When some Beloveds, 'neath whose eyelids lay The sweet lights of my childhood, one by one Did leave me dark before the natural sun, And I astonied fell, and could not pray, A thought within me to myself did say, "Is God less God that _thou_ art left undone? Rise, worship, bless Him! in this sackcloth spun, As in that purple!"--But I answer, Nay! What child his filial heart in words can loose, If he behold his tender father raise The hand that chastens sorely? Can he choose But sob in silence with an upward gaze? And _my_ great Father, thinking fit to bruise, Discerns in speechless tears both prayer and praise. COMFORT. Speak low to me, my Saviour, low and sweet, From out the hallelujahs sweet and low, Lest I should fear and fall, and miss thee so, Who art not missed by any that entreat. Speak to me as to Mary at thy feet-- And if no precious gums my hands bestow, Let my tears drop like amber, while I go In reach of thy divinest voice complete In humanest affection--thus, in sooth To lose the sense of losing! As a child, Whose song-bird seeks the wood for evermore, Is sung to in its stead by mother's mouth; Till sinking on her breast, love-reconciled, He sleeps the faster that he wept before. Gladly would I next give myself to the exposition of several of the poems of her husband, Robert Browning, especially the _Christmas Eve_ and _Easter Day_; in the first of which he sets forth in marvellous rhymes the necessity both for widest sympathy with the varied forms of Christianity, and for individual choice in regard to communion; in the latter, what it is to choose the world and lose the life. But this would take many pages, and would be inconsistent with the plan of my book. When I have given two precious stanzas, most wise as well as most lyrical and lovely, from the poems of our honoured Charles Kingsley, I shall turn to the other of the classes into which the devout thinkers of the day have divided. A FAREWELL. My fairest child, I have no song to give you; No lark could pipe to skies so dull and grey; Yet, ere we part, one lesson I can leave you For every day. Be good, sweet maid, and let who will be clever; Do noble things, not dream them, all day long; And so make life, death, and that vast for-ever One grand, sweet song. Surely these last, who have not accepted tradition in the mass, who believe that we must, as our Lord demanded of the Jews, of our own selves judge what is right, because therein his spirit works with our spirit,--worship the Truth not less devotedly than they who rejoice in holy tyranny over their intellects. CHAPTER XXIII. THE QUESTIONING FERVOUR.