Page:The Poems of Henry Kendall (1920).djvu/159

 They sleep a sleep

Unknown of dreams, these darling friends of ours.

And we who taste the core of many tales

Of tribulation—we whose lives are salt

With tears indeed—we therefore hide our eyes

And weep in secret, lest our grief should risk

The rest that hath no hurt from daily racks

Of fiery clouds and immemorial rains.

faith in God. For whosoever lists

To calm conviction in these days of strife,

Will learn that in this steadfast stand exists

The scholarship severe of human life.

This face to face with doubt! I know how strong

His thews must be who fights and falls and bears,

By sleepless nights and vigils lone and long,

And many a woeful wraith of wrestling prayers.

Yet trust in Him! Not in an old man throned

With thunders on an everlasting cloud,

But in that awful Entity enzoned

By no wild wraths nor bitter homage loud.

When from the summit of some sudden steep

Of speculation you have strength to turn

To things too boundless for the broken sweep

Of finer comprehension, wait and learn

That God hath been "His own interpreter"

From first to last. So you will understand

The tribe who best succeed, when men most err,

To suck through fogs the fatness of the land.

One thing is surer than the autumn tints

We saw last week in yonder river bend—

That all our poor expression helps and hints,

However vaguely, to the solemn end