Ye must be born again.
FIRST VOICE.
GOOD morrow, comrade! Whence that look elate?
Where are thy sins and fears, a mocking host?
One week ago, thou wast as I, who hate
Both day and night–day most.
SECOND VOICE.
Glad tidings of great joy! that host is gone!
I prayed to Christ an unbelieving prayer,
Half blasphemous, half mad–but straight there shone
Into my soul’s despair
A strange, pure light–then on my brow I felt
A healing hand, and on my sleepless eyes;
Till, knowing nothing, feeling all, I knelt,
And with deep groans and sighs
Yielded to Christ my soul, its secret need,
Its woe, its doubt, its dread, its self-disdain,
Its myriad petty sins, that grow and breed,
And, mob-like, rule the brain.
All these he took away–he made me yield
The last regret, the lingering sense of wrong;
I am as one from year-long tortures healed,
Made sound, and hale, and strong–
Who every morning feels a sweet new joy
Because he wakes without the accustomed pain;
Who runs and leaps more lightly than a boy,
Having been born again
Into a long-forgotten world of health,
Where he may woo bright eyes, nor need to fear
That but in pity or in lust of wealth
They feign to hold him dear.
Where he with other men may strain and strive–
To win he scarcely craves–let it suffice
That heart, brain, limbs, so bounteously alive
Are his full Paradise.
Oh come and taste and see what virtues lie
In this Elixir that has made me whole–
Though thou be sick to death, thou shalt not die–
Repent, and heal thy soul!
FIRST VOICE.
Brave words, my friend–I do not grudge thy mirth;
Though life be one remorse, I yet endure,
Well knowing there be ills upon this earth
Which have not any cure.
Thou hast been lame awhile, and now canst run;
Awhile thou hast been blind, but seest now:
Go, leap and praise thy God for strength new-won–
But I am not as thou.
Pain comes of sudden hurt or slow disease;
Break thou a bone, the surgeon sets it well–
But show him leprous sores–will he cure these?
Alas, thou canst not tell.
Life as it is, and must be, and has been
No piecemeal penitence can show aright,
Deeming the one part foul, the other clean,
Here black, and there snow-white.
That this day week, I left my task unwrought;
That yesterday, I said not what I meant;
That one hour since, I grossly sinned in thought–
Not thus do I repent.
Nor do I lay a finger on my shame,
Calling this nerve, that muscle, falsely built;
I can but say–“This Self, this physical frame,
Is one incarnate Guilt.”
Could I believe thy glorious Gospel true,
That were no cure for this organic ill:
Can Christ unweave my tissues, mould anew
The matrix of my will?
My grief has no beginning and no end;
I do repent of antenatal sin,
Whose poisoning juices thread my veins, and blend
With the fresh life within.
That in my blood this virus I must keep
To-morrow, next week, next month, all my years,
Until my day of death–for this I weep
With ignominious tears.
THIRD VOICE.
Nay, hope is thine! Who chants this grim complaint
Has steadfast heart, free mind, and insight keen;
Such man may purge away the leprous taint
While yet he cries “Unclean!”
Daily thy tissues die–are born afresh
Daily, not moving thee to joy or dole;
Yet all the slow mutations of thy flesh
Gently transmute thy soul.
Go, live in hope and labour, fearing nought;
Starve the foul germs of hate, and lust, and greed;
Force day by day thy brain to patient thought,
Thy hand to earnest deed.
Page 296
Long were the darkling months before thy birth,
Long years regenerate a frame defiled:
It may be thou shalt enter heaven on earth
Clean as a pure-born child.
(Constance Naden)
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