Calm all His mastering might, calm smiles the desert waste;
Peace, peace, He shall not cry, nay, He shall not make haste;
Heaven gazes, hell beneath moved for Him, moans and stirs—­
Lo, John lies fast in prison, sick for his messengers.

John, the forerunner, John, the desert’s tameless son,
Cast into loathed thrall, his use and mission done;
John from his darkness sends a cry, but not a plea;
Not, “Hast Thou felt my need?” but only, “Art Thou He?”

Unspoken pines his hope, grown weak in lingering dole;
None know what pang that hour might pierce the Healer’s soul;
Silence that faints to Him—­but must e’en so be vain;
A word—­the fetters fall—­He will that word restrain.

Jesus, the Father’s son, bound in a mighty plan,
Retired full oft in God, show’d not His mind to man;
Nor their great matters high His human lips confess;
He will His wonders work, and not make plain, but bless.

The bournes of His wide way kept secret from all thought,
Enring’d the outmost waste that evil power had wrought;
His measure none can take, His strife we are not shown,
Nor if He gathered then more sheaves than earth hath grown.

“John, from the Christ of God, an answer for all time,”
The proof of Sonship given in characters sublime;
Sad hope will He make firm, and fainting faith restore,
But yet with mortal eyes will see His face no more.

He bow’d His sacred head to exigence austere,
Unknown to us and dark, first piercings of the spear: 
And to each martyr since ’tis even as if He said,
“Verily I am He—­I live, and I was dead.

“The All-wise found a way—­a dark way—­dread, unknown;
I chose it, will’d it Mine, seal’d for My feet alone;
Thou canst not therein walk, yet thou hast part in Me,
I will not break thy bonds, but I am bound with thee.

“With thee and for thee bound, with thee and for thee given,
A mystery seal’d from hell, and wonder’d at in heaven;
I send thee rest at heart to love, and still believe;
But not for thee—­nor Me—­is found from death reprieve.”

THOU HAST BEEN ALWAY GOOD TO ME.

“He doeth all things well.”

Thou hast been alway good to me and mine
  Since our first father by transgression fell. 
Through all Thy sorest judgments love doth shine—­
  Lord, of a truth, Thou doest all things well.

Thou didst the food of immortality
  Compass with flame, lest he thereto should win. 
But what? his doom, yet eating of that tree,
  Had been immortal life of shame and sin!

I would not last immortal in such wise;
  Desired death, not life, is now my song. 
Through death shall I go back to Paradise,
  And sin no more—­Sweet death, tarry not long!

One did prevail that closed gate to unseal,
  Where yet th’ immortalizing tree doth grow;
He shall there meet us, and once more reveal
  The fruit of life, where crime is not, nor woe.