I have read much, thought much, experienced much, Yet would die rather than avow my fear I won't—that is, I can't throw one away. That meets the knife-I cut and cut again! First cut the Liquefaction, what comes last But Fichte's clever cut at God Himself? Experimentalize on sacred things! I trust nor hand nor eye nor heart nor brain To stop betimes: they all get drunk alike. The first step, I am master not to take. You'd find the cutting-process to your taste As much as leaving growths of lies unpruned, Nor see more danger in it, you retort. Your taste's worth mine; but my taste proves more wise When we consider that the steadfast hold On the extreme end of the chain of faith Gives all the advantage, makes the differ ence, With the rough purblind mass we seek to rule. We are their lords, or they are free of us Just as we tighten or relax that hold. way And thrown into the balance, turns the scale How we may lead a comfortable life, How suit our luggage to the cabin's size. Of course you are remarking all this time How narrowly and grossly I view life, Respect the creature-comforts, care to rule The masses, and regard complacently "The cabin," in our old phrase! Well, I do. I act for, talk for, live for this world now, As this world calls for action, life and talk No prejudice to what next world may prove, Whose new laws and requirements, my best pledge To observe then, is that I observe these now, Shall do hereafter what I do meanwhile. Let us concede (gratuitously though) Next life relieves the soul of body, yields Pure spiritual enjoyments: well, my friend, Why lose this life in the meantime, since its use May be to make the next life more intense? Do you know, I have often had a dream (Work it up in your next month's article) Of man's poor spirit in its progress still Losing true life for ever and a day Through ever trying to be and ever being In the evolution of successive spheres, Before its actual sphere and place of life, Halfway into the next, which having reached, It shoots with corresponding foolery Halfway into the next still, on and off! As when a traveller, bound from North to South, Scouts fur in Russia-what's its use in France? In France spurns flannel-where's its need in Spain? 754 In Spain drops cloth-too cumbrous for Algiers! Linen goes next, and last the skin itself, A superfluity at Timbuctoo. When, through his journey, was the fool at ease? I'm at ease now, friend-worldly in this world I take and like its way of life; I think My brothers who administer the means Live better for my comfort-that's good too; And God, if He pronounce upon it all, Approves my service, which is better still. If He keep silence,-why, for you or me Or that brute-beast pulled-up in to-day's "Times," What odds is't, save to ourselves, what life we lead? You meet me at this issue-you declare, All special-pleading done with, truth is truth, And justifies itself by undreamed ways. You don't fear but it's better, if we doubt, To say so, acting up to our truth perceived However feebly. Do then,-act away! 'Tis there I'm on the watch for you! How one acts Is, both of us agree, our chief concern: And how you'll act is what I fain would see If, like the candid person you appear, You dare to make the most of your life's scheme As I of mine, live up to its full law Since there's no higher law that counterchecks. Put natural religion to the test You've just demolished the revealed with -quick, Down to the root of all that checks your will, All prohibition to lie, kill and thieve Or even to be an atheistic priest! Suppose a pricking to incontinence— Philosophers deduce your chastity Or shame, from just the fact that at the first Whoso embraced a woman in the plain, Threw club down, and forewent his brains beside, So stood a ready victim in the reach But you who reach where the first thread begins, You'll soon cut that!-which means you can, but won't Through certain instincts, blind, unreasoned-out, You dare not set aside, you can't tell why, But there they are, and so you let them rule. Then, friend, you seem as much a slave as I, A liar, conscious coward and hypocrite, Who want, am made for, and must have a God Ere I can be aught, do aught?-no mere name Want, but the true thing with what proves its truth, To wit, a relation from that thing to me, Touching from head to foot-which touch I feel, And with it take the rest, this life of ours! I live my life here; yours you dare not live. -Not as I state it, who (you please subjoin) Disfigure such a life and call it names, While, in your mind, remains another way For simple men: knowledge and power have rights, But ignorance ard weakness have rights too. There needs no crucial effort to find truth If here or there or anywhere aboutWe ought to turn each side, try hard and see, And if we can't, be glad we've earned at least The right, by one laborious proof the more, To graze in peace earth's pleasant pasturage. Men are not angels, neither are they brutes. Something we may see, all we cannot see What need of lying? I say, I see all, And swear to each detail the most minute In what I think a Pan's face-you, mere cloud: I swear I hear him speak and see him wink, For fear, if once I drop the emphasis, Mankind may doubt there's any cloud at all. You take the simpler life-ready to see, Willing to see-for no cloud's worth a face And leaving quiet what no strength can move, And which, who bids you move? who has the right? I bid you; but you are God's sheep, not mine "Pastor est tui Dominus." You find In these the pleasant pastures of this life Much you may eat without the least offence, Much you don't eat because your maw objects, Much you would eat but that your fellowflock Open great eyes at you and even butt, And thereupon you like your mates so well You cannot please yourself, offending them You weigh your pleasure with their butts and bleats And strike the balance. Sometimes certain fears Restrain you-real checks since you find them so Sometimes you please yourself and nothing checks; And thus you graze through life with not one lie, And like it best. But do you, in truth's name? If so, you beat-which means, you are not I Who needs must make earth mine and feed my fill Not simply unbutted at, unbickered with, But motioned to the velvet of the sward By those obsequious wethers' very selves. Look at me, sir; my age is double yours: At yours, I knew beforehand, so enjoyed, What now I should be-as, permit the word, I pretty well imagine your whole range And stretch of tether twenty years to come. We both have minds and bodies much alike. In truth's name, don't you want my bishopric, My daily bread, my influence and my state? You're young, I'm old, you must be old one day; Will you find then, as I do hour by hour, Women their lovers kneel to, that cut curls From your fat lap-dog's ears to grace a brooch Dukes, that petition just to kiss your ring With much beside you know or may conceive? Suppose we die to-night: well, here am I, Such were my gains, life bore this fruit to me, Though when they seem exorbitantly While writing all the same my articles sheep, On music, poetry, the fictile vase Found at Albano, chess, or Anacreon's Greek. But you the highest honour in your life, The thing you'll crown yourself with, all your days, Is-dining here and drinking this last glass I pour you out in sign of amity Judge what's my estimation by the fact, The world would brand the lie-my enemies first, Who'd sneer-"the bishop's an archhypocrite, And knave perhaps, but not so frank a fool." Whereas I should not dare for both my ears Breathe one such syllable, smile one such smile, Before my chaplain who reflects myself— My shade's so much more potent than your flesh. What's your reward, self-abnegating friend? Stood you confessed of those exceptional And privileged great natures that dwarf mine A zealot with a mad ideal in reach, A statesman with a scheme to stop this war, An artist whose religion is his art, I should have nothing to object! such men Carry the fire, all things grow warm to them, Their drugget's worth my purple, they beat me. But you, you're just as little those as I You, Gigadibs, who, thirty years of age, Write statedly for Blackwood's Magazine, Believe you see two points in Hamlet's soul Unseized by the Germans yet-which view you'll print Meantime the best you have to show being still That lively lightsome article we took Almost for the true Dickens,-what's its name? "The Slum and Cellar-or Whitechapel life Limned after dark!" it made me laugh, I know, And pleased a month and brought you in ten pounds. -Success I recognize and compliment, And therefore give you, if you choose, three words (The card and pencil-scratch is quite enough) Which whether here, in Dublin or New York, Will get you, prompt as at my eyebrow's wink, Such terms as never you aspired to get In all our own reviews and some not ours. Go write your lively sketches-be the first "Blougram, or The Eccentric Confidence" Or better simply say, "The Outwardbound." Why, men as soon would throw it in my teeth As copy and quote the infamy chalked broad About me on the church-door opposite. You will not wait for that experience though, I fancy, howsoever you decide, Over his wine so smiled and talked his hour Sylvester Blougram, styled in partibus Episcopus, nec non-(the deuce knows what It's changed to by our novel hierarchy) |