The World's Best Poetry, Volume 04: The Higher Life

by Unknown

IV.

SABBATH: WORSHIP: CREED.

* * * * *

SUNDAY MORNING BELLS.

From the near city comes the clang of bells:
Their hundred jarring diverse tones combine
In one faint misty harmony, as fine
As the soft note yon winter robin swells.
What if to Thee in thine infinity
These multiform and many-colored creeds
Seem but the robe man wraps as masquers' weeds
Round the one living truth them givest him—Thee?
What if these varied forms that worship prove,
Being heart-worship, reach thy perfect ear
But as a monotone, complete and clear,
Of which the music is, through Christ's name, love?
Forever rising in sublime increase
To "Glory in the highest,—on earth peace"?

DINAH M. MULOCK CRAIK.

* * * * *

SABBATH HYMN ON THE MOUNTAINS.

Praise ye the Lord!
Not in the temple of shapeliest mould,
Polished with marble and gleaming with gold,
Piled upon pillars of slenderest grace,
But here in the blue sky's luminous face,
Praise ye the Lord!

Praise ye the Lord!
Not where the organ's melodious wave
Dies 'neath the rafters that narrow the nave,
But here with the free wind's wandering sweep,
Here with the billow that booms from the deep,
Praise ye the Lord!

Praise ye the Lord!
Not where the pale-faced multitude meet
In the sweltering lane and the dun-visaged street,
But here where bright ocean, thick sown with green isles,
Feeds the glad eye with a harvest of smiles,
Praise ye the Lord!

Praise ye the Lord!
Here where the strength of the old granite Ben
Towers o'er the greenswarded grace of the glen,
Where the birch flings its fragrance abroad on the hill,
And the bee of the heather-bloom wanders at will,
Praise ye the Lord!

Praise ye the Lord!
Here where the loch, the dark mountain's fair daughter,
Down the red scaur flings the white-streaming water,
Leaping and tossing and swirling forever,
Down to the bed of the smooth-rolling river,
Praise ye the Lord!

Praise ye the Lord!
Not where the voice of a preacher instructs you,
Not where the hand of a mortal conducts you,
But where the bright welkin in scripture of glory
Blazons creation's miraculous story.
Praise ye the Lord!

Praise ye the Lord!
The wind and the welkin, the sun and the river,
Weaving a tissue of wonders forever;
The mead and the mountain, the flower and the tree,
What is their pomp, but a vision of thee,
Wonderful Lord?

Praise ye the Lord!
Not in the square-hewn, many-tiered pile,
Not in the long-drawn, dim-shadowed aisle,
But where the bright world, with age never hoary,
Flashes her brightness and thunders his glory,
Praise ye the Lord!

JOHN STUART BLACKIE.

* * * * *

THE SABBATH MORNING.

With silent awe I hail the sacred morn,
That slowly wakes while all the fields are still!
A soothing calm on every breeze is borne;
A graver murmur gurgles from the rill;
And echo answers softer from the hill;
And sweeter sings the linnet from the thorn:
The skylark warbles in a tone less shrill.
Hail, light serene! hail, sacred Sabbath morn!
The rooks float silent by in airy drove;
The sun a placid yellow lustre throws;
The gales that lately sighed along the grove
Have hushed their downy wings in dead repose
The hovering rack of clouds forgets to move,—
So smiled that day when the first morn arose!

JOHN LEYDEN.

* * * * *

THE POOR MAN'S DAY.

FROM "THE SABBATH."

How still the morning of the hallowed day!
Mute is the voice of rural labor, hushed
The ploughboy's whistle and the milkmaid's song.
The scythe lies glittering in the dewy wreath
Of tedded grass, mingled with faded flowers,
That yestermorn bloomed waving in the breeze;
Sounds the most faint attract the ear,—the hum
Of early bee, the trickling of the dew,
The distant bleating, midway up the hill.
Calmness sits throned on yon unmoving cloud.
To him who wanders o'er the upland leas
The blackbird's note comes mellower from the dale;
And sweeter from the sky the gladsome lark
Warbles his heaven-tuned song; the lulling brook
Murmurs more gently down the deep-worn glen;
While from yon lowly roof, whose circling smoke
O'ermounts the mist, is heard at intervals
The voice of psalms, the simple song of praise.
With dovelike wings Peace o'er yon village broods;
The dizzying mill-wheel rests; the anvil's din
Hath ceased; all, all around is quietness.
Less fearful on this day, the limping hare
Stops, and looks back, and stops, and looks on man,
Her deadliest foe. The toil-worn horse, set free,
Unheedful of the pasture, roams at large;
And as his stiff, unwieldy bulk he rolls,
His iron-armed hoofs gleam in the morning ray.
But chiefly man the day of rest enjoys.
Hail, Sabbath! thee I hail, the poor man's day.
On other days the man of toil is doomed
To eat his joyless bread, lonely; the ground
Both seat and board; screened from the winter's cold
And summer's heat by neighboring hedge or tree;
But on this day, imbosomed in his home,
He shares the frugal meal with those he loves;
With those he loves he shares the heartfelt joy
Of giving thanks to God—not thanks of form,
A word and a grimace, but reverently,
With covered face and upward earnest eye.
Hail, Sabbath! thee I hail, the poor man's day.
The pale mechanic now has leave to breathe
The morning air, pure from the city's smoke;
While, wandering slowly up the river-side,
He meditates on Him, whose power he marks
In each green tree that proudly spreads the bough
As in the tiny dew-bent flowers that bloom
Around its roots; and while he thus surveys,
With elevated joy, each rural charm,
He hopes, yet fears presumption in the hope,
That heaven may be one Sabbath without end.

JAMES GRAHAME.

* * * * *

THE SABBATH OF THE SOUL.

Sleep, sleep to-day, tormenting cares,
Of earth and folly born;
Ye shall not dim the light that streams
From this celestial morn.

To-morrow will be time enough
To feel your harsh control;
Ye shall not violate, this day,
The Sabbath of my soul.

Sleep, sleep forever, guilty thoughts;
Let fires of vengeance die;
And, purged from sin, may I behold
A God of purity!

ANNA LÆTITIA BARBAULD.

* * * * *

VESPER HYMN.

Now, on sea and land descending,
Brings the night its peace profound:
Let our vesper hymn be blending
With the holy calm around.
Soon as dies the sunset glory,
Stars of heaven shine out above,
Telling still the ancient story—
Their Creator's changeless love.

Now, our wants and burdens leaving
To his care who cares for all,
Cease we fearing, cease we grieving;
At his touch our burdens fall.
As the darkness deepens o'er us,
Lo! eternal stars arise;
Hope and Faith and Love rise glorious,
Shining in the Spirit's skies.

SAMUEL LONGFELLOW.

* * * * *

VESPER HYMN.

The day is done; the weary day of thought and toil is past,
Soft falls the twilight cool and gray on the tired earth at last:
By wisest teachers wearied, by gentlest friends oppressed,
In thee alone, the soul, outworn, refreshment finds, and rest.

Bend, Gracious Spirit, from above, like these o'erarching skies,
And to thy firmament of love lift up these longing eyes;
And, folded by thy sheltering hand, in refuge still and deep,
Let blessed thoughts from thee descend, as drop the dews of sleep.

And when refreshed the soul once more puts on new life and power;
Oh, let thine image. Lord, alone, gild the first waking hour!
Let that dear Presence dawn and glow, fairer than morn's first ray,
And thy pure radiance overflow the splendor of the day.

So in the hastening even, so in the coming morn,
When deeper slumber shall be given, and fresher life be born.
Shine out, true Light! to guide my way amid that deepening gloom,
And rise, O Morning Star, the first that dayspring to illume!

I cannot dread the darkness where thou wilt watch o'er me,
Nor smile to greet the sunrise unless thy smile I see;
Creator, Saviour, Comforter! on thee my soul is cast;
At morn, at night, in earth, in heaven, be thou my First and Last!

ELIZA SCUDDER.

* * * * *

AMAZING, BEAUTEOUS CHANGE!

Amazing, beauteous change!
A world created new!
My thoughts with transport range,
The lovely scene to view;
In all I trace,
Saviour divine,
The word is thine,—
Be thine the praise!

See crystal fountains play
Amidst the burning sands;
The river's winding way
Shines through the thirsty lands;
New grass is seen,
And o'er the meads
Its carpet spreads
Of living green.

Where pointed brambles grew,
Intwined with horrid thorn,
Gay flowers, forever new,
The painted fields adorn,—
The blushing rose
And lily there,
In union fair,
Their sweets disclose.

Where the bleak mountain stood
All bare and disarrayed,
See the wide-branching wood
Diffuse its grateful shade;
Tall cedars nod,
And oaks and pines,
And elms and vines
Confess thee God.

The tyrants of the plain
Their savage chase give o'er,—
No more they rend the slain,
And thirst for blood no more;
But infant hands
Fierce tigers stroke,
And lions yoke
In flowery bands.

O, when, Almighty Lord!
Shall these glad things arise,
To verify thy word,
And bless our wandering eyes?
That earth may raise,
With all its tongues,
United songs
Of ardent praise.

PHILIP DODDRIDGE.

* * * * *

THE WORD.

O Word of God incarnate,
O Wisdom from on high,
O Truth unchanged, unchanging,
O Light of our dark sky;
We praise thee for the radiance
That from the hallowed page,
A lantern to our footsteps,
Shines on from age to age.

The Church from thee, her Master,
Received the gift divine;
And still that light she lifteth
O'er all the earth to shine.
It is the golden casket
Where gems of truth are stored;
It is the heaven-drawn picture
Of, thee, the living Word.

It floateth like a banner
Before God's host unfurled;
It shineth like a beacon
Above the darkling world;
It is the chart and compass
That o'er life's surging sea,
Mid mists and rocks and quicksands,
Still guide, O Christ, to thee.

Oh, make thy Church, dear Saviour,
A lamp of burnished gold,
To bear before the nations
Thy true light, as of old.
Oh, teach thy wandering pilgrims
By this their path to trace,
Till, clouds and darkness ended,
They see thee face to face.

WILLIAM WALSHAM HOW.

* * * * *

THE CHIMES OF ENGLAND.

The chimes, the chimes of Motherland,
Of England green and old.
That out from fane and ivied tower
A thousand years have tolled;
How glorious must their music be
As breaks the hallowed day,
And calleth with a seraph's voice
A nation up to pray!

Those chimes that tell a thousand tales,
Sweet tales of olden time;
And ring a thousand memories
At vesper, and at prime!
At bridal and at burial,
For cottager and king,
Those chimes, those glorious Christian chimes,
How blessedly they ring!

Those chimes, those chimes of Motherland,
Upon a Christmas morn.
Outbreaking as the angels did,
For a Redeemer born!
How merrily they call afar,
To cot and baron's hall,
With holly decked and mistletoe,
To keep the festival!

The chimes of England, how they peal
From tower and Gothic pile,
Where hymn and swelling anthem fill
The dim cathedral aisle;
Where windows bathe the holy light
On priestly heads that falls,
And stains the florid tracery
Of banner-dighted walls!

And then, those Easter bells, in spring,
Those glorious Easter chimes!
How loyally they hail thee round,
Old Queen of holy times!
From hill to hill like sentinels,
Responsively they cry,
And sing the rising of the Lord,
From vale to mountain high.

I love ye, chimes of Motherland,
With all this soul of mine,
And bless the Lord that I am sprung
Of good old English line:
And like a son I sing the lay
That England's glory tells;
For she is lovely to the Lord,
For you, ye Christian bells!

And heir of her historic fame,
Though far away my birth,
Thee, too, I love, my Forest-land,
The joy of all the earth;
For thine thy mother's voice shall be,
And here, where God is king,
With English chimes, from Christian spires,
The wilderness shall ring.

ARTHUR CLEVELAND COXE.

* * * * *

THE OLD VILLAGE CHOIR.

I have fancied, sometimes, the Bethel-bent beam,
That trembled to earth in the patriarch's dream,
Was a ladder of song in that wilderness rest,
From the pillar of stone to the blue of the blest.
And the angels descending to dwell with us here,
"Old Hundred," and "Corinth," and "China," and "Mear."

"Let us sing to God's praise," the minister said.
All the psalm-books at once fluttered open at "York";
Sunned their long dotted wings in the words that he read,
While the leader leaped into the tune just ahead,
And politely picked up the key-note with a fork;
And the vicious old viol went growling along
At the heels of the girls, in the rear of the song.

All the hearts are not dead, not under the sod,
That those breaths can blow open to heaven and God!
Ah, "Silver Street" flows by a bright shining road,—
Oh, not to the hymns that in harmony flowed,—
But the sweet human psalms of the old-fashioned choir,
To the girl that sang alto—the girl that sang air!

Oh, I need not a wing—bid no genii come
With a wonderful web from Arabian loom,
To bear me again up the river of Time,
When the world was in rhythm, and life was its rhyme—
Where the streams of the years flowed so noiseless and narrow,
That across it there floated the song of the sparrow—

For a sprig of green caraway carries me there.
To the old village church, and the old village choir,
Where clear of the floor my feet slowly swung,
And timed the sweet pulse of the praise that they sung,
Till the glory aslant from the afternoon sun
Seemed the rafters of gold in God's temple begun!

You may smile at the nasals of old Deacon Brown,
Who followed by scent, till he ran the tune down;
And dear Sister Green, with more goodness than grace,
Rose and fell on the tunes as she stood in her place,
And where "Coronation" exultingly flows,
Tried to reach the high notes on the tips of her toes!

To the land of the leal they have gone with their song,
Where the choir and the chorus together belong,
Oh be lifted, ye gates! Let me hear them again—
Blessèd song, blessèd singers! forever, Amen!

BENJAMIN F. TAYLOR.

* * * * *

A LANCASHIRE DOXOLOGY.

"Some cotton has lately been imported into Farringdon, where the mills have been closed for a considerable time. The people, who were previously in the deepest distress, went out to meet the cotton: the women wept over the bales and kissed them, and finally sang the Doxology over them."—Spectator of May 14, 1803.

"Praise God from whom all blessings flow,"
Praise him who sendeth joy and woe.
The Lord who takes, the Lord who gives,
O, praise him, all that dies, and lives.

He opens and he shuts his hand,
But why we cannot understand:
Pours and dries up his mercies' flood,
And yet is still All-perfect Good.

We fathom not the mighty plan,
The mystery of God and man;
We women, when afflictions come,
We only suffer and are dumb.

And when, the tempest passing by,
He gleams out, sunlike through our sky,
We look up, and through black clouds riven
We recognize the smile of Heaven.

Ours is no wisdom of the wise,
We have no deep philosophies;
Childlike we take both kiss and rod,
For he who loveth knoweth God.

DINAH M. MULOCK CRAIK.

* * * * *

REBECCA'S HYMN.

FROM "IVANHOE."

When Israel, of the Lord beloved,
Out from the land of bondage came,
Her fathers' God before her moved,
An awful guide, in smoke and flame.
By day, along the astonished lands,
The cloudy pillar glided slow:
By night, Arabia's crimsoned sands
Returned the fiery column's glow.

There rose the choral hymn of praise,
And trump and timbrel answered keen,
And Zion's daughters poured their lays,
With priest's and warrior's voice between.
No portents now our foes amaze,
Forsaken Israel wanders lone:
Our fathers would not know Thy ways,
And Thou hast left them to their own.

But, present still, though now unseen!
When brightly shines the prosperous day,
Be thoughts of Thee a cloudy screen
To temper the deceitful ray.
And O, when stoops on Judah's path
In shade and storm the frequent night,
Be Thou, long-suffering, slow to wrath,
A burning and a shining light!

Our harps we left by Babel's streams,
The tyrant's jest, the Gentile's scorn;
No censer round our altar beams,
And mute are timbrel, harp, and horn.
But Thou hast said, "The blood of goat,
The flesh of rams, I will not prize;
A contrite heart, a humble thought,
Are mine accepted sacrifice."

SIR WALTER SCOTT.

* * * * *

THE BOOK OF GOD.

Thy thoughts are here, my God,
Expressed in words divine,
The utterance of heavenly lips
In every sacred line.

Across the ages they
Have reached us from afar,
Than the bright gold more golden they,
Purer than purest star.

More durable they stand
Than the eternal hills;
Far sweeter and more musical
Than music of earth's rills.

Fairer in their fair hues
Than the fresh flowers of earth,
More fragrant than the fragrant climes
Where odors have their birth.

Each word of thine a gem
From the celestial mines,
A sunbeam from that holy heaven
Where holy sunlight shines.

Thine, thine, this book, though given
In man's poor human speech,
Telling of things unseen, unheard,
Beyond all human reach.

No strength it craves or needs
From this world's wisdom vain;
No filling up from human wells,
Or sublunary rain.

No light from sons of time,
Nor brilliance from its gold;
It sparkles with its own glad light,
As in the ages old.

A thousand hammers keen,
With fiery force and strain,
Brought down on it in rage and hate,
Have struck this gem in vain.

Against this sea-swept rock
Ten thousand storms their will
Of foam and rage have wildly spent;
It lifts its calm face still.

It standeth and will stand,
Without or change or age,
The word of majesty and light,
The church's heritage.

HORATIUS BONAR.

* * * * *

THE MEETING.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER

* * * * *

THE LIVING TEMPLE.

Nor in the world of light alone,
Where God has built his blazing throne,
Nor yet alone in earth below,
With belted seas that come and go,
And endless isles of sunlit green,
Is all thy Maker's glory seen:
Look in upon thy wondrous frame,—
Eternal wisdom still the same!

The smooth, soft air with pulse-like waves
Flows murmuring through its hidden caves,
Whose streams of brightening purple rush,
Fired with a new and livelier blush,
While all their burden of decay
The ebbing current steals away,
And red with Nature's flame they start
From the warm fountains of the heart.

No rest that throbbing slave may ask,
Forever quivering o'er his task,
While far and wide a crimson jet
Leaps forth to fill the woven net
Which in unnumbered crossing tides
The flood of burning life divides,
Then, kindling each decaying part,
Creeps back to find the throbbing heart.

But warmed with that unchanging flame
Behold the outward moving frame,
Its living marbles jointed strong
With glistening band and silvery thong,
And linked to reason's guiding reins
By myriad rings in trembling chains,
Each graven with the threaded zone
Which claims it as the Master's own.

See how yon beam of seeming white
Is braided out of seven-hued light,
Yet in those lucid globes no ray
By any chance shall break astray.
Hark, how the rolling surge of sound,
Arches and spirals circling round,
Wakes the hushed spirit through thine ear
With music it is heaven to hear.

Then mark the cloven sphere that holds
All thought in its mysterious folds,
That feels sensation's faintest thrill,
And flashes forth the sovereign will;
Think on the stormy world that dwells
Locked in its dim and clustering cells!
The lightning gleams of power it sheds
Along its hollow glassy threads!

O Father! grant thy love divine
To make these mystic temples thine!
When wasting age and wearying strife
Have sapped the leaning walls of life,
When darkness gathers over all,
And the last tottering pillars-fall,
Take the poor dust thy mercy warms,
And mould it into heavenly forms!

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.

* * * * *

OF HYM THAT TOGYDER WYLL SERVE TWO MAYSTERS.

A Fole he is and voyde of reason
Whiche with one hounde tendyth to take
Two harys in one instant and season;
Rightso is he that wolde undertake
Hym to two lordes a servaunt to make;
For whether that he be lefe or lothe,
The one he shall displease, or els bothe.

A fole also he is withouten doute,
And in his porpose sothly blyndyd sore,
Which doth entende labour or go aboute
To serve god, and also his wretchyd store
Of worldly ryches: for as I sayde before,
He that togyder will two maysters serve
Shall one displease and nat his love deserve.

For be that with one hounde wol take also
Two harys togyther in one instant
For the moste parte doth the both two forgo,
And if he one have: harde it is and skant
And that blynd fole mad and ignorant
That draweth thre boltis atons[A] in one bowe
At one marke shall shote to[o] high or to[o] lowe.
He that his mynde settyth god truly to serve
And his sayntes: this worlde settynge at nought
Shall for rewarde everlastynge joy deserve,
But in this worlde he that settyth his thought
All men to please, and in favour to be brought,
Must lout and lurke, flater, laude, and lye:
And cloke in knavys counseyll, though it fals be.

Wherfore I may prove by these examples playne
That it is better more godly and plesant
To leve this mondayne casualte and payne
And to thy maker one god to be servaunt.
Which whyle thou lyvest shall nat let the want
That thou desyrest justly, for thy syrvyce,
And than after gyve the, the joyes of Paradyse.

From the German of SEBASTIAN BRANDT.

Translation of ALEXANDER BARCLAY.

[Footnote A: At once.]

* * * * *

RELIGION AND DOCTRINE.

He stood before the Sanhedrim;
The scowling rabbis gazed at him;
He recked not of their praise or blame;
There was no fear, there was no shame
For one upon whose dazzled eyes
The whole world poured its vast surprise.
The open heaven was far too near,
His first day's light too sweet and clear,
To let him waste his new-gained ken
On the hate-clouded face of men.

But still they questioned, Who art thou?
What hast thou been? What art thou now?
Thou art not he who yesterday
Sat here and begged beside the way,
For he was blind.
And I am he;
For I was blind, but now I see.

He told the story o'er and o'er;
It was his full heart's only lore;
A prophet on the Sabbath day
Had touched his sightless eyes with clay,
And made him see, who had been blind.
Their words passed by him like the wind
Which raves and howls, but cannot shock
The hundred-fathom-rooted rock.

Their threats and fury all went wide;
They could not touch his Hebrew pride;
Their sneers at Jesus and his band,
Nameless and homeless in the land,
Their boasts of Moses and his Lord,
All could not change him by one word.

I know not that this man may be,
Sinner or saint; but as for me,
One thing I know, that I am he
Who once was blind, and now I see.

They were all doctors of renown,
The great men of a famous town,
With deep brows, wrinkled, broad, and wise,
Beneath their wide phylacteries;
The wisdom of the East was theirs,
And honor crowned their silver hairs;
The man they jeered and laughed to scorn
Was unlearned, poor, and humbly born;
But he knew better far than they
What came to him that Sabbath day;
And what the Christ had done for him,
He knew, and not the Sanhedrim.

JOHN HAY.

* * * * *

RABBI BEN EZRA.

Grow old along with me!
The best is yet to be,
The last of life, for which the first I was made:
Our times are in his hand
Who saith "A whole I planned
Youth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor be afraid!"

Not that, amassing flowers,
Youth sighed, "Which rose make ours,
Which lily leave and then as best recall?"
Not that, admiring stars,
It yearned, "Nor Jove, nor Mars;
Mine be some figured flame which blends, transcends them all!"

Not for such hopes and fears,
Annulling youth's brief years,
Do I remonstrate—folly wide the mark!
Rather I prize the doubt
Low kinds exist without,
Finished and finite clods, untroubled by a spark.

Poor vaunt of life indeed,
Were man but formed to feed
On joy, to solely seek and find and feast:
Such feasting ended, then
As sure an end to men;
Irks care the crop-full bird? Frets doubt the maw-crammed beast?

Rejoice we are allied
To That which doth provide
And not partake, effect and not receive!
A spark disturbs our clod;
Nearer we hold of God
Who gives, than of His tribes that take, I must believe.

Then, welcome each rebuff
That turns earth's smoothness rough,
Each sting that bids nor sit nor stand, but go!
Be our joys three parts pain!
Strive, and hold cheap the strain;
Learn, nor account the pang; dare, never grudge the throe!

For thence—a paradox
Which comforts while it mocks—
Shall life succeed in that it seems to fail:
What I aspired to be,
And was not, comforts me:
A brute I might have been, but would not sink i' the scale.

What is he but a brute
Whose flesh hath soul to suit,
Whose spirit works lest arms and legs want play?
To man, propose this test—
Thy body at its best,
How far can that project thy soul on its lone way?

Yet gifts should prove their use:
I own the Past profuse
Of power each side, perfection every turn:
Eyes, ears took in their dole,
Brain treasured up the whole;
Should not the heart beat once, "How good to live and learn?"

Not once beat "Praise be Thine!
I see the whole design,
I, who saw Power, shall see Love perfect too:
Perfect I call Thy plan:
Thanks that I was a man!
Maker, remake, complete—I trust what Thou shalt do!"

For pleasant is this flesh;
Our soul, in its rose-mesh
Pulled ever to the earth, still yearns for rest:
Would we some prize might hold
To match those manifold
Possessions of the brute—gain most, as we did best!

Let us not always say,
"Spite of this flesh to-day.
I strove, made head, gained ground upon the whole!"
As the bird wings and sings,
Let us cry, "All good things
Are ours, nor soul helps flesh more, now, than flesh helps soul!"

Therefore I summon age
To grant youth's heritage,
Life's struggle having so far reached its term:
Thence shall I pass, approved
A man, for aye removed
From the developed brute; a God though in the germ.

And I shall thereupon
Take rest, ere I be gone
Once more on my adventure brave and new:
Fearless and unperplexed,
When I wage battle next,
What weapons to select, what armor to indue.

Youth ended, I shall try
My gain or loss thereby;
Be the fire ashes, what survives is gold:
And I shall weigh the same.
Give life its praise or blame:
Young, all lay in dispute; I shall know, being old.

For note, when evening shuts,
A certain moment cuts
The deed off, calls the glory from the gray:
A whisper from the west
Shoots—"Add this to the rest,
Take it and try its worth: here dies another day."

So, still within this life,
Though lifted o'er its strife,
Let me discern, compare, pronounce at last,
"This rage was right i' the main,
That acquiescence vain:
The Future I may face now I have proved the Past."

For more is not reserved
To man, with soul just nerved
To act to-morrow what he learns to-day:
Here, work enough to watch
The Master work, and catch
Hints of the proper craft, tricks of the tool's true play.
As it was better, youth
Should strive, through acts uncouth,
Toward making, than repose on aught found made;
So, better, age, exempt
From strife, should know, than tempt
Further. Thou waitedst age; wait death nor be afraid!

Enough now, if the Right
And Good and Infinite
Be named here, as thou callest thy hand thine own,
With knowledge absolute,
Subject to no dispute
From fools that crowded youth, nor let thee feel alone.

Be there, for once and all,
Severed great minds from small,
Announced to each his station in the Past!
Was I, the world arraigned,
Were they, my soul disdained,
Right? Let age speak the truth and give us peace at last!

Now, who shall arbitrate?
Ten men love what I hate,
Shun what I follow, slight what I receive:
Ten, who in ears and eyes
Match me: we all surmise,
They, this thing, and I, that: whom shall my soul believe?

Not on the vulgar mass
Called "work," must sentence pass,
Things done, that took the eye and had the price;
O'er which, from level stand,
The low world laid its hand,
Found straightway to its mind, could value in a trice:

But all, the world's coarse thumb
And finger failed to plumb,
So passed in making up the main account;
All instincts immature,
All purposes unsure,
That weighed not as his work, yet swelled the man's amount:

Thoughts hardly to be packed
Into a narrow act,
Fancies that broke through language and escaped;
All I could never be,
All, men ignored in me,
This, I was worth to God, whose wheel the pitcher shaped.

Ay, note that Potter's wheel,
That metaphor! and feel
Why time spins fast; why passive lies our clay,—
Thou, to whom fools propound,
When the wine makes its round,
"Since life fleets, all is change; the Past gone, seize to-day!"

Fool! All that is, at all,
Lasts ever, past recall;
Earth changes, but thy soul and God stand sure:
What entered into thee,
That was, is, and shall be:
Time's wheel runs back or stops; Potter and clay endure.

He fixed thee 'mid this dance
Of plastic circumstance,
This Present, thou, forsooth, wouldst fain arrest:
Machinery just meant
To give thy soul its bent,
Try thee and turn thee forth, sufficiently impressed.

What though the earlier grooves
Which ran the laughing loves
Around thy base, no longer pause and press?
What though, about thy rim,
Scull-things in order grim
Grow out, in graver mood, obey the sterner stress?

Look not thou down, but up!
To uses of a cup,
The festal board, lamp's flash, and trumpet's peal,
The new wine's foaming flow,
The Master's lips aglow!
Thou, heaven's consummate cup, what needst thou with earth's wheel?

But I need, now as then,
Thee, God, who mouldest men;
And since, not even while the whirl was worst,
Did I—to the wheel of life
With shapes and colors rife,
Bound dizzily—mistake my end, to slake Thy thirst:

So, take and use Thy work!
Amend what flaws may lurk,
What strain o' the stuff, what warpings past the aim!
My times be in Thy hand!
Perfect the cup as planned!
Let age approve of youth, and death complete the same!

ROBERT BROWNING.

* * * * *

THE RELIGION OF HUDIBRAS.

FROM "HUDIBRAS," PART I.

He was of that stubborn crew
Of errant saints, whom all men grant
To be the true church militant;
Such as do build their faith upon
The holy text of pike and gun;
Decide all controversies by
Infallible artillery,
And prove their doctrine orthodox
By apostolic blows and knocks;
Call fire, and sword, and desolation
A godly, thorough Reformation,
Which always must be carried on
And still be doing, never done;
As if religion were intended
For nothing else but to be mended.
A sect whose chief devotion lies
In odd perverse antipathies;
In falling out with that or this,
And finding somewhat still amiss;
More peevish, cross, and splenetic,
Than dog distract, or monkey sick;
That with more care keep holiday
The wrong than others the right way;
Compound for sins they are inclined to,
By damning those they have no mind to;
Still so perverse and opposite,
As if they worshipped God for spite;
The self-same thing they will abhor
One way, and long another for.

SAMUEL BUTLER.

* * * * *

THE PROBLEM.

I like a church; I like a cowl;
I love a prophet of the soul;
And on my heart monastic aisles
Fall like sweet strains or pensive smiles;
Yet not for all his faith can see
Would I that cowled churchman be.
Why should the vest on him allure,
Which I could not on me endure?

Not from a vain or shallow thought
His awful Jove young Phidias brought;
Never from lips of cunning fell
The thrilling Delphic oracle:
Out from the heart of nature rolled
The burdens of the Bible old;
The litanies of nations came,
Like the volcano's tongue of flame,
Up from the burning core below,—
The canticles of love and woe.
The hand that rounded Peters dome,
And groined the aisles of Christian Rome,
Wrought in a sad sincerity;
Himself from God he could not free;
He builded better than he knew;—
The conscious stone to beauty grew.

Knowest thou what wove yon woodbird's nest
Of leaves, and feathers from her breast?
Or how the fish outbuilt her shell.
Painting with morn each annual cell?
Or how the sacred pine-tree adds
To her old leaves new myriads?
Such and so grew these holy piles,
Whilst love and terror laid the tiles.
Earth proudly wears the Parthenon,
As the best gem upon her zone;
And Morning opes with haste her lids,
To gaze upon the Pyramids;
O'er England's abbeys bends the sky,
As on its friends, with kindred eye;
For, out of Thought's interior sphere,
These wonders rose to upper air;
And Nature gladly gave them place,
Adopted them into her race,
And granted them an equal date
With Andes and with Ararat.

These temples grew as grows the grass;
Art might obey, but not surpass.
The passive Master lent his hand
To the vast Soul that o'er him planned;
And the same power that reared the shrine
Bestrode the tribes that knelt within.
Ever the fiery Pentecost
Girds with one flame the countless host,
Trances the heart through chanting choirs,
And through the priest the mind inspires.
The word unto the prophet spoken
Was writ on tables yet unbroken;
The word by seers or sibyls told,
In groves of oak, or fanes of gold,
Still floats upon the morning wind,
Still whispers to the willing mind.
One accent of the Holy Ghost
The heedless world hath never lost.
I know what say the fathers wise,—
The Book itself before me lies,—
Old Chrysostom, best Augustine,
And he who blent both in his line,
The younger Golden Lips or mines,
Taylor, the Shakespeare of divines.
His words are music in my ear,
I see his cowled portrait dear;
And yet, for all his faith could see,
I would not the good bishop be.

RALPH WALDO EMERSON.

* * * * *

ON AN INFANT

WHICH DIED BEFORE BAPTISM.

"Be, rather than be called, a child of God,"
Death whispered!—with assenting nod,
Its head upon its mother's breast,
The baby bowed, without demur—
Of the kingdom of the Blest
Possessor, not inheritor.

SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE.

* * * * *

WHAT WAS HIS CREED?

"Religion relates to life, and the life of religion is to do
good."—SWEDENBORG.

He left a load of anthracite
In front of a poor woman's door.
When the deep snow, frozen and white,
Wrapped street and square, mountain and moor.
That was his deed.
He did it well.
"What was his creed?"
I cannot tell.

Blessed "in his basket and his store,"
In sitting down and rising up;
When more he got, he gave the more,
Withholding not the crust and cup.
He took the lead
In each good task.
"What was his creed?"
I did not ask.

His charity was like the snow,
Soft, white, and silent in its fall;
Not like the noisy winds that blow
From shivering trees the leaves,—a pall
For flowers and weed,
Drooping below.
"What was his creed?"
The poor may know.

He had great faith in loaves of bread
For hungry people, young and old,
Hope he inspired; kind words he said
To those he sheltered from the cold.
For we should feed
As well as pray.
"What was his creed?"
I cannot say.

In words he did not put his trust;
His faith in words he never writ;
He loved to share his cup and crust
With all mankind who needed it.
In time of need
A friend was he.
"What was his creed?"
He told not me.

He put his trust in heaven, and he
Worked well with hand and head;
And what he gave in charity
Sweetened his sleep and daily bread.
Let us take heed,
For life is brief.
What was his creed—What
his belief?

ANONYMOUS.

* * * * *

THE PHILOSOPHER TOAD.

Down deep in the hollow, so damp and so cold,
Where oaks are by ivy o'ergrown,
The gray moss and lichen creep over the mould,
Lying loose on a ponderous stone.
Now within this huge stone, like a king on his throne,
A toad has been sitting more years than is known;
And, strange as it seems, yet he constantly deems
The world standing still while he's dreaming his dreams,—
Does this wonderful toad in his cheerful abode
In the innermost heart of that flinty old stone,
By the gray-haired moss and the lichen o'ergrown.

Down deep in the hollow, from morning till night,
Dun shadows glide over the ground,
Where a watercourse once, as it sparkled with light,
Turned a ruined old mill-wheel around:
Long years have passed by since its bed became dry,
And the trees grow so close, scarce a glimpse of the sky
Is seen in the hollow, so dark and so damp,
Where the glow-worm at noonday is trimming his lamp,
And hardly a sound from the thicket around,
Where the rabbit and squirrel leap over the ground,
Is heard by the toad in his spacious abode
In the innermost heart of that ponderous stone,
By the gray-haired moss and the lichen o'ergrown.

Down deep in that hollow the bees never come,
The shade is too black for a flower;
And jewel-winged birds with their musical hum,
Never flash in the night of that bower;
But the cold-blooded snake, in the edge of the brake,
Lies amid the rank grass, half asleep, half awake;
And the ashen-white snail, with the slime in, its trail,
Moves wearily on like a life's tedious tale,
Yet disturbs not the toad in his spacious abode,
In the innermost heart of that flinty old stone,
By the gray-haired moss and the lichen o'ergrown.

Down deep in a hollow some wiseacres sit,
Like a toad in his cell in the stone;
Around them in daylight the blind owlets flit,
And their creeds are with ivy o'ergrown;—
Their stream may go dry, and the wheels cease to ply,
And their glimpses be few of the sun and the sky,
Still they hug to their breast every time-honored guest.
And slumber and doze in inglorious rest;
For no progress they find in the wide sphere of mind,
And the world's standing still with all of their kind;
Contented to dwell deep down in the well,
Or move like a snail in the crust of his shell,
Or live like the toad in his narrow abode,
With their souls closely wedged in a thick wall of stone,
By the gray weeds of prejudice rankly o'ergrown.

REBECCA S. NICHOLS.

* * * * *

HER CREED.

She stood before a chosen few,
With modest air and eyes of blue;
A gentle creature, in whose face
Were mingled tenderness and grace.

"You wish to join our fold," they said:
"Do you believe in all that's read
From ritual and written creed,
Essential to our human need?"

A troubled look was in her eyes;
She answered, as in vague surprise.
As though the sense to her were dim,
"I only strive to follow Him."

They knew her life; how, oft she stood,
Sweet in her guileless maidenhood,
By dying bed, in hovel lone,
Whose sorrow she had made her own.

Oft had her voice in prayer been heard,
Sweet as the voice of singing bird;
Her hand been open in distress;
Her joy to brighten and to bless.

Yet still she answered, when they sought
To know her inmost earnest thought,
With look as of the seraphim,
"I only strive to follow Him."

Creeds change as ages come and go;
We see by faith, but little know:
Perchance the sense was not so dim
To her who "strove to follow Him."

SARAH KNOWLES BOLTON.

* * * * *

MY CREED.

I hold that Christian grace abounds
Where charity is seen; that when
We climb to heaven, 't is on the rounds
Of love to men.

I hold all else, named piety,
A selfish scheme, a vain pretence;
Where centre is not—can there be
Circumference?

This I moreover hold, and dare
Affirm where'er my rhyme may go,—
Whatever things be sweet or fair,
Love makes them so.

Whether it be the lullabies
That charm to rest the nursling bird,
Or the sweet confidence of sighs
And blushes, made without a word.

Whether the dazzling and the flush
Of softly sumptuous garden bowers,
Or by some cabin door, a bush
Of ragged flowers.

'Tis not the wide phylactery,
Nor stubborn fast, nor stated prayers,
That make us saints: we judge the tree
By what it bears.

And when a man can live apart
From works, on theologic trust,
I know the blood about his heart
Is dry as dust.

ALICE CAREY.

* * * * *

GIVE ME THY HEART.

With echoing steps the worshippers
Departed one by one;
The organ's pealing voice was stilled,
The vesper hymn was done;
The shadow fell from roof and arch,
Dim was the incensed air,
One lamp alone, with trembling ray,
Told of the Presence there!

In the dark church she knelt alone;
Her tears were falling fast;
"Help, Lord," she cried, "the shades of death
Upon my soul are cast!
Have I not shunned the path of sin,
And chose the better part? "—
What voice came through the sacred air?—
"My child, give me thy heart!"

"Have not I laid before thy shrine
My wealth, O Lord?" she cried;
"Have I kept aught of gems or gold,
To minister to pride?
Have I not bade youth's joys retire,
And vain delights depart?"—
But sad and tender was the voice,—
"My child, give me thy heart!"

"Have I not, Lord, gone day by day
Where thy poor children dwell;
And carried help, and gold, and food?
O Lord, thou know'st it well!
From many a house, from many a soul,
My hand bids care depart":—
More sad, more tender was the voice,—
"My child, give me thy heart!"

"Have I not worn my strength away
With fast and penance sore?
Have I not watched and wept?" she cried;
"Did thy dear saints do more?
Have I not gained thy grace, O Lord,
And won in heaven my part?"—
It echoed louder in her soul,—
"My child, give me thy heart!

"For I have loved thee with a love
No mortal heart can show;
A love so deep my saints in heaven
Its depths can never know:
When pierced and wounded on the cross,
Man's sin and doom were mine,
I loved thee with undying love,
Immortal and divine!

"I loved thee ere the skies were spread;
My soul bears all thy pains;
To gain thy love my sacred heart
In earthly shrines remains:
Vain are thy offerings, vain thy sighs,
Without one gift divine;
Give it, my child, thy heart to me,
And it shall rest in mine!"

In awe she listened, as the shade
Passed from her soul away;
In low and trembling voice she cried,—
"Lord, help me to obey!
Break thou the chains of earth, O Lord,
That bind and hold my heart;
Let it be thine and thine alone,
Let none with thee have part.

"Send down, O Lord, thy sacred fire!
Consume and cleanse the sin
That lingers still within its depths:
Let heavenly love begin.
That sacred flame thy saints have known,
Kindle, O Lord, in me,
Thou above all the rest forever,
And all the rest in thee."

The blessing fell upon her soul;
Her angel by her side
Knew that the hour of peace was come;
Her soul was purified;
The shadows fell from roof and arch,
Dim was the incensed air,—
But peace went with her as she left
The sacred Presence there!

ADELAIDE ANNE PROCTOR.

* * * * *

O, MAY I JOIN THE CHOIR INVISIBLE!

O, may I join the choir invisible
Of those immortal dead who live again
In minds made better by their presence; live
In pulses stirred to generosity,
In deeds of daring rectitude, in scorn
Of miserable aims that end with self,
In thoughts sublime that pierce the night like stars,
And with their mild persistence urge men's minds
To vaster issues.
So to live is heaven:
To make undying music in the world,
Breathing a beauteous order that controls
With growing sway the growing life of man.
So we inherit that sweet purity
For which we struggled, failed, and agonized
With widening retrospect that bred despair.
Rebellious flesh that would not be subdued,
A vicious parent shaming still its child,
Poor anxious penitence, is quick dissolved;
Its discords quenched by meeting harmonies,
Die in the large and charitable air.
And all our rarer, better, truer self,
That sobbed religiously in yearning song,
That watched to ease the burden of the world,
Laboriously tracing what must be,
And what may yet be better,—saw within
A worthier image for the sanctuary,
And shaped it forth before the multitude,
Divinely human, raising worship so
To higher reverence more mixed with love,
That better self shall live till human Time
Shall fold its eyelids, and the human sky
Be gathered like a scroll within the tomb,
Unread forever.
This is life to come,
Which martyred men have made more glorious
For us, who strive to follow.
May I reach
That purest heaven,—be to other souls
The cup of strength in some great agony,
Enkindle generous ardor, feed pure love,
Beget the smiles that have no cruelty,
Be the sweet presence of a good diffused,
And in diffusion ever more intense!
So shall I join the choir invisible,
Whose music is the gladness of the world.

MARIAN EVANS LEWES CROSS (George Eliot).

* * * * *

O YET WE TRUST THAT SOMEHOW GOOD.

FROM "IN MEMORIAM," LIII.

O yet we trust that somehow good
Will be the final goal of ill,
To pangs of nature, sins of will,
Defects of doubt, and taints of blood;

That nothing walks with aimless feet;
That not one life shall be destroyed,
Or cast as rubbish to the void,
When God hath made the pile complete;

That not a worm is cloven in vain;
That not a moth with vain desire
Is shrivelled in a fruitless fire,
Or but subserves another's gain.

Behold, we know not anything;
I can but trust that good shall fall
At last—far off—at last, to all,
And every winter change to spring.

So runs my dream: but what am I?
An infant crying in the night:
An infant crying for the light:
And with no language but a cry.

ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON.

* * * * *

DAY BREAKS.

What dost thou see, lone watcher on the tower.
Is the day breaking? Comes the wished-for hour?
Tell us the signs, and stretch abroad thy hand,
If the bright morning dawns upon the land.

"The stars are clear above me; scarcely one
Has dimmed its rays in reverence to the sun;
But I yet see on the horizon's verge
Some fair, faint streaks, as if the light would surge."

Look forth again, O watcher on the tower,—
The people wake and languish for the hour;
Long have they dwelt in darkness, and they pine
For the full daylight that they know must shine.

"I see not well,—the moon is cloudy still,—
There is a radiance on the distant hill;
Even as I watch the glory seems to grow;
But the stars blink, and the night breezes blow."

And is that all, O watcher on the tower?
Look forth again; it must be near the hour;
Dost thou not see the snowy mountain copes,
And the green woods beneath them on the slopes?

"A mist envelops them; I cannot trace
Their outline; but the day comes on apace:
The clouds roll up in gold and amber flakes,
And all the stars grow dim; the morning breaks."

We thank thee, lonely watcher on the tower:
But look again, and tell us, hour by hour,
All thou beholdest: many of us die
Ere the day comes; oh, give them a reply!

"I see the hill-tops now, and chanticleer
Crows his prophetic carol on mine ear;
I see the distant woods and fields of corn,
And ocean gleaming in the light of morn."

Again, again, O watcher on the tower!
We thirst for daylight, and we bide the hour,
Patient, but longing. Tell us, shall it be
A bright, calm, glorious daylight for the free?

"I hope, but cannot tell; I hear a song,
Vivid as day itself, and clear and strong,
As of a lark—young prophet of the noon—
Pouring in sunlight his seraphic tune."

What doth he say, O watcher on the tower?
Is he a prophet? does the dawning hour
Inspire his music? Is his chant sublime,
Filled with the glories of the future time?

"He prophesies,—his heart is full; his lay
Tells of the brightness of a peaceful day;
A day not cloudless, nor devoid of storm,
But sunny for the most, and clear and warm."

We thank thee, watcher on the lonely tower,
For all thou tellest. Sings he of an hour
When error shall decay, and truth grow strong,
And light shall rule supreme and conquer wrong?

"He sings of brotherhood and joy and peace,
Of days when jealousies and hate shall cease;
When war shall cease, and man's progressive mind
Soar as unfettered as its God designed."

Well done, thou watcher on the lonely tower!
Is the day breaking? Dawns the happy hour?
We pine to see it; tell us yet again
If the broad daylight breaks upon the plain?

"It breaks! it comes! the misty shadows fly:
A rosy radiance gleams upon the sky;
The mountain-tops reflect it calm and clear,
The plain is yet in shade, but day is near."

CHARLES MACKAY.

* * * * *

MY HOME.

A THANKSGIVING TO GOD FOR A HOUSE IN THE GREEN PARISH OF DEVONSHIRE.

Lord, thou hast given me a cell
Wherein to dwell,
A little house, whose humble roof
Is weather proof;
Under the sparres of which I lie,
Both soft and drie;
Where thou, my chamber for to ward,
Hast set a guard
Of harmlesse thoughts, to watch and keep
Me while I sleep.
Low is my porch, as is my fate;
Both void of state;
And yet the threshold of my doore
Is worn by the poore,
Who hither come and freely get
Good words or meat.
Like as my parlour, so my hall
And kitchen's small;
A little butterie, and therein
A little byn,
Which keeps my little loafe of bread
Unchipt, unflead.
Some sticks of thorn or briar
Make me a fire,
Close by whose loving coals I sit,
And glow like it.
Lord, I confesse too, when I dine,
The pulse is thine,
And all those other bits that bee
There placed by thee;
The worts, the purslain, and the messe
Of water-cresse,
Which of thy kindness thou hast sent;
And my content
Makes those and my beloved beet
More sweet.
'Tis thou that crown'st my glittering hearth
With guiltlesse mirth,
And giv'st me wassaile bowles to drink,
Spiced to the brink.
Lord, 'tis thy plenty-dropping hand
That soiles my land,
And gives me for my bushel sowne,
Twice ten for one.
Thou mak'st my teeming hen to lay
Her egg each day,
Besides my healthful ewes to bear
Me twins each yeare;
The while the conduits of my kine
Run creame for wine.
All these and better thou dost send
Me to this end,
That I should render, for my part,
A thankfulle heart,
Which, fired with incense, I resigne
As wholly thine;
But the acceptance, that must be,
MY CHRIST, by thee.

ROBERT HERRICK.

* * * * *

PEACE.

Sweet Peace, where dost thou dwell? I humbly crave.
Let me once know.
I sought thee in a secret cave;
And asked if Peace were there.
A hollow wind did seem to answer, "No!
Go, seek elsewhere."

I did; and, going, did a rainbow note:
"Surely," thought I,
"This is the lace of Peace's coat.
I will search out the matter."
But, while I looked, the clouds immediately
Did break and scatter.

Then went I to a garden, and did spy
A gallant flower,—
The crown-imperial. "Sure," said I,
"Peace at the root must dwell."
But, when I digged, I saw a worm devour
What showed so well.

At length I met a reverend, good old man;
Whom when for Peace
I did demand, he thus began:
"There was a prince of old
At Salem dwelt, who lived with good increase
Of flock and fold.

"He sweetly lived; yet sweetness did not save
His life from foes.
But, after death, out of his grave
There sprang twelve stalks of wheat;
Which many wondering at, got some of those
To plant and set.

"It prospered strangely, and did soon disperse
Through all the earth.
For they that taste it do rehearse,
That virtue lies therein,—
A secret virtue, bringing peace and mirth,
By flight of sin.

"Take of this grain, which in my garden grows,
And grows for you:
Make bread of it; and that repose
And peace which everywhere
With so much earnestness you do pursue,
Is only there."

GEORGE HERBERT.

* * * * *

PEACE.

Is this the peace of God, this strange sweet calm?
The weary day is at its zenith still,
Yet 't is as if beside some cool, clear rill,
Through shadowy stillness rose an evening psalm.
And all the noise of life were hushed away,
And tranquil gladness reigned with gently soothing sway.

It was not so just now. I turned aside
With aching head, and heart most sorely bowed;
Around me cares and griefs in crushing crowd.
While inly rose the sense, in swelling tide,
Of weakness, insufficiency, and sin,
And fear, and gloom, and doubt in mighty flood rolled in.

That rushing flood I had no power to meet,
Nor power to flee: my present, future, past,
Myself, my sorrow, and my sin I cast
In utter helplessness at Jesu's feet:
Then bent me to the storm, if such his will.
He saw the winds and waves, and whispered.
"Peace, be still!"

And there was calm! O Saviour, I have proved
That thou to help and save art really near:
How else this quiet rest from grief and fear
And all distress? The cross is not removed,
I must go forth to bear it as before,
But, leaning on thine arm, I dread its weight no more.

Is it indeed thy peace? I have not tried
To analyze my faith, dissect my trust,
Or measure if belief be full and just,
And therefore claim thy peace. But thou hast died,
I know that this is true for me,
And, knowing it, I come, and cast my all on thee.

It is not that I feel less weak, but thou
Wilt be my strength; it is not that I see
Less sin, but more of pardoning love with thee,
And all-sufficient grace. Enough! and now
All fluttering thought is stilled, I only rest,
And feel that thou art near, and know that I am blest.

FRANCES RIDLEY HAVERGAL.

* * * * *

LIVING WATERS.

There are some hearts like wells, green-mossed and deep
As ever Summer saw;
And cool their water is,—yea, cool and sweet;—
But you must come to draw.
They hoard not, yet they rest in calm content,
And not unsought will give;
They can be quiet with their wealth unspent,
So self-contained they live.

And there are some like springs, that bubbling burst
To follow dusty ways,
And run with offered cup to quench his thirst
Where the tired traveller strays;
That never ask the meadows if they want
What is their joy to give;—
Unasked, their lives to other life they grant,
So self-bestowed they live!

And One is like the ocean, deep and wide,
Wherein all waters fall;
That girdles the broad earth, and draws the tide,
Feeding and bearing all;
That broods the mists, that sends the clouds abroad,
That takes, again to give;—
Even the great and loving heart of God.
Whereby all love doth live.

CAROLINE S. SPENCER.

* * * * *

DEVOTION.

The immortal gods
Accept the meanest altars, that are raised
By pure devotion; and sometimes prefer
An ounce of frankincense, honey, or milk,
Before whole hecatombs, or Sabæan gems,
Offered in ostentation.

PHILIP MASSINGER.

* * * * *

THE SEASIDE WELL.

"Waters flowed over mine head; then I said, I am cut
off."—LAMENTATIONS iii. 54.

One day I wandered where the salt sea-tide
Backward had drawn its wave,
And found a spring as sweet as e'er hillside
To wild-flowers gave.
Freshly it sparkled in the sun's bright look,
And mid its pebbles strayed,
As if it thought to join a happy brook
In some green glade.

But soon the heavy sea's resistless swell
Came rolling in once more,
Spreading its bitter o'er the clear sweet well
And pebbled shore.
Like a fair star thick buried in a cloud,
Or life in the grave's gloom,
The well, enwrapped in a deep watery shroud,
Sunk to its tomb.

As one who by the beach roams far and wide,
Remnant of wreck to save,
Again I wandered when the salt sea-tide
Withdrew its wave;
And there, unchanged, no taint in all its sweet,
No anger in its tone,
Still as it thought some happy brook to meet,
The spring flowed on.

While waves of bitterness rolled o'er its head,
Its heart had folded deep
Within itself, and quiet fancies led,
As in a sleep;
Till, when the ocean loosed his heavy chain,
And gave it back to day,
Calmly it turned to its own life again
And gentle way.

Happy, I thought, that which can draw its life
Deep from the nether springs,
Safe 'neath the pressure, tranquil mid the strife,
Of surface things.
Safe—for the sources of the nether springs
Up in the far hills lie;
Calm—for the life its power and freshness brings
Down from the sky.

So, should temptations threaten, and should sin
Roll in its whelming flood,
Make strong the fountain of thy grace within
My soul, O God!
If bitter scorn, and looks, once kind, grown strange,
With crushing chillness fall,
From secret wells let sweetness rise, nor change
My heart to gall!

When sore thy hand doth press, and waves of thine
Afflict me like a sea,—
Deep calling deep,—infuse from source divine
Thy peace in me!
And when death's tide, as with a brimful cup,
Over my soul doth pour,
Let hope survive,—a well that springeth up
Forevermore!

Above my head the waves may come and go,
Long brood the deluge dire,
But life lies hidden in the depths below
Till waves retire,—
Till death, that reigns with overflowing flood,
At length withdraw its sway,
And life rise sparkling in the sight of God
An endless day.

ANONYMOUS.

* * * * *

ULTIMA VERITAS.

In the bitter waves of woe,
Beaten and tossed about
By the sullen winds that blow
From the desolate shores of doubt,—

When the anchors that faith had cast
Are dragging in the gale,
I am quietly holding fast
To the things that cannot fail:

I know that right is right;
That it is not good to lie;
That love is better than spite,
And a neighbor than a spy;

I know that passion needs
The leash of a sober mind;
I know that generous deeds
Some sure reward will find;

That the rulers must obey;
That the givers shall increase;
That Duty lights the way
For the beautiful feet of Peace;—

In the darkest night of the year,
When the stars have all gone out,
That courage is better than fear,
That faith is truer than doubt;

And fierce though the fiends may fight,
And long though the angels hide,
I know that Truth and Eight
Have the universe on their side;

And that somewhere, beyond the stars,
Is a Love that is better than fate;
When the night unlocks her bars
I shall see Him, and I will wait.

WASHINGTON GLADDEN.

* * * * *

THE END OF THE PLAY.

The play is done,—the curtain drops,
Slow falling to the prompter's bell;
A moment yet the actor stops,
And looks around, to say farewell.
It is an irksome word and task;
And, when he's laughed and said his say,
He shows, as he removes the mask,
A face that's anything but gay.

One word, ere yet the evening ends,—
Let's close it with a parting rhyme;
And pledge a hand to all young friends,
As flits the merry Christmas time;
On life's wide scene you, too, have parts
That fate erelong shall bid you play;
Good night!—with honest, gentle hearts
A kindly greeting go alway!

Good night!—I'd say the griefs, the joys,
Just hinted in this mimic page,
The triumphs and defeats of boys,
Are but repeated in our age;
I'd say your woes were not less-keen,
Your hopes more vain, than those of men,—
Your pangs or pleasures of fifteen
At forty-five played o'er again.

I'd say we suffer and we strive
Not less nor more as men than boys,—
With grizzled beards at forty-five,
As erst at twelve in corduroys;
And if, in time of sacred youth,
We learned at home to love and pray,
Pray Heaven that early love and truth
May never wholly pass away.

And in the world, as in the school,
I'd say how fate may change and shift,—
The prize be sometimes with the fool,
The race not always to the swift:
The strong may yield, the good may fall,
The great man be a vulgar clown,
The knave be lifted over all,
The kind cast pitilessly down.

Who knows the inscrutable design?
Blessed be Be who took and gave!
Why should your mother, Charles, not mine,
Be weeping at her darling's grave?
We bow to Heaven that willed it so,
That darkly rules the fate of all,
That sends the respite or the blow,
That's free to give or to recall.

This crowns his feast with wine and wit,—
Who brought him to that mirth and state?
His betters, see, below him sit,
Or hunger hopeless at the gate.
Who bade the mud from Dives' wheel
To spurn the rags of Lazarus?
Come, brother, in that dust we'll kneel,
Confessing Heaven that ruled it thus.

So each shall mourn, in life's advance,
Dear hopes, dear friends, untimely killed;
Shall grieve for many a forfeit chance
And longing passion unfulfilled.
Amen!—whatever fate be sent,
Pray God the heart may kindly glow,
Although the head with cares be bent,
And whitened with the winter snow.

Come wealth or want, come good or ill,
Let young and old accept their part,
And bow before the awful will,
And bear it with an honest heart.
Who misses, or who wins the prize,—
Go, lose or conquer as you can;
But if you fail, or if you rise,
Be each, pray God, a gentleman.

A gentleman, or old or young!
(Bear kindly with my humble lays;)
The sacred chorus first was sung
Upon the first of Christmas days;
The shepherds heard it overhead,—
The joyful angels raised it then:
Glory to Heaven on high, it said,
And peace on earth to gentle men!

My song, save this, is little worth;
I lay the weary pen aside,
And wish you health and love and mirth,
As fits the solemn Christmas-tide.
As fits the holy Christmas birth,
Be this, good friends, our carol still,—
Be peace on earth, be peace on earth,
To men of gentle will.

WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY.

* * * * *

THE NEW YEAR.

FROM "IN MEMORIAM," CV.

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light:
The year is dying in the night—
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

Ring out the old, ring in the new—,
Ring happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.

Ring out the grief that saps the mind,
For those that here we see no more;
Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
Ring in redress to all mankind.

Ring out a slowly dying cause,
And ancient forms of party strife;
Ring in the nobler modes of life,
With sweeter manners, purer laws.

Ring out the want, the care, the sin,
The faithless coldness of the times;
Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes,
But ring the fuller minstrel in.

Ring out false pride in place and blood,
The civic slander and the spite;
Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.

Ring out old shapes of foul disease,
Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace.

Ring in the valiant man and free,
The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
Ring out the darkness of the land—
Ring in the Christ that is to be.

ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON

* * * * *

LIFE.

It is not life upon thy gifts to live,
But to grow fixed with deeper roots in Thee;
And when the sun and showers their bounties give,
To send out thick-leaved limbs; a fruitful tree
Whose green head meets the eye for many a mile,
Whose spreading boughs a friendly shelter rear,
And full-faced fruits their blushing welcome smile
As to its goodly shade our feet draw near.
Who tastes its gifts shall never hunger more,
For 't is the Father spreads the pure repast,
Who, while we eat, renews the ready store,
Which at his bounteous board must ever last;
And, as the more we to his children lend,
The more to us doth of his bounty send.

JONES VERY.

* * * * *

SELECTIONS FROM PARADISE LOST.