Narrative and Legendary Poems: Barclay of Ury, and Others eBook

So, entering with a changed and cheerful step
The city gates, he saw, far down the street,
A mighty shadow break the light of noon,
Which tracing backward till its airy lines
Hardened to stony plinths, he raised his eyes
O’er broad facade and lofty pediment,
O’er architrave and frieze and sainted niche,
Up the stone lace-work chiselled by the wise
Erwin of Steinbach, dizzily up to where
In the noon-brightness the great Minster’s tower,
Jewelled with sunbeams on its mural crown,
Rose like a visible prayer.  “Behold!” he said,
“The stranger’s faith made plain before mine eyes. 
As yonder tower outstretches to the earth
The dark triangle of its shade alone
When the clear day is shining on its top,
So, darkness in the pathway of Man’s life
Is but the shadow of God’s providence,
By the great Sun of Wisdom cast thereon;
And what is dark below is light in Heaven.”
1853.

THE HERMIT OF THE THEBAID.

O strong, upwelling prayers of faith,
From inmost founts of life ye start,—­
The spirit’s pulse, the vital breath
Of soul and heart!

From pastoral toil, from traffic’s din,
Alone, in crowds, at home, abroad,
Unheard of man, ye enter in
The ear of God.

Ye brook no forced and measured tasks,
Nor weary rote, nor formal chains;
The simple heart, that freely asks
In love, obtains.

For man the living temple is
The mercy-seat and cherubim,
And all the holy mysteries,
He bears with him.

And most avails the prayer of love,
Which, wordless, shapes itself in needs,
And wearies Heaven for naught above
Our common needs.

Which brings to God’s all-perfect will
That trust of His undoubting child
Whereby all seeming good and ill
Are reconciled.

And, seeking not for special signs
Of favor, is content to fall
Within the providence which shines
And rains on all.

Alone, the Thebaid hermit leaned
At noontime o’er the sacred word. 
Was it an angel or a fiend
Whose voice be heard?

It broke the desert’s hush of awe,
A human utterance, sweet and mild;
And, looking up, the hermit saw
A little child.

A child, with wonder-widened eyes,
O’erawed and troubled by the sight
Of hot, red sands, and brazen skies,
And anchorite.

“’What dost thou here, poor man?  No shade
Of cool, green palms, nor grass, nor well,
Nor corn, nor vines.”  The hermit said
“With God I dwell.

“Alone with Him in this great calm,
I live not by the outward sense;
My Nile his love, my sheltering palm
His providence.”

The child gazed round him.  “Does God live
Here only?—­where the desert’s rim
Is green with corn, at morn and eve,
We pray to Him.

“My brother tills beside the Nile
His little field; beneath the leaves
My sisters sit and spin, the while
My mother weaves.