Puslapio vaizdai
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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.'

[From Dipsychus.]

ISOLATION.

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.

IN VENICE; DIPSYCHUS SPEAKS.

O happy hours!

O compensation ample for long days

Of what impatient tongues call wretchedness!
O beautiful, beneath the magic moon,

To walk the watery way of palaces!

O beautiful, o'ervaulted with gemmed blue,
This spacious court, with colour and with gold,
With cupolas, and pinnacles, and points.
And crosses multiplex, and tips and balls
(Wherewith the bright stars unreproving mix,
Nor scorn by hasty eyes to be confused);
Fantastically perfect this low pile

Of Oriental glory; these long ranges

Of classic chiselling, this gay flickering crowd,

And the calm Campanile. Beautiful!

O, beautiful! and that seemed more profound,
This morning by the pillar when I sat
Under the great arcade, at the review,

And took, and held, and ordered on my brain
The faces, and the voices, and the whole mass
O' the motley facts of existence flowing by!
O perfect, if 'twere all! But it is not;
Hints haunt me ever of a more beyond:

I am rebuked by a sense of the incomplete,
Of a completion ever soon assumed,
Of adding up too soon. What we call sin,
I could believe a painful opening out

Of paths for ampler virtue. The bare field,
Scant with lean ears of harvest, long had mocked
The vext laborious farmer; came at length
The deep plough in the lazy undersoil
Down-driving; with a cry earth's fibres crack,
And a few months, and lo! the golden leas,
And autumn's crowded shocks and loaded wains.
Let us look back on life; was any change,
Any now blest expansion, but at first

A pang, remorse-like, shot to the inmost seats
Of moral being? To do anything,

Distinct on any one thing to decide,

To leave the habitual and the old, and quit

The easy-chair of use and wont, seems crime

To the weak soul, forgetful how at first

Sitting down seemed so too. And, oh! this woman's

heart,

Fain to be forced, incredulous of choice,

And waiting a necessity for God.

Yet I could think, indeed, the perfect call

Should force the perfect answer.

If the voice

Ought to receive its echo from the soul,

Wherefore this silence? If it should rouse my being,
Why this reluctance? Have I not thought o'ermuch

Of other men, and of the ways of the world?
But what they are, or have been, matters not.

To thine own self be true, the wise man says.
Are then my fears myself? O double self!
And I untrue to both! Oh, there are hours,
When love, and faith, and dear domestic ties,
And converse with old friends, and pleasant walks,
Familiar faces, and familiar books,

Study, and art, upliftings unto prayer,
And admiration of the noblest things,
Seem all ignoble only; all is mean,

And nought as I would have it. Then at others,
My mind is in her rest; my heart at home
In all around; my soul secure in place,
And the vext needle perfect to her poles.
Aimless and hopeless in my life I seem
To thread the winding byways of the town,
Bewildered, baffled, hurried hence and thence,
All at cross-purpose even with myself,
Unknowing whence or whither. Then at once,
At a step, I crown the Campanile's top,
And view all mapped below; islands, lagoon,
A hundred steeples and a million roofs,
The fruitful champaign, and the cloud-capt Alps,
And the broad Adriatic. Be it enough;
If I lose this, how terrible! No, no,
I am contented, and will not complain.
To the old paths, my soul! Oh, be it so!

I bear the workday burden of dull life
About these footsore flags of a weary world,
Heaven knows how long it has not been; at once.
Lo! I am in the spirit on the Lord's day
With John in Patmos. Is it not enough,
One day in seven? and if this should go,
If this pure solace should desert my mind,
What were all else? I dare not risk this loss.
To the old paths, my soul!

[From Poems on Life and Duty.]

THE STREAM OF LIFE.

O stream descending to the sea,
Thy mossy banks between,
The flowerets blow, the grasses grow,
The leafy trees are green.

In garden plots the children play,
The fields the labourers till,
And houses stand on either hand,
And thou descendest still.

O life descending into death,
Our waking eyes behold,
Parent and friend thy lapse attend,
Companions young and old.

Strong purposes our mind possess,
Our hearts affections fill,

We toil and earn, we seek and learn,
And thou descendest still.

O end to which our currents tend,
Inevitable sea,

To which we flow, what do we know,
What shall we guess of thee?

A roar we hear upon thy shore,

As we our course fulfil;

Scarce we divine a sun will shine

And be above us still.

[From The Bothie of Tober-na-Vuolich.]

THE HIGHLAND STREAM,

There is a stream (I name not its name, lest inquisitive tourist Hunt it, and make it a lion, and get it at last into guide-books), Springing far off from a loch unexplored in the folds of great mountains,

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