 | The soul's legend |  |
ANOTHER SOLILOQUY.
THE HUMAN SOUL IN A GARDEN.
I am indebted to Mr. P. H. Gosse for the suggestion upon which this poem is founded, that it was after Eve's transgression that Adam, recognising in her the fulfiller of God's great promise of bringing forth a deliverer for the whole human family (“the seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent's head”), so named his wife. No longer Ishi, the mere part and complement of man, but Chavah, “the mother of all living,” herself an intelligential, influential force—the chosen transmitter of a spiritual nature.
I.
Here thy great mother heardFrom him she loved, a word,
II.
First spoken when the curseHad fallen, when for worse
III.
He knew her; then for bestHis soul, her soul confessed.
IV.
Priest of a Priestly race,And Prophet, full of grace
His lips when he addressed
V.
His Ishi, in the griefOf sore transgression chief,
Chief also to retrieve.
VI.
He lifted her from shameIn that
I am indebted to Mr. P. H. Gosse for the suggestion upon which this poem is founded, that it was after Eve's transgression that Adam, recognising in her the fulfiller of God's great promise of bringing forth a deliverer for the whole human family (“the seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent's head”), so named his wife. No longer Ishi, the mere part and complement of man, but Chavah, “the mother of all living,” herself an intelligential, influential force—the chosen transmitter of a spiritual nature.
VII.
When first he called her Eve,“Mother of all who live.”
| The soul's legend | |