When the panic comes upon thee, When necessity seems on thee,
Hope and choice have all foregone thee, Fate and force are closing o'er thee, And but one way stands before thee - Call on us!
O, and if thou dost not call,
Be but faithful, that is all.
Go right on, and close behind thee
There shall follow still and find thee,
ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH, 1849.
"WITH WHOM IS NO VARIABLENESS, NEITHER SHADOW OF TURNING."
T fortifies my soul to know
That, though I perish, Truth is so: That, howsoe'er I stray and range, Whate'er I do, Thou dost not change. I steadier step when I recall That, if I slip, Thou dost not fall.
eyes, with searching strained
Till both the parching globes are pained,
At set of sun is balm for you:
Look up, and bathe them in the blue.
No need to count the coming stars, Nor watch those wimpled pearly bars That flush above the west; but follow In idler mood the idle swallow, With careless, half-unconscious eye, Round his great circles on the sky, Till he, and all things, lose for you Their being in that depth of blue.
O fevered brain, with searching strained Till every pulsing nerve is pained, In tranquil hours is balm for you : Vex not the thoughts with false and true ; Be still and bathe them in the blue.
To every sad conviction throw
This grim defiance: "Be it so!" To doubts that will not let you sleep,
This answer: "Wait! the truth will keep."
Weary, and marred with care and pain And bruising days, the human brain Draws wounded inward, it might be Some delicate creature of the sea, That, shuddering, shrinks its lucent dome, And coils its azure tendrils home, And folds its filmy curtains tight, At jarring contact, e'er so light. But let it float away all free, And feel the buoyant, supple sea
Among its tinted streamers swell, Again it spreads its gauzy rings, And, waving its wan fringes, swings With rhythmic pulse its crystal bell.
Think out, float out away from where The pressure of the trembling air Keeps down to earth the shrunken mind. Set free the smothered thought, and find, Beyond our world, a vaster place
To thrill and vibrate out through space, As some auroral banner streams Up through the night in widening gleams, And floats and flashes o'er our dreams; There let the whirling planet fall Down-down, till but a vanishing ball, A misty gleam: and dwindled so, Thyself, thy world, no trace can show; Too small to have a care or woe Or wish, apart from that one Will That doth His worlds with music fill.
IN A LECTURE-ROOM.
AWAY, haunt thou not me,
Thou vain Philosophy!
Little hast thou bestead, Save to perplex the head,
And leave the spirit dead.
Unto thy broken cisterns wherefore go, While from the secret treasure-depths below, Fed by the skiey shower,
And clouds that sink and rest on hill-tops high, Wisdom at once, and Power,
Are welling, bubbling forth, unseen, incessantly? Why labour at the dull mechanic oar, When the fresh breeze is blowing, And the strong current flowing, Right onward to the Eternal Shore ?
HEAR it often in the dark, I hear it in the light,
Where is the voice that calls to me With such a quiet might?
It seems but echo to my thought, And yet beyond the stars ; It seems a heart-beat in a hush, And yet the planet jars!
it be that far within
My inmost soul there lies A spirit-sky, that opens with Those voices of surprise?
And can it be, by night and day, That firmament serene
Is just the heaven where God himself, The Father, dwells unseen?
O God within, so close to me That every thought is plain, Be judge, be friend, be Father still, And in thy heaven reign!
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