Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, FROM AN AMERICAN SERMON, by LEWIS MORRIS (1833-1907)


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

FROM AN AMERICAN SERMON, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Stretched open to high heaven
Last Line: Surveys and governs all.
Subject(s): Brooks, Phillips (1835-1893); Sermons


STRETCHED open to high heaven
Each humble rood of earth unsheltered lies,
The worlds regard it from the vault of space,
Serene, unnumbered eyes!

Beneath it everywhere
Are centred living fires which seethe and glow;
A little from the surface you shall reach
The dreadful depths below.

Clear brook or stately stream
Struggling through flowers, or rolling silently
Majestic waters, lose themselves alike
In the surrounding sea.

So every human soul,
Set here betwixt its twin eternities,
Stands open to Heaven's eye, fares on to doom
'Mid opposite mysteries.

And tho' immured it seem,
By narrow walls of circumstance confined,
Shut from Heaven's face, closed to all vital airs,
Is blown through by God's wind.

Aye, tho' the deep shaft's side
Obscure the eye of noon, yet new stars shine;
Tho' day is blinded, a new lucid night
Opens its eyes divine.

There is no port of life
So landlocked from the deep, so dead, so still,
But sometimes, spume-flecked from the Infinite Sea,
Fresh tides in-rushing fill.

There is no lot so low
No glimpse of cloudless heaven nor faint-eyed star
Can reach it, wake it, shine on it, nor bring
Some radiance from afar;

No soul so cold or calm
But underneath it burns the infernal fire;
None so cast down, so vile,
It may not to the heaven of heavens aspire.

Above, beneath, around,
Dread destinies encompass great and small;
One Will, one Hand, one all-regarding Eye,
Surveys and governs all.





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