My words are guiltless of the bigot's sense; My soul has fire to mingle with the fire Of all these souls, within or out of doors Of Rome's church or another. I believe In one Priest, and one temple with its floors Of shining jasper gloom'd at morn and eve By countless knees of earnest auditors, And crystal walls too lucid to perceive, That none may take the measure of the place And say "So far the porphyry, then, the flint-- To this mark mercy goes, and there ends grace," Though still the permeable crystals hint At some white starry distance, bathed in space. I feel how nature's ice-crusts keep the dint Of undersprings of silent Deity. I hold the articulated gospels which Show Christ among us crucified on tree. I love all who love truth, if poor or rich In what they have won of truth possessively. No altars and no hands defiled with pitch Shall scare me off, but I will pray and eat With all these--taking leave to choose my ewers-- And say at last "Your visible churches cheat Their inward types; and, if a church assures Of standing without failure and defeat, The same both fails and lies." To leave which lures Of wider subject through past years,--behold, We come back from the popedom to the pope, To ponder what he _must_ be, ere we are bold For what he _may_ be, with our heavy hope To trust upon his soul. So, fold by fold, Explore this mummy in the priestly cope, Transmitted through the darks of time, to catch The man within the wrappage, and discern How he, an honest man, upon the watch Full fifty years for what a man may learn, Contrived to get just there; with what a snatch Of old-world oboli he had to earn The passage through; with what a drowsy sop, To drench the busy barkings of his brain; What ghosts of pale tradition, wreathed with hop 'Gainst wakeful thought, he had to entertain For heavenly visions; and consent to stop The clock at noon, and let the hour remain (Without vain windings-up) inviolate Against all chimings from the belfry. Lo, From every given pope you must abate, Albeit you love him, some things--good, you know-- Which every given heretic you hate, Assumes for his, as being plainly so. A pope must hold by popes a little,--yes, By councils, from Nicaea up to Trent,-- By hierocratic empire, more or less Irresponsible to men,--he must resent Each man's particular conscience, and repress Inquiry, meditation, argument, As tyrants faction. Also, he must not Love truth too dangerously, but prefer "The interests of the Church" (because a blot Is better than a rent, in miniver)-- Submit to see the people swallow hot Husk-porridge, which his chartered churchmen stir Quoting the only true God's epigraph, "Feed my lambs, Peter!"--must consent to sit Attesting with his pastoral ring and staff