Classic and Contemporary Poetry
A PREACHER, by AUGUSTA DAVIES WEBSTER Poet's Biography First Line: Lest that by any means Last Line: Dear jane, who thinks me half a saint. Alternate Author Name(s): Home, Cecil; Webster, Mrs. Julia Augusta Subject(s): Clergy; Priests; Rabbis; Ministers; Bishops | ||||||||
"Lest that by any means When I have preached to others I myself Should be a castaway." If some one now Would take that text and preach to us that preach,-- Some one who could forget his truths were old And what were in a thousand bawling mouths While they filled his--some one who could so throw His life into the old dull skeletons Of points and morals, inferences, proofs, Hopes, doubts, persuasions, all for time untold Worn out of the flesh, that one could lose from mind How well one knew his lesson, how oneself Could with another, may be choicer, style Enforce it, treat it from another view And with another logic--some one warm With the rare heart that trusts itself and knows Because it loves--yes such a one perchance, With such a theme, might waken me as I Have wakened others, I who am no more Than steward of an eloquence God gives For others' use not mine. But no one bears Apostleship for us. We teach and teach Until, like drumming pedagogues, we lose The thought that what we teach has higher ends Than being taught and learned. And if a man Out of ourselves should cry aloud, "I sin, And ye are sinning, all of us who talk Our Sunday half-hour on the love of God, Trying to move our peoples, then go home To sleep upon it and, when fresh again, To plan another sermon, nothing moved, Serving our God like clock-work sentinels, We who have souls ourselves," why I like the rest Should turn in anger: "Hush this charlatan Who, in his blatant arrogance, assumes Over us who know our duties." Yet that text Which galls me, what a sermon might be made Upon its theme! How even I myself Could stir some of our priesthood! Ah! but then Who would stir me? I know not how it is; I take the faith in earnest, I believe, Even at happy times I think I love, I try to pattern me upon the type My Master left us, am no hypocrite Playing my soul against good men's applause, Nor monger of the Gospel for a cure, But serve a Master whom I chose because It seemed to me I loved him, whom till now My longing is to love; and yet I feel A falseness somewhere clogging me. I seem Divided from myself; I can speak words Of burning faith and fire myself with them; I can, while upturned faces gaze on me As if I were their Gospel manifest, Break into unplanned turns as natural As the blind man's cry for healing, pass beyond My bounded manhood in the earnestness Of a messenger from God. And then I come And in my study's quiet find again The callous actor who, because long since He had some feelings in him like the talk The book puts in his mouth, still warms his pit And even, in his lucky moods, himself With the passion of his part, but lays aside His heroism with his satin suit And thinks "the part is good and well conceived And very natural--no flaw to find"-- And then forgets it. Yes I preach to others And am--I know not what--a castaway? No, but a man who feels his heart asleep, As he might feel his hand or foot. The limb Will not awake without a little shock, A little pain perhaps, a nip or blow, And that one gives and feels the waking pricks. But for one's heart I know not. I can give No shock to make mine prick. I seem to be Just such a man as those who claim the power Or have it, (say, to serve the thought), of willing That such a one should break an iron bar, And such a one resist the strength of ten, And the thing is done, yet cannot will themselves One least small breath of power beyond the wont. To-night now I might triumph. Not a breath But shivered when I pictured the dead soul Awaking when the body dies to know Itself has lived too late, and drew in long With yearning when I shewed how perfect love Might make Earth's self be but an earlier Heaven. And I may say and not be over-bold, Judging from former fruits, "Some one to-night Has come more near to God, some one has felt What it may mean to love Him, some one learned A new great horror against death and sin, Some one at least--it may be many." Yet-- And yet--Why I the preacher look for God, Saying "I know thee Lord, what I should see If I could see thee as some can on earth, But I do not see thee," and "I know thee Lord, What loving thee is like, as if I loved, But I cannot love thee." And even with the thought The answer grows "Thine is the greater sin," And I stand self-convicted yet not shamed, But quiet, reasoning why it should be thus, And almost wishing I could suddenly Fall in some awful sin, that so might come A living sense of God, if but by fear, And a repentance sharp as is the need. But now, the sin being indifference, Repentance too is tepid. There are some, Good men and honest though not overwise Nor studious of the subtler depths of minds Below the surface strata, who would teach, In such a case, to scare oneself awake (As girls do, telling ghost-tales in the dark), With scriptural terrors, all the judgments spoken Against the tyrant empires, all the wrath On them who slew the prophets and forsook Their God for Baal, and the awful threat For him whose dark dread sin is pardonless, So that in terror one might cling to God-- As the poor wretch, who, angry with his life, Has dashed into a dank and hungry pool, Learns in the death-gasp to love life again And clings unreasoning to the saving hand. Well I know some--for the most part with thin minds Of the effervescent kind, easy to froth, Though easier to let stagnate--who thus wrought Convulsive pious moods upon themselves And, thinking all tears sorrow and all texts Repentance, are in peace upon the trust That a grand necessary stage is past, And do love God as I desire to love. And now they'll look on their hysteric time And wonder at it, seeing it not real And yet not feigned. They'll say "A special time Of God's direct own working--you may see It was not natural." And there I stand In face with it, and know it. Not for me; Because I know it, cannot trust in it; It is not natural. It does not root Silently in the dark as God's seeds root, Then day by day move upward in the light. It does not wake a tremulous glimmering dawn, Then swell to perfect day as God's light does. It does not give to life a lowly child To grow by days and morrows to man's strength, As do God's natural birthdays. God who sets Some little seed of good in everything May bring his good from this, but not for one Who calmly says "I know--this is a dream, A mere mirage sprung up of heat and mist; It cannot slake my thirst: but I will try To fool my fancy to it, and will rush To cool my burning throat, as if there welled Clear waters in the visionary lake, That so perchance Heaven pitying me may send Its own fresh showers upon me." I perchance Might, with occasion, spite of steady will And steady nerve, bring on the ecstasy: But what avails without the simple faith? I should not cheat myself, and who cheats God? And wherefore should I count love more than truth, And buy the loving him with such a price, Even if 'twere possible to school myself To an unbased belief and love him more Only through a delusion? Not so, Lord. Let me not buy my peace, nay not my soul, At price of one least word of thy strong truth Which is Thyself. The perfect love must be When one shall know thee. Better one should lose The present peace of loving, nay of trusting, Better to doubt and be perplexed in soul Because thy truth seems many and not one, Than cease to seek thee, even through reverence, In the fulness and minuteness of thy truth. If it be sin, forgive me: I am bold, My God, but I would rather touch the ark To find if thou be there than--thinking hushed "'Tis better to believe, I will believe, Though, were't not for belief, 'tis far from proved"-- Shout with the people "Lo our God is there," And stun my doubts by iterating faith. And yet, I know not why it is, this knack Of sermon-making seems to carry me Athwart the truth at times before I know-- In little things at least; thank God the greater Have not yet grown by the familiar use Such puppets of a phrase as to slip by Without clear recognition. Take to-night-- I preached a careful sermon, gravely planned, All of it written. Not a line was meant To fit the mood of any differing From my own judgment: not the less I find-- (I thought of it coming home while my good Jane Talked of the Shetland pony I must get For the boys to learn to ride:) yes here it is, And here again on this page--blame by rote, Where by my private judgment I blame not. "We think our own thoughts on this day," I said, "Harmless it may be, kindly even, still "Not Heaven's thoughts--not Sunday thoughts I'll say." Well now do I, now that I think of it, Advise a separation of our thoughts By Sundays and by week-days, Heaven's and ours? By no means, for I think the bar is bad. I'll teach my children "Keep all thinkings pure, And think them when you like, if but the time Is free to any thinking. Think of God So often that in anything you do It cannot seem you have forgotten Him, Just as you would not have forgotten us, Your mother and myself, although your thoughts Were not distinctly on us, while you played; And, if you do this, in the Sunday's rest You will most naturally think of Him; Just as your thoughts, though in a different way, (God being the great mystery He is And so far from us and so strangely near), Would on your mother's birthday-holiday Come often back to her." But I'd not urge A treadmill Sunday labour for their mind, Constant on one forced round: nor should I blame Their constant chatter upon daily themes. I did not blame Jane for her project told, Though she had heard my sermon, and no doubt Ought, as I told my flock, to dwell on that. Then here again "the pleasures of the world That tempt the younger members of my flock." Now I think really that they've not enough Of these same pleasures. Grey and joyless lives A many of them have, whom I would see Sharing the natural gaieties of youth. I wish they'd more temptations of the kind. Now Donne and Allan preach such things as these Meaning them and believing. As for me, What did I mean? Neither to feign nor teach A Pharisaic service. 'Twas just this, That there are lessons and rebukes long made So much a thing of course that, unobserving, One sets them down as one puts dots to i's Crosses to t's. A simple carelessness; No more than that. There's the excuse--and I, Who know that every carelessness is falsehood Against my trust, what guide or check have I Being, what I have called myself, an actor Able to be awhile the man he plays But in himself a heartless common hack? I felt no falseness as I spoke the trash, I was thrilled to see it moved the listeners, Grew warmer to my task! 'Twas written well, Habit had made the thoughts come fluently As if they had been real-- Yes, Jane, yes, I hear you--Prayers and supper waiting me-- I'll come-- Dear Jane, who thinks me half a saint. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE SONG OF THE DEMENTED PRIEST by JOHN BERRYMAN HORATIO ALGER (1834-1899) by MADELINE DEFREES ELEGIES FOR THE OCHER DEER ON THE WALLS AT LASCAUX by NORMAN DUBIE IN THE TIME OF FALSE MESSIAHS; CIRCA 1648 by NORMAN DUBIE THE GUARDIAN OF THE RED DISK (SPOKEN BY A CITIZEN OF MALTA - 1300) by EMMA LAZARUS DOMESDAY BOOK: FATHER WHIMSETT by EDGAR LEE MASTERS DOMESDAY BOOK: REV. PERCY FERGUSON by EDGAR LEE MASTERS THIS SIDE OF CALVIN by PHYLLIS MCGINLEY WHAT WAS LEFT OVER; FOR SUJATA BHATT by ELEANOR WILNER CIRCE by AUGUSTA DAVIES WEBSTER |
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