"Faith" is a fine invention
When gentlemen can see
But Microscopes are prudent
In an Emergency.
The Child's faith is new
The Child's faith is new
Whole like His Principle
Wide like the Sunrise
On fresh Eyes
Never had a Doubt
Laughs at a Scruple
Believes all sham
But Paradise
Credits the World
Deems His Dominion
Broadest of Sovereignties
And Caesar mean
In the Comparison
Baseless Emperor
Ruler of Nought
Yet swaying all
Grown bye and bye
To hold mistaken
His pretty estimates
Of Prickly Things
He gains the skill
Sorrowful as certain
Men to anticipate
Instead of Kings
Faith is the Pierless Bridge
Faith is the Pierless Bridge
Supporting what We see
Unto the Scene that We do not
Too slender for the eye
It bears the Soul as bold
As it were rocked in Steel
With Arms of Steel at either side
It joins behind the Veil
To what, could We presume
The Bridge would cease to be
To Our far, vacillating Feet
A first Necessity.
My Faith is larger than the Hills
My Faith is larger than the Hills
So when the Hills decay
My Faith must take the Purple Wheel
To show the Sun the way
'Tis first He steps upon the Vane
And thenupon the Hill
And then abroad the World He go
To do His Golden Will
And if His Yellow feet should miss
The Bird would not arise
The Flowers would slumber on their Stems
No Bells have Paradise
How dare I, therefore, stint a faith
On which so vast depends
Lest Firmament should fail for me
The Rivet in the Bands.
THE BOOK OF MARTYRS
Read, sweet, how others strove,
Till we are stouter;
What they renounced,
Till we are less afraid;
How many times they bore
The faithful witness,
Till we are helped,
As if a kingdom cared!
Read then of faith
That shone above the fagot;
Clear strains of hymn
The river could not drown;
Brave names of men
And celestial women,
Passed out of record
Into renown!
She, if any one, was in the world, but not of it, not even of the little world which was the only one she lived in. The atmosphere of a New England college town like Amherst is in itself secluded and peculiar with a cloistered charm. Emily's family were secluded in their own souls, even from those who knew them well. Their home was secluded in quiet gravity and dignity. Out of this home, in her years of womanhood, Emily rarely stepped; out of Amherst more rarely still. So perfect was her shy isolation that it seems almost profane to disturb her in it. Yet I have a feeling that she would have wished us to. The shyest, the most isolated, are only waiting, even in their lives, for one to come whose loved approach shall shatter the isolation forever.
