Pomegranates from an English Garden

“Split the mould – and as this would chafe
“The creature’s new world-widened sense,
“One minute after day dispense
“The thousand sounds and sights that broke
“In on him at the chisel’s stroke, —
“So, in God’s eye, the earth’s first stuff
“Was, neither more nor less, enough
“To house man’s soul, man’s need fulfil.
“Man reckoned it immeasurable?
“So thinks the lizard of his vault!
“Could God be taken in default,
“Short of contrivances, by you, —
“Or reached, ere ready to pursue
“His progress through eternity?
“That chambered rock, the lizard’s world,
“Your easy mallet’s blow has hurled
“To nothingness for ever; so,
“Has God abolished at a blow
“This world, wherein his saints were pent, —
“Who, though found grateful and content,
“With the provision there, as thou,
“Yet knew he would not disallow
“Their spirit’s hunger, felt as well, —
“Unsated, – not unsatable,
“As paradise gives proof. Deride
“Their choice now, thou who sit’st outside!”

The poem proceeds in the same lofty strain, till – humbled to the dust at the thought of the unutterable folly of his choice, especially in view of the love of God expressed on Calvary, a love which he had slighted in the happy days gone by – he presents the touching plea of the 31st stanza, the result of which appears in what follows, spoken of by Professor Kirkman of Cambridge, as “the splendid consummation of Easter-Day so closely resembling the well-known crisis in Faust.”

XXXI

And I cowered deprecatingly —
“Thou Love of God! Or let me die,
“Or grant what shall seem heaven almost!
“Let me not know that all is lost,
“Though lost it be – leave me not tied
“To this despair, this corpse-like bride!
“Let that old life seem mine – no more —
“With limitation as before,
“With darkness, hunger, toil, distress:
“Be all the earth a wilderness!
“Only let me go on, go on,
“Still hoping ever and anon
“To reach one eve the Better Land!”

XXXII

Then did the form expand, expand —
I knew him through the dread disguise
As the whole God within his eyes
Embraced me.

XXXIII

When I lived again,
The day was breaking, – the grey plain
I rose from, silvered thick with dew.
Was this a vision? False or true?
Since then, three varied years are spent,
And commonly my mind is bent
To think it was a dream – be sure
A mere dream and distemperature —
The last day’s watching: then the night, —
The shock of that strange Northern Light
Set my head swimming, bred in me
A dream. And so I live, you see,
Go through the world, try, prove, reject,
Prefer, still struggling to effect
My warfare; happy that I can
Be crossed and thwarted as a man,
Not left in God’s contempt apart,
With ghastly smooth life, dead at heart,
Tame in earth’s paddock as her prize.
Thank God, she still each method tries
To catch me, who may yet escape,
She knows, the fiend in angel’s shape!
Thank God, no paradise stands barred
To entry, and I find it hard
To be a Christian, as I said!
Still every now and then my head
Raised glad, sinks mournful – all grows drear
Spite of the sunshine, while I fear
And think, “How dreadful to be grudged
“No ease henceforth, as one that’s judged,
“Condemned to earth for ever, shut
“From heaven!”
But Easter-Day breaks! But
Christ rises! Mercy every way
Is infinite, – and who can say?

notes

1

It has been found necessary also to give only the latter part of the noble poem “Saul.” A slight sketch of the part omitted is given, and the poem is continued without interruption to its close.