Poems of Nature, part 5, Religious Poems 1 | Page 4

dreams hath
thirsted for so long,--
A portion of heaven's glorious whole
Of
loveliness and song?
Oh, watchers of the stars at night,
Who breathe their fire, as we the
air,--
Suns, thunders, stars, and rays of light,
Oh, say, is He, the
Eternal, there?
Bend there around His awful throne
The seraph's
glance, the angel's knee?
Or are thy inmost depths His own,
O wild
and mighty sea?
Thoughts of my soul, how swift ye go!
Swift as the eagle's glance of
fire,
Or arrows from the archer's bow,
To the far aim of your desire!

Thought after thought, ye thronging rise,
Like spring-doves from
the startled wood,
Bearing like them your sacrifice
Of music unto
God!
And shall these thoughts of joy and love
Come back again no more to
me?
Returning like the patriarch's dove
Wing-weary from the
eternal sea,
To bear within my longing arms
The promise-bough of
kindlier skies,
Plucked from the green, immortal palms
Which
shadow Paradise?
All-moving spirit! freely forth
At Thy command the strong wind goes

Its errand to the passive earth,
Nor art can stay, nor strength oppose,

Until it folds its weary wing
Once more within the hand divine;


So, weary from its wandering,
My spirit turns to Thine!
Child of the sea, the mountain stream,
From its dark caverns, hurries
on,
Ceaseless, by night and morning's beam,
By evening's star and
noontide's sun,
Until at last it sinks to rest,
O'erwearied, in the
waiting sea,
And moans upon its mother's breast,--
So turns my soul
to Thee!
O Thou who bidst the torrent flow,
Who lendest wings unto the
wind,--
Mover of all things! where art Thou?
Oh, whither shall I go
to find
The secret of Thy resting-place?
Is there no holy wing for
me,
That, soaring, I may search the space
Of highest heaven for
Thee?
Oh, would I were as free to rise
As leaves on autumn's whirlwind
borne,--
The arrowy light of sunset skies,
Or sound, or ray, or star
of morn,
Which melts in heaven at twilight's close,
Or aught which
soars unchecked and free
Through earth and heaven; that I might lose

Myself in finding Thee!
II.
LE CRI DE L'AME.
"Quand le souffle divin qui flotte sur le monde."
When the breath divine is flowing,
Zephyr-like o'er all things going,

And, as the touch of viewless fingers,
Softly on my soul it lingers,

Open to a breath the lightest,
Conscious of a touch the slightest,--

As some calm, still lake, whereon
Sinks the snowy-bosomed swan,

And the glistening water-rings
Circle round her moving wings

When my upward gaze is turning
Where the stars of heaven are
burning
Through the deep and dark abyss,
Flowers of midnight's
wilderness,
Blowing with the evening's breath
Sweetly in their
Maker's path
When the breaking day is flushing

All the east, and
light is gushing
Upward through the horizon's haze,
Sheaf-like,

with its thousand rays,
Spreading, until all above
Overflows with
joy and love,
And below, on earth's green bosom,
All is changed to
light and blossom:
When my waking fancies over
Forms of brightness flit and hover

Holy as the seraphs are,
Who by Zion's fountains wear
On their
foreheads, white and broad,
"Holiness unto the Lord!"
When,
inspired with rapture high,
It would seem a single sigh
Could a
world of love create;
That my life could know no date,
And my
eager thoughts could fill
Heaven and Earth, o'erflowing still!
Then, O Father! Thou alone,
From the shadow of Thy throne,
To
the sighing of my breast
And its rapture answerest.
All my thoughts,
which, upward winging,
Bathe where Thy own light is springing,--

All my yearnings to be free
Are at echoes answering Thee!
Seldom upon lips of mine,
Father! rests that name of Thine;
Deep
within my inmost breast,
In the secret place of mind,
Like an awful
presence shrined,
Doth the dread idea rest
Hushed and holy dwells
it there,
Prompter of the silent prayer,
Lifting up my spirit's eye

And its faint, but earnest cry,
From its dark and cold abode,
Unto
Thee, my Guide and God!
1837
THE FAMILIST'S HYMN.
The Puritans of New England, even in their wilderness home, were not
exempted from the sectarian contentions which agitated the mother
country after the downfall of Charles the First, and of the established
Episcopacy. The Quakers, Baptists, and Catholics were banished, on
pain of death, from the Massachusetts Colony. One Samuel Gorton, a
bold and eloquent declaimer, after preaching for a time in Boston
against the doctrines of the Puritans, and declaring that their churches
were mere human devices, and their sacrament and baptism an
abomination, was driven out of the jurisdiction of the colony, and
compelled to seek a residence among the savages. He gathered round

him a considerable number of converts, who, like the primitive
Christians, shared all things in common. His opinions, however, were
so troublesome to the leading clergy of the colony, that they instigated
an attack upon his "Family" by an armed force, which seized upon the
principal men in it, and brought them into Massachusetts, where they
were sentenced to be kept at hard labor in several towns (one only in
each town), during the pleasure of the General Court, they being
forbidden, under severe penalties, to utter any of their religious
sentiments, except to such ministers as might labor for their conversion.
They were unquestionably sincere in their opinions,