| |
| O FRIENDS! with whom my feet have trod | |
| The quiet aisles of prayer, | |
| Glad witness to your zeal for God | |
| And love of man I bear. | |
| |
| I trace your lines of argument; | 5 |
| Your logic linked and strong | |
| I weigh as one who dreads dissent, | |
| And fears a doubt as wrong. | |
| |
| But still my human hands are weak | |
| To hold your iron creeds: | 10 |
| Against the words ye bid me speak | |
| My heart within me pleads. | |
| |
| Who fathoms the Eternal Thought? | |
| Who talks of scheme and plan? | |
| The Lord is God! He needeth not | 15 |
| The poor device of man. | |
| |
| I walk with bare, hushed feet the ground | |
| Ye tread with boldness shod; | |
| I dare not fix with mete and bound | |
| The love and power of God. | 20 |
| |
| Ye praise His justice; even such | |
| His pitying love I deem: | |
| Ye seek a king; I fain would touch | |
| The robe that hath no seam. | |
| |
| Ye see the curse which overbroods | 25 |
| A world of pain and loss; | |
| I hear our Lord’s beatitudes | |
| And prayer upon the cross. | |
| |
| More than your schoolmen teach, within | |
| Myself, alas! I know: | 30 |
| Too dark ye cannot paint the sin, | |
| Too small the merit show. | |
| |
| I bow my forehead to the dust, | |
| I veil mine eyes for shame, | |
| And urge, in trembling self-distrust, | 35 |
| A prayer without a claim. | |
| |
| I see the wrong that round me lies, | |
| I feel the guilt within; | |
| I hear, with groan and travail-cries, | |
| The world confess its sin. | 40 |
| |
| Yet, in the maddening maze of things, | |
| And tossed by storm and flood, | |
| To one fixed trust my spirit clings; | |
| I know that God is good! | |
| |
| Not mine to look where cherubim | 45 |
| And seraphs may not see, | |
| But nothing can be good in Him | |
| Which evil is in me. | |
| |
| The wrong that pains my soul below | |
| I dare not throne above, | 50 |
| I know not of His hate,—I know | |
| His goodness and His love. | |
| |
| I dimly guess from blessings known | |
| Of greater out of sight, | |
| And, with the chastened Psalmist, own | 55 |
| His judgments too are right. | |
| |
| I long for household voices gone, | |
| For vanished smiles I long, | |
| But God hath led my dear ones on, | |
| And He can do no wrong. | 60 |
| |
| I know not what the future hath | |
| Of marvel or surprise, | |
| Assured alone that life and death | |
| His mercy underlies. | |
| |
| And if my heart and flesh are weak | 65 |
| To bear an untried pain, | |
| The bruisèd reed He will not break, | |
| But strengthen and sustain. | |
| |
| No offering of my own I have, | |
| Nor works my faith to prove; | 70 |
| I can but give the gifts He gave, | |
| And plead His love for love. | |
| |
| And so beside the Silent Sea | |
| I wait the muffled oar; | |
| No harm from Him can come to me | 75 |
| On ocean or on shore. | |
| |
| I know not where His islands lift | |
| Their fronded palms in air; | |
| I only know I cannot drift | |
| Beyond His love and care. | 80 |
| |
| O brothers! if my faith is vain, | |
| If hopes like these betray, | |
| Pray for me that my feet may gain | |
| The sure and safer way. | |
| |
| And Thou, O Lord! by whom are seen | 85 |
| Thy creatures as they be, | |
| Forgive me if too close I lean | |
| My human heart on Thee! | |
| |
