And dare, despatched to a river-head For a simple draught of the element, Neglect the thing for which he sent, And return with another thing instead?-- Saying, "Because the water found "Welling up from the underground, "Is mingled with the taints of earth, "While thou, I know, dost laugh at dearth, "And couldst, at wink or word, convulse "The world with the leap of a river-pulse,-- "Therefore I turned from the oozings muddy, "And bring thee a chalice I found, instead; "See the brave veins in the breccia ruddy! "One would suppose that the marble bled. "What matters the water? A hope I have nursed: "The waterless cup will quench my thirst." --Better have knelt at the poorest stream That trickles in pain from the straitest rift! For the less or the more is all God's gift, Who blocks up or breaks wide the granite-seam. And here, is there water or not, to drink? I then, in ignorance and weakness, Taking God's help, have attained to think My heart does best to receive in meekness That mode of worship, as most to his mind, Where earthly aids being cast behind, His All in All appears serene With the thinnest human veil between, Letting the mystic lamps, the seven, The many motions of his spirit, Pass, as they list, to earth from heaven. For the preacher's merit or demerit, It were to be wished the flaws were fewer In the earthen vessel, holding treasure Which lies as safe in a golden ewer; But the main thing is, does it hold good measure? Heaven soon sets right all other matters!-- Ask, else, these ruins of humanity, This flesh worn out to rags and tatters, This soul at struggle with insanity, Who thence take comfort--can I doubt?-- Which an empire gained were a loss without. May it be mine! And let us hope That no worse blessing befall the Pope, Turned sick at last of to-day's buffoonery, Of posturings and petticoatings, Beside his Bourbon bully's gloatings In the bloody orgies of drunk poltroonery! Nor may the Professor forego its peace At Gottingen presently, when, in the dusk Of his life, if his cough, as I fear, should increase, Prophesied of by that horrible husk-- When thicker and thicker the darkness fills The world through his misty spectacles, And he gropes for something more substantial Than a fable, myth or personification,-- May Christ do for him what no mere man shall, And stand confessed as the God of salvation! Meantime, in the still recurring fear Lest myself, at unawares, be found, While attacking the choice of my neighbours round, With none of my own made--I choose here! The giving out of the hymn reclaims me; I have done: and if any blames me, Thinking that merely to touch in brevity The topics I dwell on, were unlawful,-- Or worse, that I trench, with undue levity, On the bounds of the holy and the awful,-- I praise the heart, and pity the head of him,