BELIEVE and pray. Who can believe and
Shall never fail nor falter, though the fate
Of his abode, or geniture, or date,
With charms beguile, or threats obstruct his way.
For free is Faith, and potent to obey,
And Love, content in patient prayer to wait,
Like the poor cripple at the Beautiful Gate,
Shall be relieved on some miraculous day.
Lord, I believe! Lord, help mine unbelief!
If I could pray, I know that Thou would'st hear;
Well were it though my faith were only grief,
And I could pray but with a contrite tear.
But none can pray whose wish is not Thy will,
And none believe who are not with Thee still.
SHE sat and wept beside His feet; the weight
Of sin oppressed her heart; for all the blame,
And the poor malice of the worldly shame,
To her was past, extinct, and out of date.
Only the sin remained the leprous state: -
She would be melted by the heat of love,
By fires far fiercer than are blown to prove
And purge the silver ore adulterate.
She sat and wept, and with her untressed hair
Still wiped the feet she was so blest to touch;
And He wiped off the soiling of despair
From her sweet soul, because she loved so much.
I am a sinner, full of doubts and fears,
Make me a humble thing of love and tears.
REPENTANCE BEFORE FORGIVENESS.*
If I have sinned in act, I may repent;
If I have erred in thought, I may disclaim
My silent error, and yet feel no shame;
But if my soul, big with an ill intent,
Guilty in will, by fate be innocent,
Or being bad, yet murmurs at the curse
And incapacity of being worse,
Making my hungry passion still keep Lent
In keen expectance of a Carnival,
Where, in all worlds that round the Sun revolve
And shed their influence on this passive ball,
Abides a power that can my soul absolve?
Could any sin survive, and be forgiven,
One sinful wish would make a hell of heaven.
* "May one be pardoned, and retain the offence?" — Shakspeare.
SENSE, IF YOU CAN FIND IT.
LIKE one pale, flitting, lonely gleam
Of sunshine on a winter's day,
There came a thought upon my dream,
I know not whence, but fondly deem
It came from far away.
Those sweet, sweet snatches of delight
That visit our bedarkened clay,
Like passage birds, with hasty flight
It cannot be they perish quite,
Although they pass away.
They come and go, and come again;
They're ours, whatever time they stay: Think not, my heart, they come in vain, If one brief while they soothe thy pain Before they pass away.
But whither go they? No one knows but yet they seem to say,
That far beyond this gulf of woes,
There is a region of repose
For them that pass away.
O WEDDING-GUEST! this soul hath been
Alone on a wide, wide sea:
So lonely 'twas, that God himself
Scarce seeméd there to be.
O sweeter than the marriage-feast,
'Tis sweeter far to me,
To walk together to the kirk
With a goodly company!
To walk together to the kirk,
And all together pray ;
While each to his great Father bends,
Old men, and babes, and loving friends,
And youths and maidens gay!
Farewell! farewell! but this I tell
To thee, thou Wedding-Guest,
He prayeth well, who loveth well
Both man and bird and beast.
He prayeth best, who loveth best
All things both great and small;
For the dear God who loveth us,
He made and loveth all.
LINES ON VISITING A PRISON.
AND this place my forefathers made for man!
With other ministrations thou, O Nature!
Healest thy wandering and distempered child:
Thou pourest on him thy soft influences,
Thy sunny hues, fair forms, and breathing sweets,—
Thy melodies of woods, and winds, and waters,
Till he relent, and can no more endure
To be a jarring and a dissonant thing
Amid this general dance and minstrelsy;
But, bursting into tears, wins back his way,
His angry spirit healed and harmonized
By the benignant touch of love and beauty.
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