Part 36

“My God, am I then afraid Of heights or depths? And doth this dark benumb my quaking limbs? And do I stop my song in fear Lest Thee do then forsake me? Nay, for I do love Thee so, I fain would choose a song Built from my chosen tung, And though it be but chattering Of a soul bereft of reasoning, I know Thou would’st love it as Thine own, For I do love Thee so!”

This was not given for another, but is her own cry:

I beseech Thee, Lord, for naught! But cry aloud unto the sunlight Who bathes the earth in gold And boldly breaketh into crannies Yet unseen by man: Flash thou in flaming sheen! Mine own song of love doth falter And my throat, it is afail!

And thou, the greening shrub along the way, And earth at bud-season, Do thou then spurt thy shoots And pierce the air with loving! And age-wabbled brother— I do love thee for thy spending, And I do gaze in loving at thy face, Whereon I find His peace, And trace the withered cheek For record of His love. Around thy lips doth hang The child-smile of a trusting heart; And world hath vanished From thine eyes, bedimmed To gard thee at awakening. Thou, too, art of my song of love.

I beseech Thee, Lord, for naught. These hands are Thine for loving, And this heart, already Thine, Why offer it? I beseech Thee, Lord, for naught.

This one does ask for something, but only to know Him:

Teach me, O God, To say, “’Tis not enough.” Aye, teach me, O Brother, To sing, and though the weight Be past this strength, Teach me, O God, to say, “’Tis not enough—to pay!”

Teach me, O God, for I be weak. Teach me to learn Of strength from Thee.

Teach me, O God, to trust, and do. Teach me, O God, no word to pray. Teach me, O God, the heart Thou gavest me. Teach me, O God, to read thereon. Teach me, O God, to waste not word. Teach me that I be Ye!

That last line presents the most impressive principle of the religion she expresses, and which, we might almost say, she embodies. “Who are you?” she was once asked abruptly.

“I be Him,” she replied; “alike to thee. Ye be o’ Him.”

At another time she said:

“I be all that hath been, and all that is, all that shalt be, for that be He.”

Taken alone this would seem to be a declaration that she herself was God, but when it is read in connection with the previous affirmation it is readily understood.

“Thou art of Him,” she said again, “aye, and I be of Him, and ye be of Him, and He be all and of all.”

In this prayer, where she says “Teach me, O God, no word to pray,” it is evident from her other prayers that she uses the word pray in the sense of “to beg.” Her prayers are merely expressions of love and gratitude.

She herself interprets the line, “Teach me, O God, to waste not word,” in this verse:

Speak ye a true tongue, Or waste ye with words the Soul’s song? A damning evidence is with wasted words; For need I prate to yonder star When hunger fills the world wherein I dwell? Cast I a glance so precious as His Which wakes at every dawn? Speak I a tongue one half so true As sighing winds who sing amid Aeolian harps strung with siren tress? For lo, the sea murmureth a thousand tones, Wrung from its world within, But telleth only of Him, And so His silence keeps.

In the order in which we have chosen to present these poems, they are more and more mystical as we go on. We trust, then, that the reader meeting them for the first time will feel no impertinence in increasing attempts at elucidation from one who has read them often and pondered them much.

There is another and a very interesting phase of these communications in the place Christ holds in them. Patience’s attitude toward the Savior is one of deep and loving reverence.

“Didst thou then,” she says, “with those drops so worth, buy the throbbing at thy memory set aflutter? And is this love of mine so freely thine by that same purchase, or do I love thee for thy love of me? And do I, then, my father’s tilling for love of Him, like thee to shed my blood and tears for reapers in an age to come, because He wills it so? God grant ’tis so!”

Nor does she hesitate to assert His divinity with definiteness. “Think ye,” she cries, “that He who doth send the earth aspin athrough the blue depth o’ Heaven, be not a wonder-god who springeth up where’er He doth set a wish! Yea, then doth He to spring from out the dust a lily; so also doth He to breathe athin (within) the flesh, and come unto the earth, born from out flesh athout the touch o’ man. ’Tis so, and from off the lute o’ me hath song aflowed that be asweeted o’ the blood o’ Him that shed for thee and me.”

And she puts the same assertion of His divine birth into this tribute to the Virgin:

Mary, mother, thou art the Spring That flowereth, though nay man aplanteth thee. Mary, mother, the song of thee That lulled His dreams to come, Sing them athrough the earth and bring The hope of rest unto the day.

Mary, mother, from out the side of Him That thou didst bear, aflowed the crimson tide That doth to stain e’en unto this day— The tide of blood that ebbed the man From out the flesh and left the God to be.

Mary, mother, wilt thou then leave me catch These drops, that I do offer them as drink Unto the brothers of the flesh of me of earth? Mary, mother of the earth’s loved! Mary, bearer of the God! Mary, that I might call thee of a name befitting thee, I seek, I seek, I seek, and none Doth offer it to me save this: Mother! Mother! Mother of the Him; The flesh that died for me.

THE IDEAS ON IMMORTALITY

“Earth! Earth, the mother of us all! Aye, the mother of us all! How loth, how loth, like to a child we be, to leave and seek ’mid dark!”—PATIENCE WORTH.