Woe is me!--how high art Thou in the highest, how deep in the deepest! and Thou never departest from us and we scarcely return to Thee." -- AUGUSTINE'S Soliloquies, Book VII.
The fourteen centuries fall away Between us and the Afric saint, And at his side we urge, to-day, The immemorial quest and old complaint.
No outward sign to us is given,-- From sea or earth comes no reply; Hushed as the warm Numidian heaven He vainly questioned bends our frozen sky.
No victory comes of all our strife,-- From all we grasp the meaning slips; The Sphinx sits at the gate of life, With the old question on her awful lips.
In paths unknown we hear the feet Of fear before, and guilt behind; We pluck the wayside fruit, and eat Ashes and dust beneath its golden rind.
From age to age descends unchecked The sad bequest of sire to son, The body's taint, the mind's defect; Through every web of life the dark threads run.
Oh, why and whither?
God knows all; I only know that He is good, And that whatever may befall Or here or there, must be the best that could.
Between the dreadful cherubim A Father's face I still discern, As Moses looked of old on Him, And saw His glory into goodness turn! For He is merciful as just; And so, by faith correcting sight, I bow before His will, and trust Howe'er they seem He doeth all things right.
And dare to hope that Tie will make The rugged smooth, the doubtful plain; His mercy never quite forsake; His healing visit every realm of pain; That suffering is not His revenge Upon His creatures weak and frail, Sent on a pathway new and strange With feet that wander and with eyes that fail; That, o'er the crucible of pain, Watches the tender eye of Love The slow transmuting of the chain Whose links are iron below to gold above! Ah me! we doubt the shining skies, Seen through our shadows of offence, And drown with our poor childish cries The cradle-hymn of kindly Providence.
And still we love the evil cause, And of the just effect complain We tread upon life's broken laws, And murmur at our self-inflicted pain; We turn us from the light, and find Our spectral shapes before us thrown, As they who leave the sun behind Walk in the shadows of themselves alone.
And scarce by will or strength of ours We set our faces to the day; Weak, wavering, blind, the Eternal Powers Alone can turn us from ourselves away.
Our weakness is the strength of sin, But love must needs be stronger far, Outreaching all and gathering in The erring spirit and the wandering star.
A Voice grows with the growing years; Earth, hushing down her bitter cry, Looks upward from her graves, and hears, "The Resurrection and the Life am I." O Love Divine!--whose constant beam Shines on the eyes that will not see, And waits to bless us, while we dream Thou leavest us because we turn from thee! All souls that struggle and aspire, All hearts of prayer by thee are lit; And, dim or clear, thy tongues of fire On dusky tribes and twilight centuries sit.
Nor bounds, nor clime, nor creed thou know'st, Wide as our need thy favors fall; The white wings of the Holy Ghost Stoop, seen or unseen, o'er the heads of all.
O Beauty, old yet ever new! Eternal Voice, and Inward Word, The Logos of the Greek and Jew, The old sphere-music which the Samian heard! Truth, which the sage and prophet saw, Long sought without, but found within, The Law of Love beyond all law, The Life o'erflooding mortal death and sin! Shine on us with the light which glowed Upon the trance-bound shepherd's way.
Who saw the Darkness overflowed And drowned by tides of everlasting Day.
Shine, light of God!--make broad thy scope To all who sin and suffer; more And better than we dare to hope With Heaven's compassion make our longings poor! 1860.
THE CRY OF A LOST SOUL.
Lieutenant Herndon's Report of the Exploration of the Amazon has a striking description of the peculiar and melancholy notes of a bird heard by night on the shores of the river.

The Indian guides called it "The Cry of a Lost Soul"! Among the numerous translations of this poem is one by the Emperor of Brazil.
In that black forest, where, when day is done, With a snake's stillness glides the Amazon Darkly from sunset to the rising sun, A cry, as of the pained heart of the wood, The long, despairing moan of solitude And darkness and the absence of all good, Startles the traveller, with a sound so drear, So full of hopeless agony and fear, His heart stands still and listens like his ear.
The guide, as if he heard a dead-bell toll, Starts, drops his oar against the gunwale's thole, Crosses himself, and whispers, "A lost soul!" "No, Senor, not a bird.

I know it well,-- It is the pained soul of some infidel Or cursed heretic that cries from hell.
"Poor fool! with hope still mocking his despair, He wanders, shrieking on the midnight air For human pity and for Christian prayer.
"Saints strike him dumb! Our Holy Mother hath No prayer for him who, sinning unto death, Burns always in the furnace of God's wrath!" Thus to the baptized pagan's cruel lie, Lending new horror to that mournful cry, The voyager listens, making no reply.
Dim burns the boat-lamp: shadows deepen round, From giant trees with snake-like creepers wound, And the black water glides without a sound.
But in the traveller's heart a secret sense Of nature plastic to benign intents, And an eternal good in Providence, Lifts to the starry calm of heaven his eyes; And to! rebuking all earth's ominous cries, The Cross of pardon lights the tropic skies! "Father of all!" he urges his strong plea, "Thou lovest all: Thy erring child may be Lost to himself, but never lost to Thee! "All souls are Thine; the wings of morning bear None from that Presence which is everywhere, Nor hell itself can hide, for Thou art there.
"Through sins of sense, perversities of will, Through doubt and pain, through guilt and shame and ill, Thy pitying eye is on Thy creature still.
"Wilt thou not make, Eternal Source and Goal! In Thy long years, life's broken circle whole, And change to praise the cry of a lost soul ?" 1862.
ANDREW RYKMAN'S PRAYER Andrew Rykman's dead and gone; You can see his leaning slate In the graveyard, and thereon Read his name and date.
"_Trust is truer than our fears_," Runs the legend through the moss, "_Gain is not in added years, Nor in death is loss_." Still the feet that thither trod, All the friendly eyes are dim; Only Nature, now, and God Have a care for him.
There the dews of quiet fall, Singing birds and soft winds stray: Shall the tender Heart of all Be less kind than they?
What he was and what he is They who ask may haply find, If they read this prayer of his Which he left behind.
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