And those wise answers of the far-off sage,
So wise, they shut out God, and can enchain
To-day in narrow bonds of foolishness

The subtle Eastern brain.

And last, the hallowed pages dear to all,
Which bring God down to earth, a King to fight
With His people's hosts; or speaking awful words
From out the blaze of light,—

Which tell how earthly chiefs who loved the right,
Were dear to Him; and how the poet king
Sang, from his full repentant heart, the strains
Sad hearts still love to sing.

And how the seer was filled with words of fire,
And passionate scorn and lofty hate of ill
So pure, that we who hear them seem to hear
God speaking to us still.

But mixed with these dark tales of fraud and blood, Like weeds in some fair garden; till I said,

"These are not His; how shall a man discern

The living from the dead?

"I will go to that fair Life, the flower of lives;
I will prove the infinite pity and love which shine
From each recorded word of Him who once

66

Was human, yet Divine.

Oh, pure sweet life, crowned by a godlike death; Oh tender healing hand; oh words that give

Rest to the weary, solace to the sad,

And bid the hopeless live!

"Oh pity, spurning not the penitent thief;
Oh wisdom, stooping to the little child;
Oh infinite purity, taking thought for lives
By sinful stains defiled!

"With thee, will I dwell, with thee." But as I mused, Those pale ascetic words renewed my doubt:

The cheek, which to the smiter should be turned,

The offending eye plucked out.

The sweet, impossible counsels which may seem
Too careless of the state; nor recognise

A duty to the world, not all reserved

For that beyond the skies.

"And was it truth, or some too reverent dream
Which scorned God's precious processes of birth,
And spurned aside for Him, the changeless laws
Which rule all things of earth?

"Or how shall some strange breach of natural law
Be proof of moral truth; yet how deny

That He who holds the cords of life and death
Can raise up those who die?

"Yet how to doubt that God may be revealed;
Is He more strange, incarnate, shedding tears,
Than when the unaided scheme fulfils itself
Through countless painful years?

"But if revealed He be, how to escape The critic who dissects the sacred page,

Till God's gift hangs on grammar, and the saint

Is weaker than the sage

י!

These warring thoughts held me, and more; but when

The simple life divine shone forth no more,

And the fair truth came veiled in stately robes

Of philosophic lore;

And 'twas the apostle spoke, and not the Christ;

The scholar, not the Master; and the Church
Defined itself, and sank to earthly thrones :
"Surely," I said, "my search

"Is vain ;" and when with magical rite and spell They killed the Lord, and sought with narrow creed, Half-fancy, half of barbarous logic born,

To heal the hearts that bleed;

And heretic strove with heretic, and the Church
Slew for the truth itself had made: again,

"Can these things be of Him?" I thought, and felt

The old undying pain.

And yet the fierce false prophet turned to God
The gross idolatrous East; and far away,

Beyond the horrible wastes, the lewd knave makes
A paradise to-day.

*

*

*

*

Yet still deep down, within my being I kept

Two sacred fires alight through all the strife,—

Faith in a living God; faith in a soul

Dowered with an endless life.

*

And therefore though the world's foundations shook,

I was not all unhappy; knowing well

That He whose hand sustained me would not bear

To leave my soul in hell.

But now I looked on nature with strange eyes,
For something whispered, "Surely all things pass;
All life decays on earth or air or sea,—

All wither like the grass."

"These are, then have been, we ourselves decline, And cease and turn to earth, and are as they : Shall our dear animals rise; shall the dead flowers Bloom in another May?

"The seed springs like the herb, but not the same;
And like us, not the same, our children rise;
The type survives, though suffering gradual change,
The individual dies.

"How shall one seek to sever, e'en in thought,
Body and soul; how show to doubting eyes
That this returns to dust, while the other soars
Deathless beyond the skies?