Page:Complete Poetical Works of John Greenleaf Whittier (1895).djvu/102

70  Awhile my friend with rapid search O’erran the landscape. “Yonder spire Over gray roofs, a shaft of fire; What is it, pray?”—“The Whitefield Church! Walled about by its basement stones, There rest the marvellous prophet’s bones.” Then as our homeward way we walked, Of the great preacher’s life we talked; And through the mystery of our theme The outward glory seemed to stream, And Nature’s self interpreted The doubtful record of the dead; And every level beam that smote The sails upon the dark afloat A symbol of the light became, Which touched the shadows of our blame With tongues of Pentecostal flame.

Over the roofs of the pioneers Gathers the moss of a hundred years; On man and his works has passed the change Which needs must be in a century’s range. The land lies open and warm in the sun, Anvils clamor and mill-wheels run,— Flocks on the hillsides, herds on the plain, The wilderness gladdened with fruit and grain! But the living faith of the settlers old A dead profession their children hold; To the lust of office and greed of trade A stepping-stone is the altar made. The Church, to place and power the door, Rebukes the sin of the world no more, Nor sees its Lord in the homeless poor. Everywhere is the grasping hand, And eager adding of land to land; And earth, which seemed to the fathers meant But as a pilgrim’s wayside tent,— A nightly shelter to fold away When the Lord should call at the break of day,— Solid and steadfast seems to be, And Time has forgotten Eternity!

But fresh and green from the rotting roots Of primal forests the young growth shoots; From the death of the old the new proceeds, And the life of truth from the rot of creeds: On the ladder of God, which upward leads, The steps of progress are human needs. For His judgments still are a mighty deep, And the eyes of His providence never sleep: When the night is darkest He gives the morn; When the famine is sorest, the wine and corn!

In the church of the wilderness Edwards wrought, Shaping his creed at the forge of thought; And with Thor’s own hammer welded and bent The iron links of his argument, Which strove to grasp in its mighty span The purpose of God and the fate of man! Yet faithful still, in his daily round To the weak, and the poor, and sin-sick found, The schoolman’s lore and the casuist’s art Drew warmth and life from his fervent heart. Had he not seen in the solitudes Of his deep and dark Northampton woods A vision of love about him fall? Not the blinding splendor which fell on Saul, But the tenderer glory that rests on them Who walk in the New Jerusalem, Where never the sun nor moon are known, But the Lord and His love are the light alone! And watching the sweet, still countenance Of the wife of his bosom rapt in trance, Had he not treasured each broken word Of the mystical wonder seen and heard; And loved the beautiful dreamer more That thus to the desert of earth she bore Clusters of Eshcol from Canaan’s shore?

As the barley-winnower, holding with pain Aloft in waiting his chaff and grain, Joyfully welcomes the far-off breeze Sounding the pine-tree’s slender keys, So he who had waited long to hear The sound of the Spirit drawing near, Like that which the son of Iddo heard When the feet of angels the myrtles stirred, Felt the answer of prayer, at last, As over his church the afflatus passed, Breaking its sleep as breezes break To sun-bright ripples a stagnant lake.

At first a tremor of silent fear, The creep of the flesh at danger near, A vague foreboding and discontent, Over the hearts of the people went.