The Diary of an Old Soul | Page 5

distress,

Pang-haunted body, sore-dismayed mind,
Is but the egg that rounds
the winged faith;
When that its path into the air shall find,
My heart
will follow, high above cold, rain, and wind.
24.
I can no more than lift my weary eyes;
Therefore I lift my weary
eyes--no more.
But my eyes pull my heart, and that, before
'Tis well

awake, knocks where the conscience lies;
Conscience runs quick to
the spirit's hidden door:
Straightway, from every sky-ward window,
cries
Up to the Father's listening ears arise.
25.
Not in my fancy now I search to find thee;
Not in its loftiest forms
would shape or bind thee;
I cry to one whom I can never know,

Filling me with an infinite overflow;
Not to a shape that dwells
within my heart,
Clothed in perfections love and truth assigned thee,

But to the God thou knowest that thou art.
26.
Not, Lord, because I have done well or ill;
Not that my mind looks up
to thee clear-eyed;
Not that it struggles in fast cerements tied;
Not
that I need thee daily sorer still;
Not that I wretched, wander from thy
will;
Not now for any cause to thee I cry,
But this, that thou art thou,
and here am I.
27.
Yestereve, Death came, and knocked at my thin door.
I from my
window looked: the thing I saw,
The shape uncouth, I had not seen
before.
I was disturbed--with fear, in sooth, not awe;
Whereof
ashamed, I instantly did rouse
My will to seek thee--only to fear the
more:
Alas! I could not find thee in the house.
28.
I was like Peter when he began to sink.
To thee a new prayer
therefore I have got--
That, when Death comes in earnest to my door,

Thou wouldst thyself go, when the latch doth clink,
And lead him
to my room, up to my cot;
Then hold thy child's hand, hold and leave
him not,
Till Death has done with him for evermore.

29.
Till Death has done with him?--Ah, leave me then!
And Death has
done with me, oh, nevermore!
He comes--and goes--to leave me in
thy arms,
Nearer thy heart, oh, nearer than before!
To lay thy child,
naked, new-born again
Of mother earth, crept free through many
harms,
Upon thy bosom--still to the very core.
30.
Come to me, Lord: I will not speculate how,
Nor think at which door
I would have thee appear,
Nor put off calling till my floors be swept,

But cry, "Come, Lord, come any way, come now."
Doors,
windows, I throw wide; my head I bow,
And sit like some one who
so long has slept
That he knows nothing till his life draw near.
31.
O Lord, I have been talking to the people;
Thought's wheels have
round me whirled a fiery zone,
And the recoil of my words' airy
ripple
My heart unheedful has puffed up and blown.
Therefore I
cast myself before thee prone:
Lay cool hands on my burning brain,
and press
>From my weak heart the swelling emptiness.
FEBRUARY.
1.
I TO myself have neither power nor worth,
Patience nor love, nor
anything right good;
My soul is a poor land, plenteous in dearth--

Here blades of grass, there a small herb for food--
A nothing that
would be something if it could;
But if obedience, Lord, in me do
grow,
I shall one day be better than I know.
2.

The worst power of an evil mood is this--
It makes the bastard self
seem in the right,
Self, self the end, the goal of human bliss.
But if
the Christ-self in us be the might
Of saving God, why should I spend
my force
With a dark thing to reason of the light--
Not push it
rough aside, and hold obedient course?
3.
Back still it comes to this: there was a man
Who said, "I am the truth,
the life, the way:"--
Shall I pass on, or shall I stop and hear?--

"Come to the Father but by me none can:"
What then is this?--am I
not also one
Of those who live in fatherless dismay?
I stand, I look,
I listen, I draw near.
4.
My Lord, I find that nothing else will do,
But follow where thou
goest, sit at thy feet,
And where I have thee not, still run to meet.

Roses are scentless, hopeless are the morns,
Rest is but weakness,
laughter crackling thorns,
If thou, the Truth, do not make them the
true:
Thou art my life, O Christ, and nothing else will do.
5.
Thou art here--in heaven, I know, but not from here--
Although thy
separate self do not appear;
If I could part the light from out the day,

There I should have thee! But thou art too near:
How find thee
walking, when thou art the way?
Oh, present Christ! make my eyes
keen as stings,
To see thee at their heart, the glory even of things.
6.
That thou art nowhere to be found, agree
Wise men, whose eyes are
but for surfaces;
Men with eyes opened by the second birth,
To
whom the seen, husk of the unseen is,
Descry thee soul of everything

on earth.
Who know thy ends, thy means and motions see:
Eyes
made for glory soon discover