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| TAULER, the preacher, walked, one autumn day, | |
| Without the walls of Strasburg, by the Rhine, | |
| Pondering the solemn Miracle of Life; | |
| As one who, wandering in a starless night, | |
| Feels, momently, the jar of unseen waves, | 5 |
| And hears the thunder of an unknown sea, | |
| Breaking along an unimagined shore. | |
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| And as he walked he prayed. Even the same | |
| Old prayer with which, for half a score of years, | |
| Morning and noon and evening, lip and heart | 10 |
| Had groaned: “Have pity upon me, Lord! | |
| Thou seest, while teaching others, I am blind. | |
| Send me a man who can direct my steps!” | |
| |
| Then, as he mused, he heard along his path | |
| A sound as of an old man’s staff among | 15 |
| The dry, dead linden-leaves; and, looking up, | |
| He saw a stranger, weak and poor and old. | |
| |
| “Peace be unto thee, father!” Tauler said, | |
| “God give thee a good day!” The old man raised | |
| Slowly his calm blue eyes. “I thank thee, son; | 20 |
| But all my days are good, and none are ill.” | |
| |
| Wondering thereat, the preacher spake again, | |
| “God give thee happy life.” The old man smiled, | |
“I never am unhappy.”
Tauler laid | |
| His hand upon the stranger’s coarse gray sleeve: | 25 |
| “Tell me, O father, what thy strange words mean. | |
| Surely man’s days are evil, and his life | |
| Sad as the grave it leads to.” “Nay, my son, | |
| Our times are in God’s hands, and all our days | |
| Are as our needs: for shadow as for sun, | 30 |
| For cold as heat, for want as wealth, alike | |
| Our thanks are due, since that is best which is; | |
| And that which is not, sharing not his life, | |
| Is evil only as devoid of good. | |
| And for the happiness of which I spake | 35 |
| I find in it submission to his will, | |
| And calm trust in the holy Trinity | |
| Of Knowledge, Goodness, and Almighty Power.” | |
| |
| Silently wondering, for a little space, | |
| Stood the great preacher; then he spake as one | 40 |
| Who, suddenly grappling with a haunting thought | |
| Which long has followed, whispering through the dark | |
| Strange terrors, drag it, shrieking, into light: | |
| “What if God’s will consign thee hence to Hell?” | |
| |
| “Then,” said the stranger, cheerily, “be it so. | 45 |
| What Hell may be I know not; this I know,— | |
| I cannot lose the presence of the Lord: | |
| One arm, Humility, takes hold upon | |
| His dear Humanity; the other, Love, | |
| Clasps his Divinity. So where I go | 50 |
| He goes; and better fire-walled Hell with Him | |
| Than golden-gated Paradise without.” | |
| |
| Tears sprang in Tauler’s eyes. A sudden light, | |
| Like the first ray which fell on chaos, clove | |
| Apart the shadow wherein he had walked | 55 |
| Darkly at noon. And, as the strange old man | |
| Went his slow way, until his silver hair | |
| Set like the white moon where the hills of vine | |
| Slope to the Rhine, he bowed his head and said: | |
| “My prayer is answered. God hath sent the man | 60 |
| Long sought, to teach me, by his simple trust, | |
| Wisdom the weary schoolmen never knew.” | |
| |
| So, entering with a changed and cheerful step | |
| The city gates, he saw, far down the street, | |
| A mighty shadow break the light of noon, | 65 |
| Which tracing backward till its airy lines | |
| Hardened to stony plinths, he raised his eyes | |
| O’er broad façade and lofty pediment, | |
| O’er architrave and frieze and sainted niche, | |
| Up the stone lace-work chiselled by the wise | 70 |
| Erwin of Steinbach, dizzily up to where | |
| In the noon-brightness the great Minster’s tower, | |
| Jewelled with sunbeams on its mural crown, | |
| Rose like a visible prayer. “Behold!” he said, | |
| “The stranger’s faith made plain before mine eyes. | 75 |
| As yonder tower outstretches to the earth | |
| The dark triangle of its shade alone | |
| When the clear day is shining on its top, | |
| So, darkness in the pathway of Man’s life | |
| Is but the shadow of God’s providence, | 80 |
| By the great Sun of Wisdom cast thereon; | |
| But what is dark below is light in Heaven.” | |
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