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diff --git a/1953.txt b/1953.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0bc387b --- /dev/null +++ b/1953.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4167 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Book of Strife in the Form of The Diary +of an Old Soul, by George MacDonald + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: A Book of Strife in the Form of The Diary of an Old Soul + +Author: George MacDonald + +Posting Date: October 1, 2008 [EBook #1953] +Release Date: November, 1999 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A BOOK OF STRIFE *** + + + + +Produced by John Bechard + + + + + +A BOOK OF STRIFE IN THE FORM OF THE DIARY OF AN OLD SOUL + +by George MacDonald + + +Published in 1880. + + + + + [The dedication refers to the fact that the + book was originally published using only the + right-hand side pages of the book, leaving + the left-hand side blank to allow for and + acknowledge any thoughtful reader responses.] + + JB + + + + +DEDICATION + + Sweet friends, receive my offering. You will find + Against each worded page a white page set:-- + This is the mirror of each friendly mind + Reflecting that. In this book we are met. + Make it, dear hearts, of worth to you indeed:-- + Let your white page be ground, my print be seed, + Growing to golden ears, that faith and hope shall feed. + + YOUR OLD SOUL + + + + +THE DIARY OF AN OLD SOUL. + + + + + +JANUARY. + + 1. + + LORD, what I once had done with youthful might, + Had I been from the first true to the truth, + Grant me, now old, to do--with better sight, + And humbler heart, if not the brain of youth; + So wilt thou, in thy gentleness and ruth, + Lead back thy old soul, by the path of pain, + Round to his best--young eyes and heart and brain. + + 2. + + A dim aurora rises in my east, + Beyond the line of jagged questions hoar, + As if the head of our intombed High Priest + Began to glow behind the unopened door: + Sure the gold wings will soon rise from the gray!-- + They rise not. Up I rise, press on the more, + To meet the slow coming of the Master's day. + + 3. + + Sometimes I wake, and, lo! I have forgot, + And drifted out upon an ebbing sea! + My soul that was at rest now resteth not, + For I am with myself and not with thee; + Truth seems a blind moon in a glaring morn, + Where nothing is but sick-heart vanity: + Oh, thou who knowest! save thy child forlorn. + + 4. + + Death, like high faith, levelling, lifteth all. + When I awake, my daughter and my son, + Grown sister and brother, in my arms shall fall, + Tenfold my girl and boy. Sure every one + Of all the brood to the old wings will run. + Whole-hearted is my worship of the man + From whom my earthly history began. + + 5. + + Thy fishes breathe but where thy waters roll; + Thy birds fly but within thy airy sea; + My soul breathes only in thy infinite soul; + I breathe, I think, I love, I live but thee. + Oh breathe, oh think,--O Love, live into me; + Unworthy is my life till all divine, + Till thou see in me only what is thine. + + 6. + + Then shall I breathe in sweetest sharing, then + Think in harmonious consort with my kin; + Then shall I love well all my father's men, + Feel one with theirs the life my heart within. + Oh brothers! sisters holy! hearts divine! + Then I shall be all yours, and nothing mine-- + To every human heart a mother-twin. + + 7. + + I see a child before an empty house, + Knocking and knocking at the closed door; + He wakes dull echoes--but nor man nor mouse, + If he stood knocking there for evermore.-- + A mother angel, see! folding each wing, + Soft-walking, crosses straight the empty floor, + And opens to the obstinate praying thing. + + 8. + + Were there but some deep, holy spell, whereby + Always I should remember thee--some mode + Of feeling the pure heat-throb momently + Of the spirit-fire still uttering this I!-- + Lord, see thou to it, take thou remembrance' load: + Only when I bethink me can I cry; + Remember thou, and prick me with love's goad. + + 9. + + If to myself--"God sometimes interferes"-- + I said, my faith at once would be struck blind. + I see him all in all, the lifing mind, + Or nowhere in the vacant miles and years. + A love he is that watches and that hears, + Or but a mist fumed up from minds of men, + Whose fear and hope reach out beyond their ken. + + 10. + + When I no more can stir my soul to move, + And life is but the ashes of a fire; + When I can but remember that my heart + Once used to live and love, long and aspire,-- + Oh, be thou then the first, the one thou art; + Be thou the calling, before all answering love, + And in me wake hope, fear, boundless desire. + + 11. + + I thought that I had lost thee; but, behold! + Thou comest to me from the horizon low, + Across the fields outspread of green and gold-- + Fair carpet for thy feet to come and go. + Whence I know not, or how to me thou art come!-- + Not less my spirit with calm bliss doth glow, + Meeting thee only thus, in nature vague and dumb. + + 12. + + Doubt swells and surges, with swelling doubt behind! + My soul in storm is but a tattered sail, + Streaming its ribbons on the torrent gale; + In calm, 'tis but a limp and flapping thing: + Oh! swell it with thy breath; make it a wing,-- + To sweep through thee the ocean, with thee the wind + Nor rest until in thee its haven it shall find. + + 13. + + The idle flapping of the sail is doubt; + Faith swells it full to breast the breasting seas. + Bold, conscience, fast, and rule the ruling helm; + Hell's freezing north no tempest can send out, + But it shall toss thee homeward to thy leas; + Boisterous wave-crest never shall o'erwhelm + Thy sea-float bark as safe as field-borne rooted elm. + + 14. + + Sometimes, hard-trying, it seems I cannot pray-- + For doubt, and pain, and anger, and all strife. + Yet some poor half-fledged prayer-bird from the nest + May fall, flit, fly, perch--crouch in the bowery breast + Of the large, nation-healing tree of life;-- + Moveless there sit through all the burning day, + And on my heart at night a fresh leaf cooling lay. + + 15. + + My harvest withers. Health, my means to live-- + All things seem rushing straight into the dark. + But the dark still is God. I would not give + The smallest silver-piece to turn the rush + Backward or sideways. Am I not a spark + Of him who is the light?--Fair hope doth flush + My east.--Divine success--Oh, hush and hark! + + 16. + + Thy will be done. I yield up everything. + "The life is more than meat"--then more than health; + "The body more than raiment"--then than wealth; + The hairs I made not, thou art numbering. + Thou art my life--I the brook, thou the spring. + Because thine eyes are open, I can see; + Because thou art thyself, 'tis therefore I am me. + + 17. + + No sickness can come near to blast my health; + My life depends not upon any meat; + My bread comes not from any human tilth; + No wings will grow upon my changeless wealth; + Wrong cannot touch it, violence or deceit; + Thou art my life, my health, my bank, my barn-- + And from all other gods thou plain dost warn. + + 18. + + Care thou for mine whom I must leave behind; + Care that they know who 'tis for them takes care; + Thy present patience help them still to bear; + Lord, keep them clearing, growing, heart and mind; + In one thy oneness us together bind; + Last earthly prayer with which to thee I cling-- + Grant that, save love, we owe not anything. + + 19. + + 'Tis well, for unembodied thought a live, + True house to build--of stubble, wood, nor hay; + So, like bees round the flower by which they thrive, + My thoughts are busy with the informing truth, + And as I build, I feed, and grow in youth-- + Hoping to stand fresh, clean, and strong, and gay, + When up the east comes dawning His great day. + + 20. + + Thy will is truth--'tis therefore fate, the strong. + Would that my will did sweep full swing with thine! + Then harmony with every spheric song, + And conscious power, would give sureness divine. + Who thinks to thread thy great laws' onward throng, + Is as a fly that creeps his foolish way + Athwart an engine's wheels in smooth resistless play. + + 21. + + Thou in my heart hast planted, gardener divine, + A scion of the tree of life: it grows; + But not in every wind or weather it blows; + The leaves fall sometimes from the baby tree, + And the life-power seems melting into pine; + Yet still the sap keeps struggling to the shine, + And the unseen root clings cramplike unto thee. + + 22. + + Do thou, my God, my spirit's weather control; + And as I do not gloom though the day be dun, + Let me not gloom when earth-born vapours roll + Across the infinite zenith of my soul. + Should sudden brain-frost through the heart's summer run, + Cold, weary, joyless, waste of air and sun, + Thou art my south, my summer-wind, my all, my one. + + 23. + + O Life, why dost thou close me up in death? + O Health, why make me inhabit heaviness?-- + I ask, yet know: the sum of this distress, + Pang-haunted body, sore-dismayed mind, + Is but the egg that rounds the winged faith; + When that its path into the air shall find, + My heart will follow, high above cold, rain, and wind. + + 24. + + I can no more than lift my weary eyes; + Therefore I lift my weary eyes--no more. + But my eyes pull my heart, and that, before + 'Tis well awake, knocks where the conscience lies; + Conscience runs quick to the spirit's hidden door: + Straightway, from every sky-ward window, cries + Up to the Father's listening ears arise. + + 25. + + Not in my fancy now I search to find thee; + Not in its loftiest forms would shape or bind thee; + I cry to one whom I can never know, + Filling me with an infinite overflow; + Not to a shape that dwells within my heart, + Clothed in perfections love and truth assigned thee, + But to the God thou knowest that thou art. + + 26. + + Not, Lord, because I have done well or ill; + Not that my mind looks up to thee clear-eyed; + Not that it struggles in fast cerements tied; + Not that I need thee daily sorer still; + Not that I wretched, wander from thy will; + Not now for any cause to thee I cry, + But this, that thou art thou, and here am I. + + 27. + + Yestereve, Death came, and knocked at my thin door. + I from my window looked: the thing I saw, + The shape uncouth, I had not seen before. + I was disturbed--with fear, in sooth, not awe; + Whereof ashamed, I instantly did rouse + My will to seek thee--only to fear the more: + Alas! I could not find thee in the house. + + 28. + + I was like Peter when he began to sink. + To thee a new prayer therefore I have got-- + That, when Death comes in earnest to my door, + Thou wouldst thyself go, when the latch doth clink, + And lead him to my room, up to my cot; + Then hold thy child's hand, hold and leave him not, + Till Death has done with him for evermore. + + 29. + + Till Death has done with him?--Ah, leave me then! + And Death has done with me, oh, nevermore! + He comes--and goes--to leave me in thy arms, + Nearer thy heart, oh, nearer than before! + To lay thy child, naked, new-born again + Of mother earth, crept free through many harms, + Upon thy bosom--still to the very core. + + 30. + + Come to me, Lord: I will not speculate how, + Nor think at which door I would have thee appear, + Nor put off calling till my floors be swept, + But cry, "Come, Lord, come any way, come now." + Doors, windows, I throw wide; my head I bow, + And sit like some one who so long has slept + That he knows nothing till his life draw near. + + 31. + + O Lord, I have been talking to the people; + Thought's wheels have round me whirled a fiery zone, + And the recoil of my words' airy ripple + My heart unheedful has puffed up and blown. + Therefore I cast myself before thee prone: + Lay cool hands on my burning brain, and press + From my weak heart the swelling emptiness. + + + + + +FEBRUARY. + + 1. + + I TO myself have neither power nor worth, + Patience nor love, nor anything right good; + My soul is a poor land, plenteous in dearth-- + Here blades of grass, there a small herb for food-- + A nothing that would be something if it could; + But if obedience, Lord, in me do grow, + I shall one day be better than I know. + + 2. + + The worst power of an evil mood is this-- + It makes the bastard self seem in the right, + Self, self the end, the goal of human bliss. + But if the Christ-self in us be the might + Of saving God, why should I spend my force + With a dark thing to reason of the light-- + Not push it rough aside, and hold obedient course? + + 3. + + Back still it comes to this: there was a man + Who said, "I am the truth, the life, the way:"-- + Shall I pass on, or shall I stop and hear?-- + "Come to the Father but by me none can:" + What then is this?--am I not also one + Of those who live in fatherless dismay? + I stand, I look, I listen, I draw near. + + 4. + + My Lord, I find that nothing else will do, + But follow where thou goest, sit at thy feet, + And where I have thee not, still run to meet. + Roses are scentless, hopeless are the morns, + Rest is but weakness, laughter crackling thorns, + If thou, the Truth, do not make them the true: + Thou art my life, O Christ, and nothing else will do. + + 5. + + Thou art here--in heaven, I know, but not from here-- + Although thy separate self do not appear; + If I could part the light from out the day, + There I should have thee! But thou art too near: + How find thee walking, when thou art the way? + Oh, present Christ! make my eyes keen as stings, + To see thee at their heart, the glory even of things. + + 6. + + That thou art nowhere to be found, agree + Wise men, whose eyes are but for surfaces; + Men with eyes opened by the second birth, + To whom the seen, husk of the unseen is, + Descry thee soul of everything on earth. + Who know thy ends, thy means and motions see: + Eyes made for glory soon discover thee. + + 7. + + Thou near then, I draw nearer--to thy feet, + And sitting in thy shadow, look out on the shine; + Ready at thy first word to leave my seat-- + Not thee: thou goest too. From every clod + Into thy footprint flows the indwelling wine; + And in my daily bread, keen-eyed I greet + Its being's heart, the very body of God. + + 8. + + Thou wilt interpret life to me, and men, + Art, nature, yea, my own soul's mysteries-- + Bringing, truth out, clear-joyous, to my ken, + Fair as the morn trampling the dull night. Then + The lone hill-side shall hear exultant cries; + The joyous see me joy, the weeping weep; + The watching smile, as Death breathes on me his cold sleep. + + 9. + + I search my heart--I search, and find no faith. + Hidden He may be in its many folds-- + I see him not revealed in all the world + Duty's firm shape thins to a misty wraith. + No good seems likely. To and fro I am hurled. + I have no stay. Only obedience holds:-- + I haste, I rise, I do the thing he saith. + + 10. + + Thou wouldst not have thy man crushed back to clay; + It must be, God, thou hast a strength to give + To him that fain would do what thou dost say; + Else how shall any soul repentant live, + Old griefs and new fears hurrying on dismay? + Let pain be what thou wilt, kind and degree, + Only in pain calm thou my heart with thee. + + 11. + + I will not shift my ground like Moab's king, + But from this spot whereon I stand, I pray-- + From this same barren rock to thee I say, + "Lord, in my commonness, in this very thing + That haunts my soul with folly--through the clay + Of this my pitcher, see the lamp's dim flake; + And hear the blow that would the pitcher break." + + 12. + + Be thou the well by which I lie and rest; + Be thou my tree of life, my garden ground; + Be thou my home, my fire, my chamber blest, + My book of wisdom, loved of all the best; + Oh, be my friend, each day still newer found, + As the eternal days and nights go round! + Nay, nay--thou art my God, in whom all loves are bound! + + 13. + + Two things at once, thou know'st I cannot think. + When busy with the work thou givest me, + I cannot consciously think then of thee. + Then why, when next thou lookest o'er the brink + Of my horizon, should my spirit shrink, + Reproached and fearful, nor to greet thee run? + Can I be two when I am only one. + + 14. + + My soul must unawares have sunk awry. + Some care, poor eagerness, ambition of work, + Some old offence that unforgiving did lurk, + Or some self-gratulation, soft and sly-- + Something not thy sweet will, not the good part, + While the home-guard looked out, stirred up the old murk, + And so I gloomed away from thee, my Heart. + + 15. + + Therefore I make provision, ere I begin + To do the thing thou givest me to do, + Praying,--Lord, wake me oftener, lest I sin. + Amidst my work, open thine eyes on me, + That I may wake and laugh, and know and see + Then with healed heart afresh catch up the clue, + And singing drop into my work anew. + + 16. + + If I should slow diverge, and listless stray + Into some thought, feeling, or dream unright, + O Watcher, my backsliding soul affray; + Let me not perish of the ghastly blight. + Be thou, O Life eternal, in me light; + Then merest approach of selfish or impure + Shall start me up alive, awake, secure. + + 17. + + Lord, I have fallen again--a human clod! + Selfish I was, and heedless to offend; + Stood on my rights. Thy own child would not send + Away his shreds of nothing for the whole God! + Wretched, to thee who savest, low I bend: + Give me the power to let my rag-rights go + In the great wind that from thy gulf doth blow. + + 18. + + Keep me from wrath, let it seem ever so right: + My wrath will never work thy righteousness. + Up, up the hill, to the whiter than snow-shine, + Help me to climb, and dwell in pardon's light. + I must be pure as thou, or ever less + Than thy design of me--therefore incline + My heart to take men's wrongs as thou tak'st mine. + + 19. + + Lord, in thy spirit's hurricane, I pray, + Strip my soul naked--dress it then thy way. + Change for me all my rags to cloth of gold. + Who would not poverty for riches yield? + A hovel sell to buy a treasure-field? + Who would a mess of porridge careful hold + Against the universe's birthright old? + + 20. + + Help me to yield my will, in labour even, + Nor toil on toil, greedy of doing, heap-- + Fretting I cannot more than me is given; + That with the finest clay my wheel runs slow, + Nor lets the lovely thing the shapely grow; + That memory what thought gives it cannot keep, + And nightly rimes ere morn like cistus-petals go. + + 21. + + 'Tis--shall thy will be done for me?--or mine, + And I be made a thing not after thine-- + My own, and dear in paltriest details? + Shall I be born of God, or of mere man? + Be made like Christ, or on some other plan?-- + I let all run:--set thou and trim my sails; + Home then my course, let blow whatever gales. + + 22. + + With thee on board, each sailor is a king + Nor I mere captain of my vessel then, + But heir of earth and heaven, eternal child; + Daring all truth, nor fearing anything; + Mighty in love, the servant of all men; + Resenting nothing, taking rage and blare + Into the Godlike silence of a loving care. + + 23. + + I cannot see, my God, a reason why + From morn to night I go not gladsome free; + For, if thou art what my soul thinketh thee, + There is no burden but should lightly lie, + No duty but a joy at heart must be: + Love's perfect will can be nor sore nor small, + For God is light--in him no darkness is at all. + + 24. + + 'Tis something thus to think, and half to trust-- + But, ah! my very heart, God-born, should lie + Spread to the light, clean, clear of mire and rust, + And like a sponge drink the divine sunbeams. + What resolution then, strong, swift, and high! + What pure devotion, or to live or die! + And in my sleep, what true, what perfect dreams! + + 25. + + There is a misty twilight of the soul, + A sickly eclipse, low brooding o'er a man, + When the poor brain is as an empty bowl, + And the thought-spirit, weariful and wan, + Turning from that which yet it loves the best, + Sinks moveless, with life-poverty opprest:-- + Watch then, O Lord, thy feebly glimmering coal. + + 26. + + I cannot think; in me is but a void; + I have felt much, and want to feel no more; + My soul is hungry for some poorer fare-- + Some earthly nectar, gold not unalloyed:-- + The little child that's happy to the core, + Will leave his mother's lap, run down the stair, + Play with the servants--is his mother annoyed? + + 27. + + I would not have it so. Weary and worn, + Why not to thee run straight, and be at rest? + Motherward, with toy new, or garment torn, + The child that late forsook her changeless breast, + Runs to home's heart, the heaven that's heavenliest: + In joy or sorrow, feebleness or might, + Peace or commotion, be thou, Father, my delight. + + 28. + + The thing I would say, still comes forth with doubt + And difference:--is it that thou shap'st my ends? + Or is it only the necessity + Of stubborn words, that shift sluggish about, + Warping my thought as it the sentence bends?-- + Have thou a part in it, O Lord, and I + Shall say a truth, if not the thing I try. + + 29. + + Gather my broken fragments to a whole, + As these four quarters make a shining day. + Into thy basket, for my golden bowl, + Take up the things that I have cast away + In vice or indolence or unwise play. + Let mine be a merry, all-receiving heart, + But make it a whole, with light in every part. + + + + + +MARCH. + + 1. + + THE song birds that come to me night and morn, + Fly oft away and vanish if I sleep, + Nor to my fowling-net will one return: + Is the thing ever ours we cannot keep?-- + But their souls go not out into the deep. + What matter if with changed song they come back? + Old strength nor yet fresh beauty shall they lack. + + 2. + + Gloriously wasteful, O my Lord, art thou! + Sunset faints after sunset into the night, + Splendorously dying from thy window-sill-- + For ever. Sad our poverty doth bow + Before the riches of thy making might: + Sweep from thy space thy systems at thy will-- + In thee the sun sets every sunset still. + + 3. + + And in the perfect time, O perfect God, + When we are in our home, our natal home, + When joy shall carry every sacred load, + And from its life and peace no heart shall roam, + What if thou make us able to make like thee-- + To light with moons, to clothe with greenery, + To hang gold sunsets o'er a rose and purple sea! + + 4. + + Then to his neighbour one may call out, "Come! + Brother, come hither--I would show you a thing;" + And lo, a vision of his imagining, + Informed of thought which else had rested dumb, + Before the neighbour's truth-delighted eyes, + In the great aether of existence rise, + And two hearts each to each the closer cling! + + 5. + + We make, but thou art the creating core. + Whatever thing I dream, invent, or feel, + Thou art the heart of it, the atmosphere. + Thou art inside all love man ever bore; + Yea, the love itself, whatever thing be dear. + Man calls his dog, he follows at his heel, + Because thou first art love, self-caused, essential, mere. + + 6. + + This day be with me, Lord, when I go forth, + Be nearer to me than I am able to ask. + In merriment, in converse, or in task, + Walking the street, listening to men of worth, + Or greeting such as only talk and bask, + Be thy thought still my waiting soul around, + And if He come, I shall be watching found. + + 7. + + What if, writing, I always seem to leave + Some better thing, or better way, behind, + Why should I therefore fret at all, or grieve! + The worse I drop, that I the better find; + The best is only in thy perfect mind. + Fallen threads I will not search for--I will weave. + Who makes the mill-wheel backward strike to grind! + + 8. + + Be with me, Lord. Keep me beyond all prayers: + For more than all my prayers my need of thee, + And thou beyond all need, all unknown cares; + What the heart's dear imagination dares, + Thou dost transcend in measureless majesty + All prayers in one--my God, be unto me + Thy own eternal self, absolutely. + + 9. + + Where should the unknown treasures of the truth + Lie, but there whence the truth comes out the most-- + In the Son of man, folded in love and ruth? + Fair shore we see, fair ocean; but behind + Lie infinite reaches bathing many a coast-- + The human thought of the eternal mind, + Pulsed by a living tide, blown by a living wind. + + 10. + + Thou, healthful Father, art the Ancient of Days, + And Jesus is the eternal youth of thee. + Our old age is the scorching of the bush + By life's indwelling, incorruptible blaze. + O Life, burn at this feeble shell of me, + Till I the sore singed garment off shall push, + Flap out my Psyche wings, and to thee rush. + + 11. + + But shall I then rush to thee like a dart? + Or lie long hours aeonian yet betwixt + This hunger in me, and the Father's heart?-- + It shall be good, how ever, and not ill; + Of things and thoughts even now thou art my next; + Sole neighbour, and no space between, thou art-- + And yet art drawing nearer, nearer still. + + 12. + + Therefore, my brothers, therefore, sisters dear, + However I, troubled or selfish, fail + In tenderness, or grace, or service clear, + I every moment draw to you more near; + God in us from our hearts veil after veil + Keeps lifting, till we see with his own sight, + And all together run in unity's delight. + + 13. + + I love thee, Lord, for very greed of love-- + Not of the precious streams that towards me move, + But of the indwelling, outgoing, fountain store. + Than mine, oh, many an ignorant heart loves more! + Therefore the more, with Mary at thy feet, + I must sit worshipping--that, in my core, + Thy words may fan to a flame the low primeval heat. + + 14. + + Oh my beloved, gone to heaven from me! + I would be rich in love to heap you with love; + I long to love you, sweet ones, perfectly-- + Like God, who sees no spanning vault above, + No earth below, and feels no circling air-- + Infinitely, no boundary anywhere. + I am a beast until I love as God doth love. + + 15. + + Ah, say not, 'tis but perfect self I want + But if it were, that self is fit to live + Whose perfectness is still itself to scant, + Which never longs to have, but still to give. + A self I must have, or not be at all: + Love, give me a self self-giving--or let me fall + To endless darkness back, and free me from life's thrall. + + 16. + + "Back," said I! Whither back? How to the dark? + From no dark came I, but the depths of light; + From the sun-heart I came, of love a spark: + What should I do but love with all my might? + To die of love severe and pure and stark, + Were scarcely loss; to lord a loveless height-- + That were a living death, damnation's positive night. + + 17. + + But love is life. To die of love is then + The only pass to higher life than this. + All love is death to loving, living men; + All deaths are leaps across clefts to the abyss. + Our life is the broken current, Lord, of thine, + Flashing from morn to morn with conscious shine-- + Then first by willing death self-made, then life divine. + + 18. + + I love you, my sweet children, who are gone + Into another mansion; but I know + I love you not as I shall love you yet. + I love you, sweet dead children; there are none + In the land to which ye vanished to go, + Whose hearts more truly on your hearts are set-- + Yet should I die of grief to love you only so. + + 19. + + "I am but as a beast before thee, Lord."-- + Great poet-king, I thank thee for the word.-- + Leave not thy son half-made in beastly guise-- + Less than a man, with more than human cries-- + An unshaped thing in which thyself cries out! + Finish me, Father; now I am but a doubt; + Oh! make thy moaning thing for joy to leap and shout. + + 20. + + Let my soul talk to thee in ordered words, + O king of kings, O lord of only lords!-- + When I am thinking thee within my heart, + From the broken reflex be not far apart. + The troubled water, dim with upstirred soil, + Makes not the image which it yet can spoil:-- + Come nearer, Lord, and smooth the wrinkled coil. + + 21. + + O Lord, when I do think of my departed, + I think of thee who art the death of parting; + Of him who crying Father breathed his last, + Then radiant from the sepulchre upstarted.-- + Even then, I think, thy hands and feet kept smarting: + With us the bitterness of death is past, + But by the feet he still doth hold us fast. + + 22. + + Therefore our hands thy feet do hold as fast. + We pray not to be spared the sorest pang, + But only--be thou with us to the last. + Let not our heart be troubled at the clang + Of hammer and nails, nor dread the spear's keen fang, + Nor the ghast sickening that comes of pain, + Nor yet the last clutch of the banished brain. + + 23. + + Lord, pity us: we have no making power; + Then give us making will, adopting thine. + Make, make, and make us; temper, and refine. + Be in us patience--neither to start nor cower. + Christ, if thou be not with us--not by sign, + But presence, actual as the wounds that bleed-- + We shall not bear it, but shall die indeed. + + 24. + + O Christ, have pity on all men when they come + Unto the border haunted of dismay; + When that they know not draweth very near-- + The other thing, the opposite of day, + Formless and ghastly, sick, and gaping-dumb, + Before which even love doth lose his cheer: + O radiant Christ, remember then thy fear. + + 25. + + Be by me, Lord, this day. Thou know'st I mean-- + Lord, make me mind thee. I herewith forestall + My own forgetfulness, when I stoop to glean + The corn of earth--which yet thy hand lets fall. + Be for me then against myself. Oh lean + Over me then when I invert my cup; + Take me, if by the hair, and lift me up. + + 26. + + Lord of essential life, help me to die. + To will to die is one with highest life, + The mightiest act that to Will's hand doth lie-- + Born of God's essence, and of man's hard strife: + God, give me strength my evil self to kill, + And die into the heaven of thy pure will.-- + Then shall this body's death be very tolerable. + + 27. + + As to our mothers came help in our birth-- + Not lost in lifing us, but saved and blest-- + Self bearing self, although right sorely prest, + Shall nothing lose, but die and be at rest + In life eternal, beyond all care and dearth. + God-born then truly, a man does no more ill, + Perfectly loves, and has whate'er he will. + + 28. + + As our dear animals do suffer less + Because their pain spreads neither right nor left, + Lost in oblivion and foresightlessness-- + Our suffering sore by faith shall be bereft + Of all dismay, and every weak excess. + His presence shall be better in our pain, + Than even self-absence to the weaker brain. + + 29. + + "Father, let this cup pass." He prayed--was heard. + What cup was it that passed away from him? + Sure not the death-cup, now filled to the brim! + There was no quailing in the awful word; + He still was king of kings, of lords the lord:-- + He feared lest, in the suffering waste and grim, + His faith might grow too faint and sickly dim. + + 30. + + Thy mind, my master, I will dare explore; + What we are told, that we are meant to know. + Into thy soul I search yet more and more, + Led by the lamp of my desire and woe. + If thee, my Lord, I may not understand, + I am a wanderer in a houseless land, + A weeping thirst by hot winds ever fanned. + + 31. + + Therefore I look again--and think I see + That, when at last he did cry out, "My God, + Why hast thou me forsaken?" straight man's rod + Was turned aside; for, that same moment, he + Cried "Father!" and gave up will and breath and spirit + Into his hands whose all he did inherit-- + Delivered, glorified eternally. + + + + + +APRIL. + + 1. + + LORD, I do choose the higher than my will. + I would be handled by thy nursing arms + After thy will, not my infant alarms. + Hurt me thou wilt--but then more loving still, + If more can be and less, in love's perfect zone! + My fancy shrinks from least of all thy harms, + But do thy will with me--I am thine own. + + 2. + + Some things wilt thou not one day turn to dreams? + Some dreams wilt thou not one day turn to fact? + The thing that painful, more than should be, seems, + Shall not thy sliding years with them retract-- + Shall fair realities not counteract? + The thing that was well dreamed of bliss and joy-- + Wilt thou not breathe thy life into the toy? + + 3. + + I have had dreams of absolute delight, + Beyond all waking bliss--only of grass, + Flowers, wind, a peak, a limb of marble white; + They dwell with me like things half come to pass, + True prophecies:--when I with thee am right, + If I pray, waking, for such a joy of sight, + Thou with the gold, wilt not refuse the brass. + + 4. + + I think I shall not ever pray for such; + Thy bliss will overflood my heart and brain, + And I want no unripe things back again. + Love ever fresher, lovelier than of old-- + How should it want its more exchanged for much? + Love will not backward sigh, but forward strain, + On in the tale still telling, never told. + + 5. + + What has been, shall not only be, but is. + The hues of dreamland, strange and sweet and tender + Are but hint-shadows of full many a splendour + Which the high Parent-love will yet unroll + Before his child's obedient, humble soul. + Ah, me, my God! in thee lies every bliss + Whose shadow men go hunting wearily amiss. + + 6. + + Now, ere I sleep, I wonder what I shall dream. + Some sense of being, utter new, may come + Into my soul while I am blind and dumb-- + With shapes and airs and scents which dark hours teem, + Of other sort than those that haunt the day, + Hinting at precious things, ages away + In the long tale of us God to himself doth say. + + 7. + + Late, in a dream, an unknown lady I saw + Stand on a tomb; down she to me stepped thence. + "They tell me," quoth I, "thou art one of the dead!" + And scarce believed for gladness the yea she said; + A strange auroral bliss, an arctic awe, + A new, outworldish joy awoke intense, + To think I talked with one that verily was dead. + + 8. + + Thou dost demand our love, holy Lord Christ, + And batest nothing of thy modesty;-- + Thou know'st no other way to bliss the highest + Than loving thee, the loving, perfectly. + Thou lovest perfectly--that is thy bliss: + We must love like thee, or our being miss-- + So, to love perfectly, love perfect Love, love thee. + + 9. + + Here is my heart, O Christ; thou know'st I love thee. + But wretched is the thing I call my love. + O Love divine, rise up in me and move me-- + I follow surely when thou first dost move. + To love the perfect love, is primal, mere + Necessity; and he who holds life dear, + Must love thee every hope and heart above. + + 10. + + Might I but scatter interfering things-- + Questions and doubts, distrusts and anxious pride, + And in thy garment, as under gathering wings, + Nestle obedient to thy loving side, + Easy it were to love thee. But when thou + Send'st me to think and labour from thee wide, + Love falls to asking many a why and how. + + 11. + + Easier it were, but poorer were the love. + Lord, I would have me love thee from the deeps-- + Of troubled thought, of pain, of weariness. + Through seething wastes below, billows above, + My soul should rise in eager, hungering leaps; + Through thorny thicks, through sands unstable press-- + Out of my dream to him who slumbers not nor sleeps. + + 12. + + I do not fear the greatness of thy command-- + To keep heart-open-house to brother men; + But till in thy God's love perfect I stand, + My door not wide enough will open. Then + Each man will be love-awful in my sight; + And, open to the eternal morning's might, + Each human face will shine my window for thy light. + + 13. + + Make me all patience and all diligence; + Patience, that thou mayst have thy time with me; + Diligence, that I waste not thy expense + In sending out to bring me home to thee. + What though thy work in me transcends my sense-- + Too fine, too high, for me to understand-- + I hope entirely. On, Lord, with thy labour grand. + + 14. + + Lest I be humbled at the last, and told + That my great labour was but for my peace + That not for love or truth had I been bold, + But merely for a prisoned heart's release; + Careful, I humble me now before thy feet: + Whate'er I be, I cry, and will not cease-- + Let me not perish, though favour be not meet. + + 15. + + For, what I seek thou knowest I must find, + Or miserably die for lack of love. + I justify thee: what is in thy mind, + If it be shame to me, all shame above. + Thou know'st I choose it--know'st I would not shove + The hand away that stripped me for the rod-- + If so it pleased my Life, my love-made-angry God. + + 16. + + I see a door, a multitude near by, + In creed and quarrel, sure disciples all! + Gladly they would, they say, enter the hall, + But cannot, the stone threshold is so high. + From unseen hand, full many a feeding crumb, + Slow dropping o'er the threshold high doth come: + They gather and eat, with much disputing hum. + + 17. + + Still and anon, a loud clear voice doth call-- + "Make your feet clean, and enter so the hall." + They hear, they stoop, they gather each a crumb. + Oh the deaf people! would they were also dumb! + Hear how they talk, and lack of Christ deplore, + Stamping with muddy feet about the door, + And will not wipe them clean to walk upon his floor! + + 18. + + But see, one comes; he listens to the voice; + Careful he wipes his weary dusty feet! + The voice hath spoken--to him is left no choice; + He hurries to obey--that only is meet. + Low sinks the threshold, levelled with the ground; + The man leaps in--to liberty he's bound. + The rest go talking, walking, picking round. + + 19. + + If I, thus writing, rebuke my neighbour dull, + And talk, and write, and enter not the door, + Than all the rest I wrong Christ tenfold more, + Making his gift of vision void and null. + Help me this day to be thy humble sheep, + Eating thy grass, and following, thou before; + From wolfish lies my life, O Shepherd, keep. + + 20. + + God, help me, dull of heart, to trust in thee. + Thou art the father of me--not any mood + Can part me from the One, the verily Good. + When fog and failure o'er my being brood. + When life looks but a glimmering marshy clod, + No fire out flashing from the living God-- + Then, then, to rest in faith were worthy victory! + + 21. + + To trust is gain and growth, not mere sown seed! + Faith heaves the world round to the heavenly dawn, + In whose great light the soul doth spell and read + Itself high-born, its being derived and drawn + From the eternal self-existent fire; + Then, mazed with joy of its own heavenly breed, + Exultant-humble falls before its awful sire. + + 22. + + Art thou not, Jesus, busy like to us? + Thee shall I image as one sitting still, + Ordering all things in thy potent will, + Silent, and thinking ever to thy father, + Whose thought through thee flows multitudinous? + Or shall I think of thee as journeying, rather, + Ceaseless through space, because thou everything dost fill? + + 23. + + That all things thou dost fill, I well may think-- + Thy power doth reach me in so many ways. + Thou who in one the universe dost bind, + Passest through all the channels of my mind; + The sun of thought, across the farthest brink + Of consciousness thou sendest me thy rays; + Nor drawest them in when lost in sleep I sink. + + 24. + + So common are thy paths, thy coming seems + Only another phase oft of my me; + But nearer is my I, O Lord, to thee, + Than is my I to what itself it deems; + How better then couldst thou, O master, come, + Than from thy home across into my home, + Straight o'er the marches that I cannot see! + + 25. + + Marches?--'Twixt thee and me there's no division, + Except the meeting of thy will and mine, + The loves that love, the wills that will the same. + Where thine meets mine is my life's true condition; + Yea, only there it burns with any flame. + Thy will but holds me to my life's fruition. + O God, I would--I have no mine that is not thine. + + 26. + + I look for thee, and do not see thee come.-- + If I could see thee, 'twere a commoner thing, + And shallower comfort would thy coming bring. + Earth, sea, and air lie round me moveless dumb, + Never a tremble, an expectant hum, + To tell the Lord of Hearts is drawing near: + Lo! in the looking eyes, the looked for Lord is here. + + 27. + + I take a comfort from my very badness: + It is for lack of thee that I am bad. + How close, how infinitely closer yet + Must I come to thee, ere I can pay one debt + Which mere humanity has on me set! + "How close to thee!"--no wonder, soul, thou art glad! + Oneness with him is the eternal gladness. + + 28. + + What can there be so close as making and made? + Nought twinned can be so near; thou art more nigh + To me, my God, than is this thinking I + To that I mean when I by me is said; + Thou art more near me, than is my ready will + Near to my love, though both one place do fill;-- + Yet, till we are one,--Ah me! the long until! + + 29. + + Then shall my heart behold thee everywhere. + The vision rises of a speechless thing, + A perfectness of bliss beyond compare! + A time when I nor breathe nor think nor move, + But I do breathe and think and feel thy love, + The soul of all the songs the saints do sing!-- + And life dies out in bliss, to come again in prayer. + + 30. + + In the great glow of that great love, this death + Would melt away like a fantastic cloud; + I should no more shrink from it than from the breath + That makes in the frosty air a nimbus-shroud; + Thou, Love, hast conquered death, and I aloud + Should triumph over him, with thy saintly crowd, + That where the Lamb goes ever followeth. + + + + + +MAY. + + 1. + + WHAT though my words glance sideways from the thing + Which I would utter in thine ear, my sire! + Truth in the inward parts thou dost desire-- + Wise hunger, not a fitness fine of speech: + The little child that clamouring fails to reach + With upstretched hand the fringe of her attire, + Yet meets the mother's hand down hurrying. + + 2. + + Even when their foolish words they turned on him, + He did not his disciples send away; + He knew their hearts were foolish, eyes were dim, + And therefore by his side needs must they stay. + Thou will not, Lord, send me away from thee. + When I am foolish, make thy cock crow grim; + If that is not enough, turn, Lord, and look on me. + + 3. + + Another day of gloom and slanting rain! + Of closed skies, cold winds, and blight and bane! + Such not the weather, Lord, which thou art fain + To give thy chosen, sweet to heart and brain!-- + Until we mourn, thou keep'st the merry tune; + Thy hand unloved its pleasure must restrain, + Nor spoil both gift and child by lavishing too soon. + + 4. + + But all things shall be ours! Up, heart, and sing. + All things were made for us--we are God's heirs-- + Moon, sun, and wildest comets that do trail + A crowd of small worlds for a swiftness-tail! + Up from Thy depths in me, my child-heart bring-- + The child alone inherits anything: + God's little children-gods--all things are theirs! + + 5. + + Thy great deliverance is a greater thing + Than purest imagination can foregrasp; + A thing beyond all conscious hungering, + Beyond all hope that makes the poet sing. + It takes the clinging world, undoes its clasp, + Floats it afar upon a mighty sea, + And leaves us quiet with love and liberty and thee. + + 6. + + Through all the fog, through all earth's wintery sighs, + I scent Thy spring, I feel the eternal air, + Warm, soft, and dewy, filled with flowery eyes, + And gentle, murmuring motions everywhere-- + Of life in heart, and tree, and brook, and moss; + Thy breath wakes beauty, love, and bliss, and prayer, + And strength to hang with nails upon thy cross. + + 7. + + If thou hadst closed my life in seed and husk, + And cast me into soft, warm, damp, dark mould, + All unaware of light come through the dusk, + I yet should feel the split of each shelly fold, + Should feel the growing of my prisoned heart, + And dully dream of being slow unrolled, + And in some other vagueness taking part. + + 8. + + And little as the world I should foreknow + Up into which I was about to rise-- + Its rains, its radiance, airs, and warmth, and skies, + How it would greet me, how its wind would blow-- + As little, it may be, I do know the good + Which I for years half darkling have pursued-- + The second birth for which my nature cries. + + 9. + + The life that knows not, patient waits, nor longs:-- + I know, and would be patient, yet would long. + I can be patient for all coming songs, + But let me sing my one monotonous song. + To me the time is slow my mould among; + To quicker life I fain would spur and start + The aching growth at my dull-swelling heart. + + 10. + + Christ is the pledge that I shall one day see; + That one day, still with him, I shall awake, + And know my God, at one with him and free. + O lordly essence, come to life in me; + The will-throb let me feel that doth me make; + Now have I many a mighty hope in thee, + Then shall I rest although the universe should quake. + + 11. + + Haste to me, Lord, when this fool-heart of mine + Begins to gnaw itself with selfish craving; + Or, like a foul thing scarcely worth the saving, + Swoln up with wrath, desireth vengeance fine. + Haste, Lord, to help, when reason favours wrong; + Haste when thy soul, the high-born thing divine, + Is torn by passion's raving, maniac throng. + + 12. + + Fair freshness of the God-breathed spirit air, + Pass through my soul, and make it strong to love; + Wither with gracious cold what demons dare + Shoot from my hell into my world above; + Let them drop down, like leaves the sun doth sear, + And flutter far into the inane and bare, + Leaving my middle-earth calm, wise, and clear. + + 13. + + Even thou canst give me neither thought nor thing, + Were it the priceless pearl hid in the land, + Which, if I fix thereon a greedy gaze, + Becomes not poison that doth burn and cling; + Their own bad look my foolish eyes doth daze, + They see the gift, see not the giving hand-- + From the living root the apple dead I wring. + + 14. + + This versing, even the reading of the tale + That brings my heart its joy unspeakable, + Sometimes will softly, unsuspectedly hale + That heart from thee, and all its pulses quell. + Discovery's pride, joy's bliss, take aback my sail, + And sweep me from thy presence and my grace, + Because my eyes dropped from the master's face. + + 15. + + Afresh I seek thee. Lead me--once more I pray-- + Even should it be against my will, thy way. + Let me not feel thee foreign any hour, + Or shrink from thee as an estranged power. + Through doubt, through faith, through bliss, through stark dismay, + Through sunshine, wind, or snow, or fog, or shower, + Draw me to thee who art my only day. + + 16. + + I would go near thee--but I cannot press + Into thy presence--it helps not to presume. + Thy doors are deeds; the handles are their doing. + He whose day-life is obedient righteousness, + Who, after failure, or a poor success, + Rises up, stronger effort yet renewing-- + He finds thee, Lord, at length, in his own common room. + + 17. + + Lord, thou hast carried me through this evening's duty; + I am released, weary, and well content. + O soul, put on the evening dress of beauty, + Thy sunset-flush, of gold and purple blent!-- + Alas, the moment I turn to my heart, + Feeling runs out of doors, or stands apart! + But such as I am, Lord, take me as thou art. + + 18. + + The word he then did speak, fits now as then, + For the same kind of men doth mock at it. + God-fools, God-drunkards these do call the men + Who think the poverty of their all not fit, + Borne humbly by their art, their voice, their pen, + Save for its allness, at thy feet to fling, + For whom all is unfit that is not everything. + + 19. + + O Christ, my life, possess me utterly. + Take me and make a little Christ of me. + If I am anything but thy father's son, + 'Tis something not yet from the darkness won. + Oh, give me light to live with open eyes. + Oh, give me life to hope above all skies. + Give me thy spirit to haunt the Father with my cries. + + 20. + + 'Tis hard for man to rouse his spirit up-- + It is the human creative agony, + Though but to hold the heart an empty cup, + Or tighten on the team the rigid rein. + Many will rather lie among the slain + Than creep through narrow ways the light to gain-- + Than wake the will, and be born bitterly. + + 21. + + But he who would be born again indeed, + Must wake his soul unnumbered times a day, + And urge himself to life with holy greed; + Now ope his bosom to the Wind's free play; + And now, with patience forceful, hard, lie still, + Submiss and ready to the making will, + Athirst and empty, for God's breath to fill. + + 22. + + All times are thine whose will is our remede. + Man turns to thee, thou hast not turned away; + The look he casts, thy labour that did breed-- + It is thy work, thy business all the day: + That look, not foregone fitness, thou dost heed. + For duty absolute how be fitter than now? + Or learn by shunning?--Lord, I come; help thou. + + 23. + + Ever above my coldness and my doubt + Rises up something, reaching forth a hand: + This thing I know, but cannot understand. + Is it the God in me that rises out + Beyond my self, trailing it up with him, + Towards the spirit-home, the freedom-land, + Beyond my conscious ken, my near horizon's brim? + + 24. + + O God of man, my heart would worship all + My fellow men, the flashes from thy fire; + Them in good sooth my lofty kindred call, + Born of the same one heart, the perfect sire; + Love of my kind alone can set me free; + Help me to welcome all that come to me, + Not close my doors and dream solitude liberty! + + 25. + + A loving word may set some door ajar + Where seemed no door, and that may enter in + Which lay at the heart of that same loving word. + In my still chamber dwell thou always, Lord; + Thy presence there will carriage true afford; + True words will flow, pure of design to win; + And to my men my door shall have no bar. + + 26. + + My prayers, my God, flow from what I am not; + I think thy answers make me what I am. + Like weary waves thought follows upon thought, + But the still depth beneath is all thine own, + And there thou mov'st in paths to us unknown. + Out of strange strife thy peace is strangely wrought; + If the lion in us pray--thou answerest the lamb. + + 27. + + So bound in selfishness am I, so chained, + I know it must be glorious to be free + But know not what, full-fraught, the word doth mean. + By loss on loss I have severely gained + Wisdom enough my slavery to see; + But liberty, pure, absolute, serene, + No freest-visioned slave has ever seen. + + 28. + + For, that great freedom how should such as I + Be able to imagine in such a self? + Less hopeless far the miser man might try + To image the delight of friend-shared pelf. + Freedom is to be like thee, face and heart; + To know it, Lord, I must be as thou art, + I cannot breed the imagination high. + + 29. + + Yet hints come to me from the realm unknown; + Airs drift across the twilight border land, + Odoured with life; and as from some far strand + Sea-murmured, whispers to my heart are blown + That fill me with a joy I cannot speak, + Yea, from whose shadow words drop faint and weak: + Thee, God, I shadow in that region grand. + + 30. + + O Christ, who didst appear in Judah land, + Thence by the cross go back to God's right hand, + Plain history, and things our sense beyond, + In thee together come and correspond: + How rulest thou from the undiscovered bourne + The world-wise world that laughs thee still to scorn? + Please, Lord, let thy disciple understand. + + 31. + + 'Tis heart on heart thou rulest. Thou art the same + At God's right hand as here exposed to shame, + And therefore workest now as thou didst then-- + Feeding the faint divine in humble men. + Through all thy realms from thee goes out heart-power, + Working the holy, satisfying hour, + When all shall love, and all be loved again. + + + + + +JUNE. + + 1. + + FROM thine, as then, the healing virtue goes + Into our hearts--that is the Father's plan. + From heart to heart it sinks, it steals, it flows, + From these that know thee still infecting those. + Here is my heart--from thine, Lord, fill it up, + That I may offer it as the holy cup + Of thy communion to my every man. + + 2. + + When thou dost send out whirlwinds on thy seas, + Alternatest thy lightning with its roar, + Thy night with morning, and thy clouds with stars + Or, mightier force unseen in midst of these, + Orderest the life in every airy pore; + Guidest men's efforts, rul'st mishaps and jars,-- + 'Tis only for their hearts, and nothing more. + + 3. + + This, this alone thy father careth for-- + That men should live hearted throughout with thee-- + Because the simple, only life thou art, + Of the very truth of living, the pure heart. + For this, deep waters whelm the fruitful lea, + Wars ravage, famine wastes, plague withers, nor + Shall cease till men have chosen the better part. + + 4. + + But, like a virtuous medicine, self-diffused + Through all men's hearts thy love shall sink and float; + Till every feeling false, and thought unwise, + Selfish, and seeking, shall, sternly disused, + Wither, and die, and shrivel up to nought; + And Christ, whom they did hang 'twixt earth and skies, + Up in the inner world of men arise. + + 5. + + Make me a fellow worker with thee, Christ; + Nought else befits a God-born energy; + Of all that's lovely, only lives the highest, + Lifing the rest that it shall never die. + Up I would be to help thee--for thou liest + Not, linen-swathed in Joseph's garden-tomb, + But walkest crowned, creation's heart and bloom. + + 6. + + My God, when I would lift my heart to thee, + Imagination instantly doth set + A cloudy something, thin, and vast, and vague, + To stand for him who is the fact of me; + Then up the Will, and doth her weakness plague + To pay the heart her duty and her debt, + Showing the face that hearkeneth to the plea. + + 7. + + And hence it comes that thou at times dost seem + To fade into an image of my mind; + I, dreamer, cover, hide thee up with dream,-- + Thee, primal, individual entity!-- + No likeness will I seek to frame or find, + But cry to that which thou dost choose to be, + To that which is my sight, therefore I cannot see. + + 8. + + No likeness? Lo, the Christ! Oh, large Enough! + I see, yet fathom not the face he wore. + He is--and out of him there is no stuff + To make a man. Let fail me every spark + Of blissful vision on my pathway rough, + I have seen much, and trust the perfect more, + While to his feet my faith crosses the wayless dark. + + 9. + + Faith is the human shadow of thy might. + Thou art the one self-perfect life, and we + Who trust thy life, therein join on to thee, + Taking our part in self-creating light. + To trust is to step forward out of the night-- + To be--to share in the outgoing Will + That lives and is, because outgoing still. + + 10. + + I am lost before thee, Father! yet I will + Claim of thee my birthright ineffable. + Thou lay'st it on me, son, to claim thee, sire; + To that which thou hast made me, I aspire; + To thee, the sun, upflames thy kindled fire. + No man presumes in that to which he was born; + Less than the gift to claim, would be the giver to scorn. + + 11. + + Henceforth all things thy dealings are with me + For out of thee is nothing, or can be, + And all things are to draw us home to thee. + What matter that the knowers scoffing say, + "This is old folly, plain to the new day"?-- + If thou be such as thou, and they as they, + Unto thy Let there be, they still must answer Nay. + + 12. + + They will not, therefore cannot, do not know him. + Nothing they could know, could be God. In sooth, + Unto the true alone exists the truth. + They say well, saying Nature doth not show him: + Truly she shows not what she cannot show; + And they deny the thing they cannot know. + Who sees a glory, towards it will go. + + 13. + + Faster no step moves God because the fool + Shouts to the universe God there is none; + The blindest man will not preach out the sun, + Though on his darkness he should found a school. + It may be, when he finds he is not dead, + Though world and body, sight and sound are fled, + Some eyes may open in his foolish head. + + 14. + + When I am very weary with hard thought, + And yet the question burns and is not quenched, + My heart grows cool when to remembrance wrought + That thou who know'st the light-born answer sought + Know'st too the dark where the doubt lies entrenched-- + Know'st with what seemings I am sore perplexed, + And that with thee I wait, nor needs my soul be vexed. + + 15. + + Who sets himself not sternly to be good, + Is but a fool, who judgment of true things + Has none, however oft the claim renewed. + And he who thinks, in his great plenitude, + To right himself, and set his spirit free, + Without the might of higher communings, + Is foolish also--save he willed himself to be. + + 16. + + How many helps thou giv'st to those would learn! + To some sore pain, to others a sinking heart; + To some a weariness worse than any smart; + To some a haunting, fearing, blind concern; + Madness to some; to some the shaking dart + Of hideous death still following as they turn; + To some a hunger that will not depart. + + 17. + + To some thou giv'st a deep unrest--a scorn + Of all they are or see upon the earth; + A gaze, at dusky night and clearing morn, + As on a land of emptiness and dearth; + To some a bitter sorrow; to some the sting + Of love misprized--of sick abandoning; + To some a frozen heart, oh, worse than anything! + + 18. + + To some a mocking demon, that doth set + The poor foiled will to scoff at the ideal, + But loathsome makes to them their life of jar. + The messengers of Satan think to mar, + But make--driving the soul from false to feal-- + To thee, the reconciler, the one real, + In whom alone the would be and the is are met. + + 19. + + Me thou hast given an infinite unrest, + A hunger--not at first after known good, + But something vague I knew not, and yet would-- + The veiled Isis, thy will not understood; + A conscience tossing ever in my breast; + And something deeper, that will not be expressed, + Save as the Spirit thinking in the Spirit's brood. + + 20. + + But now the Spirit and I are one in this-- + My hunger now is after righteousness; + My spirit hopes in God to set me free + From the low self loathed of the higher me. + Great elder brother of my second birth, + Dear o'er all names but one, in heaven or earth, + Teach me all day to love eternally. + + 21. + + Lo, Lord, thou know'st, I would not anything + That in the heart of God holds not its root; + Nor falsely deem there is any life at all + That doth in him nor sleep nor shine nor sing; + I know the plants that bear the noisome fruit + Of burning and of ashes and of gall-- + From God's heart torn, rootless to man's they cling. + + 22. + + Life-giving love rots to devouring fire; + Justice corrupts to despicable revenge; + Motherhood chokes in the dam's jealous mire; + Hunger for growth turns fluctuating change; + Love's anger grand grows spiteful human wrath, + Hunting men out of conscience' holy path; + And human kindness takes the tattler's range. + + 23. + + Nothing can draw the heart of man but good; + Low good it is that draws him from the higher-- + So evil--poison uncreate from food. + Never a foul thing, with temptation dire, + Tempts hellward force created to aspire, + But walks in wronged strength of imprisoned Truth, + Whose mantle also oft the Shame indu'th. + + 24. + + Love in the prime not yet I understand-- + Scarce know the love that loveth at first hand: + Help me my selfishness to scatter and scout; + Blow on me till my love loves burningly; + Then the great love will burn the mean self out, + And I, in glorious simplicity, + Living by love, shall love unspeakably. + + 25. + + Oh, make my anger pure--let no worst wrong + Rouse in me the old niggard selfishness. + Give me thine indignation--which is love + Turned on the evil that would part love's throng; + Thy anger scathes because it needs must bless, + Gathering into union calm and strong + All things on earth, and under, and above. + + 26. + + Make my forgiveness downright--such as I + Should perish if I did not have from thee; + I let the wrong go, withered up and dry, + Cursed with divine forgetfulness in me. + 'Tis but self-pity, pleasant, mean, and sly, + Low whispering bids the paltry memory live:-- + What am I brother for, but to forgive! + + 27. + + "Thou art my father's child--come to my heart:" + Thus must I say, or Thou must say, "Depart;" + Thus I would say--I would be as thou art; + Thus I must say, or still I work athwart + The absolute necessity and law + That dwells in me, and will me asunder draw, + If in obedience I leave any flaw. + + 28. + + Lord, I forgive--and step in unto thee. + If I have enemies, Christ deal with them: + He hath forgiven me and Jerusalem. + Lord, set me from self-inspiration free, + And let me live and think from thee, not me-- + Rather, from deepest me then think and feel, + At centre of thought's swift-revolving wheel. + + 29. + + I sit o'ercanopied with Beauty's tent, + Through which flies many a golden-winged dove, + Well watched of Fancy's tender eyes up bent; + A hundred Powers wait on me, ministering; + A thousand treasures Art and Knowledge bring; + Will, Conscience, Reason tower the rest above; + But in the midst, alone, I gladness am and love. + + 30. + + 'Tis but a vision, Lord; I do not mean + That thus I am, or have one moment been-- + 'Tis but a picture hung upon my wall, + To measure dull contentment therewithal, + And know behind the human how I fall;-- + A vision true, of what one day shall be, + When thou hast had thy very will with me. + + + + + +JULY. + + 1. + + ALAS, my tent! see through it a whirlwind sweep! + Moaning, poor Fancy's doves are swept away. + I sit alone, a sorrow half asleep, + My consciousness the blackness all astir. + No pilgrim I, a homeless wanderer-- + For how canst Thou be in the darkness deep, + Who dwellest only in the living day? + + 2. + + It must be, somewhere in my fluttering tent, + Strange creatures, half tamed only yet, are pent-- + Dragons, lop-winged birds, and large-eyed snakes! + Hark! through the storm the saddest howling breaks! + Or are they loose, roaming about the bent, + The darkness dire deepening with moan and scream?-- + My Morning, rise, and all shall be a dream. + + 3. + + Not thine, my Lord, the darkness all is mine-- + Save that, as mine, my darkness too is thine: + All things are thine to save or to destroy-- + Destroy my darkness, rise my perfect joy; + Love primal, the live coal of every night, + Flame out, scare the ill things with radiant fright, + And fill my tent with laughing morn's delight. + + 4. + + Master, thou workest with such common things-- + Low souls, weak hearts, I mean--and hast to use, + Therefore, such common means and rescuings, + That hard we find it, as we sit and muse, + To think thou workest in us verily: + Bad sea-boats we, and manned with wretched crews-- + That doubt the captain, watch the storm-spray flee. + + 5. + + Thou art hampered in thy natural working then + When beings designed on freedom's holy plan + Will not be free: with thy poor, foolish men, + Thou therefore hast to work just like a man. + But when, tangling thyself in their sore need, + Thou hast to freedom fashioned them indeed, + Then wilt thou grandly move, and Godlike speed. + + 6. + + Will this not then show grandest fact of all-- + In thy creation victory most renowned-- + That thou hast wrought thy will by slow and small, + And made men like thee, though thy making bound + By that which they were not, and could not be + Until thou mad'st them make along with thee?-- + Master, the tardiness is but in me. + + 7. + + Hence come thy checks--because I still would run + My head into the sand, nor flutter aloft + Towards thy home, with thy wind under me. + 'Tis because I am mean, thy ways so oft + Look mean to me; my rise is low begun; + But scarce thy will doth grasp me, ere I see, + For my arrest and rise, its stern necessity. + + 8. + + Like clogs upon the pinions of thy plan + We hang--like captives on thy chariot-wheels, + Who should climb up and ride with Death's conqueror; + Therefore thy train along the world's highway steals + So slow to the peace of heart-reluctant man. + What shall we do to spread the wing and soar, + Nor straiten thy deliverance any more? + + 9. + + The sole way to put flight into the wing, + To preen its feathers, and to make them grow, + Is to heed humbly every smallest thing + With which the Christ in us has aught to do. + So will the Christ from child to manhood go, + Obedient to the father Christ, and so + Sweet holy change will turn all our old things to new. + + 10. + + Creation thou dost work by faint degrees, + By shade and shadow from unseen beginning; + Far, far apart, in unthought mysteries + Of thy own dark, unfathomable seas, + Thou will'st thy will; and thence, upon the earth-- + Slow travelling, his way through centuries winning-- + A child at length arrives at never ending birth. + + 11. + + Well mayst thou then work on indocile hearts + By small successes, disappointments small; + By nature, weather, failure, or sore fall; + By shame, anxiety, bitterness, and smarts; + By loneliness, by weary loss of zest:-- + The rags, the husks, the swine, the hunger-quest, + Drive home the wanderer to the father's breast. + + 12. + + How suddenly some rapid turn of thought + May throw the life-machine all out of gear, + Clouding the windows with the steam of doubt, + Filling the eyes with dust, with noise the ear! + Who knows not then where dwells the engineer, + Rushes aghast into the pathless night, + And wanders in a land of dreary fright. + + 13. + + Amazed at sightless whirring of their wheels, + Confounded with the recklessness and strife, + Distract with fears of what may next ensue, + Some break rude exit from the house of life, + And plunge into a silence out of view-- + Whence not a cry, no wafture once reveals + What door they have broke open with the knife. + + 14. + + Help me, my Father, in whatever dismay, + Whatever terror in whatever shape, + To hold the faster by thy garment's hem; + When my heart sinks, oh, lift it up, I pray; + Thy child should never fear though hell should gape, + Not blench though all the ills that men affray + Stood round him like the Roman round Jerusalem. + + 15. + + Too eager I must not be to understand. + How should the work the master goes about + Fit the vague sketch my compasses have planned? + I am his house--for him to go in and out. + He builds me now--and if I cannot see + At any time what he is doing with me, + 'Tis that he makes the house for me too grand. + + 16. + + The house is not for me--it is for him. + His royal thoughts require many a stair, + Many a tower, many an outlook fair, + Of which I have no thought, and need no care. + Where I am most perplexed, it may be there + Thou mak'st a secret chamber, holy-dim, + Where thou wilt come to help my deepest prayer. + + 17. + + I cannot tell why this day I am ill; + But I am well because it is thy will-- + Which is to make me pure and right like thee. + Not yet I need escape--'tis bearable + Because thou knowest. And when harder things + Shall rise and gather, and overshadow me, + I shall have comfort in thy strengthenings. + + 18. + + How do I live when thou art far away?-- + When I am sunk, and lost, and dead in sleep, + Or in some dream with no sense in its play? + When weary-dull, or drowned in study deep?-- + O Lord, I live so utterly on thee, + I live when I forget thee utterly-- + Not that thou thinkest of, but thinkest me. + + 19. + + Thou far!--that word the holy truth doth blur. + Doth the great ocean from the small fish run + When it sleeps fast in its low weedy bower? + Is the sun far from any smallest flower, + That lives by his dear presence every hour? + Are they not one in oneness without stir-- + The flower the flower because the sun the sun? + + 20. + + "Dear presence every hour"!--what of the night, + When crumpled daisies shut gold sadness in; + And some do hang the head for lack of light, + Sick almost unto death with absence-blight?-- + Thy memory then, warm-lingering in the ground, + Mourned dewy in the air, keeps their hearts sound, + Till fresh with day their lapsed life begin. + + 21. + + All things are shadows of the shining true: + Sun, sea, and air--close, potent, hurtless fire-- + Flowers from their mother's prison--dove, and dew-- + Every thing holds a slender guiding clue + Back to the mighty oneness:--hearts of faith + Know thee than light, than heat, endlessly nigher, + Our life's life, carpenter of Nazareth. + + 22. + + Sometimes, perhaps, the spiritual blood runs slow, + And soft along the veins of will doth flow, + Seeking God's arteries from which it came. + Or does the etherial, creative flame + Turn back upon itself, and latent grow?-- + It matters not what figure or what name, + If thou art in me, and I am not to blame. + + 23. + + In such God-silence, the soul's nest, so long + As all is still, no flutter and no song, + Is safe. But if my soul begin to act + Without some waking to the eternal fact + That my dear life is hid with Christ in God-- + I think and move a creature of earth's clod, + Stand on the finite, act upon the wrong. + + 24. + + My soul this sermon hence for itself prepares:-- + "Then is there nothing vile thou mayst not do, + Buffeted in a tumult of low cares, + And treacheries of the old man 'gainst the new."-- + Lord, in my spirit let thy spirit move, + Warning, that it may not have to reprove:-- + In my dead moments, master, stir the prayers. + + 25. + + Lord, let my soul o'erburdened then feel thee + Thrilling through all its brain's stupidity. + If I must slumber, heedless of ill harms, + Let it not be but in my Father's arms; + Outside the shelter of his garment's fold, + All is a waste, a terror-haunted wold.-- + Lord, keep me. 'Tis thy child that cries. Behold. + + 26. + + Some say that thou their endless love host won + By deeds for them which I may not believe + Thou ever didst, or ever willedst done: + What matter, so they love thee? They receive + Eternal more than the poor loom and wheel + Of their invention ever wove and spun.-- + I love thee for I must, thine all from head to heel. + + 27. + + The love of thee will set all notions right. + Right save by love no thought can be or may; + Only love's knowledge is the primal light. + Questions keep camp along love's shining coast-- + Challenge my love and would my entrance stay: + Across the buzzing, doubting, challenging host, + I rush to thee, and cling, and cry--Thou know'st. + + 28. + + Oh, let me live in thy realities, + Nor substitute my notions for thy facts, + Notion with notion making leagues and pacts; + They are to truth but as dream-deeds to acts, + And questioned, make me doubt of everything.-- + "O Lord, my God," my heart gets up and cries, + "Come thy own self, and with thee my faith bring." + + 29. + + O master, my desires to work, to know, + To be aware that I do live and grow-- + All restless wish for anything not thee, + I yield, and on thy altar offer me. + Let me no more from out thy presence go, + But keep me waiting watchful for thy will-- + Even while I do it, waiting watchful still. + + 30. + + Thou art the Lord of life, the secret thing. + Thou wilt give endless more than I could find, + Even if without thee I could go and seek; + For thou art one, Christ, with my deepest mind, + Duty alive, self-willed, in me dost speak, + And to a deeper purer being sting: + I come to thee, my life, my causing kind. + + 31. + + Nothing is alien in thy world immense-- + No look of sky or earth or man or beast; + "In the great hand of God I stand, and thence" + Look out on life, his endless, holy feast. + To try to feel is but to court despair, + To dig for a sun within a garden-fence: + Who does thy will, O God, he lives upon thy air. + + + + + +AUGUST. + + 1. + + SO shall abundant entrance me be given + Into the truth, my life's inheritance. + Lo! as the sun shoots straight from out his tomb, + God-floated, casting round a lordly glance + Into the corners of his endless room, + So, through the rent which thou, O Christ, hast riven, + I enter liberty's divine expanse. + + 2. + + It will be so--ah, so it is not now! + Who seeks thee for a little lazy peace, + Then, like a man all weary of the plough, + That leaves it standing in the furrow's crease, + Turns from thy presence for a foolish while, + Till comes again the rasp of unrest's file, + From liberty is distant many a mile. + + 3. + + Like one that stops, and drinks, and turns, and goes + Into a land where never water flows, + There travels on, the dry and thirsty day, + Until the hot night veils the farther way, + Then turns and finds again the bubbling pool-- + Here would I build my house, take up my stay, + Nor ever leave my Sychar's margin cool. + + 4. + + Keep me, Lord, with thee. I call from out the dark-- + Hear in thy light, of which I am a spark. + I know not what is mine and what is thine-- + Of branch and stem I miss the differing mark-- + But if a mere hair's-breadth me separateth, + That hair's-breadth is eternal, infinite death. + For sap thy dead branch calls, O living vine! + + 5. + + I have no choice, I must do what I can; + But thou dost me, and all things else as well; + Thou wilt take care thy child shall grow a man. + Rouse thee, my faith; be king; with life be one; + To trust in God is action's highest kind; + Who trusts in God, his heart with life doth swell; + Faith opens all the windows to God's wind. + + 6. + + O Father, thou art my eternity. + Not on the clasp Of consciousness--on thee + My life depends; and I can well afford + All to forget, so thou remember, Lord. + In thee I rest; in sleep thou dost me fold; + In thee I labour; still in thee, grow old; + And dying, shall I not in thee, my Life, be bold? + + 7. + + In holy things may be unholy greed. + Thou giv'st a glimpse of many a lovely thing, + Not to be stored for use in any mind, + But only for the present spiritual need. + The holiest bread, if hoarded, soon will breed + The mammon-moth, the having-pride, I find. + 'Tis momently thy heart gives out heart-quickening. + + 8. + + It is thyself, and neither this nor that, + Nor anything, told, taught, or dreamed of thee, + That keeps us live. The holy maid who sat + Low at thy feet, choosing the better part, + Rising, bore with her--what a memory! + Yet, brooding only on that treasure, she + Had soon been roused by conscious loss of heart. + + 9. + + I am a fool when I would stop and think, + And lest I lose my thoughts, from duty shrink. + It is but avarice in another shape. + 'Tis as the vine-branch were to hoard the grape, + Nor trust the living root beneath the sod. + What trouble is that child to thee, my God, + Who sips thy gracious cup, and will not drink! + + 10. + + True, faithful action only is the life, + The grapes for which we feel the pruning knife. + Thoughts are but leaves; they fall and feed the ground. + The holy seasons, swift and slow, go round; + The ministering leaves return, fresh, large, and rife-- + But fresher, larger, more thoughts to the brain:-- + Farewell, my dove!--come back, hope-laden, through the rain. + + 11. + + Well may this body poorer, feebler grow! + It is undressing for its last sweet bed; + But why should the soul, which death shall never know, + Authority, and power, and memory shed? + It is that love with absolute faith would wed; + God takes the inmost garments off his child, + To have him in his arms, naked and undefiled. + + 12. + + Thou art my knowledge and my memory, + No less than my real, deeper life, my love. + I will not fool, degrade myself to trust + In less than that which maketh me say Me, + In less than that causing itself to be. + Then art within me, behind, beneath, above-- + I will be thine because I may and must. + + 13. + + Thou art the truth, the life. Thou, Lord, wilt see + To every question that perplexes me. + I am thy being; and my dignity + Is written with my name down in thy book; + Thou wilt care for it. Never shall I think + Of anything that thou mightst overlook:-- + In faith-born triumph at thy feet I sink. + + 14. + + Thou carest more for that which I call mine, + In same sort--better manner than I could, + Even if I knew creation's ends divine, + Rousing in me this vague desire of good. + Thou art more to me than my desires' whole brood; + Thou art the only person, and I cry + Unto the father I of this my I. + + 15. + + Thou who inspirest prayer, then bend'st thine ear; + It, crying with love's grand respect to hear! + I cannot give myself to thee aright-- + With the triumphant uttermost of gift; + That cannot be till I am full of light-- + To perfect deed a perfect will must lift:-- + Inspire, possess, compel me, first of every might. + + 16. + + I do not wonder men can ill believe + Who make poor claims upon thee, perfect Lord; + Then most I trust when most I would receive. + I wonder not that such do pray and grieve-- + The God they think, to be God is not fit. + Then only in thy glory I seem to sit, + When my heart claims from thine an infinite accord. + + 17. + + More life I need ere I myself can be. + Sometimes, when the eternal tide ebbs low, + A moment weary of my life I grow-- + Weary of my existence' self, I mean, + Not of its plodding, not its wind and snow + Then to thy knee trusting I turn, and lean: + Thou will'st I live, and I do will with thee. + + 18. + + Dost thou mean sometimes that we should forget thee, + Dropping the veil of things 'twixt thee and us?-- + Ah, not that we should lose thee and regret thee! + But that, we turning from our windows thus, + The frost-fixed God should vanish from the pane, + Sun-melted, and a moment, Father, let thee + Look like thyself straight into heart and brain. + + 19. + + For sometimes when I am busy among men, + With heart and brain an open thoroughfare + For faces, words, and thoughts other than mine, + And a pause comes at length--oh, sudden then, + Back throbs the tide with rush exultant rare; + And for a gentle moment I divine + Thy dawning presence flush my tremulous air. + + 20. + + If I have to forget thee, do thou see + It be a good, not bad forgetfulness; + That all its mellow, truthful air be free + From dusty noes, and soft with many a yes; + That as thy breath my life, my life may be + Man's breath. So when thou com'st at hour unknown, + Thou shalt find nothing in me but thine own. + + 21. + + Thou being in me, in my deepest me, + Through all the time I do not think of thee, + Shall I not grow at last so true within + As to forget thee and yet never sin? + Shall I not walk the loud world's busy way, + Yet in thy palace-porch sit all the day? + Not conscious think of thee, yet never from thee stray? + + 22. + + Forget!--Oh, must it be?--Would it were rather + That every sense was so filled with my father + That not in anything could I forget him, + But deepest, highest must in all things set him!-- + Yet if thou think in me, God, what great matter + Though my poor thought to former break and latter-- + As now my best thoughts; break, before thee foiled, and scatter! + + 23. + + Some way there must be of my not forgetting, + And thither thou art leading me, my God. + The child that, weary of his mother's petting, + Runs out the moment that his feet are shod, + May see her face in every flower he sees, + And she, although beyond the window sitting, + Be nearer him than when he sat upon her knees. + + 24. + + What if, when I at last, at the long last, + Shall see thy face, my Lord, my life's delight, + It should not be the face that hath been glassed + In poor imagination's mirror slight! + Will my soul sink, and shall I stand aghast, + Beggared of hope, my heart a conscious blight, + Amazed and lost--death's bitterness come and not passed? + + 25. + + Ah, no! for from thy heart the love will press, + And shining from thy perfect human face, + Will sink into me like the father's kiss; + And deepening wide the gulf of consciousness + Beyond imagination's lowest abyss, + Will, with the potency of creative grace, + Lord it throughout the larger thinking place. + + 26. + + Thus God-possessed, new born, ah, not for long + Should I the sight behold, beatified, + Know it creating in me, feel the throng + Of speechless hopes out-throbbing like a tide, + And my heart rushing, borne aloft the flood, + To offer at his feet its living blood-- + Ere, glory-hid, the other face I spied. + + 27. + + For out imagination is, in small, + And with the making-difference that must be, + Mirror of God's creating mirror; all + That shows itself therein, that formeth he, + And there is Christ, no bodiless vanity, + Though, face to face, the mighty perfectness + With glory blurs the dim-reflected less. + + 28. + + I clasp thy feet, O father of the living! + Thou wilt not let my fluttering hopes be more, + Or lovelier, or greater, than thy giving! + Surely thy ships will bring to my poor shore, + Of gold and peacocks such a shining store + As will laugh all the dreams to holy scorn, + Of love and sorrow that were ever born. + + 29. + + Sometimes it seems pure natural to trust, + And trust right largely, grandly, infinitely, + Daring the splendour of the giver's part; + At other times, the whole earth is but dust, + The sky is dust, yea, dust the human heart; + Then art thou nowhere, there is no room for thee + In the great dust-heap of eternity. + + 30. + + But why should it be possible to mistrust-- + Nor possible only, but its opposite hard? + Why should not man believe because he must-- + By sight's compulsion? Why should he be scarred + With conflict? worn with doubting fine and long?-- + No man is fit for heaven's musician throng + Who has not tuned an instrument all shook and jarred. + + 31. + + Therefore, O Lord, when all things common seem, + When all is dust, and self the centre clod, + When grandeur is a hopeless, foolish dream, + And anxious care more reasonable than God,-- + Out of the ashes I will call to thee-- + In spite of dead distrust call earnestly:-- + Oh thou who livest, call, then answer dying me. + + + + + +SEPTEMBER. + + 1. + + WE are a shadow and a shining, we! + One moment nothing seems but what we see, + Nor aught to rule but common circumstance-- + Nought is to seek but praise, to shun but chance; + A moment more, and God is all in all, + And not a sparrow from its nest can fall + But from the ground its chirp goes up into his hall. + + 2. + + I know at least which is the better mood. + When on a heap of cares I sit and brood, + Like Job upon his ashes, sorely vext, + I feel a lower thing than when I stood + The world's true heir, fearless as, on its stalk, + A lily meeting Jesus in his walk: + I am not all mood--I can judge betwixt. + + 3. + + Such differing moods can scarce to one belong; + Shall the same fountain sweet and bitter yield? + Shall what bore late the dust-mood, think and brood + Till it bring forth the great believing mood? + Or that which bore the grand mood, bald and peeled, + Sit down to croon the shabby sensual song, + To hug itself, and sink from wrong to meaner wrong? + + 4. + + In the low mood, the mere man acts alone, + Moved by impulses which, if from within, + Yet far outside the centre man begin; + But in the grand mood, every softest tone + Comes from the living God at very heart-- + From thee who infinite core of being art, + Thee who didst call our names ere ever we could sin. + + 5. + + There is a coward sparing in the heart, + Offspring of penury and low-born fear:-- + Prayer must take heed nor overdo its part, + Asking too much of him with open ear! + Sinners must wait, not seek the very best, + Cry out for peace, and be of middling cheer:-- + False heart! thou cheatest God, and dost thy life molest. + + 6. + + Thou hungerest not, thou thirstest not enough. + Thou art a temporizing thing, mean heart. + Down-drawn, thou pick'st up straws and wretched stuff, + Stooping as if the world's floor were the chart + Of the long way thy lazy feet must tread. + Thou dreamest of the crown hung o'er thy head-- + But that is safe--thou gatherest hairs and fluff! + + 7. + + Man's highest action is to reach up higher, + Stir up himself to take hold of his sire. + Then best I love you, dearest, when I go + And cry to love's life I may love you so + As to content the yearning, making love, + That perfects strength divine in weakness' fire, + And from the broken pots calls out the silver dove. + + 8. + + Poor am I, God knows, poor as withered leaf; + Poorer or richer than, I dare not ask. + To love aright, for me were hopeless task, + Eternities too high to comprehend. + But shall I tear my heart in hopeless grief, + Or rise and climb, and run and kneel, and bend, + And drink the primal love--so love in chief? + + 9. + + Then love shall wake and be its own high life. + Then shall I know 'tis I that love indeed-- + Ready, without a moment's questioning strife, + To be forgot, like bursting water-bead, + For the high good of the eternal dear; + All hope, all claim, resting, with spirit clear, + Upon the living love that every love doth breed. + + 10. + + Ever seem to fail in utterance. + Sometimes amid the swift melodious dance + Of fluttering words--as if it had not been, + The thought has melted, vanished into night; + Sometimes I say a thing I did not mean, + And lo! 'tis better, by thy ordered chance, + Than what eluded me, floating too feathery light. + + 11. + + If thou wouldst have me speak, Lord, give me speech. + So many cries are uttered now-a-days, + That scarce a song, however clear and true, + Will thread the jostling tumult safe, and reach + The ears of men buz-filled with poor denays: + Barb thou my words with light, make my song new, + And men will hear, or when I sing or preach. + + 12. + + Can anything go wrong with me? I ask-- + And the same moment, at a sudden pain, + Stand trembling. Up from the great river's brim + Comes a cold breath; the farther bank is dim; + The heaven is black with clouds and coming rain; + High soaring faith is grown a heavy task, + And all is wrong with weary heart and brain. + + 13. + + "Things do go wrong. I know grief, pain, and fear. + I see them lord it sore and wide around." + From her fair twilight answers Truth, star-crowned, + "Things wrong are needful where wrong things abound. + Things go not wrong; but Pain, with dog and spear, + False faith from human hearts will hunt and hound. + The earth shall quake 'neath them that trust the solid ground." + + 14. + + Things go not wrong when sudden I fall prone, + But when I snatch my upheld hand from thine, + And, proud or careless, think to walk alone. + Then things go wrong, when I, poor, silly sheep, + To shelves and pits from the good pasture creep; + Not when the shepherd leaves the ninety and nine, + And to the mountains goes, after the foolish one. + + 15. + + Lo! now thy swift dogs, over stone and bush, + After me, straying sheep, loud barking, rush. + There's Fear, and Shame, and Empty-heart, and Lack, + And Lost-love, and a thousand at their back! + I see thee not, but know thou hound'st them on, + And I am lost indeed--escape is none. + See! there they come, down streaming on my track! + + 16. + + I rise and run, staggering--double and run.-- + But whither?--whither?--whither for escape? + The sea lies all about this long-necked cape-- + There come the dogs, straight for me every one-- + Me, live despair, live centre of alarms!-- + Ah! lo! 'twixt me and all his barking harms, + The shepherd, lo!--I run--fall folded in his arms. + + 17. + + There let the dogs yelp, let them growl and leap; + It is no matter--I will go to sleep. + Like a spent cloud pass pain and grief and fear, + Out from behind it unchanged love shines clear.-- + Oh, save me, Christ!--I know not what I am, + I was thy stupid, self-willed, greedy lamb, + Would be thy honest and obedient sheep. + + 18. + + Why is it that so often I return + From social converse with a spirit worn, + A lack, a disappointment--even a sting + Of shame, as for some low, unworthy thing?-- + Because I have not, careful, first of all, + Set my door open wide, back to the wall, + Ere I at others' doors did knock and call. + + 19. + + Yet more and more of me thou dost demand; + My faith and hope in God alone shall stand, + The life of law--not trust the rain and sun + To draw the golden harvest o'er the land. + I must not say--"This too will pass and die," + "The wind will change," "Round will the seasons run." + Law is the body of will, of conscious harmony. + + 20. + + Who trusts a law, might worship a god of wood; + Half his soul slumbers, if it be not dead. + He is a live thing shut in chaos crude, + Hemmed in with dragons--a remorseless head + Still hanging over its uplifted eyes. + No; God is all in all, and nowhere dies-- + The present heart and thinking will of good. + + 21. + + Law is our schoolmaster. Our master, Christ, + Lived under all our laws, yet always prayed-- + So walked the water when the storm was highest.-- + Law is Thy father's; thou hast it obeyed, + And it thereby subject to thee hast made-- + To rule it, master, for thy brethren's sakes:-- + Well may he guide the law by whom law's maker makes. + + 22. + + Death haunts our souls with dissolution's strife; + Soaks them with unrest; makes our every breath + A throe, not action; from God's purest gift + Wipes off the bloom; and on the harp of faith + Its fretted strings doth slacken still and shift: + Life everywhere, perfect, and always life, + Is sole redemption from this haunting death. + + 23. + + God, thou from death dost lift me. As I rise, + Its Lethe from my garment drips and flows. + Ere long I shall be safe in upper air, + With thee, my life--with thee, my answered prayer + Where thou art God in every wind that blows, + And self alone, and ever, softly dies, + There shall my being blossom, and I know it fair. + + 24. + + I would dig, Master, in no field but thine, + Would build my house only upon thy rock, + Yet am but a dull day, with a sea-sheen! + Why should I wonder then that they should mock, + Who, in the limbo of things heard and seen, + Hither and thither blowing, lose the shine + Of every light that hangs in the firmament divine. + + 25. + + Lord, loosen in me the hold of visible things; + Help me to walk by faith and not by sight; + I would, through thickest veils and coverings, + See into the chambers of the living light. + Lord, in the land of things that swell and seem, + Help me to walk by the other light supreme, + Which shows thy facts behind man's vaguely hinting dream. + + 26. + + I see a little child whose eager hands + Search the thick stream that drains the crowded street + For possible things hid in its current slow. + Near by, behind him, a great palace stands, + Where kings might welcome nobles to their feet. + Soft sounds, sweet scents, fair sights there only go-- + There the child's father lives, but the child does not know. + + 27. + + On, eager, hungry, busy-seeking child, + Rise up, turn round, run in, run up the stair. + Far in a chamber from rude noise exiled, + Thy father sits, pondering how thou dost fare. + The mighty man will clasp thee to his breast: + Will kiss thee, stroke the tangles of thy hair, + And lap thee warm in fold on fold of lovely rest. + + 28. + + The prince of this world came, and nothing found + In thee, O master; but, ah, woe is me! + He cannot pass me, on other business bound, + But, spying in me things familiar, he + Casts over me the shadow of his flight, + And straight I moan in darkness--and the fight + Begins afresh betwixt the world and thee. + + 29. + + In my own heart, O master, in my thought, + Betwixt the woolly sheep and hairy goat + Not clearly I distinguish; but I think + Thou knowest that I fight upon thy side. + The how I am ashamed of; for I shrink + From many a blow--am borne on the battle-tide, + When I should rush to the front, and take thy foe by the throat. + + 30. + + The enemy still hath many things in me; + Yea, many an evil nest with open hole + Gapes out to him, at which he enters free. + But, like the impact of a burning coal, + His presence mere straight rouses the garrison, + And all are up in arms, and down on knee, + Fighting and praying till the foe is gone. + + + + + +OCTOBER. + + 1. + + REMEMBER, Lord, thou hast not made me good. + Or if thou didst, it was so long ago + I have forgotten--and never understood, + I humbly think. At best it was a crude, + A rough-hewn goodness, that did need this woe, + This sin, these harms of all kinds fierce and rude, + To shape it out, making it live and grow. + + 2. + + But thou art making me, I thank thee, sire. + What thou hast done and doest thou know'st well, + And I will help thee:--gently in thy fire + I will lie burning; on thy potter's-wheel + I will whirl patient, though my brain should reel; + Thy grace shall be enough the grief to quell, + And growing strength perfect through weakness dire. + + 3. + + I have not knowledge, wisdom, insight, thought, + Nor understanding, fit to justify + Thee in thy work, O Perfect. Thou hast brought + Me up to this--and, lo! what thou hast wrought, + I cannot call it good. But I can cry-- + "O enemy, the maker hath not done; + One day thou shalt behold, and from the sight wilt run." + + 4. + + The faith I will, aside is easily bent; + But of thy love, my God, one glimpse alone + Can make me absolutely confident-- + With faith, hope, joy, in love responsive blent. + My soul then, in the vision mighty grown, + Its father and its fate securely known, + Falls on thy bosom with exultant moan. + + 5. + + Thou workest perfectly. And if it seem + Some things are not so well, 'tis but because + They are too loving-deep, too lofty-wise, + For me, poor child, to understand their laws: + My highest wisdom half is but a dream; + My love runs helpless like a falling stream: + Thy good embraces ill, and lo! its illness dies! + + 6. + + From sleep I wake, and wake to think of thee. + But wherefore not with sudden glorious glee? + Why burst not gracious on me heaven and earth + In all the splendour of a new-day-birth? + Why hangs a cloud betwixt my lord and me? + The moment that my eyes the morning greet, + My soul should panting rush to clasp thy father-feet. + + 7. + + Is it because it is not thou I see, + But only my poor, blotted fancy of thee? + Oh! never till thyself reveal thy face, + Shall I be flooded with life's vital grace. + Oh make my mirror-heart thy shining-place, + And then my soul, awaking with the morn, + Shall be a waking joy, eternally new-born. + + 8. + + Lord, in my silver is much metal base, + Else should my being by this time have shown + Thee thy own self therein. Therefore do I + Wake in the furnace. I know thou sittest by, + Refining--look, keep looking in to try + Thy silver; master, look and see thy face, + Else here I lie for ever, blank as any stone. + + 9. + + But when in the dim silver thou dost look, + I do behold thy face, though blurred and faint. + Oh joy! no flaw in me thy grace will brook, + But still refine: slow shall the silver pass + From bright to brighter, till, sans spot or taint, + Love, well content, shall see no speck of brass, + And I his perfect face shall hold as in a glass. + + 10. + + With every morn my life afresh must break + The crust of self, gathered about me fresh; + That thy wind-spirit may rush in and shake + The darkness out of me, and rend the mesh + The spider-devils spin out of the flesh-- + Eager to net the soul before it wake, + That it may slumberous lie, and listen to the snake. + + 11. + + 'Tis that I am not good--that is enough; + I pry no farther--that is not the way. + Here, O my potter, is thy making stuff! + Set thy wheel going; let it whir and play. + The chips in me, the stones, the straws, the sand, + Cast them out with fine separating hand, + And make a vessel of thy yielding clay. + + 12. + + What if it take a thousand years to make me, + So me he leave not, angry, on the floor!-- + Nay, thou art never angry!--that would break me! + Would I tried never thy dear patience sore, + But were as good as thou couldst well expect me, + Whilst thou dost make, I mar, and thou correct me! + Then were I now content, waiting for something more. + + 13. + + Only, my God, see thou that I content thee-- + Oh, take thy own content upon me, God! + Ah, never, never, sure, wilt thou repent thee, + That thou hast called thy Adam from the clod! + Yet must I mourn that thou shouldst ever find me + One moment sluggish, needing more of the rod + Than thou didst think when thy desire designed me. + + 14. + + My God, it troubles me I am not better. + More help, I pray, still more. Thy perfect debtor + I shall be when thy perfect child I am grown. + My Father, help me--am I not thine own? + Lo, other lords have had dominion o'er me, + But now thy will alone I set before me: + Thy own heart's life--Lord, thou wilt not abhor me! + + 15. + + In youth, when once again I had set out + To find thee, Lord, my life, my liberty, + A window now and then, clouds all about, + Would open into heaven: my heart forlorn + First all would tremble with a solemn glee, + Then, whelmed in peace, rest like a man outworn, + That sees the dawn slow part the closed lids of the morn. + + 16. + + Now I grow old, and the soft-gathered years + Have calmed, yea dulled the heart's swift fluttering beat; + But a quiet hope that keeps its household seat + Is better than recurrent glories fleet. + To know thee, Lord, is worth a many tears; + And when this mildew, age, has dried away, + My heart will beat again as young and strong and gay. + + 17. + + Stronger and gayer tenfold!--but, O friends, + Not for itself, nor any hoarded bliss. + I see but vaguely whither my being tends, + All vaguely spy a glory shadow-blent, + Vaguely desire the "individual kiss;" + But when I think of God, a large content + Fills the dull air of my gray cloudy tent. + + 18. + + Father of me, thou art my bliss secure. + Make of me, maker, whatsoe'er thou wilt. + Let fancy's wings hang moulting, hope grow poor, + And doubt steam up from where a joy was spilt-- + I lose no time to reason it plain and clear, + But fly to thee, my life's perfection dear:-- + Not what I think, but what thou art, makes sure. + + 19. + + This utterance of spirit through still thought, + This forming of heart-stuff in moulds of brain, + Is helpful to the soul by which 'tis wrought, + The shape reacting on the heart again; + But when I am quite old, and words are slow, + Like dying things that keep their holes for woe, + And memory's withering tendrils clasp with effort vain? + + 20. + + Thou, then as now, no less wilt be my life, + And I shall know it better than before, + Praying and trusting, hoping, claiming more. + From effort vain, sick foil, and bootless strife, + I shall, with childness fresh, look up to thee; + Thou, seeing thy child with age encumbered sore, + Wilt round him bend thine arm more carefully. + + 21. + + And when grim Death doth take me by the throat, + Thou wilt have pity on thy handiwork; + Thou wilt not let him on my suffering gloat, + But draw my soul out--gladder than man or boy, + When thy saved creatures from the narrow ark + Rushed out, and leaped and laughed and cried for joy, + And the great rainbow strode across the dark. + + 22. + + Against my fears, my doubts, my ignorance, + I trust in thee, O father of my Lord! + The world went on in this same broken dance, + When, worn and mocked, he trusted and adored: + I too will trust, and gather my poor best + To face the truth-faced false. So in his nest + I shall awake at length, a little scarred and scored. + + 23. + + Things cannot look all right so long as I + Am not all right who see--therefore not right + Can see. The lamp within sends out the light + Which shows the things; and if its rays go wry, + Or are not white, they must part show a lie. + The man, half-cured, did men not trees conclude, + Because he moving saw what else had seemed a wood. + + 24. + + Give me, take from me, as thou wilt. I learn-- + Slowly and stubbornly I learn to yield + With a strange hopefulness. As from the field + Of hard-fought battle won, the victor chief + Turns thankfully, although his heart do yearn, + So from my old things to thy new I turn, + With sad, thee-trusting heart, and not in grief. + + 25. + + If with my father I did wander free, + Floating o'er hill and field where'er we would, + And, lighting on the sward before the door, + Strange faces through the window-panes should see, + And strange feet standing where the loved had stood, + The dear old place theirs all, as ours before-- + Should I be sorrowful, father, having thee? + + 26. + + So, Lord, if thou tak'st from me all the rest, + Thyself with each resumption drawing nigher, + It shall but hurt me as the thorn of the briar, + When I reach to the pale flower in its breast. + To have thee, Lord, is to have all thy best, + Holding it by its very life divine-- + To let my friend's hand go, and take his heart in mine. + + 27. + + Take from me leisure, all familiar places; + Take all the lovely things of earth and air + Take from me books; take all my precious faces; + Take words melodious, and their songful linking; + Take scents, and sounds, and all thy outsides fair; + Draw nearer, taking, and, to my sober thinking, + Thou bring'st them nearer all, and ready to my prayer. + + 28. + + No place on earth henceforth I shall count strange, + For every place belongeth to my Christ. + I will go calm where'er thou bid'st me range; + Whoe'er my neighbour, thou art still my nighest. + Oh my heart's life, my owner, will of my being! + Into my soul thou every moment diest, + In thee my life thus evermore decreeing. + + 29. + + What though things change and pass, nor come again! + Thou, the life-heart of all things, changest never. + The sun shines on; the fair clouds turn to rain, + And glad the earth with many a spring and river. + The hearts that answer change with chill and shiver, + That mourn the past, sad-sick, with hopeless pain, + They know not thee, our changeless heart and brain. + + 30. + + My halting words will some day turn to song-- + Some far-off day, in holy other times! + The melody now prisoned in my rimes + Will one day break aloft, and from the throng + Of wrestling thoughts and words spring up the air; + As from the flower its colour's sweet despair + Issues in odour, and the sky's low levels climbs. + + 31. + + My surgent thought shoots lark-like up to thee. + Thou like the heaven art all about the lark. + Whatever I surmise or know in me, + Idea, or but symbol on the dark, + Is living, working, thought-creating power + In thee, the timeless father of the hour. + I am thy book, thy song--thy child would be. + + + + + +NOVEMBER + + 1. + + THOU art of this world, Christ. Thou know'st it all; + Thou know'st our evens, our morns, our red and gray; + How moons, and hearts, and seasons rise and fall; + How we grow weary plodding on the way; + Of future joy how present pain bereaves, + Rounding us with a dark of mere decay, + Tossed with a drift Of summer-fallen leaves. + + 2. + + Thou knowest all our weeping, fainting, striving; + Thou know'st how very hard it is to be; + How hard to rouse faint will not yet reviving; + To do the pure thing, trusting all to thee; + To hold thou art there, for all no face we see; + How hard to think, through cold and dark and dearth, + That thou art nearer now than when eye-seen on earth. + + 3. + + Have pity on us for the look of things, + When blank denial stares us in the face. + Although the serpent mask have lied before, + It fascinates the bird that darkling sings, + And numbs the little prayer-bird's beating wings. + For how believe thee somewhere in blank space, + If through the darkness come no knocking to our door? + + 4. + + If we might sit until the darkness go, + Possess our souls in patience perhaps we might; + But there is always something to be done, + And no heart left to do it. To and fro + The dull thought surges, as the driven waves fight + In gulfy channels. Oh! victorious one, + Give strength to rise, go out, and meet thee in the night. + + 5. + + "Wake, thou that sleepest; rise up from the dead, + And Christ will give thee light." I do not know + What sleep is, what is death, or what is light; + But I am waked enough to feel a woe, + To rise and leave death. Stumbling through the night, + To my dim lattice, O calling Christ! I go, + And out into the dark look for thy star-crowned head. + + 6. + + There are who come to me, and write, and send, + Whom I would love, giving good things to all, + But friend--that name I cannot on them spend; + 'Tis from the centre of self-love they call + For cherishing--for which they first must know + How to be still, and take the seat that's low: + When, Lord, shall I be fit--when wilt thou call me friend? + + 7. + + Wilt thou not one day, Lord? In all my wrong, + Self-love and weakness, laziness and fear, + This one thing I can say: I am content + To be and have what in thy heart I am meant + To be and have. In my best times I long + After thy will, and think it glorious-dear; + Even in my worst, perforce my will to thine is bent. + + 8. + + My God, I look to thee for tenderness + Such as I could not seek from any man, + Or in a human heart fancy or plan-- + A something deepest prayer will not express: + Lord, with thy breath blow on my being's fires, + Until, even to the soul with self-love wan, + I yield the primal love, that no return desires. + + 9. + + Only no word of mine must ever foster + The self that in a brother's bosom gnaws; + I may not fondle failing, nor the boaster + Encourage with the breath of my applause. + Weakness needs pity, sometimes love's rebuke; + Strength only sympathy deserves and draws-- + And grows by every faithful loving look. + + 10. + + 'Tis but as men draw nigh to thee, my Lord, + They can draw nigh each other and not hurt. + Who with the gospel of thy peace are girt, + The belt from which doth hang the Spirit's sword, + Shall breathe on dead bones, and the bones shall live, + Sweet poison to the evil self shall give, + And, clean themselves, lift men clean from the mire abhorred. + + 11. + + My Lord, I have no clothes to come to thee; + My shoes are pierced and broken with the road; + I am torn and weathered, wounded with the goad, + And soiled with tugging at my weary load: + The more I need thee! A very prodigal + I stagger into thy presence, Lord of me: + One look, my Christ, and at thy feet I fall! + + 12. + + Why should I still hang back, like one in a dream, + Who vainly strives to clothe himself aright, + That in great presence he may seemly seem? + Why call up feeling?--dress me in the faint, + Worn, faded, cast-off nimbus of some saint? + Why of old mood bring back a ghostly gleam-- + While there He waits, love's heart and loss's blight! + + 13. + + Son of the Father, elder brother mine, + See thy poor brother's plight; See how he stands + Defiled and feeble, hanging down his hands! + Make me clean, brother, with thy burning shine; + From thy rich treasures, householder divine, + Bring forth fair garments, old and new, I pray, + And like thy brother dress me, in the old home-bred way. + + 14. + + My prayer-bird was cold--would not away, + Although I set it on the edge of the nest. + Then I bethought me of the story old-- + Love-fact or loving fable, thou know'st best-- + How, when the children had made sparrows of clay, + Thou mad'st them birds, with wings to flutter and fold: + Take, Lord, my prayer in thy hand, and make it pray. + + 15. + + My poor clay-sparrow seems turned to a stone, + And from my heart will neither fly nor run. + I cannot feel as thou and I both would, + But, Father, I am willing--make me good. + What art thou father for, but to help thy son? + Look deep, yet deeper, in my heart, and there, + Beyond where I can feel, read thou the prayer. + + 16. + + Oh what it were to be right sure of thee! + Sure that thou art, and the same as thy son, Jesus! + Oh, faith is deeper, wider than the sea, + Yea, than the blue of heaven that ever flees us! + Yet simple as the cry of sore-hurt child, + Or as his shout, with sudden gladness wild, + When home from school he runs, till morn set free. + + 17. + + If I were sure thou, Father, verily art, + True father of the Nazarene as true, + Sure as I am of my wife's shielding heart, + Sure as of sunrise in the watching blue, + Sure as I am that I do eat and drink, + And have a heart to love and laugh and think, + Meseems in flame the joy might from my body start. + + 18. + + But I must know thee in a deeper way + Than any of these ways, or know thee not; + My heart at peace far loftier proof must lay + Than if the wind thou me the wave didst roll, + Than if I lay before thee a sunny spot, + Or knew thee as the body knows its soul, + Or even as the part doth know its perfect whole. + + 19. + + There is no word to tell how I must know thee; + No wind clasped ever a low meadow-flower + So close that as to nearness it could show thee; + No rainbow so makes one the sun and shower. + A something with thee, I am a nothing fro' thee. + Because I am not save as I am in thee, + My soul is ever setting out to win thee. + + 20. + + I know not how--for that I first must know thee. + I know I know thee not as I would know thee, + For my heart burns like theirs that did not know him, + Till he broke bread, and therein they must know him. + I know thee, knowing that I do not know thee, + Nor ever shall till one with me I know thee-- + Even as thy son, the eternal man, doth know thee. + + 21. + + Creation under me, in, and above, + Slopes upward from the base, a pyramid, + On whose point I shall stand at last, and love. + From the first rush of vapour at thy will, + To the last poet-word that darkness chid, + Thou hast been sending up creation's hill, + To lift thy souls aloft in faithful Godhead free. + + 22. + + I think my thought, and fancy I think thee.-- + Lord, wake me up; rend swift my coffin-planks; + I pray thee, let me live--alive and free. + My soul will break forth in melodious thanks, + Aware at last what thou wouldst have it be, + When thy life shall be light in me, and when + My life to thine is answer and amen. + + 23. + + How oft I say the same things in these lines! + Even as a man, buried in during dark, + Turns ever where the edge of twilight shines, + Prays ever towards the vague eternal mark; + Or as the sleeper, having dreamed he drinks, + Back straightway into thirstful dreaming sinks, + So turns my will to thee, for thee still longs, still pines. + + 24. + + The mortal man, all careful, wise, and troubled, + The eternal child in the nursery doth keep. + To-morrow on to-day the man heaps doubled; + The child laughs, hopeful, even in his sleep. + The man rebukes the child for foolish trust; + The child replies, "Thy care is for poor dust; + Be still, and let me wake that thou mayst sleep." + + 25. + + Till I am one, with oneness manifold, + I must breed contradiction, strife, and doubt; + Things tread Thy court--look real--take proving hold-- + My Christ is not yet grown to cast them out; + Alas! to me, false-judging 'twixt the twain, + The Unseen oft fancy seems, while, all about, + The Seen doth lord it with a mighty train. + + 26. + + But when the Will hath learned obedience royal, + He straight will set the child upon the throne; + To whom the seen things all, grown instant loyal, + Will gather to his feet, in homage prone-- + The child their master they have ever known; + Then shall the visible fabric plainly lean + On a Reality that never can be seen. + + 27. + + Thy ways are wonderful, maker of men! + Thou gavest me a child, and I have fed + And clothed and loved her, many a growing year; + Lo! now a friend of months draws gently near, + And claims her future--all beyond his ken-- + There he hath never loved her nor hath led: + She weeps and moans, but turns, and leaves her home so dear. + + 28. + + She leaves, but not forsakes. Oft in the night, + Oft at mid-day when all is still around, + Sudden will rise, in dim pathetic light, + Some childish memory of household bliss, + Or sorrow by love's service robed and crowned; + Rich in his love, she yet will sometimes miss + The mother's folding arms, the mother's sealing kiss. + + 29. + + Then first, I think, our eldest-born, although + Loving, devoted, tender, watchful, dear, + The innermost of home-bred love shall know! + Yea, when at last the janitor draws near, + A still, pale joy will through the darkness go, + At thought of lying in those arms again, + Which once were heaven enough for any pain. + + 30. + + By love doth love grow mighty in its love: + Once thou shalt love us, child, as we love thee. + Father of loves, is it not thy decree + That, by our long, far-wandering remove + From thee, our life, our home, our being blest, + We learn at last to love thee true and best, + And rush with all our loves back to thy infinite rest? + + + + + +DECEMBER. + + 1. + + I AM a little weary of my life-- + Not thy life, blessed Father! Or the blood + Too slowly laves the coral shores of thought, + Or I am weary of weariness and strife. + Open my soul-gates to thy living flood; + I ask not larger heart-throbs, vigour-fraught, + I pray thy presence, with strong patience rife. + + 2. + + I will what thou will'st--only keep me sure + That thou art willing; call to me now and then. + So, ceasing to enjoy, I shall endure + With perfect patience--willing beyond my ken + Beyond my love, beyond my thinking scope; + Willing to be because thy will is pure; + Willing thy will beyond all bounds of hope. + + 3. + + This weariness of mine, may it not come + From something that doth need no setting right? + Shall fruit be blamed if it hang wearily + A day before it perfected drop plumb + To the sad earth from off its nursing tree? + Ripeness must always come with loss of might. + The weary evening fall before the resting night. + + 4. + + Hither if I have come through earth and air, + Through fire and water--I am not of them; + Born in the darkness, what fair-flashing gem + Would to the earth go back and nestle there? + Not of this world, this world my life doth hem; + What if I weary, then, and look to the door, + Because my unknown life is swelling at the core? + + 5. + + All winged things came from the waters first; + Airward still many a one from the water springs + In dens and caves wind-loving things are nursed:-- + I lie like unhatched bird, upfolded, dumb, + While all the air is trembling with the hum + Of songs and beating hearts and whirring wings, + That call my slumbering life to wake to happy things. + + 6. + + I lay last night and knew not why I was sad. + "'Tis well with God," I said, "and he is the truth; + Let that content me."--'Tis not strength, nor youth, + Nor buoyant health, nor a heart merry-mad, + That makes the fact of things wherein men live: + He is the life, and doth my life outgive; + In him there is no gloom, but all is solemn-glad, + + 7. + + I said to myself, "Lo, I lie in a dream + Of separation, where there comes no sign; + My waking life is hid with Christ in God, + Where all is true and potent--fact divine." + I will not heed the thing that doth but seem; + I will be quiet as lark upon the sod; + God's will, the seed, shall rest in me the pod. + + 8. + + And when that will shall blossom--then, my God, + There will be jubilation in a world! + The glad lark, soaring heavenward from the sod, + Up the swift spiral of its own song whirled, + Never such jubilation wild out-poured + As from my soul will break at thy feet, Lord, + Like a great tide from sea-heart shoreward hurled. + + 9. + + For then thou wilt be able, then at last, + To glad me as thou hungerest to do; + Then shall thy life my heart all open find, + A thoroughfare to thy great spirit-wind; + Then shall I rest within thy holy vast, + One with the bliss of the eternal mind; + And all creation rise in me created new. + + 10. + + What makes thy being a bliss shall then make mind + For I shall love as thou, and love in thee; + Then shall I have whatever I desire, + My every faintest wish being all divine; + Power thou wilt give me to work mightily, + Even as my Lord, leading thy low men nigher, + With dance and song to cast their best upon thy fire. + + 11. + + Then shall I live such an essential life + That a mere flower will then to me unfold + More bliss than now grandest orchestral strife-- + By love made and obedience humble-bold, + I shall straight through its window God behold. + God, I shall feed on thee, thy creature blest + With very being--work at one with sweetest rest. + + 12. + + Give me a world, to part for praise and sunder. + The brooks be bells; the winds, in caverns dumb, + Wake fife and flute and flageolet and voice; + The fire-shook earth itself be the great drum; + And let the air the region's bass out thunder; + The firs be violins; the reeds hautboys; + Rivers, seas, icebergs fill the great score up and under! + + 13. + + But rather dost thou hear the blundered words + Of breathing creatures; the music-lowing herds + Of thy great cattle; thy soft-bleating sheep; + O'erhovered by the trebles of thy birds, + Whose Christ-praised carelessness song-fills the deep; + Still rather a child's talk who apart doth hide him, + And make a tent for God to come and sit beside him. + + 14. + + This is not life; this being is not enough. + But thou art life, and thou hast life for me. + Thou mad'st the worm--to cast the wormy slough, + And fly abroad--a glory flit and flee. + Thou hast me, statue-like, hewn in the rough, + Meaning at last to shape me perfectly. + Lord, thou hast called me fourth, I turn and call on thee. + + 15. + + 'Tis thine to make, mine to rejoice in thine. + As, hungering for his mother's face and eyes, + The child throws wide the door, back to the wall, + I run to thee, the refuge from poor lies: + Lean dogs behind me whimper, yelp, and whine; + Life lieth ever sick, Death's writhing thrall, + In slavery endless, hopeless, and supine. + + 16. + + The life that hath not willed itself to be, + Must clasp the life that willed, and be at peace; + Or, like a leaf wind-blown, through chaos flee; + A life-husk into which the demons go, + And work their will, and drive it to and fro; + A thing that neither is, nor yet can cease, + Which uncreation can alone release. + + 17. + + But when I turn and grasp the making hand, + And will the making will, with confidence + I ride the crest of the creation-wave, + Helpless no more, no more existence' slave; + In the heart of love's creating fire I stand, + And, love-possessed in heart and soul and sense, + Take up the making share the making Master gave. + + 18. + + That man alone who does the Father's works + Can be the Father's son; yea, only he + Who sonlike can create, can ever be; + Who with God wills not, is no son, not free. + O Father, send the demon-doubt that lurks + Behind the hope, out into the abyss; + Who trusts in knowledge all its good shall miss. + + 19. + + Thy beasts are sinless, and do live before thee; + Thy child is sinful, and must run to thee. + Thy angels sin not and in peace adore thee; + But I must will, or never more be free. + I from thy heart came, how can I ignore thee?-- + Back to my home I hurry, haste, and flee; + There I shall dwell, love-praising evermore thee. + + 20. + + My holy self, thy pure ideal, lies + Calm in thy bosom, which it cannot leave; + My self unholy, no ideal, hies + Hither and thither, gathering store to grieve-- + Not now, O Father! now it mounts, it flies, + To join the true self in thy heart that waits, + And, one with it, be one with all the heavenly mates. + + 21. + + Trusting thee, Christ, I kneel, and clasp thy knee; + Cast myself down, and kiss thy brother-feet-- + One self thou and the Father's thought of thee! + Ideal son, thou hast left the perfect home, + Ideal brother, to seek thy brothers come! + Thou know'st our angels all, God's children sweet, + And of each two wilt make one holy child complete. + + 22. + + To a slow end I draw these daily words, + Nor think such words often to write again-- + Rather, as light the power to me affords, + Christ's new and old would to my friends unbind; + Through words he spoke help to his thought behind; + Unveil the heart with which he drew his men; + Set forth his rule o'er devils, animals, corn, and wind. + + 23. + + I do remember how one time I thought, + "God must be lonely--oh, so lonely lone! + I will be very good to him--ah, nought + Can reach the heart of his great loneliness! + My whole heart I will bring him, with a moan + That I may not come nearer; I will lie prone + Before the awful loveliness in loneliness' excess." + + 24. + + A God must have a God for company. + And lo! thou hast the Son-God to thy friend. + Thou honour'st his obedience, he thy law. + Into thy secret life-will he doth see; + Thou fold'st him round in live love perfectly-- + One two, without beginning, without end; + In love, life, strength, and truth, perfect without a flaw. + + 25. + + Thou hast not made, or taught me, Lord, to care + For times and seasons--but this one glad day + Is the blue sapphire clasping all the lights + That flash in the girdle of the year so fair-- + When thou wast born a man, because alway + Thou wast and art a man, through all the flights + Of thought, and time, and thousandfold creation's play. + + 26. + + We all are lonely, Maker--each a soul + Shut in by itself, a sundered atom of thee. + No two yet loved themselves into a whole; + Even when we weep together we are two. + Of two to make one, which yet two shall be, + Is thy creation's problem, deep, and true, + To which thou only hold'st the happy, hurting clue. + + 27. + + No less than thou, O Father, do we need + A God to friend each lonely one of us. + As touch not in the sack two grains of seed, + Touch no two hearts in great worlds populous. + Outside the making God we cannot meet + Him he has made our brother: homeward, thus, + To find our kin we first must turn our wandering feet. + + 28. + + It must be possible that the soul made + Should absolutely meet the soul that makes; + Then, in that bearing soul, meet every other + There also born, each sister and each brother. + Lord, till I meet thee thus, life is delayed; + I am not I until that morning breaks, + Not I until my consciousness eternal wakes. + + 29. + + Again I shall behold thee, daughter true; + The hour will come when I shall hold thee fast + In God's name, loving thee all through and through. + Somewhere in his grand thought this waits for us. + Then shall I see a smile not like thy last-- + For that great thing which came when all was past, + Was not a smile, but God's peace glorious. + + 30. + + Twilight of the transfiguration-joy, + Gleam-faced, pure-eyed, strong-willed, high-hearted boy! + Hardly thy life clear forth of heaven was sent, + Ere it broke out into a smile, and went. + So swift thy growth, so true thy goalward bent, + Thou, child and sage inextricably blent, + Wilt one day teach thy father in some heavenly tent + + 31. + + Go, my beloved children, live your life. + Wounded, faint, bleeding, never yield the strife. + Stunned, fallen-awake, arise, and fight again. + Before you victory stands, with shining train + Of hopes not credible until they are. + Beyond morass and mountain swells the star + Of perfect love--the home of longing heart and brain + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Book of Strife in the Form of The +Diary of an Old Soul, by George MacDonald + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A BOOK OF STRIFE *** + +***** This file should be named 1953.txt or 1953.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/9/5/1953/ + +Produced by John Bechard + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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