| TO the assembled folk | |
| At great St. Kavin’s spoke | |
| Young Brother Amiel on Christmas Eve; | |
| I give you joy, my friends, | |
| That as the round year ends, | 5 |
| We meet once more for gladness by God’s leave. | |
| |
| On other festal days | |
| For penitence or praise | |
| Or prayer we meet, or fullness of thanksgiving; | |
| To-night we calendar | 10 |
| The rising of that star | |
| Which lit the old world with new joy of living. | |
| |
| Ah, we disparage still | |
| The Tidings of Good Will, | |
| Discrediting Love’s gospel now as then! | 15 |
| And with the verbal creed | |
| That God is love indeed, | |
| Who dares make Love his god before all men? | |
| |
| Shall we not, therefore, friends, | |
| Resolve to make amends | 20 |
| To that glad inspiration of the heart; | |
| To grudge not, to cast out | |
| Selfishness, malice, doubt, | |
| Anger and fear; and for the better part, | |
| |
| To love so much, so well, | 25 |
| The spirit cannot tell | |
| The range and sweep of her own boundary! | |
| There is no period | |
| Between the soul and God; | |
| Love is the tide, God the eternal sea.… | 30 |
| |
| To-day we walk by love; | |
| To strive is not enough, | |
| Save against greed and ignorance and might. | |
| We apprehend peace comes | |
| Not with the roll of drums, | 35 |
| But in the still processions of the night. | |
| |
| And we perceive, not awe | |
| But love is the great law | |
| That binds the world together safe and whole. | |
| The splendid planets run | 40 |
| Their courses in the sun; | |
| Love is the gravitation of the soul. | |
| |
| In the profound unknown, | |
| Illumined, fair, and lone, | |
| Each star is set to shimmer in its place. | 45 |
| In the profound divine | |
| Each soul is set to shine, | |
| And its unique appointed orbit trace. | |
| |
| There is no near nor far, | |
| Where glorious Algebar | 50 |
| Swings round his mighty circuit through the night, | |
| Yet where without a sound | |
| The winged seed comes to ground, | |
| And the red leaf seems hardly to alight. | |
| |
| One force, one lore, one need | 55 |
| For satellite and seed, | |
| In the serene benignity for all. | |
| Letting her time-glass run | |
| With star-dust, sun by sun, | |
| In Nature’s thought there is no great nor small. | 60 |
| |
| There is no far nor near | |
| Within the spirit’s sphere. | |
| The summer sunset’s scarlet-yellow wings | |
| Are tinged with the same dye | |
| That paints the tulip’s ply. | 65 |
| And what is colour but the soul of things? | |
| |
| (The earth was without form; | |
| God moulded it with storm, | |
| Ice, flood, and tempest, gleaming tint and hue; | |
| Lest it should come to ill | 70 |
| For lack of spirit still, | |
| He gave it colour,—let the love shine through.)… | |
| |
| Of old, men said, ‘Sin not; | |
| By every line and jot | |
| Ye shall abide; man’s heart is false and vile.’ | 75 |
| Christ said, ‘By love alone | |
| In man’s heart is God known; | |
| Obey the word no falsehood can defile.’… | |
| |
| And since that day we prove | |
| Only how great is love, | 80 |
| Nor to this hour its greatness half believe. | |
| For to what other power | |
| Will life give equal dower, | |
| Or chaos grant one moment of reprieve! | |
| |
| Look down the ages’ line, | 85 |
| Where slowly the divine | |
| Evinces energy, puts forth control; | |
| See mighty love alone | |
| Transmuting stock and stone, | |
| Infusing being, helping sense and soul. | 90 |
| |
| And what is energy, | |
| In-working, which bids be | |
| The starry pageant and the life of earth? | |
| What is the genesis | |
| Of every joy and bliss, | 95 |
| Each action dared, each beauty brought to birth? | |
| |
| What hangs the sun on high? | |
| What swells the growing rye? | |
| What bids the loons cry on the Northern lake? | |
| What stirs in swamp and swale, | 100 |
| When April winds prevail, | |
| And all the dwellers of the ground awake?… | |
| |
| What lurks in the deep gaze | |
| Of the old wolf? Amaze, | |
| Hope, recognition, gladness, anger, fear. | 105 |
| But deeper than all these | |
| Love muses, yearns, and sees, | |
| And is the self that does not change nor veer. | |
| |
| Not love of self alone, | |
| Struggle for lair and bone, | 110 |
| But self-denying love of mate and young, | |
| Love that is kind and wise, | |
| Knows trust and sacrifice, | |
| And croons the old dark universal tongue.… | |
| |
| And who has understood | 115 |
| Our brothers of the wood, | |
| Save he who puts off guile and every guise | |
| Of violence,—made truce | |
| With panther, bear, and moose, | |
| As beings like ourselves whom love makes wise? | 120 |
| |
| For they, too, do love’s will, | |
| Our lesser clansmen still; | |
| The House of Many Mansions holds us all; | |
| Courageous, glad and hale, | |
| They go forth on the trail, | 125 |
| Hearing the message, hearkening to the call.… | |
| |
| Open the door to-night | |
| Within your heart, and light | |
| The lantern of love there to shine afar. | |
| On a tumultuous sea | 130 |
| Some straining craft, maybe, | |
| With bearings lost, shall sight love’s silver star. | |
