IN THE WILDERNESS - IN THE WILDERNESS - The Azure Fields were veild as with a dew The Meadow-cups were lost to mortal view The silvery Lake lent not its wonted light, For Gloom had stretchd her canopy- twas Night. And Silence strange-as if the pulse of Time Had ceased, and Neverness was in its prime,-Did reign and reigning augurd things to be Things felt-by what Ah thats the mystery. But soon the calm was rent by clanging sound, And voice was heard to make the hills resound With cry for light unto the House of-Brain-List, list The cry it doth repeat again. IV. Within, within, kind friend, within, I say A child along lifes path hath lost its way. I search for Light, if thou His servant be, Direct my path. Who, where, and what is He Direct my path Indeed a prattling tongue Hath struck full hard upon the mental gong3 And broke the peace. Wake, wake and cease to nod The child doth answer seek Who-what is God VI. Tis cried full oft that the All-Good-the Just, Made man in His own image from the dust And that the dust He chose from Mother Earth Did faulty prove, and weve been damnd from birth. Wake, wake and lean to thought, and err no more. Go think of all who have gone on before, Whose lives had been one endless living fear Of Hells torments for those they held most dear. I VIII. Methinks no Dives cried with parching tongue For water, while the lambent flames among, More loud than they will who with fear imbue Their fellow-man with song of Chosen few. IX. The Chosen few The chosen are the whole, The images of Truth--of Lifes true soul And one in all, and all in one combine As radiating rays of Light Divine. Aye, rays each one an offspring of the Just, A heavenly guest within a House of dust, . Oh, care it well, it is the ever Thee Neglect it-and thine own deformer be. I never gaze upon a cripple shorn Of power but what my breast with grief is torn. The Me therefore Id care for this 1 know, That death is birth-and we have far to go XII. So let us gather in this Errors thought, And place it on the altar where twas wrought Then in the shadow of the Cross well stand And watch the temple fall- twas built on sand. The Barque weve piloted full many a year With helm lashd hard aport with thong of fear And in a circle it hath ever saild, But haven sought for we have never haild. XIV. With bearings lost, with Compass gone before, We tkemble at the sound of breakers roar. v See, see, the path Here footsteps mark the sea The Saviour passd this way from Galilee. The breakers of the There are far from Here The Here is but the Where of Truth held dear. The There doth not exist to Mind Supreme The Here is Now, the Now is ever green. XVI. For God is Love, and Love is Life Di vine He breathed the breath of Life, and life is thine And being thine it is the inner Thee And being mine it is the inner Me. IN THE WILDERNESS XVII. That convoluted loom we call the brain, With which we daily weave our bolt of pain, Was made the shuttle of sweet Peace to run The shuttles thread of Grace-by God was spun. XVIII. But fro, m a flax weve spun a faulty twine To feed the cop from which the comb to line, Until the old machine cries out, Enough Ive wrought too long with your sepulchral stuff. XIX. The warp of Errors thought hath straind the beam My shuttle it hath lost its heavenly gleam, And bears a nap from out a dusty store Twould see the smile of God. Enough n o more XX. l His smile Aye, smile... --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.