Kitabı oku: «A Book of Strife in the Form of The Diary of an Old Soul», sayfa 6

NOVEMBER

1

 
     THOU art of this world, Christ. Thou know'st it all;
     Thou know'st our evens, our morns, our red and gray;
     How moons, and hearts, and seasons rise and fall;
     How we grow weary plodding on the way;
     Of future joy how present pain bereaves,
     Rounding us with a dark of mere decay,
     Tossed with a drift Of summer-fallen leaves.
 

2

 
     Thou knowest all our weeping, fainting, striving;
     Thou know'st how very hard it is to be;
     How hard to rouse faint will not yet reviving;
     To do the pure thing, trusting all to thee;
     To hold thou art there, for all no face we see;
     How hard to think, through cold and dark and dearth,
     That thou art nearer now than when eye-seen on earth.
 

3

 
     Have pity on us for the look of things,
     When blank denial stares us in the face.
     Although the serpent mask have lied before,
     It fascinates the bird that darkling sings,
     And numbs the little prayer-bird's beating wings.
     For how believe thee somewhere in blank space,
     If through the darkness come no knocking to our door?
 

4

 
     If we might sit until the darkness go,
     Possess our souls in patience perhaps we might;
     But there is always something to be done,
     And no heart left to do it. To and fro
     The dull thought surges, as the driven waves fight
     In gulfy channels. Oh! victorious one,
     Give strength to rise, go out, and meet thee in the night.
 

5

 
     "Wake, thou that sleepest; rise up from the dead,
     And Christ will give thee light." I do not know
     What sleep is, what is death, or what is light;
     But I am waked enough to feel a woe,
     To rise and leave death. Stumbling through the night,
     To my dim lattice, O calling Christ! I go,
     And out into the dark look for thy star-crowned head.
 

6

 
     There are who come to me, and write, and send,
     Whom I would love, giving good things to all,
     But friend—that name I cannot on them spend;
     'Tis from the centre of self-love they call
     For cherishing—for which they first must know
     How to be still, and take the seat that's low:
     When, Lord, shall I be fit—when wilt thou call me friend?
 

7

 
     Wilt thou not one day, Lord? In all my wrong,
     Self-love and weakness, laziness and fear,
     This one thing I can say: I am content
     To be and have what in thy heart I am meant
     To be and have. In my best times I long
     After thy will, and think it glorious-dear;
     Even in my worst, perforce my will to thine is bent.
 

8

 
     My God, I look to thee for tenderness
     Such as I could not seek from any man,
     Or in a human heart fancy or plan—
     A something deepest prayer will not express:
     Lord, with thy breath blow on my being's fires,
     Until, even to the soul with self-love wan,
     I yield the primal love, that no return desires.
 

9

 
     Only no word of mine must ever foster
     The self that in a brother's bosom gnaws;
     I may not fondle failing, nor the boaster
     Encourage with the breath of my applause.
     Weakness needs pity, sometimes love's rebuke;
     Strength only sympathy deserves and draws—
     And grows by every faithful loving look.
 

10

 
     'Tis but as men draw nigh to thee, my Lord,
     They can draw nigh each other and not hurt.
     Who with the gospel of thy peace are girt,
     The belt from which doth hang the Spirit's sword,
     Shall breathe on dead bones, and the bones shall live,
     Sweet poison to the evil self shall give,
     And, clean themselves, lift men clean from the mire abhorred.
 

11

 
     My Lord, I have no clothes to come to thee;
     My shoes are pierced and broken with the road;
     I am torn and weathered, wounded with the goad,
     And soiled with tugging at my weary load:
     The more I need thee! A very prodigal
     I stagger into thy presence, Lord of me:
     One look, my Christ, and at thy feet I fall!
 

12

 
     Why should I still hang back, like one in a dream,
     Who vainly strives to clothe himself aright,
     That in great presence he may seemly seem?
     Why call up feeling?—dress me in the faint,
     Worn, faded, cast-off nimbus of some saint?
     Why of old mood bring back a ghostly gleam—
     While there He waits, love's heart and loss's blight!
 

13

 
     Son of the Father, elder brother mine,
     See thy poor brother's plight; See how he stands
     Defiled and feeble, hanging down his hands!
     Make me clean, brother, with thy burning shine;
     From thy rich treasures, householder divine,
     Bring forth fair garments, old and new, I pray,
     And like thy brother dress me, in the old home-bred way.
 

14

 
     My prayer-bird was cold—would not away,
     Although I set it on the edge of the nest.
     Then I bethought me of the story old—
     Love-fact or loving fable, thou know'st best—
     How, when the children had made sparrows of clay,
     Thou mad'st them birds, with wings to flutter and fold:
     Take, Lord, my prayer in thy hand, and make it pray.
 

15

 
     My poor clay-sparrow seems turned to a stone,
     And from my heart will neither fly nor run.
     I cannot feel as thou and I both would,
     But, Father, I am willing—make me good.
     What art thou father for, but to help thy son?
     Look deep, yet deeper, in my heart, and there,
     Beyond where I can feel, read thou the prayer.
 

16

 
     Oh what it were to be right sure of thee!
     Sure that thou art, and the same as thy son, Jesus!
     Oh, faith is deeper, wider than the sea,
     Yea, than the blue of heaven that ever flees us!
     Yet simple as the cry of sore-hurt child,
     Or as his shout, with sudden gladness wild,
     When home from school he runs, till morn set free.
 

17

 
     If I were sure thou, Father, verily art,
     True father of the Nazarene as true,
     Sure as I am of my wife's shielding heart,
     Sure as of sunrise in the watching blue,
     Sure as I am that I do eat and drink,
     And have a heart to love and laugh and think,
     Meseems in flame the joy might from my body start.
 

18

 
     But I must know thee in a deeper way
     Than any of these ways, or know thee not;
     My heart at peace far loftier proof must lay
     Than if the wind thou me the wave didst roll,
     Than if I lay before thee a sunny spot,
     Or knew thee as the body knows its soul,
     Or even as the part doth know its perfect whole.
 

19

 
     There is no word to tell how I must know thee;
     No wind clasped ever a low meadow-flower
     So close that as to nearness it could show thee;
     No rainbow so makes one the sun and shower.
     A something with thee, I am a nothing fro' thee.
     Because I am not save as I am in thee,
     My soul is ever setting out to win thee.
 

20

 
     I know not how—for that I first must know thee.
     I know I know thee not as I would know thee,
     For my heart burns like theirs that did not know him,
     Till he broke bread, and therein they must know him.
     I know thee, knowing that I do not know thee,
     Nor ever shall till one with me I know thee—
     Even as thy son, the eternal man, doth know thee.
 

21

 
     Creation under me, in, and above,
     Slopes upward from the base, a pyramid,
     On whose point I shall stand at last, and love.
     From the first rush of vapour at thy will,
     To the last poet-word that darkness chid,
     Thou hast been sending up creation's hill,
     To lift thy souls aloft in faithful Godhead free.
 

22

 
     I think my thought, and fancy I think thee.—
     Lord, wake me up; rend swift my coffin-planks;
     I pray thee, let me live—alive and free.
     My soul will break forth in melodious thanks,
     Aware at last what thou wouldst have it be,
     When thy life shall be light in me, and when
     My life to thine is answer and amen.
 

23

 
     How oft I say the same things in these lines!
     Even as a man, buried in during dark,
     Turns ever where the edge of twilight shines,
     Prays ever towards the vague eternal mark;
     Or as the sleeper, having dreamed he drinks,
     Back straightway into thirstful dreaming sinks,
     So turns my will to thee, for thee still longs, still pines.
 

24

 
     The mortal man, all careful, wise, and troubled,
     The eternal child in the nursery doth keep.
     To-morrow on to-day the man heaps doubled;
     The child laughs, hopeful, even in his sleep.
     The man rebukes the child for foolish trust;
     The child replies, "Thy care is for poor dust;
     Be still, and let me wake that thou mayst sleep."
 

25

 
     Till I am one, with oneness manifold,
     I must breed contradiction, strife, and doubt;
     Things tread Thy court—look real—take proving hold—
     My Christ is not yet grown to cast them out;
     Alas! to me, false-judging 'twixt the twain,
     The Unseen oft fancy seems, while, all about,
     The Seen doth lord it with a mighty train.
 

26

 
     But when the Will hath learned obedience royal,
     He straight will set the child upon the throne;
     To whom the seen things all, grown instant loyal,
     Will gather to his feet, in homage prone—
     The child their master they have ever known;
     Then shall the visible fabric plainly lean
     On a Reality that never can be seen.
 

27

 
     Thy ways are wonderful, maker of men!
     Thou gavest me a child, and I have fed
     And clothed and loved her, many a growing year;
     Lo! now a friend of months draws gently near,
     And claims her future—all beyond his ken—
     There he hath never loved her nor hath led:
     She weeps and moans, but turns, and leaves her home so dear.
 

28

 
     She leaves, but not forsakes. Oft in the night,
     Oft at mid-day when all is still around,
     Sudden will rise, in dim pathetic light,
     Some childish memory of household bliss,
     Or sorrow by love's service robed and crowned;
     Rich in his love, she yet will sometimes miss
     The mother's folding arms, the mother's sealing kiss.
 

29

 
     Then first, I think, our eldest-born, although
     Loving, devoted, tender, watchful, dear,
     The innermost of home-bred love shall know!
     Yea, when at last the janitor draws near,
     A still, pale joy will through the darkness go,
     At thought of lying in those arms again,
     Which once were heaven enough for any pain.
 

30

 
     By love doth love grow mighty in its love:
     Once thou shalt love us, child, as we love thee.
     Father of loves, is it not thy decree
     That, by our long, far-wandering remove
     From thee, our life, our home, our being blest,
     We learn at last to love thee true and best,
     And rush with all our loves back to thy infinite rest?
 

DECEMBER

1

 
     I AM a little weary of my life—
     Not thy life, blessed Father! Or the blood
     Too slowly laves the coral shores of thought,
     Or I am weary of weariness and strife.
     Open my soul-gates to thy living flood;
     I ask not larger heart-throbs, vigour-fraught,
     I pray thy presence, with strong patience rife.
 

2

 
     I will what thou will'st—only keep me sure
     That thou art willing; call to me now and then.
     So, ceasing to enjoy, I shall endure
     With perfect patience—willing beyond my ken
     Beyond my love, beyond my thinking scope;
     Willing to be because thy will is pure;
     Willing thy will beyond all bounds of hope.
 

3

 
     This weariness of mine, may it not come
     From something that doth need no setting right?
     Shall fruit be blamed if it hang wearily
     A day before it perfected drop plumb
     To the sad earth from off its nursing tree?
     Ripeness must always come with loss of might.
     The weary evening fall before the resting night.
 

4

 
     Hither if I have come through earth and air,
     Through fire and water—I am not of them;
     Born in the darkness, what fair-flashing gem
     Would to the earth go back and nestle there?
     Not of this world, this world my life doth hem;
     What if I weary, then, and look to the door,
     Because my unknown life is swelling at the core?
 

5

 
     All winged things came from the waters first;
     Airward still many a one from the water springs
     In dens and caves wind-loving things are nursed:—
     I lie like unhatched bird, upfolded, dumb,
     While all the air is trembling with the hum
     Of songs and beating hearts and whirring wings,
     That call my slumbering life to wake to happy things.
 

6

 
     I lay last night and knew not why I was sad.
     "'Tis well with God," I said, "and he is the truth;
     Let that content me."—'Tis not strength, nor youth,
     Nor buoyant health, nor a heart merry-mad,
     That makes the fact of things wherein men live:
     He is the life, and doth my life outgive;
     In him there is no gloom, but all is solemn-glad,
 

7

 
     I said to myself, "Lo, I lie in a dream
     Of separation, where there comes no sign;
     My waking life is hid with Christ in God,
     Where all is true and potent—fact divine."
     I will not heed the thing that doth but seem;
     I will be quiet as lark upon the sod;
     God's will, the seed, shall rest in me the pod.
 

8

 
     And when that will shall blossom—then, my God,
     There will be jubilation in a world!
     The glad lark, soaring heavenward from the sod,
     Up the swift spiral of its own song whirled,
     Never such jubilation wild out-poured
     As from my soul will break at thy feet, Lord,
     Like a great tide from sea-heart shoreward hurled.
 

9

 
     For then thou wilt be able, then at last,
     To glad me as thou hungerest to do;
     Then shall thy life my heart all open find,
     A thoroughfare to thy great spirit-wind;
     Then shall I rest within thy holy vast,
     One with the bliss of the eternal mind;
     And all creation rise in me created new.
 

10

 
     What makes thy being a bliss shall then make mind
     For I shall love as thou, and love in thee;
     Then shall I have whatever I desire,
     My every faintest wish being all divine;
     Power thou wilt give me to work mightily,
     Even as my Lord, leading thy low men nigher,
     With dance and song to cast their best upon thy fire.
 

11

 
     Then shall I live such an essential life
     That a mere flower will then to me unfold
     More bliss than now grandest orchestral strife—
     By love made and obedience humble-bold,
     I shall straight through its window God behold.
     God, I shall feed on thee, thy creature blest
     With very being—work at one with sweetest rest.
 

12

 
     Give me a world, to part for praise and sunder.
     The brooks be bells; the winds, in caverns dumb,
     Wake fife and flute and flageolet and voice;
     The fire-shook earth itself be the great drum;
     And let the air the region's bass out thunder;
     The firs be violins; the reeds hautboys;
     Rivers, seas, icebergs fill the great score up and under!
 

13

 
     But rather dost thou hear the blundered words
     Of breathing creatures; the music-lowing herds
     Of thy great cattle; thy soft-bleating sheep;
     O'erhovered by the trebles of thy birds,
     Whose Christ-praised carelessness song-fills the deep;
     Still rather a child's talk who apart doth hide him,
     And make a tent for God to come and sit beside him.
 

14

 
     This is not life; this being is not enough.
     But thou art life, and thou hast life for me.
     Thou mad'st the worm—to cast the wormy slough,
     And fly abroad—a glory flit and flee.
     Thou hast me, statue-like, hewn in the rough,
     Meaning at last to shape me perfectly.
     Lord, thou hast called me fourth, I turn and call on thee.
 

15

 
     'Tis thine to make, mine to rejoice in thine.
     As, hungering for his mother's face and eyes,
     The child throws wide the door, back to the wall,
     I run to thee, the refuge from poor lies:
     Lean dogs behind me whimper, yelp, and whine;
     Life lieth ever sick, Death's writhing thrall,
     In slavery endless, hopeless, and supine.
 

16

 
     The life that hath not willed itself to be,
     Must clasp the life that willed, and be at peace;
     Or, like a leaf wind-blown, through chaos flee;
     A life-husk into which the demons go,
     And work their will, and drive it to and fro;
     A thing that neither is, nor yet can cease,
     Which uncreation can alone release.
 

17

 
     But when I turn and grasp the making hand,
     And will the making will, with confidence
     I ride the crest of the creation-wave,
     Helpless no more, no more existence' slave;
     In the heart of love's creating fire I stand,
     And, love-possessed in heart and soul and sense,
     Take up the making share the making Master gave.
 

18

 
     That man alone who does the Father's works
     Can be the Father's son; yea, only he
     Who sonlike can create, can ever be;
     Who with God wills not, is no son, not free.
     O Father, send the demon-doubt that lurks
     Behind the hope, out into the abyss;
     Who trusts in knowledge all its good shall miss.
 

19

 
     Thy beasts are sinless, and do live before thee;
     Thy child is sinful, and must run to thee.
     Thy angels sin not and in peace adore thee;
     But I must will, or never more be free.
     I from thy heart came, how can I ignore thee?—
     Back to my home I hurry, haste, and flee;
     There I shall dwell, love-praising evermore thee.
 

20

 
     My holy self, thy pure ideal, lies
     Calm in thy bosom, which it cannot leave;
     My self unholy, no ideal, hies
     Hither and thither, gathering store to grieve—
     Not now, O Father! now it mounts, it flies,
     To join the true self in thy heart that waits,
     And, one with it, be one with all the heavenly mates.
 

21

 
     Trusting thee, Christ, I kneel, and clasp thy knee;
     Cast myself down, and kiss thy brother-feet—
     One self thou and the Father's thought of thee!
     Ideal son, thou hast left the perfect home,
     Ideal brother, to seek thy brothers come!
     Thou know'st our angels all, God's children sweet,
     And of each two wilt make one holy child complete.
 

22

 
     To a slow end I draw these daily words,
     Nor think such words often to write again—
     Rather, as light the power to me affords,
     Christ's new and old would to my friends unbind;
     Through words he spoke help to his thought behind;
     Unveil the heart with which he drew his men;
     Set forth his rule o'er devils, animals, corn, and wind.
 

23

 
     I do remember how one time I thought,
     "God must be lonely—oh, so lonely lone!
     I will be very good to him—ah, nought
     Can reach the heart of his great loneliness!
     My whole heart I will bring him, with a moan
     That I may not come nearer; I will lie prone
     Before the awful loveliness in loneliness' excess."
 

24

 
     A God must have a God for company.
     And lo! thou hast the Son-God to thy friend.
     Thou honour'st his obedience, he thy law.
     Into thy secret life-will he doth see;
     Thou fold'st him round in live love perfectly—
     One two, without beginning, without end;
     In love, life, strength, and truth, perfect without a flaw.
 

25

 
     Thou hast not made, or taught me, Lord, to care
     For times and seasons—but this one glad day
     Is the blue sapphire clasping all the lights
     That flash in the girdle of the year so fair—
     When thou wast born a man, because alway
     Thou wast and art a man, through all the flights
     Of thought, and time, and thousandfold creation's play.
 

26

 
     We all are lonely, Maker—each a soul
     Shut in by itself, a sundered atom of thee.
     No two yet loved themselves into a whole;
     Even when we weep together we are two.
     Of two to make one, which yet two shall be,
     Is thy creation's problem, deep, and true,
     To which thou only hold'st the happy, hurting clue.
 

27

 
     No less than thou, O Father, do we need
     A God to friend each lonely one of us.
     As touch not in the sack two grains of seed,
     Touch no two hearts in great worlds populous.
     Outside the making God we cannot meet
     Him he has made our brother: homeward, thus,
     To find our kin we first must turn our wandering feet.
 

28

 
     It must be possible that the soul made
     Should absolutely meet the soul that makes;
     Then, in that bearing soul, meet every other
     There also born, each sister and each brother.
     Lord, till I meet thee thus, life is delayed;
     I am not I until that morning breaks,
     Not I until my consciousness eternal wakes.
 

29

 
     Again I shall behold thee, daughter true;
     The hour will come when I shall hold thee fast
     In God's name, loving thee all through and through.
     Somewhere in his grand thought this waits for us.
     Then shall I see a smile not like thy last—
     For that great thing which came when all was past,
     Was not a smile, but God's peace glorious.
 

30

 
     Twilight of the transfiguration-joy,
     Gleam-faced, pure-eyed, strong-willed, high-hearted boy!
     Hardly thy life clear forth of heaven was sent,
     Ere it broke out into a smile, and went.
     So swift thy growth, so true thy goalward bent,
     Thou, child and sage inextricably blent,
     Wilt one day teach thy father in some heavenly tent
 

31

 
     Go, my beloved children, live your life.
     Wounded, faint, bleeding, never yield the strife.
     Stunned, fallen-awake, arise, and fight again.
     Before you victory stands, with shining train
     Of hopes not credible until they are.
     Beyond morass and mountain swells the star
     Of perfect love—the home of longing heart and brain