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(p. 3)

 

2.

 

DOUBTING

 

            HERE, where each evening, from the west

                        Falls the last radiance, and strews o’er

                        With garlands all the sacred floor,

            They laid my darling down to rest.

 

            Here, underneath the marble, white

                        And calm and cold as her dear brow,

                        She lies in death and darkness now,

            Who was my only life and light.

 

            My love! who hand in hand with me

                        Amidst the busy throng of men,

                        Didst closely walk awhile, and then

            Wast taken from me suddenly;

 

            Wast taken! Whither? Who may say?

                        I only know that thou art gone,

                        And that for evermore alone

            In the great world I tread the way.

 

            My love! Thou wast a beacon light

                        To my lost soul, but in the gale

(p. 4)

                        Wast quenched, and helplessly I sail

            Whither I know not, in the night.

 

            Thou wast a flower fair and sweet,

                        In my heart’s garden reared with care,

                        But in the fervent noontide glare

            Didst fall and wither at my feet.

 

            Ah me, is this the end? What then?

                        We still believe and still adore;

                        But the quenched fire revives no more,

            Nor blooms the perished flower again.

 

            To live is sweet; but very strange

                        Seems it to die; yet, who shall say

                        What sweeter life, what fairer day

            May dawn beyond that awful change?

 

            Beneath us lie the graves of men,

                        The silent stars are overhead;

                        The silent stars, –– the silent dead,

            And we, the living, stand between,

 

            And lift vain voices, and implore

                        For vaster truth, and broader light,

                        But through the darkness and the night

            Comes back the echo, –– and no more.

]

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(p. 5)

            There is a voice gone through the earth,

                        From pole to pole, from east to west,

                        A crying voice that will not rest

            By cloistered aisle or homely hearth.

 

            I hear it in the world of men,

                        In wrangling school, and crowded mart,

                        A reasoning voice within my heart,

            That ever answers me again:

 

            Thou standest, Christian, by thy faith,

                        Thy very weakness is thy might,

                        The darkness is thine only light,

            Thy GOD a phantom and a wraith.

 

            Hast thou, O man, an eye to see

                        Beyond the darkness of the tomb?

                        Or hast thou passed Hadean gloom,

            Or tasted immortality?

 

            Shall faith suffice to overthrow

                        The evidence of things that be?

                        And priests and empty creeds decree

            Through foolish man, what man shall know?

 

            O idle preachers! where is he

                        Can rend the veil that hangs between

                        The visible and things unseen,

            What has been –– is –– and what shall be?

 

(p. 6)

            For how shall human eye or thought

                        To such sublimer wisdom reach?

                        Or mortal skill presume to teach

            What cunning Nature leaves untaught?

 

            Herein is wisdom, –– that we know

                        Our very selves to be unwise,

                        So much of darkness round us lies,

            So much of tyranny and woe.

 

            Yet what avails, though we be free?

                        Behold, since first the world began,

                        How little is the life of man,

            How poor a thing humanity!

 

            What then? let Ignorance be rife,

                        And let us worship with the crowd,

                        For Truth is weak, and Falsehood loud,

            And small the learning of a life.

 

            Nor let us in our pride be rathe

                        To crush the hopes we deem unwise,

                        For much of wholesome sweetness lies

            In the fair flower of Christian faith.

 

            Shall then all human things decay?

                        And stirring thought and mind and soul

                        Die wholly with the common whole ––

            Vain shadow, vanishing away?

 

(p. 7)

            Mere creatures then of empty dust,

                        Mere atoms in a general plan; ––

                        Yet somewhere in the heart of man

            Lingers an old undying trust.

 

 

                                   ______________

 

 

            Thou sayest all things fade and die,

                        Thou holdest faith an idle boast,

                        And weak, the souls that love to trust

            A far-off immortality.

 

            Why then the strife with moral wrong?

                        The love of moral good? and why,

                        If all we love must wholly die,

            Should human passion be so strong?

 

            Shall all the love I bear to thee,

                        My buried darling! pass away?

                        Nor rather dawn in fuller day

            Upon some fair eternity?

 

            I know not; only this I know,

                        This, that thou art no longer here,

                        And day by day, and year by year,

            The clouds above me seem to grow.

 

(p. 8)

            O would I were where now thou art!

                        For these dead hopes no more shall wake,

                        And never summer sun shall break

            The shadow brooding on my heart!

 

 

                                   _______________

 

 

            I mind me how long years ago,

                        I heard an aged minstrel sing,

                        The legend of some fairy spring,

            Whence life and youth eternal flow.

 

            And how in wizard days gone by,

                        When men were few, and faith was blind,

                        The world was all astir to find

            The source of Immortality.

 

            And lords and knights in fair array

                        Went out to seek the wondrous fount,

                        And died of weariness and want,

            Or dropped upon the tedious way.

 

            Till all the land was searched in vain,

                        Save one tall island far at sea,

                        And there they said the charm must be,

            Girt round with cliff and seething main.

 

(p. 9)

            And many a crew, the minstrel said,

                        Was lost upon the rocky shore,

                        Nor ever home returned they more,

            But all the sea was strewn with dead.

 

            And O! alas, for mortal men!

                        For that they labour vainly still,

                        Nor can they find that fairy rill

            Where he who drinks is young again.

 

            He sang, and ended with a sigh,

                        Then rising, laid his harp away,

                        And dreamily, I heard him say,

            “We all must die, –– we all must die.”

 

            A foolish tale, –– yet now and then

                        I turn it over in my mind,

                        And idly wish that I might find,

            That stream so sought of mortal men.

 

            “We all must die,” the minstrel said,

                        Amen! it is an ancient truth;

                        A homely word in every mouth,

                        But O! what is it to be dead?

 

            In vain we fight with failing breath,

                        And stretch forth feeble hands and cry,

                        “Give me the magic cup, that I

            May drink one draught and laugh at Death!”

 

(p. 10)

            O me! the grief, –– the long farewell!

                        The darkened room, and muffled tread,

                        And then she whispered, –– “He is dead,”

            But more than this we cannot tell.

 

            “Ay, life is short!” the atheist cries,

                        “And happiness the goal of men;

                        Who lives to mourn, is foolish then,

            And he who lives to laugh is wise.”

 

            But with dimmed eyes, and folded hands,

                        “So be it, LORD,” the Christian saith,

                        “For Thine alike are life and death,

            I bow myself to Thy commands.”

 

 

                                   _______________

 

 

            I am aweary, love, and fain

                        Would lay my head upon thy breast,

                        Hear thy dear voice, and lull to rest

            This throbbing pulse of inward pain.

 

            My soul is married unto thine,

                        I gave to thee the higher part,

                        I made thee ruler of my heart,

            My love, my life, –– what more was mine?

 

(p. 11)

            But now our bridal dance is done,

                        The song, the jest, the festive speech,

                        And we are dearer each to each,

            Since night and stillness make us one.

 

            Too well I loved the things that seem,

                        I lay in sunshine at thy feet,

                        For O! methought that life was sweet,

            And sorrow all an idle dream.

 

            But Io, between me and the light,

                        There came a cloud so deep and vast,

                        That all my heaven was overcast,

            And seemed it altogether night.

 

            And all around me day by day,

                        The sound of woe and wailing grew,

                        And dimly in my heart I knew

            That one we loved had passed away.

 

            My tears all those long days I kept

                        Locked in my soul, deep down and low,

                        I could not weep for mine own woe,

            But when it fell on thee I wept.

 

            And now art thou more closely mine,

                        And I more nearly one with thee,

                        Joined in strong bands of sympathy,

            For sympathy is half divine.

 

(p. 12)

            And undivided now we stand

                        By one white bier where two lie dead,

                        And mourners weep with drooped head,

            But thou and I are hand in hand.

 

            My friend! my queen! whom I will keep

                        Dear captive in my inner heart,

                        Until the prison walls shall part,

            And I thy gaoler fall asleep.

 

 

                                   ______________

 

 

            There is a river evermore

                        That flows around us still and deep,

                        And bitter winds across it sweep,

            And we stand watching on the shore ––

 

            Stand watching at that river side,

                        And strain our eyes if we may see

                        One glimpse of immortality

            Far out across the darksome tide.

 

            Ah no! all dreary and unsunned,

                        Black mists upon its bosom lie,

                        Nor human thought, nor mortal eye

            Can read the mystery beyond.

 

(p. 13)

            But some sit down to wail and weep

                        And watch upon the dreary brink,

                        And touch the waves, and touching, shrink ––

            That river is so cold and deep.

 

            And some apart, with quivering breath

                        And clasped hands, and darkened eyes,

                        Fill all the air with bitter cries, ––

            “O me! thou fearsome tide of death!”

 

            And evermore, one after one,

                        They totter on the slippery brink,

                        And falling headlong, helpless sink

            Into the river, and are gone.

 

            But if they reach some other shore,

           

 

            Or perish in the bitter tide,

                        What power shall judge –– what skill decide?

            We know not, –– they return no more.

 

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