Page:Complete Poetical Works of John Greenleaf Whittier (1895).djvu/78

46  The simple heart, that freely asks
 * In love, obtains.

For man the living temple is:
 * The mercy-seat and cherubim,

And all the holy mysteries,
 * He bears with him.

And most avails the prayer of love,
 * Which, wordless, shapes itself in deeds,

And wearies Heaven for naught above
 * Our common needs.

Which brings to God’s all-perfect will
 * That trust of His undoubting child

Whereby all seeming good and ill
 * Are reconciled.

And, seeking not for special signs
 * Of favor, is content to fall

Within the providence which shines
 * And rains on all.

Alone, the Thebaid hermit leaned
 * At noontime o’er the sacred word.

Was it an angel or a fiend
 * Whose voice he heard?

It broke the desert’s hush of awe,
 * A human utterance, sweet and mild;

And, looking up, the hermit saw
 * A little child.

A child, with wonder-widened eyes,
 * O’erawed and troubled by the sight

Of hot, red sands, and brazen skies,
 * And anchorite.

“What dost thou here, poor man? No shade
 * Of cool, green palms, nor grass, nor well,

Nor corn, nor vines.” The hermit said:
 * “With God I dwell.

“Alone with Him in this great calm,
 * I live not by the outward sense;

My Nile his love, my sheltering palm
 * His providence.”

The child gazed round him. “Does God live
 * Here only?—where the desert’s rim

Is green with corn, at morn and eve,
 * We pray to Him.

“My brother tills beside the Nile
 * His little field; beneath the leaves

My sisters sit and spin, the while
 * My mother weaves.

“And when the millet’s ripe heads fall,
 * And all the bean-field hangs in pod,

My mother smiles, and says that all
 * Are gifts from God.

“And when to share our evening meal,
 * She calls the stranger at the door,

She says God fills the hands that deal
 * Food to the poor.”

Adown the hermit’s wasted cheeks
 * Glistened the flow of human tears;

“Dear Lord!” he said, “Thy angel speaks,
 * Thy servant hears.”

Within his arms the child he took,
 * And thought of home and life with men;

And all his pilgrim feet forsook
 * Returned again.

The palmy shadows cool and long,
 * The eyes that smiled through lavish locks,

Home’s cradle-hymn and harvest-song,
 * And bleat of flocks.

“O child!” he said, “thou teachest me
 * There is no place where God is not;

That love will make, where’er it be,
 * A holy spot.”

He rose from off the desert sand,
 * And, leaning on his staff of thorn,

Went with the young child hand in hand,
 * Like night with morn.

They crossed the desert’s burning line,
 * And heard the palm-tree’s rustling fan,

The Nile-bird’s cry, the low of kine,
 * And voice of man.

Unquestioning, his childish guide
 * He followed, as the small hand led

To where a woman, gentle-eyed,
 * Her distaff fed.

She rose, she clasped her truant boy,
 * She thanked the stranger with her eyes;

The hermit gazed in doubt and joy
 * And dumb surprise.