Within and Without

Opening of the book

To L. P. M. D.
Receive thine own; for I and it are thine.
Thou know’st its story; how for forty days —
Weary with sickness and with social haze,
(After thy hands and lips with love divine
Had somewhat soothed me, made the glory shine,
Though with a watery lustre,) more delays
Of blessedness forbid —I took my ways
Into a solitude, Invention’s mine;
There thought and wrote, afar, and yet with thee.
Those days gone past, I came, and brought a book;
My child, developed since in limb and look.
It came in shining vapours from the sea,
And in thy stead sung low sweet songs to me,
When the red life-blood labour would not brook.
May, 1855.

What life it is, and how that all these lives do gather —
With outward maker’s force, or like an inward father.
SƗǡ PƒƗƯƗǙ SƗŠƿŧΏ’Ǫ Arcadia

Part I
Go thou into thy closet; shut thy door;
And pray to Him in secret: He will hear.
But think not thou, by one wild bound, to clear
The numberless ascensions, more and more,
Of starry stairs that must be climbed, before
Thou comest to the Father’s likeness near,
And bendest down to kiss the feet so dear
That, step by step, their mounting flights passed o’er.
Be thou content if on thy weary need
There falls a sense of showers and of the spring;
A hope that makes it possible to fling
Sickness aside, and go and do the deed;
For highest aspiration will not lead
Unto the calm beyond all questioning.
Scene I

A cell in a convent. JULIAN alone.

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