Ah, this knocking! It disturbs me!
Scares my sleep with dreams unblest!
Give me rest,
Rest--ah, rest!
Rest, dear soul, He longs to give thee;
Thou hast only dreamed of pleasure,
Dreamed of gifts and golden treasure,
Dreamed of jewels in thy keeping,
Waked to weariness of weeping;--
Open to thy soul's one Lover,
And thy night of dreams is over,--
The true gifts He brings have seeming
More than all thy faded dreaming!
Did she open? Doth she? Will she?
So, as wondering we behold,
Grows the picture to a sign.
Pressed upon your soul and mine;
For in every breast that liveth
Is that strange, mysterious door;--
The forsaken and betangled,
Ivy-gnarled and weed-bejangled,
Dusty, rusty, and forgotten;--
There the pierced hand still knocketh,
And with ever patient watching,
With the sad eyes true and tender,
With the glory-crowned hair,--
Still a God is waiting there.
HARRIET BEECHER STOWE.
* * * * *
TO-MORROW.
Lord, what am I, that, with unceasing care,
Thou didst seek after me,--that Thou didst wait,
Wet with unhealthy dews, before my gate,
And pass the gloomy nights of winter there?
O, strange delusion, that I did not greet
Thy blest approach! and, O, to heaven how lost,
If my ingratitude's unkindly frost
Has chilled the bleeding wounds upon Thy feet!
How oft my guardian angel gently cried,
"Soul, from thy casement look, and thou shalt see
How He persists to knock and wait for thee!"
And, O, how often to that voice of sorrow,
"To-morrow we will open.
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