_Seiriol the Bright, Kybi the Dark!_ men said. The seer from the East was then in light, The seer from the West was then in shade. Ah! now 'tis changed. In conquering sunshine bright The man of the bold West now comes array'd; He of the mystic East is touch'd with night. THE BETTER PART Long fed on boundless hopes, O race of man, How angrily thou spurn'st all simpler fare! "Christ," some one says, "was human as we are; No judge eyes us from Heaven, our sin to scan; "We live no more, when we have done our span."-- "Well, then, for Christ," thou answerest, "who can care? From sin, which Heaven records not, why forbear? Live we like brutes our life without a plan!" So answerest thou; but why not rather say: "Hath man no second life?--_Pitch this one high!_ Sits there no judge in Heaven, our sin to see?-- "_More strictly, then, the inward judge obey!_ Was Christ a man like us? _Ah! let us try_ _If we then, too, can be such men as he!_" THE DIVINITY "Yes, write it in the rock," Saint Bernard said, "Grave it on brass with adamantine pen! 'Tis God himself becomes apparent, when God's wisdom and God's goodness are display'd, "For God of these his attributes is made."-- Well spake the impetuous Saint, and bore of men The suffrage captive; now, not one in ten Recalls the obscure opposer he outweigh'd.[10] _God's wisdom and God's goodness!_--Ay, but fools Mis-define these till God knows them no more. _Wisdom and goodness, they are God!_--what schools Have yet so much as heard this simpler lore? This no Saint preaches, and this no Church rules; 'Tis in the desert, now and heretofore. IMMORTALITY Foil'd by our fellow-men, depress'd, outworn, We leave the brutal world to take its way, And, _Patience! in another life_, we say, _The world shall be thrust down, and we up-borne._ And will not, then, the immortal armies scorn The world's poor, routed leavings? or will they, Who fail'd under the heat of this life's day, Support the fervours of the heavenly morn? No, no! the energy of life may be Kept on after the grave, but not begun; And he who flagg'd not in the earthly strife, From strength to strength advancing--only he, His soul well-knit, and all his battles won, Mounts, and that hardly, to eternal life. THE GOOD SHEPHERD WITH THE KID _He saves the sheep, the goats he doth not save._ So rang Tertullian's sentence, on the side Of that unpitying Phrygian sect which cried:[11] "Him can no fount of fresh forgiveness lave, "Who sins, once wash'd by the baptismal wave."-- So spake the fierce Tertullian. But she sigh'd, The infant Church! of love she felt the tide Stream on her from her Lord's yet recent grave.