第4章 FEBRUARY(1)

I TO myself have neither power nor worth, Patience nor love, nor anything right good;

My soul is a poor land, plenteous in dearth--Here blades of grass, there a small herb for food--A nothing that would be something if it could;

But if obedience, Lord, in me do grow, I shall one day be better than I know.

The worst power of an evil mood is this--It makes the bastard self seem in the right, Self, self the end, the goal of human bliss.

But if the Christ-self in us be the might Of saving God, why should I spend my force With a dark thing to reason of the light--Not push it rough aside, and hold obedient course?

Back still it comes to this: there was a man Who said, "I am the truth, the life, the way:"--Shall I pass on, or shall I stop and hear?--"Come to the Father but by me none can:"

What then is this?--am I not also one Of those who live in fatherless dismay?

I stand, I look, I listen, I draw near.

My Lord, I find that nothing else will do, But follow where thou goest, sit at thy feet, And where I have thee not, still run to meet.

Roses are scentless, hopeless are the morns, Rest is but weakness, laughter crackling thorns, If thou, the Truth, do not make them the true:

Thou art my life, O Christ, and nothing else will do.

Thou art here--in heaven, I know, but not from here--Although thy separate self do not appear;

If I could part the light from out the day, There I should have thee! But thou art too near:

How find thee walking, when thou art the way?

Oh, present Christ! make my eyes keen as stings, To see thee at their heart, the glory even of things.

That thou art nowhere to be found, agree Wise men, whose eyes are but for surfaces;

Men with eyes opened by the second birth, To whom the seen, husk of the unseen is, Descry thee soul of everything on earth.

Who know thy ends, thy means and motions see:

Eyes made for glory soon discover thee.

Thou near then, I draw nearer--to thy feet, And sitting in thy shadow, look out on the shine;

Ready at thy first word to leave my seat--Not thee: thou goest too. From every clod Into thy footprint flows the indwelling wine;

And in my daily bread, keen-eyed I greet Its being's heart, the very body of God.

Thou wilt interpret life to me, and men, Art, nature, yea, my own soul's mysteries--Bringing, truth out, clear-joyous, to my ken, Fair as the morn trampling the dull night. Then The lone hill-side shall hear exultant cries;

The joyous see me joy, the weeping weep;

The watching smile, as Death breathes on me his cold sleep.

I search my heart--I search, and find no faith.

Hidden He may be in its many folds--I see him not revealed in all the world Duty's firm shape thins to a misty wraith.

No good seems likely. To and fro I am hurled.

I have no stay. Only obedience holds:--I haste, I rise, I do the thing he saith.

10.

Thou wouldst not have thy man crushed back to clay;

It must be, God, thou hast a strength to give To him that fain would do what thou dost say;

Else how shall any soul repentant live, Old griefs and new fears hurrying on dismay?

Let pain be what thou wilt, kind and degree, Only in pain calm thou my heart with thee.

11.

I will not shift my ground like Moab's king, But from this spot whereon I stand, I pray-->From this same barren rock to thee I say, "Lord, in my commonness, in this very thing That haunts my soul with folly--through the clay Of this my pitcher, see the lamp's dim flake;

And hear the blow that would the pitcher break."

12.

Be thou the well by which I lie and rest;

Be thou my tree of life, my garden ground;

Be thou my home, my fire, my chamber blest, My book of wisdom, loved of all the best;

Oh, be my friend, each day still newer found, As the eternal days and nights go round!

Nay, nay--thou art my God, in whom all loves are bound!

13.

Two things at once, thou know'st I cannot think.

When busy with the work thou givest me, I cannot consciously think then of thee.

Then why, when next thou lookest o'er the brink Of my horizon, should my spirit shrink, Reproached and fearful, nor to greet thee run?

Can I be two when I am only one.

14.

My soul must unawares have sunk awry.

Some care, poor eagerness, ambition of work, Some old offence that unforgiving did lurk, Or some self-gratulation, soft and sly--Something not thy sweet will, not the good part, While the home-guard looked out, stirred up the old murk, And so I gloomed away from thee, my Heart.

15.