“Eye Hath Not Seen nor Ear Heard”
By Mary Martin Morse
O the spring-time in its newness sweeping,
like an angel’s wing,
Over hilltop, mount, and valley, like a
high and holy thing!
O the summer’s boundless beauty bursting
on our raptured sight—
Morning, noontide, evening, symbols of
a day that knows no night! Autumn, with her liveried legions, thrills
our heart’s divinest strings;
Splendor felt, for aye unspoken, lifts the
door for King of kings.
Winter, wrapped in ermine mantle, sparkling frost, and twinkling star,
Crowns the year with gleams of glory
from the pearly gates ajar. But the eye that can not measure sunbeam’s length or eagle’s flight,
Can not pierce the arching azure,
boundary of our earth-born sight;
Can not pass celestial curtains that the
keenest eye debar,
Can not see the home preparing, where
the “many mansions” are. And the ear that throbs ecstatic with the
peal of plumed life,
Can not hear the song immortal out beyond Time’s din and strife.
Though it master skill of masters in the
royal realm of song,
Still unheard the rhyme and rhythm of
that home we’ve loved so long. But sometimes when souls are weary,
heavy-laden, faint, and sore,
Like a far-off chime comes stealing all
the angry billows o’er,
Sounds that soothe and sweeten sorrow,
set to words, “Be brave and true,
For heaven’s age of bliss is waiting just
beyond the ether blue.” Faith that can not fear or falter, sees
the future in the now;
No more waiting for the laurel—placed
to-day upon your brow.
“All are yours,” the blessed message,
as o’er thorny heights you plod;
Then look up, and never murmur, ’tis
the path the Sinless trod.