The Voice of Science in Nineteenth-Century Literature Part 19

The wages of sin is death: if the wages of Virtue be dust, Would she have heart to endure for the life of the worm and the fly?

She desires no isles of the blest, no quiet seats of the just, To rest in a golden grove, or to bask in a summer sky: Give her the wages of going on, and not to die.

THE HIGHER PANTHEISM

The sun, the moon, the stars, the seas, the hills and the plains-- Are not these, O Soul, the Vision of Him who reigns?

Is not the Vision He? tho' He be not that which He seems?

Dreams are true while they last, and do we not live in dreams?

Earth, these solid stars, this weight of body and limb, Are they not sign and symbol of thy division from Him?

Dark is the world to thee: thyself art the reason why; For is He not all but that which has power to feel "I am I"?

Glory about thee, without thee; and thou fulfillest thy doom, Making Him broken gleams, and a stifled splendor and gloom.

Speak to Him thou, for He hears, and Spirit with Spirit can meet-- Closer is He than breathing, and nearer than hands and feet.

G.o.d is law, say the wise; O Soul, and let us rejoice, For, if He thunder by law, the thunder is yet His voice.

Law is G.o.d, say some: no G.o.d at all, says the fool; For all we have power to see is a straight staff bent in a pool;

And the ear of man cannot hear, and the eye of man cannot see; But if we could see and hear, this Vision--were it not He?

FLOWER IN THE CRANNIED WALL

Flower in the crannied wall, I pluck you out of the crannies, I hold you here, root and all, in my hand, Little flower--but _if_ I could understand What you are, root and all, and all in all, I should know what G.o.d and man is.

IN MEMORIAM

PROEM

Strong Son of G.o.d, immortal Love, Whom we, that have not seen thy face, By faith, and faith alone, embrace, Believing where we cannot prove;

Thine are these orbs of light and shade; Thou madest Life in man and brute; Thou madest Death; and lo, thy foot Is on the skull which thou hast made.

Thou wilt not leave us in the dust: Thou madest man, he knows not why, He thinks he was not made to die; And thou hast made him: thou art just.

Thou seemest human and divine, The highest, holiest manhood, thou: Our wills are ours, we know not how; Our wills are ours, to make them thine.

Our little systems have their day; They have their day and cease to be: They are but broken lights of thee, And thou, O Lord, art more than they.

We have but faith: we cannot know; For knowledge is of things we see; And yet we trust it comes from thee, A beam in darkness: let it grow.

Let knowledge grow from more to more, But more of reverence in us dwell; That mind and soul, according well, May make one music as before,

But vaster. We are fools and slight; We mock thee when we do not fear: But help thy foolish ones to bear; Help thy vain worlds to bear thy light.

Forgive what seem'd my sin in me; What seem'd my worth since I began; For merit lives from man to man, And not from man, O Lord, to thee.

Forgive my grief for one removed, Thy creature, whom I found so fair.

I trust he lives in thee, and there I find him worthier to be loved.

Forgive these wild and wandering cries, Confusions of a wasted youth; Forgive them where they fail in truth, And in thy wisdom make me wise.

LIV

Oh, yet we trust that somehow good Will be the final goal of ill, To pangs of nature, sins of will, Defects of doubt, and taints of blood;

That nothing walks with aimless feet; That not one life shall be destroy'd, Or cast as rubbish to the void, When G.o.d hath made the pile complete;

That not a worm is cloven in vain; That not a moth with vain desire Is shrivel'd in a fruitless fire, Or but subserves another's gain.

Behold, we know not anything; I can but trust that good shall fall At last--far off--at last, to all, And every winter change to spring.

So runs my dream: but what am I?

An infant crying in the night: An infant crying for the light: And with no language but a cry.

LV

The wish, that of the living whole No life may fail beyond the grave, Derives it not from what we have The likest G.o.d within the soul?

Are G.o.d and Nature then at strife, That Nature lends such evil dreams?

So careful of the type she seems, So careless of the single life;

That I, considering everywhere Her secret meaning in her deeds, And finding that of fifty seeds She often brings but one to bear,

I falter where I firmly trod, And falling with my weight of cares Upon the great world's altar-stairs That slope thro' darkness up to G.o.d,

I stretch lame hands of faith, and grope, And gather dust and chaff, and call To what I feel is Lord of all, And faintly trust the larger hope.

LVI

"So careful of the type?" but no.

From scarped cliff and quarried stone She cries, "A thousand types are gone: I care for nothing, all shall go.

"Thou makest thine appeal to me: I bring to life, I bring to death: The spirit does but mean the breath: I know no more." And he, shall he,

Man, her last work, who seem'd so fair, Such splendid purpose in his eyes, Who roll'd the psalm to wintry skies, Who built him fanes of fruitless prayer,

Who trusted G.o.d was love indeed And love Creation's final law-- Tho' Nature, red in tooth and claw With ravine, shriek'd against his creed--

Who loved, who suffer'd countless ills, Who battled for the True, the Just, Be blown about the desert dust, Or seal'd within the iron hills?

No more? A monster then, a dream, A discord. Dragons of the prime, That tare each other in their slime, Were mellow music match'd with him.

O life as futile, then, as frail!