The Poetical Works of Walter C. Smith :: :: University of Virginia Library

I bore a load of doubt and care,
And could not reason it away;
It might have no right to be there,
Yet clung to me by night and day.
And I was fain to be alone,
A stranger in a far-off land,
Where friend and helper I had none,
Nor any that could understand.
Oh for a glad, entrancing faith!
Oh for an all-controlling thought
To fill my soul, as with a breath
That from the Eternal life is brought!
Let me but be alone with God
A little while on some high place,
Where rarely foot of man hath trod,
That I may see Him face to face.
So did they long of old, who built
High altars on the hill-tops bare,
To leave their load of sin and guilt,
And find the peace they hoped for there.

Then I went toiling up the glen,
Like one that wanders in a dream,
Past broad-eaved homes of toiling men,
Along the swiftly rushing stream,
Past the white kirk with ruddy spire,
And solitary wayside shrine
Where peasant mothers did admire
The mother of the Babe divine,
Past orchards where the tawny steer,
Black-muzzled, stood and whisked his tail,
While men sat in the tavern near,
With flask of wine or mug of ale.
I heard the sharp whish of the scythe,
And dragging of the patient rake,
I heard the children singing blithe,
And felt as if my heart would break.
They sang the song of Bethlehem,
And glad their voices were and clear;
And oh that I could sing like them,
And only knew that God would hear!

Still on, I bore my burden on,
Finding no help in kirk or shrine,
Or crucifix of carven stone,
Or picture of the Babe divine:

518

Alone, I must be all alone,
Beyond the mighty wooded slopes;
I would have company with none,
But those vast, silent mountain tops
Which held me with their snowy spell,
And bade me come to where they stood,
And in their white robes, worshipped well
The Everlasting Pure and Good.

I took the steep rock-path that winds
Through the pine wood above the stream,—
High up, the grey-green glacier grinds,
Far down, its grey-green waters gleam,
A torrent from a neighbouring cliff
Leaped down, and disappeared half way,
To fall in tremulous mist, as if
Nature to me was fain to say—
See how the rush of lofty thought,
The higher that its way appears,
The deeper that its rest is sought,
Still vanishes in mist and tears.

Still up the rugged path I went,
With panting breath and trembling knees,
And weary limb, and back low bent,
Till, past the belt of great pine trees,
I came upon a sunny glade
Open and green, with brooks and wells,
And crocus fields where cattle wade,
With noise of many jangling bells,
And flat-roofed chalets, piled with stone,
For winds are boisterous there and wild;
But kirk or steeple there was none,
Only the Virgin and her Child,
Kept in some homely box for shrine,
And sheltered in a quiet nook,
Where humble worship might incline
With bended knee, and lowly look.
But all these fond traditions stood—
How sweet soe'er their tender grace—
Between me and the Pure and Good,
And I must see Him face to face.

A little speech, a little rest,
A cup of goat's milk at the door;
Bid me not stay and be your guest,
There are a good eight hours and more,
Before the sun dips in the west,
And I must on at any price,
To see his evening glories rest
Upon the pale green glacier ice,
And on the web of pallid snow
That wraps the hills in raiment white,
And on the changing clouds below
That catch the fringes of His light.
I did not tell my inmost thought:
Those neat-herds could not well divine
How I, in search of God, was brought
Away from kirk and cross and shrine.

Still up and up; the Alpen-stock
Oft buried in the turf before,
Now smote upon the living rock,
And from its heart the fire-spark tore;
And as I trod the gradual slope
'Neath some snow-crested precipice,
And glanced round, with a passing hope
Of chamois fleet or Edelweiss,
Lo, then my step grew lightsomer,
And cheerily I sped along,
And in the brisk and tingling air
I could have broken into song.
And this I took for omen true,
That I was on the way of peace,
That doubts were where the pine-woods grew,
And with the haunts of man would cease.

And so at length I trod the snow
On the hill-top that afternoon,
And saw it in the evening glow,
And in the sheen o' th' pallid moon,
And saw the wondrous morning dawn,
All rosy, on the white-robed peaks
That, ranged like priest-forms. in their lawn,
Served, through eternal holy weeks,
About the altar of the Lord,
Awful in their blanch beauty there,

519

Silent, as if with one accord
Wrapt in the hush of speechless prayer.
There was no sound of man or beast,
Nor hum of bee, nor song of bird,
And more the silence seemed increased
What time the avalanche was heard.

Once they had held me with a spell,
And drawn me with a mystic force,
Those hills, as deeming God must dwell
There where the waters had their source,
Which made the vales and meadows glad;
There where, in majesty sublime,
The changeless snow-clad summits had
No reckoning of the passing time.
There 'mid the everlasting snow
Should I not see the eternal right,
And look down on the mists below,
And gaze up to the fount of light,
And find my burden fall away,
And feel at last the perfect calm
That broods in the unchanging day,
And vision of the great I Am?

But as I stood upon the height,
I did not find what I had sought,
I did not find the perfect light,
That answered to my wistful thought;
It did not ease me of my load,
That I had left the world behind;
I was not any nearer God
By being far from humankind.
And up amid the bands of ice
And silent fields of clinging snow,
I could have purchased with a price
The Virgin and the Babe below.
For not in nature's awfulness,
And majesty and purity,
And not in her dread silences
Shall God reveal His depths to thee;
But in a heart that throbs to thine,
And tongue that speaks a human speech:
The human is the one divine,
That yearning human souls can reach.
There is no scene of earth fulfils
The high hope of the soaring mind,
And in the quiet of the hills
The peace of God I did not find;
And sweet it was with weary limbs,
Ere long to sit i' the kirk, and hear
The children singing in their hymns,
That Christ was come, and God was near.