MY PLAYMATE. Straight the mother stooped to see Well she knew its graven sign, Squando's bird and totem pine; And, a mirage of the brain, Flowed her childhood back again. Flashed the roof the sunshine through, Cool she felt the west-wind blow, From the outward toil and din, Called the birds, and winds, and floods. Well, O painful minister ! Blame her not, as to her soul When, that night, the Book was read, To the listening ear of Heaven, MY PLAYMATE. THE pines were dark on Ramoth hill, The blossoms drifted at our feet, 233 "And I sought, whence is Evil: I set before the eye of my spirit the whole creation; whatsoever we see therein, - sea, earth, air, stars, trees, moral creatures, - yea, whatsoever there is we do not see, angels and spiritual powers. Where is evil, and whence comes it, since God the Good hath created all things? Why made He anything at all of evil, and not rather by His Almightiness cause it not to be? These thoughts I turned in my miserable heart, overcharged with most gnawing cares." "And, admonished to return to myself, I entered even into my inmost soul, Thou being my guide, and beheld even beyond my soul and mind the Light unchangeable. He who knows the Truth knows what that Light is, and he that knows it knows Eternity! O Truth, who art Eternity! Love, who art Truth! Eternity, who art Love! And I beheld that Thou madest all things good, and to Thee is nothing whatsoever evil. From the angel to the worm, from the first motion to the last, Thou settest each in its place, and everything is good in its kind. Woe is me! - how high art Thou in the highest, how deep in the deepest! and Thou never departest from us and we scarcely return to Thee." -Augustine's Soliloquies, Book VII. THE fourteen centuries fall away Between us and the Afric saint, And at his side we urge, to-day, The immemorial quest and old complaint. No outward sign to us is given, From sea or earth comes no reply; Hushed as the warm Numidian heaven He vainly questioned bends our frozen sky. No victory comes of all our strife, From all we grasp the meaning slips; The Sphinx sits at the gate of life, With the old question on her awful lips. In paths unknown we hear the feet Of fear before, and guilt behind; We pluck the wayside fruit, and eat Ashes and dust beneath its golden rind. From age to age descends unchecked The sad bequest of sire to son, The body's taint, the mind's defect, Through every web of life the dark threads run. O, why and whither? - God knows all; I only know that he is good, And that whatever may befall Or here or there, must be the best that could. Between the dreadful cherubim A Father's face I still discern, As Moses looked of old on him, And saw his glory into goodness turn! For he is merciful as just; And so, by faith correcting sight, I bow before his will, and trust Howe'er they seem he doeth all things right. And dare to hope that he will make The rugged smooth, the doubtful plain; His mercy never quite forsake; His healing visit every realm of pain ; That suffering is not his revenge Upon his creatures weak and frail, Sent on a pathway new and strange With feet that wander and with eyes that fail; That, o'er the crucible of pain, Watches the tender eye of Love The slow transmuting of the chain Whose links are iron below to gold above! THE EVE OF ELECTION. FROM gold to gray In the Moor's galley, where the sun-smit Lap the white walls of Tunis!" waves "What I can "O man 66 Our mild sweet day I give," Tritemius said: my prayers." Of Indian Summer fades too soon; Of God!" she cried, for grief had made her bold, "Mock me not thus; I ask not prayers, but gold. Words will not serve me, alms alone suffice; But tenderly Hangs, white and calm, the hunter's moon. In its pale fire, Even while I speak perchance my first- Shows like the zodiac's spectral lance; sped, Or he can give you golden ones instead." And make or mar the common weal. THE OVER-HEART. 237 For pearls that gem The diver in the deep sea dies; We boast to-night Is ours through costlier sacrifice; God is and man in guilt and fear Guilt shapes the Terror: deep within And what is He?. The ripe grain nods, blow; O hearts of love! O souls that turn Whose need the sage and magian The loving heart of God behold, The hope for which the ages groaned ! |