'Twixt Kiss and Lip or Under the Sword. By the author of "Women Must Weep," [i.e. F. W. O. Ward] Third edition

For years I toiled, a meditative man,
Since youthful reason born of sense began
Its course imperious, eager to find out
(Through thorny paths of speculative doubt)
The meaning of the mystery of Life,
With its strange riddles of destructive strife

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Unceasing. Muoh I longed and longed to know,
What boded all this wilderness of woe,
And whither tended; why the poor and weak
Who had no hands to help, no voice to speak,
More than the wicked suffered, and were blent
(Themselves so pure and just and innocent)
In judgment with the bad; if cosmic pain
Were purgatorial, and not borne in vain
By weeping millions who in sorrow moved,
A thing permitted, not by God approved;
If evil might be an imperfect form
Of undeveloped good, through stress and storm
Evolving into something better, and at length
Unfolding all the loveliness and strength
Of the completed work, though now it seem
A black defect in what we dimly deem
The orb of Nature; and if haply vice,
Though framed in subtle fashions to entice,
Might be the remnant of a bygone age,
The reminiscence of a lower stage
Or animal condition, which in time
By virtue with its aims and acts sublime
Would be removed. Thus did I reason long,
Sore troubled by the tyranny of wrong,
That like a plague spot to creation clings,
And the survival of unfittest things—
The wanton sufferings, and the fateful dance
Of misery that seemed to strike at chance
The undeserving, not the guilty lust,
With distribution idle or unjust.
My fond inquries farther still went back,
Upon a midnight and mysterious track,
To life's appearance—whether from within,
Or from without, its sources might begin—
If from some other distant planet hurled
A moss-grown fragment, to this formless world
Its fair commencement gave; or if at last,
When matter had through countless stages pass'd,
Life fashioned out of self-begotten throes,
By gradual change and stress essential rose
The grand result and necessary term
Of set conditions, which implied the germ.
I saw that life, which slumbered in the stone,
Dreamed in the plant, in animals alone
Awoke to active functions, more or less,
And in man only was self-consciousness;
That there was progress upward from the clod,
Through links angelic, to the perfect God.

Then the instructed reason higher drew,
And winged with many-coloured fancies flew

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On bolder quests, beyond our senses' lies,
Theosophies and grave theogonies.
Was the Supreme a Tyrant ruled by Fate,
Who governed as He could by fear and hate,
Inspired by wanton cruelty and lust,
And grinding creatures grimly into dust
From which he wrought them, like a brittle toy
Made to be broken, in His short-lived joy;
O'erruled by solemn Destiny, that lay
An awful burden on his empty sway?
Or was He truly, absolutely good
But not Almighty, and in vain withstood
At times the efforts of an Evil Power
That shared with Him the dread imperial dower,
And oft defeated by disastrous claims,
His schemes of mercy and benigner aims?
Did He create the universe, and give
Fixed constitutions by which all might live,
Then leave it darkly to the storms of chance,
The prey of strife and evil circumstance;
Led by that narrow rule and faithless friend,
Non-intervention, which frustrates its end,
Which serves no purpose but engenders hate,
While making self the measure of the State;
Like landlords who hold half a world in fee,
And drain its life-blood—proud and absentee?
Or was He—and I heard no glad reply—
Impersonal, a pale necessity,
Mechanically working out, by laws
That shaped and guided stars alike and straws,
His dark unconscious will, through heartless modes,
To some dim end, not moved by moral codes?
To universal chaos, or the doom
Of final fire, or equilibrium's gloom
And stagnant close, when forces all at length
Have stayed the burning fever of their strength?
A mere machine, both deaf and dumb and blind,
Heedless of what His progress left behind,
And dully pushing on, in cold calm ways
The inexorable course that spurned delays?
Was He the slave of His own system, fooled
By the strong laws He made but had not schooled?
For lo! I saw that philosophic thought,
Which every day a grosser darkness wrought,
Kept thrusting farther and yet farther back,
Beyond creation's broad and sunny track,
The near Creator into mist and shade,
For ever building up a barricade
Of laws between the creature and the God,
And blotting out the path by which we trod
To heaven of old, and giving in its stead

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Poor thin abstractions and negations dead,
The husks of mental food, that neither filled
The heart's deep hunger, nor one moment stilled
That innate passion which possesses all,
To find a God who answers to their call.

Long barren years I laboured in my mind,
Revolving much and tossed by every wind
Of every doctrine, as it wildly blew
In shy and shifting gusts for ever new,
From scientific quarters; till I found
Their boastful trumpets gave no certain sound,
While all were false or foolish—idle terms
And names, without the quick informing germs
Of principles or facts, a fruitless lore
That made no hearer wiser than before—
Mere learnéd jargon, theories of schools,
Not meat for men, but only food for fools.

Then I betook me, from the mists of doubt,
To exercise of prayers and dreams devout,
With faith and fasting, practices Divine
And all the ancient godly discipline
Of soul and body; wrapt in solemn trance
Which comes from sweet and serious governance
And self-effacement. From the Holy Book,
As drinks the pilgrim of the desert brook,
I drank deep draughts of spiritual life
And inward stillness born through clouds of strife
In blissful sunshine. There I read of One,
Who, as no earthly conqueror had done,
Lived, wrought, and ministered in every thing,
Without sin but not without suffering,
For human weal, and carried to its end
God's thought in man, which sin availed to bend
From its grand purpose, in the ages past
When that grim shadow over all was cast
And ever lengthened; who, as none of yore,
The burden of our cares and sorrows bore,
And bought us peace at a tremendous price,
Through life and death, by the dread sacrifice
Of perfect manhood, and that heavenly throne
Which He surrendered but to make our own
And seat us with Him; while by laying down
All that was won, He gained a brighter crown
Even in the darkness, when He offered up
His victeries and drained the bitter cup
Of anguish; for He conquered most in loss,
And triumphed as a King upon the Cross.
Him I accepted as the Perfect Man,
Who had fulfilled the fair eternal plan,
God's high idea, to educate our race

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And still exalt by stages that abase—
By fiery sufferings that alone refine,
Till human wills were one with the Divine.
Him I accepted as the Perfect God,
Who bowed His head to the avenging rod
Of wounded Justice long at war with Time,
Nor in His low estate was less sublime,
But greater than when, clothed in Royal robes
He stood in glory on the starry globes;
Who thus revealed that God was truly Love,
As well as Law, nor had a heart above
The little cares and stirs of daily strife,
But mingled freely with our common life.
From Him I learned a nobler track to try,
And yielding to the yoke of liberty
By willing service formed, I found the Truth
Which its disciples gives eternal youth
In rest and joy, and that serene content
Which is the faithful soul's enfranchisement.
To Him my homage I directed, urged
By burning hopes that in my bosom surged
With waves of promise, by assurance led
And with the blessed food of knowledge fed,
That filled my heart when I expected least,
With the rich dainties of a daily feast.
For Him I treasured every brighter thought,
That in my spirit holy music wrought,
With separation solemn, compassed round
By many a secret prayer and sacred bound
Of praises, till I had no other aim
Than that which bade me witness to His Name.
By Him transformed, in all my parts and powers,
I faced the fiercest onset of the hours
That bounded me, and conquered them at length,
Not in my own but with a vaster strength,
Which stirred my inmost pulse with feelings strange
And through my being sent the roots of change.
In him I lived and moved, in union sweet
That knit me closely to His blessed feet
By holy ties; and thence communion came
(As on the altar falls the heavenly flame)
With consecrating touch and kindly might,
Which flooded all my soul with saving light.
Through Him I access had to higher spheres,
Beyond the narrow circle of the years,
Above the grasp of even the greatest mind,
To mysteries of joy that lie behind
The cloudy veil that shuts the vision in,
And links us to a sordid world of sin.

Thus dedicated by devotion's choice,

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Which spoke aloud with no uncertain voice,
Self-offered, I to wondrous heights attained
In service willing yet not unconstrained
By the great love of Christ, which deeply wrought
Sweet revolutions in the realms of thought
And sentiment, till the old self was dead,
And only He reigned royally instead—
Till I had broken every cumbering chain,
That bound me to a mortal state of pain.
But now my soul seemed full of dazzling light,
And like a glorious planet in its might,
Revolving gladly round the central source,
Whence it derived its fairness and its force—
That sacred Sun which never seemed to set,
And as it broadened shone more brightly yet—
Rolled out along its holy, happy path,
Above the angry waves of human wrath
And tread of human tempests, and the call
Of fleshly claims that tempt and trouble all;
Put forth, as in the presence of its Lord,
Its every movement in complete accord
With Him, and in the sunshine of His Face,
Still gathered daily richer powers and grace,
And daily travelled farther from the round
Of sorrow; while I soared above its seat,
And trod it down with my triumphant feet,
And broke its bitter sway, and beat it back
Far, far beneath my own unsullied track,
Despoiling it of all its darkling pride,
That like a shadow ever at my side
Once haunted me, and dogged my devious way,
And like the pall of night upon me lay.
But when the last black lingering stain was gone,
And sin a fading memory lived on
A little season, just to point my bliss
By the deep contrast of that state and this—
A mere tradition or a doubtful dream,
Or flickering note in the resplendent beam
Of sanctity—when I had reached the height
Where reigned perfection in its own pure light
By faith unfaltering, agonizing prayers,
And all the arduous penitential stairs
That climb to glory—then my body took
The bright expression of the spirit's look,
And underwent a sweet and solemn change,
Transfiguration beautiful and strange,
As did my Master on the Holy Mount,
When He returned a moment to the fount
Of abdicated Godhead. Weakness fled
With all the sickness and the grief that shed
A dire eclipse on every human course,

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And flowed from sin as water from its source.
Yea, death itself and death's o'ershadowing shroud,
Passed from me like the passing of a cloud.
I was immortal, and my fleshly frame,
The avenue through which such suffering came
In elder days of evil, now partook
Of life immortal, when it once forsook
The yoke and bondage of Satanic sway,
To choose the noble and the narrow way.
And when the better law expelled the worse,
Then perished sin with all its power and curse.
And sorrow once for many years my mate,
Arising early and abiding late
To scourge my soul, now meteor-like had set
And left behind no record of regret
Nor lurid trail of troubled thought. I stood,
The centre of a sunny world of good
And sweetness, that yet never seemed to cloy,
While still expanding golden gates of joy
And vestibules of hope: as one who stands
Apart from earth in lonely mountain lands,
And sees around him curled the snow-white wreath
Of wrinkled clouds, and traces down beneath
And far beyond the limit of his ken
The dim and dusty ways of mortal men,
Who, from the watch tower of his glorious height,
Appear like insects sporting in the night.

Now faith and reason melted into one,
(As divers colours mingle in the sun
And by their sweet and kindly union make
A perfect beauty) when they learned to take
And give alike, and each to other lent
The one desired and destined complement.
And in the splendour of their wedded rays,
I caught the meaning of mysterious ways,
And all those dark and those defiant plots
Which underlay all life in tangled knots
And riddles. For my soul was full of love
Unbounded and unfolding, nor would move
To any lesser law, and its clear gaze
Resolved at once the thickness of the haze
And horror of the gloom, that o'er the earth
Spread the grey curtains of despair and dearth,
Poured still disorder and a deepening shade
And revelled in the misery they made.
Before my vision stretched the perfect plan,
That compassed all the history of man,
Which mortals view but piecemeal, and I saw
The majesty and moulding of the law
Which bound in one the scant and scattered parts,

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And covered more than sciences and arts
In grand connexions; which embraced the whole,
From the mean outset to the mighty goal,
And contradictions that were still at strife
Joined in the marriage of harmonious life;
Which showed how mortals, who mere fragments knew,
No semblance of the wondrous picture drew
In its broad branches, and outlying shoots
That nourished were by deep eternal roots;
Which proved that earthly happiness was small,
And carnal welfare not the end of all
But accidental, not the main intent
Of this world's work, but its embellishment
And casual trappings—while affliction grew,
As naturally as the breezes blew,
From the great heart of Love that is Divine,
To be a sweet and saving discipline
And steps of progress, and a kindly nurse
To guard the soul from some yet darker curse—
As wise physicians, shunning graver ill,
Strange poison into healthy frames instil;
Which taught me that the glorious aim of things,
Through agonies and overshadowings,
Was to illumine all the human sky
With the broad light of love and purity
And humble trust, and out of suffering's school
To bring these lessons as the living rule
And master motives of each word and act,
Transforming specious dreams to splendid fact,
Till self was blotted out of every soul,
And simple love of God possesst the whole.
I saw that only love could conquer vice,
By the sweet yielding of self-sacrifice,
Which (not destruction) is the vital truth,
Explaining what seems cruel or uncouth
In earth's stern struggle, and though creatures live
Upon each other yet they no less give
Life for each other as the final cost
Of mere existence, saved alone when lost;
Which all must pay, with or without their will,
Who would the part at birth bestowed fulfil,
As factors in that plan which cannot fall,
The grand organic unity of all.
For if perfection I at length had gained,
By many a tearful cry and footstep stained
With penal blood, 'twas only when my love
(Brooding o'er self a moment like the dove
About to leave for ever its sweet rest)
Flew forth abroad on mercy's noble quest,
Disdaining danger, and mid earthquake throes
Snatching an awful rapture of repose

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Upon the edge of storms, and misery's breath
Fanning to life even in the jaws of death—
The olive branch of peace and of good will
Bearing across the angry waves of ill
And sorrow—with the music of its voice,
Compelling hearts most hopeless to rejoice—
Following the raven, as day follows night,
And putting every shade of woe to flight
By its pure presence—bringing in its train
Each pure and pleasant gift and blessed gain
Unbought of gold—and dovelike to its nest
Took sick and helpless souls that needed rest—
Yea, gathered to it all created things,
Beneath the shadow of its sheltering wings.

Thus by devotion conquering years of strife,
I plucked the fruitage of the Tree of Life.
Which blooms where none before me ever trod,
Hard by the fountain in the throne of God,
That flows unceasing—thus I plucked and ate,
For nothing else my hunger now could sate;
While deep within me mighty pulses thrilled,
And the large spaces of my spirit filled
With melody and meaning all my own,
Of solemn joys till then undreamed, unknown,
And unconjectured. Fast I grew in grace,
As grows a stately plant in some green place
Of watered gardens, where the summers rest
With ripening rays that make it bright and blest
And fruitful. All my fertile being burst,
Through the dark fetters with which life was curst,
In fragrant flower and beauty; as the sun
Breaks through the clouds its glorious race to run,
Most jubilant. I drew from secret springs,
That lapt my soul in sacred murmurings;
And through my heart, as ages still went by,
I drank the fulness of eternity.

II. PART II.

Years followed years, men came and soon were gone,
Fresh kingdoms rose and fell, and I lived on
Immortal, calm and lone, untroubled still
By revolutions in their wildest will
And blindest fury. Russia's house of sand
All crumbled piecemeal at the avenging hand
Of judgment, and its military glare
Of glory died, with not one pitying prayer,
Before the indignant blaze of truth, and rule
Passed to the grasp of an imperial school
Of mighty-minded women, while the men

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Turned to the kitchen and the cattle pen
Their powers inferior, for the battle blade
Taking the housewife's broom and peaceful spade,
And taught by humble tasks and duty stern
The lessons pride so long refused to learn.
The torpid Turks from Europe moved their sway,
With harems, pipes, and sweetmeats swept away,
Absorbed in Asia, purged with sword and fire,
And trained by bitter trouble to aspire
To higher ends, and shaken into shape,
Like wine by ferment gathered from the grape.
France, like the vapours of a sputtering pot,
Boiled up and bubbled over, and was not,
Spent in vain dreams of conquest and of fame,
And lured to ruin by the lying name
Of reputation; while her prurient pride
And bloody laurels all were laid aside
For ever, with each miserable boast
That led her straying from her proper post
Of service; and the hands that could not lay
The storm they raised, consented to obey.
Then over earth the race Teutonic spread
Their mighty arms, and quickened lands long dead
With blood of commerce, and girt round with steel
Set on oppression's neck the indignant heel
Of justice, conquering as they went,
And making sea and sandy continent
A paradise of plenty, while they sprang
Into broad beauty and the deserts rang,
With cries of cities, that had learned to draw
Through freedom's lungs the breath of equal law;
And carrying with them on their fertile track,
Charters for slaves, chains for the tyrant's back,
And scourges; as they opened prison doors,
Or winnowed out the dusty temple floors,
And left behind them many a liberal plan
Of government, with love of God and man.
Trade on untravelled oceans bent its wings,
The wildernesses teemed with water springs,
Through isthmus and through mountain science clove
Its civilizing way, the people strove
With contests but of kindness, all was good
In the sweet light of common brotherhood.
Even as a giant tree puts proudly forth,
Vexed by no travail of the troubled north,
Its giant limbs, through which the sun and rain

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Can beat no entrance though they beat again;
While in its shadow thrives each weaker plant,
And on its branches birds whose songs enchant
Rest and rejoice, while offshoots from it grow
And gather grace from all the winds that blow;
Till through the forest they have stretched their stems
And crown the sky with leafy diadems.
So rose, so flourished the grand Teuton race,
Peopling with mighty men the empty space,
Till it o'erflowed in golden waves of wealth,
Bearing the lamps of truth and hope and health,
With love of right and hatred of the wrong,
Whatever makes a nation wise and strong
And steadfast. While the buds of freedom fair
Expanded in the pure and pleasant air
Of larger modes, and striking deep their roots
In nature's subsoil, yielded goodly fruits—
Such harvests as the arbitrary codes,
That on galled shoulders bound the bitter loads
Of artificial systems, could not reap,
Though lands on lands should all their folly heap.
Before the bar of justice, without fear,
On equal terms the peasant and the peer,
The clown and king, stood to receive their due,
Not by the faulty sentence of the few,
But the great public voice that dealt to vice
Its proper meed, nor knew one prejudice;
That had in nought an interested part,
And uttered from the universal heart,
Secured by every strong religious tie,
The verdict that could never, never lie.

Yet rolled the world on its refulgent track,
For ever trampling down and beating back,
The lines of darkness and the hosts of ill,
And customs changed, and I existed still,
The sole survivor of my house and name,
Outliving generations as they came
And went. I saw sad Erin pass away,
Merged in oblivion and the New Cathay,
To leaven a nobler nation, and to breed
A race of giants from her restless seed,
Mingled with milder blood, and thus retain
The splendid spirit she could not restrain,
Transfused in others, wedding fire to frost.
The ark of England, by the tempest tost,
And sorely strained, yet rode the roughest waves,
While others sank in revolutions' graves,
And jealous of her honour to the last,
Superbly braved the terrors of the blast.
And though sedition howled its hungry cry,

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Raised by the winds of lust and words that lie,
While envy's billows rose like raging hounds,
And dashed against the vessel's iron bounds;
Though every shape of shadowy fraud and force
Conspired to turn her from the even course
Of truth and justice; though, a period brief,
Wild agitation and blind unbelief
And all the offal demagogues had spread,
Seemed poisoning freedom at its fountain head;
Yet every effert of malignant frame,
Brought but confusion on the author's aim;
And while stern duty stood high at the helm,
Each danger when it could not overwhelm,
Advanced the vessel (if its aid were short,)
And only drove it nearer to the port.

But yet for ages I endured the change
Of forms and fashions, while the world waxed strange
And uncongenial—heedless of the cost,
Though loving much—and what I loved I lost;
Outliving all my comrades and my kin,
Who were but mortal as the slaves of sin;
Outliving what my heart looked kindly on,
For when again I looked, the light was gone;
Beholding in all spheres the present sway
Of pain and sorrow, though refined away
And long reduced by science and the arts
Of progress, which had conquered many parts
And powers of evil, but though vast of reach
Could never find an antidote for each;
While men submitted to the senses' yoke,
Or even but one of Christ's commandments broke.
In vain my fellows I essayed to show,
That all transgressions ever found in woe
Their penalties, and he alone was free
Who to the letter the Divine decree
Obeyed from choice and love, who fully gave
Not the reluctant homage of the slave
But willing service, and at any price
Made soul and body one sweet sacrifice.
In vain I proved that, if they hated sin
And burst its bondage, health would then begin
To drive out sickness with its brood of pangs,
And hungry sorrow would relax its fangs
Of iron, when the spirit's might arose
The troubled waves of passion to compose
With faith that flowered in action. All in vain
I preached protesting, while they fell again,
And after struggling yet would feebly swerve
From the strait track of truth, and in reserve
Kept back some darling vice, to which they still

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Offered their incense and abused their will,
Infatuate. I wondered at their choice,
And lifted up the sad and solemn voice
Of warning, while as madly as of yore
They sinned, repented, and then sinned once more;
The dreary round of failure to repeat,
And in the van of victory court defeat.
While had they watched and waited but their hour
Of trial, though it fell in tempest power,
With lighted lamps and loins girt up to fight,
The duty would have grown into delight,
And the stern task in strong devotion merged
Become a rock, against which idly surged
Temptation's seas. But ah! they would not heed
Although I simply preached the mother creed,
On whose great breasts more soft than any silk
Their infant faith was suckled, with the milk
Of love religious: they preferred to snatch
Its dew from every day that passed, and catch
The morning bloom of pleasure, ere it shed
Its shining petals and decayed and fled.
I seemed the teller of a foolish tale,
Told by the fireside in a winter gale.

And often in the rapture of the bliss
That bathed my soul, I somehow seemed to miss
The touch of human fellowship, and points
Of tender contact with the social joints,
By which I yet held converse with my kind,
That loosely linked but could not ever bind
My lot to theirs. And I aspired to lift,
Above the fleeting shade and changeful shift
Of time, congenial comrades to the height
On which I stood, to revel in the light
And share with me the glory and the power
Of pure perfection, in its God-like dower.
For while all earthly feelings from my mind
Had clean been purged, and left no trace behind
Of former empire—though no carnal pulse
Of passion lingered fondly to convulse
My breast with sensual throes, and the frail flesh
(With soft allurements that did once enmesh
The very soul) was crucified and dead,
Nor ever now raised np its stricken head,
And buried in the grave of that dear Lord
Who for us all and of His own accord
Died and was buried; though my loyal will
Was mine no longer, I was human still.
And though possessing every heavenly good,
In close communion with the Fatherhood
Divine, that like the universal air

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Environed me with blessings bright and fair
Of a continual Presence, and my soul
Swayed with the sweetness of a calm control
And strength restrained; and though I lacked no gift,
Nor one good thing that could the heart uplift
To holy joy, and peace in pleasant dreams
Poured through my being in refreshing streams
And watered all my life and made it glad
With spiritual fruits; and though I had
Whatever fancy craved or bodied forth,
Among the treasures of eternal worth,
And only wished and then the will was deed,
For will and power in their result agreed.
Yea, though a cloud of care I never knew,
And not a breath of pain or discord blew
Across my azure sky—though one with God,
Between the dead and dying still I trod
Myself immortal: yet began to grow
Within me what I felt long, long ago,
The sense of something wanting, and the need
Of human friendship though a bruiséd reed—
A thirst for any change, howe'er it fell—
If it but broke the rigour of the spell
Of everlasting rest, which in its zone
Girt round my glory with its monotone
Unalterably fixed, and on me lay
Like the great stillness of a summer day
Unclouded, when no wind its revel keeps,
And all the land in solemn silence sleeps.
The human in me could not wholly die,
Though it was merged in immortality
With undecaying vesture and I felt
Its stifled remnants still within me dwelt
And fretted more and more, as friendships fond
Were snapt by death, and ever some fresh bond
Of beauty was in time dissolved and passed,
While I endured of all new links the last
And sole survivor: till the mighty love,
Which steeped my heart from holy founts above,
Scarce dared to issue towards my mortal kind,
By strange misgivings in its seat confin'd,
Nor flowed to ought that crumbled with the clod,
And went unhindered forth alone to God,
From whom it came.

At first ecstatic joy,
That nothing more my rest could now annoy
By evil impact, so absorbed my soul
And permeated with its power the whole
Of my existence, that I seemed to dwell
On heights serene and inaccessible,
In a sublime and unimpassioned trance,

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Apart from men and the delirious dance
Of fortune; and the small affairs of time
Appeared remote, as if some muffled chime
Heard at a distance from recesses deep,
And breaking faintly through the bars of sleep.
Not that I loved my fellows less than erst,
But loved the Almighty more, with a great thirst
That drank and drank, at wellsprings of the truth,
Full draughts of wisdom and of wondrous youth,
And was insatiate still. But as time roll'd
That scattered on its pathway gifts of gold,
I seemed to weary of the victor's palm,
The cloudless light and the eternal calm
Of rapt repose. For all the outward shocks
Fell on me as the rain upon the rocks
Nor stirred my breast; I wanted inward throes
And thoughts which thrilled the mind as they arose,
With battle strains; yet not a wish would move,
To bid me pleasures so illicit prove
By test, I simply let my fancy range,
And dreamed how pleasant was the sound of change,
How grateful shadows though they sheltered grief;
And then I pictured moments of relief
From the unvarying measured march of things,
Even if it brought the mists and murmurings
Of human lot. I dreamed, how sweet to bear
With men the burden of their daily care,
To take the cross their feeble hands let drop,
And carry it in trumph to the top,
Of high success; to live, as lived my Lord,
When He as man in sympathy's accord
With all our sufferings ministered on earth,
And came like dew to universal dearth.
But yet I knew that this could never be,
So long as my pure soul continued free
From taint of sin—that God alone could hold
Such equal terms with man, nor be controlled
By ill. And though my spirit might aspire
To be a helper, it dared not desire
To undertake what Christ had richly wrought,
If a mere fancy framed in passing thought
This service. Nor could I the vision check
From reappearing, as an alien speck
In the broad splendour of unspotted day
That all around my life superbly lay
With an unsetting sun of joy. At last,
It grew and grew to such dimensions vast,
Till it assumed a fitful presence. Forth
It flashed, as the aurora in the north,
With troubled if with transitory power.
Till, in the weaknesses of an idle hour,

262

A sudden wish the world once more to probe
With mortal state, and lay aside the robe
Immortal, in my secrecy of heart,
Obscuring even its highest holiest part,
Burned. But though wishing brought me every bliss
Consistent with the sacred synthesis
Of my new nature, and that life Divine
Which nothing now could raise or more refine,
Complete in Christ; it wholly failed to give
Capacity, while I should duly live
And fully all my holy functions ply,
To abdicate my immortality.

One thing, one only, might avail to win
The boon I sorely craved; and that was—Sin.
And through that door of darkness, like the grave,
Which yawned for all and took but never gave
One blessing, must I from my dazzling height
Dethroned go down to gain the world of night,
Where mortals blindly crawled and groped for day.
Through that abhorrèd and accurséd way
Must I, the pure and perfect, basely creep,
And my fair life with foul pollution steep
That stained both soul and body. At the thought
Of that descent and that dishonour wrought
By my own hand, the heart recoiled and reeled
And all its portals and its bulwarks steeled
With adamantine will, not to admit
Sin. Nay, my reason scarcely could acquit
The erring fancy, I impeached its aim,
Because it idly pictured evil's claim.
Sin! That was bondage of the blackest kind,
Which flesh and spirit both alike confined
With shades of hopeless night and prison dole,—
And chains whose iron pierced the very soul.
Sin! That was blindness, when the eyes were dim,
And could not catch one precious glance of Him
Who is the end of seeing, and the Sun
Into whose source all lesser lustres run.
Sin! That was deafness to the word revealed
By every law of nature, which concealed
Behind its gloomy veil the glorious truth
Meant to make free and yield eternal youth.
Sin! That was dumbness, when the stifled voice
Could never find a respite to rejoice,
And could not lift the langour of its cry
Beyond the bars of bitter destiny.
Sin! That was suffering, when the being felt
Its amosphere one malady, and dwelt
In poisoned chambers where no healing air
Blew, and the only breath was of despair.

263

Sin! That was sorrow, which confessed no bounds
But those of its own melancholy sounds;
Which, if it had the mockery of a name,
Acknowledged simply the dire brand of shame.
Sin! That was death, the most profound of all,
When the sweet moral sense became a thrall;
When conscience gave no answer unto ill,
Nor made one sign to rouse the slumbering will.
Then how could I, the perfect and the pure,
Again corruption and decay endure?

And yet I sinned. But in what bitter way
The deed was done, I cannot, dare not say;
In truth, I hardly know. With one wild act
I plunged into the perpetrated fact,
The dread abyss of evil, depths of gloom
That carried with them their own grievous doom,
From truth's sublime and tranquil mountain tops
With purity and peace, that fall like drops
Of morning dew, on the ecstatic soul.
Stark madness made me lose the last control
Of my poor will, and fiercely spoke aloud,
And with the threatening of its thunder-cloud
Above me darkly, desperately near
Hung. Swayed by trembling moods of hope and fear,
I swore I had too long been proudly blind,
And cared not to be greater than my kind,
Content with mortals to rejoice and weep,
To live like them, and duly die and sleep
As they; being sick of separation wide
That parted us, yet not dissatisfied
With what I had, but like a weary wave
Most willing to lie down within my grave
Upon the shores of Time, to lay my breast
Where my forefathers found a welcome rest.
And yet the seed of sin was early sown,
In the first wish I fondly made my own
For some mutation—aye, in the first thought
Which to my mind the faded picture brought
Of days departed and imperfect joy,
So soiled and mingled with the earth's alloy.
Thus I took up the broken thread of life,
With all its strands of old and friendly strife,
Just where I let it drop, when on me fell
Transfiguration with its wondrous spell
And gifts divine and meed immortal. Pain
Like some familiar countenance again
Rose up. Once more I gaily laughed and wept,
And my light footsteps still in concert kept
With every pulse of change, and the wild dance
Which life and death beat out of circumstance.

264

And now my own are as my fellows' hours,
Not without sunshine, watered with the showers
Of sorrow, darkened by the shadow deep
Which passing troubles cast; and winds that sweep
The atmosphere with useful ills, hold sway
And fill the barren years with fruitful play.
Yet I have sinned. Nor can I backward look
Upon the holy lot which I forsook
In madness for a meaner, lower sphere,
Where with corruption things are sad and sere,
And not be pierced with pangs of sharp regret,
For the fair past I never may forget.
Nor can I forward gaze, and snatch a glance
At the dim future, through the change and chance
Of lying fortune, that illusion brings
To mock the eyes with cruel vanishings;
I cannot face the judgment that draws near,
Nor be unshaken by the throes of fear.
Oh, I have sinned. And in some frightful shape,
The penal scourge how can I long escape?
Though oft remorse will wrestle with my choice,
And lift to heaven the penitential voice
Of anguish; while in all the joys of Time,
Rings out the solemn and reproachful chime
Of memory, with that accusing tone
Whose sound would shatter even a heart of stone.
Yea, I have sinned. And though reprieved I live,
This black confession I alone can give,
As seasons sadly come and then are gone,
And my dark steps are rudely carried on
By waves avenging, to the gloomy goal
That now awaits my poor polluted soul.

And when the closing scene of earth has come,
To me so dreadful, though desired by some;
When without warning the last woe of death
Falls on my frame, and strikes the struggling breath
With dire confusion, and the senses reel,
As dissolution's doom they shuddering feel;
When terrors round me throng and hopes are thinned,
My final utterance will be, “I have sinned;”
As I surrender life for ill or good,
To the great mercy of God's Fatherhood.

Craniology has proved that the skulls and brains of Slav women are larger than those of Slav men. In the recent outbreaks of Nihilism— no wonder, too—women as fearless as Charlotte Corday took the foremost place.

University of Virginia Library

THE LAST OF THE IMMORTALS.

I. [PART I.]

II. PART II.