How happy would I be, could I attain
The steadfast knowledge of the Christ
That does not wince below the pain,
That does not falter from its heavenly tryst—
Could I attain at once from this dull earth
That cries, a ruined broken thing, it gave me birth:
As some one, wandering on a sin-stained street,
Should meet a woman, bent and coarse from sin
(Caught in the gin of chance, her faltering feet
Not strong enough to save), from some retreat
Forbidding, gloomy, full of fears within—
And she should scream he was her rightful son:
And he with tears, affrighted and abashed,
Should look with fear her lineaments upon,
The while dim memory with sharp whip lashed
Of vague recollections from the vanished past:
Struggling with words her words to disavow,
And almost yielding at the very last
So huge the evidence he must allow.
Could I attain from this unkempt and unswept place—
Where harlequins and mad men gibe and jeer,
Denying God unto His very face;
Though in their faces one can see the fear
That in His temple God might suddenly appear—
Could I attain at once, how happy I would be!
If without striving overmuch I could attain
The steadfast knowledge of the Christ
That does not wince but stills the blow of pain,
That never falters from its heavenly tryst,
Would I so thirst for His dear courts?
Or would I linger in unheavenly ease
Till death my earthly fever full aborts,
To wake from ease and find it all disease.
'Tis well I have to labor for my peace,
Tis well I hear the hymns from His high courts
Only through earth-made gales, that scarcely cease
To let a far faint echo of the morts
That Michael winds when error headlong falls
Come to me here, encouched in earthly halls.
For should my peace come easily to me,
Or should I know that it were easily
And sweetly gained, I might not work,—
Thinking a more convenient season yet would come,
Thinking I might enjoy the earthly cloying sweets
A little longer season. So would I shirk
Until Truth found me in my stale retreats
And drave me, sword-point pricking, to my heavenly home.
