Whittiers Complete Poems, vol 2 | Page 9

Central Sun.
And if we reap as we have sown,?And take the dole we deal,?The law of pain is love alone,?The wounding is to heal.
Unharmed from change to change we glide,?We fall as in our dreams;?The far-off terror at our side?A smiling angel seems.
Secure on God's all-tender heart?Alike rest great and small;?Why fear to lose our little part,?When He is pledged for all?
O fearful heart and troubled brain?Take hope and strength from this,--?That Nature never hints in vain,?Nor prophesies amiss.
Her wild birds sing the same sweet stave,?Her lights and airs are given?Alike to playground and the grave;?And over both is Heaven.?1858
THE PALM-TREE.
Is it the palm, the cocoa-palm,?On the Indian Sea, by the isles of balm??Or is it a ship in the breezeless calm?
A ship whose keel is of palm beneath,?Whose ribs of palm have a palm-bark sheath,?And a rudder of palm it steereth with.
Branches of palm are its spars and rails,?Fibres of palm are its woven sails,?And the rope is of palm that idly trails!
What does the good ship bear so well??The cocoa-nut with its stony shell,?And the milky sap of its inner cell.
What are its jars, so smooth and fine,?But hollowed nuts, filled with oil and wine,?And the cabbage that ripens under the Line?
Who smokes his nargileh, cool and calm??The master, whose cunning and skill could charm?Cargo and ship from the bounteous palm.
In the cabin he sits on a palm-mat soft,?From a beaker of palm his drink is quaffed,?And a palm-thatch shields from the sun aloft!
His dress is woven of palmy strands,?And he holds a palm-leaf scroll in his hands,?Traced with the Prophet's wise commands!
The turban folded about his head?Was daintily wrought of the palm-leaf braid,?And the fan that cools him of palm was made.
Of threads of palm was the carpet spun?Whereon he kneels when the day is done,?And the foreheads of Islam are bowed as one!
To him the palm is a gift divine,?Wherein all uses of man combine,--?House, and raiment, and food, and wine!
And, in the hour of his great release,?His need of the palm shall only cease?With the shroud wherein he lieth in peace.
"Allah il Allah!" he sings his psalm,?On the Indian Sea, by the isles of balm;?"Thanks to Allah who gives the palm!"?1858.
THE RIVER PATH.
No bird-song floated down the hill,?The tangled bank below was still;
No rustle from the birchen stem,?No ripple from the water's hem.
The dusk of twilight round us grew,?We felt the falling of the dew;
For, from us, ere the day was done,?The wooded hills shut out the sun.
But on the river's farther side?We saw the hill-tops glorified,--
A tender glow, exceeding fair,?A dream of day without its glare.
With us the damp, the chill, the gloom?With them the sunset's rosy bloom;
While dark, through willowy vistas seen,?The river rolled in shade between.
From out the darkness where we trod,?We gazed upon those bills of God,
Whose light seemed not of moon or sun.?We spake not, but our thought was one.
We paused, as if from that bright shore?Beckoned our dear ones gone before;
And stilled our beating hearts to hear?The voices lost to mortal ear!
Sudden our pathway turned from night;?The hills swung open to the light;
Through their green gates the sunshine showed,?A long, slant splendor downward flowed.
Down glade and glen and bank it rolled;?It bridged the shaded stream with gold;
And, borne on piers of mist, allied?The shadowy with the sunlit side!
"So," prayed we, "when our feet draw near?The river dark, with mortal fear,
"And the night cometh chill with dew,?O Father! let Thy light break through!
"So let the hills of doubt divide,?So bridge with faith the sunless tide!
"So let the eyes that fail on earth?On Thy eternal hills look forth;
"And in Thy beckoning angels know?The dear ones whom we loved below!"?1880.
MOUNTAIN PICTURES.
I. FRANCONIA FROM THE PEMIGEWASSET?Once more, O Mountains of the North, unveil?Your brows, and lay your cloudy mantles by?And once more, ere the eyes that seek ye fail,?Uplift against the blue walls of the sky?Your mighty shapes, and let the sunshine weave?Its golden net-work in your belting woods,?Smile down in rainbows from your falling floods,?And on your kingly brows at morn and eve?Set crowns of fire! So shall my soul receive?Haply the secret of your calm and strength,?Your unforgotten beauty interfuse?My common life, your glorious shapes and hues?And sun-dropped splendors at my bidding come,?Loom vast through dreams, and stretch in billowy length?From the sea-level of my lowland home!
They rise before me! Last night's thunder-gust?Roared not in vain: for where its lightnings thrust?Their tongues of fire, the great peaks seem so near,?Burned clean of mist, so starkly bold and clear,?I almost pause the wind in the pines to hear,?The loose rock's fall, the steps of browsing deer.?The clouds that shattered on yon slide-worn walls?And splintered on the rocks their spears of rain?Have set in play a thousand waterfalls,?Making the dusk and silence of the woods?Glad with the laughter of the chasing floods,?And luminous