Page:Selections from the American poets (IA selectamerpoet00bryarich).pdf/262
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Henry Ware, Jr.
258
What though the rash request be fraught with fate,Nor human eye may look on thine and live!Welcome the penalty! let that come nowWhich soon or late must come. For light like thisWho would not dare to die?Peace, my proud aim,And hush the wish that knows not what it asks.Await his will, who hath appointed thisWith every other trial. Be that willDone now as ever. For thy curious search,And unprepared solicitude to gazeOn Him—the Unreveal'd—learn hence, instead,To temper highest hope with humbleness.Pass thy novitiate in those outer courts,Till rent the veil, no longer separatingThe holiest of all; as erst disclosingA brighter dispensation; whose results.Ineffable, interminable, tendE'en to the perfecting thyself, thy kind,Till meet for that sublime beatitude,By the firm promise of a voice from heavenPledged to the pure in heart!
TO THE URSA MAJOR.
With what a stately and majestic stepThat glorious constellation of the northTreads its eternal circle! going forthIts princely way among the stars in slowAnd silent brightness. Mighty one, all hail!I joy to see thee on thy glowing pathWalk, like some stout and girded giant; stern,Unwearied, resolute, whose toiling footDisdains to loiter on its destined way.The other tribes forsake their midnight track,