The wise in matter and in mind,
The soldier, sage, and priest,
King, prophet, hero, saint, and bard,
The greatest soul and least.
The old and young and very babe,
The maiden and the youth,
All re-born angels of one age
The age of Heaven and truth;
The rich, the poor, the good, the bad,
Redeemed alike from sin;
Lord! close the book of time, and let
Eternity begin.
THIS LIFE'S ULTIMATE KNOWLEDGE.
AND as the vesper hymn of Time precedes
The starry matins of Eternity
And daybreak of existence in the Heavens,—
To know this, is to know we shall depart
Into the storm-surrounding calm on high,
The sacred cirque, the all-central infinite
Of that self-blessedness wherein abides
Our God, all kind, all loving, all beloved ; —
To feel life one great ritual, and its laws
Writ in the vital rubric of the blood,
Flow in obedience and flow out command,
In sealike circulation; and be here
Accepted as a gift by Him, who gives,
An empire as an alms, nor counts it aught,
So long as all his creatures joy in Him,
The great Rejoicer of the Universe,
Whom all the boundless spheres of Being bless.
Thine is the Spirit which commands and smiles;
The soul which serves and suffers; - Thine the stars
Tabled upon Thy bosom like the stones
Oracular of light, on the priest's breast;
Thine the minutest mote the moonbeams shew!
Let but Thy words come true, and all are blest;
Be but Thine infinite intents fulfilled,
And what shall foil the covenanted oath
Whereon the mounded earth is based? - and lo!
The whole at last redeemed and glorified.
Johir Greenleaf Whittier.
TAULER, the preacher, walked, one autumn day,
Without the walls of Strasburg, by the Rhine,
Pondering the solemn miracle of life,
As one who, wandering in the starless night,
Feels, momently, the jar of unseen waves,
And hears the thunder of an unknown sea,
Breaking along an unimagined shore.
And as he walked he prayed even the same Old prayer with which, for half a score of years, Morning, and noon, and evening, lip and heart Had groaned: "Have pity upon me, O Lord! Thou seest, while teaching others, I am blind : Send me a man that can direct my steps!"
Then, as he mused, he heard along his path
A sound as of an old man's staff among
The dry, dead linden leaves, and looking up
He saw a stranger, weak, and poor, and old.
"Peace unto thee, father!" Tauler said:
"God gives thee a good day!" The old man raised Slowly his calm blue eyes. "I thank thee, son; But all my days are good, and none are ill."
Wondering thereat, the preacher spake again : "God give thee' a happy life." The old man smiled: "I never am unhappy."
His hand upon the stranger's coarse gray sleeve :
"Tell me, O father, what thy strange words mean.
Surely man's days are evil, and his life
Sad as the grave it leads to." "Nay, my son,
Our times are in God's hands, and all our days
Are as our needs: for shadow as for sun,
For cold as heat, for want as wealth, alike
Our thanks are due, since that is best which is,
And that which is not, sharing not His life,
Is evil only as devoid of good.
And for the happiness of which I spake,`
I find it in submission to His will,
And calm trust in the holy Trinity,
Its knowledge, goodness, and almighty power."
Silently wondering for a little space
Stood the great preacher; then he spake as one
Who, suddenly grappling with a haunting thought,
Which long has followed, whispering through the dark
Strange terrors, drags it, shrieking, into light :
"What if God's will consign thee hence to hell?"
"Then," said the stranger, cheerily, “be it so.
What hell may be I know not; this I know-
I cannot lose the presence of the Lord.
One arm, Humility, takes hold upon
His dear Humanity; the other, Love,
Clasps his Divinity. So, where I go
He goes; and better fire-walled hell with Him
Than golden-gated paradise without."
Tears sprang in Tauler's eyes.
Like the first ray that fell on chaos, clove
Apart the shadow wherein he had walked
Darkly at noon. And, as the strange old man
Went his slow way until his silver hair
Set like the white moon, where the hills of vines
Slope to the Rhine, he bowed his head and said :
My prayer is answered. God hath sent the man Long sought, to teach me, by his simple trust, Wisdom the weary schoolmen never knew."
So, entering with a changed and cheerful step
The city gates, he saw, far down the street,
A mighty shadow break the light of noon,
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