Page:Complete Poetical Works of John Greenleaf Whittier (1895).djvu/426

394  “Ill served his tides of feeling strong
 * To turn the common mills of use;

And, over restless wings of song,
 * His birthright garb hung loose!

“His eye was beauty’s powerless slave,
 * And his the ear which discord pains;

Few guessed beneath his aspect grave
 * What passions strove in chains.

“He had his share of care and pain,
 * No holiday was life to him;

Still in the heirloom cup we drain
 * The bitter drop will swim.

“Yet Heaven was kind, and here a bird
 * And there a flower beguiled his way;

And cool, in summer noons, he heard
 * The fountains plash and play.

“On all his sad or restless moods
 * The patient peace of Nature stole;

The quiet of the fields and woods
 * Sank deep into his sold.

“He worshipped as his fathers did,
 * And kept the faith of childish days,

And, howsoe’er he strayed or slid,
 * He loved the good old ways.

“The simple tastes, the kindly traits,
 * The tranquil air, and gentle speech,

The silence of the soul that waits
 * For more than man to teach.

“The cant of party, school, and sect,
 * Provoked at times his honest scorn,

And Folly, in its gray respect,
 * He tossed on satire’s horn.

“But still his heart was full of awe
 * And reverence for all sacred things;

And, brooding over form and law,
 * He saw the Spirit’s wings!

“Life’s mystery wrapt him like a cloud;
 * He heard far voices mock his own,

The sweep of wings unseen, the loud,
 * Long roll of waves unknown.

“The arrows of his straining sight
 * Fell quenched in darkness; priest and sage,

Like lost guides calling left and right,
 * Perplexed his doubtful age.

“Like childhood, listening for the sound
 * Of its dropped pebbles in the well,

All vainly down the dark profound
 * His brief-lined plummet fell.

“So, scattering flowers with pious pains
 * On old beliefs, of later creeds,

Which claimed a place in Truth’s domains,
 * He asked the title-deeds.

“He saw the old-time’s groves and shrines
 * In the long distance fair and dim;

And heard, like sound of far-off pines,
 * The century-mellowed hymn!

“He dared not mock the Dervish whirl,
 * The Brahmin’s rite, the Lama’s spell;

God knew the heart; Devotion’s pearl
 * Might sanctify the shell.

“While others trod the altar stairs
 * He faltered like the publican;

And, while they praised as saints, his prayers
 * Were those of sinful man.

“For, awed by Sinai’s Mount of Law,
 * The trembling faith alone sufficed,

That, through its cloud and flame, he saw
 * The sweet, sad face of Christ!

“And listening, with his forehead bowed,
 * Heard the Divine compassion fill

The pauses of the trump and cloud
 * With whispers small and still.

“The words he spake, the thoughts he penned,
 * Are mortal as his hand and brain,

But, if they served the Master’s end,
 * He has not lived in vain!”

Heaven make thee better than thy name,
 * Child of my friends!—For thee I crave

What riches never bought, nor fame
 * To mortal longing gave.

I pray the prayer of Plato old:
 * God make thee beautiful within,

And let thine eyes the good behold
 * In everything save sin!