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Soars up and up, shivering for very joy;
Afar the ocean sleeps; white fishing-gulls
Flit where the strand is purple with its tribe
Of nested limpets; savage creatures seek
Their loves in wood and plain-and God renews
His ancient rapture. Thus he dwells in all,
From life's minute beginnings, up at last
To man-the consummation of this scheme
Of being, the completion of this sphere
Of life: whose attributes had here and there
Been scattered o'er the visible world before,
Asking to be combined, dim fragments meant
To be united in some wondrous whole,
Imperfect qualities throughout creation,
Suggesting some one creature yet to make,

Some point where all those scattered rays should meet
Convergent in the faculties of man.

Power-neither put forth blindly, nor controlled
Calmly by perfect knowledge; to be used

At risk, inspired or checked by hope and fear:
Knowledge-not intuition, but the slow

Uncertain fruit of an enhancing toil,

Strengthened by love: love-not serenely pure,
But strong from weakness, like a chance-sown plant
Which, cast on stubborn soil, puts forth changed buds

And softer stains, unknown in happier climes;
Love which endures and doubts and is oppressed
And cherished, suffering much and much sustained,
And blind, oft-failing, yet believing love,
A half-enlightened, often-chequered trust:-
Hints and previsions of which faculties
Are strewn confusedly everywhere about
The inferior natures, and all lead up higher,
All shape out dimly the superior race,
The heir of hopes too fair to turn out false,
And man appears at last. So far the seal

Is put on life; one stage of being complete,
One scheme wound up: and from the grand result
A supplementary reflux of light,

Illustrates all the inferior grades, explains
Each back step in the circle. Not alone
For their possessor dawn those qualities,
But the new glory mixes with the heaven.
And earth; man, once descried, imprints for ever
His presence on all lifeless things: the winds
Are henceforth voices, wailing or a shout,
A querulous mutter or a quick gay laugh,
Never a senseless gust now man is born.

The herded pines commune and have deep thoughts,
A secret they assemble to discuss

When the sun drops behind their trunks which glare
Like grates of hell: the peerless cup afloat
Of the lake-lily is an urn, some nymph
Swims bearing high above her head: no bird
Whistles unseen, but through the gaps above
That let light in upon the gloomy woods,
A shape peeps from the breezy forest-top,
Arch with small puckered mouth and mocking eye.
The morn has enterprise, deep quiet droops
With evening, triumph takes the sunset hour,
Voluptuous transport ripens with the corn
Beneath a warm moon like a happy face:
-And this to fill us with regard for man,
With apprehension of his passing worth,
Desire to work his proper nature out,
And ascertain his rank and final place,
For these things tend still upward, progress is
The law of life, man is not Man as yet.
Nor shall I deem his object served, his end
Attained, his genuine strength put fairly forth,
While only here and there a star dispels

The darkness, here and there a towering mind

O'erlooks its prostrate fellows: when the host
Is out at once to the despair of night,
When all mankind alike is perfected,

Equal in full-blown powers-then, not till then,
I say, begins man's general infancy.

For wherefore make account of feverish starts
Of restless members of a dormant whole,
Impatient nerves which quiver while the body
Slumbers as in a grave? Oh long ago

The brow was twitched, the tremulous lids astir,
The peaceful mouth disturbed; half-uttered speech
Ruffled the lip, and then the teeth were set,

The breath drawn sharp, the strong right-hand clenched. stronger,

As it would pluck a lion by the jaw;

The glorious creature laughed out even in sleep!
But when full roused, each giant-limb awake,
Each sinew strung, the great heart pulsing fast,
He shall start up and stand on his own earth,
Then shall his long triumphant march begin,
Thence shall his being date,-thus wholly roused,
What he achieves shall be set down to him.
When all the race is perfected alike

As man, that is; all tended to mankind,
And, man produced, all has its ends thus far:
But in completed man begins anew
A tendency to God. Prognostics told
Man's near approach; so in man's self arise
August anticipations, symbols, types

Of a dim splendour ever on before
In that eternal circle life pursues.

ALL SERVICE RANKS THE SAME WITH GOD.

[Aus Pippa Passes 1841.]

ALL service ranks the same with God:

If now, as formerly he trod

Paradise, his presence fills

Our earth, each only as God wills
Can work-God's puppets, best and worst,
Are we; there is no last nor first.

Say not "a small event!" Why "small"?
Costs it more pain that this, ye call
A "great event," should come to pass,
Than that? Untwine me from the mass
Of deeds which make up life, one deed
Power shall fall short in or exceed!

CRISTINA.

[Dramatic Lyrics 1842.]

SHE should never have looked at me
If she meant I should not love her!
There are plenty . . . men, you call such,
she may discover

I suppose

All her soul to, if she pleases,

And yet leave much as she found them: But I'm not so, and she knew it

When she fixed me, glancing round them.

What? To fix me thus meant nothing? But I can't tell (there's my weakness) What her look said!-no vile cant, sure, About "need to strew the bleakness "Of some lone shore with its pearl-seed. "That the sea feels"-no "strange yearning "That such souls have, most to lavish

"Where there's chance of least returning."

Oh, we're sunk enough here, God knows!
But not quite so sunk that moments,

Sure tho' seldom, are denied us,
When the spirit's true endowments
Stand out plainly from its false ones,
And apprise it if pursuing

Or the right way or the wrong way,
To its triumph or undoing.

There are flashes struck from midnights,
There are fire-flames noondays kindle,
Whereby piled-up honours perish,

Whereby swollen ambitions dwindle,
While just this or that poor impulse,
Which for once had play unstifled,
Seems the sole work of a life-time
That away the rest have trifled.

Doubt you if, in some such moment,
As she fixed me, she felt clearly,
Ages past the soul existed,

Here an age 'tis resting merely,
And hence fleets again for ages,
While the true end, sole and single,
It stops here for is, this love-way,
With some other soul to mingle?

Else it loses what it lived for,
And eternally must lose it;
Better ends may be in prospect,

Deeper blisses (if you choose it),
But this life's end and this love-bliss

Have been lost here. Doubt you whether

This she felt as, looking at me,

Mine and her souls rushed together?

Oh, observe! Of course, next moment,
The world's honours, in derision,

Jiriczek, Englische Dichter.

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