Fashion in Religion

When baptized Mammon builds a lofty fane
    To him who blessed the poor and chid[e] the rich,
Wealth lauds her sons in many a gorgeous pane,
    And leaves to God a dim, mysterious niche.
To spirits hungering for the living bread
    She cries, “Lo, here my votaries throng to pray!”
They bow to one for two millenniums dead,
    And, justified by Fashion, go their way!

Fashion in Faith? Nay, let your milliner hand
    Drape, if you will, the crimson altar-cloth,
Gild a rood-screen, or fold a curate’s hand
    With dainty art, and truth shall not be wroth.
But dare not, impious, lay your measuring tape
    On the God-shoulders in vast gloom withdrawn,
To give his robe of thunder-woof the shape
    Of your last mode in sacerdotal lawn!

The wooden cross is heavier than the gold.
    The patient poor hide that; but this ye flaunt
With diamonds flashing, and in velvet fold
    Your dainty prayers indexed for every want,
Pride holds the spirit from heaven’s love apart.
    The baby, rocked in silk and elder-down,
Lies not so closely to the mother’s heart
    As one who nestles in the parted gown,
And feels the throb it kindles at the start.

Custom may mould the boudoir’s languid mood,
    Or franker courtesies of full-breasted life,
And stroke to smooth felicities the rude,
    Half-meant, half-blundering elements of strife.
Over the awe-hushed questions of the soul,
    Of Life Eternal and Eternal Death,
Mute be her voice, and banished her control:
    The Abyss repels her mincing “shibboleth”!

Alone upon the mountains of high thought,
    Alone in gloomy vales of doubt and fear,
The earnest soul its conquering way has fought
    From clay to spirit, from mist to vision clear.
Deafened by tumults of the warring creeds,
    Go, baffled seeker, to the silent deeps
Of thy own soul, and where its yearning leads
    Follow till light from utter darkness leaps!
Far from the noises comes the heavenly call,
    The secret heart is God’s divinest niche.

What only echoes is an empty wall.
    Blindfold to chase a leader finds the ditch,
There is no field where foul seed may not fall,
    No good but needs thy watchful care to reach.
Let fearless reason and warm heart pluck out
    From error’s tares the true wheat’s golden sheaf;
No man shall chide thee for an honest doubt,
    No angel bless thee for a sham belief!