So in the sinful streets, abstracted and alone, I with my secret self held communing of mine own. So in the southern city spake the tongue Of one that somewhat overwildly sung, But in a later hour I sat and heard Another voice that spake—another graver word. Weep not, it bade, whatever hath been said, Though He be dead, He is not dead. In the true creed He is yet risen indeed; Christ is yet risen. Weep not beside His tomb, Ye women unto whom He was great comfort and yet greater grief; Nor ye, ye faithful few that wont with Him to roam, Seek sadly what for Him ye left, go hopeless to your home; Nor ye despair, ye sharers yet to be of their belief; Though He be dead, He is not dead, Nor gone, though fled, Not lost, though vanished; Though He return not, though He lies and moulders low; In the true creed He is yet risen indeed; Christ is yet risen. Sit if ye will, sit down upon the ground, Yet not to weep and wail, but calmly look around. Whate’er befell, Earth is not hell; Now, too, as when it first began, Life is yet life, and man is man. For all that breathe beneath the heaven’s high cope, Joy with grief mixes, with despondence hope. Hope conquers cowardice, joy grief: Or at least, faith unbelief. Though dead, not dead; Not gone, though fled; Not lost, though vanished. In the great gospel and true creed, He is yet risen indeed; Christ is yet risen. DIPSYCHUS. PROLOGUE TO DIPSYCHUS. ‘I hope it is in good plain verse,’ said my uncle,—‘none of your hurry-scurry anapæsts, as you call them, in lines which sober people read for plain heroics. Nothing is more disagreeable than to say a line over two, or, it may be, three or four times, and at last not be sure that there are not three or four ways of reading, each as good and as much intended as another. _Simplex duntaxat et unum._ But you young people think Horace and your uncles old fools.’ ‘Certainly, my dear sir,’ said I; ‘that is, I mean, Horace and my uncle are perfectly right. Still, there is an instructed ear and an uninstructed. A rude taste for identical recurrences would exact sing-song from “Paradise Lost,” and grumble because “Il Penseroso” doesn’t run like a nursery rhyme.’ ‘Well, well,’ said my uncle, ‘_sunt certi denique fines_, no doubt. So commence, my young Piso, while Aristarchus is tolerably wakeful, and do not waste by your logic the fund you will want for your poetry.’ _DIPSYCHUS._[6] PART I. SCENE I.—_The Piazza at Venice, 9 p.m. Dipsychus and the Spirit._