THE BOY AND THE [ANGEL][°]
Morning, evening, noon, and night,
"Praise God!" sang Theocrite.
Then to his poor trade he turned,
Whereby the daily meal was earned.
Hard he laboured, long and well;
O'er his work the boy's curls fell.
But ever, at each period,
He stopped and sang, "Praise God!"
Then back again his curls he threw,
10And cheerful turned to work anew.
Said Blaise, the listening monk, "Well done;
I doubt not thou art heard, my son:
"As well as if thy voice to-day
Were praising God, the Pope's great way.
"This Easter Day, the Pope at Rome
Praises God from Peter's dome."
Said Theocrite, "Would God that I[page 88]
Might praise Him that great way, and die!"
Night passed, day shone,
20And Theocrite was gone.
With God a day endures alway,
A thousand years are but a day.
God said in heaven, "Nor day nor night
°[24] [Now] brings the voice of my delight."°
Then Gabriel, like a rainbow's birth,
Spread his wings and sank to earth;
Entered, in flesh, the empty cell,
Lived there, and played the craftsman well;
And morning, evening, noon, and night,
30Praised God in place of Theocrite.
And from a boy, to youth he grew:
The man put off the stripling's hue:
The man matured and fell away
Into the season of decay:
And ever o'er the trade he bent,[page 89]
And ever lived on earth content.
(He did God's will; to him, all one
If on the earth or in the sun.)
God said, "A praise is in mine ear;
40There is no doubt in it, no fear:
"So sing old worlds, and so
New worlds that from my footstool go.
"Clearer loves sound other ways:
I miss my little human praise."
Then forth sprang Gabriel's wings, off fell
The flesh disguise, remained the cell.
'Twas Easter day: he flew to Rome,
And paused above Saint Peter's dome.
In the tiring-room close by
50The great outer gallery,
With his holy vestments dight,
Stood the new Pope, Theocrite:
And all his past career[page 90]
Came back upon him clear,
Since when, a boy, he plied his trade,
Till on his life the sickness weighed;
And in his cell, when death drew near,
An angel in a dream brought cheer:
And rising from the sickness drear,
60He grew a priest, and now stood here.
To the East with praise he turned,
And on his sight the angel burned.
"I bore thee from thy craftsman's cell,
And set thee here; I did not well.
"Vainly I left my angel-sphere,
Vain was thy dream of many a year,
"Thy voice's praise seemed weak; it dropped—
Creation's chorus stopped!
"Go back and praise again
70The early way, while I remain.
"With that weak voice of our disdain,[page 91]
Take up creation's pausing strain.
"Back to the cell and poor employ:
Resume the craftsman and the boy!"
Theocrite grew old at home;
A new Pope dwelt in Peter's dome.
One vanished as the other died:
They sought God side by side.
[MEMORABILIA][°]
Ah, did you once see Shelley plain,
And did he stop and speak to you,
And did you speak to him again?
How strange it seems and new!
But you were living before that,
And also you are living after;
And the memory I started at—
My starting moves your laughter!
I crossed a moor with a name of its own[page 92]
10 And a certain use in the world, no doubt,
Yet a hand's-breadth of it shines alone
'Mid the blank miles round about.
For there I picked upon the heather
And there I put inside my breast
A moulted feather, an eagle-feather!
Well, I forget the rest.
WHY I AM A [LIBERAL][°]
"Why?" Because all I haply can and do,
All that I am now, all I hope to be,—
Whence comes it save from fortune setting free
Body and soul the purpose to pursue,
God traced for both? If fetters, not a few,
Of prejudice, convention, fall from me,
These shall I bid men—each in his degree
Also God-guided—bear, and gayly too?
But little do or can the best of us: [page 93]
10That little is achieved thro' Liberty.
Who then dares hold, emancipated thus,
His fellow shall continue bound? not I,
Who live, love, labour freely, nor discuss
A brother's right to freedom. That is "Why."