Thou art my life--I the brook, thou the spring.
Because thine eyes are open, I can see;
Because thou art thyself, 'tis therefore I am me.
17.
No sickness can come near to blast my health;
My life depends not upon any meat;
My bread comes not from any human tilth;
No wings will grow upon my changeless wealth;
Wrong cannot touch it, violence or deceit;
Thou art my life, my health, my bank, my barn--And from all other gods thou plain dost warn.
18.
Care thou for mine whom I must leave behind;
Care that they know who 'tis for them takes care;
Thy present patience help them still to bear;
Lord, keep them clearing, growing, heart and mind;
In one thy oneness us together bind;
Last earthly prayer with which to thee I cling--Grant that, save love, we owe not anything.
19.
'Tis well, for unembodied thought a live, True house to build--of stubble, wood, nor hay;
So, like bees round the flower by which they thrive, My thoughts are busy with the informing truth, And as I build, I feed, and grow in youth--Hoping to stand fresh, clean, and strong, and gay, When up the east comes dawning His great day.
20.
Thy will is truth--'tis therefore fate, the strong.
Would that my will did sweep full swing with thine!
Then harmony with every spheric song, And conscious power, would give sureness divine.
Who thinks to thread thy great laws' onward throng, Is as a fly that creeps his foolish way Athwart an engine's wheels in smooth resistless play.
21.
Thou in my heart hast planted, gardener divine, A scion of the tree of life: it grows;
But not in every wind or weather it blows;
The leaves fall sometimes from the baby tree, And the life-power seems melting into pine;
Yet still the sap keeps struggling to the shine, And the unseen root clings cramplike unto thee.
22.
Do thou, my God, my spirit's weather control;
And as I do not gloom though the day be dun, Let me not gloom when earth-born vapours roll Across the infinite zenith of my soul.
Should sudden brain-frost through the heart's summer run, Cold, weary, joyless, waste of air and sun, Thou art my south, my summer-wind, my all, my one.
23.
O Life, why dost thou close me up in death?
O Health, why make me inhabit heaviness?--I ask, yet know: the sum of this distress, Pang-haunted body, sore-dismayed mind, Is but the egg that rounds the winged faith;
When that its path into the air shall find, My heart will follow, high above cold, rain, and wind.
24.
I can no more than lift my weary eyes;
Therefore I lift my weary eyes--no more.
But my eyes pull my heart, and that, before 'Tis well awake, knocks where the conscience lies;
Conscience runs quick to the spirit's hidden door:
Straightway, from every sky-ward window, cries Up to the Father's listening ears arise.
25.
Not in my fancy now I search to find thee;
Not in its loftiest forms would shape or bind thee;
I cry to one whom I can never know, Filling me with an infinite overflow;
Not to a shape that dwells within my heart, Clothed in perfections love and truth assigned thee, But to the God thou knowest that thou art.
26.
Not, Lord, because I have done well or ill;
Not that my mind looks up to thee clear-eyed;
Not that it struggles in fast cerements tied;
Not that I need thee daily sorer still;
Not that I wretched, wander from thy will;
Not now for any cause to thee I cry, But this, that thou art thou, and here am I.
27.
Yestereve, Death came, and knocked at my thin door.
I from my window looked: the thing I saw, The shape uncouth, I had not seen before.
I was disturbed--with fear, in sooth, not awe;
Whereof ashamed, I instantly did rouse My will to seek thee--only to fear the more:
Alas! I could not find thee in the house.
28.
I was like Peter when he began to sink.
To thee a new prayer therefore I have got--That, when Death comes in earnest to my door, Thou wouldst thyself go, when the latch doth clink, And lead him to my room, up to my cot;
Then hold thy child's hand, hold and leave him not, Till Death has done with him for evermore.
29.
Till Death has done with him?--Ah, leave me then!
And Death has done with me, oh, nevermore!
He comes--and goes--to leave me in thy arms, Nearer thy heart, oh, nearer than before!
To lay thy child, naked, new-born again Of mother earth, crept free through many harms, Upon thy bosom--still to the very core.
30.
Come to me, Lord: I will not speculate how, Nor think at which door I would have thee appear, Nor put off calling till my floors be swept, But cry, "Come, Lord, come any way, come now."
Doors, windows, I throw wide; my head I bow, And sit like some one who so long has slept That he knows nothing till his life draw near.
31.
O Lord, I have been talking to the people;
Thought's wheels have round me whirled a fiery zone, And the recoil of my words' airy ripple My heart unheedful has puffed up and blown.
Therefore I cast myself before thee prone:
Lay cool hands on my burning brain, and press >From my weak heart the swelling emptiness.