BROWNING ROBERT

From >Christmas-Eve@

                V                    

From the heart beneath, as if, God speeding me,

I entered His church door, nature leading me

In youth I looked to these very skies,

and probing their immensities ,

I found God there, His visible power;

---------

VII

Thou art the love of God -- above

His power, didst hear me place His love,

And that was leaving the world for Thee.

Therefore Thou must not turn from me

As I had chosen the other part!

Folly and pride o=ercame my heart.

Our best is bad, nor bear Thy test;

Still, it should be our very best.

I thought it best that Thou, the spirit,

Be worshiped in spirit and in truth,

And in beauty, as even we require it---

Not in the forms burlesque, uncouth, 

I left but now, as scarcely fitted

For Thee: I knew not what I pitied.

Bu, all I felt there, right or wrong,

What is it to Thee, who curest sinning?

Am I not weak as Thou art strong?

I have looked to Thee from the beginning,

Straight up to Thee through all the world

Which, like an idle scroll, lay furled

To nothingness on either side:

And since the time Thou wast descried,

Spite of the weak heart, so have I

Lived ever, and so fain would die,

Living and dying, Thee before!

Bu if Thou leavest me-----

XVII

Supreme in Christ as we all confess,

Why need we prove would avail no jot

To make Him God, if God he were not?

(Browning, 1912, 11-42)