I said, "No higher life they know; These earth-worms love to have it so.
Who stoops to raise them sinks as low."
That night with painful care I read What Hippo's saint and Calvin said; The living seeking to the dead!
In vain I turned, in weary quest, Old pages, where (God give them rest!) The poor creed-mongers dreamed and guessed.
And still I prayed, "Lord, let me see How Three are One, and One is Three; Read the dark riddle unto me!"
Then something whispered, "Dost thou pray For what thou hast? This very day The Holy Three have crossed thy way.
"Did not the gifts of sun and air To good and ill alike declare The all-compassionate Father's care?
"In the white soul that stooped to raise The lost one from her evil ways, Thou saw'st the Christ, whom angels praise!
"A bodiless Divinity, The still small Voice that spake to thee Was the Holy Spirit's mystery!
"O blind of sight, of faith how small!
Father, and Son, and Holy Call This day thou hast denied them all!
"Revealed in love and sacrifice, The Holiest passed before thine eyes, One and the same, in threefold guise.
"The equal Father in rain and sun, His Christ in the good to evil done, His Voice in thy soul;--and the Three are One!"
I shut my grave Aquinas fast; The monkish gloss of ages past, The schoolman's creed aside I cast.
And my heart answered, "Lord, I see How Three are One, and One is Three; Thy riddle hath been read to me!"
1858.
THE SISTERS
A PICTURE BY BARRY
The shade for me, but over thee The lingering sunshine still; As, smiling, to the silent stream Comes down the singing rill.
So come to me, my little one,-- My years with thee I share, And mingle with a sister's love A mother's tender care.
But keep the smile upon thy lip, The trust upon thy brow; Since for the dear one God hath called We have an angel now.
Our mother from the fields of heaven Shall still her ear incline; Nor need we fear her human love Is less for love divine.
The songs are sweet they sing beneath The trees of life so fair, But sweetest of the songs of heaven Shall be her children's prayer.
Then, darling, rest upon my breast, And teach my heart to lean With thy sweet trust upon the arm Which folds us both unseen!
1858
"THE ROCK" IN EL GHOR.
Dead Petra in her hill-tomb sleeps, Her stones of emptiness remain; Around her sculptured mystery sweeps The lonely waste of Edom's plain.
From the doomed dwellers in the cleft The bow of vengeance turns not back; Of all her myriads none are left Along the Wady Mousa's track.
Clear in the hot Arabian day Her arches spring, her statues climb; Unchanged, the graven wonders pay No tribute to the spoiler, Time!
Unchanged the awful lithograph Of power and glory undertrod; Of nations scattered like the chaff Blown from the threshing-floor of God.
Yet shall the thoughtful stranger turn From Petra's gates with deeper awe, To mark afar the burial urn Of Aaron on the cliffs of Hor;
And where upon its ancient guard Thy Rock, El Ghor, is standing yet,-- Looks from its turrets desertward, And keeps the watch that God has set.
The same as when in thunders loud It heard the voice of God to man, As when it saw in fire and cloud The angels walk in Israel's van,
Or when from Ezion-Geber's way It saw the long procession file, And heard the Hebrew timbrels play The music of the lordly Nile;
Or saw the tabernacle pause, Cloud-bound, by Kadesh Barnea's wells, While Moses graved the sacred laws, And Aaron swung his golden bells.
Rock of the desert, prophet-sung!
How grew its shadowing pile at length, A symbol, in the Hebrew tongue, Of God's eternal love and strength.
On lip of bard and scroll of seer, From age to age went down the name, Until the Shiloh's promised year, And Christ, the Rock of Ages, came!
The path of life we walk to-day Is strange as that the Hebrews trod; We need the shadowing rock, as they,-- We need, like them, the guides of God.
God send His angels, Cloud and Fire, To lead us o'er the desert sand!
God give our hearts their long desire, His shadow in a weary land!
1859.
THE OVER-HEART.
"For of Him, and through Him, and to Him are all things, to whom be glory forever! "--PAUL.
Above, below, in sky and sod, In leaf and spar, in star and man, Well might the wise Athenian scan The geometric signs of God, The measured order of His plan.
And India's mystics sang aright Of the One Life pervading all,-- One Being's tidal rise and fall In soul and form, in sound and sight,-- Eternal outflow and recall.
God is: and man in guilt and fear The central fact of Nature owns; Kneels, trembling, by his altar-stones, And darkly dreams the ghastly smear Of blood appeases and atones.