To mould life as we choose it, shows our choice: 
That’s our one act, the previous work’s his own. 
You criticise the soul? it reared this tree—­
This broad life and whatever fruit it bears! 
What matter though I doubt at every pore, 610
Head-doubts, heart-doubts, doubts at my fingers’ ends,
Doubts in the trivial work of every day,
Doubts at the very bases of my soul
In the grand moments when she probes herself—­
If finally I have a life to show,
The thing I did, brought out in evidence
Against the thing done to me underground
By hell and all its brood, for aught I know? 
I say, whence sprang this? shows it faith or doubt? 
All’s doubt in me; where’s break of faith in this? 620
It is the idea, the feeling and the love,
God means mankind should strive for and show forth
Whatever be the process to that end—­
And not historic knowledge, logic sound,
And metaphysical acumen, sure! 
“What think ye of Christ,” friend? when all’s done and said,
Like you this Christianity or not? 
It may be false, but will you wish it true? 
Has it your vote to be so if it can? 
Trust you an instinct silenced long ago 630
That will break silence and enjoin you love
What mortified philosophy is hoarse,
And all in vain, with bidding you despise? 
If you desire faith—­then you’ve faith enough: 
What else seeks God—­nay, what else seek ourselves? 
You form a notion of me, we’ll suppose,
On hearsay; it’s a favorable one: 
“But still” (you add) “there was no such good man,
Because of contradiction in the facts. 
One proves, for instance, he was born in Rome, 640
This Blougram; yet throughout the tales of him
I see he figures as an Englishman.” 
Well, the two things are reconcilable. 
But would I rather you discovered that,
Subjoining—­“Still, what matter though they be? 
Blougram concerns me naught, born here or there.”

Pure faith indeed—­you know not what you ask! 
Naked belief in God the Omnipotent,
0mniscient, Omnipresent, sears too much
The sense of conscious creatures to be borne. 650
It were the seeing him, no flesh shall dare. 
Some think, Creation’s meant to show him forth: 
I say it’s meant to hide him all it can,
And that’s what all the blessed evil’s for. 
Its use in Time is to environ us,
Our breath, our drop of dew, with shield enough
Against that sight till we can bear its stress. 
Under a vertical sun, the exposed brain
And lidless eye and disemprisoned heart
Less certainly would wither up at once 660
Than mind, confronted with the truth of him. 
But time and earth case-harden us to live;
The feeblest sense is trusted most; the child
Feels God a moment, ichors o’er the place,
Plays on and grows to be a man like us. 
With me, faith means perpetual unbelief