There are who hold high festival
And at the board crown Death:
I am too weak to live at all
Except I breathe thy breath.
Show me a love that nothing bates,
Absolute, self-severe—
Even at Gehenna's prayerless gates
I should not "taint with fear."
XXIV.
I cannot brook that men should say—
Nor this for gospel take—
That thou wilt hear me if I pray
Asking for Jesus' sake.
For love to him is not to me,
And cannot lift my fate;
The love is not that is not free,
Perfect, immediate.
Love is salvation: life without
No moment can endure.
Those sheep alone go in and out
Who know thy love is pure.
XXV.
But what if God requires indeed,
For cause yet unrevealed,
Assent to one fixed form of creed,
Such as I cannot yield?
Has God made for Christ's sake a test—
To take or leave the crust,
That only he may have the best
Who licks the serpent-dust?
No, no; the words I will not say
With the responding folk;
I at his feet a heart would lay,
Not shoulders for a yoke.