Ere you set foot on shipboard?  “Six feet square!”
If you won’t understand what six feet mean,
Compute and purchase stores accordingly—­
And if, in pique because he overhauls
Your Jerome, piano, bath, you come on board
Bare—­why, you cut a figure at the first
While sympathetic landsmen see you off;
Not afterward, when long ere half seas over,
You peep up from your utterly naked boards 130
Into some snug and well-appointed berth,
Like mine for instance (try the cooler jug—­
Put back the other, but don’t jog the ice!)
And mortified you mutter “Well and good;
He sits enjoying his sea-furniture;
’Tis stout and proper, and there’s store of it;
Though I’ve the better notion, all agree,
Of fitting rooms up.  Hang the carpenter,
Neat ship-shape fixings and contrivances—­
I would have brought my Jerome, frame and all!” 140
And meantime you bring nothing:  never mind—­
You’ve proved your artist-nature:  what you don’t
You might bring, so despise me, as I say.

Now come, let’s backward to the starting-place. 
See my way:  we’re two college friends, suppose. 
Prepare together for our voyage, then;
Each note and check the other in his work—­
Here’s mine, a bishop’s outfit; criticise! 
What’s wrong? why won’t you be a bishop too?

Why first, you don’t believe, you don’t and can’t, 150
(Not statedly, that is, and fixedly
And absolutely and exclusively)
In any revelation called divine. 
No dogmas nail your faith; and what remains
But say so, like the honest man you are? 
First, therefore, overhaul theology! 
Nay, I too, not a fool, you please to think,
Must find believing every whit as hard: 
And if I do not frankly say as much,
The ugly consequence is clear enough. 160

Now wait, my friend:  well, I do not believe—­
If you’ll accept no faith that is not fixed,
Absolute and exclusive, as you say. 
You’re wrong—­I mean to prove it in due time. 
Meanwhile, I know where difficulties lie
I could not, cannot solve, nor ever shall,
So give up hope accordingly to solve—­
(To you, and over the wine).  Our dogmas then
With both of us, though in unlike degree,
Missing full credence—­overboard with them! 170
I mean to meet you on your own premise: 
Good, there go mine in company with yours!

And now what are we? unbelievers both,
Calm and complete, determinately fixed
To-day, to-morrow and forever, pray? 
You’ll guarantee me that?  Not so, I think! 
In no wise! all we’ve gained is, that belief,
As unbelief before, shakes us by fits,
Confounds us like its predecessor.  Where’s
The gain? how can we guard our unbelief, 180
Make it bear fruit to us?—­the problem here. 
Just when we are safest, there’s a sunset-touch,
A fancy from a flower-bell, some one’s death,