eyes us from Heaven, our sin to scan;

"We live no more, when we have done our span."--
"Well, then, for Christ," thou answerest, "who can care?
From sin, which Heaven records not, why forbear?
Live we like brutes our life without a plan!"

So answerest thou; but why not rather say:
"Hath man no second life?--_Pitch this one high!_
Sits there no judge in Heaven, our sin to see?--

"_More strictly, then, the inward judge obey!_
Was Christ a man like us? _Ah! let us try_
_If we then, too, can be such men as he!_"

THE DIVINITY

"Yes, write it in the rock," Saint Bernard said,
"Grave it on brass with adamantine pen!
'Tis God himself becomes apparent, when
God's wisdom and God's goodness are display'd,

"For God of these his attributes is made."--
Well spake the impetuous Saint, and bore of men
The suffrage captive; now, not one in ten
Recalls the obscure opposer he outweigh'd.[10]

_God's wisdom and God's goodness!_--Ay, but fools
Mis-define these till God knows them no more.
_Wisdom and goodness, they are God!_--what schools

Have yet so much as heard this simpler lore?
This no Saint preaches, and this no Church rules;
'Tis in the desert, now and heretofore.

IMMORTALITY

Foil'd by our fellow-men, depress'd, outworn,
We leave the brutal world to take its way,
And, _Patience! in another life_, we say,
_The world shall be thrust down, and we up-borne._

And will not, then, the immortal armies scorn
The world's poor, routed leavings? or will they,
Who fail'd under the heat of this life's day,
Support the fervours of the heavenly morn?

No, no! the energy of life may be
Kept on after the grave, but not begun;
And he who flagg'd not in the earthly strife,
From strength to strength advancing--only he,
His soul well-knit, and all his battles won,
Mounts, and that hardly, to eternal life.

THE GOOD SHEPHERD WITH THE KID

_He saves the sheep, the goats he doth not save._
So rang Tertullian's sentence, on the side
Of that unpitying Phrygian sect which cried:[11]
"Him can no fount of fresh forgiveness lave,

"Who sins, once wash'd by the baptismal wave."--
So spake the fierce Tertullian. But she sigh'd,
The infant Church! of love she felt the tide
Stream on her from her Lord's yet recent grave.

And then