I would give thee new life altogether, as good, ages hence, As this moment,-had love but the warrant, love's heart to "I have gone the whole round of creation: I saw and I spoke; I, a work of God's hand for that purpose, received in my. brain And pronounced on the rest of his handwork—returned him again 240 His creation's approval or censure: I spoke as I saw, Reported, as man may of God's work-all's love, yet all's law. Now I lay down the judgeship he lent me. tasked Each faculty To perceive him has gained an abyss, where a dewdrop was asked. Have I knowledge? confounded it shrivels at Wisdom laid bare. 245 Have I forethought? how purblind, how blank, to the In finite Care! Do I task any faculty highest, to image success? I but open my eyes,-and perfection, no more and no less, In the kind I imagined, full-fronts me, and God is seen God In the star, in the stone, in the flesh, in the soul and the clod. 250 237. Harp and song have served their turn, and David puts them aside for inspired speech. "The truth" bursts on him. Would he save Saul? Why, so would God. He cannot? But God can. And so by his human love and sympathy he realizes the divine, and prophesies the Christ. It is a tremendous inference, but nothing less is possible unless the creature's love is to excel the Creator's, 246. Purblind (pure blind). First, totally blind; then, dim of vision. And thus looking within and around me, I ever renew (With that stoop of the soul which in bending upraises it too) The submission of man's nothing-perfect to God's all-complete, As by each new obeisance in spirit, I climb to his feet. own. 256 There's a faculty pleasant to exercise, hard to hoodwink, -What, my soul? see thus far and no farther? when doors great and small, Nine-and-ninety flew ope at our touch, should the hundredth appall? In the least things have faith, yet distrust in the greatest of 265 all? Do I find love so full in my nature, God's ultimate gift, That I doubt his own love can compete with it? Here, the parts shift? Here, the creature surpass the creator,-the end, what began? Would I fain in my impotent yearning do all for this man, And dare doubt he alone shall not help him, who yet alone can? 270 Would it ever have entered my mind, the bare will, much less power, To bestow on this Saul what I sang of, the marvelous dower Of the life he was gifted and filled with? to make such a soul, Such a body, and then such an earth for insphering the whole? And doth it not enter my mind (as my warm tears attest), These good things being given, to go on, and give one more, the best? 276 Aye, to save and redeem and restore him, maintain at the height This perfection,-succeed, with life's dayspring, death's minute of night? Interpose at the difficult minute, snatch Saul the mistake, Saul the failure, the ruin he seems now,-and bid him awake From the dream, the probation, the prelude, to find himself 281 set Clear and safe in new light and new life,- -a new harmony yet To be run and continued, and ended-who knows?—or endure! The man taught enough by life's dream, of the rest to make sure; By the pain-throb, triumphantly winning intensified bliss, And the next world's reward and repose, by the struggles in this. 286 XVIII "I believe it! 'Tis thou, God, that givest, 'tis I who receive: In the first is the last, in thy will is my power to believe. All's one gift: thou canst grant it moreover, as prompt to my prayer, As I breathe out this breath, as I open these arms to the air. 290 From thy will stream the worlds, life and nature, thy dread Sabaoth: I will? the mere atoms despise me! Why am I not loath To look that, even that in the face too? Why is it I dare Think but lightly of such impuissance? What stops my despair? 291. Sabaoth (Gr. from Heb. tsebaoth). Armies, hosts; used chiefly in the phrase Lord God of Sabaoth. 294. Impuissance. Want of power, inability. This; 'tis not what man Does which exalts him, but what man Would do! 295 See the King—I would help him, but cannot, the wishes fall through. Could I wrestle to raise him from sorrow, grow poor to enrich, To fill up his life, starve my own out, I would-knowing which, I know that my service is perfect. Oh, speak thro' me now! Would I suffer for him that I love? So wouldst thou-so wilt thou! 300 So shall crown thee the topmost, ineffablest, uttermost crown And thy love fill infinitude wholly, nor leave up nor down One spot for the creature to stand in! It is by no breath, Turn of eye, wave of hand, that salvation joins issue with death! 304 As thy love is discovered almighty, almighty be proved Thy power, that exists with and for it, of being Beloved! He who did most, shall bear most; the strongest shall stand the most weak. 'Tis the weakness in strength, that I cry for! my flesh, that I seek In the Godhead! I seek and I find it. O Saul, it shall be hand 311 Shall throw open the gates of new life to thee! See the Christ stand!" XIX I know not too well how I found my way home in the night. There were witnesses, cohorts about me, to left and to right, Angels, powers, the unuttered, unseen, the alive, the aware: I repressed, got thro' them as hardly, as strugglingly there, 295. Cf. Rabbi Ben Ezra. "What I aspired to be And was not, comforts me.'" As a runner beset by the populace famished for newsLife or death. The whole carth was awakened, hell loosed with her crews; And the stars of night beat with emotion, and tingled and shot Out in fire the strong pain of pent knowledge: but I fainted not, 320 For the Hand still impelled me at once and supported, sup pressed All the tumult, and quenched it with quiet, and holy behest, In the startled wild beasts that bore off, each with eye sidling still, Tho' averted with wonder and dread; in the birds stiff and chill awe: That rose heavily as I approached them, made stupid with 330 E'en the serpent that slid away silent-he felt the new law. The same stared in the white humid faces upturned by the flowers; The same worked in the heart of the cedar and moved the vine bowers: And the little brooks witnessing murmured, persistent and low, With their obstinate, all but hushed voices-" E'en so, it is so!" 335 318-335. "Mr. Browning's most characteristic feeling for nature appears in his rendering of those aspects of sky, or earth, or sea, of sunset, or noonday, or dawn. which seem to acquire some sudden passionate significance; which seem to be charged with some spiritual secret eager for disclosure; in his rendering of those moments which betray the passion at the heart of things, which thrill and tingle with prophetic fire when to David the stars shoot out the pain of pent knowledge and in the gray of the hills at morning there dwells a gathered inten |