Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, KNOCKING, EVER KNOCKING, by HARRIET BEECHER STOWE


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

KNOCKING, EVER KNOCKING, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Knocking, knocking, ever knocking?
Last Line: Still a god is waiting, there.
Subject(s): God; Religion; Theology


KNOCKING, knocking, ever knocking?
Who is there?
'T is a pilgrim strange and kingly,
Never such was seen before; --
Ah, sweet soul, for such a wonder,
Undo the door.
No, -- that door is hard to open;
Hinges rusty, latch is broken;
Bid Him go.
Wherefore with that knocking dreary
Scare the sleep from one so weary?
Say Him, no.

Knocking, knocking, ever knocking?
What! Still there?
O sweet soul, but once behold Him,
With the glory-crowned hair;
And those eyes, so strange and tender,
Waiting there;
Open! Open! Once behold him,
Him so fair.

Ah,that door ! Why wilt thou vex me,
Coming ever to perplex me?
For the key is stiffly rusty
And the bolt is clogged and dusty;
Many-fingered ivy vine
Seals it fast with twist and twine;
Weeds of years and years before
Choke the passage of that door.

Knocking! knocking! What? Still knocking?
He still there?
What's the hour? The night is waning --
In my heart a drear complaining,
And a chilly, sad unrest.
Ah, this knocking! It disturbs me!
Scares my sleep with dreams unblest!
Give me rest,
Rest -- ah, rest!

Rest, dear soul, He longs to give thee;
Thou hast only dreamed of pleasure,
Dreamed of gifts and golden treasure,
Dreamed of jewels in tby keeping,
Waked to weariness of weeping; --
Open to thy soul's one Lover,
And thy night of dreams is over, --
The true gifts He brings have seeming
More than all thy faded dreaming!

Did she open? Doth she? Will she?
So, as wondering we behold,
Grows the picture to a sign,
Pressed upon your soul and mine;
For in every breast that liveth
Is that strange, mysterious door; --
The forsaken and betangled,
Ivy-gnarled and weed-bejangled,
Dusty, rusty, and forgotten; --
There the pierced hand still knocketh,
And with ever patient watching,
With the sad eyes true and tender,
With the glory-crowned hair, --
Still a God is waiting, there.




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