POEMS AND LYRICS.

THE SHADOW AND THE LIGHT.

"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 Hé anything at all of evil, and not rather by His Allmightiness 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 defectThrough every web of life the dark threads run.

Oh! 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 SHADOW AND THE LIGHT.

Ah, me! we doubt the shining skies

Seen through our shadows of offence, And drown with our poor childish cries The cradle-hymn of kindly Providence.

And still we love the evil cause,

And of the just effect complain; We tread upon life's broken laws, And murmur at our self-inflicted pain ;

We turn us from the light, and find

Our spectral shapes before us thrown,
As they who leave the sun behind
Walk in the shadows of themselves alone.

And scarce by will or strength of ours
We set our faces to the day;

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Weak, wavering, blind, the Eternal Powers Alone can turn us from ourselves away.

Our weakness is the strength of sin,
But love must needs be stronger far,
Outreaching all and gathering in
The erring spirit and the wandering star.

A Voice grows with the growing years;
Earth, hushing down her bitter cry,
Looks upward from her graves, and hears,
"The Resurrection and the Life am I."

Oh, Love Divine !-whose constant beam Shines on the eyes that will not see, And waits to bless us, while we dream Thou leavest us because we turn from thee!

All souls that struggle and aspire,

All hearts of prayer by thee are lit; And, dim or clear, thy tongues of fire On dusky tribes and twilight centuries sit.

Nor bounds, nor clime, nor creed thou know'st,
Wide as our need thy favors fall;
The white wings of the Holy Ghost
Stoop, seen or unseen, o'er the heads of all.

Oh, Beauty, old yet ever new! 27

Eternal Voice, and Inward Word,
The Logos of the Greek and Jew,
The old sphere-music which the Samian heard!

Truth which the sage and prophet saw,
Long sought without but found within,
The Law of Love beyond all law,
The Life o'erflooding mortal death and sin!

Shine on us with the light which glowed
Upon the trance-bound shepherd's way,
Who saw the Darkness overflowed
And drowned by tides of everlasting Day.28

Shine, light of God!—make broad thy scope
To all who sin and suffer; more

And better than we dare to hope

With Heaven's compassion make our longings poor

THE GIFT OF TRITEMIUS.

TRITEMIUS OF HERBIPOLIS, one day,
While kneeling at the altar's foot to pray,
Alone with God, as was his pious choice,
Heard from without a miserable voice,

A sound which seemed of all sad things to tell,
As of a lost soul crying out of hell.

Thereat the Abbot paused; the chain whereby
His thoughts went upward broken by that cry;

!

THE GIFT OF TRITEMIUS.

And, looking from the casement, saw below
A wretched woman, with gray hair a-flow,
And withered hands held up to him, who cried
For alms as one who might not be denied.

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She cried, "For the dear love of Him who gave
His life for ours, my child from bondage save,—
My beautiful, brave first-born, chained with slaves
In the Moor's galley, where the sun-smit waves
Lap the white walls of Tunis!"-" What I can
I give," Tritemius said: "my prayers.
“O man
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;
Even while I speak perchance my first-born dies."

"Woman!" Tritemius answered, “from our door None go unfed; hence are we always poor: A single soldo is our only store.

Thou hast our prayers;-what can we give theo more?"

"Give me,” she said, "the silver candlesticks
On either side of the great crucifix.

God well may spare them on his errands sped,
Or he can give you golden ones instead."

Then spake Tritemius, "Even as thy word,
Woman, so be it! (Our most gracious Lord,
Who loveth mercy more than sacrifice,
Pardon me if a human soul I prize
Above the gifts upon his altar piled!)

Take what thou askest, and redeem thy child."

But his hand trembled as the holy alms
He placed within the beggar's eager palms;
And as she vanished down the linden shade,
He bowed his head and for forgiveness prayed.