LVIII.

THE SOUL'S CONTROVERSY WITH NATURE.

The wish, that of the living whole
No life may fail beyond the grave,
Derives it not from what we have
The likest God within the soul?

Are God and Nature then at strife,
That Nature lends such evil dreams?
So careful of the type she seems,
So careless of the single life;

That I, considering everywhere
Her secret meaning in her deeds,
And finding that of fifty seeds
She often brings but one to bear,

I falter where I firmly trod,

And falling with my weight of cares
Upon the great world's altar-stairs
That slope thro' darkness up to God,

I stretch lame hands of faith, and grope,
And gather dust and chaff, and call
To what I feel is Lord of all,

And faintly trust the larger hope.

"So careful of the type?" but no,
From scarped cliff and quarried stone
She cries, "A thousand types are gone:
I care for nothing, all shall go.

"Thou makest thine appeal to me:
I bring to life, I bring to death:
The spirit does but mean the breath:
I know no more." And he, shall he,

Man, her last work, who seem'd so fair,
Such splendid purpose in his eyes,
Who roll'd the psalm to wintry skies,
Who built him fanes of fruitless prayer,

Who trusted God was love indeed
And love Creation's final law--
Tho' Nature, red in tooth and claw.
With ravine, shriek'd against his creed-

Who loved, who suffer'd countless ills,
Who battled for the True, the Just,
Be blown about the desert dust,

Or seal'd within the iron hills?

No more? A monster then, a dream,
A discord. Dragons of the prime,
That tare each other in their slime,
Were mellow music match'd with him.

O life as futile, then, as frail!
O for thy voice to soothe and bless!
What hope of answer, or redress?
Behind the veil, behind the veil.

LIX.

PROFOUNDER FAITH THE ISSUE OF COURAGEOUS TRUTH SEEKING.

You say, but with no touch of scorn,
Sweet-hearted, you, whose light-blue eyes

Are tender over drowning flies,

You tell me, doubt is Devil-born.

I know not: one indeed I knew
In many a subtle question versed,
Who touch'd a jarring lyre at first,
But ever strove to make it true:

Perplext in faith, but pure in deeds,
At last he beat his music out.
There lives more faith in honest doubt,
Believe me, than in half the creeds.

He fought his doubts and gather'd strength,
He would not make his judgment blind,
He faced the spectres of the mind
And laid them: thus he came at length

To find a stronger faith his own;
And Power was with him in the night,
Which makes the darkness and the light,
And dwells not in the light alone,

But in the darkness and the cloud,
As over Sinaï's peaks of old,

While Israel made their gods of gold,
Altho' the trumpet blew so loud.

LX.

RING OUT THE FALSE, RING IN THE TRUE.

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light:
The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die,

Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.

Ring out the grief that saps the mind,
For those that here we see no more;
Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
Ring in redress to all mankind.

Ring out a slowly dying cause,
And ancient forms of party strife;
Ring in the nobler modes of life,
With sweeter manners, purer laws.

Ring out the want, the care, the sin,
The faithless coldness of the times;
Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes,
But ring the fuller minstrel in.

Ring out false pride in place and blood,

The civic slander and the spite;

Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.

Ring out old shapes of foul disease;
Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace.

Ring in the valiant man and free,
The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
Ring out the darkness of the land,
Ring in the Christ that is to be.

NOTES.

RELIGION OF EGYPT.

I.

I have selected this passage as a characteristic specimen of the famous Book of the Dead. It is from the 125th Chapter, which Mr. RENOUF1 says "certainly contains the oldest known code of private and public morality." Mr. R. S. POOLE in his article on Egypt in the 9th edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica, after referring to the efforts of various scholars to decipher and render intelligible the Book of the Dead, writes "it must remain a marvel of confusion and poverty of thought." I certainly have been disappointed in my hopes of finding in it valuable material for the purposes of this Anthology. But perhaps the estimate formed by Mr. POOLE and others may be due to the circumstance that Egyptologists have not so far had the means in their power of doing justice to the work. The only English translation we possess is that by the late Dr. Samuel Birch. On perusing this translation I found it too incomplete for reproduction, and judged it best to anglicize the French of M. PAUL PIERRET, 3 the only other translator who has yet had the courage to undertake a modern version, and who has had the advantage of coming fifteen years after the English scholar.

M. PIERRET in his Preface asks "Une traduction irréprochable et définitive du Livre des Morts, est-elle possible aujourd'hui? Le sera-t-elle même

1 The Origin and Growth of Religion as illustrated by the Religion of Ancient Egypt (Hibbert Lectures) by P. LE PAGE RENOUF [1879], 2nd Edit. 1884, p. 195.

2 Contained in BUNSEN'S Egypt's Place in Universal History, vol. V, 1867. Since the above was written English translations have appeared (a) by Dr. C. H. S. DAVIS, with 99 facsimile plates, 4to. New York & London [1894] third Edit. 1895; (b) by Dr. E. A. WALLIS BUDGE, with transliteration, printed for the Trustees of the British Museum, London. 1895.

3 Le Livre des Morts des anciens Égyptiens: traduction complète d'après le papyrus de Turin et les MSS. du Louvre, Paris, 1882.