John Greenleaf Whittier (1807–1892). The Poetical Works in Four Volumes. 1892.
Religious PoemsTrinitas
A
How Three are One, and One is Three;
Read the dark riddle unto me.”
I saw bestowed with equal care
On good and evil, foul and fair.
Alike the righteous and profane
Rejoiced above their heading grain.
That blindfold Nature thus should treat
With equal hand the tares and wheat?”
A warmth, a light, a sense of good,
Like sunshine through a winter wood.
In her white innocence, pause to greet
A fallen sister of the street.
The lost one clung, as if secure
From inward guilt or outward lure.
No gain to her, but loss to thee:
Who touches pitch defiled must be.”
And a voice whispered, “Who therein
Shall these lost souls to Heaven’s peace win?
And lift the ladder up from thence
Whose rounds are prayers of penitence?”
These earth-worms love to have it so.
Who stoops to raise them sinks as low.”
What Hippo’s saint and Calvin said;
The living seeking to the dead!
Old pages, where (God give them rest!)
The poor creed-mongers dreamed and guessed.
How Three are One, and One is Three;
Read the dark riddle unto me!”
For what thou hast? This very day
The Holy Three have crossed thy way.
To good and ill alike declare
The all-compassionate Father’s care?
The lost one from her evil ways,
Thou saw’st the Christ, whom angels praise!
The still small Voice that spake to thee
Was the Holy Spirit’s mystery!
Father, and Son, and Holy Call;
This day thou hast denied them all!
The Holiest passed before thine eyes,
One and the same, in threefold guise.
His Christ in the good to evil done,
His Voice in thy soul;—and the Three are One!”
The monkish gloss of ages past,
The schoolman’s creed aside I cast.
How Three are One, and One is Three;
Thy riddle hath been read to me!”