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 guestHis sense of glad relief expressed.Outside, the hills lay warm in sun;The cattle in the meadow-runStood half-leg deep; a single birdThe 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 whereIt 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 hoursGlide soundless over grass and flowers!From time and place and form apart,Its holy ground the human heart,Nor ritual-bound nor templewardWalks the free spirit of the Lord!Our common Master did not penHis followers up from other men;His service liberty indeed,He built no church, He framed no creed;But while the saintly PhariseeMade broader his phylactery,As from the synagogue was seenThe dusty-sandalled NazareneThrough ripening cornfields lead the wayUpon the awful Sabbath day,His sermons were the healthful talkThat shorter made the mountain-walk,His wayside texts were flowers and birds,Where mingled with His gracious wordsThe rustle of the tamarisk-treeAnd 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 standsThe temple never made with hands,Unheard the voices still and smallOf its unseen confessional.He needs no special place of prayerWhose hearing ear is everywhere;He brings not back the childish daysThat ringed the earth with stones of praise,Roofed Karnak's hall of gods, and laidThe plinths of Phil e's colonnade.Still less He owns the selfish goodAnd 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 originAnd 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 seekThis quiet shelter twice a week,I better deem its pine-laid floorThan breezy hill or sea-sung shore;But nature is not solitudeShe crowds us with her thronging wood;Her many hands reach out to us,Her many tongues are garrulous;Perpetual riddles of surpriseShe offers to our ears and eyes;She will not leave our senses still,But drags them captive at her willAnd, making earth too great for heaven,She hides the Giver in the given."And so, I find it well to comeFor deeper rest to this still room,For here the habit of the soulFeels less the outer world's control;The strength of mutual purpose pleadsMore earnestly our common needs;And from the silence multipliedBy these still forms on either side,The world that time and sense have knownFalls off and leaves us God alone."Yet rarely through the charmed reposeUnmixed 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 beSome shade of human sympathy;And here, in its accustomed place,I look on memory's dearest face;The blind by-sitter guesseth notWhat shadow haunts that vacant spot;No eyes save mine alone can seeThe 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 bareAs 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 layThe idols of my heart away."Welcome the silence all unbroken,Nor less the words of fitness spoken,—Such golden words as hers for whomOur autumn flowers have just made room;Whose hopeful utterance through and throughThe freshness of the morning blew;Who loved not less the earth that lightFell on it from the heavens in sight,But saw in all fair forms more fairThe Eternal beauty mirrored there.Whose eighty years but added graceAnd saintlier meaning to her face,—The look of one who bore awayGlad tidings from the hills of day,While all our hearts went forth to meetThe coming of her beautiful feet!Or haply hers, whose pilgrim treadIs in the paths where Jesus led;Who dreams her childhood's Sabbath dreamBy Jordan's willow-shaded stream,And, of the hymns of hope and faith,Sung by the monks of Nazareth,Hears pious echoes, in the callTo prayer, from Moslem minarets fall,Repeating where His works were wroughtThe lesson that her Master taught,Of whom an elder Sibyl gave,The prophecies of Cuma 's cave."I ask no organ's soulless breathTo drone the themes of life and death,No altar candle-lit by day,No ornate wordsman's rhetoric-play,No cool philosophy to teachIts bland audacities of speechTo double-tasked idolatersThemselves their gods and worshippers,No pulpit hammered by the fistOf loud-asserting dogmatist,Who borrows for the Hand of loveThe 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 needsOutgrows the cramping bounds of creeds;The manna gathered yesterdayAlready savors of decay;Doubts to the world's child-heart unknownQuestion 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-deceiveWith shallow forms of make-believe.W e walk at high noon, and the bellsCall to a thousand oracles,But the sound deafens, and the lightIs stronger than our dazzled sight;The letters of the sacred BookGlimmer and swim beneath our look;Still struggles in the Age's breastWith deepening agony of questThe old entreaty: 'Art thou He,Or look we for the Christ to be?'"God should be most where man is leastSo, where is neither church nor priest,And never rag of form or creedTo 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, testifyTo 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 fellOf old the fire-tongued miracle,But flamed o'er all the thronging hostThe baptism of the Holy Ghost;Heart answers heart: in one desireThe 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 senseThe feeling which is evidenceThat very near about us liesThe realm of spiritual mysteries.The sphere of the supernal powersImpinges on this world of ours.The low and dark horizon lifts,To light the scenic terror shifts;The breath of a diviner airBlows down the answer of a prayerThat all our sorrow, pain, and doubtA 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 standsTo feel, as flowers the sun and dew,The One true Life its own renew."So, to the calmly gathered thoughtThe innermost of truth is taught,The mystery dimly understood,That love of God is love of good,And, chiefly, its divinest traceIn 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 painThat warns us of its chafing chain;That worship's deeper meaning liesIn mercy, and not sacrifice,Not proud humilities of senseAnd posturing of penitence,But love's unforced obedience;That Book and Church and Day are givenFor 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 earTo 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.
I did but dream. I never knewWhat charms our sternest season wore.Was never yet the sky so blue,Was never earth so white before.Till now I never saw the glowOf sunset on yon hills of snow,And never learned the bough's designsOf beauty in its leafless lines.Did ever such a morning breakAs that my eastern windows see?Did ever such a moonlight takeWeird photographs of shrub and tree?Rang ever bells so wild and fleetThe music of the winter street?Was ever yet a sound by halfSo 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 roomForth to thy light and air I come,To find in all that meets my eyesThe freshness of a glad surprise.Fair seem these winter days, and soonShall blow the warm west-winds of spring,To set the unbound rills in tuneAnd hither urge the bluebird's wing.The vales shall laugh in flowers, the woodsGrow misty green with leafing buds,And violets and wind-flowers swayAgainst the throbbing heart of May.Break forth, my lips, in praise, and ownThe wiser love severely kind;Since, richer for its chastening grown,I see, whereas I once was blind.The world, O Father! hath not wrongedWith 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 spanOf 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.
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 strainOf 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 veilI 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 refuseTo share my sorrow in their turn?Or, sin-forgiven, my gift abuseOf 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 thenceSpring sweet, pale flowers of penitenceAnd 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 highThat pity cannot breathe its air?Its happy eyes forever dry,Its holy lips without a prayer!My God! my God! if thither ledBy Thy free grace unmerited,No crown nor palm be mine, but let me keepA heart that still can feel, and eyes that still can weep.1868.
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 thereonA scroll which bore these words alone,Pray for me!Back from the place of worshippingShe glided like a guilty thingThe rustle of her draperies, stirredBy 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 doorNone 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 goPray for us!Ah, who shall pray, since he who pleadsOur want perchance hath greater needs?Yet they who make their loss the gainOf others shall not ask in vain,And Heaven bends low to hear the prayerOf love from lips of self-despairPray for us!In vain remorse and fear and hateBeat with bruised bands against a fateWhose walls of iron only moveAnd open to the touch of love.He only feels his burdens fallWho, taught by suffering, pities all.Pray for us!He prayeth best who leaves unguessedThe 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 signThat every heart hath needs like thine.Pray for us!1870
"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 smokeUp 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 brainA 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 tentThe Soma's sacred madness went,A storm of drunken joy.Then knew each rapt inebriateA 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 shadeIts hymns the dusky maidens sang;In joy of life or mortal pangAll men to Soma prayed.The morning twilight of the raceSends down these matin psalms;And still with wondering eyes we traceThe simple prayers to Soma's grace,That Vedic verse embalms.As in that child-world's early year,Each after age has strivenBy 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 sunkThe 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 vainWe brew in many a Christian faneThe 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 heardBeside the Syrian seaThe 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 TheeThe silence of eternityInterpreted by love!With that deep hush subduing allOur words and works that drownThe tender whisper of Thy call,As noiseless let Thy blessing fallAs 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 confessThe beauty of Thy peace.Breathe through the heats of our desireThy 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.
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 seeThe rudimental purity,That, spite of change and loss, makes goodThy 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? HearThe world's O'ercomer: "Be of cheer!"What lip shall judge when He approves?Who dare to scorn the child He loves?
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 vainWooed the west-wind's steady strain,Line of coast that low and farStretched its undulating bar,Wings aslant along the rimOf 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 keyDoor by door of mystery;We are reaching, through His laws,To the garment-hem of Cause,Him, the endless, unbegun,The Unnamable, the OneLight of all our light the Source,Life of life, and Force of force.As with fingers of the blind,We are groping here to findWhat the hieroglyphics meanOf the Unseen in the seen,What the Thought which underliesNature's masking and disguise,What it is that hides beneathBlight 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 taskLet us light and guidance ask,Let us pause in silent prayer!"Then the Master in his placeBowed his head a little space,And the leaves by soft airs stirred,Lapse of wave and cry of bird,Left the solemn hush unbrokenOf that wordless prayer unspoken,While its wish, on earth unsaid,Rose to heaven interpreted.As, in life's best hours, we hearBy the spirit's finer earHis low voice within us, thusThe All-Father heareth us;And His holy ear we painWith our noisy words and vain.Not for Him our violenceStorming at the gates of sense,His the primal language, HisThe 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 glorifiedBy the light they cannot hide,All who gazed upon him saw,Through its veil of tender awe,How his face was still uplitBy the old sweet look of it.Hopeful, trustful, full of cheer,And the love that casts out fear.Who the secret may declareOf that brief, unuttered prayer?Did the shade before him comeOf th' inevitable doom,Of the end of earth so near,And Eternity's new year?In the lap of sheltering seasRests the isle of Penikese;But the lord of the domainComes not to his own againWhere the eyes that follow fail,On a vaster sea his sailDrifts beyond our beck and hail.Other lips within its boundShall the laws of life expound;Other eyes from rock and shellRead the world's old riddles wellBut when breezes light and blandBlow from Summer's blossomed land,When the air is glad with wings,And the blithe song-sparrow sings,Many an eye with his still faceShall the living ones displace,Many an ear the word shall seekHe alone could fitly speak.And one name forevermoreShall be uttered o'er and o'erBy the waves that kiss the shore,By the curlew's whistle sentDown 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 learnFrom the Master's silent prayer.1873.
Have I not voyaged, friend beloved, with theeOn the great waters of the unsounded sea,Momently listening with suspended oarFor the low rote of waves upon a shoreChangeless as heaven, where never fog-cloud driftsOver its windless wood, nor mirage liftsThe steadfast hills; where never birds of doubtSing to mislead, and every dream dies out,And the dark riddles which perplex us hereIn the sharp solvent of its light are clear?Thou knowest how vain our quest; how, soon or late,The baffling tides and circles of debateSwept back our bark unto its starting-place,Where, looking forth upon the blank, gray space,And round about us seeing, with sad eyes,The same old difficult hills and cloud-cold skies,We said: "This outward search availeth notTo find Him. He is farther than we thought,Or, haply, nearer. To this very spotWhereon we wait, this commonplace of home,As to the well of Jacob, He may comeAnd tell us all things." As I listened there,Through the expectant silences of prayer,Somewhat I seemed to hear, which hath to meBeen hope, strength, comfort, and I give it thee."The riddle of the world is understoodOnly by him who feels that God is good,As only he can feel who makes his loveThe ladder of his faith, and climbs aboveOn th' rounds of his best instincts; draws no lineBetween mere human goodness and divine,But, judging God by what in him is best,With a child's trust leans on a Father's breast,And hears unmoved the old creeds babble stillOf kingly power and dread caprice of will,Chary of blessing, prodigal of curse,The pitiless doomsman of the universe.Can Hatred ask for love? Can SelfishnessInvite to self-denial? Is He lessThan man in kindly dealing? Can He breakHis own great law of fatherhood, forsakeAnd curse His children? Not for earth and heavenCan separate tables of the law be given.No rule can bind which He himself denies;The truths of time are not eternal lies."So heard I; and the chaos round me spreadTo light and order grew; and, "Lord," I said,"Our sins are our tormentors, worst of allFelt in distrustful shame that dares not callUpon Thee as our Father. We have setA strange god up, but Thou remainest yet.All that I feel of pity Thou hast knownBefore I was; my best is all Thy own.From Thy great heart of goodness mine but drewWishes and prayers; but Thou, O Lord, wilt do,In Thy own time, by ways I cannot see,All that I feel when I am nearest Thee!"1873.
My thoughts are all in yonder town,Where, wept by many tears,To-day my mother's friend lays downThe burden of her years.True as in life, no poor disguiseOf death with her is seen,And on her simple casket liesNo wreath of bloom and green.Oh, not for her the florist's art,The mocking weeds of woe;Dear memories in each mourner's heartLike heaven's white lilies blow.And all about the softening airOf new-born sweetness tells,And the ungathered May-flowers wearThe tints of ocean shells.The old, assuring miracleIs fresh as heretofore;And earth takes up its parableOf life from death once more.Here organ-swell and church-bell tollMethinks but discord were;The prayerful silence of the soulIs best befitting her.No sound should break the quietudeAlike of earth and skyO wandering wind in Seabrook wood,Breathe but a half-heard sigh!Sing softly, spring-bird, for her sake;And thou not distant sea,Lapse lightly as if Jesus spake,And thou wert Galilee!For all her quiet life flowed onAs meadow streamlets flow,Where fresher green reveals aloneThe noiseless ways they go.From her loved place of prayer I seeThe plain-robed mourners pass,With slow feet treading reverentlyThe graveyard's springing grass.Make room, O mourning ones, for me,Where, like the friends of Paul,That you no more her face shall seeYou sorrow most of all.Her path shall brighten more and moreUnto the perfect day;She cannot fail of peace who boreSuch peace with her away.O sweet, calm face that seemed to wearThe look of sins forgiven!O voice of prayer that seemed to bearOur own needs up to heaven!How reverent in our midst she stood,Or knelt in grateful praise!What grace of Christian womanhoodWas in her household ways!For still her holy living meantNo duty left undone;The heavenly and the human blentTheir kindred loves in one.And if her life small leisure foundFor feasting ear and eye,And Pleasure, on her daily round,She passed unpausing by,Yet with her went a secret senseOf all things sweet and fair,And Beauty's gracious providenceRefreshed her unaware.She kept her line of rectitudeWith love's unconscious ease;Her kindly instincts understoodAll gentle courtesies.An inborn charm of graciousnessMade sweet her smile and tone,And glorified her farm-wife dressWith beauty not its own.The dear Lord's best interpretersAre humble human souls;The Gospel of a life like hersIs more than books or scrolls.From scheme and creed the light goes out,The saintly fact survives;The blessed Master none can doubtRevealed in holy lives.1873.
I.Sound over all waters, reach out from all lands,The chorus of voices, the clasping of hands;Sing hymns that were sung by the stars of the morn,Sing songs of the angels when Jesus was born!With glad jubilationsBring hope to the nationsThe dark night is ending and dawn has begunRise, hope of the ages, arise like the sun,All speech flow to music, all hearts beat as one!II.Sing the bridal of nations! with chorals of loveSing out the war-vulture and sing in the dove,Till the hearts of the peoples keep time in accord,And the voice of the world is the voice of the Lord!Clasp hands of the nationsIn strong gratulations:The dark night is ending and dawn has begun;Rise, hope of the ages, arise like the sun,All speech flow to music, all hearts beat as one!III.Blow, bugles of battle, the marches of peace;East, west, north, and south let the long quarrel ceaseSing the song of great joy that the angels began,Sing of glory to God and of good-will to man!Hark! joining in chorusThe heavens bend o'er us'The dark night is ending and dawn has begun;Rise, hope of the ages, arise like the sun,All speech flow to music, all hearts beat as one!1873.
O Christ of God! whose life and deathOur own have reconciled,Most quietly, most tenderlyTake home Thy star-named child!Thy grace is in her patient eyes,Thy words are on her tongue;The very silence round her seemsAs if the angels sung.Her smile is as a listening child'sWho hears its mother call;The lilies of Thy perfect peaceAbout her pillow fall.She leans from out our clinging armsTo rest herself in Thine;Alone to Thee, dear Lord, can weOur well-beloved resign!Oh, less for her than for ourselvesWe bow our heads and pray;Her setting star, like Bethlehem's,To Thee shall point the way!1874.
Still linger in our noon of timeAnd on our Saxon tongueThe echoes of the home-born hymnsThe Aryan mothers sung.And childhood had its litaniesIn every age and clime;The earliest cradles of the raceWere rocked to poet's rhyme.Nor sky, nor wave, nor tree, nor flower,Nor green earth's virgin sod,So moved the singer's heart of oldAs these small ones of God.The mystery of unfolding lifeWas more than dawning morn,Than opening flower or crescent moonThe human soul new-born.And still to childhood's sweet appealThe heart of genius turns,And more than all the sages teachFrom lisping voices learns,—The voices loved of him who sang,Where Tweed and Teviot glide,That sound to-day on all the windsThat blow from Rydal-side,—Heard in the Teuton's household songs,And folk-lore of the Finn,Where'er to holy Christmas hearthsThe Christ-child enters in!Before life's sweetest mystery stillThe heart in reverence kneels;The wonder of the primal birthThe latest mother feels.We need love's tender lessons taughtAs only weakness can;God hath His small interpreters;The child must teach the man.We wander wide through evil years,Our eyes of faith grow dim;But he is freshest from His handsAnd nearest unto Him!And haply, pleading long with HimFor sin-sick hearts and cold,The angels of our childhood stillThe Father's face behold.Of such the kingdom!—Teach Thou us,O-Master most divine,To feel the deep significanceOf these wise words of Thine!The haughty eye shall seek in vainWhat innocence beholds;No cunning finds the key of heaven,No strength its gate unfolds.Alone to guilelessness and loveThat gate shall open fall;The mind of pride is nothingness,The childlike heart is all!1875.
THE HEALER. TO A YOUNG PHYSICIAN, WITH DORE'S PICTURE OF CHRIST HEALING THE SICK.
So stood of old the holy ChristAmidst the suffering throng;With whom His lightest touch sufficedTo make the weakest strong.That healing gift He lends to themWho use it in His name;The power that filled His garment's hemIs evermore the same.For lo! in human hearts unseenThe Healer dwelleth still,And they who make His temples cleanThe best subserve His will.The holiest task by Heaven decreed,An errand all divine,The burden of our common needTo render less is thine.The paths of pain are thine. Go forthWith patience, trust, and hope;The sufferings of a sin-sick earthShall give thee ample scope.Beside the unveiled mysteriesOf life and death go stand,With guarded lips and reverent eyesAnd pure of heart and hand.So shalt thou be with power enduedFrom Him who went aboutThe Syrian hillsides doing good,And casting demons out.That Good Physician liveth yetThy friend and guide to be;The Healer by GennesaretShall walk the rounds with thee.
God called the nearest angels who dwell with Him above:The tenderest one was Pity, the dearest one was Love."Arise," He said, "my angels! a wail of woe and sinSteals through the gates of heaven, and saddens all within."My harps take up the mournful strain that from a lost world swells,The smoke of torment clouds the light and blights the asphodels."Fly downward to that under world, and on its souls of painLet Love drop smiles like sunshine, and Pity tears like rain!"Two faces bowed before the Throne, veiled in their golden hair;Four white wings lessened swiftly down the dark abyss of air.The way was strange, the flight was long; at last the angels cameWhere swung the lost and nether world, red-wrapped in rayless flame.There Pity, shuddering, wept; but Love, with faith too strong for fear,Took heart from God's almightiness and smiled a smile of cheer.And lo! that tear of Pity quenched the flame whereon it fell,And, with the sunshine of that smile, hope entered into hell!Two unveiled faces full of joy looked upward to the Throne,Four white wings folded at the feet of Him who sat thereon!And deeper than the sound of seas, more soft than falling flake,Amidst the hush of wing and song the Voice Eternal spake:"Welcome, my angels! ye have brought a holier joy to heaven;Henceforth its sweetest song shall be the song of sin forgiven!"1875.
The threads our hands in blindness spinNo self-determined plan weaves in;The shuttle of the unseen powersWorks out a pattern not as ours.Ah! small the choice of him who singsWhat sound shall leave the smitten strings;Fate holds and guides the hand of art;The singer's is the servant's part.The wind-harp chooses not the toneThat through its trembling threads is blown;The patient organ cannot guessWhat hand its passive keys shall press.Through wish, resolve, and act, our willIs moved by undreamed forces still;And no man measures in advanceHis strength with untried circumstance.As streams take hue from shade and sun,As runs the life the song must run;But, glad or sad, to His good endGod grant the varying notes may tend!1877.