THROUGH Suffering and sorrow thou hast passed
To show us what a woman true may be :
They have not taken sympathy from thee,
Nor made thee any other than thou wast;
Save as some tree, which, in a sudden blast,
Sheddeth those blossoms, that are weakly grown,
Upon the air, but keepeth every one
Whose strength gives warrant of good fruit at last :
So thou hast shed some blooms of gaiety,
But never one of steadfast cheerfulness;
Nor hath thy knowledge of adversity
Robbed thee of any faith in happiness,
But rather cleared thine inner eyes to see
How many simple ways there are to bless.
WHAT Were I, Love, if I were stripped of thee,
If thine eyes shut me out, whereby I live,
Thou, who unto my calmed soul dost give
Knowledge, and Truth, and holy Mystery,
Wherein Truth mainly lies for those who see
Beyond the earthly and the fugitive,
Who in the grandeur of the soul believe,
And only in the Infinite are free?
Without thee I were naked, bleak, and bare
As yon dead cedar on the sea-cliff's brow;
And Nature's teachings, which come to me now Common and beautiful as light and air,
Would be as fruitless as a stream which still
Slips through the wheel of some old ruined milk.
YES, I have felt a weariness of soul,
A shaking of my loveful faith in man,
Jostling with souls that ne'er beyond life's span
Have glimpsed, to whom this empty earth is goal
And starting-place, and death the dreadful whole;
But as, within the parlour's glare, at night,
Amid loud laugh, and converse vain and light,
Sudden without is heard the thunder's roll,
Deep-toned and infinite, with sad reproof,-
So, when my love and faith in man are shaken,
Great, inborn thoughts, that will not keep aloof,
Within my soul like those far thunders, waken,
Growing and growing, till its depths are dinned
With the sad sense of having deadly sinned.
If ye have not the one great lesson learned,
Which grows in leaves, tides in the mighty sea,
And in the stars eternally hath burned,
That only full obedience is free,—
If ye in pride your true birthright have spurned,
Or, for a mess of potage, beggarly
Have sold it, how, in Truth's name, have ye earned
The holy right to fight for Liberty?
Be free, and then our God will give a sword
Where for Orion's belt were not too bright;
There shall be power in your lightest word
To make weak Falsehood, pierced with arrowy light,
Writhe, dying of her own most foul disease,
Within her churches and her palaces!
THE hungry flame hath never yet been hot
To him who won his name and crown of fire;
But it doth ask a stronger soul and higher
To bear, not longing for a prouder lot,
Those martyrdoms whereof the world knows not,-
Hope sneaped with frosty scorn, the faith of youth
Wasted in seeming vain defence of Truth,
Greatness o'ertopped with baseness, and fame got
Too late:-Yet this most bitter task was meant
For those right worthy in such cause to plead,
And therefore God sent poets, men content
To live in humbleness and body's need,
If they may tread the path where Jesus went,
And sow one grain of Love's eternal seed.
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