In faith's long contest have life's quenchless fountains Bade calm defiance to the hostile sword? But when, all beautiful upon the mountains, Shall come the herald of our peace restored?
Must we forever urge the brain with learning, And add to moral, intellectual woes? Nor hold in peace the spoils we have been earning, And find in wisdom's self the mind's repose?
Long have we watch'd, and risen late and early, Rising to toil, and watching but to weep; When will the blessing come like dewdrops pearly, "On heaven's beloved ones even while they sleep?"
Since life began, our life has been beginning, That ever-nascent future's treacherous vow; When shall we find, the weary contest winning A present treasure, an enduring _now_?
Ten thousand nameless earthly aims pursuing, Hope we in vain the recompense to see, And must our total life expire in _doing_, And never find us leisure time _to be_?
Has not our life a germ of real perfection, As holds the tiny seed the forest's pride? And shall its ask'd and promised resurrection In dreams of disappointed hope subside?
Yes, all is hopeless, man with vain endeavor, May climb earth's rugged heights, but climb to fall; Ever perfecting, yet imperfect ever, Earth has no rest for man--if earth be all.
Yet oft there dwell, in temples frail and mortal, Souls that partake immortal life the while; Nor wait till death unbar heaven's pearly portal, For heaven's own essence, their Redeemer's smile.
From the Journal relating to daily affairs, at this time, kept distinct from her spiritual diary, the following, and a few other extracts, have been taken. Never suspecting that this would see the light, she left it in an unfinished state. Had it been reconsidered, portions of it would probably have been altered; but it sufficiently shows her desire to understand the agencies of intellectual action, and the philosophy of knowing and acquiring. She recognizes the importance of systematic knowledge, questions the purpose and use of every attainment, and manifests throughout a desire that all the operations of the intelligence may subserve a nobler aim than knowledge in itself possesses:--
_5th Mo. 16th_. That life is a real, earnest thing, and to be employed for our own and others' real and earnest good, is a fact which I desire may be more deeply engraven on my heart. It is certainly a matter of spiritual duty, to look well to the outward state of our own house. There are already many revolutions in my mental history, passed beyond the reach of any thing but regrets. As a child, play was not my chief pleasure, but a sort of mingled play and constructiveness; then reading and learning; I well remember the coming on of the desire to _know_. In a tale, false or true, I had by no means, the common share of pleasure--Smith's Key to Reading was more to my taste. Poetry I have ever loved. History I am very dull at; a chain of events is far more difficult to follow, than a chain of ideas--causality comes more to my aid than eventuality. Well, the age of learning came: in it I learned this, that, and the other; but, alas! order, the faculty in which I am so deficient, was wanting, I had not an appointed place for each fact or idea: so they were lost as they fell into the confused mass. I am full of dim apprehensions on almost all subjects, but _know little_ of any. However, it may be that this favors new combinations of things. I would rather have all my ideas in a mass, than have them in separate locked boxes, where they must each remain isolated; but it were better they were on open shelves, and that I had power to take them down, and combine at will. The age of combining has come; I feel sensibly the diminution of the power of acquiring: I can do little in that, but lament that I have acquired so little; but I seem rebuked in myself at the incessant wish to gain--gain for what? I must _do_ something with what, I gain; for, as I said before, I have nowhere to put it away. I love languages,--above all, the expressive German; but I know too little to make it expressive for myself. But my own mother-tongue, though my tongue is so deficient to use thee, canst thou afford no other outlet to the struggling ideas that are within; may I not write? I did write poetry sometimes: is it presumptuous to call it poetry? It was certainly the poetry of my heart; the pieces entitled "The Complaint," and "What profit hath a man, etc." were certainly poetry to me. But the fate of my poetry is written before. Perhaps it was a groundless fear; but still it has given it the death-blow. But may I write prose? I will tell that by-and-by. This has brought down my history in this respect till now:--