aiting for the call
Of him who, with his single hand,
Had bravely met and mastered all.

The gray old monarchs of the pen
Looked down with calm, benignant gaze,
And Augustine and Origen
And Ansel justified the ways--
The wondrous ways--of God with men.

Among the tall hierophants
Angelical Aquinas stood;
While Witsius held the "Covenants,"
And Irenaeus, wise and good,
Couched low his silver-bearded lance

For strife with heresy and schism,
And Turretin with lordly nod
Gave system to the dogmatism
That analyzed the thought of God
As light is painted by a prism.

Great Luther, with his great disputes,
And Calvin, with his finished scheme,
And Charnock, with his "Attributes,"
And Taylor with his poet's dream
Of theologic flowers and flutes,

And Thomas Fuller, old and quaint,
And Cudworth, dry with dust of gold,
And South, the sharp and witty saint,
With Howe and Owen--broad and bold--
And Leighton still without the taint

Of earth upon his robe of white,
Stood side by side with Hobbes and Locke,
And, braced by many an acolyte,
With Edwards standing on his rock,
And all New England's men of might,

Whose gifts and offices divine
Had crowned her with a kingly crown,
And solemn doctors from the Rhine,
With Fichte, Kant, and Hegel, down
Through all the long and stately line!

As Mildred saw the awful host,
She felt within no motive stir
To realize her girlish boast,
And knew they held no more for her
Than if each volume were a ghost.

XXI.

She sat in Philip's vacant chair,
And pondered long her doubtful way;
And, in her impotent despair,
Lifted her longing eyes to pray,
When on a shelf, far up, and bare,

She saw an ancient volume lie;
And straight her rising thought was checked.
What were its dubious treasures? Why
Had it been banished from respect,
And from its owner's hand and eye?

The more she gazed, the stronger grew
The wish to hold it in her hand.
Strange fancies round the volume flew,
And changed the dust their pinions fanned
To atmospheres of red and blue,

That blent in purple aureole,--
As if a lymph of sweetest life
Stood warm within a golden bowl,
Crowned with its odor-cloud, and rife
With strength and solace for her soul!

And there it lay beyond her arm,
And wrought its fine and wondrous spell,
With all its hoard of good or harm,