Narrative Poems, part 3, Barclay of Ury etc | Page 8

God is love!
No Hermits now the wanderer sees,
Nor chapel with its chestnut-trees;

A morning dream, a tale that's told,
The wave of change o'er all has
rolled.
Yet lives the lesson of that day;
And from its twilight cool and gray

Comes up a low, sad whisper, "Make
The truth thine own, for truth's
own sake.
"Why wait to see in thy brief span
Its perfect flower and fruit in man?


No saintly touch can save; no balm
Of healing hath the martyr's
palm.
"Midst soulless forms, and false pretence
Of spiritual pride and
pampered sense,
A voice saith, 'What is that to thee?
Be true thyself,
and follow Me!
"In days when throne and altar heard
The wanton's wish, the bigot's
word,
And pomp of state and ritual show
Scarce hid the loathsome
death below,--
"Midst fawning priests and courtiers foul,
The losel swarm of crown
and cowl,
White-robed walked Francois Fenelon,
Stainless as Uriel
in the sun!
"Yet in his time the stake blazed red,
The poor were eaten up like
bread
Men knew him not; his garment's hem
No healing virtue had
for them.
"Alas! no present saint we find;
The white cymar gleams far behind,

Revealed in outline vague, sublime,
Through telescopic mists of
time!
"Trust not in man with passing breath,
But in the Lord, old Scripture
saith;
The truth which saves thou mayst not blend
With false
professor, faithless friend.
"Search thine own heart. What paineth thee
In others in thyself may
be;
All dust is frail, all flesh is weak;
Be thou the true man thou
dost seek!
"Where now with pain thou treadest, trod
The whitest of the saints of
God!
To show thee where their feet were set,
the light which led
them shineth yet.
"The footprints of the life divine,
Which marked their path, remain in

thine;
And that great Life, transfused in theirs,
Awaits thy faith, thy
love, thy prayers!"
A lesson which I well may heed,
A word of fitness to my need;
So
from that twilight cool and gray
Still saith a voice, or seems to say.
We rose, and slowly homeward turned,
While down the west the
sunset burned;
And, in its light, hill, wood, and tide,
And human
forms seemed glorified.
The village homes transfigured stood,
And purple bluffs, whose
belting wood
Across the waters leaned to hold
The yellow leaves
like lamps of hold.
Then spake my friend: "Thy words are true;
Forever old, forever new,

These home-seen splendors are the same
Which over Eden's
sunsets came.
"To these bowed heavens let wood and hill
Lift voiceless praise and
anthem still;
Fall, warm with blessing, over them,
Light of the New
Jerusalem!
"Flow on, sweet river, like the stream
Of John's Apocalyptic dream

This mapled ridge shall Horeb be,
Yon green-banked lake our
Galilee!
"Henceforth my heart shall sigh no more
For olden time and holier
shore;
God's love and blessing, then and there,
Are now and here
and everywhere."
1851.
TAULER.
TAULER, the preacher, walked, one autumn day,
Without the walls
of Strasburg, by the Rhine,
Pondering the solemn Miracle of Life;

As one who, wandering in a starless night,
Feels momently the jar of
unseen waves,
And hears the thunder of an unknown sea,
Breaking

along an unimagined shore.
And as he walked he prayed. Even the same
Old prayer with which,
for half a score of years,
Morning, and noon, and evening, lip and
heart
Had groaned: "Have pity upon me, Lord!
Thou seest, while
teaching others, I am blind.
Send me a man who can direct my steps!"
Then, as he mused, he heard along his path
A sound as of an old
man's staff among
The dry, dead linden-leaves; and, looking up,
He
saw a stranger, weak, and poor, and old.
"Peace be unto thee, father!" Tauler said,
"God give thee a good
day!" The old man raised
Slowly his calm blue eyes. "I thank thee,
son;
But all my days are good, and none are ill."
Wondering thereat, the preacher spake again,
"God give thee happy
life." The old man smiled,
"I never am unhappy."
Tauler laid
His hand upon the stranger's coarse gray sleeve
"Tell me,
O father, what thy strange words mean.
Surely man's days are evil,
and his life
Sad as the grave it leads to." "Nay, my son,
Our times
are in God's hands, and all our days
Are as our needs; for shadow as
for sun,
For cold as heat, for want as wealth, alike
Our thanks are
due, since that is best which is;
And that which is not, sharing not His
life,
Is evil only as devoid of good.
And for the happiness of which
I spake,
I find it in submission to his will,
And calm trust in the
holy Trinity
Of Knowledge, Goodness, and Almighty Power."
Silently wondering, for a little space,
Stood the great preacher; then
he spake as one
Who, suddenly grappling with a haunting thought

Which long has followed, whispering through the dark
Strange
terrors, drags it, shrieking, into light
"What if God's will consign thee
hence to Hell?"
"Then," said the stranger, cheerily, "be it so.
What Hell may be I

know not; this I know,--
I cannot lose the presence of the Lord.
One
arm, Humility, takes hold upon
His dear Humanity; the other, Love,

Clasps his Divinity. So where I go
He goes; and better fire-walled