THE HOLY LAND
Paraphrased from the lines in Lamartine's _Adieu to Marseilles_, beginning
"Je n'ai pas navigue sur l'ocean de sable."
I have not felt, o'er seas of sand, The rocking of the desert bark; Nor laved at Hebron's fount my hand, By Hebron's palm-trees cool and dark; Nor pitched my tent at even-fall, On dust where Job of old has lain, Nor dreamed beneath its canvas wall, The dream of Jacob o'er again.
One vast world-page remains unread; How shine the stars in Chaldea's sky, How sounds the reverent pilgrim's tread, How beats the heart with God so nigh How round gray arch and column lone The spirit of the old time broods, And sighs in all the winds that moan Along the sandy solitudes!
In thy tall cedars, Lebanon, I have not heard the nations' cries, Nor seen thy eagles stooping down Where buried Tyre in ruin lies.
The Christian's prayer I have not said In Tadmor's temples of decay, Nor startled, with my dreary tread, The waste where Memnon's empire lay.
Nor have I, from thy hallowed tide, O Jordan! heard the low lament, Like that sad wail along thy side Which Israel's mournful prophet sent!
Nor thrilled within that grotto lone Where, deep in night, the Bard of Kings Felt hands of fire direct his own, And sweep for God the conscious strings.
I have not climbed to Olivet, Nor laid me where my Saviour lay, And left His trace of tears as yet By angel eyes unwept away; Nor watched, at midnight's solemn time, The garden where His prayer and groan, Wrung by His sorrow and our crime, Rose to One listening ear alone.
I have not kissed the rock-hewn grot Where in His mother's arms He lay, Nor knelt upon the sacred spot Where last His footsteps pressed the clay; Nor looked on that sad mountain head, Nor smote my sinful breast, where wide His arms to fold the world He spread, And bowed His head to bless--and died!
1848.
THE REWARD
Who, looking backward from his manhood's prime, Sees not the spectre of his misspent time?
And, through the shade Of funeral cypress planted thick behind, Hears no reproachful whisper on the wind From his loved dead?
Who bears no trace of passion's evil force?
Who shuns thy sting, O terrible Remorse?
Who does not cast On the thronged pages of his memory's book, At times, a sad and half-reluctant look, Regretful of the past?
Alas! the evil which we fain would shun We do, and leave the wished-for good undone Our strength to-day Is but to-morrow's weakness, prone to fall; Poor, blind, unprofitable servants all Are we alway.
Yet who, thus looking backward o'er his years, Feels not his eyelids wet with grateful tears, If he hath been Permitted, weak and sinful as he was, To cheer and aid, in some ennobling cause, His fellow-men?
If he hath hidden the outcast, or let in A ray of sunshine to the cell of sin; If he hath lent Strength to the weak, and, in an hour of need, Over the suffering, mindless of his creed Or home, hath bent;
He has not lived in vain, and while he gives The praise to Him, in whom he moves and lives, With thankful heart; He gazes backward, and with hope before, Knowing that from his works he nevermore Can henceforth part.
1848.
THE WISH OF TO-DAY.
I ask not now for gold to gild With mocking shine a weary frame; The yearning of the mind is stilled, I ask not now for Fame.
A rose-cloud, dimly seen above, Melting in heaven's blue depths away; Oh, sweet, fond dream of human Love For thee I may not pray.
But, bowed in lowliness of mind, I make my humble wishes known; I only ask a will resigned, O Father, to Thine own!
To-day, beneath Thy chastening eye I crave alone for peace and rest, Submissive in Thy hand to lie, And feel that it is best.
A marvel seems the Universe, A miracle our Life and Death; A mystery which I cannot pierce, Around, above, beneath.
In vain I task my aching brain, In vain the sage's thought I scan, I only feel how weak and vain, How poor and blind, is man.
And now my spirit sighs for home, And longs for light whereby to see, And, like a weary child, would come, O Father, unto Thee!
Though oft, like letters traced on sand, My weak resolves have passed away, In mercy lend Thy helping hand Unto my prayer to-day!
1848.
ALL'S WELL
The clouds, which rise with thunder, slake Our thirsty souls with rain; The blow most dreaded falls to break From off our limbs a chain; And wrongs of man to man but make The love of God more plain.
As through the shadowy lens of even The eye looks farthest into heaven On gleams of star and depths of blue The glaring sunshine never knew!
1850.
INVOCATION
Through Thy clear spaces, Lord, of old, Formless and void the dead earth rolled; Deaf to Thy heaven's sweet music, blind To the great lights which o'er it shined; No sound, no ray, no warmth, no breath,-- A dumb despair, a wandering death.
To that dark, weltering horror came Thy spirit, like a subtle flame,-- A breath of life electrical, Awakening and transforming all, Till beat and thrilled in every part The pulses of a living heart.
Then knew their bounds the land and sea; Then smiled the bloom of mead and tree; From flower to moth, from beast to man, The quick creative impulse ran; And earth, with life from thee renewed, Was in thy holy eyesight good.
As lost and void, as dark and cold And formless as that earth of old; A wandering waste of storm and night, Midst spheres of song and realms of light; A blot upon thy holy sky, Untouched, unwarned of thee, am I.
O Thou who movest on the deep Of spirits, wake my own from sleep Its darkness melt, its coldness warm, The lost restore, the ill transform, That flower and fruit henceforth may be Its grateful offering, worthy Thee.
1851.
QUESTIONS OF LIFE