8. Wherefore not at all I ask Thee for the sharp-cut facets of bright witNot for arrows of the archer cunning that the inner circle hitNot for colour'd fountains rising by fantastic lamps and glasses lit. 9. If Thy Spirit's sword-hilt glitter sometimes, as its blade divine I wheel, Golden thought or gemlike fancy is not God's own sharpness. Soldier leal Thinks not of the gold and jewell'd hilt, but of the keenness of the steel. IO. Grant me, Lord, in all my studies, through all volumes roaming where I list, Whatsoever spacious distance rise in ample grandeur through thought's mist, Whatsoever land I find me, that of right divine to claim for Christ. II. Do men dare to call Thy Scripture— mystic forest, unillumined nook? If it be so, O my spirit! then let Christ arise on thee, and look! With the long lane of His sunlight shall be cut the forest of His Book. 12. And at times give me the trembling 13. And a thousand hearts together are as one love-fused and reconciled. And a thousand passionate natures harden'd by the world and sin-defiled, Look upon me for a moment with the soft eyes of a little child. 14. Give me words like the unveiling lightning that the sky a moment ripsWords that show the world eternal over where this world's horizon dips Words of more than magic music, with the name of Jesus on the lips. 15. Give me words of Thine to utter that shall open the lock'd heart like keys,— Words that, like Thine own sweet teaching, shall be medicínal for disease, Words like a revolving lanthorn for the ships in darkness—give me these. 16. In the Sunday summer evening two lights are there, in the church, unlike. One the cool sweet dying sunshine; one the gas-jets' fierce light-beaded spike. With the first my speech be gifted— light to touch and tremble, not to strike. 17. So for all these thousand spirits, differing more than any faces do, Christ through me may have some message that shall be at once both old and new, And my sinful human brethren through my sinful lips learn something true. IMPERFECT REPENTANCE. AT such a time-full well I know within Light in the eye it had, and little sips No sooner done but the light died, and all Then was my soul stone-silent for a space, After a little then again I heard The music of the word, And took the absolution sweet and grand Into my own faith's hand, And breathed the ozone in the healing breeze Of sacramental seas. Out rang my song: "My sore distress doth cease, Pardon I find and peace; The very plenitude of Love divine Unboundedly is mine." But lo! the step of Time steals slowly on, And, ever and anon, The spectre of the sin which I thought lost Rises, no hated ghost. Rather, "How beautiful," my spirit cries, "O love! are those grey eyes. What filmy robes float for me, what rich tunes, Dim fields and white half-moons. And, while some silver flax-rock in the brown The fine disorder'd threads and cloud-fluff thin Through the garden looking on the starlit sea- And twice as fair she is as ever of old, The grossness of the sense and of the eye The ethereal delicacy of the past Over fact's coarse world cast; The flexile bough of fancy quivering on Whereon I thought-" Alas! the heavy fall. Look how some fitful hour when smoky grey The sunshine's magic and creative sports Whereof each one that glistens, being wetted, But, being dried and unlit, it is found Mere stone, not diamond, So seem'd I like a saint upon God's hill |