Narrative Poems, part 3, Barclay of Ury etc | Page 5

John Greenleaf Whittier
madness burning,

Feels once again his healthful thought
And sense of peace returning.
O restless heart and fevered brain,
Unquiet and unstable,
That holy
well of Loch Maree
Is more than idle fable!

Life's changes vex, its discords stun,
Its glaring sunshine blindeth,

And blest is he who on his way
That fount of healing findeth!
The shadows of a humbled will
And contrite heart are o'er it;
Go
read its legend, "TRUST IN GOD,"
On Faith's white stones before it.

1850.
THE CHAPEL OF THE HERMITS.
The incident upon which this poem is based is related in a note to
Bernardin Henri Saint Pierre's Etudes de la Nature. "We arrived at the
habitation of the Hermits a little before they sat down to their table, and
while they were still at church. J. J. Rousseau proposed to me to offer
up our devotions. The hermits were reciting the Litanies of Providence,
which are remarkably beautiful. After we had addressed our prayers to
God, and the hermits were proceeding to the refectory, Rousseau said
to me, with his heart overflowing, 'At this moment I experience what is
said in the gospel: Where two or three are gathered together in my
name, there am I in the midst of them. There is here a feeling of peace
and happiness which penetrates the soul.' I said, 'If Finelon had lived,
you would have been a Catholic.' He exclaimed, with tears in his eyes,
'Oh, if Finelon were alive, I would struggle to get into his service, even
as a lackey!'" In my sketch of Saint Pierre, it will be seen that I have
somewhat antedated the period of his old age. At that time he was not
probably more than fifty. In describing him, I have by no means
exaggerated his own history of his mental condition at the period of the
story. In the fragmentary Sequel to his Studies of Nature, he thus
speaks of himself: "The ingratitude of those of whom I had deserved
kindness, unexpected family misfortunes, the total loss of my small
patrimony through enterprises solely undertaken for the benefit of my
country, the debts under which I lay oppressed, the blasting of all my
hopes,--these combined calamities made dreadful inroads upon my
health and reason. . . . I found it impossible to continue in a room
where there was company, especially if the doors were shut. I could not
even cross an alley in a public garden, if several persons had got
together in it. When alone, my malady subsided. I felt myself likewise
at ease in places where I saw children only. At the sight of any one

walking up to the place where I was, I felt my whole frame agitated,
and retired. I often said to myself, 'My sole study has been to merit well
of mankind; why do I fear them?'"
He attributes his improved health of mind and body to the counsels of
his friend, J. J. Rousseau. "I renounced," says he, "my books. I threw
my eyes upon the works of nature, which spake to all my senses a
language which neither time nor nations have it in their power to alter.
Thenceforth my histories and my journals were the herbage of the
fields and meadows. My thoughts did not go forth painfully after them,
as in the case of human systems; but their thoughts, under a thousand
engaging forms, quietly sought me. In these I studied, without effort,
the laws of that Universal Wisdom which had surrounded me from the
cradle, but on which heretofore I had bestowed little attention."
Speaking of Rousseau, he says: "I derived inexpressible satisfaction
from his society. What I prized still more than his genius was his
probity. He was one of the few literary characters, tried in the furnace
of affliction, to whom you could, with perfect security, confide your
most secret thoughts. . . . Even when he deviated, and became the
victim of himself or of others, he could forget his own misery in
devotion to the welfare of mankind. He was uniformly the advocate of
the miserable. There might be inscribed on his tomb these affecting
words from that Book of which he carried always about him some
select passages, during the last years of his life: 'His sins, which are
many, are forgiven, for he loved much.'"
"I DO believe, and yet, in grief,
I pray for help to unbelief;
For
needful strength aside to lay
The daily cumberings of my way.
"I 'm sick at heart of craft and cant,
Sick of the crazed enthusiast's
rant,
Profession's smooth hypocrisies,
And creeds of iron, and lives
of ease.
"I ponder o'er the sacred word,
I read the record of our Lord;
And,
weak and troubled, envy them
Who touched His seamless garment's
hem;

"Who saw the tears of love He wept
Above the grave where Lazarus
slept;
And heard, amidst the shadows dim
Of Olivet, His
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