From conjurors? The child, there? Would you leave That child to wander in a battle-field And push his innocent smile against the guns? Or even in the catacombs, ... his torch Grown ragged in the fluttering air, and all The dark a-mutter round him? not a child! I read books bad and good—some bad and good At once: good aims not always make good books: Well-tempered spades turn up ill-smelling soils In digging vineyards, even: books, that prove God’s being so definitely, that man’s doubt Grows self-defined the other side the line, Made atheist by suggestion; moral books, Exasperating to license; genial books, Discounting from the human dignity; And merry books, which set you weeping when The sun shines,—ay, and melancholy books, Which make you laugh that any one should weep In this disjointed life, for one wrong more. The world of books is still the world, I write, And both worlds have God’s providence, thank God, To keep and hearten: with some struggle, indeed, Among the breakers, some hard swimming through The deeps—I lost breath in my soul sometimes, And cried, ‘God save me if there’s any God,’ But, even so, God saved me; and, being dashed From error on to error, every turn Still brought me nearer to the central truth. I thought so. All this anguish in the thick Of men’s opinions ... press and counterpress, Now up, now down, now underfoot, and now Emergent ... all the best of it, perhaps, But throws you back upon a noble trust And use of your own instinct,—merely proves Pure reason stronger than bare inference At strongest. Try it,—fix against heaven’s wall Your scaling ladders of high logic—mount Step by step!—Sight goes faster; that still ray Which strikes out from you, how, you cannot tell, And why, you know not—(did you eliminate, That such as you, indeed, should analyse?) Goes straight and fast as light, and high as God.