“Eye that sees nature, heart that feels her power,
And resolution that dares follow her:”
A little stretch of mountain road
Silvered with moonlight, for on high
The harvest-moon’s full glory showed
The vastness of the vaulted sky:
Nor knoll, nor tree, nor roof was nigh
To narrow up the spangled tent,
That on the distant ranges leant.
And all the sleeping land was still
Save the far murmur of the fall
Deep in the gorge, and one near rill
That trickled by us, soft and small,
Under the shadow of the wall.
To walk the earth and breathe the air
Seemed almost like a trespass there.
We could not speak: a solemn grace
Poured through the senses of the soul:
We stood within the holy place,
We saw the tide of life that stole
From life itself and heard its roll,
Through deep and deeper channels drawn
For ever since creation’s dawn.
Then something moved amidst the haze
And dimness of the road below:
A woman, bending down to raise
A burden dragged with motion slow:
Then two child-shapes began to grow
Behind the first, and we could see
They bore a blasted sapling tree.
Close, close upon us; gone too soon
’Ere clearly seen: for as they passed
A little vapour hid the moon
And all about in shade was cast.
But in the silence deep and vast
One long-drawn, heavy sigh we heard:
Only a sigh, no sob, no word.
Only a sigh, a human sigh,
Yet eloquent of many woes,
Of weariness and poverty,
Of scanty fire in winter snows,
Perchance of widowhood, who knows?
And often since, subdued yet clear,
That deep-drawn sigh I seem to hear.
Should I have spoken? laid a hand
Upon the burden that she bore—
The cross that through the careless land
She carried, weary and footsore ?—
Dear Lord! had I but loved thee more
I might have caught thy tender touch
And learned the way to succour such.
Her face was hid from me: it seemed
A sort of disembodied sigh
That indistinct as if I dreamed,
Rose through the mist and passed us by.
Yet still that feeble step draws nigh,
And still in my remorseful ear
That deep pathetic sigh I hear.
Gone out of sight! but where?
Like all the rest,
Where it is best,
Where only it is fitting she should be.
We search and peer but cannot find or see
Where of God’s grace
I's her right place:
Howbeit, she is there.
Dull, pining life of pain
In hovel dim,
Filled to the brim
With hungry, naked, clamourous infancy,
But all things else in barren scarcity,
From earliest days
Stinted all ways;
In purse and pulse and brain.
Her last poor babe was weak,
Languished and died;
At which she sighed,
Sadly content to let it gasp and go,
Saying its ceaseless wailings wore her so;
And as she spoke
No warm tears broke
Over her pallid cheek.
Her eldest born but one
Lost her good name,
Yet showed no shame.
She fought her battle for her, scarcely seemed
To see disgrace or vice, or so we deemed;
But from that day
She drooped away,
Spoke little, soon was gone,
Pathetically dark,
No inward eye
That could descry,
The vast encircling sphere of unseen things;
Yet moving on her being’s deepest springs,
The spirit divine
Made light to shine,
Though but a feeble spark.
Dumb, groping sense of need
Of One above,
Whose awful love
Can brook for love’s own sake no smallest sin,
Yet draws the sinner in safe arms within
His Fatherhood
By Jesus’ blood:—
Served as her simple creed.
Will our’s at the last test
Be better found?
More form, more sound;
But pare it down to its essential core,
The creed of noblest saint is nothing more.
Our clearest light
Is as the night
Or glimmering dawn at best.
Ah! let us ponder more
That strange, stern word
That our dear Lord
Puts of His wisdom in the patriarch’s mouth.
“Son, who alive nor hunger felt nor drouth,
Thy good things thou
Then hadst, but now
He has the richer store.”
Gone out of sight! but where?
Wherever rest
In softest nest
The weary, humble, earth-defeated ones;
Wherever God’s best stream of comfort runs,
Where through fair meads
The Shepherd leads,
She is most surely there.