A Hidden Life and Other Poems Part 20

O G.o.d, thou hast a work to do indeed To save these hearts of thine with full content, Except thou give them Lethe's stream to drink, And that, my G.o.d, were all unworthy thee.

Dome up, O Heaven! yet higher o'er my head; Back, back, horizon! widen out my world; Rush in, O infinite sea of the Unknown!

For, though he slay me, I will trust in G.o.d.

MY HEART.

I heard, in darkness, on my bed, The beating of my heart To servant feet and regnant head A common life impart, By the liquid cords, in every thread Unbroken as they start.

Night, with its power to silence day, Filled up my lonely room; All motion quenching, save what lay Beyond its pa.s.sing doom, Where in his shed the workman gay Went on despite the gloom.

I listened, and I knew the sound, And the trade that he was plying; For backwards, forwards, bound and bound, 'Twas a shuttle, flying, flying; Weaving ever life's garment round, Till the weft go out with sighing.

I said, O mystic thing, thou goest On working in the dark; In s.p.a.ce's sh.o.r.eless sea thou rowest, Concealed within thy bark; All wondrous things thou, wonder, showest, Yet dost not any mark.

For all the world is woven by thee, Besides this fleshly dress; With earth and sky thou clothest me, Form, distance, loftiness; A globe of glory spouting free Around the visionless.

For when thy busy efforts fail, And thy shuttle moveless lies, They will fall from me, like a veil From before a lady's eyes; As a night-perused, just-finished tale In the new daylight dies.

But not alone dost thou unroll The mountains, fields, and seas, A mighty, wonder-painted scroll, Like the Patmos mysteries; Thou mediator 'twixt my soul And higher things than these.

In holy ephod clothing me Thou makest me a seer; In all the lovely things I see, The inner truths appear; And the deaf spirit without thee No spirit-word could hear.

Yet though so high thy mission is, And thought to spirit brings, Thy web is but the chrysalis, Where lie the future wings, Now growing into perfectness By thy inwoven things.

Then thou, G.o.d's pulse, wilt cease to beat; But His heart will still beat on, Weaving another garment meet, If needful for his son; And sights more glorious, to complete The web thou hast begun.

O DO NOT LEAVE ME.

O do not leave me, mother, till I sleep; Be near me until I forget; sit there.

And the child having prayed lest she should weep, Sleeps in the strength of prayer.

O do not leave me, lover, brother, friends, Till I am dead, and resting in my place.

And the girl, having prayed, in silence bends Down to the earth's embrace.

Leave me not, G.o.d, until--nay, until when?

Not till I have with thee one heart, one mind; Not till the Life is Light in me, and then Leaving is left behind.

THE HOLY SNOWDROPS.

Of old, with goodwill from the skies, The holy angels came; They walked the earth with human eyes, And pa.s.sed away in flame.

But now the angels are withdrawn, Because the flowers can speak; With Christ, we see the dayspring dawn In every snowdrop meek.

G.o.d sends them forth; to G.o.d they tend; Not less with love they burn, That to the earth they lowly bend, And unto dust return.

No miracle in them hath place, For this world is their home; An utterance of essential grace The angel-snowdrops come.

TO MY SISTER.

O sister, G.o.d is very good-- Thou art a woman now: O sister, be thy womanhood A baptism on thy brow!

For what?--Do ancient stories lie Of t.i.tans long ago, The children of the lofty sky And mother earth below?

Nay, walk not now upon the ground Some sons of heavenly mould?

Some daughters of the Holy, found In earthly garments' fold?

He said, who did and spoke the truth: "G.o.ds are the sons of G.o.d."

And so the world's t.i.tanic youth Strives homeward by one road.

Then live thou, sister, day and night, An earth-child of the sky, For ever climbing up the height Of thy divinity.

Still in thy mother's heart-embrace, Waiting thy hour of birth, Thou growest by the genial grace Of the child-bearing earth.

Through griefs and joys, each sad and sweet, Thou shalt attain the end; Till then a G.o.ddess incomplete-- O evermore my friend!

Nor is it pride that striveth so: The height of the Divine Is to be lowly 'mid the low; No towering cloud--a mine;

A mine of wealth and warmth and song, An ever-open door; For when divinely born ere long, A woman thou the more.

For at the heart of womanhood The child's great heart doth lie; At childhood's heart, the germ of good, Lies G.o.d's simplicity.

So, sister, be thy womanhood A baptism on thy brow For something dimly understood, And which thou art not now;

But which within thee, all the time, Maketh thee what thou art; Maketh thee long and strive and climb-- The G.o.d-life at thy heart.

OH THOU OF LITTLE FAITH!

Sad-hearted, be at peace: the snowdrop lies Under the cold, sad earth-clods and the snow; But spring is floating up the southern skies, And the pale snowdrop silent waits below.