What though He is veiled in silence, and behind our clouds grown dim;
If He come not down to help us, then we will go to Him.
See! there is the other pathway, down, down to the home of Night.
Jump! long ere the body be broken, the soul will have taken flight.
He will give His charge to His angels: in their hands they will bear thee up,
As ye tread the Saviour’s pathway, and drink the Saviour’s cup.
There,—lean on my breast, sweet infant, and good-bye to Earth and woe.
Now, sisters, the way lies open: I am weary and long to go!”
They had fought: they had failed; and they followed brave Schakhe, a martyr throng;—
And soft o’er the corpse-strewn valley the winds sigh: “Lord, how long?”
No Shakespeare girdle this, whose girth
Would compass with its arms
The sounding seas and snows of earth,
The fruitful fields and farms.[A]
Here priestly power has thrown around
A circuit wide and high,
A bar where waves of human sound
Beat vainly, drop, and die.
“Who dreams of war in such a scene
Of undisturbed repose?
Who babbles here of spite and spleen?
Who rhymes of human woes?
Nought here is heard of mingling cries,
Of life’s unlovely jars
Nought here is seen but yonder skies,
And circling suns and stars!”
O wise in wisdom of the fool!
O warped in sight and soul!
O Arctic spirit, icy cool
As passions of the Pole!
Is ’t but a dream of babe or bard
That conjures grief and groans?
Or is thy shrunken heart more hard
Than those three standing stones?
I dreamed a dream when last I stood
Within their sombre shade:
Time took my hand full many a rood
Beyond the tides of trade,
Beyond the sacerdotal rite,
And soul-absorbing creeds,
Beyond the narrow skirts of sight
And despicable deeds.
I soared above the brimming Earth;
I peered beneath its breast;
I saw the founts of joy and mirth,
And seats of life’s unrest.
But in the ocean of its thought
One current swelled and grew
And on to seas with blessing fraught
A thousand others drew.