XXII

THE CELESTIAL SURGEON

IF I have faltered more or less

In my great task of happiness;

If I have moved among my race

And shown no glorious morning face;
If beams from happy human eyes
Have moved me not; if morning skies,
Books, and my food, and summer rain
Knocked on my sullen heart in vain :-
Lord, thy most pointed pleasure take

And stab my spirit broad awake; *Or, Lord, if too obdurate I,

Choose thou, before that spirit die,

A piercing pain, a killing sin,

And to my dead heart run them in!

XXIII

OUR LADY OF THE SNOWS

OUT of the sun, out of the blast,

Out of the world, alone I passed

Across the moor and through the wood

To where the monastery stood.

There neither lute nor breathing fife,

Nor rumour of the world of life,

Nor confidences low and dear,

Shall strike the meditative ear.

Aloof, unhelpful, and unkind,'

The prisoners of the iron mind,

Where nothing speaks except the hell

The unfraternal brothers dwell.

Poor passionate men, still clothed afresh

With agonising folds of flesh;

Whom the clear eyes solicit still

To some bold output of the will,

While fairy Fancy far before

And musing Memory-Hold-the-door

Now to heroic death invite

And now uncurtain fresh delight:

O, little boots it thus to dwell

On the remote unneighboured hill !

O to be up and doing, O

Unfearing and unshamed to go

In all the uproar and the press

About my human business !

My undissuaded heart I hear

Whisper courage in my ear.

With voiceless calls, the ancient earth

Summons me to a daily birth.

Thou, O my love, ye, O my friends—

The gist of life, the end of ends—

To laugh, to love, to live, to die,

Ye call me by the ear and eye!

Forth from the casemate, on the plain
Where honour has the world to gain,
Pour forth and bravely do your part,

O knights of the unshielded heart!
Forth and forever forward !-out
From prudent turret and redoubt,
And in the mellay charge amain,

To fall but yet to rise again!
Captive? ah, still, to honour bright,
A captive soldier of the right!

Or free and fighting, good with ill?
Unconquering but unconquered still!

And ye, O brethren, what if God,

When from Heav'n's top he spies abroad,

And sees on this tormented stage

The noble war of mankind rage :

What if his vivifying eye,

O monks, should pass your corner by?

For still the Lord is Lord of might;
In deeds, in deeds, he takes delight;
The plough, the spear, the laden barks,
The field, the founded city, marks;

He marks the smiler of the streets,

The singer upon garden seats;

He sees the climber in the rocks:

To him, the shepherd folds his flocks.

For those he loves that underprop

With daily virtues Heaven's top,

And bear the falling sky with ease,

Unfrowning caryatides.

Those he approves that ply the trade,

That rock the child, that wed the maid,

That with weak virtues, weaker hands,