Whereby truth, deadened of its absolute blaze,
Might need love's eye to pierce the o'erstretched doubt.
Teachers were busy, whispering 'All is true

As the aged ones report; but youth can reach
Where age gropes dimly, weak with stir and strain,
And the full doctrine slumbers till to-day.'

Thus, what the Roman's lowered spear was found,
A bar to me who touched and handled truth,
Now proved the glozing of some new shrewd tongue,
This Ebion, this Cerinthus or their mates,
Till imminent was the outcry 'Save our Christ!'
Whereon I stated much of the Lord's life
Forgotten or misdelivered, and let it work.
Such work done, as it will be, what comes next?
What do I hear say, or conceive men say,
'Was John at all, and did he say he saw?
Assure us, ere we ask what he might see!'

Is this indeed a burthen for late days,

And may I help to bear it with you all,

Using my weakness which becomes your strength?
For if a babe were born inside this grot,
Grew to a boy here, heard us praise the sun,
Yet had but yon sole glimmer in light's place,-
One loving him and wishful he should learn,
Would much rejoice himself was blinded first
Month by month here, so made to understand
How eyes, born darkling, apprehend amiss :
I think I could explain to such a child

There was more glow outside than gleams he caught,
Ay, nor need urge I saw it, so believe!'

It is a heavy burthen you shall bear

In latter days, new lands, or old grown strange,

Left without me, which must be very soon.

What is the doubt, my brothers? Quick with it !

I see you stand conversing, each new face,

Either in fields, of yellow summer eves,
On islets yet unnamed amid the sea;
Or pace for shelter 'neath a portico
Out of the crowd in some enormous town
Where now the larks sing in a solitude;
Or muse upon blank heaps of stone and sand
Idly conjectured to be Ephesus:
And no one asks his fellow any more
'Where is the promise of his coming?' but
'Was He revealed in any of His lives,
As Power, as Love, as Influencing Soul?'

IN FIELDS, OF YELLOW SUMMER EVES.

"Quick, for time presses, tell the whole mind out,
And let us ask and answer and be saved!
My book speaks on, because it cannot pass ;
One listens quietly, nor scoffs but pleads
'Here is a tale of things done ages since:
What truth was ever told the second day?

Wonders, that would prove doctrine, go for naught.
Remains the doctrine, love; well, we must love,
And what we love most, power and love in one,
Let us acknowledge on the record here,
Accepting these in Christ: must Christ then be ?
Has He been? Did we not ourselves make Him?
Our mind receives but what it holds, no more.
First of the love, then; we acknowledge Christ-
A proof we comprehend His love, a proof
We had such love already in ourselves,
Knew first what else we should not recognize.
'Tis mere projection from man's inmost mind,
And, what he loves, thus falls reflected back,
Becomes accounted somewhat out of him;
He throws it up in air, it drops down earth's,
With shape, name, story added, man's old way.
How prove you Christ came otherwise at least?
Next try the power: He made and rules the world :
Certes there is a world once made, now ruled,
Unless things have been ever as we see.
Our sires declared a charioteer's yoked steeds
Brought the sun up the east and down the west,
Which only of itself now rises, sets,

As if a hand impelled it and a will,

Thus they long thought, they who had will and hands: But the new question's whisper is distinct,

Wherefore must all force needs be like ourselves?

Or punishment to-day as years ago,

And none expects the sun will interpose;
Therefore it was mere passion and mistake,
Or erring zeal for right, which changed the truth.
Go back, far, farther, to the birth of things;
Ever the will, the intelligence, the love,
Man's!-which he gives, supposing he but finds,
As late he gave head, body, hands, and feet,
To help these in what forms he called his gods,
First, Jove's brow, Juno's eyes were swept away,
But Jove's wrath, Juno's pride continued long;
As last, will, power, and love discarded these,
So law in turn discards power, love, and will.
What proveth God is otherwise at least?
All else, projection from the mind of man!'
Nay, do not give me wine, for I am strong,
But place my gospel where I put my hands.

"I say that man was made to grow, not stop;
That help he needed once, and needs no more,
Having grown but an inch by, is withdrawn:
For he hath new needs, and new helps to these.
This imports solely, man should mount on each
New height in view; the help whereby he mounts,
The ladder-rung his foot has left, may fall,
Since all things suffer change save God the Truth.
Man apprehends Him newly at each stage
Whereat earth's ladder drops, its service done;

And nothing shall prove twice what once was proved.
You stick a garden-plot with ordered twigs

To show inside lie germs of herbs unborn,
And check the careless step would spoil their birth;
But when herbs wave, the guardian twigs may go,
Since should ye doubt of virtues, question kinds,
It is no longer for old twigs ye look,

Which proved once underneath lay store of seed,
But to the herb's self, by what light ye boast,

For what fruit's signs are. This book's fruit is plain,
Nor miracles need prove it any more.

Doth the fruit show? Then miracles bade 'ware
At first of root and stem, saved both till now
From trampling ox, rough boar, and wanton goat.
What? Was man made a wheelwork to wind up,
And be discharged, and straight wound up anew?
No!-grown, his growth lasts; taught, he ne'er forgets :
May learn a thousand things, not twice the same.
This might be pagan teaching: now hear mine.

“I say, that as the babe, you feed a while,
Becomes a boy and fit to feed himself,

So, minds at first must be spoon-fed with truth:
When they can eat, babe's nurture is withdrawn.
I fed the babe whether it would or no :

I bid the boy or feed himself or starve,

I cried once, That ye may believe in Christ,
Behold this blind man shall receive his sight!'

I cry now, Urgest thou, for I am shrewd,

And smile at stories how John's word could cure-
Repeat that miracle and take my faith?'

I say, that miracle was duly wrought

When, save for it, no faith was possible.

Whether a change were wrought i' the shows o' the world.

Whether the change came from our minds which see
Of shows o' the world so much as and no more
Than God wills for His purpose,—(what do I
See now, suppose you, there where you see rock
Round us?)-I know not; such was the effect,
So faith grew, making void more miracles
Because too much they would compel, not help.
I say, the acknowledgment of God in Christ
Accepted by thy reason, solves for thee
All questions in the earth and out of it,
And has so far advanced thee to be wise.
Wouldst thou unprove this to reprove the proved?
In life's mere minute, with power to use that proof,
Leave knowledge and revert to how it sprung?

Thou hast it; use it and forthwith, or die!
For I say, this is death and the sole death,
When a man's loss comes to him from his gain,
Darkness from light, from knowledge ignorance,
And lack of love from love made manifest :

A lamp's death when, replete with oil, it chokes;
A stomach's when, surcharged with food, it starves.
With ignorance was surety of a cure.

When man, appalled at nature, questioned first
'What if there lurk a might behind this might ?'
He needed satisfaction God could give,
And did give, as ye have the written word:
But when he finds might still redouble might,
Yet asks, Since all is might, what use of will?’
-Will, the one source of might,—he being man
With a man's will and a man's might, to teach
In little how the two combine in large,-

That man has turned round on himself and stands :
Which in the course of nature is, to die.

“And when man questioned, 'What if there be love
Behind the will and might, as real as they?'-
He needed satisfaction God could give,
And did give, as ye have the written word:
But when, beholding that love everywhere,
He reasons, Since such love is everywhere,
And since ourselves can love and would be loved,
We ourselves make the love, and Christ was not,'-
How shall ye help this man who knows himself,
That he must love and would be loved again,
Yet, owning his own love that proveth Christ,
Rejecteth Christ through very need of Him?
The lamp o'erswims with oil, the stomach flags
Loaded with nurture, and that man's soul dies.

If he rejoin, But this was all the while

A trick; the fault was, first of all, in thee,
Thy story of the places, names and dates,

Where, when, and how the ultimate truth had rise,
-Thy prior truth, at last discovered none,
Whence now the second suffers detriment.
What good of giving knowledge if, because
O' the manner of the gift, its profit fail?
And why refuse what modicum of help
Had stopped the after-doubt, impossible
I' the face of truth-truth absolute, uniform?
Why must I hit of this and miss of that,