V.

Well—this fresh faith in God and Good, no more,
For such a soul—so healthy, bold, and bright,
Shrivelled or shrunk in metaphysic blight—
Wherein it flourished greenly as before,
As if from deeper source unreached it came—
Than dewy grass through window-panes descried
Waving unscorched in vivid flickering flame
Reflected from the fire that burns inside.
No! strong and joyous—so he ran,
Bright and joyous like the Sun,
His free course from Boy to Man.
Evil in its thousand forms,
Fester as it might, without,
Failed to drive that heart so stout
To the fiends—Despondence—Doubt;
Deadly Serpents he could shun
Or their writhing coils repress
With that hardy hopefulness
Almost infantine, which strangles
In its cradle crawling worms
So lethal, loathly, So he found,
Though as yet 'twas theory, crowned
Only by experience slight,
Evil—sickness, pain and peril,
All that sinks cold hearts and duller,
page 58 Into icy creeds and sterile,
Like the sardonyx or beryl
Like the prism's crystal angles—
Could but make the pure while light
Of the Good that lurks around
Everywhere and infinite,
Flash in rays of richer colour,
Streaks and stains more exquisite—
Pity—Patience—Self-denial—
Love—Endurance through all trial,
And a thousand virtues—feelings—
Gaining thence their sole revealings.

Sanguine, say you, his temper!—If his blood
Coloured his reasonings 'twas at least as good
As props the atrabiliar doctrines dyed
So darkly on the melancholic side,
We ground on those mudbanks of Doubt alone
In the ebb of the world's heart or our own;
Tangled in shallows of Despondence dark
Only when life is at low-water mark.
Not in our healthiest, our completest state
Do such misgivings our wise joys abate:
And youth's glad trust is worth most mental wealth;
For Confidence is Life—and Hope is health
At least his seemed so—who with pipe renewed
This way his dry soliloquy pursued:
"What! fear we hopeful Confidence is blind;
That the Heart's sunshine needs the clouded Mind!
Must Reason then be spurned from her high seat,
Or that most natural passion held a cheat?
That thirst for deathless life, that high desire
With which all wakened Intellects aspire,
page 59 As the dread Serpent of Eternity
Had bitten them with fangs like those accurst
Once fabled of the dipsas—causing thirst
That quenchless burnt for ever! must this be
Held a mere lure to lead the human race
Through the long ages to some loftier place,
And from the myriad generations spent
And wasted in the wearisome ascent,
Evolve some sample of consummate skill
Whom powers with instincts harmonized should fill—
The clearest Reason and the purest Will?
That perfect race—must it, too, have its day,
Rise, growth, and culmination, and decay,
Then, like its predecessors, pass away?
What! could your great Contriver, then, contrive
No better shift his vast machine to drive,
Only at such a failure to arrive?
Either prevent illusive Hope' suprise,
Or mate the illusion's fathomless disguise
At least impervious to human eyes?
What kind of God would show for one short hour
Such want, yet waste, of Goodness and of Power?
If such the Universe, at once declare
Some Demon-Bungler has been busy there;
Willing and yet too clumsy to deceive,
Creating spirits to aspire and grieve
And die without redemption or reprieve \
Myriads on myriads fleeting like a breath,
Endless vicissitude of Life and Death;
The swarming star-shoals coming—going—whence
Or whither? without object in the dense
Infinitude of futile impotence!
page 60 Nor boots it that the central, primal Cause
Itself might boast of permanence or pause,
Be an eternal Now—a boundless Here—
Nor like his vain creation disappear.
No! any God I would believe or teach
Should be at lowest competent to reach
The good of All through happiness of Each;
Each life progressive, and the last result
In bliss unqualified should all exult;
Perfect as well as permanent should be,
Creation's glorious Crown, and every glad degree.
Nor call God's goodness other than our own,
Different In kind, not in degree alone;
If so, let nothing be denied, averred;
Vote all assertions on the theme absurd,
Give it no thought, nor waste on it a word."