Iceland
herself has her Hecla.
Robert listened with keenest ear. A mist of great meaning hung
about the words his friend had spoken. He might speak more. For
some minutes he listened in vain, and was turning at last towards
his book in hopelessness, when he did speak yet again: Robert's ear
soon detected the rhythmic motion of his speech.
'Come in the glory of thine excellence;
Rive the dense gloom with wedges of clear light;
And let the shimmer of thy chariot wheels
Burn through the cracks of night.--So slowly, Lord,
To lift myself to thee with hands of toil,
Climbing the slippery cliff of unheard prayer!
Lift up a hand among my idle days--
One beckoning finger. I will cast aside
The clogs of earthly circumstance, and run
Up the broad highways where the countless worlds
Sit ripening in the summer of thy love.'
Breathless for fear of losing a word, Robert yet remembered that he
had seen something like these words in the papers Ericson had given
him to read on the night when his illness began. When he had fallen
asleep and silent, he searched and found the poem from which I give
the following extracts. He had not looked at the papers since that
night.
A PRAYER.
O Lord, my God, how long
Shall my poor heart pant for a boundless joy?
How long, O mighty Spirit, shall I hear
The murmur of Truth's crystal waters slide
>From the deep caverns of their endless being,
But my lips taste not, and the grosser air
Choke each pure inspiration of thy will?
I would be a wind,
Whose smallest atom is a viewless wing,
All busy with the pulsing life that throbs
To do thy bidding; yea, or the meanest thing
That has relation to a changeless truth
Could I but be instinct with thee--each thought
The lightning of a pure intelligence,
And every act as the loud thunder-clap
Of currents warring for a vacuum.
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