In all around we see
Links of the chain that binds the soul of man
Unto his brother man. No human eye
Can gaze undazzled where those links begin,
Nor trace them to their end. Alone to Faith,
With her far eagle-gaze ’tis given to see
That the all-loving heart of Nature’s God
And Man’s Redeemer, is the burning clasp
That joins in one that all-embracing zone,
Kound as the circle of eternity.
Yet everywhere
These links are scattered with a bounteous hand ;
They shine above us in the stars of night,
That tread with golden feet the courts of heaven,
Like angel-watchers o’er a sleeping world.
They look as brightly down upon us now,
When time and sin have furrowed earth’s fair face,
As when the placid streams of Paradise
First mirror’d back with such effulgent glow,
Night’s ebon beauty, and her jewell’d hair,
That, gazing long, she blushed herself away,
And gave her sceptre to the orient morn.
And since those hours of holy innocence,
Through many an age the stars have kept their watch,
Seeming eternal in a world of change—
Untiring herald of our high descent
From Him, around whose throne the sons of God
And morning-stars together sang with joy,
When first our virgin earth sprang forth to light.
Oh, had man’s ear been open to their voice,
His eye attentive to the wondrous page,
The illumined missal, where the golden stars
Inscribe in characters of liquid light,
Caught from the censers of the angel hosts,
Their holy teachings of the eternal truths,
How fair and bright had been his earthly lot!
In one high brotherhood of peace and joy,
Owning no chain save all-embracing love;
The individual souls of men had shone,
Each in his sphere of far-extending light
Obedient to the universal law,—
None envying, none presuming, only them
Who burned most fervently with heavenly love
Crowned with a garland of the brightest beams
From heaven’s own fountain of immortal light.
While from the spirits of the mighty whole,
As from the chords of some great instrument,
A stream of choral harmony had risen
And joined the harpings of angelic spheres.
Not less the flowers
Come missioned with a tale of love to man,
As one by one they meekly bend and write
Upon the pages of this furrowed earth
A hymn of praise, which “he who runs may read.”
Each in the depth of its sweet chalice holds
As in a censer filled with frankincense,
Some message of the love of God to man,
And of His care over the meanest things.
In every age these silent messengers
Have borne from heart to heart the tale of love,
For man hath deem’d their silent eloquence.
Of spirit-language, fittest far to breathe
The delicate thoughts that seem deformed and soiled,
Garbed in earth’s common language.
The Brotherhood of Hills!
They, too, have lessons for the heart of man!
Who that hath marked the flying sunbeams chase,
The cloudshade o’er the steadfast mountain’s brow,
Nor deem’d he saw an image of his life—
A fleeting shadow on the brow of time?
Amidst the wildering and incessant stir,
The dust and care of this our mortal life,
What joy to gaze upon their changeless forms,
Rising so solemly from earth to heaven!
To drink the waters of refreshment, poured
From the deep urns of Silence, who hath sat
Since the first dawning of Creation’s morn,
Enthroned among the everlasting hills!
How fearlessly they lift their giant heads
Into the regions of the hurrying storm;
Calm as when sunlight gilds their hoary locks
That so they may receive the tempest gift,
And send it forth in gushing rills and streams,
Gladdening the lands, and from the barren waste
Calling forth beauty in resplendent gleams—
An image of the true heart’s mission here!
Thus stars and flowers, the mountains and the streams,
Yea, all the forms of this our outward world,
Have each their ministry and part to bear,
In teaching to the young immortal, man,
Some knowledge of his own mysterious soul,
And solemn truths that lie at Nature’s heart.
This truth more beautiful than all beside,
That He, whose name is Love, and from whose heart,
As from a living and immortal root,
This whole fair universe hath budded forth,
Hath granted him the high and holy right.
To call Him “Father.”
So that all things speak
God’s Fatherhood, and the Brotherhood of man.
“Even such a shell the Universe itself,
Is to the ear of Faith.”
—Wordsworth.
My little son sat joyous on my knee,
And to his ear I held a twisted shell
“Now hearken dear” I whispered him “and tell
What has the pretty thing to say to thee,
Does it not talk about its native sea?”
A listening look upon the sweet face fell,
A quiet came as of a holy spell;
And then he answered low and reverently
I hear it say: “Father who art in Heaven.”
Oh might it be, my heart has inly prayed,
That such a message from the mystic shell
Of Nature, unto questioning souls were given;
That through the music by its windings made,
They too might hear: “Father who art in Heaven,”