Pomegranates from an English Garden

“A pleasant life, and straight some man
“Beside you, with, if he thought fit,
“Abundant means to compass it,
“Shall turn deliberate aside
“To try and live as, if you tried
“You clearly might, yet most despise.
“One friend of mine wears out his eyes,
“Slighting the stupid joys of sense,
“In patient hope that, ten years hence,
“‘Somewhat completer,’ he may say,
“‘My list of coleoptera!’
“While just the other who most laughs
“At him, above all epitaphs
“Aspires to have his tomb describe
“Himself as sole among the tribe
“Of snuffbox-fanciers, who possessed
“A Grignon with the Regent’s crest.
“So that, subduing, as you want,
“Whatever stands predominant
“Among my earthly appetites
“For tastes and smells and sounds and sights,
“I shall be doing that alone,
“To gain a palm-branch and a throne,
“Which fifty people undertake
“To do, and gladly, for the sake
“Of giving a Semitic guess,
“Or playing pawns at blindfold chess.”

The stanza which follows gives the speaker’s answer, ending with this striking passage: —

“Renounce the world!” – Ah, were it done
By merely cutting one by one
Your limbs off, with your wise head last,
How easy were it! – how soon past,
If once in the believing mood!

To which the other replies by reproaching him for ingratitude to God, who really asks us to give up nothing that is good, but only to observe such moderation in our pleasures that life is all the more enjoyable, while sorrow almost disappears, transfigured in the light of love. This answer has such a ring of the true metal in it, that the speaker begins his rejoinder with the question, “Do you say this, or I?” and then proceeds (in a passage of wonderful power) to expose the superficiality of the view he is endeavouring to support.

VIII

Do you say this, or I? – Oh, you!
Then, what, my friend? – (thus I pursue
Our parley) – you indeed opine
That the Eternal and Divine
Did, eighteen centuries ago,
In very truth… Enough! you know
The all-stupendous tale, – that Birth,
That Life, that Death! And all, the earth
Shuddered at, – all, the heavens grew black
Rather than see; all, nature’s rack
And throe at dissolution’s brink
Attested, – all took place, you think,
Only to give our joys a zest,
And prove our sorrows for the best?
We differ, then! Were I, still pale
And heartstruck at the dreadful tale,
Waiting to hear God’s voice declare
What horror followed for my share,
As implicated in the deed,
Apart from other sins, – concede
That if he blacked out in a blot
My brief life’s pleasantness, ’twere not
So very disproportionate!
Or there might be another fate —
I certainly could understand
(If fancies were the thing in hand)
How God might save, at that day’s price,
The impure in their impurities,
Give formal licence and complete
To choose the fair and pick the sweet.
But there be certain words, broad, plain,
Uttered again and yet again,
Hard to mistake or overgloss —
Announcing this world’s gain for loss,
And bidding us reject the same:
The whole world lieth (they proclaim)
In wickedness, – come out of it!
Turn a deaf ear, if you think fit,
But I who thrill through every nerve
At thought of what deaf ears deserve, —
How do you counsel in the case?

The counsel was, to choose by all means the safe side, by giving up everything as literally as did the martyrs in the early days of persecution; at which a shudder of doubt comes over him, and he answers (note the very remarkable illustration of the moles and the grasshoppers): —

X

* * * * *

If after all we should mistake,
And so renounce life for the sake
Of death and nothing else? You hear
Our friends we jeered at, send the jeer
Back to ourselves with good effect —
“There were my beetles to collect!
“My box – a trifle, I confess,
“But here I hold it, ne’ertheless!”
Poor idiots, (let us pluck up heart
And answer) we, the better part
Have chosen, though ’twere only hope, —
Nor envy moles like you that grope