Part 20 (2/2)
”In thee the hidden stone, the Manna lies; Thou art the great Elixir rare and Choice; The Key that opens to all Mysteries, The Word in Characters, G.o.d in the Voice.”
This is very like Herbert, and not inferior to him.
In a poem having the odd mark of ”--,” and which seems to have been written after the death of some dear friends, are these two stanzas, the last of which is singularly pathetic:-
”They are all gone into the world of light!
And I alone sit lingring here!
Their very memory is fair and bright, And my sad thoughts doth clear.
”He that hath found some fledg'd bird's nest may know At first sight if the bird be flown; But what fair Dell or Grove he sings in now, That is to him unknown.”
Referring to Nicodemus visiting our Lord:-
THE NIGHT. (JOHN iii. 2.)
”Most blest believer he!
Who in that land of darkness and blinde eyes Thy long expected healing wings could see, When thou didst rise; And, what can never more be done, Did at midnight speak with the Sun!
”O who will tell me where He found thee at that dead and silent hour?
What hallow'd solitary ground did bear So rare a flower; Within whose sacred leaves did lie The fulness of the Deity?
”No mercy-seat of gold, No dead and dusty Cherub, nor carved stone, But his own living works, did my Lord hold And lodge alone; Where trees and herbs did watch and peep And wonder, while the Jews did sleep.
”Dear night! this world's defeat; The stop to busie fools; care's check and curb; The day of Spirits; my soul's calm retreat Which none disturb!
Christ's[46] progress and his prayer time; The hours to which high Heaven doth chime.
”G.o.d's silent, searching flight: When my Lord's head is filled with dew, and all His locks are wet with the clear drops of night; His still, soft call; His knocking time; the soul's dumb watch, When spirits their Fair Kindred catch.
”Were all my loud, evil days, Calm and unhaunted as is Thy dark Tent, Whose peace but by some Angel's wing or voice Is seldom rent; Then I in Heaven all the long year Would keep, and never wander here.”
[46] Mark i. 35; Luke xxi. 37.
At the end he has these striking words-
”There is in G.o.d, some say, _A deep but dazzling darkness_--”
This brings to our mind the concluding sentence of Mr. Ruskin's fifth chapter in his second volume-”The infinity of G.o.d is not mysterious, it is only unfathomable; not concealed, but incomprehensible; _it is a clear infinity, the darkness of the pure, unsearchable sea_.” Plato, if we rightly remember, says-”Truth is the body of G.o.d, light is His shadow.”
DEATH.
”Though since thy first sad entrance By just Abel's blood, 'Tis now six thousand years well nigh, And still thy sovereignty holds good; Yet by none art thou understood.
”We talk and name thee with much ease, As a tryed thing, And every one can slight his lease, As if it ended in a Spring, Which shades and bowers doth rent-free bring.
”To thy dark land these heedless go, But there was One Who search'd it quite through to and fro, And then, returning like the Sun, Discover'd all that there is done.
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