| |
| NEVER, surely, was holier man | |
| Than Ambrose, since the world began: | |
| With diet spare and raiment thin | |
| He shielded himself from the father of sin; | |
| With bed of iron and scourgings oft, | 5 |
| His heart to God’s hand as wax made soft. | |
| |
| Through earnest prayer and watchings long | |
| He sought to know ’tween right and wrong, | |
| Much wrestling with the blessed Word | |
| To make it yield the sense of the Lord, | 10 |
| That he might build a storm-proof creed | |
| To fold the flock in at their need. | |
| |
| At last he builded a perfect faith, | |
| Fenced round about with, “The Lord thus saith”; | |
| To himself he fitted the doorway’s size, | 15 |
| Meted the light to the need of his eyes, | |
| And knew, by a sure and inward sign, | |
| That the work of his fingers was divine. | |
| |
| Then Ambrose said, “All those shall die | |
| The eternal death who believe not as I”; | 20 |
| And some were boiled, some burned in fire, | |
| Some sawn in twain, that his heart’s desire, | |
| For the good of men’s souls, might be satisfied | |
| By the drawing of all to the righteous side. | |
| |
| One day, as Ambrose was seeking the truth | 25 |
| In his lonely walk, he saw a youth | |
| Resting himself in the shade of a tree; | |
| It had never been granted him to see | |
| So shining a face, and the good man thought | |
| ’T were pity he should not believe as he ought. | 30 |
| |
| So he set himself by the young man’s side, | |
| And the state of his soul with questions tried; | |
| But the heart of the stranger was hardened indeed, | |
| Nor received the stamp of the one true creed; | |
| And the spirit of Ambrose waxed sore to find | 35 |
| Such face the porch of so narrow a mind. | |
| |
| “As each beholds in cloud and fire | |
| The shape that answers his own desire, | |
| So each,” said the youth, “in the Law shall find | |
| The figure and features of his mind; | 40 |
| And to each in his mercy hath God allowed | |
| His several pillar of fire and cloud.” | |
| |
| The soul of Ambrose burned with zeal | |
| And holy wrath for the young man’s weal: | |
| “Believest thou then, most wretched youth,” | 45 |
| Cried he, “a dividual essence in Truth? | |
| I fear me thy heart is too cramped with sin | |
| To take the Lord and his glory in.” | |
| |
| Now there bubbled beside them where they stood | |
| A fountain of waters sweet and good; | 50 |
| The youth to the streamlet’s brink drew near | |
| Saying, “Ambrose, thou maker of creeds, look here!” | |
| Six vases of crystal then he took, | |
| And set them along the edge of the brook. | |
| |
| “As into these vessels the water I pour, | 55 |
| There shall one hold less, another more, | |
| And the water unchanged, in every case, | |
| Shall put on the figure of the vase; | |
| O thou, who wouldst unity make through strife, | |
| Canst thou fit this sign to the Water of Life?” | 60 |
| |
| When Ambrose looked up, he stood alone, | |
| The youth and the stream and the vases were gone; | |
| But he knew, by a sense of humbled grace, | |
| He had talked with an angel face to face, | |
| And felt his heart change inwardly, | 65 |
| As he fell on his knees beneath the tree. | |
| |
