[Smant-users] Ss than that of the old method, and it saves those days a

[Gugliotta <dai...@in...>]

Lms and hallelujahs, to absorb and shine in the rejoicing of the
worshippers, to sink back again into the invisible upon the dying
strain. The second speaker describes the reaction, when the enthusiastic
belief of early times is replaced by a dull sense that no Face shines,
by a doubt if beyond the darkness and the distance there be yet a God
who will answer to the old rapture, a sun to rise when man's heart
rises, a love corresponding to his ecstasy:-- "Where may hide what came
and loved our clay? How shall the sage detect in yon expanse The star
which chose to stoop and stay for us? Unroll the records!" But the third
speaker bids the records be closed, that man may worship the God who
lives, instead of regretting that He lived of old. Take the least man,
observe his head and heart, find how he differs from every other man;
see how Nature by degrees grows around him, to nourish, infold, and set
him off, to enrich him with opportunities, as if he were her only
foster-child, and to flatter thus every other man in turn, making him
her darling as though in expectation of finding no other, till, having
extorted all his worth and beauty, and cherished him to the utmost of
his possible life, she rolls away elsewhere, continually keeping up this
pageant of humanity:-- "Why, where's the need of Temple, when the walls
O' the world are that? What use of swells and falls From Levites' choir,
Priests' cries, and trumpet-calls? That one Face, far from vanish,
rather grows, Or decomposes but to recompose, Become my universe that
feels and knows!" This is the true religion, hallowing the poet's gifts
and inviting them to celebrate and express it. We wish that the lines
would let their meaning meet us with a more level gaze. In the poem