Tiny Wiki : Fast loading, text only version of Wikipedia.

Johannes Agricola In Meditation

"Johannes Agricola in Meditation" (1836) is an early dramatic monologue by Robert Browning. The poem was first published in the ''Monthly Repository''; later, it appeared in ''Dramatic Lyrics'' (1842) paired with ''Porphyria's Lover'' under the title "Madhouse Cells."

Agricola's "meditations" serve primarily as a critique of Antinomianism. The speaker believes in an extreme form of predestination, claiming that, since he's one of the elect, he can commit any sin without forfeiting his afterlife in heaven.

Poem Text


There's heaven above, and night by night

I look right through its gorgeous roof;

No suns and moons though e'er so bright

Avail to stop me; splendour-proof

I keep the broods of stars aloof:

For I intend to get to God,

For 't is to God I speed so fast,

For in God's breast, my own abode,

Those shoals of dazzling glory, passed,

I lay my spirit down at last.

I lie where I have always lain,

God smiles as he has always smiled;

Ere suns and moons could wax and wane,

Ere stars were thundergirt, or piled

The heavens, God thought on me his child;

Ordained a life for me, arrayed

Its circumstances every one

To the minutest; ay, God said

This head this hand should rest upon

Thus, ere he fashioned star or sun.

And having thus created me,

Thus rooted me, he bade me grow,

Guiltless for ever, like a tree

That buds and blooms, nor seeks to know

The law by which it prospers so:

But sure that thought and word and deed

All go to swell his love for me,

Me, made because that love had need

Of something irreversibly

Pledged soley its content to be.

Yes, yes, a tree which much ascend,

No poison-gourd foredoomed to stoop!

I have God's warrant, could I blend

All hideous sins, as in a cup,

To drink the mingled venoms up;

Secure my nature will convert

The draught to blossoming gladness fast:

While sweet dews turn to the gourd's hurt,

And bloat, and while they bloat it, blast,

As from the first its lot was cast.

For as I lie, smiled on, full-fed

By unexhausted power to bless,

I gaze below on hell's fierce bed,

And those its waves of flame oppress,

Swarming in ghastly wretchedness;

Whose life on earth aspired to be

One altar-smoke, so pure! -- to win

If not love like God's love for me,

At least to keep his anger in;

And all their striving turned to sin.

Priest, doctor, hermit, monk grown white

With prayer, the broken-hearted nun,

The martyr, the wan acolyte,

The incense-swinging child, -- undone

Before God fashioned star or sun!

God, whom I praise; how could I praise,

If such as I might understand,

Make out and reckon on his ways,

And bargain for his love, and stand,

Paying a price at his right hand?'



Source: Wikipedia