Poems and miscellanies selected from the writings of Miss Eliza Townsend ::

Where art Thou? Thou Source and Support of all
That is, or seen, or felt, Thyself unseen,
Unfelt, unknown; alas, unknowable!
I look abroad among Thy works—the sky,
Vast, distant, glorious, with its world of suns,
Life-giving earth, and ever moving main,
And speaking winds, and ask if these are Thee?
The stars that twinkle on the eternal hills,
The restless tide's outgoing and return,
The omnipresent and deep breathing air,
Though hailed as gods of old, and only less,
Are not the Power I seek; are Thine, not Thee.
I ask Thee from the past, if in the years
Since first intelligence could search its Source,
Or in some former, unremembered being,
(If such, perchance were mine,) did they belong to Thee?
And next interrogate futurity,

So fondly tenanted with better things
Than e'er experience owned; but both are mute,
And past, and future, vocal on all else,
So full of memories and fantasies,
Are deaf and speechless here! Fatigued, I turn
From all vain parley with the elements,
And close mine eyes, and bid the thought turn inward,
From each material thing its anxious quest,
If in the stillness of the waiting soul
He may vouchsafe Himself—Spirit to Spirit!
O, Thou, at once most dreaded and desired,
Pavilioned still in darkness, wilt Thou hide Thee?
What though the rash request be fraught with fate—
No human eye may look on Thee and live?
Welcome the penalty! Let that come now,
Which, soon or late, must come. For light like this
Who would not dare to die?
Peace! my proud aim,
And hush the wish which knows not what it asks;
Await His will, who hath appointed this
With every other trial. Be that will
Done now as ever. For thy curious search
And unprepared solicitude to gaze
On Him, the Unrevealed, learn hence, instead,
To temper brightest hope with humbleness;

Pass thy noviciate in these outer courts,
Till rent the veil no longer separating
The Holiest of all, as erst disclosing
A brighter dispensation, whose results
Ineffable, interminable, tend
E'en to the perfecting thyself, thy kind,
Till meet for that sublime beatitude,
By the firm promise of a voice from Heaven,
Pledged to the pure in heart.

University of Virginia Library

INCOMPREHENSIBILITY OF GOD.