Wait! the crab's twice alive, mark! Oh, worthy, your soul,
Of strange ends, great results, novel labours! Take note,
I reject this for one! (ay, now, straight to the hole!
Safe in sand there—your skirts smooth out all as they float!)
I, shirk drinking through flaws in the bowl?
XXV
Or suppose now that rock's cleft—grim, scored to the quick,
As a man's face kept fighting all life through gets scored,
Mossed and marked with grey purulent leprosies, sick,
Flat and foul as man's life here (be swift with your sword—
Cut the soul out, stuck fast where thorns prick!)
XXVI
—Say it let the rock's heart out, its meaning, the thing
All was made for, devised, ruled out gradually, planned—
Ah, that sea-shell, perhaps—since it lies, such a ring
Of pure colour, a cup full of sunbeams, to stand
(Say, in Lent) at the priest's hand—(no king!)
XXVII
Blame the cleft then? Praise rather! So—just a chance gone!
Had you said—"Save the seed and secure souls in flower"—
Ah, how time laughs, years palpitate, pro grapples con,
Till one day you shrug shoulders—"Well, gone, the good hour!"
Till one night—"Is God off now? or on?"
IV
UP THE SPOUT
I