.

_Di._ On vile consideration. At the best,

With pallid hotbed courtesies to forestall

The green and vernal spontaneity,

And waste the priceless moments of the man

In regulating manner. Whether these things

Be right, I do not know: I only know ’tis

To lose one’s youth too early. Oh, not yet—

Not yet I make the sacrifice.

_Sp._ _Du tout!_

To give up nature’s just what would not do.

By all means keep your sweet ingenuous graces,

And use them at the proper times and places.

For work, for play, for business, talk and love,

I own as wisdom truly from above,

That scripture of the serpent and the dove;

Nor’s aught so perfect for the world’s affairs

As the old parable of wheat and tares;

What we all love is good touched up with evil—

Religion’s self must have a spice of devil.

_Di._ Let it be enough,

That in our needful mixture with the world,

On each new morning with the rising sun,

Our rising heart, fresh from the seas of sleep,

Scarce o’er the level lifts his purer orb

Ere lost and sullied with polluting smoke—

A noon-day coppery disk. Lo, scarce come forth,

Some vagrant miscreant meets, and with a look

Transmutes me his, and for a whole sick day

Lepers me.

_Sp._ Just the one thing, I assure you,

From which good company can’t but secure you.

About the individual’s not so clear,

But who can doubt the general atmosphere?

_Di._ Ay truly, who at first? but in a while——

_Sp._ O dear, this o’er-discernment makes me smile.

You don’t pretend to tell me you can see

Without one touch of melting sympathy

Those lovely, stately flowers that fill with bloom

The brilliant season’s gay parterre-like room,

Moving serene yet swiftly through the dances;

Those graceful forms and perfect countenances,

Whose every fold and line in all their dresses

Something refined and exquisite expresses.

To see them smile and hear them talk so sweetly,

In me destroys all lower thoughts completely;

I really seem, without exaggeration,

To experience the true regeneration.

One’s own dress, too—one’s manner, what one’s doing

And saying, all assist to one’s renewing.

I love to see, in these their fitting places,

The bows, the forms, and all you call grimaces.

I heartily could wish we’d kept some more of them,

However much we talk about the bore of them.

Fact is, your awkward parvenus are shy at it,

Afraid to look like waiters if they try at it.

’Tis sad to what democracy is leading—

Give me your Eighteenth Century for high breeding.

Though I can put up gladly with the present,

And quite can think our modern parties pleasant.

One shouldn’t analyse the thing too nearly:

The main effect is admirable clearly.

‘Good manners,’ said our great-aunts, ‘next to piety:’

And so my friend, hurrah for good society!

SCENE IV.—_On the Piazza._

_Sp._ Insulted! by the living Lord!

He laid his hand upon his sword.

‘_Fort_,’ did he say? a German brute,

With neither heart nor brains to shoot.

_Di._ What does he mean? he’s wrong, I had done nothing.

’Twas a mistake—more his, I am sure, than mine.

He is quite wrong—I feel it. Come, let us go.

_Sp._ Go up to him!—you must, that’s flat.

Be threatened by a beast like that!

_Di._ He’s violent: what can I do against him?

I neither wish to be killed nor to kill:

What’s more, I never yet have touched a sword,

Nor fired, but twice, a pistol in my life.

_Sp._ Oh, never mind, ’twon’t come to fighting—

Only some verbal small requiting;

Or give your card—we’ll do’t by writing.

He’ll not stick to it. Soldiers too

Are cowards, just like me or you.

What! not a single word to throw at

This snarling dog of a d——d Croat?

_Di._ My heavens! why should I care? he does not hurt me.

If he is wrong, it is the worst for him.

I certainly did nothing: I shall go.

_Sp._ Did nothing! I should think not; no,

Nor ever will, I dare be sworn!

But, O my friend, well-bred, well-born—

You to behave so in these quarrels

Makes me half doubtful of your morals!

...It were all one,

You had been some shopkeeper’s son,

Whose childhood ne’er was shown aught better

Than bills of creditor and debtor.

_Di._ By heaven, it falls from off me like the rain

From the oil-coat. I seem in spirit to see

How he and I at some great day shall meet

Before some awful judgment-seat of truth;

And I could deem that I behold him there

Come praying for the pardon I give now,

Did I not think these matters too, too small

For any record on the leaves of time.

O thou great Watcher of this noisy world,

What are they in Thy sight? or what in his

Who finds some end of action in his life?

What e’en in his whose sole permitted course

Is to pursue his peaceful byway walk,

And live his brief life purely in Thy sight,

And righteously towards his brother-men?

_Sp._ And whether, so you’re just and fair,

Other folks are so, you don’t care;

You who profess more love than others

For your poor sinful human brothers.

_Di._ For grosser evils their gross remedies

The laws afford us; let us be content;

For finer wounds the law would, if it could,

Find medicine too; it cannot, let us bear;

For sufferance is the badge of all men’s tribes.

_Sp._ Because we can’t do all we would,

Does it follow, to do nothing’s good?

No way to help the law’s rough sense

By equities of self-defence?

Well, for yourself it may be nice

To serve vulgarity and vice:

Must sisters, too, and wives and mothers,

Fare like their patient sons and brothers?

_Di._ He that loves sister, mother, more than me——

_Sp._ But the injustice—the gross wrong!

To whom on earth does it belong

If not to you, to whom ’twas done,

Who saw it plain as any sun,

To make the base and foul offender

Confess, and satisfaction render?

At least before the termination of it

Prove your own lofty reprobation of it.

Though gentleness, I know, was born in you,

Surely you have a little scorn in you?

_Di._ Heaven! to pollute one’s fingers to pick up

The fallen coin of honour from the dirt—

Pure silver though it be, let it rather lie!

To take up any offence, where’t may be said

That temper, vanity—I know not what—

Had led me on!

To have so much as e’en half felt of one

That ever one was angered for oneself!

Beyond suspicion Cæsar’s wife should be,

Beyond suspicion this bright honour shall.

Did he say scorn? I have some scorn, thank God.

_Sp._ Certainly. Only if it’s so,

Let us leave Italy, and go

Post haste, to attend—you’re ripe and rank for’t—

The great peace-meeting up at Frankfort.

Joy to the Croat! Take our lives,

Sweet friends, and please respect our wives;

Joy to the Croat! Some fine day,

He’ll see the error of his way,

No doubt, and will repent and pray.

At any rate he’ll open his eyes,

If not before, at the Last Assize.

Not, if I rightly understood you,

That even then you’d punish, would you?

Nay, let the hapless soul go free—

Mere murder, crime, or robbery,

In whate’er station, age, or sex,

Your sacred spirit scarce can vex:

_De minimis non curat lex_.

To the Peace Congress! ring the bell!

Horses to Frankfort and to ——!

_Di._ I am not quite in union with myself

On this strange matter. I must needs confess

Instinct turns instinct out, and thought

Wheels round on thought. To bleed for others’ wrongs

In vindication of a cause, to draw

The sword of the Lord and Gideon—oh, that seems

The flower and top of life! But fight because

Some poor misconstruing trifler haps to say

I lie, when I do not lie,

Why should I? Call you this a cause? I can’t.

Oh, he is wrong, no doubt; he misbehaves—

But is it worth so much as speaking loud?

And things so merely personal to myself

Of all earth’s things do least affect myself.

_Sp._ Sweet eloquence! at next May Meeting

How it would tell in the repeating!

I recognise, and kiss the rod—

The methodistic ‘voice of God;’

I catch contrite that angel whine,

That snuffle human, yet divine.

_Di._ It may be I am somewhat of a poltroon;

I never fought at school; whether it be

Some native poorness in my spirit’s blood,

Or that the holy doctrine of our faith

In too exclusive fervency possessed

My heart with feelings, with ideas my brain.

_Sp._ Yes; you would argue that it goes

Against the Bible, I suppose;

But our revered religion—yes,

Our common faith—seems, I confess,

On these points to propose to address

The people more than you or me—

At best the vulgar bourgeoisie.

The sacred writers don’t keep count,

But still the Sermon on the Mount

Must have been spoken, by what’s stated,

To hearers by the thousands rated.

I cuff some fellow; mild and meek

He should turn round the other cheek.

For him it may be right and good;

We are not all of gentle blood

Really, or as such understood.

_Di._ There are two kindreds upon earth, I know—

The oppressors and the oppressed. But as for me,

If I must choose to inflict wrong, or accept,

May my last end, and life too, be with these.

Yes; whatsoe’er the reason, want of blood,

Lymphatic humours, or my childhood’s faith,

So is the thing, and be it well or ill,

I have no choice. I am a man of peace,

And the old Adam of the gentleman

Dares seldom in my bosom stir against

The mild plebeian Christian seated there.

_Sp._ Forgive me, if I name my doubt,

Whether you know ‘_fort_’ means ‘_get out_.’

SCENE V.—_The Lido._

_Sp._ What now? the Lido shall it be?

That none may say we didn’t see

The ground which Byron used to ride on,

And do I don’t know what beside on.

Ho, barca! here! and this light gale

Will let us run it with a sail.

_Di._ I dreamt a dream: till morning light

A bell rang in my head all night,

Tinkling and tinkling first, and then

Tolling and tinkling, tolling again,

So brisk and gay, and then so slow!

O joy and terror! mirth and woe!

Ting, ting, there is no God; ting, ting,—

Dong, there is no God; dong,

There is no God; dong, dong.

Ting, ting, there is no God; ting, ting.

Come, dance and play, and merrily sing,

Staid Englishman, who toil and slave

From your first childhood to your grave,

And seldom spend and always save—

And do your duty all your life

By your young family and wife;

Come, be’t not said you ne’er had known

What earth can furnish you alone.

The Italian, Frenchman, German even,

Have given up all thoughts of heaven:

And you still linger—oh, you fool!—

Because of what you learnt at school.

You should have gone at least to college,

And got a little ampler knowledge.

Ah well, and yet—dong, dong, dong:

Do as you like, as now you do;

If work’s a cheat, so’s pleasure too.

And nothing’s new and nothing’s true;

Dong, there is no God; dong.

O, in our nook unknown, unseen,

We’ll hold our fancy like a screen

Us and the dreadful fact between;

And it shall yet be long—ay, long—

The quiet notes of our low song

Shall keep us from that sad dong, dong.—

Hark, hark, hark! O voice of fear,

It reaches us here, even here!

Dong, there is no God; dong.

Ring ding, ring ding, tara, tara,

To battle, to battle—haste, haste—

To battle, to battle—aha, aha!

On, on, to the conqueror’s feast,

From east to west, and south and north,

Ye men of valour and of worth,

Ye mighty men of arms come forth,

And work your will, for that is just;

And in your impulse put your trust,

Beneath your feet the fools are dust.

Alas, alas! O grief and wrong,

The good are weak, the wicked strong;

And O my God, how long, how long!

Dong, there is no God; dong.

Ring, ting; to bow before the strong,

There is a rapture too in this;

Work for thy master, work, thou slave—

He is not merciful, but brave.

Be’t joy to serve, who free and proud

Scorns thee and all the ignoble crowd;

Take that, ’tis all thou art allowed,

Except the snaky hope that they

May sometime serve who rule to-day.

When, by hell-demons, shan’t they pay?

O wickedness, O shame and grief,

And heavy load, and no relief!

O God, O God! and which is worst,

To be the curser or the curst,

The victim or the murderer? Dong.

Dong, there is no God; dong.

Ring ding, ring ding, tara, tara,

Away, and hush that preaching—fagh!

Ye vulgar dreamers about peace,

Who offer noblest hearts, to heal

The tenderest hurts honour can feel,

Paid magistrates and the police!

O peddling merchant-justice, go,

Exacter rules than yours we know;

Resentment’s rule, and that high law

Of whoso best the sword can draw.

Ah well, and yet—dong, dong, dong.

Go on, my friends, as now you do;

Lawyers are villains, soldiers too;

And nothing’s new and nothing’s true.

Dong, there is no God; dong.

I had a dream, from eve to light

A bell went sounding all the night.

Gay mirth, black woe, thin joys, huge pain:

I tried to stop it, but in vain.

It ran right on, and never broke;

Only when day began to stream

Through the white curtains to my bed,

And like an angel at my head

Light stood and touched me—I awoke,

And looked, and said, ‘It is a dream.’

_Sp._ Ah! not so bad. You’ve read, I see,

Your Béranger, and thought of me.

But really you owe some apology

For harping thus upon theology.

I’m not a judge, I own; in short,

Religion may not be my forte.

The Church of England I belong to,

And think Dissenters not far wrong too;

They’re vulgar dogs; but for his _creed_

I hold that no man will be d——d.

But come and listen in your turn,

And you shall hear and mark and learn.

‘There is no God,’ the wicked saith,

‘And truly it’s a blessing,

For what He might have done with us

It’s better only guessing.’

‘There is no God,’ a youngster thinks,

‘Or really, if there may be,

He surely didn’t mean a man

Always to be a baby.’

‘There is no God, or if there is,’

The tradesman thinks, ‘’twere funny

If He should take it ill in me

To make a little money.’

‘Whether there be,’ the rich man says,

‘It matters very little,

For I and mine, thank somebody,

Are not in want of victual.’

Some others, also, to themselves,

Who scarce so much as doubt it,

Think there is none, when they are well,

And do not think about it.

But country folks who live beneath

The shadow of the steeple;

The parson and the parson’s wife,

And mostly married people;

Youths green and happy in first love,

So thankful for illusion;

And men caught out in what the world

Calls guilt, in first confusion;

And almost every one when age,

Disease, or sorrows strike him,

Inclines to think there is a God,

Or something very like Him.

But _eccoci_! with our _barchetta_,

Here at the Sant’ Elisabetta.

_Di._ Vineyards and maize, that’s pleasant for sore eyes.

_Sp._ And on the island’s other side,

The place where Murray’s faithful Guide

Informs us Byron used to ride.

_Di._ The trellised vines! enchanting! Sandhills, ho!

The sea, at last the sea—the real broad sea—

Beautiful! and a glorious breeze upon it.

_Sp._ Look back; one catches at this station

Lagoon and sea in combination.

_Di._ On her still lake the city sits,

Where bark and boat around her flits,

Nor dreams, her soft siesta taking,

Of Adriatic billows breaking.

I do; I see and hear them. Come! to the sea!

Oh, a grand surge! we’ll bathe; quick, quick!—undress!

Quick, quick!—in, in!

We’ll take the crested billows by their backs

And shake them. Quick! in, in!

And I will taste again the old joy

I gloried in so when a boy;

Aha! come, come—great waters, roll!

Accept me, take me, body and soul!

That’s done me good. It grieves me though,

I never came here long ago.

_Sp._ Pleasant, perhaps; however, no offence,

Animal spirits are not common sense;

They’re good enough as an assistance,

But in themselves a poor existence.

But you, with this one bathe, no doubt,

Have solved all questions out and out.

PART II.

SCENE I.—_The interior Arcade of the Doge’s Palace._

_Sp._ Thunder and rain! O dear, O dear!

But see, a noble shelter here,

This grand arcade where our Venetian

Has formed of Gothic and of Grecian

A combination strange, but striking,

And singularly to my liking!

Let moderns reap where ancients sowed,

I at least make it my abode.

And now let’s hear your famous Ode:

‘Through the great sinful’—how did it go on?

For principles of Art and so on

I care perhaps about three curses,

But hold myself a judge of verses.

_Di._ ‘My brain was lightened when my tongue

had said, “Christ is not risen.”’

* * * * *

_Sp._ Well, now it’s anything but clear

What is the tone that’s taken here:

What is your logic? what’s your theology?

Is it, or is it not, neology?

That’s a great fault; you’re this and that,

And here and there, and nothing flat;

Yet writing’s golden word what is it,

But the three syllables ‘explicit’?

Say, if you cannot help it, less,

But what you do put, put express.

I fear that rule won’t meet your feeling:

You think half showing, half concealing,

Is God’s own method of revealing.

_Di._ To please my own poor mind! to find repose;

To physic the sick soul; to furnish vent

To diseased humours in the moral frame!

_Sp._ A sort of seton, I suppose,

A moral bleeding at the nose:

H’m;—and the tone too after all,

Something of the ironical?

Sarcastic, say; or were it fitter

To style it the religious bitter?

_Di._ Interpret it I cannot, I but wrote it.

_Sp._ Perhaps; but none that read can doubt it,

There is a strong Strauss-smell about it.

Heavens! at your years your time to fritter

Upon a critical hair-splitter!

Take larger views (and quit your Germans)

From the Analogy and sermons;

I fancied—you must doubtless know—

Butler had proved an age ago,

That in religious as profane things

’Twas useless trying to explain things;

Men’s business-wits, the only sane things,

These and compliance are the main things.

God, Revelation, and the rest of it,

Bad at the best, we make the best of it.

Like a good subject and wise man,

Believe whatever things you can.

Take your religion as ’twas found you,

And say no more of it, confound you!

And now I think the rain has ended;

And the less said, the soonest mended.

SCENE II.—_In a Gondola._

_Sp._ _Per ora._ To the Grand Canal.

Afterwards e’en as fancy shall.

_Di._ Afloat; we move. Delicious! Ah,

What else is like the gondola?

This level floor of liquid glass

Begins beneath us swift to pass.

It goes as though it went alone

By some impulsion of its own.

(How light it moves, how softly! Ah,

Were all things like the gondola!)

How light it moves, how softly! Ah,

Could life, as does our gondola,

Unvexed with quarrels, aims, and cares,

And moral duties and affairs,

Unswaying, noiseless, swift and strong,

For ever thus—thus glide along!

(How light we move, how softly! Ah,

Were life but as the gondola!)

With no more motion than should bear

A freshness to the languid air;

With no more effort than exprest

The need and naturalness of rest,

Which we beneath a grateful shade

Should take on peaceful pillows laid!

(How light we move, how softly! Ah,

Were life but as the gondola!)

In one unbroken passage borne

To closing night from opening morn,

Uplift at whiles slow eyes to mark

Some palace front, some passing bark;

Through windows catch the varying shore,

And hear the soft turns of the oar!

(How light we move, how softly! Ah,

Were life but as the gondola!)

So live, nor need to call to mind

Our slaving brother here behind!

_Sp._ Pooh! Nature meant him for no better

Than our most humble menial debtor:

Who thanks us for his day’s employment

As we our purse for our enjoyment.

_Di._ To make one’s fellow-man an instrument——

_Sp._ Is just the thing that makes him most content.

_Di._ Our gaieties, our luxuries,

Our pleasures and our glee,

Mere insolence and wantonness,

Alas! they feel to me.

How shall I laugh and sing and dance?

My very heart recoils,

While here to give my mirth a chance

A hungry brother toils.

The joy that does not spring from joy

Which I in others see,

How can I venture to employ,

Or find it joy for me?

_Sp._ Oh come, come, come! By Him that sent us here.

Who’s to enjoy at all, pray let us hear?

You won’t; he can’t! Oh, no more fuss!

What’s it to him, or he to us?

Sing, sing away, be glad and gay,

And don’t forget that we shall pay.

_Di._ Yes, it is beautiful ever, let foolish men rail at it never.

Yes, it is beautiful truly, my brothers, I grant it you duly.

Wise are ye others that choose it, and happy ye all that can use it.

Life it is beautiful wholly, and could we eliminate only

This interfering, enslaving, o’ermastering demon of craving,

This wicked tempter inside us to ruin still eager to guide us,

Life were beatitude, action a possible pure satisfaction.

_Sp._ (Hexameters, by all that’s odious,

Beshod with rhyme to run melodious!)

_Di._ All as I go on my way I behold them consorting and coupling;

Faithful it seemeth, and fond; very fond, very possibly faithful;

All as I go on my way with a pleasure sincere and unmingled

Life it is beautiful truly, my brothers, I grant it you duly,

But for perfection attaining is one method only, abstaining;

Let us abstain, for we should so, if only we thought that we could so.

_Sp._ Bravo, bravissimo! this time though

You rather were run short for rhyme though;

Not that on that account your verse

Could be much better or much worse.

This world is very odd we see,

We do not comprehend it;

But in one fact we all agree,

God won’t, and we can’t mend it.

Being common sense, it can’t be sin

To take it as I find it;

The pleasure to take pleasure in;

The pain, try not to mind it.

_Di._ O let me love my love unto myself alone,

And know my knowledge to the world unknown;

No witness to the vision call,

Beholding, unbeheld of all;

And worship thee, with thee withdrawn, apart,

Whoe’er, whate’er thou art,

Within the closest veil of mine own inmost heart

Better it were, thou sayest, to consent,

Feast while we may, and live ere life be spent;

Close up clear eyes, and call the unstable sure,

The unlovely lovely, and the filthy pure;

In self-belyings, self-deceivings roll,

And lose in Action, Passion, Talk, the soul.

Nay, better far to mark off thus much air,

And call it heaven; place bliss and glory there;

Fix perfect homes in the unsubstantial sky,

And say, what is not, will be by-and-by;

What here exists not must exist elsewhere.

But play no tricks upon thy soul, O man;

Let fact be fact, and life the thing it can.

_Sp._ To these remarks so sage and clerkly,

Worthy of Malebranche or Berkeley,

I trust it won’t be deemed a sin

If I too answer ‘with a grin.’

These juicy meats, this flashing wine,

May be an unreal mere appearance;

Only—for my inside, in fine,

They have a singular coherence.

Oh yes, my pensive youth, abstain;

And any empty sick sensation.

Remember, anything like pain

Is only your imagination.

Trust me, I’ve read your German sage

To far more purpose e’er than you did;

You find it in his wisest page,

Whom God deludes is well deluded.

_Di._ Where are the great, whom thou would’st wish to praise thee?

Where are the pure, whom thou would’st choose to love thee?

Where are the brave, to stand supreme above thee,

Whose high commands would cheer, whose chidings raise thee?

Seek, seeker, in thyself; submit to find

In the stones, bread, and life in the blank mind.

(Written in London, standing in the Park,

One evening in July, just before dark.)

_Sp._ As I sat at the café, I said to myself,

They may talk as they please about what they call pelf,

They may sneer as they like about eating and drinking,

But help it I cannot, I cannot help thinking,

How pleasant it is to have money, heigh ho!

How pleasant it is to have money.

I sit at my table _en grand seigneur_,

And when I have done, throw a crust to the poor;

Not only the pleasure, one’s self, of good living,

But also the pleasure of now and then giving.