The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1852-05-06

d. or call me again tho day that Is past.
II EsdyaS, chap. iv.
A bending staff would not break
feeble faith would not shake,
Nor even rashly pluck away
The error which some truth may stay,
Whose loss might leave the soul without
A shield against the shafts Of doubt.
And yet at times, when over all
darker mystery seems to fall,
May God forgive the child of dust,
Who socks to knop where Faith should fr'eSt,)
raise the questions, old and dark,
Of Urdom's tempted Patriarch,
And, speech-confounded, build again
Tho bsffled tower Of Shinars plain.
am how little more know
Whence came /? WHITTIER do go!
A centred self which feels and is--
A cry between the silcnces;
A shadow birth of clouds and strife,
With sunshine on the hills of life;
A shaft, from Natures culver, cast
Into the Future from tho Past;
Between tho cradle and the STROUD
A meteors flight from cloud to cloud.
Thorough the vastness, arching all,
see the great stars rise and fall,
Tho rounding seasons come and go,
The tided oceans cbb and how;
The tokens ofs central Force,
Whose circles, in their widening course,
Ocrlap and move the Universe;
The workings Of the Law, whence springs
The rhythmic harmony of things,
Which shapes in earth the darkling SPAR
And orbs in heaven the morning star
OF all soc, in earth and sky
Star, flower, beast, bird-what part have |?
This conscious life--is it the same
Which thrill the universal frame,
Whereby the caverned crystal shoots
And mounts the sap from forest roots,
Whereby the cxiled wood.bird tells
When Spring makes green her native dolls?
How feels the stone the pang of birth,
Which brings its sparkling prism forth?
The forcsttroe the throb which gives
The lifo- blood to its now born leaves
Do bird and blossom feel like me
Lifc's many folded mystery
The vendor which it il, TO REF
Or staLd l severed and distinct,
From Natures chain of life unlinked'
Allied to all, yet not the less
Prisonod in separate consciousness,
Alone O'erburdened with sense
OF life, and cause, aud consequence
In vain to me the Sphinx propounds
The riddle of her sights and sounds;
Back still the vaulted mystery gives
The echoed question it receives
What sings tho brook? What oracle
Is in the pine-rees organ swell
What may the winds low burden be ?
The meaning Of the moaning sea
The hioroglyphics Of the stars
Or couded sunsets crimson bars?
vainly ask, for mocks my skill
The trick of Natures cypher still.
turn from Nature unto men,
ask the stylus and the pen
What sang the bards of old What meant
The prophets of the Orient
Tao rolls Of buried Egypt hid
In painted tomb and pyramid
What mean Iddmeas arrowy lines,
Or dusk Eorss monstrOus signs
How speaks the primal thought of man
From the grim carvings of Copan
Where rests tho secret? Where the keys
Of tn old death bolted mysteries?
Alas the dead retain their trust,
Dust hath no answer from the dust.
The great enigma still unguessed
Unanswered the eternal guest;
gather up tho scattered rays
OF wisdom in the early days,
Faint glcams and broken, like the light
OF meteors in Northern night
Betraying to the dsrkling earth
Tho unseen sun which gave them birth
listen to the SYPHILIS chant,
The voice of priest and hierophant
know what Indian Kreoshna saith,
And what of life and what of death
The demon taught to Socrates;
And what beneath his garden trees,
Slow pacing with dream-like tread,
The solemn thoughtod Plato said;
Nor lack l tokens, great or small,
OF Gods clear light in each and all,
While holding with more dear regard
The scroll of Hebrew Seer and Bard,
The starry pages promise lit
With Christs Evangel over writ
Thy miracle of Life and Death,
Oh Holy Ono Of Nazareth
On Aztec ruins, gray and lone,
The circing serpent coils in stone,
Typo of tho endless and unknown;
Whereof VIC seek the clue to find
With cropping fingers of the blind
Forever sought and never found,
We trace that scrpent-symbo round
Our resting place, our starting bound
Oh thritlossness of dream and guess
oh wisdom, which is foolishness
Why idly sock from outward things
The answer inward silence brings;
Why stretch beyond our proper sphere
And ago, for that which lies so near?
Why climb the iar-of hills with pain,
A nearer view of heaven to gain?
In lowliest depths of bosky dells
The hermit, Contemplation, dwcls.
fountains pine-hung slope his scat,
And lotus-twinod his silent feet,
Whence, piercing heaven with screened sight
lie sees at noon the stars, whose light
Shall glority tho coming night.
Here let me pause, my guest forsgo;
Enough for me to feel and know
That lilo in whom the cause and end
The Past and Future, meet and blend,
Who, grit with His immensitiss,
Our vast and star-hung system secs,
Small as the clustered Plsiades,
Moves not alonc vhe heavenly quires,
But waves the spring times grassy spires;
Guards not Archangsl feet alone,
But dcgns to guide and keep my own;
Speaks not alono the words Of fate,
Which worlds destroy and worlds create,
But whispers in my spirits ear,
In tones of love or warning fear,
language mono beside may hear.
To Him, from wandsrings long and wild,
! come, an over.woaricd child,
In cool and shade His poacc TO find,
Like dew fall settling on my mind,
Assured that all know is bcst
And humbly trusting for the rest,
l turn from tho bewildcring sense
OF his diffuscd OmnipOtence,