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

Lord is God! He needeth not?The poor device of man.
I walk with bare, hushed feet the ground?Ye tread with boldness shod;?I dare not fix with mete and bound?The love and power of God.
Ye praise His justice; even such?His pitying love I deem?Ye seek a king; I fain would touch?The robe that hath no seam.
Ye see the curse which overbroods?A world of pain and loss;?I hear our Lord's beatitudes?And prayer upon the cross.
More than your schoolmen teach, within?Myself, alas! I know?Too dark ye cannot paint the sin,?Too small the merit show.
I bow my forehead to the dust,?I veil mine eyes for shame,?And urge, in trembling self-distrust,?A prayer without a claim.
I see the wrong that round me lies,?I feel the guilt within;?I hear, with groan and travail-cries,?The world confess its sin.
Yet, in the maddening maze of things,?And tossed by storm and flood,?To one fixed trust my spirit clings;?I know that God is good!
Not mine to look where cherubim?And seraphs may not see,?But nothing can be good in Him?Which evil is in me.
The wrong that pains my soul below?I dare not throne above,?I know not of His hate,--I know?His goodness and His love.
I dimly guess from blessings known?Of greater out of sight,?And, with the chastened Psalmist, own?His judgments too are right.
I long for household voices gone,?For vanished smiles I long,?But God hath led my dear ones on,?And He can do no wrong.
I know not what the future hath?Of marvel or surprise,?Assured alone that life and death?His mercy underlies.
And if my heart and flesh are weak?To bear an untried pain,?The bruised reed He will not break,?But strengthen and sustain.
No offering of my own I have,?Nor works my faith to prove;?I can but give the gifts He gave,?And plead His love for love.
And so beside the Silent Sea?I wait the muffled oar;?No harm from Him can come to me?On ocean or on shore.
I know not where His islands lift?Their fronded palms in air;?I only know I cannot drift?Beyond His love and care.
O brothers! if my faith is vain,?If hopes like these betray,?Pray for me that my feet may gain?The sure and safer way.
And Thou, O Lord! by whom are seen?Thy creatures as they be,?Forgive me if too close I lean?My human heart on Thee!?1865.
THE COMMON QUESTION.
Behind us at our evening meal?The gray bird ate his fill,?Swung downward by a single claw,?And wiped his hooked bill.
He shook his wings and crimson tail,?And set his head aslant,?And, in his sharp, impatient way,?Asked, "What does Charlie want?"
"Fie, silly bird!" I answered, "tuck?Your head beneath your wing,?And go to sleep;"--but o'er and o'er?He asked the self-same thing.
Then, smiling, to myself I said?How like are men and birds!?We all are saying what he says,?In action or in words.
The boy with whip and top and drum,?The girl with hoop and doll,?And men with lands and houses, ask?The question of Poor Poll.
However full, with something more?We fain the bag would cram;?We sigh above our crowded nets?For fish that never swam.
No bounty of indulgent Heaven?The vague desire can stay;?Self-love is still a Tartar mill?For grinding prayers alway.
The dear God hears and pities all;?He knoweth all our wants;?And what we blindly ask of Him?His love withholds or grants.
And so I sometimes think our prayers?Might well be merged in one;?And nest and perch and hearth and church?Repeat, "Thy will be done."
OUR MASTER.
Immortal Love, forever full,?Forever flowing free,?Forever shared, forever whole,?A never-ebbing sea!
Our outward lips confess the name?All other names above;?Love only knoweth whence it came?And comprehendeth love.
Blow, winds of God, awake and blow?The mists of earth away!?Shine out, O Light Divine, and show?How wide and far we stray!
Hush every lip, close every book,?The strife of tongues forbear;?Why forward reach, or backward look,?For love that clasps like air?
We may not climb the heavenly steeps?To bring the Lord Christ down?In vain we search the lowest deeps,?For Him no depths can drown.
Nor holy bread, nor blood of grape,?The lineaments restore?Of Him we know in outward shape?And in the flesh no more.
He cometh not a king to reign;?The world's long hope is dim;?The weary centuries watch in vain?The clouds of heaven for Him.
Death comes, life goes; the asking eye?And ear are answerless;?The grave is dumb, the hollow sky?Is sad with silentness.
The letter fails, and systems fall,?And every symbol wanes;?The Spirit over-brooding all?Eternal Love remains.
And not for signs in heaven above?Or earth below they look,?Who know with John His smile of love,?With Peter His rebuke.
In joy of inward peace, or sense?Of sorrow over sin,?He is His own best evidence,?His witness is within.
No fable old, nor mythic lore,?Nor dream of bards and seers,?No dead fact stranded on the shore?Of the oblivious years;--
But warm, sweet, tender, even yet?A present help is He;?And faith has still its Olivet,?And love its Galilee.
The healing of His seamless dress?Is by our beds of pain;?We touch Him in life's throng and press,?And we are whole again.
Through Him