Thou seemest human and divine,

The highest, holiest manhood, thou :

Our wills are ours, we know not how ; Our wills are ours, to make them thine.

Our little systems have their day ;

They have their day and cease to be :

They are but broken lights of thee, And thou, O Lord, art more than they.

We have but faith : we cannot know ;

For knowledge is of things we see ;

And yet we trust it comes from thee, A beam in darkness : let it grow.

Let knowledge grow from more to more,

But more of reverence in us dwell ;

That mind and soul, according well, May make one music as before,

But vaster. We are fools and slight ;

We mock thee when we do not fear :

But help thy foolish ones to bear ; Help thy vain worlds to bear thy light.

Forgive what seem'd my sin in me ;

What seem'd my worth since I began ;

For merit lives from man to man, And not from man, O Lord, to thee.

Forgive my grief for one removed,

Thy creature, whom I found so fair.

I trust he lives in thee, and there I find him worthier to be loved.

Forgive these wild and wandering cries,

Confusions of a wasted youth ;

Forgive them where they fail in truth, And in thy wisdom make me wise.

1849.

IN MEMORIAM

Α. Η. Η.

OBIIT MDCCCXXXIII.

I HELD it truth, with him who sings

To one clear harp in divers tones,

That men may rise on stepping-stones Of their dead selves to higher things.

But who shall so forecast the years

And find in loss a gain to match ?

Or reach a hand thro’ time to catch The far-off interest of tears?

Let Love clasp Grief lest both be drown'd,

Let darkness keep her raven gloss ;

Ah, sweeter to be drunk with loss, To dance with death, to beat the ground ;

Than that the victor Hours should scorn

The long result of love, and boast :

II.

OLD Yew, which graspest at the stones

That name the under-lying dead,

Thy fibres net the dreamless head ; Thy roots are wrapt about the bones.

The seasons bring the flower again,

And bring the firstling to the flock ;

And in the dusk of thee, the clock Beats out the little lives of men.

O not for thee the glow, the bloom,

Who changest not in any gale !

Nor branding summer suns avail To touch thy thousand years of gloom.

And gazing on the sullen tree,

Sick for thy stubborn hardihood,

I seem to fail from out my blood, And grow incorporate into thee.