Old Souls

The world, not hushed, lay as in trance;It saw the future in its van,And drew its riches in advance,To meet the greedy wants of man;Till length of days, untimely sped,Left its account unaudited.

The sun, untired, still rose and set,—Swerved not an instant from its beat:It had not lost a moment yet,Nor used in vain its light and heat;But, as in trance, from when it roseTo when it sank, man craved repose.

A holy light that shone of yoreHe saw, despised, and left behind:His heart was rotting to the coreLocked in the slumbers of the mindNot beat of drum, nor sound of fife,Could rouse it to a sense of life.

A cry was heard, intoned and slow,Of one who had no wares to vend:His words were gentle, dull, and low,And he called out, ‘Old souls to mend!’He peddled on from door to door,And looked not up to rich or poor.

His step kept on as if in paceWith some old timepiece in his head,Nor ever did its way retrace;Nor right nor left turned he his treadBut uttered still his tinker’s cryTo din the ears of passers-by.

So well they knew the olden noteFew heeded what the tinker spake,Though here and there an ear it smoteAnd seemed a sudden hold to take;But they had not the time to stay,And it would do some other day.

Still on his way the tinker wends,Though jobs be far between and few;But here and there a soul he mendsAnd makes it look as good as new.Once set to work, once fairly hired,His dull old hammer seems inspired.

Over the task his features glow;He knocks away the rusty flakes;A spark flies off at every blow;At every rap new life awakes.The soul once cleansed of outward sins,His subtle handicraft begins.

Like iron unannealed and crude,The soul is plunged into the blast;To temper it, however rude,’Tis next in holy water cast;Then on the anvil it receivesThe nimblest stroke the tinker gives.

The tinker’s task is at an end:Stamped was the cross by that last blow.Again his cry, ‘Old souls to mend!’Is heard in accents dull and low.He pauses not to seek his pay,—That too will do another day.

One stops and says, ‘This soul of mineHas been a tidy piece of ware,But rust and rot in it combine,And now corruption lays it bare.Give it a look: there was a dayWhen it the morning hymn could say.’

The tinker looks into his eye,And there detects besetting sin,The decent old-established lie,That creeps through all the chinks within.Lank are its tendrils, thick its shoots,And like a worm’s nest coil the roots.

Like flowers that deadly berries bear,His seed, if tended from the pod,Had grown in beauty with the year,Like deodara drawn to God;Now like a dank and curly brake,It fosters venom for the snake.

The tinker takes the weed in tow,And roots it out with tooth and nail;His labour patient to bestow,Lest like the herd of men he fail.How best to extirpate the weed,Has grown with him into a creed.

His tack is steady, slow, and sure:He plucks it out, despite the howl,With gentle hand and look demure,As cunning maiden draws a fowl.He knows the job he is about,And pulls till all the lie is out.

‘Now steadfastly regard the manWho wrought your cure of rust and rot!You saw him ere the work began:Is he the same, or is he not?You saw the tinker; now beholdThe Envoy of a God of old.’

This said, he on the forehead stampsA downward stroke and one across,Then straight upon his way he tramps;His time for profit, not for loss;His task no sooner at an endThan out he cries, ‘Old souls to mend!’

As night comes on he enters doors,He crosses halls, he goes upstairs,He reaches first and second floors,Still busied on his own affairs.None stop him or a question ask;None heed the workman at his task.

Despite his cry, ‘Old souls to mend!’Which into dull expression breaks,Not moved are they, nor ear they lendTo him who from old habit speaks;Yet does the deep and one-toned crySend thrills along eternity.

He gads where out-door wretches walk,Where outcasts under arches creep;Among them holds his simple talk.He lets them hear him in their sleep.They who his name have still denied,He lets them see him crucified.

On royal steps he takes a standTo light the beauties to the ball;He holds a lantern in his hand,And lets his simple saying fall.They deem him but some sorry witServing the Holy Spirit’s writ.

They know not souls can rust and rot,And deem him, while he says his say,The tipsy watchman who forgotTo call out ‘Carriage stops the way!’They know not what it can portend,This mocking cry, ‘Old souls to mend!’

While standing on the palace stone,He is in workhouse, brothel, jail;He is to play and ball-room gone,To hear again the beauties rail;With tender pity to beholdThe dead alive in pearls and gold.

In meaning deep, in whispers lowAs bubble bursting on the air,He lets the solemn warning flowThrough jewelled ears of creatures fair,Who, while they dance, their paces blendWith his mild words, ‘Old souls to mend!’

And when to church their sins they take,And bring them back to lunch again,And fun of empty sermons make,He whispers softly in their train;And sits with them if two or moreThink of a promise made of yore.

Of those who stay behind to sup,And in remembrance eat the bread,He leads the conscience to the cup,His hands across the table spread.When contrite hearts before him bend,Glad are his words, ‘Old souls to mend.’

The little ones before the fontHe clasps within his arms to bless;For Childhood’s pure and guileless frontLaughs back his own sweet gentleness.‘Of such,’ he says, ‘my kingdom is,For they betray not with a kiss.’

He goes to hear the vicars preach:They do not always know his face,Him they pretend the way to teach,And, as one absent, ask his grace.Not then his words, ‘Old souls to mend!’Their spirits pierce or bosoms rend.

He goes to see the priests revereHis image as he lay in death:They do not know that he is there;They do not feel his living breath,Though to his secret they pretendWith incense sweet, old souls to mend.

He goes to hear the grand debateThat makes his own religion law;But him the members, as he sateBelow the gangway, never saw.They used his name to serve their end,And others left old souls to mend.

Before the church-exchange he stands,Where those who buy and sell him, meet:He sees his livings changing hands,And shakes the dust from off his feet.May be his weary head he bows,While from his side fresh ichor flows.

From mitred peers he turns his face.Where priests convoked in session plot,He would remind them of his graceBut for his now too humble lot;So his dull cry on ears devoutHe murmurs sadly from without.

He goes where judge the law defends,And takes the life he can’t bestow,And soul of sinner recommendsTo grace above, but not below;Reserving for a fresh surpriseWhom it shall meet in Paradise.

He goes to meeting, where the saintExempts himself from deadly ire,But in a strain admired and quaintConsigns all others to the fire,While of the damned he mocks the howl,And on the tinker drops his scowl.

Go here, go there, they cite his word,While he himself is nigh forgot.He hears them use the name of Lord,He present though they know him not.Though he be there, they vision lack,And talk of him behind his back.

Such is the Church and such the State.Both set him up and put him down,—Below the houses of debate,Above the jewels of the crown.But when ‘Old souls to mend!’ he says,They send him off about his ways.

He is the humble, lowly one,In coat of rusty velveteen,Who to his daily work has gone;In sleeves of lawn not ever seen.No mitre on his forehead sticks:His crown is thorny, and it pricks.

On it the dews of mercy shine;From heaven at dawn of day they fell;And it he wears by right divine,Like earthly kings, if truth they tell;And up to heaven the few to send,He still cries out, ‘Old souls to mend!’