A honey dew, and throve on what it shed.
All things I loved; but song I loved in chief.
Imagination is the air of mind;

ΙΟ

Judgment its earth and memory its main;
Passion its fire. I was at home in heaven.
Swift-like, I lived above; once touching earth,
The meanest thing might master me: long wings
But baffled. Still and still I harped on song.
Oh! to create within the mind is bliss;
And, shaping forth the lofty thought, or lovely,
We seek not, need not heaven: and when the
thought,

Cloudy and shapeless, first forms on the mind,
Slow darkening into some gigantic make,
How the heart shakes with pride and fear, as
heaven

Quakes under its own thunder; or as might,
Of old, the mortal mother of a god,
When first she saw him lessening up the skies.
And I began the toil divine of verse,
Which, like a burning bush, doth guest a god.
But this was only wing-flapping - not flight;
The pawing of a courser ere he win;

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
Deep in the heart as meteor stones in earth,
Dropped from some higher sphere; the words of
gods,

And fragments of the undeemed tongues of heaven;
Men who walk up to fame as to a friend,

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
As easily as an oak looseneth its golden leaves
In a kindly largesse to the soil it grew on;
Whose names are ever on the world's broad tongue
Like sound upon the falling of a force;
Whose words, if wingèd are with angels' wings;
Who play upon the heart as on a harp,
And make our eyes bright as we speak of them;
Whose hearts have a look southward, and are open
To the whole noon of nature; these I have waked,
And wept o'er night by night; oft pondering
thus:

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,
One purpose hold where'er they fare,
O bounding breeze, O rushing seas!
At last, at last, unite them there!

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.

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,
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!

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?
Ye hills, fall on us, and ye mountains, cover!
In darkness and great gloom

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,
Each after each, I heard them singly sing,
Some querulously high, some softly, sadly low,
We know not what avails to know?
We know not wherefore need we know?
This answer gave they still unto his suing,
We know not, let us do as we are doing.
Dost thou not know that these things only seem ?·
I know not, let me dream my dream.

Are dust and ashes fit to make a treasure?
I know not, let me take my pleasure.

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.
Thy duty do? rejoined the voice,

Ah, do it, do it, and rejoice;

But shalt thou then, when all is done,
Enjoy a love, embrace a beauty
Like these, that may be seen and won
In life, whose course will then be run;
Or wilt thou be where there is none?
I know not, I will do my duty.

30

And taking up the word around, above, below,
Some querulously high, some softly, sadly low,
We know not, sang they all, nor ever need we know;
We know not, sang they, what avails to know?
Whereat the questioning spirit, some short space,
Though unabashed, stood quiet in his place.
But as the echoing chorus died away
And to their dreams the rest returned apace,
By the one spirit I saw him kneeling low,
And in a silvery whisper heard him say:
Truly, thou know'st not, and thou need'st not

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.