Thou seemest human and divine, The highest, holiest manhood, Thou: Our wills are ours, we know not how ; Our wills are ours, to make them Thine. Our little systems have their day; They have their day and cease to be : They are but broken lights of Thee, And Thou, O Lord, art more than they. We have but faith: we cannot know; Let knowledge grow from more to more, But more of reverence in us dwell; That mind and soul, according well, May make one music as before, But vaster. We are fools and slight; We mock Thee when we do not fear : But help Thy foolish ones to bear ; Help Thy vain worlds to bear Thy light. Forgive what seem'd my sin in me ; For merit lives from man to man, Forgive my grief for one removed, Thy creature, whom I found so fair. I find him worthier to be loved. Forgive these wild and wandering cries, Forgive them where they fail in truth, And in Thy wisdom make me wise. 1849. I. I HELD it truth, with him who sings But who shall so forecast the years And find in loss a gain to match? Or reach a hand thro' time to catch The far-off interest of tears? Let Love clasp Grief lest both be drown'd, Let darkness keep her raven gloss ; Ah! sweeter to be drunk with loss, To dance with death, to beat the ground; Than that the victor Hours should scorn The long result of love, and boast: 6 Behold the man that loved and lost, But all he was is overworn.' B II. OLD Yew, which graspest at the stones That name the under-lying dead, Thy fibres net the dreamless head; Thy roots are wrapt about the bones. The seasons bring the flower again, And bring the firstling to the flock; And in the dusk of thee, the clock Beats out the little lives of men. O not for thee the glow, the bloom, Nor branding summer suns avail And gazing on the sullen tree, Sick for thy stubborn hardihood, I seem to fail from out my blood, And grow incorporate into thee. |