"Two words, indeed, of praying we remember;
And, at midnight's hour of harm,
Our Father, looking upward in the chamber,
We say softly for a charm.[M]
We say no other words except our Father!
And we think that, in some pause of angels' song,
He may pluck them with the silence sweet to gather,
And hold both within his right hand, which is strong.
Our Father! If he heard us, he would surely
(For they call him good and mild)
Answer—smiling down the steep world very purely—
'Come and rest with me, my child.'
"But no," say the children, weeping faster;
"He is silent as a stone,
And they tell us, of his image is the master
Who commands us to work on.
Go to!" say the children; "up in heaven,
Dark, wheel-like, turning clouds are all we find!
Do not mock us! we are atheists in our grieving—
We look up for HIM—but tears have made us blind."
Do ye hear the children weeping and disproving,
O my brothers, what ye teach?
For God's possible is taught by his world's loving—
And the children doubt of each!
And well may the children weep before ye—
They are weary ere they run!
They have never seen the sunshine, nor the glory
Which is brighter than the sun!
They know the grief of men, but not the wisdom—
They sink in the despair, with hope at calm—
Are slaves, without the liberty in christdom—
Are martyrs by the pang without the palm!
Are worn as if with age; yet unretrievingly
No joy of memory keep—
Are orphans of the earthly love and heavenly—
Let them weep—let them weep!
They look up with their pale and sunken faces,
And their look is dread to see;
For you think you see their angels in their places,
With eyes meant for Deity.
"How long," they say, "how long, O cruel nation!
Will you stand, to move the world, on a child's heart,
Trample down with a mail'd heel its palpitation,
And tread onward to your throne amid the mart?
Our blood splashes upward, O our tyrants!
And your purple shows your path—
But the child's sob curseth deeper in the silence,
Than the strong man in his wrath!"
FOOTNOTES:
[L] A commissioner mentions the fact of weeds being thus confounded with the idea of flowers.
[M] The report of the commissioners represents instances of children, whose religious devotion is confined to the repetition of the two first words of the Lord's Prayer.