Page:Selections from the American poets (IA selectamerpoet00bryarich).pdf/262
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Henry Ware, Jr.
258
What though the rash request be fraught with fate,
Nor human eye may look on thine and live!
Welcome the penalty! let that come now
Which soon or late must come. For light like this
Who would not dare to die?
Peace, my proud aim,
And hush the wish that knows not what it asks.
Await his will, who hath appointed this
With every other trial. Be that will
Done now as ever. For thy curious search,
And unprepared solicitude to gaze
On Him—the Unreveal'd—learn hence, instead,
To temper highest hope with humbleness.
Pass thy novitiate in those outer courts,
Till rent the veil, no longer separating
The holiest of all; as erst disclosing
A brighter dispensation; whose results.
Ineffable, interminable, tend
E'en to the perfecting thyself, thy kind,
Till meet for that sublime beatitude,
By the firm promise of a voice from heaven
Pledged to the pure in heart!
Nor human eye may look on thine and live!
Welcome the penalty! let that come now
Which soon or late must come. For light like this
Who would not dare to die?
Peace, my proud aim,
And hush the wish that knows not what it asks.
Await his will, who hath appointed this
With every other trial. Be that will
Done now as ever. For thy curious search,
And unprepared solicitude to gaze
On Him—the Unreveal'd—learn hence, instead,
To temper highest hope with humbleness.
Pass thy novitiate in those outer courts,
Till rent the veil, no longer separating
The holiest of all; as erst disclosing
A brighter dispensation; whose results.
Ineffable, interminable, tend
E'en to the perfecting thyself, thy kind,
Till meet for that sublime beatitude,
By the firm promise of a voice from heaven
Pledged to the pure in heart!
TO THE URSA MAJOR.
With what a stately and majestic step
That glorious constellation of the north
Treads its eternal circle! going forth
Its princely way among the stars in slow
And silent brightness. Mighty one, all hail!
I joy to see thee on thy glowing path
Walk, like some stout and girded giant; stern,
Unwearied, resolute, whose toiling foot
Disdains to loiter on its destined way.
The other tribes forsake their midnight track,
That glorious constellation of the north
Treads its eternal circle! going forth
Its princely way among the stars in slow
And silent brightness. Mighty one, all hail!
I joy to see thee on thy glowing path
Walk, like some stout and girded giant; stern,
Unwearied, resolute, whose toiling foot
Disdains to loiter on its destined way.
The other tribes forsake their midnight track,