OF MYSTERY. ALL things being are in mystery; we expound mysteries by mysteries; And yet the secret of them all is one in simple grandeur: All intricate, yet each path plain, to those who know the way, All unapproachable, yet easy of access, to them that hold the key: We walk among labyrinths of wonder, but thread the mazes with a clue; We sail in chartless seas, but behold! the pole-star is above us. For, counting down from God's good-will, thou meltest every riddle into him, The axiom of reason is an undiscovered God, and all things live in his ubiquity; There is only one great secret; but that one hideth every where; How should the infinite be understood in Time, when it stretcheth on un grasped for ever; Can a halting Edipus of earth guess that enigma of the universe? GOD, pervading all, is in all things the mystery of each; The wherefore of its character and essence, the fountain of its virtues and its beauties. The child asketh of its mother,-Wherefore is the violet so sweet? Wherefore are the meadows green, is it not to gratify the eye? But why should greenness charm the eye? such is God's good will. And who set a number to those sounds, and fixed the laws of harmony: Or poised in the balances of order the power to attract and to repel? THUS then, omnipresent Deity worketh his unbiassed mind, ness; The burning circlet of iniquity another found and wore. God is separate, even from his attributes; but he willed eternally the good; Therefore freely, though unchangeably, is wise, righteous, and loving: But ambition, open unto angels, saw the evil, flung aside from ever lasting, It was Lucifer that saw, and nothing loathed those black unclaimed regalia, So he coveted and stole, to be counted for a king, antagonist of God, FOR self-existence, charactered with love, with power, wisdom, and ubiquity, Could not dwell alone, but willed and worked creation. Thus, in continual exhalation, darkening the void with matter, Sprang from prolific Deity the creatures of his skill; And beings, living on his breath, were needfully less perfect than himself, Sorrowless, no conflict had been known, and Heaven had been mulcted of its comfort: Yea, with evil unexhibited, probationary toils unfelt, Men had not appreciated good, nor angels valued their security. O CHRISTIAN, Whose chastened curiosity loveth things mysterious, What is this? that a seed produced a seed, and so for a thousand seasons: Thou canst not climb to God, and short of Him is nothing; There is no cause for aught we see, but in his present will. Begin from the Maker, thou carriest down his attributes to reptiles, But difficult and steep the laborious ascent, and feebly shalt thou reach it; Yet man, beginning from himself, that first deluding mystery, Hopeth from the pit of lies to struggle up to truth; So, taxing knowledge to its strength, he pusheth one step further, And fancieth complacently that much is done by reaching a remote effect: Then he maketh answer to himself, as a silly nurse to her little one, Evading, in a mist of words, hard things he cannot solve; Till, like an ostrich in the desert, he burieth his head in atoms, THEREFORE Cometh it to pass, that an atheist is ever the most credulous, Snatching at any foolish cause, that may dispel his doubts; And, even as it were for ridicule, a spectacle to men and angels, Where is the imposture so gross that shall not entrap his curiosity > Men, who jest at revelation, clinging to a madman's prophecy! THERE is a pleasing dread in the fashion of all mysteries, When crime hath whispered his confession, and the secrets are written there in blood: The village maiden is elated at a tenderly confided tale; The bandit's wife with sickening fear guessed the premeditated murder; The sage, with triumph on his brow, hideth his deep discovery; The idlest clown shall delve all day to find a hidden treasure. FOR mystery is man's life; we wake to the whisperings of novelty: hope. The letter, or the news, the chances and the changes, matters that may happen, Sweeten or embitter daily life with the honey-gall of mystery. For we walk blindfold,—and a minute may be much,-a step may reach the precipice; What earthly loss, what heavenly gain, may not this day produce? How dull the face of earth, unfeatured of both beauty and sublimity : Praise God, his hosts on high, for the mysteries that make all joy; What were intelligence, with nothing more to learn, or heaven, in eternity of sameness? To number every mystery were to sum the sum of all things: None can exhaust a theme, whereof God is example and similitude. Nevertheless, take a garland from the garden, a handful from the harvest, Some scattered drops of spray from the ceaseless mighty cataract. How strange a thing is man, a spirit saturating clay! When doth soul make embryos immortal,-how do they rank here after, And will the unconscious idiot be quenched in death as nothing? It essence immaterial, are these minds, as it were thinking machines ? |