Ho! Ho! Ho! Santa Claus' Reading List

by A. A. Milne

  For, among other doctrines delectable,

  Was he not surely the first to insist on

  The natural sovereignty of our race?—

  Here the lecturer came to a pausing-place.

  And while his cough, like a drouthy piston,

  Tried to dislodge the husk that grew to him,

  I seized the occasion of bidding adieu to him,

  The vesture still within my hand.

  * * *

  XVI

  * * *

  I could interpret its command.

  This time he would not bid me enter

  The exhausted air-bell of the Critic.

  Truth's atmosphere may grow mephitic

  When Papist struggles with Dissenter,

  Impregnating its pristine clarity,

  —One, by his daily fare's vulgarity,

  Its gust of broken meat and garlic;

  —One, by his soul's too-much presuming

  To turn the frankincense's fuming

  And vapours of the candle starlike

  Into the cloud her wings she buoys on.

  Each, that thus sets the pure air seething,

  May poison it for healthy breathing—

  But the Critic leaves no air to poison;

  Pumps out with ruthless ingenuity

  Atom by atom, and leaves you—vacuity.

  Thus much of Christ does he reject?

  And what retain? His intellect?

  What is it I must reverence duly?

  Poor intellect for worship, truly,

  Which tells me simply what was told

  (If mere morality, bereft

  Of the God in Christ, be all that's left)

  Elsewhere by voices manifold;

  With this advantage, that the stater

  Made nowise the important stumble

  Of adding, he, the sage and humble,

  Was also one with the Creator.

  You urge Christ's followers' simplicity:

  But how does shifting blame, evade it?

  Have wisdom's words no more felicity?

  The stumbling-block, his speech—who laid it?

  How comes it that for one found able

  To sift the truth of it from fable,

  Millions believe it to the letter?

  Christ's goodness, then—does that fare better?

  Strange goodness, which upon the score

  Of being goodness, the mere due

  Of man to fellow-man, much more

  To God,—should take another view

  Of its possessor's privilege,

  And bid him rule his race! You pledge

  Your fealty to such rule? What, all—

  From heavenly John and Attic Paul,

  And that brave weather-battered Peter,

  Whose stout faith only stood completer

  For buffets, sinning to be pardoned,

  As, more his hands hauled nets, they hardened,—

  All, down to you, the man of men,

  Professing here at Göttingen,

  Compose Christ's flock! They, you and I,

  Are sheep of a good man! And why?

  The goodness,—how did he acquire it?

  Was it self-gained, did God inspire it?

  Choose which; then tell me, on what ground

  Should its possessor dare propound

  His claim to rise o'er us an inch?

  Were goodness all some man's invention,

  Who arbitrarily made mention

  What we should follow, and whence flinch,—

  What qualities might take the style

  Of right and wrong,—and had such guessing

  Met with as general acquiescing ⁠960

  As graced the alphabet erewhile,

  When A got leave an Ox to be,

  No Camel (quoth the Jews) like G3,—

  For thus inventing thing and title

  Worship were that man's fit requital.

  But if the common conscience must

  Be ultimately judge, adjust

  Its apt name to each quality

  Already known,—I would decree

  Worship for such mere demonstration

  And simple work of nomenclature,

  Only the day I praised, not nature,

  But Harvey, for the circulation.

  I would praise such a Christ, with pride

  And joy, that he, as none beside,

  Had taught us how to keep the mind

  God gave him, as God gave his kind,

  Freer than they from fleshly taint:

  I would call such a Christ our Saint,

  As I declare our Poet, him

  Whose insight makes all others dim:

  A thousand poets pried at life,

  And only one amid the strife

  Rose to be Shakespeare: each shall take

  His crown, I'd say, for the world's sake—

  Though some objected—"Had we seen

  "The heart and head of each, what screen

  "Was broken there to give them light,

  "While in ourselves it shuts the sight,

  "We should no more admire, perchance,

  "That these found truth out at a glance,

  "Than marvel how the bat discerns

  "Some pitch-dark cavern's fifty turns,

  "Led by a finer tact, a gift

  "He boasts, which other birds must shift

  "Without, and grope as best they can."

  No, freely I would praise the man,—

  Nor one whit more, if he contended

  That gift of his, from God descended.

  Ah friend, what gift of man's does not?

  No nearer something, by a jot,

  Rise an infinity of nothings

  Than one: take Euclid for your teacher:

  Distinguish kinds: do crownings, clothings,

  Make that creator which was creature?

  Multiply gifts upon man's head,

  And what, when all's done, shall be said

  But—the more gifted he, I ween!

  That one's made Christ, this other, Pilate,

  And this might be all that has been,—

  So what is there to frown or smile at?

  What is left for us, save, in growth

  Of soul, to rise up, far past both,

  From the gift looking to the giver,

  And from the cistern to the river,

  And from the finite to infinity,

  And from man's dust to God's divinity?

  * * *

  XVII

  * * *

  Take all in a word: the truth in God's breast

  Lies trace for trace upon curs impressed:

  Though he is so bright and we so dim,

  We are made in his image to witness him:

  And were no eye in us to tell,

  Instructed by no inner sense,

  The light of heaven from the dark of hell,

  That light would want its evidence,—

  Though justice, good and truth were still

  Divine, if, by some demon's will,

  Hatred and wrong had been proclaimed

  Law through the worlds, and right misnamed.

  No mere exposition of morality

  Made or in part or in totality,

  Should win you to give it worship, therefore:

  And, if no better proof you will care for,

  —Whom do you count the worst man upon earth?

  Be sure, he knows, in his conscience, more

  Of what right is, than arrives at birth

  In the best man's acts that we bow before:

  This last knows better—true, but my fact is,

  'Tis one thing to know, and another to practise.

  And thence I conclude that the real God-function

  Is to furnish a motive and injunction

  For practising what we know already.

  And such an injunction and such a motive

  As the God in Christ, do you waive, and "heady,

 
"High-minded," hang your tablet-votive

  Outside the fane on a finger-post?

  Morality to the uttermost,

  Supreme in Christ as we all confess,

  Why need we prove would avail no jot

  To make him God, if God he were not?

  What is the point where himself lays stress?

  Does the precept run "Believe in good,

  "In justice, truth, now understood

  "For the first time?"—or, "Believe in me,

  "Who lived and died, yet essentially

  "Am Lord of Life?" Whoever can take

  The same to his heart and for mere love's sake

  Conceive of the love,—that man obtains

  A new truth; no conviction gains

  Of an old one only, made intense

  By a fresh appeal to his faded sense.

  * * *

  XVIII

  * * *

  Can it be that he stays inside?

  Is the vesture left me to commune with?

  Could my soul find aught to sing in tune with

  Even at this lecture, if she tried?

  Oh, let me at lowest sympathize

  With the lurking drop of blood that lies

  In the desiccated brain's white roots

  Without throb for Christ's attributes,

  As the lecturer makes his special boast!

  If love's dead there, it has left a ghost.

  Admire we, how from heart to brain

  (Though to say so strike the doctors dumb)

  One instinct rises and falls again,

  Restoring the equilibrium.

  And how when the Critic had done his best,

  And the pearl of price, at reason's test,

  Lay dust and ashes levigable

  On the Professor's lecture-table,—

  When we looked for the inference and monition

  That our faith, reduced to such condition,

  Be swept forthwith to its natural dust-hole,—

  He bids us, when we least expect it,

  Take back our faith,—if it be not just whole,

  Yet a pearl indeed, as his tests affect it,

  Which fact pays damage done rewardingly,

  So, prize we our dust and ashes accordingly!

  "Go home and venerate the myth

  "I thus have experimented with—

  "This man, continue to adore him ⁠1090

  "Rather than all who went before him,

  "And all who ever followed after!"—

  Surely for this I may praise you, my brother!

  Will you take the praise in tears or laughter?

  That's one point gained: can I compass another?

  Unlearned love was safe from spurning—

  Can't we respect your loveless learning?

  Let us at least give learning honour!

  What laurels had we showered upon her,

  Girding her loins up to perturb

  Our theory of the Middle Verb;

  Or Turk-like brandishing a scimitar

  O'er anapasts in comic-trimeter;

  Or curing the halt and maimed "Iketides4,"

  While we lounged on at our indebted ease:

  Instead of which, a tricksy demon

  Sets her at Titus or Philemon!

  When ignorance wags his ears of leather

  And hates God's word, 'tis altogether;

  Nor leaves he his congenial thistles

  To go and browse on Paul's Epistles.

  —And you, the audience, who might ravage

  The world wide, enviably savage,

  Nor heed the cry of the retriever,

  More than Herr Heine (before his fever),—

  I do not tell a lie so arrant

  As say my passion's wings are furled up,

  And, without plainest heavenly warrant,

  I were ready and glad to give the world up—

  But still, when you rub brow meticulous,

  And ponder the profit of turning holy

  If not for God's, for your own sake solely,

  —God forbid I should find you ridiculous!

  Deduce from this lecture all that eases you,

  Nay, call yourselves, if the calling pleases you,

  "Christians,"—abhor the deist's pravity,—

  Go on, you shall no more move my gravity

  Than, when I see boys ride a-cockhorse,

  I find it in my heart to embarrass them

  By hinting that their stick's a mock horse,

  And they really carry what they say carries them.

  * * *

  XIX

  * * *

  So sat I talking with my mind.

  I did not long to leave the door

  And find a new church, as before,

  But rather was quiet and inclined

  To prolong and enjoy the gentle resting

  From further tracking and trying and testing.

  "This tolerance is a genial mood!"

  (Said I, and a little pause ensued).

  "One trims the bark 'twixt shoal and shelf,

  "And sees, each side, the good effects of it,

  "A value for religion's self,

  "A carelessness about the sects of it.

  "Let me enjoy my own conviction,

  "Not watch my neighbour's faith with fretfulness,

  "Still spying there some dereliction

  "Of truth, perversity, forgetfulness!"

  Better a mild indifferentism,

  "Teaching that both our faiths (though duller

  "His shine through a dull spirit's prism)

  "Originally had one colour!

  "Better pursue a pilgrimage

  "Through ancient and through modern times

  "To many peoples, various climes,

  "Where I may see saint, savage, sage

  "Fuse their respective creeds in one

  "Before the general Father's throne!"

  * * *

  XX

  * * *

  —'Twas the horrible storm began afresh!

  The black night caught me in his mesh,

  Whirled me up, and flung me prone.

  I was left on the college-step alone.

  I looked, and far there, ever fleeting

  Far, far away, the receding gesture,

  And looming of the lessening vesture!—

  Swept forward from my stupid hand,

  While I watched my foolish heart expand

  In the lazy glow of benevolence,

  O'er the various modes of man's belief.

  I sprang up with fear's vehemence.

  Needs must there be one way, our chief

  Best way of worship: let me strive

  To find it, and when found, contrive

  My fellows also take their share!

  This constitutes my earthly care:

  God's is above it and distinct.

  For I, a man, with men am linked

  But not a brute with brutes; no gain

  That I experience, must remain

  Unshared: but should my best endeavour

  To share it, fail—subsisteth ever

  God's care above, and I exult

  That God, by God's own ways occult,

  May—doth, I will believe—bring back

  All wanderers to a single track.

  Meantime, I can but testify

  God's care for me—no more, can I—

  It is but for myself I know;

  The world rolls witnessing around me

  Only to leave me as it found me;

  Men cry there, but my ear is slow:

  There races flourish or decay

  —What boots it, while yon lucid way

  Loaded with stars divides the vault?

  But soon my soul repairs its fault

  When, sharpening sense's hebetude,

  She turns on my own life! So viewed,

  No mere mote's-breadth but teems immense

  With witnessings of providence:

&n
bsp; And woe to me if when I look

  Upon that record, the sole book

  Unsealed to me, I take no heed

  Of any warning that I read!

  Have I been sure, this Christmas-Eve,

  God's own hand did the rainbow weave,

  Whereby the truth from heaven slid

  Into my soul?—I cannot bid

  The world admit he stooped to heal

  My soul, as if in a thunder-peal

  Where one heard noise, and one saw flame,

  I only knew he named my name:

  But what is the world to me, for sorrow

  Or joy in its censure, when to-morrow

  It drops the remark, with just-turned head

  Then, on again, 'That man is dead'?

  Yes, but for me—my name called,—drawn

  As a conscript's lot from the lap's black yawn,

  He has dipt into on a battle-dawn:

  Bid out of life by a nod, a glance,—

  Stumbling, mute-mazed, at nature's chance,

  With a rapid finger circled round,

  Fixed to the first poor inch of ground

  To fight from, where his foot was found;

  Whose ear but a minute since lay free

  To the wide camp's buzz and gossipry—

  Summoned, a solitary man

  To end his life where his life began,

  From the safe glad rear, to the dreadful van!

  Soul of mine, hadst thou caught and held

  By the hem of the vesture!—

  * * *

  XXI

  * * *

  And I caught

  At the flying robe, and unrepelled

  Was lapped again in its folds full-fraught

  With warmth and wonder and delight,

  God's mercy being infinite.

  For scarce had the words escaped my tongue,

  When, at a passionate bound, I sprung,

  Out of the wandering world of rain,

  Into the little chapel again.

  * * *

  XXII

  * * *

  How else was I found there, bolt upright

  On my bench, as if I had never left it?

  —Never flung out on the common at night,

  Nor met the storm and wedge-like cleft it,

  Seen the raree-show of Peter's successor,

  Or the laboratory of the Professor!

  For the Vision, that was true, I wist,

  True as that heaven and earth exist.

  There sat my friend, the yellow and tall,

  With his neck and its wen in the selfsame place;