John Greenleaf Whittier

Name: Religious Poems, Part 1
Author: John Greenleaf Whittier

Summary

“Religious Poems, Part 1”, is a work by John Greenleaf Whittier. It explores elements such as Thou settest, His Almightiness and Samuel Gorton.

Quotes from Religious Poems, Part 1 (John Greenleaf Whittier)

John Greenleaf Whittier, Religious Poems, Part 1

“ Rock of the desert, prophet-sung!
How grew its shadowing pile at length,
A symbol, in the Hebrew tongue,
Of God's eternal love and strength.
On lip of bard and scroll of seer,
From age to age went down the name,
Until the Shiloh's promised year,
And Christ, the Rock of Ages, came!
The path of life we walk to-day
Is strange as that the Hebrews trod;
We need the shadowing rock, as they,—
We need, like them, the guides of God.
God send His angels, Cloud and Fire,
To lead us o'er the desert sand!
God give our hearts their long desire,
His shadow in a weary land! ”

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Source: Gutenberg

John Greenleaf Whittier, Religious Poems, Part 1

“ Where is evil, and whence comes it, since God the Good hath created all things? Why made He anything at all of evil, and not rather by His Almightiness cause it not to be? These thoughts I turned in my miserable heart, overcharged with most gnawing cares." "And, admonished to return to myself, I entered even into my inmost soul, Thou being my guide, and beheld even beyond my soul and mind the Light unchangeable. He who knows the Truth knows what that Light is, and he that knows it knows Eternity! O—Truth, who art Eternity! Love, who art Truth! Eternity, who art Love! ”

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Source: Gutenberg

John Greenleaf Whittier, Religious Poems, Part 1

“ With mother's offering, to the Fiend's embraces,
Bone of their bone, and blood of their own blood.
Red altars, kindling through that night of error,
Smoked with warm blood beneath the cruel eye
Of lawless Power and sanguinary Terror,
Throned on the circle of a pitiless sky;
Beneath whose baleful shadow, overcasting
All heaven above, and blighting earth below,
The scourge grew red, the lip grew pale with fasting,
And man's oblation was his fear and woe!
Then through great temples swelled the dismal moaning
Of dirge-like music and sepulchral prayer ”

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Source: Gutenberg

John Greenleaf Whittier, Religious Poems, Part 1

“ 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. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

John Greenleaf Whittier, Religious Poems, Part 1

“ A voice as of an angel cry,—
The voice of him, who at our side
Sat through the golden eventide;
Of him who, on thy altar's blaze,
Rose fire-winged, with his song of praise.
"Rejoice o'er Israel's broken chain,
Gray mother of the mighty slain!
Rejoice!" it cried, "he vanquisheth!
The strong in life is strong in death! ”

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Source: Gutenberg

John Greenleaf Whittier, Religious Poems, Part 1

“ Like the calm Sphinxes, with their eyes of stone,
Questioning the centuries from their veils of sand!
I have no answer for myself or thee,
Save that I learned beside my mother's knee;
"All is of God that is, and is to be;
And God is good." Let this suffice us still,
Resting in childlike trust upon His will
Who moves to His great ends unthwarted by the ill. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

John Greenleaf Whittier, Religious Poems, Part 1

“ The trust upon thy brow;
Since for the dear one God hath called
We have an angel now.
Our mother from the fields of heaven
Shall still her ear incline;
Nor need we fear her human love
Is less for love divine. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

John Greenleaf Whittier, Religious Poems, Part 1

“ Stretches thy prophet-heritage,
Through Heaven's vast spaces angel-trod,
And through the eternal years of God
Thy audience, worlds!—all things to be
The witness of the Truth in thee!
1844.
WHAT THE VOICE SAID MADDENED by Earth's wrong and evil,
"Lord!" I cried in sudden ire,
"From Thy right hand, clothed with thunder,
Shake the bolted fire!
"Love is lost, and Faith is dying;
With the brute the man is sold;
And the dropping blood of labor
Hardens into gold. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

John Greenleaf Whittier, Religious Poems, Part 1

“ 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. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

John Greenleaf Whittier, Religious Poems, Part 1

“ ALL'S WELL The clouds, which rise with thunder, slake
Our thirsty souls with rain;
The blow most dreaded falls to break
From off our limbs a chain;
And wrongs of man to man but make
The love of God more plain. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

John Greenleaf Whittier, Religious Poems, Part 1

“ For thy sure possessing;
Like the patriarch's angel hold it fast
Till it gives its blessing.
Why fear the night? why shrink from Death;
That phantom wan?
There is nothing in heaven or earth beneath
Save God and man. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

John Greenleaf Whittier, Religious Poems, Part 1

“ From the angel to the worm, from the first motion to the last, Thou settest each in its place, and everything is good in its kind. Woe is me!—how high art Thou in the highest, how deep in the deepest! ”

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Source: Gutenberg

John Greenleaf Whittier, Religious Poems, Part 1

“ Feet red from war-fields trod the church aisles holy,
With trembling reverence: and the oppressor there,
Kneeling before his priest, abased and lowly,
Crushed human hearts beneath his knee of prayer.
Not such the service the benignant Father
Requireth at His earthly children's hands
Not the poor offering of vain rites, but rather
The simple duty man from man demands. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

John Greenleaf Whittier, Religious Poems, Part 1

“ Ungirded, unsandalled, arise and away!
'T is the vintage of blood, 't is the fulness of time,
And vengeance shall gather the harvest of crime!"
The warning was spoken—the righteous had gone,
And the proud ones of Sodom were feasting alone;
All gay was the banquet—the revel was long,
With the pouring of wine and the breathing of song.
'T was an evening of beauty; the air was perfume,
The earth was all greenness, the trees were all bloom ”

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Source: Gutenberg

John Greenleaf Whittier, Religious Poems, Part 1

“ 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 ”

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Source: Gutenberg

John Greenleaf Whittier, Religious Poems, Part 1

“ O Thou who movest on the deep
Of spirits, wake my own from sleep
Its darkness melt, its coldness warm,
The lost restore, the ill transform,
That flower and fruit henceforth may be
Its grateful offering, worthy Thee.
1851.
QUESTIONS OF LIFE And the angel that was sent unto me, whose name was Uriel, gave me an answer and said, "Thy heart hath gone too far in this world, and thinkest thou to comprehend the way of the Most High?" Then said I, "Yea, my Lord." ”

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Source: Gutenberg

John Greenleaf Whittier, Religious Poems, Part 1

“ Which brings its sparkling prism forth?
The forest-tree the throb which gives
The life-blood to its new-born leaves?
Do bird and blossom feel, like me,
Life's many-folded mystery,—
The wonder which it is to be? ”

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Source: Gutenberg

John Greenleaf Whittier, Religious Poems, Part 1

“ fold to thy heart thy brother;
Where pity dwells, the peace of God is there; ”

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Source: Gutenberg

John Greenleaf Whittier, Religious Poems, Part 1

“ So we read the prayer of him
Who, with John of Labadie,
Trod, of old, the oozy rim
Of the Zuyder Zee.
Thus did Andrew Rykman pray.
Are we wiser, better grown,
That we may not, in our day,
Make his prayer our own? ”

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Source: Gutenberg

John Greenleaf Whittier, Religious Poems, Part 1

“ From giant trees with snake-like creepers wound,
And the black water glides without a sound.
But in the traveller's heart a secret sense
Of nature plastic to benign intents,
And an eternal good in Providence,
Lifts to the starry calm of heaven his eyes;
And to! rebuking all earth's ominous cries,
The Cross of pardon lights the tropic skies!
"Father of all!" he urges his strong plea,
"Thou lovest all: Thy erring child may be
Lost to himself, but never lost to Thee!
"All souls are Thine ”

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Source: Gutenberg

John Greenleaf Whittier, Religious Poems, Part 1

“ A bending staff I would not break,
A feeble faith I would not shake,
Nor even rashly pluck away
The error which some truth may stay,
Whose loss might leave the soul without
A shield against the shafts of doubt. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

John Greenleaf Whittier, Religious Poems, Part 1

“ Read his name and date.
"Trust is truer than our fears," Runs the legend through the moss, "Gain is not in added years, Nor in death is loss."
Still the feet that thither trod,
All the friendly eyes are dim ”

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Source: Gutenberg

John Greenleaf Whittier, Religious Poems, Part 1

“ And they come unto thee as the people cometh, and they sit before thee as my people, and they hear thy words, but they will not do them: for with their mouth they skew much love, but their heart goeth after their covetousness. And, lo, thou art unto them as a very lovely song of one that hath a pleasant voice, and can play well on an instrument: for they hear thy words, but they do them not. And when this cometh to pass, (lo, it will come,) then shall they know that a prophet hath been among them.—EZEKIEL, xxxiii. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

John Greenleaf Whittier, Religious Poems, Part 1

“ Pluck one thread, and the web ye mar;
Break but one
Of a thousand keys, and the paining jar
Through all will run. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

John Greenleaf Whittier, Religious Poems, Part 1

“ And still we love the evil cause,
And of the just effect complain
We tread upon life's broken laws,
And murmur at our self-inflicted pain; ”

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Source: Gutenberg

John Greenleaf Whittier, Religious Poems, Part 1

“ The Quakers, Baptists, and Catholics were banished, on pain of death, from the Massachusetts Colony. One Samuel Gorton, a bold and eloquent declaimer, after preaching for a time in Boston against the doctrines of the Puritans, and declaring that their churches were mere human devices, and their sacrament and baptism an abomination, was driven out of the jurisdiction of the colony, and compelled to seek a residence among the savages. He gathered round him a considerable number of converts, who, like the primitive Christians, shared all things in common. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

John Greenleaf Whittier, Religious Poems, Part 1

“ What, my soul, was thy errand here?
Was it mirth or ease,
Or heaping up dust from year to year?
"Nay, none of these!"
Speak, soul, aright in His holy sight
Whose eye looks still
And steadily on thee through the night
"To do His will!" ”

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Source: Gutenberg

John Greenleaf Whittier, Religious Poems, Part 1

“ For they the mind of Christ discern
Who lean like John upon His breast! ”

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Source: Gutenberg

John Greenleaf Whittier, Religious Poems, Part 1

“ Nothing before, nothing behind;
The steps of Faith
Fall on the seeming void, and find
The rock beneath. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

John Greenleaf Whittier, Religious Poems, Part 1

“ "Couldst thou boast, O child of weakness!
O'er the sons of wrong and strife,
Were their strong temptations planted
In thy path of life? ”

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Source: Gutenberg

John Greenleaf Whittier, Religious Poems, Part 1

“ Clothe with life the weak intent,
Let me be the thing I meant; ”

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Source: Gutenberg

John Greenleaf Whittier, Religious Poems, Part 1

“ "But, by all thy nature's weakness,
Hidden faults and follies known,
Be thou, in rebuking evil,
Conscious of thine own. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

John Greenleaf Whittier, Religious Poems, Part 1

“ He walks with thee, that Angel kind,
And gently whispers, "Be resigned
Bear up, bear on, the end shall tell
The dear Lord ordereth all things well!"
1847.
THE WIFE OF MANOAH TO HER HUSBAND. Against the sunset's glowing wall
The city towers rise black and tall,
Where Zorah, on its rocky height,
Stands like an armed man in the light. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

John Greenleaf Whittier, Religious Poems, Part 1

“ And beautiful maidens moved down in the dance,
With the magic of motion and sunshine of glance
And white arms wreathed lightly, and tresses fell free
As the plumage of birds in some tropical tree. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

John Greenleaf Whittier, Religious Poems, Part 1

“ THE FAMILIST'S HYMN. The Puritans of New England, even in their wilderness home, were not exempted from the sectarian contentions which agitated the mother country after the downfall of Charles the First, and of the established Episcopacy. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

John Greenleaf Whittier, Religious Poems, Part 1

“ With Heaven's compassion make our longings poor!
1860.
THE CRY OF A LOST SOUL. Lieutenant Herndon's Report of the Exploration of the Amazon has a striking description of the peculiar and melancholy notes of a bird heard by night on the shores of the river. The Indian guides called it "The Cry of a Lost Soul"! Among the numerous translations of this poem is one by the Emperor of Brazil. ”

John Greenleaf Whittier

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Quotes from Religious Poems, Part 1 (John Greenleaf Whittier)

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