FullReads

“The jewels of the Urim
And Thurnmim all are dim;
The fire has left the altar,
The sign the teraphim.

“No more in ark or hill grove
The Holiest abides;
Not in the scroll’s dead letter
The eternal secret hides.

“The eye shall fail that searches
For me the hollow sky;
The far is even as the near,
The low is as the high.

“What if the earth is hiding
Her old faiths, long outworn?
What is it to the changeless truth
That yours shall fail in turn?

“What if the o’erturned altar
Lays bare the ancient lie?
What if the dreams and legends
Of the world’s childhood die?

“Have ye not still my witness
Within yourselves alway,
My hand that on the keys of life
For bliss or bale I lay?

“Still, in perpetual judgment,
I hold assize within,
With sure reward of holiness,
And dread rebuke of sin.

“A light, a guide, a warning,
A presence ever near,
Through the deep silence of the flesh
I reach the inward ear.

“My Gerizim and Ebal
Are in each human soul,
The still, small voice of blessing,
And Sinai’s thunder-roll.

“The stern behest of duty,
The doom-book open thrown,
The heaven ye seek, the hell ye fear,
Are with yourselves alone.”

. . . . .

A gold and purple sunset
Flowed down the broad Moselle;
On hills of vine and meadow lands
The peace of twilight fell.

A slow, cool wind of evening
Blew over leaf and bloom;
And, faint and far, the Angelus
Rang from Saint Matthew’s tomb.

Then up rose Master Echard,
And marvelled: “Can it be
That here, in dream and vision,
The Lord hath talked with me?”

He went his way; behind him
The shrines of saintly dead,
The holy coat and nail of cross,
He left unvisited.

He sought the vale of Eltzbach
His burdened soul to free,
Where the foot-hills of the Eifel
Are glassed in Laachersee.

And, in his Order’s kloster,
He sat, in night-long parle,
With Tauler of the Friends of God,
And Nicolas of Basle.

And lo! the twain made answer
“Yea, brother, even thus
The Voice above all voices
Hath spoken unto us.

“The world will have its idols,
And flesh and sense their sign
But the blinded eyes shall open,
And the gross ear be fine.

“What if the vision tarry?
God’s time is always best;
The true Light shall be witnessed,
The Christ within confessed.

“In mercy or in judgment
He shall turn and overturn,
Till the heart shall be His temple
Where all of Him shall learn.”