A Channel Passage and Other Poems | Page 7

of his making was manifest evil and good, One law from the dim beginning abode and abides in the end, In sight of him sorrowing and sinning with none but his faith for
friend.?Dark were the shadows around him, and darker the glories above, Ere light from beyond them found him, and bade him for love's sake
love.?About him was darkness, and under and over him darkness: the night That conceived him and bore him had thunder for utterance and
lightning for light.?The dust of death was the dust of the ways that the tribes of him
trod:?And he knew not if just or unjust were the might of the mystery of
God.?Strange horror and hope, strange faith and unfaith, were his boon
and his bane:?And the God of his trust was the wraith of the soul or the ghost of
it slain.?A curse was on death as on birth, and a Presence that shone as a
sword?Shed menace from heaven upon earth that beheld him, and hailed him
her Lord.?Sublime and triumphant as fire or as lightning, he kindled the
skies,?And withered with dread the desire that would look on the light of
his eyes.?Earth shuddered with worship, and knew not if hell were not hot in
her breath;?If birth were not sin, and the dew of the morning the sweat of her
death.?The watchwords of evil and good were unspoken of men and unheard: They were shadows that willed as he would, that were made and
unmade by his word.?His word was darkness and light, and a wisdom that makes men mad Sent blindness upon them for sight, that they saw but and heard as
he bade.?Cast forth and corrupt from the birth by the crime of creation,
they stood?Convicted of evil on earth by the grace of a God found good. The grace that enkindled and quickened the darkness of hell with
flame?Bade man, though the soul in him sickened, obey, and give praise to
his name.?The still small voice of the spirit whose life is as plague's hot
breath?Bade man shed blood, and inherit the life of the kingdom of death.
"Bring now for blood-offering thy son to mine altar, and bind him
and slay,?That the sin of my bidding be done": and the soul in the slave
said, "Yea."?Yea, not nay, was the word: and the sacrifice offered withal Was neither of beast nor of bird, but the soul of a man, God's
thrall.?And the word of his servant spoken was fire, and the light of a
sword,?When the bondage of Israel was broken, and Sinai shrank from the
Lord.?With splendour of slaughter and thunder of song as the sound of the
sea?Were the foes of him stricken in sunder and silenced as storms that
flee.?Terror and trust and the pride of the chosen, approved of his
choice,?Saw God in the whirlwind ride, and rejoiced as the winds rejoice. Subdued and exalted and kindled and quenched by the sense of his
might,?Faith flamed and exulted and dwindled, and saw not, and clung to
the sight.?The wastes of the wilderness brightened and trembled with rapture
and dread?When the word of him thundered and lightened and spake through the
quick and the dead.?The chant of the prophetess, louder and loftier than tempest and
wave,?Rang triumph more ruthless and prouder than death, and profound as
the grave.?And sweet as the moon's word spoken in smiles that the blown clouds
mar?The psalmist's witness in token arose as the speech of a star. Starlight supreme, and the tender desire of the moon, were as one To rebuke with compassion the splendour and strength of the godlike
sun.?God softened and changed: and the word of his chosen, a fire at the
first,?Bade man, as a beast or a bird, now slake at the springs his
thirst.?The souls that were sealed unto death as the bones of the dead lie
sealed?Rose thrilled and redeemed by the breath of the dawn on the
flame-lit field.?The glories of darkness, cloven with music of thunder, shrank As the web of the word was unwoven that spake, and the soul's tide
sank.?And the starshine of midnight that covered Arabia with light as a
robe?Waxed fiery with utterance that hovered and flamed through the
whirlwind on Job.?And prophet to prophet and vision to vision made answer sublime, Till the valley of doom and decision was merged in the tides of
time.
III
Then, soft as the dews of night,?As the star of the sundawn bright,
As the heart of the sea's hymn deep,
And sweet as the balm of sleep,
Arose on the world a light
Too pure for the skies to keep.
With music sweeter and stranger than heaven had heard?When the dark east thrilled with light from a saviour's word And a God grew man to