LINES SUGGESTED BY THOSE IN LAST SPECTATOR ON GEORGE ELIOT'S
" ARMGART."
YET, Anngart, I would yield thy felt completeness,
And thy triumphal proof of power possess'd, To feel alone, deep in my soul, the sweetness Of a true faith in Heaven's eternal rest.
More gladly still would I thy gift surrender For language like St. Paul's, to make men feel The life of God's own spirit, true and tender, And keen and piercing like Damascus steel.
Surely 'tis more to feel oneself begetting Christ's holy will in man for patient strife, Than to have had and felt for once "the setting Of the dull monotones of human life."
Surely 'tie more to waken pure submission In God's own sons to do His sacred will, Or in their failure, bow them in contrition To hope and pray and trust the Father still,
Than to have merely reached the soul of sadness- By one fine effort of harmonious song,
Which never yet has touched the root of madness, Nor quenched our darker passions breeding wrong-- Something it is by melody's outpouring To express the yearning of our du,mb dire; But how much more to wing men's spirits, soaring Upward, by Hope's and Loves enkindlingfisel 'Tis good to stand for once upon the summit, Of genius all-triumphant for an hour ;, But how much better, by faith's soundingpinunnat, Of God's own love to know the depth_anipower.!
J. IL H.
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