A honey dew, and throve on what it shed. ΙΟ Judgment its earth and memory its main; Cloudy and shapeless, first forms on the mind, Quakes under its own thunder; or as might, 20 Till by degrees, from wrestling with my soul, 28 I gathered strength to keep the fleet thoughts fast, And made them bless me. Yes, there was a time When tones of ancient song held eye and heart; Were the sole lore I recked of: the great bards Of Greece, of Rome, and mine own master land, And they who in the holy book are deathless; Men who have vulgarised sublimity, And bought up truth for the nations; held it whole; Men who have forged gods — uttered them pass; - - made As from a tower, a warden; fix themselves And fragments of the undeemed tongues of heaven; Or their own house, which from the wrongful heir They have wrested, from the world's hard hand and gripe; Men who, like death, all bone but all unarmed, Have ta'en the giant world by the throat, and thrown him; And made him swear to maintain their name and fame 70 At peril of his life; who shed great thoughts 77 To veer, how vain! On, onward strain, Brave barks! In light, in darkness too, Through winds and tides one compass guides To that, and your own selves, be true. But O blithe breeze; and O great seas, Though ne'er, that earliest parting past, On your wide plain they join again, Together lead them home at last. One port, methought, alike they sought, WITH WHOM IS NO VARIABLENESS, NEITHER SHADOW OF TURNING It fortifies my soul to know EASTER DAY I Naples, 1849 20 24 28 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 What if the women, ere the dawn was grey, Nor afterwards, nor elsewhere, nor at all, Christ is not risen! 30 said Christ is not risen! Christ is not risen, no He lies and moulders low; Christ is not risen! 50 So spread the wondrous fame; He all the same 5 What though the stone were rolled away, and though As of the unjust, also of the just — Yea, of that Just One, too! If not where Joseph laid Him first, why then Where other men Translaid Him after, in some humbler clay. Is He not risen, and shall we not rise? Oh, we unwise! Long ere to-day 15 Corruption that sad perfect work hath done, Which here she scarcely, lightly had begun: What did we dream, what wake we to discover? 65 THE QUESTIONING SPIRIT The human spirits saw I on a day, Sitting and looking each a different way; And hardly tasking, subtly questioning, Another spirit went around the ring To each and each: and as he ceased his say, Are dust and ashes fit to make a treasure? ΙΟ How many days or e'er thou mean'st to move?— I know not, let me love my love. Were not things old once new? I know not, let me do as others do. And when the rest were over-past, I know not, I will do my duty, said the last. Ah, do it, do it, and rejoice; But shalt thou then, when all is done, 30 And taking up the word around, above, below, know; Hope only, hope thou, and believe alway; I also know not, and I need not know, 40 Only with questionings pass I to and fro, Perplexing these that sleep, and in their folly Imbreeding doubt and sceptic melancholy; 49 Till that, their dreams deserting, they with me Come all to this true ignorance and thee. |