No More Learning

XIV.

"And thou, O distant, sinful heart
That climbest up so high
To wrap and blind thee with the snows
That cause to dream and die,
What blessing can, from lips of man,
Approach thee with his sigh?


XV.

"Ay, what from earth--create for man
And moaning in his moan?
Ay, what from stars--revealed to man
And man-named one by one?
Ay, more! what blessing can be given
Where the Spirits seven do show in heaven
A MAN upon the throne?


XVI.

"A man on earth HE wandered once,
All meek and undefiled,
And those who loved Him said 'He wept'--
None ever said He smiled;
Yet there might have been a smile unseen,
When He bowed his holy face, I ween,
To bless that happy child.


XVII.

"And now HE pleadeth up in heaven
For our humanities,
Till the ruddy light on seraphs' wings
In pale emotion dies.
They can better bear their Godhead's glare
Than the pathos of his eyes.


XVIII.

"I will go pray our God to-day
To teach thee how to scan
His work divine, for human use
Since earth on axle ran,--
To teach thee to discern as plain
His grief divine, the blood-drop's stain
He left there, MAN for man.


XIX.
"So, for the blood's sake shed by Him
Whom angels God declare,
Tears like it, moist and warm with love,
Thy reverent eyes shall wear
To see i' the face of Adam's race
The nature God doth share. "


XX.

"I heard," the poet said, "thy voice
As dimly as thy breath:
The sound was like the noise of life
To one anear his death,--
Or of waves that fail to stir the pale
Sere leaf they roll beneath.


XXI.

"And still between the sound and me
White creatures like a mist
Did interfloat confusedly,
Mysterious shapes unwist:
Across my heart and across my brow
I felt them droop like wreaths of snow,
To still the pulse they kist.


XXII.

"The castle and its lands are thine--
The poor's--it shall be done.
Go, _man_, to love! I go to live
In Courland hall, alone:
The bats along the ceilings cling,
The lizards in the floors do run,
And storms and years have worn and reft
The stain by human builders left
In working at the stone. "


PART THE THIRD.

SHOWING HOW THE VOW WAS KEPT.


I.

He dwelt alone, and sun and moon
Were witness that he made
Rejection of his humanness
Until they seemed to fade;
His face did so, for he did grow
Of his own soul afraid.


II.

The self-poised God may dwell alone
With inward glorying,
But God's chief angel waiteth for
A brother's voice, to sing;
And a lonely creature of sinful nature
It is an awful thing.


III.