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.

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 had 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? 

External links

• An essay discussing the poem's historical antecedents.