III.—MANHOOD.
So to their oars my boatmen, cheerily,
Bent once again, and then, with steady stroke,
They drew upon the waters till the shore
Grew lower in the distance, and no more
Thro' the gray mist the mentor I could see,
But oft I thought upon the words he spoke.
And oft, O wise Experience, have I found
The lesson true you taught to me that day.
No progress but by toil, and there must be
In heart and mind a vital unity.
Our days are else in vain, and ne'er will bound
The "Barge of Time" upon the heavenly way.
But soon the ripple of an adverse tide,—
Whose darkling bitter waters seemed to stay
The prow,—twined like a sea-weed growth the oars;
A tide that hies forever from the shores
I sought, and with its soft caresses, wide
And far, bears hapless wanderers away.
Yet gallant are the boats that drift along;
Proud are the hearts that float where flows the tide.
The youth whose heated fancy sees afar
The promise of ambition's streaming star,
And he who follows with a careless song
Some godless passion he has deified.
The man of curling lip and brow of scorn,
The worshiper of reason and of self,
The atheist, wanton, and the giddy maid,
The faith-betrayer and the love-betrayed;
Self-righteous pharisees, who would adorn
Or hide with pious garb their love of pelf.
The poet with a poem on his lip,
The writer with an essay in his heart,
The statesman with a law within his brain,
The merchant princes busy with their gain;
Dreamers who reck not that their barges slip
Upon a tide from which so few may part.
Ah, tide that hurries to the Land of Fear,
The arms are feeble, and perplexed the will,
And the hearts childish that must stem thy flow,
And it is sweet to rest, and hard to row.
I, too, have drifted on thy waters drear,
And but for grace divine were drifting still.
* * * * * *
Life's sea, at best, is but a lonely sea,
Yet thrice from angry winds and waters rude
The mem'ry of their bitter feud has flown
On the soft pinions of a gentle tone.
Thrice heavenly messengers have come to me
To break the bondage of my solitude.
And first, my mother's love, warm, tender, true,
To guide me o'er the billowy deep, was given;
E'en now I view her barge's silvery trail,
And faint, in distance, mark her snowy sail
Bloom like a lily on the water blue.
'Tis but a mirage, she is long in heaven.
O how my heart has hungered for her smile,
When life has pressed me with a weight of cares,
Yet I have thought, wherever I have been,
Some gentle power was leading me from sin
To virtue's sweeter, nobler way the while.
It was the power, dear mother, of thy prayers.
One morning when, like Cana's Lord, the sun
Had changed the waiting water into wine,
Sped o'er the rosy tide a seraph bright,
Within a craft of pearl and crystal light,
And still she sped until our ways were one,
And I was hers, for aye, and she was mine.
Once, when my tears were falling on the wake
Which far and near my wayward path betrayed,
Shone there upon me in that fateful hour,
A Holy Being, clothed in light and power.
And with Him came th' eternal morning's break.
How sweet His words, 'Tis I, be not afraid.
Thus to the soul of man there come alone
Three sacred ones upon the Sea of Life;
All others are as distant sails that fly
Far from the ken, and so forever by:
And he is blest whose faithful heart hath known
And loved the name of Savior, Mother, Wife.
Thus o'er the Sea of Life my way I take,
Not waveless have its waters been to me,
For I have known, in many a fearful hour,
The weight and fury of the tempest's power;
But mercy e'er the sable clouds doth break
And set the prisoned light of heaven free.
And oft, O sea, thy troubled waters cease,
Save when they smile to hear the breeze at prayer;
Thy calm so deep that he who glideth by
May wonder which is sea and which is sky;
So full thou art of stars, so sweet thy peace,
We seem in heaven while on thy bosom fair.