To the end of the trail / Richard Hovey [electronic text]

[ep. (epode) γ.

For surely from the childing night That labors in a God's birth-throes, Shall come at last dawn's baby-rose, The potency of perfect light.

I see the seraph of the years, Asleep in the womb of the Lord's intent, And the ripple of laughter in his ears Is seen on his face as a great content. And the wise lips smile and the grand brow flushes For joy at the joy that his own arm brings, Like a smile of May when the wild rose blushes. And deep in the thicket the wood-thrush sings. I see him at rest on the rim of Time, Stretched on the cloud-rack, couchant and sublime, And the swift white sword at his side, half-drawn, Flashes a distant glimmer of the dawn. I see, though darkly, what my spirit sought; I see what is, beneath what comes and goes; I see the sweet unfolding of the rose, By changeless influence to full beauty brought; I hear the symphony intricately wrought; Dim meanings swell through deep adagios And underneath the myriad chords disclose The perfect act of God that changeth not. Behold, He is other than earth and transcendeth its seeming; Behold, He is one with the earth and the earth is His dreaming. Soul of the world, say the sages; yea, sooth, but not bound in a prison, For the soul dwelleth not in the body, but the body doth dwell in the soul.

O Holy of Holies! Inscrutable! Ageless! through Thee have we risen; Thou art, but our being is yearning, — we are not save as parts of Thy whole. Only by cleaving to Thee have Thy creatures the life that rejoices, Knowing itself to be, verily; the rest is but seeming to be; And the whole world, groaning in travail, cries out with its manifold voices,"O Lord, in Thee have we trusted; there is no life but in Thee!"