University of Virginia Library

Scene III.

The Old Churchyard in the Wood. Reuben and Joseph leaning over the wall.
Reuben.
Speak not of death and graves. Is't not enough
That we should see these mounds and miss our friends,
Without the dragging in of painful thoughts
That might lie dead as they? We think of death,
And lose one-half of life. This holiday
Is not enjoyed, to-morrow being none.
If I could think I lived through endless time,
I could live well each moment of it all:
But this my little span is not half-lived,
Being lessen'd by the dread it is so short.
Stir not the thought of death, and it will lie
Still as the dead themselves.

Joseph.
I doubt it not,
Since they do not lie still. It comes unstirr'd.
Think'st thou we have the origin of thought
Within ourselves? We did not make ourselves.
The thoughts that we most purposely avoid
Do ever haunt us most. This thought of death
At every corner starts out like a ghost
Across our path—I doubt not, to the end
That we be warn'd and well prepared to join
The ever-marching caravan of souls,
Across the penal sands that lie between
The present world and the next.

Reuben.
Where is the next?
Your lifted eyes look past the winking stars
Into the blue delusion. Is it there
Your next world lies? Or deep beneath our feet,
In the mysterious centre of the earth?
Or is it, Joseph, in the brains of priests?
Trade, trade—a secret of the trade. Yourself,
A cobbler, have a secret—some nice art,
That glosses up a thing, and makes it seem
More than it is. All trades have—so may priests.

Joseph.
Faithless, suspicious Reuben! Canst thou doubt
That immortality—that rock, that crown—
The rock whereon religion builds—the crown
For which she lifts her blessed head to God?
O call not that a trick of priests' device
Which was before priests were. Do not believe
A trick could live through eighteen hundred years,
And gem the earth with churches—massive fanes
On whose high pillar'd walls man graves his soul,
And builds it up in reverential stone—
Seeking to give his finest thoughts hard form.
O do not think delusion or mere trick
Could bear all up. Yet do but take away
This blessed hope of everlasting life,
And farewell to religion! It were nought,
And I'd be irreligious as thou art.

Reuben.
And am I irreligious? So I am.
I have no priest, do not confess my sins—
To any but myself—go to no church,
And have forgotten all my lisping hymns.
Yet have I some religion: my poor soul,
By the besetting wonder fenced about,
Goes prowling round its little park of time
To seek an entrance into that dim maze,
And gazes with a sad, beseeching eye
Up every dreamy vista. All fine thoughts
That start up in my way, seek to that maze,
And disappear like birds within a wood.
I cannot follow them, I lack their wings.
And I do think there are beyond that bound
A finer beauty, and a deeper truth,
Than we on this side know. But what of that?
They are not there for me. Therefore I come
Back to my own earth, with its vaulted roof,
And here find sweet religion. In the night
It dazzles, and is called the light of stars.
It rises with the moon, and rides all through
The rack of windy skies; or when she hangs
Heavy and low on a still night like this,
It floods the earth with prayer, so creamy soft!
And people call it moonlight. All day long
It laps the earth in beauty: in the morn
It purples up the east, and on the meads
It glistens lowly in a daisy's heart.
Beneath the trees at noon it comes and goes
Like some faint hymn upon a drowsy ear;
And some say this is but the hum of bees,
Or murmur of the wind among the leaves.
Along yon meadowy banks where, like a child
All heedless of the hours, the river plays,
Religion fills me—ah! I see you smile.
But if you knew how much I love these things,
And how they move my heart, my lips, to prayer,
You would not lightly laugh, but think, with me,
There was a spirit in them, which the names
We learn to call them by serve but to hide.

Joseph.
Why, God is in them—any one knows that;
But surely not religion. In the church,
And in God's book—if thou would'st read that book—
Alone is the religion that can save.

Reuben.
Is not the universe the book of God?
And who can read it through? I can but spell
As much as tells its Author; and He is
A fine besetting wonder to my soul.
So this is my religion. More than this
I read no reason for—would that I could!
I know not what you mean by save; no church,
No creed, no book can save this breathing life.
My saddest thought is, that our eyes must close
On this most beauteous earth, and see no more.
Therefore, I seek to shun the thought of death.

Joseph.
And yet I meet thee in a lonely wood,
Beside an old churchyard, pack'd full of death!

Reuben.
(aside)
I wish you had not met me.—Ah, dear love,
Thywards leap all the currents of my blood;
My heart rocks in suspense, and, like a boat
At anchor in a stream, it drags to thee. (To Joseph.)

Let us go down to the Bridge and drown these thoughts
In Margaret's old October.

Joseph.
Not to night.
You see I'm laden with old boots and shoes.
And yet I will. Let's see; I'll take them home
And meet you there in less than half an hour.

[Exit.
Reuben.
A whole one if you like.—'Tis ever thus:
I nibble at a good thing, like a child
That saves the daintiest morsel to the last;
And while I spare the luscious bite, some one
Comes stumbling up and knocks it from my hand.
Or appetite is sated with plain fare,
And that which is most toothsome finds no tooth.—
The moon walks up the stately hall of night
Unto her throne, and all the courtier stars,
At her approach fall back and give her way.
Tuts! these are but the plain fare of the night,
And blunt my appetite.—Ah, sweet, sweet love!

[Exit.