THE
CHURCH OF THE LEAVES
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In French
Canadian legendry,
A rising from the dead recurs
Each Christmastide. The old curé,
With his parishioners
Around him, in the night returns;
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And
while his voice renews its bond
In the beloved offices,
The ghostly flock respond.
Just
so, we keep the forms of faith
That wrought and moved us long ago;
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We
mark the height man's soul attained,
Forgetting it must grow.
Those
venerable outgrown shells
Wherefrom the radiant life is fled,—
We wrong with our idolatry |
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The
dogmas of the dead.
But
He who walked with the world-soul
At twilight in Gethsemane,
Breathing among the listening boughs
Sweet prayers of charity,
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Must daily with the wind return
About the dim world, to renew
The trembling litanies of the leaves,
The blessings of the dew.
He
must revive with wind-sweet voice
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The
gospel hardly known to flesh,
Till the same spirit speaks again,
Interpreting afresh;
Till the vast house of trees and air
Reverberates from roof to floor
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With
meanings of mysterious things
We need to ask no more.
For still He walks these shadowy aisles,
Dreaming of beauties still to be,
More manly than our manliest,
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Whose
thought and love were free.
The
pines are all His organ pipes,
And the great rivers are His choir;
And creatures of the field and tide
That reck not, yet aspire,
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Our brothers of the tardy hope,
Put forth their strength in senses dim,
Threading the vast, they know not why,
Through eons up to Him.
I
see Him in the orchard glooms,
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Watching
the russet apples tan,
With the serene regard of one
Who is more God than man.
And where the silent valley leads
The small white water through the hills,
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And
the black spruces stand unmoved,
And quiet sunlight fills
The world and time with large slow peace,
It is His patience waiting there
Response from lives whose breath is but
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The
echo of His prayer.
Brother
of Nazareth, behold,
We, too, perceive this life expand
Beyond the daily need, for use
Thy thought must understand. |
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Not for ourselves alone we strive,
Since Thy perfection manifest
Bids self resign what self desired,
Postponing good for best.
And in the far unfretted years,
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The
generations we uphold
Shall reach the measure of Thy heart,
The stature of Thy mould. |
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