But the great depth that was to us so dark, And the dull place that was to us so dull, And the glad height where, singing like a lark, We stood, and felt the world all-beautiful, Seen by the angels’ eyes, bent downward from the skies, Were just as near to heaven and heaven’s infinities.
So out of sunshine as of deepest shade, Out of the dust of sordid every-days, We may look up, and, glad and unafraid, Call on the Lord for help, and give him praise; No time nor fate nor space can bar us from his face, Or stand between one soul and his exhaustless grace.
AH, little David! least of all thy kin, Fresh from the thyme-sweet meads of Thessaly, Where the cool pastures overhang the sea, Leaving thy sheep to join the battle’s din: Here is Philistia, here the chosen hosts Wavering half-hearted on the unfought plain, Chiding thy zeal as “premature” and “vain,” The while the turbaned giant struts and boasts. We catch the shining of thy brave young face, We watch thee fit the pebble to the sling With straight, true aim and heart that knows no fear, And turn to see, O wonder of disgrace, The serried soldiery of Christ the King Skulking, protesting, squabbling in the rear!
IF youth could know, what age knows without teaching, Hope’s instability and Love’s dear folly, The difference between practising and preaching, The quiet charm that lurks in melancholy; The after-bitterness of tasted pleasure; That temperance of feeling and of words Is health of mind, and the calm fruits of leisure Have sweeter taste than feverish zeal affords; That reason has a joy beyond unreason; That nothing satisfies the soul like truth; That kindness conquers in and out of season,— If youth could know—why, youth would not be youth.
If age could feel the uncalculating urgence, The pulse of life that beats in youthful veins, And with its swift, resistless ebb and surgence Makes light of difficulties, sport of pains; Could once, just once, retrace the path and find it, That lovely, foolish zeal, so crude, so young, Which bids defiance to all laws to bind it, And flashes in quick eye and limb and tongue, Which, counting dross for gold, is rich in dreaming, And, reckoning moons as suns, is never cold, And, having naught, has everything in seeming,— If age could do all this—age were not old!