PART III.

Therefore , O Adam! I confess the life
I underwent in mystery of sleep;
When God communion holds as man with man,
Revealing types responded by the heart:
Visions of things that were, when these eyes saw,
When the quick spirit in me thought and willed.

‘I, as of wont, beside this tree reposed;
But, while I slept, I saw one like thyself
Appear, yet different; I sought for thee,
But in thy place he stood, a substant shape,
His clear eyes settled on me, while I felt
They saw into my being, as the Moon
Looks in the surface of the unruffled stream:
I gazed in their profoundest azure-depths,
And felt a god was tabernacled there.

 ‘“Speak, Eve!” the Voice said; “we from one source are,
That Being whose vitality is all.
Thou lookest on that life-tree; it hath life
As thine, yea, teems with germinating fruit
That shall hereafter ripen. It draws strength
From earth alike; its breath the air, its joy
Is as thine own, in thankfulness renewed
But, shouldst thou warp thy spiritual growth,
Distort thy nature to impenetrate
Marvels ordained to prove confiding faith;
Or, shouldst thou sigh for mightier spheres above,
Attained by process of the soul enlarged,
Thine own misprising, or distrust the will
Known by the exercise of faculties
Disciplined by their use; deny the gifts
Of life, perceived not by the soul inert,
The offices of love neglect, even works,
Those outward blossomings of inward faith,
Whose birth is action,—lo, the change entailed!”

 ‘I looked, the life-respiring tree was seared,
Stricken, and blasted; the leaves' shrunken forms
Fell silently; each on its pale face bore
Sentence of motionless death. They sank to earth
Heavily as the drops of thunder-showers;
The grey boughs, with a wild air and forlorn,
Looked on the open sky; the Voice spake on:

 ‘“Or, if with questioning thought thou searchest One,
The Ineffable, archetyped within his works,
Cloud-veils that trace the image they conceal;
Rejectest impresses of natural joy,
The echoes heard of Nature's harmonies,
Vibrated through thine own, a happiness
Felt, yet owned not, thus sacrificing hours
In aimless strife, distrusting God alike,
Even as yourselves,—behold life's natural close!”

 ‘I looked; the tree in wasteful ruin blazed;
I saw the fire's red wings expanding coil,
Serpent-like, round the boughs; its hissing tongues
Shot o'er the crackling branches writhen round,
Seared by its scathing breath. I turned and watched
His face flame-lighted; his voice drew its tone
From the red ruin: “Even thus they perish,
Who disobey the injunctions of the Lord!”
I woke, thine arm entwined as now in mine.’

 She ceased, but listening Adam sate intent
As one still bent to hear, nor changed his brow
At revelations until now unheard.

 ‘Eve! the change manifest in all things shows
Deepest in us. I hear with reverence
Visitings made, or from one spirit or twain,
Indwelling or apart, thyself shalt judge,
Listening to my revealment yet untold.
Even by this tree, witness of parables
Sleep palpably embodied, I reclined;
I blessed it, for I felt its life was mine;
I sighed for similar intercourse with things
Invisible; that, as it heard and answered
The winds and light, even thus my voice might rise,
And commune with the agencies unknown;
I, who lived wrapt in thought as in a cloud,
Fitfully opening gleams of light, to close
Again in darkness.
‘While I mused, I saw
A Shape in shadow robed, or rather guise
Of light and shadow joined, a visible form
Growing from each, and settling on the gaze
I looked into his full and opened eyes;
It was as looking into thunder-clouds,
Where the eye finds no resting-place.
‘“O Adam!”’
His voice was as the sound of distant streams,
‘“Thy thought is mine, of all created forms
In thy similitude. Thou seek'st, as I,
The indwelling knowledge interfused through all,
Its origin and growth from us concealed.
Life is the revelation of the truth,
This visible and conscious universe
Is with the one vitality instinct
That glows in thee, whose spirit dwells in things
Greatest as least, where nought inferior is.
Taste thou, for proof, this overhanging fruit,
Pendant in tendrils”’ As he plucked, I ate,
From its own virtue, or his power transfused,
My inner faculties enlarged; a film,
As of earth's mist, passed from them, and I saw
Into life's depths; as when in midnight heaven
Clouds, opening silently, reveal to us
The fathomless stars. I felt that my winged soul
Embraced the infinite; while I drank delight,
His voice rolled on:
‘“Among those lights thou see'st,
Spirits exist from mightier suns evolved;
Thy rest to them were restlessness or pain,
Thou who dost simulate content from fear,
Who seekest knowledge to support life's wants,
Less than its aspirations Hear in me
Thy voice, repressed, that speaks with audible tongue:
Thou and thy race shall feel my spirit gives strength,
If sought, until embodied by thy sons
As the opposing principle apart,
The adversary of the One unknown.”
He rose, and mingled with the stars, that shone
Through his cloud form, I woke by thee’
Then Eve
In fervid faith responded—‘Of this truth,
Adam, be sure that angel was thine own;
The doubt that I have felt, until beheld,
Visibly bodied, even while bowed in prayer
Before our God. What good hath he infused?
What hope instilled, or sense of happiness?
Response to Him is given as to thee,
Even in the words of the calm spirit I heard,
Indwelling Faith.’
To whom our Ancestor:
‘Wherefore is not that potent faith in thee,
The aspiration of my life, as thine?
Why see we not alike truths palpable?
Why does not conscious evil on our hearts
Press like conviction? Wherefore does not God
Answer to both appealing? What thou lov'st,
I fear, thou knowest the great truths I hope
I see life's agencies around me wrought,
The unintelligible strife with death,
Restlessness, fear, and want, and agony.
Yet do I kneel by thee with trust yet doubt;
I feel we lean our weakness on a Power
That doth support yet chasten. I exist
On the divine air that, upholding us,
Erewhile our life-breath, now repellent grown,
Wars on the things it nourished.
‘I perceive
The naked truth, to labour is to live;
These hands must cleave hard earth for sustenance
She yields not; strife round us is ever waged,
Sleepless as merciless, and warns ourselves
Nor flower, nor plant, nor tree, nor living thing,
But suffering shows, and feeds its own decay,
And death of agony. Wherefore not mould
The life to love, rather than hate and fear?
And, when life dies, if death must be the end,
Pass as the odorous flowers, or as the winds,
Without a pang or memory. But here,
Existence is one vast and panting heart,
That throbs with doubt and fear and watchfulness;
Shadows that walk by us in bodied forms.
Therefore I kneel, as thou, to Power beyond,
I fear, but know not; to One heard and seen
In cleaving winds, and flashing lights and thunder.
I feel that I am weak, and He is strong;
That He has opened light on darkened eyes,
Instincts of truth arrested ere revealed,
Yet given with the consciousness of life
Heavenward-tending; godhead thou dost own
Indwelling, felt in the unfolding flower,
As in the beautiful of earth and heaven.
In the rent tree and rock I see the strength
That doth destroy, or from wrath manifest,
Or the irrevocable law of change;
Then I kneel down to Him whose truth and love
I blend not with the agencies of ill
Dwellers perchance amid sublimer suns,
Their Maker know; ours but to feel we are
Inferior; to suffer and to mourn
The curse entailed and pressing on our hearts—
“Dust art thou, and to dust thou shalt return!”’

 Then answered Eve, with fervent mien and brow,
And voice elate, and clear eyes upward raised,
As one whose thought abided not below:

 ‘Adam! thyself unfoldest in thy search
The living God, by truth in thee inspired,
Which is his life breathed through created things,
Tending toward Him. Doth our humility
Abase? meek offering of our lowliness,
That owns the weakness upon strength reposed.
Oh, rather, doth such faith exalt from earth,
The spirit Him reflecting, till become
A flowing forth from that it venerates.
What knowledge seekest thou? The shows of life,
The forms of earth, the beauty, and the power,
Are truths displayed, to open and enlarge
The spirit, till of its own nature part.
To thee is given the perceiving thought,
That recognises God through symbols veiled;
In me the feeling dwells that in all shapes
Of love and beauty sees Himself revealed.’
Responded Adam with a brow confirmed;

‘Thy voice breathes calmness, Eve! from thy deep eyes
A light, as shed from truth, doth emanate,
The consciousness of faith that speaks in thee.
Humility is adoration sole,
The root of thankfulness and trust, the depth,
And height attained. Such is thy wisdom reached;
Such, with the aid of God, be mine.
‘No more
I listen to that self-perturbing voice;
No more seek restlessly the hidden founts
Of joy or pain, but with reposing faith
Dwell on revealments typed from outward shows;
Shadows or lights on Nature's face confessed.

 ‘Henceforth be spent my days in bodily toil;
No more by thought diseased, self-wasting strife;
Mindful of rolling time, decay, and change,
Felt and reflected from the life without.
And yet, alas! I shall not flee myself,
Nor inward consciousness of memory,
Visioning things that were, and truths life told;
The aching yearning and desire to know
The opposing natures that contend in us;
The indwelling soul that doth ally the man
To distant worlds; these, or for ill or good,
Shall tread like mighty Shadows by our sides,
A blessing, curse, or aspiration still.’