XV

’If not a sparrow fall, unless
  The Father sees and knows it,
Think! recks He less his form express,
  The soul his own deposit? 
If only dear to Him the strong,
  That never trip nor wander,
Where were the throng whose morning song
  Thrills his blue arches yonder? 120

XVI

’Do souls alone clear-eyed, strong-kneed,
  To Him true service render,
And they who need his hand to lead,
  Find they his heart untender? 
Through all your various ranks and fates
  He opens doors to duty,
And he that waits there at your gates
  Was servant of his Beauty.

XVII

’The Earth must richer sap secrete,
  (Could ye in time but know it!) 130
Must juice concrete with fiercer heat,
  Ere she can make her poet;
Long generations go and come,
  At last she bears a singer,
For ages dumb of senses numb
  The compensation-bringer!

XVIII

’Her cheaper broods in palaces
  She raises under glasses,
But souls like these, heav’n’s hostages,
  Spring shelterless as grasses:  140
They share Earth’s blessing and her bane,
  The common sun and shower;
What makes your pain to them is gain,
  Your weakness is their power.

XIX

’These larger hearts must feel the rolls
  Of stormier-waved temptation;
These star-wide souls between their poles
  Bear zones of tropic passion. 
He loved much!—­that is gospel good,
  Howe’er the text you handle; 150
From common wood the cross was hewed,
  By love turned priceless sandal.

XX

’If scant his service at the kirk,
  He paters heard and aves
From choirs that lurk in hedge and birk,
  From blackbird and from mavis;
The cowering mouse, poor unroofed thing,
  In him found Mercy’s angel;
The daisy’s ring brought every spring
  To him love’s fresh evangel! 160

XXI

’Not he the threatening texts who deals
  Is highest ’mong the preachers,
But he who feels the woes and weals
  Of all God’s wandering creatures. 
He doth good work whose heart can find
  The spirit ’neath the letter;
Who makes his kind of happier mind,
  Leaves wiser men and better.

XXII

’They make Religion be abhorred
  Who round with darkness gulf her, 170
And think no word can please the Lord
  Unless it smell of sulphur,
Dear Poet-heart, that childlike guessed
  The Father’s loving kindness,
Come now to rest!  Thou didst his hest,
  If haply ‘twas in blindness!’