BROWNING

         From >Christmas-Eve

                       V                    

 From the heart beneath, as if, God speeding me,

I entered His church door, nature leading me

In youth I looked to these very skies,

and probing their immensities ,

I found God there, His visible power;

---------

My soul brought all to a single test

That He the Eternal First and Last,

Who, in His power, had so surpassed

All man conceives of what is might,

Whose wisdom, too, showed infinite,

Would prove as infinitely good;

--------

                          V

And I shall behold Thee, face to face,

O God, and in Thy light retrace

How in all I loved Thee, still wast Thou!

Whom pressing to, then, as I fain would now,

I shall find as able to satiate

The love, Thy gift, as my spirit=s wonder

Thou art able to quicken and sublimate,

With this sky of Thine, that I now walk under,

And glory in Thee for, as I gaze

Thus, thus!  Oh, let men keep their ways

Of seeking Thee in a narrow shrine --

Be this my way!  And this mine!

          BROWNING

              VII

 Thou art the love of God -- above

His power, didst hear me place His love,

And that was leaving the world for Thee.

Therefore Thou must not turn from me

As I had chosen the other part!

Folly and pride oercame my heart.

Our best is bad, nor bear Thy test;

Still, it should be our very best.

I thought it best that Thou, the spirit,

Be worshiped in spirit and in truth,

And in beauty, as even we require it---

Not in the forms burlesque, uncouth, 

I left but now, as scarcely fitted

For Thee: I knew not what I pitied.

Bu, all I felt there, right or wrong,

What is it to Thee, who curest sinning?

Am I not weak as Thou art strong?

I have looked to Thee from the beginning,

Straight up to Thee through all the world

Which, like an idle scroll, lay furled

To nothingness on either side:

And since the time Thou wast descried,

Spite of the weak heart, so have I

Lived ever, and so fain would die,

Living and dying, Thee before!

Bu if Thou leavest me-----

 

 

 

 

           BROWNING

                 IX

 In flows heaven, with its new day

Of endless life, when he who trod,

Very man and very God,

This earth is weakness, shame and pain,

Dying the death whose signs remain

Up yonder on the accursed tree, --

Shall come again, no more to be

Of captivity the thrall,

But the one God, All in all,

King of Kings, Lords of lords,

As His servant John received the words,

AI died, and live for evermore!

 

 

                  XVI

 

So what is left for us, save, in growth

Of soul, to rise up, for the past both,

From the gift looking to the giver,

And from the cistern to the river,

And from the finite to infinity,

And from man=s dust to God=s divinity?

 

 

 

 

 

 

           BROWNING

                 XVII

 Supreme in Christ as we all confess,

Why need we prove would avail no jot

To make Him God, if God he were not?

(Browning, 1912, 11-42)

 

 

From Easter Day

              I

 How very hard it is to be

A Christian!  Hard for you  and me,

--Not the mere task of making real

That duty up to its ideal,

Effecting thus, complete and whole,

A purpose of the human soul --

For that is always hard to do;

But hard, I mean, for me and you

To realize it, more or less,

With even the moderate success

Which commonly repays our strife

To carry out the aims of life.

(Ibid., 44)