Shone on old tomes of law and physic, side By side with Fox and Belimen, played at hide And seek with Anna, midst her household pride
Of flaxen webs, and on the table, bare Of costly cloth or silver cup, but where, Tasting the fat shads of the Delaware,
The courtly Penn had praised the goodwife's cheer, And quoted Horace o'er her home brewed beer, Till even grave Pastorius smiled to hear.
In such a home, beside the Schuylkill's wave, He dwelt in peace with God and man, and gave Food to the poor and shelter to the slave.
For all too soon the New World's scandal shamed The righteous code by Penn and Sidney framed, And men withheld the human rights they claimed.
And slowly wealth and station sanction lent, And hardened avarice, on its gains intent, Stifled the inward whisper of dissent.
Yet all the while the burden rested sore On tender hearts. At last Pastorius bore Their warning message to the Church's door
In God's name; and the leaven of the word Wrought ever after in the souls who heard, And a dead conscience in its grave-clothes stirred
To troubled life, and urged the vain excuse Of Hebrew custom, patriarchal use, Good in itself if evil in abuse.
Gravely Pastorius listened, not the less Discerning through the decent fig-leaf dress Of the poor plea its shame of selfishness.
One Scripture rule, at least, was unforgot; He hid the outcast, and betrayed him not; And, when his prey the human hunter sought,
He scrupled not, while Anna's wise delay And proffered cheer prolonged the master's stay, To speed the black guest safely on his way.
Yet, who shall guess his bitter grief who lends His life to some great cause, and finds his friends Shame or betray it for their private ends?
How felt the Master when his chosen strove In childish folly for their seats above; And that fond mother, blinded by her love,
Besought him that her sons, beside his throne, Might sit on either hand? Amidst his own A stranger oft, companionless and lone,
God's priest and prophet stands. The martyr's pain Is not alone from scourge and cell and chain; Sharper the pang when, shouting in his train,
His weak disciples by their lives deny The loud hosannas of their daily cry, And make their echo of his truth a lie.
His forest home no hermit's cell he found, Guests, motley-minded, drew his hearth around, And held armed truce upon its neutral ground.
There Indian chiefs with battle-bows unstrung, Strong, hero-limbed, like those whom Homer sung, Pastorius fancied, when the world was young,
Came with their tawny women, lithe and tall, Like bronzes in his friend Von Rodeck's hall, Comely, if black, and not unpleasing all.
There hungry folk in homespun drab and gray Drew round his board on Monthly Meeting day, Genial, half merry in their friendly way.
Or, haply, pilgrims from the Fatherland, Weak, timid, homesick, slow to understand The New World's promise, sought his helping hand.
Or painful Kelpius (13) from his hermit den By Wissahickon, maddest of good men, Dreamed o'er the Chiliast dreams of Petersen.
Deep in the woods, where the small river slid Snake-like in shade, the Helmstadt Mystic hid, Weird as a wizard, over arts forbid,
Reading the books of Daniel and of John, And Behmen's Morning-Redness, through the Stone Of Wisdom, vouchsafed to his eyes alone,
Whereby he read what man ne'er read before, And saw the visions man shall see no more, Till the great angel, striding sea and shore,
Shall bid all flesh await, on land or ships, The warning trump of the Apocalypse, Shattering the heavens before the dread eclipse.
Or meek-eyed Mennonist his bearded chin Leaned o'er the gate; or Ranter, pure within, Aired his perfection in a world of sin.
Or, talking of old home scenes, Op der Graaf Teased the low back-log with his shodden staff, Till the red embers broke into a laugh
And dance of flame, as if they fain would cheer The rugged face, half tender, half austere, Touched with the pathos of a homesick tear!
Or Sluyter, (14) saintly familist, whose word As law the Brethren of the Manor heard, Announced the speedy terrors of the Lord,
And turned, like Lot at Sodom, from his race, Above a wrecked world with complacent face Riding secure upon his plank of grace!
Haply, from Finland's birchen groves exiled, Manly in thought, in simple ways a child, His white hair floating round his visage mild,
The Swedish pastor sought the Quaker's door, Pleased from his neighbor's lips to hear once more His long-disused and half-forgotten lore.
For both could baffle Babel's lingual curse, And speak in Bion's Doric, and rehearse Cleanthes' hymn or Virgil's sounding verse.
And oft Pastorius and the meek old man Argued as Quaker and as Lutheran, Ending in Christian love, as they began.
With lettered Lloyd on pleasant morns he strayed Where Sommerhausen over vales of shade Looked miles away, by every flower delayed,
Or song of bird, happy and free with one Who loved, like him, to let his memory run Over old fields of learning, and to sun
Himself in Plato's wise philosophies, And dream with Philo over mysteries Whereof the dreamer never finds the keys;
To touch all themes of thought, nor weakly stop For doubt of truth, but let the buckets drop Deep down and bring the hidden waters up (15)
For there was freedom in that wakening time Of tender souls; to differ was not crime; The varying bells made up the perfect chime.
On lips unlike was laid the altar's coal, The white, clear light, tradition-colored, stole Through the stained oriel of each human soul.
Gathered from many sects, the Quaker brought His old beliefs, adjusting to the thought That moved his soul the creed his fathers taught.
One faith alone, so broad that all mankind Within themselves its secret witness find, The soul's communion with the Eternal Mind,
The Spirit's law, the Inward Rule and Guide, Scholar and peasant, lord and serf, allied, The polished Penn and Cromwell's Ironside.
As still in Hemskerck's Quaker Meeting, (16) face By face in Flemish detail, we may trace How loose-mouthed boor and fine ancestral grace
Sat in close contrast,--the clipt-headed churl, Broad market-dame, and simple serving-girl By skirt of silk and periwig in curl
For soul touched soul; the spiritual treasure-trove Made all men equal, none could rise above Nor sink below that level of God's love.
So, with his rustic neighbors sitting down, The homespun frock beside the scholar's gown, Pastorius to the manners of the town
Added the freedom of the woods, and sought The bookless wisdom by experience taught, And learned to love his new-found home, while not