The Prayer Of Agassiz

On the isle of Penikese,     Ringed about by sapphire seas,     Fanned by breezes salt and cool,     Stood the Master with his school.     Over sails that not in vain     Wooed the west-wind's steady strain,     Line of coast that low and far     Stretched its undulating bar,     Wings aslant along the rim     Of the waves they stooped to skim,     Rock and isle and glistening bay,     Fell the beautiful white day.     Said the Master to the youth     "We have come in search of truth,     Trying with uncertain key     Door by door of mystery;     We are reaching, through His laws,     To the garment-hem of Cause,     Him, the endless, unbegun,     The Unnamable, the One     Light of all our light the Source,     Life of life, and Force of force.     As with fingers of the blind,     We are groping here to find     What the hieroglyphics mean     Of the Unseen in the seen,     What the Thought which underlies     Nature's masking and disguise,     What it is that hides beneath     Blight and bloom and birth and death.     By past efforts unavailing,     Doubt and error, loss and failing,     Of our weakness made aware,     On the threshold of our task     Let us light and guidance ask,     Let us pause in silent prayer!"     Then the Master in his place     Bowed his head a little space,     And the leaves by soft airs stirred,     Lapse of wave and cry of bird,     Left the solemn hush unbroken     Of that wordless prayer unspoken,     While its wish, on earth unsaid,     Rose to heaven interpreted.     As, in life's best hours, we hear     By the spirit's finer ear     His low voice within us, thus     The All-Father heareth us;     And His holy ear we pain     With our noisy words and vain.     Not for Him our violence     Storming at the gates of sense,     His the primal language, His     The eternal silences!     Even the careless heart was moved,     And the doubting gave assent,     With a gesture reverent,     To the Master well-beloved.     As thin mists are glorified     By the light they cannot hide,     All who gazed upon him saw,     Through its veil of tender awe,     How his face was still uplit     By the old sweet look of it.     Hopeful, trustful, full of cheer,     And the love that casts out fear.     Who the secret may declare     Of that brief, unuttered prayer?     Did the shade before him come     Of th' inevitable doom,     Of the end of earth so near,     And Eternity's new year?     In the lap of sheltering seas     Rests the isle of Penikese;     But the lord of the domain     Comes not to his own again     Where the eyes that follow fail,     On a vaster sea his sail     Drifts beyond our beck and hail.     Other lips within its bound     Shall the laws of life expound;     Other eyes from rock and shell     Read the world's old riddles well     But when breezes light and bland     Blow from Summer's blossomed land,     When the air is glad with wings,     And the blithe song-sparrow sings,     Many an eye with his still face     Shall the living ones displace,     Many an ear the word shall seek     He alone could fitly speak.     And one name forevermore     Shall be uttered o'er and o'er     By the waves that kiss the shore,     By the curlew's whistle sent     Down the cool, sea-scented air;     In all voices known to her,     Nature owns her worshipper,     Half in triumph, half lament.     Thither Love shall tearful turn,     Friendship pause uncovered there,     And the wisest reverence learn     From the Master's silent prayer