LITMIR.BIZ

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there lies the wonder In which the sun went down and moon arose; The joy with which the meadows opened out Their daisies to the warming sun of spring; Yea, all the inward glory, ere cold fear Froze, or doubt shook the mirror of his soul: To reach it, he must climb the present slope Of this day's duty—here he would not rest. But all the time the glory is at hand, Urging and guiding—only o'er its face Hangs ever, pledge and screen, the bridal veil: He knows the beauty radiant underneath; He knows that God who is the living God, The God of living things, not of the dying, Would never give his child, for God-born love, A cloud-made phantom, fading in the sun. Faith vanishes in sight; the cloudy veil Will melt away, destroyed of inward light.

      If thy young heart yet lived, my Lilia, thou

       And I might, as two children, hand in hand,

       Go home unto our Father.—I believe

       It only sleeps, and may be wakened yet.

      SCENE X.—Julian's room. Christmas Day; early morn. JULIAN.

      Julian. The light comes feebly, slowly, to the world On this one day that blesses all the year, Just as it comes on any other day: A feeble child he came, yet not the less Brought godlike childhood to the aged earth, Where nothing now is common any more. All things had hitherto proclaimed God: The wide spread air; the luminous mist that hid The far horizon of the fading sea; The low persistent music evermore Flung down upon the sands, and at the base Of the great rocks that hold it as a cup; All things most common; the furze, now golden, now Opening dark pods in music to the heat Of the high summer-sun at afternoon; The lone black tarn upon the round hill-top, O'er which the gray clouds brood like rising smoke, Sending its many rills, o'erarched and hid, Singing like children down the rocky sides;— Where shall I find the most unnoticed thing, For that sang God with all its voice of song? But men heard not, they knew not God in these; To their strange speech unlistening ears were strange; For with a stammering tongue and broken words, With mingled falsehoods and denials loud, Man witnessed God unto his fellow man: How then himself the voice of Nature hear? Or how himself he heeded, when, the leader, He in the chorus sang a discord vile? When prophet lies, how shall the people preach? But when He came in poverty, and low, A real man to half-unreal men, A man whose human thoughts were all divine, The head and upturned face of human kind— Then God shone forth from all the lowly earth, And men began to read their maker there. Now the Divine descends, pervading all. Earth is no more a banishment from heaven; But a lone field among the distant hills, Well ploughed and sown, whence corn is gathered home. Now, now we feel the holy mystery That permeates all being: all is God's; And my poor life is terribly sublime. Where'er I look, I am alone in God, As this round world is wrapt in folding space; Behind, before, begin and end in him: So all beginnings and all ends are hid; And he is hid in me, and I in him.

      Oh, what a unity, to mean them all!—

       The peach-dyed morn; cold stars in colder blue

       Gazing across upon the sun-dyed west,

       While the dank wind is running o'er the graves;

       Green buds, red flowers, brown leaves, and ghostly snow;

       The grassy hills, breeze-haunted on the brow;

       And sandy deserts hung with stinging stars!

       Half-vanished hangs the moon, with daylight sick,

       Wan-faced and lost and lonely: daylight fades—

       Blooms out the pale eternal flower of space,

       The opal night, whose odours are gray dreams—

       Core of its petal-cup, the radiant moon!

       All, all the unnumbered meanings of the earth,

       Changing with every cloud that passes o'er;

       All, all, from rocks slow-crumbling in the frost

       Of Alpine deserts, isled in stormy air,

       To where the pool in warm brown shadow sleeps,

       The stream, sun-ransomed, dances in the sun;

       All, all, from polar seas of jewelled ice,

       To where she dreams out gorgeous flowers—all, all

       The unlike children of her single womb!

       Oh, my heart labours with infinitude!

       All, all the messages that these have borne

       To eyes and ears, and watching, listening souls;

       And all the kindling cheeks and swelling hearts,

       That since the first-born, young, attempting day,

       Have gazed and worshipped!—What a unity,

       To mean each one, yet fuse each in the all!

       O centre of all forms! O concord's home!

       O world alive in one condensed world!

       O face of Him, in whose heart lay concealed

       The fountain-thought of all this kingdom of heaven!

       Lord, thou art infinite, and I am thine!

      I sought my God; I pressed importunate;

       I spoke to him, I cried, and in my heart

       It seemed he answered me. I said—"Oh! take

       Me nigh to thee, thou mighty life of life!

       I faint, I die; I am a child alone

       'Mid the wild storm, the brooding desert-night."

      "Go thou, poor child, to him who once, like thee,

       Trod the highways and deserts of the world."

      "Thou sendest me then, wretched, from thy sight!

       Thou wilt not have me—I am not worth thy care!"

      "I send thee not away; child, think not so;

       From the cloud resting on the mountain-peak,

       I call to guide thee in the path by which

       Thou may'st come soonest home unto my heart.

       I, I am leading thee. Think not of him

       As he were one and I were one; in him

       Thou wilt find me, for he and I are one.

       Learn thou to worship at his lowly shrine,

       And see that God dwelleth in lowliness."

      I came to Him; I gazed upon his face;

       And Lo! from out his eyes God looked on me!—

       Yea, let them laugh! I will sit at his feet, As a child sits upon the ground, and looks Up in his mother's face. One smile from him, One look from those sad eyes, is more to me Than to be lord myself of hearts and thoughts. O perfect made through the reacting pain In which thy making force recoiled on thee! Whom no less glory could make visible Than the utter giving of thyself away; Brooding no thought of grandeur in the deed, More than a child embracing from full heart! Lord of thyself and me through the sore grief Which thou didst bear to bring us back to God, Or rather, bear in being unto us Thy own pure shining self of love and truth! When I have learned to think thy radiant thoughts, To love the truth beyond the power to know it, To bear my light as thou thy heavy cross, Nor ever feel a martyr for thy sake, But an unprofitable servant still,— My highest sacrifice my simplest duty Imperative and unavoidable, Less than which All, were nothingness and waste; When I have lost myself in other men, And found myself in thee—the Father then Will come with thee, and will abide with me.

      * * * * *

      SCENE XI.—LILIA teaching LADY GERTRUDE. Enter LORD SEAFORD. LILIA rises. He places her a chair, and seats himself at the instrument; plays a low, half-melancholy, half-defiant prelude, and sings.

      SONG.

      Look on the magic mirror;

       A glory thou wilt spy;

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