Why fear the night? why shrink from Death; That phantom wan? There is nothing in heaven or earth beneath Save God and man. Peopling the shadows we turn from Him And from one another; All is spectral and vague and dim Save God and our brother! Like warp and woof all destinies Are woven fast, Linked in sympathy like the keys Of an organ vast. Pluck one thread, and the web ye mar; Break but one Of a thousand keys, and the paining jar Through all will run. O restless spirit! wherefore strain Beyond thy sphere? Heaven and hell, with their joy and pain, Are now and here. Back to thyself is measured well All thou hast given; Thy neighbor's wrong is thy present hell, His bliss, thy heaven. And in life, in death, in dark and light, All are in God's care Sound the black abyss, pierce the deep of night, And He is there! All which is real now remaineth, And fadeth never The hand which upholds it now sustaineth The soul forever. Leaning on Him, make with reverent meekness His own thy will, And with strength from Him shall thy utter weakness Life's task fulfil; And that cloud itself, which now before thee Lies dark in view, Shall with beams of light from the inner glory Be stricken through. And like meadow mist through autumn's dawn Uprolling thin, Its thickest folds when about thee drawn Let sunlight in. Then of what is to be, and of what is done, Why queriest thou? The past and the time to be are one, And both are now! 1847. WORSHIP. "Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this. To visit the fatherless and widows in, their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world."--JAMES I. 27. The Pagan's myths through marble lips are spoken, And ghosts of old Beliefs still flit and moan Round fane and altar overthrown and broken, O'er tree-grown barrow and gray ring of stone. Blind Faith had martyrs in those old high places, The Syrian hill grove and the Druid's wood, With mother's offering, to the Fiend's embraces, Bone of their bone, and blood of their own blood. Red altars, kindling through that night of error, Smoked with warm blood beneath the cruel eye Of lawless Power and sanguinary Terror, Throned on the circle of a pitiless sky; Beneath whose baleful shadow, overcasting All heaven above, and blighting earth below, The scourge grew red, the lip grew pale with fasting, And man's oblation was his fear and woe! Then through great temples swelled the dismal moaning Of dirge-like music and sepulchral prayer; Pale wizard priests, o'er occult symbols droning, Swung their white censers in the burdened air As if the pomp of rituals, and the savor Of gums and spices could the Unseen One please; As if His ear could bend, with childish favor, To the poor flattery of the organ keys! Feet red from war-fields trod the church aisles holy, With trembling reverence: and the oppressor there, Kneeling before his priest, abased and lowly, Crushed human hearts beneath his knee of prayer.