Page:Complete Poetical Works of John Greenleaf Whittier (1895).djvu/491

Rh The holy coat and nail of cross,
 * He left unvisited.

He sought the vale of Eltzbach
 * His burdened soul to free,

Where the foot-hills of the Eifel
 * Are glassed in Laachersee.

And, in his Order’s kloster,
 * He sat, in night-long parle,

With Tauler of the Friends of God,
 * And Nicolas of Basle.

And lo! the twain made answer:
 * “Yea, brother, even thus

The Voice above all voices
 * Hath spoken unto us.

The world will have its idols,
 * And flesh and sense their sign:

But the blinded eyes shall open,
 * And the gross ear be fine.

What if the vision tarry?
 * God’s time is always best;

The true Light shall be witnessed,
 * The Christ within confessed.

In mercy or in judgment
 * He shall turn and overturn,

Till the heart shall be His temple
 * Where all of Him shall learn.”

the minister’s morning sermon
 * He had told of the primal fall,

And how thenceforth the wrath of God
 * Rested on each and all.

And how of His will and pleasure,
 * All souls, save a chosen few,

Were doomed to the quenchless burning,
 * And held in the way thereto.

Yet never by faith’s unreason
 * A saintlier soul was tried,

And never the harsh old lesson
 * A tenderer heart belied.

And, after the painful service
 * On that pleasant Sabbath day,

He walked with his little daughter
 * Through the apple-bloom of May.

Sweet in the fresh green meadows
 * Sparrow and blackbird sung;

Above him their tinted petals
 * The blossoming orchards hung.

Around on the wonderful glory
 * The minister looked and smiled;

How good is the Lord who gives us
 * These gifts from His hand, my child!

Behold in the bloom of apples
 * And the violets in the sward

A hint of the old, lost beauty
 * Of the Garden of the Lord!”

Then up spake the little maiden,
 * Treading on snow and pink:

O father! these pretty blossoms
 * Are very wicked, I think.

“Had there been no Garden of Eden
 * There never had been a fall;

And if never a tree had blossomed
 * God would have loved us all.”