Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell Part 23

What though her hand smooth ne'er again Those silken locks of thine?

Nor, through long hours of future pain, Her kind face o'er thee s.h.i.+ne?

Remember still, she is not dead; She sees us, sister, now; Laid, where her angel spirit fled, 'Mid heath and frozen snow.

And from that world of heavenly light Will she not always bend To guide us in our lifetime's night, And guard us to the end?

Thou knowest she will; and thou mayst mourn That WE are left below: But not that she can ne'er return To share our earthly woe.

STANZAS.

Often rebuked, yet always back returning To those first feelings that were born with me, And leaving busy chase of wealth and learning For idle dreams of things which cannot be:

To-day, I will seek not the shadowy region; Its unsustaining vastness waxes drear; And visions rising, legion after legion, Bring the unreal world too strangely near.

I'll walk, but not in old heroic traces, And not in paths of high morality, And not among the half-distinguished faces, The clouded forms of long-past history.

I'll walk where my own nature would be leading: It vexes me to choose another guide: Where the grey flocks in ferny glens are feeding; Where the wild wind blows on the mountain side.

What have those lonely mountains worth revealing?

More glory and more grief than I can tell: The earth that wakes one human heart to feeling Can centre both the worlds of Heaven and h.e.l.l.

The following are the last lines my sister Emily ever wrote:--

No coward soul is mine, No trembler in the world's storm-troubled sphere: I see Heaven's glories s.h.i.+ne, And faith s.h.i.+nes equal, arming me from fear.

O G.o.d within my breast, Almighty, ever-present Deity!

Life--that in me has rest, As I--undying Life--have power in thee!

Vain are the thousand creeds That move men's hearts: unutterably vain; Worthless as withered weeds, Or idlest froth amid the boundless main,

To waken doubt in one Holding so fast by thine infinity; So surely anch.o.r.ed on The stedfast rock of immortality.

With wide-embracing love Thy spirit animates eternal years, Pervades and broods above, Changes, sustains, dissolves, creates, and rears.

Though earth and man were gone, And suns and universes ceased to be, And Thou were left alone, Every existence would exist in Thee.

There is not room for Death, Nor atom that his might could render void: Thou--THOU art Being and Breath, And what THOU art may never be destroyed.

SELECTIONS FROM POEMS BY ACTON BELL.

In looking over my sister Anne's papers, I find mournful evidence that religious feeling had been to her but too much like what it was to Cowper; I mean, of course, in a far milder form. Without rendering her a prey to those horrors that defy concealment, it subdued her mood and bearing to a perpetual pensiveness; the pillar of a cloud glided constantly before her eyes; she ever waited at the foot of a secret Sinai, listening in her heart to the voice of a trumpet sounding long and waxing louder. Some, perhaps, would rejoice over these tokens of sincere though sorrowing piety in a deceased relative: I own, to me they seem sad, as if her whole innocent life had been pa.s.sed under the martyrdom of an unconfessed physical pain: their effect, indeed, would be too distressing, were it not combated by the certain knowledge that in her last moments this tyranny of a too tender conscience was overcome; this pomp of terrors broke up, and pa.s.sing away, left her dying hour unclouded. Her belief in G.o.d did not then bring to her dread, as of a stern Judge,--but hope, as in a Creator and Saviour: and no faltering hope was it, but a sure and stedfast conviction, on which, in the rude pa.s.sage from Time to Eternity, she threw the weight of her human weakness, and by which she was enabled to bear what was to be borne, patiently--serenely--victoriously.

DESPONDENCY.

I have gone backward in the work; The labour has not sped; Drowsy and dark my spirit lies, Heavy and dull as lead.

How can I rouse my sinking soul From such a lethargy?

How can I break these iron chains And set my spirit free?

There have been times when I have mourned!

In anguish o'er the past, And raised my suppliant hands on high, While tears fell thick and fast;

And prayed to have my sins forgiven, With such a fervent zeal, An earnest grief, a strong desire As now I cannot feel.

And I have felt so full of love, So strong in spirit then, As if my heart would never cool, Or wander back again.

And yet, alas! how many times My feet have gone astray!

How oft have I forgot my G.o.d!

How greatly fallen away!

My sins increase--my love grows cold, And Hope within me dies: Even Faith itself is wavering now; Oh, how shall I arise?

I cannot weep, but I can pray, Then let me not despair: Lord Jesus, save me, lest I die!

Christ, hear my humble prayer!

A PRAYER.

My G.o.d (oh, let me call Thee mine, Weak, wretched sinner though I be), My trembling soul would fain be Thine; My feeble faith still clings to Thee.

Not only for the Past I grieve, The Future fills me with dismay; Unless Thou hasten to relieve, Thy suppliant is a castaway.

I cannot say my faith is strong, I dare not hope my love is great; But strength and love to Thee belong; Oh, do not leave me desolate!

I know I owe my all to Thee; Oh, TAKE the heart I cannot give!

Do Thou my strength--my Saviour be, And MAKE me to Thy glory live.