Poems of Nature, part 6, Religious Poems 2 | Page 9

Saxon tongue?The echoes of the home-born hymns?The Aryan mothers sung.
And childhood had its litanies?In every age and clime;?The earliest cradles of the race?Were rocked to poet's rhyme.
Nor sky, nor wave, nor tree, nor flower,?Nor green earth's virgin sod,?So moved the singer's heart of old?As these small ones of God.
The mystery of unfolding life?Was more than dawning morn,?Than opening flower or crescent moon?The human soul new-born.
And still to childhood's sweet appeal?The heart of genius turns,?And more than all the sages teach?From lisping voices learns,--
The voices loved of him who sang,?Where Tweed and Teviot glide,?That sound to-day on all the winds?That blow from Rydal-side,--
Heard in the Teuton's household songs,?And folk-lore of the Finn,?Where'er to holy Christmas hearths?The Christ-child enters in!
Before life's sweetest mystery still?The heart in reverence kneels;?The wonder of the primal birth?The latest mother feels.
We need love's tender lessons taught?As only weakness can;?God hath His small interpreters;?The child must teach the man.
We wander wide through evil years,?Our eyes of faith grow dim;?But he is freshest from His hands?And nearest unto Him!
And haply, pleading long with Him?For sin-sick hearts and cold,?The angels of our childhood still?The Father's face behold.
Of such the kingdom!--Teach Thou us,?O-Master most divine,?To feel the deep significance?Of these wise words of Thine!
The haughty eye shall seek in vain?What innocence beholds;?No cunning finds the key of heaven,?No strength its gate unfolds.
Alone to guilelessness and love?That gate shall open fall;?The mind of pride is nothingness,?The childlike heart is all!?1875.
THE HEALER.
TO A YOUNG PHYSICIAN, WITH DORE'S PICTURE OF CHRIST?HEALING THE SICK.
So stood of old the holy Christ?Amidst the suffering throng;?With whom His lightest touch sufficed?To make the weakest strong.
That healing gift He lends to them?Who use it in His name;?The power that filled His garment's hem?Is evermore the same.
For lo! in human hearts unseen?The Healer dwelleth still,?And they who make His temples clean?The best subserve His will.
The holiest task by Heaven decreed,?An errand all divine,?The burden of our common need?To render less is thine.
The paths of pain are thine. Go forth?With patience, trust, and hope;?The sufferings of a sin-sick earth?Shall give thee ample scope.
Beside the unveiled mysteries?Of life and death go stand,?With guarded lips and reverent eyes?And pure of heart and hand.
So shalt thou be with power endued?From Him who went about?The Syrian hillsides doing good,?And casting demons out.
That Good Physician liveth yet?Thy friend and guide to be;?The Healer by Gennesaret?Shall walk the rounds with thee.
THE TWO ANGELS.
God called the nearest angels who dwell with Him above:?The tenderest one was Pity, the dearest one was Love.
"Arise," He said, "my angels! a wail of woe and sin?Steals through the gates of heaven, and saddens all within.
"My harps take up the mournful strain that from a lost world swells, The smoke of torment clouds the light and blights the asphodels.
"Fly downward to that under world, and on its souls of pain Let Love drop smiles like sunshine, and Pity tears like rain!"
Two faces bowed before the Throne, veiled in their golden hair; Four white wings lessened swiftly down the dark abyss of air.
The way was strange, the flight was long; at last the angels came Where swung the lost and nether world, red-wrapped in rayless flame.
There Pity, shuddering, wept; but Love, with faith too strong for fear, Took heart from God's almightiness and smiled a smile of cheer.
And lo! that tear of Pity quenched the flame whereon it fell, And, with the sunshine of that smile, hope entered into hell!
Two unveiled faces full of joy looked upward to the Throne, Four white wings folded at the feet of Him who sat thereon!
And deeper than the sound of seas, more soft than falling flake, Amidst the hush of wing and song the Voice Eternal spake:
"Welcome, my angels! ye have brought a holier joy to heaven; Henceforth its sweetest song shall be the song of sin forgiven!" 1875.
OVERRULED.
The threads our hands in blindness spin?No self-determined plan weaves in;?The shuttle of the unseen powers?Works out a pattern not as ours.
Ah! small the choice of him who sings?What sound shall leave the smitten strings;?Fate holds and guides the hand of art;?The singer's is the servant's part.
The wind-harp chooses not the tone?That through its trembling threads is blown;?The patient organ cannot guess?What hand its passive keys shall press.
Through wish, resolve, and act, our will?Is moved by undreamed forces still;?And no man measures in advance?His strength with untried circumstance.
As streams take hue from shade and sun,?As runs the life the song must run;?But, glad or sad, to His good end?God grant the varying notes may tend!?1877.
HYMN OF THE DUNKERS
KLOSTER KEDAR, EPHRATA, PENNSYLVANIA (1738)
SISTER MARIA CHRISTINA sings
Wake, sisters, wake! the day-star shines;?Above Ephrata's eastern pines?The dawn is breaking, cool and calm.?Wake, sisters, wake to prayer and psalm!
Praised be the Lord for shade and light,?For toil by day, for rest by night!?Praised be His name who deigns to bless?Our Kedar of the