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

The dawn goes up the sky
Like any other day;
And these have only come
To mourn Him where He lay.
—“We ne'er have seen the law
Reversed, 'neath which we lie;
Exceptions none are found,
And when we die, we die.
Resign'd to fact we wander hither;
We ask no more the whence and whither.

“Vain questions! from the first
Put, and no answer found.
He binds us with the chain
Wherewith Himself is bound.
From west to east the earth
Unrolls her primal curve
The sun himself were vex'd
Did she one furlong swerve:
The myriad years have whirl'd her hither,
But tell not of the whence and whither.

“We know but what we see,
Like cause, and like event;

One constant force runs on
Transmuted, but unspent:
From her own laws the mind
Infers a conscious plan;
Deducing from within
God's special thought for man:
The natural choice that brought us hither
Is silent on the whence and whither.

“If God there be, or Gods,
Without our science lies;
We cannot see or touch,
Measure, nor analyse.
Life is but what we live;
We know but what we know;
Souls prison'd each in self
Whether God be, or no:
The self-moved force that bore us hither
Reveals no whence, and hints no whither.

“Ah, which is likelier truth,
That law should hold its way,
Or, for this One of all,
Life reassert her sway?
Like any other morn
The sun goes up the sky;
No crisis marks the day;
For when we die, we die.
No fair fond hope allures us hither;
The law is dumb on whence and whither.”

—Then, wherefore are ye come?
Why watch a worn-out corse?
Why weep a ripple past
Down the long stream of force?
If life be that which keeps
Each organism whole,
No relic may be traced
Of what He thought the soul;
It had its term of passage hither,
But knew no whence, and knows no whither.

The atoms that were Christ
Have ta'en new forms and fled;
The common sun goes up;
The dead are with the dead.
'Twas but a phantom life
That seem'd to think and will,
Evolving self and God
By some nerve-fashion'd skill;
That had its day of passage hither,
But knew no whence, and knows no whither.

If this be all in all;
Life, but one mode of force;
Law, but the plan which binds
The sequences in course;
All essence, all design
Shut out from mortal ken:
—We bow to Nature's fate,
And drop the style of men!

The summer dust the wind wafts hither
Is not more dead to whence and whither.

—But if our life be life,
And thought, and will, and love
Not vague unrhythmic airs
That o'er wild harp-strings move;
If consciousness be aught
Of all it seems to be,
And souls are something more
Than lights that flash and flee;
Though dark the road that leads us thither,
The heart must ask its whence and whither.

To matter or to force
The All is not confined;
Beside the law of things
Is set the law of mind;
One speaks in rock and star,
And one within the brain,
In unison at times,
And then apart again;
And both in one have brought us hither
That we may know our whence and whither.

This seeming solid Earth
We touch through mind alone;
These sequences of law
By the soul's eye are known:—
With equal voice she tells
Of what we feel and see

Within these bounds of life,
And of a life to be;
Proclaiming One Who brought us hither,
And holds the keys of whence and whither.

O shrine of God that now
Must learn itself with awe!
O heart and soul that move
Beneath a living law!
That which seem'd all the rule
Of Nature, is but part;
A larger, deeper lore
Claims also soul and heart;
The force that framed and bore us hither
Itself at once is whence and whither.

We may not hope to read
Nor comprehend the whole
Or of the law of things,
Or of the law of soul:
Among the eternal stars
Dim perturbations rise;
And all the searchers' search
Does not exhaust the skies;
He Who has framed and brought us hither
Holds in His hands the whence and whither.

He in His science plans
What no known laws foretell:
The wandering fires and fix'd
Alike are miracle:

The common death of all,
The life renew'd above,
Are both within the scheme
Of that all-circling Love;
The seeming chance that cast us hither
Accomplishes His whence and whither.

What though the types of life
From their first lowly root
By order'd steps climb up
To leaf and flower and fruit;
We ask not why the Hand
Chose that august advance;
Content to admire and watch,
In a wise ignorance.
Life's countless tribes He marshall'd hither;
We know the Whence, and wait the Whither.

—Then though the sun go up
His constant azure way,
God may fulfil His thought
And bless His world to-day;
Beside the law of things
The law of mind enthrone,
And for the hope of all,
Reveal Himself in One;
Himself the way that leads us thither,
The All-in-all, the Whence and Whither.