My Soul and I

Stand still, my soul, in the silent darkI would question thee,Alone in the shadow drear and starkWith God and me!

What, my soul, was thy errand here?Was it mirth or ease,Or heaping up dust from year to year?“Nay, none of these!”

Speak, soul, aright in His holy sightWhose eye looks stillAnd steadily on thee through the night:“To do His will!”

What hast thou done, O soul of mine,That thou tremblest so?Hast thou wrought His task, and kept the lineHe bade thee go?

What, silent all! art sad of cheer?Art fearful now?When God seemed far and men were near,How brave wert thou!

Aha! thou tremblest!—well I seeThou ’rt craven grown,Is it so hard with God and meTo stand alone?

Summon thy sunshine bravery back,O wretched sprite!Let me hear thy voice through this deep and blackAbysmal night.

What hast thou wrought for Right and Truth,For God and Man,From the golden hours of bright-eyed youthTo life’s mid span?

Ah, soul of mine, thy tones I hear,But weak and low,Like far sad murmurs on my earThey come and go.

“I have wrestled stoutly with the Wrong,And borne the RightFrom beneath the footfall of the throngTo life and light.

“Wherever Freedom shivered a chain,God speed, quoth I;To Error amidst her shouting trainI gave the lie.”

Ah, soul of mine! ah, soul of mine!Thy deeds are well:Were they wrought for Truth’s sake or for thine?My soul, pray tell.

“Of all the work my hand hath wroughtBeneath the sky,Save a place in kindly human thought,No gain have I.”

Go to, go to! for thy very selfThy deeds were done:Thou for fame, the miser for pelf,Your end is one!

And where art thou going, soul of mine?Canst see the end?And whither this troubled life of thineEvermore doth tend?

What daunts thee now? what shakes thee so?My sad soul, say.“I see a cloud like a curtain lowHang o’er my way.

“Whither I go I cannot tell:That cloud hangs black,High as the heaven and deep as hellAcross my track.

“I see its shadow coldly enwrapThe souls before.Sadly they enter it, step by step,To return no more.

“They shrink, they shudder, dear God! they kneelTo Thee in prayer.They shut their eyes on the cloud, but feelThat it still is there.

“In vain they turn from the dread BeforeTo the Known and Gone;For while gazing behind them evermoreTheir feet glide on.

“Yet, at times, I see upon sweet pale facesA light beginTo tremble, as if from holy placesAnd shrines within.

“And at times methinks their cold lips moveWith hymn and prayer,As if somewhat of awe, but more of loveAnd hope were there.

“I call on the souls who have left the lightTo reveal their lot;I bend mine ear to that wall of night,And they answer not.

“But I hear around me sighs of painAnd the cry of fear,And a sound like the slow sad dropping of rain,Each drop a tear!

“Ah, the cloud is dark, and day by dayI am moving thither:I must pass beneath it on my way—God pity me!—whither?”

Ah, soul of mine! so brave and wiseIn the life-storm loud,Fronting so calmly all human eyesIn the sunlit crowd!

Now stauding apart with God and meThou art weakness all,Gazing vainly after the things to beThrough Death’s dread wall.

But never for this, never for thisWas thy being lent;For the craven’s fear is but selfishness,Like his merriment.

Folly and Fear are sisters twain:One closing her eyes,The other peopling the dark inaneWith spectral lies.

Know well, my soul, God’s hand controlsWhate’er thou fearest;Round Him in calmest music rollsWhate’er thou hearest.

What to thee is shadow, to Him is day,And the end He knoweth,And not on a blind and aimless wayThe spirit goeth.

Man sees no future,—a phantom showIs alone before him;Past Time is dead, and the grasses grow,And flowers bloom o’er him.

Nothing before, nothing behind;The steps of FaithFall on the seeming void, and findThe rock beneath.

The Present, the Present is all thou hastFor thy sure possessing;Like the patriarch’s angel hold it fastTill it gives its blessing.

Why fear the night? why shrink from Death,That phantom wan?There is nothing in heaven or earth beneathSave God and man.

Peopling the shadows we turn from HimAnd from one another;All is spectral and vague and dimSave God and our brother!

Like warp and woof all destiniesAre woven fast,Linked in sympathy like the keysOf an organ vast.

Pluck one thread, and the web ye mar;Break but oneOf a thousand keys, and the paining jarThrough all will run.

O restless spirit! wherefore strainBeyond thy sphere?Heaven and hell, with their joy and pain,Are now and here.

Back to thyself is measured wellAll 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 sustainethThe soul forever.

Leaning on Him, make with reverent meeknessHis own thy will,And with strength from Him shall thy utter weaknessLife’s task fulfil;

And that cloud itself, which now before theeLies dark in view,Shall with beams of light from the inner gloryBe stricken through.

And like meadow mist through autumn’s dawnUprolling thin,Its thickest folds when about thee drawnLet 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!