Christmas Eve

"Not in the forms burlesque, uncouth,
"I left but now, as scarcely fitted
"For thee: I knew not what I pitied.
"But, 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!
"But if thou leavest me–"

IX

Less or more,
I suppose that I spoke thus.
When,—have mercy, Lord, on us!
The whole face turned upon me full.
And I spread myself beneath it,
As when the bleacher spreads, to seethe it
In the cleansing sun, his wool,—
Steeps in the flood of noontide whiteness
Some denied, discoloured web—
So lay I, saturate with brightness.
And when the flood appeared to ebb,
Lo, I was walking, light and swift,
With my senses settling fast and steadying,
But my body caught up in the whirl and drift
Of the vesture's amplitude, still eddying
On, just before me, still to be followed,
As it carried me after with its motion:
What shall I say?—as a path were hollowed
And a man went weltering through the ocean,
Sucked along in the flying wake
Of the luminous water-snake.
Darkness and cold were cloven, as through
I passed, upborne yet walking too.
And I turned to myself at intervals,—
"So he said, so it befalls.
"God who registers the cup
"Of mere cold water, for his sake
"To a disciple rendered up,
"Disdains not his own thirst to slake
"At the poorest love was ever offered:
"And because my heart I proffered,
"With true love trembling at the brim,
"He suffers me to follow him
"For ever, my own way,—dispensed
"From seeking to be influenced
"By all the less immediate ways
"That earth, in worships manifold,
"Adopts to reach, by prayer and praise,
"The garment's hem, which, lo, I hold!"

X

And so we crossed the world and stopped.
For where am I, in city or plain,
Since I am 'ware of the world again?
And what is this that rises propped
With pillars of prodigious girth?
Is it really on the earth,
This miraculous Dome of God?
Has the angel's measuring-rod
Which numbered cubits, gem from gem,
'Twixt the gates of the New Jerusalem,
Meted it out,—and what he meted,
Have the sons of men completed?
—Binding, ever as he bade,
Columns in the colonnade
With arms wide open to embrace
The entry of the human race
To the breast of… what is it, yon building,
Ablaze in front, all paint and gilding,
With marble for brick, and stones of price
For garniture of the edifice?
Now I see; it is no dream;
It stands there and it does not seem;
For ever, in pictures, thus it looks,
And thus I have read of it in books
Often in England, leagues away,
And wondered how these fountains play,
Growing up eternally
Each to a musical water-tree,
Whose blossoms drop, a glittering boon,
Before my eyes, in the light of the moon,
To the granite layers underneath.
Liar and dreamer in your teeth!
I, the sinner that speak to you,
Was in Rome this night, and stood, and knew
Both this and more. For see, for see,
The dark is rent, mine eye is free
To pierce the crust of the outer wall,
And I view inside, and all there, all,
As the swarming hollow of a hive,
The whole Basilica alive!