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OH God, where hast
thou hidden Truth? Oh Truth,
Where is the road to God?
Lo, we, that should be old, have learned our youth;
We are not manly ripe; we have not dower
Of all the wisdom that a world can gain
In the centuries of work, peace, war, hope, pain;
We are not strong with all the gathered power
From age to age left our inheritance;
We stand not near the goal, there by the advance
Of step on step, through mire and blood and tears,
Forgotten fathers trod;
We are new in a new world; where shall we know,
Where in the ancient years,
Sign-marks to guide us on the way we go?
We are new in a new world. As children learn
Life by surprise and doubt,
So life must learn itself at each return
Of the upsoaring Phoenix birth from sleep
Among the ashes of an ended Past.
In its own strength, and singly from the last,
Each age's long To-day begins to creep
In baby paces whitherward it goes.
And from too far with too unsure a close,
Like void sonorous echoes in the hill,
Yesterday's voice rings out,
So gives the questioning turmoil of our cries
Answer such as we will.
Has Past writ Present in its histories?
Our fathers saw, we see not with their eyes,
Knew, and we learned in vain:
We seek old wisdoms in a novel wise;
We toil beginners of the things that are;
Like lessons which we early get by rote,
Heedless of meaning in the words we quote,
And by and by, the schoolroom left afar,
Discern at last their sense or find a new,
The just, the unjust, the counterfeit, the true,
We said from books upon our fathers' shelves,
All must be learned again:
We, children-like, still wondering as we grow,
Change, and become ourselves,
And only as ourselves can henceforth know.
How shall we know? what must we do? what be?
Answer us, Life, instead:
Past speaks us a dead tongue, we look to thee
And know thee teacher - yet a tardy one;
For now we labour, fearing to what end;
We journey, dimly seeing where we tend;
We do, and question was it rightly done;
Doubt and distrust of self beside us stand;
And who will find us Truth? where is her hand
To guide us on or back by the round path,
Leading but whence it led,
She travels on from God to reach him by?
What is the name she hath
To find her by to-day? Life, make reply.
Joy that's half too keen, and true,
Makes us tears.
Oh! the sweetness of the tears!
If such joy at hand appears,
Snatch it, give thine all for it;
Joy that is so exquisite,
Lost, comes not new.
One blossom for a hundred years.
Grief that's fond and dies not soon
Makes delight.
Oh! the pain of the delight!
If thy grief be love's aright,
Tend it close and let it grow:
Grief so tender not to know
Loses Love's boon.
Sweet Philomel sings all the night.
Home
A Bird And Flower
A Coarse Morning
A
Comrade A Song Of A Springtime
A Summer Mood
Autumn
Warnings Baby Eyes
Belated Betrothed
Beyond The
Shadow Day Is Dead And Let Us Sleep
Dear Love, Goodnight
Dearest, This One Day we Own
Disenchanted
Farewell Hark
The Skylight In The Cloud
Her Memories
In After Years
Late Roses
Linnet And Lark
Miles And Miles
My Loss
News To The King
No News From The War
Not Love Not To
Be Once A Sea Nymph Loved A Boy
Once One Star Only For
Love's Heaven Poulain The Prisoner
Question And Answer
Seeds With Wings
Siste Viator
Spring And Summer
St.-Amé
Tell Me Not Of Morrows Sweet
Tell Thee Truth Sweet No
The
Apple Orchard The Bees
In The Lime
The Bindweed
The Brambles
The Brook Rhine
The Butterfly
The Cornflower
The Daughter
The First Spring Day
The Flower By The Path
The Flowers to Come
The Flowing Tide
The Frozen River
The Graveyard
The Heart That Lacks Room
The Heather
The Holly
The Lovers
The Missing Star
The Nightingale
The Old Dream
The Old Love
The Oldest Inhabitant
The Pine
The Primrose
The Rivulet
The Sea-Maid's Song
The Skylark's Song
The Snows
The Storm
The Swallows
The Violet And The Rose The Whisper
The Wind's Tidings Too Soon So Far, Fair Lillies
Waiting
We Two
Where Found Love His Yesterday
Where home
Was While The Woods Were Green
White Rose And Red
Young May |
