And yet, indeed, your book has dealt with me More gently, cousin, than you ever will! The book brought down entire the bright June-day, And set me wandering in the garden-walks, And let me watch the garland in a place, You blushed so ... nay, forgive me; do not stir: I only thank the book for what it taught, And what, permitted. Poet, doubt yourself; But never doubt that you’re a poet to me From henceforth. Ah, you’ve written poems, sweet, Which moved me in secret, as the sap is moved In still March-branches, signless as a stone: But this last book o’ercame me like soft rain Which falls at midnight, when the tightened bark Breaks out into unhesitating buds, And sudden protestations of the spring. In all your other books, I saw but _you_: A man may see the moon so, in a pond, And not be nearer therefore to the moon, Nor use the sight ... except to drown himself: And so I forced my heart back from the sight; For what had _I_, I thought, to do with _her_,— Aurora ... Romney? But, in this last book, You showed me something separate from yourself, Beyond you; and I bore to take it in, And let it draw me. You have shown me truths, O June-day friend, that help me now at night, When June is over! truths not yours, indeed, But set within my reach by means of you: Presented by your voice and verse the way To take them clearest. Verily I was wrong; And verily, many thinkers of this age, Ay, many Christian teachers, half in heaven, Are wrong in just my sense, who understood Our natural world too insularly, as if No spiritual counterpart completed it Consummating its meaning, rounding all To justice and perfection, line by line, Form by form, nothing single, nor alone,— The great below clenched by the great above; Shade here authenticating substance there; The body proving spirit, as the effect The cause: we, meantime, being too grossly apt To hold the natural, as dogs a bone, (Though reason and nature beat us in the face); So obstinately, that we’ll break our teeth Or ever we let go. For everywhere We’re too materialistic,—eating clay, (Like men of the west) instead of Adam’s corn And Noah’s wine; clay by handfuls, clay by lumps, Until we’re filled up to the throat with clay, And grow the grimy colour of the ground On which we are feeding. Ay, materialist The age’s name is. God himself, with some, Is apprehended as the bare result Of what his hand materially has made, Expressed in such an algebraic sign, Called God;—that is, to put it otherwise, They add up nature to a naught of God And cross the quotient. There are many, even, Whose names are written in the Christian church To no dishonour,—diet still on mud, And splash the altars with it. You might think The clay, Christ laid upon their eyelids when,