And down the awful passes of the sky
There comes the voice that circumvents the gale;
That makes the avalanche to pass us by,
And saith, "I overcome" to man's "I fail."
"And peradventure now," said I, "the zest
Of all existence waits on His behest."
WHITHER NOW
But man's deliverances intervene
Between the soul's swift speech and God's high will;
That saith to tempests of the thought, "Be still!"
And in life's lazaretto maketh clean
The leprous sense. Ah, who can find his way
Among the many altars? Who can call
Out perfect peace from any ritual,
Or shelter find in systems of a day?
As one sees on some ancient urn, upthrown
From out a tomb, records that none may read
With like interpretation, and the stone
Retains its graven fealty to the dead:
So, on the great palimpsest men have writ
Such lines o'ercrossed that none interprets it.
ARARAT
What marvel that the soul of youth should cry,
"Man builds his temples 'tween me and the face
Of Him whom I would seek; I cannot trace
His purpose in their shadow, nor descry
The wisdom absolute?" What marvel that,
With yearning impotent, ay, impotent
Beyond all measure! his full faith was spent,
And for his soul there rose no Ararat?
Yet out upon the sun-drawn sensate sea
Of elemental pain, there came a word
As if from Him who travelled Galilee,
As fair as any Zion ever heard.
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