Poems of Nature, part 6, Religious Poems 2 | Page 3

the first fond prayers are said?Our lips of childhood frame,?The last low whispers of our dead?Are burdened with His name.
Our Lord and Master of us all!?Whate'er our name or sign,?We own Thy sway, we hear Thy call,?We test our lives by Thine.
Thou judgest us; Thy purity?Doth all our lusts condemn;?The love that draws us nearer Thee?Is hot with wrath to them.
Our thoughts lie open to Thy sight;?And, naked to Thy glance,?Our secret sins are in the light?Of Thy pure countenance.
Thy healing pains, a keen distress?Thy tender light shines in;?Thy sweetness is the bitterness,?Thy grace the pang of sin.
Yet, weak and blinded though we be,?Thou dost our service own;?We bring our varying gifts to Thee,?And Thou rejectest none.
To Thee our full humanity,?Its joys and pains, belong;?The wrong of man to man on Thee?Inflicts a deeper wrong.
Who hates, hates Thee, who loves becomes?Therein to Thee allied;?All sweet accords of hearts and homes?In Thee are multiplied.
Deep strike Thy roots, O heavenly Vine,?Within our earthly sod,?Most human and yet most divine,?The flower of man and God!
O Love! O Life! Our faith and sight?Thy presence maketh one?As through transfigured clouds of white?We trace the noon-day sun.
So, to our mortal eyes subdued,?Flesh-veiled, but not concealed,?We know in Thee the fatherhood?And heart of God revealed.
We faintly hear, we dimly see,?In differing phrase we pray;?But, dim or clear, we own in Thee?The Light, the Truth, the Way!
The homage that we render Thee?Is still our Father's own;?No jealous claim or rivalry?Divides the Cross and Throne.
To do Thy will is more than praise,?As words are less than deeds,?And simple trust can find Thy ways?We miss with chart of creeds.
No pride of self Thy service hath,?No place for me and mine;?Our human strength is weakness, death?Our life, apart from Thine.
Apart from Thee all gain is loss,?All labor vainly done;?The solemn shadow of Thy Cross?Is better than the sun.
Alone, O Love ineffable!?Thy saving name is given;?To turn aside from Thee is hell,?To walk with Thee is heaven!
How vain, secure in all Thou art,?Our noisy championship?The sighing of the contrite heart?Is more than flattering lip.
Not Thine the bigot's partial plea,?Nor Thine the zealot's ban;?Thou well canst spare a love of Thee?Which ends in hate of man.
Our Friend, our Brother, and our Lord,?What may Thy service be?--?Nor name, nor form, nor ritual word,?But simply following Thee.
We bring no ghastly holocaust,?We pile no graven stone;?He serves thee best who loveth most?His brothers and Thy own.
Thy litanies, sweet offices?Of love and gratitude;?Thy sacramental liturgies,?The joy of doing good.
In vain shall waves of incense drift?The vaulted nave around,?In vain the minster turret lift?Its brazen weights of sound.
The heart must ring Thy Christmas bells,?Thy inward altars raise;?Its faith and hope Thy canticles,?And its obedience praise!?1866.
THE MEETING.
The two speakers in the meeting referred to in this poem were Avis Keene, whose very presence was a benediction, a woman lovely in spirit and person, whose words seemed a message of love and tender concern to her hearers; and Sibyl Jones, whose inspired eloquence and rare spirituality impressed all who knew her. In obedience to her apprehended duty she made visits of Christian love to various parts of Europe, and to the West Coast of Africa and Palestine.
The elder folks shook hands at last,?Down seat by seat the signal passed.?To simple ways like ours unused,?Half solemnized and half amused,?With long-drawn breath and shrug, my guest?His sense of glad relief expressed.?Outside, the hills lay warm in sun;?The cattle in the meadow-run?Stood half-leg deep; a single bird?The green repose above us stirred.?"What part or lot have you," he said,?"In these dull rites of drowsy-head??Is silence worship? Seek it where?It soothes with dreams the summer air,?Not in this close and rude-benched hall,?But where soft lights and shadows fall,?And all the slow, sleep-walking hours?Glide soundless over grass and flowers!?From time and place and form apart,?Its holy ground the human heart,?Nor ritual-bound nor templeward?Walks the free spirit of the Lord!?Our common Master did not pen?His followers up from other men;?His service liberty indeed,?He built no church, He framed no creed;?But while the saintly Pharisee?Made broader his phylactery,?As from the synagogue was seen?The dusty-sandalled Nazarene?Through ripening cornfields lead the way?Upon the awful Sabbath day,?His sermons were the healthful talk?That shorter made the mountain-walk,?His wayside texts were flowers and birds,?Where mingled with His gracious words?The rustle of the tamarisk-tree?And ripple-wash of Galilee."
"Thy words are well, O friend," I said;?"Unmeasured and unlimited,?With noiseless slide of stone to stone,?The mystic Church of God has grown.?Invisible and silent stands?The temple never made with hands,?Unheard the voices still and small?Of its unseen confessional.?He needs no special place of prayer?Whose hearing ear is everywhere;?He brings not back the childish days?That ringed the earth with stones of praise,?Roofed Karnak's hall of gods, and laid?The plinths of Phil e's colonnade.?Still less He owns the selfish good?And sickly growth of solitude,--?The worthless grace that, out of