XXV

My soul has fire to mingle with the fire

      Of all these souls, within or out of doors

Of Rome's Church or another. I believe

      In one priest, and one temple, with its floors

Of shining jasper, gloom'd at morn and eve

      By countless knees of earnest auditors;

And crystal walls, too lucid to perceive,—

      That none may take the measure of the place

And say, "so far the porphyry; then, the flint—

      To this mark, mercy goes, and there, ends grace,"

While still the permeable crystals hint

      At some white starry distance, bathed in space!

I feel how nature's ice-crusts keep the dint

      Of undersprings of silent Deity;

I hold the articulated gospels, which

      Show Christ among us, crucified on tree;

I love all who love truth, if poor or rich

      In what they have won of truth possessively!

No altars and no hands defiled with pitch

      Shall scare me off, but I will pray and eat

With all these—taking leave to choose my ewers

      And say at last, "Your visible Churches cheat

Their inward types; and if a Church assures

      Of standing without failure and defeat,

That Church both fails and lies!"