I say not therefore I deny the birth, The Virgin's motherhood, the resurrection, Who know not how mine own soul came to earth, Nor what shall follow death. Man's imperfection May bound not even in thought the height and girth Of God's omnipotence; neath his direction We may approach his essence, but that He Should dwarf Himself to us--it cannot be! XXXIII. The God who balances the clouds, who spread The sky above us like a molten glass, The God who shut the sea with doors, who laid The corner-stone of earth, who caused the grass Spring forth upon the wilderness, and made The darkness scatter and the night to pass-- That He should clothe Himself with flesh, and move Midst worms a worm--this, sun, moon, stars disprove. XXXIV. Help me, O thou who wast my boyhood's guide, I bend my exile-weary feet to thee, Teach me the indivisible to divide, Show me how three are one and One is three! How Christ to save all men was crucified, Yet I and mine are damned eternally. Instruct me, Sage, why Virtue starves alone, While falsehood step by step ascends the throne. BY THE WATERS OF BABYLON. LITTLE POEMS IN PROSE. I. THE EXODUS. (August 3, 1492.) 1. The Spanish noon is a blaze of azure fire, and the dusty pilgrims crawl like an endless serpent along treeless plains and bleached highroads, through rock-split ravines and castellated, cathedral-shadowed towns. 2. The hoary patriarch, wrinkled as an almond shell, bows painfully upon his staff. The beautiful young mother, ivory-pale, well-nigh swoons beneath her burden; in her large enfolding arms nestles her sleeping babe, round her knees flock her little ones with bruised and bleeding feet. "Mother, shall we soon be there?" 3. The youth with Christ-like countenance speaks comfortably to father and brother, to maiden and wife. In his breast, his own heart is broken. 4. The halt, the blind, are amid the train. Sturdy pack-horses laboriously drag the tented wagons wherein lie the sick athirst with fever. 5. The panting mules are urged forward with spur and goad; stuffed are the heavy saddlebags with the wreckage of ruined homes. 6. Hark to the tinkling silver bells that adorn the tenderly-carried silken scrolls. 7. In the fierce noon-glare a lad bears a kindled lamp; behind its net-work of bronze the airs of heaven breathe not upon its faint purple star. 8. Noble and abject, learned and simple, illustrious and obscure, plod side by side, all brothers now, all merged in one routed army of misfortune. 9. Woe to the straggler who falls by the wayside! no friend shall close his eyes.