Tell me the peoples that do keep Tell me the motes, dust, sand and speares JOB'S COMFORTERS JOB XI, 7-8 From Moulton's Modern Readers' Bible Canst thou by searching find out God? Deeper than Sheol; What canst thou know? The measure thereof is longer than the earth, If he pass through, and shut up, And call unto judgment, then who can hinder him? I WENT DOWN INTO THE DESERT VACHEL LINDSA" I went down into the desert To meet Elijah Arisen from the dead. I thought to find him in an echoing cave, I went down into the desert To meet John the Baptist, I walked with feet that bled, Seeking that prophet lean and brown and bold, I went down into the desert By Him be comforted. I went down into the desert To meet my God And I met the devil in red. I went down into the desert To meet my God Oh, Lord, my God, awaken from the dead! I see you there, your thorn crown on the ground, I see you there, your white bones, glistening, bare, MEDITATIONS OF A HINDU PRINCE SIR ALFRED COMYNS LYALL All over the world, I wonder, in lands that I never have trod, Are the people eternally seeking for the signs and steps of a God? Westward across the ocean, and northward ayont the snow, Do they all stand gazing, as ever, and what do the wisest know? Here in this mystical India, the deities hover and swarm, Like wild bees heard in the tree tops, or the gusts of a gathering storm; In the air men hear their voices, their feet on the rocks are seen Yet we all say, "whence is the message, and what may the wonders mean?" A million shrines stand open, and ever the censer swings, For Destiny drives us together like deer in the pass of the hills; Above is the sky, and around us the sound and shot that kills; Pushed by a power we see not, and struck by a hand unknown, We pray to the trees for shelter and press our lips to a stone. The trees wave a shadowy answer and the rocks frown hollow and grim, And the form and nod of a demon are caught in the twilight dim; And we look at the sunlight falling afar on the mountain crest: Is there never a path runs upward to a refuge there and a rest? The path, ah! who has shown it, and who is the faithful guide? The haven, ah! who has known it? for steep is the mountain side, Forever the shot strikes surely, and ever the wasted breath Of the praying multitude rises, whose answer only is death. Here are the tombs of my kinsfolk, the first of an ancient name, Chiefs who were slain on the war-field, and women who died in flame; They are gods, these kings of the foretime, they are spirits who guard our race; Forever I watch and worship; they sit with a marble face. And the myriad idols around me, and the legion of muttering priests, The revels and rites unholy, the dark, unspeakable feasts! What have they wrung from the Silence? Hath ever a whisper come Of the secret? Whence and whither? Alas! for the gods are dumb. Shall I list to the word of the English who come from the uttermost sea? "The secret! Hath it been told you, and what is your message to me?" It is naught but the world-wide story, how the heavens and earth began, How the gods are glad and angry, and the Deity once was a man. I had thought "Perchance in the cities, where the rulers of India dwell, Whose orders flash from the far land, who girdle the earth with a spell, They have fathomed the depths we float on, they have measur'd the unknown main." Sadly they turn from the venture, and say that the quest is vain. Is life, then, a dream and delusion, and where shall the dreamer awake? Is the world seen like shadows on water? And what if the mirror break? Shall it pass as a camp that is struck, as a tent that is gathered and gone? From the sands that were lamp-lit at eve, and at morning are level and lone? Is there naught in the heavens above, whence the rain and leaven are hurled But the wind that is swept around us by the rush of the rolling world? The wind that shall scatter my ashes, and bear me to silence and sleep With the dirge, and the sound of lamenting and the voices of women who weep? THE SEEKERS JOHN MASEFIELD Friends and loves we have none, nor wealth nor blest abode, But the hope, the burning hope, and the road, the lonely road. Not for us are content, and quiet, and peace of mind, There is no solace on earth for us-for such as we- Only the road and the dawn, the sun, the wind, and the rain, And the watch-fire under stars, and sleep, and the road again. We seek the City of God, and the haunt where beauty dwells, And we find the noisy mart and the sound of burial bells. Never the golden city, where the radiant people meet, But the dolorous town where mourners are going about the street. We travel the dusty road till the light of the day is dim, We travel from dawn till dusk, till the day is past and by, Friends and loves we have none, nor wealth nor blest abode, THE MYSTIC CALE YOUNG RICE There is a quest that calls me In nights when I am lone, The need to ride where the ways divide |