Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE THOUGHTS OF GOD, by FRANCES RIDLEY HAVERGAL


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE THOUGHTS OF GOD, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Thy thoughts, o god! O theme divine
Last Line: "the lord himself, jehovah, thinketh upon me!"
Subject(s): God


THY thoughts, O God! O theme Divine!
Except Thy Spirit in my darkness shine,
And make it light,
And overshadow me
With stilling might,
And touch my lips that I may speak of Thee, --
How shall I soar
To thoughts of Thy thoughts? and how dare to write
Of Thine?

Thou understandest mine
Far off and long before.
Thou searchest, knowest, compassest! Thy hand is laid
Upon me. Whither shall I flee
From Omnipresence and Omniscience? If I fly
To heaven, Thou art there also! If I take
The wings of morning, and my dwelling make
In the uttermost parts of the great sea,
Even there Thy hand shall lead me, Thy right hand
Shall hold me. If I say
Surely the night
Shall cover me, it shall be light
About me. Yea, the shade
Of darkness hideth not from Thee,
Night shineth as the day;
The darkness and the light are both alike to Thee.
Thee I will praise: for I am fearfully
And wonderfully made.

My substance was not hid from Thee
When I was made in secret, curiously wrought
And yet imperfect. Then
Thine eyes did see me. In Thy book
Were all my members written, when
Not one of them was into being brought.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
Too excellent, too high. Yet 'tis but one
Keen ray of Thy great sun
Touching an atom in a dusty nook!

One ray! while others traverse depths profound
Of possible chaos; and illume
The boundless bound
Of space; and vivify worlds all unguessed,
To whom
Our farthest eastern spark,
Caught by the mightiest telescope that ever pierced the dark,
Is farthest west.

One ray! while others overflow
The countless hosts of angels with celestial blaze;
With still diviner glow,
Flooding each heart with adoration sweet;
And yet too glorious for the gaze
Of seraphim, who cover face and feet
With burning wings,
While through the universe their "Holy,
Holy," rings.

Only one ray! Yet doth it come
So close to us, so very near,
Our inmost selves enfolding,
Discerning, penetrating, -- we, beholding
Its terrible brightness, well might fear,
But for the glow
Of known and trusted Love that pulseth warm below.
And so
The psalm ariseth, strong and clear,
"How precious are Thy thoughts to me, O God!
How great their sum!"
Uncounted, marvellous, and very deep and broad,
Unsearchable and high!

Infinity
Of holiest, mightiest mystery,
That never sight
Or tongue of mortal seer
Could see or tell,
That never flight
Of flame-like spirits that in strength excel
Hath reached! The very faith that brings us near
Reveals new distances, new depths of light
Unfathomed, -- seas of suns that never eye
Created hath beheld, or ever can behold!

What know we of God's thoughts? One word of gold
A volume doth enfold.
They are -- "not ours!"
Ours? what are they? their value and their powers?
So evanescent, that while thousands fleet
Across the busy brain,
Only a few remain
To set their seal on memory's strange consistence.
Of these, some worthless, some a life-regret,
That we would fain forget;
And very few are rich and great and sweet;
And fewer still are lasting gain,
And these most often born of pain,
Or sprung from strong concussion into strong existence.

What else? Even in their proudest strength so weak,
So isolated and so rootless,
So flowerless and so fruitless; --
We think, and dare not do, -- we think, and cannot speak!
A thought alone is less than breath,
Only the shudder of a living death.
A thing of scorn,
A formless embryo in chaos born.
It must be seized with resolute grasp of will,
With swiftness and with skill,
And molded on life's anvil, ere it glow
With any fire or force;
And wrought with many a blow,
And welded in the heat by toiling strength
With many another, ere it go at length
The humblest mission to fulfill.
And then its tiny might
Is not inherent, but alone dependent
Upon the primal source
And spring of power, First, Sole, Supreme, Transcendent!

What else? So circumscribed in flight!
Like bats in sunshine, striking helpless wings
Against the shining things,
That to their dazzled sight
Appear not; hindered everywhere
By unseen obstacles with puzzling pain.
Or like the traveler, toiling long to gain
An Alpine summit, white and fair,
With far-extending view; but still withheld,
And to the downward track with fainting step compelled
By an intangible barrier; for the air
Is all too rare,
Too keenly pure
For valley-dweller to endure.
For thus our thoughts rebound
From the Invisible-Infinite, on every side
Hemmed ever round
By the Impassable, that never mortal pinion
Hath over-soared, that mocks at human pride,
Imprisoned in its own supposed dominion.

What else? So mingled, so impure;
So interwoven with the threads of sin,
Visible or invisible as the sight
Is purged to see them in God's light;
So subtle in their changeful forms, now dark, now bright;
Such mystery of iniquity within,
That we must loathe our very thoughts, but for the cure
He hath devised, -- the blessed Tree
The Lord hath shown us, that, cast in, can heal
The fountain whence the bitter waters flow.
Divinest remedy
Whose power we feel,
Whose grace we comprehend not, but we know.

What else? So fallible, so full of errors, --
No certainty! In aught unproved and new,
Treading volcanic soil o'er smothered terrors;
Spectral misgivings rising to the view,
As each step crushes through
Some older crust of truth assumed. And this is all
That human thoughts can do,
Leaning on human strength and reason solely;
Now wrong, now right, now false, now true,
As may befall!
And even the truest never reaching wholly
Truth Absolute!
That still our touch eludes,
And vanishes in deeper depths when man intrudes
Within her awful solitudes.
Where many a string is mute
And many a-wanting, all the rest
Imperfectly attuned at best, --
We can but wait for truth of tone,
For truth of modulation and expression,
With lowliest confession
Of utter powerlessness, content
To trust His thoughts and not our own, --
Until the Maker of the instrument
Shall tune it in another sphere,
By His own perfect hand and ear.

Now turn we from the darkness to the light,
From dissonance to pure and full accord!
"My thoughts are not as your thoughts, saith the Lord,
Nor are your ways as My ways. As the height
Of heaven above the earth, so are My ways,
My thoughts, to yours; -- out of your sight,
Above your praise."
O oracle most grand!
Thus teaching by sublimest negative
What by a positive we could not understand,
Or, understanding, live!
And now, search fearlessly
The imperfections and obscurity,
The weakness and impurity,
Of all our thoughts. On each discovery
Write, "NOT as ours!" Then, in every line
Behold God's glory shine
In humbling yet sweet contrast, as we view
His thoughts, Eternal, Strong, and Holy, Infinite, and True.

And now, what have we of these thoughts of God,
So high, so deep, so broad?
What hath He given, and what are we receiving?
A revelation
Dim, pale, and cold
Beside their hidden fire, yet gorgeously enscrolled
Upon His wide Creation.
He would not all withhold,
His children in the silent darkness leaving;
Nor would He overwhelm our heart
And strike it dumb;
And so He hath enfolded some
In fair expressions for the eye and ear;
Though faint yet clear;
Such as our powers may apprehend in part.
Thus hath He wrought
The dazzling swiftness of the thought
That veiled itself from mortal ken in light.
And thus the myriad-handed might
Of that from which the million-teeming ocean fell,
No greater toil to Him,
From silent depth to surfy rim,
Than the small crystal drop which fills a rosy shell.
And thus the Infinite Ideal
Of perfect Beauty (only real
In Him and through Him, pure conception
Too exquisite for our perception)
He hath translated; giving us such lines
As we can trace
In mountain grandeur and in lily grace,
In sunset, cloudland, or soul-molded face;
Such alphabets and signs
As we, His little ones, may slowly, softly read,
Supplying thus a deep, true-spirit need.

What know we more? One thought He hath expressed
In that great scheme
Of which we, straining, catch a glimpse or gleam
In light or shadow, -- scheme embracing all,
Star-system cycles and the sparrow's fall, --
Scheme all-combining, wisest, grandest, best.
We call it Providence. And each may deem
Himself a tiny centre of that thought;
For how mysteriously enwrought
Are all our moments in its folds of might,
Our own horizon ever bounding
And yet not limiting, but still surrounding
Our lives, while reaching far beyond our quickest sight.
A thought of consummated harmony!
Each life is one note in that symphony,
Without which were its cadence incomplete:
Yet each note complex, formed of many a reed;
And each reed quivering with vibrations passing count,
And each vibration blending
In mystic trinities ascending
Through weird harmonies that recede
Into the unknown silences, or meet
In clashing thrills unanalyzed, and mount
In tangled music, yet all plain and clear
Unto the Master's ear.
O thought of consummated melody
And perfect rhythm! though its mighty beat
Transcend angelic faculty,
And though its mighty bars
May be the fall of worlds, the birth of stars,
Its measure -- all eternity --
One echo, calm and sweet,
Our clue to this great music of God's plan,
Sounds on in ever-varying repeat --
Glory to God on high, peace and goodwill to man!

What have we more? Scan we the blinding blaze
Of the refulgent rays
Outpoured from the Very Fount of Light?
One thought of God in undiluted splendor,
Flashed on our feeble gaze,
Were never borne by mortal sight.
He knew it, and He gave,
In mercy tender,
All that the soul unwittingly doth crave,
All that it can receive. He robed
In finite words the sparkles of His thought,
The starry fire englobed
In tiny spheres of language, shielding, softening thus
The living, burning glory. And He brought
Even to us
This strange celestial treasure that no prayer
Had asked of Him, no ear had heard,
Nor heart of man conceived. He laid it there,
Even at our feet, and said it was His Word.
O mystery of tender grace!
We find
God's thoughts in human words enshrined,
God's very life and love with ours entwined.
All wonderingly from page to page we pass,
Owning the darkening yet revealing glass;
In every line we trace,
In fair display,
Prismatic atoms of the glorious bow
Projected on the darkest cloud that e'er
O'ergloomed the world that God had made so fair,
The rainbow of His convenant; each one
Reflecting perfectly a sevenfold ray,
Shot from the sun
Of His exceeding love,
Strong and serene above,
Upon a tremulous drop of tearful life below.

One thought, His thought of thoughts, awakes our song
Of endless thanks and marvelling adoration
More than aught else. For Providence, Creation,
All He hath made and all He doth prepare,
Thoughts grand and wise and strong,
Thoughts tender and most fair,
Are pale beside the glory of Salvation,
Redemption's gracious plan and glorious revelation: --
The focus where all rays unite;
Each attribute arrayed in sevenfold light,
Each adding splendor to the rest.
The meeting blest,
Of His great love and foreseen human woe
Struck forth a mighty fire, that sent a glow
Throughout the universe, -- an overflow
To the dim confines that none know
Save He who traced them, -- lit up gloriously
The farthest vistas of Eternity;
And, flooding heaven itself with radiance new,
Revealed the heart of God, all-merciful, all-true.

Thus are the thoughts of God made known to men.
Yet is all revelation bounded
First by its vehicle, and then
By its reception. Unseen things
Remain unfathomed and unsounded,
And hidden as the springs
Of an immeasurable sea,
Because His thought, sublime and great,
No language finds commensurate
With its infinity;
And, when compressed in any finite mold,
'Tis but a fraction that the mind of man
Receiveth. For we hold
But what we span,
We only see
What feeble lenses and weak sight may scan.
And thus a double lessening, double veiling
Of the unimagined glory of a thought of Him
Who dwells between the cherubim!
First, suffering and paling
By its necessitate transition
From Infinite to Finite, for that all expression
Is by its nature finite; then the vision
Which angels might receive straightway,
Unshorn of any ray,
And hold in full possession,
Must enter by the portal
Of faculties sin-paralyzed and mortal;
And in the human breast's low-vaulted gloom
It finds no room
For any high display.

This is no guess-work. It is even so
With our poor thoughts. For they are always more
Than any form or language can convey.
We know
Things that we cannot say;
We soar,
Where we could never map our flight.
We see
Flashes and colorings too quick and bright
For any hand to paint. We meet
Depths that no line can sound. We hear
Strange far-off mental music, all too sweet,
Too great for any earthly instrument, --
Gone, if we strive to bring it near.
For who that knows
The sudden surging and the startling throes
Of subterranean soul-fires with no vent,
That seek an Etna all in vain; --
Or the slow forming of some grand, fair thought,
With exquisite lingering outwrought,
Only to melt before the touch of effort or of pain
(Like quivering rose-fire 'neath a filmy veil
In mountain dawn,
That grows all still and pale
When the transparent silver is withdrawn): --
Oh! who that knows but owns the meagre dower
Of poor weak language married to thought's royal power --
Oh! who that knows but needs must own
If it be thus
Even with us,
Groping and tottering alone
Around the footstool of His throne,
With limited ideas and babe-like powers,
What must it be with Him, whose thoughts are not as ours!
And now
We only bow,
And gaze above
In raptured awe and silent love;
For mortal speech
Can never reach
A word of meetly-molded praise
For one glimpse of the blessed rays,
Ineffable and purely bright,
Outflowing ever from the Unapproached Light.

They say there is a hollow, safe and still,
A point of coolness and repose
Within the centre of a flame, where life might dwell
Unharmed and unconsumed, as in a luminous shell;
Which the bright walls of fire inclose
In breachless splendor, barrier that no foes
Could pass at will.

There is a point of rest
At the great centre of the cyclone's force,
A silence at its secret source; --
A little child might slumber undistressed,
Without the ruffle of one fairy curl,
In that strange central calm amid the mighty whirl.

So, in the centre of these thoughts of God,
Cyclones of power, consuming glory-fire, --
As we fall overawed
Upon our faces, and are lifted higher
By His great gentleness, and carried nigher
Than unredeemed angels, till we stand
Even in the hollow of His hand --
Nay, more! we lean upon His breast --
There, there we find a point of perfect rest
And glorious safety. There we see
His thoughts to usward, thoughts of peace
That stoop in tenderest love; that still increase
With increase of our need; that never change;
That never fail, or falter, or forget.
O pity infinite!
O royal mercy free!
O gentle climax of the depth and height
Of God's most precious thoughts, most wonderful, most strange!
"For I am poor and needy, yet
The Lord Himself, Jehovah, thinketh upon me!"





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