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
inevitable words that none forget.
Give the living golden moment
when a thousand eyes are lit and wet,
And some pathos makes the silence
palpitate, and grow more silent yet.

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
Myself I wrought a sin.

Light in the eye it had, and little sips
Of honey on the lips.

No sooner done but the light died, and all
The honey became gall.

Then was my soul stone-silent for a space,
And whiteness wann'd my face.

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
Rack is turn'd upside down,

The fine disorder'd threads and cloud-fluff thin
Are like thy hair, sweet sin!
And, as we pass, the faint scent rises yet
Of stock and mignonette,

Through the garden looking on the starlit sea-
And my sin kisseth me.

And twice as fair she is as ever of old,
Because not half so bold,-

The grossness of the sense and of the eye
Refined to memory;

The ethereal delicacy of the past

Over fact's coarse world cast;

The flexile bough of fancy quivering on
After the bird is gone."

Whereon I thought-" Alas! the heavy fall.
I am not changed at all.

Look how some fitful hour when smoky grey
Mountain-mists roll away,

The sunshine's magic and creative sports
Transform white seams of quartz,

Whereof each one that glistens, being wetted,
Seemeth with diamonds fretted,

But, being dried and unlit, it is found

Mere stone, not diamond,

So seem'd I like a saint upon God's hill
That am a sinner still.