Alfred H. Miles, ed. The Sacred Poets of the Nineteenth Century. 1907.

By Olrig Grange (1872) (Selected Lines). II. “My sun sinks without clouds or fears”

Walter Chalmers Smith (1824–1908)

MY sun sinks without clouds or fears;

No spectral shadows gather round

The gateway of the endless years,

Where we, long blindfold, are unbound,

And lay our swathings on the ground,

To face the Eternal. So I rest

Peacefully on the Strong One’s breast,

Even though the mystery profound

Ever a mystery be confessed.

My old doubts?—Well, they no more fret,

Nor chafe and foam o’er sunken rocks.

I don’t know that my Faith is yet

Quite regular and orthodox;

I have not keys for all the locks,

And may not pick them. Truth will bear

Neither rude handling, nor unfair

Evasion of its wards, and mocks

Whoever would falsely enter there.

But all through life I see a Cross,

Where sons of God yield up their breath:

There is no gain except by loss,

There is no life except by death,

There is no vision but by Faith,

Nor glory but by bearing shame,

Nor justice but by taking blame;

And that Eternal Passion saith,

“Be emptied of glory and right and name.”