Ye young debaters over the doctrine
    Of the soul's immortality
    I who lie here was the village atheist,
    Talkative, contentious, versed in the arguments
    Of the infidels. But through a long sickness
    Coughing myself to death I read the
    Upanishads and the poetry of Jesus.
    And they lighted a torch of hope and intuition
    And desire which the Shadow
    Leading me swiftly through the caverns of darkness,
    Could not extinguish.
    Listen to me, ye who live in the senses
    And think through the senses only:
    Immortality is not a gift,
    Immortality is an achievement;
    And only those who strive mightily
    Shall possess it.

MORTAL

The world is full of selfishness and greed.
Lord, I would lave its sin.

SPIRIT

Yea, mortal, earth of thy good help has need.
Go cleanse THYSELF within.

MORTAL

Mine ear is hurt by harsh and evil speech.
I would reform men's ways.

SPIRIT

There is but one convincing way to teach.
Speak THOU but words of praise.

MORTAL

On every hand is wretchedness and grief,
Despondency and fear.
Lord, I would give my fellow men relief.

SPIRIT

Be, then, all hope, all cheer.

MORTAL

Lord, I look outward and grow sick at heart,
Such need of change I see.

SPIRIT

Mortal, look IN.    Do thy allotted part,
And leave the rest to ME.

    Write on Life's tablet all things tender, great and good,
    Uncaring that full oft thou art misunderstood.
    Interpretation true is foreign to the throng
    That runs and reads; heed not its praise or blame. Be strong!
    Write on with steady hand, and, smiling, say, "'Tis well!"
    If when thy deeds spell Heaven
    The rabble read out Hell.

A bending staff I would not break,
A feeble faith I would not shake,
Nor even rashly pluck away
The error which some truth may stay,
Whose loss might leave the soul without
A shield against the shafts of doubt.

And yet, at times, when over all
A darker mystery seems to fall,
(May God forgive the child of dust,
Who seeks to know, where Faith should trust!)
I raise the questions, old and dark,
Of Uzdom's tempted patriarch,
And, speech-confounded, build again
The baffled tower of Shinar's plain.

I am: how little more I know!
Whence came I? Whither do I go?
A centred self, which feels and is;
A cry between the silences;
A shadow-birth of clouds at strife
With sunshine on the hills of life;
A shaft from Nature's quiver cast
Into...

FIRST SPIRIT:
O thou, who plumed with strong desire
Wouldst float above the earth, beware!
A Shadow tracks thy flight of fire -
Night is coming!
Bright are the regions of the air,
And among the winds and beams
It were delight to wander there -
Night is coming!

SECOND SPIRIT:
The deathless stars are bright above;
If I would cross the shade of night,
Within my heart is the lamp of love,
And that is day!
And the moon will smile with gentle light
On my golden plumes where'er they move;
The meteors will linger round my flight,
And make night day.

FIRST SPIRIT:
But if the whirlwinds of darkness waken
Hail, and lightning, and stormy rain;
See, the bounds of the air are shaken -
Night is coming!
The red swift clouds of th...

Sundown--and silence--and deep peace,--
Night's benediction and release;--
The tints of day die out and cease.

This morn I heard the Sabbath bells
Across the breezy upland swells;--
My path lay down the woodland dells.

To-day, I said, the dust of creeds,
The wind of words reach not my needs;--
I worship with the birds and weeds.

From height to height the sunbeam sprung,
The wild vine, touched with vermeil, clung,
The mountain brooklet leapt and sung.

The white lamp of the lily made
A tender light in deepest shade,--
The solitary place was glad.

The very air was tremulous,--
I felt its deep and reverent hush,--
God burned before me in the bush!

And nature prayed with folded palm,
And looks that wear perpetual c...

Passa per gli occhi.


Swift through the eyes unto the heart within
        All lovely forms that thrall our spirit stray;
        So smooth and broad and open is the way
        That thousands and not hundreds enter in.
Burdened with scruples and weighed down with sin,
        These mortal beauties fill me with dismay;
        Nor find I one that doth not strive to stay
        My soul on transient joy, or lets me win
The heaven I yearn for. Lo, when erring love--
        Who fills the world, howe'er his power we shun,
        Else were the world a grave and we undone--
Assails the soul, if grace refuse to fan
        Our purged desires and make them soar above,
        What grief it were to have been born a man!

O Friends! with whom my feet have trod
The quiet aisles of prayer,
Glad witness to your zeal for God
And love of man I bear.

I trace your lines of argument;
Your logic linked and strong
I weigh as one who dreads dissent,
And fears a doubt as wrong.

But still my human hands are weak
To hold your iron creeds:
Against the words ye bid me speak
My heart within me pleads.

Who fathoms the Eternal Thought?
Who talks of scheme and plan?
The Lord is God! He needeth not
The poor device of man.

I walk with bare, hushed feet the ground
Ye tread with boldness shod;
I dare not fix with mete and bound
The love and power of God.

Ye praise His justice; even such
His pitying love I deem:
Ye seek a king; I fain would to...

In the bitter waves of woe,
Beaten and tossed about
By the sullen winds that blow
From the desolate shores of doubt,--

When the anchors that faith had cast
Are dragging in the gale,
I am quietly holding fast
To the things that cannot fail:

I know that right is right;
That it is not good to lie;
That love is better than spite,
And a neighbor than a spy;

I know that passion needs
The leash of a sober mind;
I know that generous deeds
Some sure reward will find;

That the rulers must obey;
That the givers shall increase;
That Duty lights the way
For the beautiful feet of Peace;--

In the darkest night of the year,
When the stars have all gone out,
That courage is better than fear,
That faith is truer t...

There is a bleak Desert, where daylight grows weary
Of wasting its smile on a region so dreary--
    What may that Desert be?
'Tis Life, cheerless Life, where the few joys that come
Are lost, like that daylight, for 'tis not their home.

There is a lone Pilgrim, before whose faint eyes
The water he pants for but sparkles and flies--
    Who may that Pilgrim be?
'Tis Man, hapless Man, thro' this life tempted on
By fair shining hopes, that in shining are gone.

There is a bright Fountain, thro' that Desert stealing
To pure lips alone its refreshment revealing--
    What may that Fountain be?
'Tis Truth, holy Truth, that, like springs under ground,
By the gifted of Heaven alone can be found.

There is a fair Spirit whose wand hath the spell
To poin...

Think of the Soul;
I swear to you that body of yours gives proportions to your Soul somehow to live in other spheres;
I do not know how, but I know it is so.

Think of loving and being loved;
I swear to you, whoever you are, you can interfuse yourself with such things that everybody that sees you shall look longingly upon you.

Think of the past;
I warn you that in a little while others will find their past in you and your times.

The race is never separated nor man nor woman escapes;
All is inextricable things, spirits, Nature, nations, you too from precedents you come.

Recall the ever-welcome defiers, (The mothers precede them;)
Recall the sages, poets, saviors, inventors, lawgivers, of the earth;
Recall Christ, brother of rejected persons brother of slaves, fel...

While in my simple gospel creed
That "God is Love" so plain I read,
Shall dreams of heathen birth affright
My pathway through the coming night?
Ah, Lord of life, though spectres pale
Fill with their threats the shadowy vale,
With Thee my faltering steps to aid,
How can I dare to be afraid?

Shall mouldering page or fading scroll
Outface the charter of the soul?
Shall priesthood's palsied arm protect
The wrong our human hearts reject,
And smite the lips whose shuddering cry
Proclaims a cruel creed a lie?
The wizard's rope we disallow
Was justice once, - is murder now!

Is there a world of blank despair,
And dwells the Omnipresent there?
Does He behold with smile serene
The shows of that unending scene,
Where sleepless, hopeless ang...

If I could keep my innermost Me
Fearless, aloof and free
Of the least breath of love or hate,
And not disconsolate
At the sick load of sorrow laid on men;
If I could keep a sanctuary there
Free even of prayer,
If I could do this, then,
With quiet candor as I grew more wise
I could look even at God with grave forgiving eyes.

If the whole weight of what we think and feel,
Save only far as thought and feeling blend
With action, were as nothing, patriot Friend!
From thy remonstrance would be no appeal;
But to promote and fortify the weal
Of our own Being is her paramount end;
A truth which they alone shall comprehend
Who shun the mischief which they cannot heal.
Peace in these feverish times is sovereign bliss:
Here, with no thirst but what the stream can slake,
And startled only by the rustling brake,
Cool air I breathe; while the unincumbered Mind
By some weak aims at services assigned
To gentle Natures, thanks not Heaven amiss.

Spirit that form'd this scene,
These tumbled rock-piles grim and red,
These reckless heaven-ambitious peaks,
These gorges, turbulent-clear streams, this naked freshness,
These formless wild arrays, for reasons of their own,
I know thee, savage spirit we have communed together,
Mine too such wild arrays, for reasons of their own;
Was't charged against my chants they had forgotten art?
To fuse within themselves its rules precise and delicatesse?
The lyrist's measur'd beat, the wrought-out temple's grace column and polish'd arch forgot?
But thou that revelest here spirit that form'd this scene,
They have remember'd thee.

The Two Greetings.

I.

Out of the deep, my child, out of the deep,
Where all that was to be, in all that was,
Whirl’d for a million æons thro’ the vast
Waste dawn of multitudinous-eddying light—
Out of the deep, my child, out of the deep,
Thro’ all this changing world of changeless law,
And every phase of ever-heightening life,
And nine long months of antenatal gloom,
With this last moon, this crescent—her dark orb
Touch’d with earth’s light—thou comest, darling boy;
Our own; a babe in lineament and limb
Perfect, and prophet of the perfect man;
Whose face and form are hers and mine in one,
Indissolubly married like our love;
Live, and be happy in thyself, and serve
This mortal race thy kin so well, that men
May bless thee as we bless thee,...

The harp at Nature's advent strung
Has never ceased to play;
The song the stars of morning sung
Has never died away.

And prayer is made, and praise is given,
By all things near and far;
The ocean looketh up to heaven,
And mirrors every star.

Its waves are kneeling on the strand,
As kneels the human knee,
Their white locks bowing to the sand,
The priesthood of the sea!

They pour their glittering treasures forth,
Their gifts of pearl they bring,
And all the listening hills of earth
Take up the song they sing.

The green earth sends its incense up
From many a mountain shrine;
From folded leaf and dewy cup
She pours her sacred wine.

The mists above the morning rills
Rise white as wings of prayer;
The altar...

Holy and heavenly Spirits as they are,
Spotless in life, and eloquent as wise,
With what entire affection do they prize
Their Church reformed! labouring with earnest care
To baffle all that may her strength impair;
That Church, the unperverted Gospel's seat;
In their afflictions a divine retreat;
Source of their liveliest hope, and tenderest prayer!
The truth exploring with an equal mind,
In doctrine and communion they have sought
Firmly between the two extremes to steer;
But theirs the wise man's ordinary lot
To trace right courses for the stubborn blind,
And prophesy to ears that will not hear.