LOVE

WHAT if a soul redeemed, a spirit that loved

While yet on earth and was beloved in turn,

And still remembered every look and tone

Of that dear earthly sister who was left

Among the unwise virgins at the gate,—

Itself admitted with the bridegroom's train,—

What if this spirit redeemed, amid the host

Of chanting angels, in some transient lull

Of the eternal anthem, heard the cry

Of its lost darling, whom in evil hour

Some wilder pulse of nature led astray

And left an outcast in a world of fire,

Condemned to be the sport of cruel fiends,

Sleepless, unpitying, masters of the skill

To wring the maddest ecstasies of pain

From worn-out souls that only ask to die,—

Would it not long to leave the bliss of heaven,—

Bearing a little water in its hand

To moisten those poor lips that plead in vain

With Him we call our Father? Or is all

So changed in such as taste celestial joy

They hear unmoved the endless wail of woe;

The daughter in the same dear tones that hushed

Her cradle slumbers; she who once had held

A babe upon her bosom from its voice

Hoarse with its cry of anguish, yet the same?

No! not in ages when the Dreadful Bird

Stamped his huge footprints, and the Fearful Beast

Strode with the flesh about those fossil bones

We build to mimic life with pygmy hands,—

Not in those earliest days when men ran wild

And gashed each other with their knives of stone,

When their low foreheads bulged in ridgy brows

And their flat hands were callous in the palm

With walking in the fashion of their sires,

Grope as they might to find a cruel god

To work their will on such as human wrath

Had wrought its worst to torture, and had left

With rage unsated, white and stark and cold,

Could hate have shaped a demon more malign

Than him the dead men mummied in their creed

And taught their trembling children to adore!

Made in his image! Sweet and gracious souls

Dear to my heart by nature's fondest names,

Is not your memory still the precious mould

That lends its form to Him who hears my prayer?

Thus only I behold Him, like to them,

Long-suffering, gentle, ever slow to wrath,

If wrath it be that only wounds to heal,

Ready to meet the wanderer ere he reach

The door he seeks, forgetful of his sin,

Longing to clasp him in a father's arms,

And seal his pardon with a pitying tear!

Four gospels tell their story to mankind,

And none so full of soft, caressing words

That bring the Maid of Bethlehem and her Babe

Before our tear-dimmed eyes, as his who learned

In the meek service of his gracious art

The tones which, like the medicinal balms

That calm the sufferer's anguish, soothe our souls.

Oh that the loving woman, she who sat

So long a listener at her Master's feet,

Had left us Mary's Gospel,— all she heard

Too sweet, too subtle for the ear of man!

Mark how the tender-hearted mothers read

The messages of love between the lines

Of the same page that loads the bitter tongue

Of him who deals in terror as his trade

With threatening words of wrath that scorch like flame

They tell of angels whispering round the bed

Of the sweet infant smiling in its dream,

Of lambs enfolded in the Shepherd's arms,

Of Him who blessed the children; of the land

Where crystal rivers feed unfading flowers,

Of cities golden-paved with streets of pearl,

Of the white robes the winged creatures wear,

The crowns and harps from whose melodious strings

One long, sweet anthem flows forevermore!

We too had human mothers, even as Thou,

Whom we have learned to worship as remote

From mortal kindred, wast a cradled babe.

The milk of woman filled our branching veins,

She lulled us with her tender nursery-song,

And folded round us her untiring arms,

While the first unremembered twilight yeas

Shaped us to conscious being; still we feel

Her pulses in our own,— too faintly feel;

Would that the heart of woman warmed our creeds!

Not from the sad-eyed hermit's lonely cell,

Not from the conclave where the holy men

Glare on each other, as with angry eyes

They battle for God's glory and their own,

Till, sick of wordy strife, a show of hands

Fixes the faith of ages yet unborn,—

Ah, not from these the listening soul can hear

The Father's voice that speaks itself divine!

Love must be still our Master; till we learn

What he can teach us of a woman's heart,

We know not His whose love embraces all.