The snow lies pure and peaceful on the ground,
        Serenely smiles the azure sky o'erhead:
    The Sabbath spirit dwells on all around,
        And weekly toils and discords all are fled.

    But, ah! my soul is filled with worldly thought,
        My God, 'tis filled with thoughts of self and sin:
    With seeming care and trouble it is fraught,
        And peaceless discontentment reigns within.

    Send down from heaven the Spirit of Thy love,
        Its soothing influence in my soul instil;
    Uplift my worldly thoughts to things above,
        Subserve my wishes to Thy better will.

The Master stood upon the mount, and taught.
He saw a fire in his disciples’ eyes;
‘The old law’, they said, ‘is wholly come to naught!
Behold the new world rise!’

‘Was it’, the Lord then said, ‘with scorn ye saw
The old law observed by Scribes and Pharisees?
I say unto you, see ye keep that law
More faithfully than these!

‘Too hasty heads for ordering worlds, alas!
Think not that I to annul the law have will’d;
No jot, no tittle from the law shall pass,
Till all hath been fulfill’d.’

So Christ said eighteen hundred years ago.
And what then shall be said to those to-day,
Who cry aloud to lay the old world low
To clear the new world’s way?

‘Religious fervours! ardour misapplied!
Hence, hence,’ they cry, ’ye do but keep man blind!

Forget thine anguish,
Vexed heart, again.
Why shouldst thou languish,
With earthly pain?
The husk shall slumber,
Bedded in clay
Silent and sombre,
Oblivion's prey!
But, Spirit immortal,
Thou at Death's portal,
Tremblest with fear.
If he caress thee,
Curse thee or bless thee,
Thou must draw near,
From him the worth of thy works to hear.


Why full of terror,
Compassed with error,
Trouble thy heart,
For thy mortal part?
The soul flies home -
The corpse is dumb.
Of all thou didst have,
Follows naught to the grave.
Thou fliest thy nest,
Swift as a bird to thy place of rest.


What avail grief and fasting,
Where nothing is lasting?
Pomp, domination,
Become tribulation.
In a health-...

Scene I. Near the place of the damned. Enter Werner and Spirit.

Werner.

    What piercing, stunning sounds assail my ear!
Wild shrieks and wrathful curses, groans and prayers,
A chaos of all cries! making the space
Through which they penetrate to flutter like
The heart of a trapped hare, - are revelling round us.
    Unlike the gloomy realm we just have quitted,
Silent and solemn, all is restless here,
All wears the ashy hue of agony.
Above us bends a black and starless vault,
Which ever echoes back the fearful voices
That rise from the abodes of wo beneath.
Around us grim-browed desolation broods,
While, far below, a sea of pale gray clouds,
Like to an ocean tempest beaten, boils.
Whither shall we direct our journey now?

Spirit.

All roads that lead to God are good.
    What matters it, your faith, or mine?
    Both centre at the goal divine
Of love's eternal Brotherhood.

The kindly life in house or street -
    The life of prayer and mystic rite -
    The student's search for truth and light -
These paths at one great Junction meet.

Before the oldest book was writ,
    Full many a prehistoric soul
    Arrived at this unchanging goal,
Through changeless Love, that leads to it.

What matters that one found his Christ
    In rising sun, or burning fire?
    If faith within him did not tire,
His longing for the Truth sufficed.

Before our modern hell was brought
    To edify the modern world,
    Full many a hate-filled soul was hurled
In lakes of fire...

"It shall be dark unto you, that ye shall not divine."
Micah iii. 6.

I asked the Lord: "Sire, is this true
Which hosts of theologians hold,
That when we creatures censure you
For shaping griefs and ails untold
(Deeming them punishments undue)
You rage, as Moses wrote of old?

When we exclaim: 'Beneficent
He is not, for he orders pain,
Or, if so, not omnipotent:
To a mere child the thing is plain!'
Those who profess to represent
You, cry out: 'Impious and profane!'"

He: "Save me from my friends, who deem
That I care what my creatures say!
Mouth as you list: sneer, rail, blaspheme,
O manikin, the livelong day,
Not one grief-groan or pleasure-gleam
Will you increase or take away.

"Why things are thus, whoso derides,

The true faith discovered was
When painted panel, statuary.
Glass-mosaic, window-glass,
Amended what was told awry
By some peasant gospeler;
Swept the Sawdust from the floor
Of that working-carpenter.
Miracle had its playtime where
In damask clothed and on a seat
Chryselephantine, cedar-boarded,
His majestic Mother sat
Stitching at a purple hoarded
That He might be nobly breeched
In starry towers of Babylon
Noah's freshet never reached.
King Abundance got Him on
Innocence; and Wisdom He.
That cognomen sounded best
Considering what wild infancy
Drove horror from His Mother's breast.

    God's mean and careless servant - while I wander
        Deep in the madness of Philosophy, -
    Now backward I must set my sail, and ponder
        Where my forsaken course retraced shall be.
    For Jupiter, who with his glittering fire
        So often cleaves apart the threatening clouds,
    His wingèd car and thundering horses higher
        Toward air has driven where no shadow shrouds.

    Whereat the sluggish earth, each vagrant river, -
        The Styx, and hated Tænarus' dread abode,
    And the Atlantic borders shake and shiver.
        Ah - to reverse high things and low, our God
    Is able, and the mighty he can lower,
        The obscure can raise. From this man Fortune steals
    The crown to give to that one; - in her power,
        Sh...

Whither, O, my sweet mistress, must I follow thee?
For when I hear thy distant footfall nearing,
And wait on thy appearing,
Lo! my lips are silent: no words come to me.

Once I waylaid thee in green forest covers,
Hoping that spring might free my lips with gentle fingers;
Alas! her presence lingers
No longer than on the plain the shadow of brown kestrel hovers.

Through windless ways of the night my spirit followed after;
Cold and remote were they, and there, possessed
By a strange unworldly rest,
Awaiting thy still voice heard only starry laughter.

The pillared halls of sleep echoed my ghostly tread.
Yet when their secret chambers I essayed
My spirit sank, dismayed,
Waking in fear to find the new-born vision fled.

Once indeed - but then ...

Too frail to soar - a feeble thing -
It fell to earth with fluttering wing;
But God, who watches over all,
Beheld that little sparrow's fall.

'Twas not a bird with plumage gay,
Filling the air with its morning lay;
'Twas not an eagle bold and strong,
Borne on the tempest's wing along.


Only a brown and weesome thing,
With drooping head and listless wing;
It could not drift beyond His sight
Who marshals the splendid stars of night.

Its dying chirp fell on His ears,
Who tunes the music of the spheres,
Who hears the hungry lion's call,
And spreads a table for us all.

Its mission of song at last is done,
No more will it greet the rising sun;
That tiny bird has found a rest
More calm than its mother's downy breast

Presentiments! they judge not right
Who deem that ye from open light
Retire in fear of shame;
All 'heaven-born' Instincts shun the touch
Of vulgar sense, and, being such,
Such privilege ye claim.

The tear whose source I could not guess,
The deep sigh that seemed fatherless,
Were mine in early days;
And now, unforced by time to part
With fancy, I obey my heart,
And venture on your praise.

What though some busy foes to good,
Too potent over nerve and blood,
Lurk near you, and combine
To taint the health which ye infuse;
This hides not from the moral Muse
Your origin divine.

How oft from you, derided Powers!
Comes Faith that in auspicious hours
Builds castles, not of air:
Bodings unsanctioned by the will
Flow from y...

Where the bud has never blown
    Who for scent is debtor?
Where the spirit rests unknown
    Fatal is the letter.

In thee, Jesus, Godhead-stored,
    All things we inherit,
For thou art the very Word
    And the very Spirit!

The Spirit breathes upon the Word,
And brings the truth to sight;
Precepts and promises afford
A sanctifying light.


A glory gilds the sacred page,
Majestic like the sun;
It gives a light to every age,
It gives, but borrows none.


The hand that gave it still supplies
The gracious light and heat:
His truths upon the nations rise,
They rise, but never set.


Let everlasting thanks be thine,
For such a bright display,
As makes a world of darkness shine
With beams of heavenly day.


My soul rejoices to pursue
The steps of him I love,
Till glory breaks upon my view
In brighter worlds above.

Know this, ye restless denizens of earth,
Know this, ye seekers after joy and mirth,
Three things there are, eternal in their worth.

Love, that outreaches to the humblest things;
Work that is glad, in what it does and brings;
And faith that soars upon unwearied wings.

Divine the Powers that on this trio wait.
Supreme their conquest, over Time and Fate.
Love, Work, and Faith - these three alone are great.

I

Nurture thyself, O Soul, from the clear spring
That wells beneath the secret inner shrine;
Commune with its deep murmur, - 'tis divine;
Be faithful to the ebb and flow that bring
The outer tide of Spirit to trouble and swing
The inlet of thy being. Learn to know
These powers, and life with all its venom and show
Shall have no force to dazzle thee or sting:

And when Grief comes thou shalt have suffered more
Than all the deepest woes of all the world;
Joy, dancing in, shall find thee nourished with mirth;
Wisdom shall find her Master at thy door;
And Love shall find thee crowned with love empearled;
And death shall touch thee not but a new birth.


II

Be strong, O warring soul! For very sooth
Kings are but wraiths, republics fa...

When Faith and Love, which parted from thee never,
Had ripened thy just soul to dwell with God,
Meekly thou didst resign this earthly load
Of death, called life, which us from life doth sever.
Thy works, and alms, and all thy good endeavour,
Stayed not behind, nor in the grave were trod;
But, as Faith pointed with her golden rod,
Followed thee up to joy and bliss for ever.
Love led them on; and Faith, who knew them best
Thy handmaids, clad them oer with purple beams
And azure wings, that up they flew so drest,
And speak the truth of thee on glorious themes
Before the Judge; who henceforth bid thee rest,
And drink thy fill of pure immortal streams.

Seaward, at morn, my doves flew free;
At eve they circled back to me.
The first was Faith; the second, Hope;
The third - the whitest - Charity.

Above the plunging surge's play
Dream-like they hovered, day by day.
At last they turned, and bore to me
Green signs of peace thro' nightfall gray.

No shore forlorn, no loveliest land
Their gentle eyes had left unscanned,
'Mid hues of twilight-heliotrope
Or daybreak fires by heaven-breath fanned.

Quick visions of celestial grace, -
Hither they waft, from earth's broad space,
Kind thoughts for all humanity.
They shine with radiance from God's face.

Ah, since my heart they choose for home,
Why loose them, - forth again to roam?
Yet look: they rise! with loftier scope
They wheel in f...

Blest land of Judea! thrice hallowed of song,
Where the holiest of memories pilgrim-like throng;
In the shade of thy palms, by the shores of thy sea,
On the hills of thy beauty, my heart is with thee.

With the eye of a spirit I look on that shore,
Where pilgrim and prophet have lingered before;
With the glide of a spirit, I traverse the sod
Made bright by the steps of the angels of God.

Blue sea of the hills! in my spirit I hear
Thy waters, Genasseret, chime on my ear;
Where the Lowly and Just with the people sat down,
And thy spray on the dust of His sandals was thrown.

Beyond are Bethulia's mountains of green,
And the desolate hills of the wild Godarene;
And I pause on the goat-crags of Tabor to see
The gleam of thy waters, oh dark Gallilee!