Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1860-03-21

Inc fourteen centuries tall away
Between us and the Afric saint,
And at his side we urge to-day
The immemorial quest and old complaint.
No outward sign TO us is given,
From earth comes reply;
flushed as the warm Numidian heaven
He vainly questioned bends our frozen sky.
No victory comes of all our strife,
From all we grasp the meaning slips;
The Sphinx sits at the gate of life
With the old question ON her awful lips.
In paths unknown we hear the feet
Offear before and guilt behind;
We pluck the Wayside fruit, and eat
Ashes and dust beneath its golden rind.
From age to age descends unchecked
The sad bequest OF sire to son,
The bOdys faint, the minds defect
Through every web of life the dark threads run.
Oh! why and whither?-God knows ALI
l only know that he is good,
And that whatever may befal
Or here or there, must be the best that could.
Between the dreadful cherubim
A Fathers face still discern,
AS Moses looked Of old on Him
And saw his glory into goodness turn
For He is mercful as just:
And SO, by faith correcting sight,
bow before His will and trust
However they seem He doeth all things right.
And dare TO hope that He will make
The rugged smooth, the doubtful plain,
His mercy never quite forsake,
His healing visit every realm of pain;
That suffering is not His revenge
Upon His creatures weak and frail,
Sent on pathway and strange
With feet that wonder and with eyes that fail;
That DER the crucible of pain,
Watches the tender eye of Love
The slow transmitting of the chain
Whose links are iron below to gold above!
All, me we doubt the shining skies
Seen through our shadows of offence,
And drown with our poor childish cries
The cradle-hymn of kindly Providence.
And still we love the evil cause
And of the Just effect complaint
We tread upon ie's broken laws
And murmur at our self-nfcted pain.
We turn from the light and find
Our spectral shapes before us thrown,
AS they who leave the sun behind
Walk III the shadows of themselves alone.
And scarcely will or strength of ours
We set our faces to the day;
Weak, wavering, blind, the Eternal Powers
Alone can turn us from ourselves away.
Our weakness is the strength of sin,
But love must need be stronger far,
Outreaching all and gathering in
The erring spirit and the wandering star.
voice grows with the growing years;
Earth huslling down her bitter cry,
Looks upward from her graves, and hears:
1.-The Resurrection and the Life am ~
Oh, Love Diyne!-whose constant beam
Shines on the eyes that will not see
Anu WAITS 10 DeSS us, Wnle we dream
Thou leavest lis because we turn from thee
All souls that struggle and aspire.
All hearts of prayer by thee are lit;
And dim or clear, thy tongues of fire
On dusky tribes and twilight centuries sit.
Nor bounds, nor cline, nor creed thou know'st
Wide as our need thy favors fall;
The white wings of the Holy Ghost
StOop, seen, or unseen, DER the heads of all.
Oh Beauty, old yet ever NEVIS
Eternal Voice, and Inward Word
The LogOs OF the Greek and Jew,
The old sphere-music which the Saman heard!
Truth which the sage and prophet saw,
Long sought without but found within,
The Law of Love beyond all law,
The Life oerfiooding mortal death and sin!
Shine us with the light which glowed
Upon the trance-bound shepherds way,
Who the Darkness overfowed
And drowned by tides of everlasting day.t
Shine, light of G cd make broad thy scope
To all who sin and suffer; more
And better than we dare to hope
With Heavens compassion make our longings poor
%'Too late / loved Thee, oh Beauty of ancient
days, yet ever new. And 10! Thou vert within anc
abroad searching for Thee. Thou vert with me
but not with Thee. August Soliloq. Book X.
''And ! saw that there was an Ocean of Dark
~rbs and Death bnt an Infinite Ocean of Light and
live flowed over the Ocean of Darkness: And il
that saw the Infinite Love of dn-G George Foa!
Journal.