There descended a Being with whom
He wrestled in agony sore,
With striving of heart and of brawn,
And not for an instant forbore
Till the east gave a threat of the dawn;
And then, the Awful One blessed him;
To his lips and his spirit there came,
Compelled by the doubts that oppressed him,
The cry that through questioning ages
Has been rung from the hinds and the sages,
"Tell me, I pray Thee, Thy name!"
Most fatal, most futile of questions!
Wherever the heart of man beats,
In the spirits' most sacred retreats,
It comes with its sombre suggestions
Unanswered forever and aye.
The blessing may come and may stay,
For the wrestler's heroic endeavor;
But the question, unheeded forever,
Dies out in the broadening day..
In the ages before our traditions,
By the altars of dark superstitions,
The imperious question has come';
When the death-stricken victim lay sobbing
At the feet of his slayer and priest,
And his heart was laid smoking and throbbing
To the sound of the cymbal and drum
On the steps of the high Teocallis;
When the delicate Greek at his feast
Poured forth the red wine from his chalice
With mocking and cynical prayer;
When by Nile Egypt worshipping lay,
And afar through the rosy, flushed air
The Memnon called out to the day;
Where the Muezzin's cry floats from his spire;
In the vaulted Cathedral's dim shades,
Where the crushed hearts of thousands aspire
Through art's highest miracle higher,
This question of questions invades
Each heart bowed in worship or shame;
In the air where the censers are swinging,
A voice, going up with the singing,
Cries, "Tell me I pray Thee Thy name."
No answer came back, not a word,
To the patriarch there by the ford;
No answer has come through the ages
To the poets, the seers and the sages
Who have sought in the secrets of science
The name or the nature of God,
Whether crushing in desperate defiance
Or kissing his absolute rod;
But the answer which was and shall be,
"My name! Nay, what is it to thee?"
The search and the question are vain.
By use of the strength that is in you,
By wrestling of soul and of sinew
The blessing of God you may gain.
There are lights in the far-gleaming Heaven
That never shall shine on our eyes;
To mortals it may not be given
To range those inviolate skies.
The mind, whether praying or scorning,
That tempts those dread secrets shall fail;
But strive through the night till the morning,
And mightily thou shalt prevail.
STAND in the dark; I beat on the floor,
Through the storm am I come; I find you before:
For him that is sweet, and for him that is small, I beat on the door, I cry, and I call:
For he was my bow of the almond-tree fair:
Let me in, Death.
You brake it; it whitens no more by the stair:
Let me in, Death.
For he was my lamp in the House of the Lord;
You quenched, and left me this dark and the sword:
Let me in, Death.
I that was rich do ask you for alms:
Let me in, Death.
I that was full, uplift your stripped palms:
Let me in, Death.
Back to me now give the child that I had;
Cast into mine arms my little sweet lad:
so deaf that you cannot hear?
Let me in, Death.
Unclose the dim eye, and unstop the ear:
Let me in, Death.
I will call so loud, I will cry so sore,
You must for shame's sake come open the door:
Let me in, Death.
LIZETTE WORDsworth Reese.
Dirge of Rachel
ND Rachel lies in Ephrath's land,
Beneath her lonely oak of weeping;
With mouldering heart and withering hand,
The sleep of death forever sleeping.
The spring comes smiling down the vale,
The lilacs and the roses bringing;
But Rachel never more shall hail
The flowers that in the world are springing.
The summer gives his radiant day,
And Jewish dames the dance are treading; But Rachel, on her couch of clay,
Sleeps all unheeded and unheeding.
The autumn's ripening sunbeam shines,
And reapers to the field is calling;
But Rachel's voice no longer joins
The choral song at twilight's falling.
The winter sends his drenching shower,
And sweeps his howling blast around her,
But earthly storms possess no power
To break the slumber that hath bound her.
THRONES that stood and realms that flour
Races that have ruled the world,They have fallen, they have perished, And new standards are unfurled.
Gods are banished at whose altars
Nations have been wont to pray, And where Wisdom erst held sway Ignorance supinely falters.
Deeds that once with blare and clangor
Filled the earth, have ceased to be;
Even their renown no longer
Lives in lays of minstrelsy.
Lo! the hero's might is broken
And his sword is gone to rust;
Lips are steeped in death and dust
That have sweetly sung and spoken.
But athwart the gulf of ages
From whose all-devouring deep
Songs of bards and words of sages
Mist like in tradition sweep,-
Radiant and serene reposes,
Unattained by mist and gloom,
Undiminished by the tomb,
A colossal image—Moses.
Though we wot not of his feature,
Of such ken there is no need,
For his aspect is the creature
Of his word and of his deed,-
Of the word that is engraven
Even on the soul that's lost.
Of the deed that led his host.
Toward freedom, truth and Heaven.
Thus we see him; Superhuman
In his purpose and in might,
Tender is his love as woman,
Fierce in the defense of right;
Meek and faltering, yet compliant,
In the presence of the Lord,—
In obedience of his word
Bold, unyielding and defiant.
Even as the luminary
Of our days from fumous heightLifeless, barren, solitary
Beams with life diffusing light;
So he rises on our vision
From the past which phantoms shroud,
Life-impregnate, halo-browed,
In the garb of his tradition.
What he wrought and what he uttered, Where he trod and where he stood;
Where the flaming briar fluttered
In the desert's solitude;
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