After short commerce with me, fear my frown!
Thou too, when thou against my crimes wouldst cry,
Let thy foreboded homage check thy tongue!”—
The world speaks well; yet might her foe reply,
“Are wills so weak? then let not mine wait long!
Hast thou so rare a poison? let me be
Keener to slay thee, lest thou poison me!”
STAGIRIUS. [3]
Thou, who dost dwell alone;
Thou, who dost know thine own;
Thou, to whom all are known
From the cradle to the grave—
Save, oh! save.
From the world’s temptations,
From tribulations,
From that fierce anguish
Wherein we languish,
From that torpor deep
Wherein we lie asleep,
Heavy as death, cold as the grave,
Save, oh! save.
When the soul, growing clearer,
Sees God no nearer;
When the soul, mounting higher,
To God comes no nigher;
But the arch-fiend Pride
Mounts at her side,
Foiling her high emprise,
Sealing her eagle eyes,
And, when she fain would soar,
Makes idols to adore,
Changing the pure emotion
Of her high devotion,
To a skin-deep sense
Of her own eloquence;
Strong to deceive, strong to enslave—
Save, oh! save.
From the ingrained fashion
Of this earthly nature
That mars thy creature;
From grief that is but passion,
From mirth that is but feigning,
From tears that bring no healing,
From wild and weak complaining,
Thine old strength revealing,
Save, oh! save.
From doubt, where all is double;
Where wise men are not strong,
Where comfort turns to trouble,
Where just men suffer wrong;
Where sorrow treads on joy,
Where sweet things soonest cloy,
Where faiths are built on dust,
Where love is half mistrust,
Hungry, and barren, and sharp as the sea—
Oh! set us free.
Oh, let the false dream fly,
Where our sick souls do lie
Tossing continually!
Oh, where thy voice doth come,
Let all doubts be dumb,
Let all words be mild,
All strifes be reconciled,
All pains beguiled!
Light bring no blindness,
Love no unkindness,
Knowledge no ruin,
Fear no undoing!
From the cradle to the grave,
Save, oh! save.
HUMAN LIFE.
What mortal, when he saw,
Life’s voyage done, his heavenly Friend,
Could ever yet dare tell him fearlessly—
“I have kept uninfringed my nature’s law;
The inly-written chart thou gavest me,
To guide me, I have steered by to the end”?
Ah! let us make no claim,
On life’s incognizable sea,
To too exact a steering of our way;
Let us not fret and fear to miss our aim,
If some fair coast has lured us to make stay,
Or some friend hailed us to keep company.
Ay! we would each fain drive
At random, and not steer by rule.
Weakness! and worse, weakness bestowed in vain!
Winds from our side the unsuiting consort rive;
We rush by coasts where we had lief remain:
Man cannot, though he would, live chance’s fool.
No! as the foaming swath
Of torn-up water, on the main,
Falls heavily away with long-drawn roar
On either side the black deep-furrowed path
Cut by an onward-laboring vessel’s prore,
And never touches the ship-side again;
Even so we leave behind,
