Page:Complete Poetical Works of John Greenleaf Whittier (1895).djvu/126

94  Knowing, at last, that it is not in man Who walketh to direct his steps, or plan His permanent house of life. Alike we loved The muses’ haunts, and all our fancies moved To measures of old song. How since that day Our feet have parted from the path that lay So fair before us! Rich, from lifelong search Of truth, within thy Academic porch Thou sittest now, lord of a realm of fact, Thy servitors the sciences exact; Still listening with thy hand on Nature’s keys, To hear the Samian’s spheral harmonies And rhythm of law. I, called from dream and song, Thank God! so early to a strife so long, That, ere it closed, the black, abundant hair Of boyhood rested silver-sown and spare On manhood’s temples, now at sunset-chime Tread with fond feet the path of morning time. And if perchance too late I linger where The flowers have ceased to blow, and trees are bare, Thou, wiser in thy choice, wilt scarcely blame The friend who shields his folly with thy name.

Passed from the crowded village lanes, White with dry dust for lack of rains, And climbed the neighboring slope, with feet Slackened and heavy from the heat, Although the day was wellnigh done, And the low angle of the sun Along the naked hillside cast Our shadows as of giants vast. We reached, at length, the topmost swell, Whence, either way, the green turf fell In terraces of nature down To fruit-hung orchards, and the town With white, pretenceless houses, tall Church-steeples, and, o’ershadowing all, Huge mills whose windows had the look Of eager eyes that ill could brook The Sabbath rest. We traced the track Of the sea-seeking river back, Glistening for miles above its mouth, Through the long valley to the south, And, looking eastward, cool to view, Stretched the illimitable blue Of ocean, from its curved coast-line; Sombred and still the warm sunshine Filled with pale gold-dust all the reach Of slumberous woods from hill to beach,— Slanted on walls of thronged retreats From city toil and dusty streets, On grassy bluff, and dune of sand, And rocky islands miles from land; Touched the far-glancing sails, and showed White lines of foam where long waves flowed Dumb in the distance. In the north, Dim through their misty hair, looked forth The space-dwarfed mountains to the sea, From mystery to mystery!


 * So, sitting on that green hill-slope,

We talked of human life, its hope And fear, and unsolved doubts, and what It might have been, and yet was not. And, when at last the evening air Grew sweeter for the bells of prayer Ringing in steeples far below, We watched the people churchward go, Each to his place, as if thereon The true shekinah only shone; And my friend queried how it came To pass that they who owned the same Great Master still could not agree To worship Him in company. Then, broadening in his thought, he ran Over the whole vast field of man,— The varying forms of faith and creed That somehow served the holders’ need; In which, unquestioned, undenied, Uncounted millions lived and died; The bibles of the ancient folk, Through which the heart of nations spoke; The old moralities which lent To home its sweetness and content, And rendered possible to bear The life of peoples everywhere: And asked if we, who boast of light, Claim not a too exclusive right To truths which must for all be meant, Like rain and sunshine freely sent. In bondage to the letter still, We give it power to cramp and kill,— To tax God’s fulness with a scheme