Poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

Master, they argued fast concerning Thee,
Proved what Thou art, denied what Thou art not,
Till brows were on the fret, and eyes grew hot,
And lip and chin were thrust out eagerly;
Then through the temple-door I slipped to free
My soul from secret ache in solitude,
And sought this brook, and by the brookside stood
The world's Light, and the Light and Life of me.
It is enough, O Master, speak no word!
The stream speaks, and the endurance of the sky
Outpasses speech: I seek not to discern
Even what smiles for me Thy lips have stirred;
Only in Thy hand still let my hand lie,
And let the musing soul within me burn.

II. THEISTS

Who needs God most? That man whose pulses play
With fullest life-blood; he whose foot dare climb
To Joy's high limit, solitude sublime
Under a sky whose splendour sure must slay
If Godless; he who owns the sovereign sway
Of that small inner voice and still, what time
His whole life urges toward one blissful crime,

And Hell confuses Heaven, and night, the day.
It is he whose faithfulness of love puts by
Time's anodyne, and that gross palliative,
A Stoic pride, and bears all humanly;
He whose soul grows one long desire to give
Measureless gifts; ah! let him quickly die
Unless he lift frail hands to God and live.

III. SEEKING GOD

I said “I will find God,” and forth I went
To seek Him in the clearness of the sky,
But over me stood unendurably
Only a pitiless, sapphire firmament
Ringing the world,—blank splendour; yet intent
Still to find God, “I will go and seek,” said I,
“His way upon the waters,” and drew nigh
An ocean marge weed-strewn and foam-besprent;
And the waves dashed on idle sand and stone,
And very vacant was the long, blue sea;
But in the evening as I sat alone,
My window open to the vanishing day,
Dear God! I could not choose but kneel and pray
And it sufficed that I was found of Thee.

IV. DARWINISM IN MORALS

High instincts, dim previsions, sacred fears,
—Whence issuing? Are they but the brain's amassed

Tradition, shapings of a barbarous past,
Remoulded ever by the younger years,
Mixed with fresh clay, and kneaded with new tears?
No more? The dead chief's ghost a shadow cast
Across the roving clan, and thence at last
Comes God, who in the soul His law uprears?
Is this the whole? Has not the Future powers
To match the Past,—attractions, pulsings, tides,
And voices for purged ears? Is all our light
The glow of ancient sunsets and lost hours?
Advance no banners up heaven's eastern sides?
Trembles the margin with no portent bright?

V. AWAKENING

With brain o'erworn, with heart a summer clod,
With eye so practised in each form around,—
And all forms mean,—to glance above the ground
Irks it, each day of many days we plod,
Tongue-tied and deaf, along life's common road.
But suddenly, we know not how, a sound
Of living streams, an odour, a flower crowned
With dew, a lark upspringing from the sod,
And we awake. O joy and deep amaze!
Beneath the everlasting hills we stand,
We hear the voices of the morning seas,
And earnest prophesyings in the land,
While from the open heaven leans forth at gaze
The encompassing great cloud of witnesses.

VI. FISHERS

We by no shining Galilean lake
Have toiled, but long and little fruitfully
In waves of a more old and bitter sea
Our nets we cast; large winds, that sleep and wake
Around the feet of Dawn and Sunset, make
Our spiritual inhuman company,
And formless shadows of water rise and flee
All night around us till the morning break.
Thus our lives wear—shall it be ever thus?
Some idle day, when least we look for grace,
Shall we see stand upon the shore indeed
The visible Master, and the Lord of us,
And leave our nets, nor question of His creed,
Following the Christ within a young man's face?

VII. COMMUNION

Lord, I have knelt and tried to pray to-night,
But Thy love came upon me like a sleep,
And all desire died out; upon the deep
Of Thy mere love I lay, each thought in light
Dissolving like the sunset clouds, at rest
Each tremulous wish, and my strength weakness, sweet
As a sick boy with soon o'erwearied feet
Finds, yielding him unto his mother's breast
To weep for weakness there. I could not pray,

But with closed eyes I felt Thy bosom's love
Beating toward mine, and then I would not move
Till of itself the joy should pass away;
At last my heart found voice,—“Take me, O Lord,
And do with me according to Thy word.”

VIII. A SONNET FOR THE TIMES

What! weeping? Had ye your Christ yesterday,
Close wound in linen, made your own by tears,
Kisses, and pounds of myrrh, the sepulchre's
Mere stone most venerable? And now ye say
“No man hath seen Him, He is borne away
We wot not where.” And so, with many a sigh,
Watching the linen clothes and napkin lie,
Ye choose about the grave's sad mouth to stay.
Blind hearts! Why seek the living amongst the dead?
Better than carols for the babe new-born
The shining young men's speech “He is not here;”
Why question where the feet lay, where the head?
Come forth; bright o'er the world breaks Easter morn,
He is arisen, Victor o'er grief and fear.

IX. EMMAUSWARD

Lord Christ, if Thou art with us and these eyes
Are holden, while we go sadly and say

“We hoped it had been He, and now to-day
Is the third day, and hope within us dies,”
Bear with us, O our Master, Thou art wise
And knowest our foolishness; we do not pray
“Declare Thyself, since weary grows the way
And faith's new burden hard upon us lies.”
Nay, choose Thy time; but ah! whoe'er Thou art
Leave us not; where have we heard any voice
Like Thine? Our hearts burn in us as we go;
Stay with us; break our bread; so, for our part
Ere darkness falls haply we may rejoice,
Haply when day has been far spent may know.

X. A FAREWELL

Thou movest from us; we shall see Thy face
No more. Ah, look below these troubled eyes,
This woman's heart in us that faints and dies,
Trust not our faltering lips, our sad amaze;
Glance some time downward from Thy golden place,
And know how we rejoice. It is meet, is wise;
High tasks are Thine, surrenders, victories,
Communings pure, mysterious works and ways.
Leave us: how should we keep Thee in these blown
Grey fields, or soil with earth a Master's feet?
Nor deem us comfortless: have we not known
Thee once, for ever. Friend, the pain is sweet
Seeing Thy completeness to have grown complete,
Thy gift it is that we can walk alone.

XI. DELIVERANCE

I prayed to be delivered, O true God,
Not from the foes that compass us about,—
Them I might combat; not from any doubt
That wrings the soul; not from Thy bitter rod
Smiting the conscience; not from plagues abroad,
Nor my strong inward lusts; nor from the rout
Of worldly men, the scourge, the spit, the flout,
And the whole dolorous way the Master trod.
All these would rouse the life that lurks within,
Would save or slay; these things might be defied
Or strenuously endured; yea, pressed by sin
The soul is stung with sudden, visiting gleams;
Leave these, if Thou but scatter, Lord, I cried,
The counterfeiting shadows and vain dreams.

XII. PARADISE LOST

O would you read that Hebrew legend true
Look deep into the little children's eyes,
Who walk with naked souls in Paradise,
And know not shame; who, with miraculous dew
To keep the garden ever fair and new,
Want not our sobbing rains in their blue skies.
Among the trees God moves, and o'er them rise
All night in deeper heavens great stars to view.
Ah, how we wept when through the gate we came!

What boots it to look back? The world is ours,
Come, we will fare, my brothers, boldly forth;
Let that dread Angel wave the sword of flame
Forever idly round relinquished bowers—
Leave Eden there; we will subdue the earth.