Lord Christ, if thou art with us and these eyes
Are holden, while we go sadly and say
"We hoped it had been He, and now to-day
Is the third day, and hope within us dies,"
Bear with us, Oh our Master, thou art wise
And knowest our foolishness; we do not pray
"Declare thyself, since weary grows the way
And faith's new burden hard upon us lies."
Nay, choose thy time; but ah! whoe'er thou art
Leave us not; where have we heard any voice
Like thine? Our hearts burn in us as we go;
Stay with us; break our bread; so, for our part
Ere darkness falls haply we may rejoice,
Haply when day has been far spent may know.
Thou movest from us; we shall see thy face
No more. Ah, look below these troubled eyes,
This woman's heart in us that faints and dies,
Trust not our faltering lips, our sad amaze ;
Glance some time downward from thy golden place,
And know how we rejoice. It is meet, is wise;
High tasks are thine, surrenders, victories,
Communings pure, mysterious works and ways.
Leave us how should we keep thee in these blown
Grey fields, or soil with earth a Master's feet?
Nor deem us comfortless: have we not known
Thee once, for ever. Friend, the pain is sweet
Seeing thy completeness to have grown complete,
Thy gift it is that we can walk alone.
I prayed to be delivered, O true God,
Not from the foes that compass us about,-
Them I might combat; not from any doubt
That wrings the soul; not from Thy bitter rod
Smiting the conscience; not from plagues abroad,
Nor my strong inward lusts; nor from the rout
Of worldly men, the scourge, the spit, the flout,
And the whole dolorous way the Master trod.
All these would rouse the life that lurks within,
Would save or slay; these things might be defied
Or strenuously endured; yea, pressed by sin
The soul is stung with sudden, visiting gleams ;
Leave these, if Thou but scatter, Lord, I cried,
The counterfeiting shadows and vain dreams.
O would you read that Hebrew legend true
Look deep into the little children's eyes,
Who walk with naked souls in Paradise,
And know not shame; who, with miraculous dew
To keep the garden ever fair and new,
Want not our sobbing rains in their blue skies.
Among the trees God moves, and o'er them rise
All night in deeper heavens great stars to view.
Ah, how we wept when through the gate we came !
What boots it to look back? The world is ours,
Come, we will fare, my brothers, boldly forth;
Let that dread Angel wave the sword of flame
Forever idly round relinquished bowers—
Leave Eden there; we will subdue the earth.
How all things transitory, all things vain
Desert me! Whither am I sinking slow
On the prone wing, to what predestined home,
What peace beyond all peace, what ultimate joy?
Nay, cease from questioning, care not to know,
Let bliss dissolve each thought, all function cease,
Fold close the wing, let the soft-flowing light
Permeate, and merely once uplift drooped lids
To mark the world remote, the abandoned shore,
Fretted with much vain pleasure, futile pain,
Far, far.
The deepening peace! a dawn of essences
Awful and incommunicably dear !
Grace opening into grace, joy quenching joy!
Thy waves and billows have gone over me
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