t;
Be thou the calling, before all answering love,
And in me wake hope, fear, boundless desire.
11.
I thought that I had lost thee; but, behold!
Thou comest to me from the horizon low,
Across the fields outspread of green and gold--
Fair carpet for thy feet to come and go.
Whence I know not, or how to me thou art come!--
Not less my spirit with calm bliss doth glow,
Meeting thee only thus, in nature vague and dumb.
12.
Doubt swells and surges, with swelling doubt behind!
My soul in storm is but a tattered sail,
Streaming its ribbons on the torrent gale;
In calm, 'tis but a limp and flapping thing:
Oh! swell it with thy breath; make it a wing,--
To sweep through thee the ocean, with thee the wind
Nor rest until in thee its haven it shall find.
13.
The idle flapping of the sail is doubt;
Faith swells it full to breast the breasting seas.
Bold, conscience, fast, and rule the ruling helm;
Hell's freezing north no tempest can send out,
But it shall toss thee homeward to thy leas;
Boisterous wave-crest never shall o'erwhelm
Thy sea-float bark as safe as field-borne rooted elm.
14.
Sometimes, hard-trying, it seems I cannot pray--
For doubt, and pain, and anger, and all strife.
Yet some poor half-fledged prayer-bird from the nest
May fall, flit, fly, perch--crouch in the bowery breast
Of the large, nation-healing tree of life;--
Moveless there sit through all the burning day,
And on my heart at night a fresh leaf cooling lay.
15.
My harvest withers. Health, my means to live--
All things seem rushing straight into the dark.
But the dark still is God. I would not give
The smallest silver-piece to turn the rush
Backward or sideways. Am I not a spark
Of him who is the light?--Fair hope doth flush
My east.--Divine success--Oh, hush and hark!
16.
Thy will be done. I yield up everything.
"The life is more than meat"--then more than health;
"The body more than raiment"--then than wealth;
The hairs I made not, thou art numbering.
Thou art my life--I the brook, thou the spring.
Because thine eyes are open, I can see;
Because thou art thyself, 'tis therefore I am me.
17.
No sickness can come near to blast my health;
My life depends not
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