A Book of Strife in the Form of The Diary of an Old Soul Part 12

8.

It is thyself, and neither this nor that, Nor anything, told, taught, or dreamed of thee, That keeps us live. The holy maid who sat Low at thy feet, choosing the better part, Rising, bore with her--what a memory!

Yet, brooding only on that treasure, she Had soon been roused by conscious loss of heart.

9.

I am a fool when I would stop and think, And lest I lose my thoughts, from duty shrink.

It is but avarice in another shape.

'Tis as the vine-branch were to h.o.a.rd the grape, Nor trust the living root beneath the sod.

What trouble is that child to thee, my G.o.d, Who sips thy gracious cup, and will not drink!

10.

True, faithful action only is the life, The grapes for which we feel the pruning knife.

Thoughts are but leaves; they fall and feed the ground.

The holy seasons, swift and slow, go round; The ministering leaves return, fresh, large, and rife-- But fresher, larger, more thoughts to the brain:-- Farewell, my dove!--come back, hope-laden, through the rain.

11.

Well may this body poorer, feebler grow!

It is undressing for its last sweet bed; But why should the soul, which death shall never know, Authority, and power, and memory shed?

It is that love with absolute faith would wed; G.o.d takes the inmost garments off his child, To have him in his arms, naked and undefiled.

12.

Thou art my knowledge and my memory, No less than my real, deeper life, my love.

I will not fool, degrade myself to trust In less than that which maketh me say Me, In less than that causing itself to be.

Then art within me, behind, beneath, above-- I will be thine because I may and must.

13.

Thou art the truth, the life. Thou, Lord, wilt see To every question that perplexes me.

I am thy being; and my dignity Is written with my name down in thy book; Thou wilt care for it. Never shall I think Of anything that thou mightst overlook:-- In faith-born triumph at thy feet I sink.

14.

Thou carest more for that which I call mine, In same sort--better manner than I could, Even if I knew creation's ends divine, Rousing in me this vague desire of good.

Thou art more to me than my desires' whole brood; Thou art the only person, and I cry Unto the father I of this my I.

15.

Thou who inspirest prayer, then bend'st thine ear; It, crying with love's grand respect to hear!

I cannot give myself to thee aright-- With the triumphant uttermost of gift; That cannot be till I am full of light-- To perfect deed a perfect will must lift:-- Inspire, possess, compel me, first of every might.

16.

I do not wonder men can ill believe Who make poor claims upon thee, perfect Lord; Then most I trust when most I would receive.

I wonder not that such do pray and grieve-- The G.o.d they think, to be G.o.d is not fit.

Then only in thy glory I seem to sit, When my heart claims from thine an infinite accord.

17.

More life I need ere I myself can be.

Sometimes, when the eternal tide ebbs low, A moment weary of my life I grow-- Weary of my existence' self, I mean, Not of its plodding, not its wind and snow Then to thy knee trusting I turn, and lean: Thou will'st I live, and I do will with thee.

18.

Dost thou mean sometimes that we should forget thee, Dropping the veil of things 'twixt thee and us?-- Ah, not that we should lose thee and regret thee!

But that, we turning from our windows thus, The frost-fixed G.o.d should vanish from the pane, Sun-melted, and a moment, Father, let thee Look like thyself straight into heart and brain.

19.

For sometimes when I am busy among men, With heart and brain an open thoroughfare For faces, words, and thoughts other than mine, And a pause comes at length--oh, sudden then, Back throbs the tide with rush exultant rare; And for a gentle moment I divine Thy dawning presence flush my tremulous air.

20.

If I have to forget thee, do thou see It be a good, not bad forgetfulness; That all its mellow, truthful air be free From dusty noes, and soft with many a yes; That as thy breath my life, my life may be Man's breath. So when thou com'st at hour unknown, Thou shalt find nothing in me but thine own.

21.

Thou being in me, in my deepest me, Through all the time I do not think of thee, Shall I not grow at last so true within As to forget thee and yet never sin?

Shall I not walk the loud world's busy way, Yet in thy palace-porch sit all the day?

Not conscious think of thee, yet never from thee stray?

22.

Forget!--Oh, must it be?--Would it were rather That every sense was so filled with my father That not in anything could I forget him, But deepest, highest must in all things set him!-- Yet if thou think in me, G.o.d, what great matter Though my poor thought to former break and latter-- As now my best thoughts; break, before thee foiled, and scatter!

23.

Some way there must be of my not forgetting, And thither thou art leading me, my G.o.d.

The child that, weary of his mother's petting, Runs out the moment that his feet are shod, May see her face in every flower he sees, And she, although beyond the window sitting, Be nearer him than when he sat upon her knees.

24.

What if, when I at last, at the long last, Shall see thy face, my Lord, my life's delight, It should not be the face that hath been gla.s.sed In poor imagination's mirror slight!

Will my soul sink, and shall I stand aghast, Beggared of hope, my heart a conscious blight, Amazed and lost--death's bitterness come and not pa.s.sed?

25.

Ah, no! for from thy heart the love will press, And s.h.i.+ning from thy perfect human face, Will sink into me like the father's kiss; And deepening wide the gulf of consciousness Beyond imagination's lowest abyss, Will, with the potency of creative grace, Lord it throughout the larger thinking place.

26.

Thus G.o.d-possessed, new born, ah, not for long Should I the sight behold, beatified, Know it creating in me, feel the throng Of speechless hopes out-throbbing like a tide, And my heart rus.h.i.+ng, borne aloft the flood, To offer at his feet its living blood-- Ere, glory-hid, the other face I spied.

27.

For out imagination is, in small, And with the making-difference that must be, Mirror of G.o.d's creating mirror; all That shows itself therein, that formeth he, And there is Christ, no bodiless vanity, Though, face to face, the mighty perfectness With glory blurs the dim-reflected less.