“Steady in thy superb prerogative,
“Thy inch of inkling,—nor once face the doubt
“I’ the sphere above thee, darkness to be felt?”
Thither I sent the great looks which compel
Light from its fount: all that I do and am
Comes from the truth, or seen or else surmised,
Remembered or divined, as mere man may:
I know just so, nor otherwise. As I know,
I speak,—what should I know, then, and how speak (1290)
Were there a wild mistake of eye or brain
In the recorded governance above?
If my own breath, only, blew coal alight
I called celestial and the morning-star?
I, who in this world act resolvedly,
Dispose of men, the body and the soul,
As they acknowledge or gainsay this light
I show them,—shall I too lack courage?—leave
I, too, the post of me, like those I blame?
Refuse, with kindred inconsistency, (1300)
Grapple with danger whereby souls grow strong?
I am near the end; but still not at the end;
All till the very end is trial in life:
At this stage is the trial of my soul
Danger to face, or danger to refuse?
Shall I dare try the doubt now, or not dare?
In such conception as my soul allows,—
Under Thy measureless my atom width!—
Man’s mind—what is it but a convex glass (1310)
Wherein are gathered all the scattered points
Picked out of the immensity of sky,
To reunite there, be our heaven on earth,
Our known unknown, our God revealed to man?
Existent somewhere, somehow, as a whole;
Here, as a whole proportioned to our sense,—
There, (which is nowhere, speech must babble thus!)
In the absolute immensity, the whole
Appreciable solely by Thyself,—
Here, by the little mind of man, reduced (1320)
To littleness that suits his faculty,
Appreciable too in the degree;
Between Thee and ourselves—nay even, again,
Below us, to the extreme of the minute,
Appreciable by how many and what diverse
Modes of the life Thou makest be! (why live
Except for love,—how love unless they know?)
Each of them, only filling to the edge,
Insect or angel, his just length and breadth,
Due facet of reflection,—full, no less, (1330)
Angel or insect, as Thou framedst things,—
I it is who have been appointed here
To represent Thee, in my turn, on earth,
Just as, if new philosophy know aught,
This one earth, out of all the multitude
Of peopled worlds, as stars are now supposed,—
Was chosen, and no sun- star of the swarm,
For stage and scene of Thy transcendent act
Beside which even the creation fades
Into a puny exercise of power. (1340)
Choice of the world, choice of the thing I am,
Both emanate alike from the dread play
Of operation outside this our sphere
Where things are classed and counted small or great,—
Incomprehensibly the choice is Thine!
I therefore bow my head and take Thy place.
There is, beside the works, a tale of Thee
In the world’s mouth which I find credible:
I love it with my heart: unsatisfied,
I try it with my reason, nor discept (1350)
From any point I probe and pronounce sound.
Mind is not matter nor from matter, but
Above,—leave matter then, proceed with mind:
Man’s be the mind recognised at the height,—
Leave the inferior minds and look at man.
Is he the strong, intelligent and good
Up to his own conceivable height? Nowise.
Enough o’ the low,—soar the conceivable height,
Find cause to match the effect in evidence,
Works in the world, not man’s, then God’s; leave man:
Conjecture of the worker by the work: (1361)
Is there strength there?—enough: intelligence?
Ample: but goodness in a like degree?
Not to the human eye in the present state,
This isoscele deficient in the base.
What lacks, then, of perfection fit for God
But just the instance which this tale supplies
Of love without a limit? So is strength,
So is intelligence; then love is so,
Unlimited in its self-sacrifice: (1370)
Then is the tale true and God shows complete.
Beyond the tale, I reach into the dark,
Feel what I cannot see, and still faith stands:
I can believe this dread machinery
Of sin and sorrow, would confound me else,
Devised,—all pain, at most expenditure
Of pain by Who devised pain,—to evolve,
By new machinery in counterpart,
The moral qualities of man—how else?—
To make him love in turn and be beloved, (1380)
Creative and self-sacrificing too,
And thus eventually God-like, (ay,
“I have said ye are Gods,”—shall it be said for nought?)
Enable man to wring, from out all pain,
All pleasure for a common heritage
To all eternity: this may be surmised,
The other is revealed,—whether a fact,
Absolute, abstract, independent truth,
Historic, not reduced to suit man’s mind,—
Or only truth reverberate, changed, made pass (1390)
A spectrum into mind, the narrow eye,—
The same and not the same, else unconceived—
Though quite conceivable to the next grade
Above it in intelligence,—as truth
Easy to man were blindness to the beast
By parity of procedure,—the same truth
In a new form, but changed in either case:
What matter so the intelligence be filled?
To the child, the sea is angry, for it roars;
Frost bites, else why the tooth-like fret on face? (1400)
Man makes acoustics deal with the sea’s wrath,
Explains the choppy cheek by chymic law,—
To both, remains one and the same effect
On drum of ear and root of nose, change cause
Never so thoroughly: so our heart be struck,
What care I,—by God’s gloved hand or
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