Know well, my soul, God's hand controls Whate'er thou fearest; Round Him in calmest music rolls What to thee is shadow, to Him is day, And not on a blind and aimless way Man sees no future, a phantom show Past Time is dead, and the grasses grow, Nothing before, nothing behind; Fall on the seeming void, and find The Present, the Present is all thou hast Like the patriarch's angel hold it fast Why fear the night? why shrink from Death, That phantom wan? There is nothing in heaven or earth beneath Save God and man. Peopling the shadows we turn from Him All is spectral and vague and dim Like warp and woof all destinies Are woven fast, Linked in sympathy like the keys Of an organ vast. Pluck one thread, and the web ye mar; Of a thousand keys, and the paining jar O restless spirit! wherefore strain Heaven and hell, with their joy and pain, Back to thyself is measured well Thy neighbor's wrong is thy present hell, And in life, in death, in dark and light, All are in God's care : Sound the black abyss, pierce the deep of night, And He is there! All which is real now remaineth, And fadeth never: The hand which upholds it now sustaineth Leaning on Him, make with reverent meekness His own thy will, And with strength from Him shall thy utter weak ness Life's task fulfil; And that cloud itself, which now before thee Shall with beams of light from the inner glory And like meadow mist through autumn's dawn Its thickest folds when about thee drawn Then of what is to be, and of what is done, The past and the time to be are one, 1847. WORSHIP. "Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world." -JAMES i. 27. THE Pagan's myths through marble lips are spoken, And ghosts of old Beliefs still flit and moan Round fane and altar overthrown and broken, O'er tree-grown barrow and gray ring of stone. Blind Faith had martyrs in those old high places, The Syrian hill grove and the Druid's wood, With mother's offering, to the Fiend's embraces, Bone of their bone, and blood of their own blood. Red altars, kindling through that night of error, Beneath whose baleful shadow, overcasting All heaven above, and blighting earth below, The scourge grew red, the lip grew pale with fasting, And man's oblation was his fear and woe! Then through great temples swelled the dismal moaning Of dirge-like music and sepulchral prayer; Pale wizard priests, o'er occult symbols droning, Swung their white censers in the burdened air: As if the pomp of rituals, and the savor Of gums and spices could the Unseen One please; As if His ear could bend, with childish favor, To the poor flattery of the organ keys! Feet red from war-fields trod the church aisles holy, With trembling reverence: and the oppressor there, Kneeling before his priest, abased and lowly, Crushed human hearts beneath his knee of prayer. Not such the service the benignant Father Requireth at His earthly children's hands: Not the poor offering of vain rites, but rather The simple duty man from man demands. For Earth He asks it: the full joy of heaven He asks no taper lights, on high surrounding For he whom Jesus loved hath truly spoken: Types of our human weakness and our sorrow! Who lives unhaunted by his loved ones dead? Who, with vain longing, seeketh not to borrow From stranger eyes the home lights which have fled? O brother man! fold to thy heart thy brother; Where pity dwells, the peace of God is there; To worship rightly is to love each other, Each smile a hymn, each kindly deed a prayer. Follow with reverent steps the great example Of Him whose holy work was "doing good: |