Page:Complete Poetical Works of John Greenleaf Whittier (1895).djvu/474

442   “To doubt the love that fain would break
 * The fetters from thy self-bound limb;

And dream that God can thee forsake
 * As thou forsakest Him!”

with whom my feet have trod
 * The quiet aisles of prayer,

Glad witness to your zeal for God
 * And love of man I bear.

I trace your lines of argument;
 * Your logic linked and strong

I weigh as one who dreads dissent,
 * And fears a doubt as wrong.

But still my human hands are weak
 * To hold your iron creeds:

Against the words ye bid me speak
 * My heart within me pleads.

Who fathoms the Eternal Thought?
 * Who talks of scheme and plan?

The Lord is God! He needeth not
 * The poor device of man.

I walk with bare, hushed feet the ground
 * Ye tread with boldness shod;

I dare not fix with mete and bound
 * The love and power of God.

Ye praise His justice; even such
 * His pitying love I deem:

Ye seek a king; I fain would touch
 * The robe that hath no seam.

Ye see the curse which overbroods
 * A world of pain and loss;

I hear our Lord’s beatitudes
 * And prayer upon the cross.

More than your schoolmen teach, within
 * Myself, alas! I know:

Too dark ye cannot paint the sin,
 * Too small the merit show.

I bow my forehead to the dust,
 * I veil mine eyes for shame,

And urge, in trembling self-distrust,
 * A prayer without a claim.

I see the wrong that round me lies,
 * I feel the guilt within;

I hear, with groan and travail-cries,
 * The world confess its sin.

Yet, in the maddening maze of things,
 * And tossed by storm and flood,

To one fixed trust my spirit clings;
 * I know that God is good!

Not mine to look where cherubim
 * And seraphs may not see,

But nothing can be good in Him
 * Which evil is in me.

The wrong that pains my soul below
 * I dare not throne above,

I know not of His hate,—I know
 * His goodness and His love.

I dimly guess from blessings known
 * Of greater out of sight,

And, with the chastened Psalmist, own
 * His judgments too are right.

I long for household voices gone,
 * For vanished smiles I long,

But God hath led my dear ones on,
 * And He can do no wrong.

I know not what the future hath
 * Of marvel or surprise,

Assured alone that life and death
 * His mercy underlies.

And if my heart and flesh are weak
 * To bear an untried pain,

The bruisëd reed He will not break,
 * But strengthen and sustain.

No offering of my own I have,
 * Nor works my faith to prove;

I can but give the gifts He gave,
 * And plead His love for love.

And so beside the Silent Sea
 * I wait the muffled oar;

No harm from Him can come to me
 * On ocean or on shore.

I know not where His islands lift
 * Their fronded palms in air;

I only know I cannot drift
 * Beyond His love and care.

O brothers! if my faith is vain,
 * If hopes like these betray,