A Preacher

"Lest that by any means
  When I have preached to others I myself
  Should be a castaway." If some one now
  Would take that text and preach to us that preach, -
  Some one who could forget his truths were old
  And what were in a thousand bawling mouths
  While they filled his - some one who could so throw
  His life into the old dull skeletons
  Of points and morals, inferences, proofs,
  Hopes, doubts, persuasions, all for time untold
  Worn out of the flesh, that one could lose from mind
  How well one knew his lesson, how oneself
  Could with another, may be choicer, style
  Enforce it, treat it from another view
  And with another logic - some one warm
  With the rare heart that trusts itself and knows
  Because it loves - yes such a one perchance,
  With such a theme, might waken me as I
  Have wakened others, I who am no more
  Than steward of an eloquence God gives
  For others' use not mine. But no one bears
  Apostleship for us. We teach and teach
  Until, like drumming pedagogues, we lose
  The thought that what we teach has higher ends
  Than being taught and learned. And if a man
  Out of ourselves should cry aloud, "I sin,
  And ye are sinning, all of us who talk
  Our Sunday half-hour on the love of God,
  Trying to move our peoples, then go home
  To sleep upon it and, when fresh again,
  To plan another sermon, nothing moved,
  Serving our God like clock-work sentinels,
  We who have souls ourselves," why I like the rest
  Should turn in anger: "Hush this charlatan
  Who, in his blatant arrogance, assumes
  Over us who know our duties."
 Yet that text
  Which galls me, what a sermon might be made
  Upon its theme! How even I myself
 Could stir some of our priesthood! Ah! but then
  Who would stir me?
  I know not how it is;
  I take the faith in earnest, I believe,
  Even at happy times I think I love,
  I try to pattern me upon the type
  My Master left us, am no hypocrite
  Playing my soul against good men's applause,
  Nor monger of the Gospel for a cure,
  But serve a Master whom I chose because
  It seemed to me I loved him, whom till now
  My longing is to love; and yet I feel
  A falseness somewhere clogging me. I seem
  Divided from myself; I can speak words
  Of burning faith and fire myself with them;
  I can, while upturned faces gaze on me
  As if I were their Gospel manifest,
  Break into unplanned turns as natural
  As the blind man's cry for healing, pass beyond
  My bounded manhood in the earnestness
  Of a messenger from God. And then I come
  And in my study's quiet find again
  The callous actor who, because long since
  He had some feelings in him like the talk
  The book puts in his mouth, still warms his pit
  And even, in his lucky moods, himself
  With the passion of his part, but lays aside
  His heroism with his satin suit
  And thinks "the part is good and well conceived
  And very natural - no flaw to find" -
  And then forgets it.
  Yes I preach to others
  And am - I know not what - a castaway?
  No, but a man who feels his heart asleep,
  As he might feel his hand or foot. The limb
  Will not awake without a little shock,
  A little pain perhaps, a nip or blow,
  And that one gives and feels the waking pricks.
  But for one's heart I know not. I can give
  No shock to make mine prick. I seem to be
  Just such a man as those who claim the power
  Or have it, (say, to serve the thought), of willing
  That such a one should break an iron bar,
  And such a one resist the strength of ten,
  And the thing is done, yet cannot will themselves
  One least small breath of power beyond the wont.
  To-night now I might triumph. Not a breath
  But shivered when I pictured the dead soul
  Awaking when the body dies to know
  Itself has lived too late, and drew in long
  With yearning when I shewed how perfect love
  Might make Earth's self be but an earlier Heaven.
  And I may say and not be over-bold,
  Judging from former fruits, "Some one to-night
  Has come more near to God, some one has felt
  What it may mean to love Him, some one learned
  A new great horror against death and sin,
  Some one at least - it may be many." Yet -
  And yet - Why I the preacher look for God,
  Saying "I know thee Lord, what I should see
  If I could see thee as some can on earth,
  But I do not see thee," and "I know thee Lord,
  What loving thee is like, as if I loved,
  But I cannot love thee." And even with the thought
  The answer grows "Thine is the greater sin,"
  And I stand self-convicted yet not shamed,
  But quiet, reasoning why it should be thus,
  And almost wishing I could suddenly
  Fall in some awful sin, that so might come
  A living sense of God, if but by fear,
  And a repentance sharp as is the need.
  But now, the sin being indifference,
  Repentance too is tepid.
  There are some,
  Good men and honest though not overwise
  Nor studious of the subtler depths of minds
  Below the surface strata, who would teach,
  In such a case, to scare oneself awake
  (As girls do, telling ghost-tales in the dark),
  With scriptural terrors, all the judgments spoken
  Against the tyrant empires, all the wrath
  On them who slew the prophets and forsook
  Their God for Baal, and the awful threat
  For him whose dark dread sin is pardonless,
  So that in terror one might cling to God -
  As the poor wretch, who, angry with his life,
  Has dashed into a dank and hungry pool,
  Learns in the death-gasp to love life again
  And clings unreasoning to the saving hand.
  Well I know some - for the most part with thin minds
  Of the effervescent kind, easy to froth,
  Though easier to let stagnate - who thus wrought
  Convulsive pious moods upon themselves
  And, thinking all tears sorrow and all texts
  Repentance, are in peace upon the trust
  That a grand necessary stage is past,
  And do love God as I desire to love.
  And now they'll look on their hysteric time
  And wonder at it, seeing it not real
  And yet not feigned. They'll say "A special time
  Of God's direct own working - you may see
  It was not natural."
  And there I stand
  In face with it, and know it. Not for me;
  Because I know it, cannot trust in it;
  It is not natural. It does not root
  Silently in the dark as God's seeds root,
  Then day by day move upward in the light.
  It does not wake a tremulous glimmering dawn,
  Then swell to perfect day as God's light does.
  It does not give to life a lowly child
  To grow by days and morrows to man's strength,
  As do God's natural birthdays. God who sets
  Some little seed of good in everything
  May bring his good from this, but not for one
  Who calmly says "I know - this is a dream,
  A mere mirage sprung up of heat and mist;
  It cannot slake my thirst: but I will try
  To fool my fancy to it, and will rush
  To cool my burning throat, as if there welled
  Clear waters in the visionary lake,
  That so perchance Heaven pitying me may send
  Its own fresh showers upon me." I perchance
  Might, with occasion, spite of steady will
  And steady nerve, bring on the ecstasy:
  But what avails without the simple faith?
  I should not cheat myself, and who cheats God?
  And wherefore should I count love more than truth,
  And buy the loving him with such a price,
  Even if 'twere possible to school myself
  To an unbased belief and love him more
  Only through a delusion?
  Not so, Lord.
  Let me not buy my peace, nay not my soul,
  At price of one least word of thy strong truth
  Which is Thyself. The perfect love must be
  When one shall know thee. Better one should lose
  The present peace of loving, nay of trusting,
  Better to doubt and be perplexed in soul
  Because thy truth seems many and not one,
  Than cease to seek thee, even through reverence,
  In the fullness and minuteness of thy truth.
  If it be sin, forgive me: I am bold,
  My God, but I would rather touch the ark
  To find if thou be there than - thinking hushed
  "'Tis better to believe, I will believe,
  Though, were't not for belief, 'Tis far from proved" -
  Shout with the people "Lo our God is there,"
  And stun my doubts by iterating faith.
  And yet, I know not why it is, this knack
  Of sermon-making seems to carry me
  Athwart the truth at times before I know -
  In little things at least; thank God the greater
  Have not yet grown by the familiar use
  Such puppets of a phrase as to slip by
  Without clear recognition. Take to-night -
  I preached a careful sermon, gravely planned,
  All of it written. Not a line was meant
  To fit the mood of any differing
  From my own judgment: not the less I find -
  (I thought of it coming home while my good Jane
  Talked of the Shetland pony I must get
  For the boys to learn to ride yes here it is,
  And here again on this page - blame by rote,
  Where by my private judgment I blame not.
  "We think our own thoughts on this day," I said,
  "Harmless it may be, kindly even, still
  Not Heaven's thoughts - not Sunday thoughts I'll say."
  Well now do I, now that I think of it,
  Advise a separation of our thoughts
  By Sundays and by week-days, Heaven's and ours?
  By no means, for I think the bar is bad.
  I'll teach my children "Keep all thinking's pure,
  And think them when you like, if but the time
  Is free to any thinking. Think of God
  So often that in anything you do
  It cannot seem you have forgotten Him,
  Just as you would not have forgotten us,
  Your mother and myself, although your thoughts
  Were not distinctly on us, while you played;
  And, if you do this, in the Sunday's rest
  You will most naturally think of Him;
  Just as your thoughts, though in a different way,
  (God being the great mystery He is
  And so far from us and so strangely near),
  Would on your mother's birthday-holiday
  Come often back to her." But I'd not urge
  A treadmill Sunday labour for their mind,
  Constant on one forced round: nor should I blame
  Their constant chatter upon daily themes.
  I did not blame Jane for her project told,
  Though she had heard my sermon, and no doubt
  Ought, as I told my flock, to dwell on that.
  Then here again "the pleasures of the world
  That tempt the younger members of my flock."
  Now I think really that they've not enough
  Of these same pleasures. Grey and joyless lives
  A many of them have, whom I would see
  Sharing the natural gaieties of youth.
  I wish they'd more temptations of the kind.
  Now Donne and Allan preach such things as these
  Meaning them and believing. As for me,
  What did I mean? Neither to feign nor teach
  A Pharisaic service. 'Twas just this,
  That there are lessons and rebukes long made
  So much a thing of course that, unobserving,
  One sets them down as one puts dots to i's,
  Crosses to t's.
  A simple carelessness;
  No more than that. There's the excuse - and I,
  Who know that every carelessness is falsehood
  Against my trust, what guide or check have I
  Being, what I have called myself, an actor
  Able to be awhile the man he plays
  But in himself a heartless common hack?
  I felt no falseness as I spoke the trash,
  I was thrilled to see it moved the listeners,
  Grew warmer to my task! 'Twas written well,
  Habit had made the thoughts come fluently
  As if they had been real -
 Yes, Jane, yes,
  I hear you - Prayers and supper waiting me -
  I'll come -
 Dear Jane, who thinks me half a saint.