Page:Complete Poetical Works of John Greenleaf Whittier (1895).djvu/463

Rh To cheer and aid, in some ennobling cause,
 * His fellow-men?

If he hath hidden the outcast, or let in A ray of sunshine to the cell of sin;
 * If he hath lent

Strength to the weak, and, in an hour of need, Over the suffering, mindless of his creed
 * Or home, hath bent;

He has not lived in vain, and while he gives The praise to Him, in whom he moves and lives,
 * With thankful heart;

He gazes backward, and with hope before, Knowing that from his works he nevermore
 * Can henceforth part.

Thy clear spaces, Lord, of old, Formless and void the dead earth rolled; Deaf to Thy heaven’s sweet music, blind To the great lights which o’er it shined; No sound, no ray, no warmth, no breath,— A dumb despair, a wandering death.

To that dark, weltering horror came Thy spirit, like a subtle flame,— A breath of life electrical, Awakening and transforming all, Till beat and thrilled in every part The pulses of a living heart.

Then knew their bounds the land and sea; Then smiled the bloom of mead and tree; From flower to moth, from beast to man, The quick creative impulse ran; And earth, with life from thee renewed, Was in thy holy eyesight good.

As lost and void, as dark and cold And formless as that earth of old; A wandering waste of storm and night, Midst spheres of song and realms of light; A blot upon thy holy sky, Untouched, unwarned of thee, am I.

O Thou who movest on the deep Of spirits, wake my own from sleep!