156
night.
X.
When my friend went, half-stunned, I thought,
Great God, what then has fallen from me? Power to feel
The sun, after the three days' storm—to kneel
Before the sacred presence in the wood,
Or by the throbbing sea—to shun the brood
Of slave-besetting ills? But more, more went.
I did not know, the fearful bow once bent,
What arrows it could send:—still, all is good;
What am I, God, to say, spare this and this?
The rain-drop moulds a world. Turning, I knew
Thy pulse in one still, patient love, that drew
Me sweetly upward ever, like a kiss;
Like him, who, sinking in his lonely hour,
Found heaven within the desert's single flower.
Great God, what then has fallen from me? Power to feel
The sun, after the three days' storm—to kneel
Before the sacred presence in the wood,
Or by the throbbing sea—to shun the brood
Of slave-besetting ills? But more, more went.
I did not know, the fearful bow once bent,
What arrows it could send:—still, all is good;
What am I, God, to say, spare this and this?
The rain-drop moulds a world. Turning, I knew
Thy pulse in one still, patient love, that drew
Me sweetly upward ever, like a kiss;
Like him, who, sinking in his lonely hour,
Found heaven within the desert's single flower.
