The trap upon myself as vermin use
Drawn by the cunning bait to certain doom.
Who wrought the wondrous charm that leads us on
To sweet perdition, but the self-same power
That set the fearful engine to destroy
His wretched offspring (as the Rabbis tell),
And hid its yawning jaws and treacherous springs
In such a show of innocent sweet flowers
It lured the sinless angels and they fell?
Ah! He who prayed
the prayer of all mankind
Summed in those few
brief words the mightiest plea
For erring souls before
the courts of heaven,
Save us from being tempted,—lest
we fall!
If we are only as the
potter’s clay
Made to be fashioned
as the artist wills,
And broken into shards
if we offend
The eye of Him who made
us, it is well;
Such love as the insensate
lump of clay
That spins upon the
swift-revolving wheel
Bears to the hand that
shapes its growing form,
—Such love, no
more, will be our hearts’ return
To the great Master-workman
for his care,
Or would be, save that
this, our breathing clay,
Is intertwined with
fine innumerous threads
That make it conscious
in its framer’s hand;
And this He must remember
who has filled
These vessels with the
deadly draught of life,
Life, that means death
to all it claims. Our love
Must kindle in the ray
that streams from heaven,
A faint reflection of
the light divine;
The sun must warm the
earth before the rose
Can show her inmost
heart-leaves to the sun.
He yields some fraction
of the Maker’s right
Who gives the quivering
nerve its sense of pain;
Is there not something
in the pleading eye
Of the poor brute that
suffers, which arraigns
The law that bids it
suffer? Has it not
A claim for some remembrance
in the book
That fills its pages
with the idle words
Spoken of men?
Or is it only clay,
Bleeding and aching
in the potter’s hand,
Yet all his own to treat
it as he will
And when he will to
cast it at his feet,
Shattered, dishonored,
lost forevermore?
My dog loves me, but
could he look beyond
His earthly master,
would his love extend
To Him who—Hush!
I will not doubt that He
Is better than our fears,
and will not wrong
The least, the meanest
of created things!
He would not trust me
with the smallest orb
That circles through
the sky; he would not give
A meteor to my guidance;
would not leave
The coloring of a cloudlet
to my hand;
He locks my beating
heart beneath its bars
And keeps the key himself;
he measures out
The draughts of vital
breath that warm my blood,