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LIMITATION

“Let us accept from God even our own nature, and treat it charitably.” – Henri Amiel

 
GREATER than Fate ordains we fain would be;
Wiser and purer, strung with life and power
And insight and compelling energy;
But with the first breath of our first faint hour
The limit line is set, vain our endeavor,
Our longing and our hope; we pass it never.
 
 
Since this is so, since this indeed is so,
Let us accept ourselves as God has made, —
The lagging zest, the pulse which beats too slow,
Dull wit, and scanty joy, – nor be afraid
That we shall thwart the purpose of our living
By such self-tolerance and such forgiving;
 
 
For the least spark which fires the mortal clod,
And wakes the hunger and the thirst divine
In the least soul, as truly is of God
As the great flame which burns a beaconing sign
To light the nations when their hope is dim,
Set in the darkness as a type of Him.
 
 
Take courage then, poor soul, so little worth
In thine own eyes, so puny and afraid,
And all unfit to combat the fierce earth;
Forgive thyself because the Master made
And meant thee meeker than thy wish and will,
And knows, and understands, and loves thee still.
 

THE MIRACLE OF FRIENDSHIP

 
OUT of the width of the world, out of the womb of Fate,
The souls that are meant for each other shall meet, and shall know and embrace.
Age or youth are nothing, are nothing or soon or late,
When the heart to heart makes answer and joyful face to face.
 
 
Where hast thou tarried, my Love, while I waited and missed thee long,
One of the two shall question, and the other shall make reply,
In a voice of gladness and triumph, less like unto speech than song,
“I knew not that I was a hungered till God sent thee as supply.”
 
 
The world may crowd and question, but friends are always alone,
Set in bright atmosphere, like a planet in far-off skies;
A touch, a glance, a sigh, love comprehends its own,
And words are feeble and poor compared with the spark of the eyes.
 
 
The undug gold in the mine, the pearl in the deep, deep seas,
The gem which lies undiscovered, are the daydreams of the earth;
But the love unreckoned, unhoped for, which is mightier far than these,
Is the miracle of Heaven for the souls which it counts as worth.
 

ROSE TERRY COOKE

 
OUT of the life that was so hard to bear,
Clouded by sorrow and perplexed by care,
Out of the long watch and the heavy night,
She has gone forth into the light of light.
 
 
A tropic-blossom, warm with sun and scent,
Set in New England’s chill environment;
Through beat of storm and stress of winter’s cold,
She kept the summer in her heart of gold.
 
 
Love was the life which pulsed her being through;
No task too hard if set by Love to do,
No pain too sharp if Love called to endure,
No weariness she knew if Love was sure.
 
 
Her rose of Love was set with many a thorn,
Clouds veiled and hid the promise of her morn;
Thirsting and spent, she journeyed on unfed,
While Love, too often, gave her stones for bread.
 
 
But still ’mid waning hopes and deepening fears
And brave, hard strivings through the ebbing years,
Lifting her up when she was like to fall,
Love led her to the land where Love is all.
 
 
Heaven has received her as a welcome guest,
Balming earth’s tire with compensating rest,
Healing earth’s grievous wound with sure content, —
The sense of home after long banishment.
 
 
But more to her than smile of vanished kin,
Or hands outstretched to greet and draw her in,
Or “Bonded Walls” of amethyst unpriced,
Is the clear vision of the Face of Christ!
 
 
That Face Divine, which, in her girlhood’s day
Seeing, she loved, and never looked away,
Which, like a star in the dim firmament,
Guided her steps and moved where’er she went.
 
 
Out of the life that was not always sweet,
Out of the puzzle and the day’s defeat,
Out of earth’s hindering and alien zone,
The Lord of Love has led her to her own.
 

INTO THE DEEP

 
“LORD, we have toiled all day and taken naught.”
Thus spoke the fishers by the darkling sea,
While the dusk deepened, and the shadows drew
Over the desert sand-dunes and the blue
Waters of Galilee.
 
 
“What shall we do, Lord?” And the Master said:
“Spread sail, and let the breeze of evening waft
To the deep seas; quit the familiar shore,
And let your nets down fearlessly once more,
As for a certain draught.”
 
 
Lord, we have toiled in vain, even as these,
Dragging our nets unfruitful waters through;
Not one poor fish rewards our pains all day,
And, like the twelve of old, we come and say,
“Master, what shall we do?”
 
 
And still for us, as then, the answer sounds,
Making the very hearts within us leap:
“Leave the safe shallows where the ripples play,
The sluggish inlet and confining bay —
Push out into the deep.
 
 
“Strain toward the mighty ocean of God’s love,
His great Love’s all unfathomed energies,
Where never plummet reached or bound was set.
Quit ye like valiant fishermen, and let
Your nets down in deep seas.
 
 
“Those rich, rewarding waters shall not fail,
Till the nets break the fish shall crowd therein;
And I, the Master, waiting other where,
Will lend My strength to land the precious fare
Which ye have toiled to win.”
 
 
Lord, Thou hast spoken, and we trust Thy word;
We will push out and leave the safe, known land,
And count it full reward if, coming back
Laden at nightfall, o’er the waters black
We see Thee on the strand.
 

THROUGH THE CLOUD

 
THE morning was chill and misty,
And a white and drifting veil
Hid all the mountain passes
And the elm-fringed intervale.
 
 
We gazed in a puzzled wonder,
And looked to the left and the right,
For it seemed that some spell had seized the world
And had changed it during the night.
 
 
Was there ever a mountain yonder,
We asked, or a pine-clad stream?
Or red-gold trees in the hollow?
Or were all these things a dream?
 
 
Then suddenly as we questioned
The mists turned thin and blue,
And up in the far, high heaven
A mountain outline grew.
 
 
Like a vision it gleamed and vanished,
But its beckon was seen and caught,
And one peak after another
Flashed out with the speed of thought;
 
 
And the mist wreaths floated higher,
And drifted off one by one,
And the wet, green autumn meadows
Shone out in the yellow sun;
 
 
And the scarlet and dun of the hillsides
Had borrowed a fresher hue,
And the purple gate of the notch swung wide,
And a pink cloud floated through.
 
 
And I thought of some heavy-hearted ones
Whose world had suddenly changed
To a whirl of mist and driving cloud
From all fair things estranged,
 
 
And who sat and wearily wondered
If ever the world seemed bright,
And half believed that joy was a dream
Which fled with the flying night;
 
 
And how, by little and little,
The clouds were tinged with sun,
And the former joys of living
Dawned out of them one by one, —
 
 
The hope and the work and the loving,
The zest of thought and plan,
The old-time strength of friendship,
The old-time need of man.
 
 
And the world which was changed for a morning
Was the same dear world again,
With only an added ripeness, caught
From its brief eclipse of pain.
 

NEARER HOME

 
THE wind is like an armèd foe,
Drawn up to bar the way,
The strong seas smite us blow on blow,
The decks are lashed with spray;
High-crested tower above the ship
The waves with lips afoam,
But welcome every plunge and dip
Which brings us nearer home.
 
 
The dear West beckons from afar
With gold gleams in her eyes,
The glinting stars familiar are
High hung in clear cool skies;
We send an answering smile for smile
Up to the airy dome,
And welcome every weary mile
So it but bring us home.
 
 
Sweet hope which lifts the dull, long hour
And makes it light to bear,
Sweet waiting welcome which has power
To make the dark seem fair,
Sweet hands held out across the sea
To reach us where we roam, —
We can bear hardest things since we
Have turned our face toward home.
 

ROOTED

 
WE rail at fate which holds us bound
To duty’s dull and narrow round,
To face as bravely as we may
The common cares of every day.
 
 
Our wandering wishes urge and fret,
But circumstance is mightier yet,
And curbs and checks the restless will,
And bids the impatient heart be still.
 
 
And while we vainly strive and chide,
Little by little, undescried,
The tiny roots of life take hold,
Anchoring their fibres in the mould.
 
 
The roots of habit, tough and long,
Of deathless love, than death more strong,
Of order measuring out the days,
And duty’s sweet, recurrent ways, —
 
 
They bind us when we fain would fly,
They check and thwart till, by and by,
The narrow plot which they control
Becomes the home-ground of the soul;
 
 
And stormy, mutinous youth, grown wise,
Looks out and in, with older eyes,
And in his limitations sees
His helpers, not his hindrances.
 

THE BURIED STATUE

 
DEEP in the earth long years it lay;
Its marble eyes were sealed to day,
Its marble ears were deaf and dull,
Yet it was wondrous beautiful.
 
 
A vineyard grew above its head;
The grapes they knew, and whisperèd
Each unto each, as evening fell:
“Brothers, keep counsel, nothing tell!”
 
 
There was no record left, or trace
Of sculptor or of hiding-place;
The hand that shaped it lay in dust,
His cunning chisel turned to rust.
 
 
The hands that dug the grave so deep,
And laid the statue to its sleep,
While hearts beat quick with haste and fear,
And ears were strained a step to hear;
 
 
The foe who threatened them that day —
All, all were dead and passed away.
The world had turned and turned it o’er;
Nothing was as it was before.
 
 
Still through all change of war or peace,
New men, new laws, new dynasties,
The buried statue kept its place,
With the same smile upon its face.
 
 
The years to centuries gave birth;
Heavier and heavier pressed the earth;
Autumn and spring enriched the vine
Whose purple grapes were crushed for wine;
 
 
And then, in search of gain or spoil,
Men came to dig the aged soil;
And after half a thousand years
In silence spent, the statue hears!
 
 
How did it feel when, fine and thin,
The first long ray of light broke in,
And gilt the gloom with glory new,
And let the imprisoned beauty through?
 
 
Say, did it tremble, as a heart
Long pent in darkness and apart
Trembles, with fear and rapture stirred
At love’s low signal long unheard?
 
 
Or did it blench as, sharp and clear,
The urgent spade-strokes drew more near,
Blindly directed, fraught with harm
To marble breast and marble arm?
 
 
No answer, save the subtle smile,
Baffling and tempting in its guile,
Which seems all wordlessly to say:
“Darkness was safe, but fairer, day.”
 

FAR AND NEAR

“From every point on earth we are equally near to heaven and the infinite.” – Henri Amiel

 
OUT of the depths that are to us so deep,
Up to the heights so hopelessly above,
Past storms that intervene and winds that sweep,
Unto thine ear, O pitying Lord of love,
We send our cry for aid, doubtful and half afraid
If thou, so very far, canst hear us or canst aid.
 
 
Out of the dull plane of our common life,
Beset with sordid, interrupting cares,
And petty motives and ignoble strife,
We dimly raise our hesitating prayers,
And question fearfully if such a thing can be
That the great Lord can care for creatures such as we.
 
 
Up from the radiant heights of just-won bliss,
Achieved through pain and toil and struggle long,
We raise our thanks, nor fear that God will miss
One least inflection of the happy song.
Heaven seems so very near, the earth so bright and dear,
The Lord so close at hand, that surely he must hear!
 
 
But the great depth that was to us so dark,
And the dull place that was to us so dull,
And the glad height where, singing like a lark,
We stood, and felt the world all-beautiful,
Seen by the angels’ eyes, bent downward from the skies,
Were just as near to heaven and heaven’s infinities.
 
 
So out of sunshine as of deepest shade,
Out of the dust of sordid every-days,
We may look up, and, glad and unafraid,
Call on the Lord for help, and give him praise;
No time nor fate nor space can bar us from his face,
Or stand between one soul and his exhaustless grace.
 

GREECE

 
AH, little David! least of all thy kin,
Fresh from the thyme-sweet meads of Thessaly,
Where the cool pastures overhang the sea,
Leaving thy sheep to join the battle’s din:
Here is Philistia, here the chosen hosts
Wavering half-hearted on the unfought plain,
Chiding thy zeal as “premature” and “vain,”
The while the turbaned giant struts and boasts.
We catch the shining of thy brave young face,
We watch thee fit the pebble to the sling
With straight, true aim and heart that knows no fear,
And turn to see, O wonder of disgrace,
The serried soldiery of Christ the King
Skulking, protesting, squabbling in the rear!
 

IF YOUTH COULD KNOW

 
IF youth could know, what age knows without teaching,
Hope’s instability and Love’s dear folly,
The difference between practising and preaching,
The quiet charm that lurks in melancholy;
The after-bitterness of tasted pleasure;
That temperance of feeling and of words
Is health of mind, and the calm fruits of leisure
Have sweeter taste than feverish zeal affords;
That reason has a joy beyond unreason;
That nothing satisfies the soul like truth;
That kindness conquers in and out of season, —
If youth could know – why, youth would not be youth.
 
 
If age could feel the uncalculating urgence,
The pulse of life that beats in youthful veins,
And with its swift, resistless ebb and surgence
Makes light of difficulties, sport of pains;
Could once, just once, retrace the path and find it,
That lovely, foolish zeal, so crude, so young,
Which bids defiance to all laws to bind it,
And flashes in quick eye and limb and tongue,
Which, counting dross for gold, is rich in dreaming,
And, reckoning moons as suns, is never cold,
And, having naught, has everything in seeming, —
If age could do all this – age were not old!
 

THE SOUL’S CLIMATE

“Every soul has a climate of its own, or rather is a climate.” – Henri Amiel

 
O HEART beloved, O kindest heart!
Balming like summer and like sun
The sting of tears, the ache of sorrow,
The shy, cold hurts which sting and smart,
The frets and cares which underrun
The dull day and the dreaded morrow —
How when thou comest all turns fair,
Hard things seem possible to bear,
Dark things less dark, if thou art there.
 
 
Thou keepest a climate of thine own
’Mid earth’s wild weather and gray skies,
A soft, still air for human healing,
A genial, all-embracing zone
Where frosts smite not nor winds arise;
And past the tempest-storm of feeling
Each grieved and weak and weary thing,
Each bird with numbed and frozen wing,
May sink to rest and learn to sing.
 
 
Like some cathedral stone begirt,
Which keeps through change of cold and heat
Still temperature and equal weather,
Thy sweetness stands, untouched, unhurt
By any mortal storms that beat,
Calm, helpful, undisturbed forever.
Dear heart, to which we all repair
To bask in sunshine and sweet air,
God bless thee ever, everywhere.