When Moses once on Horeb's rocky steep,
A banished man, was keeping Jethro's sheep,
What time his flocks along the hills and dells
Made music with their bleatings and their bells,
He by the thoughts that stirred within him, drawn
Deep in the mountain, heard at early dawn
One who in prayer did all his soul outpoor,
With deep heart-earnestness, but nothing more.
For strange his words were, savage and uncouth,
And little did he know in very sooth
Of that great Lord, to whom his vows were made.
The other for a moment listening staid,
Until, his patience altogether spent--
'Good friend, for whom are these same noises meant?
For him, who dwells on high? this babbling vain,
Which vexes even a man's ear with pain?
Oh, stop thy mouth -- thou dost but heap up sin,
Such prayer as this can no acceptance win,
But were enough to make God's blessings cease.'
Rebuked, the simple herdsman held his peace,
And only crying -- 'Thou hast rent my heart,'
He fled into the desert far apart:
While with himself, and with his zeal content,
His steps the Son of Amram homeward bent,
And ever to himself applauses lent--
Much wandering that he did not find the same
From his adopted sire, but rather blame,
Who having heard, replied--

'Was this well done?
What wouldst thou have to answer, O my son,
If God should say in anger unto thee--
'Why hast thou driven my worshipper from me,
Why hast thou robbed me of my dues of prayer?
Well pleasing offering in my sight they were,
And music in mine ears, if not in thine'--
He doth its bounds to every soul assign,
Its voice, its language--using which to tell
His praise, he counts that it doth praise him well;
And when there is a knocking at heaven's gate,
And at its threshold many suppliants wait,
Then simple Love will often enter in,
While haughty Science may no entrance win.
Thus while his words were rougher husks than thine,
They yet might keep a kernel more divine,--
Rude vessel guarding a more precious wine.

'All prayer is childlike--falls as short of Him
The wisdom of the wisest Seraphim,
As the child's small conceit of heavenly things;
A line to sound his depths no creature brings.
Before the Infinite, the One, the All,
Must every difference disappear and fall,
There is no wise nor simple, great nor small
For him the little clod of common earth
Has to the diamond no inferior worth;
Nor doth the Ocean, world-encompassing,
Unto his thought more sense of vastness bring
Than tiny dewdrop--atoms in his eye
A sun, and a sun-mote, dance equally:
Not that the great (here understand aright)
Is worthless as the little in his sight,
Rather the little precious as the great,
And, pondered in his scales, of equal weight:
So that herein lies comfort -- not despair,
As though we were too little for his care.

'God is so great, there can be nothing small
To him -- so loving he embraces all,--
So wise, the wisdom and simplicity
Of man for him must on a level be:
But while all this, more prompt to feel the wrong,
And to resent it with displeasure strong,
When from him there is rudely, proudly turned
The meanest soul that loved him, and that yearned
After his grace--oh, haste then and begone,
Rebuild the altar thou hast overthrown;
Replace the offering which on that did stand,
Till rudely scattered by thy hasty hand--
Removing, if thou canst, what made it rise
A faulty and imperfect sacrifice.
And henceforth, in this gloomy world and dark,
Prize every taper yielding faintest spark,
And if perchance it burn not clear and bright,
Snuff, if thou canst, but do not quench it quite.'