My cloud of battle-dust may dim;
His veil of splendor curtain Him!
And in the midnight of my fear
I may not feel Him standing near;
But as I lift my eyes above,—
His Banner over me is Love.

GRIEF AND GOD

STEPHEN PHILLIPS

Unshunnable is grief; we should not fear
The dreadful bath whose cleansing is so clear;
For He who to the Spring such poison gave,
Who rears his roses from the hopeless grave;
Who caused the babe to wail at the first breath,
But with a rapture seals the face of death;
Who circled us with pale aspiring foam,
With exiled Music yearning for her home,
With knockings early and with cryings late,

The moving of deep waters against Fate;

Who starred the skies with yearning with those fires,
That dart through dew their infinite desires;
Or largely silent and so wistful bright

Direct a single look of love all night;

Who gave unto the Moon that hopeless quest,
Condemned the wind to wander without rest;
He, as I think, intends that we shall rise
Only through pain into His Paradise.
Woe! Woe! to those who placidly suspire,
Drowned in security, remote from fire;
Who under the dim sky and whispering trees
By peaceful slopes and passing streams have ease;
Whose merit is their uncommitted sins,

Whose thought is heinous, but they shun the gins
And those o'erflowering pits that take the strong,
The baited sweetness and the honeyed wrong;
Who watched the falling yet who never fell,
Shadows not yet ascended into Hell.

No sacred pang disturbs their secular life,
Eluding splendor and escaping strife;
They die not, for they lived not; under earth
Their bodies urge the meaner flowers to birth:
Unstrung, unfired, untempted was their soul;
Easy extinction is their utmost goal.

To those whom He doth love God hath not sent
Such dread security, such sad content;
Young are they carried to the front of pain,
In coldest anguish dipped again, again;
Or else into His burning are they led,
Desirous of His glory to be dead;

When He descends, like Semele they die,
Proud to be shrivelled in His ecstasy;

Or through the night of life they ebb and flow

Under the cold imperial Moon of woe.

Some of His favourites are too fiercely wrought
To spend upon the sunny earth a thought,
But ever by an inward peril driven,

Neglect the gleaming grass and glimmering heaven.
And some by thorny sweetness are betrayed,
By beauty of those bodies He hath made;
And some o'er wearied, have so tired a head;
They ask like children to be laid in bed.
But He hath branded on such souls His name,
And He will know them by the scars of flame.
As Christ in the dark garden had to drink

The brimming cup from which His soul did shrink;
As Dante had to thread the world of fire,

Ere he approached the Rose of his desire;
So fear not grief, fear not the anguish, thou,
The paining heart, the clasped and prostrate brow;
This is the emblem, and this is the sign
By which God singles thee for fields divine;
From such a height He stoops, from such a bliss,
Small wonder thou dost shudder at His kiss.

THE REFUGE

PSALM XLVI

From Moulton's Modern Reader's Bible

God is our refuge and strength,

A very present help in trouble.

Therefore will we not fear, though the earth do change,

And though the mountains be moved in the heart of the seas; Though the waters thereof roar and be troubled,

Though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof.
The Lord of Hosts is with us,

The God of Jacob is our refuge.

There is a river, the streams whereof make glad the city of God, The holy place of the tabernacles of the Most High.

God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved:

God shall help her at the dawn of morning.

The nations raged, the kingdoms were moved;
He uttered His voice, the earth melted.
The Lord of Hosts is with us;
The God of Jacob is our refuge.

Come, behold the works of the Lord,

What desolations he hath made in the earth;
He maketh wars to cease unto the end of the earth;
He breaketh the bow and cutteth the spear in sunder;
He burneth the chariots in the fire.

Be still and know that I am God:
I will be exalted among the nations,
I will be exalted in the earth.

The Lord of Hosts is with us;
The God of Jacob is our refuge.

THE EVERLASTING ARMS

PSALM XCI

From Moulton's Modern Reader's Bible

He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High
Shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.

I will say of the Lord, 'He is my refuge and my fortress;
My God, in whom I trust.'

For he shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler,
And from the noisome pestilence.

He shall cover thee with his pinions,

And under his wings shalt thou take refuge:

His truth is a shield and a buckler.

Thou shall not be afraid for the terror by night,

Nor for the arrow that flieth by day;

Nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness,
Nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday.
A thousand shall fall at thy side,

And ten thousand at thy right hand;
But it shall not come nigh thee.
Only with thy eyes shalt thou behold,
And see the reward of the wicked.

For thou, O Lord, art my refuge!

Thou hast made the Most High thy habitation: There shall no evil befall thee,

Neither shall any plague come nigh thy tent. For he shall give his angels charge over thee, To keep thee in all thy ways.

They shall bear thee up in their hands,

Lest thou dash thy foot against a stone.

Thou shalt tread upon the lion and adder:

The young lion and the serpent shalt thou trample under feet. Because he hath set his love upon me, therefore will I deliver

him.

I will set him on high because he hath known my name, He shall call upon me and I will answer him;

I will be with him in trouble:

I will deliver him and honour him.
With long life will I satisfy him,
And show him my salvation.

THE PILGRIM'S SONG

PSALM CXXI

From Moulton's Modern Reader's Bible

I will lift up mine eyes unto the mountains:
From whence shall my help come?

My help cometh from the Lord,
Which made heaven and earth.

He will not suffer thy foot to be moved,
He that keepeth thee will not slumber.
Behold he that keepeth Israel

Shall neither slumber nor sleep.

The Lord is thy keeper:

The Lord is thy shade upon thy right hand.

The sun shall not smite thee by day,

Nor the moon by night.

The Lord shall keep thee from all evil;

He shall keep thy soul.

The Lord shall keep thy going out and thy coming in,
From this time forth and forever more.

THE LOST CHORD

ADELAIDE ANNE PROCTOR

Seated one day at the Organ,
I was weary and ill at ease,
And my fingers wandered idly
Over the noisy keys.