Page:Complete Poetical Works of John Greenleaf Whittier (1895).djvu/453

Rh All-moving spirit! freely forth
 * At Thy command the strong wind goes:

Its errand to the passive earth,
 * Nor art can stay, nor strength oppose,

Until it folds its weary wing
 * Once more within the hand divine;

So, weary from its wandering,
 * My spirit turns to Thine!

Child of the sea, the mountain stream,
 * From its dark caverns, hurries on,

Ceaseless, by night and morning’s beam,
 * By evening’s star and noontide’s sun,

Until at last it sinks to rest,
 * O’erwearied, in the waiting sea,

And moans upon its mother’s breast,—
 * So turns my soul to Thee!

O Thou who bidst the torrent flow,
 * Who lendest wings unto the wind,—

Mover of all things! where art Thou?
 * Oh, whither shall I go to find

The secret of Thy resting-place?
 * Is there no holy wing for me,

That, soaring, I may search the space
 * Of highest heaven for Thee?

Oh, would I were as free to rise
 * As leaves on autumn’s whirlwind borne,—

The arrowy light of sunset skies,
 * Or sound, or ray, or star of morn,

Which melts in heaven at twilight’s close,
 * Or aught which soars unchecked and free

Through earth and heaven; that I might lose
 * Myself in finding Thee!

The Puritans of New England, even in their wilderness home, were not exempted from the sectarian contentions which agitated the mother country after the downfall of Charles the