THE SUPPLIANT.

All night the lonely suppliant prayed,

All night his earnest crying made,

Till standing by his side at morn,

The Tempter said in bitter scorn,

“Oh! peace:—what profit do you gain

From empty words and babblings vain?

‘Come, Lord—oh, come!’ you cry alway;

You pour your heart out night and day;

Yet still no murmur of reply,—

No voice that answers, ‘Here am I.’”

Then sank that stricken heart in dust,

That word had withered all its trust;

No strength retained it now to pray,

While Faith and Hope had fled away

And ill that mourner now had fared,

Thus by the Tempter’s art ensnared,

But that at length beside his bed

His sorrowing Angel stood, and said,—

“Doth it repent thee of thy love,

That never now is heard above

Thy prayer, that now not any more

It knocks at heaven’s gate as before?”

—“I am cast out—I find no place,

No hearing at the throne of grace.

‘Come, Lord—oh, come!’ I cry alway,

I pour my heart out night and day,

Yet never until now have won

The answer,—‘Here am I, my son.’”

—“Oh, dull of heart! enclosed doth lie,

In each ‘Come, Lord,’ an ‘Here am I.’

Thy love, thy longing, are not thine—

Reflections of a love divine:

Thy very prayer to thee was given,

Itself a messenger from heaven.

Whom God rejects, they are not so;

Strong bands are round them in their woe;

Their hearts are bound with bands of brass,

That sigh or crying cannot pass.

All treasures did the Lord impart

To Pharaoh, save a contrite heart:

All other gifts unto his foes

He freely gives, nor grudging knows;

But Love’s sweet smart, and costly pain,

A treasure for his friends remain.”

THE PANTHEIST;
OR,
THE ORIGIN OF EVIL.

One who in subtle questions took delight

Came running to my lodging late one night,

And straight began:—“Wilt thou affirm that sin

Had in man’s will its root and origin,

When that will did itself from God proceed?

Whate’er then followed, he must have decreed.

If evil, then, be not against God’s will,

’Tis wrongly named, it is not truly ill.

Rather the world a chess-board we should name,

And God both sides is playing of the game:

Moses and Pharaoh seem opposed, for they

Do thus God’s greatness on two sides display;

They seem opposed, but at the root are one,

And each his part allotted has well done;

And that which men so blindly evil call,

And hate and fear and shun, is, after all,

Only as those discordant notes whereby

Well-skilled musicians heighten melody;—

But as the dark ground cunning painters lay,

To bring the bright hues into clearer day:

’Tis good, as yet imperfect, incomplete—

Fruit that is sour, while passing on to sweet.”

Then I, who knew the world had travelled o’er

This line of thought a thousand times before,

Would all debate have willingly put by,

Yet with this tale at last must make reply:—

“The head of Seid his comrade struck one day—

Seid meant the blow in earnest to repay;

But then the striker—‘Pardon, friend, the blow—

I am inquiring, and two things would know:

See, when my hand did on your head alight,

Straight various bruises there appeared in sight.

Now, prithee, give me a reply to this,

If head or hand their ultimate cause is?

And if you really do with them agree

Who but in pain a lesser pleasure see?’

Seid then—‘O fool! my agony is great,

And think’st thou I can idly speculate?’”

“The same I say;—let him display his skill

On the world’s woe, who does not feel its ill;

Let speculate the man who feels no pain,

To whom the world is all a pageant vain—

An empty show, stretched out that he may sit,

And crying ‘Fie!’ or ‘Bravo!’ show his wit.

Me the deep feeling of its mighty woe

Robs of all wish herein my skill to show;

I only know that evil is no dream—

A thing that is, and does not merely seem:

Nor ask I now who open left the well,

Whereinto, walking carelessly, I fell;

Not how I stumbled in the well, but how

I may get out, is all my question now.”