Part VI

" THIS world is not the Devils merry-go-round.
The Angels of the Lord are ever found
Encamped about the soul that looks to Him:
They are an inner lamp when all is dim
Without, and light poor souls thrd horrors grim.
Even as a myriad sunbeams hour by hour
Melt to make rich one little summer flower;
Or as a myriad souls of flowers fleet
Away to make a single summer sweet —
So many spirits make one smile of God
That feeds your life transfiguring from its clod.
There is no lack of Angel carriers
When mortals post to God their fervent prayers /
And these are happy in their work, for still
They find their heaven in doing the Father's wm
I have a meat, said Christ, ye know not of.
So these — they carry heaven in their love.
Not that the Blessed leave their happy seat
When they draw near ye upon silent feet.

They do not need to thread their starry way
Through worlds of night, or wilderness of day.
Spirit to Spirit hath not far to run,
Because in God all souls are verily one
Throughout all worlds: there are no walls of Space
Where all eternity is dwelling-place.

" Distance is nothing in the world of Thought;
And in the world of Spirit it is nought.
You hear of dying men whose souls have been
Present with distant friends; most surely seen
Before the breathing ceased; for they were there
In Thought so fixed, intense, that, on the air.
Their lineaments the utter yearning wrought.
In spiritual apparition of their thought,
Till they grew visible. This Murderer dwells
In Spirit where his Thought is — hottest Hell's
For him where his infernal deed was done!
The blood so safely hidden from the sun
Hath stained right through beyond this world of
time.
Red to the other side, with his old crime.
He does tiot merely come and go; he is
All presence to the proof s and witnesses.

" Spirits may touch you, being, as you would say,
A hundred thousand million miles away.
Those wires that wed the Old World with the
New,
Are not the only links Mind lightens thrd!
The Angels, singing in their heaven above.
Feel when ye strike the unison of love.

The prayers of heaven fall in a blessed rain,
On souls that parch in purgatorial pain.
And prayers from earth lift, with a sense of wings.
Poor souls that drift as helpless outcast things.
"A luminiferous ether of the soul
Pervades the universe, and makes the whole
Vast realm of Being one; — all breathing breath
Of the same life that is fulfilled in death.
And human spirits, from their earthy bound.
Can thrill the Immortals, in their crystal round.
Like flames that rise and answer a sweet sound:
And set the farthest heavens vibrating.
As air will dance close to a live harpstring.
" Thus Jesus warned you that His Little Ones —
Nestled like smallest planets next their Suns —
Are nearest God's great Angels, whose high place
Permits them to behold the Father' s face.
With whom there is no distance known to sense.
Heaven is most near to utmost innocence.

" God, the Creator, doth not sit aloof.
As in a picture painted on the roof.
Occasionally looking down from thence.
He is all presence and all providence;
Sentient in whatsoever life may draw
Breath from Him, and, beyond, sentient in law.
He doth not sit at one end of the chain
Of Being, thrilling it now and again;
He who is Being and doth bound and bind
Its particles in the Eternal Mind.
Outside His providence we cannot stand.
His presence makes the smallest room expand
Wider than wings of Day and Night e'er fanned.
I who am here, his Messenger, to-night,
But bring that presence to a point in light.
We are the agencies, the living laws.
Whereby Creation is eternal Cause.

" This human life is no mere looking-glass,
In which God sees His shadows as ye pass.
He did not start the pendulum of Time,
To go by Law, with one great swing sublime;
Resting Himself in lonely joy apart:
But to each pulse of life is beating heart.
And, as a Father sensitive, is stirred
By falling sparrow, or heart-winged word.
" As the Babe's life within the Parent's, dim
And deaf, ye dwell in God, a-dream of Him.
Ye stir and put forth feelers which are clasp t
By airy hands and higher life is graspt.
As yet but darkly. Life is in the root
And looking heavenward, from the ladder-foot.
Wingless as worms, with earthiness fast bound,
Up which ye mount but slowly, round on round.
Long climbing brings ye to the Father's knee;
Ye open gladsome eyes at last to see
That face of Love ye felt so inwardly.

" Ln this vast universe of worlds no waif
Of spirit looks to him butfloateth safe.
No prayer so lowly but is heard on high;
And if a soul should sigh, and lift an eye,
He keeps that soul from sinking with a sigh.

" All life, down to the worm beneath the sod.
Hath spiritual relationships to God —
The Life of Life, the love of all, in all;
Lord of the large and infinitely small.

" Birds find their home across the pathless sea
By no hereditary memory.

From land to land they move, their way illumed
By the inflowing Love that bore them, plumed
For flight, thrd which the Mother Bird is taught
To know which youngling had the last worm
brought;
The Insect led to garner food in nook
For young, on which it never lives to look.

" The veriest atoms, even as worlds above,
Are bridal chambers of creative Love,
Quick with the motion that suspends the whole
Of Matter spiral-spinning toward Soul.
And nothing is, but groping turns to Him,
Like babe to bosom, thd the sight be dim:
Nothing but what reflects in some faint wise
The image that is God in Angel eyes —
The Infinite One, whose likeness we but see
Glassed in the Infinite of Variety:
Just as the waters fix a fluttering beam,
Caught in this chamber, and, with golden gleam,
Throw on the ceiling, limned in little, one
Pale image of the glory of the Sun /

" No seed of life blown down a dark abysm
Of earth or sea but feels the magnetism
That draws us Godward I Flowers sunk in mines,
Or plants in ocean, where no sunbeam shines.
Will blindly climb up toward THEIR Deity,
Far off in Heaven, whom they can never see.

" There is a Spirit of Life within the Tree
That 's fed and clothed from Heaven continually,
And does not draw all nourishment from earth.
It puts a myriad tender feelers forth,
That breathe in heaven and turn the breath to sap:
In every leaf it spreads a tiny lap
To take its manna from the hand of God
And gather force for fingers 'neath the sod
To clutch the earth with: moulds, from sun ami rain,
Its leaves; with spirit-life feeds every vein,
And thrd each vein makes wood for bough and bark:
Girth for the bole and rootage down the dark.

" So Man is fed by God and lives in Him:
Not merely nourished by his rootage dim
In afar Past; a dead world underground,
But spirit to spirit reaches Heaven all round.

" Creative heat is current in the soul
From ages past, like sunshine in the coal.
Some fire of heaven in fossil stored away.
But spirit-life yet kindles at the ray
Warm from our Sun that shines in heaven to-day!'
" Not in one primal Man before the Fall
Did God set life a-breathing once for all.
He is the breath of life from first to last;
He liveth in the Present as the Past.
But ye, like rowers, turn your eyes behind;
Ye look Without and vainly feel to find
Raised in relief, like letters for the blind.
The substance of that Glory in the mind.

" Hints of tJie higher life, the better day.
Visit the human soul, outlining aye
The perfect statue now rough-cast in clay;
And with a mournful sigh ye think and say
' This is the type that was, and passed away! '
God holds a flower to you, it only yields
The fragrance fading from forgotten fields.
' Ah, only Eden could have wafted it! '
Immortal imagery His hand hath writ
Within ye is with revelation lit
By secret shinings of the Infinite.
' These are but glimmers of a glory gone! '
I tell you they are prophecies of dawn
And glimpses of a life that still goes on.
Man hath not fall 'n from Heaven, nor beat cast
Out from some Golden Age lived in the Past!
His fall is from the possible Life before him:
His fall is from the Crown of Life held der
him.
Ye stoop by Corpse-light, groping on the ground.
And lo! the living God, a-shine all round!
Even while I speak there is a quickening.
The unrest of a world that feels the spring;
The crust 0' the Letter cracks; new life takes wing;
A strong ground-swell will heave, a wave will break,
The Eternal grows more visibly awake.

" Upon the verge of sunrise ye but stand —
The door of life just open in your hand.
Behind you is the slip of space ye passed;
Before you an illimitable vast.
Not backward point the footprints that ye trace
Of those who ran the foremost in the race,
With light of God full-shining on their face!
Look up, as Children of the Light, and see
That ye are bound FOR immortality,
Not passing FROM it: Heirs of Hear en ye,
Not Exiles. God reverses human growth
For spirits; they go ripening toward youth
For ever. The fair Garden that still gleams
Across the desert, miraged in your dreams,
Smiles from the spirit, rather than the sod.
Wherever hallowed feet of Love have trod;
Wherever souls yet walk and talk with God.
And Heaven is as near Earth now as when
The Angels visibly conversed with Men.
The Holy Dove that came to brighten down
Over the head of Christ, a heaven-dropt crown.
Now broods within; if is the bosom-dove, —
// croons the music in the voice of Love.
''Neath human roofs still stoopeth the Divine
Closer than ever; makes the heart its shrine.

" God hath been gradually forming Man
In His own image since the world began.
And is for ever working on the soul,
Like Sculptor on his Statue, till the whole
Expression of the upward life be wrought
Into some semblance of the Eternal Thought.
Race after Race hath caught its likeness of
The Maker as the eyes grew large with love.
But in one face alone ye look to see
The possible image smiling perfectly.
" Christ's was a conscious Birthday of the Soul.
Thenceforth the world on a broader gauge could
roll
Out of old ruts: Man glimpse his glorious goal.
And leave the desert by-ways, darkly trod,
Heart-haunted by some gory ghost of God,
And Faith, exulting on its heavenward way.
Feel every dark should end at last in day.
No more vain searchings thro' the starry dome.
With vague blind yearnings for one hint of Home!
In Him ye see the Type Man climbs up to;
The Model God is working from thrd you!
In Him ye have the nearest likeness given
On Earth of that hid face which is in heaven.

" You ask me ' how the lamp of life burns on
When all that visibly fed the flame is gone! '
" Man does not live alone by visible breath,
And He who brings to life will lead thrd death.
Wait yet a little while and ye shall see
The flame was breathed on; fed invisibly:
And that its motion springs with force seven-fold
When the life-heat is clasht against Death's cold.

" You think of spirit as prison-walled about
By substance, wondering how it can get out!
But to my vision radiates the soul
Thrd body; by its pulses lights the whole
With life, and makes it luminous as the glass
Thrd which you see but only in spirit pass.
The wee babe nestled in the Mother's lap,
Feels her soul radiate in love and wrap
It softly in the very heart of bliss,
And draw all heaven thrd it in a
it in a kiss.

" As chalk is formed at bottom of the sea
From life that sheds its shell continually;
As bones are built up out of life's decay,
The body is shaped of substance sloughed away
From soul in ripening: 'tis a husk which yields
The earthy scaffold whereby spirit builds
Its heavenly house, that stands when the world-
crust
Is made of dropt and perisht human dust.
Spirit is Lord and Master at the death.
As in beginning, of its house of breath.

" Man does not live alone by hunger and drouth,
But by the breath which kindles from Gods
mouth:
'Tis breathing spirit makes the body breathe.
And sets in outer type the life beneath.
So print makes visible the unseen thought
To pass away, the miracle being wrought.
Life is an inner energy, unfurled
In visible shows from an invisible world;

Still fed and fed from, that almighty force
Of which no science yet hath grasped the source,
Whose infant germ from the dead seed reborn,
Is greater than a realm of ripened corn.
Like worlds warmed into being by their Sun,
Ye are embodied by the rays that run—
Mysteriously across a gulf of night;
A bridge of spirit laid in beams of light.
And that which is the centre of the blaze
Travels in life unseen along the rays.
The book will pass; the living Mind work on;
The Visible fades; still shines the Eternal sun.

" / tell you these things are: I may not show
You know: there's much the senses cannot know.
Who knows the links of that invisible chain
Which runs from soul to soul, from brain to
brain,
Whereby thought passes into other thought.
And out of sound its silent shape is wrought!
You see the miracle done before your eyes.
And in the flash of spirit to spirit dies
The common daylight: visual sense is blind
To see how Matter is made quick by Mind.
And there's a power in the hidden soul
To pass in at the eyes and print its whole
Self, in a picture finished infinitely
Beyond the portrait that the eyes can see.
Eyes ne'er behold your own souls face to face:
Your real selves invisibly embrace.

" You know not how a prayer ascends to God.
You saw no ladder Angel-feet e'er trod
In answer; hear no door turn on the hinge
When heaven opens, or the hells impinge
Upon the soul with their suggestion dark.
The Devil tempts, but how you cannot mark.
The bridge is still invisible that doth span
Your known and unknown: reach from God to
Man.

" With labours infinite your Science seeks
Footing on inaccessible cloud-peaks.
Yet, must the Climbers know that there are things
Only attainable at last with wings.
That skies will not be scaled howe'er they clasp
The solid rock; that heaven still mocks their
grasp.
On these they may tiot speak the final word.
On these the great Hereafter must he heard.
At best Man doth but darkly draw his light:
Each step ye take, each secret wrest from Night,
Must furnish food for faith as well as sight.

" The more ye feel the chain whereby ye are spanned,
The more its missing links elude the hand.
So Saturn's perfect rings, when, closer seen,
Are broken with dark gaps of night between!
Nor can ye more than mark the Visible shine
And in the gloom accept the Hand Divine.

" Live fruitfully the life ye may possess
With rootage beyond reach of consciousness,
And wait till the Unseen in flower blows.

" To find what gems lie hidden where it grows
Ye must not pluck the plant up by the root.
Wait till its treasures hang in precious fruit.
" There is no pathway Man hath ever trod
By faith or seeking sight but ends in God.
Yet 'tis in vain ye look Without to find
The inner secrets of the Eternal Mind,
Or meet the King on His external Throne.
But when ye kneel at heart, and feel so lone.
Perchance behind the veil you get the grip
And spirit-sign of secret fellowship;
Silently as the gathering of a tear
The human want will bring the helper near:
The very weakness, that is utterest need
Of God, will draw Him down with strength indeed.

" Enough to know ye live because He lives!
And love, because in love Himself He gives!
The gift is ever held sufficient sign
There is a Giver! And if it be Divine
And like the Heaven ye dream, but may not see.
Giver Divine and Heaven there must be.

" Lean nearer to the Heart that beats thro' night:
Its curtain of the dark your veil of light.
Peace Halcyon-like to perfect Faith is given,
And it can float on a reflected Heaven
Surely as Knowledge that doth rest at last
I sled on its 'ATOM' in the unfathomed vast
Life-ocean, heaving thro' the infinite,
From out whose dark the shows of being flit,
In flashes of the climbing wavis white crest:
Some few a moment luminous o'er the rest!"
The voice ceased: the form faded in the beam
Of dawn, that swam down like the gladsome
gleam
Of heaven to him who struggles, nearly-
drowned.
And draws him lifeward from the gulf profound,
And melts to a gold mist the dim green round.