Page:Complete Poetical Works of John Greenleaf Whittier (1895).djvu/469

Rh


 * Between us and the Afric saint,
 * And at his side we urge, to-day,

The immemorial quest and old complaint.


 * No outward sign to us is given,—
 * From sea or earth comes no reply;
 * Hushed as the warm Numidian heaven

He vainly questioned bends our frozen sky.


 * No victory comes of all our strife,—
 * From all we grasp the meaning slips;
 * The Sphinx sits at the gate of life,

With the old question on her awful lips.


 * In paths unknown we hear the feet
 * Of fear before, and guilt behind;
 * We pluck the wayside fruit, and eat

Ashes and dust beneath its golden rind.


 * From age to age descends unchecked
 * The sad bequest of sire to son,
 * The body’s taint, the mind’s defect;

Through every web of life the dark threads run.


 * Oh, why and whither? God knows all;
 * I only know that He is good,
 * And that whatever may befall

Or here or there, must be the best that could.


 * Between the dreadful cherubim
 * A Father’s face I still discern,
 * As Moses looked of old on Him,

And saw His glory into goodness turn!


 * For He is merciful as just;
 * And so, by faith correcting sight,
 * I bow before His will, and trust

Howe’er they seem He doeth all things right.


 * And dare to hope that He will make
 * The rugged smooth, the doubtful plain;
 * His mercy never quite forsake;

His healing visit every realm of pain;


 * That suffering is not His revenge
 * Upon His creatures weak and frail,
 * Sent on a pathway new and strange

With feet that wander and with eyes that fail;


 * That, o’er the crucible of pain,
 * Watches the tender eye of Love
 * The slow transmuting of the chain

Whose links are iron below to gold above!


 * Ah me! we doubt the shining skies,
 * Seen through our shadows of offence,
 * And drown with our poor childish cries

The cradle-hymn of kindly Providence.


 * And still we love the evil cause,
 * And of the just effect complain:
 * We tread upon life’s broken laws,

And murmur at our self-inflicted pain;


 * We turn us from the light, and find
 * Our spectral shapes before us thrown,
 * As they who leave the sim behind

Walk in the shadows of themselves alone.


 * And scarce by will or strength of ours
 * We set our faces to the day;
 * Weak, wavering, blind, the Eternal Powers

Alone can turn us from ourselves away.


 * Our weakness is the strength of sin,
 * But love must needs be stronger far,
 * Outreaching all and gathering in

The erring spirit and the wandering star.


 * A Voice grows with the growing years;
 * Earth, hushing down her bitter cry,
 * Looks upward from her graves, and hears,

“The Resurrection and the Life am I.”