“The soul’s dark cottage, battered and decayed, Lets in new light through chinks that Time has made. Stronger by weakness, wiser men become, As they draw near to their eternal home. Leaving the old, both worlds at once they view, That stand upon the threshold of the new.”--Edmund Waller. “Drawing near her death, she sent most pious thoughts as harbingers to heaven; and her soul saw a glimpse of happiness through the chinks of her sickness-broken body.” Fuller’s ‘Holy and Profane State’, Book I., chap. 2. 203. With me: connect with ‘share’, v. 198. 208-209. See p. 62 of this volume. {In this etext, Part II, Section 3 in the Introduction. It is shortly before an excerpt from ‘Christmas Eve’.} 221-225. See stanzas 9 and 10 of ‘Rabbi Ben Ezra’. 227. an optic glass: perhaps anachronistic. -- “For life, with all it yields of joy and woe, And hope and fear,--believe the aged friend,-- {245} Is just our chance o’ the prize of learning love, How love might be, hath been indeed, and is; And that we hold thenceforth to the uttermost Such prize despite the envy of the world, And, having gained truth, keep truth: that is all. {250} But see the double way wherein we are led, How the soul learns diversely from the flesh! With flesh, that hath so little time to stay, And yields mere basement for the soul’s emprise, Expect prompt teaching. Helpful was the light, {255} And warmth was cherishing and food was choice To every man’s flesh, thousand years ago, As now to yours and mine; the body sprang At once to the height, and staid: but the soul,--no! Since sages who, this noontide, meditate {260} In Rome or Athens, may descry some point Of the eternal power, hid yestereve; And, as thereby the power’s whole mass extends, So much extends the ether floating o’er The love that tops the might, the Christ in God. {265} Then, as new lessons shall be learned in these Till earth’s work stop and useless time run out, So duly, daily, needs provision be For keeping the soul’s prowess possible, Building new barriers as the old decay, {270} Saving us from evasion of life’s proof, Putting the question ever, ‘Does God love, And will ye hold that truth against the world?’ Ye know there needs no second proof with good Gained for our flesh from any earthly source: {275} We might go freezing, ages,--give us fire, Thereafter we judge fire at its full worth, And guard it safe through every chance, ye know! That fable of Prometheus and his theft, How mortals gained Jove’s fiery flower, grows old {280} (I have been used to hear the pagans own) And out of mind; but fire, howe’er its birth, Here is it, precious to the sophist now Who laughs the myth of Aeschylus to scorn,