ONE day I wandered where the salt sea-tide | |
| Backward had drawn its wave, | |
| And found a spring as sweet as e’er hillside | |
| To wild-flowers gave. | |
| Freshly it sparkled in the sun’s bright look, | 5 |
| And mid its pebbles strayed, | |
| As if it thought to join a happy brook | |
| In some green glade. | |
| |
| But soon the heavy sea’s resistless swell | |
| Came rolling in once more, | 10 |
| Spreading its bitter o’er the clear sweet well | |
| And pebbled shore. | |
| Like a fair star thick buried in a cloud, | |
| Or life in the grave’s gloom, | |
| The well, enwrapped in a deep watery shroud, | 15 |
| Sunk to its tomb. | |
| |
| As one who by the beach roams far and wide, | |
| Remnant of wreck to save, | |
| Again I wandered when the salt sea-tide | |
| Withdrew its wave; | 20 |
| And there, unchanged, no taint in all its sweet, | |
| No anger in its tone, | |
| Still as it thought some happy brook to meet, | |
| The spring flowed on. | |
| |
| While waves of bitterness rolled o’er its head, | 25 |
| Its heart had folded deep | |
| Within itself, and quiet fancies led, | |
| As in a sleep; | |
| Till, when the ocean loosed his heavy chain, | |
| And gave it back to day, | 30 |
| Calmly it turned to its own life again | |
| And gentle way. | |
| |
| Happy, I thought, that which can draw its life | |
| Deep from the nether springs, | |
| Safe ’neath the pressure, tranquil mid the strife, | 35 |
| Of surface things. | |
| Safe—for the sources of the nether springs | |
| Up in the far hills lie; | |
| Calm—for the life its power and freshness brings | |
| Down from the sky. | 40 |
| |
| So, should temptations threaten, and should sin | |
| Roll in its whelming flood, | |
| Make strong the fountain of thy grace within | |
| My soul, O God! | |
| If bitter scorn, and looks, once kind, grown strange, | 45 |
| With crushing chillness fall, | |
| From secret wells let sweetness rise, nor change | |
| My heart to gall! | |
| |
| When sore thy hand doth press, and waves of thine | |
| Afflict me like a sea,— | 50 |
| Deep calling deep,—infuse from source divine | |
| Thy peace in me! | |
| And when death’s tide, as with a brimful cup, | |
| Over my soul doth pour, | |
| Let hope survive,—a well that springeth up | 55 |
| Forevermore! | |
| |
| Above my head the waves may come and go, | |
| Long brood the deluge dire, | |
| But life lies hidden in the depths below | |
| Till waves retire,— | 60 |
| Till death, that reigns with overflowing flood, | |
| At length withdraw its sway, | |
| And life rise sparkling in the sight of God | |
| An endless day. | |
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