A Reasonable Protestation

Not, I suppose, since I denyAppearance is reality,And doubt the substance of the earthDoes your remonstrance come to birth;Not that at once I both affirm'Tis not the skin that makes the wormAnd every tactile thing with massMust find its symbol in the grassAnd with a cool conviction sayEven a critic's more than clayAnd every dog outlives his day.This kind of vagueness suits your view,You would not carp at it; for youDid never stand with those who takeTheir pleasures in a world opaque.For you a tree would never beLovely were it but a tree,And earthly splendours never splendidIf by transience unattended.Your eyes are on a farther shoreThan any of earth; nor do adoreAs godhead God's dead hieroglyph.Nor would you be perturbed ifSome prophet with a voice of thunderAnd avalanche arm should blast and founderThe logical pillars that maintainThis visible world which loads the brain,Loads the brain and withers the heartAnd holds man from his God apart.

But still with you remains the cravingFor some more solid substance, havingSurface to touch, colour to see,And form compact in symmetry.You are not satisfied with theseVague throbbings, nameless ecstasies,Nor can your spirit find delightIn an amorphic great white light.Not with such sickles can you reap;If a dense earth you cannot keepYou want a dense heaven as substituteWith trees of plump celestial fruit,Red apples, golden pomegranates,And a river flowing by tall gatesOf topaz and of chrysoliteAnd walls of twenty cubits height.

Frank, you cry out against the age!Nor you nor I can disengageOurselves from that in which we liveNor seize on things God does not give.Thirsty as you, perhaps, I longFor courtyards of eternal song,Even as yours my feet would strayIn a city where 'tis always dayAnd a green spontaneous leafy gardenWith God in the middle for a warden;But though I hope with strengthening faithTo taste when I have traversed deathThe unimaginable sweetnessOf certitude of such concreteness,How should I draw the hue and scopeOf substances I only hopeOr blaze upon a paper screenThe evidence of things not seen?This art of ours but grows and stirsExperience when it registers,And you know well as I know wellThis autumn of time in which we dwellIs not an age of revelationsSolid as once, but intimationsThat touch us with warm misty fingersLeaving a nameless sense that lingersThat sight is blind and Time's a snareAnd earth less solid than the airAnd deep below all seeming thingsThere sits a steady king of kingsA radiant ageless permanence,A quenchless fount of virtue whenceWe draw our life; a sense that makesA staunch conviction nothing shakesOf our own immortality.And though, being man, with certain gleeI eat and drink, though I suffer pain,And love and hate and love againWell or in mode contemptible,Thus shackled by the body's spellI see through pupils of the beastThough it be faint and blurred with mistA Star that travels in the East.I see what I can, not what I will.In things that move, things that are still;Thin motion, even cloudier rest,I see the symbols God hath drest.The moveless trees, the trees that waveThe clouds that heavenly highways have,Horses that run, rocks that are fixt,Streams that have rest and motion mixt,The main with its abiding flux,The wind that up my chimney sucksA mounting waterfall of flame,Sticks, straws, dust, beetles and that sameOld blazing sun the Psalmist sawA testifier to the law:Divinely to the heart they speakSaying how they are but weak,Wan will-o'-the-wisps on the crystal sea;But stays that sea still dark to me.

Did I now glibly insolentChart the ulterior firmament,Would you not know my words were lies,Where not my testimonial eyesMortal or spiritual lodge,Mere uncorroborated fudge?Praise me, though praise I do not want,Rather, that I have cast much cant,That what I see and feel I write,Read what I can in this dim lightGranted to me in nether night.And though I am vague and shrink to guessGod's everlasting purposes,And never save in perplext dreamHave caught the least clear-shapen gleamOf the great kingdom and the throneIn the world that lies behind our own,I have not lacked my certainties,I have not haggard moaned the skies,Nor waged unnecessary strifeNor scorned nor overvalued life.And though you say my attitudeIs questioning, concede my moodDoes never bring to tongue or penAccents of gloomy modern menWho wail or hail the death of GodAnd weigh and measure man the clod,Or say they draw reluctant breathAnd musically mourn that DeathIs a queen omnipotent of woeAnd Life her lean cicisbeo,Abject and pale, whom vampire-likeShe playeth with ere she shall strike,And pose sad riddles to the SphinxWith raven quills in purple inks,Then send the boy to fetch more drinks.