In dream and trance, I—saw the slain Of Egypt heaped like harvest grain. I saw the walls of sea-born Tyre Swept over by the spoiler's fire; And heard the low, expiring moan Of Edom on his rocky throne; And, woe is me! the wild lament From Zion's desolation sent; And felt within my heart each blow Which laid her holy places low.

In bonds and sorrow, day by day, Before the pictured tile I lay; And there, as in a mirror, saw The coming of Assyria's war; Her swarthy lines of spearmen pass Like locusts through Bethhoron's grass; I saw them draw their stormy hem Of battle round Jerusalem; And, listening, heard the Hebrew wail!

Blend with the victor-trump of Baal! Who trembled at my warning word? Who owned the prophet of the Lord? How mocked the rude, how scoffed the vile, How stung the Levites' scornful smile, As o'er my spirit, dark and slow, The shadow crept of Israel's woe As if the angel's mournful roll Had left its record on my soul, And traced in lines of darkness there The picture of its great despair!

Yet ever at the hour I feel My lips in prophecy unseal. Prince, priest, and Levite gather near, And Salem's daughters haste to hear, On Chebar's waste and alien shore, The harp of Judah swept once more. They listen, as in Babel's throng The Chaldeans to the dancer's song, Or wild sabbeka's nightly play,— As careless and as vain as they.

. . . . .

And thus, O Prophet-bard of old, Hast thou thy tale of sorrow told The same which earth's unwelcome seers Have felt in all succeeding years. Sport of the changeful multitude, Nor calmly heard nor understood, Their song has seemed a trick of art, Their warnings but, the actor's part. With bonds, and scorn, and evil will, The world requites its prophets still.

So was it when the Holy One The garments of the flesh put on Men followed where the Highest led For common gifts of daily bread, And gross of ear, of vision dim, Owned not the Godlike power of Him. Vain as a dreamer's words to them His wail above Jerusalem, And meaningless the watch He kept Through which His weak disciples slept.

Yet shrink not thou, whoe'er thou art, For God's great purpose set apart, Before whose far-discerning eyes, The Future as the Present lies! Beyond a narrow-bounded age Stretches thy prophet-heritage, Through Heaven's vast spaces angel-trod, And through the eternal years of God Thy audience, worlds!—all things to be The witness of the Truth in thee!

1844.



WHAT THE VOICE SAID

MADDENED by Earth's wrong and evil, "Lord!" I cried in sudden ire, "From Thy right hand, clothed with thunder, Shake the bolted fire!

"Love is lost, and Faith is dying; With the brute the man is sold; And the dropping blood of labor Hardens into gold.

"Here the dying wail of Famine, There the battle's groan of pain; And, in silence, smooth-faced Mammon Reaping men like grain.

"'Where is God, that we should fear Him?' Thus the earth-born Titans say 'God! if Thou art living, hear us!' Thus the weak ones pray."

"Thou, the patient Heaven upbraiding," Spake a solemn Voice within; "Weary of our Lord's forbearance, Art thou free from sin?

"Fearless brow to Him uplifting, Canst thou for His thunders call, Knowing that to guilt's attraction Evermore they fall?

"Know'st thou not all germs of evil In thy heart await their time? Not thyself, but God's restraining, Stays their growth of crime.

"Couldst thou boast, O child of weakness! O'er the sons of wrong and strife, Were their strong temptations planted In thy path of life?

"Thou hast seen two streamlets gushing From one fountain, clear and free, But by widely varying channels Searching for the sea.

"Glideth one through greenest valleys, Kissing them with lips still sweet; One, mad roaring down the mountains, Stagnates at their feet.

"Is it choice whereby the Parsee Kneels before his mother's fire? In his black tent did the Tartar Choose his wandering sire?

"He alone, whose hand is bounding Human power and human will, Looking through each soul's surrounding, Knows its good or ill.

"For thyself, while wrong and sorrow Make to thee their strong appeal, Coward wert thou not to utter What the heart must feel.

"Earnest words must needs be spoken When the warm heart bleeds or burns With its scorn of wrong, or pity For the wronged, by turns.

"But, by all thy nature's weakness, Hidden faults and follies known, Be thou, in rebuking evil, Conscious of thine own.

"Not the less shall stern-eyed Duty To thy lips her trumpet set, But with harsher blasts shall mingle Wailings of regret."

Cease not, Voice of holy speaking, Teacher sent of God, be near, Whispering through the day's cool silence, Let my spirit hear!

So, when thoughts of evil-doers Waken scorn, or hatred move, Shall a mournful fellow-feeling Temper all with love.

1847.



THE ANGEL OF PATIENCE.

A FREE PARAPHRASE OF THE GERMAN.

To weary hearts, to mourning homes, God's meekest Angel gently comes No power has he to banish pain, Or give us back our lost again; And yet in tenderest love, our dear And Heavenly Father sends him here.

There's quiet in that Angel's glance, There 's rest in his still countenance! He mocks no grief with idle cheer, Nor wounds with words the mourner's ear; But ills and woes he may not cure He kindly trains us to endure.

Angel of Patience! sent to calm Our feverish brows with cooling palm; To lay the storms of hope and fear, And reconcile life's smile and tear; The throbs of wounded pride to still, And make our own our Father's will.

O thou who mournest on thy way, With longings for the close of day; He walks with thee, that Angel kind, And gently whispers, "Be resigned Bear up, bear on, the end shall tell The dear Lord ordereth all things well!"

1847.



THE WIFE OF MANOAH TO HER HUSBAND.

Against the sunset's glowing wall The city towers rise black and tall, Where Zorah, on its rocky height, Stands like an armed man in the light.

Down Eshtaol's vales of ripened grain Falls like a cloud the night amain, And up the hillsides climbing slow The barley reapers homeward go.

Look, dearest! how our fair child's head The sunset light hath hallowed, Where at this olive's foot he lies, Uplooking to the tranquil skies.

Oh, while beneath the fervent heat Thy sickle swept the bearded wheat, I've watched, with mingled joy and dread, Our child upon his grassy bed.

Joy, which the mother feels alone Whose morning hope like mine had flown, When to her bosom, over-blessed, A dearer life than hers is pressed.

Dread, for the future dark and still, Which shapes our dear one to its will; Forever in his large calm eyes, I read a tale of sacrifice.

The same foreboding awe I felt When at the altar's side we knelt, And he, who as a pilgrim came, Rose, winged and glorious, through the flame.

I slept not, though the wild bees made A dreamlike murmuring in the shade, And on me the warm-fingered hours Pressed with the drowsy smell of flowers.

Before me, in a vision, rose The hosts of Israel's scornful foes,— Rank over rank, helm, shield, and spear, Glittered in noon's hot atmosphere.

I heard their boast, and bitter word, Their mockery of the Hebrew's Lord, I saw their hands His ark assail, Their feet profane His holy veil.

No angel down the blue space spoke, No thunder from the still sky broke; But in their midst, in power and awe, Like God's waked wrath, our child I saw!

A child no more!—harsh-browed and strong, He towered a giant in the throng, And down his shoulders, broad and bare, Swept the black terror of his hair.

He raised his arm—he smote amain; As round the reaper falls the grain, So the dark host around him fell, So sank the foes of Israel!

Again I looked. In sunlight shone The towers and domes of Askelon; Priest, warrior, slave, a mighty crowd Within her idol temple bowed.

Yet one knelt not; stark, gaunt, and blind, His arms the massive pillars twined,— An eyeless captive, strong with hate, He stood there like an evil Fate.

The red shrines smoked,—the trumpets pealed He stooped,—the giant columns reeled; Reeled tower and fane, sank arch and wall, And the thick dust-cloud closed o'er all!

Above the shriek, the crash, the groan Of the fallen pride of Askelon, I heard, sheer down the echoing sky, A voice as of an angel cry,—

The voice of him, who at our side Sat through the golden eventide; Of him who, on thy altar's blaze, Rose fire-winged, with his song of praise.

"Rejoice o'er Israel's broken chain, Gray mother of the mighty slain! Rejoice!" it cried, "he vanquisheth! The strong in life is strong in death!

"To him shall Zorah's daughters raise Through coming years their hymns of praise, And gray old men at evening tell Of all he wrought for Israel.

"And they who sing and they who hear Alike shall hold thy memory dear, And pour their blessings on thy head, O mother of the mighty dead!"

It ceased; and though a sound I heard As if great wings the still air stirred, I only saw the barley sheaves And hills half hid by olive leaves.

I bowed my face, in awe and fear, On the dear child who slumbered near; "With me, as with my only son, O God," I said, "Thy will be done!"

1847.



MY SOUL AND I

Stand still, my soul, in the silent dark I would question thee, Alone in the shadow drear and stark With God and me!

What, my soul, was thy errand here? Was it mirth or ease, Or heaping up dust from year to year? "Nay, none of these!"

Speak, soul, aright in His holy sight Whose eye looks still And steadily on thee through the night "To do His will!"

What hast thou done, O soul of mine, That thou tremblest so? Hast thou wrought His task, and kept the line He bade thee go?

Aha! thou tremblest!—well I see Thou 'rt craven grown. Is it so hard with God and me To stand alone?

Summon thy sunshine bravery back, O wretched sprite! Let me hear thy voice through this deep and black Abysmal night.

What hast thou wrought for Right and Truth, For God and Man, From the golden hours of bright-eyed youth To life's mid span?

What, silent all! art sad of cheer? Art fearful now? When God seemed far and men were near, How brave wert thou!

Ah, soul of mine, thy tones I hear, But weak and low, Like far sad murmurs on my ear They come and go.

I have wrestled stoutly with the Wrong, And borne the Right From beneath the footfall of the throng To life and light.

"Wherever Freedom shivered a chain, God speed, quoth I; To Error amidst her shouting train I gave the lie."

Ah, soul of mine! ah, soul of mine! Thy deeds are well: Were they wrought for Truth's sake or for thine? My soul, pray tell.

"Of all the work my hand hath wrought Beneath the sky, Save a place in kindly human thought, No gain have I."

Go to, go to! for thy very self Thy deeds were done Thou for fame, the miser for pelf, Your end is one!

And where art thou going, soul of mine? Canst see the end? And whither this troubled life of thine Evermore doth tend?

What daunts thee now? what shakes thee so? My sad soul say. "I see a cloud like a curtain low Hang o'er my way.

"Whither I go I cannot tell That cloud hangs black, High as the heaven and deep as hell Across my track.

"I see its shadow coldly enwrap The souls before. Sadly they enter it, step by step, To return no more.

"They shrink, they shudder, dear God! they kneel To Thee in prayer. They shut their eyes on the cloud, but feel That it still is there.

"In vain they turn from the dread Before To the Known and Gone; For while gazing behind them evermore Their feet glide on.

"Yet, at times, I see upon sweet pale faces A light begin To tremble, as if from holy places And shrines within.

"And at times methinks their cold lips move With hymn and prayer, As if somewhat of awe, but more of love And hope were there.

"I call on the souls who have left the light To reveal their lot; I bend mine ear to that wall of night, And they answer not.

"But I hear around me sighs of pain And the cry of fear, And a sound like the slow sad dropping of rain, Each drop a tear!

"Ah, the cloud is dark, and day by day I am moving thither I must pass beneath it on my way— God pity me!—whither?"

Ah, soul of mine! so brave and wise In the life-storm loud, Fronting so calmly all human eyes In the sunlit crowd!

Now standing apart with God and me Thou art weakness all, Gazing vainly after the things to be Through Death's dread wall.

But never for this, never for this Was thy being lent; For the craven's fear is but selfishness, Like his merriment.

Folly and Fear are sisters twain One closing her eyes. The other peopling the dark inane With spectral lies.

Know well, my soul, God's hand controls Whate'er thou fearest; Round Him in calmest music rolls Whate'er thou Nearest.

What to thee is shadow, to Him is day, And the end He knoweth, And not on a blind and aimless way The spirit goeth.

Man sees no future,—a phantom show Is alone before him; Past Time is dead, and the grasses grow, And flowers bloom o'er him.

Nothing before, nothing behind; The steps of Faith Fall on the seeming void, and find The rock beneath.

The Present, the Present is all thou hast For thy sure possessing; Like the patriarch's angel hold it fast Till it gives its blessing.

Why fear the night? why shrink from Death; That phantom wan? There is nothing in heaven or earth beneath Save God and man.

Peopling the shadows we turn from Him And from one another; All is spectral and vague and dim Save God and our brother!

Like warp and woof all destinies Are woven fast, Linked in sympathy like the keys Of an organ vast.

Pluck one thread, and the web ye mar; Break but one Of a thousand keys, and the paining jar Through all will run.

O restless spirit! wherefore strain Beyond thy sphere? Heaven and hell, with their joy and pain, Are now and here.

Back to thyself is measured well All thou hast given; Thy neighbor's wrong is thy present hell, His bliss, thy heaven.

And in life, in death, in dark and light, All are in God's care Sound the black abyss, pierce the deep of night, And He is there!

All which is real now remaineth, And fadeth never The hand which upholds it now sustaineth The soul forever.

Leaning on Him, make with reverent meekness His own thy will, And with strength from Him shall thy utter weakness Life's task fulfil;

And that cloud itself, which now before thee Lies dark in view, Shall with beams of light from the inner glory Be stricken through.

And like meadow mist through autumn's dawn Uprolling thin, Its thickest folds when about thee drawn Let sunlight in.

Then of what is to be, and of what is done, Why queriest thou? The past and the time to be are one, And both are now!

1847.



WORSHIP.

"Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this. To visit the fatherless and widows in, their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world."—JAMES I. 27.

The Pagan's myths through marble lips are spoken, And ghosts of old Beliefs still flit and moan Round fane and altar overthrown and broken, O'er tree-grown barrow and gray ring of stone.

Blind Faith had martyrs in those old high places, The Syrian hill grove and the Druid's wood, With mother's offering, to the Fiend's embraces, Bone of their bone, and blood of their own blood.

Red altars, kindling through that night of error, Smoked with warm blood beneath the cruel eye Of lawless Power and sanguinary Terror, Throned on the circle of a pitiless sky;

Beneath whose baleful shadow, overcasting All heaven above, and blighting earth below, The scourge grew red, the lip grew pale with fasting, And man's oblation was his fear and woe!

Then through great temples swelled the dismal moaning Of dirge-like music and sepulchral prayer; Pale wizard priests, o'er occult symbols droning, Swung their white censers in the burdened air

As if the pomp of rituals, and the savor Of gums and spices could the Unseen One please; As if His ear could bend, with childish favor, To the poor flattery of the organ keys!

Feet red from war-fields trod the church aisles holy, With trembling reverence: and the oppressor there, Kneeling before his priest, abased and lowly, Crushed human hearts beneath his knee of prayer.

Not such the service the benignant Father Requireth at His earthly children's hands Not the poor offering of vain rites, but rather The simple duty man from man demands.

For Earth He asks it: the full joy of heaven Knoweth no change of waning or increase; The great heart of the Infinite beats even, Untroubled flows the river of His peace.

He asks no taper lights, on high surrounding The priestly altar and the saintly grave, No dolorous chant nor organ music sounding, Nor incense clouding tip the twilight nave.

For he whom Jesus loved hath truly spoken The holier worship which he deigns to bless Restores the lost, and binds the spirit broken, And feeds the widow and the fatherless!

Types of our human weakness and our sorrow! Who lives unhaunted by his loved ones dead? Who, with vain longing, seeketh not to borrow From stranger eyes the home lights which have fled?

O brother man! fold to thy heart thy brother; Where pity dwells, the peace of God is there; To worship rightly is to love each other, Each smile a hymn, each kindly deed a prayer.

Follow with reverent steps the great example Of Him whose holy work was "doing good;" So shall the wide earth seem our Father's temple, Each loving life a psalm of gratitude.

Then shall all shackles fall; the stormy clangor Of wild war music o'er the earth shall cease; Love shall tread out the baleful fire of anger, And in its ashes plant the tree of peace!

1848.



THE HOLY LAND

Paraphrased from the lines in Lamartine's Adieu to Marseilles, beginning

"Je n'ai pas navigue sur l'ocean de sable."

I have not felt, o'er seas of sand, The rocking of the desert bark; Nor laved at Hebron's fount my hand, By Hebron's palm-trees cool and dark; Nor pitched my tent at even-fall, On dust where Job of old has lain, Nor dreamed beneath its canvas wall, The dream of Jacob o'er again.

One vast world-page remains unread; How shine the stars in Chaldea's sky, How sounds the reverent pilgrim's tread, How beats the heart with God so nigh How round gray arch and column lone The spirit of the old time broods, And sighs in all the winds that moan Along the sandy solitudes!

In thy tall cedars, Lebanon, I have not heard the nations' cries, Nor seen thy eagles stooping down Where buried Tyre in ruin lies. The Christian's prayer I have not said In Tadmor's temples of decay, Nor startled, with my dreary tread, The waste where Memnon's empire lay.

Nor have I, from thy hallowed tide, O Jordan! heard the low lament, Like that sad wail along thy side Which Israel's mournful prophet sent! Nor thrilled within that grotto lone Where, deep in night, the Bard of Kings Felt hands of fire direct his own, And sweep for God the conscious strings.

I have not climbed to Olivet, Nor laid me where my Saviour lay, And left His trace of tears as yet By angel eyes unwept away; Nor watched, at midnight's solemn time, The garden where His prayer and groan, Wrung by His sorrow and our crime, Rose to One listening ear alone.

I have not kissed the rock-hewn grot Where in His mother's arms He lay, Nor knelt upon the sacred spot Where last His footsteps pressed the clay; Nor looked on that sad mountain head, Nor smote my sinful breast, where wide His arms to fold the world He spread, And bowed His head to bless—and died!

1848.



THE REWARD

Who, looking backward from his manhood's prime, Sees not the spectre of his misspent time? And, through the shade Of funeral cypress planted thick behind, Hears no reproachful whisper on the wind From his loved dead?

Who bears no trace of passion's evil force? Who shuns thy sting, O terrible Remorse? Who does not cast On the thronged pages of his memory's book, At times, a sad and half-reluctant look, Regretful of the past?

Alas! the evil which we fain would shun We do, and leave the wished-for good undone Our strength to-day Is but to-morrow's weakness, prone to fall; Poor, blind, unprofitable servants all Are we alway.

Yet who, thus looking backward o'er his years, Feels not his eyelids wet with grateful tears, If he hath been Permitted, weak and sinful as he was, To cheer and aid, in some ennobling cause, His fellow-men?

If he hath hidden the outcast, or let in A ray of sunshine to the cell of sin; If he hath lent Strength to the weak, and, in an hour of need, Over the suffering, mindless of his creed Or home, hath bent;

He has not lived in vain, and while he gives The praise to Him, in whom he moves and lives, With thankful heart; He gazes backward, and with hope before, Knowing that from his works he nevermore Can henceforth part.

1848.



THE WISH OF TO-DAY.

I ask not now for gold to gild With mocking shine a weary frame; The yearning of the mind is stilled, I ask not now for Fame.

A rose-cloud, dimly seen above, Melting in heaven's blue depths away; Oh, sweet, fond dream of human Love For thee I may not pray.

But, bowed in lowliness of mind, I make my humble wishes known; I only ask a will resigned, O Father, to Thine own!

To-day, beneath Thy chastening eye I crave alone for peace and rest, Submissive in Thy hand to lie, And feel that it is best.

A marvel seems the Universe, A miracle our Life and Death; A mystery which I cannot pierce, Around, above, beneath.

In vain I task my aching brain, In vain the sage's thought I scan, I only feel how weak and vain, How poor and blind, is man.

And now my spirit sighs for home, And longs for light whereby to see, And, like a weary child, would come, O Father, unto Thee!

Though oft, like letters traced on sand, My weak resolves have passed away, In mercy lend Thy helping hand Unto my prayer to-day!

1848.



ALL'S WELL

The clouds, which rise with thunder, slake Our thirsty souls with rain; The blow most dreaded falls to break From off our limbs a chain; And wrongs of man to man but make The love of God more plain. As through the shadowy lens of even The eye looks farthest into heaven On gleams of star and depths of blue The glaring sunshine never knew!

1850.



INVOCATION

Through Thy clear spaces, Lord, of old, Formless and void the dead earth rolled; Deaf to Thy heaven's sweet music, blind To the great lights which o'er it shined; No sound, no ray, no warmth, no breath,— A dumb despair, a wandering death.

To that dark, weltering horror came Thy spirit, like a subtle flame,— A breath of life electrical, Awakening and transforming all, Till beat and thrilled in every part The pulses of a living heart.

Then knew their bounds the land and sea; Then smiled the bloom of mead and tree; From flower to moth, from beast to man, The quick creative impulse ran; And earth, with life from thee renewed, Was in thy holy eyesight good.

As lost and void, as dark and cold And formless as that earth of old; A wandering waste of storm and night, Midst spheres of song and realms of light; A blot upon thy holy sky, Untouched, unwarned of thee, am I.

O Thou who movest on the deep Of spirits, wake my own from sleep Its darkness melt, its coldness warm, The lost restore, the ill transform, That flower and fruit henceforth may be Its grateful offering, worthy Thee.

1851.



QUESTIONS OF LIFE

And the angel that was sent unto me, whose name was Uriel, gave me an answer and said, "Thy heart hath gone too far in this world, and thinkest thou to comprehend the way of the Most High?" Then said I, "Yea, my Lord." Then said he unto me, "Go thy way, weigh me the weight of the fire or measure me the blast of the wind, or call me again the day that is past."—2 ESDRAS, chap. iv.

A bending staff I would not break, A feeble faith I would not shake, Nor even rashly pluck away The error which some truth may stay, Whose loss might leave the soul without A shield against the shafts of doubt.

And yet, at times, when over all A darker mystery seems to fall, (May God forgive the child of dust, Who seeks to know, where Faith should trust!) I raise the questions, old and dark, Of Uzdom's tempted patriarch, And, speech-confounded, build again The baffled tower of Shinar's plain.

I am: how little more I know! Whence came I? Whither do I go? A centred self, which feels and is; A cry between the silences; A shadow-birth of clouds at strife With sunshine on the hills of life; A shaft from Nature's quiver cast Into the Future from the Past; Between the cradle and the shroud, A meteor's flight from cloud to cloud.

Thorough the vastness, arching all, I see the great stars rise and fall, The rounding seasons come and go, The tided oceans ebb and flow; The tokens of a central force, Whose circles, in their widening course, O'erlap and move the universe; The workings of the law whence springs The rhythmic harmony of things, Which shapes in earth the darkling spar, And orbs in heaven the morning star. Of all I see, in earth and sky,— Star, flower, beast, bird,—what part have I? This conscious life,—is it the same Which thrills the universal frame, Whereby the caverned crystal shoots, And mounts the sap from forest roots, Whereby the exiled wood-bird tells When Spring makes green her native dells? How feels the stone the pang of birth, Which brings its sparkling prism forth? The forest-tree the throb which gives The life-blood to its new-born leaves? Do bird and blossom feel, like me, Life's many-folded mystery,— The wonder which it is to be? Or stand I severed and distinct, From Nature's "chain of life" unlinked? Allied to all, yet not the less Prisoned in separate consciousness, Alone o'erburdened with a sense Of life, and cause, and consequence?

In vain to me the Sphinx propounds The riddle of her sights and sounds; Back still the vaulted mystery gives The echoed question it receives. What sings the brook? What oracle Is in the pine-tree's organ swell? What may the wind's low burden be? The meaning of the moaning sea? The hieroglyphics of the stars? Or clouded sunset's crimson bars? I vainly ask, for mocks my skill The trick of Nature's cipher still.

I turn from Nature unto men, I ask the stylus and the pen; What sang the bards of old? What meant The prophets of the Orient? The rolls of buried Egypt, hid In painted tomb and pyramid? What mean Idumea's arrowy lines, Or dusk Elora's monstrous signs? How speaks the primal thought of man From the grim carvings of Copan?

Where rests the secret? Where the keys Of the old death-bolted mysteries? Alas! the dead retain their trust; Dust hath no answer from the dust.

The great enigma still unguessed, Unanswered the eternal quest; I gather up the scattered rays Of wisdom in the early days, Faint gleams and broken, like the light Of meteors in a northern night, Betraying to the darkling earth The unseen sun which gave them birth; I listen to the sibyl's chant, The voice of priest and hierophant; I know what Indian Kreeshna saith, And what of life and what of death The demon taught to Socrates; And what, beneath his garden-trees Slow pacing, with a dream-like tread,— The solemn-thoughted Plato said; Nor lack I tokens, great or small, Of God's clear light in each and all, While holding with more dear regard The scroll of Hebrew seer and bard, The starry pages promise-lit With Christ's Evangel over-writ, Thy miracle of life and death, O Holy One of Nazareth!

On Aztec ruins, gray and lone, The circling serpent coils in stone,— Type of the endless and unknown; Whereof we seek the clue to find, With groping fingers of the blind! Forever sought, and never found, We trace that serpent-symbol round Our resting-place, our starting bound Oh, thriftlessness of dream and guess! Oh, wisdom which is foolishness! Why idly seek from outward things The answer inward silence brings? Why stretch beyond our proper sphere And age, for that which lies so near? Why climb the far-off hills with pain, A nearer view of heaven to gain? In lowliest depths of bosky dells The hermit Contemplation dwells. A fountain's pine-hung slope his seat, And lotus-twined his silent feet, Whence, piercing heaven, with screened sight, He sees at noon the stars, whose light Shall glorify the coining night.

Here let me pause, my quest forego; Enough for me to feel and know That He in whom the cause and end, The past and future, meet and blend,— Who, girt with his Immensities, Our vast and star-hung system sees, Small as the clustered Pleiades,— Moves not alone the heavenly quires, But waves the spring-time's grassy spires, Guards not archangel feet alone, But deigns to guide and keep my own; Speaks not alone the words of fate Which worlds destroy, and worlds create, But whispers in my spirit's ear, In tones of love, or warning fear, A language none beside may hear.

To Him, from wanderings long and wild, I come, an over-wearied child, In cool and shade His peace to find, Lice dew-fall settling on my mind. Assured that all I know is best, And humbly trusting for the rest, I turn from Fancy's cloud-built scheme, Dark creed, and mournful eastern dream Of power, impersonal and cold, Controlling all, itself controlled, Maker and slave of iron laws, Alike the subject and the cause; From vain philosophies, that try The sevenfold gates of mystery, And, baffled ever, babble still, Word-prodigal of fate and will; From Nature, and her mockery, Art; And book and speech of men apart, To the still witness in my heart; With reverence waiting to behold His Avatar of love untold, The Eternal Beauty new and old!

1862.



FIRST-DAY THOUGHTS.

In calm and cool and silence, once again I find my old accustomed place among My brethren, where, perchance, no human tongue Shall utter words; where never hymn is sung, Nor deep-toned organ blown, nor censer swung, Nor dim light falling through the pictured pane! There, syllabled by silence, let me hear The still small voice which reached the prophet's ear; Read in my heart a still diviner law Than Israel's leader on his tables saw! There let me strive with each besetting sin, Recall my wandering fancies, and restrain The sore disquiet of a restless brain; And, as the path of duty is made plain, May grace be given that I may walk therein, Not like the hireling, for his selfish gain, With backward glances and reluctant tread, Making a merit of his coward dread, But, cheerful, in the light around me thrown, Walking as one to pleasant service led; Doing God's will as if it were my own, Yet trusting not in mine, but in His strength alone!

1852.



TRUST.

The same old baffling questions! O my friend, I cannot answer them. In vain I send My soul into the dark, where never burn The lamps of science, nor the natural light Of Reason's sun and stars! I cannot learn Their great and solemn meanings, nor discern The awful secrets of the eyes which turn Evermore on us through the day and night With silent challenge and a dumb demand, Proffering the riddles of the dread unknown, Like the calm Sphinxes, with their eyes of stone, Questioning the centuries from their veils of sand! I have no answer for myself or thee, Save that I learned beside my mother's knee; "All is of God that is, and is to be; And God is good." Let this suffice us still, Resting in childlike trust upon His will Who moves to His great ends unthwarted by the ill.

1853.



TRINITAS.

At morn I prayed, "I fain would see How Three are One, and One is Three; Read the dark riddle unto me."

I wandered forth, the sun and air I saw bestowed with equal care On good and evil, foul and fair.

No partial favor dropped the rain; Alike the righteous and profane Rejoiced above their heading grain.

And my heart murmured, "Is it meet That blindfold Nature thus should treat With equal hand the tares and wheat?"

A presence melted through my mood,— A warmth, a light, a sense of good, Like sunshine through a winter wood.

I saw that presence, mailed complete In her white innocence, pause to greet A fallen sister of the street.

Upon her bosom snowy pure The lost one clung, as if secure From inward guilt or outward lure.

"Beware!" I said; "in this I see No gain to her, but loss to thee Who touches pitch defiled must be."

I passed the haunts of shame and sin, And a voice whispered, "Who therein Shall these lost souls to Heaven's peace win?

"Who there shall hope and health dispense, And lift the ladder up from thence Whose rounds are prayers of penitence?"

I said, "No higher life they know; These earth-worms love to have it so. Who stoops to raise them sinks as low."

That night with painful care I read What Hippo's saint and Calvin said; The living seeking to the dead!

In vain I turned, in weary quest, Old pages, where (God give them rest!) The poor creed-mongers dreamed and guessed.

And still I prayed, "Lord, let me see How Three are One, and One is Three; Read the dark riddle unto me!"

Then something whispered, "Dost thou pray For what thou hast? This very day The Holy Three have crossed thy way.

"Did not the gifts of sun and air To good and ill alike declare The all-compassionate Father's care?

"In the white soul that stooped to raise The lost one from her evil ways, Thou saw'st the Christ, whom angels praise!

"A bodiless Divinity, The still small Voice that spake to thee Was the Holy Spirit's mystery!

"O blind of sight, of faith how small! Father, and Son, and Holy Call This day thou hast denied them all!

"Revealed in love and sacrifice, The Holiest passed before thine eyes, One and the same, in threefold guise.

"The equal Father in rain and sun, His Christ in the good to evil done, His Voice in thy soul;—and the Three are One!"

I shut my grave Aquinas fast; The monkish gloss of ages past, The schoolman's creed aside I cast.

And my heart answered, "Lord, I see How Three are One, and One is Three; Thy riddle hath been read to me!"

1858.



THE SISTERS

A PICTURE BY BARRY

The shade for me, but over thee The lingering sunshine still; As, smiling, to the silent stream Comes down the singing rill.

So come to me, my little one,— My years with thee I share, And mingle with a sister's love A mother's tender care.

But keep the smile upon thy lip, The trust upon thy brow; Since for the dear one God hath called We have an angel now.

Our mother from the fields of heaven Shall still her ear incline; Nor need we fear her human love Is less for love divine.

The songs are sweet they sing beneath The trees of life so fair, But sweetest of the songs of heaven Shall be her children's prayer.

Then, darling, rest upon my breast, And teach my heart to lean With thy sweet trust upon the arm Which folds us both unseen!

1858



"THE ROCK" IN EL GHOR.

Dead Petra in her hill-tomb sleeps, Her stones of emptiness remain; Around her sculptured mystery sweeps The lonely waste of Edom's plain.

From the doomed dwellers in the cleft The bow of vengeance turns not back; Of all her myriads none are left Along the Wady Mousa's track.

Clear in the hot Arabian day Her arches spring, her statues climb; Unchanged, the graven wonders pay No tribute to the spoiler, Time!

Unchanged the awful lithograph Of power and glory undertrod; Of nations scattered like the chaff Blown from the threshing-floor of God.

Yet shall the thoughtful stranger turn From Petra's gates with deeper awe, To mark afar the burial urn Of Aaron on the cliffs of Hor;

And where upon its ancient guard Thy Rock, El Ghor, is standing yet,— Looks from its turrets desertward, And keeps the watch that God has set.

The same as when in thunders loud It heard the voice of God to man, As when it saw in fire and cloud The angels walk in Israel's van,

Or when from Ezion-Geber's way It saw the long procession file, And heard the Hebrew timbrels play The music of the lordly Nile;

Or saw the tabernacle pause, Cloud-bound, by Kadesh Barnea's wells, While Moses graved the sacred laws, And Aaron swung his golden bells.

Rock of the desert, prophet-sung! How grew its shadowing pile at length, A symbol, in the Hebrew tongue, Of God's eternal love and strength.

On lip of bard and scroll of seer, From age to age went down the name, Until the Shiloh's promised year, And Christ, the Rock of Ages, came!

The path of life we walk to-day Is strange as that the Hebrews trod; We need the shadowing rock, as they,— We need, like them, the guides of God.

God send His angels, Cloud and Fire, To lead us o'er the desert sand! God give our hearts their long desire, His shadow in a weary land!

1859.



THE OVER-HEART.

"For of Him, and through Him, and to Him are all things, to whom be glory forever! "—PAUL.

Above, below, in sky and sod, In leaf and spar, in star and man, Well might the wise Athenian scan The geometric signs of God, The measured order of His plan.

And India's mystics sang aright Of the One Life pervading all,— One Being's tidal rise and fall In soul and form, in sound and sight,— Eternal outflow and recall.

God is: and man in guilt and fear The central fact of Nature owns; Kneels, trembling, by his altar-stones, And darkly dreams the ghastly smear Of blood appeases and atones.

Guilt shapes the Terror: deep within The human heart the secret lies Of all the hideous deities; And, painted on a ground of sin, The fabled gods of torment rise!

And what is He? The ripe grain nods, The sweet dews fall, the sweet flowers blow; But darker signs His presence show The earthquake and the storm are God's, And good and evil interflow.

O hearts of love! O souls that turn Like sunflowers to the pure and best! To you the truth is manifest: For they the mind of Christ discern Who lean like John upon His breast!

In him of whom the sibyl told, For whom the prophet's harp was toned, Whose need the sage and magian owned, The loving heart of God behold, The hope for which the ages groaned!

Fade, pomp of dreadful imagery Wherewith mankind have deified Their hate, and selfishness, and pride! Let the scared dreamer wake to see The Christ of Nazareth at his side!

What doth that holy Guide require? No rite of pain, nor gift of blood, But man a kindly brotherhood, Looking, where duty is desire, To Him, the beautiful and good.

Gone be the faithlessness of fear, And let the pitying heaven's sweet rain Wash out the altar's bloody stain; The law of Hatred disappear, The law of Love alone remain.

How fall the idols false and grim! And to! their hideous wreck above The emblems of the Lamb and Dove! Man turns from God, not God from him; And guilt, in suffering, whispers Love!

The world sits at the feet of Christ, Unknowing, blind, and unconsoled; It yet shall touch His garment's fold, And feel the heavenly Alchemist Transform its very dust to gold.

The theme befitting angel tongues Beyond a mortal's scope has grown. O heart of mine! with reverence own The fulness which to it belongs, And trust the unknown for the known.

1859.



THE SHADOW AND THE LIGHT.

"And I sought, whence is Evil: I set before the eye of my spirit the whole creation; whatsoever we see therein,—sea, earth, air, stars, trees, moral creatures,—yea, whatsoever there is we do not see,—angels and spiritual powers. Where is evil, and whence comes it, since God the Good hath created all things? Why made He anything at all of evil, and not rather by His Almightiness cause it not to be? These thoughts I turned in my miserable heart, overcharged with most gnawing cares." "And, admonished to return to myself, I entered even into my inmost soul, Thou being my guide, and beheld even beyond my soul and mind the Light unchangeable. He who knows the Truth knows what that Light is, and he that knows it knows Eternity! O—Truth, who art Eternity! Love, who art Truth! Eternity, who art Love! And I beheld that Thou madest all things good, and to Thee is nothing whatsoever evil. From the angel to the worm, from the first motion to the last, Thou settest each in its place, and everything is good in its kind. Woe is me!—how high art Thou in the highest, how deep in the deepest! and Thou never departest from us and we scarcely return to Thee." —AUGUSTINE'S Soliloquies, Book VII.

The fourteen centuries fall away Between us and the Afric saint, And at his side we urge, to-day, The immemorial quest and old complaint.

No outward sign to us is given,— From sea or earth comes no reply; Hushed as the warm Numidian heaven He vainly questioned bends our frozen sky.

No victory comes of all our strife,— From all we grasp the meaning slips; The Sphinx sits at the gate of life, With the old question on her awful lips.

In paths unknown we hear the feet Of fear before, and guilt behind; We pluck the wayside fruit, and eat Ashes and dust beneath its golden rind.

From age to age descends unchecked The sad bequest of sire to son, The body's taint, the mind's defect; Through every web of life the dark threads run.

Oh, why and whither? God knows all; I only know that He is good, And that whatever may befall Or here or there, must be the best that could.

Between the dreadful cherubim A Father's face I still discern, As Moses looked of old on Him, And saw His glory into goodness turn!

For He is merciful as just; And so, by faith correcting sight, I bow before His will, and trust Howe'er they seem He doeth all things right.

And dare to hope that Tie will make The rugged smooth, the doubtful plain; His mercy never quite forsake; His healing visit every realm of pain;

That suffering is not His revenge Upon His creatures weak and frail, Sent on a pathway new and strange With feet that wander and with eyes that fail;

That, o'er the crucible of pain, Watches the tender eye of Love The slow transmuting of the chain Whose links are iron below to gold above!

Ah me! we doubt the shining skies, Seen through our shadows of offence, And drown with our poor childish cries The cradle-hymn of kindly Providence.

And still we love the evil cause, And of the just effect complain We tread upon life's broken laws, And murmur at our self-inflicted pain;

We turn us from the light, and find Our spectral shapes before us thrown, As they who leave the sun behind Walk in the shadows of themselves alone.

And scarce by will or strength of ours We set our faces to the day; Weak, wavering, blind, the Eternal Powers Alone can turn us from ourselves away.

Our weakness is the strength of sin, But love must needs be stronger far, Outreaching all and gathering in The erring spirit and the wandering star.

A Voice grows with the growing years; Earth, hushing down her bitter cry, Looks upward from her graves, and hears, "The Resurrection and the Life am I."

O Love Divine!—whose constant beam Shines on the eyes that will not see, And waits to bless us, while we dream Thou leavest us because we turn from thee!

All souls that struggle and aspire, All hearts of prayer by thee are lit; And, dim or clear, thy tongues of fire On dusky tribes and twilight centuries sit.

Nor bounds, nor clime, nor creed thou know'st, Wide as our need thy favors fall; The white wings of the Holy Ghost Stoop, seen or unseen, o'er the heads of all.

O Beauty, old yet ever new! Eternal Voice, and Inward Word, The Logos of the Greek and Jew, The old sphere-music which the Samian heard!

Truth, which the sage and prophet saw, Long sought without, but found within, The Law of Love beyond all law, The Life o'erflooding mortal death and sin!

Shine on us with the light which glowed Upon the trance-bound shepherd's way. Who saw the Darkness overflowed And drowned by tides of everlasting Day.

Shine, light of God!—make broad thy scope To all who sin and suffer; more And better than we dare to hope With Heaven's compassion make our longings poor!

1860.



THE CRY OF A LOST SOUL.

Lieutenant Herndon's Report of the Exploration of the Amazon has a striking description of the peculiar and melancholy notes of a bird heard by night on the shores of the river. The Indian guides called it "The Cry of a Lost Soul"! Among the numerous translations of this poem is one by the Emperor of Brazil.

In that black forest, where, when day is done, With a snake's stillness glides the Amazon Darkly from sunset to the rising sun,

A cry, as of the pained heart of the wood, The long, despairing moan of solitude And darkness and the absence of all good,

Startles the traveller, with a sound so drear, So full of hopeless agony and fear, His heart stands still and listens like his ear.

The guide, as if he heard a dead-bell toll, Starts, drops his oar against the gunwale's thole, Crosses himself, and whispers, "A lost soul!"

"No, Senor, not a bird. I know it well,— It is the pained soul of some infidel Or cursed heretic that cries from hell.

"Poor fool! with hope still mocking his despair, He wanders, shrieking on the midnight air For human pity and for Christian prayer.

"Saints strike him dumb! Our Holy Mother hath No prayer for him who, sinning unto death, Burns always in the furnace of God's wrath!"

Thus to the baptized pagan's cruel lie, Lending new horror to that mournful cry, The voyager listens, making no reply.

Dim burns the boat-lamp: shadows deepen round, From giant trees with snake-like creepers wound, And the black water glides without a sound.

But in the traveller's heart a secret sense Of nature plastic to benign intents, And an eternal good in Providence,

Lifts to the starry calm of heaven his eyes; And to! rebuking all earth's ominous cries, The Cross of pardon lights the tropic skies!

"Father of all!" he urges his strong plea, "Thou lovest all: Thy erring child may be Lost to himself, but never lost to Thee!

"All souls are Thine; the wings of morning bear None from that Presence which is everywhere, Nor hell itself can hide, for Thou art there.

"Through sins of sense, perversities of will, Through doubt and pain, through guilt and shame and ill, Thy pitying eye is on Thy creature still.

"Wilt thou not make, Eternal Source and Goal! In Thy long years, life's broken circle whole, And change to praise the cry of a lost soul?"

1862.



ANDREW RYKMAN'S PRAYER

Andrew Rykman's dead and gone; You can see his leaning slate In the graveyard, and thereon Read his name and date.

"Trust is truer than our fears," Runs the legend through the moss, "Gain is not in added years, Nor in death is loss."

Still the feet that thither trod, All the friendly eyes are dim; Only Nature, now, and God Have a care for him.

There the dews of quiet fall, Singing birds and soft winds stray: Shall the tender Heart of all Be less kind than they?

What he was and what he is They who ask may haply find, If they read this prayer of his Which he left behind.

. . . .

Pardon, Lord, the lips that dare Shape in words a mortal's prayer! Prayer, that, when my day is done, And I see its setting sun, Shorn and beamless, cold and dim, Sink beneath the horizon's rim,— When this ball of rock and clay Crumbles from my feet away, And the solid shores of sense Melt into the vague immense, Father! I may come to Thee Even with the beggar's plea, As the poorest of Thy poor, With my needs, and nothing more.

Not as one who seeks his home With a step assured I come; Still behind the tread I hear Of my life-companion, Fear; Still a shadow deep and vast From my westering feet is cast, Wavering, doubtful, undefined, Never shapen nor outlined From myself the fear has grown, And the shadow is my own.

Yet, O Lord, through all a sense Of Thy tender providence Stays my failing heart on Thee, And confirms the feeble knee; And, at times, my worn feet press Spaces of cool quietness, Lilied whiteness shone upon Not by light of moon or sun. Hours there be of inmost calm, Broken but by grateful psalm, When I love Thee more than fear Thee, And Thy blessed Christ seems near me, With forgiving look, as when He beheld the Magdalen. Well I know that all things move To the spheral rhythm of love,— That to Thee, O Lord of all! Nothing can of chance befall Child and seraph, mote and star, Well Thou knowest what we are Through Thy vast creative plan Looking, from the worm to man, There is pity in Thine eyes, But no hatred nor surprise. Not in blind caprice of will, Not in cunning sleight of skill, Not for show of power, was wrought Nature's marvel in Thy thought. Never careless hand and vain Smites these chords of joy and pain; No immortal selfishness Plays the game of curse and bless Heaven and earth are witnesses That Thy glory goodness is.

Not for sport of mind and force Hast Thou made Thy universe, But as atmosphere and zone Of Thy loving heart alone. Man, who walketh in a show, Sees before him, to and fro, Shadow and illusion go; All things flow and fluctuate, Now contract and now dilate. In the welter of this sea, Nothing stable is but Thee; In this whirl of swooning trance, Thou alone art permanence; All without Thee only seems, All beside is choice of dreams. Never yet in darkest mood Doubted I that Thou wast good, Nor mistook my will for fate, Pain of sin for heavenly hate,— Never dreamed the gates of pearl Rise from out the burning marl, Or that good can only live Of the bad conservative, And through counterpoise of hell Heaven alone be possible.

For myself alone I doubt; All is well, I know, without; I alone the beauty mar, I alone the music jar. Yet, with hands by evil stained, And an ear by discord pained, I am groping for the keys Of the heavenly harmonies; Still within my heart I bear Love for all things good and fair. Hands of want or souls in pain Have not sought my door in vain; I have kept my fealty good To the human brotherhood; Scarcely have I asked in prayer That which others might not share. I, who hear with secret shame Praise that paineth more than blame, Rich alone in favors lent, Virtuous by accident, Doubtful where I fain would rest, Frailest where I seem the best, Only strong for lack of test,— What am I, that I should press Special pleas of selfishness, Coolly mounting into heaven On my neighbor unforgiven? Ne'er to me, howe'er disguised, Comes a saint unrecognized; Never fails my heart to greet Noble deed with warmer beat; Halt and maimed, I own not less All the grace of holiness; Nor, through shame or self-distrust, Less I love the pure and just. Lord, forgive these words of mine What have I that is not Thine? Whatsoe'er I fain would boast Needs Thy pitying pardon most. Thou, O Elder Brother! who In Thy flesh our trial knew, Thou, who hast been touched by these Our most sad infirmities, Thou alone the gulf canst span In the dual heart of man, And between the soul and sense Reconcile all difference, Change the dream of me and mine For the truth of Thee and Thine, And, through chaos, doubt, and strife, Interfuse Thy calm of life. Haply, thus by Thee renewed, In Thy borrowed goodness good, Some sweet morning yet in God's Dim, veonian periods, Joyful I shall wake to see Those I love who rest in Thee, And to them in Thee allied Shall my soul be satisfied.

Scarcely Hope hath shaped for me What the future life may be. Other lips may well be bold; Like the publican of old, I can only urge the plea, "Lord, be merciful to me!" Nothing of desert I claim, Unto me belongeth shame. Not for me the crowns of gold, Palms, and harpings manifold; Not for erring eye and feet Jasper wall and golden street. What thou wilt, O Father, give I All is gain that I receive.

If my voice I may not raise In the elders' song of praise, If I may not, sin-defiled, Claim my birthright as a child, Suffer it that I to Thee As an hired servant be; Let the lowliest task be mine, Grateful, so the work be Thine; Let me find the humblest place In the shadow of Thy grace Blest to me were any spot Where temptation whispers not. If there be some weaker one, Give me strength to help him on If a blinder soul there be, Let me guide him nearer Thee. Make my mortal dreams come true With the work I fain would do; Clothe with life the weak intent, Let me be the thing I meant; Let me find in Thy employ Peace that dearer is than joy; Out of self to love be led And to heaven acclimated, Until all things sweet and good Seem my natural habitude.

. . . .

So we read the prayer of him Who, with John of Labadie, Trod, of old, the oozy rim Of the Zuyder Zee.

Thus did Andrew Rykman pray. Are we wiser, better grown, That we may not, in our day, Make his prayer our own?



THE ANSWER.

Spare me, dread angel of reproof, And let the sunshine weave to-day Its gold-threads in the warp and woof Of life so poor and gray.

Spare me awhile; the flesh is weak. These lingering feet, that fain would stray Among the flowers, shall some day seek The strait and narrow way.

Take off thy ever-watchful eye, The awe of thy rebuking frown; The dullest slave at times must sigh To fling his burdens down;

To drop his galley's straining oar, And press, in summer warmth and calm, The lap of some enchanted shore Of blossom and of balm.

Grudge not my life its hour of bloom, My heart its taste of long desire; This day be mine: be those to come As duty shall require.

The deep voice answered to my own, Smiting my selfish prayers away; "To-morrow is with God alone, And man hath but to-day.

"Say not, thy fond, vain heart within, The Father's arm shall still be wide, When from these pleasant ways of sin Thou turn'st at eventide.

"'Cast thyself down,' the tempter saith, 'And angels shall thy feet upbear.' He bids thee make a lie of faith, And blasphemy of prayer.

"Though God be good and free be heaven, No force divine can love compel; And, though the song of sins forgiven May sound through lowest hell,

"The sweet persuasion of His voice Respects thy sanctity of will. He giveth day: thou hast thy choice To walk in darkness still;

"As one who, turning from the light, Watches his own gray shadow fall, Doubting, upon his path of night, If there be day at all!

"No word of doom may shut thee out, No wind of wrath may downward whirl, No swords of fire keep watch about The open gates of pearl;

"A tenderer light than moon or sun, Than song of earth a sweeter hymn, May shine and sound forever on, And thou be deaf and dim.

"Forever round the Mercy-seat The guiding lights of Love shall burn; But what if, habit-bound, thy feet Shall lack the will to turn?

"What if thine eye refuse to see, Thine ear of Heaven's free welcome fail, And thou a willing captive be, Thyself thy own dark jail?

"Oh, doom beyond the saddest guess, As the long years of God unroll, To make thy dreary selfishness The prison of a soul!

"To doubt the love that fain would break The fetters from thy self-bound limb; And dream that God can thee forsake As thou forsakest Him!"

1863.



THE ETERNAL GOODNESS.

O friends! with whom my feet have trod The quiet aisles of prayer, Glad witness to your zeal for God And love of man I bear.

I trace your lines of argument; Your logic linked and strong I weigh as one who dreads dissent, And fears a doubt as wrong.

But still my human hands are weak To hold your iron creeds Against the words ye bid me speak My heart within me pleads.

Who fathoms the Eternal Thought? Who talks of scheme and plan? The Lord is God! He needeth not The poor device of man.

I walk with bare, hushed feet the ground Ye tread with boldness shod; I dare not fix with mete and bound The love and power of God.

Ye praise His justice; even such His pitying love I deem Ye seek a king; I fain would touch The robe that hath no seam.

Ye see the curse which overbroods A world of pain and loss; I hear our Lord's beatitudes And prayer upon the cross.

More than your schoolmen teach, within Myself, alas! I know Too dark ye cannot paint the sin, Too small the merit show.

I bow my forehead to the dust, I veil mine eyes for shame, And urge, in trembling self-distrust, A prayer without a claim.

I see the wrong that round me lies, I feel the guilt within; I hear, with groan and travail-cries, The world confess its sin.

Yet, in the maddening maze of things, And tossed by storm and flood, To one fixed trust my spirit clings; I know that God is good!

Not mine to look where cherubim And seraphs may not see, But nothing can be good in Him Which evil is in me.

The wrong that pains my soul below I dare not throne above, I know not of His hate,—I know His goodness and His love.

I dimly guess from blessings known Of greater out of sight, And, with the chastened Psalmist, own His judgments too are right.

I long for household voices gone, For vanished smiles I long, But God hath led my dear ones on, And He can do no wrong.

I know not what the future hath Of marvel or surprise, Assured alone that life and death His mercy underlies.

And if my heart and flesh are weak To bear an untried pain, The bruised reed He will not break, But strengthen and sustain.

No offering of my own I have, Nor works my faith to prove; I can but give the gifts He gave, And plead His love for love.

And so beside the Silent Sea I wait the muffled oar; No harm from Him can come to me On ocean or on shore.

I know not where His islands lift Their fronded palms in air; I only know I cannot drift Beyond His love and care.

O brothers! if my faith is vain, If hopes like these betray, Pray for me that my feet may gain The sure and safer way.

And Thou, O Lord! by whom are seen Thy creatures as they be, Forgive me if too close I lean My human heart on Thee!

1865.



THE COMMON QUESTION.

Behind us at our evening meal The gray bird ate his fill, Swung downward by a single claw, And wiped his hooked bill.

He shook his wings and crimson tail, And set his head aslant, And, in his sharp, impatient way, Asked, "What does Charlie want?"

"Fie, silly bird!" I answered, "tuck Your head beneath your wing, And go to sleep;"—but o'er and o'er He asked the self-same thing.

Then, smiling, to myself I said How like are men and birds! We all are saying what he says, In action or in words.

The boy with whip and top and drum, The girl with hoop and doll, And men with lands and houses, ask The question of Poor Poll.

However full, with something more We fain the bag would cram; We sigh above our crowded nets For fish that never swam.

No bounty of indulgent Heaven The vague desire can stay; Self-love is still a Tartar mill For grinding prayers alway.

The dear God hears and pities all; He knoweth all our wants; And what we blindly ask of Him His love withholds or grants.

And so I sometimes think our prayers Might well be merged in one; And nest and perch and hearth and church Repeat, "Thy will be done."



OUR MASTER.

Immortal Love, forever full, Forever flowing free, Forever shared, forever whole, A never-ebbing sea!

Our outward lips confess the name All other names above; Love only knoweth whence it came And comprehendeth love.

Blow, winds of God, awake and blow The mists of earth away! Shine out, O Light Divine, and show How wide and far we stray!

Hush every lip, close every book, The strife of tongues forbear; Why forward reach, or backward look, For love that clasps like air?

We may not climb the heavenly steeps To bring the Lord Christ down In vain we search the lowest deeps, For Him no depths can drown.

Nor holy bread, nor blood of grape, The lineaments restore Of Him we know in outward shape And in the flesh no more.

He cometh not a king to reign; The world's long hope is dim; The weary centuries watch in vain The clouds of heaven for Him.

Death comes, life goes; the asking eye And ear are answerless; The grave is dumb, the hollow sky Is sad with silentness.

The letter fails, and systems fall, And every symbol wanes; The Spirit over-brooding all Eternal Love remains.

And not for signs in heaven above Or earth below they look, Who know with John His smile of love, With Peter His rebuke.

In joy of inward peace, or sense Of sorrow over sin, He is His own best evidence, His witness is within.

No fable old, nor mythic lore, Nor dream of bards and seers, No dead fact stranded on the shore Of the oblivious years;—

But warm, sweet, tender, even yet A present help is He; And faith has still its Olivet, And love its Galilee.

The healing of His seamless dress Is by our beds of pain; We touch Him in life's throng and press, And we are whole again.

Through Him the first fond prayers are said Our lips of childhood frame, The last low whispers of our dead Are burdened with His name.

Our Lord and Master of us all! Whate'er our name or sign, We own Thy sway, we hear Thy call, We test our lives by Thine.

Thou judgest us; Thy purity Doth all our lusts condemn; The love that draws us nearer Thee Is hot with wrath to them.

Our thoughts lie open to Thy sight; And, naked to Thy glance, Our secret sins are in the light Of Thy pure countenance.

Thy healing pains, a keen distress Thy tender light shines in; Thy sweetness is the bitterness, Thy grace the pang of sin.

Yet, weak and blinded though we be, Thou dost our service own; We bring our varying gifts to Thee, And Thou rejectest none.

To Thee our full humanity, Its joys and pains, belong; The wrong of man to man on Thee Inflicts a deeper wrong.

Who hates, hates Thee, who loves becomes Therein to Thee allied; All sweet accords of hearts and homes In Thee are multiplied.

Deep strike Thy roots, O heavenly Vine, Within our earthly sod, Most human and yet most divine, The flower of man and God!

O Love! O Life! Our faith and sight Thy presence maketh one As through transfigured clouds of white We trace the noon-day sun.

So, to our mortal eyes subdued, Flesh-veiled, but not concealed, We know in Thee the fatherhood And heart of God revealed.

We faintly hear, we dimly see, In differing phrase we pray; But, dim or clear, we own in Thee The Light, the Truth, the Way!

The homage that we render Thee Is still our Father's own; No jealous claim or rivalry Divides the Cross and Throne.

To do Thy will is more than praise, As words are less than deeds, And simple trust can find Thy ways We miss with chart of creeds.

No pride of self Thy service hath, No place for me and mine; Our human strength is weakness, death Our life, apart from Thine.

Apart from Thee all gain is loss, All labor vainly done; The solemn shadow of Thy Cross Is better than the sun.

Alone, O Love ineffable! Thy saving name is given; To turn aside from Thee is hell, To walk with Thee is heaven!

How vain, secure in all Thou art, Our noisy championship The sighing of the contrite heart Is more than flattering lip.

Not Thine the bigot's partial plea, Nor Thine the zealot's ban; Thou well canst spare a love of Thee Which ends in hate of man.

Our Friend, our Brother, and our Lord, What may Thy service be?— Nor name, nor form, nor ritual word, But simply following Thee.

We bring no ghastly holocaust, We pile no graven stone; He serves thee best who loveth most His brothers and Thy own.

Thy litanies, sweet offices Of love and gratitude; Thy sacramental liturgies, The joy of doing good.

In vain shall waves of incense drift The vaulted nave around, In vain the minster turret lift Its brazen weights of sound.

The heart must ring Thy Christmas bells, Thy inward altars raise; Its faith and hope Thy canticles, And its obedience praise!

1866.



THE MEETING.

The two speakers in the meeting referred to in this poem were Avis Keene, whose very presence was a benediction, a woman lovely in spirit and person, whose words seemed a message of love and tender concern to her hearers; and Sibyl Jones, whose inspired eloquence and rare spirituality impressed all who knew her. In obedience to her apprehended duty she made visits of Christian love to various parts of Europe, and to the West Coast of Africa and Palestine.

The elder folks shook hands at last, Down seat by seat the signal passed. To simple ways like ours unused, Half solemnized and half amused, With long-drawn breath and shrug, my guest His sense of glad relief expressed. Outside, the hills lay warm in sun; The cattle in the meadow-run Stood half-leg deep; a single bird The green repose above us stirred. "What part or lot have you," he said, "In these dull rites of drowsy-head? Is silence worship? Seek it where It soothes with dreams the summer air, Not in this close and rude-benched hall, But where soft lights and shadows fall, And all the slow, sleep-walking hours Glide soundless over grass and flowers! From time and place and form apart, Its holy ground the human heart, Nor ritual-bound nor templeward Walks the free spirit of the Lord! Our common Master did not pen His followers up from other men; His service liberty indeed, He built no church, He framed no creed; But while the saintly Pharisee Made broader his phylactery, As from the synagogue was seen The dusty-sandalled Nazarene Through ripening cornfields lead the way Upon the awful Sabbath day, His sermons were the healthful talk That shorter made the mountain-walk, His wayside texts were flowers and birds, Where mingled with His gracious words The rustle of the tamarisk-tree And ripple-wash of Galilee."

"Thy words are well, O friend," I said; "Unmeasured and unlimited, With noiseless slide of stone to stone, The mystic Church of God has grown. Invisible and silent stands The temple never made with hands, Unheard the voices still and small Of its unseen confessional. He needs no special place of prayer Whose hearing ear is everywhere; He brings not back the childish days That ringed the earth with stones of praise, Roofed Karnak's hall of gods, and laid The plinths of Phil e's colonnade. Still less He owns the selfish good And sickly growth of solitude,— The worthless grace that, out of sight, Flowers in the desert anchorite; Dissevered from the suffering whole, Love hath no power to save a soul. Not out of Self, the origin And native air and soil of sin, The living waters spring and flow, The trees with leaves of healing grow.

"Dream not, O friend, because I seek This quiet shelter twice a week, I better deem its pine-laid floor Than breezy hill or sea-sung shore; But nature is not solitude She crowds us with her thronging wood; Her many hands reach out to us, Her many tongues are garrulous; Perpetual riddles of surprise She offers to our ears and eyes; She will not leave our senses still, But drags them captive at her will And, making earth too great for heaven, She hides the Giver in the given.

"And so, I find it well to come For deeper rest to this still room, For here the habit of the soul Feels less the outer world's control; The strength of mutual purpose pleads More earnestly our common needs; And from the silence multiplied By these still forms on either side, The world that time and sense have known Falls off and leaves us God alone.

"Yet rarely through the charmed repose Unmixed the stream of motive flows, A flavor of its many springs, The tints of earth and sky it brings; In the still waters needs must be Some shade of human sympathy; And here, in its accustomed place, I look on memory's dearest face; The blind by-sitter guesseth not What shadow haunts that vacant spot; No eyes save mine alone can see The love wherewith it welcomes me! And still, with those alone my kin, In doubt and weakness, want and sin, I bow my head, my heart I bare As when that face was living there, And strive (too oft, alas! in vain) The peace of simple trust to gain, Fold fancy's restless wings, and lay The idols of my heart away.

"Welcome the silence all unbroken, Nor less the words of fitness spoken,— Such golden words as hers for whom Our autumn flowers have just made room; Whose hopeful utterance through and through The freshness of the morning blew; Who loved not less the earth that light Fell on it from the heavens in sight, But saw in all fair forms more fair The Eternal beauty mirrored there. Whose eighty years but added grace And saintlier meaning to her face,— The look of one who bore away Glad tidings from the hills of day, While all our hearts went forth to meet The coming of her beautiful feet! Or haply hers, whose pilgrim tread Is in the paths where Jesus led; Who dreams her childhood's Sabbath dream By Jordan's willow-shaded stream, And, of the hymns of hope and faith, Sung by the monks of Nazareth, Hears pious echoes, in the call To prayer, from Moslem minarets fall, Repeating where His works were wrought The lesson that her Master taught, Of whom an elder Sibyl gave, The prophecies of Cuma 's cave.

"I ask no organ's soulless breath To drone the themes of life and death, No altar candle-lit by day, No ornate wordsman's rhetoric-play, No cool philosophy to teach Its bland audacities of speech To double-tasked idolaters Themselves their gods and worshippers, No pulpit hammered by the fist Of loud-asserting dogmatist, Who borrows for the Hand of love The smoking thunderbolts of Jove. I know how well the fathers taught, What work the later schoolmen wrought; I reverence old-time faith and men, But God is near us now as then; His force of love is still unspent, His hate of sin as imminent; And still the measure of our needs Outgrows the cramping bounds of creeds; The manna gathered yesterday Already savors of decay; Doubts to the world's child-heart unknown Question us now from star and stone; Too little or too much we know, And sight is swift and faith is slow; The power is lost to self-deceive With shallow forms of make-believe. W e walk at high noon, and the bells Call to a thousand oracles, But the sound deafens, and the light Is stronger than our dazzled sight; The letters of the sacred Book Glimmer and swim beneath our look; Still struggles in the Age's breast With deepening agony of quest The old entreaty: 'Art thou He, Or look we for the Christ to be?'

"God should be most where man is least So, where is neither church nor priest, And never rag of form or creed To clothe the nakedness of need,— Where farmer-folk in silence meet,— I turn my bell-unsummoned feet;' I lay the critic's glass aside, I tread upon my lettered pride, And, lowest-seated, testify To the oneness of humanity; Confess the universal want, And share whatever Heaven may grant. He findeth not who seeks his own, The soul is lost that's saved alone. Not on one favored forehead fell Of old the fire-tongued miracle, But flamed o'er all the thronging host The baptism of the Holy Ghost; Heart answers heart: in one desire The blending lines of prayer aspire; 'Where, in my name, meet two or three,' Our Lord hath said, 'I there will be!'

"So sometimes comes to soul and sense The feeling which is evidence That very near about us lies The realm of spiritual mysteries. The sphere of the supernal powers Impinges on this world of ours. The low and dark horizon lifts, To light the scenic terror shifts; The breath of a diviner air Blows down the answer of a prayer That all our sorrow, pain, and doubt A great compassion clasps about, And law and goodness, love and force, Are wedded fast beyond divorce. Then duty leaves to love its task, The beggar Self forgets to ask; With smile of trust and folded hands, The passive soul in waiting stands To feel, as flowers the sun and dew, The One true Life its own renew.

"So, to the calmly gathered thought The innermost of truth is taught, The mystery dimly understood, That love of God is love of good, And, chiefly, its divinest trace In Him of Nazareth's holy face; That to be saved is only this,— Salvation from our selfishness, From more than elemental fire, The soul's unsanetified desire, From sin itself, and not the pain That warns us of its chafing chain; That worship's deeper meaning lies In mercy, and not sacrifice, Not proud humilities of sense And posturing of penitence, But love's unforced obedience; That Book and Church and Day are given For man, not God,—for earth, not heaven,— The blessed means to holiest ends, Not masters, but benignant friends; That the dear Christ dwells not afar, The king of some remoter star, Listening, at times, with flattered ear To homage wrung from selfish fear, But here, amidst the poor and blind, The bound and suffering of our kind, In works we do, in prayers we pray, Life of our life, He lives to-day."

1868.



THE CLEAR VISION.

I did but dream. I never knew What charms our sternest season wore. Was never yet the sky so blue, Was never earth so white before. Till now I never saw the glow Of sunset on yon hills of snow, And never learned the bough's designs Of beauty in its leafless lines.

Did ever such a morning break As that my eastern windows see? Did ever such a moonlight take Weird photographs of shrub and tree? Rang ever bells so wild and fleet The music of the winter street? Was ever yet a sound by half So merry as you school-boy's laugh?

O Earth! with gladness overfraught, No added charm thy face hath found; Within my heart the change is wrought, My footsteps make enchanted ground. From couch of pain and curtained room Forth to thy light and air I come, To find in all that meets my eyes The freshness of a glad surprise.

Fair seem these winter days, and soon Shall blow the warm west-winds of spring, To set the unbound rills in tune And hither urge the bluebird's wing. The vales shall laugh in flowers, the woods Grow misty green with leafing buds, And violets and wind-flowers sway Against the throbbing heart of May.

Break forth, my lips, in praise, and own The wiser love severely kind; Since, richer for its chastening grown, I see, whereas I once was blind. The world, O Father! hath not wronged With loss the life by Thee prolonged; But still, with every added year, More beautiful Thy works appear!

As Thou hast made thy world without, Make Thou more fair my world within; Shine through its lingering clouds of doubt; Rebuke its haunting shapes of sin; Fill, brief or long, my granted span Of life with love to thee and man; Strike when thou wilt the hour of rest, But let my last days be my best!

2d mo., 1868.



DIVINE COMPASSION.

Long since, a dream of heaven I had, And still the vision haunts me oft; I see the saints in white robes clad, The martyrs with their palms aloft; But hearing still, in middle song, The ceaseless dissonance of wrong; And shrinking, with hid faces, from the strain Of sad, beseeching eyes, full of remorse and pain.

The glad song falters to a wail, The harping sinks to low lament; Before the still unlifted veil I see the crowned foreheads bent, Making more sweet the heavenly air, With breathings of unselfish prayer; And a Voice saith: "O Pity which is pain, O Love that weeps, fill up my sufferings which remain!

"Shall souls redeemed by me refuse To share my sorrow in their turn? Or, sin-forgiven, my gift abuse Of peace with selfish unconcern? Has saintly ease no pitying care? Has faith no work, and love no prayer? While sin remains, and souls in darkness dwell, Can heaven itself be heaven, and look unmoved on hell?"

Then through the Gates of Pain, I dream, A wind of heaven blows coolly in; Fainter the awful discords seem, The smoke of torment grows more thin, Tears quench the burning soil, and thence Spring sweet, pale flowers of penitence And through the dreary realm of man's despair, Star-crowned an angel walks, and to! God's hope is there!

Is it a dream? Is heaven so high That pity cannot breathe its air? Its happy eyes forever dry, Its holy lips without a prayer! My God! my God! if thither led By Thy free grace unmerited, No crown nor palm be mine, but let me keep A heart that still can feel, and eyes that still can weep.

1868.



THE PRAYER-SEEKER.

Along the aisle where prayer was made, A woman, all in black arrayed, Close-veiled, between the kneeling host, With gliding motion of a ghost, Passed to the desk, and laid thereon A scroll which bore these words alone, Pray for me!

Back from the place of worshipping She glided like a guilty thing The rustle of her draperies, stirred By hurrying feet, alone was heard; While, full of awe, the preacher read, As out into the dark she sped: "Pray for me!"

Back to the night from whence she came, To unimagined grief or shame! Across the threshold of that door None knew the burden that she bore; Alone she left the written scroll, The legend of a troubled soul,— Pray for me!

Glide on, poor ghost of woe or sin! Thou leav'st a common need within; Each bears, like thee, some nameless weight, Some misery inarticulate, Some secret sin, some shrouded dread, Some household sorrow all unsaid. Pray for us!

Pass on! The type of all thou art, Sad witness to the common heart! With face in veil and seal on lip, In mute and strange companionship, Like thee we wander to and fro, Dumbly imploring as we go Pray for us!

Ah, who shall pray, since he who pleads Our want perchance hath greater needs? Yet they who make their loss the gain Of others shall not ask in vain, And Heaven bends low to hear the prayer Of love from lips of self-despair Pray for us!

In vain remorse and fear and hate Beat with bruised bands against a fate Whose walls of iron only move And open to the touch of love. He only feels his burdens fall Who, taught by suffering, pities all. Pray for us!

He prayeth best who leaves unguessed The mystery of another's breast. Why cheeks grow pale, why eyes o'erflow, Or heads are white, thou need'st not know. Enough to note by many a sign That every heart hath needs like thine. Pray for us!

1870



THE BREWING OF SOMA.

"These libations mixed with milk have been prepared for Indra: offer Soma to the drinker of Soma." —Vashista, translated by MAX MULLER.

The fagots blazed, the caldron's smoke Up through the green wood curled; "Bring honey from the hollow oak, Bring milky sap," the brewers spoke, In the childhood of the world.

And brewed they well or brewed they ill, The priests thrust in their rods, First tasted, and then drank their fill, And shouted, with one voice and will, "Behold the drink of gods!"

They drank, and to! in heart and brain A new, glad life began; The gray of hair grew young again, The sick man laughed away his pain, The cripple leaped and ran.

"Drink, mortals, what the gods have sent, Forget your long annoy." So sang the priests. From tent to tent The Soma's sacred madness went, A storm of drunken joy.

Then knew each rapt inebriate A winged and glorious birth, Soared upward, with strange joy elate, Beat, with dazed head, Varuna's gate, And, sobered, sank to earth.

The land with Soma's praises rang; On Gihon's banks of shade Its hymns the dusky maidens sang; In joy of life or mortal pang All men to Soma prayed.

The morning twilight of the race Sends down these matin psalms; And still with wondering eyes we trace The simple prayers to Soma's grace, That Vedic verse embalms.

As in that child-world's early year, Each after age has striven By music, incense, vigils drear, And trance, to bring the skies more near, Or lift men up to heaven!

Some fever of the blood and brain, Some self-exalting spell, The scourger's keen delight of pain, The Dervish dance, the Orphic strain, The wild-haired Bacchant's yell,—

The desert's hair-grown hermit sunk The saner brute below; The naked Santon, hashish-drunk, The cloister madness of the monk, The fakir's torture-show!

And yet the past comes round again, And new doth old fulfil; In sensual transports wild as vain We brew in many a Christian fane The heathen Soma still!

Dear Lord and Father of mankind, Forgive our foolish ways! Reclothe us in our rightful mind, In purer lives Thy service find, In deeper reverence, praise.

In simple trust like theirs who heard Beside the Syrian sea The gracious calling of the Lord, Let us, like them, without a word, Rise up and follow Thee.

O Sabbath rest by Galilee! O calm of hills above, Where Jesus knelt to share with Thee The silence of eternity Interpreted by love!

With that deep hush subduing all Our words and works that drown The tender whisper of Thy call, As noiseless let Thy blessing fall As fell Thy manna down.

Drop Thy still dews of quietness, Till all our strivings cease; Take from our souls the strain and stress, And let our ordered lives confess The beauty of Thy peace.

Breathe through the heats of our desire Thy coolness and Thy balm; Let sense be dumb, let flesh retire; Speak through the earthquake, wind, and fire, O still, small voice of calm!

1872.



A WOMAN.

Oh, dwarfed and wronged, and stained with ill, Behold! thou art a woman still! And, by that sacred name and dear, I bid thy better self appear. Still, through thy foul disguise, I see The rudimental purity, That, spite of change and loss, makes good Thy birthright-claim of womanhood; An inward loathing, deep, intense; A shame that is half innocence. Cast off the grave-clothes of thy sin! Rise from the dust thou liest in, As Mary rose at Jesus' word, Redeemed and white before the Lord! Reclairn thy lost soul! In His name, Rise up, and break thy bonds of shame. Art weak? He 's strong. Art fearful? Hear The world's O'ercomer: "Be of cheer!" What lip shall judge when He approves? Who dare to scorn the child He loves?



THE PRAYER OF AGASSIZ.

The island of Penikese in Buzzard's Bay was given by Mr. John Anderson to Agassiz for the uses of a summer school of natural history. A large barn was cleared and improvised as a lecture-room. Here, on the first morning of the school, all the company was gathered. "Agassiz had arranged no programme of exercises," says Mrs. Agassiz, in Louis Agassiz; his Life and Correspondence, "trusting to the interest of the occasion to suggest what might best be said or done. But, as he looked upon his pupils gathered there to study nature with him, by an impulse as natural as it was unpremeditated, he called upon then to join in silently asking God's blessing on their work together. The pause was broken by the first words of an address no less fervent than its unspoken prelude." This was in the summer of 1873, and Agassiz died the December following.

On the isle of Penikese, Ringed about by sapphire seas, Fanned by breezes salt and cool, Stood the Master with his school. Over sails that not in vain Wooed the west-wind's steady strain, Line of coast that low and far Stretched its undulating bar, Wings aslant along the rim Of the waves they stooped to skim, Rock and isle and glistening bay, Fell the beautiful white day.

Said the Master to the youth "We have come in search of truth, Trying with uncertain key Door by door of mystery; We are reaching, through His laws, To the garment-hem of Cause, Him, the endless, unbegun, The Unnamable, the One Light of all our light the Source, Life of life, and Force of force. As with fingers of the blind, We are groping here to find What the hieroglyphics mean Of the Unseen in the seen, What the Thought which underlies Nature's masking and disguise, What it is that hides beneath Blight and bloom and birth and death. By past efforts unavailing, Doubt and error, loss and failing, Of our weakness made aware, On the threshold of our task Let us light and guidance ask, Let us pause in silent prayer!"

Then the Master in his place Bowed his head a little space, And the leaves by soft airs stirred, Lapse of wave and cry of bird, Left the solemn hush unbroken Of that wordless prayer unspoken, While its wish, on earth unsaid, Rose to heaven interpreted. As, in life's best hours, we hear By the spirit's finer ear His low voice within us, thus The All-Father heareth us; And His holy ear we pain With our noisy words and vain. Not for Him our violence Storming at the gates of sense, His the primal language, His The eternal silences!

Even the careless heart was moved, And the doubting gave assent, With a gesture reverent, To the Master well-beloved. As thin mists are glorified By the light they cannot hide, All who gazed upon him saw, Through its veil of tender awe, How his face was still uplit By the old sweet look of it. Hopeful, trustful, full of cheer, And the love that casts out fear. Who the secret may declare Of that brief, unuttered prayer? Did the shade before him come Of th' inevitable doom, Of the end of earth so near, And Eternity's new year?

In the lap of sheltering seas Rests the isle of Penikese; But the lord of the domain Comes not to his own again Where the eyes that follow fail, On a vaster sea his sail Drifts beyond our beck and hail. Other lips within its bound Shall the laws of life expound; Other eyes from rock and shell Read the world's old riddles well But when breezes light and bland Blow from Summer's blossomed land, When the air is glad with wings, And the blithe song-sparrow sings, Many an eye with his still face Shall the living ones displace, Many an ear the word shall seek He alone could fitly speak. And one name forevermore Shall be uttered o'er and o'er By the waves that kiss the shore, By the curlew's whistle sent Down the cool, sea-scented air; In all voices known to her, Nature owns her worshipper, Half in triumph, half lament. Thither Love shall tearful turn, Friendship pause uncovered there, And the wisest reverence learn From the Master's silent prayer.