 | Reuben and Other Poems |  |
146
Scene IV.
A Country Road.Reuben.
We do not often reason into faiths—
We mostly grow into them, and to-day,
Not knowing wherefore, we adopt beliefs
Which yesterday we could not. There are truths
That reason may reject; yet there they stand;
And, by some inward faculty received,
Become our chiefest glory, greatest joy.
We mostly grow into them, and to-day,
Not knowing wherefore, we adopt beliefs
Which yesterday we could not. There are truths
That reason may reject; yet there they stand;
And, by some inward faculty received,
Become our chiefest glory, greatest joy.
The underlying God within my mind
Is necessary to my thought, as Time
To the division of the days and years.—
Eternal life to every human soul
Is needed to complete the thought of life,
And round the highest vision. What! to all
Those cities-full of festering souls? to all?
Ay, even so: the nature of that life,
Being unlimited, demands them all.
God works with the infinities, and thoughts
That lead us on and lose us amid these,
First stagger, then sustain. I almost feel
The fact that we can think eternity,
Is proof that we shall live it: for a thought
Is, after all, the very soul of life.
Is necessary to my thought, as Time
To the division of the days and years.—
Eternal life to every human soul
Is needed to complete the thought of life,
And round the highest vision. What! to all
Those cities-full of festering souls? to all?
Ay, even so: the nature of that life,
Being unlimited, demands them all.
God works with the infinities, and thoughts
That lead us on and lose us amid these,
First stagger, then sustain. I almost feel
The fact that we can think eternity,
Is proof that we shall live it: for a thought
Is, after all, the very soul of life.
How poor seem all material interests
Unless they have a corresponding soul!—
And which indeed they have. The thing may pass,
Be lost; yet leave with him that weeps the loss,
Its most essential self. So even now
'Tis possible that we might truliest live
As 'twere in the interior of things:
A realm that passes not—the very Heaven
That all are striving for, and yet so near!—
There was a time when this had been mere words,
Weak breath, and borne me nothing: some one thought
Is given to us, and becomes a key
Into a very hemisphere of thought.
Unless they have a corresponding soul!—
And which indeed they have. The thing may pass,
147
Its most essential self. So even now
'Tis possible that we might truliest live
As 'twere in the interior of things:
A realm that passes not—the very Heaven
That all are striving for, and yet so near!—
There was a time when this had been mere words,
Weak breath, and borne me nothing: some one thought
Is given to us, and becomes a key
Into a very hemisphere of thought.
It is the same with love. O there is one
Whose love-fill'd eye has seem'd to hang on me
Like that fine star, which threatens even now
To fall into my soul; and yet to me
What was she but a name—until to-night?
And now, dear one, my brain shoots beams of love
That centre all in thee. I've been till now
Dazzled to blindness by a love of fire,
And miss'd my better angel. Had'st thou been
More of the earth, Eliza, I had reach'd
Thy sphere of love ere this: but thou hast still
Been lofty and retiring; used no wiles,
No witchery of motion, manners, dress;
And seem'd to hold the province of a heart
As sacred ground, not to be rudely trench'd.
O if, Eliza, I have been or am
More than a mere acquaintance in thy thoughts,
Blot from thy memory my heartless past,
And from the ordeal of a lowlier love
I'll bring a heart the worthier of thee.
Whose love-fill'd eye has seem'd to hang on me
Like that fine star, which threatens even now
To fall into my soul; and yet to me
What was she but a name—until to-night?
And now, dear one, my brain shoots beams of love
That centre all in thee. I've been till now
Dazzled to blindness by a love of fire,
And miss'd my better angel. Had'st thou been
More of the earth, Eliza, I had reach'd
Thy sphere of love ere this: but thou hast still
Been lofty and retiring; used no wiles,
No witchery of motion, manners, dress;
And seem'd to hold the province of a heart
As sacred ground, not to be rudely trench'd.
O if, Eliza, I have been or am
More than a mere acquaintance in thy thoughts,
Blot from thy memory my heartless past,
And from the ordeal of a lowlier love
I'll bring a heart the worthier of thee.
[Exit.
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