A Hidden Life and Other Poems

II

 
Mountain heights that lift their snows
O'er a valley green and low;
And a winding path, that goes
Guided by the river's flow;
And a music rising ever,
As of peace and low content,
From the pebble-paven river
As an odour upward sent.
 
 
And a sighing of the storm
Far away amid the hills,
Like the humming of a swarm
That the summer forest fills;
And a frequent fall of rain
From a cloud with ragged weft;
And a burst of wind amain
From the mountain's sudden cleft.
 
 
Then a night that hath a moon,
Staining all the cloudy white;
Sinking with a soundless tune
Deep into the spirit's night.
Then a morning clear and soft,
Amber on the purple hills;
Warm high day of summer, oft
Cooled by wandering windy rills.
 
 
Joy to travel thus along,
With the universe around!
I the centre of the throng;
Every sight and every sound
Speeding with its burden laden,
Speeding homewards to my soul!
Mine the eye the stars are made in!
I the heart of all this whole!
 

III

 
Hills retreat on either hand,
Sinking down into the plain;
Slowly through the level land
Glides the river to the main.
What is that before me, white,
Gleaming through the dusky air?
Dimmer in the gathering night;
Still beheld, I know not where?
 
 
Is it but a chalky ridge,
Bared by many a trodden mark?
Or a river-spanning bridge,
Miles away into the dark?
Or the foremost leaping waves
Of the everlasting sea,
Where the Undivided laves
Time with its eternity?
 
 
No, tis but an eye-made sight,
In my brain a fancied gleam;
Or a thousand things as white,
Set in darkness, well might seem.
There it wavers, shines, is gone;
What it is I cannot tell;
When the morning star hath shone,
I shall see and know it well.
 
 
Onward, onward through the night!
Matters it I cannot see?
I am moving in a might,
Dwelling in the dark and me.
Up or down, or here or there,
I can never be alone;
My own being tells me where
God is as the Father known.
 

IV

 
Joy! O joy! the Eastern sea
Answers to the Eastern sky;
Wide and featured gloriously
With swift billows bursting high.
Nearer, nearer, oh! the sheen
On a thousand waves at once!
Oh! the changing crowding green!
Oh my beating heart's response!
 
 
Down rejoicing to the strand,
Where the sea-waves shore-ward lean,
Curve their graceful heads, and stand
Gleaming with ethereal green,
Then in foam fall heavily—
This is what I saw at night!
Lo, a boat! I'll forth on thee,
Dancing-floor for my delight.
 
 
From the bay, wind-winged, we glance;
Sea-winds seize me by the hair!
What a terrible expanse!
How the ocean tumbles there!
I am helpless here afloat,
For the wild waves know not me;
Gladly would I change my boat
For the snow wings of the sea!
 
 
Look below. Each watery whirl
Cast in beauty's living mould!
Look above! Each feathery curl
Faintly tinged with morning gold!—
Oh, I tremble with the gush
Of an everlasting youth!
Love and fear together rush:
I am free in God, the Truth!
 

PRAYER

 
We doubt the word that tells us: Ask,
  And ye shall have your prayer;
We turn our thoughts as to a task,
  With will constrained and rare.
 
 
And yet we have; these scanty prayers
  Yield gold without alloy:
O God! but he that trusts and dares
  Must have a boundless joy.
 

REST

 
When round the earth the Father's hands
  Have gently drawn the dark;
Sent off the sun to fresher lands,
  And curtained in the lark;
'Tis sweet, all tired with glowing day,
  To fade with faded light;
To lie once more, the old weary way,
  Upfolded in the night.
 
 
A mother o'er the couch may bend,
  And rose-leaf kisses heap:
In soothing dreams with sleep they blend,
  Till even in dreams we sleep.
And, if we wake while night is dumb,
  'Tis sweet to turn and say,
It is an hour ere dawning come,
  And I will sleep till day.
 

II

 
There is a dearer, warmer bed,
  Where one all day may lie,
Earth's bosom pillowing the head,
  And let the world go by.
Instead of mother's love-lit eyes,
  The church's storied pane,
All blank beneath cold starry skies,
  Or sounding in the rain.
 
 
The great world, shouting, forward fares:
  This chamber, hid from none,
Hides safe from all, for no one cares
  For those whose work is done.
Cheer thee, my heart, though tired and slow
  An unknown grassy place
Somewhere on earth is waiting now
  To rest thee from thy race.
 

III

 
There is a calmer than all calms,
  A quiet more deep than death:
A folding in the Father's palms,
  A breathing in his breath;
A rest made deeper by alarms
  And stormy sounds combined:
The child within its mother's arms
  Sleeps sounder for the wind.
 
 
There needs no curtained bed to hide
  The world with all its wars,
Nor grassy cover to divide
  From sun and moon and stars
A window open to the skies,
  A sense of changeless life,
With oft returning still surprise
  Repels the sounds of strife.
 

IV

 
As one bestrides a wild scared horse
  Beneath a stormy moon,
And still his heart, with quiet force,
  Beats on its own calm tune;
So if my heart with trouble now
  Be throbbing in my breast,
Thou art my deeper heart, and Thou,
  O God, dost ever rest.
 
 
When mighty sea-winds madly blow,
  And tear the scattered waves;
As still as summer woods, below
  Lie darkling ocean caves:
The wind of words may toss my heart,
  But what is that to me!
'Tis but a surface storm—Thou art
  My deep, still, resting sea.
 

TO A.J. SCOTT

WITH THE FOLLOWING POEM

 
I walked all night: the darkness did not yield.
Around me fell a mist, a weary rain,
Enduring long; till a faint dawn revealed
 
 
A temple's front, cloud-curtained on the plain.
Closed were the lofty doors that led within;
But by a wicket one might entrance gain.
 
 
O light, and awe, and silence! Entering in,
The blackness and chaotic rain were lost
In hopeful spaces. Then I heard a thin
 
 
Sweet sound of voices low, together tossed,
As if they sought a harmony to find
Which they knew once; but none of all that host
 
 
Could call the far-fled music back to mind.
Loud voices, distance-low, wandered along
The pillared paths, and up the arches twined
 
 
With sister-arches, rising, throng on throng,
Up to the roof's dim distance. If sometimes
Self-gathered voices made a burst of song,
 
 
Straightway I heard again but as the chimes
Of many bells through Sabbath morning sent,
Each its own tale to tell of heavenly climes.
 
 
Yet such the hope, one might be well content
Here to be low, and lowly keep a door;
For like Truth's herald, solemnly that went,
 
 
I heard thy voice, and humbly loved it more,
Walking the word-sea to this ear of mine,
Than any voice of power I heard before.
 
 
Yet as the harp may, tremulous, combine
Low ghostlike sounds with organ's loudest tone,
Let not my music fear to come to thine:
 
 
Thy heart, with organ-tempests of its own,
Will hear Aeolian sighs from thin chords blown.
 

LIGHT

 
First-born of the creating Voice!
Minister of God's spirit, who wast sent
To wait upon Him first, what time He went
Moving about 'mid the tumultuous noise
Of each unpiloted element
Upon the face of the void formless deep!
Thou who didst come unbodied and alone,
Ere yet the sun was set his rule to keep,
Or ever the moon shone,
Or e'er the wandering star-flocks forth were driven!
Thou garment of the Invisible, whose skirt
Falleth on all things from the lofty heaven!
Thou Comforter, be with me as thou wert
When first I longed for words, to be
A radiant garment for my thought, like thee.
 
 
We lay us down in sorrow,
Wrapt in the old mantle of our mother Night;
In vexing dreams we 'strive until the morrow;
Grief lifts our eyelids up—and lo, the light!
The sunlight on the wall! And visions rise
Of shining leaves that make sweet melodies;
Of wind-borne waves with thee upon their crests;
Of rippled sands on which thou rainest down;
Of quiet lakes that smooth for thee their breasts;
Of clouds that show thy glory as their own.
O joy! O joy! the visions are gone by,
Light, gladness, motion, are Reality!
 
 
Thou art the god of earth. The skylark springs
Far up to catch thy glory on his wings;
And thou dost bless him first that highest soars.
The bee comes forth to see thee; and the flowers
Worship thee all day long, and through the skies
Follow thy journey with their earnest eyes.
River of life, thou pourest on the woods;
And on thy waves float forth the wakening buds;
The trees lean towards thee, and, in loving pain,
Keep turning still to see thee yet again.
And nothing in thine eyes is mean or low:
Where'er thou art, on every side,
All things are glorified;
And where thou canst not come, there thou dost throw
Beautiful shadows, made out of the Dark,
That else were shapeless. Loving thou dost mark
The sadness on men's faces, and dost seek
To make all things around of hope and gladness speak.
 
 
And men have worshipped thee.
The Persian, on his mountain-top,
Kneeling doth wait until thy sun go up,
God-like in his serenity.
All-giving, and none-gifted, he draws near;
And the wide earth waits till his face appear—
Longs patient. And the herald glory leaps
Along the ridges of the outlying clouds,
Climbing the heights of all their towering steeps;
And a quiet multitudinous laughter crowds
The universal face, as, silently,
Up cometh he, the never-closing eye.
Symbol of Deity! men could not be
Farthest from truth when they were kneeling unto thee.
 
 
Thou plaything of the child,
When from the water's surface thou dost fall
In mazy dance, ethereal motion wild,
Like his own thoughts, upon the chamber wall;
Or through the dust darting in long thin streams!
How I have played with thee, and longed to climb
On sloping ladders of thy moted beams!
And how I loved thee falling from the moon!
And most about the mellow harvest-time,
When night had softly settled down,
And thou from her didst flow, a sea of love.
And then the stars, ah me! that flashed above
And the ghost-stars that shimmered in the tide!
While here and there mysterious earthly shining
Came forth of windows from the hill and glen;
Each ray of thine so wondrously entwining
With household love and rest of weary men.
And still I am a child, thank God! To see
Thee streaming from a bit of broken glass,
That else on the brown earth lay undescried,
Is a high joy, a glorious thing to me,
A spark that lights the light of joy within,
A thought of Hope to Prophecy akin,
That from my spirit fruitless will not pass.
 
 
Thou art the joy of Age:
The sun is dear even when long shadows fall.
Forth to the sunlight the old man doth crawl,
Enlivened like the bird in his poor cage.
Close by the door, no further, in his chair
The old man sits; and sitteth there
His soul within him, like a child that lies
Half dreaming, with his half-shut eyes,
At close of a long afternoon in summer;
High ruins round him, ancient ruins, where
The raven is almost the only comer;
And there he broods in wonderment
On the celestial glory sent
Through the rough loopholes, on the golden bloom
That waves above the cornice on the wall,
Where lately dwelt the echoes of the room;
And drinking in the yellow lights that lie
Upon the ivy tapestry.
So dreams the old man's soul, that is not old,
But sleepy 'mid the ruins that infold.
 
 
What meanings various thou callest forth
Upon the face of the still passive earth!
Even like a lord of music bent
Over his instrument;
Whether, at hour of sovereign noon,
Infinite cataracts sheet silent down;
Or a strange yellow radiance slanting pass
Betwixt long shadows o'er the meadow grass,
When from the lower edge of a dark cloud
The sun at eve his blessing head hath bowed;
Whether the moon lift up her shining shield,
High on the peak of a cloud-hill revealed;
Or crescent, low, wandering sun-dazed away,
Unconscious of her own star-mingled ray,
Her still face seeming more to think than see,
She makes the pale world lie in dreams of thee.
Each hour of day, each hour of thoughtful night,
Hath a new poem in the changing light.
 
 
Of highest unity the sole emblem!
In whom all colours that our eyes can see
In rainbow, moonbow, or in opal gem,
Unite in living oneness, purity,
And operative power! whose every part
Is beauty to the eyes, and truth unto the heart!
Outspread in yellow sands, blue sea and air,
Green growing corn, and scarlet poppies there;—
Regent of colours, thou, the undefiled!
Whether in dark eyes of the laughing child,
Or in the vast white cloud that floats away,
Bearing upon its breast a brown moon-ray;
The universal painter, who dost fling
Thy overflowing skill on everything!
The thousand hues and shades upon the flowers,
Are all the pastime of thy leisure hours;
And all the gems and ores that hidden be,
Are dead till they are looked upon by thee.
 
 
Everywhere,
Thou art shining through the air;
Every atom from another
Takes thee, gives thee to his brother;
Continually,
Thou art falling on the sea,
Bathing the deep woods down below,
Making the sea-flowers bud and blow;
Silently,
Thou art working ardently,
Bringing from the night of nought
Into being and to thought;
Influences
Every beam of thine dispenses,
Powerful, varied, reaching far,
Differing in every star.
Not an iron rod can lie
In circle of thy beamy eye,
But thy look doth change it so
That it cannot choose but show
Thou, the worker, hast been there;
Yea, sometimes, on substance rare,
Thou dost leave thy ghostly mark
In what men do call the dark.
Doer, shower, mighty teacher!
Truth-in-beauty's silent preacher!
Universal something sent
To shadow forth the Excellent!
 
 
When the firstborn affections,
Those winged seekers of the world within,
That search about in all directions,
Some bright thing for themselves to win,
Through unmarked forest-paths, and gathering fogs,
And stony plains, and treacherous bogs,
Long, long, have followed faces fair,
Fair faces without souls, that vanished into air;
And darkness is around them and above,
Desolate, with nought to love;
And through the gloom on every side,
Strange dismal forms are dim descried;
And the air is as the breath
From the lips of void-eyed Death;
And the knees are bowed in prayer
To the Stronger than Despair;
Then the ever-lifted cry,
Give us light, or we shall die,
Cometh to the Father's ears,
And He listens, and He hears:
And when men lift up their eyes,
Lo, Truth slow dawning in the skies!
'Tis as if the sun gleamed forth
Through the storm-clouds of the north.
And when men would name this Truth,
Giver of gladness and of youth,
They can call it nought but Light—
'Tis the morning, 'twas the night.
Yea, every thought of hope outspread
On the mountain's misty head,
Is a fresh aurora, sent
Through the spirit's firmament,
Telling, through the vapours dun,
Of the coming, coming sun.
 
 
All things most excellent
Are likened unto thee, excellent thing!
Yea, He who from the Father forth was sent,
Came the true Light, light to our hearts to bring;
The Word of God, the telling of His thought;
The Light of God, the making-visible;
The far-transcending glory brought
In human form with man to dwell;
The dazzling gone; the power not less
To show, irradiate, and bless;
The gathering of the primal rays divine,
Informing chaos, to a pure sunshine!
 
 
Death, darkness, nothingness!
Life, light, and blessedness!
* * * * *
 
 
Dull horrid pools no motion making;
No bubble on the surface breaking;
Through the dead heavy air, no sound;
Asleep and moveless on the marshy ground.
* * * * *
 
 
Rushing winds and snow-like drift,
Forceful, formless, fierce, and swift;
Hair-like vapours madly riven;
Waters smitten into dust;
Lightning through the turmoil driven,
Aimless, useless, yet it must.
* * * * *
 
 
Gentle winds through forests calling;
Big waves on the sea-shore falling;
Bright birds through the thick leaves glancing;
Light boats on the big waves dancing;
Children in the clear pool laving;
Mountain streams glad music giving;
Yellow corn and green grass waving;
Long-haired, bright-eyed maidens living;
Light on all things, even as now—
God, our Father, it is Thou!
Light, O Radiant! thou didst come abroad,
To mediate 'twixt our ignorance and God;
Forming ever without form;
Showing, but thyself unseen;
Pouring stillness on the storm;
Making life where death had been!
If thou, Light, didst cease to be,
Death and Chaos soon were out,
Weltering o'er the slimy sea,
Riding on the whirlwind's rout;
And if God did cease to be,
O Beloved! where were we?
 
 
Father of Lights, pure and unspeakable,
On whom no changing shadow ever fell!
Thy light we know not, are content to see;
And shall we doubt because we know not Thee?
Or, when thy wisdom cannot be expressed,
Fear lest dark vapours dwell within thy breast?
Nay, nay, ye shadows on our souls descending!
Ye bear good witness to the light on high,
Sad shades of something 'twixt us and the sky!
And this word, known and unknown radiant blending,
Shall make us rest, like children in the night,—
Word infinite in meaning: God is Light.
We walk in mystery all the shining day
Of light unfathomed that bestows our seeing,
Unknown its source, unknown its ebb and flow:
Thy living light's eternal fountain-play
In ceaseless rainbow pulse bestows our being—
Its motions, whence or whither, who shall know?
O Light, if I had said all I could say
Of thy essential glory and thy might,
Something within my heart unsaid yet lay,
And there for lack of words unsaid must stay:
For God is Light.
 

TO A.J. SCOTT

 
Thus, once, long since, the daring of my youth
Drew nigh thy greatness with a little thing;
And thou didst take me in: thy home of truth
 
 
Has domed me since, a heaven of sheltering,
Uplighted by the tenderness and grace
Which round thy absolute friendship ever fling
 
 
A radiant atmosphere. Turn not thy face
From that small part of earnest thanks, I pray,
Which, spoken, leaves much more in speechless case.
 
 
I saw thee as a strong man on his way!
Up the great peaks: I know thee stronger still;
Thy intellect unrivalled in its sway,
 
 
Upheld and ordered by a regnant will;
While Wisdom, seer and priest of holy Fate,
Searches all truths, its prophecy to fill:
 
 
Yet, O my friend, throned in thy heart so great,
High Love is queen, and hath no equal mate.
 

May, 1857.

WERE I A SKILFUL PAINTER

 
Were I a skilful painter,
My pencil, not my pen,
Should try to teach thee hope and fear;
And who should blame me then?
Fear of the tide-like darkness
That followeth close behind,
And hope to make thee journey on
In the journey of the mind.
 
 
Were I a skilful painter,
What should my painting be?
A tiny spring-bud peeping forth
From a withered wintry tree.
The warm blue sky of summer
Above the mountain snow,
Whence water in an infant stream,
Is trying how to flow.
 
 
The dim light of a beacon
Upon a stormy sea,
Where wild waves, ruled by wilder winds,
Yet call themselves the free.
One sunbeam faintly gleaming
Athwart a sullen cloud,
Like dawning peace upon a brow
In angry weeping bowed.
 
 
Morn climbing o'er the mountain,
While the vale is full of night,
And a wanderer, looking for the east,
Rejoicing in the sight.
A taper burning dimly
Amid the dawning grey,
And a maiden lifting up her head,
And lo, the coming day!
 
 
And thus, were I a painter,
My pencil, not my pen,
Should try to teach thee hope and fear;
And who should blame me then?
Fear of the tide-like darkness
That followeth close behind,
And hope to make thee journey on
In the journey of the mind.
 

IF I WERE A MONK, AND THOU WERT A NUN

 
If I were a monk, and thou wert a nun,
      Pacing it wearily, wearily,
From chapel to cell till day were done,
      Wearily, wearily,
Oh! how would it be with these hearts of ours,
That need the sunshine, and smiles, and flowers?
 
 
To prayer, to prayer, at the matins' call,
      Morning foul or fair;
Such prayer as from lifeless lips may fall—
      Words, but hardly prayer;
Vainly trying the thoughts to raise,
Which, in the sunshine, would burst in praise.
 
 
Thou, in the glory of cloudless noon,
      The God revealing,
Turning thy face from the boundless boon,
      Painfully kneeling;
Or in thy chamber's still solitude,
Bending thy head o'er the legend rude.
 
 
I, in a cool and lonely nook,
      Gloomily, gloomily,
Poring over some musty book,
      Thoughtfully, thoughtfully;
Or on the parchment margin unrolled,
Painting quaint pictures in purple and gold.
 
 
Perchance in slow procession to meet,
      Wearily, wearily,
In an antique, narrow, high-gabled street,
      Wearily, wearily;
Thy dark eyes lifted to mine, and then
Heavily sinking to earth again.
 
 
Sunshine and air! warmness and spring!
      Merrily, merrily!
Back to its cell each weary thing,
      Wearily, wearily!
And the heart so withered, and dry, and old,
Most at home in the cloister cold.
 
 
Thou on thy knees at the vespers' call,
      Wearily, wearily;
I looking up on the darkening wall,
      Wearily, wearily;
The chime so sweet to the boat at sea,
Listless and dead to thee and me!
 
 
Then to the lone couch at death of day,
      Wearily, wearily;
Rising at midnight again to pray,
      Wearily, wearily;
And if through the dark those eyes looked in,
Sending them far as a thought of sin.
 
 
And then, when thy spirit was passing away,
      Dreamily, dreamily;
The earth-born dwelling returning to clay,
      Sleepily, sleepily;
Over thee held the crucified Best,
But no warm face to thy cold cheek pressed.
 
 
And when my spirit was passing away,
      Dreamily, dreamily;
The grey head lying 'mong ashes grey,
      Sleepily, sleepily;
No hovering angel-woman above,
Waiting to clasp me in deathless love.
 
 
But now, beloved, thy hand in mine,
      Peacefully, peacefully;
My arm around thee, my lips on thine,
      Lovingly, lovingly,—
Oh! is not a better thing to us given
Than wearily going alone to heaven?