第 3 节
作者:辛苦      更新:2022-04-12 11:59      字数:9320
  When the poor brain is as an empty bowl;
  And the thought…spirit; weariful and wan;
  Turning from that which yet it loves the best;
  Sinks moveless; with life…poverty opprest:
  Watch then; O Lord; thy feebly glimmering coal。
  26。
  I cannot think; in me is but a void;
  I have felt much; and want to feel no more;
  My soul is hungry for some poorer fare
  Some earthly nectar; gold not unalloyed:
  The little child that's happy to the core;
  Will leave his mother's lap; run down the stair;
  Play with the servantsis his mother annoyed?
  27。
  I would not have it so。 Weary and worn;
  Why not to thee run straight; and be at rest?
  Motherward; with toy new; or garment torn;
  The child that late forsook her changeless breast;
  Runs to home's heart; the heaven that's heavenliest:
  In joy or sorrow; feebleness or might;
  Peace or commotion; be thou; Father; my delight。
  28。
  The thing I would say; still comes forth with doubt
  And difference:is it that thou shap'st my ends?
  Or is it only the necessity
  Of stubborn words; that shift sluggish about;
  Warping my thought as it the sentence bends?
  Have thou a part in it; O Lord; and I
  Shall say a truth; if not the thing I try。
  29。
  Gather my broken fragments to a whole;
  As these four quarters make a shining day。
  Into thy basket; for my golden bowl;
  Take up the things that I have cast away
  In vice or indolence or unwise play。
  Let mine be a merry; all…receiving heart;
  But make it a whole; with light in every part。
  MARCH。
  1。
  THE song birds that come to me night and morn;
  Fly oft away and vanish if I sleep;
  Nor to my fowling…net will one return:
  Is the thing ever ours we cannot keep?
  But their souls go not out into the deep。
  What matter if with changed song they come back?
  Old strength nor yet fresh beauty shall they lack。
  2。
  Gloriously wasteful; O my Lord; art thou!
  Sunset faints after sunset into the night;
  Splendorously dying from thy window…sill
  For ever。 Sad our poverty doth bow
  Before the riches of thy making might:
  Sweep from thy space thy systems at thy will
  In thee the sun sets every sunset still。
  3。
  And in the perfect time; O perfect God;
  When we are in our home; our natal home;
  When joy shall carry every sacred load;
  And from its life and peace no heart shall roam;
  What if thou make us able to make like thee
  To light with moons; to clothe with greenery;
  To hang gold sunsets o'er a rose and purple sea!
  4。
  Then to his neighbour one may call out; 〃Come!
  Brother; come hitherI would show you a thing;〃
  And lo; a vision of his imagining;
  Informed of thought which else had rested dumb;
  Before the neighbour's truth…delighted eyes;
  In the great 鎡her of existence rise;
  And two hearts each to each the closer cling!
  5。
  We make; but thou art the creating core。
  Whatever thing I dream; invent; or feel;
  Thou art the heart of it; the atmosphere。
  Thou art inside all love man ever bore;
  Yea; the love itself; whatever thing be dear。
  Man calls his dog; he follows at his heel;
  Because thou first art love; self…caused; essential; mere。
  6。
  This day be with me; Lord; when I go forth;
  Be nearer to me than I am able to ask。
  In merriment; in converse; or in task;
  Walking the street; listening to men of worth;
  Or greeting such as only talk and bask;
  Be thy thought still my waiting soul around;
  And if He come; I shall be watching found。
  7。
  What if; writing; I always seem to leave
  Some better thing; or better way; behind;
  Why should I therefore fret at all; or grieve!
  The worse I drop; that I the better find;
  The best is only in thy perfect mind。
  Fallen threads I will not search forI will weave。
  Who makes the mill…wheel backward strike to grind!
  8。
  Be with me; Lord。 Keep me beyond all prayers:
  For more than all my prayers my need of thee;
  And thou beyond all need; all unknown cares;
  What the heart's dear imagination dares;
  Thou dost transcend in measureless majesty
  All prayers in onemy God; be unto me
  Thy own eternal self; absolutely。
  9。
  Where should the unknown treasures of the truth
  Lie; but there whence the truth comes out the most
  In the Son of man; folded in love and ruth?
  Fair shore we see; fair ocean; but behind
  Lie infinite reaches bathing many a coast
  The human thought of the eternal mind;
  Pulsed by a living tide; blown by a living wind。
  10。
  Thou; healthful Father; art the Ancient of Days;
  And Jesus is the eternal youth of thee。
  Our old age is the scorching of the bush
  By life's indwelling; incorruptible blaze。
  O Life; burn at this feeble shell of me;
  Till I the sore singed garment off shall push;
  Flap out my Psyche wings; and to thee rush。
  11。
  But shall I then rush to thee like a dart?
  Or lie long hours 鎜nian yet betwixt
  This hunger in me; and the Father's heart?
  It shall be good; how ever; and not ill;
  Of things and thoughts even now thou art my next;
  Sole neighbour; and no space between; thou art
  And yet art drawing nearer; nearer still。
  12。
  Therefore; my brothers; therefore; sisters dear;
  However I; troubled or selfish; fail
  In tenderness; or grace; or service clear;
  I every moment draw to you more near;
  God in us from our hearts veil after veil
  Keeps lifting; till we see with his own sight;
  And all together run in unity's delight。
  13。
  I love thee; Lord; for very greed of love
  Not of the precious streams that towards me move;
  But of the indwelling; outgoing; fountain store。
  Than mine; oh; many an ignorant heart loves more!
  Therefore the more; with Mary at thy feet;
  I must sit worshippingthat; in my core;
  Thy words may fan to a flame the low primeval heat。
  14。
  Oh my beloved; gone to heaven from me!
  I would be rich in love to heap you with love;
  I long to love you; sweet ones; perfectly
  Like God; who sees no spanning vault above;
  No earth below; and feels no circling air
  Infinitely; no boundary anywhere。
  I am a beast until I love as God doth love。
  15。
  Ah; say not; 'tis but perfect self I want
  But if it were; that self is fit to live
  Whose perfectness is still itself to scant;
  Which never longs to have; but still to give。
  A self I must have; or not be at all:
  Love; give me a self self…givingor let me fall
  To endless darkness back; and free me from life's thrall。
  16。
  〃Back;〃 said I! Whither back? How to the dark?
  》From no dark came I; but the depths of light;
  》From the sun…heart I came; of love a spark:
  What should I do but love with all my might?
  To die of love severe and pure and stark;
  Were scarcely loss; to lord a loveless height
  That were a living death; damnation's positive night。
  17。
  But love is life。 To die of love is then
  The only pass to higher life than this。
  All love is death to loving; living men;
  All deaths are leaps across clefts to the abyss。
  Our life is the broken current; Lord; of thine;
  Flashing from morn to morn with conscious shine
  Then first by willing death self…made; then life divine。
  18。
  I love you; my sweet children; who are gone
  Into another mansion; but I know
  I love you not as I shall love you yet。
  I love you; sweet dead children; there are none
  In the land to which ye vanished to go;
  Whose hearts more truly on your hearts are set
  Yet should I die of grief to love you only so。
  19。
  〃I am but as a beast before thee; Lord。〃
  Great poet…king; I thank thee for the word。
  Leave not thy son half…made in beastly guise
  Less than a man; with more than human cries
  An unshaped thing in which thyself cries out!
  Finish me; Father; now I am but a doubt;
  Oh! make thy moaning thing for joy to leap and shout。
  20。
  Let my soul talk to thee in ordered words;
  O king of kings; O lord of only lords!
  When I am thinking thee within my heart;
  》From the broken reflex be not far apart。
  The troubled water; dim with upstirred soil;
  Makes not the image which it yet can spoil:
  Come nearer; Lord; and smooth the wrinkled coil。
  21。
  O Lord; when I do think of my departed;
  I think of thee who art the death of parting;
  Of him who crying Father breathed his last;
  Then radiant from the sepulchre upstarted。
  Even then; I think; thy hands and feet kept smarting:
  With us the bitterness of death is past;
  But by the feet he still doth hold us fast。
  22。
  Therefore our hands thy feet do hold as fast。
  We pray not to be spared the sorest pang;
  But onlybe thou with us to the last。
  Let not our heart be troubled at the clang
  Of hammer and nails; nor dread the spear's keen fang;
  Nor the ghast sickening that comes of pain;
  Nor yet the last clutch of the banished brain。
  23。
  Lord; pity us: we have no making power;
  Then give us making will; adopting thine。
  Make; make; and make us; temper; and refine。
  Be in us patienceneither to start nor cower。
  Christ; if thou be not with usnot by sign;
  But presence; actual as the wounds that bleed
  We shall not bear it; but shall die indeed。
  24。
  O Christ; have pity on all men when they come
  Unto the border haunted of dismay;
  When that they know not draweth very near
  The other thing; the opposite of day;
  Formless and ghastly; sick; and gaping…dumb;
  Before which even love doth lose his cheer:
  O radiant Christ; remember then thy fear。
  25。
  Be by me; Lord; this day。 Thou know'st I mean
  Lord; make me