‘By Reason of Thy Law’
HERE I make oath—Although the heart that knows its bitternessHear loath,And credit less—That he who kens to meet Pain’s kisses fierceWhich hiss against his tears,Dread, loss, nor love frustrate,Nor all iniquity of the froward yearsShall his inurèd wing make idly bate,Nor of the appointed quarry his staunch sightTo lose observance quite;Seal from half-sad and all-elateSagacious eyesUltimate Paradise;Nor shake his certitude of haughty fate.
Pacing the burning shares of many dooms,I with stern tread do the clear-witting starsTo judgment cite,If I have borne arightThe proving of their pure-willed ordeal.From food of all delightThe heavenly Falconer my heart debars,And tames with fearful gloomsThe haggard to His call;Yet sometimes comes a hand, sometimes a voice withal,And she sits meek now, and expects the light.
In this Avernian sky,This sultry and incumbent canopyOf dull and doomed regret;Where on the unseen verges yet, O yet,At intervals,Trembles, and falls,Faint lightning of remembered transient sweet—Ah, far too sweetBut to be sweet a little, a little sweet, and fleet;Leaving this pallid trace,This loitering and most fitful light a space,Still some sad space,For Grief to see her own poor face:—
Here where I keep my standWith all o’er-anguished feet,And no live comfort near on any hand;Lo, I proclaim the unavoided term,When this morass of tears, then drained and firm,Shall be a land—Unshaken I affirm—Where seven-quired psalterings meet;And all the gods move with calm hand in hand,And eyes that know not trouble and the worm.