Bitter-Sweet: A Poem Part 3

My son, Be careful of your words! 'Tis no light thing To take the guidance of a straying soul.

_David_.

I mark the burden well, and love it, too, Because I love the girl and love her Lord, And seek to vindicate His love to her And waken hers for Him. Be this my plea: G.o.d is almighty--all-benevolent; And naught exists save by His loving will.

Evil, or what we reckon such, exists, And not against His will; else the Supreme Is subject, and we have in place of G.o.d A phantom nothing, with a phantom name.

Therefore I care not whether He ordain That evil live, or whether He permit; Therefore I ask not why, in either case, As if He meant to curse me, but I ask What He would have this evil do for me?

What is its mission? what its ministry?

What golden fruit lies hidden in its husk?

How shall it nurse my virtue, nerve my will, Chasten my pa.s.sions, purify my love, And make me in some goodly sense like Him Who bore the cross of evil while He lived, Who hung and bled upon it when He died, And now, in glory, wears the victor's crown?

_Israel_.

If evil, then, have privilege and part In the economy of holiness, Why came the Christ to save us from its power, And bring us restoration of the bliss Lost in the lapse of Eden?

_David_.

And would you Or Ruth 'have restoration of that bliss, And welcome transplantation to the state a.s.sociate with it?

_Ruth_.

Would I? Would I not!

Oh, I have dreamed of it a thousand times, Sleeping and waking, since the torch of thought Flashed into flame at Revelation's touch, And filled my spirit with its quenchless fire.

Most envious dreams of innocence and joy Have haunted me,--dreams that were born in sin, Yet swathed in stainless snow. I've dreamed, and dreamed, Of wondrous trees, crowned with perennial green, Whose soft still shadows gleamed with golden lamps Of pensile fruitage, or were flushed with life Radiant and tuneful when broad flocks of birds Swept in and out like sheets of living flame.

I've dreamed of aisles tufted with velvet gra.s.s, And bordered with the strange intelligence Of myriad loving eyes among the flowers, That watched me with a curious, calm delight, As rows of wayside cherubim may watch A new soul, walking into Paradise.

I've dreamed of sunsets when the sun supine Lay rocking on the ocean like a G.o.d, And threw his weary arms far up the sky, And with vermilion-tinted fingers toyed With the long tresses of the evening star.

I've dreamed of dreams more beautiful than all-- Dreams that were music, perfume, vision, bliss,-- Blent and sublimed, till I have stood inwrapped In the thick essence of an atmosphere That made me tremble to unclose my eyes Lest I should look on G.o.d. And I have dreamed Of sinless men and maids, mated in heaven, Ere yet their souls had sought for beauteous forms To give them human sense and residence, Moving through all this realm of choice delights For ever and for aye; with hands and hearts Immaculate as light; without a thought Of evil, and without a name for fear.

Oh, when I wake from happy dreams like these, To the old consciousness that I must die, To the old presence of a guilty heart, To the old fear that haunts me night and day, Why should I not deplore the graceless fall That makes me what I am, and shuts me out From a condition and society As much above a sinful maiden's dreams As Eden blest surpa.s.ses Eden curst?

_David_.

So you would be another Eve, and so-- Fall with the first temptation, like herself!

G.o.d seeks for virtue; you for innocence.

You'll find it in the cradle--nowhere else-- Save in your dreams, among the grown-up babes That dwelt in Eden--powerless, pulpy souls That showed a dimple for each touch of sin.

G.o.d seeks for virtue, and, that it may live, It must resist, and that which it resists Must live. Believe me, G.o.d has other thought Than restoration of our fallen race To its primeval innocence and bliss.

If Jesus Christ--as we are taught--was slain From the foundation of the world, it was Because our evil lived in essence then-- Coeval with the great, mysterious fact.

And He was slain that we might be transformed,-- Not into Adam's sweet similitude-- But the more glorious image of Himself, A resolution of our destiny As high transcending Eden's life and lot As He surpa.s.ses Eden's fallen lord.

_Ruth_.

You're very bold, my brother, very bold.

Did I not know you for an earnest man, When sacred themes move you to utterance, I'd chide you for those most irreverent words Which make essential to the Christian scheme That which the scheme was made to kill, or cure.

_David_.

Yet they do save some very awkward words, That limp to make apology for G.o.d, And, while they justify Him, half confess The adverse verdict of appearances.

I am ashamed that in this Christian age The pious throng still hug the fallacy That this dear world of ours was not ordained The theater of evil; for no law Declared of G.o.d from all eternity Can live a moment save by lease of pain.

Law cannot live, e'en in G.o.d's inmost thought, Save by the side of evil. What were law But a weak jest without its penalty?

Never a law was born that did not fly Forth from the bosom of Omnipotence Matched, wing-and-wing, with evil and with good, Avenger and rewarder--both of G.o.d.

_Ruth_.

I face your thought and give it audience; But I cannot embrace it till it come With some of truth's credentials in its hands-- The fruits of gracious ministries.

_David_.

Does he Who, driven to labor by the threatening weeds, And forced to give his acres light and air And traps for dew and reservoirs for rain, Till, in the smoky light of harvest time, The ragged husks reveal the golden corn, Ask truth's credentials of the weeds? Does he Who prunes the orchard boughs, or tills the field, Or fells the forests, or pursues their prey, Until the gnarly muscles of his limbs And the free blood that thrills in all his veins Betray the health that toil alone secures, Ask truth's credentials at the hand of toil?

Do you ask truth's credentials of the storm Which, while we entertain communion here, Makes better music for our huddling hearts Than choirs of stars can sing in fairest nights?

Yet weeds are evils--evils toil and storm.

We may suspect the fair, smooth face of good; But evil, that a.s.sails us undisguised, Bears evermore G.o.d's warrant in its hands.

_Israel_.

I fear these silver sophistries of yours.

If my poor judgment gives them honest weight, Far less than thirty will betray your Lord.

You call that evil which is good, and good That which is evil. You apologize For that which G.o.d must hate, and justify The life and perpetuity of that Which sets itself against His holiness, And sends its discords through the universe.

_David_.

I sorrow if I shock you, for I seek To comfort and inspire. I see around A silent company of doubtful souls; But I may challenge any one of them To quote the meanest blessing of its life, And prove that evil did not make the gift, Or bear it from the giver to its hands.

The great salvation wrought by Jesus Christ-- That sank an Adam to reveal a G.o.d-- Had never come, but at the call of sin.

No risen Lord could eat the feast of love Here on the earth, or yonder in the sky, Had He not lain within the sepulcher.

'Tis not the lightly laden heart of man That loves the best the hand that blesses all; But that which, groaning with its weight of sin, Meets with the mercy that forgiveth much.

G.o.d never fails in an experiment, Nor tries experiment upon a race But to educe its highest style of life, And sublimate its issues. Thus to me Evil is not a mystery, but a means Selected from the infinite resource To make the most of me.

_Ruth_.

Thank G.o.d for light!

These truths are slowly dawning on my soul, And take position in the firmament That spans my thought, like stars that know their place.

Dear Lord! what visions crowd before my eyes-- Visions drawn forth from memory's mysteries By the sweet s.h.i.+ning of these holy lights!

I see a girl, once lightest in the dance, And maddest with the gayety of life, Grow pale and pulseless, wasting day by day, While death lies idly dreaming in her breast, Blighting her breath, and poisoning her blood.

I see her frantic with a fearful thought That haunts and horrifies her shrinking soul, And bursts in sighs and sobs and feverish prayers; And now, at last, the awful struggle ends, A sweet smile sits upon her angel face, And peace, with downy bosom, nestles close Where her worn heart throbs faintly; closer still As the death shadows gather; closer still, As, on white wings, the outward-going soul Flies to a home it never would have sought, Had a great evil failed to point the way.

I see a youth whom G.o.d has crowned with power, And cursed with poverty. With bravest heart He struggles with his lot, through toilsome years,-- Kept to his task by daily want of bread, And kept to virtue by his daily task,-- Till, gaining manhood in the manly strife,-- The fire that fills him smitten from a flint-- The strength that arms him wrested from a fiend-- He stands, at last, a master of himself, And, in that grace, a master of his kind.

_David_.

Familiar visions these, but ever full Of inspiration and significance.

Now that your eyes are opened and you see, Your heart should take swift cognizance, and feel.

How do these visions move you?

_Ruth_.

Like the hand Of a strong angel on my shoulder laid, Touching the secret of the spirit's wings.

My heart grows brave. I'm ready now to work-- To work with G.o.d, and suffer with His Christ; Adopt His measures, and abide His means.

If, in the law that spans the universe (The law its maker may not disobey), Virtue may only grow from innocence Through a great struggle with opposing ill; If I must win my way to perfectness In the sad path of suffering, like Him The over-flowing river of whose life Touches the flood-mark of humanity On the white pillars of the heavenly throne, Then welcome evil! Welcome sickness, toil, Sorrow and pain, the fear and fact of death.

_Israel_

And welcome sin?