,lowell's ,writings4 ,,poems4 ,complete4 ,diamond ,edition4 ,one volume4 ,,poems4 ,with ,portrait4 ,blue and ,gold ,edition4 ,two volumes4 ,,poems4 ,with ,portrait4 ,cabinet ,edition4 ,two volumes4 ,,poems4 ,with ,portrait4 #afmo ,edition4 ,two volumes4 ,,fireside ,,travels4 ,one volume4 ,a ,,fable ,,for ,,critics4 ,one volume4 ,,the ,,biglow ,,papers4 ,two ,series4 ,each in one volume4 ,,the ,,vision ,,of ,,sir ,,launfal4 ,one volume4 ,,the ,,vision ,,of ,,sir ,,launfal4 ,illustrated4 ,red-,line ,edition4 ,one elegant small #dto volume4 ,,under ,,the ,,willows1 ,,and ,,other ,,poems4 ,one volume4 ,,among ,,my ,,books4 ,a new volume1 in press1 and nearly ready4 ,,fields1 ,,osgood1 ,,co41 ,publishers4 ,the ,cathedral4 4 1 ' '1 1 ' ' 4 ,,euripides1 ,bacch1 #aif-aii4 ,the ,cathedral4 ,,by ,,james ,,russell ,,lowell4 ,illustration3 colophon ,,boston3 ,,fields1 ,,osgood1 ,,co4 #ahgj4 ,entered according to ,act of ,congress1 in the year #ahfi1 by ,,fields1 ,,osgood1 ,,co41 in the ,clerk's ,office of the ,district ,court of the ,district of ,massachusetts4 ,,university ,,press3 ,,welch1 ,,bigelow1 ,,co41 ,,cambridge4 ,to ,,mr4 ,,james ,t4 ,,fields4 ,,my ,,dear ,,fields1-- ,dr4 ,johnson's sturdy self-respect led him to invent the ,bookseller as a substitute for the ,patron4 ,my relations with you have enabled me to discover how pleasantly the ,friend may replace the ,bookseller4 ,let me record my sense of many thoughtful services by associating your name with a poem which owes its appearance in this form to your partiality4 ,cordially yours1 ,j4 ,r4 ,,lowell4 ,,cambridge1 ,nov4 #bi1 #ahfi4 ,illustration ,,the ,,cathedral4 ,far through the memory shines a happy day1 ,cloudless of care1 down-shod to every sense1 ,and simply perfect from its own resource1 ,as to a bee the new campanula's ,illuminate seclusion swung in air4 ,such days are not the prey of setting suns1 ,nor ever blurred with mist of afterthought2 ,like words made magical by poets dead1 ,wherein the music of all meaning is ,the sense hath garnered or the soul divined1 ,they mingle with our life's ethereal part1 ,sweetening and gathering sweetness evermore1 ,by beauty's franchise disenthralled of time4 ,i can recall1 nay1 they are present still1 ,parts of myself1 the perfume of my mind1 ,days that seem farther off than ,homer's now ,ere yet the child had loudened to the boy1 ,and ,i1 recluse from playmates1 found perforce ,companionship in things that not denied ,nor granted wholly2 as is ,nature's wont1 ,who1 safe in uncontaminate reserve1 ,lets us mistake our longing for her love1 ,and mocks with various echo of ourselves4 ,these first sweet frauds upon our consciousness1 ,that blend the sensual with its imaged world1 ,these virginal cognitions1 gifts of morn1 ,ere life grow noisy1 and slower-footed thought ,can overtake the rapture of the sense1 ,to thrust between ourselves and what we feel1 ,have something in them secretly divine4 ,vainly the eye1 once schooled to serve the brain1 ,with pains deliberate studies to renew ,the ideal vision3 second-thoughts are prose2 ,for beauty's acme hath a term as brief ,as the wave's poise before it break in pearl4 ,our own breath dims the mirror of the sense1 ,looking too long and closely3 at a flash ,we snatch the essential grace of meaning out1 ,and that first passion beggars all behind1 ,heirs of a tamer transport prepossessed4 ,who1 seeing once1 has truly seen again ,the gray vague of unsympathizing sea ,that dragged his ,fancy from her moorings back ,to shores inhospitable of eldest time1 ,till blank foreboding of earth-gendered powers1 ,pitiless seignories in the elements1 ,omnipotences blind that darkling smite1 ,misgave him1 and repaganized the world8 ,yet1 by some subtler touch of sympathy1 ,these primal apprehensions1 dimly stirred1 ,perplex the eye with pictures from within4 ,this hath made poets dream of lives foregone ,in worlds fantastical1 more fair than ours2 ,so ,memory cheats us1 glimpsing half-revealed4 ,even as ,i write she tries her wonted spell ,in that continuous redbreast boding rain3 ,the bird ,i hear sings not from yonder elm2 ,but the flown ecstasy my childhood heard ,is vocal in my mind1 renewed by him1 ,haply made sweeter by the accumulate thrill ,that threads my undivided life and steals ,a pathos from the years and graves between4 ,i know not how it is with other men1 ,whom ,i but guess1 deciphering myself2 ,for me1 once felt is so felt nevermore4 ,the fleeting relish at sensation's brim ,had in it the best ferment of the wine4 ,one spring ,i knew as never any since3 ,all night the surges of the warm southwest ,boomed intermittent through the shuddering elms1 ,and brought a morning from the ,gulf adrift1 ,omnipotent with sunshine1 whose quick charm ,startled with crocuses the sullen turf ,and wiled the bluebird to his whiff of song3 ,one summer hour abides1 what time ,i perched1 ,dappled with noonday1 under simmering leaves1 ,and pulled the pulpy oxhearts1 while aloof ,an oriole clattered and the robins shrilled1 ,denouncing me an alien and a thief3 ,one morn of autumn lords it o'er the rest1 ,when in the lane ,i watched the ash-leaves fall1 ,balancing softly earthward without wind1 ,or twirling with directer impulse down ,on those fallen yesterday1 now barbed with frost1 ,while ,i grew pensive with the pensive year3 ,and once ,i learned how marvellous winter was1 ,when past the fence-rails1 downy-gray with rime1 ,i creaked adventurous o'er the spangled crust ,that made familiar fields seem far and strange ,as those stark wastes that whiten endlessly ,in ghastly solitude about the pole1 ,and gleam relentless to the unsetting sun3 ,instant the candid chambers of my brain ,were painted with these sovran images2 ,and later visions seem but copies pale ,from those unfading frescos of the past1 ,which ,i1 young savage1 in my age of flint1 ,gazed at1 and dimly felt a power in me ,parted from ,nature by the joy in her ,that doubtfully revealed me to myself4 ,thenceforward ,i must stand outside the gate2 ,and paradise was paradise the more1 ,known once and barred against satiety4 ,what we call ,nature1 all outside ourselves1 ,is but our own conceit of what we see1 ,our own reaction upon what we feel2 ,the world's a woman to our shifting mood1 ,feeling with us1 or making due pretence2 ,and therefore we the more persuade ourselves ,to make all things our thought's confederates1 ,conniving with us in whate'er we dream4 ,so when our ,fancy seeks analogies1 ,though she have hidden what she after finds1 ,she loves to cheat herself with feigned surprise4 ,i find my own complexion everywhere3 ,no rose1 ,i doubt1 was ever1 like the first1 ,a marvel to the bush it dawned upon1 ,the rapture of its life made visible1 ,the mystery of its yearning realized1 ,as the first babe to the first woman born2 ,no falcon ever felt delight of wings ,as when1 an eyas1 from the stolid cliff ,loosing himself1 he followed his high heart ,to swim on sunshine1 masterless as wind2 ,and ,i believe the brown earth takes delight ,in the new snow-drop looking back at her1 ,to think that by some vernal alchemy ,it could transmute her darkness into pearl2 ,what is the buxom peony after that1 ,with its coarse constancy of hoyden blush8 ,what the full summer to that wonder new8 ,but1 if in nothing else1 in us there is ,a sense fastidious hardly reconciled ,to the poor makeshifts of life's scenery1 ,where the same slide must double all its parts1 ,shoved in for ,tarsus and hitched back for ,tyre4 ,i blame not in the soul this daintiness1 ,rasher of surfeit than a humming-bird1 ,in things indifferent by sense purveyed2 ,it argues her an immortality ,and dateless incomes of experience1 ,this unthrift housekeeping that will not brook ,a dish warmed-over at the feast of life1 ,and finds ,twice stale1 served with whatever sauce4 ,nor matters much how it may go with me ,who dwell in ,grub ,street and am proud to drudge ,where men1 my betters1 wet their crust with tears3 ,use can make sweet the peach's shady side1 ,that only by reflection tastes of sun4 ,but she1 my ,princess1 who will sometimes deign ,my garret to illumine till the walls1 ,narrow and dingy1 scrawled with hackneyed thought 7,poor ,richard slowly elbowing ,plato out71 ,dilate and drape themselves with tapestries ,nausikaa might have stooped o'er1 while1 between1 ,mirrors1 effaced in their own clearness1 send ,her only image on through deepening deeps ,with endless repercussion of delight1-- ,bringer of life1 witching each sense to soul1 ,that sometimes almost gives me to believe ,i might have been a poet1 gives at least ,a brain desaxonized1 an ear that makes ,music where none is1 and a keener pang ,of exquisite surmise outleaping thought1-- ,her will ,i pamper in her luxury3 ,no crumpled rose-leaf of too careless choice ,shall bring a northern nightmare to her dreams1 ,vexing with sense of exile2 hers shall be ,the invitiate firstlings of experience1 ,vibrations felt but once and felt lifelong3 ,o1 more than half-way turn that ,grecian front ,upon me1 while with self-rebuke ,i spell1 ,on the plain fillet that confines thy hair ,in conscious bounds of seeming unconstraint1 ,the ,naught in overplus1 thy race's badge6 ,one feast for her ,i secretly designed ,in that ,old ,world so strangely beautiful ,to us the disinherited of eld1-- ,a day at ,chartres1 with no soul beside ,to roil with pedant prate my joy serene ,and make the minster shy of confidence4 ,i went1 and1 with the ,saxon's pious care1 ,first ordered dinner at the pea-green inn1 ,the flies and ,i its only customers1 ,till by and by there came two ,englishmen1 ,who made me feel1 in their engaging way1 ,i was a poacher on their self-preserve1 ,intent constructively on lese-anglicism4 ,to them 7in those old razor-ridden days7 ,my beard translated me to hostile ,french2 ,so they1 desiring guidance in the town1 ,half condescended to my baser sphere1 ,and1 clubbing in one mess their lack of phrase1 ,set their best man to grapple with the ,gaul4 8,esker vous ate a nabitang80 he asked2 8,i never ate one2 are they good80 asked ,i2 ,whereat they stared1 then laughed1 and we were friends1 ,the seas1 the wars1 the centuries interposed1 ,abolished in the truce of common speech ,and mutual comfort of the mother-tongue4 ,like escaped convicts of ,propriety1 ,they furtively partook the joys of men1 ,glancing behind when buzzed some louder fly4 ,eluding these1 ,i loitered through the town1 ,with hope to take my minster unawares ,in its grave solitude of memory4 ,a pretty burgh1 and such as ,fancy loves ,for bygone grandeurs1 faintly rumorous now ,upon the mind's horizon1 as of storm ,brooding its dreamy thunders far aloof1 ,that mingle with our mood1 but not disturb4 ,its once grim bulwarks1 tamed to lovers' walks1 ,look down unwatchful on the sliding ,eure1 ,whose listless leisure suits the quiet place1 ,lisping among his shallows homelike sounds ,at ,concord and by ,bankside heard before4 ,chance led me to a public pleasure-ground1 ,where ,i grew kindly with the merry groups1 ,and blessed the ,frenchman for his simple art ,of being domestic in the light of day4 ,his language has no word1 we growl1 for ,home2 ,but he can find a fireside in the sun1 ,play with his child1 make love1 and shriek his mind1 ,by throngs of strangers undisprivacied4 ,he makes his life a public gallery1 ,nor feels himself till what he feels comes back ,in manifold reflection from without2 ,while we1 each pore alert with consciousness1 ,hide our best selves as we had stolen them1 ,and each by-stander a detective were1 ,keen-eyed for every chink of undisguise4 ,so1 musing o'er the problem which was best1-- ,a life wide-windowed1 shining all abroad1 ,or curtains drawn to shield from sight profane ,the rites we pay to the mysterious ,i1-- ,with outward senses furloughed and head bowed ,i followed some fine instinct in my feet1 ,till1 to unbend me from the loom of thought1 ,looking up suddenly1 ,i found mine eyes ,confronted with the minster's vast repose4 ,silent and gray as forest-leaguered cliff ,left inland by the ocean's slow retreat1 ,that hears afar the breeze-borne rote1 and longs1 ,remembering shocks of surf that clomb and fell1 ,spume-sliding down the baffled decuman1 ,it rose before me1 patiently remote ,from the great tides of life it breasted once1 ,hearing the noise of men as in a dream4 ,i stood before the triple northern port1 ,where dedicated shapes of saints and kings1 ,stern faces bleared with immemorial watch1 ,looked down benignly grave and seemed to say1 ,ye come and go incessant2 we remain ,safe in the hallowed quiets of the past2 ,be reverent1 ye who flit and are forgot1 ,of faith so nobly realized as this4 ,i seem to have heard it said by learned folk ,who drench you with sthetics till you feel ,as if all beauty were a ghastly bore1 ,the faucet to let loose a wash of words1 ,that ,gothic is not ,grecian1 therefore worse2 ,but1 being convinced by much experiment ,how little inventiveness there is in man1 ,grave copier of copies1 ,i give thanks ,for a new relish1 careless to inquire ,my pleasure's pedigree1 if so it please1 ,nobly1 ,i mean1 nor renegade to art4 ,the ,grecian gluts me with its perfectness1 ,unanswerable as ,euclid1 self-contained1 ,the one thing finished in this hasty world1 ,forever finished1 though the barbarous pit1 ,fanatical on hearsay1 stamp and shout ,as if a miracle could be encored4 ,but ah6 this other1 this that never ends1 ,still climbing1 luring fancy still to climb1 ,as full of morals half-divined as life1 ,graceful1 grotesque1 with ever new surprise ,of hazardous caprices sure to please1 ,heavy as nightmare1 airy-light as fern1 ,imagination's very self in stone6 ,with one long sigh of infinite release ,from pedantries past1 present1 or to come1 ,i looked1 and owned myself a happy ,goth4 ,your blood is mine1 ye architects of dream1 ,builders of aspiration incomplete1 ,so more consummate1 souls self-confident1 ,who felt your own thought worthy of record ,in monumental pomp6 ,no ,grecian drop ,rebukes these veins that leap with kindred thrill1 ,after long exile1 to the mother-tongue4 ,ovid in ,pontus1 puling for his ,rome ,of men invirile and disnatured dames ,that poison sucked from the ,attic bloom decayed1 ,shrank with a shudder from the blue-eyed race ,whose force rough-handed should renew the world1 ,and from the dregs of ,romulus express ,such wine as ,dante poured1 or he who blew ,roland's vain blast1 or sang the ,campeador ,in verse that clanks like armor in the charge1-- ,homeric juice1 if brimmed in ,odin's horn4 ,and they could build1 if not the columned fane ,that from the height gleamed seaward many-hued1 ,something more friendly with their ruder skies3 ,the gray spire1 molten now in driving mist1 ,now lulled with the incommunicable blue2 ,the carvings touched to meanings new with snow1 ,or commented with fleeting grace of shade2 ,the statues1 motley as man's memory1 ,partial as that1 so mixed of true and false1 ,history and legend meeting with a kiss ,across this bound-mark where their realms confine2 ,the painted windows1 frecking gloom with glow1 ,dusking the sunshine which they seem to cheer1 ,meet symbol of the senses and the soul2 ,and the whole pile1 grim with the ,northman's thought ,of life and death1 and doom1 life's equal fee1-- ,these were before me3 and ,i gazed abashed1 ,child of an age that lectures1 not creates1 ,plastering our swallow-nests on the awful ,past1 ,and twittering round the work of larger men1 ,as we had builded what we but deface4 ,far up the great bells wallowed in delight1 ,tossing their clangors o'er the heedless town1 ,to call the worshippers who never came1 ,or women mostly1 in loath twos and threes4 ,i entered1 reverent of whatever shrine ,guards piety and solace for my kind ,or gives the soul a moment's truce of ,god1 ,and shared decorous in the ancient rite ,my sterner fathers held idolatrous4 ,the service over1 ,i was tranced in thought3 ,solemn the deepening vaults1 and most to me1 ,fresh from the fragile realm of deal and paint1 ,or brick mock-pious with a marble front2 ,solemn the lift of high-embowered roof1 ,the clustered stems that spread in boughs disleaved1 ,through which the organ blew a dream of storm1-- ,though not more potent to sublime with awe ,and shut the heart up in tranquillity1 ,than aisles to me familiar that o'erarch ,the conscious silences of brooding woods1 ,centurial shadows1 cloisters of the elk3 ,yet here was sense of undefined regret1 ,irreparable loss1 uncertain what3 ,was all this grandeur but anachronism1-- ,a shell divorced of its informing life1 ,where the priest housed him like a hermit-crab1 ,an alien to that faith of elder days ,that gathered round it this fair shape of stone8 ,is old ,religion but a spectre now1 ,haunting the solitude of darkened minds1 ,mocked out of memory by the sceptic day8 ,is there no corner safe from peeping ,doubt1 ,since ,gutenberg made thought cosmopolite ,and stretched electric threads from mind to mind8 ,nay1 did ,faith build this wonder8 or did ,fear1 ,that makes a fetish and misnames it ,god 7,blockish or metaphysic1 matters not71 ,contrive this coop to shut its tyrant in1 ,appeased with playthings1 that he might not harm8 ,i turned and saw a beldame on her knees2 ,with eyes astray1 she told mechanic beads ,before some shrine of saintly womanhood1 ,bribed intercessor with the far-off ,judge3 ,such my first thought1 by kindlier soon rebuked1 ,pleading for whatsoever touches life ,with upward impulse3 be ,he nowhere else1 ,god is in all that liberates and lifts1 ,in all that humbles1 sweetens1 and consoles3 ,blessd the natures shored on every side ,with landmarks of hereditary thought6 ,thrice happy they that wander not lifelong ,beyond near succor of the household faith1 ,the guarded fold that shelters1 not confines6 ,their steps find patience in familiar paths1 ,printed with hope by loved feet gone before ,of parent1 child1 or lover1 glorified ,by simple magic of dividing ,time4 ,my lids were moistened as the woman knelt1 ,and--was it will1 or some vibration faint ,of sacred ,nature1 deeper than the will8-- ,my heart occultly felt itself in hers1 ,through mutual intercession gently leagued4 ,or was it not mere sympathy of brain8 ,a sweetness intellectually conceived ,in simpler creeds to me impossible8 ,a juggle of that pity for ourselves ,in others1 which puts on such pretty masks ,and snares self-love with bait of charity8 ,something of all it might be1 or of none3 ,yet for a moment ,i was snatched away ,and had the evidence of things not seen2 ,for one rapt moment2 then it all came back1 ,this age that blots out life with question-marks1 ,this nineteenth century with its knife and glass ,that make thought physical1 and thrust far off ,the ,heaven1 so neighborly with man of old1 ,to voids sparse-sown with alienated stars4 ',tis irrecoverable1 that ancient faith1 ,homely and wholesome1 suited to the time1 ,with rod or candy for child-minded men3 ,no theologic tube1 with lens on lens ,of syllogism transparent1 brings it near1-- ,at best resolving some new nebula1 ,or blurring some fixed-star of hope to mist4 ,science was ,faith once2 ,faith were ,science now1 ,would she but lay her bow and arrows by ,and arm her with the weapons of the time4 ,nothing that keeps thought out is safe from thought1 ,for there's no virgin-fort but self-respect1 ,and ,truth defensive hath lost hold on ,god4 ,shall we treat ,him as if ,he were a child ,that knew not ,his own purpose8 nor dare trust ,the ,rock of ,ages to their chemic tests1 ,lest some day the all-sustaining base divine ,should fail from under us1 dissolved in gas8 ,the armd eye that with a glance discerns ,in a dry blood-speck between ox and man1 ,stares helpless at this miracle called life1 ,this shaping potency behind the egg1 ,this circulation swift of deity1 ,where suns and systems inconspicuous float ,as the poor blood-disks in our mortal veins4 ,each age must worship its own thought of ,god1 ,more or less earthy1 clarifying still ,with subsidence continuous of the dregs2 ,nor saint nor sage could fix immutably ,the fluent image of the unstable ,best1 ,still changing in their very hands that wrought3 ,to-day's eternal truth ,to-morrow proved ,frail as frost-landscapes on a window-pane4 ,meanwhile ,thou smiledst1 inaccessible1 ,at ,thought's own substance made a cage for ,thought1 ,and ,truth locked fast with her own master-key2 ,nor didst ,thou reck what image man might make ,of his own shadow on the flowing world2 ,the climbing instinct was enough for ,thee4 ,or wast ,thou1 then1 an ebbing tide that left ,strewn with dead miracle those eldest shores1 ,for men to dry1 and dryly lecture on1 ,thyself thenceforth incapable of flood8 ,idle who hopes with prophets to be snatched ,by virtue in their mantles left below2 ,shall the soul live on other men's report1 ,herself a pleasing fable of herself8 ,man cannot be ,god's outlaw if he would1 ,nor so abscond him in the caves of sense ,but ,nature still shall search some crevice out ,with messages of splendor from that ,source ,which1 dive he1 soar he1 baffles still and lures4 ,this life were brutish did we not sometimes ,have intimation clear of wider scope1 ,hints of occasion infinite1 to keep ,the soul alert with noble discontent ,and onward yearnings of unstilled desire2 ,fruitless1 except we now and then divined ,a mystery of ,purpose1 gleaming through ,the secular confusions of the world1 ,whose will we darkly accomplish1 doing ours4 ,no man can think nor in himself perceive1 ,sometimes at waking1 in the street sometimes1 ,or on the hillside1 always unforewarned1 ,a grace of being1 finer than himself1 ,that beckons and is gone1--a larger life ,upon his own impinging1 with swift glimpse ,of spacious circles luminous with mind1 ,to which the ethereal substance of his own ,seems but gross cloud to make that visible1 ,touched to a sudden glory round the edge4 ,who that hath known these visitations fleet ,would strive to make them trite and ritual8 ,i1 that still pray at morning and at eve1 ,loving those roots that feed us from the past1 ,and prizing more than ,plato things ,i learned ,at that best academe1 a mother's knee1 ,thrice in my life perhaps have truly prayed1 ,thrice1 stirred below my conscious self1 have felt ,that perfect disenthralment which is ,god2 ,nor know ,i which to hold worst enemy1-- ,him who on speculation's windy waste ,would turn me loose1 stript of the raiment warm ,by ,faith contrived against our nakedness1 ,or him who1 cruel-kind1 would fain obscure1 ,with painted saints and paraphrase of ,god1 ,the soul's east-window of divine surprise4 ,where others worship ,i but look and long2 ,for1 though not recreant to my fathers' faith1 ,its forms to me are weariness1 and most ,that drony vacuum of compulsory prayer1 ,still pumping phrases for the ,ineffable1 ,though all the valves of memory gasp and wheeze4 ,words that have drawn transcendent meanings up ,from the best passion of all bygone time1 ,steeped through with tears of triumph and remorse1 ,sweet with all sainthood1 cleansed in martyr-fires1 ,can they1 so consecrate and so inspired1 ,by repetition wane to vexing wind8 ,alas6 we cannot draw habitual breath ,in the thin air of life's supremer heights1 ,we cannot make each meal a sacrament1 ,nor with our tailors be disbodied souls1-- ,we men1 too conscious of earth's comedy1 ,who see two sides1 with our posed selves debate1 ,and only for great stakes can be sublime6 ,let us be thankful when1 as ,i do here1 ,we can read ,bethel on a pile of stones1 ,and1 seeing where ,god has been1 trust in ,him4 ,brave ,peter ,fischer there in ,nuremberg1 ,moulding ,saint ,sebald's miracles in bronze1 ,put saint and stander-by in that quaint garb ,familiar to him in his daily walk1 ,not doubting ,god could grant a miracle ,then and in ,nuremberg1 if so ,he would2 ,but never artist for three hundred years ,hath dared the contradiction ludicrous ,of supernatural in modern clothes4 ,perhaps the deeper faith that is to come ,will see ,god rather in the strenuous doubt1 ,than in the creed held as an infant's hand ,holds purposeless whatso is placed therein4 ,say it is drift1 not progress1 none the less1 ,with the old sextant of the fathers' creed1 ,we shape our courses by new-risen stars1 ,and1 still lip-loyal to what once was truth1 ,smuggle new meanings under ancient names1 ,unconscious perverts of the ,jesuit1 ,time4 ,change is the mask that all ,continuance wears ,to keep us youngsters harmlessly amused2 ,meanwhile some ailing or more watchful child1 ,sitting apart1 sees the old eyes gleam out1 ,stern1 and yet soft with humorous pity too4 ,whilere1 men burnt men for a doubtful point1 ,as if the mind were quenchable with fire1 ,and ,faith danced round them with her war-paint on1 ,devoutly savage as an ,iroquois2 ,now ,calvin and ,servetus at one board ,snuff in grave sympathy a milder roast1 ,and o'er their claret settle ,comte unread4 ,fagot and stake were desperately sincere3 ,our cooler martyrdoms are done in types2 ,and flames that shine in controversial eyes ,burn out no brains but his who kindles them4 ,this is no age to get cathedrals built3 ,did ,god1 then1 wait for one in ,bethlehem8 ,worst is not yet3 lo1 where his coming looms1 ,of ,earth's anarchic children latest born1 ,democracy1 a ,titan who hath learned ,to laugh at ,jove's old-fashioned thunderbolts1-- ,could he not also forge them1 if he would8 ,he1 better skilled1 with solvents merciless1 ,loosened in air and borne on every wind1 ,saps unperceived3 the calm ,olympian height ,of ancient order feels its bases yield1 ,and pale gods glance for help to gods as pale4 ,what will be left of good or worshipful1 ,of spiritual secrets1 mysteries1 ,of fair religion's guarded heritage1 ,heirlooms of soul1 passed downward unprofaned ,from eldest ,ind8 ,this ,western giant coarse1 ,scorning refinements which he lacks himself1 ,loves not nor heeds the ancestral hierarchies1 ,each rank dependent on the next above ,in orderly gradation fixed as fate4 ,king by mere manhood1 nor allowing aught ,of holier unction than the sweat of toil2 ,in his own strength sufficient2 called to solve1 ,on the rough edges of society1 ,problems long sacred to the choicer few1 ,and improvise what elsewhere men receive ,as gifts of deity2 tough foundling reared ,where every man's his own ,melchisedek1 ,how make him reverent of a ,king of kings8 ,or ,judge self-made1 executor of laws ,by him not first discussed and voted on8 ,for him no tree of knowledge is forbid1 ,or sweeter if forbid4 ,how save the ark1 ,or holy of holies1 unprofaned a day ,from his unscrupulous curiosity ,that handles everything as if to buy1 ,tossing aside what fabrics delicate ,suit not the rough-and-tumble of his ways8 ,what hope for those fine-nerved humanities ,that made earth gracious once with gentler arts1 ,now the rude hands have caught the trick of thought ,and claim an equal suffrage with the brain8 ,the born disciple of an elder time1 7,to me sufficient1 friendlier than the new17 ,who in my blood feel motions of the ,past1 ,i thank benignant nature most for this1-- ,a force of sympathy1 or call it lack ,of character firm-planted1 loosing me ,from the pent chamber of habitual self ,to dwell enlarged in alien modes of thought1 ,haply distasteful1 wholesomer for that1 ,and through imagination to possess1 ,as they were mine1 the lives of other men4 ,this growth original of virgin soil1 ,by fascination felt in opposites1 ,pleases and shocks1 entices and perturbs4 ,in this brown-fisted rough1 this shirt-sleeved ,cid1 ,this backwoods ,charlemagne of empires new1 ,whose blundering heel instinctively finds out ,the goutier foot of speechless dignities1 ,who1 meeting ,csar's self1 would slap his back1 ,call him 8,old ,horse10 and challenge to a drink1 ,my lungs draw braver air1 my breast dilates ,with ampler manhood1 and ,i front both worlds1 ,of sense and spirit1 as my natural fiefs1 ,to shape and then reshape them as ,i will4 ,it was the first man's charter2 why not mine8 ,how forfeit8 when deposed in other hands8 ,thou shudder'st1 ,ovid8 ,dost in him forbode ,a new avatar of the large-limbed ,goth1 ,to break1 or seem to break1 tradition's clew1 ,and chase to dreamland back thy gods dethroned8 ,i think man's soul dwells nearer to the east1 ,nearer to morning's fountains than the sun2 ,herself the source whence all tradition sprang1 ,herself at once both labyrinth and clew4 ,the miracle fades out of history1 ,but faith and wonder and the primal earth ,are born into the world with every child4 ,shall this self-maker with the prying eyes1 ,this creature disenchanted of respect ,by the ,new ,world's new fiend1 ,publicity1 ,whose testing thumb leaves everywhere its smutch1 ,not one day feel within himself the need ,of loyalty to better than himself1 ,that shall ennoble him with the upward look8 ,shall he not catch the ,voice that wanders earth1 ,with spiritual summons1 dreamed or heard1 ,as sometimes1 just ere sleep seals up the sense1 ,we hear our ,mother call from deeps of time1 ,and1 waking1 find it vision1--none the less ,the benediction bides1 old skies return1 ,and that unreal thing1 pre-eminent1 ,makes air and dream of all we see and feel8 ,shall he divine no strength unmade of votes1 ,inward1 impregnable1 found soon as sought1 ,not cognizable of sense1 o'er sense supreme8 ,his holy places may not be of stone1 ,nor made with hands1 yet fairer far than aught ,by artist feigned or pious ardor reared1 ,fit altars for who guards inviolate ,god's chosen seat1 the sacred form of man4 ,doubtless his church will be no hospital ,for superannuate forms and mumping shams1 ,no parlor where men issue policies ,of life-assurance on the ,eternal ,mind1 ,nor his religion but an ambulance ,to fetch life's wounded and malingerers in1 ,scorned by the strong2 yet he1 unconscious heir ,to the influence sweet of ,athens and of ,rome1 ,and old ,juda's gift of secret fire1 ,spite of himself shall surely learn to know ,and worship some ideal of himself1 ,some divine thing1 large-hearted1 brotherly1 ,not nice in trifles1 a soft creditor1 ,pleased with his world1 and hating only cant4 ,and1 if his ,church be doubtful1 it is sure ,that1 in a world1 made for whatever else1 ,not made for mere enjoyment1--in a world ,of toil but half-requited1 or1 at best4 ,paid in some futile currency of breath1-- ,a world of incompleteness1 sorrow swift ,and consolation laggard1 whatsoe'er ,the form of building or the creed professed1 ,the ,cross1 bold type of shame to homage turned1 ,of an unfinished life that sways the world1 ,shall tower as sovereign emblem over all4 ,the kobold ,thought moves with us when we shift ,our dwelling to escape him2 perched aloft ,on the first load of household-stuff he went2 ,for1 where the mind goes1 goes old furniture4 ,i1 who to ,chartres came to feed my eye ,and give to ,fancy one clear holiday1 ,scarce saw the minster for the thoughts it stirred ,buzzing o'er past and future with vain quest4 ,here once there stood a homely wooden church1 ,which slow devotion nobly changed for this ,that echoes vaguely to my modern steps4 ,by suffrage universal it was built1 ,as practised then1 for all the country came ,from far as ,rouen1 to give votes for ,god1 ,each vote a block of stone securely laid ,obedient to the master's deep-mused plan4 ,will what our ballots rear1 responsible ,to no grave forethought1 stand so long as this1-- ,delight like this the eye of after days ,brightening with pride that here1 at least1 were men ,who meant and did the noblest thing they knew8 ,can our religion cope with deeds like this8 ,we1 too1 build ,gothic contract-shams1 because ,our deacons have discovered that it pays1 ,and pews sell better under vaulted roofs ,of plaster painted like an ,indian squaw4 ,shall not that ,western ,goth1 of whom we spoke1 ,so fiercely practical1 so keen of eye1 ,find out1 some day1 that nothing pays but ,god1 ,served whether on the smoke-shut battle-field1 ,in work obscure done honestly1 or vote ,for truth unpopular1 or faith maintained ,to ruinous convictions1 or good deeds ,wrought for good's sake1 mindless of heaven or hell8 ,i know not2 but1 sustained by sure belief ,that man still rises level with the height ,of noblest opportunities1 or makes ,such1 if the time supply not1 ,i can wait4 ,i gaze round on the windows1 pride of ,france1 ,each the bright gift of some mechanic guild ,who loved their city and thought gold well spent ,to make her beautiful with piety2 ,i pause1 transfigured by some stripe of bloom1 ,and my mind throngs with shining auguries1 ,circle on circle1 bright as seraphim1 ,with golden trumpets silent1 that await ,the signal to blow news of good to men4 ,then the revulsion came that always comes ,after these dizzy elations of the mind3 ,i walked forth saddened2 for all thought is sad1 ,and leaves a bitterish savor in the brain1-- ,tonic1 it may be1 not delectable1-- ,and turned1 reluctant1 for a parting look ,at those old weather-pitted images ,of bygone struggle1 now so sternly calm4 ,about their shoulders sparrows had built nests1 ,and fluttered1 chirping1 from gray perch to perch1 ,now on a mitre poising1 now a crown1 ,irreverently happy4 ,while ,i thought ,how confident they were1 what careless hearts ,flew on those lightsome wings and shared the sun1 ,a larger shadow crossed2 and1 looking up1 ,i saw where1 nesting in the hoary towers1 ,the sparrow-hawk slid forth on noiseless air1 ,with sidelong head that watched the joy below1 ,grim ,norman baron o'er this clan of ,kelts4 ,enduring ,nature1 force conservative1 ,indifferent to our noisy whims6 ,men prate ,of all heads to an equal grade cashiered ,on level with the dullest1 and expect 7,sick of no worse distemper than themselves7 ,a wondrous cure-all in equality2 ,they reason that ,to-morrow must be wise ,because ,to-day was not1 nor ,yesterday1 ,as if good days were shapen of themselves1 ,not of the very lifeblood of men's souls2 ,meanwhile1 long-suffering1 imperturbable1 ,thou quietly complet'st thy syllogism1 ,and from the premise sparrow here below ,draw'st sure conclusion of the hawk above1 ,pleased with the soft-billed songster1 pleased no less ,with the fierce beak of natures aquiline4 ,thou beautiful ,old ,time1 now hid away ,in the ,past's valley of ,avilion1 ,haply1 like ,arthur1 till thy wound be healed1 ,then to reclaim the sword and crown again6 ,thrice beautiful to us2 perchance less fair ,to who possessed thee1 as a mountain seems ,to dwellers round its bases but a heap ,of barren obstacle that lairs the storm ,and the avalanche's silent bolt holds back ,leashed with a hair1--meanwhile some far-off clown1 ,hereditary delver of the plain1 ,sees it an unmoved vision of repose1 ,nest of the morning1 and conjectures there ,the dance of streams to idle shepherds' pipes1 ,and fairer habitations softly hung ,on breezy slopes1 or hid in valleys cool1 ,for happier men4 ,no mortal ever dreams ,that the scant isthmus he encamps upon ,between two oceans1 one1 the ,stormy1 passed1 ,and one1 the ,peaceful1 yet to venture on1 ,has been that future whereto prophets yearned ,for the fulfilment of ,earth's cheated hope1 ,shall be that past which nerveless poets moan ,as the lost opportunity of song4 ,o ,power1 more near my life than life itself 7,or what seems life to us in sense immured71 ,even as the roots1 shut in the darksome earth1 ,share in the tree-top's joyance1 and conceive ,of sunshine and wide air and wingd things ,by sympathy of nature1 so do ,i ,have evidence of ,thee so far above1 ,yet in and of me6 ,rather ,thou the root ,invisibly sustaining1 hid in light1 ,not darkness1 or in darkness made by us4 ,if sometimes ,i must hear good men debate ,of other witness of ,thyself than ,thou1 ,as if there needed any help of ours ,to nurse ,thy flickering life1 that else must cease1 ,blown out1 as 't were a candle1 by men's breath1 ,my soul shall not be taken in their snare1 ,to change her inward surety for their doubt ,muffled from sight in formal robes of proof3 ,while she can only feel herself through ,thee1 ,i fear not ,thy withdrawal2 more ,i fear1 ,seeing1 to know ,thee not1 hoodwinked with dreams ,of signs and wonders1 while1 unnoticed1 ,thou1 ,walking ,thy garden still1 commun'st with men1 ,missed in the commonplace of miracle4 ,,the ,,end4