Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Arthur Quiller-Couch, comp. The Oxford Book of Victorian Verse. 1922.

Johannes Agricola in Meditation

Robert Browning (1812–1889)

THERE ’S heaven above, and night by night,

I look right through its gorgeous roof;

No suns and moons tho’ e’er so bright

Avail to stop me; splendour-proof

I keep the broods of stars aloof:

For I intend to get to God,

For ’tis to God I speed so fast,

For in God’s breast, my own abode,

Those shoals of dazzling glory, pass’d,

I lay my spirit down at last.

I lie where I have always lain,

God smiles as He has always smiled;

Ere suns and moons could wax and wane,

Ere stars were thundergirt, or piled

The heavens, God thought on me his child;

Ordained a life for me, array’d

Its circumstances, every one

To the minutest; aye, God said

This head this hand should rest upon

Thus, ere He fashion’d star or sun.

And having thus created me,

Thus rooted me, He bade me grow,

Guiltless for ever, like a tree

That buds and blooms, nor seeks to know

The law by which it prospers so:

But sure that thought and word and deed

All go to swell his love for me,

Me, made because that love had need

Of something irrevocably

Pledged solely its content to be.

Yes, yes, a tree which must ascend,

No poison-gourd foredoom’d to stoop!

I have God’s warrant, could I blend

All hideous sins, as in a cup,

To drink the mingled venoms up,

Secure my nature will convert

The draught to blossoming gladness fast,

While sweet dews turn to the gourd’s hurt,

And bloat, and while they bloat it, blast,

As from the first its lot was cast.

For as I lie, smiled on, full fed

By unexhausted power to bless,

I gaze below on Hell’s fierce bed,

And those its waves of flame oppress,

Swarming in ghastly wretchedness;

Whose life on earth aspired to be

One altar-smoke, so pure!—to win

If not love like God’s love to me,

At least to keep his anger in;

And all their striving turn’d to sin.

Priest, doctor, hermit, monk grown white

With prayer, the broken-hearted nun,

The martyr, the wan acolyte,

The incense-swinging child,—undone

Before God fashion’d star or sun!

God, whom I praise; how could I praise,

If such as I might understand,

Make out and reckon on His ways,

And bargain for his love, and stand,

Paying a price, at his right hand?