Thou seemest human and divine, The highest, holiest manhood, Thou: Our wills are ours, we know not how ; Our wills are ours, to make them Thine. Our little systems have their day; They have their day and cease to be: They are but broken lights of Thee, And Thou, O Lord, art more than they. We have but faith: we cannot know ; Let knowledge grow from more to more, But more of reverence in us dwell; That mind and soul, according well, May make one music as before, But vaster. We are fools and slight ; We mock Thee when we do not fear: Help Thy vain worlds to bear Thy light. orgive what seem'd my sin in me; orgive my grief for one removed, Thy creature, whom I found so fair. I trust he lives in Thee, and there find him worthier to be loved. I. I HELD it truth, with him who sings But who shall so forecast the years And find in loss a gain to match? Or reach a hand thro' time to catch The far-off interest of tears? Let Love clasp Grief lest both be drown'd, Let darkness keep her raven gloss; Ah! sweeter to be drunk with loss, To dance with death, to beat the ground; Than that the victor Hours should scorn B II. OLD Yew, which graspest at the stones That name the under-lying dead, Thy fibres net the dreamless head; Thy roots are wrapt about the bones. The seasons bring the flower again, And bring the firstling to the flock; Beats out the little lives of men. O! not for thee the glow, the bloom, Nor branding summer suns avail And gazing on the sullen tree, Sick for thy stubborn hardihood, I seem to fail from out my blood, And grow incorporate into thee. |