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
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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