THE CRUCIFIXION. Bound upon the accursed tree, Dread and awful-who is He? By the prayer for them that slew— "Lord! they know not what they do!" By the souls he died to save, Son of God! 'tis Thou, 'tis Thou! HENRY HART MILMAN. 363 I The Crucifixion. From the Italian. ASKED the heavens: "What foe to God hath done This unexampled deed?" The heavens exclaim, "'Twas man, and we in horror snatched the sun From such a spectacle of guilt and shame!" I asked the sea; the sea in fury boiled, And answered with his voice of storm, "'T was man ; My waves in panic at the crime recoiled, Disclosed the abyss, and from the center ran !" I asked the earth; the earth replied, aghast, 66 "'T was man, and such strange pangs my bosom rent, That still I groan and shudder at the past!" To man, gay, smiling, thoughtless man I went, And asked him next; he turned a scornful eye, Shook his proud head, and deigned me no reply. JAMES MONTGOMERY. Whence and Whither. THE REIGN OF LAW. Ετέρα μὲν ἡ τῶν ἐπουρανίων δόξα, ἑτέρα δὲ ἡ τῶν ἐπιγείων. 'HE dawn went up the sky, THE Like any other day; And they had only come To mourn Him where he lay : And when we die, we die. Resigned to fact we wander hither, "Vain questions! from the first Put, and no answer found. Wherewith himself is bound. Unrolls her primal curve; The sun himself were vexed Did she one furlong swerve: The myriad years have whirled us hither, But tell not of the whence and whither. "We know but what we see Like cause and like event: Transmuted, but unspent. The mind may frame a plan; 'Tis from herself she draws A special thought for man: The natural choice that brought us hither, Is silent on the whence and whither. WHENCE AND WHITHER. "If God there be, or gods, Without our science lies; We cannot see or touch, Measure or analyze. Life is but what we live, We know but what we know, Closed in these bounds alone Whether God be, or no: The self-moved force that bore us hither "Ah, which is likelier truth, That law should hold its way, Or, for this one of all, Life re-assert her sway? Like any other morn The sun goes up the sky; No crisis marks the day, For when we die, we die. No fair fond hope allures us hither: The law is dumb on whence and whither." -Then wherefore are ye come? Why watch a worn-out corse? Why weep a ripple past Down the long stream of force? If life is that which keeps Each organism whole, No atom may be traced Of what ye thought the soul: It had its term of passage hither, But knew no whence, and knows no whither. The forces that were Christ Have ta'en new forms and fled; The common sun goes up, The dead are with the dead. 355 'T was but a phantom-life That seemed to think and will, Evolving self and God By some subjective skill, That had its day of passage hither, But knew no whence, and knows no whither. If this be all in all; Life, but one mode of force ; Law, but the plan which binds The sequences in course: All essence, all design Shut out from mortal ken,— We bow to Nature's fate, And drop the style of men ! The summer dust the wind wafts hither, But if our life be life, And thought, and will, and love Not vague unconscious airs That o'er wild harp-strings move; If consciousness be aught Of all it seems to be, And souls are something more Than lights that gleam and flee, Though dark the road that leads us thither, The heart must ask its whence and whither. To matter or to force The All is not confined; Beside the law of things Is set the law of mind; One speaks in rock and star, And then apart again : And both in one have brought us hither, That we may know our whence and whither. WHENCE AND WHITHER. The sequences of law We learn through mind alone; That aught we know is known :- Of what we touch and see - Proclaiming One who brought us hither, O shrine of God that now Must learn itself with awe! That which seemed all the rule Of nature, is but part; A larger, deeper law Claims also soul and heart. The force that framed and bore us hither We may not hope to read Or of the law of things, Or of the law of soul: E'en in the eternal stars Dim perturbations rise; And all the searcher's search Does not exhaust the skies : He who has framed and brought us hither He in his science plans What no known laws foretell; Alike are miracle : 367 |