Thy mansion is the Christian’s heart,
O Lord, thy dwelling-place secure!
Bid the unruly throng depart,
And leave the consecrated door.


Devoted as it is to thee,
A thievish swarm frequents the place;
They steal away my joys from me,
And rob my Saviour of his praise.


There, too, a sharp designing trade
Sin, Satan, and the world maintain;
Nor cease to press me, and persuade
To part with ease, and purchase pain.


I know them, and I hate their din,
Am weary of the bustling crowd;
But while their voice is heard within,
I cannot serve thee as I would.


Oh for the joy thy presence gives,
What peace shall reign when thou art here!
Thy presence makes this den of thieves
A calm delightful house of prayer.
...

Science! thou fair effusive ray
From the great source of mental day,
Free, generous, and refin'd!
Descend with all thy treasures fraught,
Illumine each bewilder'd thought,
And bless my lab'ring mind.

But first with thy resistless light,
Disperse those phantoms from my sight,
Those mimic shades of thee;
The scholiast's learning, sophist's cant,
The visionary bigot's rant,
The monk's philosophy.

O! let thy powerful charms impart
The patient head, the candid heart,
Devoted to thy sway;
Which no weak passions e'er mislead,
Which still with dauntless steps proceed
Where Reason points the way.

Give me to learn each secret cause;
Let number's, figure's, motion's laws
Reveal'd before me stand;
These to great Nature's scenes a...

A track of moonlight on a quiet lake,
Whose small waves on a silver-sanded shore
Whisper of peace, and with the low winds make
Such harmonies as keep the woods awake,
And listening all night long for their sweet sake
A green-waved slope of meadow, hovered o'er
By angel-troops of lilies, swaying light
On viewless stems, with folded wings of white;
A slumberous stretch of mountain-land, far seen
Where the low westering day, with gold and green,
Purple and amber, softly blended, fills
The wooded vales, and melts among the hills;
A vine-fringed river, winding to its rest
On the calm bosom of a stormless sea,
Bearing alike upon its placid breast,
With earthly flowers and heavenly' stars impressed,
The hues of time and of eternity
Such are the pictures which th...

The shadows grow and deepen round me,
I feel the deffall in the air;
The muezzin of the darkening thicket,
I hear the night-thrush call to prayer.

The evening wind is sad with farewells,
And loving hands unclasp from mine;
Alone I go to meet the darkness
Across an awful boundary-line.

As from the lighted hearths behind me
I pass with slow, reluctant feet,
What waits me in the land of strangeness?
What face shall smile, what voice shall greet?

What space shall awe, what brightness blind me?
What thunder-roll of music stun?
What vast processions sweep before me
Of shapes unknown beneath the sun?

I shrink from unaccustomed glory,
I dread the myriad-voiced strain;
Give me the unforgotten faces,
And let my lost ones speak agai...

In Westminster's royal halls,
Robed in their pontificals,
England's ancient prelates stood
For the people's right and good.
Closed around the waiting crowd,
Dark and still, like winter's cloud;
King and council, lord and knight,
Squire and yeoman, stood in sight;
Stood to hear the priest rehearse,
In God's name, the Church's curse,
By the tapers round them lit,
Slowly, sternly uttering it.
"Right of voice in framing laws,
Right of peers to try each cause;
Peasant homestead, mean and small,
Sacred as the monarch's hall,
"Whoso lays his hand on these,
England's ancient liberties;
Whoso breaks, by word or deed,
England's vow at Runnymede;
"Be he Prince or belted knight,
Whatsoe'er his rank or might,
If the highest, then the worst,

Sometimes the spirit that never leaves me quite
Taps at my heart when thou art in the way,
Saying, Now thy Queen cometh: therefore pray,
Lest she should see thee vile, and at the sight
Shiver and fly back piteous to the light
That wanes when she is absent. Then, as I may,
I wash my soilèd hands and muttering, say,
Lord, make me clean; robe Thou me in Thy white!

So for a brief space, clad in ecstasy,
Pure, disembodied, I fall to kiss thy feet,
And sense thy glory throbbing round about;
Whereafter, rising, I hold thee in a sweet
And gentle converse that lifts me up to be,
When thou art gone, strange to the gross world's rout.

True rev'rence is, as Cassiodore doth prove,
The fear of God commix'd with cleanly love.

    Suppose it is nothing but the hive:
    That there are drones and workers
    And queens, and nothing but storing honey -
    (Material things as well as culture and wisdom) -
    For the next generation, this generation never living,
    Except as it swarms in the sun-light of youth,
    Strengthening its wings on what has been gathered,
    And tasting, on the way to the hive
    From the clover field, the delicate spoil.
    Suppose all this, and suppose the truth:
    That the nature of man is greater
    Than nature's need in the hive;
    And you must bear the burden of life,
    As well as the urge from your spirit's excess -
    Well, I say to live it out like a god
    Sure of immortal life, though you are in doubt,
    Is the way to live it.

“Write to Sardis,” saith the Lord,
And write what he declares,
He whose Spirit, and whose word,
Upholds the seven stars:
“All thy works and ways I search,
Find thy zeal and love decay’d:
Thou art call’d a living church,
But thou art cold and dead.


“Watch, remember, seek, and strive,
Exert thy former pains;
Let thy timely care revive,
And strengthen what remains:
Cleanse thine heart, thy works amend
Former times to mind recall,
Lest my sudden stroke descend,
And smite thee once for all.


“Yet I number now in thee
A few that are upright;
These my Father’s face shall see,
And walk with me in white.
When in judgment I appear,
They for mine shall be confest;
Let my faithful servants hear,
And woe be to the r...

If thou feelest not the beautiful, still thou with reason canst will it;
And as a spirit canst do, that which as man thou canst not.

Ah, ye gods! ye great immortals
In the spacious heavens above us!
Would ye on this earth but give us
Steadfast minds and dauntless courage
We, oh kindly ones, would leave you
All your spacious heavens above us!

The age is dull and mean. Men creep,
Not walk; with blood too pale and tame
To pay the debt they owe to shame;
Buy cheap, sell dear; eat, drink, and sleep
Down-pillowed, deaf to moaning want;
Pay tithes for soul-insurance; keep
Six days to Mammon, one to Cant.
In such a time, give thanks to God,
That somewhat of the holy rage
With which the prophets in their age
On all its decent seemings trod,
Has set your feet upon the lie,
That man and ox and soul and clod
Are market stock to sell and buy!
The hot words from your lips, my own,
To caution trained, might not repeat;
But if some tares among the wheat
Of generous thought and deed were sown,
No common wrong provoked your zeal;
The silken gauntlet that is thrown
In such a quarrel rings like st...

Nay, seer, I do not doubt thy mystic lore,
Nor question that the tenor of my life,
Past, present and the future, is revealed
There in my horoscope. I do believe
That yon dead moon compels the haughty seas
To ebb and flow, and that my natal star
Stands like a stern-browed sentinel in space
And challenges events; nor lets one grief,
Or joy, or failure, or success, pass on
To mar or bless my earthly lot, until
It proves its Karmic right to come to me.

All this I grant, but more than this I know!
Before the solar systems were conceived,
When nothing was but the unnamable,
My spirit lived, an atom of the Cause.
Through countless ages and in many forms
It has existed, ere it entered in
This human frame to serve its little day
Upon the earth. T...

My soul lives in my body's house,
And you have both the house and her,
But sometimes she is less your own
Than a wild, gay adventurer;
A restless and an eager wraith,
How can I tell what she will do,
Oh, I am sure of my body's faith,
But what if my soul broke faith with you?

You are here, and you are wanted,
    Though a waif upon life's stair;
Though the sunlit hours are haunted
    With the shadowy shapes of care.
Still the Great One, the All-Seeing
Called your spirit into being -
Gave you strength for any fate.
Since your life by Him was needed,
All your ways by Him are heeded -
    You can trust and you can wait.

You can wait to know the meaning
    Of the troubles sent your soul;
Of the chasms intervening
    'Twixt your purpose and your goal;
Of the sorrows and the trials,
Of the silence and denials,
    Ofttimes answering to your pleas;
Of the stinted sweets of pleasure,
And of pain's too generous measure -
    You can wait the WHY of these.

Forth from planet unto planet,
    You have go...

I look to Science for the cure of Crime;
To patient righting of a thousand wrongs;
To final healing of a thousand ills.
Blind runner now, and cruel egotist
It yet leads on to more than mortal sight,
And the large knowledge that means humbleness,
And tender love for all created things.

I look to Science for the Coming Race
Growing from seed selected; and from soil
Love fertilised; and pruned by wisdom's hand,
Till out of mortal man spring demi-gods,
Strong primal creatures with awakened souls
And normal passions, governed by the will,
Leaving a trail of glory where they tread.

I look to Science for the growth of faith.
That bold denier of accepted creeds -
That mighty doubter of accepted truths -
Shall yet reveal God's secrets to the world,

I

When I weekly knew
An ancient pew,
And murmured there
The forms of prayer
And thanks and praise
In the ancient ways,
And heard read out
During August drought
That chapter from Kings
Harvest-time brings;
- How the prophet, broken
By griefs unspoken,
Went heavily away
To fast and to pray,
And, while waiting to die,
The Lord passed by,
And a whirlwind and fire
Drew nigher and nigher,
And a small voice anon
Bade him up and be gone, -
I did not apprehend
As I sat to the end
And watched for her smile
Across the sunned aisle,
That this tale of a seer
Which came once a year
Might, when sands were heaping,
Be like a sweat creeping,
Or in any degree
Bear on her or on me!

II

O Lord, my best desire fulfil,
And help me to resign
Life, health, and comfort to thy will,
And make thy pleasure mine.


Why should I shrink at thy command,
Whose love forbids my fears?
Or tremble at the gracious hand
That wipes away my tears?


No, let me rather freely yield
What most I prize to thee;
Who never hast a good withheld,
Or wilt withhold, from me.


Thy favour, all my journey through,
Thou art engaged to grant;
What else I want, or think I do,
‘Tis better still to want.


Wisdom and mercy guide my way,
Shall I resist them both?
A poor blind creature of a day,
And crush’d before the moth!


But ah! my inward spirit cries,
Still bind me to thy sway;
Else the next cloud ...