"Good friends," he says, "you reap a field I sowed in self-denial, For toleration had its griefs And charity its trial. "Great grace, as saith Sir Thomas More, To him must needs be given Who heareth heresy and leaves The heretic to Heaven! "I hear again the snuffled tones, I see in dreary vision Dyspeptic dreamers, spiritual bores, And prophets with a mission. "Each zealot thrust before my eyes His Scripture-garbled label; All creeds were shouted in my ears As with the tongues of Babel. "Scourged at one cart-tail, each denied The hope of every other; Each martyr shook his branded fist At the conscience of his brother! "How cleft the dreary drone of man. The shriller pipe of woman, As Gorton led his saints elect, Who held all things in common! "Their gay robes trailed in ditch and swamp, And torn by thorn and thicket, The dancing-girls of Merry Mount Came dragging to my wicket. "Shrill Anabaptists, shorn of ears; Gray witch-wives, hobbling slowly; And Antinomians, free of law, Whose very sins were holy. "Hoarse ranters, crazed Fifth Monarchists, Of stripes and bondage braggarts, Pale Churchmen, with singed rubrics snatched From Puritanic fagots. "And last, not least, the Quakers came, With tongues still sore from burning, The Bay State's dust from off their feet Before my threshold spurning; "A motley host, the Lord's debris, Faith's odds and ends together; Well might I shrink from guests with lungs Tough as their breeches leather "If, when the hangman at their heels Came, rope in hand to catch them, I took the hunted outcasts in, I never sent to fetch them. "I fed, but spared them not a whit; I gave to all who walked in, Not clams and succotash alone, But stronger meat of doctrine. "I proved the prophets false, I pricked The bubble of perfection, And clapped upon their inner light The snuffers of election. "And looking backward on my times, This credit I am taking; I kept each sectary's dish apart, No spiritual chowder making. "Where now the blending signs of sect Would puzzle their assorter, The dry-shod Quaker kept the land, The Baptist held the water. "A common coat now serves for both, The hat's no more a fixture; And which was wet and which was dry, Who knows in such a mixture? "Well! He who fashioned Peter's dream To bless them all is able; And bird and beast and creeping thing Make clean upon His table! "I walked by my own light; but when The ways of faith divided, Was I to force unwilling feet To tread the path that I did? "I touched the garment-hem of truth, Yet saw not all its splendor; I knew enough of doubt to feel For every conscience tender. "God left men free of choice, as when His Eden-trees were planted; Because they chose amiss, should I Deny the gift He granted? "So, with a common sense of need, Our common weakness feeling, I left them with myself to God And His all-gracious dealing!