Poems of Nature, part 6, Religious Poems 2 | Page 5

on one favored forehead fell
Of old the
fire-tongued miracle,
But flamed o'er all the thronging host
The
baptism of the Holy Ghost;
Heart answers heart: in one desire
The
blending lines of prayer aspire;
'Where, in my name, meet two or
three,'
Our Lord hath said, 'I there will be!'
"So sometimes comes to soul and sense
The feeling which is
evidence
That very near about us lies
The realm of spiritual
mysteries.
The sphere of the supernal powers
Impinges on this
world of ours.
The low and dark horizon lifts,
To light the scenic
terror shifts;
The breath of a diviner air
Blows down the answer of a
prayer
That all our sorrow, pain, and doubt
A great compassion
clasps about,
And law and goodness, love and force,
Are wedded
fast beyond divorce.
Then duty leaves to love its task,
The beggar
Self forgets to ask;
With smile of trust and folded hands,
The
passive soul in waiting stands
To feel, as flowers the sun and dew,

The One true Life its own renew.
"So, to the calmly gathered thought
The innermost of truth is taught,

The mystery dimly understood,
That love of God is love of good,

And, chiefly, its divinest trace
In Him of Nazareth's holy face;

That to be saved is only this,--
Salvation from our selfishness,
From
more than elemental fire,
The soul's unsanetified desire,
From sin
itself, and not the pain
That warns us of its chafing chain;
That
worship's deeper meaning lies
In mercy, and not sacrifice,
Not
proud humilities of sense
And posturing of penitence,
But love's
unforced obedience;
That Book and Church and Day are given
For
man, not God,--for earth, not heaven,--
The blessed means to holiest
ends,
Not masters, but benignant friends;
That the dear Christ

dwells not afar,
The king of some remoter star,
Listening, at times,
with flattered ear
To homage wrung from selfish fear,
But here,
amidst the poor and blind,
The bound and suffering of our kind,
In
works we do, in prayers we pray,
Life of our life, He lives to-day."

1868.
THE CLEAR VISION.
I did but dream. I never knew
What charms our sternest season wore.

Was never yet the sky so blue,
Was never earth so white before.

Till now I never saw the glow
Of sunset on yon hills of snow,
And
never learned the bough's designs
Of beauty in its leafless lines.
Did ever such a morning break
As that my eastern windows see?

Did ever such a moonlight take
Weird photographs of shrub and tree?

Rang ever bells so wild and fleet
The music of the winter street?

Was ever yet a sound by half
So merry as you school-boy's laugh?
O Earth! with gladness overfraught,
No added charm thy face hath
found;
Within my heart the change is wrought,
My footsteps make
enchanted ground.
From couch of pain and curtained room
Forth to
thy light and air I come,
To find in all that meets my eyes
The
freshness of a glad surprise.
Fair seem these winter days, and soon
Shall blow the warm
west-winds of spring,
To set the unbound rills in tune
And hither
urge the bluebird's wing.
The vales shall laugh in flowers, the woods

Grow misty green with leafing buds,
And violets and wind-flowers
sway
Against the throbbing heart of May.
Break forth, my lips, in praise, and own
The wiser love severely kind;

Since, richer for its chastening grown,
I see, whereas I once was
blind.
The world, O Father! hath not wronged

With loss the life by
Thee prolonged;
But still, with every added year,
More beautiful
Thy works appear!

As Thou hast made thy world without,
Make Thou more fair my
world within;
Shine through its lingering clouds of doubt;
Rebuke
its haunting shapes of sin;
Fill, brief or long, my granted span
Of
life with love to thee and man;
Strike when thou wilt the hour of rest,

But let my last days be my best!
2d mo., 1868.
DIVINE COMPASSION.
Long since, a dream of heaven I had,
And still the vision haunts me
oft;
I see the saints in white robes clad,
The martyrs with their
palms aloft;
But hearing still, in middle song,
The ceaseless
dissonance of wrong;
And shrinking, with hid faces, from the strain

Of sad, beseeching eyes, full of remorse and pain.
The glad song falters to a wail,
The harping sinks to low lament;

Before the still unlifted veil
I see the crowned foreheads bent,

Making more sweet the heavenly air,
With breathings of unselfish
prayer;
And a Voice saith: "O Pity which is pain,
O Love that
weeps, fill up my sufferings which remain!
"Shall souls redeemed by me refuse
To share my sorrow in their turn?

Or, sin-forgiven, my gift abuse
Of peace with selfish unconcern?

Has saintly ease no pitying care?
Has faith no work, and love no
prayer?
While sin remains, and souls in darkness dwell,
Can heaven
itself be heaven, and look unmoved on hell?"
Then through the Gates of Pain, I dream,
A wind of heaven blows
coolly in;
Fainter the awful discords seem,
The smoke of torment
grows more thin,
Tears quench the burning soil, and thence
Spring
sweet, pale flowers of penitence
And through the dreary realm of
man's despair,
Star-crowned an angel walks, and to! God's hope is
there!
Is it a dream? Is heaven so high
That pity cannot breathe its air?
Its
happy eyes forever dry,

Its holy lips without a prayer!
My God! my

God! if thither led
By Thy free grace unmerited,
No