 | The poetical works of John Greenleaf Whittier |  |
THE SHADOW AND THE LIGHT.
“And I sought, whence is Evil: I set before the eye of my spirit the whole creation; whatsoever we see therein,—sea, earth, air, stars, trees, moral creatures,—yea, whatsoever there is we do not see,—angels and spiritual powers. Where is evil, and whence comes it, since God the Good hath created all things? Why made He anything at all of evil, and not rather by His Almightiness cause it not to be? These thoughts I turned in my miserable heart, overcharged with most gnawing cares.” “And, admonished to return to myself, I entered even into my inmost soul, Thou being my guide, and beheld even beyond my soul and mind the Light unchangeable. He who knows the Truth knows what that Light is, and he that knows it knows Eternity! O Truth, who art Eternity! Love, who art Truth! Eternity, who art Love! And I beheld that Thou madest all things good, and to Thee is nothing whatsoever evil. From the angel to the worm, from the first motion to the last, Thou settest each in its place, and everything is good in its kind. Woe is me!—how high art Thou in the highest, how deep in the deepest! and Thou never departest from us and we scarcely return to Thee.”—
Augustine's Soliloquies, Book VII.Between us and the Afric saint,
And at his side we urge, to-day,
The immemorial quest and old complaint.
From sea or earth comes no reply;
Hushed as the warm Numidian heaven
He vainly questioned bends our frozen sky.
From all we grasp the meaning slips;
The Sphinx sits at the gate of life,
With the old question on her awful lips.
Of fear before, and guilt behind;
We pluck the wayside fruit, and eat
Ashes and dust beneath its golden rind.
The sad bequest of sire to son,
The body's taint, the mind's defect;
Through every web of life the dark threads run.
I only know that He is good,
And that whatever may befall
Or here or there, must be the best that could.
A Father's face I still discern,
As Moses looked of old on Him,
And saw His glory into goodness turn!
And so, by faith correcting sight,
I bow before His will, and trust
Howe'er they seem He doeth all things right;
The rugged smooth, the doubtful plain;
His mercy never quite forsake;
His healing visit every realm of pain;
Upon His creatures weak and frail,
Sent on a pathway new and strange
With feet that wander and with eyes that fail;
Watches the tender eye of Love
The slow transmuting of the chain
Whose links are iron below to gold above
Seen through our shadows of offence,
And drown with our poor childish cries
The cradle-hymn of kindly Providence.
And of the just effect complain:
We tread upon life's broken laws,
And murmur at our self-inflicted pain;
Our spectral shapes before us thrown,
As they who leave the sun behind
Walk in the shadows of themselves alone.
We set our faces to the day;
Weak, wavering, blind, the Eternal Powers
Alone can turn us from ourselves away.
But love must needs be stronger far,
Outreaching all and gathering in
The erring spirit and the wandering star.
Earth, hushing down her bitter cry,
Looks upward from her graves, and hears,
“The Resurrection and the Life am I.”
Shines on the eyes that will not see,
And waits to bless us, while we dream
Thou leavest us because we turn from thee!
All hearts of prayer by thee are lit;
And, dim or clear, thy tongues of fire
On dusky tribes and twilight centuries sit.
Wide as our need thy favors fall;
The white wings of the Holy Ghost
Stoop, seen or unseen, o'er the heads of all.
Eternal Voice, and Inward Word,
The Logos of the Greek and Jew,
The old sphere-music which the Samian heard!
Long sought without, but found within,
The Law of Love beyond all law,
The Life o'erflooding mortal death and sin!
Upon the trance-bound shepherd's way,
Who saw the Darkness overflowed
And drowned by tides of everlasting Day.
To all who sin and suffer; more
And better than we dare to hope
With Heaven's compassion make our longings poor!
| The poetical works of John Greenleaf Whittier | |