Writing on pitiless heavens one pitying name;
And 'neath the shadow of the dread eclipse
It shines on dying eyes and pallid lips.
"TO REST FROM WEARY WORK"
TO REST from weary work one day of seven;
One day to turn our backs upon the world,
Its soil wash from us, and strive on to Heaven -
Whereto we daily climb, but quick are hurled
Down to the pit of human pride and sin.
Help me, ye powers celestial! to come nigh;
Ah, let me catch one little glimpse within
The heavenly city, lest my spirit die.
These be my guides, my messengers, my friends:
Books of wise poets; the musician's art;
The ocean whose deep music never ends;
The silence of the forest's shadowy heart;
Not less the brooding organ's solemn blare,
And kneeling multitudes' low-murmuring prayer.
In darkness of the visionary night
This I beheld: Wide space and therein God,
God who in dual nature doth abide
Love, and the Loved One, Power and Beauty's self; Him even the spirit's eye might not transfix
But sidelong gazed, fainting before the light.
And forth from God did come,— with dreadful thrill, And starry music like to million wires
That shiver with the breathings of the dawn,-
Creation, boundless, bodiless, unformed,
And white with trembling fire and light intense,
And outward pulsings like the boreal flame.
One mighty cloud it seemed, nor star, nor earth,
Or like a nameless growth of the under-seas;
Creation dumb, unconscious, yet alive
With some deep, inward passion unexprest,
And swift, concentric, never-ceasing urge-
Resolving gradual to one disk of fire.
And as I looked, behold! the flying rim
Grew separate from the center; this again
Divided, and the whole still swift revolved,
Ring within ring, and fiery wheel in wheel;
Till, sudden or slow as chanced, the outmost edge
Whirled into fragments, each a separate sun,
With lesser globes attendant on its flight.
These while I gazed turned dark with smoldering fire
And, slow contracting, grew to solid orbs.
Then knew I that this planetary world,
Cradled in light, and curtained with the dawn
And starry eve, was born; tho' in itself
Complete and perfect all, yet but a part
And atom of the living universe.
Unconscious still the child of the conscious God -
Creation, born of Beauty and of Love,
Beauty the womb and mother of all worlds.
But soon with breathless speed the new-made earth
Swept near me where I watched the birth of things,
Its greatening bulk eclipsing, star by star,
Half the bright heavens. Then I beheld crawl forth
Upon the earth's cool crust most wondrous forms
Wherein were hid, in transmutation strange,
Sparks of the ancient, never-ending fire;
Shapes moved not solely by exterior law
But having will and motion of their own
First sluggish and minute, then by degrees
Monstrous, enorm. Then other forms more fine
Streamed ceaseless on my sight, until at last,
Rising and turning its slow gaze about
Across the abysmal void, the mighty child
Of the supreme, divine Omnipotence-
Creation, born of God, by Him begot,
Conscious in MAN, no longer blind and dumb,
Beheld and knew its father and its God.
SUNG AT THE PRESENTATION OF THE OBELISK TO THE CITY OF NEW YORK, FEBRUARY 22, 1881
GREAT God, to whom since time began
The world has prayed and striven;
Maker of stars, and earth, and man,
To Thee our praise is given.
Here, by this ancient Sign
Of Thine own Light divine,
We lift to Thee our eyes,
Thou Dweller of the Skies;
Hear us, O God in Heaven!
Older than Nilus' mighty flood
Into the Mid-Sea pouring,
Or than the sea, Thou God hast stood
Thou God of our adoring!
Waters and stormy blast
Haste when Thou bid'st them haste;
Silent, and hid, and still,
Thou sendest good and ill;
Thy ways are past exploring.
In myriad forms, by myriad names,
Men seek to bind and mold Thee;
But Thou dost melt, like wax in flames,
The cords that would enfold Thee.
Who madest life and light,
Bring'st morning after night,
Who all things didst create
No majesty, nor state,
Nor word, nor world can hold Thee!
Great God, to whom since time began
The world has prayed and striven;
Maker of stars, and earth, and man,
To Thee our praise is given.
Of suns Thou art the Sun,
Eternal, holy One;
Who us can help save Thou?
To Thee alone we bow!
Hear us, O God in heaven!
ONCE, looking from a window on a land
That lay in silence underneath the sun,
A land of broad, green meadows, through which
Two rivers, slowly widening to the sea,
Thus as I looked, I know not how nor whence,
Was born into my unexpectant soul
That thought, late learned by anxious-witted man, The infinite patience of the Eternal Mind.
'Tis night upon the lake. Our bed of boughs
Is built where, high above, the pine-tree soughs.
'Tis still and yet what woody noises loom
Against the background of the silent gloom!
One well might hear the opening of a flower
If day were husht as this. A mimic shower
Just shaken from a branch, how large it sounded,
As 'gainst our canvas roof its three drops bounded!
Across the rumpling waves the hoot-owl's bark
Tolls forth the midnight hour upon the dark.
What mellow booming from the hills doth come?
The mountain quarry strikes its mighty drum.
Long had we lain beside our pine-wood fire, From things of sport our talk had risen higher. How frank and intimate the words of men
When tented lonely in some forest glen!
No dallying now with masks, from whence emerges
Scarce one true feature forth. The night-wind urges
To straight and simple speech. So was our thought
Audible; secrets to the light were brought.
The hid and spiritual hopes, the wild,
Unreasoned longings that, from child to child,
Mortals still cherish (tho' with modern shame) –
To these, and things like these, we gave a name;
And as we talked, the intense and resinous fire
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