1.
FROM thine, as then, the healing virtue goes Into our hearts--that is the Father's plan.
>From heart to heart it sinks, it steals, it flows, >From these that know thee still infecting those.
Here is my heart--from thine, Lord, fill it up, That I may offer it as the holy cup Of thy communion to my every man.
2.
When thou dost send out whirlwinds on thy seas, Alternatest thy lightning with its roar, Thy night with morning, and thy clouds with stars Or, mightier force unseen in midst of these, Orderest the life in every airy pore;
Guidest men's efforts, rul'st mishaps and jars,--'Tis only for their hearts, and nothing more.
3.
This, this alone thy father careth for--That men should live hearted throughout with thee--Because the simple, only life thou art, Of the very truth of living, the pure heart.
For this, deep waters whelm the fruitful lea, Wars ravage, famine wastes, plague withers, nor Shall cease till men have chosen the better part.
4.
But, like a virtuous medicine, self-diffused Through all men's hearts thy love shall sink and float;
Till every feeling false, and thought unwise, Selfish, and seeking, shall, sternly disused, Wither, and die, and shrivel up to nought;
And Christ, whom they did hang 'twixt earth and skies, Up in the inner world of men arise.
5.
Make me a fellow worker with thee, Christ;
Nought else befits a God-born energy;
Of all that's lovely, only lives the highest, Lifing the rest that it shall never die.
Up I would be to help thee--for thou liest Not, linen-swathed in Joseph's garden-tomb, But walkest crowned, creation's heart and bloom.
6.
My God, when I would lift my heart to thee, Imagination instantly doth set A cloudy something, thin, and vast, and vague, To stand for him who is the fact of me;
Then up the Will, and doth her weakness plague To pay the heart her duty and her debt, Showing the face that hearkeneth to the plea.
7.
And hence it comes that thou at times dost seem To fade into an image of my mind;
I, dreamer, cover, hide thee up with dream,--Thee, primal, individual entity!--No likeness will I seek to frame or find, But cry to that which thou dost choose to be, To that which is my sight, therefore I cannot see.
8.
No likeness? Lo, the Christ! Oh, large Enough!
I see, yet fathom not the face he wore.
He is--and out of him there is no stuff To make a man. Let fail me every spark Of blissful vision on my pathway rough, I have seen much, and trust the perfect more, While to his feet my faith crosses the wayless dark.
9.
Faith is the human shadow of thy might.
Thou art the one self-perfect life, and we Who trust thy life, therein join on to thee, Taking our part in self-creating light.
To trust is to step forward out of the night--To be--to share in the outgoing Will That lives and is, because outgoing still.
10.
I am lost before thee, Father! yet I will Claim of thee my birthright ineffable.
Thou lay'st it on me, son, to claim thee, sire;
To that which thou hast made me, I aspire;
To thee, the sun, upflames thy kindled fire.
No man presumes in that to which he was born;
Less than the gift to claim, would be the giver to scorn.
11.
Henceforth all things thy dealings are with me For out of thee is nothing, or can be, And all things are to draw us home to thee.
What matter that the knowers scoffing say, "This is old folly, plain to the new day"?--If thou be such as thou, and they as they, Unto thy Let there be, they still must answer Nay.
12.
They will not, therefore cannot, do not know him.
Nothing they could know, could be God. In sooth, Unto the true alone exists the truth.
They say well, saying Nature doth not show him:
Truly she shows not what she cannot show;
And they deny the thing they cannot know.
Who sees a glory, towards it will go.
13.
Faster no step moves God because the fool Shouts to the universe God there is none;
The blindest man will not preach out the sun, Though on his darkness he should found a school.
It may be, when he finds he is not dead, Though world and body, sight and sound are fled, Some eyes may open in his foolish head.
14.
When I am very weary with hard thought, And yet the question burns and is not quenched, My heart grows cool when to remembrance wrought That thou who know'st the light-born answer sought Know'st too the dark where the doubt lies entrenched--Know'st with what seemings I am sore perplexed, And that with thee I wait, nor needs my soul be vexed.
15.
Who sets himself not sternly to be good, Is but a fool, who judgment of true things Has none, however oft the claim renewed.
