Whence and Whither. THE REIGN OF LAW. 'Ετέρα μὲν ἡ τῶν ἐπουρανίων δόξα, ἑτέρα δὲ ἡ τῶν ἐπιγείων. 'HE dawn went up the sky, THE Like any other day; And they had only come To mourn Him where he lay, "We ne'er have seen the law Reversed 'neath which we lie; Exceptions none are found, And when we die, we die. Resigned to fact we wander hither, "Vain questions! from the first Put, and no answer found. Wherewith himself is bound. Unrolls her primal curve; The sun himself were vexed Did he one furlong swerve: The myriad years have whirled us hither, "We know but what we see Like cause and like event: One constant force runs on Transmuted, but unspent. Because they are, they are; The mind may frame a plan ; 'Tis from herself she draws A special thought for man: The natural choice that brought us hither, 66 WHENCE AND WHITHER. If God there be, or Gods We know but what we know, Whether God be, or no: The self-moved force that bore us hither 66 Ah, which is likelier truth, That law should hold its way, Or, for this one of all, Life reassert her sway? Like any other morn The sun goes up the sky; No crisis marks the day, For when we die, we die. No fair fond hope allures us hither: The law is dumb on whence and whither." -Then wherefore are ye come? Why watch a worn-out corse? Why weep a ripple past Down the long stream of force? If life is that which keeps Each organism whole, No atom may be traced Of what he thought the soul: It had its term of passage hither, But knew no whence, and knows no whither. The forces that were Christ Have ta'en new forms and fled; The common sun goes up, The dead are with the dead. 331 'T was but a phantom-life That seemed to think and will, Evolving self and God By some subjective skill; That had its day of passage hither, But knew no whence, and knows no whither. If this be all in all; Life but one mode of force; Law but the plan which binds The sequences in course: All essence, all design Shut out from mortal ken :— We bow to Nature's fate, And drop the style of men! The summer dust the wind wafts hither, But if our life be life, And thought, and will, and love Not vague unconscious airs That o'er wild harp-strings move; If consciousness be aught Of all it seems to be, And souls are something more Than lights that gleam and flee: Though dark the road that leads us thither, To matter or to force The All is not confined; Beside the law of things Is set the law of mind; One speaks in rock and star, And one within the brain ; In unison at times, And then apart again: And both in one have brought us hither, That we may know our whence and whither. WHENCE AND WHITHER. The sequences of law We learn through mind alone; That aught we know is known :- Of what we touch and see And of a life to be; Proclaiming One who brought us hither, O shrine of God that now Must learn itself with awe! That which seemed all the rule Of nature, is but part; A larger, deeper law Claims also soul and heart. The force that framed and bore us hither We may not hope to read Or of the law of things, Or of the law of soul: E'en in the eternal stars Dim perturbations rise; And all the searcher's search Does not exhaust the skies : He who has framed and brought us hither He in his science plans What no known laws foretell; The wandering fires and fixed Alike are miracle : 333 The common death of all, The life renewed above, And both within the scheme Of that all-circling love. The seeming chance that cast us hither, Then, though the sun go up The law of mind enthrone, Reveal himself in one; Himself the way that leads us thither, The All-in-all the Whence and Whither. FRANCIS T. PALGRAVE. Ο The Ascension. UR Lord is risen from the dead, Our Jesus is gone up on high; There his triumphal chariot waits, And angels chant the solemn lay! "Loose all your bars of massy light, |