Part 17

13.

"Things do go wrong. I know grief, pain, and fear. I see them lord it sore and wide around." From her fair twilight answers Truth, star-crowned, "Things wrong are needful where wrong things abound. Things go not wrong; but Pain, with dog and spear, False faith from human hearts will hunt and hound. The earth shall quake 'neath them that trust the solid ground."

14.

Things go not wrong when sudden I fall prone, But when I snatch my upheld hand from thine, And, proud or careless, think to walk alone. Then things go wrong, when I, poor, silly sheep, To shelves and pits from the good pasture creep; Not when the shepherd leaves the ninety and nine, And to the mountains goes, after the foolish one.

15.

Lo! now thy swift dogs, over stone and bush, After me, straying sheep, loud barking, rush. There's Fear, and Shame, and Empty-heart, and Lack, And Lost-love, and a thousand at their back! I see thee not, but know thou hound'st them on, And I am lost indeed--escape is none. See! there they come, down streaming on my track!

16.

I rise and run, staggering--double and run.-- But whither?--whither?--whither for escape? The sea lies all about this long-necked cape-- There come the dogs, straight for me every one-- Me, live despair, live centre of alarms!-- Ah! lo! 'twixt me and all his barking harms, The shepherd, lo!--I run--fall folded in his arms.

17.

There let the dogs yelp, let them growl and leap; It is no matter--I will go to sleep. Like a spent cloud pass pain and grief and fear, Out from behind it unchanged love shines clear.-- Oh, save me, Christ!--I know not what I am, I was thy stupid, self-willed, greedy lamb, Would be thy honest and obedient sheep.

18.

Why is it that so often I return From social converse with a spirit worn, A lack, a disappointment--even a sting Of shame, as for some low, unworthy thing?-- Because I have not, careful, first of all, Set my door open wide, back to the wall, Ere I at others' doors did knock and call.

19.

Yet more and more of me thou dost demand; My faith and hope in God alone shall stand, The life of law--not trust the rain and sun To draw the golden harvest o'er the land. I must not say--"This too will pass and die," "The wind will change," "Round will the seasons run." Law is the body of will, of conscious harmony.

20.

Who trusts a law, might worship a god of wood; Half his soul slumbers, if it be not dead. He is a live thing shut in chaos crude, Hemmed in with dragons--a remorseless head Still hanging over its uplifted eyes. No; God is all in all, and nowhere dies-- The present heart and thinking will of good.

21.

Law is our schoolmaster. Our master, Christ, Lived under all our laws, yet always prayed-- So walked the water when the storm was highest.-- Law is Thy father's; thou hast it obeyed, And it thereby subject to thee hast made-- To rule it, master, for thy brethren's sakes:-- Well may he guide the law by whom law's maker makes.

22.

Death haunts our souls with dissolution's strife; Soaks them with unrest; makes our every breath A throe, not action; from God's purest gift Wipes off the bloom; and on the harp of faith Its fretted strings doth slacken still and shift: Life everywhere, perfect, and always life, Is sole redemption from this haunting death.

23.

God, thou from death dost lift me. As I rise, Its Lethe from my garment drips and flows. Ere long I shall be safe in upper air, With thee, my life--with thee, my answered prayer Where thou art God in every wind that blows, And self alone, and ever, softly dies, There shall my being blossom, and I know it fair.

24.

I would dig, Master, in no field but thine, Would build my house only upon thy rock, Yet am but a dull day, with a sea-sheen! Why should I wonder then that they should mock, Who, in the limbo of things heard and seen, Hither and thither blowing, lose the shine Of every light that hangs in the firmament divine.

25.

Lord, loosen in me the hold of visible things; Help me to walk by faith and not by sight; I would, through thickest veils and coverings, See into the chambers of the living light. Lord, in the land of things that swell and seem, Help me to walk by the other light supreme, Which shows thy facts behind man's vaguely hinting dream.

26.

I see a little child whose eager hands Search the thick stream that drains the crowded street For possible things hid in its current slow. Near by, behind him, a great palace stands, Where kings might welcome nobles to their feet. Soft sounds, sweet scents, fair sights there only go-- There the child's father lives, but the child does not know.