"I call on the souls who have left the light To reveal their lot; I bend mine ear to that wall of night, And they answer not.
"But I hear around me sighs of pain And the cry of fear, And a sound like the slow sad dropping of rain, Each drop a tear!
"Ah, the cloud is dark, and day by day I am moving thither I must pass beneath it on my way-- God pity me!--whither?"
Ah, soul of mine! so brave and wise In the life-storm loud, Fronting so calmly all human eyes In the sunlit crowd!
Now standing apart with God and me Thou art weakness all, Gazing vainly after the things to be Through Death's dread wall.
But never for this, never for this Was thy being lent; For the craven's fear is but selfishness, Like his merriment.
Folly and Fear are sisters twain One closing her eyes.
The other peopling the dark inane With spectral lies.
Know well, my soul, God's hand controls Whate'er thou fearest; Round Him in calmest music rolls Whate'er thou Nearest.
What to thee is shadow, to Him is day, And the end He knoweth, And not on a blind and aimless way The spirit goeth.
Man sees no future,--a phantom show Is alone before him; Past Time is dead, and the grasses grow, And flowers bloom o'er him.
Nothing before, nothing behind; The steps of Faith Fall on the seeming void, and find The rock beneath.
The Present, the Present is all thou hast For thy sure possessing; Like the patriarch's angel hold it fast Till it gives its blessing.
Why fear the night? why shrink from Death; That phantom wan?
There is nothing in heaven or earth beneath Save God and man.
Peopling the shadows we turn from Him And from one another; All is spectral and vague and dim Save God and our brother!
Like warp and woof all destinies Are woven fast, Linked in sympathy like the keys Of an organ vast.
Pluck one thread, and the web ye mar; Break but one Of a thousand keys, and the paining jar Through all will run.
O restless spirit! wherefore strain Beyond thy sphere?
Heaven and hell, with their joy and pain, Are now and here.
Back to thyself is measured well All thou hast given; Thy neighbor's wrong is thy present hell, His bliss, thy heaven.
And in life, in death, in dark and light, All are in God's care Sound the black abyss, pierce the deep of night, And He is there!
All which is real now remaineth, And fadeth never The hand which upholds it now sustaineth The soul forever.
Leaning on Him, make with reverent meekness His own thy will, And with strength from Him shall thy utter weakness Life's task fulfil;
And that cloud itself, which now before thee Lies dark in view, Shall with beams of light from the inner glory Be stricken through.
And like meadow mist through autumn's dawn Uprolling thin, Its thickest folds when about thee drawn Let sunlight in.
Then of what is to be, and of what is done, Why queriest thou?
The past and the time to be are one, And both are now!
1847.
WORSHIP.
"Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this. To visit the fatherless and widows in, their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world."--JAMES I. 27.
The Pagan's myths through marble lips are spoken, And ghosts of old Beliefs still flit and moan Round fane and altar overthrown and broken, O'er tree-grown barrow and gray ring of stone.
Blind Faith had martyrs in those old high places, The Syrian hill grove and the Druid's wood, With mother's offering, to the Fiend's embraces, Bone of their bone, and blood of their own blood.
Red altars, kindling through that night of error, Smoked with warm blood beneath the cruel eye Of lawless Power and sanguinary Terror, Throned on the circle of a pitiless sky;
Beneath whose baleful shadow, overcasting All heaven above, and blighting earth below, The scourge grew red, the lip grew pale with fasting, And man's oblation was his fear and woe!
Then through great temples swelled the dismal moaning Of dirge-like music and sepulchral prayer; Pale wizard priests, o'er occult symbols droning, Swung their white censers in the burdened air
As if the pomp of rituals, and the savor Of gums and spices could the Unseen One please; As if His ear could bend, with childish favor, To the poor flattery of the organ keys!
Feet red from war-fields trod the church aisles holy, With trembling reverence: and the oppressor there, Kneeling before his priest, abased and lowly, Crushed human hearts beneath his knee of prayer.
Not such the service the benignant Father Requireth at His earthly children's hands Not the poor offering of vain rites, but rather The simple duty man from man demands.
For Earth He asks it: the full joy of heaven Knoweth no change of waning or increase; The great heart of the Infinite beats even, Untroubled flows the river of His peace.
He asks no taper lights, on high surrounding The priestly altar and the saintly grave, No dolorous chant nor organ music sounding, Nor incense clouding tip the twilight nave.
For he whom Jesus loved hath truly spoken The holier worship which he deigns to bless Restores the lost, and binds the spirit broken, And feeds the widow and the fatherless!
Types of our human weakness and our sorrow!
Who lives unhaunted by his loved ones dead?
Who, with vain longing, seeketh not to borrow From stranger eyes the home lights which have fled?
O brother man! fold to thy heart thy brother; Where pity dwells, the peace of God is there; To worship rightly is to love each other, Each smile a hymn, each kindly deed a prayer.
Follow with reverent steps the great example Of Him whose holy work was "doing good;"
So shall the wide earth seem our Father's temple, Each loving life a psalm of gratitude.
Then shall all shackles fall; the stormy clangor Of wild war music o'er the earth shall cease; Love shall tread out the baleful fire of anger, And in its ashes plant the tree of peace!
1848.