The Tent on the Beach | Page 5

with sight at odds??Nature's pity more than God's?
Thus I mused by Melvin's side,?While the summer eventide?Made the woods and inland sea?And the mountains mystery;?And the hush of earth and air?Seemed the pause before a prayer,--
Prayer for him, for all who rest,?Mother Earth, upon thy breast,--?Lapped on Christian turf, or hid?In rock-cave or pyramid?All who sleep, as all who live,?Well may need the prayer, "Forgive!"
Desert-smothered caravan,?Knee-deep dust that once was man,?Battle-trenches ghastly piled,?Ocean-floors with white bones tiled,?Crowded tomb and mounded sod,?Dumbly crave that prayer to God.
Oh, the generations old?Over whom no church-bells tolled,?Christless, lifting up blind eyes?To the silence of the skies!?For the innumerable dead?Is my soul disquieted.
Where be now these silent hosts??Where the camping-ground of ghosts??Where the spectral conscripts led?To the white tents of the dead??What strange shore or chartless sea?Holds the awful mystery?
Then the warm sky stooped to make?Double sunset in the lake;?While above I saw with it,?Range on range, the mountains lit;?And the calm and splendor stole?Like an answer to my soul.
Hear'st thou, O of little faith,?What to thee the mountain saith,?What is whispered by the trees??Cast on God thy care for these;?Trust Him, if thy sight be dim?Doubt for them is doubt of Him.
"Blind must be their close-shut eyes?Where like night the sunshine lies,?Fiery-linked the self-forged chain?Binding ever sin to pain,?Strong their prison-house of will,?But without He waiteth still.
"Not with hatred's undertow?Doth the Love Eternal flow;?Every chain that spirits wear?Crumbles in the breath of prayer;?And the penitent's desire?Opens every gate of fire.
"Still Thy love, O Christ arisen,?Yearns to reach these souls in prison!?Through all depths of sin and loss?Drops the plummet of Thy cross!?Never yet abyss was found?Deeper than that cross could sound!"
Therefore well may Nature keep?Equal faith with all who sleep,?Set her watch of hills around?Christian grave and heathen mound,?And to cairn and kirkyard send?Summer's flowery dividend.
Keep, O pleasant Melvin stream,?Thy sweet laugh in shade and gleam?On the Indian's grassy tomb?Swing, O flowers, your bells of bloom!?Deep below, as high above,?Sweeps the circle of God's love.?1865
. . . . .
He paused and questioned with his eye?The hearers' verdict on his song.?A low voice asked: Is 't well to pry?Into the secrets which belong?Only to God?--The life to be?Is still the unguessed mystery?Unsealed, unpierced the cloudy walls remain,?We beat with dream and wish the soundless doors in vain.
"But faith beyond our sight may go."?He said: "The gracious Fatherhood?Can only know above, below,?Eternal purposes of good.?From our free heritage of will,?The bitter springs of pain and ill?Flow only in all worlds. The perfect day?Of God is shadowless, and love is love alway."
"I know," she said, "the letter kills;?That on our arid fields of strife?And heat of clashing texts distils?The clew of spirit and of life.?But, searching still the written Word,?I fain would find, Thus saith the Lord,?A voucher for the hope I also feel?That sin can give no wound beyond love's power to heal."
"Pray," said the Man of Books, "give o'er?A theme too vast for time and place.?Go on, Sir Poet, ride once more?Your hobby at his old free pace.?But let him keep, with step discreet,?The solid earth beneath his feet.?In the great mystery which around us lies,?The wisest is a fool, the fool Heaven-helped is wise."
The Traveller said: "If songs have creeds,?Their choice of them let singers make;?But Art no other sanction needs?Than beauty for its own fair sake.?It grinds not in the mill of use,?Nor asks for leave, nor begs excuse;?It makes the flexile laws it deigns to own,?And gives its atmosphere its color and its tone.
"Confess, old friend, your austere school?Has left your fancy little chance;?You square to reason's rigid rule?The flowing outlines of romance.?With conscience keen from exercise,?And chronic fear of compromise,?You check the free play of your rhymes, to clap?A moral underneath, and spring it like a trap."
The sweet voice answered: "Better so?Than bolder flights that know no check;?Better to use the bit, than throw?The reins all loose on fancy's neck.?The liberal range of Art should be?The breadth of Christian liberty,?Restrained alone by challenge and alarm?Where its charmed footsteps tread the border land of harm.
"Beyond the poet's sweet dream lives?The eternal epic of the man.?He wisest is who only gives,?True to himself, the best he can;?Who, drifting in the winds of praise,?The inward monitor obeys;?And, with the boldness that confesses fear,?Takes in the crowded sail, and lets his conscience steer.
"Thanks for the fitting word he speaks,?Nor less for doubtful word unspoken;?For the false model that he breaks,?As for the moulded grace unbroken;?For what is missed and what remains,?For losses which are truest gains,?For reverence conscious of the Eternal eye,?And truth too fair to need the garnish of a lie."
Laughing, the Critic bowed. "I yield?The point without another word;?Who ever yet a case appealed?Where beauty's judgment had been heard??And you, my good friend, owe to me?Your warmest thanks for such a plea,?As true withal