The Poetical Works of George Barlow :: :: University of Virginia Library

If there be any life beyond the tomb,
How full of strange surprises must it be
For those who, struggling upward from death's gloom,
Behold new sunlight gild new shores and sea!

Amidst the gladness will not sadness lurk?
We are so wedded here to our own view,
To our own dreams,—Jew, Christian, heathen, Turk—
It will be hard to find that nought we knew.

The Christian dying, and cursing as he dies
The poet who believed that love was fair—
It will be hard, beneath heaven's golden skies,
To see his Jesus kiss a woman's hair.

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It will be very hard (our minds are small)
For those who worshipped at the Virgin's feet
To know she had a husband after all,
And found the joys of marriage pure and sweet.

And for the man of science strong and proud,
Who peered beneath the billows of the sea,
And pierced beyond the walls of mist and cloud,
And read the past, and read futurity:

The man before whose ardent gaze unveiled
Creation shone,—who named them one by one,
The stars that through the black night slowly sailed,—
Who faced the soulless Force that steers the sun:

The man who would permit mankind to sink,
Sad soul by soul, unpitied, to its doom,
And stand upon the abyss, close by the brink,
And gaze with steady eyes far through the gloom:

The man whose sombre wish it is to be
Alone for ever, with no God to speak;
Alone with darkness on the godless sea,
Alone with sunrise on the mountain-peak;

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Alone with love's high rapture, which for him
Would be discounted if a God were there
(The sculptor's presence makes each stately limb
Of woman to the thinker seem less fair):

The man whose soul, though pride within it lies,
Hath something of the greatness none the less
Of the vast God whose being he denies,
Tempered by man's eternal littleness:

The man who, rather than bow down before
The paltry God the Churches' hands have made,
Finds God within the sunlight on the shore
Or in the silent forest's moonlit shade:

It will be somewhat hard for him to know
That this world was not all! His one despair
Will be to find that God is living, though
God left no track upon the starlit air.

It will be hard for Pharisees to own
That there is sweetness in a harlot's eyes:
It will be hard for kings to leave a throne,
And own that flatterers' words were mostly lies.

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It will be strange to Christian eyes to see
Their Lord and Master in a lower place,
Perhaps, than thousands worshipped less than he;
To mark some weakness in his soul and face.

All will be wild surprise,—all must be new.
Yet shall we find, if heavenly life be given,
The most unselfish head was wisest too,—
The heart that loved the most knew most of heaven.

II

For by our deeds, and by our deeds alone,
God judges us,—if righteous God there be.
Creeds are as thistle-down wind-tost and blown,
But deeds abide throughout eternity.

It matters little, so that love be there,
Whether you think that legends have their day
Then pass, with all they held of foul or fair,
Or whether still, Church-pent, you praise and pray.

It matters little whether you discern
In Venus' limbs a sweetness past man's speech,—
Heaven in the rose, a glory in the fern,
A million jewels on the sunlit beach;

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Or whether you elect to burn and pant
For heavenly splendours glittering past the tomb,
Heedless that God, withholding these, would grant
Your eyes a sight of leagues of furze in bloom.

Whether you hold that Christ revealed to man
The sweetness of the land beyond the grave,
Or that Keats felt as never mortal can
The sweetness of the earth he came to save:

Whether you deem that Musset felt the whole
Of young love's rapture as none else can feel,
Or that the wild bright ocean's very soul
Was Byron's, past all question or appeal:

Whether you worship Shakespeare as God's son
And Hugo as God's son, in very deed,
Or in the older manner worship one,
One God-man only, and nought else concede:

Whether you hold that Dante brought to light
For man pure love, as pure love is to be,
And pierced the darkness of hell's lampless night
Retaining still song's tongue, and eyes to see:

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Whether you hold that Turner once revealed,
Revealed for ever, perfect landscape-art;
That through the song of Shelley music pealed,
Pure as from pure depths of God's very heart:

All matters little.—Worship God in Christ,
Or in the blossoms, or within the sun;
Be heathen, Christian—but be not enticed
By any creed to leave true work undone.

One man will love the pleasures of the earth,
Another long for pleasures in the sky;
One finds his music in a young girl's mirth,
And on her lips his immortality:

Another deems that human love is vain,
That only in Christ God's likeness must be sought;
Another toils through a long life to gain
A scholar's insight into ancient thought:

Nought matters save our deeds.—If right we do,
God is with us, Jehovah is our friend:
If self we worship, though our creed be true
We shall be found without God at the end.