Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, A PROTEST, by ANNIE MATHESON


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

A PROTEST, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Oh, hast thou never heard the master come
Last Line: And all eternity will be thine own!
Subject(s): God; Love; Protestantism


OH, hast thou never heard the Master come,
Or known Him near when in the silent night
Innumerable stars were looking down
The blue abyss; when all the air was hushed,
Nor stirred the branches of the listening trees
Heavy with blossom, and the dewy flowers
Moved not a petal in the fragrant dark,—
Earth trembled at His footstep drawing near,
And over thee Space brooded with vast wings
Of wonder?—
In the cool celestial light
That follows after sunset, when the far
Horizon of the infinite reflects
A distant radiance, and the ether, quick
With swift pulsations, quivers, passionate—
In such a moment hast not thou too known
A little of His meaning?—Even as
Two friends who look each other in the eyes
Before they part, in that one look learn more
Each of the other than in all the hours
Of spoken thought.
Amid the blaze of noon,
When heaven leans earthward, and the silent sea,—
The sea of gold,—lies waiting for His feet,
Or glimmers opalescent underneath
The shadowy clouds; has not thy spirit leaped,
Like some poor skylark prisoned from the sun,
Who through his narrow window feels a ray
Of summer greet him, and in ecstasy
Of longing beats against the bars, that hold
Him still a captive, thinking so to soar
Into the light and warmth and splendour?—Oh,
Hast thou not felt that could thy soul's clear eyes
But pierce the flesh, thou wouldst behold Him, live
Thy life out in that moment, and then die
Of that great rapture?—
Plucking a sweet rose,
Was it to thee mere colour, circling lines,
And delicate aroma?—Yet unless
It bodied forth some lovely thought of God,
One ripple in the endless tide of love
Creative, wherefore should it move in thee
So subtle a delight?—
Has music then
No message for thee from the invisible?—
Is melody mere mathematic sound
Made rhythmic?—Hast thou never felt therein
A greatness other than thyself, that caught
Thy half-despairing thought into its sweet
Magnificence of conflict till it rose
On quivering wings into the wordless joy
Of a diviner possibility?—
Or, if thine ear be deaf, and tirèd eyes
A little blind, yet when some noble deed
Made the world echo, didst thou hear no voice
Greater than man's?—
What! hast thou never loved,
Or sinned, or suffered?—Oh, unhappy man!
In the uplifted gaze of struggling crowds
Who yearn for something higher than they reach,
And, dogged by sorrow, poverty, and death,
Still seek the unseen good, then, surely, then
Thou hast been stirred to kinship with thy race,
And known thy brethren in the sons of God,
The eternal Father?—Hast thou never met
In moments of supreme and awful grief
The Man of Sorrows?—Knowing not His name,
Hast thou not leaned upon His circling arms
And felt His Godhead?—Hast thou never found
In Him sublime compassion that could stoop
To save thee from thyself?—
If thou hast not,
What is this wondrous universe to thee
But a lone graveyard, soulless, animal,
A ghastly counterfeit of fair and grand
Imaginations.
Yet have courage: thou
Art seeking Him who wrestles with thee. Strive
With Him till He has told His name, and thou
Hast won a blessing!—Though the night endure
A dreary lifetime, when the morning breaks,
What will the night be in the dawning joy
Of light ineffable?—
Then wilt thou see
The gathered harvest of those toiling years
When the Immortal overshadowed thee,
And thou, being mortal, couldst not yet see God.
At last, beholding Him, thou wilt behold
Life's inmost meaning, love's deep mystery,
And all eternity will be thine own!





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