s: Beneath them sit the aged men, wise guardians of the poor.


s: Then cherish pity, lest you drive an angel from your door.


s: Farewell, green fields and happy groves,


s: Merrily, merrily to welcome in the year.


s: Merrily, merrily we welcome in the year.


s: When voices of children are heard on the green,


s: ‘Then come home, my children, the sun is gone down,


s: Come, come, leave off play, and let us away,


s: ‘No, no, let us play, for it is yet day,


s: Besides, in the sky the little birds fly,


s: And the hills are all covered with sheep.’


s: ‘Well, well, go and play till the light fades away,


s: The little ones leaped, and shouted, and laughed,


s: And her locks covered with grey despair.


s: ‘Where are thy father and mother?  Say!’—


s: ‘They are both gone up to the church to pray.


s: They clothed me in the clothes of death,


s: ‘And because I am happy and dance and sing,


s: And are gone to praise God and His priest and king,


s: When the voices of children are heard on the green,


s: The days of my youth rise fresh in my mind,


s: Then come home, my children, the sun is gone down,


s: Your spring and your day are wasted in play,


s: While the Lily white shall in love delight,


s: Nor a thorn nor a threat stain her beauty bright.


s: And ‘Thou shalt not’ writ over the door;


s: And priests in black gowns were walking their rounds,


s: And binding with briars my joys and desires.


s: Dear mother, dear mother, the Church is cold;


s: But the Alehouse is healthy, and pleasant, and warm.


s: Besides, I can tell where I am used well;


s: Such usage in heaven will never do well.


s: But, if at the Church they would give us some ale,


s: And a pleasant fire our souls to regale,


s: We’d sing and we’d pray all the livelong day,


s: Nor ever once wish from the Church to stray.


s: Then the Parson might preach, and drink, and sing,


s: And we’d be as happy as birds in the spring;


s: And modest Dame Lurch, who is always at church,


s: Would not have bandy children, nor fasting, nor birch.


s: And God, like a father, rejoicing to see


s: His children as pleasant and happy as He,


s: Would have no more quarrel with the Devil or the barrel,


s: But kiss him, and give him both drink and apparel.


s: Near where the chartered Thames does flow,


s: But most, through midnight streets I hear


s: And blights with plagues the marriage hearse.


s: Sought through nature to find this tree,


s: Had just removed the curtains of the night.


s: That shakes the blossoms of my hoary hair!’


s: Or how shall we gather what griefs destroy,


s: Didst blind my nostrils, eyes, and ears,


s: Didst close my tongue in senseless clay,


s: They stumble all night over bones of the dead;


s: And wish to lead others, when they should be led.


s: book was originally published using only the


s: right-hand side pages of the book, leaving


s: the left-hand side blank to allow for and


s: acknowledge any thoughtful reader responses.]


s: Sweet friends, receive my offering. You will find


s: Against each worded page a white page set:--


s: This is the mirror of each friendly mind


s: Reflecting that. In this book we are met.


s: Make it, dear hearts, of worth to you indeed:--


s: Let your white page be ground, my print be seed,


s: Growing to golden ears, that faith and hope shall feed.


s: LORD, what I once had done with youthful might,


s: Had I been from the first true to the truth,


s: Grant me, now old, to do--with better sight,


s: And humbler heart, if not the brain of youth;


s: So wilt thou, in thy gentleness and ruth,


s: Lead back thy old soul, by the path of pain,


s: Round to his best--young eyes and heart and brain.


s: Beyond the line of jagged questions hoar,


s: As if the head of our intombed High Priest


s: Sure the gold wings will soon rise from the gray!--


s: They rise not. Up I rise, press on the more,


s: To meet the slow coming of the Master's day.


s: Sometimes I wake, and, lo! I have forgot,


s: My soul that was at rest now resteth not,


s: Truth seems a blind moon in a glaring morn,


s: Oh, thou who knowest! save thy child forlorn.


s: Death, like high faith, levelling, lifteth all.


s: Grown sister and brother, in my arms shall fall,


s: Of all the brood to the old wings will run.


s: Thy fishes breathe but where thy waters roll;


s: My soul breathes only in thy infinite soul;


s: I breathe, I think, I love, I live but thee.


s: Oh breathe, oh think,--O Love, live into me;


s: Then shall I breathe in sweetest sharing, then


s: Think in harmonious consort with my kin;


s: Then shall I love well all my father's men,


s: Feel one with theirs the life my heart within.


s: Oh brothers! sisters holy! hearts divine!


s: Then I shall be all yours, and nothing mine--


s: Knocking and knocking at the closed door;


s: He wakes dull echoes--but nor man nor mouse,


s: If he stood knocking there for evermore.--


s: Soft-walking, crosses straight the empty floor,


s: And opens to the obstinate praying thing.


s: Were there but some deep, holy spell, whereby


s: Always I should remember thee--some mode


s: Of the spirit-fire still uttering this I!--


s: Lord, see thou to it, take thou remembrance' load:


s: Remember thou, and prick me with love's goad.


s: If to myself--"God sometimes interferes"--


s: I said, my faith at once would be struck blind.


s: Or nowhere in the vacant miles and years.


s: A love he is that watches and that hears,


s: Or but a mist fumed up from minds of men,


s: Whose fear and hope reach out beyond their ken.


s: When I no more can stir my soul to move,


s: Once used to live and love, long and aspire,--


s: Oh, be thou then the first, the one thou art;


s: Be thou the calling, before all answering love,


s: And in me wake hope, fear, boundless desire.


s: I thought that I had lost thee; but, behold!


s: Across the fields outspread of green and gold--


s: Fair carpet for thy feet to come and go.


s: Whence I know not, or how to me thou art come!--


s: Not less my spirit with calm bliss doth glow,


s: Doubt swells and surges, with swelling doubt behind!


s: My soul in storm is but a tattered sail,


s: Streaming its ribbons on the torrent gale;


s: In calm, 'tis but a limp and flapping thing:


s: Oh! swell it with thy breath; make it a wing,--


s: To sweep through thee the ocean, with thee the wind


s: Nor rest until in thee its haven it shall find.


s: Faith swells it full to breast the breasting seas.


s: Bold, conscience, fast, and rule the ruling helm;


s: Hell's freezing north no tempest can send out,


s: But it shall toss thee homeward to thy leas;


s: Boisterous wave-crest never shall o'erwhelm


s: Thy sea-float bark as safe as field-borne rooted elm.


s: Sometimes, hard-trying, it seems I cannot pray--


s: For doubt, and pain, and anger, and all strife.


s: Yet some poor half-fledged prayer-bird from the nest


s: May fall, flit, fly, perch--crouch in the bowery breast


s: Of the large, nation-healing tree of life;--


s: Moveless there sit through all the burning day,


s: And on my heart at night a fresh leaf cooling lay.


s: My harvest withers. Health, my means to live--


s: All things seem rushing straight into the dark.


s: But the dark still is God. I would not give


s: The smallest silver-piece to turn the rush


s: Of him who is the light?--Fair hope doth flush


s: My east.--Divine success--Oh, hush and hark!


s: Thy will be done. I yield up everything.


s: "The life is more than meat"--then more than health;


s: "The body more than raiment"--then than wealth;


s: The hairs I made not, thou art numbering.


s: Thou art my life--I the brook, thou the spring.


s: Because thou art thyself, 'tis therefore I am me.


s: No sickness can come near to blast my health;


s: My bread comes not from any human tilth;


s: No wings will grow upon my changeless wealth;


s: Wrong cannot touch it, violence or deceit;


s: Thou art my life, my health, my bank, my barn--


s: And from all other gods thou plain dost warn.


s: Care thou for mine whom I must leave behind;


s: Care that they know who 'tis for them takes care;


s: Thy present patience help them still to bear;


s: Lord, keep them clearing, growing, heart and mind;


s: Last earthly prayer with which to thee I cling--


s: Grant that, save love, we owe not anything.


s: 'Tis well, for unembodied thought a live,


s: True house to build--of stubble, wood, nor hay;


s: So, like bees round the flower by which they thrive,


s: My thoughts are busy with the informing truth,


s: And as I build, I feed, and grow in youth--


s: Hoping to stand fresh, clean, and strong, and gay,


s: When up the east comes dawning His great day.


s: Thy will is truth--'tis therefore fate, the strong.


s: Would that my will did sweep full swing with thine!


s: And conscious power, would give sureness divine.


s: Who thinks to thread thy great laws' onward throng,


s: Athwart an engine's wheels in smooth resistless play.


s: Thou in my heart hast planted, gardener divine,


s: But not in every wind or weather it blows;


s: The leaves fall sometimes from the baby tree,


s: And the life-power seems melting into pine;


s: Yet still the sap keeps struggling to the shine,


s: And the unseen root clings cramplike unto thee.


s: Do thou, my God, my spirit's weather control;


s: And as I do not gloom though the day be dun,


s: Let me not gloom when earth-born vapours roll


s: Should sudden brain-frost through the heart's summer run,


s: Cold, weary, joyless, waste of air and sun,


s: Thou art my south, my summer-wind, my all, my one.


s: O Life, why dost thou close me up in death?


s: O Health, why make me inhabit heaviness?--


s: I ask, yet know: the sum of this distress,


s: Is but the egg that rounds the winged faith;


s: When that its path into the air shall find,


s: My heart will follow, high above cold, rain, and wind.


s: Therefore I lift my weary eyes--no more.


s: But my eyes pull my heart, and that, before


s: 'Tis well awake, knocks where the conscience lies;


s: Conscience runs quick to the spirit's hidden door:


s: Straightway, from every sky-ward window, cries


s: Up to the Father's listening ears arise.


s: Not in my fancy now I search to find thee;


s: Not in its loftiest forms would shape or bind thee;


s: Not to a shape that dwells within my heart,


s: Clothed in perfections love and truth assigned thee,


s: But to the God thou knowest that thou art.


s: Not, Lord, because I have done well or ill;


s: Not that my mind looks up to thee clear-eyed;


s: Not that it struggles in fast cerements tied;


s: Not that I wretched, wander from thy will;


s: But this, that thou art thou, and here am I.


s: Yestereve, Death came, and knocked at my thin door.


s: I from my window looked: the thing I saw,


s: The shape uncouth, I had not seen before.


s: I was disturbed--with fear, in sooth, not awe;


s: My will to seek thee--only to fear the more:


s: Alas! I could not find thee in the house.


s: To thee a new prayer therefore I have got--


s: That, when Death comes in earnest to my door,


s: Thou wouldst thyself go, when the latch doth clink,


s: Then hold thy child's hand, hold and leave him not,


s: Till Death has done with him for evermore.


s: Till Death has done with him?--Ah, leave me then!


s: And Death has done with me, oh, nevermore!


s: He comes--and goes--to leave me in thy arms,


s: Nearer thy heart, oh, nearer than before!


s: Of mother earth, crept free through many harms,


s: Come to me, Lord: I will not speculate how,


s: Nor think at which door I would have thee appear,


s: Nor put off calling till my floors be swept,


s: But cry, "Come, Lord, come any way, come now."


s: Doors, windows, I throw wide; my head I bow,


s: And sit like some one who so long has slept


s: That he knows nothing till his life draw near.


s: O Lord, I have been talking to the people;


s: Thought's wheels have round me whirled a fiery zone,


s: My heart unheedful has puffed up and blown.


s: Therefore I cast myself before thee prone:


s: Lay cool hands on my burning brain, and press


s: From my weak heart the swelling emptiness.


s: I TO myself have neither power nor worth,


s: Patience nor love, nor anything right good;


s: My soul is a poor land, plenteous in dearth--


s: Here blades of grass, there a small herb for food--


s: A nothing that would be something if it could;


s: The worst power of an evil mood is this--


s: Self, self the end, the goal of human bliss.


s: But if the Christ-self in us be the might


s: Of saving God, why should I spend my force


s: With a dark thing to reason of the light--


s: Not push it rough aside, and hold obedient course?


s: Back still it comes to this: there was a man


s: Who said, "I am the truth, the life, the way:"--


s: Shall I pass on, or shall I stop and hear?--


s: "Come to the Father but by me none can:"


s: My Lord, I find that nothing else will do,


s: But follow where thou goest, sit at thy feet,


s: And where I have thee not, still run to meet.


s: Roses are scentless, hopeless are the morns,


s: Rest is but weakness, laughter crackling thorns,


s: If thou, the Truth, do not make them the true:


s: Thou art my life, O Christ, and nothing else will do.


s: Thou art here--in heaven, I know, but not from here--


s: Although thy separate self do not appear;


s: If I could part the light from out the day,


s: There I should have thee! But thou art too near:


s: How find thee walking, when thou art the way?


s: Oh, present Christ! make my eyes keen as stings,


s: To see thee at their heart, the glory even of things.


s: That thou art nowhere to be found, agree


s: Wise men, whose eyes are but for surfaces;


s: Men with eyes opened by the second birth,


s: To whom the seen, husk of the unseen is,


s: Descry thee soul of everything on earth.


s: Who know thy ends, thy means and motions see:


s: Thou near then, I draw nearer--to thy feet,


s: And sitting in thy shadow, look out on the shine;


s: Ready at thy first word to leave my seat--


s: Not thee: thou goest too. From every clod


s: Into thy footprint flows the indwelling wine;


s: And in my daily bread, keen-eyed I greet


s: Its being's heart, the very body of God.


s: Thou wilt interpret life to me, and men,


s: Art, nature, yea, my own soul's mysteries--


s: Bringing, truth out, clear-joyous, to my ken,


s: Fair as the morn trampling the dull night. Then


s: The lone hill-side shall hear exultant cries;


s: The joyous see me joy, the weeping weep;


s: The watching smile, as Death breathes on me his cold sleep.


s: I search my heart--I search, and find no faith.


s: Duty's firm shape thins to a misty wraith.


s: No good seems likely. To and fro I am hurled.


s: I haste, I rise, I do the thing he saith.


s: Thou wouldst not have thy man crushed back to clay;


s: It must be, God, thou hast a strength to give


s: To him that fain would do what thou dost say;


s: Old griefs and new fears hurrying on dismay?


s: Let pain be what thou wilt, kind and degree,


s: Only in pain calm thou my heart with thee.


s: I will not shift my ground like Moab's king,


s: But from this spot whereon I stand, I pray--


s: From this same barren rock to thee I say,


s: "Lord, in my commonness, in this very thing


s: That haunts my soul with folly--through the clay


s: Of this my pitcher, see the lamp's dim flake;


s: And hear the blow that would the pitcher break."


s: Be thou the well by which I lie and rest;


s: Be thou my tree of life, my garden ground;


s: Be thou my home, my fire, my chamber blest,


s: My book of wisdom, loved of all the best;


s: Oh, be my friend, each day still newer found,


s: As the eternal days and nights go round!


s: Nay, nay--thou art my God, in whom all loves are bound!


s: Two things at once, thou know'st I cannot think.


s: I cannot consciously think then of thee.


s: Then why, when next thou lookest o'er the brink


s: Reproached and fearful, nor to greet thee run?


s: Some care, poor eagerness, ambition of work,


s: Some old offence that unforgiving did lurk,


s: Or some self-gratulation, soft and sly--


s: Something not thy sweet will, not the good part,


s: While the home-guard looked out, stirred up the old murk,


s: And so I gloomed away from thee, my Heart.


s: Praying,--Lord, wake me oftener, lest I sin.


s: That I may wake and laugh, and know and see


s: Then with healed heart afresh catch up the clue,


s: If I should slow diverge, and listless stray


s: Into some thought, feeling, or dream unright,


s: Let me not perish of the ghastly blight.


s: Then merest approach of selfish or impure


s: Lord, I have fallen again--a human clod!


s: Stood on my rights. Thy own child would not send


s: Away his shreds of nothing for the whole God!


s: Wretched, to thee who savest, low I bend:


s: Give me the power to let my rag-rights go


s: In the great wind that from thy gulf doth blow.


s: Keep me from wrath, let it seem ever so right:


s: My wrath will never work thy righteousness.


s: Up, up the hill, to the whiter than snow-shine,


s: Help me to climb, and dwell in pardon's light.


s: Than thy design of me--therefore incline


s: My heart to take men's wrongs as thou tak'st mine.


s: Lord, in thy spirit's hurricane, I pray,


s: Strip my soul naked--dress it then thy way.


s: Change for me all my rags to cloth of gold.


s: Who would a mess of porridge careful hold


s: Help me to yield my will, in labour even,


s: Nor toil on toil, greedy of doing, heap--


s: Fretting I cannot more than me is given;


s: That with the finest clay my wheel runs slow,


s: Nor lets the lovely thing the shapely grow;


s: That memory what thought gives it cannot keep,


s: And nightly rimes ere morn like cistus-petals go.


s: 'Tis--shall thy will be done for me?--or mine,


s: Be made like Christ, or on some other plan?--


s: I let all run:--set thou and trim my sails;


s: Home then my course, let blow whatever gales.


s: With thee on board, each sailor is a king


s: But heir of earth and heaven, eternal child;


s: Resenting nothing, taking rage and blare


s: Into the Godlike silence of a loving care.


s: From morn to night I go not gladsome free;


s: For, if thou art what my soul thinketh thee,


s: There is no burden but should lightly lie,


s: Love's perfect will can be nor sore nor small,


s: For God is light--in him no darkness is at all.


s: 'Tis something thus to think, and half to trust--


s: But, ah! my very heart, God-born, should lie


s: Spread to the light, clean, clear of mire and rust,


s: And like a sponge drink the divine sunbeams.


s: What resolution then, strong, swift, and high!


s: And in my sleep, what true, what perfect dreams!


s: A sickly eclipse, low brooding o'er a man,


s: When the poor brain is as an empty bowl,


s: And the thought-spirit, weariful and wan,


s: Turning from that which yet it loves the best,


s: Sinks moveless, with life-poverty opprest:--


s: Watch then, O Lord, thy feebly glimmering coal.


s: I have felt much, and want to feel no more;


s: My soul is hungry for some poorer fare--


s: Some earthly nectar, gold not unalloyed:--


s: The little child that's happy to the core,


s: Will leave his mother's lap, run down the stair,


s: Play with the servants--is his mother annoyed?


s: Why not to thee run straight, and be at rest?


s: Motherward, with toy new, or garment torn,


s: The child that late forsook her changeless breast,


s: Runs to home's heart, the heaven that's heavenliest:


s: Peace or commotion, be thou, Father, my delight.


s: The thing I would say, still comes forth with doubt


s: And difference:--is it that thou shap'st my ends?


s: Of stubborn words, that shift sluggish about,


s: Warping my thought as it the sentence bends?--


s: Shall say a truth, if not the thing I try.


s: As these four quarters make a shining day.


s: Take up the things that I have cast away


s: Let mine be a merry, all-receiving heart,


s: But make it a whole, with light in every part.


s: THE song birds that come to me night and morn,


s: Is the thing ever ours we cannot keep?--


s: But their souls go not out into the deep.


s: What matter if with changed song they come back?


s: Old strength nor yet fresh beauty shall they lack.


s: Gloriously wasteful, O my Lord, art thou!


s: Sunset faints after sunset into the night,


s: Splendorously dying from thy window-sill--


s: Sweep from thy space thy systems at thy will--


s: In thee the sun sets every sunset still.


s: When we are in our home, our natal home,


s: And from its life and peace no heart shall roam,


s: What if thou make us able to make like thee--


s: To light with moons, to clothe with greenery,


s: To hang gold sunsets o'er a rose and purple sea!


s: Then to his neighbour one may call out, "Come!


s: Brother, come hither--I would show you a thing;"


s: Before the neighbour's truth-delighted eyes,


s: And two hearts each to each the closer cling!


s: We make, but thou art the creating core.


s: Whatever thing I dream, invent, or feel,


s: Thou art the heart of it, the atmosphere.


s: Yea, the love itself, whatever thing be dear.


s: Man calls his dog, he follows at his heel,


s: Because thou first art love, self-caused, essential, mere.


s: This day be with me, Lord, when I go forth,


s: Walking the street, listening to men of worth,


s: Be thy thought still my waiting soul around,


s: And if He come, I shall be watching found.


s: What if, writing, I always seem to leave


s: Some better thing, or better way, behind,


s: Why should I therefore fret at all, or grieve!


s: The worse I drop, that I the better find;


s: Fallen threads I will not search for--I will weave.


s: Who makes the mill-wheel backward strike to grind!


s: Be with me, Lord. Keep me beyond all prayers:


s: For more than all my prayers my need of thee,


s: And thou beyond all need, all unknown cares;


s: What the heart's dear imagination dares,


s: Thou dost transcend in measureless majesty


s: Where should the unknown treasures of the truth


s: Lie, but there whence the truth comes out the most--


s: In the Son of man, folded in love and ruth?


s: Fair shore we see, fair ocean; but behind


s: Lie infinite reaches bathing many a coast--


s: Pulsed by a living tide, blown by a living wind.


s: Thou, healthful Father, art the Ancient of Days,


s: Our old age is the scorching of the bush


s: By life's indwelling, incorruptible blaze.


s: O Life, burn at this feeble shell of me,


s: Till I the sore singed garment off shall push,


s: Flap out my Psyche wings, and to thee rush.


s: But shall I then rush to thee like a dart?


s: This hunger in me, and the Father's heart?--


s: It shall be good, how ever, and not ill;


s: Of things and thoughts even now thou art my next;


s: Sole neighbour, and no space between, thou art--


s: And yet art drawing nearer, nearer still.


s: Therefore, my brothers, therefore, sisters dear,


s: In tenderness, or grace, or service clear,


s: God in us from our hearts veil after veil


s: Keeps lifting, till we see with his own sight,


s: And all together run in unity's delight.


s: I love thee, Lord, for very greed of love--


s: Not of the precious streams that towards me move,


s: But of the indwelling, outgoing, fountain store.


s: Than mine, oh, many an ignorant heart loves more!


s: Therefore the more, with Mary at thy feet,


s: I must sit worshipping--that, in my core,


s: Thy words may fan to a flame the low primeval heat.


s: I would be rich in love to heap you with love;


s: I long to love you, sweet ones, perfectly--


s: Like God, who sees no spanning vault above,


s: No earth below, and feels no circling air--


s: I am a beast until I love as God doth love.


s: Ah, say not, 'tis but perfect self I want


s: But if it were, that self is fit to live


s: Whose perfectness is still itself to scant,


s: Which never longs to have, but still to give.


s: Love, give me a self self-giving--or let me fall


s: To endless darkness back, and free me from life's thrall.


s: "Back," said I! Whither back? How to the dark?


s: From no dark came I, but the depths of light;


s: From the sun-heart I came, of love a spark:


s: What should I do but love with all my might?


s: To die of love severe and pure and stark,


s: Were scarcely loss; to lord a loveless height--


s: That were a living death, damnation's positive night.


s: But love is life. To die of love is then


s: All love is death to loving, living men;


s: All deaths are leaps across clefts to the abyss.


s: Our life is the broken current, Lord, of thine,


s: Flashing from morn to morn with conscious shine--


s: Then first by willing death self-made, then life divine.


s: I love you, my sweet children, who are gone


s: I love you, sweet dead children; there are none


s: Whose hearts more truly on your hearts are set--


s: Yet should I die of grief to love you only so.


s: "I am but as a beast before thee, Lord."--


s: Great poet-king, I thank thee for the word.--


s: Leave not thy son half-made in beastly guise--


s: Less than a man, with more than human cries--


s: An unshaped thing in which thyself cries out!


s: Finish me, Father; now I am but a doubt;


s: Oh! make thy moaning thing for joy to leap and shout.


s: Let my soul talk to thee in ordered words,


s: O king of kings, O lord of only lords!--


s: When I am thinking thee within my heart,


s: From the broken reflex be not far apart.


s: The troubled water, dim with upstirred soil,


s: Makes not the image which it yet can spoil:--


s: Come nearer, Lord, and smooth the wrinkled coil.


s: I think of thee who art the death of parting;


s: Of him who crying Father breathed his last,


s: Then radiant from the sepulchre upstarted.--


s: Even then, I think, thy hands and feet kept smarting:


s: With us the bitterness of death is past,


s: But by the feet he still doth hold us fast.


s: Therefore our hands thy feet do hold as fast.


s: We pray not to be spared the sorest pang,


s: Let not our heart be troubled at the clang


s: Of hammer and nails, nor dread the spear's keen fang,


s: Nor the ghast sickening that comes of pain,


s: Nor yet the last clutch of the banished brain.


s: Then give us making will, adopting thine.


s: Make, make, and make us; temper, and refine.


s: Be in us patience--neither to start nor cower.


s: Christ, if thou be not with us--not by sign,


s: But presence, actual as the wounds that bleed--


s: We shall not bear it, but shall die indeed.


s: O Christ, have pity on all men when they come


s: When that they know not draweth very near--


s: Before which even love doth lose his cheer:


s: O radiant Christ, remember then thy fear.


s: Be by me, Lord, this day. Thou know'st I mean--


s: Lord, make me mind thee. I herewith forestall


s: My own forgetfulness, when I stoop to glean


s: The corn of earth--which yet thy hand lets fall.


s: Take me, if by the hair, and lift me up.


s: To will to die is one with highest life,


s: The mightiest act that to Will's hand doth lie--


s: Born of God's essence, and of man's hard strife:


s: God, give me strength my evil self to kill,


s: And die into the heaven of thy pure will.--


s: Then shall this body's death be very tolerable.


s: As to our mothers came help in our birth--


s: Not lost in lifing us, but saved and blest--


s: Self bearing self, although right sorely prest,


s: Shall nothing lose, but die and be at rest


s: In life eternal, beyond all care and dearth.


s: God-born then truly, a man does no more ill,


s: Perfectly loves, and has whate'er he will.


s: Because their pain spreads neither right nor left,


s: Lost in oblivion and foresightlessness--


s: Our suffering sore by faith shall be bereft


s: His presence shall be better in our pain,


s: Than even self-absence to the weaker brain.


s: "Father, let this cup pass." He prayed--was heard.


s: What cup was it that passed away from him?


s: Sure not the death-cup, now filled to the brim!


s: There was no quailing in the awful word;


s: He still was king of kings, of lords the lord:--


s: He feared lest, in the suffering waste and grim,


s: His faith might grow too faint and sickly dim.


s: Thy mind, my master, I will dare explore;


s: What we are told, that we are meant to know.


s: Into thy soul I search yet more and more,


s: A weeping thirst by hot winds ever fanned.


s: That, when at last he did cry out, "My God,


s: Why hast thou me forsaken?" straight man's rod


s: Was turned aside; for, that same moment, he


s: Cried "Father!" and gave up will and breath and spirit


s: Into his hands whose all he did inherit--


s: LORD, I do choose the higher than my will.


s: Hurt me thou wilt--but then more loving still,


s: If more can be and less, in love's perfect zone!


s: My fancy shrinks from least of all thy harms,


s: But do thy will with me--I am thine own.


s: Some things wilt thou not one day turn to dreams?


s: Some dreams wilt thou not one day turn to fact?


s: The thing that painful, more than should be, seems,


s: Shall not thy sliding years with them retract--


s: The thing that was well dreamed of bliss and joy--


s: Wilt thou not breathe thy life into the toy?


s: Flowers, wind, a peak, a limb of marble white;


s: They dwell with me like things half come to pass,


s: True prophecies:--when I with thee am right,


s: If I pray, waking, for such a joy of sight,


s: Thou with the gold, wilt not refuse the brass.


s: Thy bliss will overflood my heart and brain,


s: Love ever fresher, lovelier than of old--


s: How should it want its more exchanged for much?


s: Love will not backward sigh, but forward strain,


s: On in the tale still telling, never told.


s: What has been, shall not only be, but is.


s: The hues of dreamland, strange and sweet and tender


s: Are but hint-shadows of full many a splendour


s: Which the high Parent-love will yet unroll


s: Before his child's obedient, humble soul.


s: Ah, me, my God! in thee lies every bliss


s: Whose shadow men go hunting wearily amiss.


s: Now, ere I sleep, I wonder what I shall dream.


s: Some sense of being, utter new, may come


s: With shapes and airs and scents which dark hours teem,


s: Of other sort than those that haunt the day,


s: In the long tale of us God to himself doth say.


s: Stand on a tomb; down she to me stepped thence.


s: "They tell me," quoth I, "thou art one of the dead!"


s: And scarce believed for gladness the yea she said;


s: To think I talked with one that verily was dead.


s: Thou dost demand our love, holy Lord Christ,


s: Thou know'st no other way to bliss the highest


s: Than loving thee, the loving, perfectly.


s: Thou lovest perfectly--that is thy bliss:


s: We must love like thee, or our being miss--


s: So, to love perfectly, love perfect Love, love thee.


s: Here is my heart, O Christ; thou know'st I love thee.


s: But wretched is the thing I call my love.


s: O Love divine, rise up in me and move me--


s: I follow surely when thou first dost move.


s: To love the perfect love, is primal, mere


s: Must love thee every hope and heart above.


s: Might I but scatter interfering things--


s: Questions and doubts, distrusts and anxious pride,


s: And in thy garment, as under gathering wings,


s: Easy it were to love thee. But when thou


s: Send'st me to think and labour from thee wide,


s: Love falls to asking many a why and how.


s: Easier it were, but poorer were the love.


s: Lord, I would have me love thee from the deeps--


s: Of troubled thought, of pain, of weariness.


s: Through seething wastes below, billows above,


s: My soul should rise in eager, hungering leaps;


s: Through thorny thicks, through sands unstable press--


s: Out of my dream to him who slumbers not nor sleeps.


s: I do not fear the greatness of thy command--


s: To keep heart-open-house to brother men;


s: But till in thy God's love perfect I stand,


s: Each man will be love-awful in my sight;


s: And, open to the eternal morning's might,


s: Each human face will shine my window for thy light.


s: Patience, that thou mayst have thy time with me;


s: In sending out to bring me home to thee.


s: What though thy work in me transcends my sense--


s: Too fine, too high, for me to understand--


s: I hope entirely. On, Lord, with thy labour grand.


s: That my great labour was but for my peace


s: That not for love or truth had I been bold,


s: But merely for a prisoned heart's release;


s: Careful, I humble me now before thy feet:


s: Whate'er I be, I cry, and will not cease--


s: Let me not perish, though favour be not meet.


s: For, what I seek thou knowest I must find,


s: Thou know'st I choose it--know'st I would not shove


s: The hand away that stripped me for the rod--


s: If so it pleased my Life, my love-made-angry God.


s: In creed and quarrel, sure disciples all!


s: Gladly they would, they say, enter the hall,


s: But cannot, the stone threshold is so high.


s: From unseen hand, full many a feeding crumb,


s: Slow dropping o'er the threshold high doth come:


s: They gather and eat, with much disputing hum.


s: Still and anon, a loud clear voice doth call--


s: "Make your feet clean, and enter so the hall."


s: They hear, they stoop, they gather each a crumb.


s: Hear how they talk, and lack of Christ deplore,


s: Stamping with muddy feet about the door,


s: And will not wipe them clean to walk upon his floor!


s: But see, one comes; he listens to the voice;


s: The voice hath spoken--to him is left no choice;


s: Low sinks the threshold, levelled with the ground;


s: The man leaps in--to liberty he's bound.


s: The rest go talking, walking, picking round.


s: If I, thus writing, rebuke my neighbour dull,


s: And talk, and write, and enter not the door,


s: Than all the rest I wrong Christ tenfold more,


s: Making his gift of vision void and null.


s: Help me this day to be thy humble sheep,


s: Eating thy grass, and following, thou before;


s: From wolfish lies my life, O Shepherd, keep.


s: God, help me, dull of heart, to trust in thee.


s: Can part me from the One, the verily Good.


s: When fog and failure o'er my being brood.


s: When life looks but a glimmering marshy clod,


s: No fire out flashing from the living God--


s: Then, then, to rest in faith were worthy victory!


s: To trust is gain and growth, not mere sown seed!


s: Faith heaves the world round to the heavenly dawn,


s: In whose great light the soul doth spell and read


s: Itself high-born, its being derived and drawn


s: Then, mazed with joy of its own heavenly breed,


s: Exultant-humble falls before its awful sire.


s: Thee shall I image as one sitting still,


s: Silent, and thinking ever to thy father,


s: Whose thought through thee flows multitudinous?


s: Or shall I think of thee as journeying, rather,


s: Ceaseless through space, because thou everything dost fill?


s: That all things thou dost fill, I well may think--


s: Thy power doth reach me in so many ways.


s: Passest through all the channels of my mind;


s: The sun of thought, across the farthest brink


s: Of consciousness thou sendest me thy rays;


s: Nor drawest them in when lost in sleep I sink.


s: So common are thy paths, thy coming seems


s: How better then couldst thou, O master, come,


s: Straight o'er the marches that I cannot see!


s: Marches?--'Twixt thee and me there's no division,


s: Except the meeting of thy will and mine,


s: The loves that love, the wills that will the same.


s: Where thine meets mine is my life's true condition;


s: Yea, only there it burns with any flame.


s: Thy will but holds me to my life's fruition.


s: O God, I would--I have no mine that is not thine.


s: I look for thee, and do not see thee come.--


s: If I could see thee, 'twere a commoner thing,


s: And shallower comfort would thy coming bring.


s: To tell the Lord of Hearts is drawing near:


s: Lo! in the looking eyes, the looked for Lord is here.


s: Must I come to thee, ere I can pay one debt


s: "How close to thee!"--no wonder, soul, thou art glad!


s: Oneness with him is the eternal gladness.


s: What can there be so close as making and made?


s: Nought twinned can be so near; thou art more nigh


s: Thou art more near me, than is my ready will


s: Near to my love, though both one place do fill;--


s: Yet, till we are one,--Ah me! the long until!


s: Then shall my heart behold thee everywhere.


s: A time when I nor breathe nor think nor move,


s: But I do breathe and think and feel thy love,


s: The soul of all the songs the saints do sing!--


s: And life dies out in bliss, to come again in prayer.


s: In the great glow of that great love, this death


s: I should no more shrink from it than from the breath


s: That makes in the frosty air a nimbus-shroud;


s: Thou, Love, hast conquered death, and I aloud


s: Should triumph over him, with thy saintly crowd,


s: That where the Lamb goes ever followeth.


s: WHAT though my words glance sideways from the thing


s: Which I would utter in thine ear, my sire!


s: Truth in the inward parts thou dost desire--


s: Wise hunger, not a fitness fine of speech:


s: The little child that clamouring fails to reach


s: With upstretched hand the fringe of her attire,


s: Yet meets the mother's hand down hurrying.


s: Even when their foolish words they turned on him,


s: He knew their hearts were foolish, eyes were dim,


s: And therefore by his side needs must they stay.


s: Thou will not, Lord, send me away from thee.


s: When I am foolish, make thy cock crow grim;


s: If that is not enough, turn, Lord, and look on me.


s: Of closed skies, cold winds, and blight and bane!


s: Such not the weather, Lord, which thou art fain


s: To give thy chosen, sweet to heart and brain!--


s: Until we mourn, thou keep'st the merry tune;


s: Thy hand unloved its pleasure must restrain,


s: Nor spoil both gift and child by lavishing too soon.


s: But all things shall be ours! Up, heart, and sing.


s: All things were made for us--we are God's heirs--


s: Moon, sun, and wildest comets that do trail


s: A crowd of small worlds for a swiftness-tail!


s: Up from Thy depths in me, my child-heart bring--


s: God's little children-gods--all things are theirs!


s: Thy great deliverance is a greater thing


s: Beyond all hope that makes the poet sing.


s: It takes the clinging world, undoes its clasp,


s: And leaves us quiet with love and liberty and thee.


s: Through all the fog, through all earth's wintery sighs,


s: I scent Thy spring, I feel the eternal air,


s: Warm, soft, and dewy, filled with flowery eyes,


s: And gentle, murmuring motions everywhere--


s: Of life in heart, and tree, and brook, and moss;


s: Thy breath wakes beauty, love, and bliss, and prayer,


s: And strength to hang with nails upon thy cross.


s: If thou hadst closed my life in seed and husk,


s: And cast me into soft, warm, damp, dark mould,


s: All unaware of light come through the dusk,


s: I yet should feel the split of each shelly fold,


s: Should feel the growing of my prisoned heart,


s: And in some other vagueness taking part.


s: And little as the world I should foreknow


s: Its rains, its radiance, airs, and warmth, and skies,


s: How it would greet me, how its wind would blow--


s: As little, it may be, I do know the good


s: Which I for years half darkling have pursued--


s: The second birth for which my nature cries.


s: The life that knows not, patient waits, nor longs:--


s: I know, and would be patient, yet would long.


s: To quicker life I fain would spur and start


s: The aching growth at my dull-swelling heart.


s: Christ is the pledge that I shall one day see;


s: That one day, still with him, I shall awake,


s: And know my God, at one with him and free.


s: The will-throb let me feel that doth me make;


s: Then shall I rest although the universe should quake.


s: Haste to me, Lord, when this fool-heart of mine


s: Begins to gnaw itself with selfish craving;


s: Or, like a foul thing scarcely worth the saving,


s: Swoln up with wrath, desireth vengeance fine.


s: Haste, Lord, to help, when reason favours wrong;


s: Haste when thy soul, the high-born thing divine,


s: Is torn by passion's raving, maniac throng.


s: Fair freshness of the God-breathed spirit air,


s: Pass through my soul, and make it strong to love;


s: Wither with gracious cold what demons dare


s: Let them drop down, like leaves the sun doth sear,


s: And flutter far into the inane and bare,


s: Leaving my middle-earth calm, wise, and clear.


s: Even thou canst give me neither thought nor thing,


s: Were it the priceless pearl hid in the land,


s: Becomes not poison that doth burn and cling;


s: Their own bad look my foolish eyes doth daze,


s: They see the gift, see not the giving hand--


s: From the living root the apple dead I wring.


s: This versing, even the reading of the tale


s: That brings my heart its joy unspeakable,


s: Sometimes will softly, unsuspectedly hale


s: That heart from thee, and all its pulses quell.


s: Discovery's pride, joy's bliss, take aback my sail,


s: And sweep me from thy presence and my grace,


s: Because my eyes dropped from the master's face.


s: Afresh I seek thee. Lead me--once more I pray--


s: Even should it be against my will, thy way.


s: Or shrink from thee as an estranged power.


s: I would go near thee--but I cannot press


s: Into thy presence--it helps not to presume.


s: Thy doors are deeds; the handles are their doing.


s: He whose day-life is obedient righteousness,


s: Rises up, stronger effort yet renewing--


s: He finds thee, Lord, at length, in his own common room.


s: Lord, thou hast carried me through this evening's duty;


s: O soul, put on the evening dress of beauty,


s: Thy sunset-flush, of gold and purple blent!--


s: Feeling runs out of doors, or stands apart!


s: But such as I am, Lord, take me as thou art.


s: The word he then did speak, fits now as then,


s: For the same kind of men doth mock at it.


s: God-fools, God-drunkards these do call the men


s: Who think the poverty of their all not fit,


s: Borne humbly by their art, their voice, their pen,


s: Save for its allness, at thy feet to fling,


s: For whom all is unfit that is not everything.


s: 'Tis something not yet from the darkness won.


s: Oh, give me light to live with open eyes.


s: Oh, give me life to hope above all skies.


s: Give me thy spirit to haunt the Father with my cries.


s: 'Tis hard for man to rouse his spirit up--


s: Though but to hold the heart an empty cup,


s: Than creep through narrow ways the light to gain--


s: Than wake the will, and be born bitterly.


s: Must wake his soul unnumbered times a day,


s: And urge himself to life with holy greed;


s: Now ope his bosom to the Wind's free play;


s: And now, with patience forceful, hard, lie still,


s: Athirst and empty, for God's breath to fill.


s: All times are thine whose will is our remede.


s: Man turns to thee, thou hast not turned away;


s: The look he casts, thy labour that did breed--


s: It is thy work, thy business all the day:


s: That look, not foregone fitness, thou dost heed.


s: For duty absolute how be fitter than now?


s: Or learn by shunning?--Lord, I come; help thou.


s: Rises up something, reaching forth a hand:


s: This thing I know, but cannot understand.


s: Beyond my self, trailing it up with him,


s: Towards the spirit-home, the freedom-land,


s: Beyond my conscious ken, my near horizon's brim?


s: O God of man, my heart would worship all


s: My fellow men, the flashes from thy fire;


s: Them in good sooth my lofty kindred call,


s: Born of the same one heart, the perfect sire;


s: Not close my doors and dream solitude liberty!


s: Where seemed no door, and that may enter in


s: Which lay at the heart of that same loving word.


s: In my still chamber dwell thou always, Lord;


s: Thy presence there will carriage true afford;


s: True words will flow, pure of design to win;


s: And to my men my door shall have no bar.


s: My prayers, my God, flow from what I am not;


s: Like weary waves thought follows upon thought,


s: But the still depth beneath is all thine own,


s: And there thou mov'st in paths to us unknown.


s: Out of strange strife thy peace is strangely wrought;


s: If the lion in us pray--thou answerest the lamb.


s: So bound in selfishness am I, so chained,


s: But know not what, full-fraught, the word doth mean.


s: For, that great freedom how should such as I


s: Less hopeless far the miser man might try


s: To image the delight of friend-shared pelf.


s: Freedom is to be like thee, face and heart;


s: To know it, Lord, I must be as thou art,


s: Yet hints come to me from the realm unknown;


s: Airs drift across the twilight border land,


s: Odoured with life; and as from some far strand


s: Sea-murmured, whispers to my heart are blown


s: Yea, from whose shadow words drop faint and weak:


s: Thee, God, I shadow in that region grand.


s: O Christ, who didst appear in Judah land,


s: Thence by the cross go back to God's right hand,


s: Plain history, and things our sense beyond,


s: How rulest thou from the undiscovered bourne


s: The world-wise world that laughs thee still to scorn?


s: Please, Lord, let thy disciple understand.


s: 'Tis heart on heart thou rulest. Thou art the same


s: At God's right hand as here exposed to shame,


s: And therefore workest now as thou didst then--


s: Through all thy realms from thee goes out heart-power,


s: When all shall love, and all be loved again.


s: FROM thine, as then, the healing virtue goes


s: Into our hearts--that is the Father's plan.


s: From heart to heart it sinks, it steals, it flows,


s: From these that know thee still infecting those.


s: Here is my heart--from thine, Lord, fill it up,


s: When thou dost send out whirlwinds on thy seas,


s: Alternatest thy lightning with its roar,


s: Thy night with morning, and thy clouds with stars


s: Or, mightier force unseen in midst of these,


s: Guidest men's efforts, rul'st mishaps and jars,--


s: 'Tis only for their hearts, and nothing more.


s: This, this alone thy father careth for--


s: That men should live hearted throughout with thee--


s: Of the very truth of living, the pure heart.


s: For this, deep waters whelm the fruitful lea,


s: Wars ravage, famine wastes, plague withers, nor


s: Shall cease till men have chosen the better part.


s: But, like a virtuous medicine, self-diffused


s: Through all men's hearts thy love shall sink and float;


s: Till every feeling false, and thought unwise,


s: Selfish, and seeking, shall, sternly disused,


s: Wither, and die, and shrivel up to nought;


s: And Christ, whom they did hang 'twixt earth and skies,


s: Make me a fellow worker with thee, Christ;


s: Of all that's lovely, only lives the highest,


s: Lifing the rest that it shall never die.


s: Up I would be to help thee--for thou liest


s: Not, linen-swathed in Joseph's garden-tomb,


s: But walkest crowned, creation's heart and bloom.


s: My God, when I would lift my heart to thee,


s: A cloudy something, thin, and vast, and vague,


s: Then up the Will, and doth her weakness plague


s: Showing the face that hearkeneth to the plea.


s: And hence it comes that thou at times dost seem


s: I, dreamer, cover, hide thee up with dream,--


s: No likeness will I seek to frame or find,


s: But cry to that which thou dost choose to be,


s: To that which is my sight, therefore I cannot see.


s: No likeness? Lo, the Christ! Oh, large Enough!


s: I have seen much, and trust the perfect more,


s: While to his feet my faith crosses the wayless dark.


s: Thou art the one self-perfect life, and we


s: Who trust thy life, therein join on to thee,


s: To trust is to step forward out of the night--


s: That lives and is, because outgoing still.


s: I am lost before thee, Father! yet I will


s: Thou lay'st it on me, son, to claim thee, sire;


s: To that which thou hast made me, I aspire;


s: To thee, the sun, upflames thy kindled fire.


s: No man presumes in that to which he was born;


s: Less than the gift to claim, would be the giver to scorn.


s: Henceforth all things thy dealings are with me


s: And all things are to draw us home to thee.


s: What matter that the knowers scoffing say,


s: "This is old folly, plain to the new day"?--


s: If thou be such as thou, and they as they,


s: Unto thy Let there be, they still must answer Nay.


s: They will not, therefore cannot, do not know him.


s: Nothing they could know, could be God. In sooth,


s: They say well, saying Nature doth not show him:


s: Truly she shows not what she cannot show;


s: And they deny the thing they cannot know.


s: Faster no step moves God because the fool


s: Shouts to the universe God there is none;


s: The blindest man will not preach out the sun,


s: Though on his darkness he should found a school.


s: It may be, when he finds he is not dead,


s: Though world and body, sight and sound are fled,


s: And yet the question burns and is not quenched,


s: My heart grows cool when to remembrance wrought


s: That thou who know'st the light-born answer sought


s: Know'st too the dark where the doubt lies entrenched--


s: Know'st with what seemings I am sore perplexed,


s: And that with thee I wait, nor needs my soul be vexed.


s: Who sets himself not sternly to be good,


s: Is but a fool, who judgment of true things


s: Has none, however oft the claim renewed.


s: And he who thinks, in his great plenitude,


s: To right himself, and set his spirit free,


s: Is foolish also--save he willed himself to be.


s: How many helps thou giv'st to those would learn!


s: To some sore pain, to others a sinking heart;


s: To some a weariness worse than any smart;


s: To some a haunting, fearing, blind concern;


s: Madness to some; to some the shaking dart


s: Of hideous death still following as they turn;


s: To some thou giv'st a deep unrest--a scorn


s: A gaze, at dusky night and clearing morn,


s: To some a bitter sorrow; to some the sting


s: To some a frozen heart, oh, worse than anything!


s: The poor foiled will to scoff at the ideal,


s: But loathsome makes to them their life of jar.


s: But make--driving the soul from false to feal--


s: In whom alone the would be and the is are met.


s: A hunger--not at first after known good,


s: But something vague I knew not, and yet would--


s: The veiled Isis, thy will not understood;


s: And something deeper, that will not be expressed,


s: Save as the Spirit thinking in the Spirit's brood.


s: But now the Spirit and I are one in this--


s: From the low self loathed of the higher me.


s: Dear o'er all names but one, in heaven or earth,


s: Lo, Lord, thou know'st, I would not anything


s: That in the heart of God holds not its root;


s: Nor falsely deem there is any life at all


s: That doth in him nor sleep nor shine nor sing;


s: I know the plants that bear the noisome fruit


s: From God's heart torn, rootless to man's they cling.


s: Life-giving love rots to devouring fire;


s: Motherhood chokes in the dam's jealous mire;


s: Hunger for growth turns fluctuating change;


s: Love's anger grand grows spiteful human wrath,


s: Hunting men out of conscience' holy path;


s: And human kindness takes the tattler's range.


s: Nothing can draw the heart of man but good;


s: Low good it is that draws him from the higher--


s: Never a foul thing, with temptation dire,


s: Tempts hellward force created to aspire,


s: But walks in wronged strength of imprisoned Truth,


s: Whose mantle also oft the Shame indu'th.


s: Love in the prime not yet I understand--


s: Scarce know the love that loveth at first hand:


s: Help me my selfishness to scatter and scout;


s: Blow on me till my love loves burningly;


s: Then the great love will burn the mean self out,


s: Oh, make my anger pure--let no worst wrong


s: Give me thine indignation--which is love


s: Turned on the evil that would part love's throng;


s: Thy anger scathes because it needs must bless,


s: All things on earth, and under, and above.


s: Make my forgiveness downright--such as I


s: Should perish if I did not have from thee;


s: I let the wrong go, withered up and dry,


s: 'Tis but self-pity, pleasant, mean, and sly,


s: Low whispering bids the paltry memory live:--


s: "Thou art my father's child--come to my heart:"


s: Thus must I say, or Thou must say, "Depart;"


s: Thus I would say--I would be as thou art;


s: Thus I must say, or still I work athwart


s: That dwells in me, and will me asunder draw,


s: If I have enemies, Christ deal with them:


s: Lord, set me from self-inspiration free,


s: And let me live and think from thee, not me--


s: Rather, from deepest me then think and feel,


s: At centre of thought's swift-revolving wheel.


s: Through which flies many a golden-winged dove,


s: Well watched of Fancy's tender eyes up bent;


s: A hundred Powers wait on me, ministering;


s: A thousand treasures Art and Knowledge bring;


s: Will, Conscience, Reason tower the rest above;


s: But in the midst, alone, I gladness am and love.


s: That thus I am, or have one moment been--


s: To measure dull contentment therewithal,


s: A vision true, of what one day shall be,


s: When thou hast had thy very will with me.


s: ALAS, my tent! see through it a whirlwind sweep!


s: Moaning, poor Fancy's doves are swept away.


s: My consciousness the blackness all astir.


s: For how canst Thou be in the darkness deep,


s: It must be, somewhere in my fluttering tent,


s: Strange creatures, half tamed only yet, are pent--


s: Dragons, lop-winged birds, and large-eyed snakes!


s: Hark! through the storm the saddest howling breaks!


s: Or are they loose, roaming about the bent,


s: The darkness dire deepening with moan and scream?--


s: My Morning, rise, and all shall be a dream.


s: Not thine, my Lord, the darkness all is mine--


s: Save that, as mine, my darkness too is thine:


s: All things are thine to save or to destroy--


s: Destroy my darkness, rise my perfect joy;


s: Love primal, the live coal of every night,


s: Flame out, scare the ill things with radiant fright,


s: And fill my tent with laughing morn's delight.


s: Master, thou workest with such common things--


s: Low souls, weak hearts, I mean--and hast to use,


s: Therefore, such common means and rescuings,


s: That hard we find it, as we sit and muse,


s: Bad sea-boats we, and manned with wretched crews--


s: That doubt the captain, watch the storm-spray flee.


s: Thou art hampered in thy natural working then


s: When beings designed on freedom's holy plan


s: Will not be free: with thy poor, foolish men,


s: Thou therefore hast to work just like a man.


s: But when, tangling thyself in their sore need,


s: Thou hast to freedom fashioned them indeed,


s: Then wilt thou grandly move, and Godlike speed.


s: Will this not then show grandest fact of all--


s: That thou hast wrought thy will by slow and small,


s: And made men like thee, though thy making bound


s: By that which they were not, and could not be


s: Until thou mad'st them make along with thee?--


s: Hence come thy checks--because I still would run


s: My head into the sand, nor flutter aloft


s: Towards thy home, with thy wind under me.


s: But scarce thy will doth grasp me, ere I see,


s: For my arrest and rise, its stern necessity.


s: We hang--like captives on thy chariot-wheels,


s: Who should climb up and ride with Death's conqueror;


s: Therefore thy train along the world's highway steals


s: So slow to the peace of heart-reluctant man.


s: What shall we do to spread the wing and soar,


s: The sole way to put flight into the wing,


s: To preen its feathers, and to make them grow,


s: With which the Christ in us has aught to do.


s: So will the Christ from child to manhood go,


s: Sweet holy change will turn all our old things to new.


s: Creation thou dost work by faint degrees,


s: By shade and shadow from unseen beginning;


s: Thou will'st thy will; and thence, upon the earth--


s: Slow travelling, his way through centuries winning--


s: A child at length arrives at never ending birth.


s: Well mayst thou then work on indocile hearts


s: By small successes, disappointments small;


s: By nature, weather, failure, or sore fall;


s: By shame, anxiety, bitterness, and smarts;


s: The rags, the husks, the swine, the hunger-quest,


s: Drive home the wanderer to the father's breast.


s: May throw the life-machine all out of gear,


s: Clouding the windows with the steam of doubt,


s: Filling the eyes with dust, with noise the ear!


s: Who knows not then where dwells the engineer,


s: Amazed at sightless whirring of their wheels,


s: Confounded with the recklessness and strife,


s: Distract with fears of what may next ensue,


s: Some break rude exit from the house of life,


s: Whence not a cry, no wafture once reveals


s: What door they have broke open with the knife.


s: To hold the faster by thy garment's hem;


s: When my heart sinks, oh, lift it up, I pray;


s: Thy child should never fear though hell should gape,


s: Not blench though all the ills that men affray


s: Stood round him like the Roman round Jerusalem.


s: How should the work the master goes about


s: Fit the vague sketch my compasses have planned?


s: I am his house--for him to go in and out.


s: 'Tis that he makes the house for me too grand.


s: His royal thoughts require many a stair,


s: Of which I have no thought, and need no care.


s: Where I am most perplexed, it may be there


s: Where thou wilt come to help my deepest prayer.


s: Which is to make me pure and right like thee.


s: Because thou knowest. And when harder things


s: Shall rise and gather, and overshadow me,


s: I shall have comfort in thy strengthenings.


s: When I am sunk, and lost, and dead in sleep,


s: Or in some dream with no sense in its play?


s: When weary-dull, or drowned in study deep?--


s: Not that thou thinkest of, but thinkest me.


s: Thou far!--that word the holy truth doth blur.


s: Doth the great ocean from the small fish run


s: When it sleeps fast in its low weedy bower?


s: Is the sun far from any smallest flower,


s: That lives by his dear presence every hour?


s: Are they not one in oneness without stir--


s: The flower the flower because the sun the sun?


s: "Dear presence every hour"!--what of the night,


s: When crumpled daisies shut gold sadness in;


s: And some do hang the head for lack of light,


s: Sick almost unto death with absence-blight?--


s: Thy memory then, warm-lingering in the ground,


s: Mourned dewy in the air, keeps their hearts sound,


s: Till fresh with day their lapsed life begin.


s: All things are shadows of the shining true:


s: Sun, sea, and air--close, potent, hurtless fire--


s: Flowers from their mother's prison--dove, and dew--


s: Every thing holds a slender guiding clue


s: Back to the mighty oneness:--hearts of faith


s: Know thee than light, than heat, endlessly nigher,


s: Sometimes, perhaps, the spiritual blood runs slow,


s: And soft along the veins of will doth flow,


s: Seeking God's arteries from which it came.


s: Turn back upon itself, and latent grow?--


s: It matters not what figure or what name,


s: If thou art in me, and I am not to blame.


s: In such God-silence, the soul's nest, so long


s: As all is still, no flutter and no song,


s: That my dear life is hid with Christ in God--


s: I think and move a creature of earth's clod,


s: Stand on the finite, act upon the wrong.


s: My soul this sermon hence for itself prepares:--


s: "Then is there nothing vile thou mayst not do,


s: And treacheries of the old man 'gainst the new."--


s: Warning, that it may not have to reprove:--


s: In my dead moments, master, stir the prayers.


s: Lord, let my soul o'erburdened then feel thee


s: Thrilling through all its brain's stupidity.


s: If I must slumber, heedless of ill harms,


s: Outside the shelter of his garment's fold,


s: All is a waste, a terror-haunted wold.--


s: Lord, keep me. 'Tis thy child that cries. Behold.


s: Some say that thou their endless love host won


s: By deeds for them which I may not believe


s: What matter, so they love thee? They receive


s: Eternal more than the poor loom and wheel


s: Of their invention ever wove and spun.--


s: I love thee for I must, thine all from head to heel.


s: The love of thee will set all notions right.


s: Right save by love no thought can be or may;


s: Only love's knowledge is the primal light.


s: Questions keep camp along love's shining coast--


s: Challenge my love and would my entrance stay:


s: Across the buzzing, doubting, challenging host,


s: I rush to thee, and cling, and cry--Thou know'st.


s: Nor substitute my notions for thy facts,


s: Notion with notion making leagues and pacts;


s: They are to truth but as dream-deeds to acts,


s: And questioned, make me doubt of everything.--


s: "O Lord, my God," my heart gets up and cries,


s: "Come thy own self, and with thee my faith bring."


s: All restless wish for anything not thee,


s: Let me no more from out thy presence go,


s: But keep me waiting watchful for thy will--


s: Even while I do it, waiting watchful still.


s: Thou art the Lord of life, the secret thing.


s: Thou wilt give endless more than I could find,


s: Even if without thee I could go and seek;


s: For thou art one, Christ, with my deepest mind,


s: Duty alive, self-willed, in me dost speak,


s: I come to thee, my life, my causing kind.


s: No look of sky or earth or man or beast;


s: "In the great hand of God I stand, and thence"


s: Look out on life, his endless, holy feast.


s: Who does thy will, O God, he lives upon thy air.


s: Lo! as the sun shoots straight from out his tomb,


s: God-floated, casting round a lordly glance


s: So, through the rent which thou, O Christ, hast riven,


s: Then, like a man all weary of the plough,


s: That leaves it standing in the furrow's crease,


s: Turns from thy presence for a foolish while,


s: Till comes again the rasp of unrest's file,


s: Like one that stops, and drinks, and turns, and goes


s: There travels on, the dry and thirsty day,


s: Until the hot night veils the farther way,


s: Then turns and finds again the bubbling pool--


s: Here would I build my house, take up my stay,


s: Keep me, Lord, with thee. I call from out the dark--


s: Hear in thy light, of which I am a spark.


s: I know not what is mine and what is thine--


s: Of branch and stem I miss the differing mark--


s: But if a mere hair's-breadth me separateth,


s: That hair's-breadth is eternal, infinite death.


s: For sap thy dead branch calls, O living vine!


s: But thou dost me, and all things else as well;


s: Thou wilt take care thy child shall grow a man.


s: Rouse thee, my faith; be king; with life be one;


s: To trust in God is action's highest kind;


s: Who trusts in God, his heart with life doth swell;


s: Faith opens all the windows to God's wind.


s: Not on the clasp Of consciousness--on thee


s: In thee I rest; in sleep thou dost me fold;


s: In thee I labour; still in thee, grow old;


s: And dying, shall I not in thee, my Life, be bold?


s: Thou giv'st a glimpse of many a lovely thing,


s: But only for the present spiritual need.


s: The holiest bread, if hoarded, soon will breed


s: The mammon-moth, the having-pride, I find.


s: 'Tis momently thy heart gives out heart-quickening.


s: It is thyself, and neither this nor that,


s: Nor anything, told, taught, or dreamed of thee,


s: That keeps us live. The holy maid who sat


s: Low at thy feet, choosing the better part,


s: Yet, brooding only on that treasure, she


s: Had soon been roused by conscious loss of heart.


s: I am a fool when I would stop and think,


s: And lest I lose my thoughts, from duty shrink.


s: 'Tis as the vine-branch were to hoard the grape,


s: Nor trust the living root beneath the sod.


s: What trouble is that child to thee, my God,


s: Who sips thy gracious cup, and will not drink!


s: The grapes for which we feel the pruning knife.


s: Thoughts are but leaves; they fall and feed the ground.


s: The holy seasons, swift and slow, go round;


s: The ministering leaves return, fresh, large, and rife--


s: But fresher, larger, more thoughts to the brain:--


s: Farewell, my dove!--come back, hope-laden, through the rain.


s: Well may this body poorer, feebler grow!


s: It is undressing for its last sweet bed;


s: But why should the soul, which death shall never know,


s: It is that love with absolute faith would wed;


s: God takes the inmost garments off his child,


s: To have him in his arms, naked and undefiled.


s: No less than my real, deeper life, my love.


s: I will not fool, degrade myself to trust


s: In less than that which maketh me say Me,


s: Then art within me, behind, beneath, above--


s: Thou art the truth, the life. Thou, Lord, wilt see


s: Is written with my name down in thy book;


s: Thou wilt care for it. Never shall I think


s: Of anything that thou mightst overlook:--


s: In faith-born triumph at thy feet I sink.


s: Thou carest more for that which I call mine,


s: In same sort--better manner than I could,


s: Rousing in me this vague desire of good.


s: Thou art more to me than my desires' whole brood;


s: Thou who inspirest prayer, then bend'st thine ear;


s: It, crying with love's grand respect to hear!


s: That cannot be till I am full of light--


s: To perfect deed a perfect will must lift:--


s: Inspire, possess, compel me, first of every might.


s: Who make poor claims upon thee, perfect Lord;


s: Then most I trust when most I would receive.


s: I wonder not that such do pray and grieve--


s: The God they think, to be God is not fit.


s: When my heart claims from thine an infinite accord.


s: Sometimes, when the eternal tide ebbs low,


s: Not of its plodding, not its wind and snow


s: Then to thy knee trusting I turn, and lean:


s: Thou will'st I live, and I do will with thee.


s: Dost thou mean sometimes that we should forget thee,


s: Dropping the veil of things 'twixt thee and us?--


s: Ah, not that we should lose thee and regret thee!


s: But that, we turning from our windows thus,


s: The frost-fixed God should vanish from the pane,


s: Sun-melted, and a moment, Father, let thee


s: Look like thyself straight into heart and brain.


s: With heart and brain an open thoroughfare


s: For faces, words, and thoughts other than mine,


s: And a pause comes at length--oh, sudden then,


s: Back throbs the tide with rush exultant rare;


s: Thy dawning presence flush my tremulous air.


s: That all its mellow, truthful air be free


s: From dusty noes, and soft with many a yes;


s: That as thy breath my life, my life may be


s: Man's breath. So when thou com'st at hour unknown,


s: Thou shalt find nothing in me but thine own.


s: Through all the time I do not think of thee,


s: Shall I not walk the loud world's busy way,


s: Yet in thy palace-porch sit all the day?


s: Not conscious think of thee, yet never from thee stray?


s: Forget!--Oh, must it be?--Would it were rather


s: That every sense was so filled with my father


s: That not in anything could I forget him,


s: But deepest, highest must in all things set him!--


s: Yet if thou think in me, God, what great matter


s: Though my poor thought to former break and latter--


s: As now my best thoughts; break, before thee foiled, and scatter!


s: Some way there must be of my not forgetting,


s: And thither thou art leading me, my God.


s: The child that, weary of his mother's petting,


s: Runs out the moment that his feet are shod,


s: May see her face in every flower he sees,


s: And she, although beyond the window sitting,


s: Be nearer him than when he sat upon her knees.


s: What if, when I at last, at the long last,


s: Shall see thy face, my Lord, my life's delight,


s: It should not be the face that hath been glassed


s: Will my soul sink, and shall I stand aghast,


s: Beggared of hope, my heart a conscious blight,


s: Amazed and lost--death's bitterness come and not passed?


s: Ah, no! for from thy heart the love will press,


s: And shining from thy perfect human face,


s: Will sink into me like the father's kiss;


s: And deepening wide the gulf of consciousness


s: Will, with the potency of creative grace,


s: Lord it throughout the larger thinking place.


s: Thus God-possessed, new born, ah, not for long


s: Of speechless hopes out-throbbing like a tide,


s: And my heart rushing, borne aloft the flood,


s: And with the making-difference that must be,


s: That shows itself therein, that formeth he,


s: And there is Christ, no bodiless vanity,


s: Though, face to face, the mighty perfectness


s: With glory blurs the dim-reflected less.


s: I clasp thy feet, O father of the living!


s: Thou wilt not let my fluttering hopes be more,


s: Or lovelier, or greater, than thy giving!


s: Surely thy ships will bring to my poor shore,


s: Of gold and peacocks such a shining store


s: As will laugh all the dreams to holy scorn,


s: Sometimes it seems pure natural to trust,


s: And trust right largely, grandly, infinitely,


s: Daring the splendour of the giver's part;


s: At other times, the whole earth is but dust,


s: The sky is dust, yea, dust the human heart;


s: Then art thou nowhere, there is no room for thee


s: But why should it be possible to mistrust--


s: Nor possible only, but its opposite hard?


s: Why should not man believe because he must--


s: By sight's compulsion? Why should he be scarred


s: With conflict? worn with doubting fine and long?--


s: No man is fit for heaven's musician throng


s: Who has not tuned an instrument all shook and jarred.


s: Therefore, O Lord, when all things common seem,


s: When all is dust, and self the centre clod,


s: When grandeur is a hopeless, foolish dream,


s: And anxious care more reasonable than God,--


s: In spite of dead distrust call earnestly:--


s: Oh thou who livest, call, then answer dying me.


s: One moment nothing seems but what we see,


s: Nor aught to rule but common circumstance--


s: Nought is to seek but praise, to shun but chance;


s: And not a sparrow from its nest can fall


s: But from the ground its chirp goes up into his hall.


s: I know at least which is the better mood.


s: When on a heap of cares I sit and brood,


s: The world's true heir, fearless as, on its stalk,


s: Such differing moods can scarce to one belong;


s: Shall the same fountain sweet and bitter yield?


s: Shall what bore late the dust-mood, think and brood


s: Till it bring forth the great believing mood?


s: Or that which bore the grand mood, bald and peeled,


s: Sit down to croon the shabby sensual song,


s: To hug itself, and sink from wrong to meaner wrong?


s: In the low mood, the mere man acts alone,


s: Moved by impulses which, if from within,


s: But in the grand mood, every softest tone


s: Comes from the living God at very heart--


s: From thee who infinite core of being art,


s: Thee who didst call our names ere ever we could sin.


s: Offspring of penury and low-born fear:--


s: Prayer must take heed nor overdo its part,


s: Sinners must wait, not seek the very best,


s: Cry out for peace, and be of middling cheer:--


s: False heart! thou cheatest God, and dost thy life molest.


s: Thou hungerest not, thou thirstest not enough.


s: Thou art a temporizing thing, mean heart.


s: Down-drawn, thou pick'st up straws and wretched stuff,


s: Stooping as if the world's floor were the chart


s: Of the long way thy lazy feet must tread.


s: Thou dreamest of the crown hung o'er thy head--


s: But that is safe--thou gatherest hairs and fluff!


s: Man's highest action is to reach up higher,


s: Stir up himself to take hold of his sire.


s: Then best I love you, dearest, when I go


s: And cry to love's life I may love you so


s: As to content the yearning, making love,


s: That perfects strength divine in weakness' fire,


s: And from the broken pots calls out the silver dove.


s: Poor am I, God knows, poor as withered leaf;


s: To love aright, for me were hopeless task,


s: But shall I tear my heart in hopeless grief,


s: Or rise and climb, and run and kneel, and bend,


s: And drink the primal love--so love in chief?


s: Then love shall wake and be its own high life.


s: Then shall I know 'tis I that love indeed--


s: Ready, without a moment's questioning strife,


s: All hope, all claim, resting, with spirit clear,


s: Upon the living love that every love doth breed.


s: Sometimes amid the swift melodious dance


s: Of fluttering words--as if it had not been,


s: The thought has melted, vanished into night;


s: And lo! 'tis better, by thy ordered chance,


s: Than what eluded me, floating too feathery light.


s: If thou wouldst have me speak, Lord, give me speech.


s: That scarce a song, however clear and true,


s: Will thread the jostling tumult safe, and reach


s: The ears of men buz-filled with poor denays:


s: Barb thou my words with light, make my song new,


s: And men will hear, or when I sing or preach.


s: Stand trembling. Up from the great river's brim


s: Comes a cold breath; the farther bank is dim;


s: The heaven is black with clouds and coming rain;


s: High soaring faith is grown a heavy task,


s: And all is wrong with weary heart and brain.


s: "Things do go wrong. I know grief, pain, and fear.


s: I see them lord it sore and wide around."


s: From her fair twilight answers Truth, star-crowned,


s: "Things wrong are needful where wrong things abound.


s: Things go not wrong; but Pain, with dog and spear,


s: False faith from human hearts will hunt and hound.


s: The earth shall quake 'neath them that trust the solid ground."


s: Things go not wrong when sudden I fall prone,


s: But when I snatch my upheld hand from thine,


s: And, proud or careless, think to walk alone.


s: Then things go wrong, when I, poor, silly sheep,


s: To shelves and pits from the good pasture creep;


s: Not when the shepherd leaves the ninety and nine,


s: And to the mountains goes, after the foolish one.


s: Lo! now thy swift dogs, over stone and bush,


s: After me, straying sheep, loud barking, rush.


s: There's Fear, and Shame, and Empty-heart, and Lack,


s: And Lost-love, and a thousand at their back!


s: I see thee not, but know thou hound'st them on,


s: See! there they come, down streaming on my track!


s: I rise and run, staggering--double and run.--


s: But whither?--whither?--whither for escape?


s: The sea lies all about this long-necked cape--


s: There come the dogs, straight for me every one--


s: Me, live despair, live centre of alarms!--


s: Ah! lo! 'twixt me and all his barking harms,


s: The shepherd, lo!--I run--fall folded in his arms.


s: There let the dogs yelp, let them growl and leap;


s: Like a spent cloud pass pain and grief and fear,


s: Out from behind it unchanged love shines clear.--


s: Oh, save me, Christ!--I know not what I am,


s: I was thy stupid, self-willed, greedy lamb,


s: From social converse with a spirit worn,


s: Of shame, as for some low, unworthy thing?--


s: Because I have not, careful, first of all,


s: Set my door open wide, back to the wall,


s: Ere I at others' doors did knock and call.


s: Yet more and more of me thou dost demand;


s: My faith and hope in God alone shall stand,


s: The life of law--not trust the rain and sun


s: To draw the golden harvest o'er the land.


s: I must not say--"This too will pass and die,"


s: "The wind will change," "Round will the seasons run."


s: Law is the body of will, of conscious harmony.


s: Who trusts a law, might worship a god of wood;


s: Half his soul slumbers, if it be not dead.


s: Hemmed in with dragons--a remorseless head


s: No; God is all in all, and nowhere dies--


s: The present heart and thinking will of good.


s: Law is our schoolmaster. Our master, Christ,


s: Lived under all our laws, yet always prayed--


s: So walked the water when the storm was highest.--


s: Law is Thy father's; thou hast it obeyed,


s: And it thereby subject to thee hast made--


s: To rule it, master, for thy brethren's sakes:--


s: Well may he guide the law by whom law's maker makes.


s: Death haunts our souls with dissolution's strife;


s: Soaks them with unrest; makes our every breath


s: A throe, not action; from God's purest gift


s: Wipes off the bloom; and on the harp of faith


s: Its fretted strings doth slacken still and shift:


s: Life everywhere, perfect, and always life,


s: Is sole redemption from this haunting death.


s: God, thou from death dost lift me. As I rise,


s: Its Lethe from my garment drips and flows.


s: With thee, my life--with thee, my answered prayer


s: Where thou art God in every wind that blows,


s: There shall my being blossom, and I know it fair.


s: I would dig, Master, in no field but thine,


s: Would build my house only upon thy rock,


s: Yet am but a dull day, with a sea-sheen!


s: Why should I wonder then that they should mock,


s: Who, in the limbo of things heard and seen,


s: Hither and thither blowing, lose the shine


s: Of every light that hangs in the firmament divine.


s: Lord, loosen in me the hold of visible things;


s: Help me to walk by faith and not by sight;


s: I would, through thickest veils and coverings,


s: See into the chambers of the living light.


s: Lord, in the land of things that swell and seem,


s: Help me to walk by the other light supreme,


s: Which shows thy facts behind man's vaguely hinting dream.


s: Search the thick stream that drains the crowded street


s: For possible things hid in its current slow.


s: Near by, behind him, a great palace stands,


s: Where kings might welcome nobles to their feet.


s: Soft sounds, sweet scents, fair sights there only go--


s: There the child's father lives, but the child does not know.


s: Rise up, turn round, run in, run up the stair.


s: Far in a chamber from rude noise exiled,


s: Thy father sits, pondering how thou dost fare.


s: The mighty man will clasp thee to his breast:


s: Will kiss thee, stroke the tangles of thy hair,


s: And lap thee warm in fold on fold of lovely rest.


s: The prince of this world came, and nothing found


s: He cannot pass me, on other business bound,


s: And straight I moan in darkness--and the fight


s: Begins afresh betwixt the world and thee.


s: In my own heart, O master, in my thought,


s: Thou knowest that I fight upon thy side.


s: From many a blow--am borne on the battle-tide,


s: When I should rush to the front, and take thy foe by the throat.


s: Gapes out to him, at which he enters free.


s: His presence mere straight rouses the garrison,


s: And all are up in arms, and down on knee,


s: Fighting and praying till the foe is gone.


s: REMEMBER, Lord, thou hast not made me good.


s: A rough-hewn goodness, that did need this woe,


s: This sin, these harms of all kinds fierce and rude,


s: To shape it out, making it live and grow.


s: But thou art making me, I thank thee, sire.


s: What thou hast done and doest thou know'st well,


s: And I will help thee:--gently in thy fire


s: I will lie burning; on thy potter's-wheel


s: I will whirl patient, though my brain should reel;


s: Thy grace shall be enough the grief to quell,


s: And growing strength perfect through weakness dire.


s: I have not knowledge, wisdom, insight, thought,


s: Thee in thy work, O Perfect. Thou hast brought


s: Me up to this--and, lo! what thou hast wrought,


s: One day thou shalt behold, and from the sight wilt run."


s: But of thy love, my God, one glimpse alone


s: With faith, hope, joy, in love responsive blent.


s: My soul then, in the vision mighty grown,


s: Some things are not so well, 'tis but because


s: They are too loving-deep, too lofty-wise,


s: For me, poor child, to understand their laws:


s: My love runs helpless like a falling stream:


s: Thy good embraces ill, and lo! its illness dies!


s: From sleep I wake, and wake to think of thee.


s: But wherefore not with sudden glorious glee?


s: Why burst not gracious on me heaven and earth


s: In all the splendour of a new-day-birth?


s: Why hangs a cloud betwixt my lord and me?


s: The moment that my eyes the morning greet,


s: My soul should panting rush to clasp thy father-feet.


s: But only my poor, blotted fancy of thee?


s: Shall I be flooded with life's vital grace.


s: Oh make my mirror-heart thy shining-place,


s: And then my soul, awaking with the morn,


s: Shall be a waking joy, eternally new-born.


s: Else should my being by this time have shown


s: Thee thy own self therein. Therefore do I


s: Wake in the furnace. I know thou sittest by,


s: Thy silver; master, look and see thy face,


s: Else here I lie for ever, blank as any stone.


s: But when in the dim silver thou dost look,


s: I do behold thy face, though blurred and faint.


s: Oh joy! no flaw in me thy grace will brook,


s: But still refine: slow shall the silver pass


s: From bright to brighter, till, sans spot or taint,


s: Love, well content, shall see no speck of brass,


s: And I his perfect face shall hold as in a glass.


s: With every morn my life afresh must break


s: The crust of self, gathered about me fresh;


s: That thy wind-spirit may rush in and shake


s: The darkness out of me, and rend the mesh


s: The spider-devils spin out of the flesh--


s: That it may slumberous lie, and listen to the snake.


s: 'Tis that I am not good--that is enough;


s: Set thy wheel going; let it whir and play.


s: The chips in me, the stones, the straws, the sand,


s: Cast them out with fine separating hand,


s: What if it take a thousand years to make me,


s: So me he leave not, angry, on the floor!--


s: Nay, thou art never angry!--that would break me!


s: Would I tried never thy dear patience sore,


s: But were as good as thou couldst well expect me,


s: Whilst thou dost make, I mar, and thou correct me!


s: Then were I now content, waiting for something more.


s: Only, my God, see thou that I content thee--


s: Ah, never, never, sure, wilt thou repent thee,


s: That thou hast called thy Adam from the clod!


s: Yet must I mourn that thou shouldst ever find me


s: One moment sluggish, needing more of the rod


s: Than thou didst think when thy desire designed me.


s: More help, I pray, still more. Thy perfect debtor


s: I shall be when thy perfect child I am grown.


s: Lo, other lords have had dominion o'er me,


s: Thy own heart's life--Lord, thou wilt not abhor me!


s: To find thee, Lord, my life, my liberty,


s: A window now and then, clouds all about,


s: Would open into heaven: my heart forlorn


s: First all would tremble with a solemn glee,


s: Then, whelmed in peace, rest like a man outworn,


s: That sees the dawn slow part the closed lids of the morn.


s: Now I grow old, and the soft-gathered years


s: Have calmed, yea dulled the heart's swift fluttering beat;


s: But a quiet hope that keeps its household seat


s: To know thee, Lord, is worth a many tears;


s: And when this mildew, age, has dried away,


s: My heart will beat again as young and strong and gay.


s: Stronger and gayer tenfold!--but, O friends,


s: I see but vaguely whither my being tends,


s: But when I think of God, a large content


s: Fills the dull air of my gray cloudy tent.


s: Make of me, maker, whatsoe'er thou wilt.


s: Let fancy's wings hang moulting, hope grow poor,


s: And doubt steam up from where a joy was spilt--


s: I lose no time to reason it plain and clear,


s: But fly to thee, my life's perfection dear:--


s: Not what I think, but what thou art, makes sure.


s: This utterance of spirit through still thought,


s: This forming of heart-stuff in moulds of brain,


s: Is helpful to the soul by which 'tis wrought,


s: But when I am quite old, and words are slow,


s: Like dying things that keep their holes for woe,


s: And memory's withering tendrils clasp with effort vain?


s: Thou, then as now, no less wilt be my life,


s: Praying and trusting, hoping, claiming more.


s: From effort vain, sick foil, and bootless strife,


s: I shall, with childness fresh, look up to thee;


s: Thou, seeing thy child with age encumbered sore,


s: Wilt round him bend thine arm more carefully.


s: And when grim Death doth take me by the throat,


s: Thou wilt not let him on my suffering gloat,


s: But draw my soul out--gladder than man or boy,


s: When thy saved creatures from the narrow ark


s: Rushed out, and leaped and laughed and cried for joy,


s: And the great rainbow strode across the dark.


s: Against my fears, my doubts, my ignorance,


s: The world went on in this same broken dance,


s: When, worn and mocked, he trusted and adored:


s: I too will trust, and gather my poor best


s: To face the truth-faced false. So in his nest


s: I shall awake at length, a little scarred and scored.


s: Things cannot look all right so long as I


s: Am not all right who see--therefore not right


s: Can see. The lamp within sends out the light


s: Which shows the things; and if its rays go wry,


s: Or are not white, they must part show a lie.


s: The man, half-cured, did men not trees conclude,


s: Because he moving saw what else had seemed a wood.


s: Give me, take from me, as thou wilt. I learn--


s: With a strange hopefulness. As from the field


s: Of hard-fought battle won, the victor chief


s: Turns thankfully, although his heart do yearn,


s: So from my old things to thy new I turn,


s: With sad, thee-trusting heart, and not in grief.


s: Floating o'er hill and field where'er we would,


s: And, lighting on the sward before the door,


s: Strange faces through the window-panes should see,


s: And strange feet standing where the loved had stood,


s: The dear old place theirs all, as ours before--


s: Should I be sorrowful, father, having thee?


s: So, Lord, if thou tak'st from me all the rest,


s: Thyself with each resumption drawing nigher,


s: It shall but hurt me as the thorn of the briar,


s: When I reach to the pale flower in its breast.


s: To have thee, Lord, is to have all thy best,


s: To let my friend's hand go, and take his heart in mine.


s: Take from me leisure, all familiar places;


s: Take all the lovely things of earth and air


s: Take from me books; take all my precious faces;


s: Take words melodious, and their songful linking;


s: Take scents, and sounds, and all thy outsides fair;


s: Draw nearer, taking, and, to my sober thinking,


s: Thou bring'st them nearer all, and ready to my prayer.


s: No place on earth henceforth I shall count strange,


s: I will go calm where'er thou bid'st me range;


s: Whoe'er my neighbour, thou art still my nighest.


s: Oh my heart's life, my owner, will of my being!


s: In thee my life thus evermore decreeing.


s: What though things change and pass, nor come again!


s: Thou, the life-heart of all things, changest never.


s: The sun shines on; the fair clouds turn to rain,


s: And glad the earth with many a spring and river.


s: The hearts that answer change with chill and shiver,


s: That mourn the past, sad-sick, with hopeless pain,


s: They know not thee, our changeless heart and brain.


s: My halting words will some day turn to song--


s: Will one day break aloft, and from the throng


s: Of wrestling thoughts and words spring up the air;


s: As from the flower its colour's sweet despair


s: Issues in odour, and the sky's low levels climbs.


s: My surgent thought shoots lark-like up to thee.


s: Thou like the heaven art all about the lark.


s: Is living, working, thought-creating power


s: In thee, the timeless father of the hour.


s: I am thy book, thy song--thy child would be.


s: THOU art of this world, Christ. Thou know'st it all;


s: Thou know'st our evens, our morns, our red and gray;


s: How moons, and hearts, and seasons rise and fall;


s: Of future joy how present pain bereaves,


s: Tossed with a drift Of summer-fallen leaves.


s: Thou knowest all our weeping, fainting, striving;


s: How hard to rouse faint will not yet reviving;


s: To do the pure thing, trusting all to thee;


s: To hold thou art there, for all no face we see;


s: How hard to think, through cold and dark and dearth,


s: That thou art nearer now than when eye-seen on earth.


s: When blank denial stares us in the face.


s: Although the serpent mask have lied before,


s: It fascinates the bird that darkling sings,


s: And numbs the little prayer-bird's beating wings.


s: For how believe thee somewhere in blank space,


s: If through the darkness come no knocking to our door?


s: Possess our souls in patience perhaps we might;


s: But there is always something to be done,


s: The dull thought surges, as the driven waves fight


s: Give strength to rise, go out, and meet thee in the night.


s: "Wake, thou that sleepest; rise up from the dead,


s: And Christ will give thee light." I do not know


s: What sleep is, what is death, or what is light;


s: To rise and leave death. Stumbling through the night,


s: To my dim lattice, O calling Christ! I go,


s: And out into the dark look for thy star-crowned head.


s: There are who come to me, and write, and send,


s: Whom I would love, giving good things to all,


s: But friend--that name I cannot on them spend;


s: 'Tis from the centre of self-love they call


s: For cherishing--for which they first must know


s: How to be still, and take the seat that's low:


s: When, Lord, shall I be fit--when wilt thou call me friend?


s: Wilt thou not one day, Lord? In all my wrong,


s: Self-love and weakness, laziness and fear,


s: To be and have what in thy heart I am meant


s: After thy will, and think it glorious-dear;


s: Even in my worst, perforce my will to thine is bent.


s: A something deepest prayer will not express:


s: Lord, with thy breath blow on my being's fires,


s: Until, even to the soul with self-love wan,


s: I yield the primal love, that no return desires.


s: The self that in a brother's bosom gnaws;


s: I may not fondle failing, nor the boaster


s: Encourage with the breath of my applause.


s: Weakness needs pity, sometimes love's rebuke;


s: Strength only sympathy deserves and draws--


s: And grows by every faithful loving look.


s: 'Tis but as men draw nigh to thee, my Lord,


s: They can draw nigh each other and not hurt.


s: Who with the gospel of thy peace are girt,


s: The belt from which doth hang the Spirit's sword,


s: Shall breathe on dead bones, and the bones shall live,


s: Sweet poison to the evil self shall give,


s: And, clean themselves, lift men clean from the mire abhorred.


s: My Lord, I have no clothes to come to thee;


s: My shoes are pierced and broken with the road;


s: I am torn and weathered, wounded with the goad,


s: And soiled with tugging at my weary load:


s: I stagger into thy presence, Lord of me:


s: One look, my Christ, and at thy feet I fall!


s: Why should I still hang back, like one in a dream,


s: Who vainly strives to clothe himself aright,


s: That in great presence he may seemly seem?


s: Why call up feeling?--dress me in the faint,


s: Worn, faded, cast-off nimbus of some saint?


s: Why of old mood bring back a ghostly gleam--


s: While there He waits, love's heart and loss's blight!


s: See thy poor brother's plight; See how he stands


s: Defiled and feeble, hanging down his hands!


s: Make me clean, brother, with thy burning shine;


s: From thy rich treasures, householder divine,


s: Bring forth fair garments, old and new, I pray,


s: And like thy brother dress me, in the old home-bred way.


s: My prayer-bird was cold--would not away,


s: Although I set it on the edge of the nest.


s: Love-fact or loving fable, thou know'st best--


s: How, when the children had made sparrows of clay,


s: Thou mad'st them birds, with wings to flutter and fold:


s: Take, Lord, my prayer in thy hand, and make it pray.


s: My poor clay-sparrow seems turned to a stone,


s: And from my heart will neither fly nor run.


s: But, Father, I am willing--make me good.


s: What art thou father for, but to help thy son?


s: Look deep, yet deeper, in my heart, and there,


s: Beyond where I can feel, read thou the prayer.


s: Oh what it were to be right sure of thee!


s: Sure that thou art, and the same as thy son, Jesus!


s: Oh, faith is deeper, wider than the sea,


s: Yea, than the blue of heaven that ever flees us!


s: Yet simple as the cry of sore-hurt child,


s: Or as his shout, with sudden gladness wild,


s: When home from school he runs, till morn set free.


s: If I were sure thou, Father, verily art,


s: Sure as I am of my wife's shielding heart,


s: Sure as of sunrise in the watching blue,


s: And have a heart to love and laugh and think,


s: Meseems in flame the joy might from my body start.


s: Than any of these ways, or know thee not;


s: My heart at peace far loftier proof must lay


s: Than if the wind thou me the wave didst roll,


s: Or knew thee as the body knows its soul,


s: Or even as the part doth know its perfect whole.


s: There is no word to tell how I must know thee;


s: No wind clasped ever a low meadow-flower


s: So close that as to nearness it could show thee;


s: No rainbow so makes one the sun and shower.


s: A something with thee, I am a nothing fro' thee.


s: My soul is ever setting out to win thee.


s: I know not how--for that I first must know thee.


s: I know I know thee not as I would know thee,


s: For my heart burns like theirs that did not know him,


s: Till he broke bread, and therein they must know him.


s: I know thee, knowing that I do not know thee,


s: Nor ever shall till one with me I know thee--


s: Even as thy son, the eternal man, doth know thee.


s: On whose point I shall stand at last, and love.


s: From the first rush of vapour at thy will,


s: To the last poet-word that darkness chid,


s: Thou hast been sending up creation's hill,


s: To lift thy souls aloft in faithful Godhead free.


s: I think my thought, and fancy I think thee.--


s: Lord, wake me up; rend swift my coffin-planks;


s: I pray thee, let me live--alive and free.


s: My soul will break forth in melodious thanks,


s: Aware at last what thou wouldst have it be,


s: When thy life shall be light in me, and when


s: How oft I say the same things in these lines!


s: Turns ever where the edge of twilight shines,


s: Prays ever towards the vague eternal mark;


s: Or as the sleeper, having dreamed he drinks,


s: Back straightway into thirstful dreaming sinks,


s: So turns my will to thee, for thee still longs, still pines.


s: The mortal man, all careful, wise, and troubled,


s: The eternal child in the nursery doth keep.


s: To-morrow on to-day the man heaps doubled;


s: The child laughs, hopeful, even in his sleep.


s: The man rebukes the child for foolish trust;


s: The child replies, "Thy care is for poor dust;


s: Be still, and let me wake that thou mayst sleep."


s: I must breed contradiction, strife, and doubt;


s: Things tread Thy court--look real--take proving hold--


s: My Christ is not yet grown to cast them out;


s: Alas! to me, false-judging 'twixt the twain,


s: The Unseen oft fancy seems, while, all about,


s: The Seen doth lord it with a mighty train.


s: But when the Will hath learned obedience royal,


s: He straight will set the child upon the throne;


s: To whom the seen things all, grown instant loyal,


s: Will gather to his feet, in homage prone--


s: The child their master they have ever known;


s: Then shall the visible fabric plainly lean


s: And clothed and loved her, many a growing year;


s: Lo! now a friend of months draws gently near,


s: And claims her future--all beyond his ken--


s: There he hath never loved her nor hath led:


s: She weeps and moans, but turns, and leaves her home so dear.


s: She leaves, but not forsakes. Oft in the night,


s: Oft at mid-day when all is still around,


s: Sudden will rise, in dim pathetic light,


s: Some childish memory of household bliss,


s: Or sorrow by love's service robed and crowned;


s: Rich in his love, she yet will sometimes miss


s: The mother's folding arms, the mother's sealing kiss.


s: Then first, I think, our eldest-born, although


s: Loving, devoted, tender, watchful, dear,


s: The innermost of home-bred love shall know!


s: Yea, when at last the janitor draws near,


s: A still, pale joy will through the darkness go,


s: At thought of lying in those arms again,


s: Which once were heaven enough for any pain.


s: By love doth love grow mighty in its love:


s: Once thou shalt love us, child, as we love thee.


s: From thee, our life, our home, our being blest,


s: We learn at last to love thee true and best,


s: And rush with all our loves back to thy infinite rest?


s: Not thy life, blessed Father! Or the blood


s: Too slowly laves the coral shores of thought,


s: I ask not larger heart-throbs, vigour-fraught,


s: I pray thy presence, with strong patience rife.


s: I will what thou will'st--only keep me sure


s: That thou art willing; call to me now and then.


s: With perfect patience--willing beyond my ken


s: Beyond my love, beyond my thinking scope;


s: Willing thy will beyond all bounds of hope.


s: From something that doth need no setting right?


s: Shall fruit be blamed if it hang wearily


s: To the sad earth from off its nursing tree?


s: Ripeness must always come with loss of might.


s: The weary evening fall before the resting night.


s: Hither if I have come through earth and air,


s: Through fire and water--I am not of them;


s: Born in the darkness, what fair-flashing gem


s: Would to the earth go back and nestle there?


s: Not of this world, this world my life doth hem;


s: What if I weary, then, and look to the door,


s: Because my unknown life is swelling at the core?


s: All winged things came from the waters first;


s: Airward still many a one from the water springs


s: In dens and caves wind-loving things are nursed:--


s: While all the air is trembling with the hum


s: Of songs and beating hearts and whirring wings,


s: That call my slumbering life to wake to happy things.


s: I lay last night and knew not why I was sad.


s: "'Tis well with God," I said, "and he is the truth;


s: Let that content me."--'Tis not strength, nor youth,


s: Nor buoyant health, nor a heart merry-mad,


s: That makes the fact of things wherein men live:


s: He is the life, and doth my life outgive;


s: In him there is no gloom, but all is solemn-glad,


s: Of separation, where there comes no sign;


s: My waking life is hid with Christ in God,


s: Where all is true and potent--fact divine."


s: I will not heed the thing that doth but seem;


s: God's will, the seed, shall rest in me the pod.


s: And when that will shall blossom--then, my God,