Page:The poems of Richard Watson Gilder, Gilder, 1908.djvu/209

Rh And breathest still, and hold'st thy way divine.

'T is here, O pitying Christ, where thee I seek,

Here where the strife is fiercest; where the sun

Beats down upon the highway thronged with men,

And in the raging mart. O! deeper lead

My soul into the living world of souls

Where thou dost move.

But lead me, Man Divine,

Where'er thou will'st, only that I may find

At the long journey's end thy image there,

And grow more like to it. For art not thou

The human shadow of the infinite Love

That made and fills the endless universe!

The very Word of Him, the unseen, unknown

Eternal Good that rules the summer flower

And all the worlds that people starry space!

NON SINE DOLORE

I

, then, is Life,—what Death?

Thus the Answerer saith;

O faithless mortal, bend thy head and listen:

Down o'er the vibrant strings,

That thrill, and moan, and mourn, and glisten,

The Master draws his bow.

A voiceless pause; then upward, see, it springs,

Free as a bird with disimprisoned wings!

In twain the chord was cloven,

While, shaken with woe,

With breaks of instant joy all interwoven,

Piercing the heart with lyric knife,