That doubt and trouble, fear and pain, And anguish, all are sorrows vain; That death itself shall not remain: That weary deserts we may tread, Yet, if we will our Guide obey, And we, on divers shores now cast, Shall meet, our perilous voyage past, All in our Father's home at last. And ere thou leave them, say thou this, Yet one word more: They only miss The winning of that final bliss Who will not count it true that Love, Blessing, not cursing, rules above, And that in it we live and move. And one thing further make him know, Despite of all which seems at strife With blessing, and with curses rife, That this is blessing, this is life. ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH. [1819-1861.] THE NEW SINAI. Lo, here is God, and there is God! In such vain sort to this and that Take better part, with manly heart, As men at dead of night awaked With cries, "The king is here," Rush forth and greet whome'er they meet, Whoe'er shall first appear; And still repeat, to all the street, So, even so, when men were young, From buman hearts withdrew, The soul perplexed and daily vexed With sensuous False and True, Amazed, bereaved, no less believed, And fain would see Him too. "He is!" the prophet-tongues proclaimed; In joy and hasty fear, "He is!" aloud replied the crowd, **Is, here, and here, and here." "He is! They are!" in distance seen On yon Olympus high, In those Avernian woods abide, 66 And walk this azure sky: They are! They are!" to every show Its eyes the baby turned, And blazes sacrificial, tall, On thousand altars burned: "They are! They are!"-On Sinai's top Far seen the lightning's shone, God spake it out, "I, God, am One"; Have dogged the growing man: God said that God is One, And heart and mind of human kind Is this a Voice, as was the Voice The ancient truth of God? Ah, not the Voice; 't is but the cloud, The outer darkness dense, Where image none, nor e'er was seen ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH. "T is but the cloudy darkness dense, Some chosen prophet-soul the while Mid atheistic systems dark, And darker hearts' despair, That soul has heard perchance his word, And on the dusky air, His skirts, as passed He by, to see Hath strained on their behalf, Who on the plain, with dance amain, Adore the Golden Calf. 'Tis but the cloudy darkness dense; Though blank the tale it tells, No God, no Truth! yet He, in sooth, He dwells that none may see, Take better part, with manlier heart, No God, no Truth, receive it ne'er- And wait it out, O man! The Man that went the cloud within Is gone and vanished quite; "He cometh not," the people cries, "Nor bringeth God to sight": "Lo these thy gods, that safety give, Adore and keep the feast!" Deluding and defuded cries The Prophet's brother-Priest: Devout, indeed! that priestly creed, 243 He yet shall bring some worthy thing Thou shalt receive, thou shalt believe, FROM THE "BOTHIE OF TOBER-NAVUOLICH." WHERE does Circumstance end, and Providence, where begins it? What are we to resist, and what are we to be friends with? If there is battle 't is battle by night; I stand in the darkness, Here in the midst of men, Ionian and Dorian on both sides, Signal and password known; which is friend, which is foeman? Is it a friend? I doubt, though he speak with the voice of a brother. O that the armies indeed were arrayed! Sound, thou trumpet of God, come forth Would that the armies indeed were Only infinite jumble and mess and dislocation, Backed by a solemn appeal, "For God's sake do not stir there!" THE STREAM OF LIFE. O STREAM descending to the sea, In garden plots the children play, O life descending into death Our waking eyes behold, Parent and friend thy lapse attend, Companions young and old. Strong purposes our minds possess, Our hearts affections fill, We toil and earn, we seek and learn, And thou descendest still. O end to which our currents tend, To which we flow, what do we know, A roar we hear upon thy shore, QUA CURSUM VENTUS. As ships becalmed at eve, that lay Are scarce, long leagues apart, de- When fell the night, upsprung the breeze, And all the darkling hours they plied, Nor dreamt but each the selfsame seas By each was cleaving, side by side: E'en so, but why the tale reveal Of those whom, year by year unchanged, Brief absence joined anew to feel, Astounded, soul from soul estranged? At dead of night their sails were filled, And onward each rejoicing steered: Ah, neither blame, for neither willed, Or wist, what first with dawn appeared ! To veer, how vain! On, onward strain, Brave barks! In light, in darkness too, Through winds and tides one compass guides, To that, and your own selves, be true. But O blithe breeze, and O great seas, Though ne'er, that earliest parting past, On your wide plain they join again, Together lead them home at last! One port, methought, alike they sought, O bounding breeze, O rushing seas, SAMUEL LONGFELLOW. [U. S. A.] THE GOLDEN SUNSET. THE golden sea its mirror spreads The cloud-like rocks, the rock-like clouds, And, midway of the radiant flood, The sea is but another sky, The sky a sea as well, And which is earth, and which the heav ens, The eye can scarcely tell. So when for us life's evening hour Flooded with peace the spirit float, With silent rapture glow, Till where earth ends and heaven begins The soul shall scarcely know. SARAH J. WILLIAMS. QUIET FROM GOD. QUIET from God! It cometh not to still It dims not youth's bright eye, Need in its presence bow. It comes not in a sullen form, to place Life's greatest good in an inglorious rest; Through a dull, beaten track its way to trace, And to lethargic slumber lull the breast; Action may be its sphere, Mountain paths, boundless fields, O'er billows its career: This is the power it yields. |