{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_9572/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_9572","id":"gutenberg_9572","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/9572","summary":null,"tags":["American poetry -- 19th century","Category: American Literature","Category: Poetry","Category: Religion/Spirituality"],"text":"This eBook was produced by David Widger\n\n\n\n\n                            POEMS OF NATURE\n\n                    POEMS SUBJECTIVE AND REMINISCENT\n\n                            RELIGIOUS POEMS\n\n                                   BY\n                        JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER\n\n\n\nCONTENTS:\n\nRELIGIOUS POEMS:\n     THE STAR OF BETHLEHEM\n     THE CITIES OF THE PLAIN\n     THE CALL OF THE CHRISTIAN\n     THE CRUCIFIXION\n     PALESTINE\n     HYMNS FROM THE FRENCH OF LAMARTINE\n          I. ENCORE UN HYMNE\n          II. LE CRI DE L'AME\n     THE FAMILIST'S HYMN\n     EZEKIEL\n     WHAT THE VOICE SAID\n     THE ANGEL OF PATIENCE\n     THE WIFE OF MANOAH TO HER HUSBAND\n     MY SOUL AND I\n     WORSHIP\n     THE HOLY LAND\n     THE REWARD\n     THE WISH OF TO-DAY\n     ALL'S WELL\n     INVOCATION\n     QUESTIONS OF LIFE\n     FIRST-DAY THOUGHTS\n     TRUST\n     TRINITAS\n     THE SISTERS\n     \"THE ROCK\" IN EL GHOR\n     THE OVER-HEART\n     THE SHADOW AND THE LIGHT\n     THE CRY OF A LOST SOUL\n     ANDREW RYKMAN'S PRAYER\n\n\n\n\n                             RELIGIOUS POEMS\n\n\nTHE STAR OF BETHLEHEM\n\nWhere Time the measure of his hours\nBy changeful bud and blossom keeps,\nAnd, like a young bride crowned with flowers,\nFair Shiraz in her garden sleeps;\n\nWhere, to her poet's turban stone,\nThe Spring her gift of flowers imparts,\nLess sweet than those his thoughts have sown\nIn the warm soil of Persian hearts:\n\nThere sat the stranger, where the shade\nOf scattered date-trees thinly lay,\nWhile in the hot clear heaven delayed\nThe long and still and weary day.\n\nStrange trees and fruits above him hung,\nStrange odors filled the sultry air,\nStrange birds upon the branches swung,\nStrange insect voices murmured there.\n\nAnd strange bright blossoms shone around,\nTurned sunward from the shadowy bowers,\nAs if the Gheber's soul had found\nA fitting home in Iran's flowers.\n\nWhate'er he saw, whate'er he heard,\nAwakened feelings new and sad,--\nNo Christian garb, nor Christian word,\nNor church with Sabbath-bell chimes glad,\n\nBut Moslem graves, with turban stones,\nAnd mosque-spires gleaming white, in view,\nAnd graybeard Mollahs in low tones\nChanting their Koran service through.\n\nThe flowers which smiled on either hand,\nLike tempting fiends, were such as they\nWhich once, o'er all that Eastern land,\nAs gifts on demon altars lay.\n\nAs if the burning eye of Baal\nThe servant of his Conqueror knew,\nFrom skies which knew no cloudy veil,\nThe Sun's hot glances smote him through.\n\n\"Ah me!\" the lonely stranger said,\n\"The hope which led my footsteps on,\nAnd light from heaven around them shed,\nO'er weary wave and waste, is gone!\n\n\"Where are the harvest fields all white,\nFor Truth to thrust her sickle in?\nWhere flock the souls, like doves in flight,\nFrom the dark hiding-place of sin?\n\n\"A silent-horror broods o'er all,--\nThe burden of a hateful spell,--\nThe very flowers around recall\nThe hoary magi's rites of hell!\n\n\"And what am I, o'er such a land\nThe banner of the Cross to bear?\nDear Lord, uphold me with Thy hand,\nThy strength with human weakness share!\"\n\nHe ceased; for at his very feet\nIn mild rebuke a floweret smiled;\nHow thrilled his sinking heart to greet\nThe Star-flower of the Virgin's child!\n\nSown by some wandering Frank, it drew\nIts life from alien air and earth,\nAnd told to Paynim sun and dew\nThe story of the Saviour's birth.\n\nFrom scorching beams, in kindly mood,\nThe Persian plants its beauty screened,\nAnd on its pagan sisterhood,\nIn love, the Christian floweret leaned.\n\nWith tears of joy the wanderer felt\nThe darkness of his long despair\nBefore that hallowed symbol melt,\nWhich God's dear love had nurtured there.\n\nFrom Nature's face, that simple flower\nThe lines of sin and sadness swept;\nAnd Magian pile and Paynim bower\nIn peace like that of Eden slept.\n\nEach Moslem tomb, and cypress old,\nLooked holy through the sunset air;\nAnd, angel-like, the Muezzin told\nFrom tower and mosque the hour of prayer.\n\nWith cheerful steps, the morrow's dawn\nFrom Shiraz saw the stranger part;\nThe Star-flower of the Virgin-Born\nStill blooming in his hopeful heart!\n1830.\n\n\n\nTHE CITIES OF THE PLAIN\n\n\"Get ye up from the wrath of God's terrible day!\nUngirded, unsandalled, arise and away!\n'T is the vintage of blood, 't is the fulness of time,\nAnd vengeance shall gather the harvest of crime!\"\n\nThe warning was spoken--the righteous had gone,\nAnd the proud ones of Sodom were feasting alone;\nAll gay was the banquet--the revel was long,\nWith the pouring of wine and the breathing of song.\n\n'T was an evening of beauty; the air was perfume,\nThe earth was all greenness, the trees were all bloom;\nAnd softly the delicate viol was heard,\nLike the murmur of love or the notes of a bird.\n\nAnd beautiful maidens moved down in the dance,\nWith the magic of motion and sunshine of glance\nAnd white arms wreathed lightly, and tresses fell free\nAs the plumage of birds in some tropical tree.\n\nWhere the shrines of foul idols were lighted on high,\nAnd wantonness tempted the lust of the eye;\nMidst rites of obsceneness, strange, loathsome, abhorred,\nThe blasphemer scoffed at the name of the Lord.\n\nHark! the growl of the thunder,--the quaking of earth!\nWoe, woe to the worship, and woe to the mirth!\nThe black sky has opened; there's flame in the air;\nThe red arm of vengeance is lifted and bare!\n\nThen the shriek of the dying rose wild where the song\nAnd the low tone of love had been whispered along;\nFor the fierce flames went lightly o'er palace and bower,\nLike the red tongues of demons, to blast and devour!\n\nDown, down on the fallen the red ruin rained,\nAnd the reveller sank with his wine-cup undrained;\nThe foot of the dancer, the music's loved thrill,\nAnd the shout and the laughter grew suddenly still.\n\nThe last throb of anguish was fearfully given;\nThe last eye glared forth in its madness on Heaven!\nThe last groan of horror rose wildly and vain,\nAnd death brooded over the pride of the Plain!\n1831.\n\n\n\nTHE CALL OF THE CHRISTIAN\n\nNot always as the whirlwind's rush\nOn Horeb's mount of fear,\nNot always as the burning bush\nTo Midian's shepherd seer,\nNor as the awful voice which came\nTo Israel's prophet bards,\nNor as the tongues of cloven flame,\nNor gift of fearful words,--\n\nNot always thus, with outward sign\nOf fire or voice from Heaven,\nThe message of a truth divine,\nThe call of God is given!\nAwaking in the human heart\nLove for the true and right,--\nZeal for the Christian's better part,\nStrength for the Christian's fight.\n\nNor unto manhood's heart alone\nThe holy influence steals\nWarm with a rapture not its own,\nThe heart of woman feels!\nAs she who by Samaria's wall\nThe Saviour's errand sought,--\nAs those who with the fervent Paul\nAnd meek Aquila wrought:\n\nOr those meek ones whose martyrdom\nRome's gathered grandeur saw\nOr those who in their Alpine home\nBraved the Crusader's war,\nWhen the green Vaudois, trembling, heard,\nThrough all its vales of death,\nThe martyr's song of triumph poured\nFrom woman's failing breath.\n\nAnd gently, by a thousand things\nWhich o'er our spirits pass,\nLike breezes o'er the harp's fine strings,\nOr vapors o'er a glass,\nLeaving their token strange and new\nOf music or of shade,\nThe summons to the right and true\nAnd merciful is made.\n\nOh, then, if gleams of truth and light\nFlash o'er thy waiting mind,\nUnfolding to thy mental sight\nThe wants of human-kind;\nIf, brooding over human grief,\nThe earnest wish is known\nTo soothe and gladden with relief\nAn anguish not thine own;\n\nThough heralded with naught of fear,\nOr outward sign or show;\nThough only to the inward ear\nIt whispers soft and low;\nThough dropping, as the manna fell,\nUnseen, yet from above,\nNoiseless as dew-fall, heed it well,---\nThy Father's call of love!\n\n\n\nTHE CRUCIFIXION.\n\nSunlight upon Judha's hills!\nAnd on the waves of Galilee;\nOn Jordan's stream, and on the rills\nThat feed the dead and sleeping sea!\nMost freshly from the green wood springs\nThe light breeze on its scented wings;\nAnd gayly quiver in the sun\nThe cedar tops of Lebanon!\n\nA few more hours,--a change hath come!\nThe sky is dark without a cloud!\nThe shouts of wrath and joy are dumb,\nAnd proud knees unto earth are bowed.\nA change is on the hill of Death,\nThe helmed watchers pant for breath,\nAnd turn with wild and maniac eyes\nFrom the dark scene of sacrifice!\n\nThat Sacrifice!--the death of Him,--\nThe Christ of God, the holy One!\nWell may the conscious Heaven grow dim,\nAnd blacken the beholding, Sun.\nThe wonted light hath fled away,\nNight settles on the middle day,\nAnd earthquake from his caverned bed\nIs waking with a thrill of dread!\n\nThe dead are waking underneath!\nTheir prison door is rent away!\nAnd, ghastly with the seal of death,\nThey wander in the eye of day!\nThe temple of the Cherubim,\nThe House of God is cold and dim;\nA curse is on its trembling walls,\nIts mighty veil asunder falls!\n\nWell may the cavern-depths of Earth\nBe shaken, and her mountains nod;\nWell may the sheeted dead come forth\nTo see the suffering son of God!\nWell may the temple-shrine grow dim,\nAnd shadows veil the Cherubim,\nWhen He, the chosen one of Heaven,\nA sacrifice for guilt is given!\n\nAnd shall the sinful heart, alone,\nBehold unmoved the fearful hour,\nWhen Nature trembled on her throne,\nAnd Death resigned his iron power?\nOh, shall the heart--whose sinfulness\nGave keenness to His sore distress,\nAnd added to His tears of blood--\nRefuse its trembling gratitude!\n1834.\n\n\n\nPALESTINE\n\nBlest land of Judaea! thrice hallowed of song,\nWhere the holiest of memories pilgrim-like throng;\nIn the shade of thy palms, by the shores of thy sea,\nOn the hills of thy beauty, my heart is with thee.\n\nWith the eye of a spirit I look on that shore\nWhere pilgrim and prophet have lingered before;\nWith the glide of a spirit I traverse the sod\nMade bright by the steps of the angels of God.\n\nBlue sea of the hills! in my spirit I hear\nThy waters, Gennesaret, chime on my ear;\nWhere the Lowly and Just with the people sat down,\nAnd thy spray on the dust of His sandals was thrown.\n\nBeyond are Bethulia's mountains of green,\nAnd the desolate hills of the wild Gadarene;\nAnd I pause on the goat-crags of Tabor to see\nThe gleam of thy waters, O dark Galilee!\n\nHark, a sound in the valley! where, swollen and strong,\nThy river, O Kishon, is sweeping along;\nWhere the Canaanite strove with Jehovah in vain,\nAnd thy torrent grew dark with the blood of the slain.\n\nThere down from his mountains stern Zebulon came,\nAnd Naphthali's stag, with his eyeballs of flame,\nAnd the chariots of Jabin rolled harmlessly on,\nFor the arm of the Lord was Abinoam's son!\n\nThere sleep the still rocks and the caverns which rang\nTo the song which the beautiful prophetess sang,\nWhen the princes of Issachar stood by her side,\nAnd the shout of a host in its triumph replied.\n\nLo, Bethlehem's hill-site before me is seen,\nWith the mountains around, and the valleys between;\nThere rested the shepherds of Judah, and there\nThe song of the angels rose sweet on the air.\n\nAnd Bethany's palm-trees in beauty still throw\nTheir shadows at noon on the ruins below;\nBut where are the sisters who hastened to greet\nThe lowly Redeemer, and sit at His feet?\n\nI tread where the twelve in their wayfaring trod;\nI stand where they stood with the chosen of God--\nWhere His blessing was heard and His lessons were taught,\nWhere the blind were restored and the healing was wrought.\n\nOh, here with His flock the sad Wanderer came;\nThese hills He toiled over in grief are the same;\nThe founts where He drank by the wayside still flow,\nAnd the same airs are blowing which breathed on His brow!\n\nAnd throned on her hills sits Jerusalem yet,\nBut with dust on her forehead, and chains on her feet;\nFor the crown of her pride to the mocker hath gone,\nAnd the holy Shechinah is dark where it shone.\n\nBut wherefore this dream of the earthly abode\nOf Humanity clothed in the brightness of God?\nWere my spirit but turned from the outward and dim,\nIt could gaze, even now, on the presence of Him!\n\nNot in clouds and in terrors, but gentle as when,\nIn love and in meekness, He moved among men;\nAnd the voice which breathed peace to the waves of the sea\nIn the hush of my spirit would whisper to me!\n\nAnd what if my feet may not tread where He stood,\nNor my ears hear the dashing of Galilee's flood,\nNor my eyes see the cross which he bowed Him to bear,\nNor my knees press Gethsemane's garden of prayer.\n\nYet, Loved of the Father, Thy Spirit is near\nTo the meek, and the lowly, and penitent here;\nAnd the voice of Thy love is the same even now\nAs at Bethany's tomb or on Olivet's brow.\n\nOh, the outward hath gone! but in glory and power.\nThe spirit surviveth the things of an hour;\nUnchanged, undecaying, its Pentecost flame\nOn the heart's secret altar is burning the same\n1837.\n\n\n\nHYMNS.\n\nFROM THE FRENCH OF LAMARTINE\n\n     I.\n     \"Encore un hymne, O ma lyre\n     Un hymn pour le Seigneur,\n     Un hymne dans mon delire,\n     Un hymne dans mon bonheur.\"\n\n\n     One hymn more, O my lyre!\n     Praise to the God above,\n     Of joy and life and love,\n     Sweeping its strings of fire!\n\nOh, who the speed of bird and wind\nAnd sunbeam's glance will lend to me,\nThat, soaring upward, I may find\nMy resting-place and home in Thee?\nThou, whom my soul, midst doubt and gloom,\nAdoreth with a fervent flame,--\nMysterious spirit! unto whom\nPertain nor sign nor name!\n\nSwiftly my lyre's soft murmurs go,\nUp from the cold and joyless earth,\nBack to the God who bade them flow,\nWhose moving spirit sent them forth.\nBut as for me, O God! for me,\nThe lowly creature of Thy will,\nLingering and sad, I sigh to Thee,\nAn earth-bound pilgrim still!\n\nWas not my spirit born to shine\nWhere yonder stars and suns are glowing?\nTo breathe with them the light divine\nFrom God's own holy altar flowing?\nTo be, indeed, whate'er the soul\nIn dreams hath thirsted for so long,--\nA portion of heaven's glorious whole\nOf loveliness and song?\n\nOh, watchers of the stars at night,\nWho breathe their fire, as we the air,--\nSuns, thunders, stars, and rays of light,\nOh, say, is He, the Eternal, there?\nBend there around His awful throne\nThe seraph's glance, the angel's knee?\nOr are thy inmost depths His own,\nO wild and mighty sea?\n\nThoughts of my soul, how swift ye go!\nSwift as the eagle's glance of fire,\nOr arrows from the archer's bow,\nTo the far aim of your desire!\nThought after thought, ye thronging rise,\nLike spring-doves from the startled wood,\nBearing like them your sacrifice\nOf music unto God!\n\nAnd shall these thoughts of joy and love\nCome back again no more to me?\nReturning like the patriarch's dove\nWing-weary from the eternal sea,\nTo bear within my longing arms\nThe promise-bough of kindlier skies,\nPlucked from the green, immortal palms\nWhich shadow Paradise?\n\nAll-moving spirit! freely forth\nAt Thy command the strong wind goes\nIts errand to the passive earth,\nNor art can stay, nor strength oppose,\nUntil it folds its weary wing\nOnce more within the hand divine;\nSo, weary from its wandering,\nMy spirit turns to Thine!\n\nChild of the sea, the mountain stream,\nFrom its dark caverns, hurries on,\nCeaseless, by night and morning's beam,\nBy evening's star and noontide's sun,\nUntil at last it sinks to rest,\nO'erwearied, in the waiting sea,\nAnd moans upon its mother's breast,--\nSo turns my soul to Thee!\n\nO Thou who bidst the torrent flow,\nWho lendest wings unto the wind,--\nMover of all things! where art Thou?\nOh, whither shall I go to find\nThe secret of Thy resting-place?\nIs there no holy wing for me,\nThat, soaring, I may search the space\nOf highest heaven for Thee?\n\nOh, would I were as free to rise\nAs leaves on autumn's whirlwind borne,--\nThe arrowy light of sunset skies,\nOr sound, or ray, or star of morn,\nWhich melts in heaven at twilight's close,\nOr aught which soars unchecked and free\nThrough earth and heaven; that I might lose\nMyself in finding Thee!\n\n\n     II.\n     LE CRI DE L'AME.\n\n     \"Quand le souffle divin qui flotte sur le monde.\"\n\nWhen the breath divine is flowing,\nZephyr-like o'er all things going,\nAnd, as the touch of viewless fingers,\nSoftly on my soul it lingers,\nOpen to a breath the lightest,\nConscious of a touch the slightest,--\nAs some calm, still lake, whereon\nSinks the snowy-bosomed swan,\nAnd the glistening water-rings\nCircle round her moving wings\nWhen my upward gaze is turning\nWhere the stars of heaven are burning\nThrough the deep and dark abyss,\nFlowers of midnight's wilderness,\nBlowing with the evening's breath\nSweetly in their Maker's path\nWhen the breaking day is flushing\nAll the east, and light is gushing\nUpward through the horizon's haze,\nSheaf-like, with its thousand rays,\nSpreading, until all above\nOverflows with joy and love,\nAnd below, on earth's green bosom,\nAll is changed to light and blossom:\n\nWhen my waking fancies over\nForms of brightness flit and hover\nHoly as the seraphs are,\nWho by Zion's fountains wear\nOn their foreheads, white and broad,\n\"Holiness unto the Lord!\"\nWhen, inspired with rapture high,\nIt would seem a single sigh\nCould a world of love create;\nThat my life could know no date,\nAnd my eager thoughts could fill\nHeaven and Earth, o'erflowing still!\n\nThen, O Father! Thou alone,\nFrom the shadow of Thy throne,\nTo the sighing of my breast\nAnd its rapture answerest.\nAll my thoughts, which, upward winging,\nBathe where Thy own light is springing,--\nAll my yearnings to be free\nAre at echoes answering Thee!\n\nSeldom upon lips of mine,\nFather! rests that name of Thine;\nDeep within my inmost breast,\nIn the secret place of mind,\nLike an awful presence shrined,\nDoth the dread idea rest\nHushed and holy dwells it there,\nPrompter of the silent prayer,\nLifting up my spirit's eye\nAnd its faint, but earnest cry,\nFrom its dark and cold abode,\nUnto Thee, my Guide and God!\n1837\n\n\n\nTHE FAMILIST'S HYMN.\n\n     The Puritans of New England, even in their wilderness home, were\n     not exempted from the sectarian contentions which agitated the\n     mother country after the downfall of Charles the First, and of the\n     established Episcopacy. The Quakers, Baptists, and Catholics were\n     banished, on pain of death, from the Massachusetts Colony. One\n     Samuel Gorton, a bold and eloquent declaimer, after preaching for a\n     time in Boston against the doctrines of the Puritans, and declaring\n     that their churches were mere human devices, and their sacrament\n     and baptism an abomination, was driven out of the jurisdiction of\n     the colony, and compelled to seek a residence among the savages. He\n     gathered round him a considerable number of converts, who, like the\n     primitive Christians, shared all things in common. His opinions,\n     however, were so troublesome to the leading clergy of the colony,\n     that they instigated an attack upon his \"Family\" by an armed force,\n     which seized upon the principal men in it, and brought them into\n     Massachusetts, where they were sentenced to be kept at hard labor\n     in several towns (one only in each town), during the pleasure of\n     the General Court, they being forbidden, under severe penalties, to\n     utter any of their religious sentiments, except to such ministers\n     as might labor for their conversion. They were unquestionably\n     sincere in their opinions, and, whatever may have been their\n     errors, deserve to be ranked among those who have in all ages\n     suffered for the freedom of conscience.\n\nFather! to Thy suffering poor\nStrength and grace and faith impart,\nAnd with Thy own love restore\nComfort to the broken heart!\nOh, the failing ones confirm\nWith a holier strength of zeal!\nGive Thou not the feeble worm\nHelpless to the spoiler's heel!\n\nFather! for Thy holy sake\nWe are spoiled and hunted thus;\nJoyful, for Thy truth we take\nBonds and burthens unto us\nPoor, and weak, and robbed of all,\nWeary with our daily task,\nThat Thy truth may never fall\nThrough our weakness, Lord, we ask.\n\nRound our fired and wasted homes\nFlits the forest-bird unscared,\nAnd at noon the wild beast comes\nWhere our frugal meal was shared;\nFor the song of praises there\nShrieks the crow the livelong day;\nFor the sound of evening prayer\nHowls the evil beast of prey!\n\nSweet the songs we loved to sing\nUnderneath Thy holy sky;\nWords and tones that used to bring\nTears of joy in every eye;\nDear the wrestling hours of prayer,\nWhen we gathered knee to knee,\nBlameless youth and hoary hair,\nBowed, O God, alone to Thee.\n\nAs Thine early children, Lord,\nShared their wealth and daily bread,\nEven so, with one accord,\nWe, in love, each other fed.\nNot with us the miser's hoard,\nNot with us his grasping hand;\nEqual round a common board,\nDrew our meek and brother band!\n\nSafe our quiet Eden lay\nWhen the war-whoop stirred the land\nAnd the Indian turned away\nFrom our home his bloody hand.\nWell that forest-ranger saw,\nThat the burthen and the curse\nOf the white man's cruel law\nRested also upon us.\n\nTorn apart, and driven forth\nTo our toiling hard and long,\nFather! from the dust of earth\nLift we still our grateful song!\nGrateful, that in bonds we share\nIn Thy love which maketh free;\nJoyful, that the wrongs we bear,\nDraw us nearer, Lord, to Thee!\n\nGrateful! that where'er we toil,--\nBy Wachuset's wooded side,\nOn Nantucket's sea-worn isle,\nOr by wild Neponset's tide,--\nStill, in spirit, we are near,\nAnd our evening hymns, which rise\nSeparate and discordant here,\nMeet and mingle in the skies!\n\nLet the scoffer scorn and mock,\nLet the proud and evil priest\nRob the needy of his flock,\nFor his wine-cup and his feast,--\nRedden not Thy bolts in store\nThrough the blackness of Thy skies?\nFor the sighing of the poor\nWilt Thou not, at length, arise?\n\nWorn and wasted, oh! how long\nShall thy trodden poor complain?\nIn Thy name they bear the wrong,\nIn Thy cause the bonds of pain!\nMelt oppression's heart of steel,\nLet the haughty priesthood see,\nAnd their blinded followers feel,\nThat in us they mock at Thee!\n\nIn Thy time, O Lord of hosts,\nStretch abroad that hand to save\nWhich of old, on Egypt's coasts,\nSmote apart the Red Sea's wave\nLead us from this evil land,\nFrom the spoiler set us free,\nAnd once more our gathered band,\nHeart to heart, shall worship Thee!\n1838.\n\n\n\nEZEKIEL\n\n     Also, thou son of man, the children of thy people still are talking\n     against thee by the walls and in the doors of the houses, and speak\n     one to another, every one to his brother, saying, Come, I pray you,\n     and hear what is the word that cometh forth from the Lord. And they\n     come unto thee as the people cometh, and they sit before thee as my\n     people, and they hear thy words, but they will not do them: for\n     with their mouth they skew much love, but their heart goeth after\n     their covetousness. And, lo, thou art unto them as a very lovely\n     song of one that hath a pleasant voice, and can play well on an\n     instrument: for they hear thy words, but they do them not. And when\n     this cometh to pass, (lo, it will come,) then shall they know that\n     a prophet hath been among them.--EZEKIEL, xxxiii. 30-33.\n\nThey hear Thee not, O God! nor see;\nBeneath Thy rod they mock at Thee;\nThe princes of our ancient line\nLie drunken with Assyrian wine;\nThe priests around Thy altar speak\nThe false words which their hearers seek;\nAnd hymns which Chaldea's wanton maids\nHave sung in Dura's idol-shades\nAre with the Levites' chant ascending,\nWith Zion's holiest anthems blending!\n\nOn Israel's bleeding bosom set,\nThe heathen heel is crushing yet;\nThe towers upon our holy hill\nEcho Chaldean footsteps still.\nOur wasted shrines,--who weeps for them?\nWho mourneth for Jerusalem?\nWho turneth from his gains away?\nWhose knee with mine is bowed to pray?\nWho, leaving feast and purpling cup,\nTakes Zion's lamentation up?\n\nA sad and thoughtful youth, I went\nWith Israel's early banishment;\nAnd where the sullen Chebar crept,\nThe ritual of my fathers kept.\nThe water for the trench I drew,\nThe firstling of the flock I slew,\nAnd, standing at the altar's side,\nI shared the Levites' lingering pride,\nThat still, amidst her mocking foes,\nThe smoke of Zion's offering rose.\n\nIn sudden whirlwind, cloud and flame,\nThe Spirit of the Highest came!\nBefore mine eyes a vision passed,\nA glory terrible and vast;\nWith dreadful eyes of living things,\nAnd sounding sweep of angel wings,\nWith circling light and sapphire throne,\nAnd flame-like form of One thereon,\nAnd voice of that dread Likeness sent\nDown from the crystal firmament!\n\nThe burden of a prophet's power\nFell on me in that fearful hour;\nFrom off unutterable woes\nThe curtain of the future rose;\nI saw far down the coming time\nThe fiery chastisement of crime;\nWith noise of mingling hosts, and jar\nOf falling towers and shouts of war,\nI saw the nations rise and fall,\nLike fire-gleams on my tent's white wall.\n\nIn dream and trance, I--saw the slain\nOf Egypt heaped like harvest grain.\nI saw the walls of sea-born Tyre\nSwept over by the spoiler's fire;\nAnd heard the low, expiring moan\nOf Edom on his rocky throne;\nAnd, woe is me! the wild lament\nFrom Zion's desolation sent;\nAnd felt within my heart each blow\nWhich laid her holy places low.\n\nIn bonds and sorrow, day by day,\nBefore the pictured tile I lay;\nAnd there, as in a mirror, saw\nThe coming of Assyria's war;\nHer swarthy lines of spearmen pass\nLike locusts through Bethhoron's grass;\nI saw them draw their stormy hem\nOf battle round Jerusalem;\nAnd, listening, heard the Hebrew wail!\n\nBlend with the victor-trump of Baal!\nWho trembled at my warning word?\nWho owned the prophet of the Lord?\nHow mocked the rude, how scoffed the vile,\nHow stung the Levites' scornful smile,\nAs o'er my spirit, dark and slow,\nThe shadow crept of Israel's woe\nAs if the angel's mournful roll\nHad left its record on my soul,\nAnd traced in lines of darkness there\nThe picture of its great despair!\n\nYet ever at the hour I feel\nMy lips in prophecy unseal.\nPrince, priest, and Levite gather near,\nAnd Salem's daughters haste to hear,\nOn Chebar's waste and alien shore,\nThe harp of Judah swept once more.\nThey listen, as in Babel's throng\nThe Chaldeans to the dancer's song,\nOr wild sabbeka's nightly play,--\nAs careless and as vain as they.\n\n     .     .     .     .     .\n\nAnd thus, O Prophet-bard of old,\nHast thou thy tale of sorrow told\nThe same which earth's unwelcome seers\nHave felt in all succeeding years.\nSport of the changeful multitude,\nNor calmly heard nor understood,\nTheir song has seemed a trick of art,\nTheir warnings but, the actor's part.\nWith bonds, and scorn, and evil will,\nThe world requites its prophets still.\n\nSo was it when the Holy One\nThe garments of the flesh put on\nMen followed where the Highest led\nFor common gifts of daily bread,\nAnd gross of ear, of vision dim,\nOwned not the Godlike power of Him.\nVain as a dreamer's words to them\nHis wail above Jerusalem,\nAnd meaningless the watch He kept\nThrough which His weak disciples slept.\n\nYet shrink not thou, whoe'er thou art,\nFor God's great purpose set apart,\nBefore whose far-discerning eyes,\nThe Future as the Present lies!\nBeyond a narrow-bounded age\nStretches thy prophet-heritage,\nThrough Heaven's vast spaces angel-trod,\nAnd through the eternal years of God\nThy audience, worlds!--all things to be\nThe witness of the Truth in thee!\n1844.\n\n\n\nWHAT THE VOICE SAID\n\nMADDENED by Earth's wrong and evil,\n\"Lord!\" I cried in sudden ire,\n\"From Thy right hand, clothed with thunder,\nShake the bolted fire!\n\n\"Love is lost, and Faith is dying;\nWith the brute the man is sold;\nAnd the dropping blood of labor\nHardens into gold.\n\n\"Here the dying wail of Famine,\nThere the battle's groan of pain;\nAnd, in silence, smooth-faced Mammon\nReaping men like grain.\n\n\"'Where is God, that we should fear Him?'\nThus the earth-born Titans say\n'God! if Thou art living, hear us!'\nThus the weak ones pray.\"\n\n\"Thou, the patient Heaven upbraiding,\"\nSpake a solemn Voice within;\n\"Weary of our Lord's forbearance,\nArt thou free from sin?\n\n\"Fearless brow to Him uplifting,\nCanst thou for His thunders call,\nKnowing that to guilt's attraction\nEvermore they fall?\n\n\"Know'st thou not all germs of evil\nIn thy heart await their time?\nNot thyself, but God's restraining,\nStays their growth of crime.\n\n\"Couldst thou boast, O child of weakness!\nO'er the sons of wrong and strife,\nWere their strong temptations planted\nIn thy path of life?\n\n\"Thou hast seen two streamlets gushing\nFrom one fountain, clear and free,\nBut by widely varying channels\nSearching for the sea.\n\n\"Glideth one through greenest valleys,\nKissing them with lips still sweet;\nOne, mad roaring down the mountains,\nStagnates at their feet.\n\n\"Is it choice whereby the Parsee\nKneels before his mother's fire?\nIn his black tent did the Tartar\nChoose his wandering sire?\n\n\"He alone, whose hand is bounding\nHuman power and human will,\nLooking through each soul's surrounding,\nKnows its good or ill.\n\n\"For thyself, while wrong and sorrow\nMake to thee their strong appeal,\nCoward wert thou not to utter\nWhat the heart must feel.\n\n\"Earnest words must needs be spoken\nWhen the warm heart bleeds or burns\nWith its scorn of wrong, or pity\nFor the wronged, by turns.\n\n\"But, by all thy nature's weakness,\nHidden faults and follies known,\nBe thou, in rebuking evil,\nConscious of thine own.\n\n\"Not the less shall stern-eyed Duty\nTo thy lips her trumpet set,\nBut with harsher blasts shall mingle\nWailings of regret.\"\n\nCease not, Voice of holy speaking,\nTeacher sent of God, be near,\nWhispering through the day's cool silence,\nLet my spirit hear!\n\nSo, when thoughts of evil-doers\nWaken scorn, or hatred move,\nShall a mournful fellow-feeling\nTemper all with love.\n1847.\n\n\n\nTHE ANGEL OF PATIENCE.\n\nA FREE PARAPHRASE OF THE GERMAN.\n\nTo weary hearts, to mourning homes,\nGod's meekest Angel gently comes\nNo power has he to banish pain,\nOr give us back our lost again;\nAnd yet in tenderest love, our dear\nAnd Heavenly Father sends him here.\n\nThere's quiet in that Angel's glance,\nThere 's rest in his still countenance!\nHe mocks no grief with idle cheer,\nNor wounds with words the mourner's ear;\nBut ills and woes he may not cure\nHe kindly trains us to endure.\n\nAngel of Patience! sent to calm\nOur feverish brows with cooling palm;\nTo lay the storms of hope and fear,\nAnd reconcile life's smile and tear;\nThe throbs of wounded pride to still,\nAnd make our own our Father's will.\n\nO thou who mournest on thy way,\nWith longings for the close of day;\nHe walks with thee, that Angel kind,\nAnd gently whispers, \"Be resigned\nBear up, bear on, the end shall tell\nThe dear Lord ordereth all things well!\"\n1847.\n\n\n\nTHE WIFE OF MANOAH TO HER HUSBAND.\n\nAgainst the sunset's glowing wall\nThe city towers rise black and tall,\nWhere Zorah, on its rocky height,\nStands like an armed man in the light.\n\nDown Eshtaol's vales of ripened grain\nFalls like a cloud the night amain,\nAnd up the hillsides climbing slow\nThe barley reapers homeward go.\n\nLook, dearest! how our fair child's head\nThe sunset light hath hallowed,\nWhere at this olive's foot he lies,\nUplooking to the tranquil skies.\n\nOh, while beneath the fervent heat\nThy sickle swept the bearded wheat,\nI've watched, with mingled joy and dread,\nOur child upon his grassy bed.\n\nJoy, which the mother feels alone\nWhose morning hope like mine had flown,\nWhen to her bosom, over-blessed,\nA dearer life than hers is pressed.\n\nDread, for the future dark and still,\nWhich shapes our dear one to its will;\nForever in his large calm eyes,\nI read a tale of sacrifice.\n\nThe same foreboding awe I felt\nWhen at the altar's side we knelt,\nAnd he, who as a pilgrim came,\nRose, winged and glorious, through the flame.\n\nI slept not, though the wild bees made\nA dreamlike murmuring in the shade,\nAnd on me the warm-fingered hours\nPressed with the drowsy smell of flowers.\n\nBefore me, in a vision, rose\nThe hosts of Israel's scornful foes,--\nRank over rank, helm, shield, and spear,\nGlittered in noon's hot atmosphere.\n\nI heard their boast, and bitter word,\nTheir mockery of the Hebrew's Lord,\nI saw their hands His ark assail,\nTheir feet profane His holy veil.\n\nNo angel down the blue space spoke,\nNo thunder from the still sky broke;\nBut in their midst, in power and awe,\nLike God's waked wrath, our child I saw!\n\nA child no more!--harsh-browed and strong,\nHe towered a giant in the throng,\nAnd down his shoulders, broad and bare,\nSwept the black terror of his hair.\n\nHe raised his arm--he smote amain;\nAs round the reaper falls the grain,\nSo the dark host around him fell,\nSo sank the foes of Israel!\n\nAgain I looked. In sunlight shone\nThe towers and domes of Askelon;\nPriest, warrior, slave, a mighty crowd\nWithin her idol temple bowed.\n\nYet one knelt not; stark, gaunt, and blind,\nHis arms the massive pillars twined,--\nAn eyeless captive, strong with hate,\nHe stood there like an evil Fate.\n\nThe red shrines smoked,--the trumpets pealed\nHe stooped,--the giant columns reeled;\nReeled tower and fane, sank arch and wall,\nAnd the thick dust-cloud closed o'er all!\n\nAbove the shriek, the crash, the groan\nOf the fallen pride of Askelon,\nI heard, sheer down the echoing sky,\nA voice as of an angel cry,--\n\nThe voice of him, who at our side\nSat through the golden eventide;\nOf him who, on thy altar's blaze,\nRose fire-winged, with his song of praise.\n\n\"Rejoice o'er Israel's broken chain,\nGray mother of the mighty slain!\nRejoice!\" it cried, \"he vanquisheth!\nThe strong in life is strong in death!\n\n\"To him shall Zorah's daughters raise\nThrough coming years their hymns of praise,\nAnd gray old men at evening tell\nOf all be wrought for Israel.\n\n\"And they who sing and they who hear\nAlike shall hold thy memory dear,\nAnd pour their blessings on thy head,\nO mother of the mighty dead!\"\n\nIt ceased; and though a sound I heard\nAs if great wings the still air stirred,\nI only saw the barley sheaves\nAnd hills half hid by olive leaves.\n\nI bowed my face, in awe and fear,\nOn the dear child who slumbered near;\n\"With me, as with my only son,\nO God,\" I said, \"Thy will be done!\"\n1847.\n\n\n\nMY SOUL AND I\n\nStand still, my soul, in the silent dark\nI would question thee,\nAlone in the shadow drear and stark\nWith God and me!\n\nWhat, my soul, was thy errand here?\nWas it mirth or ease,\nOr heaping up dust from year to year?\n\"Nay, none of these!\"\n\nSpeak, soul, aright in His holy sight\nWhose eye looks still\nAnd steadily on thee through the night\n\"To do His will!\"\n\nWhat hast thou done, O soul of mine,\nThat thou tremblest so?\nHast thou wrought His task, and kept the line\nHe bade thee go?\n\nAha! thou tremblest!--well I see\nThou 'rt craven grown.\nIs it so hard with God and me\nTo stand alone?\n\nSummon thy sunshine bravery back,\nO wretched sprite!\nLet me hear thy voice through this deep and black\nAbysmal night.\n\nWhat hast thou wrought for Right and Truth,\nFor God and Man,\nFrom the golden hours of bright-eyed youth\nTo life's mid span?\n\nWhat, silent all! art sad of cheer?\nArt fearful now?\nWhen God seemed far and men were near,\nHow brave wert thou!\n\nAh, soul of mine, thy tones I hear,\nBut weak and low,\nLike far sad murmurs on my ear\nThey come and go.\n\nI have wrestled stoutly with the Wrong,\nAnd borne the Right\nFrom beneath the footfall of the throng\nTo life and light.\n\n\"Wherever Freedom shivered a chain,\nGod speed, quoth I;\nTo Error amidst her shouting train\nI gave the lie.\"\n\nAh, soul of mine! ah, soul of mine!\nThy deeds are well:\nWere they wrought for Truth's sake or for thine?\nMy soul, pray tell.\n\n\"Of all the work my hand hath wrought\nBeneath the sky,\nSave a place in kindly human thought,\nNo gain have I.\"\n\nGo to, go to! for thy very self\nThy deeds were done\nThou for fame, the miser for pelf,\nYour end is one!\n\nAnd where art thou going, soul of mine?\nCanst see the end?\nAnd whither this troubled life of thine\nEvermore doth tend?\n\nWhat daunts thee now? what shakes thee so?\nMy sad soul say.\n\"I see a cloud like a curtain low\nHang o'er my way.\n\n\"Whither I go I cannot tell\nThat cloud hangs black,\nHigh as the heaven and deep as hell\nAcross my track.\n\n\"I see its shadow coldly enwrap\nThe souls before.\nSadly they enter it, step by step,\nTo return no more.\n\n\"They shrink, they shudder, dear God! they kneel\nTo Thee in prayer.\nThey shut their eyes on the cloud, but feel\nThat it still is there.\n\n\"In vain they turn from the dread Before\nTo the Known and Gone;\nFor while gazing behind them evermore\nTheir feet glide on.\n\n\"Yet, at times, I see upon sweet pale faces\nA light begin\nTo tremble, as if from holy places\nAnd shrines within.\n\n\"And at times methinks their cold lips move\nWith hymn and prayer,\nAs if somewhat of awe, but more of love\nAnd hope were there.\n\n\"I call on the souls who have left the light\nTo reveal their lot;\nI bend mine ear to that wall of night,\nAnd they answer not.\n\n\"But I hear around me sighs of pain\nAnd the cry of fear,\nAnd a sound like the slow sad dropping of rain,\nEach drop a tear!\n\n\"Ah, the cloud is dark, and day by day\nI am moving thither\nI must pass beneath it on my way--\nGod pity me!--whither?\"\n\nAh, soul of mine! so brave and wise\nIn the life-storm loud,\nFronting so calmly all human eyes\nIn the sunlit crowd!\n\nNow standing apart with God and me\nThou art weakness all,\nGazing vainly after the things to be\nThrough Death's dread wall.\n\nBut never for this, never for this\nWas thy being lent;\nFor the craven's fear is but selfishness,\nLike his merriment.\n\nFolly and Fear are sisters twain\nOne closing her eyes.\nThe other peopling the dark inane\nWith spectral lies.\n\nKnow well, my soul, God's hand controls\nWhate'er thou fearest;\nRound Him in calmest music rolls\nWhate'er thou Nearest.\n\nWhat to thee is shadow, to Him is day,\nAnd the end He knoweth,\nAnd not on a blind and aimless way\nThe spirit goeth.\n\nMan sees no future,--a phantom show\nIs alone before him;\nPast Time is dead, and the grasses grow,\nAnd flowers bloom o'er him.\n\nNothing before, nothing behind;\nThe steps of Faith\nFall on the seeming void, and find\nThe rock beneath.\n\nThe Present, the Present is all thou hast\nFor thy sure possessing;\nLike the patriarch's angel hold it fast\nTill it gives its blessing.\n\nWhy fear the night? why shrink from Death;\nThat phantom wan?\nThere is nothing in heaven or earth beneath\nSave God and man.\n\nPeopling the shadows we turn from Him\nAnd from one another;\nAll is spectral and vague and dim\nSave God and our brother!\n\nLike warp and woof all destinies\nAre woven fast,\nLinked in sympathy like the keys\nOf an organ vast.\n\nPluck one thread, and the web ye mar;\nBreak but one\nOf a thousand keys, and the paining jar\nThrough all will run.\n\nO restless spirit! wherefore strain\nBeyond thy sphere?\nHeaven and hell, with their joy and pain,\nAre now and here.\n\nBack to thyself is measured well\nAll thou hast given;\nThy neighbor's wrong is thy present hell,\nHis bliss, thy heaven.\n\nAnd in life, in death, in dark and light,\nAll are in God's care\nSound the black abyss, pierce the deep of night,\nAnd He is there!\n\nAll which is real now remaineth,\nAnd fadeth never\nThe hand which upholds it now sustaineth\nThe soul forever.\n\nLeaning on Him, make with reverent meekness\nHis own thy will,\nAnd with strength from Him shall thy utter weakness\nLife's task fulfil;\n\nAnd that cloud itself, which now before thee\nLies dark in view,\nShall with beams of light from the inner glory\nBe stricken through.\n\nAnd like meadow mist through autumn's dawn\nUprolling thin,\nIts thickest folds when about thee drawn\nLet sunlight in.\n\nThen of what is to be, and of what is done,\nWhy queriest thou?\nThe past and the time to be are one,\nAnd both are now!\n1847.\n\n\n\nWORSHIP.\n\n     \"Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this. To\n     visit the fatherless and widows in, their affliction, and to keep\n     himself unspotted from the world.\"--JAMES I. 27.\n\nThe Pagan's myths through marble lips are spoken,\nAnd ghosts of old Beliefs still flit and moan\nRound fane and altar overthrown and broken,\nO'er tree-grown barrow and gray ring of stone.\n\nBlind Faith had martyrs in those old high places,\nThe Syrian hill grove and the Druid's wood,\nWith mother's offering, to the Fiend's embraces,\nBone of their bone, and blood of their own blood.\n\nRed altars, kindling through that night of error,\nSmoked with warm blood beneath the cruel eye\nOf lawless Power and sanguinary Terror,\nThroned on the circle of a pitiless sky;\n\nBeneath whose baleful shadow, overcasting\nAll heaven above, and blighting earth below,\nThe scourge grew red, the lip grew pale with fasting,\nAnd man's oblation was his fear and woe!\n\nThen through great temples swelled the dismal moaning\nOf dirge-like music and sepulchral prayer;\nPale wizard priests, o'er occult symbols droning,\nSwung their white censers in the burdened air\n\nAs if the pomp of rituals, and the savor\nOf gums and spices could the Unseen One please;\nAs if His ear could bend, with childish favor,\nTo the poor flattery of the organ keys!\n\nFeet red from war-fields trod the church aisles holy,\nWith trembling reverence: and the oppressor there,\nKneeling before his priest, abased and lowly,\nCrushed human hearts beneath his knee of prayer.\n\nNot such the service the benignant Father\nRequireth at His earthly children's hands\nNot the poor offering of vain rites, but rather\nThe simple duty man from man demands.\n\nFor Earth He asks it: the full joy of heaven\nKnoweth no change of waning or increase;\nThe great heart of the Infinite beats even,\nUntroubled flows the river of His peace.\n\nHe asks no taper lights, on high surrounding\nThe priestly altar and the saintly grave,\nNo dolorous chant nor organ music sounding,\nNor incense clouding tip the twilight nave.\n\nFor he whom Jesus loved hath truly spoken\nThe holier worship which he deigns to bless\nRestores the lost, and binds the spirit broken,\nAnd feeds the widow and the fatherless!\n\nTypes of our human weakness and our sorrow!\nWho lives unhaunted by his loved ones dead?\nWho, with vain longing, seeketh not to borrow\nFrom stranger eyes the home lights which have fled?\n\nO brother man! fold to thy heart thy brother;\nWhere pity dwells, the peace of God is there;\nTo worship rightly is to love each other,\nEach smile a hymn, each kindly deed a prayer.\n\nFollow with reverent steps the great example\nOf Him whose holy work was \"doing good;\"\nSo shall the wide earth seem our Father's temple,\nEach loving life a psalm of gratitude.\n\nThen shall all shackles fall; the stormy clangor\nOf wild war music o'er the earth shall cease;\nLove shall tread out the baleful fire of anger,\nAnd in its ashes plant the tree of peace!\n1848.\n\n\n\nTHE HOLY LAND\n\n     Paraphrased from the lines in Lamartine's _Adieu to Marseilles_,\n     beginning\n\n          \"Je n'ai pas navigue sur l'ocean de sable.\"\n\nI have not felt, o'er seas of sand,\nThe rocking of the desert bark;\nNor laved at Hebron's fount my hand,\nBy Hebron's palm-trees cool and dark;\nNor pitched my tent at even-fall,\nOn dust where Job of old has lain,\nNor dreamed beneath its canvas wall,\nThe dream of Jacob o'er again.\n\nOne vast world-page remains unread;\nHow shine the stars in Chaldea's sky,\nHow sounds the reverent pilgrim's tread,\nHow beats the heart with God so nigh\nHow round gray arch and column lone\nThe spirit of the old time broods,\nAnd sighs in all the winds that moan\nAlong the sandy solitudes!\n\nIn thy tall cedars, Lebanon,\nI have not heard the nations' cries,\nNor seen thy eagles stooping down\nWhere buried Tyre in ruin lies.\nThe Christian's prayer I have not said\nIn Tadmor's temples of decay,\nNor startled, with my dreary tread,\nThe waste where Memnon's empire lay.\n\nNor have I, from thy hallowed tide,\nO Jordan! heard the low lament,\nLike that sad wail along thy side\nWhich Israel's mournful prophet sent!\nNor thrilled within that grotto lone\nWhere, deep in night, the Bard of Kings\nFelt hands of fire direct his own,\nAnd sweep for God the conscious strings.\n\nI have not climbed to Olivet,\nNor laid me where my Saviour lay,\nAnd left His trace of tears as yet\nBy angel eyes unwept away;\nNor watched, at midnight's solemn time,\nThe garden where His prayer and groan,\nWrung by His sorrow and our crime,\nRose to One listening ear alone.\n\nI have not kissed the rock-hewn grot\nWhere in His mother's arms He lay,\nNor knelt upon the sacred spot\nWhere last His footsteps pressed the clay;\nNor looked on that sad mountain head,\nNor smote my sinful breast, where wide\nHis arms to fold the world He spread,\nAnd bowed His head to bless--and died!\n1848.\n\n\n\nTHE REWARD\n\nWho, looking backward from his manhood's prime,\nSees not the spectre of his misspent time?\nAnd, through the shade\nOf funeral cypress planted thick behind,\nHears no reproachful whisper on the wind\nFrom his loved dead?\n\nWho bears no trace of passion's evil force?\nWho shuns thy sting, O terrible Remorse?\nWho does not cast\nOn the thronged pages of his memory's book,\nAt times, a sad and half-reluctant look,\nRegretful of the past?\n\nAlas! the evil which we fain would shun\nWe do, and leave the wished-for good undone\nOur strength to-day\nIs but to-morrow's weakness, prone to fall;\nPoor, blind, unprofitable servants all\nAre we alway.\n\nYet who, thus looking backward o'er his years,\nFeels not his eyelids wet with grateful tears,\nIf he hath been\nPermitted, weak and sinful as he was,\nTo cheer and aid, in some ennobling cause,\nHis fellow-men?\n\nIf he hath hidden the outcast, or let in\nA ray of sunshine to the cell of sin;\nIf he hath lent\nStrength to the weak, and, in an hour of need,\nOver the suffering, mindless of his creed\nOr home, hath bent;\n\nHe has not lived in vain, and while he gives\nThe praise to Him, in whom he moves and lives,\nWith thankful heart;\nHe gazes backward, and with hope before,\nKnowing that from his works he nevermore\nCan henceforth part.\n1848.\n\n\n\nTHE WISH OF TO-DAY.\n\nI ask not now for gold to gild\nWith mocking shine a weary frame;\nThe yearning of the mind is stilled,\nI ask not now for Fame.\n\nA rose-cloud, dimly seen above,\nMelting in heaven's blue depths away;\nOh, sweet, fond dream of human Love\nFor thee I may not pray.\n\nBut, bowed in lowliness of mind,\nI make my humble wishes known;\nI only ask a will resigned,\nO Father, to Thine own!\n\nTo-day, beneath Thy chastening eye\nI crave alone for peace and rest,\nSubmissive in Thy hand to lie,\nAnd feel that it is best.\n\nA marvel seems the Universe,\nA miracle our Life and Death;\nA mystery which I cannot pierce,\nAround, above, beneath.\n\nIn vain I task my aching brain,\nIn vain the sage's thought I scan,\nI only feel how weak and vain,\nHow poor and blind, is man.\n\nAnd now my spirit sighs for home,\nAnd longs for light whereby to see,\nAnd, like a weary child, would come,\nO Father, unto Thee!\n\nThough oft, like letters traced on sand,\nMy weak resolves have passed away,\nIn mercy lend Thy helping hand\nUnto my prayer to-day!\n1848.\n\n\n\nALL'S WELL\n\nThe clouds, which rise with thunder, slake\nOur thirsty souls with rain;\nThe blow most dreaded falls to break\nFrom off our limbs a chain;\nAnd wrongs of man to man but make\nThe love of God more plain.\nAs through the shadowy lens of even\nThe eye looks farthest into heaven\nOn gleams of star and depths of blue\nThe glaring sunshine never knew!\n1850.\n\n\n\nINVOCATION\n\nThrough Thy clear spaces, Lord, of old,\nFormless and void the dead earth rolled;\nDeaf to Thy heaven's sweet music, blind\nTo the great lights which o'er it shined;\nNo sound, no ray, no warmth, no breath,--\nA dumb despair, a wandering death.\n\nTo that dark, weltering horror came\nThy spirit, like a subtle flame,--\nA breath of life electrical,\nAwakening and transforming all,\nTill beat and thrilled in every part\nThe pulses of a living heart.\n\nThen knew their bounds the land and sea;\nThen smiled the bloom of mead and tree;\nFrom flower to moth, from beast to man,\nThe quick creative impulse ran;\nAnd earth, with life from thee renewed,\nWas in thy holy eyesight good.\n\nAs lost and void, as dark and cold\nAnd formless as that earth of old;\nA wandering waste of storm and night,\nMidst spheres of song and realms of light;\nA blot upon thy holy sky,\nUntouched, unwarned of thee, am I.\n\nO Thou who movest on the deep\nOf spirits, wake my own from sleep\nIts darkness melt, its coldness warm,\nThe lost restore, the ill transform,\nThat flower and fruit henceforth may be\nIts grateful offering, worthy Thee.\n1851.\n\n\n\nQUESTIONS OF LIFE\n\n     And the angel that was sent unto me, whose name was Uriel,\n     gave me an answer and said,\n     \"Thy heart hath gone too far in this world, and thinkest thou\n     to comprehend the way of the Most High?\"\n     Then said I, \"Yea, my Lord.\"\n     Then said he unto me, \"Go thy way, weigh me the weight of\n     the fire or measure me the blast of the wind, or call me again the\n     day that is past.\"--2 ESDRAS, chap. iv.\n\nA bending staff I would not break,\nA feeble faith I would not shake,\nNor even rashly pluck away\nThe error which some truth may stay,\nWhose loss might leave the soul without\nA shield against the shafts of doubt.\n\nAnd yet, at times, when over all\nA darker mystery seems to fall,\n(May God forgive the child of dust,\nWho seeks to know, where Faith should trust!)\nI raise the questions, old and dark,\nOf Uzdom's tempted patriarch,\nAnd, speech-confounded, build again\nThe baffled tower of Shinar's plain.\n\nI am: how little more I know!\nWhence came I? Whither do I go?\nA centred self, which feels and is;\nA cry between the silences;\nA shadow-birth of clouds at strife\nWith sunshine on the hills of life;\nA shaft from Nature's quiver cast\nInto the Future from the Past;\nBetween the cradle and the shroud,\nA meteor's flight from cloud to cloud.\n\nThorough the vastness, arching all,\nI see the great stars rise and fall,\nThe rounding seasons come and go,\nThe tided oceans ebb and flow;\nThe tokens of a central force,\nWhose circles, in their widening course,\nO'erlap and move the universe;\nThe workings of the law whence springs\nThe rhythmic harmony of things,\nWhich shapes in earth the darkling spar,\nAnd orbs in heaven the morning star.\nOf all I see, in earth and sky,--\nStar, flower, beast, bird,--what part have I?\nThis conscious life,--is it the same\nWhich thrills the universal frame,\nWhereby the caverned crystal shoots,\nAnd mounts the sap from forest roots,\nWhereby the exiled wood-bird tells\nWhen Spring makes green her native dells?\nHow feels the stone the pang of birth,\nWhich brings its sparkling prism forth?\nThe forest-tree the throb which gives\nThe life-blood to its new-born leaves?\nDo bird and blossom feel, like me,\nLife's many-folded mystery,--\nThe wonder which it is to be?\nOr stand I severed and distinct,\nFrom Nature's \"chain of life\" unlinked?\nAllied to all, yet not the less\nPrisoned in separate consciousness,\nAlone o'erburdened with a sense\nOf life, and cause, and consequence?\n\nIn vain to me the Sphinx propounds\nThe riddle of her sights and sounds;\nBack still the vaulted mystery gives\nThe echoed question it receives.\nWhat sings the brook? What oracle\nIs in the pine-tree's organ swell?\nWhat may the wind's low burden be?\nThe meaning of the moaning sea?\nThe hieroglyphics of the stars?\nOr clouded sunset's crimson bars?\nI vainly ask, for mocks my skill\nThe trick of Nature's cipher still.\n\nI turn from Nature unto men,\nI ask the stylus and the pen;\nWhat sang the bards of old? What meant\nThe prophets of the Orient?\nThe rolls of buried Egypt, hid\nIn painted tomb and pyramid?\nWhat mean Idumea's arrowy lines,\nOr dusk Elora's monstrous signs?\nHow speaks the primal thought of man\nFrom the grim carvings of Copan?\n\nWhere rests the secret? Where the keys\nOf the old death-bolted mysteries?\nAlas! the dead retain their trust;\nDust hath no answer from the dust.\n\nThe great enigma still unguessed,\nUnanswered the eternal quest;\nI gather up the scattered rays\nOf wisdom in the early days,\nFaint gleams and broken, like the light\nOf meteors in a northern night,\nBetraying to the darkling earth\nThe unseen sun which gave them birth;\nI listen to the sibyl's chant,\nThe voice of priest and hierophant;\nI know what Indian Kreeshna saith,\nAnd what of life and what of death\nThe demon taught to Socrates;\nAnd what, beneath his garden-trees\nSlow pacing, with a dream-like tread,--\nThe solemn-thoughted Plato said;\nNor lack I tokens, great or small,\nOf God's clear light in each and all,\nWhile holding with more dear regard\nThe scroll of Hebrew seer and bard,\nThe starry pages promise-lit\nWith Christ's Evangel over-writ,\nThy miracle of life and death,\nO Holy One of Nazareth!\n\nOn Aztec ruins, gray and lone,\nThe circling serpent coils in stone,--\nType of the endless and unknown;\nWhereof we seek the clue to find,\nWith groping fingers of the blind!\nForever sought, and never found,\nWe trace that serpent-symbol round\nOur resting-place, our starting bound\nOh, thriftlessness of dream and guess!\nOh, wisdom which is foolishness!\nWhy idly seek from outward things\nThe answer inward silence brings?\nWhy stretch beyond our proper sphere\nAnd age, for that which lies so near?\nWhy climb the far-off hills with pain,\nA nearer view of heaven to gain?\nIn lowliest depths of bosky dells\nThe hermit Contemplation dwells.\nA fountain's pine-hung slope his seat,\nAnd lotus-twined his silent feet,\nWhence, piercing heaven, with screened sight,\nHe sees at noon the stars, whose light\nShall glorify the coining night.\n\nHere let me pause, my quest forego;\nEnough for me to feel and know\nThat He in whom the cause and end,\nThe past and future, meet and blend,--\nWho, girt with his Immensities,\nOur vast and star-hung system sees,\nSmall as the clustered Pleiades,--\nMoves not alone the heavenly quires,\nBut waves the spring-time's grassy spires,\nGuards not archangel feet alone,\nBut deigns to guide and keep my own;\nSpeaks not alone the words of fate\nWhich worlds destroy, and worlds create,\nBut whispers in my spirit's ear,\nIn tones of love, or warning fear,\nA language none beside may hear.\n\nTo Him, from wanderings long and wild,\nI come, an over-wearied child,\nIn cool and shade His peace to find,\nLice dew-fall settling on my mind.\nAssured that all I know is best,\nAnd humbly trusting for the rest,\nI turn from Fancy's cloud-built scheme,\nDark creed, and mournful eastern dream\nOf power, impersonal and cold,\nControlling all, itself controlled,\nMaker and slave of iron laws,\nAlike the subject and the cause;\nFrom vain philosophies, that try\nThe sevenfold gates of mystery,\nAnd, baffled ever, babble still,\nWord-prodigal of fate and will;\nFrom Nature, and her mockery, Art;\nAnd book and speech of men apart,\nTo the still witness in my heart;\nWith reverence waiting to behold\nHis Avatar of love untold,\nThe Eternal Beauty new and old!\n1862.\n\n\n\nFIRST-DAY THOUGHTS.\n\nIn calm and cool and silence, once again\nI find my old accustomed place among\nMy brethren, where, perchance, no human tongue\nShall utter words; where never hymn is sung,\nNor deep-toned organ blown, nor censer swung,\nNor dim light falling through the pictured pane!\nThere, syllabled by silence, let me hear\nThe still small voice which reached the prophet's ear;\nRead in my heart a still diviner law\nThan Israel's leader on his tables saw!\nThere let me strive with each besetting sin,\nRecall my wandering fancies, and restrain\nThe sore disquiet of a restless brain;\nAnd, as the path of duty is made plain,\nMay grace be given that I may walk therein,\nNot like the hireling, for his selfish gain,\nWith backward glances and reluctant tread,\nMaking a merit of his coward dread,\nBut, cheerful, in the light around me thrown,\nWalking as one to pleasant service led;\nDoing God's will as if it were my own,\nYet trusting not in mine, but in His strength alone!\n1852.\n\n\n\nTRUST.\n\nThe same old baffling questions! O my friend,\nI cannot answer them. In vain I send\nMy soul into the dark, where never burn\nThe lamps of science, nor the natural light\nOf Reason's sun and stars! I cannot learn\nTheir great and solemn meanings, nor discern\nThe awful secrets of the eyes which turn\nEvermore on us through the day and night\nWith silent challenge and a dumb demand,\nProffering the riddles of the dread unknown,\nLike the calm Sphinxes, with their eyes of stone,\nQuestioning the centuries from their veils of sand!\nI have no answer for myself or thee,\nSave that I learned beside my mother's knee;\n\"All is of God that is, and is to be;\nAnd God is good.\" Let this suffice us still,\nResting in childlike trust upon His will\nWho moves to His great ends unthwarted by the ill.\n1853.\n\n\n\nTRINITAS.\n\nAt morn I prayed, \"I fain would see\nHow Three are One, and One is Three;\nRead the dark riddle unto me.\"\n\nI wandered forth, the sun and air\nI saw bestowed with equal care\nOn good and evil, foul and fair.\n\nNo partial favor dropped the rain;\nAlike the righteous and profane\nRejoiced above their heading grain.\n\nAnd my heart murmured, \"Is it meet\nThat blindfold Nature thus should treat\nWith equal hand the tares and wheat?\"\n\nA presence melted through my mood,--\nA warmth, a light, a sense of good,\nLike sunshine through a winter wood.\n\nI saw that presence, mailed complete\nIn her white innocence, pause to greet\nA fallen sister of the street.\n\nUpon her bosom snowy pure\nThe lost one clung, as if secure\nFrom inward guilt or outward lure.\n\n\"Beware!\" I said; \"in this I see\nNo gain to her, but loss to thee\nWho touches pitch defiled must be.\"\n\nI passed the haunts of shame and sin,\nAnd a voice whispered, \"Who therein\nShall these lost souls to Heaven's peace win?\n\n\"Who there shall hope and health dispense,\nAnd lift the ladder up from thence\nWhose rounds are prayers of penitence?\"\n\nI said, \"No higher life they know;\nThese earth-worms love to have it so.\nWho stoops to raise them sinks as low.\"\n\nThat night with painful care I read\nWhat Hippo's saint and Calvin said;\nThe living seeking to the dead!\n\nIn vain I turned, in weary quest,\nOld pages, where (God give them rest!)\nThe poor creed-mongers dreamed and guessed.\n\nAnd still I prayed, \"Lord, let me see\nHow Three are One, and One is Three;\nRead the dark riddle unto me!\"\n\nThen something whispered, \"Dost thou pray\nFor what thou hast? This very day\nThe Holy Three have crossed thy way.\n\n\"Did not the gifts of sun and air\nTo good and ill alike declare\nThe all-compassionate Father's care?\n\n\"In the white soul that stooped to raise\nThe lost one from her evil ways,\nThou saw'st the Christ, whom angels praise!\n\n\"A bodiless Divinity,\nThe still small Voice that spake to thee\nWas the Holy Spirit's mystery!\n\n\"O blind of sight, of faith how small!\nFather, and Son, and Holy Call\nThis day thou hast denied them all!\n\n\"Revealed in love and sacrifice,\nThe Holiest passed before thine eyes,\nOne and the same, in threefold guise.\n\n\"The equal Father in rain and sun,\nHis Christ in the good to evil done,\nHis Voice in thy soul;--and the Three are One!\"\n\nI shut my grave Aquinas fast;\nThe monkish gloss of ages past,\nThe schoolman's creed aside I cast.\n\nAnd my heart answered, \"Lord, I see\nHow Three are One, and One is Three;\nThy riddle hath been read to me!\"\n1858.\n\n\n\nTHE SISTERS\n\nA PICTURE BY BARRY\n\nThe shade for me, but over thee\nThe lingering sunshine still;\nAs, smiling, to the silent stream\nComes down the singing rill.\n\nSo come to me, my little one,--\nMy years with thee I share,\nAnd mingle with a sister's love\nA mother's tender care.\n\nBut keep the smile upon thy lip,\nThe trust upon thy brow;\nSince for the dear one God hath called\nWe have an angel now.\n\nOur mother from the fields of heaven\nShall still her ear incline;\nNor need we fear her human love\nIs less for love divine.\n\nThe songs are sweet they sing beneath\nThe trees of life so fair,\nBut sweetest of the songs of heaven\nShall be her children's prayer.\n\nThen, darling, rest upon my breast,\nAnd teach my heart to lean\nWith thy sweet trust upon the arm\nWhich folds us both unseen!\n1858\n\n\n\n\"THE ROCK\" IN EL GHOR.\n\nDead Petra in her hill-tomb sleeps,\nHer stones of emptiness remain;\nAround her sculptured mystery sweeps\nThe lonely waste of Edom's plain.\n\nFrom the doomed dwellers in the cleft\nThe bow of vengeance turns not back;\nOf all her myriads none are left\nAlong the Wady Mousa's track.\n\nClear in the hot Arabian day\nHer arches spring, her statues climb;\nUnchanged, the graven wonders pay\nNo tribute to the spoiler, Time!\n\nUnchanged the awful lithograph\nOf power and glory undertrod;\nOf nations scattered like the chaff\nBlown from the threshing-floor of God.\n\nYet shall the thoughtful stranger turn\nFrom Petra's gates with deeper awe,\nTo mark afar the burial urn\nOf Aaron on the cliffs of Hor;\n\nAnd where upon its ancient guard\nThy Rock, El Ghor, is standing yet,--\nLooks from its turrets desertward,\nAnd keeps the watch that God has set.\n\nThe same as when in thunders loud\nIt heard the voice of God to man,\nAs when it saw in fire and cloud\nThe angels walk in Israel's van,\n\nOr when from Ezion-Geber's way\nIt saw the long procession file,\nAnd heard the Hebrew timbrels play\nThe music of the lordly Nile;\n\nOr saw the tabernacle pause,\nCloud-bound, by Kadesh Barnea's wells,\nWhile Moses graved the sacred laws,\nAnd Aaron swung his golden bells.\n\nRock of the desert, prophet-sung!\nHow grew its shadowing pile at length,\nA symbol, in the Hebrew tongue,\nOf God's eternal love and strength.\n\nOn lip of bard and scroll of seer,\nFrom age to age went down the name,\nUntil the Shiloh's promised year,\nAnd Christ, the Rock of Ages, came!\n\nThe path of life we walk to-day\nIs strange as that the Hebrews trod;\nWe need the shadowing rock, as they,--\nWe need, like them, the guides of God.\n\nGod send His angels, Cloud and Fire,\nTo lead us o'er the desert sand!\nGod give our hearts their long desire,\nHis shadow in a weary land!\n1859.\n\n\n\nTHE OVER-HEART.\n\n     \"For of Him, and through Him, and to Him are all things,\n     to whom be glory forever! \"--PAUL.\n\nAbove, below, in sky and sod,\nIn leaf and spar, in star and man,\nWell might the wise Athenian scan\nThe geometric signs of God,\nThe measured order of His plan.\n\nAnd India's mystics sang aright\nOf the One Life pervading all,--\nOne Being's tidal rise and fall\nIn soul and form, in sound and sight,--\nEternal outflow and recall.\n\nGod is: and man in guilt and fear\nThe central fact of Nature owns;\nKneels, trembling, by his altar-stones,\nAnd darkly dreams the ghastly smear\nOf blood appeases and atones.\n\nGuilt shapes the Terror: deep within\nThe human heart the secret lies\nOf all the hideous deities;\nAnd, painted on a ground of sin,\nThe fabled gods of torment rise!\n\nAnd what is He? The ripe grain nods,\nThe sweet dews fall, the sweet flowers blow;\nBut darker signs His presence show\nThe earthquake and the storm are God's,\nAnd good and evil interflow.\n\nO hearts of love! O souls that turn\nLike sunflowers to the pure and best!\nTo you the truth is manifest:\nFor they the mind of Christ discern\nWho lean like John upon His breast!\n\nIn him of whom the sibyl told,\nFor whom the prophet's harp was toned,\nWhose need the sage and magian owned,\nThe loving heart of God behold,\nThe hope for which the ages groaned!\n\nFade, pomp of dreadful imagery\nWherewith mankind have deified\nTheir hate, and selfishness, and pride!\nLet the scared dreamer wake to see\nThe Christ of Nazareth at his side!\n\nWhat doth that holy Guide require?\nNo rite of pain, nor gift of blood,\nBut man a kindly brotherhood,\nLooking, where duty is desire,\nTo Him, the beautiful and good.\n\nGone be the faithlessness of fear,\nAnd let the pitying heaven's sweet rain\nWash out the altar's bloody stain;\nThe law of Hatred disappear,\nThe law of Love alone remain.\n\nHow fall the idols false and grim!\nAnd to! their hideous wreck above\nThe emblems of the Lamb and Dove!\nMan turns from God, not God from him;\nAnd guilt, in suffering, whispers Love!\n\nThe world sits at the feet of Christ,\nUnknowing, blind, and unconsoled;\nIt yet shall touch His garment's fold,\nAnd feel the heavenly Alchemist\nTransform its very dust to gold.\n\nThe theme befitting angel tongues\nBeyond a mortal's scope has grown.\nO heart of mine! with reverence own\nThe fulness which to it belongs,\nAnd trust the unknown for the known.\n1859.\n\n\n\nTHE SHADOW AND THE LIGHT.\n\n     \"And I sought, whence is Evil: I set before the eye of my spirit\n     the whole creation; whatsoever we see therein,--sea, earth, air,\n     stars, trees, moral creatures,--yea, whatsoever there is we do not\n     see,--angels and spiritual powers. Where is evil, and whence comes\n     it, since God the Good hath created all things? Why made He\n     anything at all of evil, and not rather by His Almightiness cause\n     it not to be? These thoughts I turned in my miserable heart,\n     overcharged with most gnawing cares.\" \"And, admonished to return to\n     myself, I entered even into my inmost soul, Thou being my guide,\n     and beheld even beyond my soul and mind the Light unchangeable. He\n     who knows the Truth knows what that Light is, and he that knows it\n     knows Eternity! O--Truth, who art Eternity! Love, who art Truth!\n     Eternity, who art Love! And I beheld that Thou madest all things\n     good, and to Thee is nothing whatsoever evil. From the angel to the\n     worm, from the first motion to the last, Thou settest each in its\n     place, and everything is good in its kind. Woe is me!--how high art\n     Thou in the highest, how deep in the deepest! and Thou never\n     departest from us and we scarcely return to Thee.\"\n     --AUGUSTINE'S Soliloquies, Book VII.\n\nThe fourteen centuries fall away\nBetween us and the Afric saint,\nAnd at his side we urge, to-day,\nThe immemorial quest and old complaint.\n\nNo outward sign to us is given,--\nFrom sea or earth comes no reply;\nHushed as the warm Numidian heaven\nHe vainly questioned bends our frozen sky.\n\nNo victory comes of all our strife,--\nFrom all we grasp the meaning slips;\nThe Sphinx sits at the gate of life,\nWith the old question on her awful lips.\n\nIn paths unknown we hear the feet\nOf fear before, and guilt behind;\nWe pluck the wayside fruit, and eat\nAshes and dust beneath its golden rind.\n\nFrom age to age descends unchecked\nThe sad bequest of sire to son,\nThe body's taint, the mind's defect;\nThrough every web of life the dark threads run.\n\nOh, why and whither? God knows all;\nI only know that He is good,\nAnd that whatever may befall\nOr here or there, must be the best that could.\n\nBetween the dreadful cherubim\nA Father's face I still discern,\nAs Moses looked of old on Him,\nAnd saw His glory into goodness turn!\n\nFor He is merciful as just;\nAnd so, by faith correcting sight,\nI bow before His will, and trust\nHowe'er they seem He doeth all things right.\n\nAnd dare to hope that Tie will make\nThe rugged smooth, the doubtful plain;\nHis mercy never quite forsake;\nHis healing visit every realm of pain;\n\nThat suffering is not His revenge\nUpon His creatures weak and frail,\nSent on a pathway new and strange\nWith feet that wander and with eyes that fail;\n\nThat, o'er the crucible of pain,\nWatches the tender eye of Love\nThe slow transmuting of the chain\nWhose links are iron below to gold above!\n\nAh me! we doubt the shining skies,\nSeen through our shadows of offence,\nAnd drown with our poor childish cries\nThe cradle-hymn of kindly Providence.\n\nAnd still we love the evil cause,\nAnd of the just effect complain\nWe tread upon life's broken laws,\nAnd murmur at our self-inflicted pain;\n\nWe turn us from the light, and find\nOur spectral shapes before us thrown,\nAs they who leave the sun behind\nWalk in the shadows of themselves alone.\n\nAnd scarce by will or strength of ours\nWe set our faces to the day;\nWeak, wavering, blind, the Eternal Powers\nAlone can turn us from ourselves away.\n\nOur weakness is the strength of sin,\nBut love must needs be stronger far,\nOutreaching all and gathering in\nThe erring spirit and the wandering star.\n\nA Voice grows with the growing years;\nEarth, hushing down her bitter cry,\nLooks upward from her graves, and hears,\n\"The Resurrection and the Life am I.\"\n\nO Love Divine!--whose constant beam\nShines on the eyes that will not see,\nAnd waits to bless us, while we dream\nThou leavest us because we turn from thee!\n\nAll souls that struggle and aspire,\nAll hearts of prayer by thee are lit;\nAnd, dim or clear, thy tongues of fire\nOn dusky tribes and twilight centuries sit.\n\nNor bounds, nor clime, nor creed thou know'st,\nWide as our need thy favors fall;\nThe white wings of the Holy Ghost\nStoop, seen or unseen, o'er the heads of all.\n\nO Beauty, old yet ever new!\nEternal Voice, and Inward Word,\nThe Logos of the Greek and Jew,\nThe old sphere-music which the Samian heard!\n\nTruth, which the sage and prophet saw,\nLong sought without, but found within,\nThe Law of Love beyond all law,\nThe Life o'erflooding mortal death and sin!\n\nShine on us with the light which glowed\nUpon the trance-bound shepherd's way.\nWho saw the Darkness overflowed\nAnd drowned by tides of everlasting Day.\n\nShine, light of God!--make broad thy scope\nTo all who sin and suffer; more\nAnd better than we dare to hope\nWith Heaven's compassion make our longings poor!\n1860.\n\n\n\nTHE CRY OF A LOST SOUL.\n\n     Lieutenant Herndon's Report of the Exploration of the Amazon has a\n     striking description of the peculiar and melancholy notes of a\n     bird heard by night on the shores of the river. The Indian guides\n     called it \"The Cry of a Lost Soul\"! Among the numerous translations\n     of this poem is one by the Emperor of Brazil.\n\nIn that black forest, where, when day is done,\nWith a snake's stillness glides the Amazon\nDarkly from sunset to the rising sun,\n\nA cry, as of the pained heart of the wood,\nThe long, despairing moan of solitude\nAnd darkness and the absence of all good,\n\nStartles the traveller, with a sound so drear,\nSo full of hopeless agony and fear,\nHis heart stands still and listens like his ear.\n\nThe guide, as if he heard a dead-bell toll,\nStarts, drops his oar against the gunwale's thole,\nCrosses himself, and whispers, \"A lost soul!\"\n\n\"No, Senor, not a bird. I know it well,--\nIt is the pained soul of some infidel\nOr cursed heretic that cries from hell.\n\n\"Poor fool! with hope still mocking his despair,\nHe wanders, shrieking on the midnight air\nFor human pity and for Christian prayer.\n\n\"Saints strike him dumb! Our Holy Mother hath\nNo prayer for him who, sinning unto death,\nBurns always in the furnace of God's wrath!\"\n\nThus to the baptized pagan's cruel lie,\nLending new horror to that mournful cry,\nThe voyager listens, making no reply.\n\nDim burns the boat-lamp: shadows deepen round,\nFrom giant trees with snake-like creepers wound,\nAnd the black water glides without a sound.\n\nBut in the traveller's heart a secret sense\nOf nature plastic to benign intents,\nAnd an eternal good in Providence,\n\nLifts to the starry calm of heaven his eyes;\nAnd to! rebuking all earth's ominous cries,\nThe Cross of pardon lights the tropic skies!\n\n\"Father of all!\" he urges his strong plea,\n\"Thou lovest all: Thy erring child may be\nLost to himself, but never lost to Thee!\n\n\"All souls are Thine; the wings of morning bear\nNone from that Presence which is everywhere,\nNor hell itself can hide, for Thou art there.\n\n\"Through sins of sense, perversities of will,\nThrough doubt and pain, through guilt and shame  and ill,\nThy pitying eye is on Thy creature still.\n\n\"Wilt thou not make, Eternal Source and Goal!\nIn Thy long years, life's broken circle whole,\nAnd change to praise the cry of a lost soul?\"\n1862.\n\n\n\nANDREW RYKMAN'S PRAYER\n\nAndrew Rykman's dead and gone;\nYou can see his leaning slate\nIn the graveyard, and thereon\nRead his name and date.\n\n\"_Trust is truer than our fears_,\"\nRuns the legend through the moss,\n\"_Gain is not in added years,\nNor in death is loss_.\"\n\nStill the feet that thither trod,\nAll the friendly eyes are dim;\nOnly Nature, now, and God\nHave a care for him.\n\nThere the dews of quiet fall,\nSinging birds and soft winds stray:\nShall the tender Heart of all\nBe less kind than they?\n\nWhat he was and what he is\nThey who ask may haply find,\nIf they read this prayer of his\nWhich he left behind.\n\n\n       .    .    .    .\n\nPardon, Lord, the lips that dare\nShape in words a mortal's prayer!\nPrayer, that, when my day is done,\nAnd I see its setting sun,\nShorn and beamless, cold and dim,\nSink beneath the horizon's rim,--\nWhen this ball of rock and clay\nCrumbles from my feet away,\nAnd the solid shores of sense\nMelt into the vague immense,\nFather! I may come to Thee\nEven with the beggar's plea,\nAs the poorest of Thy poor,\nWith my needs, and nothing more.\n\nNot as one who seeks his home\nWith a step assured I come;\nStill behind the tread I hear\nOf my life-companion, Fear;\nStill a shadow deep and vast\nFrom my westering feet is cast,\nWavering, doubtful, undefined,\nNever shapen nor outlined\nFrom myself the fear has grown,\nAnd the shadow is my own.\n\nYet, O Lord, through all a sense\nOf Thy tender providence\nStays my failing heart on Thee,\nAnd confirms the feeble knee;\nAnd, at times, my worn feet press\nSpaces of cool quietness,\nLilied whiteness shone upon\nNot by light of moon or sun.\nHours there be of inmost calm,\nBroken but by grateful psalm,\nWhen I love Thee more than fear Thee,\nAnd Thy blessed Christ seems near me,\nWith forgiving look, as when\nHe beheld the Magdalen.\nWell I know that all things move\nTo the spheral rhythm of love,--\nThat to Thee, O Lord of all!\nNothing can of chance befall\nChild and seraph, mote and star,\nWell Thou knowest what we are\nThrough Thy vast creative plan\nLooking, from the worm to man,\nThere is pity in Thine eyes,\nBut no hatred nor surprise.\nNot in blind caprice of will,\nNot in cunning sleight of skill,\nNot for show of power, was wrought\nNature's marvel in Thy thought.\nNever careless hand and vain\nSmites these chords of joy and pain;\nNo immortal selfishness\nPlays the game of curse and bless\nHeaven and earth are witnesses\nThat Thy glory goodness is.\n\nNot for sport of mind and force\nHast Thou made Thy universe,\nBut as atmosphere and zone\nOf Thy loving heart alone.\nMan, who walketh in a show,\nSees before him, to and fro,\nShadow and illusion go;\nAll things flow and fluctuate,\nNow contract and now dilate.\nIn the welter of this sea,\nNothing stable is but Thee;\nIn this whirl of swooning trance,\nThou alone art permanence;\nAll without Thee only seems,\nAll beside is choice of dreams.\nNever yet in darkest mood\nDoubted I that Thou wast good,\nNor mistook my will for fate,\nPain of sin for heavenly hate,--\nNever dreamed the gates of pearl\nRise from out the burning marl,\nOr that good can only live\nOf the bad conservative,\nAnd through counterpoise of hell\nHeaven alone be possible.\n\nFor myself alone I doubt;\nAll is well, I know, without;\nI alone the beauty mar,\nI alone the music jar.\nYet, with hands by evil stained,\nAnd an ear by discord pained,\nI am groping for the keys\nOf the heavenly harmonies;\nStill within my heart I bear\nLove for all things good and fair.\nHands of want or souls in pain\nHave not sought my door in vain;\nI have kept my fealty good\nTo the human brotherhood;\nScarcely have I asked in prayer\nThat which others might not share.\nI, who hear with secret shame\nPraise that paineth more than blame,\nRich alone in favors lent,\nVirtuous by accident,\nDoubtful where I fain would rest,\nFrailest where I seem the best,\nOnly strong for lack of test,--\nWhat am I, that I should press\nSpecial pleas of selfishness,\nCoolly mounting into heaven\nOn my neighbor unforgiven?\nNe'er to me, howe'er disguised,\nComes a saint unrecognized;\nNever fails my heart to greet\nNoble deed with warmer beat;\nHalt and maimed, I own not less\nAll the grace of holiness;\nNor, through shame or self-distrust,\nLess I love the pure and just.\nLord, forgive these words of mine\nWhat have I that is not Thine?\nWhatsoe'er I fain would boast\nNeeds Thy pitying pardon most.\nThou, O Elder Brother! who\nIn Thy flesh our trial knew,\nThou, who hast been touched by these\nOur most sad infirmities,\nThou alone the gulf canst span\nIn the dual heart of man,\nAnd between the soul and sense\nReconcile all difference,\nChange the dream of me and mine\nFor the truth of Thee and Thine,\nAnd, through chaos, doubt, and strife,\nInterfuse Thy calm of life.\nHaply, thus by Thee renewed,\nIn Thy borrowed goodness good,\nSome sweet morning yet in God's\nDim, veonian periods,\nJoyful I shall wake to see\nThose I love who rest in Thee,\nAnd to them in Thee allied\nShall my soul be satisfied.\n\nScarcely Hope hath shaped for me\nWhat the future life may be.\nOther lips may well be bold;\nLike the publican of old,\nI can only urge the plea,\n\"Lord, be merciful to me!\"\nNothing of desert I claim,\nUnto me belongeth shame.\nNot for me the, crowns of gold,\nPalms, and harpings manifold;\nNot for erring eye and feet\nJasper wall and golden street.\nWhat thou wilt, O Father, give I\nAll is gain that I receive.\n\nIf my voice I may not raise\nIn the elders' song of praise,\nIf I may not, sin-defiled,\nClaim my birthright as a child,\nSuffer it that I to Thee\nAs an hired servant be;\nLet the lowliest task be mine,\nGrateful, so the work be Thine;\nLet me find the humblest place\nIn the shadow of Thy grace\nBlest to me were any spot\nWhere temptation whispers not.\nIf there be some weaker one,\nGive me strength to help him on\nIf a blinder soul there be,\nLet me guide him nearer Thee.\nMake my mortal dreams come true\nWith the work I fain would do;\nClothe with life the weak intent,\nLet me be the thing I meant;\nLet me find in Thy employ\nPeace that dearer is than joy;\nOut of self to love be led\nAnd to heaven acclimated,\nUntil all things sweet and good\nSeem my natural habitude.\n\n     .    .    .    .\n\nSo we read the prayer of him\nWho, with John of Labadie,\nTrod, of old, the oozy rim\nOf the Zuyder Zee.\n\nThus did Andrew Rykman pray.\nAre we wiser, better grown,\nThat we may not, in our day,\nMake his prayer our own?","title":"Religious Poems, Part 1.: Part 5 From Volume II of The Works of John Greenleaf Whittier","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":13732}