Page:Complete Poetical Works of John Greenleaf Whittier (1895).djvu/76

44   “Yet in his time the stake blazed red, The poor were eaten up like bread: Men knew him not; his garment’s hem No healing virtue had for them.

“Alas! no present saint we find; The white cymar gleams far behind, Revealed in outline vague, sublime, Through telescopic mists of time!

“Trust not in man with passing breath, But in the Lord, old Scripture saith; The truth which saves thou mayest not blend With false professor, faithless friend.

“Search thine own heart. What paineth thee In others in thyself may be; All dust is frail, all flesh is weak; Be thou the true man thou dost seek!

“Where now with pain thou treadest, trod The whitest of the saints of God! To show thee where their feet were set, The light which led them shineth yet.

“The footprints of the life divine, Which marked their path, remain in thine; And that great Life, transfused in theirs, Awaits thy faith, thy love, thy prayers!”

A lesson which I well may heed, A word of fitness to my need; So from that twilight cool and gray Still saith a voice, or seems to say.

We rose, and slowly homeward turned, While down the west the sunset burned; And, in its light, hill, wood, and tide, And human forms seemed glorified.

The village homes transfigured stood, And purple bluffs, whose belting wood Across the waters leaned to hold The yellow leaves like lamps of gold.

Then spake my friend: “Thy words are true; Forever old, forever new, These home-seen splendors are the same Which over Eden’s sunsets came.

“To these bowed heavens let wood and hill Lift voiceless praise and anthem still; Fall, warm with blessing, over them, Light of the New Jerusalem!

“Flow on, sweet river, like the stream Of John’s Apocalyptic dream! This mapled ridge shall Horeb be, Yon green-banked lake our Galilee!

“Henceforth my heart shall sigh no more For olden time and holier shore; God’s love and blessing, then and there, Are now and here and everywhere.”

Without the walls of Strasburg, by the Rhine, Pondering the solemn Miracle of Life; As one who, wandering in a starless night, Feels momently the jar of unseen waves, And hears the thunder of an unknown sea, Breaking along an unimagined shore.


 * And as he walked he prayed. Even the same

Old prayer with which, for half a score of years, Morning, and noon, and evening, lip and heart Had groaned: “Have pity upon me, Lord! Thou seest, while teaching others, I am blind. Send me a man who can direct my steps!”


 * Then, as he mused, he heard along his path

A sound as of an old man’s staff among The dry, dead linden-leaves; and, looking up, He saw a stranger, weak, and poor, and old.


 * “Peace be unto thee, father!” Tauler said,

“God give thee a good day!” The old man raised Slowly his calm blue eyes. “I thank thee, son; But all my days are good, and none are ill.”