HIS NAME
O Wonderful! round whose birth-hour
Prophetic song, miraculous power,
Cluster and burn, like star and flower.
Those marvellous rays that at Thy will,
From the closed Heaven which is so still,
So passionless, stream'd round Thee still,
Are but as broken lights that start,
O Light of Light, from Thy deep heart;
Thyself, Thyself, the wonder art!
O Counsellor! four thousand years,
One question tremulous with tears,
One awful question vex'd our peers.
They asked the vault—but no one spoke;
They asked the depth—no answer woke;
They asked their hearts that only broke.
They look'd, and sometimes on the height
Far off they saw a haze of white,
That was a storm, but look'd like light.
The secret of the years is read,
The enigma of the quick and dead,
By a Child's voice interpreted.
O everlasting Father! broad
Sun after sun went down, and trod
Race after race the green earth's sod,
Till generations seem'd to be
But dead waves of an endless sea,
But dead leaves of a deathless tree.
But Thou hast come, and now we know
Each wave hath an eternal flow,
Each leaf a lifetime after snow.
O Prince of Peace! crown'd and discrown'd,
They say no war nor battle's sound
Was heard the tired world around.
They say the hour that Thou didst come
The trumpet's voice was stricken dumb,
And no one beat the battle-drum.
And still as clouding questions swarm
Around our hearts, and dimly form
Their problems of the mist and storm;
As fleeting years seem poorly fraught
With broken words—wherefrom is wrought
Nevertheless love's loveliest thought—
Mere meaningless syllables chance-met,
Though in one perfect poem yet
Uninterrupted to be set;
And when not yet in God's sunshine
The smoke drifts from the embattled line
And shows the Captain's full design,
We bid our doubts and passions cease,
Our restless fears be still'd with these—
Counsellor, Father, Prince of Peace!
