In St Peters

…The convert talks to his friend

A noble structure truly! as you say, —
Clear, spacious, large in feeling and design,
Just what a church should be — I grant alway
There may be faults, great faults, yet I opine
Less on the whole than elsewhere may be found.
But let its faults go — out of human thought
Was nothing ever builded, written, wrought,
That one can say is whole, complete, and round;
Your snarling critic gloats upon defects,
And any fool among the architects
Can pick you out a hundred different flaws;
But who of them, with all his talking, draws
A church to match it? View it as a whole,
Not part by part, with those mean little eyes,
That cannot love, but only criticize,
How grand a body! with how large a soul!

Seen from without, how well it bodies forth
Rome's proud religion — nothing mean and small
In its proportion, and above it all
A central dome of thought, a forehead bare
That rises in this soft Italian air
Big with its intellect, — and far away,
When lesser domes have sunken in the earth,
Stands for all Rome uplifted in the day,
An art-born brother of the mountains there.
See what an invitation it extends
To the world's pilgrims, be they foes or friends.
Its colonnades, with wide embracing arms,
Spread forth as if to bless and shield from harms,
And draw them to its heart, the inner shrine,
From the grand outer precincts, where alway
The living fountains wave their clouds of spray,
And temper with cool sound the hot sunshine.

Step in — behind your back the curtain swings;
The world is left outside with worldly things.
How still! save where vague echoes rise and fall,
Dying along the distance — what a sense
Of peace and silence hovers over all,
That tones the marbled aisle's magnificence,
And frescoed vaults and ceilings deep with gold,
To its own quiet. — See! how grand and bold,
Key of the whole, swells up the airy dome
Where the apostles hold their lofty home,
And angels hover in the misted height,
And amber shafts of sunset bridge with light
Its quivering air — while low the organ groans,
And from the choir's gilt cages tangling tones
Whirl fugueing up, and play and float aloft,
And in its vast bell die in echoes soft.

And mark! our church hath its own atmosphere,
That varies not with seasons of the year,
But ever keeps its even temperate air,
And soft, large light without offensive glare.
No sombre, gothic sadness here abides
To awe the sense — no sullen shadow hides
In its clear spaces — but a light as warm
And broad as charity smiles o'er the whole,
And joyous art and color's festal charm
Refine the senses, and uplift the soul.

You scorn the aid of color, exile art,
And with cold dogmas seek to move the heart;
But still the heart rebels, for man is wrought
Of God and clay, of senses as of thought.
Religion is not logic, — husks of creeds
Will never satisfy the spirit's needs.
Strain up with high theologies the wise,
But not the less with art's sweet mysteries
Cling to the common heart of man, content
To save him, though it be through sentiment.
You whip the intellect to heaven with pain,
And Beauty with her fair enchanting train
From out your cold bare church is rudely driven;

And yet what matters it how heaven we gain
If at the last we really get to heaven?
No! You are wrong; the end at last must be,
That the heart, struggling with such sophistry,
Breaks through the fine-spun web of logic — yearns
For Love and Beauty, and to us returns;
Or worse, it starves to death, and left alone
The head to godless madness journeys on.
The strongest wings too sternly strained, must droop,
Give them a happy earth on which to stoop.

There is no folly like asceticism
When preached to all — Religion's but a prism
That makes truth blue to this, to that one brown;
One hugs his lash, for God to him's a frown;
One would prefer a kindly Devil's hell
To heaven, if with an angry God to dwell.
And why should you, in this great world of ours,
Give God the wheat, and give the Devil flowers?
Think you that any child was ever born,
Loved not the poppies better than the corn?
And for the most part we are children here,
That hold our Father's hand, and call him — dear.

The head is narrow, but the heart is broad,
And through the senses doors by thousands lead
To Love's pure temple — and the very God
Comes through them oftentimes when least we heed;
Yet, though an angel at their door should come,
And knock for entrance, both his flushing wings
Radiant with love's warm hues and colorings,
You cry, "No entrance here, go back to Rome,
Devil in angel's shape! they'll let you in —
Or, if you be no tempting shape of sin, -
Enter the great door of the intellect,
That is the only entrance to our sect."
Think you not God frowns, and the angel weeps,
Turning away? Great Nature never creeps
Into such narrow schemes — where'er she goes
Flowers laugh before her — from toil's planted rows

. . . .

You could not stand apart,
I knew you must be stirred — you have a heart.
Was it not wondrous, when the multitude,
With a vast murmur, like a wind-swayed wood,
Dropped to its knees, and sudden bayonets flashed
A cold gray gleam, and clanging side-arms clashed
Upon the pavement, as along the nave
The helms of guards went down with dropping wave
Of their long horsehair, — and a silence deep
And full of awe above us seemed to sweep,
Like some great angel's wing, 'neath which all hearts
Were shadowed — till from out the silence starts
A silver strain of trumpets, sweet and clear,
That soars and grows in the hushed atmosphere,
And swells along the aisles, and up the height
Of the deep dome, and dies in dizzy flight
Among the cherubs — and we know above
The incarnate Christ is looking down in love —
And then, when all was over, like a weight
Too great to bear uplifted from the heart,
The crowd rose up and rustled all elate —
Ah, friend! the soul is touched by all this art —
But come — the crowd moves — shall we too
depart?

[Extracts]