I

I found the clue I sought not in the night, While wandering in a pathless maze of gloom; The sky was hidden behind shapes of doom; There was no moon, nor any star in sight.

My hopes, my dreams and my beliefs were slain; Like corpses on a battlefield they lay;

The world was but a graveyard dark with clay; The stiffling cloud denied one drop of rain;

When from the giddy marge of the abyss I cried aloud in agony and fear,

When suddenly it seemed my single tear Stretched and became a shining bridge to bliss.

I stood before a topless gate. Within I guessed the light, I dared not enter in.

II

One day I heard a whisper: ‘Wherefore wait? Why linger in a separated porch?

Why nurse the flicker of a severed torch?

The fire is there, ablaze beyond the gate.

Why tremble, foolish soul? Why hesitate? However faint the knock it will be heard.’

I knocked, and swiftly came the answering word, Which bade me enter to my own estate.

I found myself in a familiar place;

And there my broken soul began to mend;

I knew the smile of every long-lost face— They whom I had forgot remembered me;

I knelt, I knew—it was too bright to see— The welcome of a King who was my friend.

Ill

My treasure and my resting-place are found,

My mother-land, my immemorial home;

Beyond the reefs of treasonable foam,

I know the lights are flashing on the sound. Lightning may strike, and hurricane may blow, Whatever shall befall I cannot fear:

Whether the hour be faraway or near,

That tranquil harbour shines and waits, I know.

Though starless is the sky to-night And clouds are sailing free,

A thousand fairy points of light Go dancing to the sea.

Reflections from the river-side Of lights both meek and bold,

They fall along the outward tide In silver, red, and gold.

They ripple on each tiny crest And tremble on the foam,

The river will not let them rest Or shine for us at home.

But onward from the magic town,

If men would look with me,

Its argosy it carries down From London to the sea.

Edwin Essex, O.P.

Here I make oath—

Although the heart that knows its bitterness Hear loath,

And credit less—

That he who kens to meet Pain’s kisses fierce Which hiss against his tears,

Dread, loss, nor love frustrate,

Nor all iniquity of the froward years Shall his inured wing make idly bate,

Nor of the appointed quarry his staunch sight To lose observance quite;

Seal from half-sad and half-elate Sagacious eyes Ultimate Paradise;

Nor shake his certitude of haughty fate.

Pacing the burning shares of many dooms,

I with stern tread do the clear-witting stars To judgement cite,

If I have borne aright

The proving of their pure-willed ordeal.

From food of all delight

The heavenly Falconer my heart debars,

And tames with fearful glooms The haggard to His call;

Yet sometimes comes a hand, sometimes a voice withal,

And she sits meek now, and expects the light.

In this Avernian sky,

This sultry and incumbent canopy Of dull and doomed regret;

Where on the unseen verges yet, O yet,

At intervals,

Trembles, and falls,

Faint lightning of remembered transient sweet—

Ah, far too sweet

But to be sweet a little, a little sweet, and fleet; Leaving this pallid trace,

This loitering and most fitful light, a space,

Still some sad space,

For Grief to see her own poor face :—

Here where I keep my stand With all o’er-anguished feet,

And no live comfort near on any hand;

Lo, I proclaim the unavoided term,

When this morass of tears, then drained and firm, Shall be a land—

Unshaken I affirm—

Where seven-quired psalterings meet;

And all the gods move with calm hand in hand, And eyes that know not trouble and the worm.

Francis Thompson.

’ The pageant of the ages I behold,

The high ennobling struggle of mankind, Heart-stirring as a trumpet is unroll’d Before my eyes, to quicken will and mind.’

‘Record of crimes and follies, age by age,

The shame of fallen man repeated still,

His vain presumption; here and there a page Of glory in a library of ill.’

Thus youth and eld have bandied to and fro Age after age their still unspent debate.

But wisdom God-inspir’d said long ago :

While knowledge groweth sorrows aggravate.

Youth’s ardour, sadness of experience,

Man fallen, and God’s judgments manifold, Life’s landscape, human history now dense And murk, now sunlight-gladden’d, I behold.

Interpret well the lesson, see it whole;

Lose not thyself amid the forest maze,

Roam not at random; see and mark, my soul, And thou shalt firmlier tread the appointed ways.

H. E. G. Rope.