Chapter LXII

And then I learn’d—as many a friend has learn’d—
Who with them strove my joy for them to share,
How much more joy was theirs, when theirs alone.
But this could scarcely turn my thought aside
From self, left lonelier now than e’er before.
I strove to drown my grief in work. The work
Was but a worm’s that eats from day to day
The morrow’s bed, at morning dragging on
A soulless trunk, through troubles void of hope.

My soul to startled sighs was roused alone
When Edith cross’d my vision. Then my mood,
As gloom would gather round again, would grieve
To think, in sorting souls, fate bungled so,
And let our traits be judged of by our trades,—
The dusty imprint of the things we touch.
“As well,” cried I, “to judge of winds of heaven,
By bogs they brush, or fogs they bear away!
We two that so could trust each other’s hearts,
Why should we not join hearts, and leave to them
The hands? If wiser than the world we were,
Why should we act, forsooth, in worldly ways?
What need that all should don the uniform
That fits men for the social march of fools?
What need?—Ah me,” I thought, “all need, indeed,
If one wish influence in the world or church.—
Or church!—Must it then crucify the soul
To save appearances? the body? form?
The Christ gave up all these to save the soul.
’Tis treason when His churches join the world,
And courting smiles from bigotry appeased,
And grinning hell that holds the whole its own,
Preach up the crucifixion of the soul
To save the body, save the outward form.
A church is His no more, whose rites or creeds
Keep souls untrue to truth within that shows
God’s tempering there, the touch that makes man man.”