Page:Complete Poetical Works of John Greenleaf Whittier (1895).djvu/74

42  Untrod by him the path he showed Sweet pictures on his easel glowed Of simple faith, and loves of home, And virtue’s golden days to come.

But weakness, shame, and folly made The foil to all his pen portrayed; Still, where his dreamy splendors shone, The shadow of himself was thrown.

Lord, what is man, whose thought, at times, Up to Thy sevenfold brightness climbs, While still his grosser instinct clings To earth, like other creeping things!

So rich in words, in acts so mean; So high, so low; chance-swung between The foulness of the penal pit And Truth’s clear sky, millennium-lit!

Vain, pride of star-lent genius!—vain, Quick fancy and creative brain, Unblest by prayerful sacrifice, Absurdly great, or weakly wise!

Midst yearnings for a truer life, Without were fears, within was strife; And still his wayward act denied The perfect good for which he sighed.

The love he sent forth void returned; The fame that crowned him scorched and burned, Burning, yet cold and drear and lone,— A fire-mount in a frozen zone!

Like that the gray-haired sea-king passed, Seen southward from his sleety mast, About whose brows of changeless frost A wreath of flame the wild winds tossed.

Far round the mournful beauty played Of lambent light and purple shade, Lost on the fixed and dumb despair Of frozen earth and sea and air!

A man apart, unknown, unloved By those whose wrongs his soul had moved, He bore the ban of Church and State, The good man’s fear, the bigot’s hate!

Forth from the city’s noise and throng, Its pomp and shame, its sin and wrong, The twain that summer day had strayed To Mount Valerien’s chestnut shade.

To them the green fields and the wood Lent something of their quietude, And golden-tinted sunset seemed Prophetical of all they dreamed.

The hermits from their simple cares The bell was calling home to prayers, And, listening to its sound, the twain Seemed lapped in childhood’s trust again.

Wide open stood the chapel door; A sweet old music, swelling o’er Low prayerful murmurs, issued thence,— The Litanies of Providence!

Then Rousseau spake: “Where two or three In His name meet, He there will be!” And then, in silence, on their knees They sank beneath the chestnut-trees.

As to the blind returning light, As daybreak to the Arctic night, Old faith revived; the doubts of years Dissolved in reverential tears.

That gush of feeling overpast, “Ah me!” Bernardin sighed at last, “I would thy bitterest foes could see Thy heart as it is seen of me!

“No church of God hast thou denied; Thou hast but spurned in scorn aside A bare and hollow counterfeit, Profaning the pure name of it!

“With dry dead moss and marish weeds His fire the western herdsman feeds, And greener from the ashen plain The sweet spring grasses rise again.

“Nor thunder-peal nor mighty wind Disturb the solid sky behind; And through the cloud the red bolt rends The calm, still smile of Heaven descends!

“Thus through the world, like bolt and blast, And scourging fire, thy words have passed. Clouds break,—the steadfast heavens remain; Weeds burn,—the ashes feed the grain!

“But whoso strives with wrong may find Its touch pollute, its darkness blind;