Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE FIRST CAUSE, by EDWARD ROWLAND SILL


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE FIRST CAUSE, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Doubtless the linnet, shut within its cage
Last Line: And all may not be good -- that all is well.
Alternate Author Name(s): Hedbrooke, Andrew
Subject(s): Religion; Theology


DOUBTLESS the linnet, shut within its cage,
Thinks the fair child that loves it, brings it seed,
And hangs it, chirping to it, in the sun,
Is the preserver of its little world.
Doubtless the child, within her nursery walls,
Thinks her kind father is the father of all
Those happy children, chattering on the lawn --
Keeps yonder town as well as this bright room,
And pours the brook that sparkles past the door.
Doubtless we think the Being who made man,
The visible world, space powdered thick with stars,
The golden fruit whose core is curious life,
Created all things -- love, and law, and death;
Fate, the crowned forehead; Will, the sceptred hand.
Perchance -- perchance: yet need it be that He
Who planted us is the Head-gardener? What
If beyond Him rose rank on rank, as the bulb
Is higher than the crystals of its food,
And he who sets it, higher than the flower,
And he that owns the garden, more than all?
The great Cause works through lesser ones; permits
The plant to bear dead buds on dying stems;
The beaver to weave dams that the stream snaps;
The workman to make watches that lose time,
Or orang pipes all jarred and out of tune.
Did not I build a playhouse for my boys,
And made it ill, and that loose plank fell down
And hurt the children? And did not I learn,
After three trials, how to make it well?
Know we the limit of the power He gives
To lesser Wills to will imperfectly?
Is earth that limit? Is the last link man,
Between the finite and the infinite?
When that new star flared out in heaven, and died,
Who knows what Spirit, failing in his plan,
Dashed out his work in wrath, to try anew?
O mother world! we stammer at thy knee
Vainly our childish questions. 'T is enough
For such as we to know, that on His throne,
Nearer than we can think, and farther off
Than any mind can fathom, sits the One,
And sees to it -- though pain and evil come,
And all may not be good -- that all is well.





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