VIII.

Enough of this.—Twas time for him to turn
To some profession now, and haply learn
How in the hungry press of smugglers best
The means of life his own right hand may wrest.
But better is the narrow, humble sphere
Which sets from childhood's days before the eyes
Some calling which to climb to were a prize—
page 63 Which, difficult to win, is therefore dear—
Than wider means which leave the cultured lad
Himself to choose what path of life to run—
Let Fancy tell what Duty should be done,
Make worthless what can be for wishing had,
And prove how too much choice is worse than none.
And this felt Ranolf—puzzled sore to name
Church—Physic—Law—which most attractive seemed,
Or rather least repulsive should be deemed.

What marvellous study like the human frame!
What webs and tissues by that living loom
Woven to rarest texture, richest bloom;
What wefts and warps of flexile ducts that wind
In never-tangled courses intertwined;
What mechanisms intricate, exact,
In orderly profusion ranged and packed;
What cunning cordage curiously inlaced;
What delicate engines of supply and waste;
What line concoctions and witch-juices strange
For metamorphosis and magic change;
What subtlest forces balanced and combined;
Leaving poor human skill so far behind,
All Art seems artless, all Invention blind!
But then how saddening, that superb array
No more in healthy and harmonious play,
But festering in disorder and decay!
What grander triumph can Experience show
Than the cool surgeon's, who, in conquering strife
With fell disease, with science-guided knife
Dares open wide the dreadful door of Life
Some perilous moments, and his dexterous feat
Of desperate rescue rapidly complete
page 64 With sure decisive stroke, lest the grim Foe
Should entrance gain and all his work o'erthrow!
"Aye!" thought our student, with a transient glow,
"For object so exalted who denies
The labour of a life were well bestowed?
But then, alas! to that proud power the road
Through fetid chambers of Dissection lies
Whereat a very Ghoul's foul gorge would rise,"

Well, cannot Law awake some genuine spark
Of true ambition—pay for patient toil?
What spectacle more pleasing than to mark
Some Master of inimitable fence
Strike Falsehood to the heart through every foil
And feint of scoundrel skill? mark learning, sense.
And trained acumen flash their sunlike rays
Through all the vile, perversely winding ways
Of vice; illuminate the burrowed maze
And crannies Craft and Cunning know to shape,
And stop their every earthhole of escape!
Is not the Law a mighty mesh to snare
The many-shifted meanness of mankind?
Of cheated Innocence the Champion fair
Against all wrongs by tyrant wealth designed?
Its task, what nobler since the world began,
To sort and settle by right Reason's plan
All deeds Man does or duties owes to Man?
To stamp the drill and discipline of schools
On the rude progeny of fertile Chance
Through Time's still widening wilderness to chase
With the slow hounds of principles and rules
(Though mostly distanced in the dubious race)
page 65 The ever-doubling hares of Circumstance?
Nay! may not even youth's impatience glance
With pitying interest or perhaps with praise-—
At that mole-eyed devotion of old days
Which with such mousing perseverance strove—
Such creeping subtlety and crabbed love,
To fit dead forms to living ages, lacking
Responsive facts that made their sole defence;
In search of reasons, dull inventions racking
Fo aims that had to reason no pretence;
And stretching Ingenuity to cracking,
To reconcile absurdity to sense?—
"Fine theories all!" thought Ranolf—"but that bowl
Of Law—what golden bias guides its roll
We know; how riches crush the right—how long
Perverted learning bolsters up the wrong;
And doubtless as distasteful it must be
To dabble in diseased morality
As physical corruption. Is it true
Besides, that Wrong, like Right, to get its due,
Let Justice fairly judge between the two,
Must have its Advocate—whate'er he feel
To brawl and burst with simulated zeal?—
'Twere odious as, for those sly silent fees,
To cant condolement with high-fed Disease,
Paddle with Luxury's pampered pulse—and steal
Through sham sick rooms with cat-like pace and purr
Sleeking palled Fashion's pleasure-ruffled fur."

Try then the Church, "What Church?" our youngster sighed:
"Is there within the world's circumference wide
A Church or any Temple—in this dearth
Of Faith, with half her heavenly cables snapt,
page 66 Hope's anchor scarcely left—has life or worth
To make its intellectual votaries feel
What in old days they felt; that martyr zeal,
Forgetfulness of present self and rapt
Possession of the Infinite on Earth
That gave a grandeur to the Life it scorned?
But who would brook a church if unadorned
With absolute love of Truth? unless it gave
To Thought the utmost freedom it could crave;
Followed where'er it led, true Reason's light;
Avowed itself to Truth an utter slave,
Truth ever and Truth only—come what might?
And who that loved his own free soul could bear
To work, a digger in the dark gold mine
Of spiritual Truth, or bold researches try
Where scientific Doubts with deadly shine
Like Icebergs freeze, or Faith's bleached fragments lie
Whitening the hot Saharas of Despair—
Handcuffed and fettered with the leaden links
Of dogmas stereotyped—creeds cut-and-dry
And double-dry? heart-paralysed by dread
Of all but what smooth smug 'Society'
That feels by fashion and by custom thinks,
Gives pass and permit to? Whose Soul so dead
As dare assume the glorious character
Of Soul-Deliverer, trembling lest he stir
Some wash-tub of Formality about—
Dumb till it rage its tiny tempest out?
Or who with strangely grovelling Quixotry
Would think to quell the Evil all about
Wita candlesticks and censers?—satisfy
The crave for Infinite Good that cannot die.
With trim and tinselled haber dashery?
page 67 Who, in a fight so fierce in such an age,
With lackored shields and silvered wooden swords
Of ceremonious mummeries would engage?
With pagan posture-tricks such warfare wage
And pantomime, in place on Thespian boards—
Stage-twirlings in the death-tug! Who could dote
In imbecile expectance to assuage
Sharp pangs of soul with prayers run up by rote
In self-complacent trills with pompous throat?
Would any heart remorse had desperate driven.
Or milder sense of 'Sin' abased, on heaven
In accents guided by the gamut call.
And do-re-mi-sol-fa the God of All? "

His youthful scorn would graver minds endorse?—
A priesthood's duty is as great, of course,
Old Truth admitted to apply—enforce,
As to explore the Universe for new
But how much priestly truth is granted true?
Will Science check Truth's still increasing flow,
Whether it drown a drowsing Church or no?
Should not the eye be open?—hand be free
To seize at once whate'er the eye may see
Of nascent truth, and let the dying go?
What, if like Shepherds more than half asleep,
Over the gold-brown gloss a Priesthood keep
Vain watch, while half their sheep a-hungered stray
To succulent green pastures far away?
For Forms of Faith, though beautiful they be,
If e'er the Truths their living spirit, flee,
What are they like but cold and stony flowers,
These geysers boiling up through emerald bowers
In far-off islands he was soon to see,
page 68 Clothe with a sparry spume, that hardens white
Around the perished plant concealed from sight,
But still retains in delicate array
Each form of tiny leaf and tender spray,
Cold, crumbling, colourless—in lifeless pride—
No growing green, no circling sap inside!