The Finding of The Book and Other Poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

The Century dies in tears,
The Century dies in fears—
In tears! Our best-beloved are at the front;
On Natal's hills of storm
Heroic blood is warm,
And white lips breathe at home, ‘Beati mortui sunt.

In fears! There are who trace
Some far world's fateful race
Down to a moment on our death-doomed shores;
Watching that awful tryst
Their thoughts turn atheist,
And hear no Father's steps adown Time's corridors.

262

When a new age again
Dawns on the sons of men,
Earth shall have ampler crowns for Christ to wear;
In many another tongue
Anthems to Him be sung,
A more exceeding weight of glory load heaven's stair.

When first our earth did see
Him on the bitter Tree,
The olden languages bore witness well—
The Roman speech of force,
The subtle Greek's discourse,
The Hebrew's rhythm of thought and mystic oracle.

But ere in His own time
He comes again sublime
All in their proper tongue towards Him shall reach—
Some that are infantine,
And others half divine
With perfect cadences, the glory of all speech.

263

Lord! grant me grace to bend
Until my years I end
Over the poorest tongues beneath the suns;
Such clay may yet supply
Gems for some liturgy,
And God's thoughts clothe themselves from lowly lexicons.

Grant me no hasty spasm,
But strong enthusiasm,
Sweet passion to win souls and make them free—
I ask not pomp at all
Of power rhetorical,
But let my manifold being be lull'd to rest by Thee;

As when a full harp swept
By a master's hand hath kept
A stormy music rushing through the hall,
Sudden he lays his palm
On the strings making calm,
A hush as if he held a harp marmoreal.

264

Lord! lead my footsteps still
Wherever is Thy will,
Wherever our strong English Colonist grieves;
Hearing no sweet church-bell,
By snow waste or hot dell,
Arums of Africa, Canadian maple-leaves.

Lord! it were over bold
For me like one of old
To ask enlistment in the martyr-host—
Although life's broken cry
Thereby wins perfectly
The one consummate voice that speaks life's purpose most.

My long life-task may lie
In dust and drudgery,
But all is well if only it be Thine—
Dust of Thy sacred feet,
Drudgery not unmeet,
So dust be dust of gold and drudgery divine.

265

Grant me Thy mighty grace
That all my commonplace
By Thy great leading may be render'd high,
So through low leaves of thought
Blue sky may be inwrought,
My commonplace become Thine opportunity.

They tell me that there wait
For me at death's dark gate
The icy chill, the fever's touch of fire;
They who dare say no worse
Say the Missionary's curse
Is to die young and poor, nor go in this world higher.

Ship never fail'd that stored
Before her or on board
All whereunto true Mariners resort.
Christ unto us is given,
His book, His Church, His Heaven,
Compass and chart and stars, a Pilot and a port!

This stanza refers to the widespread panic occasioned by Professor Falb's calculations about the destruction of the earth on November 13, 1899.

See the difficult but striking passage in Ignatius, Epist. ad Rom. 2. His martyrdom alone would make an intelligible divine utterance (λογος Θεου), not a broken cry as of one of the lower creatures (φωνη). See Bishop Lightfoot, in loc.