Page:Complete Poetical Works of John Greenleaf Whittier (1895).djvu/459

Rh Summon thy sunshine bravery back,
 * O wretched sprite!

Let me hear thy voice through this deep and black
 * Abysmal night.

What hast thou wrought for Right and Truth,
 * For God and Man,

From the golden hours of bright-eyed youth
 * To life’s mid span?

Ah, soul of mine, thy tones I hear,
 * But weak and low,

Like far sad murmurs on my ear
 * They come and go.

“I have wrestled stoutly with the Wrong,
 * And borne the Right

From beneath the footfall of the throng
 * To life and light.

“Wherever Freedom shivered a chain,
 * God speed, quoth I;

To Error amidst her shouting train
 * I gave the lie.”

Ah, soul of mine! ah, soul of mine!
 * Thy deeds are well:

Were they wrought for Truth’s sake or for thine?
 * My soul, pray tell.

“Of all the work my hand hath wrought
 * Beneath the sky,

Save a place in kindly human thought,
 * No gain have I.”

Go to, go to! for thy very self
 * Thy deeds were done:

Thou for fame, the miser for pelf,
 * Your end is one!

And where art thou going, soul of mine?
 * Canst see the end?

And whither this troubled life of thine
 * Evermore doth tend?

What daunts thee now? what shakes thee so?
 * My sad soul, say.

“I see a cloud like a curtain low
 * Hang o’er my way.

“Whither I go I cannot tell:
 * That cloud hangs black,

High as the heaven and deep as hell
 * Across my track.

“I see its shadow coldly enwrap
 * The souls before.

Sadly they enter it, step by step,
 * To return no more.

“They shrink, they shudder, dear God! they kneel
 * To Thee in prayer.

They shut their eyes on the cloud, but feel
 * That it still is there.

“In vain they turn from the dread Before
 * To the Known and Gone;

For while gazing behind them evermore
 * Their feet glide on.

“Yet, at times, I see upon sweet pale faces
 * A light begin

To tremble, as if from holy places
 * And shrines within.

“And at times methinks their cold lips move
 * With hymn and prayer,

As if somewhat of awe, but more of love
 * And hope were there.

“I call on the souls who have left the light
 * To reveal their lot;

I bend mine ear to that wall of night,
 * And they answer not.

“But I hear around me sighs of pain
 * And the cry of fear,

And a sound like the slow sad dropping of rain,
 * Each drop a tear!

“Ah, the cloud is dark, and day by day
 * I am moving thither:

I must pass beneath it on my way—
 * God pity me!—whither?”

Ah, soul of mine! so brave and wise
 * In the life-storm loud,

Fronting so calmly all human eyes
 * In the sunlit crowd!