“Her Seed; It shall bruise thy head.”
Astonished Heaven looked on when man was made,
When fallen man reproved seemed half forgiven;
Surely that oracle of hope first said,
Astonished Heaven.
Even so while one by one lost souls are shriven,
A mighty multitude of quickened dead;
Christ’s love outnumbering ten times sevenfold seven.
Even so while man still tosses high his head,
While still the All-Holy Spirit’s strife is striven;—
Till one last trump shake earth, and undismayed Astonished Heaven.
“Judge nothing before the time.”
Love understands the mystery, whereof
We can but spell a surface history:
Love knows, remembers: let us trust in Love:
Love understands the mystery.
Love weighs the event, the long pre-history,
Measures the depth beneath, the height above,
The mystery, with the ante-mystery.
To love and to be grieved befits a dove
Silently telling her bead-history:
Trust all to Love, be patient and approve:
Love understands the mystery.
How great is little man!
Sun, moon, and stars respond to him,
Shine or grow dim
Harmonious with his span.
How little is great man!
More changeable than changeful moon,
Nor half in tune
With Heaven’s harmonious plan.
Ah, rich man! ah, poor man!
Make ready for the testing day
When wastes away
What bears not fire or fan.
Thou heir of all things, man,
Pursue the saints by heavenward track:
They looked not back;
Run thou, as erst they ran.
Little and great is man:
Great if he will, or if he will
A pigmy still;
For what he will he can.
Man’s life is but a working day
Whose tasks are set aright:
A time to work, a time to pray,
And then a quiet night.
And then, please God, a quiet night
Where palms are green and robes are white;
A long-drawn breath, a balm for sorrow,
And all things lovely on the morrow.
If not with hope of life,
Begin with fear of death:
Strive the tremendous life-long strife
Breath after breath.
Bleed on beneath the rod;
Weep on until thou see;
Turn fear and hope to love of God
Who loveth thee.
Turn all to love, poor soul;
Be love thy watch and ward;
Be love thy starting-point, thy goal,
And thy reward.
“The day is at hand.”
Watch yet a while,
Weep till that day shall dawn when thou shalt smile:
Watch till the day
When all save only Love shall pass away.
Then Love rejoicing shall forget to weep,
Shall hope or fear no more, or watch or sleep,
But only love and stint not, deep beyond deep.
Now we sow love in tears, but then shall reap.
Have patience as True Love’s own flock of sheep.
Have patience with His Love
Who served for us, Who reigns for us above.
“Endure bareness.”
A cold wind stirs the blackthorn
To burgeon and to blow,
Besprinkling half-green hedges
With flakes and sprays of snow.
Thro’ coldness and thro’ keenness,
Dear hearts, take comfort so:
Somewhere or other doubtless
These make the blackthorn blow.
“Whither the Tribes go up, even the Tribes of the Lord.”
Light is our sorrow for it ends to-morrow,
Light is our death which cannot hold us fast;
So brief a sorrow can be scarcely sorrow,
Or death be death so quickly past.
One night, no more, of pain that turns to pleasure,
One night, no more, of weeping weeping sore;
And then the heaped-up measure beyond measure,
In quietness for evermore.
Our face is set like flint against our trouble,
Yet many things there are which comfort us;
This bubble is a rainbow-coloured bubble,
This bubble-life tumultuous.
Our sails are set to cross the tossing river,
Our face is set to reach Jerusalem;
We toil awhile, but then we rest for ever,
Sing with all Saints and rest with them.
Where never tempest heaveth,
Nor sorrow grieveth,
Nor death bereaveth,
Nor hope deceiveth,
Sleep.
Where never shame bewaileth,
Nor serpent traileth,
Nor death prevaileth,
Nor harvest faileth,
Reap.
Marvel of marvels, if I myself shall behold
With mine own eyes my King in His city of gold;
Where the least of lambs is spotless white in the fold,
Where the least and last of saints in spotless white is stoled,
Where the dimmest head beyond a moon is aureoled.
O saints, my beloved, now mouldering to mould in the mould,
Shall I see you lift your heads, see your cerements unrolled,
See with these very eyes? who now in darkness and cold
Tremble for the midnight cry, the rapture, the tale untold,
“The Bridegroom cometh, cometh, His Bride to enfold.”
Cold it is, my beloved, since your funeral bell was tolled:
Cold it is, O my King, how cold alone on the wold.
“What is that to thee? follow thou me.”
Lie still, my restive heart, lie still:
God’s Word to thee saith, “Wait and bear.”
The good which He appoints is good,
The good which He denies were ill:
Yea, subtle comfort is thy care,
Thy hurt a help not understood.
“Friend, go up higher,” to one: to one,
“Friend, enter thou My joy,” He saith:
To one, “Be faithful unto death.”
For some a wilderness doth flower,
Or day’s work in one hour is done:—
“But thou, could’st thou not watch one hour?”
Lord, I had chosen another lot,
But then I had not chosen well;
Thy choice and only Thine is good:
No different lot, search heaven or hell,
Had blessed me fully understood;
None other, which Thou orderest not.
“Worship God.”
Lord, if Thy word had been “Worship Me not,
For I than thou am holier: draw not near:”
We had besieged Thy Face with prayer and tear,
And manifold abasement in our lot,
Our crooked ground, our thorned and thistled plot;
Envious of flawless Angels in their sphere,
Envious of brutes, and envious of the mere
Unliving and undying unbegot.
But now Thou hast said, “Worship Me, and give
Thy heart to Me, My child:” now therefore we
Think twice before we stoop to worship Thee:
We proffer half a heart while life is strong
And strung with hope; so sweet it is to live!
Wilt Thou not wait? Yea, Thou hast waited long.
“Afterward he repented, and went.”
Lord, when my heart was whole I kept it back
And grudged to give it Thee.
Now then that it is broken, must I lack
Thy kind word “Give it Me”?
Silence would be but just, and Thou art just.
Yet since I lie here shattered in the dust,
With still an eye to lift to Thee,
A broken heart to give,
I think that Thou wilt bid me live,
And answer “Give it Me.”
“Are they not all Ministering Spirits?”
Lord, whomsoever Thou shalt send to me,
Let that same be
Mine Angel predilect:
Veiled or unveiled, benignant or austere,
Aloof or near;
Thine, therefore mine, elect.
So may my soul nurse patience day by day,
Watch on and pray
Obedient and at peace;
Living a lonely life in hope, in faith;
Loving till death,
When life, not love, shall cease.
...Lo, thou mine Angel with transfigured face
Brimful of grace,
Brimful of love for me!
Did I misdoubt thee all that weary while,
Thee with a smile
For me as I for thee?
Our life is long. Not so, wise Angels say
Who watch us waste it, trembling while they weigh
Against eternity one squandered day.
Our life is long. Not so, the Saints protest,
Filled full of consolation and of rest:
“Short ill, long good, one long unending best.”
Our life is long. Christ’s word sounds different:
“Night cometh: no more work when day is spent.”
Repent and work to-day, work and repent.
Lord, make us like Thy Host who day nor night
Rest not from adoration, their delight,
Crying “Holy, Holy, Holy,” in the height.
Lord, make us like Thy Saints who wait and long
Contented: bound in hope and freed from wrong
They speed (may be) their vigil with a song.
Lord, make us like Thyself: for thirty-three
Slow years of toil seemed not too long to Thee,
That where Thou art there Thy Beloved might be.
Lord, what have I to offer? sickening fear
And a heart-breaking loss.
Are these the cross Thou givest me? then dear
I will account this cross.
If this is all I have, accept even this
Poor priceless offering,
A quaking heart with all that therein is,
O Thou my thorn-crowned King.
Accept the whole, my God, accept my heart
And its own love within:
Wilt Thou accept us and not sift apart?
—Only sift out my sin.
Joy is but sorrow,
While we know
It ends to-morrow:—
Even so!
Joy with lifted veil
Shows a face as pale
As the fair changing moon so fair and frail.
Pain is but pleasure,
If we know
It heaps up treasure:—
Even so!
Turn, transfigured Pain,
Sweetheart, turn again,
For fair thou art as moonrise after rain.
Can I know it?—Nay.—
Shall I know it?—Yea,
When all mists have cleared away
Forever and aye.—
Why not then to-day?—
Who hath said thee nay?
Lift a hopeful heart and pray
In a humble way.—
Other hearts are gay.—
Ask not joy to-day:
Toil to-day along thy way
Keeping grudge at bay.—
On a past May-day
Flowers pranked all the way;
Nightingales sang out their say
On a night of May.—
Dost thou covet May
On an Autumn day?
Foolish memory saith its say
Of sweets past away.—
Gone the bloom of May,
Autumn beareth bay:
Flowerless wreath for head grown grey
Seemly were to-day.—
Dost thou covet bay?
Ask it not to-day:
Rather for a palm-branch pray;
None will say thee nay.
“When my heart is vexed I will complain.”
“The fields are white to harvest, look and see,
Are white abundantly.
The full-orbed harvest moon shines clear,
The harvest time draws near,
Be of good cheer.”
“Ah, woe is me!
I have no heart for harvest time,
Grown sick with hope deferred from chime to chime.”
“But Christ can give thee heart Who loveth thee:
Can set thee in the eternal ecstasy
Of His great jubilee:
Can give thee dancing heart and shining face,
And lips filled full of grace,
And pleasures as the rivers and the sea.
Who knocketh at His door
He welcomes evermore:
Kneel down before
That ever-open door
(The time is short) and smite
Thy breast, and pray with all thy might.”
“What shall I say?”
“Nay, pray.
Tho’ one but say Thy Will ’be done,’
He hath not lost his day
At set of sun.”
“Praying always.”
After midnight, in the dark
The clock strikes one,
New day has begun.
Look up and hark!
With singing heart forestall the carolling lark.
After mid-day, in the light
The clock strikes one,
Day-fall has begun.
Cast up, set right
The day’s account against the on-coming night.
After noon and night, one day
For ever one
Ends not, once begun.
Whither away,
O brothers and O sisters? Pause and pray.
“As thy days, so shall thy strength be.”
Day that hath no tinge of night,
Night that hath no tinge of day,
These at last will come to sight
Not to fade away.
This is twilight that we know,
Scarcely night and scarcely day;
This hath been from long ago
Shed around man’s way:
Step by step to utter night,
Step by step to perfect day,
To the Left Hand or the Right
Leading all away.
This is twilight: be it so;
Suited to our strength our day:
Let us follow on to know,
Patient by the way.
A heavy heart, if ever heart was heavy,
I offer Thee this heavy heart of me.
Are such as this the hearts Thou art fain to levy
To do and dare for Thee, to bleed for Thee?
Ah, blessed heaviness, if such they be!
Time was I bloomed with blossom and stood leafy
How long before the fruit, if fruit there be:
Lord, if by bearing fruit my heart grows heavy,
Leafless and bloomless yet accept of me
The stripped fruit-bearing heart I offer Thee.
Lifted to Thee my heart weighs not so heavy.
It leaps and lightens lifted up to Thee;
It sings, it hopes to sing amid the bevy
Of thousand thousand choirs that sing, and see
Thy Face, me loving, for Thou lovest me.
If love is not worth loving, then life is not worth living,
Nor aught is worth remembering but well forgot;
For store is not worth storing and gifts are not worth giving,
If love is not;
And idly cold is death-cold, and life-heat idly hot,
And vain is any offering and vainer our receiving,
And vanity of vanities is all our lot.
Better than life’s heaving heart is death’s heart unheaving,
Better than the opening leaves are the leaves that rot,
For there is nothing left worth achieving or retrieving,
If love is not.
What is it Jesus saith unto the soul?
“Take up the Cross, and come and follow Me.”
One word He saith to all men: none may be
Without a cross yet hope to touch the goal.
Then heave it bravely up, and brace thy whole
Body to bear; it will not weigh on thee
Past strength; or if it crush thee to thy knee
Take heart of grace, for grace shall be thy dole.
Give thanks to-day, and let to-morrow take
Heed to itself; to-day imports thee more,
To-morrow may not dawn like yesterday:
Until that unknown morrow go thy way,
Suffer and work and strive for Jesus’ sake:—
Who tells thee what to-morrow keeps in store?
They lie at rest, our blessed dead;
The dews drop cool above their head,
They knew not when fleet summer fled.
Together all, yet each alone;
Each laid at rest beneath his own
Smooth turf or white allotted stone.
When shall our slumber sink so deep,
And eyes that wept and eyes that weep
Weep not in the sufficient sleep?
God be with you, our great and small,
Our loves, our best beloved of all,
Our own beyond the salt sea-wall.
“Ye that fear him, both small and great.”
Great or small below,
Great or small above;
Be we Thine, whom Thou dost know
And love;
First or last on earth,
First or last in Heaven;
Only weighted with Thy worth,
And shriven.
Wise or ignorant,
Strong or weak; Amen;
Sifted now, cast down, in want:—
But then?
Then,—when sun nor moon,
Time nor death, finds place,
Seeing in the eternal noon
Thy Face:
Then,—when tears and sighing,
Changes, sorrows, cease;
Living by Thy Life undying
In peace:
Then,—when all creation
Keeps its jubilee,
Crowned amid Thy holy nation;
Crowned, discrowned, in adoration
Of Thee.
“Called to be Saints.”
The lowest place. Ah, Lord, how steep and high
That lowest place whereon a saint shall sit!
Which of us halting, trembling, pressing nigh,
Shall quite attain to it?
Yet, Lord, Thou pressest nigh to hail and grace
Some happy soul, it may be still unfit
For Right Hand or for Left Hand, but whose place
Waits there prepared for it.
The sinner’s own fault? So it was.
If every own fault found us out,
Dogged us and hedged us round about,
What comfort should we take because
Not half our due we thus wrung out?
Clearly his own fault. Yet I think
My fault in part, who did not pray
But lagged and would not lead the way.
I, haply, proved his missing link.
God help us both to mend and pray.
Who cares for earthly bread tho’ white?
Nay, heavenly sheaf of harvest corn!
Who cares for earthly crown to-night?
Nay, heavenly crown to-morrow morn!
I will not wander left or right,
The straightest road is shortest too;
And since we hold all hope in view
And triumph where is no more pain,
To-night I bid good night to you
And bid you meet me there again.
Laughing Life cries at the feast,—
Craving Death cries at the door,—
“Fish, or fowl, or fatted beast?”
“Come with me, thy feast is o’er.”—
“Wreathe the violets.”—“Watch them fade.”—
“I am sunshine.”—“I am shade:
I am the sun-burying west.”—
“I am pleasure.”—“I am rest:
Come with me, for I am best.”
“The end is net yet.”
Home by different ways. Yet all
Homeward bound thro’ prayer and praise,
Young with old, and great with small,
Home by different ways.
Many nights and many days
Wind must bluster, rain must fall,
Quake the quicksand, shift the haze.
Life hath called and death will call
Saints who praying kneel at gaze,
Ford the flood or leap the wall,
Home by different ways.
Who would wish back the Saints upon our rough
Wearisome road?
Wish back a breathless soul
Just at the goal?
My soul, praise God
For all dear souls which have enough.
I would not fetch one back to hope with me
A hope deferred,
To taste a cup that slips
From thirsting lips:—
Hath he not heard
And seen what was to hear and see?
How could I stand to answer the rebuke
If one should say:
“O friend of little faith,
Good was my death,
And good my day
Of rest, and good the sleep I took”?
“That which hath been is named already,
and it is known that it is Man.”
“Eye hath not seen”:—yet man hath known and weighed
A hundred thousand marvels that have been:
What is it which (the Word of Truth hath said)
Eye hath not seen?
“Ear hath not heard:”—yet harpings of delight,
Trumpets of triumph, song and spoken word,
Man knows them all: what lovelier, loftier might
Hath ear not heard?
“Nor heart conceived:”—yet man hath now desired
Beyond all reach, beyond his hope believed,
Loved beyond death: what fire shall yet be fired
No heart conceived?
“Deep calls to deep:”—man’s depth would be despair
But for God’s deeper depth: we sow to reap,
Have patience, wait, betake ourselves to prayer:
Deep answereth deep.
Of each sad word which is more sorrowful,
“Sorrow” or “Disappointment”? I have heard
Subtle inflections baffling subtlest rule,
Of each sad word.
Sorrow can mourn: and lo! a mourning bird
Sings sweetly to sweet echoes of its dule,
While silent disappointment broods unstirred.
Yet both nurse hope, where Penitence keeps school
Who makes fools wise and saints of them that erred:
Wise men shape stepping stone, or curb, or tool,
Of each sad word.
“I see that all things come to an end.”