WHAT THE BIRDS SAID. "Behind us are the Moormen; Then up spake John de Matha: They raised the cross-wrought mantle, The blue, the white, the red; And straight before the wind off-shore The ship of Freedom sped. "God help us!" cried the seamen, "For vain is mortal skill: The good ship on a stormy sea Is drifting at its will." Then up spake John de Matha: "My mariners, never fear! The Lord whose breath has filled her sail May well our vessel steer! So on through storm and darkness And on the walls the watchers And the bells in all the steeples To welcome home to Christian soil So runs the ancient legend By bard and painter told; And lo! the cycle rounds again, The new is as the old! With rudder foully broken, Before her, nameless terror; The clouds are black above her, The sea is white below. The hope of all who suffer, 385 But courage, O my mariners! Is not your sail the banner Which God hath blest anew, Its hues are all of heaven, - Wait cheerily, then, O mariners, Sail on, sail on, deep-freighted With blessings and with hopes; The saints of old with shadowy hands Are pulling at your ropes. Behind ye holy martyrs Uplift the palm and crown; Before ve unborn ages send Their benedictions down. Take heart from John de Matha ! — Sail on! The morning cometh, WHAT THE BIRDS SAID. THE birds against the April wind Flew northward, singing as they flew; OUR MASTER. Against the words ve bid me speak My heart within me pleads. Who fathoms the Eternal Thought? Who talks of scheme and plan? The Lord is God! He needeth not The poor device of man. I walk with bare, hushed feet the ground I dare not fix with mete and bound Ye praise His justice; even such Ye seek a king; I fain would touch Ye see the curse which overbroods More than your schoolmen teach, within Too dark ye cannot paint the sin, I bow my forehead to the dust, And urge, in trembling self-distrust, I see the wrong that round me lies, I feel the guilt within; I hear, with groan and travail-cries, The world confess its sin. Yet, in the maddening maze of things, Not mine to look where cherubim The wrong that pains my soul below I know not of His hate, - I know 389 I dimly guess from blessings known I long for household voices gone, I know not what the future hath And if my heart and flesh are weak No offering of my own I have, Nor works my faith to prove; And so beside the Silent Sea No harm from Him can come to me I know not where His islands lift I only know I cannot drift O brothers! if my faith is vain, And Thou, O Lord! by whom are seen OUR MASTER. IMMORTAL Love, forever full, Forever flowing free, Forever shared, forever whole, A never-ebbing sea! |