Image the Twenty-first: The Eyes which are in every Place

As here removed from the resorts of men
I converse hold with silent solitude,
From contemplation's tower I view mankind,
Like insects building citadels in sand,
And learn communion with a better world.

These pensive walls, that shut out day's glad eye.
Open the eye of Heaven, and make the soul
Luminous at each door to let in light.
Bringing to that dread stillness where God is.
With eyes innumerable in every place.
Ten thousand times more bright than midday suns.
The more I ponder I am lost the more,
Our feeble eyesight blinded with the glare.
As step by step, by contemplation led.
We nearer draw unto the Fount of light ;
Yet drawing near more distant still we seem,
Like that famed sage of old who ask'd a day
To say what God is, then another sought.
Another and another, seeming still
More distant from the thought that he would grasp,
In infinite progression, more and more
Lost in bewilderings of his pensive mind.

But yet not so, to musings void and vain,
Do we in meditation wander on,
Lost in the labyrinth of Heathen doubt.
We who are given to know in Christ the door.
His Cross the key, which opes of human things
The intricate, involved, and numerous wards.
Whereby we know indeed that God is love.
Unspeakable prerogative ! for so
Our contemplations are no longer sad,
But link by link in sweetness carried on
Above this earth, nay rather on their wings
Bearing this earth to Heaven, until at length
Beneath the grosser steps of our weak thought
The golden stair by meditation rear'd
Gives way ; — We look around us, and awake.
As from some solemn music of the soul.
To stern realities of this sad life.

Come, blessed musing, ever nearer come !
Be my companion ; at thy blissful face
Let me gaze on ! Come, ever dwell with me,
Divine philosophy ! like some sweet chime
Taking possession of my inmost soul
Tune the rude jars of life ! be these deep thoughts
My sole realities and life the dream.
Till the fast fleeting shadows of the world
Shall sadden and affright the soul no more.

What are the eyes of God ? O fearful thought,
That fills all contemplation ! eyes of sense
He gives to man, and ears whereby our thoughts
Pass to each other, sense to apprehend.

And memory to retain; — mysterious powers
Whereby we wrap each other and ourselves
With knowledge, like ethereal light around.

Pervading, entering in each other's hearts.
But what are these His gifts, how poor to speak
Those infinite perfections, which we call
The eyes and ears and thoughts which are in God ; —
His eyelids which behold the sons of men.

Present in every place ? Thought feeds on this
Till lost in adoration.
How replete
With inspiration, wonder, awe, delight.
The presence here of man with man below : —
The subject in his King's own countenance.
The child with the fond parent, friend with friend.
Or lover in the sight of one beloved !
Our spirits from each other take their hues.
Fast as the seas from the o'erhanging skies.
Highest of all things which we know below
The eye of man, powerful to minister
Hope, or correction, reverence, or support ;
Yea, e'en wild beasts 'tis said will stand aghast.
And madness at the stern-fix'd eye of man
Grows mild, enchain'd with intellectual bands.
How sweet whatever channels may convey
Feelings of present nearness, or may bear
Intercommunion of responsive thought,
Converse of eye or tongue, or written words,
Or silent interchange of mind with mind !

Such drops, that mingle sweetness in life's cup,
Are but the shadows and the semblances
Of that dread consummation, when the soul
At all her avenues and every pore
Shall come to know the countenance of God.

Buoy'd with the theme on tiptoe stands bright Hope ;
-''Open,'' she cries, "ye everlasting doors,
Rend, skies o'er-head, your circumambient veils,
Which hide from us the presence of our God,
And haste, ye wheels of the eternal Morn ;" —
But Fear draws back aghast in reverend awe
Lest we be ever blasted by the sight.

And asks of Faith, if she will give to know
The feeling of His nearness here beneath.
Through eyes and ears school'd to discern our God,
Whose countenance protection is and peace.

'Tis not the speculation of rude thought
That has that key of Heaven, but Prayer alone;
Prayer through the avenues of this dark world
Leads us thus blind with an ethereal thread.
Makes conscious of His guidance, gives to feel
His nearness which alone is life below.
We ask for Him around, and find Him not —
We ask of all His creatures ranging by.
And all His works, if they have seen His face ;
They answer, We are form'd and live by Him,
But we behold Him not and know Him not.

We ask of nature if she hath in her
That which can satisfy the craving soul :
But to our search she giveth no reply.

We ask the Sea with his abyss of waves.
He answers, It is written, that His paths
Are in the mighty waters, but His ways
Are secret, and His footsteps are not known.

We ask the winds and all the habitants
That wing the buoyant air : we ask the Skies,
The Sun, the Moon, the Stars, and they respond
Of His dread goings we have heard the sound.

But He is not in us, nor can we speak
His dwelling-place ; we range our order'd watch
Without the flaming walls that hide His courts.

It is reveal'd that in the heart of man
Is set the throne of Him that dwells in Heaven ;
The Body is His Temple, and the Soul
His inner shrine ; then reverend must we think,
And speak of Him in stillness, for wherever
The heart of man may be there is his God,
Conversing with him in his silent thought,
Judging, controlling, guiding, reigning there.
And therefore 'mid the troubles that surround
To know Thee is to know all blessedness.
And is to be at peace ! who dwells in love
Doth dwell in Thee, for Thou art Love Divine ;
Thou art around us though we see Thee not,
About our path, about our bed, and Thou
Iest out all our ways ; whom then on earthy
And whom have I in Heaven, but Thee alone ?

Around us and within us, as the child
Wrapp'd in the mother's womb and there sustained ;
Or as the gem transfused with radiant light.

Or cavern'd spunge with the surrounding sea;
Or as the air filling the bird's wing'd frame,
Making it buoyant ; or as vital heat
Keeping its watch against chill-creeping death ;
E'en so around and in us is our God.

And souls made pure and radiant by His grace.
Are spiritual mirrors to reflect Himself,
E'en as the sea reflects the face of Heaven.

But here, alas, as turbulent rude streams
Image no more the quiet eye of Day,
E'en so the stir of rude impassion'd strife
Ruffles men's spirits, till they less and less
Bear in themselves Heaven's kind protecting eye.

In love alone is light, in love is life,
For love still ever yearns the soul of man.
In love alone finds rest ; and He alone
Who made her is meet object for her love.
Which turns from all things else unsatisfied.
Wishing to ope itself unto His beams
And His deep-searching Eye. Therefore whate'er
Lurks in the heart of man, and fain would hide
From that His eye of soul-transforming power,
Against Him shuts the door, and leaves that place
A corner full of night, where poisonous things
Crawl, breed, and stable, hiding from the day.
Still at Nights door He knocks, the Morning Star,
And when denied due entrance, oft in sounds
Of stem adversity His voice is heard
Calling his friend, like Lazarus, from the tomb, —
The tomb of low delights and groveling thoughts ;
His grave-clothes, which He bids him to unloose.

And sets with Him at feasts in Bethany,
The house of His obedience. Such His calls
And gracious visitations of the good.

Calming this earthly noise to hear His voice,
Nurturing the soul to thrilling reverence
As brought more near to Godhead ; mercy's beams
Kindling the soul to an habitual awe.

How strengthening, how subduing, yet how calm
The feeling of His presence ! 'Mid the loud
And busy scenes of this tumultuous life
He walks in stillness unapproachable.
In this our world of spirits watching souls.
As we ourselves may watch the things of sense.
How green and stirring is this wilderness !
'Tis like a natural temple clustering round ; —
Her over-branching columns put forth life.
Her roof is musical with singing birds.
The air with buzzing insects, and the floor
Alive with creeping things and opening flowers.
Man notes them all with intellectual eyes.
And walks amid them unobserv'd, while they
Unconscious of His presence sport around.

So are we all within the eyes of God,
Who walks among us while we know Him not.
In this His temple, wherein spirits live.
Impervious to the sight or dimly seen !

Sweet thoughts of all-pervading providence,
In the hot horn of our adversity
Flowing so freely, and which come as sounds
Of rippling streams heard beneath scorching suns.
When we retire to leafy bowers apart
For contemplation, solitude, and shade,
And listen, and are griev'd to find them end.
Sweet thoughts of God, in themes of high discourse
Flowing to Paradise from whence they rose,
While, like the stones that break the streamlet's flow.
E'en doubts and difficulties give rise to themes
"Which still renew them to melodious sounds.
With eddyings bright, careering as they go —
And in the bottom shine like Eden's gems
With precious stones, which interrupt its course.
So are our musings still'd to holy peace,
And awful meditation ; dear to Him
His creatures as the apple of His eye ;
And we are all alike within His sight,
Whether in doing or in suffering wrong ;
This takes the sting from biting injuries
And calumny ; and turns what else were hate
To pity ; and hath oft upborne the soul
To walk with happy angels o'er the cloud.
For let but Faith uplift the sensual veil.

And shew us here below, how eyes of God,
Innumerable and brighter than the sun.
Behold the thoughts and ways and lives of men,
And what a flood of Heaven-born light doth bathe
The scenes of life ! With this o'erwhelming thought
The good man grows familiar, till at times,
"When State and Greatness seem on him to wait,
He would put on the lowest garb of men,
And hide himself in his own littleness.

How terrible are seen the crimes of men
Glass'd in God's judgments, in that mirror seen
They speak His presence : how replete with awe
His power and majesty, as dimly seen
By loyal and by filial piety
In His vicegerents : or when these full oft
Offended by mens crimes He sets aside,
Himself in them despised, and He Himself
Stands in their place, and His last judgment sends.

The last precursor of their final doom,
Blinded infatuation. It is He
Visits in love the lonely penitent,
In his dim cell with fast and gil bound.

And sends him angel guests : and it is He
'Mid the close tempter's wiles who sheltering stands.
Mysterious visitations ! dread to think
That those His eyes which visit sons of men
Pass through eternity ? With the dread orb
Of knowledge infinite encompass'd round ; —
All scenes of life, with all the ways of men,
Are with their endless portions in His sight ; —
The murderer's lifted hand pursuing life, —
The festive voices loud at banquetings, —
The many speeches of the busy mart
Rolling their merchandize, and crowded ports ;
And sportive games, when the loose villager
Weaves 'neath the moon his rustic saraband.

Or tunes alone his pensive madrigal
Unto the Evening star, hose watchtower gleams
Between the branches of the village oak.

To know His presence is to steep our hearts
In the irradiance of a Heavenly fire :
The knowledge of His presence here in man
Crowns every action ; and round meanest things
Weaves rays of glory ; it is this which makes
Each calling honorable ; while all in place
As kingly servants stand, for His behests
And ministrations, 'Tis no heathen chance,
But His good Angel marks each road of life.

Assigns the line, the chisel, or the spade.
Giving to each his destin'd heritage ; —
The Crown to Kings, to Bishops sacred charge.

As when we look on meanest things around,
While some sweet pipe attunes the soul's deep ear.
The music clothes those sights with radiant gleams.

And lights them as with sunshine, so the thought
Of God clothes all things of this mortal life.
Lead me, good Angel, to those holier haunts
Where He unfolds His presence more Divine,
To sacred temples, and to inner shrines.
And consecrated altars : there to learn
How in that heart of hearts He builds His shrine,
Which is in contrite meekness bow'd to earth,
"While awful thoughts like holy ministers
Own his dread nearness, and before Him bow
In adoration ! These more near and near
The soul shall to His presence-chambers lead,
Where Seraphin and Cherubin, who stand
Before Him, with ecstatic fear and love
Are ravish'd, yet who veil their feet and eyes
Because they love Him not and fear Him not.

As He is worthy of their fear and love.
To know Thee is on earth all blessedness,
And is to be at peace with God and man !

Nor need we wings of the transporting dove
To bear our restless souls to be with Thee
In th' Heaven of Heavens ; for Thou art with us here ;
Love shall give dove-like wings of Prayer and Alms
To bear the soul to Thee her place of rest.

Meanwhile 'mid stormy tumults of the world
The ark of Thine own presence gathers home
Thy children, and protects them o'er the wave.
Here in this wilderness and lonely scene
This silence is not solitude, if God
And His good Angels will approach more near,
And calm the soul their influence to know.

From sights and sounds of the deluding world
The senses here turn inward on the soul.
And so the ear and eye may be in Heaven,
Communing with th' unearthly melodies
Which tune the heart to wisdom. Oh, how calm
Is the dread stillness of the silent grave,
And thoughts of them that people it ! which seems
A figure of that peace which is with God,
And they which enter into it have found ; —
A quiet haven after stormy seas, —
A night which opes the stars when day is still.