Page:Complete Poetical Works of John Greenleaf Whittier (1895).djvu/75

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And learn, as latent fraud is shown
In others’ faith, to doubt his own.

“With dream and falsehood, simple trust
And pious hope we tread in dust;
Lost the calm faith in goodness,—lost
The baptism of the Pentecost!

“Alas!—the blows for error meant
Too oft on truth itself are spent,
As through the false and vile and base
Looks forth her sad, rebuking face.

“Not ours the Theban’s charmëd life;
We come not scathless from the strife!
The Python’s coil about us clings,
The trampled Hydra bites and stings!

“Meanwhile, the sport of seeming chance,
The plastic shapes of circumstance,
What might have been we fondly guess,
If earlier born, or tempted less.

“And thou, in these wild, troubled days,
Misjudged alike in blame and praise,
Unsought and undeserved the same
The skeptic’s praise, the bigot’s blame;—

“I cannot doubt, if thou hadst been
Among the highly favored men
Who walked on earth with Fénelon,
He would have owned thee as his son;

“And, bright with wings of cherubim
Visibly waving over him,
Seen through his life, the Church had seemed
All that its old confessors dreamed.”

“I would have been,” Jean Jacques replied,
“The humblest servant at his side,
Obscure, unknown, content to see
How beautiful man’s life may be!

“Oh, more than thrice-blest relic, more
Than solemn rite or sacred lore,
The holy life of one who trod
The foot-marks of the Christ of God!

“Amidst a blinded world he saw
The oneness of the Dual law;
That Heaven’s sweet peace on Earth began,
And God was loved through love of man.

“He lived the Truth which reconciled
The strong man Reason, Faith, the child;
In him belief and act were one,
The homilies of duty done!”

So speaking, through the twilight gray
The two old pilgrims went their way,
What seeds of life that day were sown,
The heavenly watchers knew alone.

Time passed, and Autumn came to fold
Green Summer in her brown and gold;
Time passed, and Winter’s tears of snow
Dropped on the grave-mound of Rousseau.

“The tree remaineth where it fell,
The pained on earth is pained in hell!”
So priestcraft from its altars cursed
The mournful doubts its falsehood nursed.

Ah! well of old the Psalmist prayed,
“Thy hand, not man’s, on me be laid!”
Earth frowns below, Heaven weeps above,
And man is hate, but God is love!

No Hermits now the wanderer sees,
Nor chapel with its chestnut-trees;
A morning dream, a tale that ’s told,
The wave of change o’er all has rolled.

Yet lives the lesson of that day;
And from its twilight cool and gray
Comes up a low, sad whisper, “Make
The truth thine own, for truth’s own sake.

“Why wait to see in thy brief span
Its perfect flower and fruit in man?
No saintly touch can save; no balm
Of healing hath the martyr’s palm.

“Midst soulless forms, and false pretence
Of spiritual pride and pampered sense,
A voice saith, ‘What is that to thee?
Be true thyself, and follow Me!’

“In days when throne and altar heard
The wanton’s wish, the bigot’s word,
And pomp of state and ritual show
Scarce hid the loathsome death below,—

“Midst fawning priests and courtiers foul,
The losel swarm of crown and cowl,
White-robed walked François Fénelon,
Stainless as Uriel in the sun!