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Home  »  The Poetical Works In Four Volumes  »  The Over-Heart

John Greenleaf Whittier (1807–1892). The Poetical Works in Four Volumes. 1892.

Religious Poems

The Over-Heart

  • “For of Him, and through Him, and to Him are all things, to whom be glory forever.”—PAUL.


  • ABOVE, below, in sky and sod,

    In leaf and spar, in star and man,

    Well might the wise Athenian scan

    The geometric signs of God,

    The measured order of His plan.

    And India’s mystics sang aright

    Of the One Life pervading all,—

    One Being’s tidal rise and fall

    In soul and form, in sound and sight,—

    Eternal outflow and recall.

    God is: and man in guilt and fear

    The central fact of Nature owns;

    Kneels, trembling, by his altar-stones,

    And darkly dreams the ghastly smear

    Of blood appeases and atones.

    Guilt shapes the Terror: deep within

    The human heart the secret lies

    Of all the hideous deities;

    And, painted on a ground of sin,

    The fabled gods of torment rise!

    And what is He? The ripe grain nods,

    The sweet dews fall, the sweet flowers blow;

    But darker signs His presence show:

    The earthquake and the storm are God’s,

    And good and evil interflow.

    O hearts of love! O souls that turn

    Like sunflowers to the pure and best!

    To you the truth is manifest:

    For they the mind of Christ discern

    Who lean like John upon His breast!

    In him of whom the sibyl told,

    For whom the prophet’s harp was toned,

    Whose need the sage and magian owned,

    The loving heart of God behold,

    The hope for which the ages groaned!

    Fade, pomp of dreadful imagery

    Wherewith mankind have deified

    Their hate, and selfishness, and pride!

    Let the scared dreamer wake to see

    The Christ of Nazareth at his side!

    What doth that holy Guide require?

    No rite of pain, nor gift of blood,

    But man a kindly brotherhood,

    Looking, where duty is desire,

    To Him, the beautiful and good.

    Gone be the faithlessness of fear,

    And let the pitying heaven’s sweet rain

    Wash out the altar’s bloody stain;

    The law of Hatred disappear,

    The law of Love alone remain.

    How fall the idols false and grim!

    And lo! their hideous wreck above

    The emblems of the Lamb and Dove!

    Man turns from God, not God from him;

    And guilt, in suffering, whispers Love!

    The world sits at the feet of Christ,

    Unknowing, blind, and unconsoled;

    It yet shall touch His garment’s fold,

    And feel the heavenly Alchemist

    Transform its very dust to gold.

    The theme befitting angel tongues

    Beyond a mortal’s scope has grown.

    O heart of mine! with reverence own

    The fulness which to it belongs,

    And trust the unknown for the known.

    1859.