FIDES IN DEO OPTIMA

In the dread Patmos of the town
I heard a voice from heaven come down;
Then found me in a desert place
Of kneaded day-field, poor and base,
With a crowd flowing at its edge.
Then did the voice great things allege
Against the town in bitter rhyme.

THE VOICE

God his eternity on time,
God his infinity on space,
Casts: God proceeds in all earth's ways,
In all that He hath made God lurks,
He waiteth man in all his works:
Dost thou in anywise observe
His presence as the living nerve
Of life, and dost thou reverence
For His sake every form of sense,
And strive to take each for thine own?

JONAH

We answer not, we know not; one
With twisted eyes of blue I saw
Look this way for a moment; awe
Lowered for a moment half his lids,
But he knows not; that other bids
Thee mock thyself with what he is,
Being a fiend with infamies
Unnumbered eating up his soul;
But all know nothing, in the whole
Mass of them is not one that knows.

THE VOICE

How mightily heaven overflows,
How countlessly doth God indite
Himself in darkness and in light,
And all that grows between these two —
Star-formed, and written on the blue
Void of the all-embracing shade —
Shade-formed, and solemnly inlaid
Between bright forms of life that crawl
In and Out the mother womb of all
The solemn all-embracing shade.

JONAH

We know not, Lord, what Thou hast said,
Ah, what, O Lord, can these men know?

THE VOICE

God Seemed as man long time ago,
His going was in Eden heard
Among the trees, his presence scared
Blood-shedding Cain; again, again
God Felt as man, felt human pain,
And pity, wrath, and jealousy;
God Spake as man, this finally:
The Word made flesh among us dwelt,
Great glory from the heavens did melt
Into the blood of human kings.

JONAH

Ah, now we wake, yet the lie clings
Sordidly, makes the truth a lie.

THE VOICE

Which three things live continually,
God seemed as man, yea felt, yea lived;
Still, still God walketh undeceived
About the Eden of his earth,
And still holds solemn wrath or mirth
At things which happen in this time;
And still He liveth in man's clime,
And speaketh words which do remain;
Christ-God hath come to make them plain,
Christ-God, to seal this sacrament.

JONAH

Alive now? What is their intent?
Crossing their thumbs with writhing lips,
And eyes set grimly. One upwhips
His arm-long club, and fell and full
Closes upon the shaggy skull
Of his own ass, already cut
To the white bone.

THE VOICE

This doth outshut
All infinites, that Christ left His,
Yet brings it to His sacrifice,
(O mystery of mysteries,
Leaving His infinities,
And entering into space and time,
The Godhead!) this transcends sublime,
That through man's nature He transfuse
What soul and corpse alike renews,
The perfect God and perfect Man!

JONAH

Now this enrages, who can scan
Such rage, and us not hate therefore?

THE VOICE

All-loving life, He doth restore
Through man's own spirit-spring of faith,
What man himself hath lost in death,
The life eternal, incorrupt,
Which He, all-living love, once scooped
From His own being, which remains
Sunk, but not lost, amid the pains
Of death long dying, which revives
Under His cordials, breaks its gyves,
Adds to itself all forms of life.

JONAH

Ah, foully we express our strife,
Ah, sicklily we grow malign.

THE VOICE

And stands at last, complex and fine,
A perfect man, recovered all,
And strong, yea, strong enough to fall
Full-breasted on the Infinite.
Know ye these issues, feel their light,
Breaking from far for those who sit
In darkness; how that Christ doth knit
In love to love the life once lost?
Rage, chafe ye then, because this most
Solemn of things in light is lit?

JONAH

Behold a mountain, chasm-split,
Pine-darkened, ashen with white snows;
In every gash a snow-stream flows,
A snow-veil slowly breaks and weeps,
A snow-rock ghostly wakes and sleeps;
Bears limp along its pathless snow,
Along its deserts white wolves go,
Like flights of ravens in the air;
I see four men come forth and glare
From grisly caverns where they lie:
These gave christ-god his agony —
Pontius Pilatus, and Judas,
Herodes, Caiaphas.

JUDAS

Take thou this money, Caiaphas,
I pray thee now for shame, whereas
Thou hast betrayed me; I, alas,
My Master dear betrayed.

CAIAPHAS

Much gold to many paid I when
I was made priest, to many men;
To thee for Christ but pieces ten
Of silver thrice I paid.

PONTIUS PILATE

One came and begged his body here
To lay it in a sepulchre;
I granted freely his desire,
And they have buried him

HERODES

It is great marvel he is dead;
Three years ago he came and said
That he went up to lay his head
Within Jerusalem.

EUNICE

When her holy life was ended
Eunice lay upon her side;
When her holy death was ended
Eunice died.
Then a spirit raised her spirit
From the urn of dripping tears;
And a spirit from her spirit
Soothed the fears.
And upon her spirit lightly —
Spirit upon spirit-wrote;
And she rose to worlds eternal,
Taking note
First she joined the world eternal
Which is never seen of men;
Through its climes she wandered lightly,
Happy then
Then she learned a song of comfort
For the loves she left behind,
Children kissing one another,
Husband kind.
I have joined the world of spirit,
Which the flesh does never see;
But to you a realm is open
As to me.
World invisible of spirit
Doth invisible remain
Not less certainly to angels
Than to men
As you see it not on earth
I behold it not in heaven;
Yet to both of us alike
It is given.
For we both may walk within it,
And meet blindfolded above;
'tis the world of thought and feeling
And of love.
Enter then this world of spirit;
It is yours by right of birth,
Mind by death: let heaven possess it,
And let earth.