False Rest and True Rest

I.

"And thou hast taken from me my fair faith,
Which like a star lit the waste night of death, —
A light I thought no blast could ever kill.
O friend of mine, was it for me so ill
To fancy that my lips when void of breath
Should open in that land one entereth
Through portals of the grave, — how dark, how chill?
"What hast thou set me in my dear hope's place

But thy stern Truth, with white, implacable face,
Cold eyes, shut lips, clenched hand, and barren breast?
I stand, of all my sweet faith dispossessed, —
Discrowned of my belief. Death hath no grace,
But seems a thing to shudder at. My days
Are joyless, and my nights are void of rest.

III.

"I thought that I, in some far paradise.
Should hear the old, sweet voices, and that eyes
Of those I loved and lost my eyes should greet.
O visionary fields that felt the feet
Of my impatient thought, which no more flies
From you to me, but in my cold heart lies
Quite cold and dead, once warm with my heart's heat!

"Oh, life was full of comfort in those years, —
Sweet things I dreamed of the impossible spheres;
I had a haven. If the winds were strong.
Above their roar I caught from far the song
Of beckoning angels. Now no light appears
No song at all my heart, desirous, hears;
The day is short, but oh the night is long!

"Oh, long, oh, dreary long, that night of death!
No dawn it hath, no star that lighteneth.
There comes no love, no passionate memory
Of all the dear delights that used to be.
Shall one see God there, lying without breath;
Or shall the dead give thanks? — the psalmist saith.
Nay, if the dead thank, they thank silently."

VI.

"There is no dreariness in death for one
Who sets his eyes on Truth, — that cold, calm sun.
By whose impartial and unvarying light
Men might walk surely, who now grope in night.
Who fears, when labor of the day is done.
To rest and sleep? Then wherefore should ye shun
The sleep no dream, no waking, come to spite?
"Lift up and fix on Truth thy timorous eyes.

Till they can tolerate her awful skies.
Thy rest was warm and sweet, but could it save?
Would thy hope's torch have lasted to the grave?
How suddenly the grim mistrusts arise, —
' My soul, wilt thou find hell or paradise?
Pray, dear life, keep me till I grow more brave.

VIII.

"Oh mighty mystery of mysteries!
I venture forth upon the unsailed seas.
I go to face the awful, the unknown;

O Death, how full of terror art thou grown!
I trust I go to lands of perfect peace,
Wherein are all the mighty companies

Of the illustrious dead, and those, my own, —

IX.

"' My own, whose loss was such sharp gall to drink.
I trust! Yet what are we, that we should think
Eternal peace and rapture must be ours?

Again by fear appalled my spirit cowers
In abject terror on the grave's dark brink.
Can I believe that through a coffin-chink

From dust of me it breaks anew and flowers?

X.

"' But, nay, I do believe and will attest
That God is good, and on my Saviour's breast
I shall lie safely, when this life is over,' —
So say thy lips; but thy soul sees above her
No visible heaven of deep joy and rest;
She knoweth not the end of her long quest.
And deathly fears once more about her hover.

XI.

"That music which of old so loud did seem
Comes faint, as from a dawn-receding dream.
How has it paled — thy hope of future bliss!
Lo, by chill winds thy light extinguished is —
Not quite, for by its fluctuating gleam.
Its little, wandering, insufficient beam,
Death has a ghastly look, not really his.

XII.

"Were it not best all thought to concentrate
Upon this life in which we work, and wait,
And love, and grieve, and bear? Life is a day;

And death the night that follows it? — nay, nay,
If, when our days of toil we terminate,
We go to be a very part of fate,

Or, no end serving, simply pass away.

XIII.

"How shall death be, or night be, when we know not
That life has ceased in us; that wild winds blow not
For us again; for us no more the sun

Fulfils the earth, when winter-time is done;
For us the tender things of Spring they show not;
For us the birds are mute, the rivers flow not, —

What pain is there in this sweet dissolution?"

XIV.

"A slothful soul, in time of war, I slept.
While other men their dangerous outposts kept;
And when you did command me to arise.
And with the light and air familiarize
My spiritual senses, I had crept
Back to my lair, by wholesome winds unswept,
Had you not fixed on Truth my coward eyes.

"If life be full of comfort, fair and sweet,
I will be meekly thankful that my feet
Are spared the stones that wound, and as I may
Try to make smooth for others a rougher way;
But should life bitter prove, and incomplete,
This pain of living it is very fleet,
And rest will come, with quiet set of day.

XVI.

"I feel an ardor never felt till now, —
A stimulus to work, to keep the vow
I take to help each weary woman and man.
There was no room before in my life's plan
For this, — my dreams and visions filled it so;
But now I know the way my soul shall go.
Shall I not use it here as best I can?
:cvii.

"Death holds no longer any fear for me.
Now that my hopes and doubts cease equally.
I know, at length, the place I journey to,
I know the work in life I have to do.
This rest of ours is true rest, verily.
O power of undeniable Truth, set free
All souls that from false rest a false joy drew!