Alfred H. Miles, ed. The Sacred Poets of the Nineteenth Century. 1907.
By Hymns. V. The Sorrowful WorldFrederick William Faber (18141863)
I
Some slept, while others waken to sustain
Through night and day the sad monotonous round,
Half savage and half pitiful the sound.
The worship of distress, an animal prayer,
Loud vehement pleadings, not unlike to those
Job uttered in his agony of woes.
With sickening sounds of too successful strife,
As, when the clash of battle dies away,
The groans of night succeed the shrieks of day.
As if his tainted blood defiled the air;
In the vast woods they fret as in a cage,
Or fly in fear, or gnash their teeth with rage.
Like slaves who will not speak when they obey;
Their faces, when their looks to us they raise,
With something of reproachful patience gaze.
Their eyes discomfort us with lack of love;
Our very rights, with signs like these alloyed,
Not without sad misgivings are enjoyed.
Sleeps through the day, but wakes at night to moan,
Shunning our confidence, as if we were
A guilty burden it could hardly bear.
Waters lift up sad voices in the vale;
One mountain-hollow to another calls
With broken cries of plaining waterfalls.
As if the earth were fainting in distress,
Like one who wakes at night in panic fears,
And nought but his own beating pulses hears.
And, when the thunders bellow in the air
Amid the mountains, Earth sends forth a cry
Like dying monsters in their agony.
Makes on its desolate sands eternal moan:
Lakes on the calmest days are ever throbbing
Upon their pebbly shores with petulant sobbing.
And hushes life beneath its merciless laws;
Invisible heat drops down from tropic skies,
And o’er the land, like an oppression, lies.
From the funereal tread of men in sorrow;
Or, when they scud across the stormy day,
Mimic the flight of hosts in disarray.
Looks of fixed gloom, or else of restless care;
The very babes, that in their cradles lie,
Out of the depths of unknown troubles cry.
The protest of the weak against the strong;
Over rough waters, and in obstinate fields,
And from dank mines, the same sad sound it yields.
Thy whole creation overflows with sadness;
Sights, sounds, are full of sorrow and alarm;
Even sweet scents have but a pensive charm.
Father! canst Thou find melody in groans?
Oh can it be, that Thou, the God of bliss,
Canst feed Thy glory on a world like this?
To turn to dross the gold of Nature’s dower,
And straightway, of its single self, unbind
The eternal vision of Thy jubilant mind!
For us Earth weeps, for us the creatures bleed:
Thou art content, if all this woe imparts
The sense of exile to repentant hearts.
Like children scared we fly into Thine arms;
And pressing sorrows put our pride to rout
With a swift faith which has not time to doubt.
We dare not live in Nature’s solitude;
In how few eyes of men can we behold
Enough of love to make us calm and bold?
Life glares at us, or looks at us askance:
Seek where we will,—Father! we see it now,—
None love us, trust us, welcome us, but Thou.