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THE PURITAN
"Where is God?" I cried. "Let me hear!"
"I long for the voice of God!"
And I smote and trod
On all things clamoring near;
Small voices dear,
That wept and murmured and sung
Till my heart was wrung;
That shrieked, shrieked loud and clear,
As I with hammer and sword
Slew them in the name of the Lord.
Where is God?" I cried. "Let me hear!"
But my ears were ringing yet
With cries I could not forget;
The blood was flowing still,
From the thing I could not kill;
A smothered sobbing cry
Filled all the red, wet earth, the cold, hard sky—
God came not near.
Then long I lived alone,
On the desolate land; a stone
On the thing I could not kill.
I bent to my hardened will
All things that lived below;
I strove to climb above,
To the land of living love
I had dreamed of long ago,
But I could not see—not know.
"O God!" I cried, "Come near!
Speak! Let thy servant hear!
Have I not utterly slain
With tears of blood, with sweat of pain,
In this base heart of mine
All voices old and dear—to hear but Thine!
And if there struggleth still
The thing I could not kill,
Have I not put a stone
On its head? O Thou alone
Whom I would follow and fear—
Speak! Let Thy servant hear!"
Silent I lay, and weak;
Then did the darkness speak;
"Child of the World! My love
Is beneath as well as above!
Thou art not always led
By a light that shines ahead!
But pushed by an impulse blind—
A mighty Power behind!
Lifted, as all things grow,
By forces from below!
Fear not for thy long mistake—
Listen! And there shall wake
The voice that has found the way
From the beginning, upward ever, into the light of day!
Lo! I am with thee still—
The thing thou couldst not kill!
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