PR4222 
 
 C47 
 
 1905 
 
 

 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 RIVERSIDE 
 
 Ex Libris 
 C. K. OGDEN
 
 HEART AND LIFE BOOKLETS. No. 9. 
 
 CHRISTMAS EVE
 
 HEART AND LIFE BOOKLETS. 
 
 Fcap. 8vo. Artistic Wrappers. 6d. net each. 
 
 1. THE LONELINESS OF CHRIST. 
 
 By F. W. ROBERTSON (of Brighton). 
 
 2. THE PURPOSE AND USE OF COMFORT. 
 
 By the Right Rev. Bishop PHILLIPS BROOKS, D.D. 
 
 3. AN EASTER SERMON. 
 
 By the Right Rev. Bishop PHILLIPS BROOKS, D.D. 
 
 4. SELECTIONS FROM FABER'S HYMNS. 
 
 5. LIFE WITH GOD. 
 
 By the Right Rev. Bishop PHILLIPS BROOKS, D.D. 
 
 6. HUXLEY AND PHILLIPS BROOKS. 
 
 By W. NEWTON CLARKE, D.D. 
 
 7. EASTER DAY. 
 
 By ROBERT BROWNING. 
 
 8. RELIGION IN COMMON LIFE. 
 
 By Principal JOHN CAIRD, D.D., LL.D. 
 
 9. CHRISTMAS EVE. 
 
 By ROBERT BROWNING. 
 
 To be followed l<y others. 
 LONDON: H. R. ALLENSON, IVY LANE, E.C.
 
 HEART AND LIFE BOOKLETS. No. 9. 
 
 CHRISTMAS EVE 
 
 ROBERT BROWNING 
 
 Sep 
 
 LONDON: H. R. ALLENSON
 
 \
 
 CHRISTMAS EVE 
 
 Out of the little chapel I burst 
 
 Into the fresh night air again. 
 
 I had waited a good five minutes first 
 
 In the doorway, to escape the rain 
 
 That drove in gusts down the common's 
 
 centre, 
 At the edge of which the chapel stands, 
 Before I plucked up heart to enter : 
 Heaven knows how many sorts of hands 
 Reached past me, groping for the latch 
 Of the inner door that hung on catch, 
 More obstinate the more they fumbled, 
 Till, giving way at last with a scold 
 Of the crazy hinge, in squeezed or tumb- 
 led 
 One sheep more to the rest in fold, 
 And left me irresolute, standing sentry 
 In the sheepfold's lath-and-plaster entry, 
 Four feet long by two feet wide, 
 Partitioned off from the vast inside —
 
 6 CHRISTMAS EVE 
 
 I blocked up half of it at least. 
 No remedy ; the rain kept driving : 
 They eyed me much as some wild beast, 
 That congregation, still arriving, 
 Some of them by the mainroad, white 
 A long way past me into the night, 
 Skirting the common, then diverging ; 
 Not a few suddenly emerging 
 From the common's self thro' the paling- 
 gaps,— 
 — They house in the gravel-pits perhaps, 
 Where the road stops short with its safe- 
 guard border 
 Of lamps, as tired of such disorder ; — 
 But the most turned in yet more abruptly 
 From a certain squalid knot of alleys, 
 Where the town's bad blood once slept 
 
 corruptly, 
 Which now the little chapel rallies 
 And leads into day again, — its priestliness 
 Lending itself to hide their beastliness 
 So cleverly (thanks in part to the mason), 
 And putting so cheery a whitewashed face 
 
 on 
 Those neophytes too much in lack of it, 
 That, where you cross the common as I 
 
 did, 
 And meet the party thus presided, 
 " Mount Zion," with Love-lane at the back 
 of it,
 
 CHRISTMAS EVE 7 
 
 They front you as little disconcerted, 
 As, bound for the hills, her fate averted 
 And her wicked people made to mind him, 
 Lot might have marched with Gomorrah 
 behind him. 
 
 II. 
 
 Well, from the road, the lanes or the 
 
 common, 
 In came the flock : the fat weary woman, 
 Panting and bewildered, down-clapping 
 Her umbrella with a mighty report, 
 Grounded it by me, wry and flapping, 
 A wreck of whalebones ; then, with a snort, 
 Like a startled horse, at the interloper 
 Who humbly knew himself improper, 
 But could not shrink up small enough, 
 Round to the door, and in, — the gruff 
 Hinge's invariable scold 
 Making your very blood run cold. 
 Prompt in the wake of her, up-pattered 
 On broken clogs, the many-tattered 
 Little old-faced, peaking sister-turned- 
 mother 
 Of the sickly babe she tried to smother 
 Somehow up, with its spotted face, 
 From the cold, on her breast, the one 
 
 warm place; 
 She too must stop, wring the poor suds dry
 
 8 CHRISTMAS EVE 
 
 Of a dragged shawl, and add thereby 
 Her tribute to the door-mat, sopping 
 Already from my own clothes' dropping, 
 Which yet she seemed to grudge I should 
 
 stand on ; 
 Then stooping down to take off her pat- 
 tens, 
 She bore them defiantly, in each hand one, 
 Planted together before her breast 
 And its babe, as good as a lance in rest. 
 Close on her heels, the dingy satins 
 Of a female something, past me flitted, 
 With lips as much too white, as a streak 
 Lay far too red on each hollow cheek ; 
 And it seemed the very door-hinge pitied 
 All that was left of a woman once, 
 Holding at least its tongue for the nonce. 
 Then a tall yellow man, like the Penitent 
 
 Thief, 
 With his jaw bound up in a handkerchief, 
 And eyelids screwed together tight, 
 Led himself in by some inner light. 
 And, except from him, from each that 
 
 entered, 
 I had the same interrogation — 
 " What, you, the alien, you have ventured 
 " To take with us, elect, your station ? 
 " A carer for none of it, a Gallio ? " — 
 Thus, plain as print, I read the glance 
 At a common prey, in each countenance,
 
 CHRISTMAS EVE g 
 
 As of huntsman giving his hounds the 
 
 tailyho : 
 And, when the door's cry drowned their 
 
 wonder, 
 The draught, it always sent in shutting, 
 Made the flame of the single tallow candle 
 In the cracked square lanthorn I stood 
 
 under, 
 Shoot its blue lip at me, rebutting, 
 As it were, the luckless cause of scandal : 
 I verily thought the zealous light 
 (In the chapel's secret, too !) for spite, 
 Would shudder itself clean off the wick, 
 With the airs of a St. John's Candlestick. 
 There was no standing it much longer. 
 " Good folks," said I, as resolve grew 
 
 stronger, 
 "This way you perform the Grand-In- 
 quisitor, 
 " When the weather sends you a chance 
 
 visitor ? 
 " You are the men, and wisdom shall die 
 
 with you, 
 " And none of the old Seven Churches 
 
 vie with you ! 
 " But still, despite the pretty perfection 
 " To which you carry your trick of exclu- 
 
 siveness, 
 " And, taking God's word under wise pro- 
 tection,
 
 io CHRISTMAS EVE 
 
 " Correct its tendency to diffusiveness, 
 " Bidding one reach it over hot plough- 
 shares, — 
 "Still, as I say, though you've found 
 
 salvation, 
 " If I should choose to cry — as now — 
 
 ' Shares ! '— 
 " See if the best of you bars me my ration ! 
 " Because I prefer for my expounder 
 " Of the laws of the feast, the feast's own 
 
 Founder : 
 " Mine's the same right with your poorest 
 
 and sickliest, 
 " Supposing I don the marriage- vestiment; 
 " So, shut your mouth, and open your 
 
 Testament, 
 " And carve me my portion at your quick- 
 
 liest ! " 
 Accordingly, as a shoemaker's lad 
 With wizened face in want of soap, 
 And wet apron wound round his waist 
 
 like a rope, 
 After stopping outside, for his cough was 
 
 bad, 
 To get the fit over, poor gentle creature, 
 And so avoid disturbing the preacher, 
 Passed in, I sent my elbows spikewise 
 At the shutting door, and entered like- 
 wise, — 
 Received the hinge's accustomed greeting,
 
 CHRISTMAS EVE u 
 
 Crossed the threshold's magic pentacle, 
 And found myself in full conventicle, 
 — To wit, in Zion Chapel Meeting, 
 On the Christmas- Eve of 'Forty-nine, 
 Which, calling its flock to their special 
 
 clover, 
 Found them assembled and one sheep 
 
 over, 
 Whose lot, as the weather pleased, was 
 
 mine. 
 
 III. 
 
 I very soon had enough of it. 
 
 The hot smell and the human noises, 
 
 And my neighbour's coat, the greasy cuff 
 
 of it, 
 Were a pebble-stone that a child's hand 
 
 poises, 
 Compared with the pig-of-lead-like pres- 
 sure 
 Of the preaching-man's immense stupidity, 
 As he poured his doctrine forth, full mea- 
 sure, 
 To meet his audience's avidity. 
 You needed not the wit of a Sybil 
 To guess the cause of it all, in a twink- 
 ling- 
 No sooner had our friend an inkling 
 Of treasure hid in the Holy Bible,
 
 12 CHRISTMAS EVE 
 
 (Whenever it was the thought first struck 
 
 him 
 How Death, at unawares, might duck him 
 Deeper than the grave, and quench 
 The gin-shop's light in Hell's grim drench) 
 Than he handled it so, in fine irreverence, 
 As to hug the Book of books to pieces : 
 And, a patchwork of chapters and texts in 
 
 severance, 
 Not improved by the private dog's-ears 
 
 and creases, 
 Having clothed his own soul with, he'd 
 
 fain see equipt yours, — 
 So tossed you again your Holy Scriptures. 
 And you picked them up, in a sense, no 
 
 doubt : 
 Nay, had but a single face of my neighbours 
 Appeared to suspect that the preacher's 
 
 labours 
 Were help which the world could be saved 
 
 without, 
 'Tis odds but I had borne in quiet 
 A qualm or two at my spiritual diet ; 
 Or, who can tell ? had even mustered 
 Somewhat to urge in behalf of the sermon : 
 But the flock sate on, divinely flustered, 
 Sniffing, methought, its dew of Hermon 
 With such content in every snuffle, 
 As the devil inside us loves to ruffle. 
 My old fat woman purred with pleasure,
 
 CHRISTMAS EVE 13 
 
 And thumb round thumb went twirling 
 
 faster, 
 While she, to his periods keeping measure, 
 Maternally devoured the pastor. 
 The man with the handkerchief, untied it, 
 Showed us a horrible wen inside it, 
 Gave his eyelids yet another screwing, 
 And rocked himself as the woman was 
 
 doing. 
 The shoemaker's lad, discreetly choking, 
 Kept down his cough. 'Twas too provok- 
 ing ! 
 My gorge rose at the nonsense and stuff 
 
 of it, 
 And saying, like Eve when she plucked 
 
 the apple, 
 " I wanted a taste, and now there's enough 
 
 of it," 
 I flung out of the little chapel. 
 
 IV. 
 
 There was a lull in the rain, a lull 
 In the wind too ; the moon was risen, 
 And would have shone out pure and full, 
 But for the ramparted cloud- prison, 
 Block on block built up in the west, 
 For what purpose the wind knows best, 
 Who changes his mind continually. 
 And the empty other half of the sky
 
 14 CHRISTMAS EVE 
 
 Seemed in its silence as if it knew 
 What, any moment, might look through 
 A chance-gap in that fortress massy : — 
 Through its fissures you got hints 
 Of the flying moon, by the shifting tints, 
 Now, a dull lion-colour, now, brassy 
 Burning to yellow, and whitest yellow, 
 Like furnace-smoke just ere the flames 
 
 below, 
 All a-simmer with intense strain 
 To let her through,— then blank again, 
 At the hope of her appearance failing. 
 Just by the chapel a break in the railing 
 Shows a narrow path directly across ; 
 'Tis ever dry walking there, on the moss- 
 Besides, you go gently all the way uphill : 
 I stooped under and soon felt better : 
 My head grew light, my limbs more supple, 
 As I walked on, glad to have slipt the fetter ; 
 My mind was full of the scene I had left, 
 That placid flock, that pastor vociferant, 
 — How this outside was pure and different ! 
 The sermon now— what a mingled weft 
 Of good and ill ! were either less, 
 Its fellow had coloured the whole distinctly ; 
 But alas for the excellent earnestness, 
 And the truths, quite true if stated suc- 
 cinctly, 
 But as surely false, in their quaint pre- 
 sentment,
 
 CHRISTMAS EVE 15 
 
 However to pastor and flock's content- 
 ment ! 
 Say rather, such truths looked false to 
 
 your eyes, 
 With his provings and parallels twisted 
 
 and twined, 
 Till how could you know them, grown 
 
 double their size, 
 In the natural fog of the good man's mind ? 
 Like yonder spots of our roadside lamps, 
 Haloed about with the common's damps. 
 Truth remains true, the fault's in the 
 
 prover ; 
 The zeal was good and the aspiration ; 
 And yet, and yet, yet, fifty times over, 
 Pharaoh received no demonstration 
 By his Baker's dream of Baskets Three, 
 Of the doctrine of the Trinity, — 
 Although, as our preacher thus embel- 
 lished it, 
 Apparently his hearers relished it 
 With so unfeigned a gust — who knows if 
 They did not prefer our friend to Joseph ? 
 But so it is everywhere, one way with all 
 
 of them ! 
 These people really felt, no doubt, 
 A something, the motion they style the 
 
 Call of them ; 
 And this is their method of bringing about, 
 By a mechanism of words and tones,
 
 16 CHRISTMAS EVE 
 
 (So many texts in so many groans) 
 A sort of reviving or reproducing, 
 More or less perfectly (who can tell? — ), 
 Of the mood itself, that strengthens by 
 
 using ; 
 And how it happens, I understand well. 
 A tune was born in my head last week, 
 Out of the thump-thump and shriek-shriek 
 Of the train, as I came by it, up from 
 
 Manchester ; 
 And when, next week, I take it back again, 
 My head will sing to the engine's clack 
 
 again, 
 While it only makes my neighbour's 
 
 haunches stir, 
 — Finding no dormant musical sprout 
 In him, as in me, to be jolted out. 
 'Tis the taught already that profit by 
 
 teaching ; 
 He gets no more from the railway's 
 
 preaching, 
 Than, from this preacher who does the 
 
 rail's office, I, 
 Whom therefore the flock casts a jealous 
 
 eye on. 
 Still, why paint over their door " Mount 
 
 Zion," 
 To which all flesh shall come, saith the 
 
 prophecy ?
 
 CHRISTMAS EVE 17 
 
 V. 
 
 But wherefore be harsh on a single case ? 
 After how many modes, this Christmas- 
 Eve, 
 Does this selfsame weary thing take place? 
 The same endeavour to make you believe, 
 And much with the same effect, no more : 
 Each method abundantly convincing, 
 As I say, to those convinced before, 
 But scarce to be swallowed without win- 
 cing, 
 By the not-as-yet-convinced. For me, 
 I have my own church equally. 
 And in this church my faith sprang first! 
 (I said, as I reached the rising ground, 
 And the wind began again, with a burst 
 Of rain in my face, and a glad rebound 
 From the heart beneath, as if, God speed- 
 ing me, 
 I entered His church-door, Nature leading 
 
 me) 
 — In youth I looked to these very skies, 
 And probing their immensities, 
 I found God there, His visible power ; 
 Yet felt in my heart, amid all its sense 
 Of that power, an equal evidence 
 That His love, there too, was the nobler 
 
 dower. 
 For the loving worm within its clod,
 
 18 CHRISTMAS EVE 
 
 Were diviner than a loveless god 
 
 Amid his worlds, I will dare to say. 
 
 You know what I mean : God's all, man's 
 
 nought : 
 But also, God, whose pleasure brought 
 Man into being, stands away 
 As it were, an handbreadth off, to give 
 Room for the newly-made to live, 
 And look at Him from a place apart, 
 And use His gifts of brain and heart, 
 Given, indeed, but to keep for ever. 
 Who speaks of man, then, must not sever 
 Man's very element from man, 
 Saying, " But all is God's " — whose plan 
 Was to create man and then leave him 
 Able, His own word saith, to grieve Him, 
 But able to glorify Him too, 
 As a mere machine could never do, 
 That prayed or praised, all unaware 
 Of its fitness for aught but praise and 
 
 prayer, 
 Made perfect as a thing of course. 
 Man, therefore, stands on his own stock 
 Of love and power as a pin-point rock, 
 And, looking to God who ordained divorce 
 Of the rock from His boundless continent, 
 Sees in His Power made evident, 
 Only excess by a million fold 
 O'er the power God gave man in the 
 
 mould.
 
 CHRISTMAS EVE 19 
 
 For, see : Man's hand, first formed to 
 
 carry 
 A few pounds' weight, when taught to 
 
 marry 
 Its strength with an engine's, lifts a 
 
 mountain, 
 — Advancing in power by one degree : 
 And why count steps through eternity ? 
 But Love is the ever springing fountain : 
 Man may enlarge or narrow his bed 
 For the water's play, but the water head- 
 How can he multiply or reduce it ? 
 As easy create it, as cause it to cease : 
 He may profit by it, or abuse it ; 
 But 'tis not a thing to bear increase 
 As power will : he loves less or more 
 In the heart of man, he keeps it shut 
 Or opes it wide as he pleases, but 
 Love's sum remains what it was before. 
 So, gazing up, in my youth, at love 
 As seen through power, ever above 
 All modes which makes it manifest, 
 My soul brought all to a single test- 
 That He, the Eternal First and Last, 
 Who, in His power, had so surpassed 
 All man conceives of what is might, — 
 Whose wisdom, too, showed infinite, 
 ■ — Would prove as infinitely good ; 
 Would never, my soul understood, 
 With power to work all love desires, 
 
 2 — 2
 
 20 CHRISTMAS EVE 
 
 Bestow e'en less than man requires : 
 That He who endlessly was teaching, 
 Above my spirit's utmost reaching, 
 What love can do in the leaf or stone, 
 (So that to master this alone, 
 This done in the stone or leaf for me, 
 I must go on learning endlessly) 
 Would never need that I, in turn, 
 Should point him out a defect unheeded, 
 And show that God had yet to learn 
 What the meanest human creature need- 
 ed, — 
 — Not life, to wit, for a few short years, 
 Tracking His way through doubts and 
 
 fears, 
 While the stupid earth on which I stay 
 Suffers no change, but passive adds 
 Its myriad years to myriads, 
 Though I, He gave it to, decay, 
 Seeing death come and choose about me, 
 And my dearest ones depart without me. 
 No ! love which, on earth, amid all the 
 
 shows of it, 
 Has ever been seen the sole good of life 
 
 in it, 
 The love, ever growing there, spite of the 
 
 strife in it, 
 Shall arise, made perfect, from death's 
 
 repose of it ! 
 And I shall behold Thee, face to face,
 
 CHRISTMAS EVE 21 
 
 God, and in Thy light retrace 
 
 How in all I loved here, still wast Thou ! 
 Whom pressing to, then, as I fain would 
 now, 
 
 1 shall find as able to satiate 
 
 The love, Thy gift, as my spirit's wonder 
 Thou art able to quicken and sublimate, 
 With this sky of Thine, that I now walk 
 
 under, 
 And glory in Thee as thus I gaze, 
 — Thus, thus ! oh, let men keep their ways 
 Of seeking Thee in a narrow shrine — 
 Be this my way ! And this is mine ! 
 
 VI. 
 
 For lo, what think you ? suddenly 
 
 The rain and the wind ceased, and the 
 
 sky 
 Received at once the full fruition 
 Of the moon's consummate apparition. 
 The black cloud-barricade was riven, 
 Ruined beneath her feet, and driven 
 Deep in the west; while, bare and breath- 
 less, 
 North and south and east lay ready 
 For a glorious Thing, that, dauntless, 
 
 deathless, 
 Sprang across them, and stood steady. 
 'Twas a moon-rainbow, vast and perfect,
 
 22 CHRISTMAS EVE 
 
 From heaven to heaven extending, perfect 
 As the mother-moon's self, full in face. 
 It rose, distinctly at the base 
 With its seven proper colours chorded, 
 Which still, in the rising, were compressed, 
 Until at last they coalesced, 
 And supreme the spectral creature lorded 
 In a triumph of whitest white, — 
 Above which intervened the night. 
 But above night too, like the next, 
 The second of a wondrous sequence, 
 Reaching in rare and rarer frequence, 
 Till the heaven of heavens be circumflext, 
 Another rainbow rose, a mightier, 
 Fainter, fiushier, and flightier, — 
 Rapture dying along its verge ! 
 Oh, whose foot shall I see emerge, 
 WHOSE, from the straining topmost dark, 
 On to the keystone of that arc ? 
 
 VII. 
 
 This sight was shown me, there and 
 
 then, — 
 Me, one out of a world of men, 
 Singled forth as the chance might hap 
 To another, if in a thunderclap 
 Where I heard noise, and you saw flame, 
 Some one man knew God called his name. 
 For me, I think I said, " Appear ; 
 " Good were it to be ever here.
 
 CHRISTMAS EVE 23 
 
 " If Thou wilt, let me build to Thee 
 
 " Service-tabernacles Three, 
 
 " Where, for ever in Thy presence, 
 
 " In extatic acquiescence, 
 
 " Far alike from thriftless learning 
 
 " And ignorance's undiscerning, 
 
 " I may worship and remain ! ' 
 
 Thus, at the show above me, gazing 
 
 With upturned eyes, I felt my brain 
 
 Glutted with the glory, blazing 
 
 Throughout its whole mass, over and 
 
 under, 
 Until at length it burst asunder, 
 And out of it boldly there streamed 
 The too-much glory, as it seemed, 
 Passing from out me to the ground, 
 Then palely serpentining round 
 Into the dark with mazy error. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 All at once I looked up with terror, 
 
 He was there. 
 
 He Himself with His human air. 
 
 On the narrow pathway, just before : 
 
 I saw the back of Him, no more — 
 
 He had left the chapel, then, as I. 
 
 I forgot all about the sky. 
 
 No face: only the sight 
 
 Of a sweepy Garment, vast and white, 
 
 With a hem that I could recognise.
 
 24 CHRISTMAS EVE 
 
 I felt terror, no surprise : 
 
 My mind filled with the cataract, 
 
 At one bound, of the mighty fact. 
 
 I remembered, He did say 
 
 Doubtless, that, to this world's end, 
 
 Where two or three should meet and pray, 
 
 He would be in the midst, their Friend : 
 
 Certainly He was there with them. 
 
 And my pulses leaped for joy 
 
 Of the golden thought without alloy, 
 
 That I saw His very Vesture's hem. 
 
 Then rushed the blood back, cold and clear 
 
 With a fresh enhancing shiver of fear, 
 
 And I hastened, cried out while I pressed 
 
 To the salvation of the Vest, 
 
 " But not so, Lord ! It cannot be 
 
 " That Thou, indeed, art leaving me— 
 
 " Me, that have despised Thy friends. 
 
 " Did my heart make no amends ? 
 
 " Thou art the Love of God — above 
 
 "His Power, didst hear me place His 
 
 Love, 
 "And that was leaving the world for Thee 
 " Therefore Thou must not turn from me 
 "As if I had chosen the other part. 
 " Folly and pride o'ercame my heart. 
 " Our best is bad, nor bears Thy test ; 
 " Still it should be our very best. 
 " I thought it best that Thou, the Spirit, 
 " Be worshipped in spirit and in truth,
 
 CHRISTMAS EVE 25 
 
 "And in beauty, as even we require it — 
 
 " Not in the forms burlesque, uncouth, 
 
 " I left but now, as scarcely fitted 
 
 " For Thee : I knew not what I pitied : 
 
 " But all I felt there, right or wrong, 
 
 " What is it to Thee, who curest sinning? 
 
 "Am I not weak as Thou art strong? 
 
 " I have looked to Thee from the beginning, 
 
 " Straight up to Thee through all the world 
 
 " Which, like an idle scroll, lay furled, 
 
 " To nothingness on either side : 
 
 "And since the time Thou wast descried, 
 
 " Spite of the weak heart, so have I 
 
 " Lived ever, and so fain would die, 
 
 " Living and dying, Thee before ! 
 
 " But if Thou leavest me—" 
 
 IX. 
 Less or more, 
 I suppose that I spoke thus. 
 When, — have mercy, Lord, on us ! 
 The whole Face turned upon me full. 
 And I spread myself beneath it, 
 As when the bleacher spreads, to seethe it 
 In the cleansing sun, his wool, — 
 Steeps in the flood of noontide whiteness 
 Some defiled, discoloured web — 
 So lay I, saturate with brightness. 
 And when the flood appeared to ebb, 
 Lo, I was walking, light and swift,
 
 26 CHRISTMAS EVE 
 
 With my senses settling fast and steadying, 
 But my body caught up in the whirl and 
 
 drift 
 Of the Vesture's amplitude, still eddying 
 On, just before me, still to be followed, 
 As it carried me after with its motion : 
 What shall I say ? — as a path were hollowed 
 And a man went weltering through the 
 
 ocean, 
 Sucked along in the flying wake 
 Of the luminous water-snake. 
 Darkness and cold were cloven, as through 
 I passed, upborne yet walking too. 
 And I turned to myself at intervals, — 
 " So He said, and so it befals. 
 " God who registers the cup 
 " Of mere cold water, for His sake 
 " To a disciple rendered up, 
 " Disdains not His own thirst to slake 
 " At the poorest love was ever offered : 
 " And because it was my heart I proffered, 
 " With true love trembling at the brim, 
 " He suffers me to follow Him 
 " For ever, my own way, — dispensed 
 " From seeking to be influenced 
 " By all the less immediate ways 
 " That earth, in worships manifold, 
 " Adopts to reach, by prayer and praise, 
 " The Garment's hem, which, lo, I hold!"
 
 CHRISTMAS EVE 27 
 
 X. 
 
 And so we crossed the world and stopped. 
 
 For where am I, in city or plain, 
 
 Since I am 'ware of the world again ? 
 
 And what is this that rises propped 
 
 With pillars of prodigious girth ? 
 
 Is it really on the earth, 
 
 This miraculous Dome of God ? 
 
 Has the angel's measuring-rod 
 
 Which numbered cubits, gem from gem, 
 
 'Twixt the gates of the New Jerusalem, 
 
 Meted it out, — and what he meted, 
 
 Have the sons of men completed ? 
 
 — Binding, ever as he bade, 
 
 Columns in this colonnade 
 
 With arms wide open to embrace 
 
 The entry of the human race 
 
 To the breast of . . . what is it, yon 
 
 building, 
 Ablaze in front, all paint and gilding, 
 With marble for brick, and stones of price 
 For garniture of the edifice ? 
 Now I see : it is no dream : 
 It stands there and does not seem ; 
 For ever, in pictures, thus it looks, 
 And thus I have read of it in books, 
 Often in England, leagues away, 
 And wondered how those fountains play, 
 Growing up eternally
 
 28 CHRISTMAS EVE 
 
 Each to a musical water-tree, 
 
 Whose blossoms drop, a glittering boon, 
 
 Before my eyes, in the light of the moon, 
 
 To the granite lavers underneath. 
 
 Liar and dreamer in your teeth ! 
 
 I, the sinner that speak to you. 
 
 Was in Rome this night, and stood, and 
 
 knew 
 Both this and more ! For see, for see, 
 The dark is rent, mine eye is free 
 To pierce the crust of the outer wall, 
 And I view inside, and all there, all, 
 As the swarming hollow of a hive, 
 The whole Basilica alive ! 
 Men in the chancel, body, and nave, 
 Men on the pillars' architrave, 
 Men on the statues, men on the tombs 
 With popes and kings in their porphyry 
 
 wombs, 
 All famishing in expectation 
 Of the main-altar's consummation. 
 For see, for see, the rapturous moment 
 Approaches, and earth's best endowment 
 Blends with heaven's : the taper-fires 
 Pant up, the winding brazen spires 
 Heave loftier yet the baldachin ; 
 The incense-gaspings, long kept in, 
 Suspire in clouds ; the organ blatant 
 Holds his breath and grovels latent, 
 As if God's hushing finger grazed him,
 
 CHRISTMAS EVE 29 
 
 (Like Behemoth when He praised him) 
 
 At the silver bell's shrill tinkling, 
 
 Quick cold drops of terror sprinkling 
 
 On the sudden pavement strewed 
 
 With faces of the multitude. 
 
 Earth breaks up, time drops away, 
 
 In flows heaven, with its new day 
 
 Of endless life, when He who trod, 
 
 Very Man and very God, 
 
 This earth in weakness, shame and pain, 
 
 Dying the death whose signs remain 
 
 Up yonder on the accursed tree, — 
 
 Shall come again, no more to be 
 
 Of captivity the thrall, 
 
 But the one God, all in all, 
 
 King of kings, and Lord of lords, 
 
 As His servant John received the words, 
 
 " I died, and live for evermore !" 
 
 XI. 
 
 Yet I was left outside the door. 
 
 Why sate I there on the threshold-stone, 
 
 Left till He returns, alone 
 
 Save for the Garment's extreme fold 
 
 Abandoned still to bless my hold ? — 
 
 My reason, to my doubt, replied, 
 
 As if a book were opened wide, 
 
 And at a certain page I traced 
 
 Every record undefaced, 
 
 Added by successive years, —
 
 30 CHRISTMAS EVE 
 
 The harvestings of truth's stray ears 
 
 Singly gleaned, and in one sheaf 
 
 Bound together for belief. 
 
 Yes, I said — that He will go 
 
 And sit with these in turn, I know. 
 
 Their faith's heart beats, though her head 
 
 swims 
 Too giddily to guide her limbs, 
 Disabled by their palsy-stroke 
 From propping me. Though Rome's 
 
 gross yoke 
 Drops off, no more to be endured, 
 Her teaching is not so obscured 
 By errors and perversities, 
 That no truth shines athwart the lies : 
 And He, whose eye detects a spark 
 Even where, to man's, the whole seems 
 
 dark, 
 May well see flame where each beholder 
 Acknowledges the embers smoulder. 
 But I, a mere man, fear to quit 
 The clue God gave me as most fit 
 To guide my footsteps through life's maze, 
 Because Himself discerns all ways 
 Open to reach Him : I, a man 
 He gave to mark where faith began 
 To swerve aside, till from its summit 
 Judgment drops her damning plummet, 
 Pronouncing such a fatal space 
 Departed from the Founder's base :
 
 CHRISTMAS EVE 31 
 
 He will not bid me enter too, 
 
 But rather sit, as now I do, 
 
 Awaiting His return outside. 
 
 — 'Twas thus my reason straight replied, 
 
 And joyously I turned, and pressed 
 
 The Garment's skirt upon my breast, 
 
 Until, afresh its light suffusing me, 
 
 My heart cried, — what has been abusing 
 
 me 
 That I should wait here lonely and coldly, 
 Instead of rising, entering boldly, 
 Baring truth's face, and letting drift 
 Her veils of lies as they choose to shift ? 
 Do these men praise Him ? I will raise 
 My voice up to their point of praise ! 
 I see the error ; but above 
 The scope of error, see the love. — 
 Oh, love of those first Christian days ! 
 — Fanned so soon into a blaze, 
 From the spark preserved by the trampled 
 
 sect, 
 That the antique sovereign Intellect 
 Which then sate ruling in the world, 
 Like a change in dreams, was hurled 
 From the throne he reigned upon : 
 — You looked up, and he was gone ! 
 Gone, his glory of the pen ! 
 — Love, with Greece and Rome in ken, 
 Bade her scribes abhor the trick 
 Of poetry and rhetoric,
 
 32 CHRISTMAS EVE 
 
 And exult, with hearts set free, 
 
 In blessed imbecility 
 
 Scrawled, perchance, on some torn sheet, 
 
 Leaving Livy incomplete. 
 
 Gone, his pride of sculptor, painter ! 
 
 — Love, while able to acquaint her 
 
 With the thousand statues yet 
 
 Fresh from chisel, pictures wet 
 
 From brush, she saw on every side, 
 
 Chose rather with an infant's pride 
 
 To frame those portents which impart 
 
 Such unction to true Christian Art. 
 
 Gone, Music too ! The air was stirred 
 
 By happy wings : Terpander's bird 
 
 (That, when the cold came, fled away) 
 
 Would tarry not the wintry day, — 
 
 As more- enduring sculpture must, 
 
 Till a filthy saint rebuked the gust 
 
 With which he chanced to get a sight 
 
 Of some dear naked Aphrodite 
 
 He glanced a thought above the toes of, 
 
 By breaking zealously her nose off. 
 
 Love, surely, from that music's lingering, 
 
 Might have filched her organ-fingering, 
 
 Nor chose rather to set prayings 
 
 To hog-grunts, praises to horse-neighings. 
 
 Love was the startling thing, the new ; 
 
 Love was the all-sufficient too ; 
 
 And seeing that, you see the rest, 
 
 As a babe can find its mother's breast
 
 CHRISTMAS EVE 33 
 
 As well in darkness as in light, 
 Love shut our eyes, and all seemed right. 
 True, the world's eyes are open now : 
 — Less need for me to disallow 
 Some few that keep Love's zone un- 
 buckled, 
 Peevish as ever to be suckled, 
 Lulled by the same old baby-prattle 
 With intermixture of the rattle, 
 When she would have them creep, stand 
 
 steady 
 Upon their feet, or walk already, 
 Not to speak of trying to climb. 
 I will be wise another time, 
 And not desire a wall between us, 
 When next I see a church-roof cover 
 So many species of one genus, 
 All with foreheads bearing Lover 
 Written above the earnest eyes of them ; 
 All with breasts that beat for beauty, 
 Whether sublimed, to the surprise of 
 
 them, 
 In noble daring, stedfast duty, 
 The heroic in passion, or in action, — 
 Or, lowered for the senses' satisfaction, 
 To the mere outside of human creatures, 
 Mere perfect form and faultless features. 
 What ! with all Rome here, whence to 
 
 levy 
 Such contributions to their appetite, 
 
 3
 
 34 CHRISTMAS EVE 
 
 With women and men in a gorgeous bevy, 
 They take, as it were, a padlock, and clap 
 
 it tight 
 On their southern eyes, restrained from 
 
 feeding 
 On the glories of their ancient reading, 
 On the beauties of their modern singing, 
 On the wonders of the builder's bringing, 
 On the majesties of Art around them, — 
 And, all these loves, late struggling in- 
 cessant, 
 When faith has at last united and bound 
 
 them, 
 They offer up to God for a present ! 
 Why, I will, on the whole, be rather 
 
 proud of it, — 
 And, only taking the act in reference 
 To the other recipients who might have 
 
 allowed of it, 
 I will rejoice that God had the preference ! 
 
 XII. 
 
 So I summed up my new resolves : 
 Too much love there can never be. 
 And where the intellect devolves 
 Its function on love exclusively, 
 I, as one who possesses both, 
 Will accept the provision, nothing loth, 
 — Will feast my love, then depart else- 
 where,
 
 CHRISTMAS EVE 35 
 
 That my intellect may find its share. 
 And ponder, O soul, the while thou de- 
 
 partest, 
 And see thou applaud the great heart of 
 
 the artist, 
 Who, examining the capabilities 
 Of the block of marble he has to fashion 
 Into a type of thought or passion, — 
 Not always, using obvious facilities, 
 Shapes it, as any artist can, 
 Into a perfect symmetrical man, 
 Complete from head to foot of the life-size, 
 Such as old Adam stood in his wife's 
 
 eyes, — 
 But, now and then, bravely aspires to 
 
 consummate 
 A Colossus by no means so easy to come 
 
 at, 
 And uses the whole of his block for the 
 
 bust, 
 Leaving the minds of the public to finish 
 
 it, 
 Since cut it ruefully short he must : 
 On the face alone he expends his devotion ; 
 He rather would mar than resolve to 
 
 diminish it, 
 — Saying, "Applaud me for this grand 
 
 notion 
 "Of what a face may be! As for com- 
 pleting it 
 
 3—2
 
 3 6 CHRISTMAS EVE 
 
 " In breast and body and limbs, do that, 
 
 you!" 
 All hail ! I fancy how, happily meeting it, 
 A trunk and legs would perfect the statue, 
 Could man carve so as to answer volition. 
 And how much nobler than petty cavils, 
 A hope to find, in my spirit-travels, 
 Some artist of another ambition, 
 Who having a block to carve, no bigger, 
 Has spent his power on the opposite 
 
 quest, 
 And believed to begin at the feet was 
 
 best — 
 For so may I see, ere I die, the whole 
 
 figure ! 
 
 XIII. 
 
 No sooner said than out in the night ! 
 And still as we swept through storm and 
 
 night, 
 My heart beat lighter and more light : 
 And lo, as before, I was walking swift, 
 With my senses settling fast and steady- 
 ing, 
 But my body caught up in the whirl and 
 
 drift 
 Of the Vesture's amplitude, still eddying 
 On just before me, still to be followed, 
 As it carried me after with its motion,
 
 CHRISTMAS EVE 37 
 
 — What shall I say? — as a path were 
 
 hollowed, 
 And a man went weltering through the 
 
 ocean, 
 Sucked along in the flying wake 
 Of the luminous water-snake, 
 
 XIV. 
 
 Alone ! I am left alone once more — 
 
 (Save for the Garment's extreme fold 
 
 Abandoned still to bless my hold) 
 
 Alone, beside the entrance-door 
 
 Of a sort of temple, — perhaps a college, 
 
 — Like nothing I ever saw before 
 
 At home in England, to my knowledge. 
 
 The tall, old, quaint, irregular town ! 
 
 It may be . . though which, I can't affirm 
 
 . . any 
 Of the famous middle-age towns of Ger- 
 many ; 
 And this flight of stairs where I sit down, 
 Is it Halle, Weimar, Cassel, or Frankfort, 
 Or Gottingen, that I have to thank for't ? 
 It may be Gottingen, — most likely. 
 Through the open door I catch obliquely 
 Glimpses of a lecture-hall ; 
 And not a bad assembly neither — 
 Ranged decent and symmetrical 
 On benches, waiting what's to see there ;
 
 38 CHRISTMAS EVE 
 
 Which, holding still by the Vesture's hem, 
 I also resolve to see with them, 
 Cautious this time how I suffer to slip 
 The chance of joining in fellowship 
 With any that call themselves His friends, 
 As these folks do, I have a notion. 
 But hist— a buzzing and emotion ! 
 All settle themselves, the while ascends 
 By the creaking rail to the lecture-desk, 
 Step by step, deliberate 
 Because of his cranium's over-freight, 
 Three parts sublime to one grotesque, 
 If I have proved an accurate guesser, 
 The hawk-nosed, high-cheek-boned Pro- 
 fessor. 
 I felt at once as if there ran 
 A shoot of love from my heart to the man — 
 That sallow, virgin-minded, studious 
 Martyr to mild enthusiasm, 
 As he uttered a kind of cough-preludious 
 That woke my sympathetic spasm, 
 (Beside some spitting that made me sorry) 
 And stood, surveying his auditory 
 With a wan pure look, well nigh celestial, — 
 — Those blue eyes had survived so much ! 
 While, under the foot they could not 
 
 smutch, 
 Lay all the fleshly and the bestial. 
 Over he bowed, and arranged his notes, 
 Till the auditory's clearing of throats
 
 CHRISTMAS EVE 39 
 
 Was done with, died into a silence ; 
 
 And, when each glass was upward sent, 
 
 Each bearded mouth composed intent, 
 
 And a pin might be heard drop half a mile 
 hence, — 
 
 He pushed back higher his spectacles, 
 
 Let the eyes stream out like lamps from 
 cells, 
 
 And giving his head of hair — a hake 
 
 Of undressed tow, for color and quantity — 
 
 One rapid and impatient shake, 
 
 (As our own young England adjusts a 
 jaunty tie 
 
 When about to impart, on mature 
 digestion, 
 
 Some thrilling view of the surplice- 
 question) 
 
 — The Professor's grave voice, sweet 
 
 though hoarse, 
 Broke into his Christmas-Eve's discourse. 
 
 XV. 
 
 And he began it by observing 
 
 How reason dictated that men 
 
 Should rectify the natural swerving, 
 
 By a reversion, now and then, 
 
 To the well-heads of knowledge, few 
 
 And far away, whence rolling grew 
 
 The life-stream wide whereat we drink,
 
 4 o CHRISTMAS EVE 
 
 Commingled, as we needs must think, 
 With waters alien to the source : 
 To do which, aimed this Eve's discourse. 
 Since, where could be a fitter time 
 For tracing backward to its prime, 
 This Christianity, this lake, 
 This reservoir, whereat we slake, 
 From one or other bank, our thirst ? 
 So he proposed inquiring first 
 Into the various sources whence 
 This Myth of Christ is derivable ; 
 Demanding from the evidence, 
 (Since plainly no such life was liveable) 
 How these phenomena should class ? 
 Whether 'twere best opine Christ was, 
 Or never was at all, or whether 
 He was and was not, both together — 
 It matters little for the name, 
 So the Idea be left the same : 
 Only, for practical purpose' sake, 
 'Twas obviously as well to take 
 The popular story, — understanding 
 How the ineptitude of the time, 
 And the penman's prejudice, expanding 
 Fact into fable fit for the clime, 
 Had, by slow and sure degrees, trans- 
 lated it 
 Into this myth, this Individuum, — 
 Which, when reason had strained and 
 abated it
 
 CHRISTMAS EVE 41 
 
 Of foreign matter, gave, for residuum, 
 A Man !— a right true man, however ! 
 Whose work was worthy a man's 
 
 endeavour ! 
 Work, that gave warrant almost sufficient 
 To his disciples, for rather believing 
 He was just omnipotent and omniscient, 
 And it gives to us, for as frankly receiving 
 His word, their tradition, — which, though 
 
 it meant 
 Something entirely different 
 From all that those who only heard it, 
 In their simplicity thought and averred it, 
 Had yet a meaning quite as respectable : 
 For, among other doctrines delectable, 
 Was he not surely the first to insist on, 
 The natural sovereignty of our race ? — 
 Here the lecturer came to a pausing- 
 
 place. 
 And while his cough, like a drouthy 
 
 piston, 
 Tried to dislodge the husk that grew to 
 
 him, 
 I seized the occasion of bidding adieu to 
 
 him, 
 The Vesture still within my hand.
 
 42 CHRISTMAS EVE 
 
 XVI. 
 
 I could interpret its command. 
 This time He would not bid me enter 
 The exhausted air-bell of the Critic. 
 Truth's atmosphere may grow mephitic 
 When Papist struggles with Dissenter, 
 Impregnating its pristine clarity, 
 — One, by his daily fare's vulgarity, 
 Its gust of broken meat and garlic ; 
 — One, by his soul's too-much presuming, 
 To turn the frankincense's fuming 
 And vapours of the candle starlike 
 Into the cloud her wings she buoys on : 
 And each, that sets the pure air seething, 
 Poisoning it for healthy breathing — 
 But the Critic leaves no air to poison ; 
 Pumps out by a ruthless ingenuity 
 Atom by atom, and leaves you — vacuity. 
 Thus much of Christ, does he reject ? 
 And what retain ? His intellect ? 
 What is it I must reverence duly ? 
 Poor intellect for worship, truly, 
 Which tells me simply what was told 
 (If mere morality, bereft 
 Of the God in Christ, be all that's left) 
 Elsewhere by voices manifold ; 
 With this advantage, that the stater 
 Made nowise the important stumble 
 Of adding, he, the sage and humble,
 
 CHRISTMAS EVE 43 
 
 Was also one with the Creator. 
 You urge Christ's followers' simplicity : 
 But how does shifting blame, evade it ? 
 Have wisdom's words no more felicity ? 
 The stumbling-block, His speech— who 
 
 laid it ? 
 How comes it that for one found able, 
 To sift the truth of it from fable, 
 Millions believe it to the letter ? 
 Christ's goodness, then — does that fare 
 
 better ? 
 Strange goodness, which upon the score 
 Of being goodness, the mere due 
 Of man to fellow-man, much more 
 To God,— should take another view 
 Of its possessor's privilege, 
 And bid him rule his race ! You pledge 
 Your fealty to such rule ? What, all— 
 From Heavenly John and Attic Paul, 
 And that brave weather-battered Peter 
 Whose stout faith only stood completer 
 For buffets, sinning to be pardoned, 
 As the more his hands hauled nets, they 
 
 hardened, — 
 All, down to you, the man of men, 
 Professing here at Gottingen, 
 Compose Christ's flock ! So, you and I 
 Are sheep of a good man ! and why ? 
 The goodness, — how did he acquire it ? 
 Was it self-gained, did God inspire it ?
 
 44 CHRISTMAS EVE 
 
 Choose which ; then tell me, on what 
 
 ground 
 Should its possessor dare propound 
 His claim to rise o'er us an inch ? 
 Were goodness all some man's invention, 
 Who arbitrarily made mention 
 What we should follow, and where 
 
 flinch, — 
 What qualities might take the style 
 Of right and wrong, — and had such 
 
 guessing 
 Met with as general acquiescing 
 As graced the Alphabet erewhile, 
 When A got leave an Ox to be, 
 No Camel (quoth the Jews) like G, — 
 For thus inventing thing and title 
 Worship were that man's fit requital. 
 But if the common conscience must 
 Be ultimately judge, adjust 
 Its apt name to each quality 
 Already known, — I would decree 
 Worship for such mere demonstration 
 And simple work of nomenclature, 
 Only the day I praised, not Nature, 
 But Harvey, for the circulation. 
 I would praise such a Christ, with pride 
 And joy, that he, as none beside, 
 Had taught us how to keep the mind 
 God gave him, as God gave his kind, 
 Freer than they from fleshly taint !
 
 CHRISTMAS EVE 45 
 
 I would call such a Christ our Saint, 
 
 As I declare our Poet, him 
 
 Whose insight makes all others dim : 
 
 A thousand poets pried at life, 
 
 And only one amid the strife 
 
 Rose to be Shakespeare ! Each shall take 
 
 His crown, I'd say, for the world's sake — 
 
 Though some objected — " Had we seen 
 
 " The heart and head of each, what screen 
 
 " Was broken there to give them light, 
 
 " While in ourselves it shuts the sight, 
 
 " We should no more admire, perchance, 
 
 " That these found truth out at a glance, 
 
 " Than marvel how the bat discerns 
 
 " Some pitch-dark cavern's fifty turns, 
 
 " Led by a finer tact, a gift 
 
 " He boasts, which other birds must shift 
 
 " Without, and grope as best they can." 
 
 No, freely I would praise the man, — 
 
 Nor one whit more, if he contended 
 
 That gift of his, from God, descended. 
 
 Ah, friend, what gift of man's does not ? 
 
 No nearer Something, by a jot, 
 
 Rise an infinity of Nothings 
 
 Than one : take Euclid for your teacher : 
 
 Distinguish kinds : do crownings, clothings, 
 
 Make that Creator which was creature ? 
 
 Multiply gifts upon his head, 
 
 And what, when all's done, shall be said 
 
 But . . . the more gifted he, I ween !
 
 46 CHRISTMAS EVE 
 
 That one's made Christ, another, Pilate, 
 And This might be all That has been, — 
 So what is there to frown or smile at ? 
 What is left for us, save, in growth, 
 Of soul, to rise up, far past both, 
 From the gift looking to the Giver, 
 And from the cistern to the River, 
 And from the finite to Infinity, 
 And from man's dust to God's divinity? 
 
 XVII. 
 
 Take all in a word : the Truth in God's 
 
 breast 
 Lies trace for trace upon ours impressed : 
 Though He is so bright and we so dim, 
 We are made in His image to witness 
 
 Him ; 
 And were no eye in us to tell, 
 Instructed by no inner sense, 
 The light of Heaven from the dark of Hell, 
 That light would want its evidence, — 
 Though Justice, Good and Truth were still 
 Divine, if, by some demon's will, 
 Hatred and wrong had been proclaimed 
 Law through the worlds, and Right mis- 
 named. 
 No mere exposition of morality 
 Made or in part or in totality, 
 Should win you to give it worship, there- 
 fore :
 
 CHRISTMAS EVE 47 
 
 And, if no better proof you will care for, 
 — Whom do you count the worst man 
 
 upon earth ? 
 Be sure, he knows, in his conscience, 
 
 more 
 Of what Right is, than arrives at birth 
 In the best man's acts that we bow before : 
 This last knows better— true ; but my fact 
 
 is, 
 'Tis one thing to know, and another to 
 
 practise ; 
 And thence I conclude that the real God- 
 function 
 Is to furnish a motive and injunction 
 For practising what we know already. 
 And such an injunction and such a motive 
 As the God in Christ, do you waive, and 
 
 " heady 
 High minded," hang your tablet-votive 
 Outside the fane on a finger-post ? 
 Morality to the uttermost, 
 Supreme in Christ as we all confess, 
 Why need we prove would avail no jot 
 To make Him God, if God He were not? 
 What is the point where Himself lays 
 
 stress ? 
 Does the precept run " Believe in Good, 
 " In Justice, Truth, now understood 
 "For the first time?" — or, "Believe in 
 
 ME,
 
 48 CHRISTMAS EVE 
 
 " Who lived and died, yet essentially 
 
 " Am Lord of Life ?" Whoever can take 
 
 The same to his heart and for mere love's 
 
 sake 
 Conceive of the love, — that man obtains 
 A new truth ; no conviction gains 
 Of an old one only, made intense 
 By a fresh appeal to his faded sense. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 Can it be that He stays inside ? 
 
 Is the Vesture left me to commune with ? 
 
 Could my soul find aught to sing in tune 
 
 with 
 Even at this lecture, if she tried ? 
 Oh, let me at lowest sympathise 
 With the lurking drop of blood that lies 
 In the desiccated brain's white roots 
 Without a throb for Christ's attributes, 
 As the Lecturer makes his special boast ! 
 If love's dead there, it has left a ghost. 
 Admire we, how from heart to brain 
 (Though to say so strike the doctors dumb) 
 One instinct rises and falls again, 
 Restoring the equilibrium. 
 And how when the Critic had done his 
 
 best, 
 And the Pearl of Price, at reason's test, 
 Lay dust and ashes levigable
 
 CHRISTMAS EVE 49 
 
 On the Professor's lecture-table ; 
 
 When we looked for the inference and 
 
 monition 
 That our faith, reduced to such a con- 
 dition, 
 Be swept forthwith to its natural dust- 
 hole, — 
 He bids us, when we least expect it, 
 Take back our faith, — if it be not just 
 
 whole, 
 Yet a pearl indeed, as his tests affect it, 
 Which fact pays the damage done reward- 
 in gly, 
 So, prize we our dust and ashes accord- 
 ingly ! 
 " Go home and venerate the Myth 
 " I thus have experimented with— 
 " This Man, continue to adore him 
 " Rather than all who went before him, 
 " And all who ever followed after !" — 
 Surely for this I may praise you, my 
 
 brother ! 
 Will you take the praise in tears or 
 
 laughter ? 
 That's one point gained ; can I compass 
 
 another ? 
 Unlearned love was safe from spurning — 
 Can't we respect your loveless learning ? 
 Let us at least give Learning honor ! 
 What laurels had we showered upon her, 
 
 4
 
 5 o CHRISTMAS EVE 
 
 Girding her loins up to perturb 
 
 Our theory of the Middle Verb ; 
 
 Or Turklike brandishing a scimetar 
 
 O'er anapeests in comic-trimeter ; 
 
 Or curing the halt and maimed Iketides, 
 
 While we lounged on at our indebted ease : 
 
 Instead of which, a tricksy demon 
 
 Sets her at Titus or Philemon ! 
 
 When Ignorance wags his ears of leather 
 
 And hates God's word, 'tis altogether ; 
 
 Nor leaves he his congenial thistles 
 
 To go and browze on Paul's Epistles. 
 
 — And you, the audience, who might 
 
 ravage 
 The world wide, enviably savage 
 Nor heed the cry of the retriever, 
 More than Herr Heine (before his fever), — 
 I do not tell a lie so arrant 
 As say my passion's wings are furled ^ n, 
 And, without the plainest Heavenly 
 
 warrant, 
 I were ready and glad to give this world 
 
 up— 
 But still, when you rub the brow me- 
 ticulous, 
 And ponder the profit of turning holy 
 If not for God's, for your own sake solely, 
 — God forbid I should find you ridiculous i 
 Deduce from this lecture all that eases 
 you,
 
 CHRISTMAS EVE 51 
 
 Nay, call yourselves, if the calling pleases 
 
 you, 
 "Christians," — abhor the Deist's prav- 
 
 ity- 
 Go on, you shall no more move my gravity, 
 Than, when I see boys ride a-cockhorse 
 I find it in my heart to embarrass them 
 By hinting that their stick's a mock horse, 
 And they really carry what they say carries 
 
 them. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 So sate I talking with my mind. 
 
 I did not long to leave the door 
 
 And find a new church, as before, 
 
 But rather was quiet and inclined 
 
 To prolong and enjoy the gentle resting 
 
 From further tracking and trying and 
 
 testing. 
 This tolerance is a genial mood ! 
 (Said I, and a little pause ensued). 
 One trims the bark 'twixt shoal and shelf, 
 And sees, each side, the good effects of it, 
 A value for religion's self, 
 A carelessness about the sects of it. 
 Let me enjoy my own conviction, 
 Not watch my neighbour's faith with 
 
 fretfulness, 
 Still spying there some dereliction 
 Of truth, perversity, forgetfulness ! 
 
 4—2
 
 52 CHRISTMAS EVE 
 
 Better a mild indifferentism, 
 
 To teach that all our faiths (though duller 
 
 His shines through a dull spirit's prism) 
 
 Originally had one color — 
 
 Sending me on a pilgrimage 
 
 Through ancient and through modern 
 
 times 
 To many people, various climes, 
 Where i may see Saint, Savage, Sage 
 Fuse their respective creeds in one 
 Before the general Father's throne ! 
 
 xx. 
 
 . . 'Twas the horrible storm began afresh ! 
 The black night caught me in his mesh 
 Whirled me up, and flung me prone. 
 I was left on the college-step alone. 
 I looked, and far there, ever fleeting 
 Far, far away, the receding gesture, 
 And looming of the lessening Vesture, 
 Swept forward from my stupid hand, 
 While I watched my foolish heart expand 
 In the lazy glow of benevolence, 
 O'er the various modes of man's belief. 
 I sprang up with fear's vehemence. 
 — Needs must there be one way, our chief 
 Best way of worship : let me strive 
 To find it, and when found, contrive 
 My fellows also take their share. 
 This constitutes my earthly care :
 
 CHRISTMAS EVE 53 
 
 God's is above it and distinct ! 
 For I, a man, with men am linked, 
 And not a brute with brutes ; no gain 
 That I experience, must remain 
 Unshared : but should my best endeavour 
 To share it, fail — subsisteth ever 
 God's care above, and I exult 
 That God, by God's own ways occult, 
 May — doth, I will believe — bring back 
 All wanderers to a single track ! 
 Meantime, I can but testify 
 God's care for me — no more, can I — 
 It is but for myself I know. 
 The world rolls witnessing around me 
 Only to leave me as it found me ; 
 Men cry there, but my ear is slow. 
 Their races flourish or decay 
 — What boots it, while yon lucid way 
 Loaded with stars, divides the vault ? 
 How soon my soul repairs its fault 
 When, sharpening senses' hebetude, 
 She turns on my own life ! So viewed, 
 No mere mote's-breadth but teems im- 
 mense 
 With witnessings of providence : 
 And woe to me if when I look 
 Upon that record, the sole book 
 Unsealed to me, I take no heed 
 Of any warning that I read ! 
 Have I been sure, this Christmas-Eve,
 
 54 CHRISTMAS EVE 
 
 God's own hand did the rainbow weave, 
 
 Whereby the truth from heaven slid 
 
 Into my soul ? — I cannot bid 
 
 The world admit He stooped to heal 
 
 My soul, as if in a thunder-peal 
 
 Where one heard noise, and one saw flame, 
 
 I only knew He named my name. 
 
 And what is the world to me for sorrow 
 
 Or joy in its censures, when to-morrow 
 
 It drops the remark, with just-turned head 
 
 Then, on again — That man is dead ? 
 
 Yes, — but for me — my name called, — 
 
 drawn 
 As a conscript's lot from the lap's black 
 
 yawn, 
 He has dipt into on a battle-dawn : 
 Bid out of life by a nod, a glance, — 
 Stumbling, mute-mazed, at nature's 
 
 chance — 
 With a rapid finger circled round, 
 Fixed to the first poor inch of ground, 
 To fight from, where his foot was found ; 
 Whose ear but a minute since lay free 
 To the wide camp's buzz and gossipry — 
 Summoned, a solitary man, 
 To end his life where his life began, 
 From the safe glad rear, to the dreadful 
 
 van ! 
 Soul of mine, hadst thou caught and held 
 By the hem of the Vesture . . .
 
 CHRISTMAS EVE 55 
 
 XXI. 
 
 And I caught 
 At the flying Robe, and unrepelled 
 Was lapped again in its folds full- fraught 
 With warmth and wonder and delight, 
 God's mercy being infinite. 
 And scarce had the words escaped my 
 
 tongue, 
 When, at a passionate bound, I sprung 
 Out of the wandering world of rain, 
 Into the little chapel again. 
 
 XXII. 
 
 How else was I found there, bolt upright 
 On my bench, as if I had never left it ? 
 — Never flung out on the common at night 
 Nor met the storm and wedge-like cleft it, 
 Seen the raree-show of Peter's successor, 
 Or the laboratory of the Professor ! 
 For the Vision, that was true, I wist, 
 True as that heaven and earth exist. 
 There sate my friend, the yellow and tall, 
 With his neck and its wen in the selfsame 
 
 place ; 
 Yet my nearest neighbour's cheek showed 
 
 gall, 
 She had slid away a contemptuous space : 
 And the old fat woman, late so placable,
 
 56 CHRISTMAS EVE 
 
 Eyed me with symptoms, hardly mis- 
 
 takeable, 
 Of her milk of kindness turning rancid : 
 In short a spectator might have fancied 
 That I had nodded betrayed by a slumber, 
 Yet kept my seat, a warning ghastly, 
 Through the heads of the sermon, nine in 
 
 number, 
 To wake up now at the tenth and lastly. 
 But again, could such a disgrace have 
 
 happened ? 
 Each friend at my elbow had surely 
 
 nudged it ; 
 And, as for the sermon, where did my 
 
 nap end ? 
 Unless I heard it, could I have judged it ? 
 Could I report as I do at the close, 
 First, the preacher speaks through his 
 
 nose : 
 Second, his gesture is too emphatic : 
 Thirdly, to waive what's pedagogic, 
 The subject-matter itself lacks logic : 
 Fourthly, the English is ungrammatic. 
 Great news ! the Preacher is found no 
 
 Pascal, 
 Whom, if I pleased, I might to the task 
 
 call 
 Of making square to a finite eye 
 The circle of infinity, 
 And find so ail-but -just-succeeding !
 
 CHRISTMAS EVE 57 
 
 Great news ! the sermon proves no read- 
 ing 
 Where bee-like in the flowers I may bury 
 
 me, 
 Like Taylor's, the immortal Jeremy ! 
 And now that I know the very worst of 
 
 him, 
 What was it I thought to obtain at first of 
 
 him ? 
 Ha ! Is God mocked, as He asks ? 
 Shall I take on me to change His tasks, 
 And dare, despatched to a river-head 
 For a simple draught of the element, 
 Neglect the thing for which He sent, 
 And return with another thing instead ? — 
 Saying . . " Because the water found 
 " Welling up from underground, 
 " Is mingled with the taints of earth, 
 "While Thou, I know, dost laugh at 
 
 dearth, 
 " And couldest, at a word, convulse 
 "The world with the leap of its river- 
 pulse, — 
 "Therefore I turned from the oozings 
 
 muddy, 
 " And bring thee a chalice I found, instead : 
 " See the brave veins in the breccia ruddy ! 
 " One would suppose that the marble bled. 
 "What matters the water? A hope I 
 have nursed,
 
 58 CHRISTMAS EVE 
 
 " That the waterless cup will quench my 
 
 thirst." 
 — Better have knelt at the poorest stream 
 That trickles in pain from the straitest rift ! 
 For the less or the more is all God's gift, 
 Who blocks up or breaks wide the granite- 
 seam. 
 And here, is there water or not, to drink? 
 I, then, in ignorance and weakness, 
 Taking God's help, have attained to think 
 My heart does best to receive in meek- 
 ness 
 This mode of worship, as most to His 
 
 mind, 
 Where earthly aids being cast behind, 
 His All in Ail appears serene, 
 With the thinnest human veil between, 
 Letting the mystic Lamps, the Seven, 
 The many motions of His spirit, 
 Pass, as they list, to earth from Heaven. 
 For the preacher's merit or demerit, 
 It were to be wished the flaws were fewer 
 In the earthen vessel, holding treasure, 
 Which lies as safe in a golden ewer ; 
 But the main thing is, does it hold good 
 
 measure ? 
 Heaven soon sets right all other matters ! — 
 Ask, else, these ruins of humanity, 
 This flesh worn out to rags and tatters, 
 This soul at struggle with insanity,
 
 CHRISTMAS EVE 59 
 
 Who thence take comfort, can I doubt, 
 Which an empire gained, were a loss 
 
 without. 
 May it be mine ! And let us hope 
 That no worse blessing befal the Pope, 
 Turn'd sick at last of the day's buffoonery, 
 Of his posturings and his petticoatings, 
 Beside the Bourbon bully's gloatings 
 In the bloody orgies of drunk poltroonery ! 
 Nor may the Professor forego its peace 
 At Gottingen, presently, when, in the dusk 
 Of this life, if his cough, as I fear, should 
 
 increase, 
 Prophesied of by that horrible husk ; 
 And when, thicker and thicker, the dark- 
 ness fills 
 The world through his misty spectacles, 
 And he gropes for something more sub- 
 stantial 
 Than a fable, myth, or personification, 
 May Christ do for him, what no mere man 
 
 shall, 
 And stand confessed as the God of salva- 
 tion ! 
 Meantime, in the still recurring fear 
 Lest myself, at unawares, be found, 
 While attacking the choice of my neigh- 
 bour's round, 
 Without my own made — I choose here ! 
 The giving out of the hymn reclaims me ;
 
 60 CHRISTMAS EVE 
 
 I have done ! — And if any blames me, 
 Thinking that merely to touch in brevity 
 The topics I dwell on, were unlawful, — 
 Or, worse, that I trench, with undue levity, 
 On the bounds of the Holy and the awful, 
 I praise the heart, and pity the head of him, 
 And refer myself to THEE, instead of 
 
 him ; 
 Who head and heart alike discernest, 
 Looking below light speech we utter, 
 When the frothy spume and frequent 
 
 sputter 
 Prove that the soul's depths boil in 
 
 earnest ! 
 May the truth shine out, stand ever before 
 
 us ! 
 I put up pencil and join chorus 
 To Hepzibah Tune, without further 
 
 apology, 
 The last five verses of the third section 
 Of the seventeenth hymn in Whitfield's 
 
 Collection, 
 To conclude with the doxology. 
 
 HILLING AND SONS, LTD., PRINTERS, GUILDFORD
 
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