Spirituality

I am alone - oh be thou near to me,
Great God! from whom the meanest are not far.
Not in presumption of the daring spirit,
Striving to find the secrets of itself,
Make I my weeping prayer; in the deep want
Of utter loneliness, my God! I seek thee;
If the worm may creep up to thy fellowship,
Or dust, instinct with yearning, rise towards thee.
I have no fellow, Father! of my kind;
None that be kindred, none companion to me,
And the vast love, and harmony, and brotherhood,
Of the dumb creatures thou hast made below me,
Vexes my soul with its own bitter lot.
Around me grow the trees, each by the other;
Innumerable leaves, each like the other,
Whisper and breathe, and live and move together.
Around me spring the flowers; each rosy cup
Hath sisters, leaning the...

I had a dream, a varied dream:
    Before my ravished sight
The city of my Lord arose,
    With all its love and light.

The music of a myriad harps
    Flowed out with sweet accord;
And saints were casting down their crowns
    In homage to our Lord.


My heart leaped up with untold joy,
    Life's toil and pain were o'er;
My weary feet at last had found
    The bright and restful shore.

Just as I reached the gates of light,
    Ready to enter in,
From earth arose a fearful cry
    Of sorrow and of sin.

I turned, and saw behind me surge
    A wild and stormy sea;
And drowning men were reaching out
    Imploring hands to me.

And ev'ry lip was blanched with dread,
    And moaning for relief;
The mus...

    What dost thou here, O soul,
Beyond thy own control,
Under the strange wild sky?
0 stars, reach down your hands,
And clasp me in your silver bands,
I tremble with this mystery!--
Flung hither by a chance
Of restless circumstance,
Thou art but here, and wast not sent;
Yet once more mayest thou draw
By thy own mystic law
To the centre of thy wonderment.

    Why wilt thou stop and start?
Draw nearer, oh my heart,
And I will question thee most wistfully;
Gather thy last clear resolution
To look upon thy dissolution.

    The great God's life throbs far and free,
And thou art but a spark
Known only in thy dark,
Or a foam-fleck upon the awful ocean,
Thyself thy slender dignity,
Thy own thy vexing mystery,
In the vast...

Methought I journeyed along ways that led for ever
Throughout a happy land where strife and care were dead,
And life went by me flowing like a placid river
Past sandy eyots where the shifting shoals make head.

A land where beauty dwelt supreme, and right, the donor
Of peaceful days; a land of equal gifts and deeds,
Of limitless fair fields and plenty had with honour;
A land of kindly tillage and untroubled meads,

Of gardens, and great fields, and dreaming rose-wreathed alleys,
Wherein at dawn and dusk the vesper sparrows sang;
Of cities set far off on hills down vista'd valleys,
And floods so vast and old, men wist not whence they sprang,

Of groves, and forest depths, and fountains softly welling,
And roads that ran soft-shadowed past the open doors,
O...

    A chaplain in the army,
    A chaplain in the prisons,
    An exhorter in Spoon River,
    Drunk with divinity, Spoon River -
    Yet bringing poor Eliza Johnson to shame,
    And myself to scorn and wretchedness.
    But why will you never see that love of women,
    And even love of wine,
    Are the stimulants by which the soul, hungering for divinity,
    Reaches the ecstatic vision
    And sees the celestial outposts?
    Only after many trials for strength,
    Only when all stimulants fail,
    Does the aspiring soul
    By its own sheer power
    Find the divine
    By resting upon itself.

Glitt'ring balls and thoughtless revels
    Fill up now each misspent night -
'Tis the reign of pride and folly,
    The Carnival is at its height.
Every thought for siren pleasure,
    And its sinful, feverish mirth;
Who can find one moment's leisure
    For aught else save things of earth?

But, see, sudden stillness falling
    O'er those revels, late so loud,
And a hush comes quickly over
    All the maddened giddy crowd,
For a voice from out our churches
    Has proclaimed in words that burn:
"Only dust art thou, proud mortal,
    And to dust shall thou return!"

And, behold, Religion scatters
    Dust and ashes on each brow;
Thus replacing gem and flower
    With that lowly symbol now:
On the forehead fair of beauty,
  ...

Soulless is all humanity to me
To-night. My keenest longing is to be
Alone, alone with God's grey earth that seems
Pulse of my pulse and consort of my dreams.

To-night my soul desires no fellowship,
Or fellow-being; crave I but to slip
Thro' space on space, till flesh no more can bind,
And I may quit for aye my fellow kind.

Let me but feel athwart my cheek the lash
Of whipping wind, but hear the torrent dash
Adown the mountain steep, 'twere more my choice
Than touch of human hand, than human voice.

Let me but wander on the shore night-stilled,
Drinking its darkness till my soul is filled;
The breathing of the salt sea on my hair,
My outstretched hands but grasping empty air.

Let me but feel the pulse of Nature's soul
Athrob on mine...

That woman, did she try to attract my attention?
Is it true I saw her smile and nod?
She turned her head and smiled . . . was it for me?
It is better to think of work or god.
The clouds pile coldly above the houses
Slow wind revolves the leaves:
It begins to rain, and the first long drops
Are slantingly blown from eaves.
But it is true she tried to attract my attention!
She pressed a rose to her chin and smiled.
Her hand was white by the richness of her hair,
Her eyes were those of a child.
It is true she looked at me as if she liked me.
And turned away, afraid to look too long!
She watched me out of the corners of her eyes;
And, tapping time with fingers, hummed a song.
. . . Nevertheless, I will think of work,
With a trowel in my hands;
Or the vagu...

    Small, shapeless drifts of cloud
Sail slowly northward in the soft-hued sky,
    With blur half-tints and rolling summits bright,
By the late sun caressed; slight hazes shroud
    All things afar; shineth each leaf anigh
    With its own warmth and light.


    O'erblown by Southland airs,
The summer landscape basks in utter peace:
    In lazy streams the lazy clouds are seen;
Low hills, broad meadows, and large, clear-cut squares
    Of ripening corn-fields, rippled by the breeze,
    With shifting shade and sheen.


    Hark! and you may not hear
A sound less soothing than the rustle cool
    Of swaying leaves, the steady wiry drone
Of unseen crickets, sudden chirpings clear
    Of happy birds, the tinkle of the pool,
    Chafed ...

Not all the bravery that day puts on
Of gold and azure, ardent or austere,
Shall ease my soul of sorrow; grown more dear
Than all the joy that heavenly hope may don.
Far up the skies the rumor of the dawn
May run, and eve like some wild torch appear;
These shall not change the darkness, gathered here,
Of thought, that rusts like an old sword undrawn.
Oh, for a place deep-sunken from the sun!
A wildwood cave of primitive rocks and moss!
Where Sleep and Silence, breast to married breast
Lie with their child, night-eyed Oblivion;
Where, freed from all the trouble of my cross,
I might forget, I might forget, and rest!

I know not, Time and Space so intervene,
Whether, still waiting with a trust serene,
Thou bearest up thy fourscore years and ten,
Or, called at last, art now Heaven’s citizen;
But, here or there, a pleasant thought of thee,
Like an old friend, all day has been with me.
The shy, still boy, for whom thy kindly hand
Smoothed his hard pathway to the wonder-land
Of thought and fancy, in gray manhood yet
Keeps green the memory of his early debt.
To-day, when truth and falsehood speak their words
Through hot-lipped cannon and the teeth of swords,
Listening with quickened heart and ear intent
To each sharp clause of that stern argument,
I still can hear at times a softer note
Of the old pastoral music round me float,
While through the hot gleam of our civil strife

‘From that sky livid, bizarre
as your tortured destiny,
what thoughts fill your empty heart,
Freethinker, answer me.’

Insatiable and avid
for vague and obscure skies,
I’ll not groan like Ovid,
banned from Rome and paradise.

Skies, shores split and seamed,
my pride’s mirrored in you:
your clouds in mourning, too,

are the hearses of my dreams,
Hell’s reflected in your light,
where my heart takes delight.

Sunlight upon Judha's hills!
And on the waves of Galilee;
On Jordan's stream, and on the rills
That feed the dead and sleeping sea!
Most freshly from the green wood springs
The light breeze on its scented wings;
And gayly quiver in the sun
The cedar tops of Lebanon!

A few more hours, a change hath come!
The sky is dark without a cloud!
The shouts of wrath and joy are dumb,
And proud knees unto earth are bowed.
A change is on the hill of Death,
The helmed watchers pant for breath,
And turn with wild and maniac eyes
From the dark scene of sacrifice!

That Sacrifice! the death of Him,
The Christ of God, the holy One!
Well may the conscious Heaven grow dim,
And blacken the beholding, Sun.
The wonted light hath fled away,
Night s...

I.

    O bonnie bird, that in the brake, exultant, dost prepare thee -
    As poets do whose thoughts are true, for wings that will upbear thee -
            Oh! tell me, tell me, bonnie bird,
            Canst thou not pipe of hope deferred?
    Or canst thou sing of naught but Spring among the golden meadows?


II.

    Methinks a bard (and thou art one) should suit his song to sorrow,
    And tell of pain, as well as gain, that waits us on the morrow;
            But thou art not a prophet, thou,
            If naught but joy can touch thee now;
    If, in thy heart, thou hast no vow that speaks of Nature's anguish.


III.

    Oh! I have held my sorrows dear, and felt, tho' poor and slighted,
    The songs we love are those we hea...

The wasting thistle whitens on my crest,
The barren grasses blow upon my spear,
A green, pale pennon: blazon of wild faith
And love of fruitless things: yea, of my love,
Among the golden loves of all the knights,
Alone: most hopeless, sweet, and blasphemous,
The love of God:
I hear the crumbling creeds
Like cliffs washed down by water, change, and pass;
I hear a noise of words, age after age,
A new cold wind that blows across the plains,
And all the shrines stand empty; and to me
All these are nothing: priests and schools may doubt
Who never have believed; but I have loved.
Ah friends, I know it passing well, the love
Wherewith I love; it shall not bring to me
Return or hire or any pleasant thing--
Ay, I have tried it: Ay, I know its roots.
Earthquak...

The storm and peril overpast,
The hounding hatred shamed and still,
Go, soul of freedom! take at last
The place which thou alone canst fill.
Confirm the lesson taught of old
Life saved for self is lost, while they
Who lose it in His service hold
The lease of God's eternal day.
Not for thyself, but for the slave
Thy words of thunder shook the world;
No selfish griefs or hatred gave
The strength wherewith thy bolts were hurled.
From lips that Sinai's trumpet blew
We heard a tender under song;
Thy very wrath from pity grew,
From love of man thy hate of wrong.
Now past and present are as one;
The life below is life above;
Thy mortal years have but begun
Thy immortality of love.
With somewhat of thy lofty faith
We lay thy outworn garment by...

A sound as if from bells of silver,
Or elfin cymbals smitten clear,
Through the frost-pictured panes I hear.

A brightness which outshines the morning,
A splendor brooking no delay,
Beckons and tempts my feet away.

I leave the trodden village highway
For virgin snow-paths glimmering through
A jewelled elm-tree avenue;

Where, keen against the walls of sapphire,
The gleaming tree-bolls, ice-embossed,
Hold up their chandeliers of frost.

I tread in Orient halls enchanted,
I dream the Saga’s dream of caves
Gem-lit beneath the North Sea waves!

I walk the land of Eldorado,
I touch its mimic garden bowers,
Its silver leaves and diamond flowers!

The flora of the mystic mine-world
Around me lifts on crystal stems
Th...

    I.

    A pale green sky is gleaming;
    The steely stars are few;
    The moorland pond is steaming
    A mist of gray and blue.

    Along the pathway lonely
    My horse is walking slow;
    Three living creatures only,
    He, I, and a home-bound crow!

    The moon is hardly shaping
    Her circle in the fog;
    A dumb stream is escaping
    Its prison in the bog.

    But in my heart are ringing
    Tones of a lofty song;
    A voice that I know, is singing,
    And my heart all night must long.


    II.

    Over a shining land--
    Once such a land I knew--
    Over its sea, by a soft wind fanned,
    The sky is all white and blue.

    The waves are kissing the shores,
...