THE CHAPEL OF THE HERMITS.
"Meanwhile, the sport of seeming chance,
The plastic shapes of circumstance,
What might have been we fondly guess,
If earlier born, or tempted less.
“And thou, in these wild, troubled days,
Misjudged alike in blame and praise,
Unsought and undeserved the same
The sceptic's praise, the bigot's blame;—
"I cannot doubt, if thou had'st been
Among the highly-favored men
Who walked on earth with Fenelon,
He would have owned thee as his son;
66 And, bright with wings of cherubim
Visibly waving over him,
Seen through his life, the church had seemed
All that its old confessors dreamed."
“I would have been," Jean Jaques replied,
"The humblest servant at his side,
Obscure, unknown, content to see
How beautiful man's life may be!
"O, more than thrice-blest relic, more
Than solemn rite or sacred lore,
The holy life of one who trod
The foot-marks of the Christ of God!
"Amidst a blinded world he saw
The oneness of the Dual law;
That Heaven's sweet peace on Earth began,
And God was loved through love of man.
"He lived the Truth which reconciled
The strong man Reason, Faith the child:
In him belief and act were one,
The homilies of duty done!"
So speaking, through the twilight gray
The two old pilgrims went their way.
What seeds of life that day were sown,
The heavenly watchers knew alone.
Time passed, and Autumn came to fold
Green Summer in her brown and gold:
Time passed, and Winter's tears of snow
Dropped on the grave-mound of Rousseau
"The tree remaineth where it fell,
The pained on earth is pained in hell!"
So priestcraft from its altars cursed
The mournful doubts its falsehood nursed.
Ah! well of old the Psalmist prayed,
Thy hand, not man's, on me be laid!"
Earth frowns below, Heaven weeps above,
And man is hate, but God is love!
No Hermits now the wanderer sces,
Nor chapel with its chestnut-trees;
A morning dream, a tale that's told,
The wave of change o'er all has rolled.
Yet lives the lesson of that day;
And from its twilight cool and gray
Comes up a low, sad whisper:
:-"Make
The truth thine own, for truth's own sake.
"Why wait to see in thy brief span
Its perfect flower and fruit in man?
No saintly touch can save; no balm
Of healing hath the martyr's palm.
"Midst soulless forms, and false pretence
Of spiritual pride and pampered sense,
A voice saith, What is that to thee?
Be true thyself, and follow Me!'
THE CHAPEL OF THE HERMITS.
"In days when throne and altar heard
The wanton's wish, the bigot's word,
And pomp of state and ritual show
Scarce hid the loathsome death below,-
"Midst fawning priests and courtiers foul,
The losel swarm of crown and cowl,
White-robed walked Francois Fenelon,
Stainless as Uriel in the sun!
"Yet in his time the stake blazed red,
The poor were eaten up like bread;
Men knew him not: his garment's hem
No healing virtue had for them.
"Alas! no present saint we find;
The white cymar gleams far behind,
Revealed in outline vague, sublime,
Through telescopic mists of time !
"Trust not in man with passing breath,
But in the Lord, old Scripture saith;
The truth which saves thou may'st not blend
With false professor, faithless friend.
"Search thine own heart.
In others in thyself may be;
All dust is frail, all flesh is weak;
Be thou the true man thou dost seek!
"Where now with pain thou treadest, trod
The whitest of the saints of God!
To show thee where their feet were set,
The light which led them shineth yet.
"The foot-prints of the life divine,
Which marked their path, remain in thine;
And that great Life, transfused in theirs,
Awaits thy faith, thy love, thy prayers!"
A lesson which I well may heed,
A word of fitness to my need;
So from that twilight cool and gray
Still saith a voice, or seems to say.
We rose, and slowly homeward turned,
While down the west the sunset burned;
And, in its light, hill, wood, and tide,
And human forms, seemed glorified.
'The village homes transfigured stood,
And purple bluffs, whose belting wood
Across the waters leaned to hold
The yellow leaves like lamps of gold.
Then spake my friend:-" Thy words are true Forever old, forever new,
These home-seen splendors are the same
Which over Eden's sunsets came.
"To these bowed heavens let wood and hill
Lift voiceless praise and anthems still;
Fall, warm with blessing, over them,
Light of the New Jerusalem!
"Flow on, sweet river, like the stream
Of John's Apocalyptic dream!
This mapled ridge shall Horeb be,
Yon green-banked lake our Galilee!
"Henceforth my heart shall sigh no more
For olden time and holier shore;
God's love and blessing, then and there,
Are now and here and everywhere."
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