Back to thy youth and me?
“And from thy world, with heart opprest,
Choosest thou now to turn?—
Ah me, we anchorites knew it best!
Best can its course discern!
“Thou fledd’st me when the ungenial earth,
Thou soughtest, lay in gloom.
Return’st thou in her hour of birth,
Of hopes and hearts in bloom?
“Well-nigh two thousand years have brought
Their load, and gone away,
Since last on earth there lived and wrought
A world like ours to-day.
“Like ours it look’d in outward air!
Its head was clear and true,
Sumptuous its clothing, rich its fare,
No pause its action knew;
“Stout was its arm, each thew and bone
Seem’d puissant and alive—
But, ah, its heart, its heart was stone,
And so it could not thrive!
“On that hard Pagan world disgust
And secret loathing fell.
Deep weariness and sated lust
Made human life a hell.
“In his cool hall, with haggard eyes,
The Roman noble lay;
He drove abroad, in furious guise,
Along the Appian way;
“He made a feast, drank fierce and fast,
And crown’d his hair with flowers—
No easier nor no quicker pass’d
The impracticable hours.
“The brooding East with awe beheld
Her impious younger world;
The Roman tempest swell’d and swell’d,
And on her head was hurl’d.
“The East bow’d low before the blast
In patient, deep disdain.
She let the legions thunder past,
And plunged in thought again.
“So well she mused, a morning broke
Across her spirit grey.
A conquering, new-born joy awoke,
And fill’d her life with day.
“ ‘Poor world,’ she cried, ‘so deep accurst!
That runn’st from pole to pole
To seek a draught to slake thy thirst—
Go, seek it in thy soul!’
“She heard it, the victorious West!
In crown and sword array’d.
She felt the void which mined her breast,
She shiver’d and obey’d.
“She veil’d her eagles, snapp’d her sword,
And laid her sceptre down;
Her stately purple she abhorr’d,
And her imperial crown;
“She broke her flutes, she stopp’d her sports,
Her artists could not please;
She tore her books, she shut her courts,
She fled her palaces;
“Lust of the eye and pride of life
She left it all behind,
And hurried, torn with inward strife,
The wilderness to find.
“Tears wash’d the trouble from her face!
She changed into a child!
’Mid weeds and wrecks she stood—a place
Of ruin—but she smiled!
“Oh, had I lived in that great day,
How had its glory new
Fill’d earth and heaven, and caught away
My ravish’d spirit too!
“No cloister-floor of humid stone
Had been too cold for me;
For me no Eastern desert lone
Had been too far to flee.
“No thoughts that to the world belong
Had stood against the wave
Of love which set so deep and strong
From Christ’s then open grave.
“No lonely life had pass’d too slow
When I could hourly see
The wan, nail’d Form, with head droop’d low,
Upon the bitter tree;
“Could see the Mother with the Child
Whose tender winning arts
Have to his little arms beguiled
So many wounded hearts!
“And centuries came, and ran their course,
And unspent all that time
Still, still went forth that Child’s dear force,
And still was at its prime.
“Ay, ages long endured his span
Of life ’tis true received,
That gracious Child, that thorn-crown’d Man!
He lived while we believed.
“While we believed, on earth he went,
And open stood his grave.
Men call’d from chamber, church, and tent,
And Christ was by to save.
“Now he is dead. Far hence he lies
In the lorn Syrian town,
And on his grave, with shining eyes,
The Syrian stars look down.
“In vain men still, with hoping new,
Regard his death-place dumb,
And say the stone is not yet to,
And wait for words to come.
“Ah, from that silent sacred land,
Of sun, and arid stone,
And crumbling wall, and sultry sand,
Comes now one word alone!
“From David’s lips this word did roll,
’Tis true and living yet:
No man can save his brother’s soul,
Nor pay his brother’s debt.
“Alone, self-poised, henceforth man
Must labour; must resign
His all too human creeds, and scan
Simply the way divine.
“But slow that tide of common thought,
Which bathed our life, retired.
Slow, slow the old world wore to naught,
And pulse by pulse expired.
“Its frame yet stood without a breach
When blood and warmth were fled;
And still it spake its wonted speech—
But every word was dead.
“And oh, we cried, that on this corse
Might fall a freshening storm!
Rive its dry bones, and with new force
A new-sprung world inform!
“Down came the storm! In ruins fell
The outworn world we knew.
It pass’d, that elemental swell!
Again appear’d the blue.
“The sun shone in the new-wash’d sky—
And what from heaven saw he?
Blocks of the past, like icebergs high,
Float on a rolling sea.
“Upon them ply the race of man
All they before endeavour’d;
They come and go, they work and plan,
And know not they are sever’d.
“Poor fragments of a broken world
Whereon we pitch our tent!
Why were ye too to death not hurl’d
When your world’s day was spent?
“That glow of central fire is done
Which with its fusing flame
Knit all your parts, and kept you one;—
But ye, ye are the same!
“The past, its mask of union on,
Had ceased to live and thrive.
The past, its mask of union gone,
Say, is it more alive?
“Your creeds are dead, your rites are dead,
Your social order too.
Where tarries he, the Power who said:
See, I make all things new?
“The millions suffer still, and grieve;
And what can helpers heal
With old-world cures men half believe
For woes they wholly feel?
“And yet men have such need of joy!
And joy whose grounds are true!
And joy that should all hearts employ
As when the past was new!
“Ah, not the emotion of that past,
Its common hope, were vain!
A new such hope must dawn at last,
Or man must toss in pain.
“But now the past is out of date,
The new is not yet born—
And who can be alone elate,
While the world lies forlorn?
“Then to the wilderness I fled.
There among Alpine snows
And pastoral huts I hid my head,
And sought and found repose.
“It was not yet the appointed hour.
Sad, patient, and resign’d,
I watch’d the crocus fade and flower,
I felt the sun and wind.
“The day I lived in was not mine—
Man gets no second day.
In dreams I saw the future shine,
But ah, I could not stay!
“Action I had not, followers, fame.
I pass’d obscure, alone.
The after-world forgets my name,
Nor do I wish it known.
“Gloom-wrapt within, I lived and died,
And knew my life was vain.
With fate I murmur not, nor chide;
At Sèvres by the Seine
“(If Paris that brief flight allow)
My humble tomb explore;
It bears: Eternity, be thou
My refuge!
and no more.
“But thou, whom fellowship of mood
Did make
