I.
OF all that men with zeal and ardour chace,
Pour’d here and there on life’s promiscuous ground,
Some points are won by smooth and easy race,
Some hedged by hindrance hard and sore are found.
With wish’d success not every wight is crown’d.
Sagacious minds their means will nicely choose:
What ill their powers can master will go round;
What force can fairly do will not refuse,
Not spend their strength in vain, nor meet advantage lose.
II.
So in his simple toils the Indian guide
Through western wilds who shapes the traveller’s way;
In downward rapids, where he can, to slide
His swift canoe, right glad in heart and gay,
Will meet them upward too without dismay;
Yet, if occasion minister, will shun:
Now off, through unsuspected passage stray;
Now up dividing branch obliquely run,
That so more smoothly may, and soon, his course be done.
III.
Down Winnipeg’s full flood, with labour small,
Onward you sweep, and speed that cannot slack;
(Save many a bar, I trow, from thundering fall,)
Far other task awaits your journey back:
Alike, if so you may, decline attack
Of fall or swelling flood, and wiser find
Far here or there a space, some devious track:
Lo! at this reedy spot, the woods behind,
A narrower, weaker stream is known to skulk and wind.
IV.
Pursue the thread,— a pleasing rural calm
Hangs o’er the scene, as when from busy strife,
Grandeur, and worldly glare, men find it balm
To steal to humbler and sequester’d life.
All yet is wild: be sure no gardener’s knife
Has trimm’d these shrubs; no sheep have cropp’d the grass:
No cottage smoke will rise,— no spinning wife
Peep forth; with milk-pail charged no village lass:
In stillness all the way and solitude you pass.
V.
And yet, though all be wild, we seem to meet
Here wandering on, a wildness more subdued;
And, in the features of the far retreat,
Tho’ all be waste, a gentler solitude:
Some rocks there are and falls, but not so rude:
The pause relieves yor mind when off you look
From objects huge and vastness still renew’d,
On landscape more confined and quiet nook,
On willowy streamlet soft, or clear fast-flowing brook.
VI.
One spot we reach,— a space by broken hills
Shut in,— from whence, with interrupted course,
O’erhung by boughs, in rushing whiten’d rills,
Winds forth the stream, not without murmur hoarse.
The forest footpath here we seek perforce;
But first of flatten’d rocks a threshold view,
With clefts, we almost think they had their source
In human art, in such proportion due
Their narrow’d walls are cut, so parallel and true.
VII.
Loitering, I mused awhile, (since transport here
Of vessel with her load demands a space,)
For when the name had struck my heedful ear,
Stamp’d on these rocks which shrubs and wildflowers grace,
Its rude tradition I had striven to trace:
They have a tale that in still deeper cleft
(Since clefts abound within the dangerous place)
A child who fell, long vainly sought, was left
By wandering parents wailed, all hopelessly bereft.
VIII.
So Hylas, Hylas, rang through every glade;
Hylas, the lost of foolish fable old:
So pours at eve beneath the poplar shade
Sad nightingale her sorrows uncontroll’d:
Her unfledged young, by clown to pity cold
Torn from her breast, with plaint prolong’d she weeps.
Ill-omen’d all the place the Indians hold,
And live remembrance still the story keeps:
No native passing through, or sojourns there, or sleeps.
IX.
Hence THE LOST CHILD is title of the spot,
(So tells of voyageurs a toil-worn man
Who Arctic scenes has view’d,) and well I wot
To found on this of lengthen’d lay the plan,
And lead to lofty thoughts what thus began:—
Or heavenly lore, may much incongruous seem
To those who would the task severely scan;
And fond conceit such project they may deem;
Yet so my thoughts were drawn, and I pursue my theme.
X.
Forgive the mean attempt, and bless it too;
And O! if aught of slender gift, and weak,
Thy wisdom has bestow’d,— whate’er I do,
My God, thy glory let me only seek:
High truths more trifling theme was made to speak,
The sofa, erst by one of honour’d name:
Him, in warm love, in faith subdued and meek,
Fain would I follow,— strains like his to frame
My hand more rude forbears, and simple skill, to claim.
XI.
LOST CHILD of Adam! — ah! LOST CHILD of God,
From Him, the Father of the skies, astray;
Fall’n under sin, and with thy kindred sod
Ordain’d, when thou hast done thy little day
Again to mix; and then the gulph assay,
All unexplored beyond — mark’d from thy birth
By weakness, want, and error — growing grey
In lusts, and strifes, and slavish cares of earth,
Who shall thy helper be, vain thing, what art thou worth?
XII.
There in the pit thou liest; thou canst not climb,
Nor from thy base confinement seek to rise,
Sunk, as of yore, by dark fraternal crime,
The patriarch’s child who bless’d his father’s eyes;
Yet he, to passing Midianites a prize,
Falls now, for weight of silver duly told:
And see, of Egypt’s lordly men and wise
First is he rank’d, a slave but lately sold;
Once more a father’s arms that best-loved son enfold.
XIII.
For thee, what hand is for thy rescue stretch’d;
What price to gain thy service will be paid?
Whence of a father’s love shall hope be fetch’d,
Or high deliverance in thy prospect laid?
Call, if to answer thee can one be stay’d;
Turn to the saints, if they can succour yield;
Sons of the mighty, can you lend your aid?
Angels of heaven, by you can this be heal’d?
Ah! no — we search in vain creation’s boundless field.
XIV.
Creation fails: but who from Edom now
With garments dyed from Bozrah hither speeds,
Travelling in strength which bids resistance bow?
Say who — for clad He comes in glorious weeds.
‘Tis I,— in righteousness whose language pleads,
Mighty to save, and single Saviour known.
Ask not from whence his garment freshly bleeds,
As who the purple wine-press treads; alone
He fights, nor help from man his high achievements own.
XV.
In vain her warlike towers shall Bozrah boast;
Edom in vain her flaunting banners rear;
With sure defeat th’ Avenger sweeps the host;
Israel of God, thy foes are pictured here!
It comes — of his redeem’d the glorious year —
Not surer once the doom’d destruction fell
On Zion’s self, for which He pour’d the tear,
Than still from foe to foe his conquests swell,
Till trampled lie for aye the powers of death and hell.
XVI.
Yet with mad scorn He struggled here below;
With rending pang and foul dishonour fought;
Such cup He drank — for God had will’d it so —
And victory by his own dear blood was bought:
Like Joseph, too, (as holy seer had taught,)
For Him was counted down the silver cost:
Him Death embraced who life for sinners wrought,
The pit, WHO CAME TO SEEK AND SAVE THE LOST,
GOD’S CHILDREN gathering back in varied wanderings toss’d.
XVII.
Well may you wonder, mortals, at the work
Jehovah works; but wondering, O beware
No disbelief or thought disdainful lurk
Within your breasts — to perish else prepare:
What God has done shall man to question dare?
With cavils greet, and reasonings falsely wise?
Will you, like hapless falconer, gaze in air,
Scanning the way which some loose fancy flies,
Beneath your heedless feet while yawning danger lies?
XVIII.
We do not bid you shut fair Reason’s eye;
We do not seek to keep your senses blind;
We do not say you must not calmly try
If things be so — no, such is not our mind,
Your heaven-born souls in fetters base to bind;
But search, when searching, deeply as you need;
First of those souls the wants insatiate find,
Insatiate else, and thence be shaped your creed,
That Gospel words are truth, and Christ is joy indeed.
XIX.
This wonder spurn’d, will then your wonder cease?
Your doubting speculations disappear?
No clouds on your horizon now increase?
Is Providence all plain, all mystery clear?
War, slavery, dearth and plague, lust, rage and fear,
Evil in moral shape or natural found,
Whence did they come? why is it suffer’d here;
‘Mid loveliest scenes foul mischief should abound,
This glorious world we tread be felt a cursed ground?
XX.
O think of all the human hearts that grieve
With festering wrongs; count all the bitter sighs,
Outlets of woe, which human bosoms heave;
Hear all the shrieks which pierce the pitying skies;
Mark what fierce pleasure glares in fiendish eyes;
The eyes of man made for affections kind,
With cutting strips his fellow to chastise;
See Him in tortures skill’d, intent in mind
Fresh writhings to procure, new sense of pain to find.
XXI.
Stand where the world may some wide prospect stretch,
And muse upon the scenes enacted there:
In yon throng’d town how many a batter’d wretch
Loud in forced laugh, by art’s coarse efforts fair,
Toils, spider-like, her victims to ensnare;
Herself, to sell where’er the hire is paid,
Strolls through promiscuous streets with blazon’d air:
Ah! she the victim once — some simple maid —
Loved, flatter’d, won, despised, to want and shame betray’d.
XXII.
So some dishonour’d fall: pronounce the doom;
Punish the crime; throw first the stone, whoe’er
Is spotless found. What, all make vacant room?
Left is the solitary convict here?
Ye favour’d souls, are not your bosoms clear,
Whom smooth proprieties, encircling, chain?
Sleek citizen, starch Pharisee severe,
Follower of harmless sport, of decent gain,
Refuse ye, one by one, God’s challenge to sustain?
XXIII.
Sail on, contented crowd,— on let them sail:
For heaven full sure they steer: unblemish’d fame
Is theirs, right worthy men, how should they fail?
Yet is there not a test for virtue’s claim?
Live they to God? love they his glorious name?
Or greet Him rather with evasive shifts,
And sufferance cold — nay, with fastidious shame?
While all the largeness of his daily gifts
The more their pamper’d hearts in wantonness uplifts.
XXIV.
O motley world! death joins the dance of pride
Unseen, and shakes, unheard, his ghastly bones:
Requiem with revel blends; by dungeon’s side
Tall palace towers: here burst distressful groans
From lazar-walls, there trill theatric tones,
Fashion and beggary, pomp and famine meet;
Crime in all shapes the mingling tumult owns;
Foul oaths, insane debauch, trade’s endless cheat,
And blood’s accusing cry which tells a brother’s feat.
XXV.
Is here no call for help, no sign of harm?
No staring proof of man’s disorder’d state?
Can waken’d conscience look without alarm
On dim eternity, or find in fate
Or reeling chance, as some perversely prate,
Comfort at last? or is it thus you hope
To stay the soul in nature’s stern debate;
With those rough billows give her strength to cope
Which close upon us once, and never, never ope?
XXVI.
Where is she now? — the parted corpse you see:
O what a change! — all senseless, stiff, and cold,
Waiting worse changes yet:— but where is she
Who prompted late the moving, pliant mould?
So mad you cannot be, so blindly bold,
To deem that, hence when she has taken wing
Her being all is closed, her history told,
Mere evanescent froth, evaporate thing!
Ah! no — in death she lives, and thence of death the sting.
XXVII.
Sin is the sting: if those be found below
Who have not sinn’d, all happy speed be theirs!
How they are here we might desire to know;
We only say they are not Adam’s heirs;
Blessing to them no second Adam bears;
They may dispense with Christ; but you who own
That you have sinn’d, that sin with judgment pairs,
Say, in your souls will no relief be known
That ONE has died for ALL, and can for all atone?
XXVIII.
God is a holy God. The fairest star
Which shines, the moon which hangs in heaven serene,
Fall from their pureness and perfection far
View’d in those eyes — and how shall man be clean?
In old mythology the pictures seen,
Stern Nemesis pursuing deeds ill done;
Minos with colleagues dark,— what do they mean?
Fierce Furies driving Clytemnestra’s son?
Still guilty nature speaks; the doubled dream is one.
XXIX.
Man seeks in vain by blind device to sooth
The worm within, which restless nature feels:
See myriads crush’d, believing so to smooth
Their after-state, by eastern idol’s wheels.
Ah! where his rites in part the Christian steals
From pagan soure, with spotted faith obscure,
See many a conscience sore which mammon heals;
Ills of departed souls which priests can cure;
Feign’d fires which offer’d mass can make the less endure.
XXX.
Carrying while here, and calculating too
In fruits beyond, the consciousness of sin,
Still something strange man deems there is to do
Or suffer, ere repose his soul can win:
Gifts he will fetch and strain’d inventions spin;
Lash, starve himself, or lay brute victims low:
Yet did dumb sacrifice from God begin,
Ordain’d the truth eternal to foreshow,
That sin unwash’d by blood remission cannot know.
XXXI.
O victim first and last — O spotless Lamb,
Ere yet in space the globe’s foundations lay,
Slain in th’ omniscient mind of God, I AM,
With whom a thousand years are as a day:
O once ordain’d, and, once for all, to pay —
(Unlike the sacrifice which priests repeat)—
Of all the world to take the sins away,
Offering sufficient, satisfaction meet,
The work was FINISH’D then — receive us at thy feet.
XXXII.
God’s attributes intact, inviolate, each
Must stand, in this essentially the same,
Far as his mercy and compassion reach,
Not less his purity and justice claim,
Infinite all; on none can shade of blame,
On none can breath of imperfection pass:
Sins which with men may wear some easy name
Taint the whole soul — make breach with God — alas!
With blinded eyes we judge, and feel with hearts of brass.
XXXIII.
To sin her wages Truth stands pledged to give,
If justice yield her claim, God’s rule must cease;
Love interposes — let the sinner live —
God’s full prerogatives shall not decrease;
Mercy with truth shall meet, with justice peace.
On me be all the debt these prisoners owe;
Mine be the task these culprits to release;
My throne I leave, my glory I forego;
In me behold, as man, the family below.
XXXIV.
Forgiveness from offence, from want relief
Of bounteous hand, from suffering, pity flows;
The field of generous sympathies, to grief,
To ills on ills, its whole existence owes;
None can he own who sees no human woes;
Great from permitted evil hence the gain:
So, in their heavenly exercise, repose
On guilt, on helplessness, on loss and pain,
God’s attributes of grace in all their radiant train.
XXXV.
And has not He, if evidence you ask,
Piled proof on proof, his structure to secure?
Ply o’er the page of prophecy your task,
Mark of the Nazarene the portrait sure:
See peel’d and scatter’d Israel still endure;
See them, of truths they gladly would efface
The guardians made, to stamp the writing pure;
Follow the fate of kingdom, people, place,
And patient, side by side, with doom predicted trace.
XXXVI.
Search, sift the tale, how wondrous works of cold
Were wrought by hands of feeble men, and few;
How these in maintenance of FACTS were bold
To die,— of FACTS which proved their system true:
See from what source its small beginnings drew
The spreading stream which yet will flood the world;
From seed of martyr-blood how Churches grew;
How hosts unarm’d the battle backward hurl’d;
The cross alone they bore for banner, wide unfurl’d.
XXXVII.
Survey the fruits: if men who bear her name
To holy fair have done dishonour strange
By manners vile, by persecution’s flame,
By rite adulterous or unlicensed change,
These only show the shocks which still derange,
From early harm, the vast and swift machine:
Till once the wheat is gather’d for the grange
In close commixture will the tares be seen:
God’s book foreshows the ills and paints each brood unclean.
XXXVIII.
Survey the fruits — it is not thus throughout —
Happy and holy fruits may well be view’d:
O hence alone might vanish every doubt,
Each high imagination fall subdued.
In Christian lands are thousands unrenew’d
In vigorous faith and holiness of heart:
But has no greater blessing there accrued
In social system, manners, useful art,
Than monstrous Pagan creed or Moslem lies impart?
XXXIX.
Look closer yet: full many a mark well known
I pass, as help for orphan, sick, or blind;
As mitigated war; as general tone
Of soften’d thoughts, whose first pure source we find
In Christian Faith — (and choose of happiest kind
Paynim or Turk, yet, bold for her behoof,
We say that Christians farthest fall’n behind
Their standard high, compared will help our proof)—
But leave this wider gaze: lift we the Christian roof.
XL.
O beautiful the tint which Faith will shed
On all the landscape of domestic life!
Subdue the wayward child, the hoary head
A crown of glory make; the gentle wife
In rudest trials guide; unholy strife
Or chilling scorn exchange for love and peace;
Ills which in smooth or coarser form are rife,
Hard selfishness or petulant caprice,
With gradual hand weed out, and mischief bid to cease.
XLI.
One farther step — behold that headlong youth
Glorying in sin, to profligacy sold:
He turns — he melts — he clasps eternal truth:
O will he now that prize exchange for gold?
Or mark some pilgrim meek, who, once enroll’d,
With heart retentive of baptismal seal,
Of weakness ware, keeps close within the fold:
Think you from him you shall his treasure steal?
Ah, no! ’tis his, to babes what wisdom can reveal!
XLII.
I speak not here of heaven-sent sudden throes,
Infusions palpable to sense allied,
Too freely mix’d and minister’d by those
Who think no stimulant is ill applied:
No; broad indeed the borders which divide
Things gross by animal perception learn’d
From that blest Spirit whose aerial tide
Sweeps through the soul untrack’d and undiscern’d,
But stirs a movement there, and leaves the creature turn’d.
XLIII.
He, then, whom sense of many sins has taught
To love a Saviour by the world despised,
Feels that no baseless shadow he has caught,
Follow’d no fable cunningly devised:
In whom he has believed, and whom has prized
He knows; and bears the witness in his breast.
Glad news embraced, his heart evangelized,
Loaded, he finds relief, and weary, rest;
A witness to the world, his faith in life express’d.
XLIV.
Ask him — from heaven he wants no other sign;
Prove him — with all the rubs of carnal will
His soul preserves ethereal temper fine:
With all the remnants of infection still,
To walk in truth, he has a heavenly skill.
And thus, if proof on proof your faith protect
In reason’s eye — if all your heart it fill,
Once yielded up — escape can you expect,
Who such salvation high shall greet with vile neglect?
XLV.
And yet all this is strange, exceeding strange,—
Ay, is it not? — if through th’ extended plan,
I ask again, of works divine you range,
Where is the speck not wonderful to man?
Yourself consider; tell me, if you can,
How mind on matter acts, and both conspire;
How works the power unconscious, how began,
Which still, as hand unseen that draws the wire,
The form corporeal prompts to do the soul’s desire?
XLVI.
Ev’n while you read these lines, to follow seek
Each process, ere the mind their meaning catch;
These strokes, in varied combination, speak
Thoughts which a glance will instantaneous snatch;
Yet, stroke by stroke, they are contrived to match
Sounds which combined make words,— those sounds combined
Striking the outward ear, a door unlatch,
And pass mysterious meaning to the mind,
Receptacle of all, which knows their worth to find.
XLVII.
Step after step,— the speaking organs first
Moved diverse, thus or thus, in countless ways,
All on the air with calculation burst;
Each separate jar a separate force conveys;
Each jar, the hearing organ owns, obeys;
But now the eye usurps the task to teach;
Concerted signs of sound the hand portrays;
The wondrous web of sight these pictures reach;
Through this fresh channel flows the stream of thought and speech.
XLVIII.
Of all this series in its complex parts,
Corporeal engine, mechanism of thought,
Memory at hand to prompt the mental arts,
By which the message of the sense is caught;
Of all the harmonies so nicely wrought,
Nature of light and properties of air,
With moving or recipient organ brought,
To meet in action, by creating care,
Say if of all thy soul, in reading, was aware.
XLIX.
Ere fellow-mind which here embodied stands
Could pass, as by an easy leap, to yours,
Say if you were observant, while your hands
Turn’d leaf by leaf, of what that skill procures
Which work’d at first, and working yet endures,
In balance all creation knows to keep,
Each change, each alteration still ensures,
Rolls the high heavens, and bids the insect creep,
For grasp of human thought too high, too wide, too deep.
L.
Yourself a wonder to yourself,— the world,
One depth of wonders which you cannot sound,
Far from your foolish heart the thought be hurl’d,
That for your Maker you should match be found:
To God belong the things in secret bound —
The things reveal’d to you. With rash conceit
Will you explore beyond your narrow round?
Dreaming of plan more probable and meet,
Suffer surprise of death, and lose your last retreat?
LI.
Much you have learnt and in your memory stored;
Much thought, observed; but does your mind recall
How larger far a field lies unexplored,
How large is that man cannot know at all?
Corruption’s heir, the body, since the fall,
Clogs and sinks down the many-musing mind.
To guess at things on earth our skill is small;
The things before us hardly do we find;
But, oh! the things of heaven what mortal has divined?
LII.
Some lapses of the saints your mind perplex,—
Think you that these are sanctions to be frail?
What learns the seaman from recorded wrecks?
Is it within the self-same track to sail?
Scenes of a younger world in darkness veil
Your views of God; whence but from holy page
Were thoughts imbibed which taught yo so to hail
The gentler features of its mellow’d age?
Did Gospel love begin from earthly scribe or sage?
LIII.
Turn not its sacred edge against itself:
Ah! see some child of dust with pride elate:
He skims the contents of the learned shelf;
Follows or frames some sounding theory great.
And looks with philosophic smile sedate,
All condescending, on the Christian’s creed:
Since men for homage must some vent create;
Unware, the while, of all his proper need;
Poor, wretched, naked, blind, and impotent indeed!
LIV.
Thing form’d, wilt thou the hand that form’d thee judge?
Vile clay, wilt thou above the potter speak?
Ephemeral worm, wilt thou thy patience grudge
To hear of help which needs thy nature weak?
Forsooth, unfit for thee a temper meek,
For thou hast towering objects to be won:
Soar, then, and frame for thine adventurous freak
Thy waxen wings; go near the glorious sun:
Alas! they melt, they fail, they sink,— thou art undone.
LV.
‘Tis true thou hast a towering hope within,
Thou art a gifted creature of thy God:
But ah! this withering principle of Sin
Shows but the more and brings the heavier rod.
Soon will thy little pilgrimage be trod,
Soon thy mixed history have its earthly close;
Thy wondrous soul — has that no wants, and those
Such wants as wondrous means to meet must interpose?
LVI.
Behold them ready — see the table spread,
The servants sent to bid each honoured guest:
What if the proud disdain their Master’s bread,
With interests busy, with engagements pressed?
Call in the halt, the blind, the poor distressed:
They come: but room remains — scour, then, for more,
Hedge and highway — it is the Lord’s behest:
That host shall not a friendless feast deplore,
That God can outcasts LOST to hope and heaven restore.
(George Jehoshaphat Mountain)
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