The Diary of an Old Soul | Page 7

thee on board, each sailor is a king
Nor I mere captain of my
vessel then,
But heir of earth and heaven, eternal child;
Daring all
truth, nor fearing anything;
Mighty in love, the servant of all men;

Resenting nothing, taking rage and blare
Into the Godlike silence of a
loving care.
23.
I cannot see, my God, a reason why
>From morn to night I go not
gladsome free;
For, if thou art what my soul thinketh thee,
There is
no burden but should lightly lie,
No duty but a joy at heart must be:

Love's perfect will can be nor sore nor small,
For God is light--in him
no darkness is at all.
24.
'Tis something thus to think, and half to trust--
But, ah! my very heart,
God-born, should lie
Spread to the light, clean, clear of mire and rust,

And like a sponge drink the divine sunbeams.
What resolution then,
strong, swift, and high!
What pure devotion, or to live or die!
And

in my sleep, what true, what perfect dreams!
25.
There is a misty twilight of the soul,
A sickly eclipse, low brooding
o'er a man,
When the poor brain is as an empty bowl,
And the
thought-spirit, weariful and wan,
Turning from that which yet it loves
the best,
Sinks moveless, with life-poverty opprest:--
Watch then, O
Lord, thy feebly glimmering coal.
26.
I cannot think; in me is but a void;
I have felt much, and want to feel
no more;
My soul is hungry for some poorer fare--
Some earthly
nectar, gold not unalloyed:--
The little child that's happy to the core,

Will leave his mother's lap, run down the stair,
Play with the
servants--is his mother annoyed?
27.
I would not have it so. Weary and worn,
Why not to thee run straight,
and be at rest?
Motherward, with toy new, or garment torn,
The
child that late forsook her changeless breast,
Runs to home's heart,
the heaven that's heavenliest:
In joy or sorrow, feebleness or might,

Peace or commotion, be thou, Father, my delight.
28.
The thing I would say, still comes forth with doubt
And
difference:--is it that thou shap'st my ends?
Or is it only the necessity

Of stubborn words, that shift sluggish about,
Warping my thought
as it the sentence bends?--
Have thou a part in it, O Lord, and I

Shall say a truth, if not the thing I try.
29.

Gather my broken fragments to a whole,
As these four quarters make
a shining day.
Into thy basket, for my golden bowl,
Take up the
things that I have cast away
In vice or indolence or unwise play.
Let
mine be a merry, all-receiving heart,
But make it a whole, with light
in every part.
MARCH.
1.
THE song birds that come to me night and morn,
Fly oft away and
vanish if I sleep,
Nor to my fowling-net will one return:
Is the thing
ever ours we cannot keep?--
But their souls go not out into the deep.

What matter if with changed song they come back?
Old strength
nor yet fresh beauty shall they lack.
2.
Gloriously wasteful, O my Lord, art thou!
Sunset faints after sunset
into the night,
Splendorously dying from thy window-sill--
For ever.
Sad our poverty doth bow
Before the riches of thy making might:

Sweep from thy space thy systems at thy will--
In thee the sun sets
every sunset still.
3.
And in the perfect time, O perfect God,
When we are in our home,
our natal home,
When joy shall carry every sacred load,
And from
its life and peace no heart shall roam,
What if thou make us able to
make like thee--
To light with moons, to clothe with greenery,
To
hang gold sunsets o'er a rose and purple sea!
4.
Then to his neighbour one may call out, "Come!
Brother, come
hither--I would show you a thing;"
And lo, a vision of his imagining,


Informed of thought which else had rested dumb,
Before the
neighbour's truth-delighted eyes,
In the great æther of existence rise,

And two hearts each to each the closer cling!
5.
We make, but thou art the creating core.
Whatever thing I dream,
invent, or feel,
Thou art the heart of it, the atmosphere.
Thou art
inside all love man ever bore;
Yea, the love itself, whatever thing be
dear.
Man calls his dog, he follows at his heel,
Because thou first
art love, self-caused, essential, mere.
6.
This day be with me, Lord, when I go forth,
Be nearer to me than I
am able to ask.
In merriment, in converse, or in task,
Walking the
street, listening to men of worth,
Or greeting such as only talk and
bask,
Be thy thought still my waiting soul around,
And if He come,
I shall be watching found.
7.
What if, writing, I always seem to leave
Some better thing, or better
way, behind,
Why should I therefore fret at all, or grieve!
The
worse I drop, that I the better find;
The best is only in thy perfect
mind.
Fallen threads I will not search for--I will weave.
Who makes
the mill-wheel backward strike to grind!
8.
Be with me, Lord. Keep me beyond all prayers:
For more than all my
prayers my need of thee,
And thou beyond all need, all