Narrative Poems, part 3, Barclay of Ury etc | Page 9

Hell with Him
Than golden-gated Paradise without."
Tears sprang in Tauler's eyes. A sudden light,
Like the first ray which
fell on chaos, clove
Apart the shadow wherein he had walked

Darkly at noon. And, as the strange old man
Went his slow way, until
his silver hair
Set like the white moon where the hills of vine
Slope
to the Rhine, he bowed his head and said
"My prayer is answered.
God hath sent the man
Long sought, to teach me, by his simple trust,

Wisdom the weary schoolmen never knew."
So, entering with a changed and cheerful step
The city gates, he saw,
far down the street,
A mighty shadow break the light of noon,

Which tracing backward till its airy lines
Hardened to stony plinths,
he raised his eyes
O'er broad facade and lofty pediment,
O'er
architrave and frieze and sainted niche,
Up the stone lace-work
chiselled by the wise
Erwin of Steinbach, dizzily up to where
In the
noon-brightness the great Minster's tower,
Jewelled with sunbeams
on its mural crown,
Rose like a visible prayer. "Behold!" he said,

"The stranger's faith made plain before mine eyes.
As yonder tower
outstretches to the earth
The dark triangle of its shade alone
When
the clear day is shining on its top,
So, darkness in the pathway of
Man's life
Is but the shadow of God's providence,
By the great Sun
of Wisdom cast thereon;
And what is dark below is light in Heaven."

1853.
THE HERMIT OF THE THEBAID.
O STRONG, upwelling prayers of faith,
From inmost founts of life
ye start,--
The spirit's pulse, the vital breath
Of soul and heart!
From pastoral toil, from traffic's din,

Alone, in crowds, at home,

abroad,
Unheard of man, ye enter in
The ear of God.
Ye brook no forced and measured tasks,
Nor weary rote, nor formal
chains;
The simple heart, that freely asks
In love, obtains.
For man the living temple is
The mercy-seat and cherubim,
And all
the holy mysteries,
He bears with him.
And most avails the prayer of love,
Which, wordless, shapes itself in
needs,
And wearies Heaven for naught above
Our common needs.
Which brings to God's all-perfect will
That trust of His undoubting
child
Whereby all seeming good and ill
Are reconciled.
And, seeking not for special signs
Of favor, is content to fall
Within
the providence which shines
And rains on all.
Alone, the Thebaid hermit leaned
At noontime o'er the sacred word.

Was it an angel or a fiend
Whose voice be heard?
It broke the desert's hush of awe,
A human utterance, sweet and mild;

And, looking up, the hermit saw
A little child.
A child, with wonder-widened eyes,
O'erawed and troubled by the
sight
Of hot, red sands, and brazen skies,
And anchorite.
"'What dost thou here, poor man? No shade
Of cool, green palms, nor
grass, nor well,
Nor corn, nor vines." The hermit said
"With God I
dwell.
"Alone with Him in this great calm,
I live not by the outward sense;

My Nile his love, my sheltering palm
His providence."
The child gazed round him. "Does God live
Here only?--where the
desert's rim
Is green with corn, at morn and eve,
We pray to Him.

"My brother tills beside the Nile
His little field; beneath the leaves

My sisters sit and spin, the while
My mother weaves.
"And when the millet's ripe heads fall,
And all the bean-field hangs in
pod,
My mother smiles, and, says that all
Are gifts from God."
Adown the hermit's wasted cheeks
Glistened the flow of human tears;

"Dear Lord!" he said, "Thy angel speaks,
Thy servant hears."
Within his arms the child he took,
And thought of home and life with
men;
And all his pilgrim feet forsook
Returned again.
The palmy shadows cool and long,
The eyes that smiled through
lavish locks,
Home's cradle-hymn and harvest-song,
And bleat of
flocks.
"O child!" he said, "thou teachest me
There is no place where God is
not;
That love will make, where'er it be,
A holy spot."
He rose from off the desert sand,
And, leaning on his staff of thorn,

Went with the young child hand in hand,
Like night with morn.
They crossed the desert's burning line,
And heard the palm-tree's
rustling fan,
The Nile-bird's cry, the low of kine,
And voice of man.
Unquestioning, his childish guide
He followed, as the small hand led

To where a woman, gentle-eyed,
Her distaff fed.
She rose, she clasped her truant boy,
She thanked the stranger with
her eyes;
The hermit gazed in doubt and joy
And dumb surprise.
And to!--with sudden warmth and light
A tender memory thrilled his
frame;
New-born, the world-lost anchorite
A man became.
"O sister of El Zara's race,
Behold me!--had we not one mother?"


She gazed into the stranger's face
"Thou art my brother!"
"And when to share our evening meal,
She calls the stranger at the
door,
She says God fills the hands that deal
Food to the poor."
"O kin of blood! Thy life of use
And patient trust is more than mine;

And wiser than the gray recluse
This child of thine.
"For, taught of him whom God hath sent,
That toil is praise, and love
is prayer,
I come, life's cares and pains content
With thee to share."
Even as his foot the threshold crossed,
The hermit's better life began;

Its holiest saint the Thebaid lost,
And found a man!
1854.
MAUD MULLER.
The recollection of some descendants of a Hessian