Guilt shapes the Terror: deep within The human heart the secret lies Of all the hideous deities; And, painted on a ground of sin, The fabled gods of torment rise!
And what is He? The ripe grain nods, The sweet dews fall, the sweet flowers blow; But darker signs His presence show The earthquake and the storm are God's, And good and evil interflow.
O hearts of love! O souls that turn Like sunflowers to the pure and best!
To you the truth is manifest: For they the mind of Christ discern Who lean like John upon His breast!
In him of whom the sibyl told, For whom the prophet's harp was toned, Whose need the sage and magian owned, The loving heart of God behold, The hope for which the ages groaned!
Fade, pomp of dreadful imagery Wherewith mankind have deified Their hate, and selfishness, and pride!
Let the scared dreamer wake to see The Christ of Nazareth at his side!
What doth that holy Guide require?
No rite of pain, nor gift of blood, But man a kindly brotherhood, Looking, where duty is desire, To Him, the beautiful and good.
Gone be the faithlessness of fear, And let the pitying heaven's sweet rain Wash out the altar's bloody stain; The law of Hatred disappear, The law of Love alone remain.
How fall the idols false and grim!
And to! their hideous wreck above The emblems of the Lamb and Dove!
Man turns from God, not God from him; And guilt, in suffering, whispers Love!
The world sits at the feet of Christ, Unknowing, blind, and unconsoled; It yet shall touch His garment's fold, And feel the heavenly Alchemist Transform its very dust to gold.
The theme befitting angel tongues Beyond a mortal's scope has grown.
O heart of mine! with reverence own The fulness which to it belongs, And trust the unknown for the known.
1859.
THE SHADOW AND THE LIGHT.
"And I sought, whence is Evil: I set before the eye of my spirit the whole creation; whatsoever we see therein,--sea, earth, air, stars, trees, moral creatures,--yea, whatsoever there is we do not see,--angels and spiritual powers. Where is evil, and whence comes it, since God the Good hath created all things? Why made He anything at all of evil, and not rather by His Almightiness cause it not to be? These thoughts I turned in my miserable heart, overcharged with most gnawing cares."
"And, admonished to return to myself, I entered even into my inmost soul, Thou being my guide, and beheld even beyond my soul and mind the Light unchangeable. He who knows the Truth knows what that Light is, and he that knows it knows Eternity! O--Truth, who art Eternity! Love, who art Truth! Eternity, who art Love! And I beheld that Thou madest all things good, and to Thee is nothing whatsoever evil. From the angel to the worm, from the first motion to the last, Thou settest each in its place, and everything is good in its kind. Woe is me!--how high art Thou in the highest, how deep in the deepest! and Thou never departest from us and we scarcely return to Thee." --AUGUSTINE'S Soliloquies, Book VII.
The fourteen centuries fall away Between us and the Afric saint, And at his side we urge, to-day, The immemorial quest and old complaint.
No outward sign to us is given,-- From sea or earth comes no reply; Hushed as the warm Numidian heaven He vainly questioned bends our frozen sky.
No victory comes of all our strife,-- From all we grasp the meaning slips; The Sphinx sits at the gate of life, With the old question on her awful lips.
In paths unknown we hear the feet Of fear before, and guilt behind; We pluck the wayside fruit, and eat Ashes and dust beneath its golden rind.
From age to age descends unchecked The sad bequest of sire to son, The body's taint, the mind's defect; Through every web of life the dark threads run.
Oh, why and whither? God knows all; I only know that He is good, And that whatever may befall Or here or there, must be the best that could.
Between the dreadful cherubim A Father's face I still discern, As Moses looked of old on Him, And saw His glory into goodness turn!
For He is merciful as just; And so, by faith correcting sight, I bow before His will, and trust Howe'er they seem He doeth all things right.
And dare to hope that Tie will make The rugged smooth, the doubtful plain; His mercy never quite forsake; His healing visit every realm of pain;
That suffering is not His revenge Upon His creatures weak and frail, Sent on a pathway new and strange With feet that wander and with eyes that fail;
That, o'er the crucible of pain, Watches the tender eye of Love The slow transmuting of the chain Whose links are iron below to gold above!
Ah me! we doubt the shining skies, Seen through our shadows of offence, And drown with our poor childish cries The cradle-hymn of kindly Providence.
And still we love the evil cause, And of the just effect complain We tread upon life's broken laws, And murmur at our self-inflicted pain;
We turn us from the light, and find Our spectral shapes before us thrown, As they who leave the sun behind Walk in the shadows of themselves alone.
And scarce by will or strength of ours We set our faces to the day; Weak, wavering, blind, the Eternal Powers Alone can turn us from ourselves away.
Our weakness is the strength of sin, But love must needs be stronger far, Outreaching all and gathering in The erring spirit and the wandering star.
A Voice grows with the growing years; Earth, hushing down her bitter cry, Looks upward from her graves, and hears, "The Resurrection and the Life am I."
O Love Divine!--whose constant beam Shines on the eyes that will not see, And waits to bless us, while we dream Thou leavest us because we turn from thee!
All souls that struggle and aspire, All hearts of prayer by thee are lit; And, dim or clear, thy tongues of fire On dusky tribes and twilight centuries sit.
Nor bounds, nor clime, nor creed thou know'st, Wide as our need thy favors fall; The white wings of the Holy Ghost Stoop, seen or unseen, o'er the heads of all.
O Beauty, old yet ever new!
Eternal Voice, and Inward Word, The Logos of the Greek and Jew, The old sphere-music which the Samian heard!
Truth, which the sage and prophet saw, Long sought without, but found within, The Law of Love beyond all law, The Life o'erflooding mortal death and sin!
Shine on us with the light which glowed Upon the trance-bound shepherd's way.
Who saw the Darkness overflowed And drowned by tides of everlasting Day.
Shine, light of God!--make broad thy scope To all who sin and suffer; more And better than we dare to hope With Heaven's compassion make our longings poor!
1860.
THE CRY OF A LOST SOUL.
Lieutenant Herndon's Report of the Exploration of the Amazon has a striking description of the peculiar and melancholy notes of a bird heard by night on the shores of the river. The Indian guides called it "The Cry of a Lost Soul"! Among the numerous translations of this poem is one by the Emperor of Brazil.
In that black forest, where, when day is done, With a snake's stillness glides the Amazon Darkly from sunset to the rising sun,
A cry, as of the pained heart of the wood, The long, despairing moan of solitude And darkness and the absence of all good,