My soul to startled sighs was roused alone When Edith cross’d my vision. Then my mood, As gloom would gather round again, would grieve To think, in sorting souls, fate bungled so, And let our traits be judged of by our trades,— The dusty imprint of the things we touch. “As well,” cried I, “to judge of winds of heaven, By bogs they brush, or fogs they bear away! We two that so could trust each other’s hearts, Why should we not join hearts, and leave to them The hands? If wiser than the world we were, Why should we act, forsooth, in worldly ways? What need that all should don the uniform That fits men for the social march of fools? What need?—Ah me,” I thought, “all need, indeed, If one wish influence in the world or church.— Or church!—Must it then crucify the soul To save appearances? the body? form? The Christ gave up all these to save the soul. ’Tis treason when His churches join the world, And courting smiles from bigotry appeased, And grinning hell that holds the whole its own, Preach up the crucifixion of the soul To save the body, save the outward form. A church is His no more, whose rites or creeds Keep souls untrue to truth within that shows God’s tempering there, the touch that makes man man.” LXIII. I swore it should not be, it could not be; No life could so be cleansed,—by wringing thence The blood that warms the heart; no face made pure By turning pale the blush of beauty cast By shadows where sweet love goes in and out. Love, love should never be a slave, but free.— “Come, Edith!”—Then I question’d, Would she come?— Nay, not to my life. Mine must go to hers. But this, mine could not,—could do nothing there;— And would not!—Whence then sprang my call to her?— If not from reason, from my wish, forsooth.— My wish for what?—for her?—as now she was?— Not so; but rather might be.—Whence then sprang This ‘might be’?—whence, alas, but from myself, As I kept moulding it within my soul? Why rail’d I, then, against the church and world?— Not these alone, but I would have her changed. These all but echoed back my own soul’s voice; And yet, augmented by the voice of all, In heeding them, I heeded not myself, But something greater, grander than myself. For if a single man may image God, Then many men who join their partial gifts And parted wisdom,—till the whole become Not merely human but humanity’s,— May watch our ways and keep them circumspect With eyes that often wellnigh stand for His Who still more fully in mankind than man Rules over truth in each through truth in all. Why term me slave, then, when I serve my kind?— Through serving it, I best may serve, as well, My godlier self!—Let general thought take shape; What better can incarnate sovereignty? What stir to nobler dreams or grander deeds?