with it? Here, the parts shift?
Here, the creature surpass the Creator--the end what Began?
Would I fain in my impotent yearning do all for this man, 270
And dare doubt he alone shall not help him, who yet alone can?
Would it ever have entered my mind, the bare will, much less power,
To bestow on this Saul what I sang of, the marvelous dower
Of the life he was gifted and filled with? to make such a soul,
Such a body, and then such an earth for insphering the 275
whole?
And doth it not enter my mind (as my warm tears attest)
These good things being given, to go on, and give one more, the best?
Aye, to save and redeem and restore him, maintain at the height
This perfection--succeed with life's day-spring, death's minute of
night?
Interpose at the difficult minute, snatch Saul the mistake, 280
Saul the failure, the ruin he seems now--and bid him awake
From the dream, the probation, the prelude, to find himself set
Clear and safe in new light and new life--a new harmony yet
To be run, and continued, and ended--who knows?--or endure!
The man taught enough, by life's dream, of the rest to make 285
sure;
By the pain-throb, triumphantly winning intensified bliss,
And the next world's reward and repose, by the struggles in this.

XVIII

"I believe it! 'Tis thou, God, that givest, 'tis I who receive:
In the first is the last, in thy will is my power to believe.
All's one gift; thou canst grant it moreover, as prompt to 290
my prayer
As I breathe out this breath, as I open these arms to the air.
From thy will, stream the worlds, life and nature, thy dread Sabaoth:
_I_ will?--the mere atoms despise me! Why am I not loath
To look that, even that in the face too? Why is it I dare
Think but lightly of such impuissance? What stops my 295
despair?
This;--'tis not what man Does which exalts him, but what man Would
do!
See the King--I would help him but cannot, the wishes fall through.
Could I wrestle to raise him from sorrow, grow poor to enrich,
To fill up his life, starve my own out, I would--knowing which,
I know that my service is perfect. Oh, speak through me now! 300
Would I suffer for him that I love? So wouldst thou--so wilt thou!
So shall crown thee the topmost, ineffablest, uttermost crown--
And thy love fill inf