The Diary of an Old Soul | Page 9

us making will,
adopting thine.
Make, make, and make us; temper, and refine.
Be in
us patience--neither to start nor cower.
Christ, if thou be not with
us--not by sign,
But presence, actual as the wounds that bleed--
We
shall not bear it, but shall die indeed.
24.
O Christ, have pity on all men when they come
Unto the border
haunted of dismay;
When that they know not draweth very near--

The other thing, the opposite of day,
Formless and ghastly, sick, and
gaping-dumb,
Before which even love doth lose his cheer:
O
radiant Christ, remember then thy fear.
25.
Be by me, Lord, this day. Thou know'st I mean--
Lord, make me
mind thee. I herewith forestall
My own forgetfulness, when I stoop to
glean
The corn of earth--which yet thy hand lets fall.
Be for me
then against myself. Oh lean
Over me then when I invert my cup;

Take me, if by the hair, and lift me up.
26.
Lord of essential life, help me to die.
To will to die is one with
highest life,
The mightiest act that to Will's hand doth lie--
Born of
God's essence, and of man's hard strife:
God, give me strength my
evil self to kill,
And die into the heaven of thy pure will.--
Then
shall this body's death be very tolerable.

27.
As to our mothers came help in our birth--
Not lost in lifing us, but
saved and blest--
Self bearing self, although right sorely prest,
Shall
nothing lose, but die and be at rest
In life eternal, beyond all care and
dearth.
God-born then truly, a man does no more ill,
Perfectly loves,
and has whate'er he will.
28.
As our dear animals do suffer less
Because their pain spreads neither
right nor left,
Lost in oblivion and foresightlessness--
Our suffering
sore by faith shall be bereft
Of all dismay, and every weak excess.

His presence shall be better in our pain,
Than even self-absence to the
weaker brain.
29.
"Father, let this cup pass." He prayed--was heard.
What cup was it
that passed away from him?
Sure not the death-cup, now filled to the
brim!
There was no quailing in the awful word;
He still was king of
kings, of lords the lord:--
He feared lest, in the suffering waste and
grim,
His faith might grow too faint and sickly dim.
30.
Thy mind, my master, I will dare explore;
What we are told, that we
are meant to know.
Into thy soul I search yet more and more,
Led
by the lamp of my desire and woe.
If thee, my Lord, I may not
understand,
I am a wanderer in a houseless land,
A weeping thirst
by hot winds ever fanned.
31.
Therefore I look again--and think I see
That, when at last he did cry
out, "My God,
Why hast thou me forsaken?" straight man's rod
Was

turned aside; for, that same moment, he
Cried "Father!" and gave up
will and breath and spirit
Into his hands whose all he did inherit--

Delivered, glorified eternally.
APRIL.
1.
LORD, I do choose the higher than my will.
I would be handled by
thy nursing arms
After thy will, not my infant alarms.
Hurt me thou
wilt--but then more loving still,
If more can be and less, in love's
perfect zone!
My fancy shrinks from least of all thy harms,
But do
thy will with me--I am thine own.
2.
Some things wilt thou not one day turn to dreams?
Some dreams wilt
thou not one day turn to fact?
The thing that painful, more than
should be, seems,
Shall not thy sliding years with them retract--

Shall fair realities not counteract?
The thing that was well dreamed of
bliss and joy--
Wilt thou not breathe thy life into the toy?
3.
I have had dreams of absolute delight,
Beyond all waking bliss--only
of grass,
Flowers, wind, a peak, a limb of marble white;
They dwell
with me like things half come to pass,
True prophecies:--when I with
thee am right,
If I pray, waking, for such a joy of sight,
Thou with
the gold, wilt not refuse the brass.
4.
I think I shall not ever pray for such;
Thy bliss will overflood my
heart and brain,
And I want no unripe things back again.
Love ever
fresher, lovelier than of old--
How should it want its more exchanged
for much?
Love will not backward sigh, but forward strain,
On in

the tale still telling, never told.
5.
What has been, shall not only be, but is.
The hues of dreamland,
strange and sweet and tender
Are but hint-shadows of full many a
splendour
Which the high Parent-love will yet unroll
Before his
child's obedient, humble soul.
Ah, me, my God! in thee lies every
bliss
Whose shadow men go hunting wearily amiss.
6.
Now, ere I sleep, I wonder what I shall dream.
Some sense of being,
utter new, may come
Into my soul while I am blind and dumb--

With shapes and airs and scents which dark hours teem,
Of other sort
than those that haunt the day,
Hinting at precious things, ages away

In the long tale of us God to himself doth say.
7.
Late, in a dream, an unknown lady I saw
Stand on a tomb; down she
to me stepped