Tell me the peoples that do keep
Within the kingdomes of the deep;
Or fetch me back that cloud again,
Beshivered into seeds of raine;

Tell me the motes, dust, sand and speares
Of corn, when summer shakes his eares;
Show me that world of stars, and whence
They noiseless spill their influence:
This if thou canst; then shew me Him
That rides the glorious Cherubim!

JOB'S COMFORTERS

JOB XI, 7-8

From Moulton's Modern Readers' Bible

Canst thou by searching find out God?
Canst thou find out the Almighty unto perfection?
It is as high as heaven;
What canst thou do?

Deeper than Sheol;

What canst thou know?

The measure thereof is longer than the earth,
And broader than the sea.

If he pass through, and shut up,

And call unto judgment, then who can hinder him?

I WENT DOWN INTO THE DESERT
TO MEET ELIJAH

VACHEL LINDSA"

I went down into the desert

To meet Elijah

Arisen from the dead.

I thought to find him in an echoing cave,
For so my dream had said.

I went down into the desert

To meet John the Baptist,

I walked with feet that bled,

Seeking that prophet lean and brown and bold,
I spied the foul fiends instead.

I went down into the desert
To meet my God

By Him be comforted.

I went down into the desert

To meet my God

And I met the devil in red.

I went down into the desert

To meet my God

Oh, Lord, my God, awaken from the dead!

I see you there, your thorn crown on the ground,
I see you there half-buried in the sand;

I see you there, your white bones, glistening, bare,
The carrion-birds a-wheeling round your head.

MEDITATIONS OF A HINDU PRINCE

SIR ALFRED COMYNS LYALL

All over the world, I wonder, in lands that I never have trod, Are the people eternally seeking for the signs and steps of a God?

Westward across the ocean, and northward ayont the snow, Do they all stand gazing, as ever, and what do the wisest know?

Here in this mystical India, the deities hover and swarm, Like wild bees heard in the tree tops, or the gusts of a gathering storm;

In the air men hear their voices, their feet on the rocks are

seen

Yet we all say, "whence is the message, and what may the wonders mean?"

A million shrines stand open, and ever the censer swings,
As they bow to a mystic symbol or the figures of ancient kings,
And the incense rises ever, and rises the endless cry
Of those who are heavy laden, and of cowards loath to die.

For Destiny drives us together like deer in the pass of the hills; Above is the sky, and around us the sound and shot that kills; Pushed by a power we see not, and struck by a hand unknown, We pray to the trees for shelter and press our lips to a stone.

The trees wave a shadowy answer and the rocks frown hollow and grim,

And the form and nod of a demon are caught in the twilight

dim;

And we look at the sunlight falling afar on the mountain crest:

Is there never a path runs upward to a refuge there and a rest?

The path, ah! who has shown it, and who is the faithful guide? The haven, ah! who has known it? for steep is the mountain

side,

Forever the shot strikes surely, and ever the wasted breath Of the praying multitude rises, whose answer only is death.

Here are the tombs of my kinsfolk, the first of an ancient name, Chiefs who were slain on the war-field, and women who died in flame;

They are gods, these kings of the foretime, they are spirits who guard our race;

Forever I watch and worship; they sit with a marble face.

And the myriad idols around me, and the legion of muttering priests,

The revels and rites unholy, the dark, unspeakable feasts! What have they wrung from the Silence? Hath ever a whisper

come

Of the secret? Whence and whither? Alas! for the gods are dumb.

Shall I list to the word of the English who come from the

uttermost sea?

"The secret! Hath it been told you, and what is your message

to me?"

It is naught but the world-wide story, how the heavens and earth began,

How the gods are glad and angry, and the Deity once was a

man.

I had thought "Perchance in the cities, where the rulers of India dwell,

Whose orders flash from the far land, who girdle the earth with a spell,

They have fathomed the depths we float on, they have measur'd the unknown main."

Sadly they turn from the venture, and say that the quest is vain.

Is life, then, a dream and delusion, and where shall the dreamer awake?

Is the world seen like shadows on water? And what if the mirror break?

Shall it pass as a camp that is struck, as a tent that is gathered

and gone?

From the sands that were lamp-lit at eve, and at morning are level and lone?

Is there naught in the heavens above, whence the rain and leaven are hurled

But the wind that is swept around us by the rush of the rolling world?

The wind that shall scatter my ashes, and bear me to silence

and sleep

With the dirge, and the sound of lamenting and the voices of women who weep?

THE SEEKERS

JOHN MASEFIELD

Friends and loves we have none, nor wealth nor blest abode, But the hope, the burning hope, and the road, the lonely road.

Not for us are content, and quiet, and peace of mind,
For we go seeking cities that we shall never find.

There is no solace on earth for us-for such as we-
Who search for the hidden beauty that eyes may never see.

Only the road and the dawn, the sun, the wind, and the rain, And the watch-fire under stars, and sleep, and the road again.

We seek the City of God, and the haunt where beauty dwells, And we find the noisy mart and the sound of burial bells.

Never the golden city, where the radiant people meet,

But the dolorous town where mourners are going about the

street.

We travel the dusty road till the light of the day is dim,
And sunset shows us the spires away on the world's rim.

We travel from dawn till dusk, till the day is past and by,
Seeking the Holy City beyond the rim of the sky.

Friends and loves we have none, nor wealth nor blest abode,
But the hope, the burning hope, and the road, the lonely road.

THE MYSTIC

CALE YOUNG RICE

There is a quest that calls me

In nights when I am lone,

The need to ride where the ways divide