The professor and other poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

Love unashamed, divine, O, hidden from peering eyes,
Blindly I traced thy course, and heedlessly touched thy hand,
Slowly the mist rolls back from the infinite centuries,
Back to the secret of God, and the door of the silent land.

Twain in the ancient garden together, a man with a maid,
Pace in the field, waist-deep in aster and golden-rod;

And lo, One walks in the cool, in the immemorial shade;—
Hushing their eager talk they hear the footfall of God.

I too have heard him pass, but out in the desolate wild,
Crushing the ancient bones that rattle about his feet,
Under the dark ravines where the horrible crags are piled,
Out in the hissing surges that under the precipice beat.

There, in a silent horror, I stumbled along his track,
Down to his desperate den, with frenzy and raging shame,

And the toppling ice-crags roared, and the loud caves thundered back,
When in the awestruck silence I shuddered, and cried his name.

Courage, O timorous heart! too long hast thou made complaint,
Crying in desolate places and under the heedless night,
Crying, importunate, shrill,—but only an echo faint
Rang on the black-ribbed ledge, and under the hollow height.

So with my pride outworn, my stubbornness over-thrown,
Humble in hope, I learn what the pure in spirit see,

Guessing from one soft heart that nestles against my own,
All the desire of the world, and the hope of the years to be.

Wherefore I stretch my hand, as a child in a darkened room
Clutches affrighted, and laughs to feel the encircling arm;
So I bend to the night, and smile in the starlit gloom,
Smile as the stars fade out, and the dawn comes tender and calm.