Searching

These quiet autumn days,
My soul, like Noah's dove, on airy wings
Goes out, and searches for the hidden things,
Beyond the hills of haze.

With mournful, pleading cries
Above the waters of the voiceless sea
That laps the shores of broad Eternity,
Day after day it flies.

Searching, but all in vain,
For some stray leaf that it may light upon,
And read the future as the days agone--
Its pleasure and its pain.

Listening, patiently,
For some voice speaking from the mighty deep,
Revealing all the secrets it doth keep,
In silence, there for me.

Come back and wait! my soul,
Day after day thy search has been in vain,
Voiceless and silent o'er the future's plain
Its mystic waters roll.

God seeing, knoweth best,
And in his time the waters shall subside,
And thou shalt know what lies beneath the tide.
Then wait, my soul, and rest.

1869