Amenophis and Other Poems Sacred and Secular :: :: University of Virginia Library

Of those that saw Him, when
On common earth He trod
The life of man with men,
I only, only, breathe,
Who lean'd upon His breast, and knew that He was God.

As some strange thing that lies
Surviving all his kind,
I, 'neath the radiant skies,
Crawl baby-weak once more,
Stranded upon my hundred years of life, and blind.

And as that beast could tell
Of old incredible shapes
That peopled lake and dell;
Seas, where rocks climb the sky,
And azure ice-hills where the parch'd Sahara gapes:—

So John can testify,
Alone of living men,
By seeing of the eye
And hearing of the ear,
That very God as man breathed, died, and rose again.

It was the time foreshown;
Like a new sun o'er earth,—
Beyond all wonders known
Wonder most wonderful,—
The Well-Belovéd came, the Babe of heavenly birth.

He did the deeds, He spoke
The words past human wit:
Then gently slipp'd the yoke
Of flesh, and went to God;—
And we our treasure found, only when losing it.

Yet, though the Word withdrew,
The Paraclete remain'd;
Christ's nearness oft we knew;
Enough to guide our life
From thought of how He spoke, and how He loved, we gain'd.

And once, 'tis said, o'er one
As though born out of time
The glory-vision shone,
Journeying Damascus-way;
Who lived in Christ, and died in some far westward clime.

Of breathing witnesses
Survives now none but I;
Who heard the Master bless
The bread and wine of life;
Saw Him and touch'd, betwixt the sepulchre and the sky.

—But though the faith of Sight
By natural law must fail,
A heavenlier higher light
Upon the soul will dawn;
The unseen outshine the seen; the faith of Fai prevail.

The things of sense are much;
But more the things of mind:
What we but see or touch
Less real, durable, true,
Than that invisible all-sustaining Life behind:

As one of Athens taught
In his own ethnic way,
That all things here were nought
But shadowy images
Of forms that in the eternal Wisdom living lay.

When these dim eyes are closed,
Children! Remember well
The word that John imposed
With his last lips on you,—
To walk henceforth by faith, and grasp the invisible.

What if no more the Lord
Before the last dread day
Be seen, yet shall His word
Its might and music keep;
Shall find fit echo in the heart of heart for aye.

As, in due transit, by
The milestone-years ye go,
Though star-like fix'd on high
The cross and He thereon
Down Time's gray avenue further, fainter, show:—

If then the Lord delays,
O yet ye need not fear,
Faint hearts of latter days!
Time cannot touch the love
To which a thousand years but one brief hour appear.

As age on age unrolls,
If faith her light withdraw
From present-bounded souls
Who only dare believe
What they themselves have seen, or hold for Nature's law;

Or those who will not raise,
E'en as they cry for light,
Their heads o'er life's hot haze,
Nor care to see the stars,
Mute witnesses for God, nor dawning after night:—

Yet oft in that dark hour
When first the unseen is felt,
The Word will come in power,
The so-far-off draw nigh,
Christ's living love the long doubt-frozen bosom melt.

—O living Love, so near
On earth, so near above,
In Thy good time appear,
Take all Thy children home,—
Who love, yet know Thee not;—who, faithful, bow, and love!

—My little children true!
Before these lips are dumb
They leave this word for you,—
Love one another! And
Again, Love one another!... Enough; He calls; I come.