Poems of Nature, part 6, Religious Poems 2 | Page 7

nature with him, by an impulse as natural as it was unpremeditated, he called upon then to join in silently asking God's blessing on their work together. The pause was broken by the first words of an address no less fervent than its unspoken prelude." This was in the summer of 1873, and Agassiz died the December following.
On the isle of Penikese,?Ringed about by sapphire seas,?Fanned by breezes salt and cool,?Stood the Master with his school.?Over sails that not in vain?Wooed the west-wind's steady strain,?Line of coast that low and far?Stretched its undulating bar,?Wings aslant along the rim?Of the waves they stooped to skim,?Rock and isle and glistening bay,?Fell the beautiful white day.
Said the Master to the youth?"We have come in search of truth,?Trying with uncertain key?Door by door of mystery;?We are reaching, through His laws,?To the garment-hem of Cause,?Him, the endless, unbegun,?The Unnamable, the One?Light of all our light the Source,?Life of life, and Force of force.?As with fingers of the blind,?We are groping here to find?What the hieroglyphics mean?Of the Unseen in the seen,?What the Thought which underlies?Nature's masking and disguise,?What it is that hides beneath?Blight and bloom and birth and death.?By past efforts unavailing,?Doubt and error, loss and failing,?Of our weakness made aware,?On the threshold of our task?Let us light and guidance ask,?Let us pause in silent prayer!"
Then the Master in his place?Bowed his head a little space,?And the leaves by soft airs stirred,?Lapse of wave and cry of bird,?Left the solemn hush unbroken?Of that wordless prayer unspoken,?While its wish, on earth unsaid,?Rose to heaven interpreted.?As, in life's best hours, we hear?By the spirit's finer ear?His low voice within us, thus?The All-Father heareth us;?And His holy ear we pain?With our noisy words and vain.?Not for Him our violence?Storming at the gates of sense,?His the primal language, His?The eternal silences!
Even the careless heart was moved,?And the doubting gave assent,?With a gesture reverent,?To the Master well-beloved.?As thin mists are glorified?By the light they cannot hide,?All who gazed upon him saw,?Through its veil of tender awe,?How his face was still uplit?By the old sweet look of it.?Hopeful, trustful, full of cheer,?And the love that casts out fear.?Who the secret may declare?Of that brief, unuttered prayer??Did the shade before him come?Of th' inevitable doom,?Of the end of earth so near,?And Eternity's new year?
In the lap of sheltering seas?Rests the isle of Penikese;?But the lord of the domain?Comes not to his own again?Where the eyes that follow fail,?On a vaster sea his sail?Drifts beyond our beck and hail.?Other lips within its bound?Shall the laws of life expound;?Other eyes from rock and shell?Read the world's old riddles well?But when breezes light and bland?Blow from Summer's blossomed land,?When the air is glad with wings,?And the blithe song-sparrow sings,?Many an eye with his still face?Shall the living ones displace,?Many an ear the word shall seek?He alone could fitly speak.?And one name forevermore?Shall be uttered o'er and o'er?By the waves that kiss the shore,?By the curlew's whistle sent?Down the cool, sea-scented air;?In all voices known to her,?Nature owns her worshipper,?Half in triumph, half lament.?Thither Love shall tearful turn,?Friendship pause uncovered there,?And the wisest reverence learn?From the Master's silent prayer.?1873.
IN QUEST
Have I not voyaged, friend beloved, with thee?On the great waters of the unsounded sea,?Momently listening with suspended oar?For the low rote of waves upon a shore?Changeless as heaven, where never fog-cloud drifts?Over its windless wood, nor mirage lifts?The steadfast hills; where never birds of doubt?Sing to mislead, and every dream dies out,?And the dark riddles which perplex us here?In the sharp solvent of its light are clear??Thou knowest how vain our quest; how, soon or late,?The baffling tides and circles of debate?Swept back our bark unto its starting-place,?Where, looking forth upon the blank, gray space,?And round about us seeing, with sad eyes,?The same old difficult hills and cloud-cold skies,?We said: "This outward search availeth not?To find Him. He is farther than we thought,?Or, haply, nearer. To this very spot?Whereon we wait, this commonplace of home,?As to the well of Jacob, He may come?And tell us all things." As I listened there,?Through the expectant silences of prayer,?Somewhat I seemed to hear, which hath to me?Been hope, strength, comfort, and I give it thee.
"The riddle of the world is understood?Only by him who feels that God is good,?As only he can feel who makes his love?The ladder of his faith, and climbs above?On th' rounds of his best instincts; draws no line?Between mere human goodness and divine,?But, judging God by what in him is best,?With a child's trust leans on a Father's breast,?And hears unmoved the old creeds babble still?Of kingly power and dread caprice of will,?Chary of blessing, prodigal of curse,?The pitiless doomsman of the universe.?Can Hatred ask for love? Can Selfishness?Invite to self-denial? Is He less?Than man in kindly dealing? Can He break?His own great law