Risus Dei

Methinks in Him there dwells alway     A sea of laughter very deep,     Where the leviathans leap,     And little children play,     Their white feet twinkling on its crisped edge;     But in the outer bay     The strong man drives the wedge     Of polished limbs,     And swims.     Yet there is one will say:     'It is but shallow, neither is it broad'     And so he frowns; but is he nearer God?     One saith that God is in the note of bird,     And piping wind, and brook,     And all the joyful things that speak no word:     Then if from sunny nook     Or shade a fair child's laugh     Is heard,     Is not God half?     And if a strong man gird     His loins for laughter, stirred     By trick of ape or calf,     Is he no better than a cawing rook?     Nay 'tis a Godlike function; laugh thy fill!     Mirth comes to thee unsought;     Mirth sweeps before it like a flood the mill     Of languaged logic; thought     Hath not its source so high;     The will     Must let it by:     For though the heavens are still,     God sits upon His hill,     And sees the shadows fly;     And if He laughs at fools, why should He not?     'Yet hath a fool a laugh', Yea, of a sort;     God careth for the fools;     The chemic tools     Of laughter He hath given them, and some toys     Of sense, as 'twere a small retort     Wherein they may collect the joys     Of natural giggling, as becomes their state:     The fool is not inhuman, making sport     For such as would not gladly be without     That old familiar noise:     Since, though he laugh not, he can cachinnate,     This also is of God, we may not doubt.     'Is there an empty laugh?' Best called a shell     From which a laugh has flown,     A mask, a well     That hath no water of its own,     Part echo of a groan,     Which, if it hide a cheat,     Is a base counterfeit;     But if one borrow     A cloak to wrap a sorrow     That it may pass unknown,     Then can it not be empty. God doth dwell     Behind the feigned gladness,     Inhabiting a sacred core of sadness.     'Yet is there not an evil laugh?' Content,     What follows?     When Satan fills the hollows     Of his bolt-riven heart     With spasms of unrest,     And calls it laughter; if it give relief     To his great grief,     Grudge not the dreadful jest.     But if the laugh be aimed     At any good thing that it be ashamed,     And blush thereafter,     Then it is evil, and it is not laughter.     There are who laugh, but know not why:     Whether the force     Of simple health and vigour seek a course     Extravagant, as when a wave runs high,     And tips with crest of foam the incontinent curve,     Or if it be reserve     Of power collected for a goal, which had,     Behold! the man is fresh. So when strung nerve,     Stout heart, pent breath, have brought you to the source     Of a great river, on the topmost stie     Of cliff, then have you bad     All heaven to laugh with you; yet somewhere nigh     A shepherd lad     Has wondering looked, and deemed that you were mad.