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The Soliloquy
WHAT wealth to earth our God hath given! | |
| What growing increment for heaven! | |
| Men, women, youth, and children small, | |
| I thank the good God for you all! | |
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| Not always was it mine to give | 5 |
| Such high regard to all who live; | |
| Time was, I know, when I could go | |
| Along the streets and scarcely see | |
| The presences my God did show | |
| So lavishly to me. | 10 |
| Around my steps,—before, behind,— | |
| They His creative power declared; | |
| I only heeded them, to find | |
| The easiest path, as on I fared. | |
| And even the innocent little ones, | 15 |
| Of value high o’er stars and suns,— | |
| Evangelists, by Heaven’s decree, | |
| Commission’d truths to teach to me | |
| That elsewise I had never known,— | |
| They seem’d young foreigners to be, | 20 |
| They never seem’d mine own. | |
| How could I be so dull and blind? | |
| How dared I slight God’s humankind? | |
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| I know ye nothing care for me;— | |
| Each to each deep mysteries, | 25 |
| We cannot guess what we may be | |
| Except by what a glance can seize. | |
| Perchance we never met before, | |
| Meet now the first and final time, | |
| Yet are ye mine, over and o’er, | 30 |
| That, haply, I may help you climb | |
| To Jesus, up the mount divine. | |
| Oh might such high success be minel | |
| Fain would I couch your vision dim; | |
| Fain would I lead you up to Him! | 35 |
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| Nay, nay, I cannot yield up one— | |
| No little child, no youth, no man; | |
| I cannot say, Depart from me; | |
| I cannot say, Begone, begone, | |
| I have no part in thee. | 40 |
| No part? But how? Do I not love you? | |
| Is not this title still more strong | |
| Than if I’d bought you all with gold?— | |
| Love strenuous flies, a spirit above you; | |
| Try to escape, it will outfly you, | 45 |
| It will embrace, ay, and defy you | |
| To break away its gentle hold. | |
| Because God’s love is swift and strong, | |
| Therefore ye all to me belong. | |
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| Why do I dare love all mankind? | 50 |
| ’Tis not because each face, each form | |
| Is comely, for it is not so; | |
| Nor is it that each soul is warm | |
| With any Godlike glow. | |
| Yet there’s no one to whom’s not given | 55 |
| Some little lineament of heaven, | |
| Some partial symbol, at the least, in sign | |
| Of what should be, if it is not, within, | |
| Reminding of the death of sin | |
| And life of the Divine. | 60 |
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| There was a time, full well I know, | |
| When I had not yet seen you so; | |
| Time was, when few seem’d fair; | |
| But now, as through the streets I go, | |
| There seems no face so shapeless, so | 65 |
| Forlorn, but that there’s something there | |
| That, like the heavens, doth declare | |
| The glory of the great All-fair; | |
| And so mine own each one I call; | |
| And so I dare to love you all. | 70 |
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| Glory to God, who hath assign’d | |
| To me this mixture with mankind! | |
| Glory to God, that I am born | |
| Into a world, whose palace-gates | |
| So many royal ones adorn! | 75 |
| Heaven’s possible novitiates, | |
| With self-subduing freedom free, | |
| Princely ye are, each one, to me, | |
| Each of secret kingly blood, | |
| Though not inheritors as yet | 80 |
| Of all your own right royal things, | |
| For it were folly to forget | |
| That they alone are queens and kings | |
| Who are the truly good. | |
| Yet are ye angels in disguise, | 85 |
| Angels who have not found your wings; | |
| I see more in ye than ye are | |
| As yet, while earth so closely clings; | |
| As through a cloud that hides the skies | |
| Undoubting science hails a star | 90 |
| Not to be seen by other eyes, | |
| Yet surely among things that are, | |
| So the dense veil of your deformities | |
| Love gives me power away to pull. | |
| Alas! why will ye not from sin arise, | 95 |
| And be Christ’s beautiful? | |
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The Sermon
Ho! every one that thirsts, draw nigh, draw nigh! | |
| The drink I offer, Christ’s own words supply. | |
| Ho! every one that thirsts not, thirst, I cry; | |
| Why will ye still neglect to drink,—and die? | 100 |
| See, here are living wells; why will ye scorn? | |
| Ye unborn, why refuse ye to be born? | |
| I call you to repent, oh hear my call! | |
| Doth my voice reach you, through the stiff cere-clothes | |
| That do enshroud and wrap you up withal? | 105 |
| Doth my shout come, a whisper in your ears, | |
| As sounds might, travell’d from far distant spheres, | |
| Into the ravell’d windings of a cave? | |
| O then turn down those cerements of the grave | |
| From round about your ears; | 110 |
| Let my voice be as thunder, let it roll | |
| Into each wakening soul; | |
| Come forth, O Lazarus! when I say so | |
| Deem me a way where through Christ’s mandates flow, | |
| And let each buried one attend, and know | 115 |
| The stone is roll’d away; Christ calls to him below. | |
| Come forth, O Lazarus! when I say so, | |
| Let where it lists His Holy Spirit blow, | |
| Until each Lazarus comes forth, and know | |
| Christ only waits to say—Loose him, and let him go! | 120 |
| His voice delights to set all prisoners free; | |
| His blood, His truth, makes all sin white as wool; | |
| Oh hear! Oh wash you, cleanse you, and so be | |
| Christ’s own, Christ’s beautiful! | |
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