Poems of Nature, part 6, Religious Poems 2 | Page 2

logic linked and strong
I weigh
as one who dreads dissent,
And fears a doubt as wrong.
But still my human hands are weak
To hold your iron creeds

Against the words ye bid me speak
My heart within me pleads.
Who fathoms the Eternal Thought?
Who talks of scheme and plan?

The Lord is God! He needeth not
The poor device of man.

I walk with bare, hushed feet the ground
Ye tread with boldness shod;

I dare not fix with mete and bound
The love and power of God.
Ye praise His justice; even such
His pitying love I deem
Ye seek a
king; I fain would touch
The robe that hath no seam.
Ye see the curse which overbroods
A world of pain and loss;
I hear
our Lord's beatitudes
And prayer upon the cross.
More than your schoolmen teach, within
Myself, alas! I know
Too
dark ye cannot paint the sin,
Too small the merit show.
I bow my forehead to the dust,
I veil mine eyes for shame,
And
urge, in trembling self-distrust,
A prayer without a claim.
I see the wrong that round me lies,
I feel the guilt within;
I hear,
with groan and travail-cries,
The world confess its sin.
Yet, in the maddening maze of things,
And tossed by storm and flood,

To one fixed trust my spirit clings;
I know that God is good!
Not mine to look where cherubim
And seraphs may not see,
But
nothing can be good in Him
Which evil is in me.
The wrong that pains my soul below
I dare not throne above,
I
know not of His hate,--I know
His goodness and His love.
I dimly guess from blessings known
Of greater out of sight,
And,
with the chastened Psalmist, own
His judgments too are right.
I long for household voices gone,
For vanished smiles I long,
But
God hath led my dear ones on,
And He can do no wrong.
I know not what the future hath
Of marvel or surprise,
Assured
alone that life and death
His mercy underlies.

And if my heart and flesh are weak
To bear an untried pain,
The
bruised reed He will not break,
But strengthen and sustain.
No offering of my own I have,
Nor works my faith to prove;
I can
but give the gifts He gave,
And plead His love for love.
And so beside the Silent Sea
I wait the muffled oar;
No harm from
Him can come to me
On ocean or on shore.
I know not where His islands lift
Their fronded palms in air;
I only
know I cannot drift
Beyond His love and care.
O brothers! if my faith is vain,
If hopes like these betray,
Pray for
me that my feet may gain
The sure and safer way.
And Thou, O Lord! by whom are seen
Thy creatures as they be,

Forgive me if too close I lean
My human heart on Thee!
1865.
THE COMMON QUESTION.
Behind us at our evening meal
The gray bird ate his fill,
Swung
downward by a single claw,
And wiped his hooked bill.
He shook his wings and crimson tail,
And set his head aslant,
And,
in his sharp, impatient way,
Asked, "What does Charlie want?"
"Fie, silly bird!" I answered, "tuck
Your head beneath your wing,

And go to sleep;"--but o'er and o'er
He asked the self-same thing.
Then, smiling, to myself I said
How like are men and birds!
We all
are saying what he says,
In action or in words.
The boy with whip and top and drum,
The girl with hoop and doll,

And men with lands and houses, ask
The question of Poor Poll.
However full, with something more
We fain the bag would cram;


We sigh above our crowded nets
For fish that never swam.
No bounty of indulgent Heaven
The vague desire can stay;

Self-love is still a Tartar mill
For grinding prayers alway.
The dear God hears and pities all;
He knoweth all our wants;
And
what we blindly ask of Him
His love withholds or grants.
And so I sometimes think our prayers
Might well be merged in one;

And nest and perch and hearth and church
Repeat, "Thy will be
done."
OUR MASTER.
Immortal Love, forever full,
Forever flowing free,
Forever shared,
forever whole,
A never-ebbing sea!
Our outward lips confess the name
All other names above;
Love
only knoweth whence it came
And comprehendeth love.
Blow, winds of God, awake and blow
The mists of earth away!

Shine out, O Light Divine, and show
How wide and far we stray!
Hush every lip, close every book,
The strife of tongues forbear;

Why forward reach, or backward look,
For love that clasps like air?
We may not climb the heavenly steeps
To bring the Lord Christ down

In vain we search the lowest deeps,
For Him no depths can drown.
Nor holy bread, nor blood of grape,
The lineaments restore
Of Him
we know in outward shape
And in the flesh no more.
He cometh not a king to reign;
The world's long hope is dim;
The
weary centuries watch in vain
The clouds of heaven for Him.
Death comes, life goes; the asking eye
And ear are answerless;
The

grave is dumb, the hollow sky
Is sad with silentness.
The letter fails, and systems fall,
And every symbol wanes;
The
Spirit over-brooding all
Eternal Love remains.
And not for signs in heaven above
Or earth below they look,
Who
know with John