A tune was born in my head last week, Out of the thump-thump and shriek-shriek Of the train, as I came by it, up from Manchester; And when, next week, I take it back again, My head will sing to the engine's clack again, While it only makes my neighbour's haunches stir, --Finding no dormant musical sprout In him, as in me, to be jolted out. 'Tis the taught already that profits by teaching; He gets no more from the railway's preaching Than, from this preacher who does the rail's office, I: Whom therefore the flock cast a jealous eye on. Still, why paint over their door "Mount Zion," To which all flesh shall come, saith the prophecy? V But wherefore be harsh on a single case? After how many modes, this Christmas Eve, Does the self-same weary thing take place? The same endeavour to make you believe, And with much the same effect, no more: Each method abundantly convincing, As I say, to those convinced before, But scarce to be swallowed without wincing By the not-as-yet-convinced. For me, I have my own church equally: And in this church my faith sprang first! (I said, as I reached the rising ground, And the wind began again, with a burst Of rain in my face, and a glad rebound From the heart beneath, as if, God speeding me, I entered his church-door, nature leading me) --In youth I look to these very skies, And probing their immensities, I found God there, his visible power; Yet felt in my heart, amid all its sense Of the power, an equal evidence That his love, there too, was the nobler dower. For the loving worm within its clod, Were diviner than a loveless god Amid his worlds, I will dare to say. You know what I mean: God's all, man's nought: But also, God, whose pleasure brought Man into being, stands away As it were a handbreadth off, to give Room for the newly-made to live, And look at him from a place apart, And use his gifts of brain and heart, Given, indeed, but to keep for ever. Who speaks of man, then, must not sever Man's very elements from man, Saying, "But all is God's"--whose plan Was to create man and then leave him Able, his own word saith, to grieve him But able to glorify him too, As a mere machine could never do, That prayed or praised, all unaware Of its fitness for aught but praise and prayer, Made perfect as a thing of course. Man, therefore, stands on his own stock Of love and power as a pin-point rock: And, looking to God who ordained divorce Of the rock from his boundless continent, Sees, in his power made evident, Only excess by a million-fold O'er the power God gave man in the mould. For, note: man's hand, first formed to carry A few pounds' weight, when taught to marry Its strength with an engine's, lifts a mountain, --Advancing in power by one degree; And why count steps through eternity? But love is the ever-springing fountain: