"Midst fawning priests and courtiers foul, The losel swarm of crown and cowl, White-robed walked Francois Fenelon, Stainless as Uriel in the sun!
"Yet in his time the stake blazed red, The poor were eaten up like bread Men knew him not; his garment's hem No healing virtue had for them.
"Alas! no present saint we find; The white cymar gleams far behind, Revealed in outline vague, sublime, Through telescopic mists of time!
"Trust not in man with passing breath, But in the Lord, old Scripture saith; The truth which saves thou mayst not blend With false professor, faithless friend.
"Search thine own heart. What paineth thee In others in thyself may be; All dust is frail, all flesh is weak; Be thou the true man thou dost seek!
"Where now with pain thou treadest, trod The whitest of the saints of God!
To show thee where their feet were set, the light which led them shineth yet.
"The footprints of the life divine, Which marked their path, remain in thine; And that great Life, transfused in theirs, Awaits thy faith, thy love, thy prayers!"
A lesson which I well may heed, A word of fitness to my need; So from that twilight cool and gray Still saith a voice, or seems to say.
We rose, and slowly homeward turned, While down the west the sunset burned; And, in its light, hill, wood, and tide, And human forms seemed glorified.
The village homes transfigured stood, And purple bluffs, whose belting wood Across the waters leaned to hold The yellow leaves like lamps of hold.
Then spake my friend: "Thy words are true; Forever old, forever new, These home-seen splendors are the same Which over Eden's sunsets came.
"To these bowed heavens let wood and hill Lift voiceless praise and anthem still; Fall, warm with blessing, over them, Light of the New Jerusalem!
"Flow on, sweet river, like the stream Of John's Apocalyptic dream This mapled ridge shall Horeb be, Yon green-banked lake our Galilee!
"Henceforth my heart shall sigh no more For olden time and holier shore; God's love and blessing, then and there, Are now and here and everywhere."
1851.
TAULER.
TAULER, the preacher, walked, one autumn day, Without the walls of Strasburg, by the Rhine, Pondering the solemn Miracle of Life; As one who, wandering in a starless night, Feels momently the jar of unseen waves, And hears the thunder of an unknown sea, Breaking along an unimagined shore.
And as he walked he prayed. Even the same Old prayer with which, for half a score of years, Morning, and noon, and evening, lip and heart Had groaned: "Have pity upon me, Lord!
Thou seest, while teaching others, I am blind.
Send me a man who can direct my steps!"
Then, as he mused, he heard along his path A sound as of an old man's staff among The dry, dead linden-leaves; and, looking up, He saw a stranger, weak, and poor, and old.
"Peace be unto thee, father!" Tauler said, "God give thee a good day!" The old man raised Slowly his calm blue eyes. "I thank thee, son; But all my days are good, and none are ill."
Wondering thereat, the preacher spake again, "God give thee happy life." The old man smiled, "I never am unhappy."
Tauler laid His hand upon the stranger's coarse gray sleeve "Tell me, O father, what thy strange words mean.
Surely man's days are evil, and his life Sad as the grave it leads to." "Nay, my son, Our times are in God's hands, and all our days Are as our needs; for shadow as for sun, For cold as heat, for want as wealth, alike Our thanks are due, since that is best which is; And that which is not, sharing not His life, Is evil only as devoid of good.
And for the happiness of which I spake, I find it in submission to his will, And calm trust in the holy Trinity Of Knowledge, Goodness, and Almighty Power."
Silently wondering, for a little space, Stood the great preacher; then he spake as one Who, suddenly grappling with a haunting thought Which long has followed, whispering through the dark Strange terrors, drags it, shrieking, into light "What if God's will consign thee hence to Hell?"
"Then," said the stranger, cheerily, "be it so.
What Hell may be I know not; this I know,-- I cannot lose the presence of the Lord.
One arm, Humility, takes hold upon His dear Humanity; the other, Love, Clasps his Divinity. So where I go He goes; and better fire-walled Hell with Him Than golden-gated Paradise without."
Tears sprang in Tauler's eyes. A sudden light, Like the first ray which fell on chaos, clove Apart the shadow wherein he had walked Darkly at noon. And, as the strange old man Went his slow way, until his silver hair Set like the white moon where the hills of vine Slope to the Rhine, he bowed his head and said "My prayer is answered. God hath sent the man Long sought, to teach me, by his simple trust, Wisdom the weary schoolmen never knew."
So, entering with a changed and cheerful step The city gates, he saw, far down the street, A mighty shadow break the light of noon, Which tracing backward till its airy lines Hardened to stony plinths, he raised his eyes O'er broad facade and lofty pediment, O'er architrave and frieze and sainted niche, Up the stone lace-work chiselled by the wise Erwin of Steinbach, dizzily up to where In the noon-brightness the great Minster's tower, Jewelled with sunbeams on its mural crown, Rose like a visible prayer. "Behold!" he said, "The stranger's faith made plain before mine eyes.
As yonder tower outstretches to the earth The dark triangle of its shade alone When the clear day is shining on its top, So, darkness in the pathway of Man's life Is but the shadow of God's providence, By the great Sun of Wisdom cast thereon; And what is dark below is light in Heaven."
1853.
THE HERMIT OF THE THEBAID.
O STRONG, upwelling prayers of faith, From inmost founts of life ye start,-- The spirit's pulse, the vital breath Of soul and heart!
From pastoral toil, from traffic's din, Alone, in crowds, at home, abroad, Unheard of man, ye enter in The ear of God.
Ye brook no forced and measured tasks, Nor weary rote, nor formal chains; The simple heart, that freely asks In love, obtains.
For man the living temple is The mercy-seat and cherubim, And all the holy mysteries, He bears with him.
And most avails the prayer of love, Which, wordless, shapes itself in needs, And wearies Heaven for naught above Our common needs.
Which brings to God's all-perfect will That trust of His undoubting child Whereby all seeming good and ill Are reconciled.
And, seeking not for special signs Of favor, is content to fall Within the providence which shines And rains on all.
Alone, the Thebaid hermit leaned At noontime o'er the sacred word.
Was it an angel or a fiend Whose voice be heard?
It broke the desert's hush of awe, A human utterance, sweet and mild; And, looking up, the hermit saw A little child.
A child, with wonder-widened eyes, O'erawed and troubled by the sight Of hot, red sands, and brazen skies, And anchorite.
"'What dost thou here, poor man? No shade Of cool, green palms, nor grass, nor well, Nor corn, nor vines." The hermit said "With God I dwell.
"Alone with Him in this great calm, I live not by the outward sense; My Nile his love, my sheltering palm His providence."
The child gazed round him. "Does God live Here only?--where the desert's rim Is green with corn, at morn and eve, We pray to Him.
"My brother tills beside the Nile His little field; beneath the leaves My sisters sit and spin, the while My mother weaves.
"And when the millet's ripe heads fall, And all the bean-field hangs in pod, My mother smiles, and, says that all Are gifts from God."