I am no angel nursed in the lap of light,
Nor fed on milk immortal of the stars,
Nor golden fruit grown in the summery suns.
How am I answerable for my heart?
It is my master, and is free with me,
As fixed with fate, even as a star which moves,
Yet moveth only on a certain course
In certain mode;—its liberties are laws,
Its laws tyrannic; I cannot hinder it,
It cannot hinder God. All that we do
Or bear is settled from eternity;
Whereof is no beginning, midst, nor end.
To act, is ours; quite sure, whate’er we do,
Whether it be for our own good or ill,
Or others’ ill or good, it is for God’s
Glory—the same and always: it is ordered.
The soul is but an organ, and it hath
No power of good and evil in itself,
More than the eye hath power of light or dark.
God fitted it for good; and evil is
Good, in another way we are not skilled in.
The good we do is of His own good will—
The ill, of His own letting. Doth not nature—
All light in life, shine, marsh-like, too, in death?
Yea, wandering fires wait even on rottenness
Like a stray gleam of thought in an idiot’s brain.
And thus I look on souls that seem decaying
In sin, and flying off by elements.
All may not live again; but all which do
Must change perpetually e’en in Heaven;
And not by death to death, but life to life.
No! step by step, and throne by throne, we rise
Continually towards the infinite,
And ever nearer—never near—to God.
Yet merit or demerit none I see
In nature, human or material,
In passions or affections good or bad.
We only know that God’s best purposes
Are oftenest brought about by dreadest sins.
Is thunder evil or is dew divine?
Does virtue lie in sunshine, sin in storm?
Is not each natural, each needful, best?
How know we what is evil from what good?
Wrath and revenge God claimeth as His own.
And yet men speculate on right and wrong
As upon day and night, forgetting both
Have but one cause, and that the same—God’s will,
Originally, ultimately Him.
All right is right divine. A worm hath rights
A king cannot despoil him of, nor sin;
Yet wrongs are things necessitate, like wants,
And oft are well permitted to best ends.
A double error sometimes sets us right.
In man there is no rule o£ right and wrong
Inherent as mere man. Why, conscience is
The basest thing of all. Its life is passed
In justifying and condemning sin;
Accomplice, traitor, judge and headsman, too,
But conscience knows its business and performs.
Nothing is lost in nature; and no soul,
Though buried in the centre of all sin,
Is lost to God; but there it works His will
And burns comformably. The weakest things
Are to be made the examples of His might;
The most defective, of His perfect grace,
Whene’er He thinketh well. Oh! everything
To me seems good and lovely and immortal;
The whole is beautiful; and I can see
Nought wrong in man nor nature, nought not meant;
As from His hands it comes who fashions all,
All holy as His word. The world is but
A revelation. He breathes Himself upon us
Before our birth, as o’er the formless void
He moveth at first, and we are all inspired
With His spirit. All things are God or of God.
For the whole world is in the mind of God
What a thought is in ours. Why boast we then
Of aught? All that is good belongs to God;
And good and God are all things, or shall be.
There lacks in souls like thine unsaved, unraised,
The light within—the light of perfectness—
Such a there is in Heaven. The soul hath sunk
And perished like a light-house in the sea;
It is for God to raise it and rebuild.
And his, thy son’s, He will raise. Since with me,
I have shown him infinite wonders: we have oped
And scanned the golden scroll of Fate, wherein
Are writ, in God’s own hand, all things which happen.
There we have seen the record of his being—
His long temptation, sin, and suffering.
And hear it, oh beloved and blessed one!
Mine own salvation!
God is great in love;
Infinite in His nature, power, and grace;
Creating, and redeeming, and destroying—
Infinite infinitely. But in love—
Oh! it is the truth transcendant over all—
When thus to one poor spirit He gives His hand,
He seems to impart His own unboundedness
Of bliss. We seem to be hardly worth destroying,
And much less saving; yet He loveth each
As though all were His equal.
I know all
I have to go through henceforth—all the doubts,
Passions of life, and woes; but knowing them
Hinders them not; I bear obeyingly;
And pine no more, as once when I looked back
And saw how life had balked, and foiled, and fooled me.
Fresh as a spouting spring upon the hills
My heart leapt out to life; it little thought
Of all the vile cares that would rill into it,
And the low places it would have to go through—
The drains, the crossings, and the null-work after.
God hath endowed me with a soul that scorns life—
An element over and above the world’s:
But the price one pays for pride is mountain-high,
There is a curse beyond the rack of death—
A woe, wherein God hath put out His strength—
A pain past all the mad wretchedness we feel,
When the sacked secret hath flown out of us,
And the heart broken open by deep care—
The curse of a high spirit famishing,
Because all earth but sickens it.
Go, child!
Fulfil thy fate! Be—do—bear—and thank God!
To me it seems as I had lived all ages
Since I left earth; and thou art yet scarce man.
It was not, mother, that I knew thy face; strange
The luminous eclipse that is on it now,
Though it was fair on earth, would have made it
Even to one who knew as well as he loved thee;
And if these time-tired eyes ever imaged thine,
It was but for a moment, and the sight
Passed; and my life was broken like a line
At the first word—but my heart cried out in me.
I knew thee well. And now to earth again!
Go, son! and say to all who once were mine—
I love them, and expect them.
Blessed one!
I will.
I charge thee, Genius, bear him safely.
