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Whence and Whither.

THE REIGN OF LAW.

'Ετέρα μὲν ἡ τῶν ἐπουρανίων δόξα, ἑτέρα δὲ ἡ τῶν ἐπιγείων.

'HE dawn went up the sky,

THE

Like any other day;

And they had only come

To mourn Him where he lay, "We ne'er have seen the law Reversed 'neath which we lie;

Exceptions none are found,

And when we die, we die.

Resigned to fact we wander hither,
We ask no more the whence and whither.

"Vain questions! from the first

Put, and no answer found.
He binds us with the chain

Wherewith himself is bound.
From west to east the earth

Unrolls her primal curve;

The sun himself were vexed

Did he one furlong swerve:

The myriad years have whirled us hither,
But tell not of the whence and whither.

"We know but what we see

Like cause and like event: One constant force runs on Transmuted, but unspent. Because they are, they are;

The mind may frame a plan ; 'Tis from herself she draws

A special thought for man:

The natural choice that brought us hither,
Is silent on the whence and whither.

66

WHENCE AND WHITHER.

If God there be, or Gods
Without our science lies;
We cannot see or touch,
Measure or analyze.
Life is but what we live,

We know but what we know,
Closed in these bounds alone

Whether God be, or no:

The self-moved force that bore us hither
Reveals no whence, and hints no whither.

66 Ah, which is likelier truth,

That law should hold its way,

Or, for this one of all,

Life reassert her sway?

Like any other morn

The sun goes up the sky;

No crisis marks the day,

For when we die, we die.

No fair fond hope allures us hither:

The law is dumb on whence and whither."

-Then wherefore are ye come?

Why watch a worn-out corse? Why weep a ripple past

Down the long stream of force? If life is that which keeps

Each organism whole,

No atom may be traced

Of what he thought the soul:

It had its term of passage hither,

But knew no whence, and knows no whither.

The forces that were Christ

Have ta'en new forms and fled;

The common sun goes up,

The dead are with the dead.

331

'T was but a phantom-life

That seemed to think and will,

Evolving self and God

By some subjective skill;

That had its day of passage hither,

But knew no whence, and knows no whither.

If this be all in all;

Life but one mode of force; Law but the plan which binds The sequences in course: All essence, all design

Shut out from mortal ken :—

We bow to Nature's fate,

And drop the style of men!

The summer dust the wind wafts hither,
Is not more dead to whence and whither.

But if our life be life,

And thought, and will, and love

Not vague unconscious airs

That o'er wild harp-strings move;

If consciousness be aught

Of all it seems to be,

And souls are something more

Than lights that gleam and flee:

Though dark the road that leads us thither,
The heart must ask its whence and whither.

To matter or to force

The All is not confined; Beside the law of things

Is set the law of mind; One speaks in rock and star, And one within the brain ;

In unison at times,

And then apart again:

And both in one have brought us hither,

That we may know our whence and whither.

WHENCE AND WHITHER.

The sequences of law

We learn through mind alone;
'Tis only through the soul

That aught we know is known :-
With equal voice she tells

Of what we touch and see
Within these bounds of life,

And of a life to be;

Proclaiming One who brought us hither,
And holds the keys of whence and whither.

O shrine of God that now

Must learn itself with awe!
O heart and soul that move
Beneath a living law!

That which seemed all the rule

Of nature, is but part;

A larger, deeper law

Claims also soul and heart.

The force that framed and bore us hither
Itself at once is whence and whither.

We may not hope to read
Or comprehend the whole

Or of the law of things,

Or of the law of soul:

E'en in the eternal stars

Dim perturbations rise;

And all the searcher's search

Does not exhaust the skies :

He who has framed and brought us hither
Holds in his hands the whence and whither.

He in his science plans

What no known laws foretell;

The wandering fires and fixed

Alike are miracle :

333

The common death of all,

The life renewed above,

And both within the scheme

Of that all-circling love.

The seeming chance that cast us hither,
Accomplishes his whence and whither.

Then, though the sun go up
His beaten azure way,
God may fulfill his thought,
And bless his world to-day;
Beside the law of things

The law of mind enthrone,
And, for the hope of all,

Reveal himself in one;

Himself the way that leads us thither,

The All-in-all the Whence and Whither.

FRANCIS T. PALGRAVE.

Ο

The Ascension.

UR Lord is risen from the dead,

Our Jesus is gone up on high;
The powers of hell are captive led,
Dragged to the portals of the sky.

There his triumphal chariot waits,

And angels chant the solemn lay!
"Lift up your heads, ye heavenly gates!
Ye everlasting doors, give way!

"Loose all your bars of massy light,
And wide unfold the ethereal scene;
He claims these mansions as his right;-
Receive the King of Glory in !"

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