The Prisoner of Love :: :: University of Virginia Library

O Lord, who rulest fire and flood
And art a stronghold in our need,
We praise Thee for the Martyrs' blood
Which is the Church's saving seed,
And should it be through bitter death,
May we confess the Holy Faith.

We thank Thee that the Martyrs bled
And bore brave witness to the Truth,
That peoples might lift up their head,
And fainting lands renew their youth;
We love those glorious deeds and days,
And stand upon the ancient ways.

We bless Thee that the Martyrs died
Exulting in the gift they gave,
If but the creed which men denied
Sprang up in splendour from their grave;
We dare not doubt, we simply trust,
Fresh worlds will blossom from their dust

O Lord, the Master of our strife,
Who holdest all within Thy Hand,
Grant we may render Love and Life
With every joy at Thy command;
And though the waves of trial toss,
Cling only closer to the Cross.

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November 2 MARCHING HOME

“Till thy people pass over, O Lord.”—Exod. xv. 16.

We are marching Home to God, who is Home and Heaven and all,
In the way our fathers trod, though they heeded not the call;
Though they knew not that He led, slowly, surely,
With the dying, with the dead,
By the bier or marriage bed, yet securely;
Onward to the blessèd Goal through the shadow and the shoal,
Murmurous wood and waters' brim—
To our final Peace in Him;
Tending to the mighty Ocean, as the rivers run at last
To their bridal with the sea,
In our doubt or calm devotion when the work of life is past
By each royal prayer or plea.

Yes, the vast creations prove, if by dark and devious course,
All together truly move upward to their hidden Source;
We obey the silent Voice, in our going
With the old eternal choice
As we weep or would rejoice, backward flowing.
In the wildest chance or change, still no humblest form can range
(Whatsoe'er the grief or goad)
From its predetermined road.

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Should the fire be heated hotter and the beauteous vessel crack
Or forget awhile its grace;
Yet we know the Heavenly Potter guideth us along the track,
To His Love our Dwelling-place.

350

November 3 OUR NATIVE HEAVEN

“Thou shalt bring them in, and plant them.”—Exod. xv. 17.

Nothing can a moment stay, should it seem to linger long
With the trifles by the way, and the pleasure links be strong;
All are lowly working out, richly, really,
Destiny by battle shout
Or the scarlet lips that pout so ideally;
Each the purpose of its plan, since in time it first began,
Perfectly, divinely wrought
Out of archetypal Thought.
Nothing can be held or hasted, in the ordinance of things
Gathered to their primal Fount;
Nothing can be lost or wasted, in the due developings,
Towards the final full Account.

We are marching Home to God, who is drawing us with Love,
Though He chastens by the rod, and His flames are fierce above;
Whether we do live or die, sad or willing,
We are fettered to His tie
And our beings in it lie, spent or spilling.
Ah, the glory of this fate is beyond our fear and hate,
Moulding us by ill or good
To a broader Brotherhood.

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So are we for ever marching, human hope and sordid shape
And the very stock and stone,
Through the Mercy overarching (which no devil can escape)
Till we rest in Him alone.

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November 4 THE UNFINISHED BLESSING

While he blessed them, he was parted from them, and carried up into heaven.”—St. Luke xxiv. 51.

It was not finished
And never shall be while the earth endures,
That Blessing which for each new age assures
In the pure presence of its calm blue sky
Grace undiminished
From open doors of Immortality.
O in the wonder of its wide embrace,
Which grants free entry
To all who humbly stoop ere they step in
And seek of Love alone a dwelling-place,
Our God is Sentry
Above this human sorrow and the sin.

Yes, in the shadow
Of such stupendous Mercy do we live,
And learn that He who giveth can forgive;
Who makes a fresher world, with fairer mount
Or greener meadow,
By peace which flows from the perennial Fount.
We draw thereat the light which sweetly gilds
Our sterile starkness,
And sets our toil to a celestial chime;
While it secures the future, and rebuilds
Of splendid darkness
The dim white stairs and temple gates of Time.

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November 5 IN THE LIGHT

“The Almighty, ... shall bless thee with blessings of heaven above.”—Gen. xlix. 25.

The broader Blessing
Hangs over clouds of care, a brighter Sun,
Wherein the saddest will rejoice and run
To find renewed their strength that can but fly
To God's caressing,
Lost in the awe of His Epiphany.
And yet full joy casts out our slavish fear,
Hushed on the meekness
Of infinite great Love, which gathers all
Unto its arms and wipes away the tear
From trembling weakness,
And answers faintest whisper ere it call.

Though death would sunder
The one bereaved from his twin tender heart,
It may not silence so and must not part
Life from its Life, for still the Grace shines on;
And stand thereunder
The peoples, when this heaven and earth are gone.
And every murmur, if it were in sleep,
Or each blind motion
Of fluttering faith or mere misgiving lies
Within the compass of that dreadful Deep
And kindest Ocean,
With thoughts that are the world's theogonies.

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November 6 FAILURES

“My word: ... it shall not return unto me void.”— Isa. lv. 11.

Failures? By God, it shall not be—
There never was or could be time
Beneath the high Heaven's majesty;
When wholly man forsook His plan,
Nor beat back to the eternal chime
Some echo of its melody.
No work of God, no vilest creature
Might utterly and always fail,
Nor be a reflex in some feature
Of that great Truth which must prevail;
And, out of sordid lies and lust,
Arise Divinities from dust.

Failures? What, may the Maker's task
Be fooled or wasted by man's flaw,
Diskinged beneath a blotted mask?
Is rod or nail the sole entail
Of one who owns a larger law,
And was in Glory meant to bask?
No birth but somehow does its duty,
Though a mere cancer or a creed
Hell-dipt and with a demon's beauty,
Or fragile as a shaken reed;
The thing that just a moment stood,
A crying shame, hath yet been good.

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November 7 THE UNFAILING

“The Lord thy God ... doth go with thee; he will not fail thee, nor forsake thee.”—Deut. xxxi. 6.

Failures? If not the trodden way,
Still by its very vice or fall
God wreaks His reason in the stray,
And though denied is glorified;
Some glamour rises over all,
And yields Him a redeeming ray.
The murderer—aye, the damned creation
Cannot conceal the parent height,
And in the deeps of degradation
Points to the loveliness of Light:
The wrong, the crime, the devil's part,
Hath something Christlike at its heart.

Failures? Betwixt the poison cup
And scarlet of the heedless lip,
A glimpse of angel wings goes up;
And he that feasts with savage beasts
Is one with saints in fellowship,
And yet with blessèd souls shall sup.
For though to our blind stupid seeing
So many lives are baulked or crost,
Its end is served by every being—
The greatest when it seems most lost;
And none, by good or ghastliest ill,
Can fail its purpose to fulfil.

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November 8 OUR LAZARUS

“There was a certain beggar named Lazarus, which was laid at his gate, full of sores.”—St. Luke xvi. 20.

At every door some Lazarus lies,
As by the hand of Jesus laid
To bid us choose His chivalries—
One, brother, only thou canst aid,
Out of those sweet humanities
Whereon the earth itself is staid.
Then shall he pine, a lonely thing,
For lack of thy love-offering?

O there is always someone near,
Close to the tender heart and true,
Though severed by the ocean drear
In deserts wide without a clue;
Who needs the tribute of a tear
Or kindly word, in service due.
Such souls, when we in pity pray,
Kneel at our gate if worlds away.

But when thou openest thus thy breast
To take the needy sufferer in,
Thou also findest richer rest
And regained Paradise begin;
For Christ in him is manifest,
And heaven and earth are made akin.
Yea, stricken low our Lord by us
Lies at our door as Lazarus.

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November 9 I LOVE THEE

“The Son of man must suffer many things.”—St. Luke ix. 22.

Not for Thy grand and glorious Light—
I cannot brook the blaze of noon,
And ask not for its perfect boon
When praise is swallowed up in sight—
I love Thee, Saviour, not for this,
And the unutterable bliss.
Not for the greatness of the Power,
Which crushes me with the defence
Of a most dread Omnipotence,
Though with the petal of a flower—
I love Thee, Master, not for this,
But for those Human Eyes that kiss.

Not for the ocean of Thy Truth
Which is the very air I breathe,
And doth illumine and enwreathe
The world with dower of endless youth—
I love Thee, Saviour, for Thy fears
And mortal doubts and mortal tears.
Not for the Mercy, which would spare
My rebel spirit in its pride
And plant a traitor by His side,
Or bid me in that Beauty share—
I love Thee, Master, for the meed
Which gave Thee all our earthly need.

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November 10 HE LOVETH ME

“We have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities.”—Heb. iv. 15.

Not for the might of Majesty,
Which clothes with thunder mountain peaks
And guides the battle when it speaks
On courses of eternity—
I love Thee, Saviour, not for such,
But for the Brother's tone or touch.
Not for the glory of a creed,
Which moulds a nation at Thy Hand
To gird the globe with its command
And gild by many a dazzling deed—
I love Thee, Master, not for such,
But for the Meekness that bears much.

Not for the miracles of Grace,
Which fall among us like the dew
Upon the hearts that they renew,
To be Thy goodly dwelling-place—
I love Thee, Saviour, most and first
Just in Thy Human thoughts and thirst.
Not for the vastness of the Law,
The breadth of that most tender bound
Which wraps the universe around,
And fills each humble crack and flaw—
I love Thee, Master, when so mild,
Because Thou wast a little Child.

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November 11 BREAKING

“He breaketh me with a tempest.”—Job ix. 17.

Breaking, breaking—
As the minutes come and go
In their heedless onward pride,
And the shaping and the shaking
Of the inexorable tide,
Carrying lives of men below.
Yet it is a temple new,
Making, making
Out of troubles, out of tears
Wrung by burdens and their fears;
Fashioned of the bitter breaking
Into glory, bloom and dew.

Breaking, breaking—
Ah, dear body, thou must pass
As the sunshine on the stream,
With the tossing and the taking
Of the shadows, like a dream—
Like the blossom of the grass.
But it is, in every loss,
Waking, waking
Up to something fair and fresh
All of spirit, none of flesh;
By a precious balm in breaking,
At the moulding of the Cross.

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November 12 OUT OF THE GRAVE

“Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, ... and that ye break every yoke?”—Isa. lviii. 6.

Breaking, breaking—
But in glooming and in glow
Still I hear the better sound
Soft beneath my ills and aching,
Of the Worker who around
Builds again at each hard blow.
For it is besides a fount
Slaking, slaking
Thirsty lips that long for food
Meet for any hour or mood;
Only thus, with ceaseless breaking,
Can I truly higher mount.

Breaking, breaking—
Just the scaffoldings that fall
Which would hide in earthly cloud,
With a terrible forsaking
Of their birthright pure and proud,
Souls content with less than all.
Though I weaken, with a dull
Quaking, quaking,
Rises strong as heaven's blue dome
Up and out my blessèd home;
Resurrection splendour breaking,
From the grave and grinning skull.

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November 13 FAITH

“Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief.”— St. Mark ix. 24.

I take the venture—
Lord, I cannot shrink
In natural human dread from the great leap
Over the awful brink;
Though wounds' indenture
Shows, that I hold this mortal life but cheap.
I dare the utter darkness,
Nor will fail
Now in the very grip of death to go,
If suffering's iron nail
To stony starkness
Would dash me (if it only could) below.

The ledge is little,
But my faith is large
As air's vast ocean or uncharted space;
It hath no earthly marge
Though flesh be brittle,
And asks no lamp but God's most lovely Face.
Behind my thought, the deepest,
And beyond
It journeys forth, and none shall bid it stay
Or even a while despond;
Yea, when thou sleepest,
O sense, it plucks from night eternal day.

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November 14 THE LOVE LIGHT

“Whom having not seen, ye love.”—1 St. Pet. i. 8.

Faith lives and carries
Its own deathless light,
Into the dusk of sunless tombs and past;
And more than very sight,
At once it marries
Present to future and the first and last.
With faith I boldly travel,
If the rod
Yet sometimes falls on my poor erring road;
Still bathed in Heaven and God
I will unravel
The ray in gloom, the rest beneath the load.

God is my Haven,
When I toss afar
On the blind passions of besetting sins;
For then the Eden gates unbar,
And earth is paven
With flowers, and fair Eternity begins.
I never need to wander
From that hold,
Which (though with crosses) bears me to the crown;
For he must gather gold,
Whose heart is yonder
And has in trust laid worldly treasures down.

363

November 15 AN ANGEL

“If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons.”—Heb. xii. 7.

In every house an Angel moves
Among the thorns of kindly cares,
And bringeth grief which first He proves,
Though oft He cometh unawares.
His face is hidden and His eyes
Reflect a peace that few may mark,
The glory of those bluer skies
Which blossom in the deepest dark.
He gives the back its bitter load
And binds us fast with many a chain,
Or scatters thistles on the road,
And leaves the precious sign of pain.

By every tomb an Angel stands
And folds it in His radiant wings,
To hide the cruel curse that brands
The outer husk of earthly things.
He weaves the shadows into rays
Rejoicing as they feel His touch,
And turns the very nights to days
For souls that sorrow overmuch.
He murmurs comfort in the ear
When every solace seems but vain,
And though He mingles hope and fear
He has no sweeter gift than pain.

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November 16 A THOUGHT

“Behold, how he loved.”—St. John xi. 36.

There is a thought that cannot sleep
When flesh in slumber lies,
Borne upward from the awful deep
Of old eternities;
And in my dreams and without will
It is the Master's Presence still,
Above all chivalries;
The compass of its cosmic sweep
Scatters the cloud, that dares
Uplift a thunder throb of ill;
Within the heart of cares,
It hideth unawares.

It is the Thought of Love Divine
Which filleth far the lands,
And doth in mercy still entwine
Our world with holy hands;
The laughter of the summer sea,
The burden of the storm wind's plea
Express its dear demands;
And all the beauties that refine
The robe of Nature's rest,
Red passion of the poppied lea,
White dove upon her nest,
Are by it manifest.

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November 17 COME TO ME

“Our God shall come, and shall not keep silence: a fire shall devour before him.”—Ps. l. 3.

Come to me, dread delicious God,
As Thou hast never come before,
And with that sweet and awful rod
Bid me be silent and adore.
I only ask to see the Might
And Majesty whose thought is pain,
Which blast with their excessive light
And kill us but to form again.
Thy boundless Love I cannot bear,
It makes me feel my penury;
O let me, like a garment, wear
The terrors of Divinity.

Come in Thine unveiled Pomp and Power,
Which never mortal eye may mark
Or live to tell the fearful hour,
And crush me in Thy dazzling dark.
Spare not one lightning look or ray,
Pour on me the grand total Sight,
If I may catch a gleam of day
'Twill glimmer through eternal night.
What though the Vision be my death,
And earth like vapour from me flee;
I do not beg one selfish breath,
For Heaven is just a glimpse of Thee.

366

November 18 MY TERRA FIRMA

“He set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings.”— Ps. xl. 2.

I stand on solid ground—but, no,
On something more than earth and sky,
Which are decaying and pass by
In all their grace and strength,
At length;
God is beneath me, and below
The greatness of Eternity.
And so I rest
On no dissolving heaven or land
Which fade as surely as they grow,
But on the Father's awful Breast
And in the hollow of His Hand.

I build on everlasting Rock,
Upraised by travail of the years
And channeled not by ages' tears;
Though systems round me lie
And die,
Yet not the shadow nor the shock
Of doom may teach the glorious fears,
Which are my breath.
I came from God, His awful womb
Sent me a spirit forth to mock
Time's conquests and the law of death,
And reign for ever on their tomb.

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November 19 AMEN FOLKS

“Let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay.”— St. Matt. v. 37.

We are the Amen Folks of God and work His holy Will,
And wheresoever Truth hath trod we plough the land and till
Beneath His sky in honesty, through good report and ill;
We praise the Bounty which is Bread and never gives us nay
And is to all a table spread beside the desert way,
A bubbling well whereby we dwell, one Everlasting Yea.

We are the Amen Folks of God, and must confess His Name
By drawing from the very clod the pretty flowerlike flame,
Till darkest dearth upon the earth puts off the weeds and shame;
We deal to everyone his due and bear the burden sent
And to ourselves and each are true and humble and content,
While with glad tears and faithful fears we sow the long Ascent.

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We are the Amen Folks of God and serving at His side
And leaning on that loving rod which chastens so our pride,
That He may thus be more to us who in His Mercy hide;
We do not ask for power or place, but simply to be low
And worthy vessels for the Grace which would through sinners flow,
That at His Feet we may be meet and like our Master grow.

We are the Amen Folks of God and seek no other crown
Than duty, though beneath the sod we lie rejected down
And only make for others' sake the future of renown;
It is enough to take the yoke which Christ Himself has worn,
If even the heart which for Him broke received no hire but scorn—
For each lost life is in the strife a ray of coming Morn.

369

November 20 THE CROSS FOUNDATION

“Other foundation can no man lay than that is laid.”— 1 Cor. iii. 11.

God before birth of sinning, God at the great beginning,
God in the unstoried past
Laid His broad bases deep beyond or death or sleep,
In the Eternal cast;
He might have strung the land and sea on iron bands
Which nothing more could shake,
He might have diggèd low nor suffered ebb and flow
Just for His Wisdom sake;
Or on a thought as thread hung Time's young bridal bed
And rounded it with bliss,
Till at the dreadful meeting of Power and Mercy's greeting
Light burst from the abyss.

God set not the foundation thus to His fresh Creation
Whence this our glory shines,
But in the broken Heart of Love from Love apart
He sought the solemn lines.
He took the simple Cross and married gain to loss
In a most tender bond,
And bade its Shadow fall on earth and sky and all
Unto the years beyond.

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Nor did he flinch and fail, but drove one bitter nail
To reach the perfect rest,
Though ere that peace was given and ere those arms were riven
It piercèd His own Breast.

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November 21 UNDER ALL

“It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power.”— 1 Cor. xv. 43.

O not in fire and thunder, but in the weakness under
Whence the pure fountains rise,
He sowed the scarlet seed of every kingly creed
Which opens Paradise.
From no mere common roots spring those immortal shoots
Which carry us so high,
And bridge the awful strait (where else we weep and wait),
To bring God very nigh;
The sources of sweet things, the upward waft of wings
Which make the spirit free,
Go farther even than praying, and have their inmost staying
Down in that Holy Tree.

Yea, here (for Love is cruel) he hangeth each rare jewel,
His goodly earth and sky,
Upon that primal form stirred not by any storm,
A blessèd Trinity.
He wrought no subtle charms, but to these awful arms
And from the single nail

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He builded fair and fast the Present and the Past
And pomps that shall prevail.
For by our precious pain and out of bitter strain
Which daily we rehearse,
And in our living losses, we only show the Cross is
What bears the Universe.

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November 22 AT THE GRAVE OF LAZARUS

“Lazarus, come forth! And he that was dead came forth.”— St. John xi. 43, 44.

They met above the fallen friend,
They stood across his grave;
The Shadow that no prayer would bend,
The Light that stooped to save.
For there was bound, in silent round,
Life like a frozen wave.

They met, and on the stricken shape
Death planted firm his feet;
Lest the poor prisoner should escape,
Loosed by that Presence sweet;
And his cold hands confirmed the bands
Of the pale winding-sheet.

They met, and, lo! the gracious Form
Looked at the rival Power,
As sunshine faces a grim storm
When it hath passed its hour;
As day, through night before its flight,
Falls on an opening flower.

They met in that unequal strife,
The spoiler and his Lord,
The dying Death, the living Life
That could not thus accord;
And, at His breath, discrownèd Death
Was slain by his own sword.

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November 23 THERE MAY BE EARTH

“The kingdom of God is within you.”—St. Luke xvii. 21.

There may be earth—I cannot say,
For I was never in its hold;
There must be Heaven, because I pray
And hourly gather up its gold.
I am not sure of mortal things
That mock me with their dying day,
And seem but vapour vanishings
'Mid verities august and old.
Each human sense, the ear and eye,
Proclaim the rule of vanity;
They feel no waft of angel wings,
The magic and the mystery.

There may be hell, I cannot speak
Of what I have not truly known;
There must be Heaven, its mountain peak
Breaks through the clouds above me grown;
And every hour I climb its track,
Though flesh is false and purpose weak
And sometimes would in doubt turn back,
When angry winds are round me blown.
But yet I follow the white gleam,
Which lights no earthly land or stream;
And though the world's great bases crack,
I live the Truth within the Dream.

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November 24 THE SCULPTOR

“The word of God is ... sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit.”— Heb. iv. 12.

The Sculptor took the mallet and He smote
Deep into throbbing flesh,
And with the grace of graving tools He wrote
My little life afresh.
He chiselled here the excrescence of a vice
And there an idle whim,
He counted nothing lost as sacrifice
To fashion me like Him.
And thus he drove the searching iron deep
Through rhythmic blood and brain,
It spared no folly in the dreadful sweep
Of the pursuing pain.
It polished, while it sternly entered in,
The body that should be
A temple of the Lord unsoiled by sin,
And with His Beauty free.
But yet I heeded not the blessèd tool
Nor its remorseless bite,
As in the scorching of that fiery school
My soul waxed infinite.
I felt the touch of something more than art,
As soft as sunset dew
And yet like steel and flame throughout my heart,
Which moulded all anew.

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November 25 LIGHT AND SHADOW

“And the Lord went before them ... in a pillar of a cloud, to lead them the way.”—Exod. xiii. 21.

There is no joy without a shade,
Nor were it joy for souls unless
This out of very grandeur made
A cloud to hide its loveliness;
We could not brook that naked light
Which is a very ray of God,
So doth it gather of the night
And cometh dimly draped and shod.

I would not wish for brighter gaze
Than that which visits me at times,
When angels dwarf their burning blaze
Of splendour to unspacious climes;
I feel, I know the earthly bond
They wear is not for gladness free,
It hardly veils the heaven beyond
Of visions now we may not see.

I thank Thee, Father, for the sun
Which scatters broad and generous beams,
But in the depths of darkness run
More rich and more refreshing streams;
I thank Thee stars are stainèd white
And mist lies on the clearest coast,
For thus I trace the Infinite
And touch Thee in the twilight most.

377

November 26 NOT WORTHY

“I am not worthy of the least of all the mercies, and of all the truth, which thou hast shewed unto thy servant.”— Gen. xxxii. 10.

I am not worthy, Lord, to bear
The burden of one cross for Thee,
Nor join the Martyr throng and wear
The glorious fetters of the free;
But I may only stand afar
And catch a glimmer of the light,
Or Heavenly joy, through doors ajar—
Not enter into the full sight.

I am not worthy, Lord, to speak
A word for Thee in service high,
And yet unto the poor and weak
Thou in Thy Greatness art most nigh;
And out of frailty tried and tost
Thou lovest to be chiefly blest,
And when our Paradise seems lost
We find it on the Saviour's Breast.

I am not worthy, Lord, to live
One idle hour of sin and shame,
And take the bounty Thou dost give
But do so little for Thy Name;
Yet by infirmities which prove
The utter boundlessness of Grace,
This broken vessel holds the Love
Which holds the world in its embrace.

378

November 27 THE DIVINE SONSHIP

“Have we not all one father?”—Mal. ii. 10.

Almighty God, we cannot know
Much of Thy Grandeur and Thy Love,
When we are here so far below,
And Thou so very high above.
Yet we believe in Mysteries—
Thou art beyond our dreams of good,
And out of the Eternities
Hast given Thy gracious Fatherhood.

For Thou art wonderfully nigh
To us and every pulse of pain,
And not the feeblest sob or sigh
Is lifted up to Thee in vain.
And care, like Thine, can always hear
The faintest wish or farthest call;
Thy homely Heart and listening Ear,
Are hospitably wide to all.

We are Thy children at the last
And from Thy Blessing cannot fly,
For even in death we only cast
Ourselves on Thy great Charity.
And after each mad wandering quest
Which Thy dear Mercy hath withstood,
We lay us down in utter rest
Upon thine awful Fatherhood.

379

November 28 WEIGHED

“A just weight and balance are the Lord's: a just weigher of spirits is the Lord.”—Prov. xvi. 11.

Not with Thy scales and measures, Lord,
Weigh this poor little soul of mine,
But in the kindness of the Word—
That all the Grace may be Divine;
Though I be wanting in the flesh,
In Thee I'm daily born afresh.

A cup of water in Thy Name
Is like an overflowing fount,
A living sea, that puts to shame
The glory of the earth's account;
And faith, that doth the lowliest tasks,
Is fulness which Thy service asks.

It is Thy Merits, Lord, that make
Our offerings beautiful and sweet,
And every cross for Thy dear sake
Borne gladly brings us to Thy Feet;
Nay, lifteth us, and lets us hide
Within Thy precious wounded Side.

If I had riches of all lands
And laid them humbly in Thine Arms,
They would not answer those demands
Which seek for more than worldly charms;
In Thee, the crust, the widow's mite,
Reach to a grandeur infinite.

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November 29 THE WATCHMAN

“Watchman, what of the night? Watchman, what of the night?”—Isa. xxi. 11.

Art thou watching, art thou watching,
For the dawn's first shadow bright?
See, the mountain tops are catching
From afar the coming light.
Endless vigils we must pay,
For the vision of the day.

Watchman, sleep not at thy post,
By false beacons be not led
When thy duty wants thee most,
Ere the morn break overhead;
Truth demands the dearest price,
Sleepless love as sacrifice.

Art thou watching, art thou watching,
For the freedom and its feast?
Soon will come the sweet unlatching,
Of the gateways in the East.
Liberty, that's won by strife,
Asks an ever-wakeful life.

Watchman, here we have no rest
Now before the night is past—
Until folded to God's Breast,
Which is Heaven and Home, at last.
Christ will have His offering whole,
Endless vigils of the soul.

381

November 30 NATIVE LIGHT

“The heart knoweth ... and a stranger doth not intermeddle with his joy.”—Prov. xiv. 10.

Eyes make the beauty that is theirs
And hearts the music of the need,
Our highest thoughts are only heirs
To hopes whereof we planted seed;
And what is any outward gloom,
While we can worship, Lord, and pray
And have in even the dreadest doom
A germ of Thine Eternal Day?

And but for the dear homely cloud
I could not ever catch Thy Light,
Which from the shadow of the shroud
Sends back a resurrection sight;
I could not prove my mortal dower
Is yet so merciful and kind,
Nor guess the greatness of Thy Power
Without the blessings of the blind.

Were I the sun itself, the shade
Would simply be my very floor,
A lesser brightness, till I bade
My fulness enter in earth's door;
And if I saw the perfect round
Of things so manifest to Love,
There were not mote or tiniest bound
Between this view and that above.